Guy Reams (00:00.75)
This is day 45, warrior rituals. I was watching a show, it was kind of stupid. was showing Native Americans getting ready to go to battle. And so they were putting on face paint. Seems like a very stereotypical thing that you see sometimes in movies. And it got me to thinking, how many cultures are there that have these warrior rituals in which
Usually the men in the society prepare to go to war or prepare for initiation into like their warrior class. I thinking about that a lot. And what an impactful way to think about going about a major quest in life. I know in Native American cultures, there are vision quests. Not every tribe does this, but most some do. The idea that, you
a warrior seeks spiritual guidance or a vision to strengthen them in the battle. And there's like an initiation where a young man has to go through this in order to be worthy enough to go fight for the tribe. think I also remember from some reading that in ancient Greece, the Spartans had this thing called, think it's a goji or agagie or what I can't pronounce it. But the idea is that they would go through a rigorous training
as part of a coming of age ritual. And if they got through that rigorous training, they would then be considered worthy enough to enter into the Spartan warrior class. From my culture, Norse culture, there used to be berserker rituals, where berserkers would perform rituals in order to get ready to get into a ferocious mindset in order to go fight great battles.
In martial arts training, you oftentimes hear about Bushido or samurai preparation, getting ready for a certain mindful state that you get into before combat. mean, I think probably every culture, I think I've heard African Zulu tribes would have similar dances or ceremonies to seek blessings from their ancestors or from gods in order to get ready to fight. Perhaps the most
Guy Reams (02:24.142)
The one that we know the most was the ancient Rome because they recorded everything. Roman soldiers would participate in these purification rites before going out and fighting. And in fact, when they came home from a battle, they would go through a certain process in order to rid themselves of the terrors and the bloodshed that they went through.
So was kind of wondering, do we have an equivalent of this today? Do we do this at all? You know, I thought about, know, obviously in the army or Marine Corps in the United States or most modern militaries, they have programs that are like modern versions of this, basic training or bootcamp you go through where you test the physical, mental and emotional state of the warriors before they can be, get assigned to a unit. I thought about, you know, in my company life, we had team building exercises.
I remember a couple of times in my corporate environment, we'd go out on these excursions together for team building, like a scavenger hunt or something like that, where it felt like a ritualistic in a way, right? Some religions have some party that you have that symbolizes the entry into adulthood. I think athletes oftentimes have their own personal ritual.
If you watch a professional athlete carefully before they go out onto the field, sometimes it will have their own process they go through, a meditation or prayer or perhaps a certain thing they do in order to get ready mentally and physically for a high pressure situation. So I think we have some of this, but perhaps we should consider in our, and for most of us who are everyday people, perhaps we should consider
that we should have our own warrior ritual. Like every day when we wake up and we go to quote unquote to battle, to face on the day, to take on the great challenges of the day, maybe we should think of our morning routine like this. Because every day I enter into literally battle. I mean, I'm trying to create something out of nothing. I'm trying to make things happen. I'm trying to convince people to buy things, services for me. I'm trying to
Guy Reams (04:46.904)
convince people to work for me. I'm trying to grow a business. I'm trying to do all these things. it's almost, it is similar to this idea of battle or going to battle. So perhaps instead of thinking of the morning routine as drudgery, like, I have to go through this and I have to check all these boxes in my morning routine. Rather than that, perhaps we can start getting into that warrior mindset where we feel like, you know, that morning workout, the morning meal.
the meditation session, the time you sit and reflect on your day and plan out what you're gonna do. Maybe these should be ritualistic in a way. Perhaps we can create it like that to be more motivating to do them. mean, because obviously when a warrior, you imagine that warrior getting ready to go to battle, they're not gonna skip steps, right? Like if a famous athlete has learned that they follow a certain pattern,
than they do better in their game. It's almost become superstitious. So maybe we should consider that the same way. Every morning we have our warrior ritual in which we put on our war paint symbolically and we get ready to take on the day. Seems to me like a pretty good idea. I'm going to give it a shot. I've sat down today and I've created my own morning warrior ritual. So every day I'm going to try it see how it works out. I'll let you know how it goes.