We open with our theme music.

Our guest, Sara Rulli introduces herself over the music: "Hi, I'm Sara. I'm a current member of the Epsilon ZTA chapter at the University of Arkansas, and I'm excited to share my story."

As the music fades out, podcast host Hailey Mangrum kicks off the episode. "Tell me about yourself. Introduce yourself. Maybe what year you are in school, what do you like to do, tell me something about you."

Sara: Yeah, so, first I'll say that I'm so excited to be here. I'm a big podcast girl actually. I have just started my senior year, so that means I'm pledge class of 2018, which seems like ages ago at this point. I definitely have loved my years in sorority life and here at the school, so I'm excited to do my last one.

In terms of anything I really like to do—I spend a lot of time in the gym. Like I said, that's where I listen to the podcasts I talked about. But the thing that I'm most known for, that people like to tag and really get intrigued with, is that I am a current member of Air Force ROTC, which is painting my career path, because I will be pursing a career in the Air Force as an officer.

Hailey: If you had a podcast, what would you name it? Since you love listening to podcasts.

Sara: Oh my gosh, what would I name it? I wish I could do, like, an alliteration with my name. But I would want it to be like a "fireside chat" type of podcast. So, I don't know—maybe I could do, like "Seaside with Sara" or something like that. I'm not even close to the ocean, but maybe I could make it something like that so it's kind of like a conversationalist podcast.

Hailey: I'm here for it. You're like, "I'm not even by water, but we're gonna put that in the title."

Sara: I'll move so that we can make it happen.

Hailey: Got to make it your reality. Okay, so Sara, tell me about what got you into the ROTC.

Sara: Well, it's actually kind of a really funny story. My dad was in the Air Force, but before I was born. I never was exposed to it when he was in. My brother is actually currently active duty. He's stationed in Germany. He's a lot older than me—he's eight and a half years older than me—but that created this environment when I was younger, where everything I ever wanted to do, was just like my big brother. And I just wanted to be like him. And I thought he was the coolest person ever, and he is. He is absolutely the coolest person ever. He's the smartest person I know

But I didn't really see the military in my future until high school. I actually got a presentation from the Navy, and I was kind of like, "I don't know if I'd want to go into the Navy, but this seems like a pretty good gig—like the whole ROTC thing—because of the opportunities that it offers, scholarship that it offers." So I looked into the Air Force side, since my brother was in the Air Force. And then I spent my freshman year just really working hard and trying to commit to it. And then I was able to, you know, officially raise my right hand and then sign a contract. And that's when it became really real.

But the really exciting thing for me is that, upon graduation, I will immediately outrank my big brother, because of the training that I am getting. So after, you know, looking up to him for so long, it'll be really funny for me to just surpass him a little bit. But, yeah, that's the story there.

Hailey: How does he feel about that?

Sara: Oh, he's proud of me. He absolutely loves it. He loves to give me advice, but he knows that I've modeled so much of what I do after him and that he's my biggest inspiration. And he's very proud of me and proud to see what I've done. My journey is very different from his. So, I don't think that he's at all jealous. I think that he just hopes that I do well with it.

Hailey: Absolutely, and that's what we hope for kinda anybody following after us, right? I used to tell people all the time—my mentees, or people younger than me would say, "Oh I want to be like you when I grow up." "No, I want you to be better!" because I've made some mistakes, you know. When you think about that, and when you think about your membership in Zeta, how do you think those two intersect? How do those two connect?

Sara: I think that we get wrapped up in the idea that sometimes sororities get a bit of a reputation for having only one type of member in them. But what we don't remember—I don't think we remember enough—I think Zeta, especially with our philanthropy does a really good job of this—is that sororities are the best source of female empowerment that we have in college. And so, for me in the military—the Air Force's statistic is that one out of five members is female, so that's 20%. That's still a pretty big minority, right? And for me in ROTC, the percentage is even less than that right now. And so, Zeta plays into that—of offering me that real source of empowerment, where I'm not in the minority, and I can feel empowered, and be emboldened to follow my dream, I guess if you will—even despite that disparity.

And that speaks to all of our other members, as well. I have a lot of friends who are nursing majors—which in the nursing field—the nursing field is female predominant, but the medical field is not. The medical field is male predominant. I have a lot of friends who are business majors, because the business school at the University of Arkansas is fantastic. The business world is very male predominant. So I think that, that is a really awesome representation in general, of what a sorority can mean to us as we enter these male-dominated career fields, for sure.

Hailey: I love that you shared that experience. When you think about your, you know, kind of coming to Zeta, in this kind of underrepresented population when you're in the ROTC. But when you come to chapter, or you're around the members of your chapter, or just the members of Zeta as whole, and feel empowered, feel seen, or feel heard, or feel valued.

As we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share?

Sara: Yeah! So, I had these little tagline quotes that I wrote down. I have two.

This is not an advertisement—I watch this show on AppleTV. It's called Ted Lasso. I will say if people have not seen it, you absolutely should watch it. That's my number one recommendation right now. And Ted Lasso says this line, he says, "I have a real hard time hearing people who don't believe in themselves." And when he said that on the show—it's a comedy show, but I was like, "Whoa! That's good." And I think that that carries over into everything that we should do. You should believe in what you're doing. And when you believe in what you're doing, say it loud and proud, and do it. Don't do something half. Don't do something that you're kind of iffy about. Believe in what you're doing and go for it. And that's definitely something I'm going to use with my cadets this semester, because we preach confidence and we want people to be confident in the decisions that they make. So, I'm going to have a "real hard time" hearing my cadets if they don't believe in themselves.

Hailey: I love that one, because it's almost like this idea of what you said earlier, empowered women empower women. And I'll often say, in order to feel empowered, you have to understand your gifts, you have to understand who you are, and have some type of internal confidence within you before you can instill something in somebody else. So it can be really felt.

Sara: Yeah. I think about that quote all the time. I watched the show over the summer and I think about that quote probably every day. Because it's just an encouragement. No one's ever going to see what I can ever do for them or for the world if I don't believe in it myself. And I'm not going to make an impact on anyone else if I don't believe in it, too.

The second one—and this kind of goes back to that feature that I did with the Zeta Instagram last summer—is that I told everyone—I was kind of talking about my experience with ROTC and being a member of a sorority, which is not a very common combo. I know a lot of people are like, "Wow, do you really do both of those?" when I tell them. And the point of that, is that you can do both. And I am tired of women, especially, thinking that they can't. And so, whatever you think it is. If there's a listener that is wondering if they can take a leap and do something else, if they're also doing this—you're only limited by yourself. And you can do both. You should stay hungry. And you should strap up and do both, because the worst case is that one of them doesn't work out and then you move on. That's the worst case. Or, you do both and you stun everyone every time that you tell everyone that you're doing both things. So, you can do both. You can do whatever you want, especially when you believe in yourself. And that's my two cents on that.

The outro music fades in. Over it, Hailey says, "Thanks to Sara for joining us and sharing her Zeta Story. And thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode or miss out on hearing someone else's Zeta Story."