I came across a quote recently that challenged the old cliché: “Winners never quit.”

Apparently, winners do quit.

They quit doing stupid things.

I like that much better.

Because let’s be honest. I have yet to meet a person who has never not done anything stupid. Winners included. In fact, some of the smartest people I know have accumulated an impressive collection of spectacularly bad ideas.

The difference may not be that winners make fewer mistakes. Maybe they just become better at recognizing when a mistake has stopped being a lesson and started becoming a lifestyle.

Sometimes winning means walking away.

Sometimes it means admitting, Well, that was a terrible idea.

And sometimes the smartest thing you can do is stop digging before you discover China.

Maybe the real advantage isn’t never doing stupid things. It’s learning from the stupid things you do, conducting a brutally honest after-action review, and having the good sense not to repeat them.

Because experience isn’t necessarily what happens to you.

It’s what you do with what happened.

And occasionally, what you do with it is quit.

Which, apparently, is also something winners do.