Leadership Speaker Drew Dudley The Power of Lollipop Moments

Please, tell the people who've made your
lives better and your careers better that they have done so. Because you know
what? Leadership recognized is leadership created. And we keep talking about how we
going to create more leadership how we going to develop more leadership, start
with this: recognize the stuff that's around us every day. How many of you in this room by show of
hands, have what I would call a "lollipop moment"? That is a moment where someone
has come up to you unexpectedly and made you feel like you have mattered, you do
matter, or you will matter in this world.

How many of you by show of hands have
one of those moments? Amazing. How many of you just raised your hand have told the
person who created it, that they created it for you? It's like a third. See I don't
get that. We live in a world where we celebrate birthdays where all you have
to do is not die for 365 days you get a party and you get a cake, you get cards -
and yet we let people walk around who have made our lives better, who have made
our careers better, and we don't tell them that.

If you get nothing else for me
today, please tell the people who've made your lives better and your careers
better that they have done so. Because You know what? Leadership recognized is
leadership created. And keep talking about how we going to create more
leadership, how we going to develop more leadership. Start with this: recognize the
stuff that's around us everyday.

On your way out there are lollipops, just
like this one. They're delicious because I had three last night okay? My trainer?
Not happy. Find one. If there is someone in this room who has created a lollipop
moment for you, if there was someone in this room for whom you wish to create
one of those moments, who's made your life, your career, anything
better, make sure you tell them.

If they're not here,
get on the phone, text them, tell them that. Leadership recognizes leadership
created. Here's the thing. Everyone of you create lollipop moments everyday in
the work that you do.

And if you think you don't? Think of all the hands that
didn't go back up. You were just one of the many many people who for whatever
reason have not yet been told. But I. Recognize it can be scary to think that
we're that powerful.

Like it's almost frightening to believe that we could
have that kind of impact on other human beings when we're not paying attention.
Because as long as we keep leadership something bigger than us, as long as we
keep leadership something beyond us, as long as we keep it about changing the
world, what we are doing is we are giving ourselves an excuse to not expect it
from ourselves and from each other everyday. We're lowering the bar to make it
easier but look, I get how it's scary. I think Marianne Williamson captured
that fear perfectly in a poem that maybe it's over quoted, I don't care,
I'm doing it anyway. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, our greatest
fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness
that frightens us." You know why your light is frightening? Because when you
shine it and when you recognize it when you see what it can do, every night that
you don't, after that, you know you've left something on the table. So showing
your light, showing your leadership, creates an obligation and life is hard
enough with work and with school and with all of your family obligations to
add one more obligation. But you know what? Leaders accept that obligation. We
chase that obligation.

We embrace that obligation. I think it's time to redefine
leadership. I think it's time we make it about "lollipop moments". How many of you
create, how many you pay forward, how many you say thank you for, and how many you
empower other people to create for themselves.

Because somewhere
along the way, somewhere along the way we made leadership about changing the world.
There is no world. There's just seven billion understandings of it. And that
means every time you change one person's understanding of the world. One person's
understanding of how many people care about them, one person's understanding of
what they're capable of, one person's understanding of how
powerful an agent for change, they can be in this world and more importantly, how
powerful an agent for change they can be in their own life every time you change
one person's understanding of the world, you change the whole world.

It's not
beneath any of us, it's not beyond any of us. You do it everyday.
Embrace it, recognize it,  we cannot expect our children, our clients, the people we
care about the most to embrace a word we're not willing to embrace for
ourselves. Because I think if we embrace leadership like that, if we teach
leadership like that, I think we could change everything. And I think it's a
simple idea but it doesn't mean that it's a small one..