1129: Unlocking Your Best Performance through Rituals with Michael Norton

How to Be Awesome at Your Job

How to be Awesome at Your Job

Education, Selfhelp, Thinking, Business, Mental Health, Mockaitis, Collaboration, Career, Speaking, Skills, Meaning, Decisions, Self-improvement, Wins, Health & Fitness, Interview, Fun, Success, Money, Sharpening, Development, Careers, Writing, Training, Winning

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael Norton reveals the science behind rituals that can help us change the way we feel and perform.

— YOU’LL LEARN —

1) What makes rituals more powerful than habits

2) How rituals help you get into the zone

3) Simple team rituals to build closeness

Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1129 for clickable versions of the links below.

— ABOUT MICHAEL —

Michael I. Norton is a professor at Harvard Business School. Michael’s research focuses on behavioral economics and well-being, with particular attention given to happiness and spending, income inequality, the IKEA effect, and, most recently, rituals.

Michael Norton’s research has been published in popular media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, and The New York Times, as well as academic journals like Science, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the American Economic Review. His “How to Buy Happiness” TED Talk has been viewed over 4 million times, and his work has been parodied by The Onion.

In 2013, Norton co-authored Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending with Elizabeth Dunn. His recent book The Ritual Effect focuses on the surprising and versatile power of rituals.

• Book: The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions

• Quiz: "Are you turning mundane moments into meaningful ones?"

• Website: MichaelNorton.com

— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW —

• Study: "Overearning" by Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, Fengyan Cai, and Shirley Zhang

• Book: The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World by Lewis Hyde

— THANK YOU SPONSORS! —

• Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.

• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/better

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	These rituals, it's not so much that they make us magically better.
0:13.7	They're actually just allowing us to perform at the best level that we're capable of.
0:19.6	And that in and of itself is a useful tool to have.
0:24.6	Rituals provoke emotion in us, which can be very positive, but sometimes very negative as well.
0:36.0	That's Michael Norton.
0:37.4	He's a professor at Harvard Business School School and his research focuses on behavioral economics and well-being.
0:42.3	He's also known for his popular TED Talk, How to Buy Happiness, which has been viewed over four million times.
0:47.4	His book, The Ritual Effect, talks about the surprising and versatile power of rituals.
0:52.0	So you'll learn one, what makes rituals more powerful than habits.
0:54.9	Two, how rituals help you get into the zone.
0:57.7	And three, simple team rituals to build closeness.
1:01.0	And if you want a quick summary write-up of the actual takeaways that Michael shared,
1:03.8	I recommend you sign up for the free Gold Nugget email newsletter found at
1:06.5	awesome at your job.com.
1:08.2	I'm Pete McItis.
1:09.2	This is How to Be Awesome at Your Job.
1:10.7	And now, here's Michael.
1:16.8	Michael, welcome. Great to be here. Well, I'm excited to talk about your book and rituals.
1:22.3	Could you kick us off by sharing one of the most important or meaningful or fun rituals for you personally and what makes
1:29.0	it special for you. One of the weird or most specific idiosyncratic ones in my family is that we
1:34.8	started this during COVID during the pandemic when joy was in short supply, I guess I would say.
1:41.3	And so we decided that we would start sticking candles in foods other than cakes.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from How to be Awesome at Your Job, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of How to be Awesome at Your Job and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.