A Mason's Work

[00:00] so we've worked through this all week uh with this understanding that being a father being a
[00:07] leader being a guy in charge of your lodge uh that we're going to run into anger pretty much
[00:15] on the regular in the beginning particularly as as you grow and develop as a father or a leader
[00:21] what have you that the anger itself comes from care that's a huge thing to understand
[00:29] and i it probably is self-evident if you reflect on it for a minute that the more you care about a
[00:37] thing the more likely you are to want to control it and that both of those things are not character
[00:43] defects they are part of the way we behave as people uh this isn't uh this need for control
[00:52] or desire to control a thing uh isn't uh evidence that you're a bad person or in the wrong role this
[00:58] is a place that you care about and in that care you're trying your best to be in control
[01:06] you're not flying off the handle about stuff that doesn't matter you're flying about off the handle
[01:11] about stuff that's really deeply important and and you kind of have to reconcile that for a minute
[01:20] because we don't often talk about anger as an expression of love because on the other side of anger
[01:29] when you are receiving anger it certainly doesn't feel like it that means first things first
[01:37] anger is probably not a great way to express love and care anger itself is uh when undirected
[01:48] and not used well and all of that kind of stuff turns into the tools of violence and abuse emotional
[01:55] violence physical violence theological violence whatever we don't want that alchemy happening
[02:04] what we want is to use anger as it arises as a mirror to better understand what's happening with
[02:11] ourselves and to get clear about the objectives that we're sort of working towards
[02:16] this is not also uh like we started with on the first episode of the week this is not an indication
[02:26] that you need to necessarily develop patience patience will naturally develop as you shift from a focus
[02:36] to from outcomes to process in the same way we talked about you know you can't plant a seed and then get
[02:43] angry it's not growing right away right you if you understand the process of house you know growing plants works
[02:51] there's no anger in the timeline there's no like oh man i'm super upset that it's not growing yet or
[03:01] faster or whatever anger is not a viable solution there so we want to move away from that anger
[03:11] smothering relationships or damaging relationships because it flares up and flares out and move towards
[03:18] more of that nurturing father relationship that is heavily boundaried right the place that we're going
[03:26] to be able to express our care and concern the most and reduce our own sort of anger as it goes is through
[03:33] those boundaries and how do we set them in a way that makes sense that indicates that we're fair uh that we
[03:39] you know are acting in a principled manner in accordance to the things that we believe as
[03:44] men as masons as leaders in an organization that principled alignment that we have should allow us
[03:53] to begin to have open and honest conversations about what those boundaries are within the sort of
[04:00] capacities of those parties and we've talked in other arcs of this podcast about things like contracting
[04:06] and how does that work and how do we begin to build relationships based on those boundary conditions
[04:12] and what does that look like and i encourage you to go back into the catalog and find those episodes
[04:16] because that becomes a viable resolution to these kind of situations where boundaries are more
[04:25] beneficial than rage and anger and frustration the getting back for just a moment to what it feels
[04:32] like to be on the other side of that anger understand that if you look back in your own life as a child
[04:40] there's very likely somebody that was super angry with you and expressed it with all of the wrong ways to do
[04:48] that and your response just think about it is to close up be fearful and not take risks
[04:56] when we are trying to encourage our children and our brothers in the lodge and our employees in the
[05:04] place of business we're trying to encourage them to take risks we have to become risk tolerant and
[05:11] behavior tolerant which again if you're so focused on the outcomes you don't allow room for mistakes and
[05:18] growth so so this single kind of cognitive shift will replace all of the self-judgment you have around
[05:25] things like oh i need to get more patient or oh i need to you know get better at x or y or z to try and
[05:31] manage my relationships you can move to a place that is a mutuality where you are meaningfully leading
[05:39] a bunch of agentic people that have the sort of rights and permissions to make their own mistakes
[05:45] to understand the boundaries and and you know in some cases violate them uh and you're not going to lose
[05:52] your mind as a result because again you're focused on growth and development nourishing and encouraging
[05:57] the people that report to you or that uh essentially you are in charge of uh particularly in a fatherly
[06:04] way and and in so doing nurture and build those relationships and create agile capable agentic children
[06:13] brethren in the lodge who take on actions take on activities without being terrified of some sort of
[06:20] uh almost violence-based repercussions and when you get there the entire mechanic of how you move
[06:27] through the world changes so fundamentally uh that things like these conversations when other people
[06:34] behave in this way you no longer even uh sort of affected by it you can be like oh yeah that guy just is
[06:41] trying to get trying to do this he's trying to be get this outcome and that's why he's flying off the
[06:47] handle so it it actually transmits itself even more broadly into things like compassion uh and care
[06:52] and perspective and so as we work through this uh and we work through anger and all that kind of stuff
[06:58] and and what it means to be a father um this is the direction we're going and as sunday is coming and it is
[07:06] father's day call your dad thank your father sit sit a moment and remember your father if he's passed
[07:16] happy father's day dad