Dr. Michael Norton on the Ritual Effect and the Power of Ritual

Happy July—so excited to be back with you to talk about one of my favorite books I’ve read lately, Dr. Michael Norton’s The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, which came out April 9, 2024. We have talked at length about habits on the show, but today, ritual gets its due. Dr. Norton explains what ritual is, and how, in his words, ritual can shift our lives from black and white to Technicolor. We talk about the power of ritual, what the difference is between habit and ritual, how ritual can change us and help us find the more we are seeking (again, in Dr. Norton’s words), how rituals emerge in the first place, if there is such a thing as a bad ritual, and if a person can overdo rituals or have too many rituals. We talk about everything from rituals in marriage—definitely pay attention to the clinking forks story—to ritual in grief, and how he’s felt about the overwhelmingly positive response to the book since it came out over a year ago. Dr. Norton is a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School; he is a longtime expert on human behavior, and he has also co-authored with Elizabeth Dunn Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. His TEDx talk, “How to Buy Happiness,” has been viewed nearly 4.5 million times, and you may have seen his work in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Scientific American, and numerous other outlets from print to television, radio, and podcast. We’re certainly happy to have him on this podcast. The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions by Dr. Michael Norton