HEY ALL YALL ELECT ME PLEASE.

Four score and seven years ago….. Wait wrong speech (flip through

blank pages)...(read slower and quieter) my fellow PhiDE members ahh

here we go. Tonight we are gathered to elect the new Exec board for

PhiDE. There are so many great candidates for each position, however we

don’t just want great, y’all want the best and for President…. I’m your guy.

Now I know many of you are saying, “really?? Braden?? Why him, he’s

only a sophomore, what has he done??”. And you’d be right to question

that, other than helping plan AFS this year I have not held any leadership

position however I don’t think that should be heavily weighed against me​.

Despite not being on a planning committee for every event, I still attend

them all… I have fully immersed myself into this fraternity. Just since I was

initiated I’ve been to the roller skating social, auctioned myself off at

Bachelor night with my boy Austin, busted a move at formal, burned

hundreds of calories walking around the different med schools we’ve toured

and running the Cooper River Bridge, gained all those calories back

attending every percent night, made it through the 8 hour medical

workshop only to get all 5 of the practice MCAT questions wrong, you’ll

always see me at every party (even in the tiny, unairconditioned rooms at

the Hub @Richard/Ashish). My point is even though I didn’t lead these

events, I experienced them… I engaged with the members who went… I

embraced every event and said “full send” to all of them. That’s a quality I

will bring to this presidency. 100 percent commitment. But... To be

president you have to do more than just show up to events, you have to

connect with the fraternity. I don’t know if y’all have noticed, because I

make it so subtle, but I’m kind of a high energy, loud, extroverted,

people-person. I love to talk to anyone and everyone, hell I talk to myself

several times a day (so believe me I know how tiring it can be). I do that

because I want to connect with people, I want to form some type of

relationship with everyone I meet. To be president you have to be able to

understand others’ point of views and where they’re coming from. You get

that from forming bonds with them. That’s what I want to do, I want to form

bonds with you. If elected president, I would still stand by the principle that

this fraternity is just as much yours as it is mine. Your ideas, thoughts,

opinions should be considered as equal. A leader knows how to lead,

duuhhhh, but they also realize sometimes they aren’t the smartest person

in the room AND that’s okay. Throughout my entire athletic career, that was

cut short…(don’t worry I’ve already talked to Muschamp about the no

scholarship thing, whatever) I’ve been honored to be named captain on

almost every team I played on. Though it’s cool to wear that C on your

chest, it’s also a huge responsibility, not unlike being president. As

president, I have a responsibility to get things done on time, efficiently, and

effectively all while keeping the fraternity working like a championship team

with every member a team player. That means it’s not always fun and

games, we are a professional fraternity after all. This means we Work Hard

so we can Dream Big. There’s a quote from Bo Bennett, “A good leader is

one who can tell another how to reach his or her potential. A great leader is

one who can help another discover this potential for him of herself” Rather

than a president standing here telling you what you have the potential to do

and become, I will provide you with the tools, resources, and motivation for

you to figure that out on your own, and fulfill your own destiny. As

president, my main goal for this fraternity is to succeed in whatever we set

out to do.
Comments to throw in:
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