Time & hindsight

What made you decide to stop something you were known for, and how did you know it was time?

14 answers answered between 2002 and 2026

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Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Sir Roger Bannister Middle-distance runner and neurologist; first man to run a mile in under four minutes
No, because I was set for it. My core, my whole life was medicine. I wanted to become a specialist. So for ten years I concentrated solely on medicine. It took ten years to become a consultant in neurology.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 7 June 2002 source ↗
Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984
I stopped being a teacher when the South African Government introduced a deliberately inferior education for blacks called Bantu education, and I felt I wasn’t ready to collaborate with this apology for an educational system. Our children, the 1976 kids who revolted against apartheid in Soweto, called it “gutter education,” and it was gutter education. I left teaching. Of course, I didn’t have too many option, and mercifully, the Bishop of Johannesburg at that time accepted me for training for the priesthood. So I came to the priesthood, as it were, by default.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 12 June 2004 source ↗
Warren Buffett Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
Well, I ran out of gas. You know, I got to be what, 93 at that time, or something like that. And it just – same reason I gave up teaching. I teach – I was – I taught every year from when I was 21 till 88 or 89, and there just came a period when your body said different things to you, and you should turn it over to somebody, just like I did at Berkshire.
Recorded Becky Quick, CNBC “Squawk Box”, recorded in Omaha; CNBC's own transcript of its own broadcast, 31 March 2026 source ↗

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