I want to start off with a question. How many people here are completely comfortable with calling themselves a leader?
See I’ve asked that question across the country and no matter where I go. There’s a huge portion of people that won’t raise their hands. And I have come to realize that we have made leadership something bigger than us, you could even say we’ve made it beyond us.
We’ve made it about changing the world and we’ve taken this title of leader and we treat it as something one day well deserve but to give it to ourselves right now means some level of arrogance or cockiness that were not comfortable with. And I worry sometimes that we spend so much time celebrating amazing things that hardly anybody can do, that we have convinced ourselves these are the only things were celebrating. And we start to devalue the things we can do every day.
Then we start to take moments where we truly are a leader and we don’t let ourselves take credit for it, and we don’t let ourselves feel good about it.
And I’ve been lucky enough over the last 10yrs, to work with some amazing people. Who have helped me redefine; leadership in a way I think has made me happier. With my short time today I just want to share a story with you. The one story that is probably most responsible for that definition.
I was living in a little town called Port Author Texas. And about 2 years after living there I ran into a lady that said I remember the first time I met you. “It was on MySpace you put in a friend request into my page. I seen you were a Rabbi and though I usually didn’t add religious people I just had a feeling of peace after reading you post.
About a month later my boyfriend at the time had beat me pretty badly. I had to leave while he was at work. I remembered asking you if you had a truck, you said no but give you a few minutes. You ended up calling me about 30min later. You told me you found a guy that could help. So you two showed up. Funny thing was when we had all met the guy told me you flagged him down at a car wash and told him my situation and he couldn’t help but come. You guys were so nice to me I was in tears from the kindness you showed. “
Well that guy ended up letting me stay in a studio he had upstairs rent free. I just wanted to thank you so much! I also wanted to let you know all this time later we are still dating. You saved my life. Could you call me” After that letter I was flattened.
So I called to talk to her and they invited me to do their wedding. The funnier part was, I don’t remember doing that. I searched my old emails and the letter was there and my wife said I did help, but I have always stayed so busy doing things for people to me it was just another day. I mean that was something I should have remembered more so cause I flagged down a guy at a car wash (not something I normally do). But for the life of me something that had changed someone’s life and had made one of the biggest impacts I ever had one someone’s life that would make them think of me two years later, just amazed me . To walk up to me and say “you have been a very important person in my life”. A moment I don’t remember.
I want to know, how many of you had a MySpace moment? A moment that someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better? Now how many of you told them? (Most do not and I ask why not?).
We celebrate birthdays where all we have to do is not die for 365days. Yet we let people walk around who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. Every last one of you has been the catalyst for a MySpace moment, you have made someone’s life better by something you said or did. If you think you haven’t think of all the hands I said never go back up. You’re just one of the people that haven’t been told.
But it is so scary to think of ourselves as that powerful. It’s frightening to think we mean that much to other people. Cause as long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as it’s about changing the world we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it from ourselves and from each other. My call to action today is this: we need to get over that. We need to get over our fear of how extraordinarily powerful we can be in each others lives.
We need to get over it so we can move beyond it. That way one day our children or children's, children now can really start to value the impact we can have on each others lives. More than money, power, titles and influence. We need to redefine leadership as being about MySpace moments. How many we create, how many we acknowledge, how many we pay forward, how many we say thank you for. Because we’ve made leadership about changing the world. And there is no world; there are only 7billion different understandings of it. And if you change one person’s understanding of it, then you’ve changed the whole thing. If we can understand leadership like that, if we can define leadership like that I think that changes everything. It’s a simple idea, but I don’t think it’s a small one. And I want to thank everyone for reading this. Have great day everyone and I hope to talk to you all soon!
See I’ve asked that question across the country and no matter where I go. There’s a huge portion of people that won’t raise their hands. And I have come to realize that we have made leadership something bigger than us, you could even say we’ve made it beyond us.
We’ve made it about changing the world and we’ve taken this title of leader and we treat it as something one day well deserve but to give it to ourselves right now means some level of arrogance or cockiness that were not comfortable with. And I worry sometimes that we spend so much time celebrating amazing things that hardly anybody can do, that we have convinced ourselves these are the only things were celebrating. And we start to devalue the things we can do every day.
Then we start to take moments where we truly are a leader and we don’t let ourselves take credit for it, and we don’t let ourselves feel good about it.
And I’ve been lucky enough over the last 10yrs, to work with some amazing people. Who have helped me redefine; leadership in a way I think has made me happier. With my short time today I just want to share a story with you. The one story that is probably most responsible for that definition.
I was living in a little town called Port Author Texas. And about 2 years after living there I ran into a lady that said I remember the first time I met you. “It was on MySpace you put in a friend request into my page. I seen you were a Rabbi and though I usually didn’t add religious people I just had a feeling of peace after reading you post.
About a month later my boyfriend at the time had beat me pretty badly. I had to leave while he was at work. I remembered asking you if you had a truck, you said no but give you a few minutes. You ended up calling me about 30min later. You told me you found a guy that could help. So you two showed up. Funny thing was when we had all met the guy told me you flagged him down at a car wash and told him my situation and he couldn’t help but come. You guys were so nice to me I was in tears from the kindness you showed. “
Well that guy ended up letting me stay in a studio he had upstairs rent free. I just wanted to thank you so much! I also wanted to let you know all this time later we are still dating. You saved my life. Could you call me” After that letter I was flattened.
So I called to talk to her and they invited me to do their wedding. The funnier part was, I don’t remember doing that. I searched my old emails and the letter was there and my wife said I did help, but I have always stayed so busy doing things for people to me it was just another day. I mean that was something I should have remembered more so cause I flagged down a guy at a car wash (not something I normally do). But for the life of me something that had changed someone’s life and had made one of the biggest impacts I ever had one someone’s life that would make them think of me two years later, just amazed me . To walk up to me and say “you have been a very important person in my life”. A moment I don’t remember.
I want to know, how many of you had a MySpace moment? A moment that someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better? Now how many of you told them? (Most do not and I ask why not?).
We celebrate birthdays where all we have to do is not die for 365days. Yet we let people walk around who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. Every last one of you has been the catalyst for a MySpace moment, you have made someone’s life better by something you said or did. If you think you haven’t think of all the hands I said never go back up. You’re just one of the people that haven’t been told.
But it is so scary to think of ourselves as that powerful. It’s frightening to think we mean that much to other people. Cause as long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as it’s about changing the world we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it from ourselves and from each other. My call to action today is this: we need to get over that. We need to get over our fear of how extraordinarily powerful we can be in each others lives.
We need to get over it so we can move beyond it. That way one day our children or children's, children now can really start to value the impact we can have on each others lives. More than money, power, titles and influence. We need to redefine leadership as being about MySpace moments. How many we create, how many we acknowledge, how many we pay forward, how many we say thank you for. Because we’ve made leadership about changing the world. And there is no world; there are only 7billion different understandings of it. And if you change one person’s understanding of it, then you’ve changed the whole thing. If we can understand leadership like that, if we can define leadership like that I think that changes everything. It’s a simple idea, but I don’t think it’s a small one. And I want to thank everyone for reading this. Have great day everyone and I hope to talk to you all soon!
