I wanted to just start by asking everyone a question: How many of you are completely comfortable with calling yourselves a leader? I've asked that question all across the country, and everywhere I ask it, no matter where, there's 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. We've taken this title of "leader" and treat it as 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. We start to devalue the things we can do every day, We take moments where we truly are a leader and we don't let ourselves take credit for it, or feel good about it. I've been lucky enough over the last 10 years to work with amazing people who've helped me redefine leadership in a way that I think has made me happier. With my short time today, I want to share with you the one story that is probably most responsible for that redefinition.
Hteo sam da počnem tako što ću vas sve upitati: koliko vas može potpuno komotno sebe nazvati vođom? Vidite, postavljam ovo pitanje širom zemlje i gde god da ga postavim, postoji jedan ogroman deo publike koji ne želi da podigne ruku. Tako sam shvatio da smo od liderstva napravili nešto veće od nas samih. Pretvorili smo to u nešto što nas prevazilazi. Muslim da je to menjanje sveta. Ovu titulu smatramo kao nešto što ćemo jednog dana zaslužiti, jer dati je samom sebi ovog trenutka znači određeni nivo arogancije i šepurenja pri kom nam nije ugodno. I ponekad brinem da provodimo toliko vremena slaveći neverovatne stvari koje jedva da neko može da uradi, da smo uverili sebe da su to jedine stvari vredne slavljenja. I počinjemo da obezvređujemo stvari koje možemo da uradimo svakog dana. I počinjemo da previđamo trenutke u kojima postupamo kao istinski vođa i ne odajemo sebi priznanje za to i ne osećamo se dobro zbog toga. Imao sam dovoljno sreće da u poslednjih 10 godina radim sa nekim neverovatnim ljudima koji su mi pomogli da redefinišem liderstvo na način koji me je učinio srećnijim. Želim da sa vama podelim jednu priču koja je verovatno najzaslužnija za ovo redefinisanje.
I went to 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 I met you." And 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 just burst into tears. My mom and dad were amazing. They were like, "We know you're scared, but let's just go tomorrow, go to the first day, and if at any point you feel as if you can't do this, that's fine; tell us, and we'll take you home. We love you no matter what.'"
Išao sam u jednu malu školu koja se zvala Univerzitet Maunt Alison, u Sekvilu, u Nju Brunsviku, i mog poslednjeg dana tamo, jedna devojka mi je prišla i rekla: "Sećam se našeg prvog susreta.'' A zatim mi je ispričala o događaju četiri godine pre toga. Rekla mi je: "Dan pre nego što sam upisala fakultet, bila sam u hotelskoj sobi sa majkom i ocem, i bila sam tako uplašena i ubeđena da to nije za mene, da nisam bila spremna za fakultet, da sam briznula u plač. A moji roditelji su bili neverovatni. Rekli su mi: "Znamo da si uplašena, ali hajde da samo odemo tamo sutra, da odemo na prvi dan, i ako u bilo kom trenutku osetiš da ti to ne možeš, u redu je, samo nam reci i odvešćemo te kući. Volimo te bez obzira na sve."
She says, "So I went the next day. I was in line for registration, and I looked around and just knew I couldn't do it; I wasn't ready. I knew I had to quit. I made that decision and as soon as I made it, an 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've ever seen in my life."
I rekla je: "Otišla sam sledećeg dana, i stajala u redu za upis, pogledala sam oko sebe i shvatila da ja to ne mogu. Znala sam da nisam spremna i da treba da odustanem. Donela sam tu odluku, i istog trena osetila neverovatan mir. Okrenula sam se prema mami i tati da im kažem da idemo kući i baš u tom trenutku, ti si izašao iz zgrade Studentskog saveza
(Laughter)
noseći najsmešniji šešir koji sam ikad videla." (Smeh)
"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 handing the lollipops out to people in line, and talking about Shinerama. All of the sudden, you got to me, and you just stopped. And you stared. It was creepy."
"Bio je strava. I nosio si veliki znak Šajnerame - studentske organizacije za borbu protiv cistične fibroze" - dobrotvorna organizacija sa kojom godinama radim - "i imao si punu kofu lizalica. Šetao si i deli lizalice ljudima u redu i pričao im o Šajnerami. I odjednom si stigao do mene, i samo si stao i zagledao se. Bilo je jezivo." (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Ova devojka zna tačno o čemu pričam. (Smeh)
This girl knows what I'm talking about.
(Laughter)
"I onda si pogledao tipa pored mene,
"Then you looked at the guy next to me, smiled, reached into your bucket, pulled out a lollipop, held it out to him and said, 'You need to give a lollipop to the beautiful woman next to you.'" She said, "I've never seen anyone get more embarrassed faster in my life. He turned beet red, he wouldn't even look at me. He just kind of held the lollipop out like this."
nasmejao si se i izvukao lizalicu iz kante pružio mu je, i rekao: "Treba da daš lizalicu predivnoj ženi koja stoji pored tebe."" I rekla je: "Nikada u životu nisam videla da se neko brže posrami." Pocrveneo je kao rak i nije hteo ni da me pogleda. Samo je ovako ispružio lizalicu." (Smeh)
(Laughter)
"I osetila sam se tako loše zbog dečka da sam uzela lizalicu
"I felt so bad for this dude that I took the lollipop. As soon as I did, you got this incredibly severe look on your face, looked at my mom and dad and said, 'Look at that! Look at that! First day away from home, and already she's taking candy from a stranger?'"
i čim sam to uradila ti si sa ozbiljnim izrazom lica pogledao moju mamu i tatu i rekao: "Pogledajte to. Pogledajte. Prvi dan kako nije kod kuće i već uzima slatkiše od neznanca?!""
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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 I shouldn't quit. I knew I was where I was supposed to be; I knew 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 and tell you you've been an incredibly important person in my life. I'm going to miss you. Good luck."
I rekla je: "Svi su se pomamili. 6 metara u svakom pravcu svi su počeli da urliču. I znam da je ovo glupavo i ne znam zašto ti ovo pričam, ali tog trenutka kada su se svi smejali, znala sam da ne treba da odustanem. Znala sam da sam tu gde treba da budem, i znala sam da sam kod kuće. I nisam pričala sa tobom nijednom za četiri godine od tog dana, ali čula sam da odlaziš i morala sam da ti kažem da si bio neverovatno bitna osoba u mom životu i nedostajaćeš mi. Srećno."
And she walks away, and I'm flattened. She gets six feet away, turns around, smiles and goes, "You should probably know this, too: I'm still dating that guy, four years later."
I dok ona odlazi, ja sam očaran. I odmakne se oko dva metra, okreće se, osmehne i kaže: "Takođe bi trebalo da znaš i ovo. Još uvek se zabavljam sa tim likom nakon četiri godine." (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Godinu i po nakon što sam se preselio u Toronto
A year and a half after I moved to Toronto, I got an invitation to their wedding.
dobio sam pozivnicu za njihovo venčanje.
(Laughter)
Here's the kicker: I don't remember that. I have no recollection of that moment. I've searched my memory banks, because that is funny and I should remember doing it and I don't. 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 important person in my life," was a moment that I didn't even remember.
Evo u čemu je stvar. Ja se toga ne sećam. Ne sećam se tog trenutka, a prekopao sam po sećanju jer je to smešno i trebalo bi da se sećam toga, a ne sećam se. To je bio takav transformišući trenutak koji mi je otvorio oči, pomislio sam – možda je najveći uticaj koji sam ikada imao na nečiji život bio trenutak kada je žena prišla strancu četiri godine kasnije i rekla: "Bio si neverovatno bitna osoba u mom životu" i to je bio trenutak koga se ni ne sećam.
How many of you guys have a lollipop moment, a moment where someone said 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 --
Koliko vas ima trenutak sa lizalicom – trenutak kada je neko rekao ili uradio nešto što je značajno poboljšalo vaš život? U redu. A koliko vas je to reklo osobi koja je to uradila? Vidite, zašto da ne? Slavimo rođendane, gde je jedino što treba da uradite da ne umrete 365 dana - (Smeh) -
(Laughter)
Yet we let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. Every single one of you has been the catalyst for a lollipop moment. You've made someone's life better by something you said or did. If you think you haven't, think of all the hands that didn't go up when I asked. You're just one of the people who hasn't been told.
a ipak dopuštamo ljudima koji su nam poboljšali život da šetaju okolo i da to ne znaju. A svako od vas je bio katalizator trenutka sa lizalicom. Poboljšali ste nečiji život nečim što ste rekli ili uradili, a ako mislite da niste, pomislite na ruke koje se nisu podigle kada sam postavio to pitanje. Vi ste samo jedna od osoba kojima nisu rekli.
It's scary to think of ourselves as that powerful, frightening to think we can matter that much to other people. As long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership beyond us and make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it every day, from ourselves and from each other.
Ali zastrašujuće je da o sebi mislimo kao tako moćnima. Zastrašujuće je da pomislimo da možemo toliko da značimo drugima jer dok god liderstvo činimo većim od nas, dok god držimo liderstvo iznad sebe, dok god tvrdimo da ono ima veze sa menjanjem sveta, sebi dajemo izgovor da ga ne očekujemo svakog dana od sebe i jedni od drugih.
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 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 one day our kids -- or 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 of them 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.
Merien Vilijamson je rekla da naš najveći strah nije da smo neadekvatni. "Naš najveći strah je da smo neizmerno moćni. Naše svetlo nas plaši, a ne naša tama." I danas vas pozivam da to prevaziđemo. Treba da prevaziđemo svoj strah od toga koliko neverovatno moćni možemo biti u tuđim životima. Moramo da prevaziđemo to kako bismo krenuli dalje i naša mala braća i sestre i jednog dana i naša deca - ili naša deca sada - mogu da posmatraju i počnu da cene uticaj koji možemo imati na živote drugih, više od novca, moći, titula i uticaja. Treba da redefinišemo liderstvo u trenutke sa lizalicom, koliko takvih trenutaka stvaramo, koliko ih priznajemo, koliko njih činimo unapred i za koliko njih zahvaljujemo. Jer doveli smo do toga da je liderstvo menjanje sveta, a svet ne postoji. Postoji samo šest milijardi shvatanja sveta i ako promenite samo jedno od njih,
And if you change one person's understanding of it, understanding of what they're capable of, understanding of how much people care about them, understanding of how powerful an agent for change they can be in this world, you've changed the whole thing.
shvatanje jedne osobe o tome šta je sposobna da uradi, shvatanje jedne osobe o tome koliko je ljudima stalo do nje, koliko moćan pokretač promene može da bude na ovom svetu, promenili ste celu stvar. Ako možemo liderstvo da shvatamo na taj način,
And if we can understand leadership like that, I think if we can 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. I want to thank you so much for letting me share it with you today.
ako možemo tako da redefinišemo liderstvo, mislim da možemo sve da promenimo. To je jednostavna ideja, ali ne mislim da je mala. I hvala vam što ste mi dozvolili da je danas sa vama podelim.