Category: Books

Growing up, I was really good at quitting things. Specifically, sports. Because I’m tall, people always told me I should be a basketball player. Or volleyball player. Or maybe get into flag football. But definitely basketball. So I did those things, and very, very early on, I quit them all. (I actually quit flag football halfway through the two-day tryouts…and still peeked at the roster on the coach’s door to see who made the team.)

I used to be embarrassed of this. I worked for years on building my grit, thinking I was weak for giving up on those sports—sports everyone told me I was naturally inclined to be good, even great, at!—but it wasn’t until I read Hangry: A Startup Journey, that something clicked about my once-embarrassing past.

Written by GrubHub founder Mike Evans, the entrepreneur outlines how a desire to have easier access to pizza led to him founding the online delivery platform. There’s no starry-eyed glossing over of details; he’s direct and honest in his assessment of the company’s highs and lows, and its shortcomings post-IPO, as the company began courting chains and profit above all else. He talks about leaving the company $20 million-ish richer, and his decision to reconnect with her formerly less-asshole-ish self (by his own admission) while biking across the country. As things get difficult, he makes an important distinction that shapes the course of many of his decisions: the difference between quitting and giving up.

“A good quitting comes hand in hand with a goal,” he writes. “It’s abandoning a thing in favor of something better. Giving up is just frustration and apathy.”

It becomes his litmus test for major decisions. When he wants to quit the dead-end job, at first he realizes: “I don’t have any discernible goal, so I better figure out what’s next. And quick.” Later, he decides to leave GrubHub when his goals no longer align with the company’s. On the bike trail, he determines whether to keep going based on this view.

And that’s what I realized: Giving up on basketball, volleyball and flag football weren’t a sign of weakness, even if I quit before giving them a fair shake (even just a couple hours in tryouts). I didn’t have a goal associated with them; they were goals somebody else had for me, that I felt like I should want, even though I didn’t actually want to do those things. There are plenty of things I’ve stuck with—writing, reporting, even this blog—because they aligned with what I wanted and a goal I had to create content and share my thoughts with the world.

So if you’re forcing yourself to stick to something and it’s driving you to the edge of burnout, consider Evans’s advice. Fighting for a goal will suck sometimes, and you’ll want relief. But as long as you have a clear goal that you genuinely want to chase, it’s worth the effort. If it’s not for you, don’t fight to stick with it—and burn yourself out in the process—just because you feel like you should. Or because somebody else will think more of you for it.

You can read Evans’s whole story in Hangry: A Startup Journey, available on Amazon and at most bookstores.

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Lead Photo: Candace Braun Davison

Bob Goff is one of those people you can’t believe actually exists. He’s a lawyer who serves as the honorary consul to the Republic of Uganda, who donates the proceeds of his books to bettering others’ lives—and is so willing to lend a hand he prints his actual cell phone number in those books. (Which sometimes leads to extraordinary connections—like speaking to a woman just before she has major brain surgery that will prohibit her from talking again—and occasionally, pitfalls, like the college student who left his number after a car accident instead of her own. But it always results in a story.)

His latest book, Dream Big, is less about Goff’s own adventures and more about helping people recover the lives they once dreamed about—and take the steps to make them happen. But there’s one story in chapter 23, “10:34-10:35,” that will stick with you weeks after you finish reading. At least it did for me. In it, Goff describes how he loved surfing when he was in college, and how, one day, while surfing at Sunset Cliffs in California, he found himself pinned against a cliff, waves pummeling him, his board getting shattered to pieces.

“I was sure I would die, and weirdly, I resigned myself to this truth and made my peace with God,” he recalls.

But in that moment, a man spotted him and scaled down the cliff to reach him, climbing into the water and saving Goff’s life. He was forever grateful, and years later, fate put him right at those cliffs when someone else was in need. A man had fallen off the cliff, landing on rocks 70 feet below. Goff and his friends, who had been riding motorcycles in the area, rushed to the man.

“He was in bad shape. Really bad. He needed CPR and a lot more than that,” he writes. They managed to resuscitate him, spending the next hour trying to comfort him and keep him alive as they waited for help. By the time the medics rappelled down the cliff to them, the man had died.

“One of my ambitions had been to save a life someday, and I failed when I had the chance,” he says. “But here’s the thing. I’d rather fail trying than fail watching.”

Sometimes, everything we have isn’t enough. We give it our all, and we fall short. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. Or that we sit back and hope someone else handles things. When you feel called to take action, push through the fear and give it a shot. You may not be able to save a life, but if you don’t try, you certainly won’t.

Often, when it comes to what we want, the stakes are much lower than life or death. But still, we hesitate. Let’s acknowledge the stakes, push through our fears of falling short and try.

That’s Goff’s main point of the chapter, but to me, it’s more than that. So often, we get caught up in the “everything happens for a reason” mindset; it’d be easy to feel that way in Goff’s situation. You’re at the exact place where your life was saved, and you’re in a similar situation; aren’t you destined to save that life?

The man’s death could’ve crushed Goff; he could’ve let that moment define him, becoming imprisoned by a sense of guilt or failure or a murky combination of the two. But his reaction is powerful: The alternative, in that moment, was to wait from afar for the medics, or leave and let them handle it. By trying, he didn’t fail at all–he gave that man comfort in his final moments. He made him feel less alone in an incredibly painful, terrifying time.

Goff doesn’t touch on this, but that’s what resonates for me. Sometimes failure isn’t what we think it is.

You can find Dream Big in most major bookstores, as well as on Amazon.

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The concept of “knowing your worth” has always been something that washed over me. Yeah, yeah, sounds good, I’d nod, agreeing but never giving it much thought. Until I read Jenna Kutcher’s new book, How Are You, Really. All 19 chapters are an invitation to push past the perfunctory “how are you?” questions of life and wade a bit deeper, truly engaging in the present moment and getting to know ourselves. But long after I’ve finished the book, one chapter has stuck with me in particular–and it’s reframed the way I think about knowing your value. (And given me a whole new role model?)

What Knowing Your Value Really Means

In the book, The Goal Digger podcast founder talks about her mom’s scrappiness. When Kutcher was a kid, she outgrew her local gymnastics club’s expertise, and they recommended her for a more serious training facility. It came with a much steeper price tag, but that didn’t deter Kutcher’s mom. Nope. She brainstormed, and after visiting the place, noticed the gym itself was a little worse for wear.

So, she came up with a proposal, offering to tackle a few repairs the building so desperately needed, in exchange for free lessons for her daughter. Her parents weren’t contractors or handymen by trade; they were just willing to learn the skills to make it work, looking at what they had available to them and seeing what need they could fill. The pitch worked, and once a year, her family spent a week updating the gym, so Kutcher could pursue her passion.

Years later, when COVID restrictions kept Kutcher’s mom from being able to go to the hospital when her daughter was in labor, she got scrappy again, and trained to become a doula ahead of the baby’s arrival.

“That’s what declaring your worth and taking up your space and showing up for life with open hands can do. Because open hands open doors. Barriers, like neglected corners of the gym, exist everywhere. We’re generally aware of them, but we’re also quick to disqualify ourselves from being part of the solution,” Kutcher writes. “But once you allow yourself to look at a potential problem as a potent possibility, and once you release the doubts and what-ifs and the I-can’ts, you’re changing the narrative entirely. You’re not looking at your current circumstance as what it is; you’re looking at your current circumstance as what could be.”

If You’re Tempted to Quit Before You’ve Started, Start Looking for Opportunities

That sense of resolve–of showing up and looking for an opportunity to help, no matter what you have–reminds me of chef Jose Andres’s work with World Central Kitchen. He left school at 15 to become a chef; he wasn’t well-versed in international politics or bureaucracy or natural disaster/crisis management, but when disaster struck, he showed up. And he kept showing up, starting with the simple mission of feeding people. His work grew from there, serving more than 100 million meals to those in need.

“Don’t follow a recipe,” he says in the documentary about WCK, We Feed People. “When we go by the book, we lose our ability to be creative.”

There it is. That scrappiness and mental grit, once again. Knowing your value–what you bring to the table in any situation–is critical to being able to help, which (yes, as cheesy as it sounds) is how we’ll genuinely feel successful, rather than chasing after the next accolade, promotion or Instagram-worthy moment. Knowing your value helps you connect better with others, feel true belonging and live a bit more authentically.

So, what problem are you tempted to run away from–and what’s an unexpected way you can approach it? Even if it doesn’t work out, you tried. You’ll probably learn something from it. And you’ll be better off for it.

You can pick up a copy of How Are You, Really at most major bookstores, as well as on Amazon.

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For the past few months, everybody’s been raving about Glennon Doyle’s Untamed. It was Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club Pick. Author Rachel Hollis said it was like if her book, “Girl, Stop Apologizing, had a wiser, cooler, more thoughtful best friend.” Kristen Bell called it an “anthem for women today.” Adele said it helped her find happiness. Bad Robot optioned it to be a TV series. So what’s the deal with this book?! Well, it’s radically honest—as Doyle has with her previous books, she doesn’t hold back on sharing the good and the bad in her life, and every drop of resilience and wisdom she’s gained through its trials. (In short, the memoir covers Doyle’s divorce, finding love again and realizing that being a responsible, loving mother isn’t sacrificing everything for your kids but one who shows them how to be fully alive and fully present.)

There’s plenty you can read about the title to convince you to give it a shot (if you haven’t already), but I wanted to share one insight people haven’t been talking about. It immediately spoke to my inner, unrelenting approval-seeking.

In a chapter called “Talks,” Doyle shares how her daughter, Tish, views the world so much differently than she does—and how proud of her she is for that difference. She also discusses, in just two simple exchanges, how much her own perspective shifted in just four years as she moved from people pleaser to freethinker:

“Eight-year-old Tish: Keri doesn’t like me.

Thirty-eight-year-old me: Why not? What happened? What can we do to make it better?

Twelve-year-old Tish: Sara doesn’t like me.

Forty-two-year-old me: Okay. Just a fact, not a problem.”

Just a fact, not a problem.

Those words are so simple, yet it’s worth giving them a moment to sink in. What if we handled other people’s feelings toward us that way? If we acknowledge that we’re not going to be everyone’s best friend and stop trying so hard to win them over? Those six words are freeing; they give you permission to stop playing the feedback loop of any minor infraction you could’ve committed to make that person dislike you and move on. On that note, how many other situations could that mantra apply to? I don’t know about you, but I’m down to try anything that can help me overanalyze situations less.

You can find Untamed on Amazon and at most bookstores nationwide.

Lead photo by Aditya Saxena/Unsplash