The Power of Moments Book Exploration by Laurie Hawkins

1. THE POWER OF MOMENTS
by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
BOOK EXPLORATION
by Laurie Hawkins

2. “We can be the designers of moments that deliver elevation and insight and pride and connection. These
extraordinary minutes and hours and days—they are what make life meaningful and they are ours to create.”
DEFINING MOMENTS
A defining moment is a short experience that is both
memorable and meaningful.
Chip & Dan Heath have found that defining moments are
created from one or more of the following four elements:
Elevation. Boost sensory appeal; Raise the stakes;
Break the script.
Insights. Trip over the truth; Stretch for insight.
Pride. Recognize others; Multiply milestones;
Practice courage.
Connection. Create shared meaning; Deepen ties;
Make moments matter.
Defining moments possess at least one of the four elements
above, but they need not have all four. Some powerful defining
moments contain all four elements.
THINKING IN MOMENTS
Pits are the opposite of peaks. They are negative
defining moments—moments of hardship or pain or
anxiety. Transitions should be marked, milestones
commemorated, and pits filled.
Three situations constitute natural defining moments
and deserve our attention:
Transitions;
Milestones; and
Pits.

3. BUILD PEAKS
In many customer relationships, the moments most
likely to be remembered are pits. “Mostly forgettable”
is actually a desirable state in many businesses. It
means nothing went wrong. You got what you
expected.
When creating a memorable customer experience,
you first need to fill the pits.
Fill pits, then build peaks. Peaks don’t emerge
naturally. They must be built. To elevate a moment,
do three things:
First, boost sensory appeal.
Second, raise the stakes.
Third, break the script.
BREAK THE SCRIPT
To break the script is to defy people’s expectations
of how an experience will unfold. The other
difference between “breaking the script” and generic
surprise is that the former forces us to think about the
script. To break the script, we’ve first got to
understand the script.
How do you break the script consistently enough that
it matters, but not so consistently that customers
adapt to it? One solution is to introduce a bit of
randomness.
Learn to recognize your own scripts. Play with them,
poke at them, disrupt them. Moments of elevation are
experiences that rise above the routine. They make us
feel engaged, joyful, amazed, motivated.

4. TRIP OVER THE TRUTH
When you have a sudden realization, one that you didn’t see coming, and one that you know
viscerally is right, you’ve tripped over the truth. It’s a defining moment that in an instant can
change the way you see the world. The “aha!” moment should always happen in the minds of the
audience.
This three-part recipe: a clear insight, compressed in time and discovered by the audience
itself, provides a blueprint for us when we want people to confront uncomfortable truths. You
can’t appreciate the solution until you appreciate the problem. So when Chip and Dan write
about “tripping over the truth,” they mean the truth about a problem or harm. That’s what sparks
sudden insight.

5. STRETCH FOR INSIGHT
Action leads to insight more often than insight leads to action.
When students get their paperback, full of corrections and suggestions, their natural reaction might be
defensiveness or even mistrust. The teacher has never liked me. But the wise criticism note carries a different
message. It says I know you’re capable of great things if you’ll just put in the work. The marked-up essay is
not a personal judgment. It’s a push to stretch.
Mentorship in two sentences: “I have high expectations for you and I know you can meet them. So try this new
challenge and if you fail, I’ll help you recover.” A mentor’s push leads to a stretch, which creates a moment of
self-insight.
Moments of insight deliver realizations and transformations. They need not be serendipitous. To deliver
moments of insight for others, we can lead them to a “trip over the truth,” which means sparking a realization
that packs an emotional wallop. To produce moments of self-insight, we need to stretch: placing ourselves
in new situations that expose us to the risk of failure. Mentors can help us stretch further than we thought we
could, and in the process, they can spark defining moments.
The formula for mentorship that leads to self-insight: High standards + assurance + direction + support.
Moments of elevation lift us above the everyday. Moments of insight spark discoveries about our world and
ourselves. Moments of pride capture us at our best, showing courage, earning recognition, conquering
challenges.

6. RECOGNIZE OTHERS
Of all the ways we can create moments of pride for others, the simplest is to offer them
recognition. A classic paper on recognition by Fred Luthans and Alexander D. Stajkovic emphasizes
that effective recognition makes the employee feel noticed for what they’ve done. Managers are
saying, “I saw what you did and I appreciate it.”
Researchers have found that if you practice gratitude, you feel a rush of happiness afterward—in
fact, it’s one of the most pronounced spikes that have been found in any positive psychology
intervention. Better yet, researchers say, this feeling lasts.