"The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business", is a book written by Charles Duhigg, a journalist who became interested in why people develop certain habits, and how those habits can be changed. Each chapter of the book focuses on a certain aspect of habits, and is filled with examples from the lives of individuals and businesses demonstrating how habits arise, why they appear to be so difficult to change, and, most importantly, how it is in fact possible to change them. With each chapter building on the knowledge and understanding gained from the previous chapters, it rapidly becomes apparent that habits are far more influential in daily life than was previously considered by the reader, and that this reality is in fact one of the reasons that habits are so powerful—they are, in every sense of the word, automatic, excluding the ability for people to exert willpower and make a change unless certain steps are taken to ensure success. When a person first forms a habit, for example, that person's brain shows that decision-making faculties are very active during the first several times they engage in the routine, but that the decision-making activity is automatically stopped after the pattern of behavior has been learned completely. This process is active in everything we learn, from the ability to recognize someone's face to sports performance or successful business ventures. Habit-form, argues the book through several chapters, is the primary reason we are unable to consciously direct ourselves toward change. Instead, the pattern of behavior must be identified and understood so that it can be changed or replaced. The book moves on to explore how important habit is to businesses and corporations who depend on customers making their products into habitual purchases. Marketing campaigns, training programs, and business models are all examined, with successful ones demonstrating the power of habits and how to shape them. Finally, the role of habit in mistakes and larger tragedies is explored carefully, as the book makes clear that habits can be every bit as devastating as they are powerful when they do not serve the people who adopt them well. Finally, the book introduces a very modest strategy to the reader suggesting how habits may be successfully changed. Habits, argues the author, are all different, and all need a different way to be changed. Since the ability to change a person's habits will differ from person to person, the book outlines several general steps that must be taken and walks the reader through a basic example of how to change a habit.