I also agree that, “Purpose trumps passion,” and that, “…purpose isn’t discovered, it’s cultivated.” And, “You can’t deliver a great patient experiences without first delivering a great employee experience.” All sound advice. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have An Extraordinary Impact written by acclaimed NYT bestselling author’s Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath, is an engaging and exceptional book that combines the latest research from education, teaching, business, to technology with four basic principal concepts. These concepts shape and define our world, and can be applied to every aspect of our personal and professional lives. People’s most memorable experiences are clustered in their teens and twenties. Apparently, the reason why time seems to accelerate as we get older is because we are living a life that’s more routine and less novel. When you are doing something surprising, novel, scary, memorable, you find that time slows down. (Probably why vacation time seems slower than work time.) So make sure that you keep adding moments of surprise and doing things differently on a regular (or irregular!) basis to spice up life and slow time down. The most memorable periods of our lives are when we break the script. I found the chapter on creating elevating moments especially interesting. The authors provide a recipe on creating such a moment: Break the script - defying people’s expectations of how an experience will unfold. But if you are doing this with people who experience one of your services/products regularly, need to introduce a bit of randomness. It’s strategic surprise.

The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary

Mentoring someone. A good formula is high standards + assurance. Goal is to communicate “I know you’re capable of great things if you just put in the work.” You push them to stretch. Great mentors add two more elements: direction and support. “I have high expectations of you and I know you can meet them. So try this new challenge and if you fail, I’ll help you recover.” = mentorship in two sentences. A mentor’s push leads to a stretch, which creates a moment of self-insight. This book delves into some fascinating mysteries of experience: Why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest. Why “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.” And why our most cherished memories are clustered into a brief period during our youth. Chip Heath is the professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. In this chapter is also introduced the idea of “Responsiveness” and how it deepens relationships. There are three facets to this: (1) Mutual understanding, (2) Validation, and (3) Caring. A heart-breaking story in this sub-chapter tells us about a school in bad shape. For parent-teacher conferences, only 11% of parents attended. There was no investment from the parents, because they felt no investment from the school. There was little investment from the school, because they felt no investment from the parents. A vicious cycle. Under new management, the school went to each home and asked them questions that leverage these principles of responsiveness: What future do you see for your child? How do you think the school should approve? This is hardly new, but a good mental model for how to phrase the questions of importance. Parent-teacher conference attendance went up to 73%.Chip and Dan Heath have filled this book with moving stories from people who've taken chances. Who've done big and small things to change the course of their life. Some of the stories are big stories that I would think to myself could never happen for me, but then I would read a story that resonated in me and I would wonder what moment could change the course of my life. Am I missing these moments? Am I closed off to them?

The Power of Moments Quotes by Chip Heath - Goodreads The Power of Moments Quotes by Chip Heath - Goodreads

of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath Our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection (EPIC)

In the end, therefore, I’m glad I read the book. I personally found the value (the ROI of time and money spent) of the book to be so-so. (Admittedly, prices are set by the publisher, not the authors.) It doesn’t, in my mind, hit the mark of transformative. But for an individual human being, moments are the thing. Moments are what we remember and what we cherish. Certainly we might celebrate achieving a goal, such as completing a marathon or landing a significant client—but the achievement is embedded in a moment. Every culture has its prescribed set of big moments: birthdays and weddings and graduations, of course, but also holiday celebrations and funeral rites and political traditions. They seem “natural” to us. But notice that every last one of them was invented, dreamed up by anonymous authors who wanted to give shape to time. This is what we mean by “thinking in moments”: to recognize where the prose of life needs punctuation.” Defining moments rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world. And while they can be serendipitous, we can also engineer them, or at the very least, lay the groundwork. While I believe, after reading the book, that you can create an enhanced opportunity for defining moments, I’m not convinced it’s the best or safest investment of time and resources. After all, both time and resources are limited in every organization (and in every life). If you spend the same amount of time and effort building trust in your organization, would the ROI be better? I think so, and that is not to say that you can’t build trust through defining moments. It’s a matter of emphasis and line of approach.