Chapter 5 - I Knew the Pain Before I Knew the Name: How the 12 Utilities, PERMAH, and the Admiration Equation Were Born
From the book, Living as a Cathedral of Awe
Living as a Cathedral of Awe Book
Before I had names for them,
before I had charts or frameworks or models —
I knew the feeling.
The feeling of something promised and not delivered.
The feeling of hidden costs, shifting rules, broken trust.
The feeling of being left unseen, unheard, unvalued.
The feeling of being expected to be grateful for less than dignity.
When I first began reading customer surveys, online reviews, and feedback data,
I felt something visceral —
a sense of recognition.
Not because I was trained to analyze it,
but because I had lived it.
The frustration when something that was supposed to help you instead made you feel smaller.
The betrayal when someone said, "We care," but their actions said otherwise.
The sadness of hoping, trusting, reaching out — and being dropped.
The pain was familiar.
The disappointment was familiar.
The betrayal was familiar.
That's how the 12 Utilities were born.
Not from spreadsheets.
Not from strategy sessions.
But from reading hundreds, thousands of stories
and realizing:
These are the same wounds.
The same fractures.
The same unmet human needs.
I saw it because I had lived it.
Every Utility — Availability, Access, Security, Clarity, Ease of Use, Accuracy, Speed, Consistency, Closure, Emotion Evoked, Resource, Value —
mapped to a basic human expectation,
an expectation that, when violated, doesn't just inconvenience —
it wounds.
And when fulfilled, doesn't just please —
it heals.
Then came PERMAH.
When I first encountered the idea of flourishing —
Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement, Health and Wellbeing —
something in me recognized it immediately, like a home I had never fully lived in but somehow remembered.
I could see how, even in my own life,
tiny moments of flourishing had cracked through the concrete of survival.
Moments of awe.
Moments of connection.
Moments where meaning surged up unexpectedly like spring water.
And as I kept studying customer experiences, I saw it again:
People didn’t just want problems solved.
They wanted to feel alive again.
They wanted to feel whole.
They wanted to flourish.
The Admiration Equation emerged next.
I became fascinated with a question:
"Why do some good experiences change people — and others fade?"
"What makes someone move from satisfaction to admiration?"
I watched.
I listened.
I mapped the patterns.
And I realized:
It wasn't just about solving problems.
It wasn't even just about delighting people.
It was about creating multi-sensory, emotionally-rich micro-moments
that triggered not just happiness, but awe, gratitude, admiration of skill, admiration of goodness.
When those moments stacked together,
people's memories redrafted the experience upward.
The story they told themselves — and others — about the brand, the person, the experience,
became bigger, better, more transformational than the moment itself.
Admiration wasn't a bonus.
It was the alchemy of healing and hope, crystallized into loyalty.
All of this —
the 12 Utilities, PERMAH, the Admiration Equation —
it didn’t come from a sterile academic pursuit.
It came from watching people try to survive,
watching them reach for dignity, meaning, connection, healing —
sometimes finding it, sometimes being crushed.
It came from recognizing, deep in my bones:
"I know this pain.
I know this hope.
I know this need.
I know this journey."
It came from the part of me that had survived broken systems
and dared to believe that something better was possible.
And here's the beautiful circle:
As I mapped how customers healed and flourished through experiences,
I found new ways to heal and flourish myself.
Every insight I gained externally
helped me internally.
Every pattern I decoded in others
helped me rewrite the story I had inherited.
Every moment I helped create flourishing in others
helped me water the seeds of my own flourishing.
THX isn’t just a framework I teach.
It’s the framework that rebuilt me.
And every time I use it —
to heal, to connect, to create, to offer dignity —
I am not just helping others.
I am continuing my own healing.
I am continuing my own becoming.
I am continuing my own life’s real work.
And that is a miracle I do not take for granted.
Next: Chapter 6 - The Power of Micro-Moments: How Tiny Experiences Saved Me — and Can Save the World
Learning to capture and expand life-giving moments, reprogramming my inner world from fear to flourishing.
