Everyday leadership Drew Dudley

how many of you are completely

comfortable with calling yourselves a

leader see I’ve asked that question all

the way across the country and

everywhere I ask it no matter where

there’s always 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 we made it into something beyond

us we made it about changing the world

and we’ve taken this title of leader and

we treat it as if it’s 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 that those are the only things

we’re celebrating and we start to

devalue the things that we can do every

day and we start to take moments where

we truly are a leader and we don’t let

ourselves take credit for and we don’t

let ourselves feel good about it and

I’ve been lucky enough over the last ten

years to work with some amazing people

who have helped me redefine leadership

in a way that I think has made me

happier and with my short time today I

just want to share with you the one

story that is probably most responsible

for that redefinition I went to a school

in a little school called Mount Allison

University in Sackville New Brunswick

and on my last day there a girl came up

to me and she said I remember the first

time that I met you and then she told me

a story that happened four years earlier

she said on my day before I started

University I was in the hotel room with

my mom and my 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 and my mom and

my dad were amazing they were like look

we know you’re scared

but let’s just go to more let’s go to

the first day and if at any point you

feel as if you can’t do this that’s fine

just tell us we will take you home we

love you no matter what and she said so

I would the next day and I was standing

in line getting ready for registration

and I looked around and I just knew I

couldn’t do it I knew I wasn’t ready I

knew I had to quit and she says I made

that decision and as soon as I made it

there was this incredible feeling of

peace that came over me and I turned to

my mom and my dad to tell them that we

needed to go home and just at that

moment you came out of the Student Union

Building wearing the stupidest hat I

have ever seen in my life

it was awesome and you had a big sign

promoting Shina ramen which is students

fighting cystic fibrosis the charity

I’ve worked with for years and you had a

bucket full of lollipops and you were

walking along and you were handing the

lollipops out to people in line and

talking about shina Rama and all of a

sudden you got to me and you just

stopped and you stared it was creepy

this girl right here knows exactly what

I’m talking about and then you look at

the guy next to me and you smiled and he

reached in your bucket you pulled out a

lollipop and you held it out to him and

you said you need to give a lollypop to

the beautiful woman standing next to you

and she said I have never seen anyone

get more embarrassed faster in my life

he turned beet red and he wouldn’t even

look at me he just kind of held a

lollipop out like this and I felt so bad

for this dude that I took the lollipop

and as soon as I did you got this

incredibly severe look on your face and

you looked at my mom and my dad and you

said look at that look at that first day

away from home and already she’s taking

candy from a stranger

and she said everybody lost it 20 feet

in every direction everyone started to

howl and 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 that I shouldn’t quit I

knew that I was where I was supposed to

be and I knew that 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 up

and tell you that you’ve been an

incredibly important person in my life

and I’m gonna miss you

good luck and she walks away and I’m

flattened and she gets about 6 feet away

she turns around and smiles and goes you

should probably know this too I’m still

dating that guy 4 years later a year and

a half after I moved to Toronto I got an

invitation to their wedding here’s the

kicker I don’t remember that I have no

recollection of that moment and I’ve

searched my memory banks because that is

funny

and I should remember doing it and I

don’t remember it and that was such an

eye-opening transformative moment for me

to think that the 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 incredibly 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 something or did something that you

feel fundamentally made your life better

alright 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

and yet we let people who have made our

lives better walk around without knowing

it and every single one of you every

single one of you has been the catalyst

for a lollipop moment you have made

someone’s life better by something that

you said or that you did and if you

think you have it think about all the

hands that didn’t go back up when I

asked that question you’re just one of

the people who hasn’t been told but it

is so scary to think of ourselves as

that powerful it can be frightening to

think that we can matter that much to

other people because as long as we make

leadership something bigger than us as

long as we keep leadership something

beyond us as long as we 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 our greatest fear

is that we are powerful beyond measure

it is our light and not our darkness

that frightens us and my call to action

today is that we need to get over that

we need to get over our fear of how

extraordinarily powerful we can be at

each other’s lives we need to get over

it so we can move beyond it and our

little brothers and our little sisters

and one day our kids or our kids right

now can watch a 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 then we

acknowledge how many of them we pay

forward and how many of them 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

one person’s understanding of what

they’re capable of

one person’s understanding of how much

people care about them one person’s

understanding of how powerful an agent

for change they can be in this world you

change the whole thing and if we can

chain 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 and I want to thank you

all so much for letting me share