The Art of Manliness - The Power of Everyday Rituals to Shape and Enhance Our Lives

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.440 When we think of rituals, we tend to think of big, inherited, more occasional religious

00:00:15.800 or cultural ceremonies like church services, holidays, weddings, and funerals.

00:00:20.400 But as my guest observes, we also engage in small, self-made, everyday rituals that help

00:00:25.280 us turn life's more mundane moments into more meaningful ones.

00:00:28.080 In The Ritual Effect, From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions,

00:00:33.340 psychologist and Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton explores the way our DIY rituals

00:00:37.820 shape and enhance our lives.

00:00:40.400 We take up that survey on today's show.

00:00:42.840 Michael explains the difference between a habit and a ritual and how individuals and families

00:00:46.740 create unique ritual signatures, even within more standard rituals like holidays.

00:00:51.520 We discuss the different areas of life in which rituals show up and what they do for us, including

00:00:55.580 how they help us cope with uncertainty, save our life, and connect to the past.

00:00:59.920 We get into the function DIY rituals performed in romantic relationships, from deepening intimacy

00:01:04.160 to facilitating a breakup, the role that kinkeepers play in keeping a family together, the tricky

00:01:09.380 business of combining family traditions when people get married, how to know when a family

00:01:13.200 tradition should be retired, and much more.

00:01:15.540 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash everyday rituals.

00:01:19.260 All right, Michael Norton, welcome to the show.

00:01:33.200 Thank you, Brett.

00:01:34.080 So you are a psychologist who has researched and written about the power of rituals in our

00:01:39.300 lives, but you started off your career as a ritual skeptic.

00:01:45.760 What did you think about rituals before you started researching them?

00:01:49.260 I think when I talk to scientists, including myself, I guess, scientists often think of

00:01:54.840 rituals as something like people in robes with candles chanting something or other, but

00:02:01.780 very far removed from their everyday lives.

00:02:05.920 And I think, or maybe new agey millennials in Santa Fe with crystals or, you know, that's 0.69

00:02:11.720 the other kind of connotation.

00:02:12.860 Sagebrush, yeah.

00:02:13.340 Exactly.

00:02:13.820 And I think I was a little, I mean, I was studying rituals because I thought they were

00:02:17.820 so fascinating just as a psychologist, but I was a little removed from them as a kind

00:02:24.300 of, yeah, I bet they do things, but not so much for me.

00:02:27.940 And then I had my, of course, epiphany moment, which many people have had, which is I had a

00:02:32.800 daughter and brought her home from the hospital.

00:02:36.160 And if that's ever happened to you, you realize you're responsible for this person for the next

00:02:40.340 80 years or however many years, it's a little stressful and they don't seem to want to sleep.

00:02:45.800 And so what do you do?

00:02:47.360 And what we started to do naturally was we did this book and then we did this song and

00:02:52.760 then we had these two stuffies and then we needed this special blanket.

00:02:55.640 And over time, it literally hit me over time.

00:02:58.560 Oh my God, I've completely developed a very elaborate, specific, repeated ritual that we

00:03:05.220 do every single night in exactly the same way in order to help her to sleep.

00:03:09.920 And then I said, I've been a little bit of a hypocrite because I, I like many, many people

00:03:14.820 have turned to ritual to try to help me with a problem.

00:03:17.680 Right.

00:03:17.800 And with that bedtime ritual with kids, if you've had them, you know, if you switch anything,

00:03:21.880 if you switch the order, they're like, no, that's not how we do it.

00:03:26.100 It's not going to work that way.

00:03:27.960 Exactly.

00:03:28.460 This isn't the right copy of Good Night Moon.

00:03:30.680 Right.

00:03:31.000 Exactly.

00:03:31.160 Soft cover.

00:03:32.060 Yeah.

00:03:32.460 Yeah.

00:03:33.080 Or Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. 1.00

00:03:35.360 I still got that book memorized and it's been 10 years since I read it.

00:03:39.160 All right.

00:03:40.020 So as a psychologist, how do you define a ritual?

00:03:44.520 I think one of the distinctions that comes to mind for lots of people is because they are

00:03:49.100 quite similar is the distinction between a habit and a ritual.

00:03:52.600 Ritual has this feeling of something more than just a habit.

00:03:58.180 Habits are fantastic.

00:03:59.340 I mean, I wish I had better habits.

00:04:00.980 We should all have better habits and exercise and eat healthy and all the other things we'd

00:04:05.480 like to do.

00:04:06.000 But I feel like habits are a bit dry.

00:04:09.560 They're sort of things that we do in order to get them done.

00:04:12.900 Like I'm eating the food in order to be healthy.

00:04:15.740 There's nothing wrong with them.

00:04:17.180 But if you had a 40-year stretch of perfect habits, I'm not sure that we'd look back and

00:04:22.560 say, what an interesting, fulfilling life I had.

00:04:25.460 We'd be really, really healthy, like great cholesterol.

00:04:28.140 But I'm not sure we'd say like, that was really a fantastic and engaging life.

00:04:34.160 And I think sometimes that's what rituals help us do is they take otherwise boring, mundane

00:04:39.240 things, including something like going to bed or helping someone go to bed.

00:04:44.460 All you technically need to do is put the baby in a crib.

00:04:46.980 You know, that would be just fine.

00:04:49.480 But we use rituals.

00:04:51.000 We create more meaning.

00:04:52.180 We create memories.

00:04:53.080 We create emotion.

00:04:54.880 And I think they tend to enrich our lives a little bit.

00:04:58.180 You still remember the words from this book that you used 10 years later.

00:05:02.720 That's not so much a habit.

00:05:04.120 That's something deeper and more meaningful than just a habit.

00:05:07.260 All right.

00:05:07.460 So a habit or routine, I think you can swap those synonymously.

00:05:12.160 I think you said in the book, it focuses on the what.

00:05:14.200 It's just like, I got to get this thing done.

00:05:15.680 And it doesn't particularly matter, you know, the order I do it or how I do it.

00:05:19.940 As long as it gets done, we're good.

00:05:22.620 A routine or a habit can become a ritual if the focus shifts to the how.

00:05:28.660 Would that be the distinction?

00:05:30.100 That's right.

00:05:30.700 And even with these seemingly trivial behaviors, like I've asked lots of people, you know,

00:05:36.860 when you're getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning, do you brush your teeth

00:05:40.500 first and then shower?

00:05:41.820 Or do you shower and then brush your teeth?

00:05:43.980 And what's your answer, by the way, out of curiosity?

00:05:47.000 I brush my teeth after I shower.

00:05:49.000 After you shower.

00:05:49.920 So then if I ask people, it's about 50-50 on those two orders.

00:05:54.800 And then if I say, do you mind switching the order of them tonight or tomorrow morning?

00:05:59.080 Do you mind doing the other one first?

00:06:01.360 And then the usual first one second?

00:06:04.280 How does that make you feel?

00:06:05.500 It doesn't.

00:06:06.000 I don't care.

00:06:06.820 It doesn't care.

00:06:07.360 So this is so interesting.

00:06:08.260 So about half of people are you.

00:06:10.240 They say, I couldn't care.

00:06:11.900 I mean, I'm just brushing my teeth and showering.

00:06:13.560 What difference does it make?

00:06:15.080 And about half of people say, I don't want to.

00:06:18.100 I'd rather not.

00:06:19.040 And I say, why?

00:06:19.720 And they say, I'd feel weird.

00:06:22.000 I'd feel off.

00:06:23.200 I wouldn't feel ready for the day.

00:06:25.780 These are people who it's not just the what.

00:06:29.020 The what is the brushing and showering.

00:06:31.620 If it's just what, it's a habit.

00:06:33.180 And the order doesn't matter to you at all.

00:06:35.240 As soon as the order starts to matter, if there's feeling in it, emotion in it, if you

00:06:40.560 do it right, it feels good.

00:06:42.260 If you do it wrong, you feel off.

00:06:44.600 That's getting closer to the feeling of a ritual.

00:06:47.740 It's more than just the what.

00:06:49.360 It's how you do it that's creating more meaning for you.

00:06:52.400 Okay.

00:06:52.580 So if a routine or habit elicits emotion in you, and you can usually tell that if you

00:06:58.460 change it, then you might think this is probably more of a ritual, not just a habit.

00:07:03.180 Especially if you don't have a good reason.

00:07:04.940 So if you said, well, I have to brush my teeth first because my kid has to brush their teeth

00:07:09.280 at a certain time.

00:07:10.800 Well, then you're not being rigid because it just matters to you.

00:07:15.040 You have a reason for it.

00:07:16.720 But most people say, I don't actually know why I brush my teeth first and then shower second.

00:07:21.060 I didn't do an experiment where I did it one way for a year and the other way for a year.

00:07:25.380 I just feel like this is the way I'm going to do it.

00:07:27.980 That's when it's getting a bit more toward a ritual.

00:07:30.020 You can't quite explain why it's meaningful to do it the way you do it, but it just feels

00:07:34.860 meaningful.

00:07:36.180 Okay.

00:07:36.260 So this definition of a ritual that you have, so it's a routine that we do where it elicits

00:07:40.800 emotion.

00:07:41.300 There's no particular logical reason why we do it, but we feel like we need to do it this

00:07:45.440 certain way.

00:07:46.360 This broadens what can be incorporated or what we can think of as a ritual.

00:07:51.740 But when anthropologists or sociologists study rituals, what kind of rituals are they studying?

00:07:57.980 I mean, this is the typical, and in fact, when I started studying rituals as well, this

00:08:02.900 is the, what first comes to mind are cultural rituals, religious rituals, often with a long

00:08:09.240 history and tradition.

00:08:11.000 So you can think of every religious faith has, of course, you know, rituals of when babies

00:08:16.880 are born, when people become adults, when people get married, when people pass away.

00:08:22.000 Religions have these sort of standard rituals that have been passed down through time.

00:08:25.940 And, you know, countries have rituals as well.

00:08:28.600 The United States has Thanksgiving, for example, which isn't present in other countries, a little

00:08:33.160 bit in Canada, but not in other countries, but it's important to Americans to have Thanksgiving.

00:08:38.380 These are the kinds we often think of are these inherited, I guess, is one way to think

00:08:43.000 about them.

00:08:43.500 And they can be incredibly important and they play an incredibly valuable role in our lives.

00:08:48.940 So when I say that's not the kind I study, it's not because they're not incredibly important

00:08:54.540 for our well-being and our connection with other people.

00:08:57.400 But I got a little bit more interested in the kind that people are freelancing themselves,

00:09:02.320 kind of under the surface, that are littler ones.

00:09:05.200 They're even kind of everyday ones, but they're still creating meaning for us.

00:09:09.660 Not like as much meaning probably as a 2,000-year history of a religious faith in connecting you

00:09:15.020 to previous generations.

00:09:16.020 I don't mean to compare them, but even something as seemingly silly as the order in which you

00:09:21.260 brush your teeth and shower, a little tiny bit that's giving you something, a little ritualistic,

00:09:26.680 it's giving you something in there that's beyond just merely going through the motions.

00:09:32.780 Or it could be a family ritual that you take part in, that just your family does.

00:09:37.100 It's unique to your family.

00:09:38.660 That's right.

00:09:39.060 And even when you think about inherited rituals, so Thanksgiving, for example, we're aware

00:09:44.740 of what Thanksgiving is.

00:09:45.960 If you have people write about what happens on Thanksgiving, they can tell you.

00:09:49.020 There's a turkey and things like that.

00:09:51.260 But when you go into families, each family is doing it in their own very specific way.

00:09:56.060 They have their own specific foods.

00:09:58.100 Maybe there's turkey, but there's also some pies that are very specific, different kinds

00:10:02.900 of stuffing that are very specific.

00:10:04.860 What time we eat varies from family to family.

00:10:07.940 If you've ever gone with a significant other to their family's Thanksgiving, the number

00:10:13.120 one emotion you have is they're doing it all wrong.

00:10:15.500 What's wrong with these people?

00:10:17.160 I don't think I can be with this person anymore because their family's insane.

00:10:20.340 Well, that tells us that it's not even Thanksgiving, which is a tradition inherited all of those 0.98

00:10:25.880 features, even their families and individuals are still coming up with their own idiosyncratic

00:10:32.020 ways that reflect something specific about their identity.

00:10:35.160 Something you talk about in the book is this idea of a ritual signature.

00:10:39.180 What is that?

00:10:40.480 This is exactly this kind of thing where we do have things that we receive that are given

00:10:45.880 to us.

00:10:46.820 A wedding, for example, you can think about is standard.

00:10:51.280 Most religions and most cultures have some form of two people love each other.

00:10:55.600 They come together.

00:10:56.500 Their families get together.

00:10:57.560 There's a ceremony, but only some people would play ACDC as the bride and groom come down

00:11:04.880 the aisle because whatever, they met at an ACDC concert.

00:11:08.320 That's their ritual signature.

00:11:10.380 Yes, they are using some elements of established ones, but they're also building into these things

00:11:15.900 that are very idiosyncratic to them, that have special meaning for them, that other people

00:11:21.520 would be horrified to have ACDC playing as they came down the aisle.

00:11:26.780 But for this couple, it's kind of their thing.

00:11:29.040 Literally, it's their ritual signature.

00:11:31.060 It's what we do that makes us us and not like those other couples. 0.99

00:11:36.260 And something you talk about in the beginning of the book is there's this idea that we've

00:11:40.880 become a more secular culture.

00:11:43.040 You quoted Charles Taylor.

00:11:44.320 We've talked about Charles Taylor on the podcast.

00:11:45.900 We live in a secular age, and because of that, we've become more rational and we're engaging

00:11:50.300 in less ritualistic behavior.

00:11:52.580 But you argue that actually, no, if you look at things, we might be taking part in less of

00:11:57.340 those legacy rituals that are associated with church or religion.

00:12:02.380 But if you look closely enough, people today, there are just thousands, millions of different

00:12:07.960 rituals being performed every day by people who aren't even religious.

00:12:11.900 So the biggest counterpoint to the idea that we're losing ritual in society would be something

00:12:17.760 like Burning Man, which is not religious.

00:12:21.200 There's no kind of specific faith associated with it.

00:12:24.620 But if you kind of abstract away, you've got people going on a pilgrimage to a desert for

00:12:32.260 a period of time.

00:12:33.540 There's music.

00:12:34.840 There are substances that change how you're thinking and feeling about the world.

00:12:39.800 At the end, we have a gigantic figure that we burn in a ritualistic way, and then we all

00:12:46.200 retreat back to our lives.

00:12:48.560 Is that secular?

00:12:50.320 Yes, technically, because we don't have a faith associated with it.

00:12:53.560 But it's an incredibly ritualistic activity that we engage in.

00:12:57.320 Why do we engage in ritualistic behavior?

00:12:59.580 I think people can look at maybe religious rituals and think, well, you know, there's a

00:13:03.600 reason it's about tradition and showing piety to God.

00:13:07.820 But if you don't believe in a higher power, why do we still have this drive to engage in

00:13:13.900 ritualistic behavior?

00:13:15.740 It's one of the reasons I became most interested in studying rituals, honestly, is that across

00:13:21.680 so many domains of life, one of the things that humans turn to is ritual.

00:13:27.400 You know, funerals and weddings, we use them for grieving and also for love.

00:13:32.620 We use rituals to get amped up, and we use rituals sometimes to calm ourselves down.

00:13:38.000 I mean, we're using them for incredibly different purposes in these different domains of life.

00:13:43.300 And we use many other strategies and things as well.

00:13:46.280 It's not like we only use rituals.

00:13:48.320 But the fact that we see them across so many domains of life says to me that there is something

00:13:53.920 really fundamental in humans that ritual is doing something for us.

00:13:58.620 They do lots of things for us, but one underlying thing that I think we see is that we use them

00:14:03.460 to solve problems.

00:14:05.260 And in particular, when we have uncertainty or stress, or we're faced with something that's

00:14:09.520 hard to cope with, that's when we often see humans turning to ritual as a way to try to

00:14:15.260 manage some of that uncertainty and stress.

00:14:17.740 And the problem, of course, as you know, with being human is everything is completely uncertain.

00:14:23.420 We can try to convince ourselves that it's not, but the fact is, of course, that's the way

00:14:27.160 that life goes.

00:14:28.360 And so it's not surprising that we've developed practices to try to help us in some way or

00:14:33.840 another cope with that level of uncertainty and feel a little bit more sense of control

00:14:38.480 so that we're not constantly just all over the place and wondering, is anything I'm doing

00:14:44.480 meaningful or not?

00:14:45.900 And you talk about, we see the connection of ritualistic behavior and uncertainty very viscerally

00:14:53.320 in sports.

00:14:54.740 What can sports tell us about the connection between uncertainty and ritualistic behavior?

00:15:01.100 A super fun way to waste an afternoon is to type in the name of any athlete or any celebrity

00:15:06.520 and then the word ritual and just click search.

00:15:10.160 And you'll find not every athlete and not every celebrity has rituals.

00:15:13.860 But it's kind of shocking how often they do have something very idiosyncratic and often

00:15:19.560 quite elaborate.

00:15:21.140 And the question is, well, why them and not the rest of us?

00:15:23.760 And of course, if you think about, so Rafael Nadal is famous for his pre-serve ritual, which

00:15:28.980 is very, very elaborate, takes a very long time.

00:15:32.340 It includes him picking his wedgie, which I find extremely amusing.

00:15:35.520 And my daughter actually finds very amusing that he does that.

00:15:38.720 So why is he engaged in these seemingly unusual behaviors that aren't really related to serving?

00:15:44.640 And it's, of course, because he's got to do something that's as hard a physical action

00:15:48.660 as humans can do.

00:15:50.520 Or when Beyonce is about to go out on stage in front of 50, 100,000 people, the stress

00:15:56.220 of that is, we can't even imagine, right, how stressful that is.

00:15:59.580 So celebrities turn to these kinds of rituals.

00:16:02.400 And I think we can see, you know, that we turn to them because we're trying to get ready

00:16:08.380 and solve the problem of, oh my God, I have to do this enormous thing coming up.

00:16:12.520 But the rest of us don't have the liberty to do those kinds.

00:16:16.400 So if I, before I taught a class, if I started to do Rafael's, you know, pre-serve ritual,

00:16:22.280 people would say, come on, this isn't that hard.

00:16:24.020 You're not allowed to do that.

00:16:25.300 So we allow celebrities to do these things in a way that we don't allow ourselves.

00:16:30.040 But if we ask people, what do you do before, when you're nervous about something, like

00:16:33.940 a meeting at work that's important, people say, oh no, I do them.

00:16:37.660 It's just that what I do is I do them in private.

00:16:39.600 Many people say, I go into the bathroom.

00:16:41.120 I check that nobody's there.

00:16:42.600 Then I talk to myself in the mirror.

00:16:44.720 You know, so we're, we're not Nadal.

00:16:46.700 We're not Serena Williams, but we are doing these very similar things to deal with our

00:16:52.020 own level of stress.

00:16:53.720 When stress is there, humans seem to have always wanted to bring ritual as a possible solution.

00:17:00.340 Oh, I want to talk more about how rituals can help our performance.

00:17:03.560 But going back to the connection between uncertainty and ritualistic behavior, you pointed out this

00:17:08.460 really interesting study when they look at baseball.

00:17:12.000 When they compare hitters and fielders, hitters engage in more ritualistic behavior than fielders

00:17:20.260 do.

00:17:20.840 And it's probably because hitting a baseball, it's, there's more uncertainty there.

00:17:25.700 You don't know what pitch is coming your way.

00:17:27.840 Hitting a baseball that's going 95 miles an hour, sometimes a hundred miles an hour.

00:17:32.300 Or it's extremely hard to do.

00:17:34.700 So there's a lot of uncertainty.

00:17:35.920 So you see batters engaging in more. 0.99

00:17:38.060 They've got their, you know, before they get in the batter's box, they got their thing

00:17:41.720 they do.

00:17:42.080 They touch themselves in different ways.

00:17:43.560 They hit the plate.

00:17:44.960 You don't see that so much with fielders because there's less uncertainty, you know,

00:17:48.900 well, if the ball's coming away, I'm going to get it.

00:17:50.460 And then I'm going to throw it to first or second.

00:17:52.900 Yeah.

00:17:52.980 There's a study I love that they filmed baseball players and then they coded at a micro level,

00:17:59.620 how many movements they made before each at bat.

00:18:02.320 And the average number was 83, which is a lot of movements to make before every single

00:18:08.320 pitch that is delivered to you.

00:18:10.480 But you're right.

00:18:11.300 If you think about, even if you just think about this base rate of success, the very best

00:18:16.600 hitters ever fail two thirds of the time.

00:18:20.120 Like it is incredible to be successful one out of every three times as a hitter in the field,

00:18:25.200 the success rates like 98 or 99% at most positions.

00:18:28.840 So if you, if you purely just think about the uncertainty, you can see how, if you're

00:18:34.000 in the situation where my gosh, it's probably going to go wrong, you'd have more stress.

00:18:38.120 You might turn to more ritual.

00:18:39.480 If you're in a situation where you're just fine, you probably don't need to do it quite

00:18:42.860 as much.

00:18:43.640 Okay.

00:18:44.100 So rituals can help us feel more calm in periods of uncertainty.

00:18:47.960 It can also help reduce stress when we're feeling anxious about a performance, a big

00:18:52.960 performance.

00:18:53.500 And that's basically because it gives us a sense that we have a bit of control, even

00:18:57.540 though, you know, rationally, these actions that we take part in might not have any direct

00:19:02.820 effect.

00:19:03.520 Maybe they do, you know, maybe we can be metaphysical here and say, yeah, maybe they do

00:19:06.880 have something, but we're going to keep things rational here and say, well, they don't have

00:19:11.120 a direct effect, but it gives us a sense of control.

00:19:14.180 And you were talking about some of these pregame rituals, these pre-performance rituals that

00:19:18.320 musicians do, actors do before they get on the stage, can these rituals that they take

00:19:24.480 part in, or maybe we take part in to get ready for a speech, can the ritualistic behavior

00:19:30.000 get in the way of performance?

00:19:33.060 It's so interesting because we tend to think of rituals as, you know, we're feeling stressed

00:19:38.540 and so I'm going to do this ritual and it's going to calm me down.

00:19:41.260 And many people report that that's how it feels, that they are nervous, then they do their

00:19:46.380 ritual and then they feel calmer before they go on.

00:19:48.820 But the problem is that rituals can get in the way as well, right?

00:19:51.900 So in a couple of ways, one is if I always, before I go on stage, do the exact same ritual

00:19:57.360 and it'll make me feel like I'm ready to go.

00:20:00.400 Well, if that gets disrupted, then I'm going to feel less ready to go, right?

00:20:04.420 So if I've set myself up that I need to do this ritual and then I can't do the ritual,

00:20:09.280 I might actually be worse off than if I never had it in the first place.

00:20:13.080 Have you done any research on OCD and rituals?

00:20:17.200 Like when does a ritual become obsessive compulsive?

00:20:20.580 And for people who have a tendency or prone to obsessive compulsiveness, can rituals do more

00:20:25.340 harm than good?

00:20:26.740 So often we're engaged in a ritual in the service of something else.

00:20:31.460 So if you think about even something like checking to see if you remember to lock the door of your

00:20:36.780 house or apartment before you leave for the day, you're checking that in order to feel good

00:20:41.260 about leaving so that you can go and engage in your day and have a good day at work.

00:20:47.220 And sometimes what can happen is that we lose the link between we were doing the ritual in order

00:20:51.940 to accomplish something else.

00:20:53.660 Like I was doing the pre-show ritual in order to then go out on stage and perform well.

00:20:59.440 And with obsessive compulsive disorder, what can happen is the ritual itself becomes the reward.

00:21:04.960 We lose the link between I'm doing this in the service of something else, and it becomes

00:21:10.600 I'm doing this in order to do this.

00:21:13.140 So even with baseball players, you can see scouts sometimes say this person's batting

00:21:18.280 ritual is so elaborate that it's not helping them get in the zone.

00:21:21.860 It's actually interfering with them getting in the zone.

00:21:24.720 Because after a thousand movements, it's like three pitches have gone by and they struck

00:21:29.220 out without even swinging.

00:21:30.340 At the extreme, this can be what happens.

00:21:32.220 Or if you're checking the lock to your door of your house or apartment before you go to

00:21:36.940 work, if you lose the link between checking and leaving, then you're just checking in order

00:21:42.940 to check.

00:21:44.060 And then again, we can see, well, when that ritual starts to interfere with your goals and

00:21:48.740 interfere with your life, that's when we can start to say, you know what, this has gone

00:21:53.200 far beyond being useful and might actually be harmful.

00:21:56.640 Have you done any research on how individuals develop these rituals for performance?

00:22:03.240 Let's say like an athlete or a singer, you know, they have these different things that

00:22:06.820 they do.

00:22:07.300 They might have to wear certain socks.

00:22:08.980 They put on their socks in a certain way.

00:22:10.740 They got to chalk their hands a certain way.

00:22:13.220 How do these develop?

00:22:14.440 And then how do they get imbued with ritualistic meaning?

00:22:17.960 What is so fascinating is that often people can't quite explain it.

00:22:23.640 So sometimes if they use, for example, a song, they can explain the song.

00:22:29.260 And you can even say like, well, this song came out in 2007, you know, when I was in college

00:22:34.300 and that's why I started using it as part of my performance routine.

00:22:37.900 But most of the movements that people have, they actually can't track.

00:22:41.800 They're not sure why they tap twice instead of three times.

00:22:44.760 Nobody told them at the time to tap two versus three times.

00:22:48.740 They just develop over time.

00:22:50.840 And then they just become the way that we do things.

00:22:53.440 I had an undergraduate student at Harvard who was an athlete who had a pre-performance

00:22:58.540 ritual that was very elaborate.

00:23:01.300 And I asked her the question that you asked me, which is, well, does that ever interfere?

00:23:04.500 And she said, well, no, I actually made it very elaborate so that it's almost impossible

00:23:08.620 to do perfectly correctly so that if I don't perform well, I can blame it on the fact that

00:23:13.920 I didn't do the ritual perfectly.

00:23:16.180 And if I do perform well, I can say, well, I probably did the ritual perfectly.

00:23:19.480 Now, if you think about the psychology, first off, it's genius.

00:23:22.280 But if you think of the psychology of that, we're very carefully constructing our rituals

00:23:27.180 and calibrating them to be exactly what we need right in that moment, even sometimes going

00:23:33.180 too far in order to later be able to point to the ritual as the problem.

00:23:37.480 She also couldn't really point to say, and the reason I started, you know, this step and

00:23:41.580 in this step was because of this and this, it often just happens in the environment.

00:23:46.600 And as we were saying earlier, even with our kids' bedtime rituals, often it's just, you

00:23:51.700 know, you had the kid and then the book that was close to you was chicka chicka boom, you

00:23:56.540 know, and so that became the book that you use rather than, well, we carefully surveyed every

00:24:01.900 children's book in the world and, you know, discovered that this was the optimal book.

00:24:06.060 It's often like a little kind of environmental stimulus that then gets built into things.

00:24:10.400 I think what's interesting about that girl with her ritual, she was using ritual as ego 1.00

00:24:14.500 protection, right?

00:24:15.560 So, you know, she failed as like, ah, I don't feel so bad because it wasn't my performance.

00:24:19.820 It was just my ritual was off.

00:24:21.360 It's amazing, right?

00:24:22.160 Yeah.

00:24:22.480 It's interesting.

00:24:23.360 But I can see that get in the way though, because how do you improve?

00:24:25.920 You think, well, it wasn't because I did this thing wrong in my performance.

00:24:30.760 It was the ritual.

00:24:32.180 Like that can get, that can backfire.

00:24:34.240 Yeah.

00:24:34.480 If you, if you don't take it as a, maybe I should also practice more.

00:24:37.460 Yeah.

00:24:39.420 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:24:46.560 And now back to the show.

00:24:48.280 Okay.

00:24:48.700 So rituals can help us feel more calm during periods of stress and uncertainty can help

00:24:53.960 increase our performance, but also rituals can hinder our performance if taken to an extreme.

00:24:58.660 You also talk about research you've come across and done about how ritual can help us savor

00:25:04.260 life more.

00:25:05.100 Tell us about that.

00:25:05.920 Yeah.

00:25:07.260 Yeah.

00:25:07.620 I think that a life of perfect habits, again, you'd be very, very healthy.

00:25:11.960 And if, even if you think about just, you know, eating and drinking, what we need are

00:25:16.480 calories and hydration.

00:25:18.580 And so, you know, if you may have heard of soylent as, you know, kind of a not very tasty,

00:25:23.300 but has all the nutrients that we need to survive kind of food.

00:25:26.780 And if you just have soylent and probably some water, you'd be perfectly healthy.

00:25:30.460 And there's nothing wrong with, I mean, I want everybody to eat whatever they feel like

00:25:34.240 eating.

00:25:34.700 But if you think about savoring life, it's, you could just eat the same thing every single

00:25:40.920 day, but we can use food for much, much more than that.

00:25:44.660 You know, a cake is not just a cake when it's a birthday cake.

00:25:47.360 It means something more than that.

00:25:48.740 Or liquid in a glass isn't just liquid in a glass.

00:25:51.740 When we raise it and clink glasses and say cheers or slancha or salute, you know, we're

00:25:57.060 using ritual to imbue boring, in a sense, boring things.

00:26:01.340 It's just calories and liquid, but we're using ritual to imbue it with something more than

00:26:06.440 that, like meaning or connection with other people, or literally going from age seven to

00:26:12.540 age eight with this birthday cake, with this number of candles that signifies that I'm

00:26:17.160 something different than I was before.

00:26:19.180 So they can help us, I think, move beyond being very utilitarian towards something that

00:26:25.340 really is much more rich and meaningful than just going through the motions.

00:26:30.880 And otherwise, it's hard to find the time.

00:26:33.340 We're just very busy and running around all the time.

00:26:36.720 And rituals can serve as a little reminder, like my three minutes with my coffee in the morning.

00:26:42.100 It's just a little reminder that I don't need to be sprinting everywhere at all times.

00:26:46.320 I can take even just one minute and savor the moment just briefly before I go back into the

00:26:53.540 rat race.

00:26:54.300 Right.

00:26:54.520 So you can use food to create more emotion, more connection.

00:26:57.960 I think holiday traditions with food are, you see this, my kids, they are really gung-ho

00:27:03.620 about we got to eat these certain foods on these certain days and they get kind of upset

00:27:08.200 when we don't.

00:27:08.760 And so in my family, a couple of years ago, I started making corned beef and like potatoes

00:27:15.560 and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day.

00:27:17.380 Cause I did that when I was growing up, started doing it.

00:27:20.160 I did it once and then it became a thing and they're like, yeah, they look forward to it.

00:27:24.900 And it's like, you know, I get the Walmart corned beef.

00:27:27.240 It's okay.

00:27:27.900 But now like we could, we didn't do this one year and they're like, they were really bummed

00:27:31.040 like, Oh, like something's off with the world because we didn't eat corned beef and cabbage

00:27:34.720 on St. Patrick's Day.

00:27:36.580 I do the same thing with, with my daughter and, and my wife.

00:27:39.820 And what's funny is neither of them like corned beef at all.

00:27:44.660 And in fact, that has nothing to do with the fact that we're going to make it every year.

00:27:48.960 And that, you know, in and of itself, it's like, wait, what are we doing by making this?

00:27:52.940 My daughter this year, she's eight and she tried a little piece of corned beef.

00:27:57.340 And then she said, very skillfully, she said, I really like this.

00:28:01.040 Um, can I save it and finish it later?

00:28:04.060 Which was just, you know, chef's kiss of, uh, social subtlety there.

00:28:08.960 But, uh, but, but again, next year, we're definitely going to do it.

00:28:11.840 Right.

00:28:11.920 I mean, for me, I'm Irish Catholic.

00:28:13.080 So I remember my grandmother making that, you know, this, all this history and tradition

00:28:18.440 in these things that I can remember my grandmother without, but when you engage in these rituals,

00:28:25.280 I mean, literally the smell of things can bring you back to memory in a way that is hard

00:28:30.500 to do otherwise.

00:28:31.460 So we also, by enacting these rituals over time, we literally do connect ourselves more

00:28:37.320 deeply with the past.

00:28:39.040 And my daughter is never going to meet my grandmother who she's named after.

00:28:42.900 But when we make corned beef together, she is connected to her in a very different way

00:28:48.020 than if we don't enact some of those traditions in our family.

00:28:51.380 Yeah.

00:28:51.920 So those food traditions, those food rituals can help us engage in mental time travel.

00:28:56.020 And that can be, that has positive benefits.

00:28:58.380 For sure.

00:28:58.720 And I mean, religion does the same, you know, I mean, the, the feeling of being connected

00:29:01.860 to a history of thousands of years, that's a really, really powerful feeling.

00:29:06.740 And I could just sit here and try to feel that way, but rituals really give me a very

00:29:11.580 different way of doing that, of saying people like me have been doing this and this has been

00:29:15.880 important to them for that long.

00:29:17.860 It's just a very different, rich connection that rituals can help us to get.

00:29:21.840 What about rituals and romantic relationships?

00:29:24.760 How can rituals strengthen those?

00:29:26.600 So, you know, we have weddings.

00:29:28.040 That's a ritual.

00:29:29.560 It's a big thing.

00:29:30.680 It definitely counts.

00:29:31.520 It's very, very important.

00:29:32.600 But then, you know, that's one day.

00:29:34.760 You have an anniversary.

00:29:36.120 So like once a year, you're supposed to celebrate and say, you know, oh yeah, I still like you.

00:29:40.300 I guess Valentine's Day makes us also do that at least one time a year.

00:29:44.320 But what about all the other days?

00:29:45.820 You know, can rituals play a role there?

00:29:48.060 And when you ask couples, you know, is there anything, we rarely ask, do you have a ritual?

00:29:52.300 But we'll ask, you know, is there anything that you, the two of you do that's special,

00:29:56.600 that you make sure you always do it, that other couples don't really do?

00:30:00.580 It's your special thing.

00:30:02.360 Two thirds, three quarters of a couple say, you know what?

00:30:04.320 We do have something.

00:30:05.180 And there are things like, we always kiss in threes.

00:30:08.760 And one person that was like, we've been doing it for 22 years.

00:30:11.740 It's just, you know, they could have done two kisses or four, but for them it's three.

00:30:15.320 And this other couple said, before we eat, we clink our silverware together.

00:30:20.160 Just these little tiny, you know, forks are boring, but this couple made their silverware 0.98

00:30:25.880 into something really meaningful for themselves.

00:30:28.240 Speaking of savoring, kind of savoring the moment before they start to eat.

00:30:32.460 And we do see that couples who say they have a relationship ritual tend to report higher

00:30:37.440 relationship satisfaction than couples who say, we don't have anything like that.

00:30:40.900 Yeah, and they have to be exclusive.

00:30:44.000 It has to be just unique for that person.

00:30:45.460 If you find out that, like there's that, I think there's that Olivia Rodrigo song, Deja Vu.

00:30:51.860 Have you heard that song?

00:30:52.960 Uh-huh.

00:30:53.480 You know, it's about this guy who's, you know, dated one girl, broke up with her,

00:30:56.620 now he's dating a new girl.

00:30:57.500 And he's doing the exact same things that he did with his previous girlfriend.

00:31:02.600 You know, this girl thinks it's like a neat, unique thing to her, but she doesn't realize,

00:31:07.160 actually, this guy just does it to every girl that he's in a relationship with.

00:31:10.180 And so it loses its ritualistic meaning.

00:31:13.200 One of the fascinating things.

00:31:15.640 So when you break up with somebody, you might not like it, but they're definitely allowed

00:31:20.140 to date other people.

00:31:21.640 They're allowed to get married.

00:31:23.260 They're allowed to have kids.

00:31:24.460 Again, you might not love it, but they're allowed to do that.

00:31:27.360 But they are not allowed to reuse your rituals with their new partner.

00:31:32.600 Like that is simply the rudest thing you could possibly do.

00:31:36.520 And people get so, even something like your pet nicknames.

00:31:39.960 Like if we were Shmooper Bear or whatever it was, you may not call your next partner.

00:31:45.620 You may marry them and spend the rest of your life with them.

00:31:48.500 You may not call them Shmooper Bear.

00:31:50.340 And it's exactly as you said, because it's such a violation of what was special about

00:31:55.300 us that you would ever think to use that with somebody else.

00:31:59.080 And you also talk about that people have rituals around the breakup itself.

00:32:04.320 So when a relationship ends, how do I leave that relationship behind me?

00:32:09.640 And you see people often engaging in ritual to sort of say, let me put to bed the person

00:32:14.960 I was with whoever that was so that I can be a new person with this new person.

00:32:19.700 Some of the best, honestly, the most entertaining best examples of self-made rituals are the

00:32:26.560 ones that people do when they, especially when they are broken up with.

00:32:30.300 Now it's like delete the pictures on Instagram or whatever.

00:32:32.920 But in the old world, it's shockingly common that people would take all the pictures of themselves

00:32:37.380 with their ex and burn them, literally put them in a pile and burn them to say, like,

00:32:43.620 I'm eliminating you from everything of my life. 1.00

00:32:46.780 I will never speak with you again.

00:32:49.020 Why do we do that?

00:32:49.940 On the one hand, you can say, what an odd thing to do.

00:32:51.520 On the other hand, it sounds like, that's probably a good idea.

00:32:53.380 I wish I had tried that, you know, at least one time.

00:32:56.200 Because we're trying to use it to say demarcation.

00:32:58.900 I'm not that person anymore.

00:33:00.820 Now I'm somebody new.

00:33:02.520 Continuing on this idea of relationships and rituals, let's talk about family rituals.

00:33:06.080 We've mentioned a few throughout this conversation.

00:33:08.180 People have their own unique Thanksgiving rituals they might do, holiday rituals.

00:33:12.000 But you have this idea that there are people and families that are really good about making

00:33:18.460 sure family traditions keep going on.

00:33:21.560 And they're called kinkeepers.

00:33:23.500 Tell us about kinkeepers.

00:33:25.780 You can think of the person in your family, every extended family.

00:33:30.180 Typically, most nuclear families have someone.

00:33:32.580 And then an extended family has someone as well, who is the person who is responsible

00:33:38.260 for the family remaining a family.

00:33:41.340 They are the ones who call everyone or email everyone and say, what are we going to do for

00:33:47.100 Thanksgiving this year?

00:33:48.580 What are we going to do for this holiday this year?

00:33:50.860 What are we going to do for dad's birthday?

00:33:53.040 And if you look across time, you know, across decades, it's the same person every single year

00:33:59.040 who's sending those emails.

00:34:00.360 Their siblings and family members sometimes find them annoying.

00:34:04.400 Why does this person keep bothering us with the birthday thing?

00:34:08.180 And yet, without the role that person plays, families start to disintegrate.

00:34:12.620 I mean, is a family a collection of random individuals or is a family a family?

00:34:18.300 And just like any relationship, including romantic relationships, they require work.

00:34:23.520 You know, employee relationships require work.

00:34:25.960 Every relationship, you have to put something into it to keep it healthy and sustained.

00:34:30.880 And these kin keepers who do this enormous amount of emotional work for families are really

00:34:35.580 the glue in terms of keeping a family a family.

00:34:39.180 And that's what we were talking earlier about.

00:34:40.800 You know, people say, I never would have seen my aunts and uncles unless we'd had these

00:34:45.000 big family celebrations.

00:34:46.940 Well, they should thank whoever the kin keeper was in that generation because they're the ones

00:34:51.100 that made it happen.

00:34:52.260 They're the ones that gave you an extended family through doing a huge amount of work

00:34:57.340 on the back end to make sure everybody came together.

00:35:00.300 Yeah, I know in my family, on my mother's side, we got together quite often growing up

00:35:04.900 with my cousins.

00:35:06.120 It was usually at Thanksgiving.

00:35:08.060 It was because my grandfather had this ranch in New Mexico and we would go there for Thanksgiving.

00:35:13.960 But then once my grandpa got too old and he had to sell the ranch, the family get-togethers

00:35:20.920 got fewer and far between.

00:35:22.780 And really, the last time my extended family got together was at his funeral.

00:35:28.800 That was it.

00:35:30.040 He was the kin keeper, for sure.

00:35:32.120 Yep.

00:35:32.380 And you need somebody to replace that person somehow or it's very, very difficult to keep

00:35:37.920 their traditions going.

00:35:39.020 Also, by the way, genius is when parents are like, I never see my kids anymore, they're

00:35:43.940 18, they're out of the house, vacation home.

00:35:47.840 If you have the cash, the best way to make your kids and then your grandkids visit you

00:35:51.980 is to live somewhere awesome so that they feel like visiting you anyway.

00:35:56.000 I don't have necessarily the cash to buy 10 houses all over the place, but it does seem

00:35:59.660 to be pretty effective.

00:36:01.120 That does seem like a good idea.

00:36:02.600 I think what helped my grandfather be in the kin keeper was that his place in New Mexico,

00:36:08.000 it was cool.

00:36:09.320 It was a desirable spot.

00:36:10.880 People wanted to go there.

00:36:11.980 I mean, at least the grandkids wanted to go there.

00:36:14.560 It's harder to entice people to come to a gathering and say the regular suburbs than

00:36:20.520 someplace cool like that.

00:36:21.940 Have you done any research on how people combine family traditions when they get married?

00:36:27.340 It is a source of enormous conflict for many, many couples.

00:36:32.100 The one case, of course, is when people of different faiths marry, and then you need to 1.00

00:36:38.000 combine not just family rituals, but also religious rituals.

00:36:41.780 What will we keep?

00:36:43.260 What will we discard?

00:36:45.320 But even in the absence of religious differences, there's just cultural differences and there's

00:36:50.420 just family differences.

00:36:52.180 So, you know, on Thanksgiving, if my family always ate at four and yours ate at two, do

00:36:58.100 we eat at three?

00:36:59.180 You know, is that the compromise?

00:37:00.900 Or do we do four, but we make sure that we do another thing that your family did?

00:37:05.740 And what you see couples doing as they develop is they very, very often take some from one

00:37:11.960 family, some from another family, and then they develop their own over time.

00:37:16.660 That's the most common pattern, which means you're both honoring the past and keeping things

00:37:22.880 that were important and keeping that connection.

00:37:25.360 And you're also constantly, just like in all these domains of life, freelancing and creating

00:37:30.140 your own that have special meaning for you, giving them to your kids, and then they're

00:37:34.280 going to do the same thing in the next generation.

00:37:36.620 How do you know when it's time to discard a family tradition?

00:37:41.280 For me, it's if people, as you said, if people stop showing up, you probably should try

00:37:45.720 something different.

00:37:47.060 You know, I think if there's too much conflict around it or people are just too resistant

00:37:52.020 to doing it, you can't force people to do anything, right?

00:37:55.240 So you have to create things that are going to be meaningful enough that people are going

00:37:58.700 to want to keep coming back for it.

00:38:00.420 Yeah, we had a family tradition growing up.

00:38:03.320 My hometown puts on this really big 4th of July parade.

00:38:06.400 We went to it every single 4th of July when I was a kid.

00:38:10.120 And then even after I got married, my siblings got married, we'd still go to it.

00:38:14.580 And the thing is, it's the exact same thing for 30 plus years.

00:38:20.560 You see the exact same thing.

00:38:21.920 It's usually just advertisements for the local businesses on these floats.

00:38:25.560 And it's a big hassle.

00:38:26.880 It's hot.

00:38:27.720 You know, I live in Oklahoma.

00:38:29.500 So it's like, you know, 95 degrees.

00:38:31.260 It's humid.

00:38:32.360 You know, my brother-in-law would have to get out there at six o'clock in the morning to

00:38:36.740 get a spot.

00:38:37.880 And you had to sit at this thing for like two and a half hours, three hours.

00:38:41.480 And it was just a given you did this thing.

00:38:44.480 Like, yeah, it's 4th of July.

00:38:45.600 We got to go to the Liberty Fest 4th of July parade in Edmond, Oklahoma.

00:38:49.480 And I remember one year, my wife and I were just like, we don't want to do this anymore.

00:38:54.060 How about we just don't do this?

00:38:55.120 And we stopped going.

00:38:56.700 And then everyone else was like, yeah, actually, you know what?

00:39:00.700 We don't like going either.

00:39:02.000 And so the tradition ended.

00:39:03.900 I mean, we still get together on 4th of July, but we do other things.

00:39:06.980 But it's just funny because we kept doing this tradition of going to the parade year

00:39:11.200 after year because that's what the tradition was.

00:39:13.960 But no one liked doing it.

00:39:15.780 We used to go to, when I was a kid, to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston.

00:39:19.740 And at some point when I was a kid, I think my parents realized that mainly what it was

00:39:24.520 was super drunk college students just shouting and throwing stuff around.

00:39:31.040 So they were like, you know what?

00:39:32.120 Let's just put an end to that tradition.

00:39:33.920 We'll not go to the parade anymore.

00:39:35.460 So yeah, things change.

00:39:37.820 Yeah, I think that's good.

00:39:39.120 What about rituals and grieving?

00:39:41.480 There's a lot of rituals around that.

00:39:43.240 What does your research say about that?

00:39:44.980 This is a case where, not to overclaim, but really if you look at any faith or any culture,

00:39:53.660 there is some practice around death and loss.

00:39:56.760 They vary really, really widely.

00:39:58.400 Even the color that is used in some cultures, you wear black.

00:40:02.100 In other cultures, you wear white.

00:40:03.420 In other cultures, it's red.

00:40:05.340 In other cultures, it's green.

00:40:06.720 But there is a decided upon color.

00:40:09.500 There's a decided upon ceremony that helps us get through grief.

00:40:13.580 And those ceremonies are incredibly important for people in bringing their family together,

00:40:19.620 giving them social support, connecting them with their faith.

00:40:22.400 These are all key elements of grief.

00:40:24.320 And also what we see is people, again, are freelancing their own little rituals.

00:40:29.620 So they absolutely go to a funeral.

00:40:32.780 And then if we say, what else did you do?

00:40:34.160 They say, well, you know, actually, another thing that I did was I listened to my mom's

00:40:37.580 favorite song every morning on the way to work for a year.

00:40:41.060 There's no 2,000-year-old text that says, listen to your mom's favorite song, you know,

00:40:46.400 on your way to work, obviously.

00:40:48.100 So what are people doing?

00:40:49.420 Well, the funeral is one day, and now we're still grieving.

00:40:53.580 And so people come up with their own little rituals, not, you know, candles and people in

00:40:58.320 robes rituals, but their own little practices to try to honor the person that they lost.

00:41:03.640 Again, these rituals are helping with the stress of losing somebody.

00:41:07.580 It's a process, you know, if I do these things, even though I'm feeling bad, I can do these

00:41:11.940 things to keep moving through this process.

00:41:15.340 Grief is such a complicated series of emotions.

00:41:18.040 It's not just one emotion, but one of the key predictors of grief is feeling a lack of

00:41:24.020 control because this terrible thing happened that you absolutely did not want to happen,

00:41:29.760 and you were powerless to stop it from happening.

00:41:32.620 And that loss of control is in and of itself a predictor of the intensity of your grief,

00:41:38.800 because as we discussed earlier, we do not like to feel that we don't have control,

00:41:43.300 especially over the things that are most important to us.

00:41:46.600 And researchers have suggested that rituals in the face of grief,

00:41:50.880 they're orderly practiced events that we've inherited, that they might be also part of

00:41:56.600 restoring a little bit of a sense of control in these moments where we really feel out of

00:42:01.860 control.

00:42:02.860 So we've been talking about, you know, people creating their own DIY version of a ritual.

00:42:08.100 Do you have any advice on how people can create their own rituals?

00:42:12.460 You know, when should they create a ritual for something?

00:42:14.760 Any tactics on how to create a ritual?

00:42:17.360 Or do we just have like an intuitive sense on how to do this already?

00:42:20.400 I think so.

00:42:21.020 The first step that I always suggest people do is actually to take an inventory of their

00:42:25.980 current rituals, because even if you're someone who thinks I don't do these, you know, I'm

00:42:31.520 not a new agey millennial or whatever you might think, you absolutely are doing them in various

00:42:37.040 parts of your life.

00:42:38.580 And if you don't think you're doing them, you can ask your significant other, you can ask your

00:42:44.380 kids, you can ask your co-workers, do I do anything?

00:42:47.540 And they'll be happy to tell you all of the quirky things that you're up to.

00:42:51.540 And I think even before thinking about adding anything, because, you know, if I said, you know what's

00:42:56.180 great is to meditate for six hours every day.

00:42:58.740 It's like, well, thanks for the advice, but I don't have, you know, six hours every day to

00:43:03.280 meditate.

00:43:03.660 That sounds great.

00:43:04.660 I do think actually recognizing where you already have them and then owning them a little bit

00:43:09.380 more, you know, recognizing that these are little practices, recognizing what you and your

00:43:13.760 spouse do when you say goodbye in the morning, that in and of itself can already be a start

00:43:19.020 on seeing the important roles that rituals are playing in your life.

00:43:23.060 Well, Michael, this has been a great conversation.

00:43:24.460 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:43:27.140 MichaelNorton.com is the easiest.

00:43:28.960 And actually we developed a quiz.

00:43:30.780 So if you go to the website, just click quiz and it's a very quick quiz, but we ask you about

00:43:35.480 rituals in different domains of your life.

00:43:37.220 Speaking of doing an inventory that kind of tells you which domains are you high and low on

00:43:42.040 and where might you think about trying some different things.

00:43:44.600 Fantastic.

00:43:44.980 Well, Michael Norton, thanks so much for your time.

00:43:46.520 It's been a pleasure.

00:43:47.440 Thank you so much, Brett.

00:43:49.020 My guest today is Michael Norton.

00:43:50.440 He's the author of the book, The Ritual Effect.

00:43:52.220 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:43:54.480 You can find more information about his work at his website, michaelnorton.com.

00:43:57.780 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash everyday rituals.

00:44:01.080 We find links to resources.

00:44:02.280 We delve deeper into this topic.

00:44:10.620 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.

00:44:13.560 The Art of Manly's website has been around for over 16 years now and the podcast for over

00:44:17.440 10, and they both have always had one aim, to help men take action, to improve every area

00:44:22.640 of their lives, to become better friends, citizens, husbands, and fathers, better men.

00:44:28.420 If you've gotten something out of the AOM podcast, please consider giving back by leaving a review

00:44:32.280 or sharing an episode with a friend.

00:44:34.220 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:44:36.440 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:44:38.080 Remind you to not listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:44:41.480 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - April 10, 2024

The Power of Everyday Rituals to Shape and Enhance Our Lives

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