What Your DNA Might Reveal & Why Winners Sometimes Quit

On a clear night, the sky is filled with stars — far more than most of us can see. But there's a surprisingly simple trick that can help you spot more of them, even without a telescope. It's something experienced stargazers routinely do, and it can make a remarkable difference in what you see when you look up. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/how-to-find-good-places-to-stargaze/ Your DNA holds an astonishing amount of information about you. It can reveal your ancestry, help solve crimes, identify long-lost relatives, and even offer clues about your future health. DNA technology is also being used in ways you might never imagine, from detecting food fraud to protecting endangered species. But as powerful as genetic testing has become, it raises some fascinating questions. How much can your DNA really tell you? How reliable are the results? And what happens when a DNA test reveals something you wish you didn't know? Turi King, a leading authority on DNA and genetic research and a member of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and the International Society for Forensic Genetics, joins me to explore the remarkable possibilities and unexpected consequences of genetic testing. She is the author of The Secrets of Our DNA: How Genetics Has Changed the World (https://link.amazon/B0g3AJ0XO). We're constantly told that winners never quit. But is that really good advice? Whether it's a job, a relationship, a project, or a goal you've worked toward for years, walking away can feel like admitting defeat. After all, what if success is just around the corner? Yet sometimes the decision to quit is exactly what allows you to move forward. So how do you know when to keep going and when to call it quits? Lindsay Crouse, who spent more than 14 years as an editor, writer, and producer at The New York Times, has explored why we find quitting so difficult and why it can sometimes be the smartest decision we make. She is the author of The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out (https://link.amazon/B08H2hGO0). Listen as she explains how to recognize when it's time to walk away — and why quitting doesn't have to mean failing. Why do shoelaces come untied all by themselves? You can tie them securely, walk around for a while, and suddenly one is dragging on the ground while the other is still perfectly tied. Scientists have actually studied this everyday annoyance and discovered some surprising physics behind it. And understanding why it happens may help you keep your shoes tied longer. https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/04/11/shoe-string-theory-science-shows-why-shoelaces-come-untied/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

  If you listen to Something You Should Know regularly, you know we talk about sleep quite a bit here. And one of the things I've learned from those conversations is just how important a good night's sleep is. And I've always been someone who loves his sleep. So I was intrigued when I heard about Beam Dream. It's a delicious nighttime drink formulated to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. It contains ingredients like reishi, magnesium, L-theanine, epigenin, and melatonin. They have lots of great flavors. I tried the cinnamon cocoa flavor, and I love the idea of having something warm and delicious as part of winding down at night.

• 0:45Mike Carruthers?

  And it's less than 20 calories per serving. Dream has improved more than 30 million nights of sleep, and they back it up with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don't sleep better, you get your money back. And right now, there's a terrific offer. Go to shopbeam.com/YSK. Use code S Y S K and get 50% off during Beam's Cyber Sale. Only available while flavors are in stock. With this incredible discount, that means you'll pay just 83 cents per night for the best sleep of your life. So seriously, think about it. I mean, how much would you pay for a truly great night of sleep? Beam is just 83 cents per night.

• 1:29Mike Carruthers?

  So go to shopbeam.com/YSK now. That's shopbeam.com/YSK.

• 1:40Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, how to prepare yourself to see more stars in the night sky. Then, the advances in DNA are incredible and can reveal more than you may want to know.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  For example, I've known cases where siblings all take a DNA test at Christmas, and they find out that one of them isn't actually a full sibling. Or their biological father is not the father that they thought it was. So sometimes, these tests can turn up things that you don't necessarily expect.

• 2:10Mike Carruthers?

  Also, how to keep your shoelaces from untying on their own. And quitting. We're told not to quit. Keep going. But sometimes quitting is the best decision.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  When people think about quitting, we are often really scared that we're going to regret our decision to leave. But research shows that over the long course of our lives, we tend to regret inaction much more than action. And quitting is an action.

• 2:35Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know. I imagine most of us shop for clothes online, at least some of the time. And there's always that little mystery. Is what shows up at your door actually going to look like what you think you ordered? We've all had that experience. I know my wife has ordered dresses that look beautiful in the pictures, but when they arrived, eh, not so beautiful. Cheap-looking, disappointing. And that's one of the reasons we've become such big fans of Quince. When we order from Quince, we are confident we're going to get something really nice. The quality is consistently good, and the prices are surprisingly reasonable.

• 3:19Mike Carruthers?

  I've bought their cashmere sweaters, which are gorgeous, and they start at just $60 for cashmere. My wife buys tons of stuff from Quince, and we keep coming back. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, offering prices 50% to 80% less than similar brands. And with the holidays coming, that's a pretty compelling combination. Beautiful clothes and gifts without spending a fortune, or wondering what's really going to show up at the door. I really do recommend Quince. It's one of those companies that has earned our trust. Give the gift of quality this holiday season.

• 3:59Mike Carruthers?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, please let them know it was Something You Should Know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:36Mike Carruthers?

  I'm sure you know that there are far more stars in the sky than you can see. But you can see more of them. And I'll tell you how. It's real simple, as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi there. I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome. So if you ever go outside and look at the stars, there is this surprisingly simple thing you can do to see more of the stars that are out there. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness. Eh, that seems obvious, but it actually takes longer than you might think. Sometimes 30 minutes or more. When you step outside from a brightly lit room, your eyes just aren't ready to detect faint light.

• 5:19Mike Carruthers?

  Your pupils have to adjust, and the light-sensitive cells in your retinas gradually become better at seeing in the dark. But here's the interesting part. One quick look at a bright light can temporarily undo some of that adjustment. That's why astronomers often use dim red flashlights instead of ordinary white ones. Red light has less effect on your night vision, allowing you to check a star chart or find your way around without losing as much of your ability to see faint stars. So the next time you're watching a meteor shower or just enjoying a clear night, give your eyes about a half an hour. Avoid bright light and use a dim red flashlight if you need one.

• 6:03Mike Carruthers?

  You may be surprised how many stars were there all along that you just never saw. And that is something you should know.

• 6:15Mike Carruthers?

  Think about this. Inside virtually every cell in your body is a kind of instruction manual that makes you who you are. It's your DNA. And what scientists have learned to do with that instruction manual in just the last few decades is nothing short of remarkable. Your DNA can reveal where your ancestors came from, help predict your risk for certain diseases, identify a criminal from evidence left at a crime scene, or even solve a mystery that's hundreds of years old. And that's just the beginning. DNA is now being used to detect food fraud, protect endangered animals, reunite families, and answer questions that would have been impossible to answer not very long ago.

• 7:00Mike Carruthers?

  Yet for something so important to our lives, most of us know surprisingly little about how DNA actually works or what it can tell us. And perhaps just as importantly, what it can't tell us. Here to reveal some of the fascinating secrets hidden in our DNA is Turi King. She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research. She's a member of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and the International Society for Forensic Genetics. She's author of a book called The Secrets of Our DNA: How Genetics Has Changed the World. Hey, Turi, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 7:40Mike Carruthers?

  When I think of DNA, when I hear that term, I think, well, first I think that, well, that's what the police can use to solve crimes. But also that our DNA is like, kind of like a fingerprint. It is us. It is essentially who we are, and you can identify me by my DNA, the little bits and pieces of me. And that, but that it also contains information about potential diseases I'm prone to and that kind of thing. So, but clearly it's, my definition is probably not found in any medical journal. What is it to you? What is DNA?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Our DNA is a little bit like a book. And it's made up of like four different building blocks. So these are adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. We shorten those down to A, C, T, and G. And it's a bit like a book, kind of just made up of these four letters. So we geneticists, we can sequence it, and we can kind of read the book of you. And one of the things I kind of chat about is about sort of what we can tell about somebody from their DNA, and also what we can't tell about somebody from their DNA.

• 8:54Mike Carruthers?

  So here's a question. When people say, well, we found DNA, we found his DNA at a crime scene or something. Well, you didn't find DNA. You found something that contained DNA. It's cells or hair or something. So is DNA a thing, or DNA is an ingredient of things?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  So you are shedding cells all of the time. And all of those cells, except for red blood cells, will have DNA in them. So yes, you are shedding your DNA all over the place as we speak.

• 9:29Mike Carruthers?

  And when did science first discover this?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  So we've, we've known about DNA for decades, but it was a chap that I, I worked with called Professor Sir Alex Jeffries, who on the morning of September the 10th, 1984, he was looking at this experiment that he had done where he was trying to look at the DNA of, he had like a technician from his lab and her parents and different organisms and animals. And he was kind of like looking at the results of this experiment. He's like, oh my goodness, what a mess. And then suddenly the penny drops and he realizes that each individual has their own genetic fingerprint or profile, as we call it these days. So these were the, this was like the early, earliest days

• 10:14Speaker 01

  of being able to identify individuals just from their DNA. And you're right, the thing that we think about these days, of course, is forensics. But it's not just about forensics. It's used in things like medicine and food security and animal conservation and identifying individuals from disasters such as nine 11 or unidentified individuals and, and giving them back to their, their families. So the use of kind of genetic identification has sort of spread around the world since then.

• 10:47Mike Carruthers?

  One of the things I hear about DNA is that it can tell you if you have some sort of gene or predisposition for a disease. Yes?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. So we have to kind of break this down a little bit because there are some genetic diseases and conditions where if you have a particular genetic variant, then you will go on to get the disease. So Huntington's is, is one of these diseases or Marfan's syndrome is another one. But for a lot of conditions and diseases, it can be that there are particular genetic variants that predispose you to a particular condition. So BRCA1 breast cancer gene, that's, that's one of them. So Angelina Jolie, very bravely went public about the fact that she had had her BRCA1 gene tested and she had a faulty gene and a variant that gave her

• 11:42Speaker 01

  a very high lifetime risk of going on to develop the disease. It's not, doesn't mean she will definitely develop it because there are other things that affect that, but she had a really high risk and a known, known family members who had passed away from things like breast cancer and ovarian cancer, which is affected by this faulty gene. But for a lot of conditions, so things like, you know, heart disease, things like that, we know that there's a lot, hundreds, thousands of genetic variants that will all kind of genetically predispose you towards or against developing, developing a particular condition. And there's so many other things that come into it. So particularly sort of for things like heart disease, it's going to be things like, do you exercise? Do you smoke? What are you eating? So it's that combination

• 12:26Speaker 01

  of genetics and environment and, and we have to be really, really mindful of that.

• 12:32Mike Carruthers?

  Are there probably diseases that we still haven't figured out yet? Or, or do we know, have we mapped it all out and we know that these things are likely if you have this thing?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  No. So that's the really wonderful thing about genetics is there's still so much we don't understand. And there's another element that's coming into this now. So we know it's not just our kind of genetic sequence that's involved in disease. There's something known as epigenetics, and this is a field which I'm totally fascinated by. So it's where we know that they're like little genetic tags, like little chemical tags that kind of sit on top of the genetic sequence and they act like a dimmer switch or invisibility cloaks. And they will turn genes on and turn genes off. And that's, we know that that's can be reversible

• 13:24Speaker 01

  and we know it's affected by things like trauma, diet, exercise. So there's other things going on that affect our predisposition towards disease. And alongside that, we know that, that different genetic variants, they all kind of interact with each other as well as the environment. And that's what we're still trying to tease out. So that's what I really love about our field is we, we understand a lot, but there's so much we are still trying to learn and understand.

• 13:52Mike Carruthers?

  You said that DNA and genetics is used in food security? Explain that.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is things like, one of the things I talk about is Sushi Gate, which was something that happened a couple of decades ago. It was using something known as genetic barcoding. So it's not kind of DNA profiling where you can tell an individual, you know, from their DNA. It's where you can tell a species. And it was this, you know, so she was a student. She was talking to her dad who was doing DNA barcoding and they were having dinner one night and they were having sushi and, and she kind of said to her dad, do you think we could work out what kind of fish is in this sushi? So she and a friend went and bought all kinds of different types of fish and sushi and they sent it off to a chap who

• 14:45Speaker 01

  was doing DNA barcoding on fish. And what they found out was that, you know, some of the fish is not what it's labeled to be. Some were endangered species, some were cheaper species being sold as more expensive species. And it's been used for all kinds of things. So for example, there was a case where people thought they were buying monkfish and it was actually pufferfish, which is extremely poisonous fish. So it's now used for things like food security.

• 15:12Mike Carruthers?

  Regularly or only when people think something's up? Or is this part of the process now?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  It's regular. Yeah, it's used regularly now. It's something which people are now routinely testing food stuffs for this kind of thing.

• 15:30Mike Carruthers?

  And do you know, do they often find trouble? Or is it usually it's just fine, but this is just a one level of security more?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  So it's a level of security more, but yes, they do find it regularly. I mean, one of the more recent cases was Horse Gate, which happened over here where they were looking at what they thought were beef products. And some of them were found to contain horse, some of them were found to contain lots and lots of horse meat in. So it is something that it does turn up things fairly regularly.

• 16:05Mike Carruthers?

  You also said a few minutes ago that DNA is used in animal conservation, which I don't think I've heard before. So I want to ask you about that and we'll do that when we come back in just a moment. Well, here's something you should know about your bones. We all hear about calcium and vitamin D, and they're important, but there's another ingredient in healthy bones that hardly anybody talks about collagen. Think of your bones like a building, right? Collagen provides the framework while minerals like calcium help give it strength. Here's the problem, though. As we get older, our bodies naturally produce less collagen. That's why I was interested

• 16:45Mike Carruthers?

  in Native Path Bone Health Collagen. It's not just ordinary collagen. It contains a specialized form called Fortabone. And there's some interesting research behind it. In a study of 131 post-menopausal women, researchers saw improvements in bone mineral density after 12 months, up to 7.7% in an important part of the hip. Native Path gives you the same five grams of Fortabone used in that research in an easy to mix daily formula. I just got mine because bone health is something I'd rather pay attention to now than wish I had later. And here's a great

• 17:27Mike Carruthers?

  reason to try Native Path Bone Health Collagen right now. You can save up to 48%, get free shipping, and it's backed by a 365 day money back guarantee. Now that's a pretty compelling offer. If you've been thinking about doing something to support your bone health, go to getbetterbones.com/sysk. That's G E T betterbones.com/sysk.

• 17:59Mike Carruthers?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of. You go to your closet and you look at the clothes hanging there. And chances are the ones toward the middle are the clothes you wear most often. But the clothes pushed way over to the left or the right, some of those you probably haven't worn in years. And yet there they hang, taking up space. But here's the thing, you could turn those clothes into money. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer wear and make some extra money. Listing on

• 18:42Mike Carruthers?

  Vinted is so quick and simple. And when something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And here's what I really like. Vinted charges no seller fees. So whatever you earn from selling your clothes, you keep. Think about that. Clothes that you aren't wearing, taking up space, could be putting money back in your pocket. So here's my suggestion. Take five minutes, go look at the far ends of your closet and see what's hanging there. You might be surprised. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees. You keep every dollar you earn. That's Vinted, V I N T E D.

• 19:25Mike Carruthers?

  My guest is Turi King. She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research, and she's author of the book, The Secrets of Our DNA. So you mentioned that DNA is used in a lot of things and in animal conservation is one of them. So can you explain that?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is where DNA fingerprinting, DNA profiling comes in. So this is where they are able to do things like trace where ivory tusks have come from, that have been illegally exported or imported into different countries. And they can try to understand where are these particular tusks coming from, which herds, where are they? And that can then impact things like, you know, where do they play, place law enforcement to try and stop this sort of thing happening. And it has an impact on how we can kind of think about conservation. So you can do things where you have breeding programs. Obviously,

• 20:25Speaker 01

  what you would like to do is, is not have inbreeding that happens where you might have siblings breeding together to produce offspring. You'd like them to be more distantly related. So you can do DNA fingerprinting of particular kind of groups and work out breeding programs for that. So it's really incredible and wonderful what DNA can be used for now.

• 20:49Mike Carruthers?

  There are a lot of offers of getting your DNA tested in 23andMe and Ancestry and all. What do those tell us and are they as accurate as we would like to think they are? And what are the pros and cons, if any, of those kinds of testings for the average person?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I always say it depends on what you're doing it for. If it's for something that's medical, I would always caution people because what they're testing is not across all of the particular diseases that people might be interested in. They might test one particular genetic variant and not another variant that we know has an impact on the previous variant. So I would always say if it's something that you're worried about health-wise, I would go to your care provider for that. In terms of things like learning about our ancestry, I always say, look, you have to be a little bit careful because in terms of finding about any one of your particular ancestors with any sort of certainty, it only takes you back a few generations.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Once you get past that point, it's basically just telling you something about the populations that you're from. So I do a television program over here in the UK where we use DNA testing from these companies to help people answer questions about who they're related to or their ancestry. So for example, if somebody is adopted or if they're donor conceived, they don't know anything potentially about their ancestry. And this can really provide answers for them. And for people who, for example, don't know who a parent is, this can help find a parent for them.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And it can be incredibly moving to be a part of this. This is where I think there's a tremendous power in some of the DNA testing that's possible to do. If people have grown up not knowing who either or one of their parents is, and we can answer questions using this, it can be incredibly powerful for them in terms of their identity and how they feel that they kind of fit in the world. And I also do caution people on that because you can take one of these DNA tests and find out something that you were not expecting. So for example, I've known cases where siblings all take a DNA test at Christmas and they

• 23:14Speaker 01

  find out that one of them isn't actually a full sibling. Or they take a DNA test and they find out who their biological father is, not the father that they thought it was. So I always caution people that sometimes these tests can turn up things that you don't necessarily expect.

• 23:30Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, as I recall this story, I remember someone who very much identified as having Hispanic heritage and then did one of these tests and found that they're almost 0% Hispanic. And it was like, very strange. I mean, it's like this weird thing that, well, how could that be?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  So it depends on how recently they thought the Hispanic heritage was. So you inherit 50% of your DNA from each of your parents, 25% from each of your grandparents, 12 and 1/2% from each of your... and going back through time. And it's an average. So it is perfectly possible to not have any substantive DNA from, say, a great-great-great great-grandparent and something that isn't picked. So it depends on whether or not the Hispanic ancestry was recent or not. Basically, what these companies do is they take your DNA and they will look for matches in the databases that they... in the database that they have, which is why you get different results if you do use

• 24:37Speaker 01

  it from a different company. Each company has its own database. So what it depends on is how big is that database, whether or not they've got a representative sample from a particular population in that database. So with some of the really big testing companies, they're fantastic for ancestry because they've got such big reference populations that you are going to find that you've got probably genetic matches.

• 25:00Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, I remember, because I had one of those tests done a long time ago and I got the results. And then I got updated results and it changed. Well, I didn't change, but now I'm not as much this as I was that. Well, how could that be?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Well, exactly. So this is it. So when you take the DNA test, it's comparing against the database that they have at that time. And as more people take tests and they get DNA from different populations and they do the match again, it's not that you've changed, it's where the matches are happening in the database. And it's just because as the database grows, it might be that previously the closest match that you had was in a particular population for a particular piece of your DNA. Now they've got another population in there, actually the closest match is in that population. So it's just the databases that are changing, not you. But one of the things I sort of caution about this is some people take it really, really

• 26:04Speaker 01

  seriously in terms, I am X percent this. And that is not what the DNA testing companies are doing. They're giving you kind of a bit of a range in terms of, it's looking like this percentage, but it could be a little bit more or a little bit less. Seems to be coming, these are the matches in the database now from this particular population. So as I say, it can be really, really helpful for people who are adopted, for example, and don't know what their ancestry is. But I would caution people about getting really hung up on the percentages that they have in particular populations because that is simply based on the database at the time.

• 26:44Mike Carruthers?

  In identifying a person from their DNA, like in a crime, you often will see on TV, you know, someone, some expert will get up and say, you know, the chances of this crime being committed by someone other than the defendant is one in 10 million or whatever the number is, they say. So is that science, purely science? Or if you brought in another expert, might he read it and say, no, that's not, it's, no, that's not right?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  So that's really interesting. So it is based on the number of genetic markers that you do. So they are looking at particular genetic variants across the genome. And for example, you've got two copies of each variant because you've got, one variant comes from your mom and one variant comes from your dad. So for example, if you and I took a DNA test and we were looking at just one particular genetic variant, it could be that purely by chance, we happen to share the same variants on those two, on that single marker. But the more markers that you do, it gets significantly less likely that purely by chance you are going to match on those particular things.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  So when they're giving those probabilities, it's going to be based on the number of markers that they have looked at. So yeah, so that's basically what it's based on.

• 28:11Mike Carruthers?

  So anyone trained in that would come to the same conclusion?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they will use particular databases and it actually gets to numbers that get to be so big, like one in a billion. But it really depends on the number of markers and the population group and so on and so forth. But you can be pretty happy when it's getting into those really, really high numbers.

• 28:33Mike Carruthers?

  And lastly, what's on the horizon in the world of DNA? Is there something that's bubbling under the surface that, boy, if this comes out the way we think it is, it's going to be amazing? Or it's more incremental advances than that?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  So there's loads of incremental advances. Sometimes you get these kind of real sort of step changes. So like with CRISPR, this technology where we're able to cut and paste in our DNA. And I think this is one of the things about genetics, it's like there's so many different things going on. It's like, how can you work out which way it's going to go out and what's the next big thing? There's so many interesting things that are happening in the field. But I think one of the things I kind of think that we really do need to think about is how do we want to use this incredibly powerful technology? Because we now have the possibility of doing things like gene editing. And how do we want to use that?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  So I think possibly the next big thing in genetics is, alongside all the really cool stuff that's happening in genetics, is us as a society thinking about, you know, how do we want to use this in the most ethical way? And I think everybody needs to be part of that conversation.

• 29:51Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it is remarkable how all of the things that you're talking about related to DNA, you couldn't talk about a couple decades ago because it wasn't around and the advances have been so fast, it's been startling. I've been talking to Turi King. She is one of Britain's leading authorities on DNA and genetic research, and she is author of the book, The Secrets of Our DNA: How Genetics Has Changed the World. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Turi, thank you so much.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Thanks, Mike. It's been such a pleasure chatting to you.

• 30:25Mike Carruthers?

  Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence, and unwrap more of who you are. This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box. The Dell XPS 13 laptop. With a beautiful design and cutting-edge performance, it helps you unlock more possibilities. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet, with touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and long-lasting battery life to power you through your day. Built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds, and Intel Core processors,

• 31:08Mike Carruthers?

  it's fast, reliable, and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities with XPS. While shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards, fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. This Black Friday sale is one you don't want to miss. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 31:52Mike Carruthers?

  So here's the problem with drinking water. You can't tell if it's clean just by looking at it. A glass of water can look perfectly clear and still contain things you definitely don't want to drink. In fact, three out of four US homes have toxic chemicals in their tap water. An ordinary refrigerator and pitcher filters, they do little to remove many of these contaminants, which is why Aqua True is different. Aqua True is a countertop water purifier with a patented four-stage reverse osmosis system. It's tested and certified to remove 84 contaminants, including chlorine, lead, forever chemicals,

• 32:36Mike Carruthers?

  and those microplastics. And there's no plumbing, no installation. You just put it on the counter and you get pure, great tasting water you can actually feel good about drinking. Aqua True was even named best countertop water filter by Good Housekeeping. Look, if you're going to drink water every single day, and you probably should, well, why guess what's in it? Go to aquatrue.com now for 20% off your purifier using promo code SYSK. Aqua True even comes with a 30-day best tasting water guarantee.

• 33:10Mike Carruthers?

  That's aquatrue.com, A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com, promo code SYSK. Nobody wants to be a quitter. From the time we're kids, we're told never give up, stick it out, finish what you start. And we admire people who persevere against all odds. But here's a question. What if the smartest thing you could do sometimes is quit? Quit a job, quit a relationship, quit a goal you've spent years pursuing? Because sticking with something that isn't working doesn't necessarily make you determined or courageous. It might just mean you're stuck.

• 33:55Mike Carruthers?

  And think about this, almost every time you say yes to something new, you have to quit or say no to something else. So why is quitting so hard? And why does it seem to be especially difficult for women? It turns out, there's some fascinating research on when to quit, why we resist it, and how walking away can actually make your life better. Here to explain is Lindsay Kraus. For more than 14 years, she was an editor, writer, and producer at The New York Times, and she is author of a book called "The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out." Hi Lindsay, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Hi, thanks so much for having me.

• 34:37Mike Carruthers?

  Isn't it interesting that quitting is sometimes necessary? It's essential, it's often the right thing to do, and yet it just has this horrible connotation that you're a loser if you quit. The whole concept of quitting is it's not the American way.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  You're absolutely right. It tells us that perseverance and quitting are opposites. The perseverance is the superpower of the successful, and that quitting is the flaw of the back of the pack. But that's not true at all. If we want to do our best, we really need to learn to quit. And I mean, your example that you just brought up about America is exactly right. It seems like we're the kind of country that is built on these people that never give up, that stopped at nothing and just kind of fought for what they wanted. But if you look a little deeper, that is true, but actually, we did a lot of quitting. All of the people that came here, they were leaving behind something else to come from somewhere new. Everyone who spread out across the country to settle it, they were all leaving one thing to find an uncertain new future.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  And quitting is absolutely part of our DNA, just as much as perseverance is. We just don't read it that way.

• 35:46Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it seems like one of the big worries about quitting is when do you quit? Because maybe if you just stick it out a little longer, this will work out, this will be great. And if I quit, then I'll never know.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  I mean, to that point, there are a lot of ways that we can tell the difference between, say, a temporary setback that requires persistence and a sign that it's time to walk away. I mean, one good place there is to start focusing on less whether you should quit, because again, quitting involves a lot of uncertainty and involves a lot of fear. Instead, we could think about what are the reasons why we're continuing in the first place? And if we look at those reasons, they're usually much more clear. Are we continuing because we love what we're doing regardless of the outcome? Or are we continuing because we're afraid of confronting what might happen if we stop? If outcomes do matter, another way to think about whether we should keep going is by assessing our progress.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Are we continuing despite the fact that we're not getting closer to our goal? And because again, we're afraid of cutting our losses and trying again. So thinking about why we're continuing can be a great way to decide whether we should keep doing that or stop.

• 36:59Mike Carruthers?

  Well, my sense is also that perhaps the best person to determine whether I should quit something or not isn't me, because I'm too in it, I'm too close to it, and I'm so not objective about it. I may be just dying to just quit because for all the wrong reasons. I may not really see it as clearly as somebody else might.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's absolutely right. If you're thinking about quitting and you're just not sure, it can be really wise to involve your community in a lot of ways. Not just to know if you should quit or not, and you're entirely right that oftentimes people will see these decisions as much more clearly than we're willing to see ourselves because their judgment isn't clouded by the emotion, and again, that fear that we often feel. But we need to involve them for other reasons as well. I mean, our communities are the people that can help us not only kind of soften the losses that may come with quitting, but can also be the pathways to find something new.

• 37:55Mike Carruthers?

  But do you see, and then maybe this is why you're studying this, is do you think people have a real problem with quitting of not knowing when to let go? Or it's just some people? Or is this a real pervasive problem?

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely a pervasive problem. It's particularly a challenge for women, I think, but really for anyone who loves a good challenge, who loves to work, who works all the time. Our culture glorifies work and grinding and persistence, and we really shame quitting. We frame it as relenting. And so for the kind of person that really sees that virtue in work, we can really confuse productive, hard work with working pointlessly hard. And when we start to confuse that, I mean, we are absolutely the people that can just grind forever instead of deciding that it's time to stop or even just to go a little

• 38:54Speaker 02

  easier.

• 38:55Mike Carruthers?

  Well, my sense is that a lot of people don't quit, that they know they probably should quit, that this isn't working, they just worry that if they do quit, what will other people think?

• 39:07Speaker 02

  That's entirely right. I mean, when we talk about the fears that we feel when we think about quitting, a huge thing that we fear is judgment. And of course, there's potential judgment from ourselves in the form of regret, but there's also the fear of judgment from other people. And oftentimes, research shows that those fears are unfounded. We imagine that there's the spotlight on us, that every move that we make is examined by everyone and that they're following every single thing that we do and judging that. And oftentimes, that's really only in our mind. Truly, when we want to quit and we decide to do that, it can almost be disappointing

• 39:49Speaker 02

  because it feels like this momentous decision and we discover that no one cares. And again, we want people to care. We want to feel indispensable. We want to feel like what we do matters. But when you think about how nobody cares nearly as much about what we do as we do, it can actually be quite liberating and an opportunity or an invitation to listen to our own judgment.

• 40:09Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you know, I cannot remember a time when someone I know has told me that they quit something that I was hugely disappointed or rendered some horrible judgment. I'm sure I don't care. I mean, people don't care about other decisions because I don't know why they quit or what the whole story is, but that's up to them. It's their life.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And I will go back and almost argue against myself here because in the conversations that I've had with other people kind of around this topic, they'll say, well, look at Simone Biles. She dropped out of Tokyo in the Olympics and faced massive judgment. And to that, I would say, yes, she did. But that was sort of a chorus of armchair critics who actually know very little about gymnastics and certainly don't know her and had no stakes in this decision at all. And so when I say that no one cares, what I should have actually said is that no one who matters cares. The people who actually cared about her health, her well-being, even her performance, her

• 41:12Speaker 02

  coaches, or even just experts who understand gymnastics, they supported the decision. And so again, you may face a little bit of judgment from people, but they rarely matter. And that can be a source of tremendous confidence as well.

• 41:26Mike Carruthers?

  But the concern, of course, is always that, you know, people quit things because they're tough, but a lot of things worth doing are tough and that maybe you shouldn't quit.

• 41:39Mike Carruthers?

  Yet that maybe you need to tough it out. And I don't know how you tell the difference unless you just keep going for a while and, and you know, and then decide.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Another important point to make is that you don't want to just impulsively quit. You don't want to quit on a bad day. What you want to do again is explore and note patterns over time and think about how those patterns correspond to whatever your goal is. And sometimes success doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just doing something because you enjoy it or for other reasons. And that can be enough. So you have to be really honest with yourself about what your goals are, what you're hoping to get out of a situation, why you're doing something. And make sure that those goals, even if they're kind of incidental to success, that those goals are being met, that you're still enjoying something, that your passion has not become something that you've come to dread, but that you're doing anyway because you feel

• 42:33Speaker 02

  like you should, or even worse, because you feel like you can't quit, because you don't want to deal with the disruption involved in saying no. So kind of disentangling the reasons. We talked earlier in this conversation about instead of asking ourselves, should we quit? And reframing that as should I continue? If you kind of disentangle those, those questions with figuring out what your reasons are for continuing and are they, are they the right reasons or not? That can really help clarify a lot.

• 43:04Mike Carruthers?

  You said something a moment ago that I think is so profound that don't quit on a bad day. And that is the, the time most people would really like to quit. This really sucks and I want out. And that's probably the worst time to quit.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And don't quit on a bad day is advice that an old track coach gave me. I mean, I'm a marathon runner. I have been a track athlete for my entire life. And again, it's really important to remember here that perseverance matters a lot. And what we're looking at here is trying to unpack when perseverance can become pathological or even counterproductive. And so this is quitting for people that are inclined to never give up, that listen to that cultural direction, to keep going, to go harder, to do more. But again, we don't want to just impulsively relent when something gets hard. I mean, that's often when we are on the cusp of having a breakthrough.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  But if data tells us that our hard work is no longer working, that's when we have to suck it up and do what's hard for people like us, you know, the perseverant hard workers of the world and call it off so that we can hopefully succeed somewhere else.

• 44:15Mike Carruthers?

  I don't know if there have been like surveys taken, but I'm curious, you know, when people quit something significant, but they have thought it through and, and really came to this decision to quit, do they still have some regret? Because it's always the road not taken. It's like, no matter what you do, you're not doing something else. You're, you're not persevering. And I wonder where that would have led to. Or you're not taking this new opportunity or this new thing or trying this new other thing. And, and there's another road not taken.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when people think about quitting, we are often really scared that we're going to regret our decision to leave. But research shows that over the long course of our lives, we actually tend to regret inaction much more than action. And hard as it is, quitting is an action. So it may mean sucking it up and taking the loss, but it also means opening yourself up to new opportunities. And once you let go of that path that you're ready to leave. And it can be hard to see at the time, but failing to quit really means choosing to continue. So over the long course of our lives, as we look back, people regret that inaction. They regret staying on the course. They regret listening to that fear of, oh, if I quit now, what will I do tomorrow?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  What will I do next week? Like oftentimes we don't know the answer to that. But if we don't want to be doing what we're doing now in five years or 10, we've got to cut the cord and take that loss and leave because it's not going to get easier to stop with time. We just get older.

• 45:54Mike Carruthers?

  So I get that you don't quit on a bad day, but, but when do you quit? I mean, what, what's the, when does the bell go off that, okay, enough's enough? Because that's where I think people struggle with. They, they either stay too long or they didn't stay long enough and now they regret because maybe, so I don't know how you find that.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, I think, again, you can start thinking about how you're feeling about continuing. And are you enjoying what you're doing still? Are you rationalizing that your hard work is going to pay off, even though all evidence is pointing to the contrary? Are you sticking with something because continuing is comfortable out of inertia, rather than because you just hope that someday your life will change and you're hoping that that will just come about? So again, focusing on why you're continuing and if you want the patterns that you're dealing with to still be part of your life in five years, 10, or even as we were just talking about with regret, looking back on the long course of our lives.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  If you don't like what you see when you envision that, you've got to ask yourself, if I don't want to keep doing this later, why am I doing it now? Sometimes you may have a good reason, but other times it may mean it's time.

• 47:09Mike Carruthers?

  One area where some of what you've been talking about seems to not quite line up is in relationships, because relationships are tough. And people will judge you if you file for divorce and get divorced. And it may take a lot of work over a long time to fix it. And you might think, well, I, I don't, I just, I'm not up for that and quit. But there's a consequence, there's a lot of consequences when it comes to relationships as opposed to whether or not you should run in a race or something like that.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  And in the case of relationships, a lot has to do with what are you leaving behind? How much have you invested in this relationship? How important is it to you still? Are you abandoning somebody? Or are you, or is there not that much left of your relationship anymore to preserve? So it really depends on a case by case basis, but so often in relationships, we just slide from the beginning, rather than kind of actively deciding that this is something that we want to do. And then all of these investments pile up around it. You know, it stops being, am I going to see you this weekend? But rather what time? And then you share a Netflix password and a gym membership and then you move in together. And then what else is there to do but get engaged?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  And then, you know, even if you're having second thoughts, you get married. And so one lesson there is that you want to make these quitting decisions sooner. You want to kind of figure, have these questions with yourself before all the investments pile up. Because I agree, once you're married, it's an entirely different set of questions that should come around. Should I stay or should I leave? It's, is this, is this relationship really bad for me now? Am I miserable all the time? Another thing that we have to ask when we're thinking about quitting a relationship that we've been in for a long time, or anything else that's really close to us is, why do we want to leave? Is it our partner, ourselves? Is it the environment that we're in with our partner?

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Is it the way that we treat each other, even though what we still love about each other is there? And once you identify what it is about the, you know, you asked about marriage. So when you identify what it is about the marriage that you want to leave, you can figure out two things. One is, do I have the control to fix this? And the other question is, how much of this problem lies with me? Because a lot of times when we quit, we're just looking to escape something that we actually just need to be fixing on our own. Because if we don't fix that, it's going to follow us to whatever we go to next. If you're treating your partner badly and they are responding to that rationally, which

• 49:52Speaker 02

  is to get frustrated with you in turn, you may continue those behavior traits in the next relationship and it's going to follow you. It's sort of that phrase, everywhere I go, there I am. And so sometimes in actually going through that decision process about why do I want to quit, we can actually figure out, should we, should we stay, but in a different way?

• 50:13Mike Carruthers?

  Well, from what you're saying, it seems that being very intentional about it, really weighing the options of should you or shouldn't you, is in itself very rewarding because then you're clear.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Yes. You are deciding as opposed to sliding. You are becoming an active player in your life and your question, you're asking yourself important questions about your life and what kind of a person you want to be in it. So quitting may not actually be the answer to whatever it is that you're weighing. But once you go through that question of should I stay, should I go? The answer may be staying, but you're staying with intention. And maybe you're staying in a different, more positive way than you were staying before. So I think when we reframe quitting as an action, rather than, as kind of a bold action, really, and sometimes a courageous action, rather than just the sort of passive giving up, that's when we start to see the power of quitting.

• 51:08Mike Carruthers?

  Is your sense that people are good at this or not good at this? Or, well, again, we talked earlier about how sometimes it's better to have somebody else take a look and see, because it's hard to see from where you are. But, because I generally think of myself as pretty good at deciding when to quit and when not to. But, but there have, there has certainly been cases where that was not true.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, I think one thing that's interesting there is that I think men are, well, I don't think this. Research shows that men are actually a lot better at quitting in certain ways than women. Women, I mean, you can take the marathon here as an example. I wrote an article for the New York Times about a Boston Marathon in 2018 that was terrible weather. And as I was watching it, I was like, okay, no one's going to run a good race here. But I suspect that women are going to finish at higher rates than men, because it's a really hard day. And I asked the Boston Marathon, and that turned out to be true. And I looked at why. And women, when things get hard, they downshift, whereas men start to go for all or nothing. So when you're saying that you're good at

• 52:20Speaker 02

  quitting, it may be because you're setting your, you have, you have the goal of succeeding or taking the loss. Whereas I think women are much more willing to kind of grind and grind. And the flaw there for women is that in the marathon, there's a finish line. But in life, we can grind forever.

• 52:40Mike Carruthers?

  Well, we all come to that point multiple times in life where we have to decide, are we going to keep going? Or are we going to quit? And you bring some insight that helps in that decision making a lot. Lindsay Kraus has been my guest. She is author of the book, The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Great, Lindsay. Thank you for being here.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Thanks so much, Mike. It was wonderful talking with you. Talk again soon.

• 53:11Mike Carruthers?

  Have you ever tied your shoes nice and tight, only to discover a few minutes later, one of the laces has come undone? Well, scientists at UC Berkeley have actually studied this using high speed cameras to watch what happens to shoelaces as people walk and run. And what they discovered is pretty fascinating. Every time your foot hits the ground, the impact stretches and loosens the knot just a little bit. Meanwhile, as your leg swings forward and backward, the loose ends of the lace whip around, gradually pulling the knot apart. It's a one-two punch. And once the knot starts loosening, it can come completely undone

• 53:54Mike Carruthers?

  in just a couple of steps. But here's something useful. There are actually two ways to tie the ordinary shoelace bow. And one creates a stronger knot than the other. A properly tied bow tends to sit across your shoe, while a weaker version often twists and sits more vertically. So if your shoelaces constantly come undone, it may not be the laces. You may simply be tying the weaker version of the knot. That's easy to fix. And that is something you should know. Now, I'm sure you know a lot of people. And I'll bet some of them would enjoy hearing this podcast. So if you wouldn't mind spreading the word,

• 54:37Mike Carruthers?

  letting somebody, a couple people, let them know about this podcast and suggest they listen, make it easy somehow for them to listen. And then we get more listeners, and that helps keep the podcast going. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  This holiday, all plans, even Unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like "All I Want..."

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

• 55:11Speaker 05

  Upfront payment of $45 for three months. $90 for six months. Or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. See terms.

• 55:23Speaker 06

  Observe. The North American Dad. 50s. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.