Lollipop Moment

Drew Dudley's Ted talk: "Lollipop Moment" discussed the importance of redefining leadership as being lollipop moments, which is a moment when someone does or says something that makes your life better. He goes on about how everyone probably had lollipop moments- whether given to us by others or that we made someone's life better by something we said or did, but the most important thing is to let people know the impact and difference they have made on our lives by these moments. So not only that we should create more and more lollipop moments, but we need to acknowledge them and pay them forward and be thankful for them. He quoted Marian Williams who said, "our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure, it is our light and not our darkness that frightens us". 

He says that we need to get over this and show our kids the impact we can have on each other's lives by the lollipop moments we create, not by the money or titles or power we have. At the end, he emphasizes how leadership is not about changing the world because there are billions of different understandings and interpretations about the world, it is not one world to everyone. Hence if people know how powerful the impact they can have on others by being an agent of change, though creating these lollipop moments, this would totally redefine leadership and change everything. 

The purpose of this talk is to show how a simple idea, which is creating lollipop moments, can have such a big and important impact and effect on society as a whole. By simply saying or doing something that is meaningful to someone, can change that person's life and his whole perspective on the world. Even more, when this person acknowledges the impact you had on his life, this can impact you as well, in feeling great about yourself that you changed someone's life to the better and cycle goes on , paying it forward. This is how leadership should be defined and how the world will really change. 

I can personally connect with this very much, as I am a simple person and I really do not care as much about material things, such as money or possessions or power, etc. I find things such as empathy, being kind and understanding, being real and sincere in your feelings, helping others and being passionate about everything you do are much more important things and have more powerful impact on people. For example, when I work hard on something, like at school or in  training, and the teacher or coach appreciates my hard work, understands the stress I am in and actually acknowledges this and encourages me, this motivates me to work even harder and keep achieving, which leads me to be successful and thus changes my life. Also for example, if a friend of mine is feeling down for losing at a competition and I tell him some encouraging words, this helps him to not give up and try again and have another chance of winning, rather than just giving up and quitting. So something so simple can either make you a champion and a winner or a loser and quitter.  

 I believe that moments such as these 'lollipop moments' are the core of life. My motto in life has always been 'less is more', as I always do not believe in exaggerating in anything- whether material stuff, feelings, too much talk, how we live and spend, etc. I believe that we should not overcomplicate things and overthink because at the end, its the simple things that matter. It's the small simple nice words you can say to encourage someone or appreciate them or the kindness you show to people, the simple gestures you can do to show people that you care, that you want to help them... all those things are really what makes a difference in people's lives, it inspires people and it's what they remember you by. This is really what leadership is all about.