1: The year was 2004, the early days of the Iraqi War.  Riots were occurring in Kufa, a small city 90 miles south of Baghdad.   

While meeting with Kufa’s mayor, a U.S. Army major made an odd request: “Could they keep the food vendors out of the plazas?” Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit.

The mayor agreed to the request.  A couple of weeks later, a crowd began … continue reading

1: Lisa Allen was thirty-four years old.  She had struggled with obesity since she was a child.  Lisa started smoking and drinking at sixteen.  She had moved from one dead-end job to another, never working for the same employer for more than a year.  She was $10,000 in debt and collection agencies were chasing her, writes Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit.

After her husband fell in love … continue reading