Page 264 - The Power to Change Anything

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Become an Influencer

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking,
and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?

—Ronnie Shakes

his book started with a bold assertion. We claimed
that if you bundle the right number and type of in-
T fluence techniques into the right influence strategy, you
can change virtually anything. At first blush this claim seems
both cocky and unbelievable. Obviously there are thousands
of things out there that none of us will ever change. Take grav-
ity, for example. It’s been around for a while and doesn’t
appear to be going anywhere. From there we explained that
we’re referring to the behaviors that cause most of the profound
and persistent problems that we’re currently experiencing.
There is a growing body of knowledge as well as an impres-
sive supply of real-life success stories that teach exactly how to
change almost any human behavior. Read the scholarly works
of Dr. Albert Bandura. Then watch what Dr. Mimi Silbert does
at Delancey Street. These two influencers alone demonstrate
that, if you know what you’re doing, you can indeed change
remarkably resistant behaviors.
For example, today at Delancey, 500 former criminals and
drug addicts are willingly immersed in an intense environment
that employs every influence strategy we discussed. The strate-

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