Everyday leadership | Drew Dudley | TEDxToronto

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.

I want to start by asking everyone
in the audience a question,

how many of you
are completely comfortable

with calling yourselves a leader?

I've asked that question
all the way across the country,

and no matter where I ask it,

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.

Something beyond us.

We've 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

those are the only things
worth 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 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.

Today, I want to share with you

the one story that is probably
most responsible for that redefinition.

I went to 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 said, "I remember
the first time that I met you."

And then 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 burst into tears.

My mom and 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.'"

She says, "I went the next day,

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."

She says, "I made that decision,
and as soon as I did,

this 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 have 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 walking along
and handing them out

to people in line
and talking about Shinerama.

And all of a sudden, you got to me,
and you just stopped, and stared.

It was creepy."
(Laughter)

This girl right here knows exactly
what I'm talking about. (Laughter)

"And then you looked
at the guy next to me,

you smiled, reached in your bucket,
pulled out a lollipop,

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

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

"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 dad,

and you said, 'Look at that.

First day away from home,
and already she's taking candy

from a stranger?!'" (Laughter)

And 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 that I shouldn't quit.

I knew that I was
where I was supposed to be,

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.

She gets about six feet away,
turns around and 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.

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 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?

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) -

and yet we let people
who have made our lives better

walk around without knowing it.

And 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 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 we can
matter that much to other people,

because as long as we make leadership
something bigger than us,

as long as we keep it
something beyond us,

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 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 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 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,

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've changed the whole thing.

And if we can understand
and 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 it with you today.

Have a great day.
(Applause)