Author Biography

Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Chip and his brother Dan have written four New York Times bestselling books: Made to Stick, Switch, Decisive, and The Power of Moments. Their books have sold over three million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty-three languages including Thai, Arabic, and Lithuanian. He has helped over 530 startups refine and articulate their strategy and mission. Chip lives in Los Gatos, California. Dan Heath and his brother, Chip, have written four New York Times bestselling books: Made to Stick, Switch, Decisive, and The Power of Moments. Heath is a senior fellow at Duke University's CASE center, which supports entrepreneurs fighting for social good. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. The Heath brothers' books have sold more than three million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty-three languages.

Review

'Chip and Dan are amazing and impactful story tellers. In The Power of Moments, they are able to use stories to display a powerful truth, that we can be more impactful as leaders and as people by recognizing and creating more "moments". At Virgin Atlantic, helping our people create [such] amazing moments for each other and for our customers is a nice new way of articulating an underlying goal of great leadership. This book truly frames that thinking in an easy to understand and engaging way. Perhaps even more importantly, I can see many similar opportunities in my life as a husband, father and member of a community.'--Craig Kreeger, CEO of Virgin Atlantic
"The Power of Moments packages together countless hours of research and interviews, as well as dozens of illustrative examples, in digestible, accessible, and entertaining prose....Moments offers something for everyone--medical practitioners rethinking the patient experience, corporate leaders re-imagining staff engagement, small businesses looking to differentiate themselves, teachers crafting more memorable lessons. Like Switch and Made to Stick, two of the authors' previous books, The Power of Moments is particularly useful for the social sector, in which change agents face daunting challenges in the fight for social justice, economic equality, and environmental protection. All those desperate for blueprints for creating the extraordinary should read this book."--Stanford Social Innovation Review
"Chip Heath of Stanford and Dan Heath of Duke argue persuasively that any organization that creates peak moments--for its customers, its employees, or its students--will enjoy benefits that range from fanatical loyalty to revenue growth. In this entertaining and informative read, they explain just how to create those moments and how to turn them into a competitive advantage."--BizEd
"Flat out amazing."--Jake Knapp, New York Times bestselling author of Sprint
"I read this cover to cover and learned something new on each page. Beautifully written, brilliantly researched--I'm recommending it to everyone I know!"--Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit
"The most interesting, immediately actionable book I've read in quite a while. I walked away with new ideas for motivating employees, delighting customers, engaging students, and even planning family vacations. If life is a series of moments, the Heath brothers have transformed how I plan to spend mine."--Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg
"This terrific book is bursting with practical insights and memorable stories on every page. It's as relevant to product designers and meeting planners as it is to teachers and parents. I've already put many of its novel suggestions to work. Don't miss it."--Eric Ries, author of bestselling author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way
"A sincere introduction to how readers can shape and improve the peaks in their own experiences. Infused with positivity and enthusiasm.... Readers hungry for a bigger slice of life will find this book valuable. Heuristic advice and life-affirming direction form a gratifying combination in this motivational handbook."--Kirkus

Review Quote

"This terrific book is bursting with practical insights and memorable stories on every page. It's as relevant to product designers and meeting planners as it is to teachers and parents. I've already put many of its novel suggestions to work. Don't miss it." --Eric Ries, author of bestselling author of The Lean Startup , The Startup Way

Excerpt from Book

The Power of Moments 1 Defining Moments 1. Chris Barbic and Donald Kamentz were sitting at a pub in Houston, recuperating from another 14-hour day running their start-up charter school. They were drinking beer. Watching ESPN. And sharing a Tombstone pizza, the bar''s only food offering. They had no idea, on that night in October 2000, that they were moments away from an epiphany that would affect thousands of lives. ESPN was previewing the upcoming National Signing Day, the first day when graduating high school football players can sign a binding "letter of intent" to attend a particular college. For college football fans, it''s a big day. Watching the exuberant coverage, something struck Kamentz. "It blows my mind that we celebrate athletics this way, but we don''t have anything that celebrates academics in the same way," he said. And the students at their school--primarily kids from low-income Hispanic families--deserved celebrating. Many of them would be the first in their families to graduate from high school. Barbic had founded a school to serve those students. He''d grown disillusioned teaching sixth grade at a local elementary school. "I saw way too many of my students head off to the local junior high excited about school and eager to pursue their dreams, only to return a few months later with that light in their eyes totally gone." They would come back to visit him, telling stories of gangs, drugs, pregnancies. It crushed him. He knew he had two choices: Quit teaching to spare himself. Or build the school that those students deserved. So in 1998, Barbic founded YES Prep. And Donald Kamentz was one of the first people he hired. In the pub that night, as they watched the Signing Day preview, they had a sudden inspiration: What if we created our own "Signing Day," when our students would announce where they will attend college? The event would allow them to honor all graduating seniors, since it was a condition of graduation at YES Prep that every student apply and be accepted to college, even if they ultimately chose not to attend. Their excitement grew as they shaped the idea: They would call it Senior Signing Day, and for that one day, graduating seniors would be treated with the same hype and adulation as college athletes. About six months later, on April 30, 2001, they held the first Senior Signing Day. Roughly 450 people crammed into a community center next door to their campus: 17 graduating seniors and their families, along with every other student in the YES Prep system--from juniors to sixth graders. Each of the seniors took the stage, announcing where he or she would be attending college in the fall: "My name is Eddie Zapata, and in the fall, I will be attending Vanderbilt University!" They would unveil a T-shirt or pennant with their chosen school''s insignia. Many of the students kept their final school decision a secret from friends, so there was suspense in the air. After each announcement, the room erupted with cheers. Later, the students would sit at a table, with their families crowded around them, and sign letters of matriculation, confirming their enrollment in the fall. Barbic was struck by the emotion of the "signing" moment: "It hits home--the sacrifices that everybody had to make for their kids to get there. No one did it alone. There were lots of people involved." By the end of the ceremony, there were few dry eyes in the room. Senior Signing Day became the most important annual event for the YES Prep school network. For seniors, the event was a celebration, the capstone of their achievement. But it held a different kind of meaning for younger students. At the third Senior Signing Day, which had expanded into an auditorium at the University of Houston, there was a sixth grader in the audience named Mayra Valle. It was her first Signing Day experience, and it made a lasting impression. She remembers thinking, That could be me. No one in my family has ever gone to college. I want to be on that stage. By 2010, six years later, the senior class had grown to 126 graduates, and Signing Day had expanded so much that it had moved to the basketball arena at Rice University, in front of 5,000 people. 90% of the graduates that year were the first members of their families to go to college. The keynote speaker, U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan, was moved by what he saw. He scrapped his prepared remarks and spoke freely: "No basketball game, no football game begins to compare to the magnitude and importance of what happened here today. . . . Thank you for inspiring not just your brothers and sisters, not just the underclassmen here, but the entire country." One of the graduating seniors was Mayra Valle. Six years after she imagined being on that stage, today was her day. "Good afternoon, everybody, my name is Mayra Valle," she said, breaking into an enormous smile. "And this fall I will be attending CONNECTICUT COLLEGE!" The school was ranked one of the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the country. The crowd roared. 2. We all have defining moments in our lives--meaningful experiences that stand out in our memory. Many of them owe a great deal to chance: A lucky encounter with someone who becomes the love of your life. A new teacher who spots a talent you didn''t know you had. A sudden loss that upends the certainties of your life. A realization that you don''t want to spend one more day in your job. These moments seem to be the product of fate or luck or maybe a higher power''s interventions. We can''t control them. But is that true? Must our defining moments just happen to us? Senior Signing Day didn''t just happen. Chris Barbic and Donald Kamentz set out to create a defining moment for their students. When Mayra Valle and hundreds of other YES Prep graduates walked onto that stage, they stepped into a carefully crafted defining moment that was no less special for having been planned. It''s a moment they''ll never forget. Defining moments shape our lives, but we don''t have to wait for them to happen. We can be the authors of them. What if a teacher could design a lesson that students were still reflecting on years later? What if a manager knew exactly how to turn an employee''s moment of failure into a moment of growth? What if you had a better sense of how to create lasting memories for your kids? In this book, we have two goals: First, we want to examine defining moments and identify the traits they have in common. What, specifically, makes a particular experience memorable and meaningful? Our research shows that defining moments share a set of common elements. Second, we want to show you how you can create defining moments by making use of those elements. Why would you want to create them? To enrich your life. To connect with others. To make memories. To improve the experience of customers or patients or employees. Our lives are measured in moments, and defining moments are the ones that endure in our memories. In the pages ahead, we''ll show you how to make more of them. 3. Why do we remember certain experiences and forget others? In the case of Signing Day, the answer is pretty clear: It''s a celebration that is grand in scale and rich in emotion. No surprise that it''s more memorable than a lesson on multiplying fractions. But for other experiences in life--from vacations to work projects--it''s not as clear why we remember what we do. Psychologists have discovered some counterintuitive answers to this puzzle of memory. Let''s say you take your family to Disney World. During your visit, we text you every hour, asking you to rate your experience at that moment on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is lousy and 10 is terrific. Let''s assume we check in with you 6 times. Here''s how your day shapes up: 9 a.m.: Cattle-herding your kids out of the hotel room. There''s excitement in the air. Rating: 6 10 a.m.: Riding "It''s a Small World" together, with parents and children each under the impression that the other must be enjoying this. Rating: 5 11 a.m.: Feeling a dopamine rush after riding the Space Mountain roller coaster. Your kids are begging to ride it again. Rating: 10 Noon: Enjoying expensive park food with your kids, who might enjoy it less if they knew you bought it with their college fund. Rating: 7 1 p.m.: Waiting in line, for 45 minutes now, in the 96-degree central Florida heat. Trying to keep your son from gnawing on the handrails. Rating: 3 2 p.m.: Buying mouse-ear hats on the way out of the park. Your kids look so cute. Rating: 8 To arrive at an overall summary of your day, we could simply average those ratings: 6.5. A pretty good day. Now, let''s say we text you again, a few weeks later, and ask you to rate your overall Disney experience. A reasonable prediction of your answer would be 6.5, since it encompasses all the highs and lows of your day. But psychologists would say that''s way off. They''d predict that, looking back on the day at Disney, your overall rating would be a 9! That''s because research has found that in recalling an experience, we ignore most of what happened and focus instead on a few particular moments. Specifically, two moments will stand out: riding Space Mountain and buying mouse-ear hats. To understand why those two moments matter more than the others, let''s e

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