EntreLeadership - #259: Moments That Change Lives with Dan Heath

Episode Date: April 23, 2018

In a world where we’re all constantly trying to craft experiences—like that of our customers, patients, users, you name it—New York Timesbest-selling author Dan Heath has figured out how to get it right. And it generally doesn’t involve grand gestures or over-the-top gimmicks. The goal, he says, is to concentrate on creating a singular peak moment, otherwise known as the most positive part of any experience. The good news? Doing so is 100% under your control, whether you’re dealing with customers, team members, or even your very own children. The science behind Dan’s four essential elements of experience is as fascinating as the results they elicit. Join us to find out more. entreleadership.com/podcast EntreLeadership 1-Day Special Offer from EntreLeadership Growing Customer Lifetime Value Worksheet from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Oh, my goodness, I'm very excited about this one. Will the producer knows I'm a little bit extra excited, and I don't mind saying it. This conversation, our feature conversation, Dan Heath, who's the co-authorization,

of Power of Moments is probably the most enjoyable interview I've done in the last year, year and a half. I'm just saying it. I'm not knocking anybody else. I'm just telling you, this book hit me right between the heart. It's a great book for leaders in business. It's great for you as husbands, fathers, friends, brothers, sisters. It's so fantastic. Dan Heath is the co-author of Power of moments. And so we're going to get right to this. Stay tuned. We've got some great free resources coming to you. Now, Dan and Chip Heath, that's what some of you readers are thinking right now. Dan is, in fact, the brother of Chip Heath. And that these guys have co-authored this book together, the power of moments,

just as they did, decisive, switch, and made to stick. All bestsellers. These guys are geniuses. Here's what I love about this book and all the other books. They do research. And out of the research, they say, okay, here's what we found from the research. And then here's how you can practically apply what we now know from research. This is not theory.

This is fact. And this will change the way you think about your day, your week, your month, and your year. Without any further ado, here is my conversation with Dan Heath. Well, folks, I'm really excited to have Dan Heath on with us. The new book is The Power of Moments, Why Certain Experiences have Extraordinary Impact. Longtime fan, Dan, of you and your brother's work. I believe this is your best work yet. Appreciate you being with us.

Hey, thanks so much for saying that. I appreciate that. Well, let's get right into this. So the subtitle really does set us up, why certain experiences have extraordinary impact. And I just want to tee you up to maybe tell us the purpose for this book. What led to it? And then what did you find that allows that subtitle to come alive in the book? This is fundamentally a book about experience. You know, we live in a world where there are people trying to figure out how to craft the experience of other people. So in the business world, we think about the customer experience and in healthcare. We obsess about the patient experience. I mean, these days, there are chief patient experience officers in most health systems. And there are HR folks and managers thinking

about the employee experience and in academia, the student experience. And what we're asking in the book is what are great experiences made of? And if I may, I think there's a kind of puzzle that provides a starting place for this, and we might think of it as the Disney paradox. And I think anybody that's listening right now that's been to Disney World or another theme park, I think, can relate to this. And the paradox is, imagine that we put around your wrist, some kind of postmodern device that could monitor and log your happiness levels at every minute of the day. And then at the end of the day, we could look back at the data and see, you know, how happy or unhappy you were at various times. My prediction is that for the majority of those moments, you would have actually been

happier sitting on your couch at home and binging on Netflix or something. And it's less humid in your living room. It's less crowded. Your kids don't act like maniacs. There's a lot to be said for the couch. And yet, in memory, that experience at Disney World might be one of the highlights of our year. And I don't think we're crazy to think that, despite the quote-unquote quote, data. And what's going on is that psychologists know a couple of things about the way we remember experiences. One is the length of our experiences tends to wash out with time. It's called duration neglect. And we're left with snippets or scenes or fragments of our experiences. I think this is easy enough for anybody to test. Just think about your last family vacation or your

last big project at work or a semester of college. And you'll notice, you can't remember the whole thing. You can't just load it up in memory and kind of watch it end to end. You're left with moments. And furthermore, there are two kinds of moments that we disproportionately recall. One of them that's really in many ways, the core message of the book, is the peak of the experience. You know, the most positive moment or moments in a positive experience. And the other is transition points like beginnings and endings. In fact, one study of people's memories from college found that 40% of the things they recalled happened in the month of September. Why September? Because that's the beginning. There's so much novelty and new people, new experiences.

And so anyway, to circle back to the Disney paradox, this helps us make sense of this thing where in the moment we might have been happier on our couch for most of the day. And yet we remember it as a great source of joy and delight. And the reason is because Disney World is providing the kinds of peak moments that our couch never does. And what we realize is that great experiences, employee experiences, customer experiences, patient experiences hinge on these peak moments. And these moments are under our control. That's the core message of the book. Yeah. And it's so important for us as leaders and a little bit later in the conversation, I want to get into this as parents, because this is so, so important. There are four key principles that you highlight and then

extrapolate some great truth and practical wisdom from, and they're really the four sections of the book. And I want to touch on each of these, and then we'll get into some other things, but they are elevation, insight, pride, and connection. And these principles, again, whether you're a parent teacher, an entrepreneur, an executive, it doesn't matter what level of leadership, when we use these, we're going to be put in a position where we are creating these moments, yes? Absolutely. And so, you know, what we did was we studied a variety of memorable and meaningful

experiences, you know, ranging from really big moments like your wedding day to rights of passage ceremonies, to, you know, great meals and fine dining experiences, to more personal moments like a mentor takes you aside and gives you a piece of advice that changes your life. And what we found is that the pattern that these experiences shared, even though they're very different on the surface, were the four things you identified. And I know we'll get into more depth, but I'll just kind of quickly foreshadow what they all mean. So elevation, these are moments that lift us above the everyday. So they spark positive emotions like joy and delight and surprise. And so in your mind, think of birthday parties and athletic competitions and drinks with

friends at sunset. Moments of insight are different. They may rewire our understanding of who we are or what we want or something about our world. So think about aha moments and epiphanies and realizations. Moments of pride are a little different. You know, probably everybody listening has a stash of things that are special to you that might be worthless to everybody else on earth, but to you, they're invaluable. And, you know, maybe it's in a file drawer, in the back of a closet, or in the attic somewhere. And my guess is a lot of the things that you've saved are moments of pride, or the mementos, I should say, for moments of pride. Maybe they're yours, maybe they're your kids, awards and trophies and certificates and thank you letters and other elements of recognition.

And then finally, the fourth element that you see again and again in these big powerful moments is connection. These moments draw us closer to other people. And sometimes that happens in a personal relationship. And other times it's groups that are bonding by virtually struggling together towards some common goal. And so that might mean, you know, a successful product launch at work or a deep personal conversation that kind of takes you to a different level with a friend or a loved one. or, you know, maybe it's a thoughtful gesture from your wife or your husband or your kid. And so the point that we're getting at is if we want to make other people's experience better, that's our goal.

What we know, first of all, is that great experiences hinge on peak moments. And second, that peak moments are made of these four elements. Peak moments are constructed from elevation and insight and pride and connection. Yeah, so that's where I want to go right now because you really lead off with Chapter 3, the first section elevation and it's entitled build peaks. So give us an example of how we can build a peak out of maybe one or all of these. We're going to break down several of these, or all four actually, but what does that look like to build a peak moment to be so intentional that you can actually build it for somebody? Great question. And let me tell you one of my

favorite stories I think captures this. So there's this hotel in Los Angeles called the Magic Castle Hotel. Yes, I know. And if you've been, there? Yeah. No kidding. Okay, so I suspect most of your listeners have not. And so I just want to ask you, if you haven't been there, just picture in your mind the magic castle hotel and just conjure up that mental image. And now let me tell you, and I think Ken will agree, that it looks nothing like that. It is, it is not a castle. It is not particularly magical. It is a very average looking place. So picture an apartment complex, two-story, built in the 1950s. At some point, it was painted bright yellow and kind of converted into what's really a motel,

more than a hotel. Hotel's a little bit of a stretch. The rooms are pretty mediocre. I stayed there, and it's kind of maybe a holiday and express level of luxury. The amenities are pretty average. The lobby looks like maybe the waiting area of a place you might get your oil changed. So why do I bring this up, this very average looking place? Well, there's a fact that is a bit mind-blank.

The Magic Castle is rated the number two hotel in Los Angeles on-trip advisor, according to thousands of reviews. It outranks the Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons. And so you just ask yourself, how could this possibly be true? And it's not like 12 bucks a night either. It's kind of Hilton Marriott-level pricing. And the answer has to do with moments, that what they figured out at this hotel is that the right moment can outweigh a lot of creature comfort.

So one of my favorite moments that they've created is installed by the pool. They have this average-looking pool in the courtyard, and on the wall near the pool, there's a cherry-red phone. And just above the phone, there's a sign that says, Popsicle Hotline. And if you go up to the phone, you pick it up, hold it to your ear. They'll say, Popsicle Hotline, we'll be right out. And somebody comes out moments later, carrying a silver tray loaded with cherry and grape and orange popsicles, The person themselves, they're wearing a suit and wearing white gloves like an English butler. They bring the popsicles to you at poolside.

Just amazing, right? You should have seen the smiles on the kids' faces when this happens. They have dozens of these kinds of things. They have a snack menu where you can go to the front desk and ask for Cheetos and Cracker Jacks and a cream soda all for free, just for asking. You can check out board games. You can check out movies for free. You can drop off your laundry in the morning. They'll wash and fold it over the course of the day and have it for.

you by the time you get back from the amusement park. They have magicians doing tricks in the lobby several times a week. And when I paint that picture, all the sudden you can start to understand why, you know, if you were taking your family on a vacation to Southern California, you might actually rather be at the Magic Castle than the Ritz Carlton because they're paying attention to those peak moments. And, you know, back to that Disney paradox that we started with, a year down the line, you're not going to remember that the bed spread wasn't that fancy and, you know, that the sheets weren't a thousand thread count. What you're going to remember is, you won't believe this, but there was a pool by the phone that was called the Popsicle Hotline and blah, blah,

blah. That's right. And that's what it means to say that experiences hinge on peak moments, that much of what the Magic Castle does is unremarkable, but they get the moments right. Wow. Dan, that really is, it's almost to the nth degree. of elevation, being lifted out of the ordinary. Everything about that place is ordinary except for those experiences. So it makes it, if we go to a nice hotel, how quickly we expect the finest things. And so there's really nothing out of the ordinary at the Ritz. If you think about it, based on your expectation, I love that. That is really great. I didn't stay there. I just heard about it, went and checked out the lobby. And it really is, I mean, it's become the word of mouth hot buzz thing. You've got to go

check this place out. It's fun to just read the reviews. I mean, If you're listening right now and you run a service business, I think it's instructive to go and listen to what people say about it in their own words. And it's kind of one of those forehead-slapping moments where you realize no one ever writes a frothing, enthusiastic review because things basically met their expectations. You know, nobody ever said, you know, the bed was reasonably comfortable and the shower was reasonably powerful and the view was reasonably powerful. and the view is reasonably good.

You know, what people rave about, what they talk about, what they remember are the exceptional things. And notice that not everything at the Magic Castle Hotel is exceptional. It's not that we have to be perfect. It's that, in fact, what we say in the book is a lot of great service experiences are mostly forgettable and occasionally remarkable. And I think that's a great kind of mantra to keep in mind. Yeah, it is.

And it really takes the pressure off. You know, it's not about every moment. It's the right moments. All right, I want to keep walking through this because this is so great. So insight is the next principle. So these are another way that we can create powerful moments that change us and change those that we connect with. Give us an example of insight and how a peak moment can exist within insight. Yeah, one of my favorite examples concerned a guy named Scott Guthrie.

So Guthrie worked at Microsoft back at 2011. Steve Balmer, who was still the CEO at that time, he tapped Guthrie to leave. lead a service called Azure. It's their cloud computing service. And so Guthrie was new to the cloud computing area and, you know, taking over the unit, he did what probably a lot of people would do. And he went on some customer visits just to get the lay of the land and figure out, you know, what are they liking, what are they not liking? And so it turns out the feedback he gets from customers is pretty aligned. It's pretty similar. And what they're saying is, we really like the technology. We think this is a promising product, but it's kind of hard to use.

And so Guthrie feels like I've got my marching orders here. I know what I need to do. You know, if we're going to meet our growth goals, I've got to make this thing more user-friendly. But keep in mind, you know, he's the new guy. You know, the other people have been around for years. Maybe some of the founding members of the Azure team are there. And how much credibility is he going to have coming in and saying, hey, we've got to rework the whole product.

And so the question is, how do you spark a moment of insight for other people? You've got a good idea. and you want their support, how do you create insight? So what Guthrie did was he called an off-site meeting, invited all of his senior managers and his software architects, and to their surprise, he gave them a challenge. And the challenge was to build an app, just the way that their customers had to,

using their own product, Azure. It wasn't supposed to be, you know, the Mount Everest of coding challenges. It was supposed to be just kind of an everyday assignment. And yet, a lot of the team struggled to do this. Some of the teams couldn't figure out how to use certain features, and at least one team could not figure out how to log in. So Guthrie later told a reporter about the day that it was a complete disaster. But, of course, that was the point of the whole thing,

is that he needed them to experience the insight that he had gleaned from the customers. He needed them to see it for themselves. And by the end of the retreat, they had all bought into the vision to make the product more user-friendly, and it had become their plan rather than his. I'll give you another example of the same thing. Small business owner came up to me one time after I'd given a talk. And he said, I run a factory in the Midwest.

And I thought I was a great enlightened boss because I set up this 401K plan and I offered a generous match to my employees. And nobody signed up. And so I was getting frustrated with them. I felt like I've tried to help them with their financial security and no one's making use of this. And so I would pester them.

them about it and send reminders and it didn't really work. And he said at one point, I got frustrated and I tried something very different. He said, I called an all-hands meeting in December one year. So everybody piles into the conference room. He's the last one to come in the room and he's holding what looks like a heavy medical bag, kind of mysterious looking, comes into the room without saying a word, walks over to the conference room table, unzips the bag, turns it upside down, and out comes a huge pile of cash just on the table. And naturally that gets people's attention in the room. And he says, you know what this is, this money?

He says, this is the amount of money that all of you gave up, just literally left on the table in this case, by not maxing out your 401k match. Wow. And he said, the result is that at the end of this meeting, what I'm going to do is scoop all this money back in the bag, zip it up, take it back to the bank, and deposit it in my account. He said, next year, guess what, we're going to do this same thing on this same day.

And my question is, do you want that money in your pocket or in mine? And he said there was a rush to sign up for the 401K plan that date. And so that's an example of what we call in the book, getting people to trip over the truth, meaning that there's an insight you're trying to communicate. and you find a way to condense it in time and get the people in the room to experience it for themselves. It becomes their insight. The aha moment happens in their brain.

And I think people who have led change efforts can empathize with this that so often we try to rally people to our side by just sharing information with them. And what Scott Guthrie from Microsoft and what this factory owner figured out is it's so much more powerful when that insight happens

and the audience of the people that we're trying to rally to our side. Yes. Wow. I mean, this is, it's so powerful. That's how a moment just has so much more impact. Unbelievable. I want to stay here. I know you've given us two great stories,

but we've got a very broad audience and a large audience. If you would, I think this is a moment for leaders when they have to deal with the difficult conversation. It is what it is. It's a part of leadership. And I'm also thinking teachers. who may have a student that is not getting it. And there's an opportunity here to shape the rest of their life.

There's an opportunity to save the career, maybe change the life of an employee who's in danger of not being able to stay around anymore. You've given us two great examples. But how would you encourage leaders to handle those difficult conversations by, again, these insightful moments? Well, you're making me think of what I consider a default. finding moment for myself that kind of meets the template you're describing. I haven't had a chance to tell this story in a long time. So, you know, before I started writing business books with Chip,

I started a company called Think Well in Austin, Texas, and it's a company that makes kind of a re-envisioned college textbook based on technology rather than print. And in the early days, this was during the dot-com era, you know, the time when, like, you know, broccoli.com was getting venture funding and that sort of thing. And so a Dufus 23-year-old. like me could conceivably get venture capital for an idea. And yet, even though broccoli.com was getting funded, I wasn't. And so I had been doing the circuit and pitching this idea to VCs. And I was a product guy. Like I had kind of fallen in love with this vision of what a textbook could do and what it could be. And, you know, I got really excited about our calculus product,

for example, and I was heavily involved with the professors that were working with us. And I was really proud of the educational benefits of this thing. And so I would go into these meetings and kind of spend 90% of the time just showcasing the product and isn't this cool and isn't this cool. And I would meet with my advisor, a guy named Kevin Williams, and I would tell him about these meetings. He was a former VC, and so he was kind of mentoring me through this process. And every time it was like the same reaction for me. I said, Kevin, you should have seen their faces. They really get it. I think this could be the one that comes through. And they really, they gave me a lot positive feedback and I think that we may get funded. And after he heard about seven or eight of

these stories, he kind of stopped me one day. It was like he'd been through Groundhog Day, you know, hearing the same story again and again for me. And I think he finally had enough. And he said, Dan, I'm going to tell you something that may sting a little bit, but I feel like I owe it to you. He said, no one in life is going to tell you that your baby is ugly. And I said, well, what do you mean by that. And he said, you know, when you go meet with these VCs, these venture capitalists, you know, they see how passionate you are about this product and they see how proud you are of what you've built. And it's not in anyone's interest to tell you, like, no, this doesn't work or this business is not interesting or this isn't for me or I can't imagine people using that. No one wants

to crush your spirits. What they're going to do is they're going to say nice things to you, polite things. They're going to pat you on the back, lead you out of the office and never call you again. He said, isn't that a pretty fair description of what's happened? And boy, I mean, that was like a lightning bolt moment. It's like I realized in that moment that Kevin was a total idiot. And I have to admit that that literally was the first thought that went through my naive 20-something brain as he's an idiot. And then thank God, the second thought was, oh God, he's right. He's right. I have completely messed this up. And I'm going to meet with venture capitalists,

and I'm not telling them about the business opportunity. I'm telling them about calculus, and they don't care about calculus. What they care about is, could they possibly make 10x their money? And so, you know, back to your question about, you know, difficult conversations. What I appreciate about Kevin is his willingness to kind of kick me in the butt a little bit and say, you're not doing it right.

And the reason that I look back on it with fondness, rather than bitterness, is because I know full well, even at the moment I knew that he had my best interest at heart. He wanted me to be capable of more, and he knew at that moment, what I needed to hear was something that wasn't going to feel good, but that I would grow as a result of it. And I think that's a good formula for mentors, is if you feel like what people need to hear, maybe something they don't want to hear in the moment, but that it's going to be helpful for them, and it's going to make them better a month or a year later,

you know, sometimes it's up to the mentor to step up and be that person. Yeah. I wanted you to talk about multiplying milestones. That's chapter eight. Again, you get three chapters here in the Pride section, but I really love the idea of multiplying milestones. What does that look like for us as we're creating moments? And so multiplying milestones is a way of conceptualizing our goals and our aspirations

in a way that yields more moments of pride. So let me unpack what that means. Take, for example, the desire to learn how to play an instrument. I think that's something a lot of us have in common. Probably a lot of us have always had that idea and never done anything about it. Every now and then we'll buy a guitar and take three lessons, and then it goes in the attic for another five years. You're stepping on my toes, Dan.

I regret to this day that I didn't take up piano, just because I want to be able to play in a piano bar for my wife and friends. That's all I want, and I didn't do it. I'm 100% with you. Yeah, I've decided I'm going to blame my mom for that. It's probably her fault. I'm going to do the same thing. Yeah, it's easier that way.

That's what I'm going to do. Okay, good. Yeah, follow my lead. So this guy named Steve Cam, K-A-M-B, he wrote a book called Level Up Your Life. And he had this epiphany himself, and that was he was addicted to video games. And it bothered him, and he had this kind of moment where he realized, hey, I need to take the things that really entice me about video games and hijack them to help me get what I want in life. And so he does this fascinating thing where he wants to learn to play the fiddle. He'd always loved Irish music. And so he'd had these fantasies of learning to play the fiddle. And so what

he did was he co-opted gaming strategy and figured out a way to turn that into a quest. And so he created these levels of success from level one, which was basically to commit to one, violin lesson per week. Level two was relearn how to read sheet music and complete a book called Celtic fiddle tunes. Level three is learn to play a song called Concerning Hobbits from the Fellowship of the Ring. Level four was sit and play the fiddle for 30 minutes with other musicians. And then on and on to what he calls the boss battle, which is kind of like the champagne moment, the moment when you finally have achieved your goal. And that for him is to sit and play the fiddle for 30 minutes in a pub in Ireland.

And what I want you to notice about that is just this ingenious structure means that all of these moments are worthy of celebration. You know, when he learns to play that one song concerning hobbits from the fellowship of the ring, like that's a moment of pride. When he sits and plays for 30 minutes with other musicians, that's a moment of pride. It's like he's taken a race with no obvious finish line. You know, when exactly do we, quote, unquote, know how to play an instrument? there's no finish line to that race.

And what he's done is he's taken that and created a race with eight finish lines, each one of which is worthy of success. And the other thing to notice about this is imagine he only got to level four. He might still be pretty happy with what he did. In the same way that you and I, you know, we've probably all played a video game and had a lot of fun and never finished it. I mean, I'm kind of a Donkey Kong Space Invaders era kind of guy, and I spent many happy hours playing those games.

and I never even got close to finishing it, and yet it was a lot of fun. And so what he's doing is he's hijacking the structure of video games to help serve one of his goals. And so I think that's something, anybody listening that has something they've always kind of dreamed of, maybe it's for you learning another language. Learning another language is another one of those things

where we think about it in the wrong way. We think, I've got to take my medicine, I'm going to try to cram in, you know, a study session on this app, and then tomorrow I'm going to try to try to. cram in another one. Next week I'll try to cram in three more, and I'll kind of, you know, do the dirty work. And then eventually, someday, I'm going to know Spanish.

You know, again, an amorphous finish line. It's like a race with no end. And yet it's easy to see how you could take Steve Cam's strategy of leveling up and make that into something more fun, more like a quest. You know, maybe your level one is to be able to order a meal in Spanish with proper pronunciation. That's something you could figure out in a couple of weeks. Level two might be to glance at a Spanish newspaper and understand at least one headline or one word of a headline. And level three might be to have a simple conversation, how are you, what's your name with a

taxi driver who speaks Spanish and on and on. And so I would encourage anybody that has something they've always dreamed of doing and never done to kind of reformulate it in these terms to multiply the milestones as a way of building in more moments of pride. Yes. I'm taking notes here. And Dan, I'll just ask on behalf of all the audience here, when I multiply milestones, what I'm essentially doing is I'm creating many moments of pride based on this last story of achievement.

And it's those many moments that allow me more opportunity for peak moments. Yes or no? Yes, exactly right. Each one of those is a peak moment. You know, the moment when you can check off, hey, I asked the Spanish-speaking taxi driver where he was from and I learned his name. And, man, that feels great. Like, check. That's a many peak moment.

Yes. But the trick is that you've paid attention to your own motivation, you know, rather than thinking about it as, you know, one long slog en route to a goal that you'll realize someday and then you'll reap the returns. No, it's like a quest now. when a quest has multiple stages and each one of them is kind of inherently satisfying and offers moments of pride. Back to Steve Cam's original inspiration, it's a way of hijacking our own instincts to help us get more of what we want. All right. So now, I mean, I got to tell you, I love this book, Dan, but when I got to the connection part and started reading it in preparation for this, this really spoke to me because I see this in the work. that I get to do. So we have a big tribe of entrepreneurs and business leaders. And I just believe that the greatest longing that any human being desires for is to matter, to simply matter in some shape or

some way. We want to matter. And the last chapter is entitled Making Moments Matter. But chapter 10, creating shared meaning. Chapter 11 is deep in ties. I just think this connection principle is so very powerful when we think of leader roles and influencing people. When we can make a connection that you write about in those three chapters, I just think it is, it's like movement type things. I mean, it is the stuff that's changed history. I just want you to comment on that. Am I being too romantic? If I am, you know, correct me, but walk us through this idea of connection, how we look for moments to deepen ties with others. No, I don't think you're being too dramatic.

And I want to share in our research, we came across this guy named Harry Reese. He's a social psychologist who spent his career studying why some relationships grow stronger and why others just kind of wither on the vine. And it's amazing when he's concluded that he has one sentence that captures the core message of his research. And it's this, our relationships are stronger when we perceive that our partners are responsive to us. And the key word there is responsive. And what he means by that is, is three things. Understanding, validation, and caring. So understanding, you know, my partner knows how I see myself and what's important to me. Validation, you know, they don't just understand that.

They also show that they respect it. And even if they want something different for us, they respect, you know, our self-definition, our needs. And then finally, caring, your partner takes active steps to help you get those things, to get what you want. And what's interesting about this kind of relationship recipe, if you will, I don't want to trivialize it by calling it a recipe, but it fits such a broad spectrum of relationships. I mean, it's certainly true for marriages that what draws us to other people is when they do that kind of attunement to us, you know, that they help us clarify what we want, and they take the time to understand what we're about,

and they help us get that. And, of course, they expect the same things of us. But it also translates even into much more remote relationships. I'll give you kind of a silly example. I fly American Airlines a lot. I travel a bunch, and American is kind of my home airline. I go to their site all the time to book flights. And when I go there, I always sort the search results by travel time.

Like, I'm one of the idiots who will pay more if I can get some more quicker. And so... Me too. And every time, you know, I'm logged in with my frequent flyer number, so they know who's searching. They know me. I mean, I've probably booked several hundred flights on American over the past decade. And yet, every single time when I get those search results, I go back to that pull-down menu and change it to total travel time, total travel time. And they're not paying attention.

You know, they're not learning anything about me. By now, they should know everything about my travel preferences. They should know where I like to sit and, you know, I will not fly through O'Hare and winter. I'd rather just walk than even try it. And yet the only thing they seem to remember about me is my card number. They never forget that. And so that's an example of the lack of responsiveness. They're not trying to understand me.

They're not trying to validate my preferences. They're certainly not caring for me enough to accelerate that process versus contrast that with Wells Fargo, which Lord knows they need a positive comment made about them. And it's this, if you put your ATM card in a Wells Fargo ATM, they actually remember the last two things you did at an ATM. It pops up on the main menu. There's two green boxes at the top that are the last two things that you did. You know, deposit a check and take $80 out. And even the submenus, like if you select withdraw cash, there'll be one box lit up in green. And that's the most common amount that you personally withdraw.

And look, that's a simple thing, right? That doesn't sound like a big, you know, hallmark relationship moment. But it's just a simple way to show responsiveness. It means they're paying attention. It means they're trying to learn what makes you tick and what you do and what you want. I just think that that idea of responsiveness is extraordinarily powerful, like how it can speak to our most personal and intimate relationships

and also seemingly trivial, you know, online interactions between businesses and customers. Yeah, it's just so good. It's just chalk full of goodness. All four of the principles. Really, really love this. Before I let you go, I want to transition just for a couple of questions into some insight for parents. And what I love about this book, a lot of business books, folks, are just like headings. One, two, three, four, five, six.

This book is really observations based on great stories. And I want to tee you up. This is a part of our transition into some parenting stuff. I want you to share the story about the world's youngest female billionaire. And she credits a lot of her resilience and success to something her father asked at the family dinner table. And that's like, that's ground zero for my life right now. I've got a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old. And family dinners are something that I'm seeing as a fleeting luxury that I'm going to miss so much.

We try to maximize those with intentional questions at dinner. So I want you to share this story. I think this will really encourage and inspire parents. Yeah, I'm so glad you want to hear about this because, you know, I have to admit, one of my worst nightmares is that parents will get this book. They'll read, you know, the Popsicle Hotline story. They'll read about, you know, Disney World and they'll think, oh, gosh, I need to, like, produce something from my kids. I've got to amp it up for their birthdays. And now we need a bounce house in the front yard.

And we've got to, you know, rent. llamas from the local zoo, and that's not at all the point of this book. Like, many of the moments in the book are actually just very personal and not produced. And this example about Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, speaks to that. So let me give you a little bit of backstory. You may know the entrepreneurial journey of Sarah Blakely, but... We've had her husband, Jesse Isler, on the program before. Oh, no kidding.

Yeah, yeah. So love Jesse. So she invents the product called Spanx, which is basically a comfortable girl. hurdle. And it starts with her cutting the feet out of her panty hose for a party because she wanted the slimming effect of the panty hose, but she wanted to wear sandals and you don't wear hose with sandals. And so she kind of got the best of both worlds. And of course, it didn't work very well because the ends where you cut it kind of roll up and are uncomfortable, but she thought, aha, like if I nailed this, if I made a product for this purpose, women would love it.

And what happens next is really the fascinating part of the story. It's not the invention. It's the fact that she had to endure a gauntlet of failure to get this thing to market. I mean, nobody, nobody understood what she was trying to do because a lot of the people she had to work through were men, and men just were clueless about this. They thought it sounded preposterous. In fact, there was a fateful meeting at a law firm, and she noticed that one of the partners kept kind of looking around the room suspiciously, and later he confessed to her that he thought her idea was so bad that he thought she was part of a candid camera crew and he kept looking around to find the hidden camera. Oh, that's too much. She can't find anybody to make a prototype of this

product because all the textile mills are owned by men, managed by men, and they don't get it. They think it's weird. And finally, one of the mill owners shared this crazy idea with one of his daughters. And she was like, oh, that sounds good. Dad, you should really do that. So the question is not, how did Blakely come up with this remarkable idea? Because the fact is, Blakely herself says dozens of women come up to her and say, I had the same idea. Why am I not the first self-made billionaire? The secret to her strength was not the invention. It was the resilience. It was the endurance of years of failure and rejection. And she was undaunted. And so in a memoir, she talks about where that came from. And she says, one of the things that she remembers from her childhood,

was at the dinner table, and her father would ask her and her siblings, what did you guys fail at this week? What did you guys fail at? And she said, if they didn't have anything to say, her dad would be disappointed. And the point, of course, is that he wanted to redefine the notion of failure for them. He knew that lots of people have a fear of failure, and the fear is so acute that they just don't try things. And he wanted his kids to think that what failure really is is not trying, something that you want to do, you know, not trying to achieve, being so afraid of failure that you don't even show up and make the effort. And so looking back, she says, you know, that was a moment that was building this kind of, it was inoculating her really against the sting of failure.

And what a lucky dad to have his daughter not only learn that lesson, but learn it to the tune. of several billion dollars. Yes. Yeah. Talk about feeling good about yourself, huh? Yeah, yeah. You got to feel like there's pretty good ROI to that question at the dinner table. No kidding.

We can't promise you the billionaire thing, listeners. Yeah. Please do not buy the book assuming that you will turn your kids into billionaires. Boy, it's so good. What are some things that all of us, whether it be a parent? I'm just going to let you go with whatever hits your head here before I let you go because I value your time. But I could talk about this for a couple more hours.

What are some things? that whether we're parents, leaders, friends, coworkers, teammates, that we can do intentionally. And there's some great examples in the book. But what are some things that we can do intentionally to put ourselves in a mindset where we are looking to create peak moments, something that we can do maybe the next couple of weeks, just to get this whole peak moment designing, building muscle to get that thing sore and flexing and growing? Well, let me give you two answers.

So one answer is we have on our website a document called A Week of Memories, and it basically walks you through step by step, how to create a peak moment every day for a week. Awesome. And so I think if you're serious about it, you want to practice those muscles. It's all available for free. I don't even think you would necessarily need to read the book to make sense of it. So that's at our website, heathbrothers.com.

But for now, for instant gratification purposes, let me give you one of the things that's part of the week. It's called a gratitude visit. I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard about positive psychology and some of the findings. But this is kind of one of the greatest hits of positive psychology, which is an aspect of the field that focuses on ways we can make ourselves happier. The idea is very simple. You just, you call up the face of somebody who years ago did something or said something that changed your life for the better. So for me, maybe it was Kevin Williams.

And if we have time, Ken, you should really tell the coach Kay story. this would be perfect for that. And so you think to yourself, you know, someone who you never really properly thanked, and you write a letter of gratitude to them. You write down what they did and why it was important to you and why you remember it. And then this is the crucial part. If possible, deliver it in person and read it to them in person. I know a lot of people are tempted to just email it or stick it in the mail. The in person part is really important. Now, if they live in Hong Kong or something, Okay, fall back on video on Skype. That's fair enough.

But make sure you can see each other's faces because that's part of the power of this. Now, researchers have actually studied the effect of this gratitude visit. And what blew their minds was a month later, people who conducted a gratitude visit were still happier than the control group. A month later. And that's just amazing. With all the complexity of life,

all the variables that make us happier, unhappy, that one thing, that one moment of gratitude still influenced us a month later. I mean, you can think of a lot of pleasures in the world that last a minute or an hour or a day, but not many that last a month. And so that would be my challenge to everyone listening to this, is we've all, we've all got people who have been helpful in our lives, people who have helped us, you know, navigate tough times. And have we ever really given them the thank you that they deserve, here's a great opportunity not only to pay respects to them, but in the process to make yourself happier. So that's a way to create a defining moment in the next week. Oh, it's so good. I love it.

I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, you teed up the Coach Kay's story. I don't know that I've shared it on the program. It's in the first chapter of the book, but I'll race through it. It's a wonderful illustration. Dan is on the staff there at Duke and has a connection, of course, years ago. It was the very first interview I ever did in my life. I wasn't supposed to do the interview. I was writing it for a leadership simulcast for John Maxwell. And circumstances changed for the guy who was the TV personality who was going to do the interview for us. I had to step up. I was the backup. I was the backup. Which, by the way, Dan, some of my great moments in life have been when I wasn't the guy. I was the backup, the backup QV. You know, it's crazy. You got to be ready.

You got to be ready. So I did the interview and coach, I was terrified. I was probably 29 years old and terrified because I looked up to him so much and I'd never done this before. And about three questions in, I got really comfortable and started ad-libbing questions and he could tell that I was enjoying it. And 30 minutes in, we had to stop to change tape. And he said some very kind words to me that literally it was one of the greatest confidence boosters that I think I've ever had in my career. It didn't have to do that because the guy was already a legend and an icon. And years later, endorsed my first book. And so certainly a guy that to this day, Dan, when I see, and it's not like we're buddies. You know what I mean? I haven't talked to him in

years. But to this day, if somebody says something bad about him in the media, I get really upset about it because I know how he was to me, a guy that he didn't know from a hole in the wall and a young kid at that. And so he's one of those guys. I'll be forever grateful to. And you know what's interesting about that. I literally just before our conversation was at a board meeting and we were telling stories of moments like that, you know, moments when mentors made a difference for us. And a couple of people told these moving stories that changed their life. And they look back on it as an inflection point. And you know what the amazing thing is? They went back to their mentors in later years. The mentors didn't even remember the moment. Yeah, that's right. I don't mean that as a

depressing thing or, you know, something mean about the mentors. My intention is to show, there's this disjoint with recognition where the person doing the recognizing can say something that feels mundane. It might just be a compliment in the moment. And yet the impact of that compliment can cascade for years. No question. It's earth shattering. It moves mountains. And so think about that power. I mean, what I just described is a way that in a minute you can change someone's life. I mean, that is a power that. Is a power that. I think many of us are not aware that we have and certainly aren't using the way that we can, that if we can be a source of strength or encouragement to others, it can often happen in the simplest

forms. And yet the consequences can last a lifetime. Dan, what have you and Chip done for leaders here? Obviously, this is a dominant leader audience. That's who's listening, entrepreneurs, go-getters. What do you want them to take away from this book? I want them to take away just that core lesson of any time there's, thinking about improving experience. And, you know, it's probably different for everybody listening to this. Some people are thinking about customers and some people about employees and some about partners and some about donors. I want you to break that down to get some quick intuition to know that what really makes experience as memorable boils down to moments and that we have the ability

to create moments. And in the book, we give you a game plan to show you how you can take these four elements, elevation, insight, pride, and connection. And, construct moments, you know, popsicle hotline moments is one end of the spectrum. That's a produced moment, a planned moment. But also as a leader, making you aware of these more personal moments, you know, these small moments of recognition or these mentor moments where maybe you challenge people a little bit and realizing that in your role as a leader, you have the ability to rewire the way people think about themselves and maybe to help them realize they have a talent they didn't know they had

or that they have an ability to grow that they weren't sure they'd be able to. That's the gist, is that moments matter. Moments are what make life meaningful, and moments are ours to create. Dan, I also want you to share about a very exciting project that you're about ready to launch, and by the time our folks hear this, it'll be out. So tell us about this new venture and how folks can connect with it. Yes, so I'm super excited about this. I'm part of a new podcast series called,

choiceology. And the focus of the series is on behavioral economics and decision making. And what we do in every episode is we look at the many traps that we can fall into when we make important decisions and we study how to avoid those traps in the hopes of making better ones. And some of the stories that my team came across are just amazing, you know, life or death decisions on Mount Everest and crucial decisions made in World War II battles and quirky things that people in inner cities have done to reduce crime. And it's just, it's fascinating. I feel lucky to be a part of it because, you know, when you're an author,

everything is kind of on you, you know. If you don't do something, it doesn't get done. But in this case, I'm part of a team, and I'm just kind of a role player. I'm the host, but there's people doing the audio work and finding the stories. And so I'm always amazed when I get the episodes back of just my little piece turned into this beautiful, interesting show. So anyway, if you're interested in that kind of material, check it out. It's called Choiceology. Love it. For the intentional leader, the intentional learner, why wouldn't you check it out?

I'm in. So I want you to go check that out. iTunes, any podcast app you use, you'll be able to find it Choiceology and Dan He, fun stuff. The book is The Power of Moments, Why Certain experiences have extraordinary impact. This book has impacted me. Long been a fan of Dan and his brother Chip's works. I would highly recommend you get all their books, but I really want you to run and go get this. And don't just read it.

Look for ways to apply it. I think it is absolute. Just influence or gold. If you want to influence and make a difference, you've got to understand the science here behind this and practically use it. And I must say, Dan, beyond just enjoying the conversation and learning so much in reading the book,

I think I'm going to buy some popsicles. Going to get a box on the way home to the kids. You've mentioned it at least three times, and all of a sudden I've just got a hankering for a orange popsicle, for whatever reason. I mean, when's the last time you saw some of the popsicle frowning? Yes, good question. I don't know that we've seen that.

Oh, that's good stuff. Hey, man, thank you for being with us, Dan. I'm just below fanboy on this content. think it's that good. And I've learned a lot and I appreciate you. I know our audience is better for it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the chance to be on the show and I really enjoyed the conversation. Huge thanks to Dan. I thoroughly enjoyed it. That's why we gave you a little bit more than we normally do, but that's 50 plus or whatever it is minutes of just absolute goodness. Again, the book is Power of Moments. If you don't have this book by the next 48, 72 hours,

maybe one week, shame on you. You need to move on it. I kid you not. I'm not kidding around. Will the producer is shaking his head. He knows I'm right. So there you go. Hey, I've been telling you about our Entree Leadership One Day event.

This is our, I think it's really our foundational event. It's a one day nine to about 3.30. We pull out the playbook. Think of an NFL team. And if you're a high school football coach or a college coach and you got an invitation from Bill Belichick to look at the Patriots Playbook. How does Tom Brady do it? Well, that's what this is.

Okay? I'm telling you, it's unbelievable. And I had to get our grand poobah, Daniel Tarty, to come into the studio himself because he's been here longer. He was here when the event started. And he really has great perspective on this. So, Daniel Tarty, take it away. Hey, guys, it's Daniel Tarty.

I'm excited to tell you about an incredible full-day leadership experience for you and your team. I know as a leader, there's a lot of things I'm learning and I'm going, how can I get my team on board with this stuff. Well, the Entree Leadership One Day event is designed exactly for people like you and me who want to grow as leaders, but also want to get our team plugged in on the front row seat to the information we're learning. So the Entree Leadership One Day event is going to let you do that when Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan and Stephen Mansfield and our own Christy Wright are teaching you and your team how to grow and develop as leaders. The way you can do this is come to the live event in Houston, Texas, or you can stream the entire event from your home or office.

We're going to get you a workbook you can download and give to your team. We're going to get them all the event experience. And this way you guys have a chance to discuss this information together and grow as a leadership team. And just for podcast listeners, we're giving you a pretty sweet deal. Just text the word E1D 2018. That's E1D 2018 to 33444. And you save 10 bucks on your pass. Go ahead and lock this in today.

Get it on the calendar for you and your team. this could literally change the trajectory of your entire business. You don't want to miss it. We'll see you there. Thanks, Daniel. Always love when we get the Grand Puba in. Somebody asked me the other day at an entree event, where did I get the Grand Puba? And I don't know where I got it.

I heard it on TV somewhere. The Grand Puba, I don't know if it was the Flintstones from my childhood. I really can't remember where I got that. But it's fantastic. You know you've arrived when your unofficial title is Grand Puba. You know, because if you're just a little bit of you. Because if you're just a poobah, well, you know, nobody's going to get excited about that. But when you're the grand pooha, well, now, now you've done something.

So there you go. Hey, the free stuff coming your way here from InfusionSoft, you don't want to miss this. How would you like to grow the customer lifetime value? Well, just think about that. All of your customers, and you could grow lifetime value of your customers. Who wouldn't want to do that? The idea here is, how did it wow your customer? They're going to give you 50 ways to wow.

your customers. So this worksheet is going to give you 50 cost-effective ideas to expand or begin wowing your customers to generate repeat sales and referrals. That's the lifetime value. You want to keep these people with you for generations. So repeat sales. That's what we're looking for. You want to avoid the churn. You want people who love you and will stay engaged with you for a long time. Here's how you get it. Infusionsoft.com slash customer wow. That's infusionsoft.com slash customer wow. Start wowing your customers today. Well, folks, the audience of the Entree Leadership Program continues to grow,

and I want to thank you for that. That means you're spreading the word. And here's a couple other ways you can spread the word. If you're not subscribed, A, go subscribe. When you're there, how about giving us a review? And then how about sharing it? That's how we grow if this program is helping you. It's inspiring you. Then we want you to share it with others. And here's the great thing. You get the credit for making a great recommendation.

We need you. So again, hit that subscribe button. How about a rating and a review and a share? That would make Will the producer very happy. So there you go. All right, folks, that looks like that's going to do it for this episode. Big thanks to Dan Heath for being with us. On behalf of Will the producer, Jim the engineer and the entire Entree leadership team,

thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. You know.