Five years ago in The New York Times Magazine, the philosopher Peter Singer wrote the most important article I've ever read. It was called "What Should a Billionaire Give — and What Should You?" What I remember best is the haunting hypothetical question Singer posed: If you were to pass a shallow pond in which a child was drowning, would you feel compelled to save the child, even if it meant getting your clothes wet or being late to wherever you were headed? Plainly the answer is yes.

Change is hard. New Year's resolutions almost always fail. But at The Energy Project, we have developed a way of making changes that has proved remarkably powerful and enduring, both in my own life and for the corporate clients to whom we teach it. Our method is grounded in the recognition that human being are creatures of habit. Fully 95 percent of our behaviors are habitual, or occur in response to a strong external stimulus. Only 5 percent of our choices are consciously self-selected.