Mike Carruthers

And where, I imagine a million places, but where do rituals tend to come from?

Like when you see an athlete do his little pre-run ritual, where do you get that?

It seems that rituals tend to be...

It seems a lot of rituals get passed down, traditions I'm thinking of particularly.

But also I think there's a lot of rituals going on in people's heads and things that they do that they don't talk about.

I don't talk about it.

The idea of ritual, I imagine goes back forever, right?

I mean, this is just kind of a human coping thing.

The rituals that are, you know, the tennis player who bounces the ball so many times or those kind of rituals, if you ask the people who do them why they do them, my sense is that there would be some element of good luck in it.

And it isn't about thinking about something else.

It's like, you know, if I don't do it or maybe it's that if I don't do it, it'll bring bad luck.

But it seems that luck plays a role or perceived luck plays a role in this.

Yeah, well, I hadn't thought about that.

But yeah, I guess so.

But that means you better plan time to do your ritual if you want to do your ritual.

We're talking about the importance of rituals in our lives.

My guest is Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book, The Ritual Effect.

So, Michael, ultimately, as important as rituals seem to be, I think if you ask people, you know, if you do that thing when you do, you know, bounce the ball or whatever it is, we all know it doesn't really do anything, you know, scientifically.

And yet we cling to them.

Well, that's that's interesting because that only comes when it seems like when you look back on it and kind of understand and explain it.