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Psychologists have untangled the reasons for this puzzling result. When people assess an experience, they tend to forget or ignore its length—a phenomenon called “duration neglect.” Instead, they seem to rate the experience based on two key moments: (1) the best or worst moment, known as the “peak”; and (2) the ending. Psychologists call it the “peak-end rule.”
So, is this just about how things are remembered, and leaving with a good feeling? I want all my lessons to be valuable and remembered!
ELEVATION: Defining moments rise above the everyday. They provoke not just transient happiness, like laughing at a friend’s joke, but memorable delight.
INSIGHT: Defining moments rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world. In a few seconds or minutes, we realize something that might influence our lives for decades:
PRIDE: Defining moments capture us at our best—moments of achievement, moments of courage.
CONNECTION: Defining moments are social:
Defining moments possess at least one of the four elements above, but they need not have all four.
“School needs to be so much more like sports,” he added. “In sports, there’s a game, and it’s in front of an audience. We run school like it is nonstop practice. You never get a game. Nobody would go out for the basketball team if you never had a game. What is the game for the students?”
“Mostly forgettable and occasionally remarkable.”
Is this ok? Should we be accepting this?
As a result, choosing between Plan A and Plan B is not a close call. Here’s the astonishing finding from the Forrester data: If you Elevate the Positives (Plan B), you’ll earn about 9 times more revenue than if you Eliminate the Negatives (Plan A). (8.8 times, to be precise.) Yet most executives are pursuing Plan A. (See the footnote for more on the methodology and an anticipated quibble.)
To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script.
Beware the soul-sucking force of “reasonableness.” Otherwise you risk deflating your peaks. Speed bumps are reasonable. Mount Everest is not reasonable.
In other words, surprise stretches time.
This is the intuitive explanation for the common perception that time seems to accelerate as we get older. Our lives become more routine and less novel.
High standards + assurance (“I specifically told her that I had high expectations for what I thought she could accomplish,” Phelps said.) + Direction + support (Phelps suggested the field visits to correct the perceived “hole” in her experience and ensured that her first visit was with a female leader.) = Enhanced self-insight.
her father would ask them a question every week at the dinner table: “What did you guys fail at this week?”
MOMENTS OF INSIGHT THE WHIRLWIND REVIEW Moments of insight deliver realizations and transformations. They need not be serendipitous. To deliver moments of insight for others, we can lead them to “trip over the truth,” which means sparking a realization that packs an emotional wallop. • Kamal Kar’s CLTS causes communities to trip over the truth of open defecation’s harms. Tripping over the truth involves (1) a clear insight (2) compressed in time and (3) discovered by the audience itself. • In the “Dream Exercise,” professors discover they’re spending no time in class on their most important
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through the night: “He knew I had it in me to make it through that night when I didn’t know that myself.” The formula for mentorship that leads to self-insight: High standards + assurance + direction + support. • Six Sigma expert Ranjani Sreenivasan was pushed by her mentor to develop skills in company operations. “I learned that I’m capable of more than I thought,” she said. Expecting our mentees to stretch requires us to overcome our natural instinct to protect the people we care about from risk. To insulate them. • Spanx founder Sara Blakely’s dad: “What did you guys fail at this week?” He
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To identify milestones like these, ask yourself: What’s inherently motivating? (Getting a glowing thank-you.) What would be worth celebrating that might only take a few weeks or months of work? (Solving the number one complaint.) What’s a hidden accomplishment that is worth surfacing and celebrating? (Making it a full week without any 1s.)
His research shows that when people make advance mental commitments—if X happens, then I will do Y—they are substantially more likely to act in support of their goals than people who lack those mental plans.
MOMENTS OF PRIDE THE WHIRLWIND REVIEW Moments of pride commemorate people’s achievements. We feel our chest puff out and our chin lift. There are three practical principles we can use to create more moments of pride: (1) Recognize others; (2) Multiply meaningful milestones; (3) Practice courage. The first principle creates defining moments for others; the latter two allow us to create defining moments for ourselves. We dramatically underinvest in recognition. • Researcher Wiley: 80% of supervisors say they frequently express appreciation, while less than 20% of employees agree. Effective
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that her voice was beautiful. To create moments of pride for ourselves, we should multiply meaningful milestones—reframing a long journey so that it features many “finish lines.” • The author Kamb planned ways to “level up”—for instance “Learn how to play ‘Concerning Hobbits’ from The Fellowship of the Ring”—toward his long-term goal of mastering the fiddle. We can also surface milestones that would have gone unnoticed. • What if every member of a youth sports team got a “before-and-after” video of their progress? Number-heavy organizational goals are fine as tools of accountability, but smart
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Purpose is defined as the sense that you are contributing to others, that your work has broader meaning. Passion is the feeling of excitement or enthusiasm you have about your work.
Passion is individualistic. It can energize us but also isolate us, because my passion isn’t yours. By contrast, purpose is something people can share.
Their role was simply to ask questions and listen to the answers. Those questions were prescribed for them: “Tell me about your child’s experiences in school. Tell me about yours.” “Tell me your hopes and dreams for your child’s future.” “What do you want your child to be someday?” “What do I need to do to help your child learn more effectively?”
Our relationships are stronger when we perceive that our partners are responsive to us. (The term used frequently is “perceived partner responsiveness.”)2 Responsiveness encompasses three things: Understanding: My partner knows how I see myself and what is important to me. Validation: My partner respects who I am and what I want. Caring: My partner takes active and supportive steps in helping me meet my needs.
It’s incredibly selfish, frankly—me, me, me! It’s reciprocal selfishness, actually, since our partner expects the same.
But she had completed her “What Matters to Me” page, and it opened a door into her world. “My name is Kendra,” she wrote. “I have autism. I can’t speak so I won’t be able to if it hurts. I don’t like medicine by my mouth so watch out I will struggle. I love to feel people’s hair, it is my way of saying hello.” (See her drawing on the next page.) Her nurses used her drawing as a guidebook for caring for her. Without it,
Rodgers said, the nurses could have easily mis-interpreted her behavior. Imagine them dealing with a hard-to-understand child who grabs at their hair and fights when given oral medication. She might have been deemed aggressive. She might have been confined to her room, which would have caused her even more stress.
