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

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

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Audio CD(Unabridged)
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Overview

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A habit is tough to start and tougher to break, or so they say. In The Power of Habit, it's time to put tough in the grave and reshape your life with new habits, starting with a deeper understanding of what a habit actually is.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For anyone looking to rebuild old habits, form new ones, or start all over, this instant classic “masterfully combines cutting-edge research and captivating stories to reveal how habits shape our lives and how we can shape our habits” (Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive).

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times

In The Power of Habit, award-winning business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to the sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Praise for The Power of Habit

“Sharp, provocative, and useful.”—Jim Collins

“Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception. Charles Duhigg not only explains how habits are formed but how to kick bad ones and hang on to the good.”—Financial Times

“A flat-out great read.”—David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

“Entertaining . . . enjoyable . . . fascinating . . . a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.”—The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524722746
Publisher:	Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and the author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale College, he is a winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards. He writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications, and is the host of the podcast How To! with Charles Duhigg.

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Chapter 1
(Continues…)

Excerpted from "The Power of Habit"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Charles Duhigg.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Prologue

The Habit Cure xi

Part 1 The Habits of Individuals

1 The Habit Loop

How Habits Work 3

2 The Craving Brain

How to Create New Habits 31

3 The Golden Rule of Habit Change

Why Transformation Occurs 60

Part 2 The Habits of Successful Organizations

4 Keystone Habits, or the Ballad of Paul O'neill

Which Habits Matter Most 97

5 Starbucks and the Habit of Success

When Willpower Becomes Automatic 1 27

6 The Power of a Crisis

How Leaders Create Habits Through Accident and Design 154

7 How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do

When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits 182

Part 3 The Habits of Societies

8 Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

How Movements Happen 215

9 The Neurology of Free Will

Are We Responsible for Our Habits? 245

Appendix

A Reader's Guide to Using These Ideas 275

Acknowledgments 287

A Note on Sources 291

Notes 293

Index 355

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I imagine that most people…would love to find an easy way of breaking a bad habit or two. Charles Duhigg…has written an entertaining book to help us do just that, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Duhigg has read hundreds of scientific papers and interviewed many of the scientists who wrote them, and relays interesting findings on habit formation and change from the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience. This is not a self-help book conveying one author's homespun remedies, but a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.
—The New York Times Book Review

Timothy D. Wilson

Duhigg explores how habits influence individual, societal, and organizational experience and describes the social and psychological factors that create, maintain, and break habits, using a series of reinforcing anecdotes to bring his point home. Mike Chamberlain narrates this audio edition in a congenial, welcoming voice.This judgment-free approach is effective as Duhigg’s findings will likely cause listeners to reflect on their own habits—both good and bad. Most important, Chamberlain’s tone captures the mood of the book as it shifts from engaging and curious anecdotes to more academic studies, and his pacing maintains listener interest throughout. The only aspect of Chamberlain’s performance that could be improved is his rendering of quotations: sometimes his reading of quotes misses the mark and sounds inauthentic or overly dramatic. However, this is only a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent performance. Random House hardcover. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Audio

Sharp, provocative, and useful.”—Jim Collins

“Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception. Charles Duhigg not only explains how habits are formed but how to kick bad ones and hang on to the good.”—Financial Times

“Entertaining . . . enjoyable . . . fascinating . . . a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Cue: see cover. Routine: read book. Reward: fully comprehend the art of manipulation.”—Bloomberg Businessweek

“A fresh examination of how routine behaviors take hold and whether they are susceptible to change . . . The stories that Duhigg has knitted together are all fascinating in their own right, but take on an added dimension when wedded to his examination of habits.”— Associated Press

“There’s been a lot of research over the past several years about how our habits shape us, and this work is beautifully described in the new book The Power of Habit.”—David Brooks, The New York Times

“A first-rate book—based on an impressive mass of research, written in a lively style and providing just the right balance of intellectual seriousness with practical advice on how to break our bad habits.”—The Economist

“I have been spinning like a top since reading The Power of Habit, New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg’s fascinating best-seller about how people, businesses and organizations develop the positive routines that make them productive—and happy.”—The Washington Post

“An absolutely fascinating . . . book [that explores] a startling and sometimes dismaying collision between the increasingly sophisticated scientific understanding of habits—how they’re formed, how they can be disrupted and changed—and, among other things, companies’ efforts to use that knowledge to steer your habits and money their way.”—Wired

“If Duhigg is right about the nature of habits, which I think he is, then trying to get rid of these bad habits won’t work. Instead, what is needed is to teach the managers to identify the cues that lead to these bad habits and rewards, and then learn alternative routines that lead to similar rewards, i.e. business and personal success.”—Forbes

“The Power of Habit is chock-full of fascinating anecdotes . . . how an early twentieth century adman turned Pepsodent into the first bestselling toothpaste by creating the habit of brushing daily, how a team of marketing mavens at Procter & Gamble rescued Febreze from the scrapheap of failed products by recognizing that a fresh smell was a fine reward for a cleaning task, how Michael Phelps’ coach instilled habits that made him an Olympic champion many times over, and how Tony Dungy turned the Indianapolis Colts into a Super Bowl–winning team.”—Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

According to Duhigg (investigative reporter, New York Times), if people can understand how behaviors became habits, they can restructure those patterns in more constructive ways. He presents information on habit formation and change from academic studies, interviews with scientists and executives, and research conducted in dozens of companies. Three sections deal with the neurology of habit formation in individuals, the habits of successful companies and organizations, and the habits of societies and tough ethical issues. Duhigg offers a fascinating analysis for the college-educated reader. [See Prepub Alert, 9/11/11.]

Library Journal

Charles Duhigg weaves theory and research from multiple disciplines to explore how habits are formed and why they’re so difficult to break. Duhigg’s habit model—a loop consisting of a cue, a behavioral routine, and a resulting reward—is explored from neurological, organizational, and cultural perspectives. Mike Chamberlain offers a warm, steady narration, packed with inquisitiveness and enthusiasm. His delivery of the supporting case studies from contemporary business and modern history brings the complexity of the topic to life and keeps listeners engaged. Listeners will find insights and applications that can be helpful in their personal and professional lives. K.C.R. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

MAY 2012 - AudioFile

According to this instructional text for readers habituated to unhelpful ways, changing those bad habits for good habits isn't rocket science--it's brain science. New York Times investigative reporter Duhigg demonstrates how automatic behavior, good or bad, can grow from a repeated decision that gets lodged in the basal ganglia. The result is a fixed loop of cue, routine and reward. Animal trainers are already familiar with this information. For improvement, the trick is to keep the cue and reward, but change the routine. The belief that acquiring a new "keystone habit" can really be achieved is necessary, and that's why support groups, like AA, are valuable. To clarify his points, Duhigg offers some simplistic diagrams with many cautionary stories of surgeons, baristas, gamblers, sex addicts and football coaches, as well as the selling of toothpaste, aluminum and room deodorizers. Along with tales of paragons of corporate management, we learn how supermarkets are arranged, how Target stores target consumers, how Marin Luther King Jr. managed the Montgomery bus boycott and how Rick Warren organized his monumental Saddleback Church. Even with such varied exemplars, the skilled narrative remains accessible. Unlike other exhortations with titles that promise empowerment, this admonitory entry is supported by interviews, neurological studies and empirical histories. Copious notes and a "Reader's Guide to Using These Ideas" are appended. For self-help seekers, a more convincing book than most.

Kirkus Reviews

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

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

Audio CD(Unabridged)

Audio CD(Unabridged)

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