Winners never quit is a lie.

“Winners never quit.” - I was brainwashed on this lie like everyone else. Until I heard Jeff Bezos tell this story -

I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. So I went to Princeton.

I was a really good student. I got A+ on almost everything. I was in the honors physics track which starts out with 100 students and by the time you get to quantum mechanics, it's like 30 remaining.

In my junior year and I can't solve this partial differential equation.
It's really really hard and I've been studying with my roommate Joe who also was really good at math. The two of us worked on this one homework for three hours and got nowhere.

We finally looked up at each other over the table at the same moment said "Yashantha".

Yashantha was the smartest guy at Princeton. He was from Srilanka. Most humble, wonderful guy.

We show him this problem and he looks at it. He stares at it for a while. Then he says - "COSINE".

I'm like what do you mean. He said - that's the answer.
And I'm like -- "That's the answer?"

Let me show you. So he brings us into his room he sits us down he writes out three pages of detailed algebra. Everything crosses out and the answer is cosine.

I said - Now listen Yashantha.
Did you.... Uh.. I mean, did you just do that in your head?

He said - No that would be impossible. Three years ago I solved a very similar problem and I was able to map this problem onto that problem. Then it was immediately obvious that the answer was cosine.

That was an important moment for me because that was the very moment when I realized -

"I was never going to be a great theoretical physicist."


Not just Jeff,
Sachin Tendulkar wanted to be a fast bowler.
Ankur Warikoo wanted to be an Astronaut and go to Mars.
Adam Grant wanted to play basketball in NBA.

If each of them never “quit” their pursuit, when they realized they were not going to be world-class at them, and find their real zone of genius, would we even know their names today?