"I've always been somewhat ritualistic, shaped by my Midwestern upbringing in a modest immigrant family. I remember my parents calculating the mileage of our '82 Honda Civic in a notepad after every fill-up, the same car I eventually inherited in high school. Or saving every receipt on vacation to audit our daily spending down to the dollar. In every sense, they were amazing parents, and their rituals instilled in me a desire to be intentional about how I lived my life."
"Rituals structure your time. Put simply, the more deliberate you are with your habits and behaviors, the more intentional you can be with that time. They don't emerge from nowhere; they're developed and refined over years of trial and error. How we create and, more importantly, maintain habits is deeply personal. What works for me almost certainly won't work for someone else."
Early family rituals—tracking car mileage and saving receipts—instilled intentionality and precise stewardship of resources. Time is the most precious resource amid constant distraction, and managing it is a critical leadership skill. Work-life balance functions as a set of tradeoffs rather than an absolute, with each choice yielding consequences. Rituals shape and structure time by creating deliberate habits that emerge from long-term refinement and personal adaptation. Professional rituals extend beyond personal gain to fulfill responsibilities to colleagues and stakeholders. Long hours and disciplined routines learned in large organizations became mechanisms to guide teams and sustain leadership performance.
Read at Fast Company
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