The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg | Audiobook Review

A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.

Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.

An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.

What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.

They succeeded by transforming habits.

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Why Did I Listen To This Book?

I am one of those people who procrastinates, eats poorly and only occasionally works out. You might say that I have a lot of really bad habits. It seemed that The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg was popping up on Audible at every turn. As I am a sucker for non-fiction, I plopped down a credit on this book. I began to listen to it because it sounded interesting and it had been awhile since the last time I had listened to a self help audiobook, and y’all, I actually like self help audiobooks. ALSO, The Power Of Habit has some pretty good reviews on Audible and you know, I trust consumer reviews and all. Furthermore, the bright yellow cover kind of began calling to me as covers do.

What’s It All About?

I will say this over and over, but one of the nice things I am finding about the non-fiction audiobooks that I listen to is that the title really tells you everything you need to know. Like, there’s no surprises in here. The book told me that I would learn about habits and why we have habits in life and in business. Cool, right? So, okay, The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg talks about how habits are formed, what habits even are, and good and bad habits. It also goes into how you can change or make something a habit. Y’all, I need to obviously change my habits and some of this has helped me. Like, after reading this book, I got myself a gym membership and have essentially been going almost every day after work which I think is a pretty good habit to pick up.

What Did I Learn?

• Never get into gambling as a habit. One of the anecdotes in this book is about a woman who loses millions of dollars gambling because she was this bored housewife and so gambling became a really huge habit for her and even when she tried to stop and moved to a state where gambling is illegal, when she came back to her home state she ended up going to the casino and losing all this money.
• This leads to my next point, when a casino offers you a line of credit, JUST SAY NO.
• Speaking of which, did you know that lotteries and casinos entice you by making it so that your losses are off by a little bit, so you see like one number where you have NEARLY won? That makes it so you think you can win and you keep funnelling money over and over.
• Basically, gambling is shady.
• Beyond this, I learned that if I can create some sort of trigger, I can create a habit. Like, if I make sure to get my gym backpack ready every morning, I essentially trigger myself to go to the gym when I see that backpack.
• After the trigger, you need a reward. So, for me, my reward at the gym is updating social media to humble brag. Basically, my reward is giving into my vanity.
• If you kill someone while you are asleep, you can pretty much get away with murder, I guess.
• People with memory loss issues have habits too, so like let’s say they go for a walk with someone and then that someone somehow isn’t there one day. The person ends up going for a walk and instead of getting lost comes back home because of the habit. This anecdote is actually more interesting than my two sentence rehashing of it, FYI.
• Transforming safety habits, i.e. making your workers follow safety protocol leads to more productivity and higher sales and profits.

How Is The Narration?

The audiobook of The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg is produced by Random House Audio and is narrated by Mike Chamberlain. I liked the production values. It is not a distracting audiobook. The sound is crisp and clear with no background elements. All focus is on the words. Mike Chamberlain’s voice works well for the audiobook. It is interesting. He has no accent. He enunciates really well. His voice never gets annoying or monotone or robotic. I liked Chamberlain’s narration is what I am saying. You might like it too.

Who Would I Recommend This Book To?

I would actually recommend The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg to people with terrible habits, so people like me. Like, if you don’t exercise and you put everything off to the last minute, you might get use out of the techniques in this book. I would also say people looking to dip their toes into the pool of non-fiction and self-help might find Duhigg’s book interesting. I mean, I kind of flew through the audiobook in under a week. It was fascinating and really blends anecdote with science for a good sort of mix.

Sum It Up With A GIF:

Actually, this is kind of the best sum up GIF ever in that it actually is the entire summary of the book on how we form habits.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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