PDF Summary:The Power of Moments, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Defining moments are the small, meaningful moments that make our lives richer and give us fond memories to look back on. In The Power of Moments, brothers Chip and Dan Heath break down the elements of defining moments and teach you how to use them to make everyday experiences meaningful and memorable. You’ll learn how to elevate moments with delightful and deliberately random surprise, guide others to transformative truths, multiply your moments of celebration on your journey to a goal, and deepen your connections with the people around you.

In this guide, we’ll explore the psychological phenomena and developments of human nature that shape the Heaths’ ideas. We’ll also discuss ways you can meaningfully use the elements of defining moments in a range of settings and with an eye toward our rapidly changing and ever more tech-dependent world.

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• For example, you leave your corporate job to become the owner of a coffee shop. But the customers are demanding, the hours are long, and the income is unpredictable. One day, you realize, “This job is way too stressful. I miss the structure of the office.” The “cost” of owning a coffee shop is too high and not aligned with your values and motivations.

Shortform Commentary: Why You May Need a Mentor

Self-insight is a great reward for taking on new challenges, but actually pushing yourself into situations that come with a risk of failure can be very difficult, especially in the current global trend of people holding themselves to impossibly high standards of perfection. To break out of this mindset, it’s helpful to seek out a mentor who can support you through the process of leaving your comfort zone and exposing yourself to the possibility of failure.

(Note: Read our guide to Ryan Holiday’s Ego Is the Enemy to learn how to choose an appropriate mentor, ask them for their help, and develop a mutually beneficial relationship.)

The following section is geared toward mentors trying to push mentees into defining moments of self-insight. However, it can also help you, as a mentee, understand what makes for a great mentor and the benefits of seeking one out.

3) Push Others Into Self-Insight as a Mentor

As a mentor, your job is to push your mentee into situations that will spark her self-insight, providing the type of productive pressure that helps coax out her best self. The Heaths note that great mentors do four key things: Set high expectations, express confidence in the mentee, provide direction, and assure support. This formula sends the message, “I have high expectations, but I know you can reach them. I will present new challenges to you, and I will have your back if you fail.”

How the Mentorship Formula Cultivates a Growth Mindset

Your mentee can experience more instances of self-insight if you help her change the way she thinks about risk and failure. In Mindset, Carol S. Dweck explains that people typically have one of two mindsets:

• Fixed mindset: The mindset that intelligence, ability, or talent can’t be learned or improved. People with this mindset avoid asking for help and have an intense fear of failure because they feel it defines them and exposes the limits of their abilities.

• Growth mindset: The mindset that intelligence, ability, or talent can be trained or developed over time. People with this mindset are comfortable asking for help when they need it and overcome failure relatively easily because they see it as an opportunity to better understand themselves and to grow their abilities.

As a mentor, you want to help your mentee cultivate a growth mindset. The Heaths’ four-part formula helps touch on several aspects of guiding someone into this mindset:

• High expectations and confidence: By being demanding and reassuring, you help them become more comfortable with challenging goals, but bolster their confidence in their ability to stretch themselves.

• Direction: By giving your mentee a specific high-challenge project, you prevent them from defaulting to a project that seems easier or carries a lower risk of failure.

• Support: Assuring your mentee of your support expresses to her that it’s okay to ask for your help—she doesn’t need to fear what you’ll think of her if she fails or can’t accomplish the goal alone.

Moments Defined by Pride

The third element you can use to create a defining moment is pride. Moments defined by pride surface and celebrate your best self—the “you” who earns recognition for your efforts, crushes ambitious goals, and acts with courage in situations that call for it. The Heaths suggest three strategies for multiplying instances of achievement and recognition:

1. Build small, personally motivating “wins” into the journey toward a big goal.
2. Recognize others’ efforts and make their progress visible.
3. Prepare yourself to act with courage when necessary.

Strategy 1: Create and Celebrate Small Wins

The Heaths explain that everyone approaches goals differently: Some people might feel that accomplishing the goal is the only thing to be proud of, and others might think the journey to the goal is just as important as the goal itself. The Heaths suggest enhancing the instances of pride you feel while working toward a goal by adding small, personally motivating wins into the journey.

(Shortform note: Recall the fixed mindset and growth mindset discussion from Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset: Those with a fixed mindset often only care about the achievement of the goal, and those with a growth mindset can more easily see the value of the journey. The Heaths’ suggested strategy of celebrating small wins is helpful because it caters to both these mindsets. The frequent achievements cater to those with a fixed mindset, and the value placed on the pursuit of a goal caters to those with a growth mindset.)

Goals are often too large and ambiguous, and it’s all too easy to get lost along the way between Here and There or become discouraged or demotivated. Building small, achievable, and fun wins into the journey toward your goal serves several important purposes:

• Small wins are concrete and create a clear roadmap in the right direction.
• You’re more likely to stay engaged with small wins based on your particular motivations.
• You allow yourself multiple opportunities to feel good about your abilities.

(Shortform note: Studies have also shown that continuously celebrating small achievements is a fairly easy way to boost your overall happiness—it’s much easier to continue pursuing a goal when it feels good, or even fun, rather than like a chore.)

For example, if you want to lose weight, it’s best to abandon the old, vague roadmap of “eat healthy and exercise.” Think of small goals that feel like causes for celebration to you such as using the stairs instead of the elevator, cutting out soda for 30 days, going for a drink with friends when you hit 10,000 steps for the day, and logging 50 Zumba classes.

Strategy 2: Recognize Efforts and Progress

The Heaths note that there’s a common misconception that people who work hard are likely to feel proud of their work. It’s not so simple: Pride doesn’t come from hard work alone—it comes from the results of your hard work being noticed.

(Shortform note: Research shows that the strongest indicator of productivity is how a team member feels—if she feels positively toward her organization and herself and is motivated by her work, her productive performance will naturally increase. Team leaders, therefore, should focus their efforts on their team members’ feelings. The research determined that the most effective way to lift a team member’s mood is to make sure that she has a consistent sense that she’s making progress in meaningful work—what the researchers dubbed the progress principle.)

Recognition is the easiest way to use the progress principle to create pride for others. Pride that comes from recognition is especially memorable—largely because it’s so rarely practiced. When practicing recognition, your focus should be on the frequency of your praise, not the grandeur. People feel most satisfied when their efforts are being recognized consistently, not just when they accomplish a big goal.

(Shortform note: The progress principle specifies that team members who have a consistent sense of their progress experience heightened mood and productivity. Frequent recognition meets this need as well as reminding the team member that their work has meaning.)

Strategy 3: Prepare Yourself Mentally for Courage

The Heaths say that the third way to create pride is to act with courage—standing up for someone else, calling out injustice, or fighting for something we believe in.

(Shortform note: In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown—an expert on shame and vulnerability—explains “practicing courage” as developing unwavering integrity: A commitment to acting in alignment with what you understand, personally, to be the right thing to do—even in situations that make you feel vulnerable or exposed to the risk of failure.)

The Heaths note that while you might not have any control over when opportunities to act with courage appear, you do have control over how you react to these opportunities.

Usually, when you see something wrong or unjust, you don’t react right away, or at all—most people don’t naturally know how to immediately react to these situations. Without a specific planned response, we end up spending too much time deliberating what we should or could say or do, and miss the moment.

(Shortform note: In their book Switch, the Heaths put a name to this phenomenon of clamming up when faced with the task of making a choice—decision paralysis. When presented with numerous options or ambiguity, we’re predisposed to conserving our mental energy by defaulting to whatever decision feels easiest or most familiar, or not doing anything at all.)

To avoid decision paralysis, plan out exactly how you’d respond to an opportunity to act with courage—what the Heaths call “preloaded responses.” Preloaded responses are reactions that you’ve drilled into your memory so that they’re immediately ready in a situation that calls for it.

• For example, “When I see Bill and his friends mocking my sister at school, I will walk over, ask them to stop, and walk her to class. ”

While thinking of your preloaded responses, ask, “How can I get the right thing done?” This question asserts that you know what’s right and now must make it happen. It’s not a matter of what you should do, but what you will do.

Shortform Commentary: Support Preloaded Responses With Precommitments

Asserting that you know the right thing to do and planning out how to make it happen can apply to smaller, very personal moments of courage as well. Doing the right thing and acting with integrity matters, even if you’re doing it just for yourself. To help you with this, you might support your preloaded response with a precommitment—a pact you make with yourself about the way you’ll act in a certain situation.

In his book Indistractable, Nir Eyal outlines several ways you can use precommitments to push yourself into doing the right thing:

• Create social pressure: This kind of pact makes it harder to do something undesirable. You might make a precommitment with someone else—you’re not likely to break the pact because of the added pressure of being “watched” by someone else. For example, you might ask a friend to walk home from work with you every day so you don’t stop at the bar.
• Put money on the line: This kind of pact attaches money to your precommitment—if you break it, you lose the money. You might attach a $100 bill to your fridge and make a pact: If you buy beer, you have to burn the money.
• Identify with your future self: Commit to the identity you want to have by talking about yourself as someone who has that identity. For example, instead of saying, “I’m someone who’s trying to quit drinking,” you might say, “I’m someone who is quitting drinking.”

Moments Defined by Connection

The fourth element you can use to create a defining moment is connection. Moments defined by connection are experiences that can strengthen your group relationships or deepen your individual relationships.

Part 1: Use Connection to Strengthen Group Relationships

Defining moments for groups happen in experiences that create a shared meaning for everyone present—experiences that underscore the mission everyone is working toward together. These experiences are essential for reminding the group members that they’re united in something important and larger than themselves. The Heaths identify three steps to create moments of connection for groups: 1) Create a shared moment, 2) Allow for voluntary struggle, and 3) Reconnect members with their work’s meaning.

Why These Three Strategies Strengthen Groups

In his book The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle reveals three crucial psychological elements that solidify one’s place within a culture and contribute to the success of a group: safety, vulnerability, and purpose. Each of the Heaths’ three steps helps establish these elements:

• Safety: Coyle describes safety as the feeling that you belong within the culture. When you stage a social group event, you help members connect with like-minded people and understand their place within the group.

• Vulnerability: Coyle describes vulnerability as the ability to expose your personal weakness and ask for support. When a group collaborates against a shared struggle, members expose their weaknesses and learn to ask one another for help.

• Purpose: Coyle describes purpose as the feeling that you’re part of the group for a reason. Creating a moment to clarify the meaning and impact of a group member’s presence reminds them why they contribute to the group’s cause.

1) Create a shared moment: The social reality of being together with a group of people working toward the same cause is essential to understanding the magnitude of the group’s impact.

(Shortform note: Researchers find that remote work contributes strongly to lower employee job satisfaction and motivation. Many employees attribute this to a lack of social contact (or shared moments): Without the opportunity to meaningfully collaborate and chat with colleagues or see the impact of their work on clients, the work experience becomes endless, disengaging flatness.)

2) Allow for voluntary struggle: People naturally create strong bonds when they are struggling together, but they need to have chosen to be part of it. People who are forced to take on extra work become resentful and disengaged, whereas those who choose to struggle will have a genuine connection to the work and to others who do the extra work for the same reasons.

(Shortform note: Shared struggle is a powerful bonding tool—the Heaths discuss how it might bring together people who are already part of the same group, but studies have shown that pain or struggle enhances bonding in groups of people without any shared identity. Part of the reason for this is that struggle naturally forces group members to ask for help and show vulnerability, which is a foundational element of relationship-building.)

3) Reconnect with work’s meaning: Group members need to know that their work is much larger than themselves—you have to cultivate a group’s sense of purpose by showing them the impact of their work. Purpose is what allows people to see beyond their mundane or difficult individual tasks and feel a significant connection to the larger mission.

(Shortform note: Many organizations try to cultivate their employees’ passion instead of their purpose, but passion is a poor motivator that has caused a recent decline in workplace satisfaction: Studies cited in Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You show that only 45% of Americans report being happy with their jobs, likely because they feel that they should be doing something that aligns with their passions.)

Part 2: Use Connection to Deepen Individual Relationships

The Heaths explain that, contrary to what you might think, relationships do not naturally deepen or grow stronger over time. Without regular maintenance, relationships easily plateau—they won’t develop any further without a bit of engineering. A properly maintained relationship has positive peaks that serve as the defining moments that deepen the relationship.

In relationships, these positive peaks happen in instances of responsiveness—engagement with someone else that makes it clear that you’re listening to and care about them. Responsiveness conveys three essential messages:

• Support: I actively support you and will help you get what you want or need.
• Understanding: I know what’s important to you and who you are.
• Respect: I respect who you are and your wants or needs.

Responsiveness in Personal Relationships

In personal relationships, responsiveness is part of a formula: vulnerability + responsiveness = intimacy. In practice, this formula looks fairly simple: You share something (vulnerability) and then wait to see if the other person shares something in return (responsiveness). By choosing to respond, they express respect, understanding, and support.

The Heaths stress that intimacy doesn’t come from either responsiveness or vulnerability alone—it’s crucial that there’s an exchange between the two. When completed, this simple exchange allows the relationship to progress and deepen instead of plateauing. Keep in mind that this exchange doesn’t happen naturally—someone needs to take the first step to start the cycle of vulnerability. If you want richer, deeper connections, you must either be willing to be open with others or recognize when others are opening up to you.

The Importance of Aligning Expression and Reception

The Heaths’ approach to responsiveness is somewhat one-size-fits-all: Someone expresses vulnerability, and by expressing vulnerability in exchange, you reveal that you see them, care about them, and understand them. A crucially important point that this approach misses is that not everyone gives and receives support, understanding, and respect the same way.

Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages is well-known for its lessons in determining what actions make you and those in your life feel seen and understood. The book focuses on the way we express love through five “languages'': acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, and quality time. Knowing someone’s love language means that when they open up to you, you can respond to their vulnerability in a way that aligns with the way they view understanding and care—thereby deepening your relationship.

For example, your friend reveals to you that she’s behind on a project at work and is worried she’ll be fired if she doesn’t get it done.

• You reply with your love language, words of affirmation: You say, “That’s so stressful. You’re so organized, though—I know you can do it.” Rather than feeling understood, she feels that you’re just saying nice things as a way to brush off her concerns.

• You reply with her love language, acts of service: You say, “That’s so stressful. How about I pick up your kids from school each afternoon and feed them at my place? That way you can stay late at work without worrying. Let me know if I can do anything else.” Your friend feels understood and deeply connected to you because you’ve shown that you care in a way that makes sense to her.

Conclusion: What Defining Moments Give Us

Looking for moments that you can enhance with elevation, pride, connection, or insight can multiply the rich experiences that make your life meaningful. Focusing on meaningful moments is a way to reconnect with what’s important to a well-lived life. Investment in these moments offers you the opportunity to re-engage with your life and fight against the everyday flatness that causes days, months, and years to speed by.