Everyday leadership
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0:00 - 0:02How many of you are completely comfortable
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0:02 - 0:05with calling yourselves a leader?
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0:05 - 0:08See, I've asked that question all the way across the country,
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0:08 - 0:09and everywhere I ask it, no matter where,
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0:09 - 0:13there's always a huge portion of the audience that won't put up their hand.
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0:13 - 0:15And I've come to realize that we have made leadership
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0:15 - 0:16into something bigger than us.
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0:16 - 0:18We've made into something beyond us.
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0:18 - 0:20We've made it about changing the world.
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0:20 - 0:21And we've taken this title of leader, and we treat it
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0:21 - 0:24as if it's something that one day we're going to deserve,
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0:24 - 0:26but to give it to ourselves right now
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0:26 - 0:29means a level of arrogance or cockiness that we're not comfortable with.
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0:29 - 0:32And I worry sometimes that we spend so much time
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0:32 - 0:35celebrating amazing things that hardly anybody can do
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0:35 - 0:36that we've convinced ourselves that those are
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0:36 - 0:39the only things worth celebrating, and we start to
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0:39 - 0:41devalue the things that we can do every day, and we start
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0:41 - 0:43to take moments where we truly are a leader
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0:43 - 0:45and we don't let ourselves take credit for it,
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0:45 - 0:47and we don't let ourselves feel good about it.
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0:47 - 0:49And I've been lucky enough over the last
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0:49 - 0:5110 years to work with some amazing people
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0:51 - 0:52who have helped me redefine leadership in a way
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0:52 - 0:53that I think has made me happier.
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0:53 - 0:56And with my short time today, I just want to share with you
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0:56 - 1:00the one story that is probably most responsible for that redefinition.
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1:00 - 1:02I went to school in a little school called
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1:02 - 1:05Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick,
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1:05 - 1:07and on my last day there, a girl came up to me
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1:07 - 1:10and she said, "I remember the first time that I met you."
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1:10 - 1:13And then she told me a story that had happened four years earlier.
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1:13 - 1:15She said, "On the day before I started university,
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1:15 - 1:18I was in the hotel room with my mom and my dad, and
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1:18 - 1:20I was so scared and so convinced that I couldn't do this,
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1:20 - 1:23that I wasn't ready for university, that I just burst into tears.
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1:23 - 1:25And my mom and my dad were amazing. They were like,
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1:25 - 1:28'Look, we know you're scared, but let's just go tomorrow.
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1:28 - 1:30Let's go to the first day, and if at any point
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1:30 - 1:32you feel as if you can't do this, that's fine, just tell us,
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1:32 - 1:35we will take you home. We love you no matter what.'"
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1:35 - 1:36And she says, "So I went the next day
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1:36 - 1:38and I was standing in line getting ready for registration,
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1:38 - 1:40and I looked around and I just knew I couldn't do it.
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1:40 - 1:43I knew I wasn't ready. I knew I had to quit."
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1:43 - 1:45And she says, "I made that decision, and as soon as I made it,
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1:45 - 1:47there was this incredible feeling of peace that came over me.
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1:47 - 1:49And I turned to my mom and my dad to tell them
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1:49 - 1:51that we needed to go home, and just at that moment,
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1:51 - 1:53you came out of the Student Union building
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1:53 - 1:56wearing the stupidest hat I have ever seen in my life." (Laughter)
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1:56 - 1:58"It was awesome.
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1:58 - 2:00And you had a big sign promoting Shinerama,
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2:00 - 2:02which is Students Fighting Cystic Fibrosis,"
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2:02 - 2:03— a charity I've worked with for years —
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2:03 - 2:05"and you had a bucketful of lollipops.
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2:05 - 2:07And you were walking along and you were handing the lollipops out
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2:07 - 2:10to people in line and talking about Shinerama.
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2:10 - 2:13And all of a sudden, you got to me, and you just stopped,
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2:13 - 2:17and you stared. It was creepy." (Laughter)
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2:17 - 2:19This girl right here knows exactly what I'm talking about. (Laughter)
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2:19 - 2:21"And then you looked at the guy next to me,
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2:21 - 2:23and you smiled, and you reached in your bucket, and you pulled
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2:23 - 2:25out a lollipop, and you held it out to him, and you said,
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2:25 - 2:29'You need to give a lollipop to the beautiful woman standing next to you.'"
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2:29 - 2:33And she said, "I have never seen anyone get more embarrassed faster in my life.
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2:33 - 2:35He turned beet red, and he wouldn't even look at me.
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2:35 - 2:39He just kind of held the lollipop out like this." (Laughter)
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2:39 - 2:41"And I felt so bad for this dude that I took the lollipop,
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2:41 - 2:44and as soon as I did, you got this incredibly severe look
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2:44 - 2:46on your face and you looked at my mom and my dad,
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2:46 - 2:48and you said, 'Look at that. Look at that.
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2:48 - 2:51First day away from home, and already she's taking candy
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2:51 - 2:54from a stranger?!'" (Laughter)
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2:54 - 2:56And she said, "Everybody lost it. Twenty feet in every
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2:56 - 2:58direction, everyone started to howl.
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2:58 - 3:01And I know this is cheesy, and I don't know why I'm telling you this,
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3:01 - 3:03but in that moment when everyone was laughing,
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3:03 - 3:04I knew that I shouldn't quit.
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3:04 - 3:06I knew that I was where I was supposed to be,
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3:06 - 3:09and I knew that I was home, and I haven't spoken to you
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3:09 - 3:11once in the four years since that day,
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3:11 - 3:13but I heard that you were leaving,
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3:13 - 3:14and I had to come up and tell you that you've been
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3:14 - 3:18an incredibly important person in my life, and I'm going to miss you. Good luck."
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3:18 - 3:21And she walks away, and I'm flattened.
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3:21 - 3:23And she gets about six feet away, she turns around and smiles, and goes,
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3:23 - 3:25"You should probably know this, too.
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3:25 - 3:28I'm still dating that guy four years later." (Laughter)
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3:28 - 3:31A year and a half after I moved to Toronto,
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3:31 - 3:34I got an invitation to their wedding.
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3:34 - 3:37Here's the kicker. I don't remember that.
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3:37 - 3:39I have no recollection of that moment,
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3:39 - 3:41and I've searched my memory banks, because that is funny
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3:41 - 3:43and I should remember doing it, and I don't remember it.
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3:43 - 3:46And that was such an eye-opening, transformative moment
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3:46 - 3:48for me to think that maybe the biggest impact I'd ever had
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3:48 - 3:50on anyone's life, a moment that had a woman walk up
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3:50 - 3:53to a stranger four years later and say,
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3:53 - 3:54"You've been an incredibly important person in my life,"
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3:54 - 3:57was a moment that I didn't even remember.
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3:57 - 3:58How many of you guys have a lollipop moment,
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3:58 - 4:01a moment where someone said something or did something
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4:01 - 4:03that you feel fundamentally made your life better?
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4:03 - 4:07All right. How many of you have told that person they did it?
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4:07 - 4:10See, why not? We celebrate birthdays,
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4:10 - 4:14where all you have to do is not die for 365 days — (Laughter) —
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4:14 - 4:16and yet we let people who have made our lives better
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4:16 - 4:17walk around without knowing it.
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4:17 - 4:20And every single one of you, every single one of you
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4:20 - 4:21has been the catalyst for a lollipop moment.
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4:21 - 4:23You have made someone's life better by something
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4:23 - 4:25that you said or that you did, and if you think you haven't,
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4:25 - 4:28think about all the hands that didn't go back up when I asked that question.
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4:28 - 4:30You're just one of the people who hasn't been told.
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4:30 - 4:33But it is so scary to think of ourselves as that powerful.
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4:33 - 4:35It can be frightening to think that we can matter that much
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4:35 - 4:38to other people, because as long as we make leadership something bigger than us,
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4:38 - 4:40as long as we keep leadership something beyond us,
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4:40 - 4:42as long as we make it about changing the world,
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4:42 - 4:44we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it
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4:44 - 4:47every day from ourselves and from each other.
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4:47 - 4:50Marianne Williamson said, "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate.
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4:50 - 4:52Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
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4:52 - 4:55It is our light, and not our darkness, that frightens us."
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4:55 - 4:57And my call to action today is that we need to get over that.
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4:57 - 4:59We need to get over our fear of how extraordinarily
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4:59 - 5:01powerful we can be in each other's lives.
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5:01 - 5:03We need to get over it so we can move beyond it, and our
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5:03 - 5:06little brothers and our little sisters, and one day our kids --
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5:06 - 5:09or our kids right now -- can watch and start to value
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5:09 - 5:11the impact we can have on each other's lives
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5:11 - 5:14more than money and power and titles and influence.
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5:14 - 5:16We need to redefine leadership as being about lollipop moments,
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5:16 - 5:19how many of them we create, how many of them we acknowledge,
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5:19 - 5:23how many of them we pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for.
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5:23 - 5:25Because we've made leadership about changing the world,
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5:25 - 5:28and there is no world. There's only six billion understandings of it,
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5:28 - 5:30and if you change one person's understanding of it,
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5:30 - 5:33one person's understanding of what they're capable of,
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5:33 - 5:35one person's understanding of how much people care about them,
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5:35 - 5:37one person's understanding of how powerful an agent
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5:37 - 5:41for change they can be in this world, you've changed the whole thing.
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5:41 - 5:44And if we can understand leadership like that,
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5:44 - 5:46I think if we can redefine leadership like that,
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5:46 - 5:48I think we can change everything.
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5:48 - 5:51And it's a simple idea, but I don't think it's a small one,
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5:51 - 5:54and I want to thank you all so much for letting me share it with you today.
- Title:
- Everyday leadership
- Speaker:
- Drew Dudley
- Description:
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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. (Filmed at TEDxToronto.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 06:14
TED edited English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Everyday leadership | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Everyday leadership |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 6/3/2016.