0:15 [Music]
0:17 How many of you are completely
0:19 comfortable with calling yourselves a
0:21 leader? See, I've asked that question
0:23 all the way across the country, and
0:25 everywhere I ask it, no matter where,
0:26 there's always a huge portion of the
0:27 audience that won't put up their hand.
0:29 And I've come to realize that we have
0:30 made leadership into something bigger
0:32 than us. We made it into something
0:34 beyond us. We made it about changing the
0:36 world. And we've taken this title of
0:37 leader and we treat it as if it's
0:39 something that one day we're going to
0:40 deserve. But to give it to ourselves
0:43 right now means a level of arrogance or
0:44 cockiness that we're not comfortable
0:46 with. And I worry sometimes that we
0:48 spend so much time celebrating amazing
0:50 things that hardly anybody can do that
0:52 we've convinced ourselves that those are
0:53 the only things we're celebrating. And
0:55 we start to devalue the things that we
0:56 can do every day. and we start to take
0:59 moments where we truly are a leader and
1:00 we don't let ourselves take credit for
1:01 it and we don't let ourselves feel good
1:03 about it. And I've been lucky enough
1:05 over the last 10 years to work with some
1:06 amazing people who have helped me
1:07 redefine leadership in a way that I
1:09 think has made me happier. And with my
1:10 short time today, I just want to share
1:13 with you the one story that is probably
1:15 most responsible for that redefinition.
1:17 I went to a school on a little school
1:19 called Mount Allison University in
1:21 Sackville, New Brunswick. And on my last
1:22 day there, a girl came up to me and she
1:24 said, "I remember the first time that I
1:26 met you." And then she told me a story
1:28 that happened four years earlier. She
1:30 said, "On my day before I started
1:31 university, I was in the hotel room with
1:34 my mom and my dad. And I was so scared
1:35 and so convinced that I couldn't do
1:37 this, that I wasn't ready for university
1:39 that I just burst into tears. And my mom
1:40 and my dad were amazing. They were like,
1:42 "Look, we know you're scared, but let's
1:44 just go tomorrow. Let's go to the first
1:45 day. And if at any point you feel as if
1:47 you can't do this, that's fine. Just
1:48 tell us. We will take you home. we love
1:50 you no matter what." And she says, "So,
1:52 I went the next day and I was standing
1:53 in line getting ready for registration
1:55 and I looked around and I just knew I
1:56 couldn't do it. I knew I wasn't ready. I
1:58 knew I had to quit." And she says, "I
1:59 made that decision. And as soon as I
2:00 made it, there was this incredible
2:02 feeling of peace that came over me." And
2:04 I turned to my mom and my dad to tell
2:06 them that we needed to go home. And just
2:07 at that moment, you came out of the
2:09 student union building wearing the
2:10 stupidest hat I have ever seen in my
2:14 life. It was awesome. and you had a big
2:16 sign uh promoting Shinorama, which is
2:17 students fighting cystic fibrosis, a
2:18 charity I've worked with for years. And
2:20 you had a bucket full of lollipops. And
2:21 you were walking along and you were
2:23 handing the lollipops out to people in
2:25 line and talking about Shinorama. And
2:27 all of a sudden, you got to me and you
2:31 just stopped and you stared. It was
2:33 creepy. This girl right here knows
2:35 exactly what I'm talking about. And then
2:37 you looked at the guy next to me and you
2:38 smiled and you reached in your bucket.
2:39 You pulled out a lollipop and you held
2:41 it out to him and you said, "You need to
2:43 give a lollipop to the beautiful woman
2:45 standing next to you." And she said, "I
2:46 have never seen anyone get more
2:48 embarrassed faster in my life. He turned
2:50 beat red." And he wouldn't even look at
2:51 me. He just kind of held the lollipop
2:53 out like
2:55 this. And I felt so bad for this dude
2:57 that I took the lollipop. And as soon as
2:59 I did, you got this incredibly severe
3:00 look on your face. And you looked at my
3:02 mom and my dad and you said, "Look at
3:04 that. Look at that. First day away from
3:06 home and already she's taking candy from
3:11 And she said, "Everybody lost it. 20
3:12 feet in every direction. Everyone
3:14 started to howl. And I know this is
3:15 cheesy and I don't know why I'm telling
3:17 you this, but in that moment when
3:18 everyone was laughing, I knew that I
3:20 shouldn't quit. I knew that I was where
3:22 I was supposed to be. And I knew that I
3:24 was home. And I haven't spoken to you
3:26 once in the four years since that day.
3:28 But I heard that you were leaving. And I
3:29 had to come up and tell you that you've
3:31 been an incredibly important person in
3:33 my life. And I'm going to miss you. Good
3:35 luck." And she walks away. And I'm
3:37 flattened. And she gets about 6 feet
3:38 away. She turns around and smiles and
3:39 goes, "You should probably know this,
3:41 too. I'm still dating that guy four years
3:43 years
3:45 later." A year and a half after I moved
3:48 to Toronto, I got an invitation to their
3:51 wedding. Here's the kicker. I don't
3:53 remember that. I have no recollection of
3:54 that moment. And I've searched my memory
3:56 banks because that is funny and I should
3:57 remember doing it and I don't remember
4:00 it. And that was such an eye-opening,
4:01 transformative moment for me to think
4:03 that the maybe the biggest impact I'd
4:05 ever had on anyone's life. A moment that
4:07 had a a woman walk up to a stranger four
4:08 years later and say, "You've been an
4:09 incredibly important person in my life
4:11 was a moment that I didn't even
4:13 remember." How many of you guys have a
4:14 lollipop moment? A moment where someone
4:16 said something or did something that you
4:18 feel fundamentally made your life
4:20 better. All right. How many of you have
4:21 told that person they did
4:25 it? See, why not? We celebrate birthdays
4:26 where all you have to do is not die for
4:29 365 days.
4:30 And yet we let people who have made our
4:32 lives better walk around without knowing
4:34 it. And every single one of you, every
4:35 single one of you has been the catalyst
4:37 for a lollipop moment. You have made
4:38 someone's life better by something that
4:40 you said or that you did. And if you
4:41 think you haven't, think about all the
4:42 hands that didn't go back up when I
4:44 asked that question. You're just one of
4:46 the people who hasn't been told. But it
4:47 is so scary to think of ourselves as
4:49 that powerful. It can be frightening to
4:50 think that we can matter that much to
4:52 other people. Because as long as we make
4:54 leadership something bigger than us, as
4:55 long as we keep leadership something
4:56 beyond us, as long as we make it about
4:58 changing the world, we give ourselves an
5:00 excuse not to expect it every day from
5:02 ourselves and from each other. Maryanne
5:04 Williamson said, "Our greatest fear is
5:05 not that we are inadequate. Our greatest
5:07 fear is that we are powerful beyond
5:09 measure. It is our light and not our
5:11 darkness that frightens us." And my call
5:12 to action today is that we need to get
5:14 over that. We need to get over our fear
5:15 of how extraordinarily powerful we can
5:17 be in each other's lives. We need to get
5:18 over it so we can move beyond it. and
5:19 our little brothers and our little
5:22 sisters. And one day our kids or our
5:24 kids right now can watch us start to
5:25 value the impact we can have on each
5:27 other's lives more than money and power
5:29 and titles and influence. We need to
5:31 redefine leadership as being about
5:32 lollipop moments. How many of them we
5:34 create, how many of them we acknowledge,
5:36 how many of them we pay forward, and how
5:38 many of them we say thank you for.
5:39 Because we've made leadership about
5:41 changing the world, and there is no
5:42 world. There's only six billion
5:44 understandings of it. And if you change
5:46 one person's understanding of it, one
5:47 person's understanding of what they're
5:48 capable of, one person's understanding
5:50 of how much people care about them, one
5:52 person's understanding of how powerful
5:54 an agent for change they can be in this
5:56 world, you change the whole thing. And
5:58 if we can ch understand leadership like
6:00 that, I think if we can redefine
6:02 leadership like that, I think we can
6:04 change everything. And it's a simple
6:05 idea, but I don't think it's a small
6:07 one. And I want to thank you all so much
