"We have all changed someone’s life — usually without even realizing it"
Yet another great TED talk; this time it is about leadership. Most enthusiastically and entertainingly delivered by Drew Dudley.
He tells us his story about changing a girl's life entirely without even having recognized it. Just through a simple lollipop. Much later he understands that he has been this girl's hero ever since.
Drew's story is that he hands out some lollipops to the prospective students at the university campus on the day of enrollment. However, this one girl is scared to death, and she thinks she is not good enough to study. She is just about to turn back and run away. At that moment Drew pops up with his lollipops, jokes around and makes her feel at home. He even manages (without any intentions) that she meets her future husband on that occasion. And then Drew goes home and forgets about everything. Until 4 years later on one day the girl finds him and tells him all about it.
It is a nice little story to listen to. What touched me, though was not Drew's story by itself, but the questions he asked:
- How many of us have made a huge change in someone's life and don't even know about it?
- How many of us do think that leadership is all about money, power and influence? Isn't it about making a little change that makes the difference?
- How many of us think leadership is something so big and huge that it is beyond our reach? Doesn't it start right now, right here with a small moment when you reach out to a person?
- Doesn't it start with that moment when you tell a person he or she made the difference?
We have to leave behind our fears about what leadership is. We have to get over it. Each one of us have made an impact in someone's life. We made a difference. We just haven't realized it, because nobody told it to us. Once we have acknowledged this, Drew says, we will have the power to make the world a better place: a place of lollipop moments.
So why not reach out to that person, today, and tell him or her that he has been the one who made the difference in your lives?
It is all about the lollipop moments:
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