“Moments matter.  And what an opportunity we miss when we leave them to chance.”

The Power of Moments:  Why Certain Experiences have Extraordinary Impact is an inspirational book that makes readers stop and think about past situations and how to create more impact in the future.  It is full of helpful examples and stories.

These academic brothers provided great ideas to make experiences memorable.  They described how a school adapted sporting signing days to highlight graduate students college and university acceptances creating excitement for the students and inspiring younger students to follow in their foot steps.  Another example was how a company took the time to create a memorable first day experience for new employees.

The authors focused on a model including:

Elevation – the ability to make moments elevate above the every day and shared an example of a hotel which had a “popsicle hotline” where guests could pick up a special phone, request an icy treat and have it delivered with formality and pomp on a silver tray.

Insight – these moments create an “a ha” type of moment inspiring individuals to make a change that may influence their life path.  The authors talked about individuals “tripping over the truth” and coming to a realization which would impact their future decisions.

Pride – the authors described these moments with courage and achievement and used an example of an app called Couch to 5K which led to the success of completing a 5K run or completing a degree.

Connection – the fact that connecting this success to social situations creates memories that link individuals and can be reminisced about in the future.

These moments are positive, “peak” moments that have lasting impacts such as weddings, graduations and other celebrations.

Here are a couple of suggestions from this book:

• Write a letter of gratitude to someone who made a difference in your life that has never been thanked properly
• Get to know someone better by asking some of the 36 questions defined by Art Aron – even better, use these questions with your kids at the dinner table.  you might be surprised by some answers!