The Power of Moments
Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact
While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children?
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.
Readers discover how brief experiences can change lives, such as the experiment in which two strangers meet in a room, and forty-five minutes later, they leave as best friends. (What happens in that time?) Or the tale of the world's youngest female billionaire, who credits her resilience to something her father asked the family at the dinner table. (What was that simple question?)
Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck—but why would we leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 3, 2017 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781508238317
- File size: 184772 KB
- Duration: 06:24:56
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
August 7, 2017
Brothers Chip and Dan Heath—coauthors of Decisive and business school professors at, respectively, Stanford and Duke—take on the challenge of teaching readers how to foster memorable moments, for themselves and others, but fail to address the question of authenticity that their prescriptions raise. According to the Heaths, when remembering experiences, people mostly recall the high (or low) points and the endings. For a discrete period of time within a larger experience to become a “memorable moment,” it must involve either “elevation” (going beyond expectations), “insight” (learning something new about oneself), “pride” (feeling personal fulfilment), or “connection” (sharing the moment with another person). Each element is discussed within a separate section. In the section on elevation, the Heaths describe a California high school’s unique method of teaching Lord of the Flies: putting author William Golding on “trial” for libeling humanity. More often, however, the examples relate to corporate promotions, such as Pret a Manger employees being empowered to give away a certain number of free items weekly, thereby “elevating” the customer experience. The authors stress how their advice can boost corporate bottom lines, with fewer references to how they can improve readers’ personal lives. Moreover, the Heaths don’t address whether these carefully stage-managed experiences can ever feel wholly genuine, leaving a gap at the center of their book.
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Formats
- OverDrive Listen audiobook
subjects
Languages
- English
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