Rituals. The word conjures up images of witches casting spells under a full moon, or voodoo in the Caribbean. If you go to a church, synagogue or mosque, ritual is everywhere. If you are my age, you may remember sitting at the dinner table and saying a prayer before eating. A ritual. Rituals have fallen out of favour these days. I think they have gone from conscious to unconscious activities, and entered the realm of the Skeptic and Ridicule. In the general public, at least. Goaltenders in hockey get the most press about their pre-game rituals. We all have rituals that we do whether we know it or not, whether we think of them as rituals or not. Most of us do not think of them at all and it costs us. Ritual is preparation. As you can imagine, we can prepare well or we can prepare poorly. Which do you think gives us a better life? When I was a Store Manager for a large international grocery chain, my morning ritual looked like this: Alarm buzzed irritatingly at 6:28am. I hit snooze. Alarm buzzed more irritatingly at 6:47am. I hit snooze. Alarm went off again at 7:08am. I jumped out of bed... late. Ran into the bathroom, showered, shaved, combed my hair in record time. Jumped into my car with a muffin or donut, raced to work. Started work. Imagine 20 years of that... How did I show up at work? How good a leader was I as I leapt blindly into my tasks? At work all I did, was put out fires/emergencies. If you had asked me, I would have laughed and said, "I have no morning ritual." But I did. And it did not serve me. This ritual resulted in high stress, poor performance, high blood pressure, an ever-expanding stomach and low productivity. And I was way more productive that my fellow Store Managers. I suspect most people do not have conscious rituals. I recently produced a course with Arthur Samuel Joseph, a world famous voice coach to presidents, actors and Hall of Fame football players. He has a set of Rituals before he speaks. It prepares him. Warms him up. We understand warm ups. Before running a Marathon, warm up. Before any sport, loosen up. We rarely understand that before you do any non-sports activity, we have to warm up. We have to set the energy, prepare, loosen up. So we don't... And we work at a 67% efficiency level, instead of 110%... or worse. In Hawaii, when the white man first arrived, he would turn to the native Hawaiian and say, "Okay, this is what we are going to do." Off the Englishman rushed to do the task. He would turn around and the Hawaiian had not moved. He was breathing, preparing, setting his intention. Then he got to work. What's your morning like?

Rituals. The word conjures up images of witches casting spells under a full moon, or voodoo in the Caribbean. If you go to a church, synagogue or mosque, ritual is everywhere. If you are my age, you may remember sitting at the dinner table and saying a prayer before eating. A ritual. Rituals have fallen out of favour these days. I think they have gone from conscious to unconscious activities, and entered the realm of the Skeptic and Ridicule. In the general public, at least. Goaltenders in hockey get the most press about their pre-game rituals. We all have rituals that we do whether we know it or not, whether we think of them as rituals or not. Most of us do not think of them at all and it costs us. Ritual is preparation. As you can imagine, we can prepare well or we can prepare poorly. Which do you think gives us a better life? When I was a Store Manager for a large international grocery chain, my morning ritual looked like this: Alarm buzzed irritatingly at 6:28am. I hit snooze. Alarm buzzed more irritatingly at 6:47am. I hit snooze. Alarm went off again at 7:08am. I jumped out of bed... late. Ran into the bathroom, showered, shaved, combed my hair in record time. Jumped into my car with a muffin or donut, raced to work. Started work. Imagine 20 years of that... How did I show up at work? How good a leader was I as I leapt blindly into my tasks? At work all I did, was put out fires/emergencies. If you had asked me, I would have laughed and said, "I have no morning ritual." But I did. And it did not serve me. This ritual resulted in high stress, poor performance, high blood pressure, an ever-expanding stomach and low productivity. And I was way more productive that my fellow Store Managers. I suspect most people do not have conscious rituals. I recently produced a course with Arthur Samuel Joseph, a world famous voice coach to presidents, actors and Hall of Fame football players. He has a set of Rituals before he speaks. It prepares him. Warms him up. We understand warm ups. Before running a Marathon, warm up. Before any sport, loosen up. We rarely understand that before you do any non-sports activity, we have to warm up. We have to set the energy, prepare, loosen up. So we don't... And we work at a 67% efficiency level, instead of 110%... or worse. In Hawaii, when the white man first arrived, he would turn to the native Hawaiian and say, "Okay, this is what we are going to do." Off the Englishman rushed to do the task. He would turn around and the Hawaiian had not moved. He was breathing, preparing, setting his intention. Then he got to work. What's your morning like?
by Scott Paton

January 02, 2018 at 02:58AM
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