KKPsiAA: The Tempo
A Journey Through the Road to Wisdom: Part 2
Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Tempo, the official podcast of the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association. We are your host, Sav, Mark, and Tori. On today's episode we're excited to bring a special focus to our alumni with a deep dive into the road to wisdom. This is episode 4.2, so if you haven't heard episode 4.1 yet, pause now and catch up on our last episode for the full context. If you're from the future, hello there! This episode is part of our mini series with four episodes in total. Today we'll be discussing lesson 3, your chapter matters, and lesson 4, our leadership matters. These lessons are taught to the membership candidates when they are first seeking membership in Kappa Kappa Psi. We will modify some of the questions asked in the road to wisdom to provide perspectives from us, the alumni of Kappa Kappa Psi, so sit back, grab your favorite snack, and enjoy. If you're listening while walking or driving, we hope you have a safe journey. Let's start with lesson 3, your chapter matters. Per the road to wisdom, the learning intentions, the membership candidate will develop the skills to identify the report submitted to national headquarters and appreciate their importance for the chapter's operations. They will explore and become familiar with the chapter constitution and describe the chapter's structure, including the roles of officers and committees. Additionally, the candidate will gain a clear understanding of the officer installation ceremony. Although we would love to delve into the specifics of individual chapters, our focus will be on the KK Psi AA version of these topics. This includes discussing the structure of the board of directors and committees, as well as conversations about opus, our national reporting system. Talking about chapter operations and officer structures and chapter constitutions, we're not going to go through all of the national alumni associations constitution. But if you'd like to read it, please visit kksi AA.org. You can find it under the resource tab. In this section, you'd also learn about Robert's rules of orders for each meeting structure. For the AABOD, the AABOD shall consist of eight voting members. A member of the Kappa Kappa Kappa Psi board of trustees will serve as liaison to the AABOD and as an ex officio, non voting member of the AABOD. The national president or their designee from the national leadership team may also elect to serve as an ex officio, non voting member of the AABOD. So it's pretty obvious that the following board members, which we'll read out, are the 2023 to 2025 board of directors. So if you happen to be here also from the future, you can visit the website and check the about a section for the most recent AABOD. And yeah, thanks for for still being here. So for this biennium's board of directors, we have Marina Pena Guillot. She her is the board chair. She's from New Alpha chapter at Georgia State University and and Kappa Mu chapter University of Georgia. The vice chair or the membership director is Miranda Cook, she her from the Omicron chapter of West Virginia University. LAA director Brittany Babristin, she her Kappa Beta chapter from Clemson University. The finance director is Michael Blender, he/him from the Iota Delta chapter at Towson University. Programs and professional development director is Greg Boyke, he/him also from Kappa Mu chapter at University of Georgia. The communications director is Deonichio Cardenas, he/him from Alpha PSI at West Texas A&M University. The music outreach director is Donald Lee Jr., he/him from Zeta Aida at South Carolina State University. And the awards and activities director is at least at this time of the episode being released, there will be a director appointed. But at the time of recording, the AABOD is hosting interviews for this vacancy, so congratulations to whoever has been selected for the role at this point. And then our ex officio, ex officios are the 49th national president of Kappa Kappa Psi, Bong T. Cole from Alpha Zeta at Indiana University and national board of trustees member and alumni liaison, Eric Morrison from Delta Omicron at University of Connecticut. Ooh, that was a that was a list. It's a great team of feeps. So there are so an opportunity for discussion here. There are several phrases within the officer installation ceremony that stand out to many people, such as this is both an honor bestowed and a privileged granted and or for example, too shirk is to betray a trust. What do these statements mean to us? Or at least why do you think the statements stand out to brothers as as significant phrases? Well, I think, you know, we talk about how being in Kappa Kappa Psi and being a brother, it is an honor and a privilege to serve. And so, and I think that says a lot because being in a position as a, you know, on the board of directors, you you represent like the highest leadership in our fraternity on the alumni side. And so, and you know, you've been voted into this position and the actives or sorry, the alumni are, you know, putting their their trust into you to represent the alumni needs and the alumni wants. And so, I think it's an honor to to have a position like that. And it shows that you you really have those qualities of a leader, you have the qualities that are important in the fraternity. So, I think it says a lot about you as a person and as a brother. Right, the more I've been involved with alumni stuff, the more I realize like, it really is like the people up there at the and at the top, you know, I mean, like the people that are, you know, we're looking up to to help keep this thing afloat. And yeah, as far as I'm aware, like, obviously, I didn't always used to be like that. So it's, it's awesome. And it's, and it's important. And I think the, the part you're saying about it's an honor and a privilege to be selected to serve kind of like, it just the, the terminology is very stand outy and the, the, the, the vocabulary used in my, my, in my brain, it tickles like that nerve that just like, it just feels so nice to hear it and say it. I mean, as something that stands out a lot, right? Especially going through what however many installations I'm sure we've, we've sat through, whether it be chapter or, or national, it's just like one of those things that just makes you have a moment of appreciation and respect. Yeah, and I think it's important to note that it says selected. Like that kind of goes to show that you don't just get a position, you know, you don't just walk into it and you're like, Oh, well, you know, like you have to be selected for it, which means you have to work for it. And I think that, that says a lot that if you want to hold a position on that high level, that you, you've shown to others that you deserve it, and you have to put in the work for it, you have to be an outstanding brother and outstanding leader. And yeah, I think that's really important. Yeah, I will say sort of on the flip side of that, I, I'm not sure if y'all have witnessed this specifically, but I have been in a position where someone was voted into on a chapter level, at least for someone was voted into a position, and they were not handling their responsibilities that they had been, you know, they were like, Hey, I want to be in this position. And then they got that position. And then they were not doing that position. It feels like a betrayal, because, you know, if your chapter trusted you enough to vote you into that position, and then to, you know, renege on what you said that you would do, it feels like a betrayal. And it feels like you can no longer trust that person. So it's a lot on your shoulders. Yeah. Right, especially because of how powerful it comes across in the ceremony. Right, it's like you're, it's a real, it's a real responsibility to take care of. Yes. Following how our leadership is laid out, we also have a bunch of committees. The Alumni Association has a total of five official committees and one ad hoc committee. The standing committees of the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association shall be awards, communications, membership, programs, and professional development, and revenue and fundraising. The awards committee is advised by the awards and activities director. This committee is responsible for overseeing all national alumni awards, the biennial solo competition, and the new jazz composition competition. The c- it's a mouthful. It's okay, this one's us, so we don't care as much. The Communications Committee, that's us, advised by the communications director, is responsible for enhancing the organization's branding and visibility throughout various formats. Our duties include maintaining KKCIAA's social media presence, publishing the Encore, the official KKCIAA newsletter, and producing this podcast. The programs and professional development committee, advised by the programs and professional development director, is responsible for all of our programs, including the fireside chats, Botox, and the membership programs. Most importantly, they oversee programming for the National Convention for KKCIAA and create engaging activities for attendees. The membership committee, advised by the vice chair/membership director, is responsible for the growth and development of our membership. This includes members who connect with the National Curriculum Committee to ensure that active are learning the road to wisdom and that they're receiving the best information about the Alumni Association. Additionally, the committee oversees the quarter note forums, which regularly seek feedback from our general membership. Two more. There is the Revenue and Fundraising Committee, which is advised by the Finance Director and they are responsible for the financial stability of the Alumni Association. They generate ideas to raise funds for the organization and maintain a budget that is approved by the ABOD each by any end. And lastly, the Jurisdiction Committee, which is advised by the LAA director, is the ad hoc committee that is tasked with maintaining the stability and structure of the National Alumni Association Constitution. They review the proposed changes from the general membership or ABOD and present the most thoroughly considered perspectives at the National Convention for a vote by the attending membership. And they are convened only one year before the National Convention to address changes leading up to the event. So back for us, why did we all sign up for this committee communications? Some of the options, I did it. Maybe if you had a second choice, what was it? Yeah, so let's let's harken back to that what the first episode and talk about how great do you know it is at just roping people and just just trying to do something. How we were all forced now, just kidding. I got bullied into this. I like comms because I like doing social media stuff and graphic designees type things and obviously with helping do the discord, I like discord and I like being involved socially. So in a sense, I like communicating. Yeah, I wanted to serve on the Alumni Association because I was the first alumni relations chair for my chapter. So I learned a lot about the alumni world. And so I wanted to be able to kind of bridge that gap like I had mentioned in the last episode. My chapter is pretty young, you know, 2017. So I wanted to be able to kind of bridge the actives to the alumni so that we could try to get more people as alumni. And I chose communications, similar reasons to you, Mark. I'm just good at social media stuff. I've run social medias for other organizations and stuff, like I'm good at making graphics and getting the word out to people. And so I felt like that was where my strong suit was. I think if I can't remember what I had put as my other options, maybe programs I think was another one I may have put. Yeah, I don't remember much either. Yeah, I don't remember. Communications was my first choice. Yeah, I was basically like, comes or I'm screwed. No. Y'all got a choice? Yeah, let's talk about Tory being dragged for school. I was still in school. Yeah, I remember Dino coming to me. He was like, hey, we have somebody who's getting ready to graduate. I'm going to put her on your subcommittee. Like, okay. He just fall and told you what to do. He really did. And then like I showed up to a meeting before I was officially alumni and I was like, I'm here. I don't know what I'm doing. I worked out. Yeah, it worked out. Look at you, on the tempo. Yeah, you're being shark shark. Yeah. They're so cheap, but they're so yummy. How about this? If you weren't forcefully dragged into comms, would you have like, honestly, another choice or would you have? Probably not. No, I think. I think honestly, I probably would have chosen comms regardless. Especially with the podcast work that you do outside of this. Yeah. Podcast work, as well as just social media stuff in general. I sometimes stream on the side, so social media stuff isn't new to me. Yeah. So comms probably would have been my first choice, regardless of Dino bullying me into it or not. As much as we love poking fun at email, we're also very thankful of the whole thing. To anyone who doesn't think that we don't like it. We like Dino sometimes. So, we've talked about why we're serving in this committee. Okay. And so in this point, in the road to wisdom, we would talk more about our individual chapters. So with us, did you serve as a candidate class officer? What do you remember from the experience? And why do you think it's important for MCs to have those positions? I did not officially serve as one of the officers for my membership class. But my class, the class prior to mine was four people and only three people like finished. And then my class happened and there was 11 of us. I think by the end, eight of us became brothers. Anyways. I was not an official officer, but I basically stepped up and became the historian. And handled like putting our plaque together. Is that for your class? You had a class historian? Yeah. I don't know. So I know one of our traditions. I don't know how far this if it's a thing for other chapters, but outside of the service project and the fundraiser that you have to do as an MC class, we also had to come up with a plaque of some kind that represented our class in some way. And it had to have all of our names on it and our class name. And that was the historian's job was to take charge of that. Oh, wow. Our storage room is broken up into cages and the case I cages are covered in them. There's all kinds of, I actually, I have pictures I can show you all after this. But like, there's all kinds of plaques and there's some that go all the way back to like the 50s and then there's some that are even more recent. There's a couple that like get talked about a lot and it's I think from one of our alumni, Luigi, his class, they got an old desk chair and stuck gum to the bottom of it that they each shoot and then they signed it. And that was their plaque. He signed the gum or the chair. The chair. But there's gum on the chair. It was it's and it used to be that they were like legitimate plaques and then it kind of morphed over time into kind of like creative projects. So like the class that was before mine was COVID class. They were initiated spring of 21 and they their class plaque was a Lysol bottle that had a mask on it and googly eyes and they all signed it. And I have, I went, I sat in our cages one day for like six hours taking pictures of all of the the plaques. So I could post them in the alumni page before I transitioned to actual alumni. But I never got the chance to do it. They're just on my SD card. It's a really cool tradition though. Yeah, it's super awesome. It has and it's a lot of our history and like some of them are like legitimate like symbolism. Like the the some of them have legitimate symbolism but others are a little bit simpler and they just have like the names and the initiation year or stuff like that. And then it's the class does that and then they present it to the the Brotherhood when they become brothers. That's cool. I like that. Mark, did you serve as a class officer? Oh, no, I don't think I did. I don't remember. Is it just is it good to just depend or is there like normally two or three? In, I think it depends on your your class and how big it is and what your needs are. In the road to wisdom, there is four that are listed. President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. And I think we might have done something similar because obviously we went through it before road to wisdom but I don't remember there being just one person. But I yeah, I didn't serve any of those ones. I served as the Vice President for Epsilon Class. I was in charge of I guess more so of like the programming. I guess you could call it is what we would call it now. But I was in charge of figuring out like the logistics of our service project that we were going to do. But I was initiated spring 2020. So that quickly came to a halt and we had to do something. We had to kind of switch it to more virtual sort of things. We weren't allowed on campus at that point. So yeah, so I did serve as a Vice President and I remember it being really fun before COVID happened. It kind of came out of the blue. But I I'm grateful that I was able to do that because one thing I've I've noticed at least in my chapter is that oftentimes the brothers who serve as a class officer also end up serving as a chapter officer later down the road. And I think that I think that kind of says something how, you know, when someone's membership candidate, you can kind of pick out like leadership qualities. You can kind of see certain brothers that really want to lead or want to take charge on certain aspects of the fraternity. At least how it was for me after after being Vice President for my class, I ended up being a mental health chair for my chapter, which was really important because it was COVID times. And you know, we were really struggling. And I got to do a really, really awesome project as a mental health chair. And then I also served as the alumni relations chair. So I think you can kind of pick out qualities in brothers that serve in their class. Did you guys did you guys serve like for chapter leadership, not just class leadership? I did on a chapter level. Yeah. I was I was alumni relations officer for at the PPP alumni relations officer for two years. Nice. I wasn't supposed to be my second year, but they went into the the my second year, we went in with a vacancy and they're like, please just like, okay. So then I got voted in. Well, now it's now it's a required position. It used to be it was just like an optional appointment. And now it's something that is required on the board for chapters, I think, pretty sure. I think it is. I think it's I think it's a good position to have. Yeah. How about you, Mark? What what did you do in your chapter? I said I was destroying for two years. Oh, yeah, that's right. You did do that. So we have opus and the national reporting submissions. As alumni, we don't really need to know about these submissions. But we do encourage you to go into opus and update your membership. We're hopeful that in the near future, AA members will be able to update their yearly membership through opus. And LAAs will have a full standing roster available, which is super handy for LAAs. And we'll also have LAA renewals and any paperwork that needs to be turned in all in opus. So if you'd like to visit opus, you can go online, the web pages online dot kkytbs.org. And if you cannot log in, you can contact national headquarters at four zero five, three, seven, two, three, three, three, three, it feels like a real like that was like in like this is like infomercials. Again, that was right. Like we're on the radio. Again, that was. And that's lesson three. Yeah. Yeah. Lesson three is a lot about the structure of the fraternity. Yeah. Or at the, at the chapter level. Yeah. Yeah. Chapter ours. Our chapter is just alumni chapter. Yeah. Pushing into lesson four, lesson four is our leadership matters. So some of the learning intentions for this is that the membership candidate will hopefully develop a deep understanding of the third purpose through discussion and activities. They'll also analyze and evaluate characteristics of outstanding leadership at both personal and organization levels. So the third purpose is to stimulate campus leadership and promulgate and uncompromising respect for the medium of college of the college band for gracious conduct, good taste and unswerving loyalty. Also, as a note, that is a solid like seven dollar word promulgate. There was a chapter out there a few years ago that created shirts that just said promulgate across the chest and had like the definition underneath underneath. And I still wear that shirt every now and then, but it's one of my favorite shirts to have. That's why I like that word. If that was your chapter, if that was your chapter, hit me up. I want one of those. So discussion, discussion on this part is essentially what is leadership in this sense, in the third purpose? And what do we have to consider a core value of KSI? What is leadership? I think leadership is a lot of things. I don't think it's just one specific like, I don't think it's one specific attribute. I think leadership is comprised of a lot of different things. I mean, it's the ability to lead people to teach, I think is a big thing in leadership. To be able to learn, I think you have to be able to still learn things even as a leader. For me, that's being humble. Respect, loyalty, being empathetic to people. I think there's a lot of things that go into leadership. It's a large pool of adjectives. Yeah. So as a core value, who comes to mind when you think of a great leader or what qualities make those individuals stand apart from the others? I feel like I may be biased because we're in his committee, but Dino, through and through. We joke about Dino and we bring up Dino, but Dino is an exceptional leader. He really knows how to find people's strong suits and allow them to help in ways that they are comfortable in helping. He's also just a great person and a great friend. There's the logistics of being organized. I mean, the way that he just comes up with things on the fly, his brain, I don't, yeah. On the fly until 3.5 in the morning. Yeah, 3.45 in the morning helping us with this script. The way that man will drop everything just to help anything case I related. You started asking that question and I was like, Dino. Yeah. No, honestly, though, I think he is just an exceptional leader. I think I look up to him a lot. I couldn't imagine being on a different committee. I think he also really pushes people to continue striving and to step outside of their comfort zone and apply for positions in the fraternity that he thinks that we'd be good for. So yeah, that's who I think of. End of the corniness. I was going to say that when I think of the leader, I almost always think of our chapter president, my senior, my junior, I think it was my junior and senior. I got a terrible memory. It's been so long ago. But he was a pretty great friend, is a pretty great friend and was chapter president. And he instilled something that I think followed through to the following year and or years in that being a chapter president comes with a lot of control. The best way I can imagine it is in a chapter setting, the chapter president is almost like a like a moderator, so to speak, of like the operations that go under the meeting, right? It's not a me, my, I, you know, situation. It's a it's like a moderator. You moderate the way that things are being presented. And at the very end of the day, when a decision has to be made, you obviously have that ultimate like that ultimatum at the very end, but it's not to project an image of yourself. It's rather to be an embodiment of the, of the, the chapter or the organization, the student body, right? I love that. And I really try to hold that true when I do WDA related things to, like I have opinions and I have plans and I have things I want to do, but overall, like the way that it gets done, how it gets done, who it gets done by, you know, I really love that as a as a as a way to explain and look up to to someone. Even after all these years, I've never forgotten that too. That's awesome. And I should say that he did it in such a great way to this person. So as we talk about leadership, I think it's important to talk about the core value of Kappa Kappa Psi, which is the choice brothers make each and every day to serve their band program. And Kappa Kappa Psi desires to build a community of music servant leaders who are focused on others, embody integrity, demonstrate passion and live bravely. Leadership in the college and university band movement cannot be done alone. And this community of leaders will care for others and embrace fellowship as a primary goal and action with a common aim to strive for the highest, which is our first focus being college and university bands. So how does this make you guys feel? And how do you think our alumni contribute to the core value? And I'm supposed to say an answer, but instead of my head thinking, man, I hate these types of questions in group settings. Oh, wait, I'm on a podcast, I have to talk about it. So whether I like it or not, I am that person in class that it's a three person class and someone has to speak. Well, definitely out of my brain and nowhere else on this script, I think there's a few qualities to consider and a leader. I think and no, we have this written down, but I think there's some qualities to consider. So as we were talking about the people that we looked up to the most, in terms of a great leader, we should also consider their attitude, their interest in learning from others, their risk taking. That's a really cool one. Opportunity seeking goal setting and empowering others. I think risk taking and empowering others is really strong in there. We're always trying to, this is more of my workplace ideal, but like you're always trying to empower your coworkers to want to. So risk taking and empowering others are extremely important to me. I think empowering others is extremely or especially prominent in my workplace because as a supervisor, yes, your job is to, or part of your role responsibility is to coach and make sure that the team is following through with their goals and the store's goals overall, but also like you're not going to be there for forever. So how are you going to empower others to not only be confident in what they're doing, but also have the confidence and the pro-activeness to want to be the person that will step into your role when you're gone? I guess it does also apply to a case study setting too. You're not going to be on leadership forever. So how do you empower perhaps the people in your committee to feel confident in their abilities and confident in what they do so that they could step into your role when you're not there or what have you? So I think those are some of the most powerful and the risk taking side of things too. It's one thing to follow through with the same stuff that goes on from year to year or week to week or whatever, but trying new things and just being afraid to embrace uncomfortability so to speak, embrace something new is extremely important. There has to be a lot of control and risk taking and I think those who take risks often have the best idea or some of the best sense of do we continue forward with this or does this not work and we try something new? If that makes sense. Yeah, when I look at this and I'm like, okay, how do alumni contribute to this core value? I think the one thing that really stands out to me is the sentence that says leadership. You can even exclude the college and university band, but just leadership cannot be done alone. And I think that applies definitely to the alumni side. I mean, we've talked about the committees and we have great people on our board of directors, but I'm sure they'd all agree that they couldn't do their jobs without the committees. It can't be done alone. Even Dino said that to us yesterday. And I think that that applies to a lot of aspects in the alumni world. Even in your professional careers, like leadership, it's not a one man job or one woman job. It is takes a lot of people. And I think as alumni, yeah, definitely. I think as alumni, that's important too, because I think that's a part of that bridge that I talked about between alumni and actives. To have a strong alumni group of your chapter, your region, whatever it is, you have to be able to bring those people from the alumni side. And that leadership starts in the alumni side and then it, or sorry, starts in the active side and continues into the alumni side. So I really love that it says leadership cannot be done alone because I think that's 100% true. Right. We don't have the stability of like a chapter operations chapter feels like very like controlled and focused. But when you're alumni, it's just kind of like this open, see an open void and you'll like congregate towards LAAs, congregate towards committees. You know, there's plenty of places to go, but it feels a lot more open ended. And so like in this ocean of post graduation, post college involvement, it's especially important that we are all working together towards the same thing. And it's very much, it can feel like you're alone, but there is everybody else's is in a similar boat. And you have to just have to find other people to, to help come together. Leadership is definitely, it is the core value. I think there's some interesting myths about leadership too that we were going to talk about. And Mark, I know you, I know you had one. Let's hear it. The myth that leadership exists only at the top of the fraternity. It may be one of the leading myths about leadership and is also probably the most inaccurate. As we were kind of talking about, effective leadership doesn't just begin and end with officers. Leadership opportunities exist everywhere for anyone willing to take advantage of them. And anyone who offers ideas by which the fraternity can evolve has contributed a measure of leadership and those willing to explore ideas and set goals and achieve those goals are probably going to be some of the most effective of the bunch. I know another big myth is that people say leaders are born, not made. And I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. I do think that there's some people out there who are born to maybe have the desire to lead more than others. Some people prefer to follow or prefer to be kind of on the back end of things. And that's I think a preference. But I definitely think that leaders are made. I was just talking to my wife about this a couple weeks ago. And she's in a leadership position and she was kind of worried. She's like, I'm going to this school and everybody's like looking up to me, like, what if I fail? And I was like, well, no leader is perfect. If there was a perfect leader, they'd be a really bad leader. Like you have to fail in order to lead because that's how you learn. I think if you're a leader and you've never failed, how do you help those who have failed? In your fraternity, in your chapter, how do you help people learn if you've never done it yourself? I think you become a leader through watching others. We've talked about who do you think is a leader. I think you learn qualities and you see qualities in other people and you kind of absorb those things and learn those qualities. I've also said that some of the best leaders are like sponges, right? They're just going to want to absorb everything. And they're not just the people that will be like, uh huh. Yeah. Okay. But also the people that will take it and also bounce it back with you and also like execute those things, right? Yeah. And like you said, taking the risk, you know, you're not just born wanting to do that. You know, you learn how to do that. You learn how to communicate. And uh, yeah, I think you get it by watching other people and identifying characteristics in other people that you also want to have. I think, you know, some people may have some of those aspects a little bit more naturally, but that doesn't mean that they're born a leader. You know, there's there's leaders out there who are bad leaders, you know, so it's like the same thing of like, no one is born. What is it? Some silly movie line or some something out there was like, you're not born evil or you're not born a villain or something like that. You're like made to be. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's born the same way. It's just really how you're who you look up to, what your environment's like, and what you want to, how you want to be as a person. Yeah, exactly. Following the topic of leadership, our fraternal code of conduct includes honor, integrity, respect, and loyalty. Hurl. How it was described to me very first, and then tell us what the words were, they're like, yeah, hurl, just remember hurl. I was like, I've never heard that. Really? Which part of the code of conduct do you relate to most? It's a good question. Yeah. I would say for me, I think it's respect. And I say that because respect doesn't just mean being nice to people. But the reality is that there's not always perfect agreement in life, and especially in our chapters. You know, there's differing opinions on, oh, well, we should do it that way, or well, we've done it this way, and it works that way. Oh, let's do the event. Let's do it on this day, and like, oh, no, we don't want to do it then, or something, whatever it is. There can be disagreements. And I know in our chapter, we had a very strict rule with the code of conduct, like with respect. We were like, if you may not agree with someone's opinion, but you will respect them as a brother, and you will respect them as a person. And you can have conversations about why you think we should do it this way. But this is not debate club. We're not fighting with one another. Yeah, like we respect everybody's opinions. And so that's a big one for me. I think respect is a big one, because there's disagreements. There's going to be disagreements. But we have to remember that we love each other. We're all brothers. We're all here for the same reason, and that we need to treat each other as such. I integrity is grown into one of my top ideals. So I'm not sure at the time, when I was active, what decision I would have made, or what option I would have made. But I know that integrity still holds real true to me right now. So in other words, the character of our brotherhood is based upon this principle of decency and sincerity. And I'm reading this, it says our impeccable integrity lets others know we can always be trusted to keep our word. I'm really, really, I can't find the word. What's really, really important to me is keeping my word and just being honest. But also being integral is not the right word here. Having integrity is something that I really try to make sure that comes through in my leadership style, especially at work. Coming from a place of understanding and sincerity, like knowing that I was in those shoes at some point. Again, band or not, band related or not. And knowing that there is a place for I'm real struggling. Your turn. Less brain turn off more like, how do I formulate thoughts in the words? That's why I write stuff down. That's why it's great for me to read all this. I think the best way I can relate it is in terms of at work, when it seems like we only get to see each other in a workplace setting, and we only expect you to do workplace things like robots or NPCs as we'll joke about. Like we're also human underneath these skins and this image of us in the workplace. And at the end of the day, we're just people trying to live our lives just as much as the people on the other side of the counter are trying to live their lives. And so I really try to make it a point that I'm going to understand a lot of what you're doing. I'm going to understand that you have a life outside of this job. I'm going to understand a lot of that and try and bring the human connection, so to speak, out just a little bit more. Because sometimes you can kind of get lost in the sauce and just be in work mode. And it's only professional and it's only this at every time. And it's not easy to do that. And I will be honest, I'm sure there are plenty of places that do it a lot harder than and a lot more intensely than where I work. And so just trying to bring a sense of integrity is important because I want to make sure that as a leader, I'm coming across as a true person and not just a robot or a die-hard company person, if that makes sense. I really love that you started with, I don't know what I would have said or if I would have said this when I was an active. Because I think it does change. What's most important to you out of these four changes over time? When you're active, you're hardcore at school, music, partying, working, whatever you're doing, you may think that loyalty is most important at that time. But then when you transition into the adult world, into a professional space, like you said, that becomes very different. You may not value that as much. You may value integrity more or honor more or something. So I really love the idea that it can change over time and it could change in a day-to-day. I think it's definitely not stagnant. You can't just choose one and you're stuck with that forever. I think different points in your life, you may hold different values closer to your heart at that point. It's like when you conduct personality tests, it's going to change from time to time. As a fan, like the Myers-Briggs, for example, my Myers-Briggs, when I was just in or slash just coming out of college, is albeit slightly different than what it is now. And I think on this note, I probably would have said loyalty when I was going through. Because it was a different time in my life where that type of characteristic was more prominent in me, not just to the sense of being loyal to band, loyal to fraternity, but more on the personal level. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think in college, I was like, some of these friends that I have, I'm like, these are going to be my friends for the rest of my life. I'm going to die with these people. And for some people, that's 100% true. I still am very close to some of them. But also, when you shift into an adult world, things change. You look at friendships differently, schedules get really conflicting. For me, you move 3,000 miles away from people. And that changes relationships. So loyalty may not be as important to me now. You know? So yeah, I really love that. It definitely changes over time. I can actually vouch for this. While you're talking, I was trying to like figure out like which one I was leaning more towards now. And I think loyalty is the one I lead more towards. But I still have my MC binder, and I managed to flip through the pages and find this exact question. And when I filled this out as a junior, I chose integrity. So like, it does change. And the reasoning that I wrote, like verbatim in my thing, I said, I relate most to integrity. I usually end up being the friend that people come to for advice. And when they need to vent out their frustration, keeping my word is super important to me. That's what I wrote four years ago. Yeah, I would have had for the very similar reasons written or said the same thing. But I think now loyalty is just important to me. And not in the sense of like, oh, we're best friends. We have to talk to each other every day kind of loyalty, but more so if you've earned my trust, you've earned my trust. And if you break that trust, it's going to be really hard for you to get that back. Loyalty and trust is something that's really, really important to me. And it kind of always has been. So in general, just trustworthiness is huge. So I think loyalty is the one that I kind of identify more with now. I'd be really curious to see what, like, the general alumni population would say, like, what did you say back then? Or what do you think you would have said back then? That'd be a cute one. What would you say now? Like an Instagram question. Yeah. After this episode posts or something like, yeah, go comment on the, go comment on our post and let us know. We'll do like a poll. How it's changed. One of those polls on the, on the story. Yeah, I really love that. I think it'd be interesting to learn perspectives of how that's changed for people. Like the slider one. Like, where are you on, like, on hurl, the hurl scale? Yeah, the hurl scale. It's funny. I mean, it's right there. H-I-L. I see it now. Yeah, it definitely makes sense now. The last part of lesson four in the road to wisdom is the founder circle. The founder circle is based on the social change model of leadership developed in 1993 by Helen and Alexander Astin at UCLA. This model defines three levels of leadership individual group slash team and society slash community. We use this framework with the father founding fathers to illustrate each level. William A. Scroggs for the individual level. A. Frank Martin for the group slash team level. And Bohemial Makovsky for the society slash community level. Additionally, the founder circle incorporates specific skills and values identified by survey respondents in 2013, categorized into these three levels to provide a comprehensive understanding of leadership. For more details, you can visit kksi.org slash founder circle. I think as a whole lessons three and four, like going through all of these lessons again, as someone who hasn't gone through the road to wisdom is interesting to see like the steps that candidates are taking. The steps that candidates are taking to learn about everything. So it's a good refresher, but it's also very structured very appropriately. Yeah, can you tell how like your process was like learning things? Can you see how it's been built into the framework? Does it make sense? Yeah, not a clue. It's been 12 years since I've gone through. I don't read the process. I'll be so honest, I don't remember interviews and that was the best part. And it was for pretty much everybody. But no, it's hard for me to remember a lot of it. It's just bits and pieces. You know what I mean? I do love though, like looking at this, because I mean, I haven't really looked at this since I was an MC, right? I was never a VPN, so I didn't really look at it. I helped so kind of, but looking at it now with having that alumni perspective, I really enjoy seeing how a lot of the stuff still carries over to the alumni world in a different way. And it's still all very like integral in my life, even though I'm not an active brother anymore. And whether or not you realize that you're carrying these traits and characteristics more than you think out into the real world, even if it's just relating to it, because it's like, oh, I learned about this in band, you know what I mean? Like, it's not because of this that you are who you are. But who knows it probably contributed to way more than you think it did. They probably pointed it out for you and spelled it out, if anything. That's, well, that's a wrap for this episode. So, thank you for sticking with us. And we hope you found it informative, like I did. And if you'd like to share your thoughts or answers, you can connect with us at KKciAA tempo. Join us next week for lesson five, our musician shit matters, and lesson six, our brotherhood matters. A big thank you to the National Alumni Association and Kappa Kappa Phi National Honorary Band fraternity for making this podcast possible. Have a wonderful day. And as always, A, B, A. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [MUSIC PLAYING]