Throwing Away Six Months

Brandon Chu describes Shopify as 'pretty good at never falling into sunk-cost fallacy. So we'll throw it all away anytime if the world changes.' Six months of work? Gone if it's no longer the most important thing.

Parents are notoriously bad at this.

We signed up for piano, so we're doing piano - even though it's become a weekly battle. We bought the fancy plates that teach portion sizes, so we're using the plates - even though they're in a cabinet and everyone eats off regular plates. We started this elaborate morning routine chart, so we're DOING THE CHART.

The money's already spent. The commitment was made. But here's the thing: 'There are cases and it's happened to me many times where you're building three, six months into something and it's just not important anymore.'

The question isn't 'what did we invest?' It's 'what's the most important thing we can do RIGHT NOW?'

Sometimes the brave move is to walk away from six months of effort and start fresh. That's not failure. That's adaptability.