Ponder Post: The Power of Moments

The Power of Moments ©2017 is the fourth book I have read by the Heath brothers, Chip and Dan. First, I'd avidly read and strongly liked Made to Stick ©2007 and reviewed it in my post for 4/19/14. I found it the most enjoyable of the four and the easy going style of the authors was conducive to read others of their works. Next, I'd read Switch ©2010 and reviewed it in my post for 12/2/14. It flowed very readily and was full of examples just as Made to Stick had been, so it, too, was a worthy non-fiction read. I am pretty sure I read Decisive ©2013. I recognize the cover but for the life of me cannot recall one aspect or detail from the book. Either it was unimpressive or my memory is failing; but neither scenario lends itself to a rousing recommendation of the book. Hmm... I have no blog post about Decisive so perhaps I am mistaken and never did read it. Last week, I put a hold on it from my local library. After a couple chapters into it I should be able to tell if I am confused or if it lacked luster.

But I digress. What did I think of Chip and Dan Heath's most recent publication, The Power of Moments? It had an interesting concept in the early chapters. Research shows that "we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest". Situations in the book bring bring this idea to life. For example if a family of five during a DisneyWorld visit were pulsed every hour to rate their experience at the moment on a scale of 1 to 10, the average might be say 6.5 (an exhilarating ride on Space Mountain or getting personalized mouse ears versus standing in line the hot sun or dropping an ice cream cone). Ask those same people after their visit how they's rate it and the number would most likely be higher. That last memorable moment was probably the fireworks.

Usually these authors have an acronym or some other means to remember the concepts in their book. Made to Stick uses the acronym SUCCESs as a memory tool, illustrating why ideas survive. SUCCESs stands for Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories. In Switch rather than an acronym, there is a vision to enable recalling how to inspire change. The reader was instructed to picture someone on an elephant that you want to go somewhere different: Direct the Rider ➔ Motivate the Elephant ➔ Shape the Path.

In The Power of Moments there are four elements : Elevation, Insight, Pride, and Connection. They could have spelled the acronym EPIC but even the Heath brothers claimed that to do so was too self aggrandizing. The order of the letters is not quite right either. The table of contents reads

I enjoyed the first portion of this book because the examples were eclectic. I could relate to thinking back on Moments chapters (1&2), For example I remember Frank asking me gently, as we walked back up the aisle after having just gotten married, "Would you be terribly upset if I told you your wedding gown is falling apart?" (The sheer fabric of a sleeve was fraying at an armhole seam.)

I could envision examples of my own throughout the Elevation chapters (3&4) discussing building peaks and thinking outside the box. There were those birthday parties we sponsored out in our backyard using empty pancake syrup bottles as squirt guns. I remember making a pretty snazzy hamburger cake for my son's ninth birthday that was definitely different. The colors are not quite right in the following photo: the "blue" lettuce leaves on the bottom bun were really green spearmint sugar-coated jelly candies rolled flat. The bun bottom was baked in a cake pan and the bun top was baked in a pyrex bowl.

I began to get a bit lost in the Insight chapters (5&6) since many of the examples were career oriented and, being retired, that ship has sailed for me. There were cases of "Gee, do I really want to be doing this job for the rest of my life?" My days of having an epiphany is that arena are long gone. And certainly, once you are buried deep in raising three kids, you do not dare say, especially on a bad day, "Do I really want to be doing this?" I suppose the chapters on Pride (7,8,9) I could associate with awards for my kids – horseback riding, swimming, honor roll, etc. – but when I looked back at job awards or recognition when I was working, they were kind of hollow. That is probably one point of the book; how to keep those recognitions (at a weekly or monthly or quarterly meeting) from being empty and hollow.

I stubbornly completed the book but felt that the latter half was too business oriented for me. The first two books about sticking and changing I could apply to my life now even though I suspect their original target audience was for those with a career in business. The authors' backgrounds indicate business teaching is their strength. Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Dan Heath is a fellow at Duke University's Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) center. So for me, I would give this book a mediocre 3 star rating. Since it is chock full of examples and written in a conversational tone – not like some heavy, ponderous, educational tome. I suspect it would rate higher for the target commercial audience. Amazon readers rated it 4.7 stars out of 5.

By the way, I did check Decisive out of the library and skimmed it. I recognized enough that I must have read the book but remembered so little of it I concluded it lacked luster, so much so I forgot to write a post about it. I am not going to read it again. Besides, the font was smaller than in the Power of Moments – a very decisive factor for me in not re-reading it.