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I wanted to just start
by asking everyone a question:

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How many of you are completely comfortable

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with calling yourselves a leader?

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I've asked that question
all across the country,

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and everywhere I ask it, no matter where,

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

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

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into something bigger than us;
something beyond us.

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We've made it about changing the world.

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We've taken this title of "leader"

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

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But to give it to ourselves right now

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

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And I worry sometimes
that we spend so much time

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celebrating amazing things
that hardly anybody can do,

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

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

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We take moments
where we truly are a leader

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

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I've been lucky enough
over the last 10 years

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

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in a way that I think has made me happier.

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With my short time today,

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

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for that redefinition.

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I went to a little school

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called Mount Allison University
in Sackville, New Brunswick.

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

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"I remember the first time I met you."

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

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

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

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

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

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My mom and dad were amazing.

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

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

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

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We love you no matter what.'"

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She says, "So I went the next day.

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I was in line for registration,

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

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I knew I had to quit.

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

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an incredible feeling
of peace came over me.

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

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

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

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(Laughter)

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"It was awesome.

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

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which is Students Fighting
Cystic Fibrosis,

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a charity I've worked with for years --

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"And you had a bucketful of lollipops.

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You were handing the lollipops out
to people in line,

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and talking about Shinerama.

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

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And you stared. It was creepy."

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(Laughter)

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This girl knows what I'm talking about.

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(Laughter)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(Laughter)

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

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

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

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First day away from home,

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

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(Laughter)

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She said, "Everybody lost it.

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Twenty feet in every direction,
everyone started to howl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And she walks away, and I'm flattened.

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

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"You should probably know this, too:

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

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(Laughter)

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A year and a half
after I moved to Toronto,

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I got an invitation to their wedding.

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(Laughter)

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

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I have no recollection of that moment.

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I've searched my memory banks,

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

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

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

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

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

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was a moment that I didn't even remember.

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How many of you guys
have a lollipop moment,

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a moment where someone
said or did something

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that you feel fundamentally
made your life better?

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

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See, why not?

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We celebrate birthdays,

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

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(Laughter)

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Yet we let people
who have made our lives better

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walk around without knowing it.

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Every single one of you
has been the catalyst

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for a lollipop moment.

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

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If you think you haven't,

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

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

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

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

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As long as we make leadership
something bigger than us,

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as long as we keep leadership beyond us

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and make it about changing the world,

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

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from ourselves and from each other.

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

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[It] is that we are powerful
beyond measure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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more than money and power
and titles and influence.

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

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

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

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Because we've made leadership
about changing the world,

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and there is no world.

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There's only six billion
understandings of it.

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

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understanding of what they're capable of,

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understanding of how much
people care about them,

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understanding of how powerful
an agent for change

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they can be in this world,

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you've changed the whole thing.

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And if we can understand
leadership like that,

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I think if we can redefine
leadership like that,

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I think we can change everything.

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

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