Brothers,

I am so thankful to all of you for making it possible for me to attend Ruck this year. I learned more and saw myself develop more in 5 days, than I have in my past 3 years of college. This truly was life changing and an experience I will look back fondly on for a very long time. I am confident that the lessons I learned about leadership will transcend across my entire life, not just SigEp. Specifically I took away the importance of enabling others and encouraging the heart, as paramount to effective leadership. This is something that I have not been doing enough as a leader, and I now see how incorporating this will be essential.

To go into what Ruck is exactly, it is 5 days in a small group of 20 other undergrads led by 2 facilitators. Each group's facilitators were very successful SigEps who had a passion for winning and also the science of leadership. We divulged into the 5 facets of leadership in great detail (Model the way, Inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, Encourage the heart, and Enable others). These principles were taken from the book "The Leadership Challenge" by Barry Posner. This book tackles leadership in a research backed way, that makes some really astounding points. I would highly recommend checking it out this winter.

During learning about leadership our group became extremely close and open with each other. Meeting and connecting with leaders from other chapters was something that I had done before at other SigEp events, however this was on a whole new level. The connections we made will be lifelong. We constantly challenged ourselves to see things differently and every single one of us left Ruck feeling extremely empowered and motivated to approach leadership differently. Please see the attached for my notes from the event.

I think that sending someone to Ruck should be a chapter goal that we push very hard for every year. The lessons taught about life are something that I may not have learned until I was deep into my professional career. I have attached some of my notes from the program. If any of you would like to know more about what I learned, feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you all very much.

Fraternally,

Lucas Carter

Sigma Phi Epsilon NYX

Undergraduate President