The power of ritual

Understatement alert: I’m don’t love structure.  Like, at all.  I have lived within some strict professional confines in my life so I know I can be structured and calendared.  But legit, my natural state is not unlike that of an exploded suitcase at the end of a long trip.  Just kind of strewn about.  But unlike the disheveled traveler to which that suitcase belongs, I kind of prefer things that way.  There’s a certain comfort in the lack of structure.

For example, if given the choice between scheduling family vacations a few months in advance or simply shoveling everyone in the car the morning of and setting out towards a destination still TBD, well, you know which way I go.  Sadly, Erin is very much not like that, which leads to some really fun conversations.  OK, mostly eye rolls and sighs as we try to jam sleeping kids in car seats, but still, oh the adventure.

My lack of routine is itself routine.  I am routinely unscheduled and I take great joy in it.  Don’t get me wrong:  I make to-do lists.  I keep a calendar.  But unless a third party is involved in the particular scheduled to-do I take great joy – no, relief – in to-don’ting the tasks on my list in favor of newly! discovered! challenges! that! require! my! immediate! attention!!

This is bad for a business but great for a creative.  Living unscheduled means there is always room to dream.  But it also means it is crazy hard to actually get anything done without some kind of help.

Enter the “ritual cue”.

I read somewhere (in an audiobook likely) about physical rituals that salespeople and others perform to jolt their bodies into ready mode. In their “off” time they are floppy and chill and ordinary.  But when its go time – time to shoot a basket, make a presentation, deliver closing arguments or close a deal – they have one or a couple small physical things they do to snap into the zone.

I worked with a senior leader at Wendy’s who did this.   Whenever it was time to negotiate with franchisees, he would pour them cold beverages, pass around trays of sweets and wipe down the conference room table with a handful of napkins.  Guys, he was very senior and very wealthy and was so, um, polished we all joked that he wore three piece suits to lounge by the pool.  So it was very odd.  But the more I watched him the more I realized that that ritual helped him snap back into his youth when he worked in restaurants and his sole focus was service.  Snapping back into service mentality helped him, I assume, remember what the whole point is of that industry, and the meetings always went smoothly.

This is hardly a new concept and honestly, there are a million other examples of this that we have all seen before.  Think Lebon James chalk toss.  Or surgeons playing a certain song before operating.  TV journalists tapping their pile of papers before delivering the news.  The list goes on and on.  These physical cues  – cues, not tics, which lack the conscious intent of cues – help prepare people to be their very best – almost like they are different people before and after the performance.

Even someone as unscheduled as me can get with that. And what’s funny is I had gotten with that a few years go.  When I would go to important meetings for work, the same meetings where cold drinks were being offered and tables swabbed, I would take thirty seconds beforehand an apply a bright lipstick.  Reds, pinks, plums.  Typically matte – gloss gets messy when you’re negotiating.  And when I puckered and blotted I would think about how the meeting would go, what points needed to be made and won or could be conceded.  And then I’d be ready.

I have carried this ritual over to my new life as an entrepreneur, and find it soo helpful.  It feels almost like the difference between Superman and Clark Kent – before my lipstick ritual I’m mild mannered and unassuming, easy going.  When its time to get to work, negotiate a deal, make a huge decision or even just crank through paperwork, I layer on a coat of lipstick and it snaps me into “ready”.   This is why when you look in my purse I never have any cash, but I do have at least 4 lipsticks.  And usually some kind of gummy candy, but that has little relevance here.

Do you have any rituals in your life that work as physical cues?