• Why Rituals Equal Success

    by Alexander Becker on December 11, 2006 | Link

    As a social outcast you're not going to be successful in business either.

    A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value or a specific action or series of actions that a person performs in a given context which otherwise has no apparent reason or purpose.

    It is the repeating action and the predictable move which makes plans work and success inevitable. Repeating them faithfully and regularly makes rituals so powerful in their outcomes. Every -- however small -- action ultimately adds up, thereby conditioning efficiency, repetition eventually increases quality.

    Rituals are the glue and the lubricant, the implicitly explicit which communicates and defines relationships and represents mutual and common grounds.

    Rituals express group identity, they create social bonds, and nourish interpersonal relationships.

    Rituals help stake your claims, shape your landscape, and structure your business. Once established, routine acts as a shortcut and facilitates interaction. It's all about gestures.

    Rituals are reenacted over and over until they become obsolete, transcended by understanding. The daily request and the weekly obligation, the always the same and the annoying, are all part of -- the game.

    The mere rejection of rituals by an individual -- the individual -- sabotages his or her success in that she has to start all over again, every time.

    Dismissing rituals is equal to opting out of society.

    While rituals can have a more basic social function in expressing, fixing and reinforcing the shared values and beliefs of a society, the opposite is also true: By nonconforming and nonparticipating in key rituals, you alienate yourself, you decide to maintain absolute individualism, yet ultimately you perform your very own rituals and reinforce your most exclusive micro-culture.

    In any case, an essential feature of a ritual is that the actions and their symbolism are not arbitrarily chosen by the performers, nor dictated by logic or necessity, but are, at least in part, prescribed and imposed upon the performers by some external source.

    Celebrate the rituals imposed upon you for avoiding them leads to sure failure in business and eventual social suicide. Socialize -- including all those rituals -- and success will be yours.

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