Everyday leadership
Welcome back, incredible BookDuck fans. Let's challenge the conventional definitions of leadership by listening to a TED talk by Drew Dudley, who shares the one story that is the most responsible for redefining leadership for him.
He went to Mount Allison University, and on the last day, a girl approached him and told a story that happened four years earlier. She said she remembered how a day before he started University, he and his parents were sitting in the hotel room, and he was convinced that he wasn't ready for University. He burst into tears, and his parents were amazing because they comforted him. They said we know you're scared, but just go to the first day, and if you can't do it, that's fine; just tell us we will take you home. They told him they loved him no matter what. But the next day standing in line for registration, he made the decision to quit, and he felt at peace but also like a failure for a moment.
He thought he didn't have the integrity and leadership, and he wasn't ready for anything. So, he felt a bit awkward that the girl was reminding him of that day because it was not his best memory of University. Especially since it happened four years ago, and he was now graduating.
But the girl was not there to remind him of that terrible day. She actually told him that he made a difference in her life. Initially, Dudley was unaware of what she was talking about and the impact he had on her life. But it turns out that his simple act of giving her a lollipop at a university event had a lasting effect. This situation made him coin the term "lollipop moments," to which he refers to small instances where individuals positively impact others, often without realizing it.
It was an eye-opening transformative moment because he didn't even remember doing it. He opens up about how this lollipop moment made his life fundamentally better. He also says many of us don't even tell the people who made our life a bit more special that they did that. And why not? We should actually start doing it because people will start feeling significant as well. We let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. Every single one of us has been a catalyst for a lollipop moment. And I am sure that you guys have also made someone's life better by something that you said or you did. Marianne Williamson once said our greatest fear is 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. One day this will make our siblings and even kids value the impact they can have on each other's lives.
It is unfortunate, but many of us often underestimate the power of such small instances. He says that people often ignore the significance of their lollipop moments by considering them insignificant. This also underestimates their ability and potential to make a difference.
He wraps up his talk by encouraging everyone to redefine leadership as something more than money, power, influence, and titles. It should be about how many lollipop moments we create, acknowledge, pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for.
To sum up, Dudley gives an inspirational talk about redefining what leadership means. If you always thought you had to do something extraordinary to be a leader, then you were wrong because even the smallest good deed you do could be very impactful, just as in the case of Dudley. We have made leadership about changing the world, and if you are able to change one person's understanding of it and what they are capable of, it will create a chain of knowledge of what leadership means. I hope, after this talk, you look at leadership as an act of improving each other's lives. Now embrace your small acts of kindness because they will unlock your leadership potential.
