The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

　　A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past twoyears, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She hasquit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. Thepatterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, havefundamentally changed.?Marketers at Procter & Gamble studyvideos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying tofigure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to beone of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of themdetects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift inadvertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.?Anuntested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America.His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among hisemployees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa,becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.?What do all thesepeople have in common? They achieved success by focusing on thepatterns that shape every aspect of our lives. ?They succeeded bytransforming habits.?In The Power of Habit, award-winning New YorkTimes business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrillingedge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist andhow they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and anability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossingnarratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding ofhuman nature and its potential for transformation. ?Along the waywe learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despiteyears of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight.We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits workand where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how theright habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer MichaelPhelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero MartinLuther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Targetsuperstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, andthe nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-calledkeystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference betweenfailure and success, life and death.?At its core, The Power ofHabit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercisingregularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becomingmore productive, building revolutionary companies and socialmovements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.?Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing thisnew science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, andour lives.