Harvard Business School article: Rituals Strengthen Couples. Here’s Why They’re Good for Business, Too appeared on my LinkedIn feed and it reminded me of a special journey I spent a long period contemplating and researching and testing out the market in a quick and short time. First and foremost, let's not be confused between 'habitual routine' and 'ritual'. Ritual is far deeper than habits and it's with profound intentions and virtue-oriented actions embedded.
We all know how powerful great (or bad) habits are in our daily life. The entire world has been highlighting its importance and gearing towards building well-being by having all the good habits routinely, and wellness in every aspect of our life. The industry experts have been expecting the constant growth of the ‘mindfulness’ industry since 2012 which includes yoga, meditation, and health & wellness businesses. The meditation and mindfulness industry alone was already generating a billion dollars in the U.S. (2015) and including the wellness and spa industry was over 3.7 trillion dollars at 9.2% of annual growth. Well-being has been a global movement and a keyword especially among many businesses from startups to corporate, prestigious business schools, and Silicon Valley. Then 'ritual' came along as a hot topic in the mindfulness and wellness industry.
A mindful lifestyle from a consumer’s perspective: I woke up and brewed a cup of Mindful Lotus tea ($6 for 20 bags). On the subway, I loaded the Headspace app on my iPhone and followed a guided mindfulness exercise ($13 a month for premium content). Later in the day, I dropped by Mndfl, a meditation studio in Greenwich Village ($20 for a 45-minute class), I made my bed and set the Saje aroma diffuser ($89-130) and Calm sound app ($60 a year) on.
Businesses started using the power of habits at an organizational level for a healthier working environment and better productivity. To add the value of ritual in solidarity with business as an additional component requires mindful attention and humane strategy. However, when it comes to running a business of 'ritual' is much more complicated than what it looks like from the distance, from the consumer's perspective.
Mindfulness in business (by existing business case): Arianna Huffington runs a mindfulness conference, a “GPS for the soul” app and a mindfulness corner of her Huffington Post. Chip Wilson, the boss of lululemon, a seller of yoga gear, has set up a website, whil.com, that urges people to turn off their brains for 60 seconds by visualizing a dot. (“Power down, power up, and power forward.”). Google offers internal meditation related course of “search inside yourself” “neural self-hacking” and “managing your energy”.
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