9. Power of Habit Prologue

- In the prologue of the book, the author begins by talking about a woman named Lisa, who was able to turn her life around when she decided to focus on stopping smoking. Charles Duhigg, the author, details that this, to Lisa, was a keystone habit, meaning that when she focused on changing this one habit, she was able to change multiple other parts of her life. 

- Duhigg says that all life is just a mass collection of habits, from how people brush their teeth in the morning to what they do after work. 

- The book is broken down into three parts, habits in individual lives, habits of successful companies and organizations, and the habits of societies. Duhigg says that each chapter revolves around the idea that habits can be changed if people understand how they work. 

- Duhigg grew interested in habits when he was a newspaper reporter in Iraq. An army major whose job was to stop the protests in the small city of Kufa, first analyzed recent riots and found a pattern. Then, he asked the mayor to keep food vendors out of the plazas and open spaces that the riots were normally started in. When the next riot started, it ended by 8pm because people became hungry and dispirited.