Page 28 - The Power to Change Anything

You’re an Influencer 17

wanted—access to water in which to lay hundreds of thousands
of eggs, thus continuing the tragic cycle.
Sufferers cannot work their crops for many weeks. When
parents are afflicted, their children may drop out of school to
help out with chores. Crops cannot be cultivated. The harvest
is lost. Starvation ensues. The cycle of illiteracy and poverty
consumes the next generation. Often, secondary infections
caused by the worm can kill. Consequently, for over 3,500 years
the Guinea worm has been a major barrier to economic and
social progress in dozens of nations.
In 1986 Dr. Hopkins and his colleagues declared war on
the worm. Hopkins was interested in this particular disease
because he knew that if 120 million people in 23,000 villages
would change just a few vital behaviors for just one year, there
would never be another case of the infection. Ever. But imag-
ine the audacity of intending to influence such a scattered pop-
ulation in so many countries—frequently faced with corrupt or
nonexistent health systems or fragile political stability.
And yet this is exactly what Hopkins’s team has done. Soon
he and his colleagues will have laid claim to something
never before accomplished in human history. They will
have eradicated a global disease without finding a cure. Despite
this enormous disadvantage, Hopkins and his small band of
intrepid change agents will have beaten the disease with noth-
ing more than the ability to influence human thought and
action.
The implications of Hopkins’s work for individuals, busi-
nesses, and communities are enormous. Everyone has a version
of a Guinea worm disease: some self-defeating behaviors that,
if changed, could unlock a whole new level of performance.
Hopkins teaches us first how to find success where others have
failed, and second, how to locate a handful of key actions that,
if routinely enacted, will guarantee our own success.
Who can’t benefit from learning how to locate strategies
that routinely succeed in the face of widespread failure?