The author delivers an important and powerful message, but I donāt think you need a whole book to explain it.
The book makes it clear that taking the effort to make certain moments standout for our āmundaneā day-to-day lives has a positive ROI. There is a missed opportunity to influence our opinions by simply taking a little bit of extra effort to make a great moment an outstanding one. More specifically, having an overall high quality experience is not as memorable as having an average quality experience interspersed with magical moments. I learnt a very important lesson from reading this book, but I only made it about 70% through because it got extremely boring and repetitive. While I havenāt used a service like blinkist myself, I believe this book could be summarized into 15-20 minutes and one would not miss out on much.
Most memorable quote from the book: ā[Life is] Mostly forgettable and occasionally remarkable .ā
==== Powerful Moments from the book ====
Reminiscence bump: Most adults have a strong and positive recollection of their early adulthood. This is due to the fact that between the ages of 15-30, we experience a lot of firsts: first day in college, first job, first love, first sexual experience, etcā¦ Novelty is very powerful, but it doesnāt have to end in adolescence if we simply put in the effort to look for newer experiences. I believe this is the reason why so many people in their late 20s and 30s start traveling and long for new experiences: you have to put in effort to experience something new, whereas in higschool new experiences simply fell on our laps.
Peak-end rule: The author discussed how humans tend to neglect duration due to the peak-end rule. For example, most people forget the hours of waiting in line at Disney because we only recall the 15 magical minutes once we are on the ride. Another example is the popsicle hotline which turned an average hotel in LA into one of the most popular hotels in LA on trip advisor. All they had to do was deliver popsicles on a platter by the poolside whenever somebody picks up the phone.
Arbitrrary milestones: Turning 50 years old or celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary are pretty arbitrary milestones. Nothing in the individualās life changes. However, it gives us reason to celebrate, remember and create a powerful moment on which we can look back on. In addition, milestones also drive us to complete things. If we have an arbitrary deadline, or a new yearās resolution, people tend to obsess with completing it on time.
Banking missed opportunities: Most of our interactions with banks are not something we look forward to. At little to no cost, banks can make their interactions with customers much more enjoyable. For example, celebrating an individualās first or last mortgage payment with a small present (i.e. a free coffee). The author also mentioned how a bank could celebrate a childās initiative to start saving by rounding up $13 of savings to $20 when they take the first step to becoming financially responsible in their life. These small cheap actions are priceless, and are moments which weāll forever remember and shape our opinion of the bank. The kid who opened up his savings account at 13 might pick the same bank to open up a mortgage 20 years later.
Break the script: Similarly to the idea of missed opportunities, breaking the script also creates powerful and memorable moments. For example, letting a waiter hand out occasional free desserts is quite different from a loyalty where you work your way to a free dessert. While both surprise and gamification have a time and place, simply doing something that is different from the norm can have positive effects.
Responsibility: Though everyone is responsible for doing their job, it is no oneās responsibility to create āpeaksā in their day-to-day work. It requires more physical and emotional effort, and we do not get paid for it. For example, a coworker of mine recently hosted a weekend long hackathon at work. It
Reasonableness: The āsoul sucking force of reasonablenessā is something to always keep in mind.
Steve Ballmer: The dream experiment: after asking a group of professors what their dream would be if their students were to just remember one thing many years later, they all realized that the curriculum they were following did not adhere to their dream.
Trial of Human Nature. Hillsdale Highschool has a yearly event where students dress up and enact a real trial, in a real courthouse, of human nature. Major political and historical figures appear and defend their point. If my high school had done this, it would be a moment Iād never forget
Sara Blakely: The father of the founder of Spanx asked her and her siblings a very important question every week: āWhat did you fail at this week?ā