Leadership is often perceived as a grand, aspirational role focused on world-changing achievements, leading many to feel unqualified. However, true leadership lies in the small, impactful "lollipop moments" that positively influence individuals, a concept that needs to be embraced and acknowledged.
Key Points
Mind Map
Nhấn để mở rộng
Nhấn để khám phá sơ đồ tư duy tương tác đầy đủ
[Music]
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
it and we don't let ourselves feel good
about it. And I've been lucky enough
over the last 10 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 on 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 tomorrow. 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 says, "So,
I went 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 uh promoting Shinorama, which is
students fighting cystic fibrosis, a
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 Shinorama. 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 looked at the guy next to me and you
smiled and you reached in your bucket.
You pulled out a lollipop and you held
it out to him and you said, "You need to
give a lollipop 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
beat red." And he wouldn't even look at
me. He just kind of held the 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
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 going to 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 four years
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 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. 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.
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 haven't, 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. Maryanne
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 in 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 us 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 of them 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 ch 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
Nhấn vào bất kỳ đoạn văn bản hoặc mốc thời gian nào để nhảy đến phần đó trong video
Chia sẻ:
Hầu hết transcript sẵn sàng trong dưới 5 giây
Sao Chép 1 Chạm125+ Ngôn ngữTìm kiếm nội dungNhảy đến mốc thời gian
Dán URL YouTube
Nhập link bất kỳ video YouTube để lấy toàn bộ transcript
Form Trích Xuất Transcript
Hầu hết transcript sẵn sàng trong dưới 5 giây
Cài Tiện Ích Chrome Của Chúng Tôi
Lấy transcript ngay mà không cần rời khỏi YouTube. Cài tiện ích Chrome để truy cập transcript của bất kỳ video nào ngay trên trang xem, chỉ với một cú nhấp.
