In the book “Influence in Your Superpower” by Zoe Chance, the Yale professor says it takes one simple yet still complex question to get things done: “What will it take?”

What will it take to make something happen? What will it take to make change in your community? What will it take to make your community the best it can be?

Prof. Chance uses the example of a small African country which had the serious problem of women dying because of trafficking. Gloria Steinem visited the community and asked the women: What will it take to stop this problem? Their answer? An electric fence. 

You may ask what does an electric fence have to do with women being trafficked? These villagers raised crops as their source of food and income. But every year, the elephants would come and trample their livelihood, erasing all their hard work, their food and how they supported themselves. Hence, the women were forced into trafficking because they had no alternative. But the villagers determined that a fence could ease if not solve their problem by keeping the elephants out.

So they were given money for a fence.

Five years later when Steinem returned, not one woman had been lost in the village to trafficking. The solution worked first because the villagers knew the answer, not an outsider coming in and telling them what they should do. 

Secondly, the question “What will it take?” worked because the person or group providing the answer has a stake in the solution. They understood the problem better than anyone. They came up with the answer so they have a vested interest in making it happen. Solving the problem became their responsibility because they came up with the resolution. 

How does this apply to us? How can this make an impact on our everyday lives?

Too often, we sit on the sidelines and lament that a problem is too big or too complex. We throw our hands up in the air and give up before we have even begun. We think someone else is going to solve the problem or come up with the solution.

But what would happen if you asked yourself, what will it take to make my community into a place where I want to live and raise my family? What will it take to make my community into a place where neighbors help neighbors? What will it take to make my community into a place where others want to move to, where others want to get involved, where others want to make a difference?

There is not one right answer.

Does that mean getting involved in a local organization? Does it mean running for political office? Does it mean bringing your friends together to build something? Does that mean working to change something you don’t like?

Instead of sitting in a morning coffee group just bemoaning the state of affairs, what would happen if they asked What will it take…? and then did something about it. 

Instead of posting on social media about what others to come up with a solution, what would happen if everyone asked What will it take to solve the problem?

Instead of thinking you are alone in your desire to make a difference, what would happen if a group got together - with food and drinks because they makes everything better - and asked “What will it take to make my community even better for my kids and my kids’ kids?”

Just like there is not one right answer, there isn’t one easy answer either. Every community has big issues that they are facing, from childcare to housing to poverty to education. The problems can seem daunting, with no good way to start.

But if everyone picked just one issue, one idea or one project that they were passionate about and asked themselves, “What will it take to make that happen?”…consider what a community could accomplish. That person knows about the issue or takes the time to educate themselves. That person determines what will it take to have that idea come to fruition. That person is part of the process to make that project a reality.

That is how change will happen and that is how we will get things done in our community. By being part of the solution, not the problem. By being willing to think about the complex answers and not just the easy out to the situation. By each and every one of us asking “What will it take to make McCook and our communities into even better places to call home?”