0:00

The ritual is when you get to the

0:02

how. So how you do them starts to

0:04

matter. The way in which you do them,

0:06

your own personal way, means more to you.

0:08

And that's like the very beginning to me

0:11

of the difference between a habit and a

0:13

ritual. Just the idea that the very same

0:15

simple, boring actions can

0:18

sometimes get imbued with more, more

0:21

emotion, more meaning, more something. To me, that's

0:23

when it moves from kind of the mindless

0:25

habit to something a little bit richer. Have

0:31

you ever wondered what the difference is

0:33

between habits and ritual? Or maybe you've

0:35

wondered why do we do things like

0:37

celebrate birthdays with cake and candles? Why

0:40

do couples develop special routines together? Why do

0:42

you eat or drink or do the same

0:44

things every day but in a mindful way?

0:47

And what does science say that

0:49

this actually does for you? My

0:51

guest today, researcher and professor Michael Norton

0:53

says, these types of rituals do more

0:55

than just mark occasions. They can

0:58

literally transform our emotional experiences and

1:00

connect us with ourselves and others.

1:02

And in my experience, rituals, they provide

1:05

comfort and meaning, especially during times of

1:07

change. But how actually do they

1:09

work? And how can we harness

1:11

rituals to affect incredible change in our lives?

1:13

And what's even the difference between

1:15

a ritual and a habit? Because we've heard

1:17

so much about habits. But what about these

1:19

things called rituals and the power they hold?

1:22

Michael is the Harold M. Breerley

1:24

Professor of Business Administration at Harvard

1:26

Business School. And he provides

1:28

fascinating insights in his new book, The

1:31

Ritual Effect, From Habit to Ritual, Harnessing

1:33

the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions. His

1:36

research shows that rituals are more than

1:38

just habits. They're meaningful, emotion-laden

1:40

actions that serve important purposes in

1:42

our lives. In this episode, Michael

1:44

and I explore the differences between

1:46

habits and rituals. We go into

1:48

how rituals help us cope during

1:51

grief and transition in so many other times

1:53

in our lives. And we consider

1:55

how introducing new rituals can enhance our

1:57

relationships, savoring, and providing the best possible.

2:00

personal growth. And his

2:02

insights are equal parts scientific and

2:04

also just really practical. With a

2:06

lot of humor and empathy, he reveals the

2:08

hidden power of our everyday actions.

2:11

So excited to share this conversation with you.

2:14

And one last thing before we dive into today's

2:16

conversation, I want to share a fun new project

2:18

that I have created for you. It's a way

2:20

to feel more alive and less alone. So

2:22

after taking a years-long hiatus from public writing,

2:25

I'm back and with a new weekly newsletter

2:27

and community called Awake at the Wheel. So

2:30

every Sunday morning in your inbox, you'll get

2:32

a new story and insight written by me

2:34

along with a journaling and conversation prompt

2:36

designed to help you feel more alive and

2:39

less alone. And hey, even if you're not

2:41

a journaler, it'll give you something to think about so

2:44

you can step into your week in a more intentional

2:46

way. And just on a personal level,

2:48

I am just so excited to get

2:50

back to writing in a more personal, vulnerable,

2:52

long-form way. It would mean the world to

2:54

me if you would support this

2:56

new project. So go check out the

2:59

latest stories and insights and see what this week's

3:01

writing and conversation prompt is now. I think you'll

3:03

really like it. I'll see you over

3:05

at Awake at the Wheel. Just click the link

3:07

in the show notes now. I'm

3:09

Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life

3:11

Project. Partnering

3:27

with Bank of America gives your operation

3:29

access to exclusive digital tools,

3:31

award winning insights, and business

3:33

solutions so powerful you'll make

3:35

every move matter. Visit bankofamerica.com/banking

3:37

for business to learn more.

3:40

What would you like the power to do? Bank

3:43

of America, N.A. Copyright 2024. Hiring

3:47

for your small business? If you're not looking

3:49

for professionals on LinkedIn, you're looking in the

3:51

wrong place. That's like looking for your car

3:53

keys in a fish tank. LinkedIn

3:56

helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else,

3:58

even those who aren't actively searching for a new

4:00

job but might be open to the perfect role.

4:03

In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn

4:06

users don't even visit other leading job

4:08

sites. So start looking in the right

4:10

place. With LinkedIn, you can hire professionals

4:12

like a professional. Post your

4:14

free job on linkedin.com/spoken

4:16

today. Hey

4:18

there, it's Michelle Norris. I'm host of a

4:20

podcast called Your Mama's Kitchen. When I travel

4:23

I'm usually looking for a way to find a

4:25

taste of home when I'm not at home. And

4:27

one of the things I love to do when

4:29

I am at home is entertain. And Airbnb allows

4:32

me to do that. When I was in California

4:34

recently I rented a house that had a great

4:36

kitchen. And when we were sitting around the table

4:38

we were all thinking we're in someone else's house.

4:40

Someone could be in all of our homes as

4:43

well. If you have a home but

4:45

you're not always at home, you

4:47

have an Airbnb. Your home might

4:49

be worth more than you think.

4:51

Find out how much at

4:54

airbnb.com/host. I

5:00

love the topic of your recent work and

5:02

your new book, The Ritual Effect. The notion

5:04

of ritual has been something that's so fascinating

5:06

to me for so many years.

5:08

It's something that looked at in my

5:10

own life. It's something that I've sort

5:12

of thought about. But the lens that

5:14

you bring to it is interesting

5:17

and useful. It really sort

5:19

of deconstructs this notion of what it is, what

5:21

it isn't, how it weaves into our lives. And

5:23

then applies to very specific

5:26

and certainly domains of life that I really

5:28

want to dip into. But I think a

5:30

good opening sort of question for

5:32

us is when we're talking about ritual, what are

5:35

we actually talking about? I

5:37

think I want to preface anything I say

5:39

by saying I'm not anti-habit. I

5:42

think good habits are great. Some of my research is

5:44

trying to help people. If they want to

5:46

exercise more, we try to help them and all this kind of stuff.

5:48

But I do think that sometimes

5:50

we overly focus on just having

5:53

good habits. Because I think if

5:55

you think about a life of perfect habits, for example,

5:58

40 years where every day

6:00

is absolutely perfect habits, exercise, eating right,

6:02

everything. I think you look back and

6:04

say it was a pretty dry, boring

6:07

kind of life. You'd be super healthy. There's

6:09

no doubt. But would you say I

6:11

had a rich life or an interesting life or

6:13

a varied life? And I think sometimes

6:16

that's where rituals come in actually is that they help

6:18

us get out of I mean,

6:20

literally, we're going through the motions in our everyday

6:22

life, we have this phrase, I think rituals help

6:24

us get a little bit more

6:26

than that out of everyday life, a little

6:29

more joy, a little more meaning, just a

6:31

little more emotion than habit driven all the

6:33

time. So break

6:35

down how you see rituals being different

6:38

from habit because for sure habit has

6:40

been, you know, it's been at

6:42

the center of the zeitgeist for a chunk of time

6:44

now. And there's a lot of conversation

6:46

around it anytime you write something or record something

6:48

that has the word habit and if you're like,

6:51

like, that's the thing that will make my life better. And you're

6:54

not saying no, that's not true. But tease out

6:56

what is the distinction between ritual and habit. Can

6:58

I ask you a kind of silly question? Yeah,

7:00

in the morning, do you brush

7:02

your teeth first and then shower or do you

7:04

shower and then brush your teeth? Well,

7:07

that's assuming that either. To the extent

7:09

that you bathe. Let's

7:13

assume that I do brush my teeth every

7:15

morning, whether I shower or not is completely

7:17

different issue. But I do

7:19

have a morning quote routine, how

7:22

much of that is ritual and how much of

7:24

it is habit. You know, like, I guess that'd

7:26

be interesting to tease

7:28

out. I wake up in the morning, I brush my

7:30

teeth. I move from there and

7:33

I lie on a couch and I do

7:35

breathing exercises and meditate. Like, that is the

7:37

way that every single day starts and it

7:39

has for years. And how would you

7:41

feel if I said mix it up tomorrow? And

7:45

why? How come? I

7:48

think that I have come to look at

7:50

that as sort of just

7:52

the way that I start my day. My brain is

7:54

tuned to the fact that this is what happens when

7:57

you open your eyes. And I

7:59

don't think about it. it anymore. It's

8:01

become automatic, which I guess is one of the things

8:03

that really drops it into the habit bucket to a

8:05

certain extent. Yeah, I think when we ask

8:07

people about their morning routine,

8:10

or we can talk about routine versus ritual, but

8:12

most people have something that they do in

8:15

the specific order or something like that. But then if

8:17

I say, as I asked you, switch it up, about

8:20

half of people say, sure, couldn't care less,

8:22

no problem. You know, if you brush your

8:24

teeth and then shower or whatever, if I

8:26

say flip the order, whatever, they say, yeah,

8:28

I don't care. And for me,

8:30

those are kind of like habits, because you

8:33

need to get them done. You know, you have a checklist of stuff

8:35

you're supposed to get done, you got to check them off. But

8:37

the order in which you do them, or how

8:40

you do them, just doesn't really matter that much to

8:42

you. But about half of people say, I

8:45

don't want to, you know, I'd rather not.

8:47

And if I say why they say, I'm not

8:49

sure, you know, I don't have a great reason

8:51

why I want to do it the way I

8:53

do it. But I feel good, I feel ready,

8:56

I feel more alive when I do it

8:58

this way in the morning. And as you

9:00

said, switching it up, they feel antsy, they

9:02

say, I'll feel off all day, I'll feel

9:05

weird, all these sorts of words. And

9:07

for me, that means that it's gone from a very

9:10

kind of dry habit, where it really is

9:12

just, we think of it as the wash,

9:14

I'm going to do these specific things. And

9:17

the ritual is when you get to the

9:19

how, so how you do them starts to

9:21

matter, the way in which you do them,

9:23

your own personal way, oddly enough of brushing

9:25

your teeth, means more

9:27

to you. And that's like the very

9:29

beginning to me of the difference between

9:31

a habit and a ritual, not a

9:34

ritual, like people in robes with candles,

9:36

chanting like that, that's further away. But

9:38

just the idea that the very same,

9:40

simple, boring actions can

9:43

sometimes get imbued with more, more

9:46

emotion, more meaning, more something. To

9:48

me, that's when it moves from kind of the

9:50

mindless habit that you were talking about to something

9:52

a little bit richer. So

9:55

maybe let's stay on that morning routine as

9:57

a bucket to reference a little bit longer.

10:00

And if we take that, you know, what I

10:02

just described as mine, like I wake up, I brush my teeth,

10:04

I breathe, and then I meditate. I

10:07

don't ever think about how I'm brushing my teeth,

10:09

but I could pretty much guarantee it's the exact

10:12

same thing every single time, you know, like right,

10:14

left, top, bottom, up, that whatever it is, like...

10:17

In fact, my dentist actually said, looking

10:19

in my mouth, said, I know exactly the order

10:21

that you do your teeth. And I said, how

10:23

do you know? And he said, because

10:25

when you start out, you're really

10:28

like getting into it, you're brushing your teeth,

10:30

and by the end, you're just kind of like, well, whatever. So

10:33

he said, you can actually tell the spots that

10:35

are brushed well is usually where you start because

10:37

you're like, yes, doing it now. And then by

10:39

the end, you just don't even care anymore. It's

10:41

like amazing, you know? That's too

10:43

funny. So when

10:45

I finally get to the place where

10:48

I do my breathing exercises, and

10:50

then I do my meditation, here's where

10:52

I'm curious, because the container of

10:54

doing those things and sort of like the step of,

10:56

okay, now I'm going to do my breathing, my pranayama,

10:58

and now I'm going to do my meditation. That

11:01

happens like clockwork. I don't think about that. Like,

11:03

this is just the way that my morning unfolds.

11:06

You know, I could be traveling wherever it is. As long

11:08

as I have that like window set aside, it's always going

11:10

to happen. But within the

11:12

container of the behavior, there

11:15

are times where I make choices to do

11:17

it differently. So one day I

11:19

may do a different type of breathing exercise, or

11:21

on a Sunday morning, I might do a meta

11:24

or loving kindness meditation, or, you

11:27

know, instead of my traditional breath-oriented meditation, I

11:29

may look at like the app that I

11:31

use as a timer and say like, well,

11:33

maybe I'm going to be guided by Tara

11:35

Brock or someone else today. I'm listening to

11:37

something else. So am I overlaying

11:40

ritual and habit there?

11:43

Are you using the different variations

11:46

because you're looking, what are you looking for

11:48

when you do it differently? Like the feeling

11:50

or the outcome? What are you

11:52

shooting for when you say, you know what, today,

11:54

I think I'm going to do this instead of

11:57

that. Yeah, it's an interesting question. And my sense

11:59

is... that I'll

12:01

pause, I'll take a beat, and without

12:04

consciously using the words, like what do I

12:06

need this morning, I'll effectively be asking myself

12:09

that question. Like how am I, did

12:11

I sleep well, did I not sleep well, do I need

12:13

a little bit more energizing, do I need something that's just

12:15

totally chill, am I spiraling or

12:17

feeling really tired, in which case I might

12:19

want a voice to guide me, or do

12:21

I feel like I can just drop into

12:24

my breath? So I think it's more like,

12:26

in this moment, what do I need from

12:28

this practice? Yeah, and so it's interesting because

12:30

you think about, in one way

12:32

we want habits to become mindless, right? I

12:34

mean, we wanna just never

12:36

think about it again, just do the good thing

12:39

forever. And that is good,

12:41

I mean, the research shows that's very helpful, but

12:43

very often, even within habits that are

12:45

quote unquote mindless, meaning you do them

12:48

every day, you're still getting

12:50

more out of them. They aren't just mindless.

12:53

So for you, kind of, they're

12:55

going through the motions in a sense, because you know you're

12:57

gonna do it every day, but

12:59

you're also embedding more meaning in

13:01

it. How you are doing the

13:03

meditation is important to you for

13:06

who you are. You don't just wanna take a

13:08

ready-made one and always do that. You

13:11

wanna express something about what you need or who

13:13

you are within your meditation. And there

13:15

again, it's more than just, I

13:18

need to meditate today, set the timer, couldn't

13:20

care less what kind, you know, I just

13:22

am supposed to do this. And you say,

13:25

no, no, no, how I do it is

13:27

gonna be very, very important to me, because

13:29

I'm looking typically with rituals for an outcome

13:32

after the fact. I'm doing this in order

13:34

to feel this way later. Habits

13:36

are often, I'm doing this to get this done. Rituals

13:39

are often, I'm gonna do this, so that.

13:42

And when you get the so that as well,

13:44

you start to get more into this emotion and

13:46

meaning and what are we looking for throughout our

13:48

day. That's interesting. So

13:51

can you effectively then have rituals embedded

13:53

inside of habits? Cause that sounds kind

13:55

of like what we're talking about here.

13:57

Absolutely, and I mean, one thing that's.

14:00

As a nerd, I would say fascinating. As

14:02

a researcher, I'd say frustrating, is

14:04

the very same behaviors for one person

14:06

can be a boring habit,

14:09

and for someone else, it can be like

14:11

an incredibly meaningful ritual. So I mean, even

14:13

if you think about religious services, if

14:16

I'm Irish Catholic, so if I watch a

14:18

Catholic mass from on high, everyone's

14:20

doing the exact same thing. The whole, you

14:23

know, they're standing, they're kneeling, they're doing the

14:25

appropriate thing in any religion. Everybody's doing the

14:27

right thing. If I'm looking,

14:29

everyone looks like they're engaged in a meaningful

14:31

ritual. However, when I ask people at the

14:33

end, one person says, you know what, this

14:35

is the most important time of the

14:37

week for me. It expresses my

14:39

faith, it connects me to my family,

14:42

to my relatives, to sometimes a thousand,

14:44

two thousand, three thousand year history, and

14:47

other people say, yeah, I just went because my mom

14:49

made me. I

14:51

can't tell looking which one's which, we really

14:53

actually have to get, and same with meditation.

14:56

Some people are doing it, you know, I

14:58

know I'm supposed to do this, and other people are doing

15:00

it truly deeply because it means something

15:03

deeper to them, and it is

15:05

frustrating because we can't just say, aha, three

15:08

claps and two stomps, that's a ritual.

15:10

We have to go to you and say, you know

15:12

what, is how you're doing this important to you? What's

15:15

the meaning you're getting out of these actions? Yeah,

15:17

I mean, that makes a lot of sense, and even on

15:19

any given day within the same person, I'm thinking about that

15:21

morning practice for me. There's some days where

15:23

I'm just like, you know, I'm

15:25

hitting the button, and then, I don't know the time, it's just

15:28

like my default, and I'm just like, I can't

15:30

wait for like, that 25 minute triple chime

15:32

to happen. And there are

15:34

other days where I really, I drop into it, and

15:36

I feel like there's something like, a little bit more

15:38

juicy happening, and what's interesting also, especially in the context

15:41

of meditation, it's like one of the instructions is always,

15:44

you don't step into it with an expectation. It's

15:46

not about like, what you want from the practice,

15:48

it's simply about doing the practice, and

15:51

yet you're human. That's exactly right.

15:53

It's really hard to let that go. Right. When

15:56

we think about the difference between ritual and

15:59

habit, Curiosity of

16:01

mine is the attention

16:03

element of it I

16:05

always understood that habits are these things that

16:08

we start doing in a very intentional and

16:10

Attentive way like because we kind of have

16:12

to to make it happen and

16:14

then through repetition over

16:17

time that the intentionality

16:19

and the Attentional part of it

16:22

it kind of falls away and this just becomes an

16:24

automatic thing where we're not really focused on it anymore

16:26

And I've heard all sorts of justifications for it You

16:28

know like there it conserves energy in our brain We

16:30

have to do this with so many the behaviors that

16:33

we do every day It seems

16:35

like there's also a different intentional

16:37

and attentional quality to ritual. I

16:39

think that's right I mean, I will say

16:42

the the idea that habits become

16:45

Automatic and then we just continue to execute

16:47

them forever that

16:49

can happen but For

16:51

most of us habits don't become

16:54

that kind of automatic especially habits

16:56

that are effortful It's just

16:58

if you look at people, you know sticking

17:00

with exercising every morning. We're not

17:02

great We're just not we're just not doing that

17:04

life intervenes and all these sorts of things So

17:07

it's true that it can happen that you

17:10

repeat habits over time and then they just become built

17:12

in But it is often There's

17:14

still intention even with habits because you still

17:17

gotta put your shoes on and go outside

17:19

at 6 a.m And start running

17:21

that's part of the process why it's so hard to

17:23

have our habits And one of the

17:25

things that we see is that rituals can help

17:27

us a little bit with that so I was

17:29

talking to some elite runners and Just

17:32

very simply asking them. How do you tie

17:34

your shoes? They just have

17:37

wonderful story. I mean, you know very

17:39

different from each other very complicated when they started why

17:42

they started It was their coach it was you know,

17:44

I mean all of these things about how they tie

17:46

their shoes It's probably one of them maybe

17:49

brushing your teeth is more boring. But tying your

17:51

shoes is pretty boring Yeah, you know you

17:53

just you put your shoe on and you tie it and

17:55

there you go And for them it

17:57

becomes a ritual. It's part of how they get

17:59

there themselves going so that they'll go

18:01

and run. And I do

18:03

think we see that with not just elite runners,

18:05

but also regular folks as well. That sometimes we

18:08

build in a little bit more

18:10

of a meaning into some aspects of

18:12

the habit in order to imbue

18:14

it with more than just, oh, God,

18:16

drudgery, but something else, right? When

18:18

I tie my shoes this way, and again, I

18:21

use silly examples on purpose. When I tie my

18:23

shoes this way, I feel ready

18:25

to go and maybe I'll be more likely

18:27

to actually go and run whatever they run,

18:29

20 miles instead of 10 miles. So

18:31

it's almost like it's a signal of something else. So

18:34

more broadly, if we zoom the lens out, what

18:37

do rituals do

18:39

to us and for us that

18:42

would argue to make them a bigger part

18:44

of our lives, to be more intentional about

18:46

it? So when I started studying

18:48

them, I was thinking actually that rituals

18:51

would probably, we use them in so

18:53

many domains of life, weddings and funerals

18:56

and to get amped up and to

18:58

calm down. I mean, almost anything

19:00

we're trying to do, we involve ritual. At

19:02

first, I thought that maybe what they did was

19:04

they kind of produced the same outcome across

19:07

these different domains. In other words, rituals always

19:09

make us feel X, and

19:11

then X helps us in different domains. And

19:14

that's absolutely not what we find at all.

19:16

In fact, what we find is that rituals

19:18

help us often generate the emotion that

19:20

we're looking for in that moment or in

19:22

that context. That's why we

19:24

use rituals to get super amped up like

19:27

team rituals before a game. And

19:29

people also use rituals if they're nervous about

19:31

something to try to calm themselves down. And

19:34

it's very strange that the same behaviors can

19:36

produce opposite emotional effects. That's usually not how

19:38

we work. But that to me

19:40

is why rituals can be so valuable. We

19:43

can produce emotions in all kinds of different ways.

19:46

You can get joy from hugging your spouse. But

19:48

one of the ways people get all of these emotions is

19:50

via ritual. And

19:52

then some of our research, I'm embarrassed that we called

19:54

it this, but it's too late. We studied

19:56

this thing called emo diversity. And

19:59

the idea there is... is that a lot of focus

20:01

on being happy and happiness, including in my

20:03

own research, by the way, just how do

20:05

we help people be happier? But

20:07

almost like having a life of perfect habits,

20:09

having a life where you're a perfect 10

20:12

happy every minute of every day of your

20:14

life, it's a nice life,

20:16

but it's pretty one note. I

20:18

mean, we wanna have ups and downs in

20:20

life. We learn about ourselves through ups and

20:22

downs in life. We go to sad movies,

20:24

we go to horror movies to try to

20:26

get sadness and fear and all of these

20:28

things. We like emotional variety

20:30

and we show in the research that

20:32

that variety of emotions is an independent

20:34

predictor of our wellbeing.

20:37

There's something good about having this

20:39

variance of emotions and

20:41

rituals are one of the ways. They're almost

20:43

like a tool that we use

20:45

to try to generate different kinds of emotions

20:47

and everyday ones, but also things like awe,

20:51

which is an amazing, amazing emotion, emotion

20:53

that we rarely feel. And

20:55

yet rituals are often involved in producing these

20:58

kinds of extraordinary emotions as well. Now,

21:00

it's interesting you brought up, had

21:02

a conversation I think last year with Dr.

21:04

Kelton, there was emo diversity and awe and

21:06

the time there. The

21:09

way you're describing it also is that

21:11

beyond rituals bringing not just

21:14

the thing into your life, but

21:16

an emotion to the thing, that

21:18

it brings a certain, could

21:20

I use the term activation energy to it?

21:22

I think that's right. I mean, the ritual

21:24

skeptics, and I was a ritual skeptic as

21:26

well. People say, I don't do any, I

21:29

don't do any of this ritual stuff. I'm a

21:31

rational, whatever kind of person. But you

21:33

can ask a question like, have

21:35

you ever made a cake and carefully

21:37

frosted the cake so that you can eat

21:39

it? And then before you eat it, what

21:41

you do is you stick wax candles

21:43

in it and light them on fire so

21:46

that the wax gets all over the cake, then

21:49

put it in front of someone and have them blow

21:51

all over the top of the cake and then eat the

21:54

cake. And of course the answer is yes, of course I

21:56

have. But what are we doing there? We're taking, I mean,

21:58

cake is kind of delicious than it's ever. own right.

22:00

But when we make it into a birthday

22:02

cake, we're adding so much

22:05

meaning. It's just cake. But now

22:07

it's something completely different. We kind of elevate

22:09

very basic things into something that has

22:12

more emotion, different emotions, social connection.

22:15

I mean, we make a cake

22:17

into a rite of passage where we're moving from

22:19

who we were to who we're going to

22:21

be, all with a silly little

22:23

cake. So they do actually give us

22:25

something more than just the

22:27

thing itself. They allow us to place emotions

22:30

on things that otherwise we might have a

22:32

harder time accessing. Yeah. I mean,

22:34

that makes a lot of sense. I mean, the

22:36

cake thing is interesting also, right? Because what you're

22:38

describing is not just emotions and a certain meaning

22:40

overlay. But also, and

22:42

tell me if this makes sense

22:44

to you, it changes the value proposition

22:47

of the experience or

22:49

the activity. So it's like you all of a

22:51

sudden eating a piece of cake now

22:54

becomes, oh, it is

22:56

a symbol of gathering and of

22:58

turning the page on another year in life.

23:00

And if you were going to say to

23:02

somebody, give me a piece of cake, place

23:04

a value on this piece of cake, three bucks, right?

23:07

And then a slice of cake from

23:09

your child's first birthday. Right. Place

23:11

a value on that slice of cake. It's priceless.

23:15

Do you feel like rituals would pretty

23:17

consistently change the value we associate with

23:19

an experience too? They do for sure.

23:22

And I think they really allow us

23:24

to imbue things with an

23:26

enormous amount of meaning that otherwise is hard

23:28

to get to. I was talking to a

23:30

journalist who was saying that she

23:32

didn't really have any rituals and

23:35

not in a skeptical way, just looking

23:37

for advice actually, you know, how can I use more

23:39

of this in my life? And

23:41

she said, you know, for example, I drink coffee every

23:43

morning, but I don't care. You know, it's not like

23:45

a ritual. It's just I need some caffeine. And so

23:47

she said, how can I make coffee more than

23:50

just coffee? And I said, well,

23:52

you know, I don't know you that well, we just met, but

23:54

you know, people will do things like prepare

23:57

the coffee in a certain way and do

23:59

that every so that there's a little

24:01

bit more effort of themselves invested in it.

24:04

And I said, or some people will eat the tea that

24:06

they drink or the coffee that they drink. It's

24:08

the one that they use their grandfather drank or

24:10

their grandmother drank. So they're in, it's the same

24:12

tea bag, but it now has more meaning. And

24:15

then I said, or you know, you drink out of the same mug

24:17

that has the meaning for you. She cut me off. And

24:20

she said, Oh my God, I never realized this, the

24:22

mug that I drink my coffee out of

24:25

is I got it when my daughter and

24:27

I were watching elephant seals giving birth. And

24:31

she said, I use the exact same mug every day.

24:33

And in fact, last week, my husband brought me it

24:35

in a different mug and I made him take it

24:37

back. So you know what you just

24:39

it's just liquid in a cup, just a cake on a

24:41

table. But by doing these

24:43

things, we actually imbue them with so so much

24:45

more. And it's I mean, you're one way you

24:47

could say what an odd thing that we do. And

24:50

in another way, what a gift that we're able

24:52

to do this with these things in our lives.

24:54

Yeah, I mean, that's such a cool example, too,

24:56

because it really shows that I guess

24:58

rituals are in no small part about taking

25:01

seemingly mundane or ordinary experiences,

25:03

and without altering the

25:05

experience in any observable way, making

25:08

them so much more emotional and meaningful to

25:10

you simply because of the frame that you

25:12

bring to them. One of my

25:14

very favorite examples across all of

25:16

the research we've done across all of

25:19

these domains, we did look at rituals

25:21

and relationships and marriage and romantic partnerships.

25:24

And we'll ask couples, you know, do you we don't say

25:26

do you have any rituals? Because they think we mean people

25:28

in robes with candles. But we say, you know, are there

25:30

any is there anything that you the two of you do

25:32

that's unique to you, that you make

25:34

sure to do it every day, every week, every

25:37

month, and usually two thirds to

25:39

three quarters of couples say yes. And

25:41

this one couple said, every time

25:43

before we eat, we clink our silverware together.

25:47

How is it? And it struck me just

25:49

it's so powerful because you can feel the

25:52

emotion in it for them. You know, nobody

25:54

clicks their silverware together except us. There's

25:57

no ancient text that says clink your silverware

25:59

together. before you eat, but for

26:01

them it becomes the tiniest, I mean what's more

26:03

boring than a fork? And

26:06

yet they've turned a fork into a symbol of

26:08

their relationship, you know? So it's really, absolutely

26:11

you're right, it's the most mundane thing

26:13

sometimes that we're able by

26:15

with ritual to create something more. Yeah,

26:19

and we'll be right back after a word from

26:21

our sponsors. When

26:26

it comes to your finances, you think you've done

26:28

it all. You save, you've researched, you've invested all

26:30

that you can. Now it's time

26:33

to take those investments to the next

26:35

level by using the brand behind every

26:37

great investor, Yahoo Finance. As America's number

26:39

one finance destination, Yahoo Finance has everything

26:41

you need whether you're a seasoned trader

26:43

or just dipping your toes into the

26:45

market. Join the millions of investors who

26:47

trust Yahoo Finance to guide them on their financial

26:49

journey. For comprehensive financial

26:51

news and analysis visit

26:54

Yahoo finance.com, the number one

26:56

financial destination, Yahoo finance.com. Since 2013, Bombas has donated

26:58

over 100 million socks,

27:04

underwear, and t-shirts to those facing homelessness. If we

27:06

counted those on air, this ad would last over

27:09

1,157 days, but if we counted the time it

27:11

takes to make a

27:14

donation possible, it would take just a few clicks

27:16

because every time you make a purchase, Bombas donates

27:18

an item to someone who needs it. Go

27:21

to bombas.com/Acast and use code Acast

27:23

for 20% off your

27:25

first purchase. That's bombas.com/Acast,

27:27

code Acast. Good

27:32

Life Project is sponsored by Wonderful

27:34

Pistachios. So listen up while you

27:36

busy buses running around town fueling

27:39

your days with sad desk snacks.

27:41

This is a PSA that it's

27:43

time to give your afternoon pick

27:45

me up a super yummy and

27:47

very crunchtastic makeover with Wonderful Pistachios.

27:49

I'm talking 6 grams

27:51

of complete plant-based protein packed into

27:53

every satisfyingly trackable crunchable ounce. That's

27:56

all nine essential amino acids. So

27:58

whether you're an old-school... roasted

28:00

and salted fan, which is kind of

28:02

me actually, or you like to walk

28:04

your taste buds over to the wild

28:06

side with jalapeno lime. Wonderful pistachios have

28:09

a flavor for every craving. And if

28:11

you don't want to crack shells, which

28:13

I happen to love doing for some

28:15

odd reason, wonderful pistachios no shells let

28:17

you skip the mess and get right

28:19

to the bun. So do yourself a

28:22

flavor pistachio people. Make your snacks more

28:24

nutritious and delicious with the protein punch

28:26

of wonderful pistachios. Your 3 p.m. hunger

28:28

pangs and taste buds will thank

28:31

you and quit settling for

28:33

those sad desk snacks you

28:35

deserve better. Visit wonderful pistachios.com

28:38

and get cracking. Good Life

28:40

Project is sponsored by Prolon, a pioneering

28:43

solution in the realm of fasting. So

28:45

I've been researching and also making fasting

28:47

and intermittent fasting a part of my

28:49

life for a number of years now.

28:51

There are just so many incredible health

28:54

benefits, but I've also learned that fasting

28:56

can be challenging. So I was excited

28:58

when I discovered Prolon a few years

29:00

back. Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, Prolon

29:03

makes it easy with a revolutionary science-backed

29:05

plant-based program that nourishes you while putting

29:07

your cells in a fasting state. The

29:09

five-day program of snacks, soups, and drinks

29:12

promotes a healthy blood sugar, cardiovascular health,

29:14

and abdominal fat reduction. And it's backed

29:16

by Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. So as someone

29:18

who is always on the lookout for

29:20

cutting-edge approaches to health and wellness with

29:23

real science behind them, I love being

29:25

able to experience the benefits for myself.

29:27

So right now, Prolon is offering Good

29:29

Life Project listeners 15% off

29:33

their five-day nutrition

29:35

program. Go to

29:37

prolonlife.com/goodlife. That's P-R-L-O-N,

29:40

life.com slash goodlife, the special

29:42

offer. That's prolonlife.com/goodlife, or just click

29:44

the link in the show notes.

29:46

Experience the benefits of fasting without

29:48

the hassle with Prolon. You

29:53

write about also the notion

29:55

of rituals for savoring. It sounds like

29:57

this may be one of those that

29:59

were... talking about. Take me deeper into

30:01

the notion of savoring and

30:04

how rituals might affect this or bring more

30:06

of that into our lives because I feel

30:08

like so many of us, we

30:10

live our lives and we open our eyes

30:12

and then we feel like the day just

30:14

passed by and you ask somebody, what'd you

30:16

do? And they're like, I don't know, but

30:18

I'm tired. Yeah, exactly. I think email. I

30:21

don't know. I can't remember. I've already blocked it out, you know, this

30:23

kind of thing. So another ritual that

30:25

in addition to birthday cake, another very common

30:27

one is you can say, have

30:29

you ever had some liquid poured into

30:32

a glass and other

30:34

people have liquid poured into their glass?

30:37

And then before you drink the liquid, all

30:39

of you raise your cups up, smash them

30:41

together and say one or two words and

30:43

then drink. And everybody says, oh yeah, that's

30:45

cheers. Of course you do that. Like everybody

30:47

does that. And you're like,

30:49

what are you doing? You know, why would

30:51

you take your food and bash it against

30:53

somebody else's food before you have the food?

30:55

It's like, doesn't make much sense, of course.

30:57

And yet nearly every culture in the

30:59

world has something very similar to that. And

31:02

it's almost always one or two words

31:04

and they usually mean health or luck

31:06

or joy or happiness. You know, these

31:08

very basic words and what

31:10

we're doing of course is we're making the

31:12

beer and you know, a lot of cases

31:14

more than a beer. It's a thing now

31:17

we're all celebrating together. We're connected to each

31:19

other just by the simple

31:21

act of clinking the glass before

31:23

we drink whatever we're drinking. Most

31:26

boring thing in the world again. And yet we can

31:28

imbue it with more meaning. No.

31:31

I mean, when you think about that

31:34

and in the context of the notion of savoring

31:36

also, it's sort of like it takes any

31:39

gathering of people and

31:42

it's almost like it adds a beat to it to

31:44

say, wait, before we just kind of go through

31:46

this, can we all be present for a

31:49

hot second and just note the

31:51

fact that we're here together? I mean, does that

31:53

make sense? It absolutely does. And say one word

31:55

all at the same time that says something about

31:57

how we feel about each other. Can we just...

31:59

Just take five seconds to do

32:02

that instead of just drinking and

32:04

eating, you know, like animals or something. For

32:06

sure, we use them in exactly this kind

32:08

of way. I'm curious what your sense is,

32:10

or if you have research on the notion of whether, when

32:13

we do a sort of like a savoring ritual

32:15

like that, even though it literally like lasts a

32:17

second or two, whether

32:20

that experience tends to stay

32:22

with people longer, or

32:26

whether it becomes more indelible in their

32:28

memories. I love this idea. I don't

32:30

think we have specific

32:32

research on the memory aspect, but

32:35

even your example of, we

32:37

did research a while ago where we asked

32:39

people, my colleague Ting Zhang, we asked people

32:42

to either write about February

32:44

14th, what they did on February 14th, or

32:48

write about what they did on February 13th. And

32:51

then we said, how interesting do you think it'll be to

32:53

read about what you wrote on those two days? And

32:55

people said, well, it'd be more interesting to read

32:57

about Valentine's Day than random other day in February.

33:00

And a month later, we showed them what they'd written, and

33:03

we showed them the Valentine's Day, and they said,

33:05

that's not that interesting. And the reason was because

33:07

they'd remembered it. You

33:10

remember the where you went to dinner with your

33:12

spouse or your partner that day. It

33:14

was actually the random day that

33:17

people were fascinated to read. That's

33:19

so interesting. Fascinated to read,

33:21

because you say, oh my God, I forgot about

33:23

that weird dude on the subway, whatever

33:25

it might've been, or I forgot I had that sandwich or

33:27

whatever it is. And those are the

33:29

ones that people were really excited to get

33:31

back in a sense. And

33:33

this ritual, I mean, it's a time

33:35

capsule really, this ritual that humans have

33:38

of, and it's very weird, we take things and

33:40

we bury them in the ground. And

33:43

then later we dig them up to look at them

33:45

again. Super unusual thing that humans do, but

33:47

this is exactly why we're doing it, right? We're taking even

33:50

mundane things actually, and using ritual

33:52

to bring them back with more

33:55

meaning. We can savor them for

33:57

longer, even things that you wouldn't

33:59

think you would savor. when you

34:01

bring them back, the birthday cake from

34:03

your kid's first birthday. What an

34:05

enormous amount of irreplaceable meaning we

34:08

can get from these kinds of things. Yeah,

34:10

that's so interesting. And the difference between February 13th

34:12

and 14th for those outside of the US, I

34:14

don't even know if Valentine's Day is an international

34:16

thing or if it's just sort of like a,

34:18

hey, commercial US thing,

34:21

buy a whole bunch of roses and cards. But

34:24

yeah, that's the February 14th association. And

34:27

as you're speaking, part of my curiosity recently

34:29

had a conversation with Sharon Ranganath about memory

34:31

and like how memory works. And

34:33

I think it's pretty commonly agreed these

34:35

days that the higher the stakes or

34:37

the emotion in a moment or experience,

34:39

the more likely it is to become

34:42

sort of embedded in longer term memory.

34:45

And I feel like it ties in to a

34:47

certain extent of what you're talking about here. We've

34:49

also seen that, so if we ask people, how

34:52

close are you to your extended family, your

34:54

aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your nephews,

34:56

your nieces, people will say, oh,

35:00

we're pretty close. And if you ask them, well, how do you

35:02

know them? When did you get to

35:04

know them and in what context? They say, well,

35:07

weddings and funerals. And

35:10

if they're Christian, we got together

35:12

for Christmas. If they're American, they got together

35:14

for Thanksgiving. And sometimes they say,

35:16

you know what? The only times I've ever seen

35:20

members of my extended family are

35:22

on days where there are rituals. We

35:24

wouldn't have an extended family. Many families

35:26

would not even have an extended family

35:28

without the binding power of rituals to

35:30

bring us back together. So

35:33

they do have this element. Our memories of

35:35

our family are completely tied up with our

35:37

memories of these days that have rituals that are meaningful

35:39

for us. And I do think that's one of the...

35:42

It can be hard because traveling home is stressful

35:45

and all these kinds of things, but at the

35:47

same time, without rituals, if we just said, let's

35:49

get the family together on a random day, a

35:51

week before people would say, I got to cancel,

35:53

I have this other thing. Everybody would drop out.

35:56

But when it's Christmas, we got to

35:58

go. And It could be... Stressful

36:00

on a pain to get there. And yes, When.

36:02

You're there than thirty years later. Your kids

36:04

still no with our cousins are ma'am an

36:06

extended family. Those memories matter so much. Gas.

36:09

Simply because it yet it wasn't to

36:12

say get a day it was as

36:14

there was a rich off So saying

36:16

on the topic as holidays and family

36:18

gatherings you also write about a different

36:20

take on this is yes it's it

36:23

can be wonderful These are these faces

36:25

and often bed or associations and how

36:27

we know people and like those moments

36:29

when like this happened in this happened

36:31

in all these wonderful things on and

36:34

as the same time those moments for

36:36

lot of people are extremely stressful. And

36:40

and sometimes benefit from different

36:42

types of rituals. I

36:44

believe some from a large Irish Catholic

36:46

family. So you're gonna have a lot

36:49

of differences of opinion about probably anything

36:51

any topic becomes a sub is going

36:53

to disagree with somebody and so the

36:55

question is what? How do we get

36:57

through these things without people. Arguing

36:59

politics or bringing up resentment from child at

37:01

you know something can happen families. One of

37:04

my series is that one is. I think

37:06

that rituals. Help us do is

37:08

they create a structure and in order. For.

37:11

These events. Down to the

37:13

notion of you know of these two people

37:15

always make the cake or the pie and

37:17

these two people go and do this. And

37:19

these two people always go and watch football.

37:22

and the six people don't play football outside.

37:24

See all of these things that are these

37:26

traditions and your family over the years. And

37:29

your number one. you're breaking people off which

37:31

is good. You're giving them something to do

37:33

which is great and it's almost like by

37:35

the time we're done with the whole Thanksgiving

37:38

you know, carving, the turkey and the pies

37:40

and everything the day is over. We

37:42

didn't get any fights and we can all go home

37:44

so I think in addition to kind of they have

37:46

emotional meeting and act sort of stuff. actually think in

37:49

a very practical way. Rituals. Can help

37:51

us through events that otherwise might be. Very.

37:53

Stressful and funerals are another. Great.

37:56

Example: You know somebody passes away.

37:58

It's very comforting. to have a

38:01

faith that tells you what you should do next, or

38:04

to have people who already know how to handle

38:06

this, so that you and

38:08

your family can have some structure and

38:10

order over these days that can be

38:12

the worst days of your life. So

38:14

in many contexts, actually, in

38:16

addition to the emotional part of rituals,

38:18

they really help us coordinate. And

38:21

coordination can be very, very important for us to

38:23

not have things go off the rails. Yeah,

38:26

I mean, it's really interesting also because it

38:29

gives a structure to an experience, is what you're

38:31

describing. And I guess especially

38:33

experiences that are laden with

38:35

really profound emotion, like loss

38:38

or grief, having

38:40

that structure, I mean, especially

38:42

in moments where there's a big

38:44

loss and you're grieving, and you're completely

38:46

unmoored and you have no

38:49

idea what comes next in every other context, knowing

38:51

what comes next for the next minute, the

38:53

next day, the next seven days, whatever it

38:55

may be, whatever the ritual or the structure

38:57

of that is, has got

39:00

to really provide, I

39:03

don't know how much so less, but some

39:05

level of like, at least I know this.

39:08

They also help us in

39:10

general, but also with grief, they help

39:12

us get the social support we need because

39:15

the funeral is a day when everyone

39:17

goes, everyone is together. And that's just

39:19

incredibly important in and of itself. But

39:22

I think that they also give us a

39:24

sense that we might get through this because

39:27

this ritual has been used for

39:30

hundreds, thousands of years,

39:33

and those people got through this. So acute

39:35

grief feels like it will never ever go

39:37

away when you have that

39:39

kind of grief. And to literally

39:42

have something that feels proven by time,

39:45

that other people have used this and

39:47

they have gotten through this horrible experience,

39:49

it's almost like social proof that

39:51

maybe I can get through it too because we

39:54

have faith in this ritual to

39:56

really help us with these really difficult situations. Yeah,

39:58

no, that makes a lot of sense. sense and it's

40:01

interesting right because that's never spoken but

40:04

it's a part of the fabric of the experience

40:06

like everybody knows this is

40:08

what we do this is what my

40:10

community my culture my faith

40:12

tradition whatever it may be has done

40:14

often for thousands of years there's got

40:17

to be a reason it's been around

40:19

for this long or it's got to

40:21

help in some way so it's really

40:23

interesting it's like the underlying assumptions underneath

40:25

particular rituals especially wrapped around deeply emotional

40:28

moments yes even archaeologists how

40:30

they think about early humans

40:33

as having culture or not one

40:35

of the key things that they look for is for

40:37

burials were people buried

40:39

ceremoniously or not so when

40:42

you have you can think of Tutankhamun

40:44

I mean you think of all kinds of ways

40:46

in which people are buried ceremoniously but

40:48

if someone is buried with special objects

40:50

next to them you know that the

40:52

people in that culture cared

40:54

about that person and had some shared

40:57

tradition or practices that they had together they

40:59

had some kind of a culture so

41:02

we literally use the

41:04

presence of funeral rights

41:07

as in a sense proof that this

41:09

was a culture of people that cared about

41:11

each other that's how far back and deep

41:13

these kinds of rituals go yeah

41:16

one of the other contexts that

41:18

you explore ritual in is the

41:20

notion of change

41:22

personal transformation and certainly

41:24

so many of us you know have been moments

41:27

of life where the experience

41:29

of change especially big disruptive chains

41:31

is either initiated by

41:33

us or thrust upon us involuntarily

41:35

you know like so we certainly

41:38

in the last five years we

41:40

have all been like through that that

41:42

latter circumstance in so many different ways

41:45

take me into how ritual often helps

41:48

us navigate moments like this you

41:50

know I signed a contract to

41:52

write this book in January

41:55

of 2020 a book about

41:57

rituals and the role they play in our lives And

42:01

two months later, pretty much

42:03

every ritual that we practiced got completely

42:05

disrupted. Completely disrupted. Couldn't

42:07

gather for any of the rituals,

42:09

including weddings, funerals, but also

42:11

things we used to do at work,

42:13

you know, everything got disrupted. And

42:16

so a question is, do we just stop doing them?

42:19

Or do we come up with new ones? It

42:21

really shows us, you know, if all the rituals

42:23

are no longer able to be conducted, do

42:26

we say just, yeah, those are kind of silly anyway, we

42:28

don't need them. Or do we say we

42:30

got to come up with some new things. And what we

42:32

saw again and again, is that people

42:34

came up with new rituals to cope

42:37

with this huge impact that had affected

42:39

so many people. And they were things that it

42:41

can be hard to remember, but there were things,

42:43

you know, everybody went

42:45

outside on their balcony at 5pm

42:47

and applauded for first

42:49

responders that never existed before.

42:52

Nobody there wasn't like a group of people that decided we were

42:54

going to do that. It comes from

42:56

the culture in the face of this big

42:59

uncertainty. So we kept seeing, you

43:01

know, people found new ways to have holidays, new

43:03

ways to have marriages online and all these kinds

43:05

of things. So we do see

43:08

that when times are very turbulent, it

43:10

is a time when we actually don't turn away

43:12

from ritual, but turn toward ritual as

43:14

one of the ways to help us with

43:17

this incredible, in this case, thrust upon us

43:19

change. Yeah, it's both a

43:21

way to touch stone and also to make some

43:23

kind of meaning. I mean, the example that you

43:25

gave also of everyone throwing open their windows and

43:27

like whooping up, banging on pots and pans.

43:29

We were in Colorado now, but we were in New York

43:31

City in 2020, where New York City

43:33

was the scariest place on the

43:36

planet. And it was 7pm every day

43:38

there. New

43:40

York was a ghost town. It was dystopia. Like there was

43:42

snow on the roads. And but at

43:44

7 o'clock, it's like every window in the

43:46

city, millions of windows got thrown open. People

43:49

took their pots and pans and started banging and

43:51

whooping. I have recordings of that for about a

43:53

month. I can't listen to more than

43:56

five or six seconds without just starting to cry. Here's

43:58

my interesting question about. this. So

44:01

that went on for a while, you know, and every time

44:03

you did it, like, you know, like, it was my daughter,

44:05

me, my wife, we go to the window, like, this is

44:07

it was sacred. Yeah, like, you didn't miss it. Even if

44:09

you were out on this, you happened to be out on

44:11

the street at seven o'clock one day, you stopped

44:14

where you were, and you listened to everybody else,

44:16

and you were just screaming. Yeah. At

44:19

some point that ended. And I've

44:21

always been curious about that, because it was

44:23

like, there was a day where

44:25

it stopped. Yeah. And I've always been

44:27

curious, like, what happened there? Like, what

44:30

signaled us that it was time?

44:32

And there was no group meeting. Yeah,

44:35

you know, it just, it started with no group

44:37

meeting, and it ended with no group meeting. I

44:40

think that we often turn to rituals, when

44:43

we most need them. But that doesn't

44:45

mean that we'll stick with them forever. So in

44:47

my own life, speaking of a, well, that was

44:49

an intended shock, but still, it was shocking was

44:51

having a child, you know, you

44:54

go to the hospital, and then they after a little

44:56

while, they say, go home, and they just give you

44:58

a human. So to

45:00

take care of the human forever. I mean,

45:02

the craziest thing in the world is

45:04

like, let's get blessed and carry on completely. Let's

45:06

give these to people who have no idea what

45:08

they're doing. Let's not send anyone with them as

45:11

an expert. That would be silly. Let's just have

45:13

them figure out themselves. But what happens,

45:15

of course, with new parents is and the thing is

45:17

sleep, you know, is the baby sleeping? Are you sleeping?

45:19

It's all these conversations that parents have that drive everybody

45:21

else crazy. And what we did

45:24

and what so many parents do is in

45:26

this time of incredible stress, when all you

45:28

want is sleep for the baby, you turn

45:30

to ritual, you come up with them. And

45:32

they're very elaborate, actually. And if you ask

45:34

parents to remember what they did when their

45:37

children were very small, they remember them exactly,

45:39

you know, these two books, and

45:41

then this song, and then the swaddle, and

45:43

then this other song, and then we did

45:45

this, and then we did that. And after

45:47

all that whole sequence, then hopefully, the baby

45:49

was asleep. And different parents, every parent has

45:51

their own specific one that they did, but they

45:54

have some things in common, but they're very idiosyncratic. And

45:56

we do those, I've now come to believe that we're

45:58

actually doing those not to help the baby. be

46:00

sleep, but to our earlier conversation

46:02

to just feel ourselves that we have

46:04

some structure and control over what's

46:06

going on in our lives. But

46:08

we don't do them forever, right? So once our kid

46:10

learns how to sleep, they wouldn't tolerate it. For one,

46:12

we try to read them a book every night. So

46:15

they're not, they're these deeply meaningful,

46:17

powerful rituals that help us in

46:20

this time when we really, really need them. We

46:22

really turn to them. And then almost when the

46:24

crisis has passed, they drop away. We

46:27

don't need them anymore. They're not as applicable

46:29

anymore. And then we might have

46:31

a different issue in life where we come up with

46:33

different rituals to help with that. Yeah.

46:36

The context of, I mean,

46:38

you choose when the crisis has passed is a phrase

46:41

you use. And that's a little bit what we're talking

46:43

about, you know, like with the pandemic and the rituals

46:45

around that, and how they drop away when the usefulness

46:47

drops away. When we're

46:49

going through a window of profound

46:52

change or transformation that we've invited,

46:54

is that qualitatively different in terms of how

46:57

rituals take root and how they last?

47:00

This is a random aside, but

47:02

I was talking, my daughter is eight, and I

47:05

was asking her about she saw me give a

47:07

talk on rituals. And in

47:09

fact, first off, her only feedback was,

47:11

does that tennis player really pick his

47:13

wedgie every time? I talked about the

47:15

doll, Rafael Nadal. The perfect question for

47:17

an eight-year-old after that. I mean, it's

47:19

just like, and it probably was the

47:21

most interesting thing I said. She

47:24

was spot on. But I was also

47:26

asking her about birthday, back to birthday cakes.

47:29

And I said, well, why do you think we put candles

47:31

on cakes? You know, thinking, why

47:34

would we light things on fire on a cake? So I said, why

47:36

do you think we put candles on cakes? And she thought for a

47:38

second, and she said, so we know how

47:40

old we are. And it was this amazing

47:43

moment where why do we put the right

47:45

number of candles on a cake? I mean, why do we put a

47:47

five and a two when returning 52 on a

47:50

cake? It's a very weird thing to do. I

47:52

mean, if you think about it at a very

47:54

basic level, we make something. We

47:57

have the thing symbolizes that we're a

47:59

new age. And then everyone

48:01

kind of tears apart the

48:04

thing in a communal kind of way

48:06

and then there's no evidence of it anymore. And it's

48:08

like, okay, well now I'm not seven, now I'm eight

48:10

because there were eight candles on the cake. So

48:12

even in these changing from seven to eight is

48:14

not a difficult transition because nothing really changes in

48:17

your life. But even on

48:19

these, we have the intuition as

48:21

humans that we should mark them,

48:24

that something should be done between this

48:26

and that in order to help us

48:28

go from who we were before to

48:30

who we're going to be next. And

48:32

it's across so many domains of

48:34

life that we turn to ritual. I mean,

48:36

if you think about other people who say,

48:38

I don't have any rituals, it's like, have

48:40

you ever put on a weird robe and

48:42

a weird hat that was either a square or

48:44

puffy and walked across the stage and

48:46

gotten a piece of paper and everybody claps and then you

48:49

sit back down? Of course, every people say, oh yeah, well

48:51

that's just a graduation. I mean, why do we

48:53

have graduations? You've already

48:55

finished all the coursework, but we have

48:57

this intuition. No, we should mark it.

49:00

We really should make sure that this is an event

49:02

where we're before that we weren't graduates

49:05

and now we're graduates. So many

49:07

cultures have exactly the same kinds of

49:10

things where there's something where you go

49:12

from this to that. And

49:14

it does seem for people to kind

49:16

of demarcate that identity in a way

49:18

that's helpful. Yeah. It's

49:21

interesting as you're describing that also, I'm

49:24

thinking about how people

49:26

receive different sort

49:28

of milestone moments that would

49:31

normally be associated with rituals

49:33

very differently. So like one person might be

49:36

turning 50 and they're so excited

49:38

to bring all of their friends together and have that

49:40

cake with the five and the zero candle on top

49:42

of it. And then another person

49:44

might be turning 50 and they

49:46

might be thinking to themselves, okay, I'm

49:48

turning 50. Like

49:51

we can't put that off a day or a

49:53

month until more ready. Like it's happening. And

49:56

normally like you gather people to acknowledge it,

49:58

to savor it, to celebrate it, but I

50:00

don't. want people, like I want to break

50:02

the ritual for this one because there's something about this

50:04

one particular thing where the fact

50:06

that having the ritual that

50:09

has happened every year for the last 49 years

50:12

up until now, like repeating that same

50:14

ritual on this particular moment, it's

50:16

triggering for some reason instead

50:18

of savoring. Yeah, it's

50:20

almost like you're in denial. Like if

50:24

I don't do the thing, I'm not really 50. Maybe

50:26

I can stay 49. It's not like

50:28

really a birthday. I'm basically still 49. I wonder if

50:31

we, it's so

50:33

interesting, I wonder if we do use them as

50:35

a delay tactic. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll

50:38

be right back after a word from our sponsors.

50:46

Hi, this is Matt and Sean from Two

50:48

Black Guys with good credit. If you own

50:50

or operate a business, whether

50:53

it's a local operation or a global corporation,

50:57

partnering with Bank of America could be your

50:59

smartest move. By

51:01

teaming with Bank of America, you'll enjoy

51:03

exclusive digital tools, award-winning

51:06

insights, and business solutions

51:08

so powerful you'll make every move

51:10

matter. Position your business

51:12

to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's

51:14

notice. Visit bankofamerica.com/Banking

51:16

for Business to learn

51:19

more. What would you

51:21

like the power to do? Bank of

51:23

America, N.A., copyright 2024. My

51:28

business used to be weighed down by

51:30

the complexities of in-person payments. Then

51:33

tap to pay on iPhone and Stripe came

51:35

along and changed everything. With

51:37

tap to pay on iPhone and Stripe,

51:40

I streamline my payment process effortlessly. Now

51:42

I can accept in-person contactless payments

51:45

right from my iPhone. No

51:47

extra hardware required. What's truly remarkable

51:50

is how I can cater to all of

51:52

my customers' payment preferences. Whether they're

51:54

using cards, Apple Pay, or

51:56

other digital wallets, tap to pay on

51:58

iPhone and Stripe ensure a

52:00

smooth checkout experience every time. And

52:03

it's not just me. Stripe helps

52:05

businesses of all sizes, from local

52:07

markets to global retailers, scale quickly

52:10

and stay agile. To learn how

52:12

Tap to Pay on iPhone and

52:14

Stripe can help grow your revenue

52:17

and reach, visit stripe.com/tapiphone. Hi,

52:20

this is Craig Robinson from Ways to

52:23

Win. And support for this podcast

52:25

comes from Invesco QQQ. Invesco

52:28

QQQ is proud to sponsor this

52:30

episode and even prouder to provide

52:32

access to innovation for the last

52:34

25 years. Basketball

52:37

has had innovations over the

52:39

years too. We're seeing the

52:42

game played in new ways

52:44

every day. Learn more at

52:46

invesco.com/QQQ. Let's rethink possibility. Invesco

52:49

Distributors, Inc. So you used graduation as

52:53

an interesting ritual also. Do

52:59

you make a distinction

53:01

between rituals and what often people

53:03

call rites of passage? Because

53:06

having conversation not too long ago with

53:08

Chip Connolly, who runs this wonderful experience,

53:10

Modern Elders Academy, MEA, and

53:13

the whole notion behind that is that we have

53:15

these things called rites of passage. For

53:17

all these other major milestones in life, for graduating

53:20

high school, for partnering with someone, if

53:22

you partner with someone, for graduating

53:24

this, for moving from

53:26

one season of life to the next season

53:29

of life. We have all these established rites

53:31

of passage, yet for moving from middle

53:33

age into a more seasoned

53:35

part of life where a

53:37

lot of shifts have happened, there's no ritual, there's

53:40

no rite of passage, and that we suffer because

53:42

of that. Are we talking about kind of

53:44

the same thing here when we use the phrase rites of

53:46

passage and ritual? I think that

53:48

rites of passage are one, almost like

53:50

a subcategory of ritual. I mean, you

53:52

can think of other subcategories as well,

53:55

but they are one that they're

53:57

very, very common across different transitions

53:59

in life. And I think

54:01

they're extremely important and I have been

54:03

very interested in these cases where

54:05

it appears that we need one But

54:08

the humans have not come up with it and

54:11

one of them is in fact the transition from

54:13

working To not working at

54:15

retirement You might have a

54:17

little ceremony or something and you get a watch

54:19

something like that You know, it might not be

54:21

sufficient to say I'm no longer the person I

54:24

was for the last 45 years Whatever

54:26

it might be and you see people struggling so

54:29

much with the transition to retirement Would

54:31

a ritual solve the you know, of course not but

54:33

could it be helpful? I think so the

54:36

other place that I think there's really

54:38

sorely lacking is when relationships end with

54:41

divorce We have nothing. There's no cultural

54:43

thing that we do for people when they get divorced

54:45

when I get married We do lots of stuff. There's

54:47

you know what I mean? There's a bridal shower the bachelor bar

54:50

We have all these things set up for the beginning and we

54:52

have nothing for the end and of course the end Can

54:54

be a lot more challenging than the beginning

54:56

and yet culturally we don't have something in

54:58

but people freelance some people who do Afraid

55:02

exactly what they call it But on the day

55:04

of their divorce every year they get their friends

55:06

together and just make fun of the person they

55:08

divorced You know, so so you

55:10

can you can make an anniversary out of a

55:12

negative thing as a way of owning it So

55:15

we're capable I think of coming up with things

55:17

to address these gaps But I

55:19

haven't seen one really that feels like

55:21

it would help with the transition that you're talking about Mmm.

55:24

Yeah, and I think that's what chips start doing what

55:26

it's doing because it is so profound But there's no

55:29

it's sort of like at that point culture just

55:31

says yeah You like keep on keeping

55:33

on like you do your thing whatever like it like

55:35

now you get to relax But

55:38

it isn't interesting as you're describing that

55:40

many many many years ago I was working for

55:43

a big federal government agency and every time you

55:45

like then somebody left the agency You

55:47

know everyone would gather and the head of

55:49

the agency would come and present a plaque

55:51

and letter opener or a pen or whatever

55:53

it is and there's this Drizzled

55:56

old investigator who used to

55:58

crochet a dinosaur. That.

56:00

He believed most match de um

56:02

qualities of the person shooting and

56:05

present with us very the ceremony

56:07

as that was so funny about

56:09

that is like. I. Remember

56:11

that this is like thirty years

56:13

ago. And. I remember that like

56:16

those moments not because of the plaza, because

56:18

of him and his i don't I can

56:20

tell you the people but I can tell

56:22

you I remember the because of that one

56:24

goofy saying yeah yeah and he invested himself

56:27

in it. You know to create them

56:29

for people. It's much more meaningful than just.

56:31

Getting. A wash off Amazon or whatever might be.

56:34

There. He also explore I

56:36

mean, syncing silly fit the notion

56:38

that sometimes it were up and

56:40

also I think and culture these

56:42

days, the notion that all rituals

56:44

aren't necessarily positive, like there are

56:46

rituals that I'm healed, but they're

56:48

also rituals that separate us that

56:50

divide us. And I think

56:52

this is so important because. Rituals.

56:55

Provoke a lot of emotions and it

56:57

would be wonderful if all of them

56:59

were positive. But they're not. What?

57:02

Rituals do is they provoke strong emotions

57:04

and those can be. All

57:06

enjoy and they can be anger and

57:09

fear as well. I wish I could

57:11

write a book that said just add

57:13

rituals and you'll be happy and it's

57:15

just not how they work at all.

57:17

You know that that they increase the

57:19

diversity of our emotions but it's not

57:21

you to directional and we do see

57:23

I mean when we do research on.

57:26

Teams. At work for example, we can

57:28

bring people into our lab actually and

57:30

have we can take strangers and have

57:32

them do a team ritual. Or.

57:34

A different kind of team ritual and then

57:36

we can ask them at the end you

57:38

know how meaningful do you think this group

57:40

is and we can see that when teams

57:42

do things that are more ritualistic even though

57:44

we just made it up, they do start

57:46

to see each other as more meaningful Compared

57:48

to Daves the don't do anything like that

57:51

so series real benefits of these rituals. and

57:53

yet at the same time and other reese

57:55

and you trust them as more as well

57:58

so disability classic surly simple team type

58:00

of exercise or something. Completely, completely. And you're

58:02

in unison, you know, you're doing all this

58:04

stuff together. You have to work together to get

58:06

the thing done. Exactly. Right. So

58:09

that's great, right? You get the groups meaningful,

58:11

you trust each other more, it's wonderful. Except

58:13

then, sometimes in the research, we'll say, oh,

58:15

here's another group, and they do it differently

58:17

from you. And if you

58:20

didn't do anything of your own,

58:22

you don't care what anybody else does. But if

58:24

you as a group have gotten a ritual

58:26

in place, well, now it's

58:28

not just that our ritual is good, it's that

58:30

our ritual is correct. And as

58:33

soon as our ritual is correct, it

58:35

means any deviation is incorrect. And we

58:37

actually show that when you see groups

58:39

engaging in something different, you distrust them.

58:42

You're not neutral, you actually distrust them

58:44

now, because they're, and people will say

58:46

this, they're doing it wrong. And

58:49

we say, but you just did the ritual for the

58:52

first time, you know, I mean, this is the new

58:54

ritual that you just started this week. And they say,

58:56

I don't care, they're still doing it wrong. So very,

58:58

very quickly, they can produce this

59:00

positive element in groups. And

59:02

they can also produce this negative element as well

59:04

about groups that we're not a part of, who

59:06

now we think need to be corrected. Oh,

59:09

that's so interesting. And I would imagine even

59:11

like, okay, now somebody new

59:13

comes into the group, they

59:15

didn't go through the original exercise, where it's like, this

59:17

is how we do it together. And they're

59:19

like, I have a bit of a different idea of how to do

59:21

this. Hmm. It's like, that

59:24

is not how we work here. And

59:26

I wonder how that also like affects people

59:28

being locked in to a state

59:30

of mind and assigning a certain meaning to like, this

59:32

is how we do things that

59:34

creates a level of rigidity, and

59:37

a lack of innovation and creativity and all sorts

59:39

of other things. For sure. I mean, I think

59:41

they put up barriers at the same time that

59:43

even as they help us coordinate, could help us,

59:45

you know, coordinate and be creative and all these

59:47

lovely things. They put up barriers

59:49

and in context where you really can't have barriers,

59:52

you can see how they would not

59:54

just be neutral, but actually harm us. No.

59:57

If you think about rituals, across

1:00:01

all different domains. Are

1:00:03

you able to identify sort of

1:00:05

a common set of elements, or

1:00:08

like step one, step two, or just like, these

1:00:11

are the five things that tend to make

1:00:13

for a successful ritual? I have

1:00:15

to, the answer is very frustrating, not

1:00:17

really. Hmm. So

1:00:20

what would have been amazing is

1:00:22

if we had discovered that clapping

1:00:24

seven times and stomping six times, somehow

1:00:27

magically that transformed us into whatever,

1:00:30

and we just don't see it because again, the

1:00:33

same exact actions for one person

1:00:35

that are so meaningful can

1:00:38

be completely irrelevant to another person.

1:00:40

It is true actually that a physical component

1:00:43

is important. So only

1:00:45

in your head is not as

1:00:47

good as also doing something physically.

1:00:50

It tends to be the combination that

1:00:52

there's some psychological element of meaning something

1:00:55

attached to this, and then

1:00:57

the physical element that you're really actually doing

1:00:59

something in the service of that. But

1:01:01

what's so fascinating is the something that

1:01:03

you do can be

1:01:05

almost anything. I mean, I

1:01:07

don't wanna overclaim. You know, we

1:01:09

haven't looked at every single thing in the world, but

1:01:11

when you look at the examples people use, they're

1:01:14

pulling from everything in the world. A woman

1:01:16

who's, we asked, think of someone

1:01:18

you lost, she wrote, I washed his

1:01:20

car every weekend the way that he used to. There's

1:01:23

definitely no ancient text that says wash your car. There's

1:01:27

no cars. We use things in our environment and build

1:01:29

ritual around them. Washing the car might

1:01:31

do nothing for you or me, but

1:01:33

for her, it's a deep expression of something that's

1:01:35

important about the person that she lost. And

1:01:38

one way it's frustrating that we can't point to, you

1:01:41

know, these are the behaviors. On the

1:01:43

other hand, it's very liberating because we're actually very

1:01:46

free in what we use and what we

1:01:48

build into these kinds of rituals. Got it.

1:01:51

So then if somebody is listening to this

1:01:53

and they're thinking, okay, I see there's value

1:01:57

in this thing called ritual, and I'd like to have more of

1:01:59

this in my days. in my months in my life, where

1:02:02

do we start? What are some questions that we

1:02:04

should start asking ourselves? The

1:02:06

first easy one is actually to saying

1:02:08

add 19 rituals in

1:02:11

your day tomorrow is like, I don't have time for that. Or

1:02:13

meditate for four hours and say, I don't have

1:02:15

time for that. So the very first step for

1:02:17

me always is actually almost to take an inventory

1:02:20

of where they're already happening in your life. Often, as

1:02:22

people are listening to us chat, in some domains, they

1:02:24

might say, what? I don't have anything like that. And

1:02:26

then the very next domain that you and I chatted

1:02:29

about, they say, oh, actually, yeah, my wife and I

1:02:31

do this. Or we did

1:02:33

this with our kids when we were putting them to bed. So

1:02:35

we have these different domains of life

1:02:38

where we have them in place. But we

1:02:40

might not have really recognized them or owned them

1:02:42

in the way that we could. And

1:02:44

so that really is the first step that you actually

1:02:46

just take a beat, as you said earlier. You really

1:02:49

say, you know what? This is our little special thing

1:02:51

that we do, and really kind of

1:02:53

appreciate it even more. And we see then you

1:02:55

almost sometimes laugh at yourself, but in a very

1:02:57

kind and lovely way, like, oh my god, here

1:02:59

I go with my forklinking again, or whatever it

1:03:01

might be. So that really is the first step,

1:03:03

actually, is just to see where they are already

1:03:06

and appreciate them a little bit more. And

1:03:08

then the next step, I think, is thinking of domains

1:03:10

in life where you might want to experiment. So

1:03:13

if you're somebody who doesn't get nervous before meetings

1:03:15

at all, don't experiment with a

1:03:18

pre-performance routine, because you're not going to do

1:03:20

anything for you, right? Because you're already just

1:03:22

fine. But if you are somebody

1:03:24

who gets nervous before meetings, try something

1:03:26

out as a ritual to see if it can

1:03:28

help you. They're not magical

1:03:30

like you snap your fingers and you're perfectly calm.

1:03:33

But they're an interesting thing to try out

1:03:35

across these domains in life. If your family

1:03:38

dinner time is terrible, try to

1:03:40

think if you can come up with something that might

1:03:42

make it a little more meaningful or

1:03:44

a little more connecting than just everybody staring at

1:03:46

each other in silence. I love

1:03:48

that. Simple and individual. Feels

1:03:51

a good place for us to come full circle.

1:03:53

So in this container of Good Life Project, if

1:03:55

I offer up the phrase to live a good

1:03:57

life, what comes up? The

1:03:59

word that came to mind is that. generosity actually.

1:04:02

I think if you lack generosity, I

1:04:04

think life is actually a lot harder for you

1:04:06

because I think not only is it repaid

1:04:09

but just in the service of other people

1:04:11

is such, I mean in our other research we've literally

1:04:13

shown that when you help other people or spend money

1:04:16

on other people it makes you happier and I

1:04:18

think that's just a small case of using money

1:04:21

to help other people. I think

1:04:23

in general generosity is

1:04:26

lacking that makes it very hard to have a

1:04:28

really rich and meaningful life and when

1:04:30

I think of the people in my life who are

1:04:32

very generous they're often the people

1:04:34

that I respect the most and who seem to have

1:04:36

it the most figured out as well.

1:04:40

Thank you. Hey

1:04:43

before you leave if you love this

1:04:45

episode, say that you'll also love the

1:04:47

conversation we had with James Clear about

1:04:49

habits. You'll find a link to James's

1:04:51

episode in the show notes. This episode

1:04:53

of Good Life Project was produced by

1:04:56

executive producers Lindsay Fox and me Jonathan

1:04:58

Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher

1:05:00

Carter, Crafted Air Theme Music and special

1:05:02

thanks to Shelly Adele for her research

1:05:04

on this episode. And of course if

1:05:06

you haven't already done so please go

1:05:08

ahead and follow Good Life Project in

1:05:11

your favorite listening app. And if you

1:05:13

found this conversation interesting or inspiring or

1:05:15

valuable and chances are you did since

1:05:17

you're still listening here would you do

1:05:19

me a personal favor, a seven second

1:05:21

favor and share it maybe on social

1:05:23

or by text or by email just

1:05:25

with one person. Just copy the link

1:05:27

from the app you're using and tell

1:05:29

those you know those you love those

1:05:31

you want to help navigate this thing

1:05:34

called life a little better so we

1:05:36

can all do it better together with

1:05:38

more ease and more joy. Tell them

1:05:40

to listen then even invite them to

1:05:42

talk about what you've both discovered

1:05:44

because when podcasts become conversations and

1:05:47

conversations become action that's how we

1:05:49

all come alive together. Until next

1:05:51

time I'm Jonathan Fields Signing

1:05:54

off for Good Life Project.