To prevent high rates of nurse burnout and staff turnover, hospitals must create environments that fulfil nurses’ expectations and foster positive emotional responses to their job. To gain an understanding of what triggers positive emotional responses, a group of nurses were asked to recall an ‘extraordinary day’. Their descriptions were analysed to identify these triggers and to determine whether their perceptions of what makes an extraordinary day change over time. This article discusses the results of the study and suggests that enabling nurses to describe meaningful experiences is a step toward learning what it is they value.