Everyday leadership

We have all changed someone’s life -- usually without even realizing it. In this funny talk, Drew Dudley calls on all of us to celebrate leadership as the everyday act of improving each other’s lives. (Filmed at TEDxToronto.)

I wanted to just start
by asking everyone a question:

How many of you are completely comfortable

with calling yourselves a leader?

I've asked that question
all across the country,

and everywhere I ask it, no matter where,

there's a huge portion of the audience
that won't put up their hand.

And I've come to realize
that we have made leadership

into something bigger than us;
something beyond us.

We've made it about changing the world.

We've taken this title of "leader"

and treat it as something
that one day we're going to deserve.

But to give it to ourselves right now

means a level of arrogance or cockiness
that we're not comfortable with.

And I worry sometimes
that we spend so much time

celebrating amazing things
that hardly anybody can do,

that we've convinced ourselves those
are the only things worth celebrating.

We start to devalue the things
we can do every day,

We take moments
where we truly are a leader

and we don't let ourselves take credit
for it, or feel good about it.

I've been lucky enough
over the last 10 years

to work with amazing people
who've helped me redefine leadership

in a way that I think has made me happier.

With my short time today,

I want to share with you the one story
that is probably most responsible

for that redefinition.

I went to a little school

called Mount Allison University
in Sackville, New Brunswick.

And on my last day there,
a girl came up to me and said,

"I remember the first time I met you."

And she told me a story
that had happened four years earlier.

She said, "On the day
before I started university,

I was in the hotel room
with my mom and dad,

and I was so scared
and so convinced that I couldn't do this,

that I wasn't ready for university,
that I just burst into tears.

My mom and dad were amazing.

They were like, "We know you're scared,
but let's just go tomorrow,

go to the first day, and if at any point
you feel as if you can't do this,

that's fine; tell us,
and we'll take you home.

We love you no matter what.'"

She says, "So I went the next day.

I was in line for registration,

and I looked around and just knew
I couldn't do it; I wasn't ready.

I knew I had to quit.

I made that decision
and as soon as I made it,

an incredible feeling
of peace came over me.

I turned to my mom and dad
to tell them we needed to go home,

and at that moment, you came
out of the student union building

wearing the stupidest hat
I've ever seen in my life."

(Laughter)

"It was awesome.

And you had a big sign
promoting Shinerama," --

which is Students Fighting
Cystic Fibrosis,

a charity I've worked with for years --

"And you had a bucketful of lollipops.

You were handing the lollipops out
to people in line,

and talking about Shinerama.

All of the sudden, you got to me,
and you just stopped.

And you stared. It was creepy."

(Laughter)

This girl knows what I'm talking about.

(Laughter)

"Then you looked at the guy next to me,
smiled, reached into your bucket,

pulled out a lollipop,
held it out to him and said,

'You need to give a lollipop
to the beautiful woman next to you.'"

She said, "I've never seen anyone
get more embarrassed faster in my life.

He turned beet red,
he wouldn't even look at me.

He just kind of held
the lollipop out like this."

(Laughter)

"I felt so bad for this dude
that I took the lollipop.

As soon as I did, you got
this incredibly severe look on your face,

looked at my mom and dad
and said, 'Look at that! Look at that!

First day away from home,

and already she's taking candy
from a stranger?'"

(Laughter)

She said, "Everybody lost it.

Twenty feet in every direction,
everyone started to howl.

I know this is cheesy, and I don't know
why I'm telling you this,

but in that moment when everyone
was laughing, I knew I shouldn't quit.

I knew I was where I was supposed
to be; I knew I was home.

And I haven't spoken to you
once in the four years since that day.

But I heard that you were leaving,
and I had to come and tell you

you've been an incredibly
important person in my life.

I'm going to miss you. Good luck."

And she walks away, and I'm flattened.

She gets six feet away,
turns around, smiles and goes,

"You should probably know this, too:

I'm still dating that guy,
four years later."

(Laughter)

A year and a half
after I moved to Toronto,

I got an invitation to their wedding.

(Laughter)

Here's the kicker: I don't remember that.

I have no recollection of that moment.

I've searched my memory banks,

because that is funny and I should
remember doing it and I don't.

That was such an eye-opening,
transformative moment for me,

to think that maybe the biggest impact
I'd ever had on anyone's life,

a moment that had a woman walk up
to a stranger four years later and say,

"You've been an important
person in my life,"

was a moment that I didn't even remember.

How many of you guys
have a lollipop moment,

a moment where someone
said or did something

that you feel fundamentally
made your life better?

All right. How many of you have told
that person they did it?

See, why not?

We celebrate birthdays,

where all you have to do
is not die for 365 days --

(Laughter)

Yet we let people
who have made our lives better

walk around without knowing it.

Every single one of you
has been the catalyst

for a lollipop moment.

You've made someone's life better
by something you said or did.

If you think you haven't,

think of all the hands
that didn't go up when I asked.

You're just one of the people
who hasn't been told.

It's scary to think of ourselves
as that powerful,

frightening to think we can matter
that much to other people.

As long as we make leadership
something bigger than us,

as long as we keep leadership beyond us

and make it about changing the world,

we give ourselves an excuse
not to expect it every day,

from ourselves and from each other.

Marianne Williamson said, "Our greatest
fear is not that we are inadequate.

[It] is that we are powerful
beyond measure.

It is our light and not our darkness
that frightens us."

My call to action today
is that we need to get over our fear

of how extraordinarily powerful
we can be in each other's lives.

We need to get over it
so we can move beyond it,

and our little brothers and sisters
and one day our kids --

or our kids right now --
can watch and start to value

the impact we can have
on each other's lives,

more than money and power
and titles and influence.

We need to redefine leadership
as being about lollipop moments --

how many of them we create,
how many we acknowledge,

how many of them we pay forward
and how many we say thank you for.

Because we've made leadership
about changing the world,

and there is no world.

There's only six billion
understandings of it.

And if you change
one person's understanding of it,

understanding of what they're capable of,

understanding of how much
people care about them,

understanding of how powerful
an agent for change

they can be in this world,

you've changed the whole thing.

And if we can understand
leadership like that,

I think if we can redefine
leadership like that,

I think we can change everything.

And it's a simple idea,
but I don't think it's a small one.

I want to thank you so much
for letting me share it with you today.