Saturday, September 26, 2009

When NOT to send an email

In a college world where break-ups happen by Facebook message, it's valuable to acknowledge that there are still some situations when an email is not the best way to communicate. If you're one of those student leaders who does everything by email, text message or wall post, take a moment to consider 10 situations when you should find a better way to communicate.

1. You want to send a heartfelt thanks or apology. Sincerity is the key in both situations, and an email or a "thanks, you rock" text message doesn't convey much. If you want to really, sincerely thank someone, say it to their face, write a short note, send a small gift, or stand up at a meeting and say something nice about the person. If you need to apologize, be a big person and do it face to face. "I'm sorry I slept with your roommate. Forgive me" on a text message isn't going to get the job done.

2. You haven't spoken in a long time. If you've fallen out of touch with someone and then you suddenly send an email asking for something, it speaks volumes about the nature of your relationship. Picking up the phone and having a real conversation that conveys your sincerity will make all the difference, plus it gives you a chance to re-establish the relationship.

3. Your request isn't crucial to the recipient. Guess what? Your important email isn't the most important thing the Vice President of Student Affairs has to deal with today! It's important to you, but it's just one of 80 messages she has received today, and while she likes you, it's not the thing on the top of her to-do list. She read your FB message on a 5-minute break from a meeting and will forget it completely an hour from now. If you need a response badly, then put it in front of the person in a more urgent way.

4. You have enormous files to send. Only send big files via email if the person asks you to. That gigantic attachment could clog their account, end up in a spam filter, or tie up his iPhone for 10 minutes downloading.

5. You want to keep something confidential. If you haven't learned this one yet, you will, eventually. What seems like a private conversation now can become a public mess with the purposeful or accidental click of the "forward" button. Email lasts forever. Your status with the recipient of that email might not. Be careful.

6. You need an immediate reply. Texting helps with this, because right now, people feel like they are more urgent. That won't last forever. People used to pounce on emails the moment they came in. Some still do, but others barley check email at all. If you need an immediate response, find the person, or have a Plan B.

7. You're trying to build consensus among leaders. There are some subjects that simply should be discussed in a group setting – where people can bounce ideas around, play off each other, and yes, argue a bit. Email is not a good place to build consensus on a subject because people read emails at different times. It's not a conversation where everyone gets to participate equally or simultaneously. It's OK to put out the information necessary for a discussion ahead of time, but have the discussion in person, or on a conference call. You need to recognize when an email string has moved into the realm of a meeting agenda item.

8. The subject is complicated. If it seems too complicated to write in an email, then it is. Emails are not meant to be intense and intricate. Talk it out in person so the topic gets the explanation it deserves.

9. Things could get tense. Emotion and attitude are very difficult to convey in an email, or heaven forbid, in a text. If you're writing when you're emotional, you could say things you don't mean, without the benefit of body language and non verbal cues. Feelings get bent out shape quickly when fiery messages fly around. Just avoid it.

10. Email caused the problem in the first place. If your message or someone else's has caused a stir, move it off the Internet. You'll just make matters worse by firing back a response, inappropriately sharing their message, etc.


This blog post is based off material I gathered from Margaret McDonald, a wonderful writer, trainer and consultant whose blog can be found at www.MissCommunications.com. If you're looking for someone to train your group on the do's and don'ts of electronic communication, check out her website at www.SmartPeopleAtWork.com. Margaret gave me permission to tweak her material for my blog. Thanks, Margaret.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Act your age

This one is for the alumni out there.

I want to tell you about a little journey I've been taking. When you're a professional speaker, you go through a sort of progression. In my 20's, I was all about "being one of them" to the students. I wanted to dress like them, look their age, and speak on their level. I could talk about sex and dating, for example, and the students were right there with me.

It got harder as I neared 30, but fortunately, I was usually able to pull it off most of the time. A well-placed reference to that summer's big teenage movie (I specifically remember forcing myself to watch "Road Trip") worked wonders. Even as my life started to move toward more mature, adult things like financial planning, buying a house, and having a kid – I worked hard to make sure I didn't lose touch with the student set. It was definitely an act, though. I couldn't keep up with their musical tastes, and I didn't want to. I didn't think getting drunk three nights a week was normal, anymore, and I wasn't laughing along with the stories of idiotic behavior. I was getting a little "judgey."

Another funny thing – I had to stop talking about sex and dating altogether. I couldn't even make casual references. College students are repulsed by the idea that anyone over 35 has sex, ever. Take my word for it – students groan and squirm in their seats at the slightest suggestion.

Now, I'm 40, and it's over. I'm their dad. As a professional speaker in my 40's raising a teenager of my own, I've had to morph into something much different than I was 15 years ago. In 15 years, I went from being one of them, to being their cool older brother, to being an ancient relic. When I tell fraternity audiences that I was initiated in 1987, before they were born, they look at me like I'm one of their founders.

I had to embrace the fact that students were seeing me differently, and I needed to stop trying to be their cool buddy. I had to rewrite my programs and change all my jokes. I had to speak to them as what I was – a smart adult with something to say. I had something to teach them. I stopped trying to speak at their level, because I was somewhere higher. I had to embrace that.

I write about this, today, because a colleague suggested I write about those alumni who simply haven't learned this lesson yet. They come to events and try to be cool by acting like they are still 22. I cringe when I see them – men in their 40's at campus or leadership events who are trying hard to be "one of the boys."

Dude, you're not 22 anymore. You're not fooling anyone. Enabling the "boys will be boys" crap is counter productive. Oh, and by the way, everyone over 30 in the room thinks you're being a tool.

I've seen a past national president of a fraternity act this way recently. He was ogling young sorority women and saying the most embarrassing things to the younger men as he bought them beer and encouraged their worst behavior. Funny thing was, he thought he was being cool with the young men. I could tell they were laughing at him, not with him. The staff members of his fraternity were in visible pain watching him, unable to stop him.

It was humiliating.

Here's what I wanted to say to him. "You have a lot to offer. Be a role model. Show these young men what they can grow up to be. Stop acting like you stopped maturing around age 24. Show them what manhood looks like."

I'm not saying you have to launch into lectures. I'm not saying you have to be their father.

Just be yourself, and embrace the fact that you can be relevant without being one of them. College students have their own buddies, their own age. They don't need you to fill that gap for them. You can't do it, anyway.

What many students crave are role models and mentors to whom they can relate. Try it. You might like it.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Why I didn't join a fraternity, at first


When I arrived at Indiana University, I fell in love with a house. A physical structure.

Across from the law school on Third Avenue sat the Acacia fraternity house. It was three stories tall with a gray stone facade. About a dozen two-story white columns dominated the front of the mansion, and a beautiful green lawn stretched out to Third. It was breath taking.

I had no idea what Acacia was. I knew nothing about fraternities. As I passed the house those first few days, I would just stare at the building and the young men going in and out. I was fascinated. I couldn't believe that undergraduates like me could live there. If a young man from that fraternity had approached me those first few days, I would have been hooked.

My love affair ended soon enough. I found out it was a fraternity, and my friends at the residence hall told me that pledges there were made to do all sorts of humiliating things. I have no idea if it was actually true. True or false, I believed what they said that evil things lurked behind the doors of Acacia and the other fraternities I passed each day.

Having just turned 16 (I went to college very early), I was petrified of older guys ordering me around and humiliating me. I heard stories of fraternity pledges doing naked, sexually-oriented activities. I had flashbacks to fourth grade when a neighborhood bully would routinely humiliate me in front of other kids at the bus stop, and I shuddered at the idea of putting myself in that situation again. Nothing was worth that.

I didn't even have a word for "hazing" at the time, but I knew I didn't want to be mistreated. I didn't have the self esteem for that. I didn't want anyone yelling at me. I wasn't interested in mopping floors at 2 a.m., or doing pushups. So, I didn't join Acacia, and I didn't consider joining any other fraternity. I found other things to do, like writing for the student newspaper, which I loved.

In the coming year, I would watch pledges from Beta Theta Pi across the street from my residence hall being harassed. From the Journalism building, we could watch the Sigma Chi pledges marching and dressed alike. If those young men were having fun or enjoying themselves, I couldn't see it. I felt good about my decision to avoid the fraternities at Indiana. I didn't see anything I liked.

Of course, I did end up being a fraternity man. A pretty active one, in fact. I joined a group that was chartering a couple of years later, in part because I knew that I wouldn't be hazed. I would have a chance to make friends and do important things, without any of the garbage that other new members routinely endured on my campus in the late Eighties.

As we begin National Hazing Prevention Week, I offer this story, humbly. I have every reason to believe that the groups I've mentioned here are now amazing chapters who treat their new members better than they did in 1988.

But, I wonder how many other young men walk on our campuses, and view fraternities from a place of fear. I wonder how many, like me, see the beautiful houses and the excited young men walking in and out the doors, and decide that fraternities aren't for them. So many bright and hard-working young men who could make amazing contributions to fraternities, but hazing scares them away. They just can't sign up for humiliation.

Some who read this might be fine with that. Perhaps, you think, I wasn't strong enough to be a fraternity man. If I wasn't willing to suffer a bit, then I wasn't fraternity material. I would argue the other side. Just as you disrespect a man who couldn't tolerate hazing, I found myself (and still find myself) disrespecting anyone who would.

For years after joining the fraternity movement, professionally, I would seek out the men who ran Acacia. I wanted to know them, because in the back of my mind, I remembered that initial infatuation with their beautiful house on Third Avenue. I found them to be good and honorable men.

"I almost joined Acacia at Indiana," I would tell them. "You should have," they'd tell me. "Why didn't you?" I didn't explain, because by then it felt silly. I was older, more confident, less fearful. I would simply think to myself that had hazing not existed at Indiana back then, I might be one of their brothers.

It's not enough to stop hazing in our chapters. That's the first step. After we have found better ways to build our brotherhoods, we have to reach out to the young men arriving on campus and let them know that brotherhood isn't about hurting people. It's not about servitude and being humiliated. It's about something better. It's a place where a young man, unsure of himself, can gain confidence and a place to belong.

Once we have turned our undergraduate chapters into something admirable, we need to put the truth in front of them and fight back against decades of cautionary tales.

I love fraternity, and I hate that I almost missed out on it. Let's get rid of hazing, re-educate our communities, and make sure we never miss out on a good guy again.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Encourage dissent, but stay on offense


There will come a time when you, dear student leader, will promote something that is not entirely popular. Maybe it will be a dues increase, or a decision to cosponsor something with a controversial group on campus. Perhaps you will have to cancel an event, take a stand against a group of your own members, or go head-to-head with the college administration.

If you are doing meaningful, meaty things, then dissent is part of the deal. You'd be smart to simply expect it, plan for it, and encourage it. I've been reminding myself of this as I watch the folks protesting President Obama this past weekend in D.C.. I think they're nuts, but I also understand that any good fight has to have sides.

Notice that President Obama is on the offense. Like him or not, he's out there aggressively selling his ideas. He's getting in front of people. He's demanding that the conversation take place. He's not sitting at the White House nursing a bruised ego, crying that people aren't loving his every idea. He's out there throwing punches.

If you're going to do something controversial as a student leader, you had better be ready to play the same game. Be ready to sit down for that newspaper interview. Be ready to stand up for your point of view in small meetings in coffee shops and in people's apartments. Make your argument to key leaders and opinion shapers. Be ready to have someone call you a nasty name, or insult your leadership. Smile as a few punches land squarely on your chin.

If you simply sit around and whine that your opponents are wrongheaded and unfair, you're going to lose, or you're going to have to concede a lot more than you want to. Don't be annoyed that people are arguing with you. Go out there and win over the hearts and minds. Throw punches of your own.

While your opponents are getting emotional and hysterical, listen to their concerns, address them, and validate any good points they bring up. At the same time, offer the facts, promote your ideas, and give people the context of the issue. You won't necessarily change the minds of your vocal opponents, but you might win over the folks in the middle, and that's who matters.

Stay in control. Direct the conversation. Stay on offense.

In a basketball game, there's the guy with the ball in his hand, and there's the guy waving his arms around hoping for a block. Be the guy with the ball.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Add a little sizzle to your service


In a perfect world, everybody would love volunteering – getting their hands dirty, so to speak, by helping others. In a perfect world, our service projects would be our most popular events. Our members and other students would pick up trash, spend time with seniors, paint the local Boys and Girls Club, and walk pets waiting to be adopted. We all know that service makes you feel good, and it helps others. Should be the biggest no-brainer in the history of the Earth.

But anyone who has organized a service event knows that it's not so simple. People treat community service like tax planning and eating right – we know we should do it, we know it would be good for us, but it's not something we necessarily want to do right now.

As a student leader charged with organizing a service activity, you have two choices. You can either stomp around, pout about the apathy of your members, guilt people into showing up, and plead for them to see the good they can do in the world. Or, you can make service projects more fun and appeal to other motivations. I assert that the latter works a lot better.

For several years, I worked for Push America, the national service project of my fraternity. One of the first lessons I learned was that young men had the capacity to care deeply about serving children with disabilities, but sometimes you had to get them in the door another way. Today, Push America runs three summer-long bike trips with hundreds of young fraternity men riding their bikes coast to coast. Along the way, they interact and serve people with disabilities. I believe it's the most amazing example of collegiate service in the country, and the men who participate emerge profoundly affected by the experience and the people they serve along the way.

But, the people at Push America will readily admit that the "sizzle" of spending your summer biking across the country is what gets most of the guys in the door. They are drawn in by the challenge, by the achievement, by the cool uniforms, by the once-in-a-lifetime experience. They are drawn in by 20 years of photos like the one above of my friend and fraternity brother Patrick hoisting his bike above his head in front of the U.S. Capitol. The service "high" is what they take away, but the sizzle brings many of them to the table.

There are countless other examples. You may be raising money for the amazing work of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, but the idea of being "Up Til Dawn" having fun with your friends is part of the motivation. You might be helping end leukemia or breast cancer, but the challenge of running that mini-marathon is the fuel in the engine.

You have to find the sizzle! People like to work out, but there's a reason why they sign up at the shiny new 24Hour Super Mega Fitness that just opened. It looks so cool, doesn't it? You could work out at the rec center, but that wouldn't be half as fun would it?

If you want to boost participation and interest in your community service events, consider these suggestions:

• Consider giveaways to people who participate. Everyone who shows up gets a coupon for a free burrito from the place down the street who agreed to cosponsor the service event. What about tshirts, or water bottles, or even ribbons the participants can wear the rest of the day?

• Make your service event a coed event, if it isn't already. It's terrific that your men's basketball team is going to visit the residents at the local seniors center. But why not involve the cheerleaders, and the women's hockey team? Adding a social element makes it more fun for everyone.

• End your event with some sort of meal or a gathering at a local watering hole. Again, adding a social element is very motivating, as is promise of food and drink. Especially if it's free. Go out and get that co-sponsorship from the local joint that would love to be full of students eating and drinking at 4 pm.

• Make sure there is a goal and a sense of achievement at the end of the project. By the time those cyclists ride up to the Capitol, they are in ecstacy! All those miles totally feel worth it for that amazing final moment. How does your service event end? Is it with cheering children outside a freshly painted facility or with a lame fizzle? When you're planning your service event, you need to know how the event will culminate. Make the ending exciting. Very important.

• If you can, involve the people you are serving in the project. Painting the Boys and Girls Club is so much more fun and rewarding when you're painting it with the kids who go there.

• Add games and an element of competition. Have contests throughout the service event. Spontaneous dance contests during breaks. Awards for groups who turn out dressed in costumes. Use the uneaten donuts from the morning in a donut toss contest.

• Make it seem like a party. Why is it that you hire photographers to walk around snapping pictures at parties, but you don't hire a photographer to walk around snapping pictures during your cool service event? Always have a music. Hell, hire a DJ!

These are just a few ideas. Leading service projects is one of the coolest student leadership opportunities available, particularly when you understand that there is a large degree of salesmanship in the job done right. You need to get people in the door with the sizzle, give them a fantastic feeling while they are participating, and send them home excited about the next opportunity to serve.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Be smart when delegating tasks

You're trying to be a proactive leader, and you delegate an important task. You ask one of your fellow officers to go to the Student Activities Office before Friday and fill out an important form to register your annual fundraising event. Without this form, you cannot reserve the one space on campus that will work for the event. This officer has done these forms a couple of times before, so you don't consider this a high risk delegation.

Fast forward to next Tuesday. You find out that not only did the officer fail to get the form in by Friday, he didn't fill the form out properly, didn't get a required signature, and now the space you desperately needed for the event has been snatched up by another group on campus.

Damn it. Another case of delegation gone wrong. If you had just done it yourself, everything would have been fine. As you shift into crisis mode, you swear that you're never going to delegate an important task to him or anyone else for the rest of your term.

As much as your advisor and guys like me urge you to delegate tasks, the truth is that sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you delegate (or "hand over") something complex, and the person does an amazing job. Sometimes you delegate something seemingly minor, and it blows up in your face. It all contributes to that most destructive syndrome of student leadership: the "it's easier if I do it myself" syndrome. We all know that just leads to burnout, falling grades, failed relationships, and stress.

Here are a few ideas that might (and I stress, might) lower your risk of delegation failure.

• Follow up a day or two later with the person, thank them for taking on the task, and ask him or her if they have any questions about the task. Use phrases like, "It's so great to have people like you I can count on."

• Only delegate to people who ask for something to do. Handing that form to a young, eager leader instead of your overworked and easily-distracted secretary might have yielded better results. Before you delegate, ask yourself, "Does this person stand to gain anything from doing this well?" If not, don't give the task to him or her.

• Ask for a confirmation, perhaps by text message, when the deadline is met. If you had asked your fellow officer to text you when the form was turned in Friday, and then you didn't receive one, you could have made a quick call to the Student Activities Office near the end of the day and scrambled, if necessary.

• Do the task with the person the first time. Don't assume that this member or fellow officer knows how to do the task. It might seem simple to you, but maybe it's intimidating to her. It's often best to do the task one time together, then trust the person to do it on her own the next time.

• Make sure the person understands why the task is important. If you had told the officer, "If we don't get this form correct and in by Friday, we might lose the ability to reserve the quad lawn, and someone else will probably grab it for that Saturday," the officer might have felt the urgency a bit more keenly. Let the person know that this is important, and she is more likely to treat it as important.

• Praise the person when he does the job right. It seems silly to celebrate someone for turning in a form, but if you want him to keep doing the job right, you need to give him some positive feedback. A public thank you at your next meeting wouldn't hurt.

• Reward work well done with more work. When someone has shown initiative and an ability to responsibly perform tasks, give that person increasingly important work to do. Let the person build on his or her success with increasing responsibility. People love it when they know you trust and depend on them. If you can build this over time, then you'll have several people that you can trust to do delegated tasks correctly and efficiently.

• Be cool if it doesn't go perfectly. If you had to run in on Friday afternoon and fix something on the form, don't overreact and chastise the person. Use it as a teachable moment and spend a little time with the other person so that the mistake can be avoided in the future. If you act like the world has ended because someone made a mistake, you're not being a good, nurturing leader. People make mistakes, and you'd be smart to worry less about punishing people than helping build their knowledge and abilities.

Delegation is an imperfect science, but you are more likely to be a happy leader if you do it thoughtfully. If you're doing everything yourself, you are not doing your job as a student leader correctly.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Dogs have bellybuttons


I have a 6-year-old son. Tim is at the age where the questions come non-stop, and usually, I can handle them. When I don't know an answer, I fake it admirably. However, this week he stumped me. "Do dogs have bellybuttons?" he asked.

Hmm... Dogs are mammals, and I've always assumed that all mammals had belly buttons. But, to save my life, I've never noticed a belly button on any of my dogs. I grabbed my terrier, flipped him over, and gave a good look. Dewey (pictured) enjoyed the attention, but I sure as hell didn't see a belly button on him.

I texted Cha Cha, which is what I do whenever I don't know the answer to a question (if you've never done it, text a question to 242242, and you'll be amazed). Here's what I got back:

"Although you may not see it, it's there. Dogs, like most other mammals, do indeed have bellybuttons or navels."

Well, I'll be damned.

These random events in my life are terrific fodder for blog ideas, it got me to thinking about all the "dog's bellybuttons" that help our organizations exist. You don't always see them, and they don't demand much attention, but they are there. The administrative assistant in the student activities office, the guy who sets up our A/V equipment at events, the advisor who always comes to events a few minutes early to help set up, the person at our national headquarters who processes all those initiation cards, the guy who mops up the locker room after we're done destroying the place.

These people frequently escape notice, but they play a big role. As a student leader, you should get in the habit now of reaching out to your dog's bellybuttons and saying "thanks." I'm big on saying "thanks" to the behind the scenes heroes – my mail carrier, the lady who serves my coffee in the morning, our bizarre UPS delivery guy, the secretaries at my kids' schools. It makes the world a better, friendlier place, and occasionally, these folks do something a little extra for you that makes a huge difference.

What are you or your organization doing to thanks the folks who play an important role and who get little or no recognition?

Friday, September 4, 2009

Your long term goal


I occasionally go back to Indiana University and visit my home fraternity chapter. When I go back, I notice that the chapter has changed a lot. The guys are significantly better looking, more athletic, and more socially adept than we were. They definitely have better grades. They enjoy a top-notch facility, and they run the chapter like a well-oiled machine. At last check, they had around 160 members, and a budget about four times greater than ours. They hang with whatever sorority they want to (we sure didn't), and they collect awards left and right.

When I go back and visit my chapter, I look around and think, "I honestly don't think I could even get into this chapter today."

You know how that makes me feel?

Fantastic. It makes me feel like my brothers and I did something right.

As a student leader, you should be putting things in motion and recruiting new members into your organization that will take your group to new heights when you're long gone. Your goal should be that you would come back in five to 10 years and be blown away. If you do your job as president today in 2009, you should come back in a 2019 and question whether you could have been elected president of the 2019 group.

We get bogged down in the short term goals, sometimes. Every now and then, you have to do some things that will yield benefits down the road. Remember to thing big and far into the future. Don't be short sighted.

What are you doing, right now, to make your group amazing for those students who will come along five years from now? What will the future rock star leaders on your campus see in your organization?

What can you do this year so that when your son or daughter walks onto your campus in 25 years, he or she will be blown away?

Put the building blocks in place so future leaders can take things farther than you were able. Lay the groundwork. Build the organization you wish you had joined. Dream a little about the amazing places your group could go. Then, start recruiting in the young leaders with the vision to take it there.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

People


Dr. Lori and I were chatting yesterday, talking about the death of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Lori is married to a Republican, so she had to talk quietly (kidding). She said she was struck the most by the vast number of people with stories about the Senator reaching out to them personally at a time of need.

When 9/11 happened, Kennedy personally called the family members of every 9/11 victim with a tie to his state of Massachusetts. There were many. I saw a story on ABC News about how Kennedy invited one 9/11 widow and her young son to visit the Kennedy home in Hyannis Port to go sailing and talk about the husband/father they lost on that terrible day. For nearly 40 years, he called the family of every Massachusetts service member lost during war.

Kennedy was an important man who understood what was most important. People.

Lori and I talked about how some of the leaders who have shaped our lives the most did so by simply taking a personal interest and reaching out.

A couple times a year, I get a personal, handwritten card from Durward Owen. He's sort of the Ted Kennedy of our fraternity, although he would hate that comparison. Durward was our executive director for three decades, honorary fourth founder of our fraternity – the "lion" of Pi Kappa Phi. Every time I get a card from him, I save it. He doesn't just do it for me. He does it for every man who ever worked for him. People.

In my home office, on a bulletin board in front of me as I type this, are two more handwritten cards. One is from my business partner, David Stollman, in which he tells me he's proud to have built our company with me. The other is from Dr. Phil Summers, a former national president of my fraternity and a chapter brother from Indiana. In the nearly illegible handwriting of a man near 80, he tells me that my keynote was the best part of our fraternity's leadership school.

It doesn't have to be a handwritten card. Coincidentally, yesterday (before talking to Lori), I reached out to a fraternity brother who is going through a medical battle, and I asked him how he was doing. It was a Tweet, not a handwritten note, but I think it hit him on a day when he really wanted someone to care. I got an email from him yesterday evening thanking me for reaching out. He told me how much it meant to him.

Here's the leadership lesson. The things people tend to remember aren't the business decisions you make for your organization. It's not the meetings, or the power struggles, or the flashy event that was held under your watch as a leader. It's not the t-shirt, the party favor, or even the amazing legislation that you worked months to pass in your student senate. It's not how many friends you had on Facebook.

What they remember are the personal connections that you take time to foster. Dropping by to ask your advisor if her son is feeling better after having the flu. Driving your fraternity brother two hours to visit his ailing grandmother. Taking that friend out for fries at Denny's after he loses the election. Helping your girlfriend's best friend hook up her computer one night over a pitcher of margaritas.

Don't get so busy being a student leader that you forget what really matters. It's the moments you stop being a student leader and act like a real caring person.

People.