Page 101 - The Power to Change Anything

90 INFLUENCER

Silbert could spend a lot of time painting a picture of the
Delancey vision. “Trust me,” she could say, “you’re gonna love
it. By the time you’re out of here, you’ll have a high school
diploma. You’ll be literate. You’ll have gone to concerts and
museums. You’ll have mastered three different trades and tried
a dozen others. You’ll have a whole new set of friends. Just sign
here.”
Right.
These arguments are easy to make but hard to sell because
they involve verbal persuasion and the people you’re talking to
don’t understand the language. You’re describing activities
and outcomes for which they have no frame of reference, and
you’re then asking them to make enormous immediate sacri-
fices (no gang, no drugs, no freedom) in order to achieve them.
It won’t work. It can’t work.
Silbert realizes that it’ll take a while before new residents
personally experience the benefits of a new life. She explains,
“After they get their high school equivalent, we offer two-year
degrees through San Francisco State. Some even get a BA. But
early on, residents hate the discipline that it takes to study. We
also go with them to museums, operas, plays. Oh, believe me,
they whine like crazy. They don’t want to go. But I just keep
saying, ‘You can hate Chinese food, but not until after you’ve
had Chinese food.’ Coming in, our residents hate everything.
But of course they’ve never done anything!”
So Dr. Silbert simply plods forward, demanding that resi-
dents try studying for a class, attending the opera, mentor-
ing another student, and so forth. Experience has taught
her that if residents try new behaviors, they end up liking
many if not most of them. Okay, perhaps few become opera
fans. Nevertheless, over 90 percent come to enjoy dozens of
behaviors they never would have imagined they’d one day
enjoy.
Silbert sticks with it until that Tuesday at 3:17 (Terri’s
experience) finally hits. She says it happens to virtually every-