🎙 The Whole Human Work Podcast: From Monotony to Meaning

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if more of us knew how to intentionally connect with what's truly most important to us? On this episode we'll learn about the power of ritual for embodying our values individually, organizationally, and collectively.

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Timestamps

00:03:29 Designing intentional, symbolic rituals.

00:06:28 How rituals help us break out of autopilot.

00:15:02 The value of rituals in organizations.

00:31:40 Rituals that help embody and reinforce values.

00:35:49 Rituals that reflect values and identity.

00:47:04 The power of ritualizing life

Transcript

Ezra: Any person in any context, homework, family, you know, ritual can be as small as a single deep breath and as big as the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Oren: Welcome back to the whole human work podcast, where we are exploring different ways of showing up to work ways that are. Definitely more human, more grounded, more real. And that's why I could not wait for Ezra or guests today to join us ezra is a fascinating guy and I'm fortunate to be connected to as Aurora through his brother,

My friend, Jonah.

Who I lived with over a decade ago.

I'll share a little bit about as rhe before we get into the conversation. He is a ritual designer. So he founded an organization called ritualist the first ever creative studio specializing in the design of secular ritual.

This is a topic that I don't hear spoken about often at all. But we would all be well-served to bring a little bit more awareness to the rituals through our lives, because we've all got them, whether we realize it or not. And if we can totally design them in an aligned way based upon who we are and what we want to create in the world.

That can be powerful for us and everyone around us.

As Laura is also an artist. He is a host and facilitator. And also interestingly and officiant, I love this quote from the website, from a, a wedding couple, literally the best, most personal, funny, meaningful ceremony we've ever seen. So that should give you a sense about as HRA and.

What this conversation is getting into which I believe will open up a new way for you to consider. The way in which. You have the ability to infuse. Every day of your life with meaning.

And to connect with what and who. Is most important to you?

Oren: Just take a moment, connect with the breath for a minute here. I think it'll just help get into the body and support us in transitioning into the conversation. I'm gonna close my eyes here and I'm just going through my little ritual here of gratitude for, for us being in this conversation. I'm going back to the totally, the different lifetime that, that it was when Jonah and I connected and, and how that leads us to being here right now. And I'm curious about not just your interest in rituals, but this, this stance, I'll call it, of, of intentionality, of being thoughtful about these continuous transitions that we move through, not just within life more generally, but also day to day in our tower.

Ezra: It's a pleasure to be here and thanks so much for that great question.

I, I, we just did a ritual and I, I wanna like, I wanna look at that because it's, it's such a, it's such a great place to start to actually do a ritual and see, well, how did, how did that feel and why did we do it? And, and actually why was it a ritual? You know, I look at rituals in, in three components.

They're intentional, symbolic, and special elevated in some way. So, you know, what was the intention of that ritual that we just did? What was the intention

Oren: to, to ground ourselves in this moment? To come back to presence?

Ezra: Yeah. Yeah, I usually ask people, you know, why to, to get to that core of that is why are you doing this?

So to to ground, to to become present to mark that transition to to let go potentially of some things that are like the to-do list that's on our mind that might actually keep us from being present. And then when I, when it looks at, when I look at symbolic, I'll ask you, why are you doing this?

Or why are we doing this? What does it mean to you? You know, rituals mean more than what they do. So functionally what we did was we like stopped for a second and took a breath and maybe closed our eyes. But, but it meant more than that. So, for you, what does this mean to you? What does it signal about you that you started your podcast with me?

By doing that ritual,

Oren: to me it signals a, a commitment to connecting with what's real in this moment. A recognition of the fact that it's too easy to just be living and interacting with other people from a

Ezra: place of autopilot. And why is that important to you?

Oren: Because what's, what's real is, is what allows for us to really connect and to continue growing and evolving.

Ezra: So you value connection because through connection we can grow and evolve. And so when I look at you and I look at your podcast or I look at how you do things and I see you doing that ritual, it actually signals that what you care about, rituals point towards what we value, what's important to us what's most important to us often.

And so it's not just that you like. Wanna ground and mark a moment. But actually it's, it's signaling and pointing to this deeper value that you hold and who you want to be and how you wanna show up in the world, what you care about. And then the, the final question is, is why are we doing this right?

Like, if the purpose, if the intention is to ground, there's a thousand things that we could have done. I mean, we could have lit two candles. I don't know. We could have gotten up and, and, you know, rolled our shoulders. So why the breath? Why, why closing our eyes? Why calling in our, our previous relationship, you know, we're connected through my brother back way back when, like expanding this connection to this like, wider story that we are a part of.

And that's the fun part. Ritual design. Like that's where it gets interesting. And that's where each and every one of us, our creativity can shine. Because there's, there's so many ways that we can do that. And it's ultimately about differentiation, right? It's about making something special.

So how do most podcasts start? I, I've been on a lot of them. You just like dive in and we start asking questions, but instead you're differentiating from the norm. You're elevating it, especially, you're marking something, you're marking this transition and holding it up by doing something different than what most people do.

And I think that's really when, you know, to circle back to your question, that's, that's why ritual is so important to me. That's why I care about this work, because I think that we are on autopilot. And there are billions and billions of dollars being spent and some of the smartest minds in the world who go to work every day and think about how to keep us distracted, disconnected, disassociated in shame, shame around our bodies, shame around our productivity, shame around our money and our finances, and disconnected from our emotions and our emotional experience.

And and ritual is, is a kind of friction that we can put into our lives to, to slow us down, to break out of the habitual and the automatic. And that sort of like trance of sameness that I think most of us are feeling that sameness, that disconnectedness, that dullness in our lives and ritual can break that and actually bring us into, into truth, into reality, into our bodies, into the moment, into connection, into our values.

And, and I know, I'm like, we're, we're starting really grand and we'll probably get into the granular about like, what does this look like at a company? And there's so many layers to that. What does this look like at a culture, at an organization? But at its core, I think that's what this work is all about.

Yes. Yeah, and

Oren: What stands out to me, one of the things that stands out to me that you just expressed was the notion of slowing down. This is in, in my experience, working with leaders and the teams within organizations is one of the essential first steps that is the hardest for us to take.

Going back to the, those cultural characteristics, some of which you described, where we're our attention is pulled, intentionally pulled from us, and we learn that if we are to, to continue being okay in our society, we gotta keep going. We gotta keep it moving. So slowing down as simple as it sounds, superficially is actually very challenging for many of us.

Ezra: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The, the, the sort of cult of, of productivity, which has ultimately said that just work more, work longer you know, remove any, any friction, make everything frictionless, and, and we will produce more. And there are times in which that's true, and there's times in which that is, is a, is a terrible, you know, myth, myth that we've, we've been sold and there's really good science and really good data that's showing us that that kind of that kind of speed can lead to all kinds of error and reduction in the quality of work as well as, you know, to, to, to point towards the title of this podcast, a.

You know, evisceration of, of our core humanity and the, the burnout epidemic that we are, are, are experiencing right now. And you know, we can extract, you can, you can extract and squeeze every single thing that you can out of your employee in, in a year. And then they burn out and they leave. And there's costs associated with that than a more sustainable human and humane way of relating to our work and relating to each other.

And, and by the way, like I, you know, I don't, I don't wanna insinuate that like, You know, our ritual took what, 10 seconds, 15 seconds. We're not necessarily talking about week long holiday parties, although like sure, like great. That that can be a ritual tool too. I'm thinking about a colleague of mine at Ssy Partners, the, the agency and their team has a, has a ritual check-in at the beginning of their, of, of, of their meetings where they just like hold up a number one through five on their hands of like how they're showing up to the meeting.

And then they usually take about 10 seconds each, 15 seconds each to just like check in and say, this is where I'm at right now. You know, the whole thing takes a couple minutes and you know, it can be really hard when you're pressed for time, you're behind deadline and they still do it. And I think that's how you know that it's actually a value that they hold because they do it when it's hard.

There's a lot of things that companies will throw at you when it's easy and when money's abundant and, and and they'll say all kinds of things about the values that they have, but you really know whether it's a value, if they keep doing it when it's hard. So this, this team's value is like, we're humans.

We're showing up in this meeting with like, all kinds of stuff happening in our lives. And like, it's there, it's there whether we like it or not, it's there, you know, and we're not gonna take 30 minutes to process it and express it all, but we're going to at least acknowledge it and be able to show up for each other better.

Because I see that you're a two right now rather than a five. I, I might actually interact with you a little bit differently. I might, I might be a little bit softer or kinder in my ask for you. And, and that matters cuz that builds all the things that we know is important. Psychological safety, trust, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That really does affect productivity. But it's, it's hard in companies cuz slow down to speed up or slow down to have deeper impact, slow down to, to, to get better quality is a, is a tough thing to really like believe it, it feels counterintuitive and that's kind of the point.

Oren: Exactly. And you said one thing there that I wanna just name and make and make an explicit point around, and then I wanna continue moving in this direction of, of values and, and the way rituals support us in actually embodying values within a company.

But first, one thing that is a common misconception when it comes to the type of work that you and I do in the world, which is, is bringing more awareness, more of, of this shift from away from autopilot is I don't wanna, I don't wanna work in a place where, where we're like therapizing everything, and you know, so in our process with each other, and that's not what we're suggesting so much as just bringing a bit more.

Of that thoughtfulness and consideration and humanity that we've learned to leave out of the picture. That is, it's just become normal to leave these very human ways of connecting and relating to each other out of work. And we're suggesting, well, let's bring that back in.

Ezra: Yeah, absolutely. What's that Brene Brown quote?

Let me see if it's like you can either spend a, like, reasonable amount of time dealing with the, like, emotions in the room or spend an unreasonable amount of time dealing with the fallout, you know, it's like something like that. Mm-hmm. Exactly. You know, that we, we have this sense that that everything is going to, you know, that, that, that when we touch on these human elements, it's messy.

It's it, it, it's Chaotic. It's uncontrollable and, and companies really, I think often thrive on like systems control predictability. And humans are messy and we are unpredictable. And the idea of like bringing your whole self to work is a kind of funny, the language of that is kind of funny to me because we are always our whole selves no matter where we go. I think some places we feel more expressed in certain parts of ourselves and so but, but we are always our whole self.

It is always there. It's just a question of whether or not it will be explicit. And because it's explicit, you can actually deal with it. Or is it just going to be in your shadow, in, in the space that is in outside of your awareness, there affecting things but never able to be dealt with.

And that doesn't mean therapy your boss is not your therapist. That's for sure. And your hrs you know, person is not your therapist either, but they are a fellow human, you know? And and, and that I think is, is, is critical that we bring in that element. I'll also say just for what it's worth, you know, I love rituals obviously, and, and really believe that it is a tool that is being left out of the conversation.

Which is a disservice because rituals have been used in every culture, in every part of the world through all of human history, back to our earliest ancestors. So it's a really core evolutionary and and, and even biological behavioral element of our species and, and, and especially critical to culture, right?

There isn't a healthy culture in the world that hadn't, that doesn't have rituals, and yet it's left out of the conversation. So, yes, I believe that, and at the same time, it's not magic. It's not, it's not the only answer. You know, there's, you know, like if you're onboarding somebody and you want a ritual that connects them to their teammates, like, great, do that.

And also tell 'em what their computer password is and show 'em where the bathroom is. You have to do both, right? Ritual doesn't just solve everything. And habits, routines and traditions are just as necessary for a well-functioning organization. I don't mean put friction everywhere, slow everything down.

We need the automatic, the habits that, that just roll and just function. It, it's really about making sure that we're being intentional about which thing we're doing and why, and we're using the right tool for the thing that we wanna create or, or the intention or the, the impact that we wanna have. If you, you know, a a, a ritual would be a terrible tool to use if you're trying to create a habit, which is just automatic.

And, and habits are terrible tools if you're trying to create a ritual, you know, like habitually, how many of us start our meetings with five minutes? Zoom, chit chat about nothing as we wait for some person to show up late. And then somebody at some point is like, okay, well I guess we should get started.

And then what do you know? The minute the meeting runs 10 minutes over, you know, and, and, and, and oh, and even worse, when it's like 15 people in the meeting and only two people or three people are chit-chatting and everyone else is just listening on, okay, so we're, we're going through this. Just have it, we just do that.

Cuz that's what we always do. And no one has ever decided or thought about or been intentional and say like, what is the, what is our actual goal here? What's the impact that we wanna have? And is this thing that we're doing actually serving us? And if not, what can we do differently?

Oren: Yes. I like to.

Think of myself as somebody who just questions everything often to the point where it just gets annoying, how much I question everything. But I acknowledge that when I'm working with my clients, for example, especially when I'm beginning work with, with a new client, that questioning things and interrupting those patterns, interrupting those habits, it comes with a, a perceived cost.

Whether that's consciously acknowledged or not, meaning it, it can feel threatening at a, at a, at an embodied level, at a somatic level. It can feel dangerous to question and interrupt the way that we've been doing things within a culture, within a group. And I'm curious what you would say to, to that, just given that, in my experience, it's such a, it's such a prevalent kind of dynamic that exists, but we don't often acknowledge that, almost like that initial hump.

We have to get past in order to start creating these kinds of intentional

Ezra: changes.

Yeah, this work is not easy. It is often, you know I, I I I think that the sort of science around change and our resistance to change is important and it informs my work a lot. This, this idea that any change, even, even the ones that we like, even the ones that we want, the good ones inevitably comes with something being lost, which is grief and something that is unknown, which is anxiety.

But it's not the full picture. Right? On the other side of loss is liberation. And on the other side of anxiety is hope. So we are going through these changes. We're having automatic often reactivity because that's how we're programmed. And yet we're, we're not making space to have the full picture of it.

I, I'm thinking about Zipcar when they were transitioning from a desktop to a mobile app, and this was like in early days when this was not a guaranteed bet. And like any major organizational change, there's, you know, there, there's people being let go, there's new hires, there's org restructuring and there's a lot of anxiety in the air.

Because of course there is. They created a they had this ceremony where they like brought everyone into their main space and they had a bunch of desktop computers and they all got to take turns smashing the desktop computers to really signal this, this change in the company to, to create a shared, embodied experience of it.

And I think whether implicitly or explicitly to acknowledge like there's grief, there's anger, there's anxiety in the, in the room right now. And that's okay. That's okay cuz we're gonna be able to move forward with that. We don't have to just like, let it go and disappear and pretend like it doesn't exist and just have a bunch of backchannel conversations

we can actually be really, we can explicit, we can name it, we can bring it into the space. So, so yes, change will, will, you will always encounter resistance to change and In a lot of ways, like one of my design principles is obstacles is opportunities. So that resistance to change is, is just an, is just an opportunity.

Oren: It just so speaks to, to what I believe is the, is the heart of being able to move through change, which is allowing for all of it to be there, all that discomfort, all that uncertainty, the grief, the sadness, the anger, basically developing emotional literacy and, and a willingness to, to move through those kinds of spaces together, where we're gonna see parts of each other and expressions that you don't typically see in your run of themi day to day at.

But that is, that is the core, that is like the, the doorway we need to move through in order to be able to create different changes, to bring more creativity and connection to our work and to what we're creating through our work. And it is so rare that you hear about examples like the one you you gave there, where it's, it's so visceral, it's so experiential of, of smashing a computer.

And it serves to not only be together in this shared experience that as you are alluding to, can otherwise just be there behind the curtain and then comes out sideways in some way, shape, or form. Like I always say, if we're, if we're holding something in, it's gonna pop out somewhere, so we might as well learn to be with it.

Ezra: Right. And, and You know, like we've had thousands of years of evolution that have developed tools to deal with this change. And the anxiety and grief of change is not new to the human experience. Our ancestors have gone through this, and by the way, even much more sign, well, I shouldn't say much more significant changes.

It's, it's always significant. But our ancestors went through this as well, and they figured out how to do it and how to do it well. And they created this thing and it's called ritual. So, so, we don't have to, we don't have to, re reinvent the wheel here in, in the sense that we know, and the science shows, that, that rituals help create a sense of control.

At, in times of anxiety, they enhance performance by, by decreasing anxiety. They provide stable feelings of, of social connection. They, they help people deal with loss. They, they increase creativity, they improve the quality of experiences. There's. Tons of studies now that can point to what we've long known intuitively, that change requires a ritual or, you know, like as I was saying it, during, during the time of covid.

Collective loss requires, and, and collective grief requires collective ritual, collective process collective. Collective loss requires collective healing. And and, and we often are, don't have those tools available to us because we assume that ritual needs, it's like it's, they're, they're, they're rigid and they are must be passed down for thousands of years to make it a ritual.

But we are creating new rituals all the time. And sort of to your, to your earlier question, another thing that I would say to people who are experiencing some resistance around, around change is to remind them what my colleague Casper says. Every tradition started as an innovation, right?

Every tradition started as an innovation. So you're just looking, where are you in your timeline? The things that you hold true and core. And we've always done it this way. Well, No, no, that actually started 20 years ago, you know? Right. Yeah, yeah. Or like my my uncle who I went to his, his Passover Seder for the, for the Jewish holiday of, of Passover and there's this book that you follow, kapa Hak.

And, I wanted to bring some new rituals. Hey, let's try some new things. And he is like, you know, Ezra, what I love about Passover is that it's always the same. That's what he said. So he rejected all of my new rituals. And then I went to his house and I looked at the Haa, and his haa that he was using was called the New American Haa.

And I was like, published in the nineties, you know, it was like always the same, you know, I'm older than the saga, you know. So I think we, we, we trick ourselves into, you know, tell ourselves these stories of because it, it makes our, you know, like we tell, we tell ourselves these stories that these things are, are.

Timeless and forever, when really they're in constant flux and constant evolution. And the truth of the matter is the, the, the core identity of the world is impermanence. Nothing is permanent. And so it's actually a much more human and and true experience to feel a little bit of that improv, you know, that I, I think is where some of the best creativity comes from in this space.

Oren: So let's build on that, that improv, of recognizing and, and moving through uncertainty, which can be very confronting in a business world that prides itself on some elusory certainty that we can guarantee with, with the right data and the right language And in this, in this traditionally top-down approach to creating things in the world, to building businesses, that says as long as there's enough control over everything that's happening, we'll be able to, to keep moving forward regardless of what's going on around us, regardless of what's changing, as long as we've got control.

And this is one of the things that gets in the way of, of embodying values. We can have the best intentions in the world when we create a business, and the founders and the, the initial leadership teams can genuinely believe in the values that they speak to, the values that then go on the plaque, that goes on the wall, and inevitably it becomes just another decoration because oftentimes it's inconvenient to.

Address questions of value when they come up. It can force us to let go of control for just a moment and come back to the essence of, of why come back to you the symbology of not just the value itself, but why we all came together to work on this thing for this company. So I would love to, to get a little bit of your insight based on your experience working within organizations of different, of different kinds of teams, of different kinds.

What is, what can be supportive of acknowledging the values, even when it feels like it's

Ezra: not the right time? Hmm. Do you have a, like, do you have an example from, you know, of, of when you saw that happen? Yeah. Let's see.

Oren: There are many examples of in what's the, what's the classic, stereotypical value, integrity, acting with integrity.

Many companies have some value related to being honest, being transparent, being responsible, accountable, and integrity in some way. And it's one that we tend to interpret in different ways, depending upon what's going to allow us to to continue moving forward with our business and the way we intend without sacrificing things like speed without adding too much additional cost.

We tell ourselves, I know this thing is really not totally aligned with our values as a company, but the ends justify the means where we're going. And this is a classic issue within tech. Where we're going is going to help, the collective is going to support humanity if we cut these corners here and do these kind of shady things with the data there.

That ends by far because of the scale of our reach justified as means. And when you're in the moment making those decisions to come back to integrity and make really challenging choice that is going to impact your life and the life of your employees, how fast that company can grow, that can be a really challenging moment to make a decision that is truly aligned with those words on the wall.

Ezra: Yeah. And, and even more complex when you're facing a decision in which the values don't actually, that when, when the values feel like they're in conflict with each other, you know, like to use that example, you know, let's just say that company also had the value of, you know, creating a an environment where our employees can flourish financially and do their best work, whatever. Yeah. Okay. So we can make these n choices that are out of alignment with integrity, cut some corners, blah, blah, but. It'll create profit. And didn't we say that we're meant to help our employees flourish and like this will, I can give them all a raise.

And if we don't do this thing well, I am gonna have to cut some people or reduce salaries. So don't, so then what do you do? It's tough. I, there's no easy, I, I don't have a, I don't have a magic response to this. Or an e or an easy answer to this. I think that, you know, I, I go back to what I said earlier.

You know, some of the core things that I know about values is that you only know it's a value if you do it when it's difficult. That's how you really know. It's a, it's a value, you know? There's a the value of, you know, not committing adultery or whatever. If you lived in a cave and never saw anybody would, it wouldn't be much of a value.

Like it is a value when it's put into practice when you're out at the bar . If you're like, well you know, I know that this is the value, but I also have this value about finding happiness and joy in my life. So, you know, like, well, anyway, it doesn't really look like such an important value anymore.

And I think that we, I think that we humans are, are very skilled at telling ourselves stories that dilute us and keep us. The hero of our, I think we're all heroes of our own stories, and I think companies are also the almost always the hero of their own stories as well. So we're very skilled at that.

And I think rituals help us by, by embodying these values, by creating shared experiences around them, by holding them up as important. Because when you spend time with something, it's, it's one of the ways that we show that we value it by creating practices that bring it into our lived experience.

I think that we become much more skilled at identifying when we're out of alignment with it. You know, it's, it's similar to, you go on the meditation retreat, not so that you can stay in silence for the rest of your life. But so that you, when you go back into the motion and commotion of your everyday life, you can notice you have that noticing of when I am not my best self because I got to experience my best self when I was on vacation and on a retreat and Bali, and everything's taken care of.

Life is easy, you know there it's so easy to be my best self there, so that when you're back into the difficulty of life, you've had a contact, you've met your best self, and you can, you can see you're better equipped to notice when you're out of alignment with it, with that person. And the same is true with rituals.

When, you know, we, we, when we, we take that time to, to, to value them, to celebrate them, to experience them, so that we are better equipped in those moments when you're having that conversation, in that meeting to say, you know what? This feels like we're out of integrity and I know that integrity is important to us cuz we had Integrity Day or like, or, because every time that I do x I pass it through this filter.

Or because remember that story about our founder that we tell, you know, all of our onboarding employees that they had this difficult choice to make and they chose to make this choice. The, they, they chose to make the mo the more you know, honest and truthful choice. And it hurt them in the short term, but in the long term, it paid off.

Like we tell that story every time we onboard a person. I think integrity is actually really important to us. And you only have that language when you've, when you've weaved it in and, and, and metabolized it into the, the, the life of the organization.

Oren: There's something that's coming together from this conversation around living and breathing the values and the way ritual supports that, which is the way in which, when we're engaging in a ritual together that is intentionally designed to reflect a value, is we're taking this concept that exists in our own internal kind of interpretation and relationship with it.

We're making this sense of, of collective holding, of this value. It's almost like we're making, we're shifting the relationship from. One-to-one, two. Now we are all in relationship with this value as we move through this ritual together. And it, it just, it, it's more fresh within all of our, our collective awareness as opposed to something that I've interacted with a couple of times and made my own interpretation and go on

Ezra: my.

Right. Yeah. You know, there's, there's a, a, a scientific study that has shown that, you know, rituals help us remember events with greater detail and for longer, for, for, for a longer time period. So that's true. It sort of plants a, a, a flag in our memory because they're, they're different, right? They're, they're these noticeable events that differentiate from, you know, from what I call the, the run-on sentence of our lives ritual is, is punctuation that helps us differentiate and, and, and, and, you know, exclamation points to question marks, to even just tiny little commas when life seems and feels to just be running together.

You know, the, the, the evolutionary biologist and behavioral scientist, Dr. Isabella Burkey's, got this great line. She says you know, tell me what rituals you do and I'll tell you who you are. You know, that, that, cause they are these. You know, very visible, tangible, embodied experiences and practices that they take these intangible concepts and they actually make them visible that they can be one of the best tools that you have for

correctly identifying what, who, who a person is or who a culture is and what they, what they value. That can be a little tricky in the sense that we all, we can all point to a plenty of rituals that are hypocritical, right? That the values that the ritual is embodying aren't actually truly held, especially by the leadership.

And so it's hypocritical, it's window dressing, it's bypassing and that's, that's a real risk in. This work. And that's why I, I do think that the, while the process of creating the rituals is best when it's ground up, the process really has to start with leadership and the, that deep inner work in themselves for them to identify what they value, what they care about, and how they are willing to live their lives aligned with these, with these values.

Because as soon as we see, I mean, I think it's the number one reason why people in, in surveys around what a toxic workplace is. It's, it's leadership hypocrisy. As soon as people get a, a whiff of that it creates a real environment of toxicity and mistrust. So it's important, you know, it's important to, to really do that deep examination.

Oren: One thing that I'm just. Taking in over the course of this conversation is, is how committed you are to, to bringing that punctuation to the run on sentence that most of us have, have just grown accustomed to as a, as a way of being. So I would love to hear from you one, one ritual, one practice, something that has been special for you that maybe is, could be accessible to somebody listening as an inspiration for something that they can do to support their more complete expression of who they are, of their values.

Hmm. When they're showing up to work and

Ezra: to life. Yeah. Thank you for that question. My brain always short circuits, whenever anyone asks me about what rituals you do partly because I do so many and, and partly because Yeah, it is just because also, like they're, they're, they are in constant evolution, which is a core, you know, belief of mine.

That these are not static practices that need to, you know, exist forever, that they can serve you for a certain amount of time. And that's perfect just the way that is. They don't have to be forever for them to be valuable. I also find some resistance to this question because I there's a lot in pop culture right now.

The sort of do this feel that rituals is how I like to call them. It's like step one, step two, this, that, and then you're gonna feel this way. And it's a so like, transactional relationship with ritual. And it, and it makes it actually, it takes it away from, from its quality as a ritual because you haven't, you've, you've gone right to the what, why are you doing this?

And you've skipped. The why am I doing this and the why am I doing this? You've skipped those two questions, and those are really fundamental for the ritual to ultimately have its impact in your life. And you can't just you know, take my answer and project it onto yourself and, and expect it to to have the same kind of resonance.

So, you know, I tend to, I tend to resist these, these sorts of questions, and yet you know, I know that some examples can be helpful. I, I know that a lot of people have trouble turning work off, especially if they're working from home. And I've done a couple things around that. For a while. I, at the end of the day when I decided I was done with work, I would cover, I would shut down.

I would do the practical things like close some tabs, some of that stuff. And do my, end of day wrap up and I would shut down my computer, which felt like radical, I was, I actually gotta shut it down. And then I covered it with this really like beautiful little cloth that I had brought back from some of my travels.

So that inevitably when I, looked over at my computer, I was like, oh, that's right. I turned it off and I'm done with work. Because the, that instinct, that habit is so ingrained and I've heard people apply this ritual in all kinds of interesting ways. You know, I, I heard about someone who they took like a, a, a picture that their kid drew and they put that on top of their, Laptop because when they looked over, they remembered like, oh, I'm turning off my laptop.

Why am I doing this? Or why am I doing this? Oh, it's to connect and be with my family. So that's, that, that was their reminder of, of the why for them. So I think that can be really helpful. I also, I changed my computer password to deep breath, which is just, I don't always do it, by the way. Like I, I, I would say I more than, more than often don't take a deep breath whenever I log back in on my computer.

But there have been times where I really needed it, where I was like so stuck in the autopilot and I just, like, one single conscious breath when I turned on my computer can be so powerful to reorient of like, why am I doing this? Why am I here? You know, like the Instagram scroll, like I went on to message a person and then 10 minutes later I'm like, didn't message that person.

And I like completely forgot why I was there in the first place. How do they do that? So just that, that simple little bit of friction is helpful. And I, and I often, I really encourage if you're, if you're wondering where to start with ritual look at transitions in the day, you know, look at beginnings and endings and, and look at mealtimes.

Mealtimes are also a really great place to start because it's so it's a you know, the, the sort of science behind habit building from BJ Fog and James Clear around habit stacking, like, find something that you're already doing and then build like a habit on top of that. It's this pretty similar with rituals.

I know I'm gonna eat multiple times a day, and so it's a great way of adding a little bit of ritual into my life. And I, with my partner, when we sit down for dinner, at the end of the day, I mean, to be honest, lunch is often like standing up or at my desk. I am totally guilty of it. And dinner. At the end of the day, when we eat together, we, we sit down, we cook, we sit down and we, we close our eyes.

We usually take about three deep breaths. But we take whatever time we need and to, to find gratitude, to locate ourselves in the moment. And then when we're ready, we open our eyes on our own time. And when both of us have opened our eyes and we're looking at each other, we usually say something sweet like, I'm grateful for you, or, I, I'm, I, I love you, or, I'm so happy that we have this meal.

And, and it's, it's a, I essay great example of a ritual that has some kind of structure and rigidity to it. Like we close our eyes, we take some breaths, but there's also improv and flexibility cuz the thing that we say to each other is always contingent and informed by that day and how we're feeling in that moment.

So there's a bit of. Continuity as well as flexibility, and it makes it a really great way of, and quick way of checking in with ourselves and elevating what can be just the consumption of calories to something special.

Oren: Finding those reframes, those sentences that keep appearing and just inserting punctuation and those sentences, you know, are gonna come.

That's beautiful. Those are some, I'm, I'm definitely inspired by those examples, so thank you for going there and sharing them. Those are

Ezra: beautiful. Yeah. And if you, and if you believe me that that that you shouldn't just do what I say then I'll bring you back actually to where we started in this conversation and, and just ask yourself, those, those same three questions, why am I doing this?

Why am I doing this, and why am I doing this? And you can use those questions both for creating a new ritual from scratch. And you can also use those questions for taking something that you're already doing and adding some more intentionality and meaning to it. Like if you're, if you make coffee every morning, total habit why, why am I doing, why am I making coffee and why am I drinking coffee in this way?

And what are some special ways that I can that I can bring more layers of meaning to it? I, you know, I'll say that, maybe you can edit this or I don't know, but another example just came to mind, so I'll give it anyway. I, I always forget this one, but it's a silly one and maybe it's helpful because it's silly, which is I make coffee every morning, total habit.

Automatic unconscious, right? It's not a meaningful thing in my life, but I trained my Google Home where I say, Hey, Google, it's coffee time.

I said, I was like, is it gonna actually, okay, one minute and 30 seconds. And that's starting now. Hooray.

Oren: Hooray

Ezra: for coffee. I don't know if you've caught that, but it's so, so my coffee bruised for 90 seconds and then I just like trained it to say, hooray harray for coffee. You know, it's like, it just brings a little bit of joy into my life.

It's even every time it happens, like I just smile a little bit and you know, we, we don't always have to think about rituals as these, like, massive productions. We can think about really just the spectrum of ritualization, right? Just like how many, just one degree special, more special than what's normal and what's, what's, what's what I always do.

And even that can actually bring a lot of over time. Bring a lot of meaning to your life. Yeah.

Oren: Train, train your robots to, to encourage some ritual in your life.

Ezra: Google is not paying me for this. I wish it is not an endorsement, but yeah.

Oren: Yeah. Thank you Ezra. So for, for those who wanna look into to ways to experience this with you to go deeper into ritual with you, what are some ways people

Ezra: can do that?

For sure. Check out my website, ritualist.life. Or you can find me on Instagram at ritual underscore ist ritual ist. My, my creative studio is called Ritualist, where I do this work for sure. Email me my emails. Hey, hey, Google. Stop. That's the timer. Coffee's ready. Email me Ezra ritualist.life. I'd love to hear if you've got a ritual that you have or you just realized is a ritual.

For the first time I collect examples of rituals as a hobby. It's I am a total nerd that way, so I'd love to hear from it. Or, or if you're struggling with a ritual at work or in your, in your life shoot me an email. I'd, I'd, I'd be happy to chat. And if you are, are sold and, and really wanna be able to apply this in your.

Work life or home life. I have a course, it's a seven week course. We learn in all, all online but all live where we learn in small little groups of six it's called the Ritual Lab. And we go in depth on the science of ritual at the art of ritual. And then we, we just spent a lot of time experimenting and practicing.

So if there's like a, some, something that you're wanting to ritualize in your life or you know, a team meeting that you're trying to improve, or a conference that's coming up that you wanna, wanna make better, you, you can bring that to the group and we'll workshop it, coach it, give some new ideas for it, and brainstorm it with you.

So it's a, it's a great practice of this work. And and then you leave the course with. Awesome colleagues and peers that you can use for feedback for forever. It's, it's, it's an amazing thing. It's, it's the best thing that I've done, I would say in my career. And I'm launching new cohorts in the spring and summer.

There's a ready a wait list, so, so definitely go on my website, ritualist.life/learn and you can and you can put your name on the wait list. Thank you so much for being here, Ezra. Thank you, Oren. It's a pleasure and a joy and I feel really grateful to get to have this conversation. I hope that the words that we shared in this conversation that we had finds its way into people's minds and, and hearts.

And I, and I hope that it brings a new layer of meaning and purpose and connection in, in your lives.