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The Masonic Roundtable - 0557 - What's Next for a Past Master? · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:21
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:24
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:30
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are
• 0:34
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the participants and do not
• 0:36
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge statements or positions, so make
• 0:39
  Speaker: sure you keep your conversations open for the public and on the
• 0:42
  Speaker: level to interact with us.
• 0:44
  Speaker: We love seeing you every
• 0:45
  Speaker: Thursday night in Facebook and
• 0:46
  Speaker: YouTube.
• 0:46
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• 0:48
  Speaker: Can't get to all of them, but
• 0:49
  Speaker: your chats may show up in the
• 0:51
  Speaker: show.
• 0:52
  Speaker: And if you can't catch us live, catch us in the replay or in
• 0:55
  Speaker: your favorite podcast app.
• 0:57
  Speaker: You know me, John Ruark, past master of the Patriot Lodge,
• 1:00
  Speaker: number nineteen fifty seven.
• 1:02
  Speaker: In good old Fairfax, Virginia.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Let's go over to good old Jason Richards.
• 1:08
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:12
  Speaker: Hi. Hi, I'm Jason Richards.
• 1:16
  Speaker: Happy to be here.
• 1:18
  Speaker: Past master Vacation Lodge
• 1:19
  Speaker: number sixteen in Clifton,
• 1:21
  Speaker: Virginia.
• 1:23
  Speaker: Happy to have you here.
• 1:26
  Speaker: Next up for tonight, Joe Martinez.
• 1:30
  Speaker: Hi, Joe.
• 1:30
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:30
  Speaker: This is, uh, good old Joe Martinez.
• 1:33
  Speaker: Uh, coming to you live from somewhere?
• 1:35
  Speaker: My office.
• 1:36
  Speaker: And, uh, yeah, Joe Martinez,
• 1:38
  Speaker: past master of Manasseh Lodge
• 1:40
  Speaker: number one eighty two in
• 1:41
  Speaker: Manassas, Virginia.
• 1:42
  Speaker: And, uh, darn tootin to be here, buddy.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Hello, Courtney.
• 1:49
  Speaker: Always.
• 1:49
  Speaker: Hey, Courtney.
• 1:50
  Speaker: Jumping on us early, as usual.
• 1:54
  Speaker: Let's give a special shout out
• 1:55
  Speaker: to the patrons who support the
• 1:56
  Speaker: show.
• 1:56
  Speaker: You guys are amazing.
• 1:57
  Speaker: We thank you all very much, guys and gals.
• 2:00
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 2:01
  Speaker: I can't be taught.
• 2:03
  Speaker: If you want to support the show,
• 2:04
  Speaker: head over to patreon dot com
• 2:05
  Speaker: slash the Masonic Roundtable
• 2:08
  Speaker: man, because it's the cool thing
• 2:10
  Speaker: to do.
• 2:11
  Speaker: It is the cool thing.
• 2:12
  Speaker: And guess what, y'all?
• 2:13
  Speaker: You only have fourteen more years, so get on it.
• 2:17
  Speaker: Yep.
• 2:18
  Speaker: Yeah, but who's counting?
• 2:20
  Speaker: Nobody.
• 2:21
  Speaker: But who's counting?
• 2:23
  Speaker: All right.
• 2:23
  Speaker: You know what's also cool?
• 2:26
  Speaker: Esoteric con, right, Joe?
• 2:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 2:30
  Speaker: Uh, yeah, apparently, that's what they tell me.
• 2:32
  Speaker: Uh, esoteric con is, uh, is back June twentieth, twenty twenty
• 2:37
  Speaker: six in Northern Virginia.
• 2:39
  Speaker: Um, in person tickets are sold out.
• 2:42
  Speaker: They are gone.
• 2:43
  Speaker: So, um, whoever's coming, that's who's coming.
• 2:46
  Speaker: And, uh, but there are plenty of virtual tickets available.
• 2:50
  Speaker: Um, for those that have never,
• 2:51
  Speaker: uh, purchased a virtual ticket
• 2:53
  Speaker: before you get live access to
• 2:55
  Speaker: all of the presentations as
• 2:57
  Speaker: they're done, and then you get
• 2:58
  Speaker: access to them on a secret
• 3:00
  Speaker: YouTube channel for about a year
• 3:02
  Speaker: or until we feel like taking
• 3:03
  Speaker: them down.
• 3:03
  Speaker: Um, I think we still have previous years up there.
• 3:05
  Speaker: So if you got those previous
• 3:06
  Speaker: links, continue to enjoy and
• 3:08
  Speaker: watch.
• 3:09
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, so brew night is
• 3:12
  Speaker: the nineteenth at Sinistral
• 3:13
  Speaker: brewery.
• 3:14
  Speaker: So just a bunch of esoteric nerds hanging out at a brewery
• 3:18
  Speaker: for the evening and, uh, enjoying libations and, and
• 3:21
  Speaker: fellowship and all day conference and, and then a
• 3:24
  Speaker: secret surprise for Sunday, which we haven't revealed yet.
• 3:27
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker: Oh, and on the eighteenth, we're doing a live TMR show, so.
• 3:34
  Speaker: That's right.
• 3:34
  Speaker: Yeah, I forgot about that.
• 3:36
  Speaker: I gotta check my calendar.
• 3:37
  Speaker: But yes, I'll be there, as will I. Apparently you agreed.
• 3:41
  Speaker: You all agreed.
• 3:43
  Speaker: I'm not doing it solo.
• 3:46
  Speaker: I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
• 3:48
  Speaker: I know right, don't judge me.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Though.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:53
  Speaker: Google calendar to keep my stuff straight.
• 3:57
  Speaker: Okay, like full disclosure.
• 3:59
  Speaker: Do any of you sometimes, like, look at your calendar and like,
• 4:02
  Speaker: see the next week?
• 4:03
  Speaker: You're like, oh crap.
• 4:04
  Speaker: I agreed to like speak at this lodge like a year ago.
• 4:07
  Speaker: And like I forgot completely.
• 4:08
  Speaker: Literally every, every Monday
• 4:10
  Speaker: when I log in and look, I'm
• 4:11
  Speaker: like, crap, I scheduled that a
• 4:13
  Speaker: year ago.
• 4:13
  Speaker: It's here.
• 4:15
  Speaker: Um. All right.
• 4:15
  Speaker: Yeah, lots, lots of times I do, yes.
• 4:19
  Speaker: As long as you can pull it off.
• 4:20
  Speaker: That's all that matters.
• 4:22
  Speaker: Middle aged guys, middle age.
• 4:23
  Speaker: That's what happens.
• 4:24
  Speaker: Indeed.
• 4:25
  Speaker: Embrace it.
• 4:26
  Speaker: Well, the next thing that you
• 4:28
  Speaker: need to embrace is everyone's
• 4:31
  Speaker: favorite segment.
• 4:33
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 4:43
  Speaker: Boom boom.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 4:46
  Speaker: I'm doing tarot cards this week.
• 4:47
  Speaker: What do we got?
• 4:48
  Speaker: Here you are.
• 4:49
  Speaker: Do it.
• 4:49
  Speaker: We've got the boom!
• 4:51
  Speaker: Mystic Mondays tarot.
• 4:54
  Speaker: It's kind of art nouveau.
• 4:56
  Speaker: I don't know, it's colorful, a
• 4:58
  Speaker: little bit of Art Deco in it,
• 5:00
  Speaker: but it's art Nouveau is a little
• 5:03
  Speaker: bit more.
• 5:06
  Speaker: Technically, you have the
• 5:08
  Speaker: bootleg version that I bought on
• 5:10
  Speaker: accident.
• 5:11
  Speaker: All right, well, we're talking well, that that actually taints
• 5:17
  Speaker: the cards a little bit.
• 5:18
  Speaker: I don't know.
• 5:18
  Speaker: Let's see what it comes up with for tonight.
• 5:21
  Speaker: Talking about past master
• 5:23
  Speaker: syndrome, isn't that one of your
• 5:25
  Speaker: favorite decks?
• 5:26
  Speaker: Uh, we've got upright.
• 5:32
  Speaker: Oh, crap.
• 5:32
  Speaker: The nine of wands.
• 5:35
  Speaker: Ooh.
• 5:36
  Speaker: Okay, okay.
• 5:39
  Speaker: All right.
• 5:40
  Speaker: Not quite dead yet.
• 5:41
  Speaker: So. Nine of wands.
• 5:45
  Speaker: The heavy burden.
• 5:49
  Speaker: There.
• 5:49
  Speaker: Is that a dude or a lady.
• 5:51
  Speaker: It is a very long haired lady.
• 5:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker: Okay.
• 5:55
  Speaker: There's that red going down the side all the way down.
• 6:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:04
  Speaker: I mean, that's perfect.
• 6:05
  Speaker: That is like literal, you know?
• 6:07
  Speaker: Keep moving forward.
• 6:08
  Speaker: Even though you're exhausted and you want to lay down and die.
• 6:11
  Speaker: Yes.
• 6:11
  Speaker: It resonates a lot with me tonight.
• 6:14
  Speaker: Yes.
• 6:15
  Speaker: I feel that's true.
• 6:16
  Speaker: Yes.
• 6:17
  Speaker: As a past master, your burden should be light.
• 6:22
  Speaker: It's almost there.
• 6:23
  Speaker: It's almost complete.
• 6:24
  Speaker: Yep.
• 6:26
  Speaker: Yep.
• 6:27
  Speaker: Well, there you go.
• 6:29
  Speaker: Push forward.
• 6:31
  Speaker: Even in signs of heavy burdens.
• 6:35
  Speaker: Yep.
• 6:36
  Speaker: All right.
• 6:37
  Speaker: So let's talk about it, Jason.
• 6:39
  Speaker: I'm going to hand it over to you to introduce tonight's topic.
• 6:43
  Speaker: Okay.
• 6:44
  Speaker: You had the huge brain to pick tonight's topic.
• 6:49
  Speaker: So tonight's topic is.
• 6:54
  Speaker: Supposed to talk about I think somewhat the the process for
• 7:03
  Speaker: going from, you know, five to seven to eight or nine years of
• 7:13
  Speaker: one thing and then just in an afternoon being done.
• 7:22
  Speaker: And so the, you know, when you
• 7:25
  Speaker: get into line, especially if
• 7:27
  Speaker: there's a progressive line, you
• 7:30
  Speaker: spend years, literal years,
• 7:34
  Speaker: literal years learning how to
• 7:37
  Speaker: manage the lodge, and then your
• 7:39
  Speaker: year gets there and it's a ton
• 7:42
  Speaker: of work.
• 7:43
  Speaker: And then your successor is elected and installed.
• 7:47
  Speaker: And after the installation, you're unemployed.
• 7:52
  Speaker: Now what?
• 7:53
  Speaker: It's done.
• 7:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker: And I think for some, there's a natural like, grieving process
• 7:58
  Speaker: that happens with that.
• 8:00
  Speaker: Um, for others, like Joe, maybe not so much.
• 8:05
  Speaker: Um, Joe just hops on the merry
• 8:07
  Speaker: go round and like, gets back in
• 8:09
  Speaker: line again.
• 8:10
  Speaker: Well, see, here's the rub.
• 8:11
  Speaker: Right.
• 8:11
  Speaker: And and I know, I know we're going to make fun of it tonight
• 8:13
  Speaker: quite a bit but um.
• 8:15
  Speaker: Oh yes.
• 8:16
  Speaker: Yes we will.
• 8:16
  Speaker: But yeah it was um it was like there were gates on the merry go
• 8:20
  Speaker: round and it's like, oh it's time for me to get off.
• 8:22
  Speaker: And then the merry go round starts up again.
• 8:24
  Speaker: It's like shit, I'm here.
• 8:26
  Speaker: Um and then you get back on the horse.
• 8:27
  Speaker: But yeah, no. Um, I really like
• 8:31
  Speaker: how you said grieving period
• 8:32
  Speaker: because it didn't, it didn't hit
• 8:34
  Speaker: me and we'll talk about this
• 8:35
  Speaker: tonight.
• 8:35
  Speaker: It didn't hit me for for a
• 8:36
  Speaker: minute, but then it finally did
• 8:38
  Speaker: hit me.
• 8:38
  Speaker: And, uh, yeah, there was some,
• 8:40
  Speaker: some sadness, um, to it for me,
• 8:44
  Speaker: you know, since it was such a
• 8:45
  Speaker: long road.
• 8:45
  Speaker: But like I said, we'll get into it tonight.
• 8:47
  Speaker: Well, yeah, let's, I mean, let's, let's add to that.
• 8:50
  Speaker: So again, that build up becomes,
• 8:54
  Speaker: it really becomes the ultimate
• 8:56
  Speaker: conclusion of your Masonic
• 8:58
  Speaker: journey when you are taking an
• 8:59
  Speaker: officer position.
• 9:00
  Speaker: And the most important officer
• 9:04
  Speaker: in the entire lodge is the
• 9:05
  Speaker: Worshipful Master.
• 9:07
  Speaker: Right.
• 9:07
  Speaker: So you are spending sometimes up to a decade to get it ready for
• 9:11
  Speaker: this position, has the most authority, has the most
• 9:15
  Speaker: visibility into the operations of the lodge, and then
• 9:20
  Speaker: immediately afterwards you have zero responsibility, right?
• 9:25
  Speaker: So you have all of that taken away from you.
• 9:27
  Speaker: And yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker: And so it's not even a gradual, okay, we'll give you something.
• 9:31
  Speaker: And obviously some lodges, you
• 9:33
  Speaker: know, do some things to pass
• 9:35
  Speaker: masters, right.
• 9:36
  Speaker: Well, in the US this is a common theme.
• 9:39
  Speaker: Like you go elsewhere, you go to Europe, you go to South America,
• 9:42
  Speaker: you actually have a job after you get out of the East.
• 9:44
  Speaker: Um, right.
• 9:46
  Speaker: Which, which I find super interesting.
• 9:48
  Speaker: Um, and, and definitely different than the way we do
• 9:50
  Speaker: things, but, um.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:54
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 9:56
  Speaker: Well, let's pull, let's pull that, that grief angle then
• 9:58
  Speaker: because, and that's funny because those are the same notes
• 10:01
  Speaker: that I had was thinking about this because we use this term
• 10:07
  Speaker: like grief in the same way as if someone's died, right?
• 10:12
  Speaker: Because the five stages of grief
• 10:14
  Speaker: that people go through are with
• 10:17
  Speaker: any loss.
• 10:18
  Speaker: So it can be, um, the loss of a loved one, but it could also be
• 10:22
  Speaker: the loss of status.
• 10:23
  Speaker: It could be the loss of what you're familiar with.
• 10:27
  Speaker: It could just be change.
• 10:29
  Speaker: Right?
• 10:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:30
  Speaker: And so as a result, human beings naturally have this reaction
• 10:35
  Speaker: where we have to adjust.
• 10:38
  Speaker: And here's the worst part.
• 10:40
  Speaker: There's no set timeline in
• 10:42
  Speaker: general that, uh, you have, um,
• 10:46
  Speaker: you know, the five stages of
• 10:47
  Speaker: grief.
• 10:48
  Speaker: You have denial, anger,
• 10:49
  Speaker: bargaining, depression, and then
• 10:51
  Speaker: finally acceptance.
• 10:54
  Speaker: And the worst part is no one
• 10:55
  Speaker: tells you there is no timeline
• 10:56
  Speaker: for those.
• 10:57
  Speaker: You might be in one of those
• 10:58
  Speaker: stages for a long time, or you
• 11:00
  Speaker: might go through them all in a
• 11:01
  Speaker: weekend, you know, big, you
• 11:03
  Speaker: know, you can regress to that is
• 11:06
  Speaker: true.
• 11:07
  Speaker: That's true.
• 11:08
  Speaker: Um, I'm sure there's other other models, but that seems to be a
• 11:11
  Speaker: very common model.
• 11:12
  Speaker: I myself know when, when I lost one of my jobs way back in the
• 11:16
  Speaker: day, I, I could, I could feel myself going through those, um,
• 11:20
  Speaker: those different stages because yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's
• 11:24
  Speaker: amazing how the human, human, uh, emotions respond that way.
• 11:29
  Speaker: No, I would absolutely.
• 11:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 11:31
  Speaker: I think that's really poignant.
• 11:32
  Speaker: And maybe for some folks who
• 11:34
  Speaker: haven't put the time in or, or
• 11:37
  Speaker: have had the ability to put the
• 11:38
  Speaker: time in, it's really sounds
• 11:39
  Speaker: weird to say that, um, that you
• 11:41
  Speaker: need or you can have a grieving
• 11:43
  Speaker: period, but, um, I really like
• 11:45
  Speaker: your analogy.
• 11:46
  Speaker: The first time I was ever fired or rift from a job.
• 11:50
  Speaker: Like I've never, I had been fired from a job since I was
• 11:53
  Speaker: thirteen years old, you know what I mean?
• 11:54
  Speaker: And, and I'm in my late forties now.
• 11:57
  Speaker: Um, and it did happen a few years ago.
• 11:59
  Speaker: Um, I think denial for me was the longest part of it.
• 12:03
  Speaker: I was like, I've never been fired before in my entire life.
• 12:05
  Speaker: I'm like, I know this isn't real.
• 12:07
  Speaker: This can't be right.
• 12:08
  Speaker: And what's really weird, they made a mistake.
• 12:10
  Speaker: Probably, probably never talked about this, uh, on the, was it a
• 12:13
  Speaker: firing or a riff?
• 12:15
  Speaker: It was a riff.
• 12:16
  Speaker: Um, when I was brought into the
• 12:19
  Speaker: room with all the people that
• 12:22
  Speaker: were going to replace me and a
• 12:23
  Speaker: couple of HR folks that I had
• 12:24
  Speaker: never met before in my entire
• 12:26
  Speaker: life.
• 12:27
  Speaker: I thought it was a practical joke when like they're handing
• 12:30
  Speaker: me my, my agreement to sign and I'm like, this is a joke, right?
• 12:34
  Speaker: They're like, this is the greatest joke ever.
• 12:35
  Speaker: Is it April Fools Day?
• 12:36
  Speaker: Like all this stuff.
• 12:37
  Speaker: Like, so I, started at like zero point with denial.
• 12:42
  Speaker: And I even remember pulling out
• 12:43
  Speaker: of the, pulling out of the
• 12:44
  Speaker: parking garage and starting to
• 12:45
  Speaker: drive home.
• 12:46
  Speaker: I'm like, this didn't happen.
• 12:47
  Speaker: I'm like, no way.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Unbelievable.
• 12:50
  Speaker: But yeah, it really.
• 12:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:51
  Speaker: So denial for me was the, in that particular circumstance was
• 12:55
  Speaker: the longest one when I finally got out of the East.
• 12:57
  Speaker: Um, denial was probably the
• 12:59
  Speaker: shortest one, um, out of all
• 13:00
  Speaker: five.
• 13:01
  Speaker: So for sure.
• 13:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:03
  Speaker: And hopefully that's true
• 13:04
  Speaker: because hopefully you saw it
• 13:05
  Speaker: coming.
• 13:05
  Speaker: Right.
• 13:05
  Speaker: So you can't deny that.
• 13:08
  Speaker: Wait, did that just happen?
• 13:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:09
  Speaker: We've had elections bro.
• 13:10
  Speaker: Where were you you know?
• 13:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker: So hopefully the actual part of denial goes pretty quickly.
• 13:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Speaker: Very very true.
• 13:22
  Speaker: So did you have a similar have
• 13:23
  Speaker: you had a similar feeling,
• 13:25
  Speaker: Jason, for those five stages of
• 13:27
  Speaker: grief?
• 13:29
  Speaker: Either?
• 13:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker: I think inside of Lodge or in that capacity.
• 13:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker: I think there was a big transition for me.
• 13:38
  Speaker: Um, when I transitioned careers, um, John convinced me to leave
• 13:45
  Speaker: my employer of eight years.
• 13:49
  Speaker: Um, and it was, you know, it
• 13:54
  Speaker: was, it was stepping out of a
• 13:58
  Speaker: really, really big organization
• 14:00
  Speaker: and going to a little company of
• 14:03
  Speaker: twenty people.
• 14:05
  Speaker: Um, and that was kind of where I had, you know, made my identity.
• 14:13
  Speaker: Right.
• 14:14
  Speaker: And so all of a sudden, you know, in an afternoon like that
• 14:20
  Speaker: identity didn't fit anymore.
• 14:23
  Speaker: And so there was kind of this void where like, I was kind of
• 14:28
  Speaker: on the, the liminal threshold of not over to my, new identity as
• 14:37
  Speaker: a contractor yet.
• 14:40
  Speaker: And so there was, there was definitely a, a grieving process
• 14:46
  Speaker: associated with that transition.
• 14:51
  Speaker: Now, one thing that was interesting when we were
• 14:52
  Speaker: chatting ahead of time coming up with this topic is we all pretty
• 14:58
  Speaker: much had the same epiphany that we did have to manage.
• 15:02
  Speaker: Like, what do we do now?
• 15:05
  Speaker: What's next?
• 15:06
  Speaker: And we all had similar but
• 15:08
  Speaker: different responses, reactions
• 15:12
  Speaker: to this, this new status that we
• 15:14
  Speaker: were in.
• 15:15
  Speaker: And so I think tonight we'll,
• 15:16
  Speaker: we'll share some of those, those
• 15:19
  Speaker: stories and hopefully, you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker: shed some light on what people
• 15:24
  Speaker: can do to adjust to this new
• 15:27
  Speaker: status.
• 15:27
  Speaker: It's not better or worse.
• 15:29
  Speaker: It's just different.
• 15:30
  Speaker: Joe's like, I'm not gonna do shit.
• 15:32
  Speaker: And then he went and did all the shit.
• 15:34
  Speaker: I did all, all of it.
• 15:35
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was that was amazing for me because it
• 15:39
  Speaker: was completely unplanned.
• 15:40
  Speaker: Um, but, you know, I definitely want to talk about the, um,
• 15:44
  Speaker: going back to the five stages of grief because for me that can
• 15:48
  Speaker: kept getting kicked down the road, you know what I mean?
• 15:50
  Speaker: Like I was supposed to be, and I think I'm the most recent past
• 15:55
  Speaker: master out of all of us.
• 15:56
  Speaker: John's the oldest, right?
• 15:58
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 15:58
  Speaker: Yes.
• 15:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker: Okay.
• 16:00
  Speaker: So it's been the longest for you.
• 16:02
  Speaker: Um, yeah, I was supposed to be master in twenty twenty one.
• 16:07
  Speaker: Um, but then during twenty twenty we had Covid, so
• 16:10
  Speaker: everybody stayed in their seats for an extra year.
• 16:12
  Speaker: So I, I got bumped to twenty twenty two for the first time.
• 16:17
  Speaker: Um, so, you know, plans got thrown off and stuff like that.
• 16:20
  Speaker: But, and then I answer yes.
• 16:24
  Speaker: And then I thought, uh, that I'd be done, but then I ended up
• 16:27
  Speaker: serving for another year.
• 16:29
  Speaker: Um, and then I got a year off, uh, to, to do fun things.
• 16:35
  Speaker: Um, but I was at lodge every day
• 16:36
  Speaker: and then I ended up serving a
• 16:37
  Speaker: third year, so I didn't have my
• 16:39
  Speaker: exit moment until I was going to
• 16:41
  Speaker: say, did that stall that, that
• 16:42
  Speaker: separation?
• 16:43
  Speaker: Oh yeah.
• 16:43
  Speaker: I, I never felt like I left, uh, until that last time, you know?
• 16:48
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker: And, you know, I had found out
• 16:51
  Speaker: that I was going to the first
• 16:52
  Speaker: time after my first year, I
• 16:53
  Speaker: found out I was going to serve a
• 16:55
  Speaker: second term, you know, two or
• 16:56
  Speaker: three months before the end of
• 16:58
  Speaker: the year.
• 16:58
  Speaker: So it wasn't a shock.
• 17:00
  Speaker: Um, I was surprised the
• 17:03
  Speaker: following year after that, that
• 17:04
  Speaker: I was going to have to serve a
• 17:05
  Speaker: third term.
• 17:06
  Speaker: Um, it was for the best, but I was kind of jazzed.
• 17:10
  Speaker: Um, I was, I was super jazzed for it.
• 17:12
  Speaker: And you know, Jason, when you were talking about identity, um,
• 17:16
  Speaker: I'm going to be honest, my identity really coalesced about
• 17:20
  Speaker: around me being master of the lodge, you know what I mean?
• 17:23
  Speaker: That's how I always thought myself.
• 17:24
  Speaker: That's how people knew me.
• 17:25
  Speaker: And it's like, oh, you're the
• 17:26
  Speaker: dude who's posting photos on
• 17:28
  Speaker: Facebook every week and, you
• 17:29
  Speaker: know, sending me an email blast
• 17:31
  Speaker: two times a week and, and all
• 17:32
  Speaker: that stuff.
• 17:33
  Speaker: Um, it really, really coalesced
• 17:35
  Speaker: my identity for a good, good,
• 17:37
  Speaker: long time.
• 17:38
  Speaker: Um, so it was weird to, to break away from that and separate
• 17:43
  Speaker: myself from that.
• 17:44
  Speaker: Um, and I'm sure it was strange for the, the people that came
• 17:47
  Speaker: after me to, um, like, oh, Joe's not doing this anymore.
• 17:51
  Speaker: I have to do it now.
• 17:52
  Speaker: You know, so that was, oh,
• 17:53
  Speaker: you're the master of Joe's
• 17:54
  Speaker: Lodge.
• 17:56
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:57
  Speaker: I'm sure that that goes over
• 17:58
  Speaker: like a like a fly on poop, but,
• 18:01
  Speaker: um, you know, and it's frank
• 18:03
  Speaker: about it.
• 18:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:04
  Speaker: Right.
• 18:05
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, it was, um, it was a long time coming to, to
• 18:10
  Speaker: finally see that exit.
• 18:11
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, I still, I still missed it.
• 18:14
  Speaker: Um, pretty soon after it stopped.
• 18:17
  Speaker: Um, but to your point, John, I, I've been more busy this year
• 18:23
  Speaker: masonically than I probably have been my last few years.
• 18:26
  Speaker: You know, I've traveled so much
• 18:29
  Speaker: and I'm like, every other week
• 18:30
  Speaker: I'm speaking at a different
• 18:31
  Speaker: lodge.
• 18:32
  Speaker: I'm, you know, doing all these.
• 18:34
  Speaker: Let me interject between the lines.
• 18:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:38
  Speaker: That you are more busy doing the things you want to do.
• 18:45
  Speaker: Sure.
• 18:46
  Speaker: I'd say doing a different set of things.
• 18:48
  Speaker: Um, you know.
• 18:51
  Speaker: Okay.
• 18:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker: It was it being the only reason
• 18:55
  Speaker: I, the only reason I say that is
• 18:56
  Speaker: that.
• 18:56
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:57
  Speaker: Privately, you know, you would say there are some things that,
• 18:59
  Speaker: you know, you felt more obligated to do.
• 19:01
  Speaker: And even your third time around doing it, you were like, ah, you
• 19:05
  Speaker: know, I have to be gone this weekend to do this thing that,
• 19:08
  Speaker: uh, it's, it's an expectation.
• 19:10
  Speaker: It's, it's.
• 19:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:11
  Speaker: Something that has to be done out of obligation, not out of
• 19:16
  Speaker: desire, necessity and desire.
• 19:18
  Speaker: Right.
• 19:18
  Speaker: So. No one hundred, one hundred percent.
• 19:20
  Speaker: Um, definitely there, there
• 19:23
  Speaker: comes the flexibility that you
• 19:24
  Speaker: don't have to be at a certain
• 19:25
  Speaker: place at a certain time, or be
• 19:27
  Speaker: the first one there, or be the
• 19:28
  Speaker: one that who's opening the door
• 19:29
  Speaker: and making sure it gets locked
• 19:31
  Speaker: at night.
• 19:31
  Speaker: You know those.
• 19:32
  Speaker: That's great.
• 19:33
  Speaker: Um, you know, I still go to lodge practice when I can.
• 19:37
  Speaker: Now, would you say that you're
• 19:39
  Speaker: filling that space now with more
• 19:41
  Speaker: things you say because you're
• 19:43
  Speaker: now you're traveling around and
• 19:44
  Speaker: doing a lot more Masonic stuff
• 19:46
  Speaker: now.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Yeah, one hundred percent.
• 19:48
  Speaker: Um, one hundred like overfilling it, you know, because I think
• 19:51
  Speaker: and we were talking about this, um, before the show started, I
• 19:56
  Speaker: had people had, you know, sent me emails or filled out the
• 20:00
  Speaker: website and said, hey, come out and talk at this lodge or, hey,
• 20:02
  Speaker: why don't you come over here?
• 20:03
  Speaker: Or, hey, why don't you travel to here?
• 20:05
  Speaker: Years ago, six months ago, nine
• 20:07
  Speaker: months ago, twelve months ago,
• 20:08
  Speaker: you know.
• 20:08
  Speaker: So now all of these things are actually happening.
• 20:11
  Speaker: Now it's like, Holy crap, I really filled up my schedule.
• 20:13
  Speaker: Like, God forbid I was master again.
• 20:15
  Speaker: I, I would not be able to do this stuff, you know?
• 20:18
  Speaker: So, but yeah, I would definitely
• 20:20
  Speaker: say different, um, because I
• 20:23
  Speaker: really enjoy Masonic traveling,
• 20:24
  Speaker: and we've talked about it on the
• 20:26
  Speaker: show.
• 20:26
  Speaker: That is one of the gifts that just keep on giving when when
• 20:29
  Speaker: you're a mason, right?
• 20:30
  Speaker: Getting to travel and go to new
• 20:31
  Speaker: places and meeting new brothers
• 20:32
  Speaker: and having new experiences, like
• 20:34
  Speaker: if you're not traveling and
• 20:35
  Speaker: you're a mason, what are you
• 20:37
  Speaker: doing?
• 20:37
  Speaker: You know, like, what's the point?
• 20:39
  Speaker: You know, you're, you're, if you
• 20:41
  Speaker: don't travel, you're basically,
• 20:42
  Speaker: you know, a member of your local
• 20:44
  Speaker: Rotary Club and you're having
• 20:46
  Speaker: soggy green beans once a month
• 20:47
  Speaker: and you're talking to all the
• 20:48
  Speaker: same people.
• 20:48
  Speaker: Like the whole fun is getting to meet amazing brothers that
• 20:52
  Speaker: you've never met before and just having relationships with them.
• 20:56
  Speaker: Um, it's amazing.
• 20:57
  Speaker: So anyway, side note if you're not traveling, go travel.
• 21:00
  Speaker: Uh, and if you're master this
• 21:01
  Speaker: year, travel as soon as you're
• 21:03
  Speaker: done and travel to all the
• 21:04
  Speaker: places.
• 21:05
  Speaker: All right.
• 21:05
  Speaker: So that said, that said, I will
• 21:07
  Speaker: say I'm like, I'm saying yes
• 21:11
  Speaker: less and less to speaking
• 21:15
  Speaker: engagements.
• 21:16
  Speaker: It's kind of been a little bit
• 21:17
  Speaker: of a ramp down over the past
• 21:18
  Speaker: couple years.
• 21:19
  Speaker: Story time to Jason then.
• 21:21
  Speaker: So story time, what was your transition like?
• 21:25
  Speaker: Um, so my son was born three weeks into the start of my year
• 21:33
  Speaker: as master and.
• 21:38
  Speaker: For that year.
• 21:40
  Speaker: And, you know, a couple years after, um.
• 21:45
  Speaker: I prioritized masonry pretty high, you know, at the expense
• 21:51
  Speaker: of my family and like, had to, had to make amends for, for a
• 21:58
  Speaker: lot of that.
• 22:00
  Speaker: And so I think, you know, for me, you know, I did step away
• 22:06
  Speaker: from Acacia, but I found myself going to other places.
• 22:15
  Speaker: Um. You know, I just, it flashed up on my screen.
• 22:21
  Speaker: I think it was twenty eighteen where we went to Kentucky with,
• 22:28
  Speaker: with Brad Drew.
• 22:29
  Speaker: Um. And, uh, you know, I was
• 22:36
  Speaker: just filling up my schedule
• 22:38
  Speaker: traveling once, sometimes twice
• 22:41
  Speaker: a month.
• 22:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:43
  Speaker: And so I think I. You know, just kind of pivoted and changed, you
• 22:52
  Speaker: know, my, my three nights a week became, you know, three to four
• 23:00
  Speaker: nights kind of all squished together at the same time while
• 23:03
  Speaker: I was like off doing stuff.
• 23:07
  Speaker: It really, it took me a couple years, I think, to wind down and
• 23:14
  Speaker: realize I had my priorities out of sync and fix those.
• 23:25
  Speaker: Personally.
• 23:26
  Speaker: Personally, I'm not saying that for anybody else here.
• 23:29
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 23:31
  Speaker: And you're muted Joe.
• 23:35
  Speaker: Hope that was too.
• 23:36
  Speaker: Um.
• 23:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:37
  Speaker: No.
• 23:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker: I'm glad you said, uh,
• 23:40
  Speaker: personally, like for, for me,
• 23:42
  Speaker: um, I mean, you guys know my
• 23:45
  Speaker: family.
• 23:45
  Speaker: I was absolutely blessed, um, to
• 23:47
  Speaker: have so much support and
• 23:49
  Speaker: patience.
• 23:50
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker: Um, and assistance, um, from my family, you know, most
• 23:54
  Speaker: especially my wife.
• 23:55
  Speaker: Um, she was glad when it was over.
• 23:57
  Speaker: Um, but she still pokes and
• 23:59
  Speaker: prods nowadays, you know what I
• 24:01
  Speaker: mean?
• 24:01
  Speaker: She's like, oh, they didn't do that in your year.
• 24:03
  Speaker: I'm like, shut up woman.
• 24:05
  Speaker: Like, you know, I'm like, I don't even want to hear that.
• 24:07
  Speaker: Like, um, but, uh, but yeah, no,
• 24:10
  Speaker: it's, um, it is depending on how
• 24:14
  Speaker: busy your lodge is and how
• 24:15
  Speaker: active your lodge is and how
• 24:16
  Speaker: active you are in masonry while
• 24:19
  Speaker: you're going through those
• 24:20
  Speaker: chairs.
• 24:20
  Speaker: Um, it can be a huge time suck, you know, and we're all, we're
• 24:23
  Speaker: all grown ups in the real world.
• 24:25
  Speaker: We have jobs, we have families, we have other obligations.
• 24:27
  Speaker: Um, that will, will take a back
• 24:29
  Speaker: seat to it, you know, and it's
• 24:30
  Speaker: always, uh, every single person
• 24:33
  Speaker: on this podcast is a psychotic
• 24:35
  Speaker: overachiever.
• 24:36
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 24:37
  Speaker: So, um, when, when we do things, we go all out.
• 24:40
  Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:41
  Speaker: You know?
• 24:44
  Speaker: Well, I think in my case, right.
• 24:46
  Speaker: It's, uh, to that point, I
• 24:48
  Speaker: didn't realize until you and
• 24:50
  Speaker: yes, I was warned, but I still
• 24:52
  Speaker: didn't realize how much
• 24:54
  Speaker: responsibility the worshipful
• 24:55
  Speaker: master had, um, while I was
• 24:58
  Speaker: there.
• 24:58
  Speaker: And so all the little things
• 24:59
  Speaker: that got taken care of behind
• 25:00
  Speaker: the scenes, it wasn't even a
• 25:03
  Speaker: committee.
• 25:03
  Speaker: It was, oh, by the way, the
• 25:04
  Speaker: master just does these things
• 25:05
  Speaker: anyway.
• 25:06
  Speaker: And so yeah, it could be a full time job in itself.
• 25:09
  Speaker: And again, having your own
• 25:10
  Speaker: career and all that and your
• 25:11
  Speaker: family, that's, that's one
• 25:13
  Speaker: thing.
• 25:14
  Speaker: Um, so that became such a, you
• 25:19
  Speaker: know, every every night of the
• 25:20
  Speaker: week you're planning something,
• 25:21
  Speaker: right?
• 25:22
  Speaker: You're or you're trying to get
• 25:24
  Speaker: ready for the next thing,
• 25:24
  Speaker: getting ready for the next
• 25:25
  Speaker: meeting.
• 25:26
  Speaker: So I mean, literally, I, I do
• 25:28
  Speaker: remember to this day, just
• 25:29
  Speaker: during the year, you know, um,
• 25:33
  Speaker: come home from work, you know,
• 25:35
  Speaker: do dinners, hang out with the
• 25:36
  Speaker: family once the kids went to
• 25:38
  Speaker: bed, then I go through emails
• 25:39
  Speaker: for lodge and start, okay,
• 25:41
  Speaker: setting this up, coordinating
• 25:42
  Speaker: this, having this speaker come
• 25:44
  Speaker: in.
• 25:44
  Speaker: Oh, this bill was late.
• 25:46
  Speaker: Why did that get who?
• 25:47
  Speaker: Who can I pawn this off to?
• 25:49
  Speaker: And then, you know, I send send emails to go out to, hey,
• 25:54
  Speaker: junior, junior warden, why didn't you do this?
• 25:57
  Speaker: This needs to be taken care of.
• 25:58
  Speaker: And I wouldn't get his response until the following evening
• 26:03
  Speaker: because I'm back on that, that treadmill again of go to work,
• 26:07
  Speaker: do family time, and then and then do the stuff after the kids
• 26:10
  Speaker: go to bed.
• 26:10
  Speaker: So that was just the cycle every day.
• 26:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker: Um, and, and also like Jason, I had kid number two born six
• 26:21
  Speaker: weeks into my year in the East.
• 26:24
  Speaker: Um, and so again, brand new
• 26:26
  Speaker: responsibilities, lots of good
• 26:28
  Speaker: times.
• 26:28
  Speaker: Twenty thirteen was, was a roller coaster for sure.
• 26:32
  Speaker: And then when it was done, well, what did I do?
• 26:37
  Speaker: I missed the educational component.
• 26:41
  Speaker: I didn't have a job to do.
• 26:44
  Speaker: So I started a little podcast called the Masonic Roundtable
• 26:47
  Speaker: and said, hey, we'll do one and done won't be a big deal.
• 26:52
  Speaker: It'll just be fun to just get some guys together and talk
• 26:55
  Speaker: nerdy Masonic stuff.
• 26:57
  Speaker: And then here we are, twenty twenty six.
• 27:00
  Speaker: Uh, still doing this once a week, um, for five hundred and
• 27:05
  Speaker: fifty seven episodes.
• 27:06
  Speaker: But yeah, so I put my energy right into that, which was good
• 27:10
  Speaker: because, uh, well, my theme was Masonic education in my year.
• 27:15
  Speaker: I wanted to continue that.
• 27:17
  Speaker: And there's geez, there's so
• 27:18
  Speaker: much more I'm learning every
• 27:19
  Speaker: day.
• 27:21
  Speaker: But to that point, I still had two very little ones at home and
• 27:26
  Speaker: then had another one the next year in twenty fourteen.
• 27:28
  Speaker: So like, okay, one year after that, and then four more the
• 27:32
  Speaker: year after that.
• 27:33
  Speaker: And so yeah, I had a litter.
• 27:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:35
  Speaker: Well, that took, that took obviously a lot more time.
• 27:40
  Speaker: Um, and so I really detached a
• 27:44
  Speaker: lot faster than I wanted to and
• 27:48
  Speaker: for quite, you know, quite a
• 27:50
  Speaker: period of time, you know, the
• 27:52
  Speaker: Masonic roundtable and a few
• 27:53
  Speaker: other things.
• 27:54
  Speaker: You know, if I'd, I'd go to a lodge if I was invited to speak.
• 27:57
  Speaker: But otherwise, you know, TMR was a big way.
• 28:01
  Speaker: I sunk suck my energy into, um, that, that part of the
• 28:05
  Speaker: fraternity and, and like Jason, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm being
• 28:10
  Speaker: selective, unfortunately, because I'd love to do
• 28:12
  Speaker: everything, wouldn't we?
• 28:13
  Speaker: All right.
• 28:14
  Speaker: We're all.
• 28:14
  Speaker: We're all type A people.
• 28:16
  Speaker: I'd love to do it all.
• 28:17
  Speaker: And life comes at a balance.
• 28:19
  Speaker: So, um, but I, I agree that the, I was unprepared for the sudden
• 28:28
  Speaker: brakes that were put on like, well, now, now what do I do?
• 28:32
  Speaker: Right?
• 28:32
  Speaker: I can go to lodge, but I'm just on the sidelines now.
• 28:34
  Speaker: And it's a different, it's a
• 28:36
  Speaker: different vibe or outside the
• 28:38
  Speaker: door.
• 28:39
  Speaker: Right.
• 28:40
  Speaker: Which because of Jason, I could not even do.
• 28:44
  Speaker: So thanks, Jason.
• 28:45
  Speaker: But no, it's it's really interesting you said that like,
• 28:48
  Speaker: uh, going back to I, I've been to practice quite a bit this
• 28:51
  Speaker: year, you know, ritual practice, which we have weekly.
• 28:53
  Speaker: Um, and it's weird being the
• 28:55
  Speaker: fill in guy, you know, it's,
• 28:57
  Speaker: it's like, oh, we're missing
• 28:58
  Speaker: this spot.
• 28:59
  Speaker: Joe, can you fill in?
• 28:59
  Speaker: It's like, oh, which I want to add, you're happy to do.
• 29:04
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:05
  Speaker: You're happy to fill in, you're happy to, to just be there.
• 29:08
  Speaker: You're happy for.
• 29:09
  Speaker: Still grumble about it?
• 29:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker: Every every worshipful is not
• 29:13
  Speaker: going to do it as good as you
• 29:14
  Speaker: did.
• 29:14
  Speaker: However, you're still happy that they're in the seat.
• 29:16
  Speaker: You're happy for them?
• 29:18
  Speaker: Sure.
• 29:19
  Speaker: So it's a different feeling this this transition.
• 29:22
  Speaker: What happens?
• 29:23
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:23
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:24
  Speaker: Now going back I'm going to ask you guys the same question.
• 29:30
  Speaker: What would you have done
• 29:31
  Speaker: differently knowing what you
• 29:32
  Speaker: know now.
• 29:34
  Speaker: Done with what?
• 29:35
  Speaker: Uh, how you transitioned from being master to a past master.
• 29:41
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:41
  Speaker: Would you have done anything differently?
• 29:43
  Speaker: And if so, how?
• 29:49
  Speaker: Well, let me go first, because
• 29:50
  Speaker: again, I'm only in month five of
• 29:52
  Speaker: my exit.
• 29:53
  Speaker: Um, you know, as opposed to
• 29:54
  Speaker: Jason, who's had quite a few
• 29:55
  Speaker: years.
• 29:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:56
  Speaker: Um. I don't think I would have done anything different.
• 30:01
  Speaker: I, I, I told myself as soon as I
• 30:03
  Speaker: got out of the hot seat, um,
• 30:06
  Speaker: then I need to be visibly less
• 30:09
  Speaker: important.
• 30:10
  Speaker: Um, like I'm not showing up
• 30:12
  Speaker: super early anymore and I'm
• 30:13
  Speaker: purposefully not, um, doing
• 30:17
  Speaker: things that give the aura of
• 30:19
  Speaker: responsibility, you know, and
• 30:20
  Speaker: that sounds super terrible to
• 30:21
  Speaker: say, but there are other people
• 30:23
  Speaker: there now who's, who are
• 30:25
  Speaker: responsible for things and are
• 30:27
  Speaker: to be held accountable for
• 30:28
  Speaker: things.
• 30:28
  Speaker: And I don't ever want them to miss out because my over zeal is
• 30:34
  Speaker: getting in their way.
• 30:35
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 30:36
  Speaker: So I've purposefully tried to stay out of the way as much as
• 30:39
  Speaker: humanly possible when it comes to stated meetings or degrees
• 30:44
  Speaker: and things like that.
• 30:45
  Speaker: Um, I will absolutely sit in a corner and if somebody has a
• 30:48
  Speaker: question like, hey, how would you do this?
• 30:49
  Speaker: Or, hey, I need help with this.
• 30:50
  Speaker: I'm there in a heartbeat.
• 30:51
  Speaker: But I've intentionally tried to stay out of the, the operational
• 30:57
  Speaker: side of things, even though I know I can help them.
• 31:00
  Speaker: Um, because I want them to have the authority to do things
• 31:04
  Speaker: without someone like me skulking around, you know what I mean?
• 31:07
  Speaker: So it's and it's been intentional.
• 31:09
  Speaker: It's like, I'll sit there and I'm like, looking at my watch.
• 31:12
  Speaker: I'm like, crap, I should be at lodge ready?
• 31:13
  Speaker: And then I look again and it's like, no, I'm going to get there
• 31:15
  Speaker: right before practice starts so that I'm not getting in people's
• 31:18
  Speaker: Kool-Aid, you know?
• 31:20
  Speaker: So it's been, it's been so I wouldn't do anything different
• 31:23
  Speaker: because maybe it, it some of the brothers at my lodge probably
• 31:27
  Speaker: feel that I'm being standoffish or I'm being I'm trying to
• 31:31
  Speaker: separate myself from them, but I'm really just giving them room
• 31:34
  Speaker: so that they can do their thing.
• 31:36
  Speaker: And, and, you know, in whatever
• 31:37
  Speaker: way they want without the, the
• 31:39
  Speaker: stigma of like, oh, Joe's here,
• 31:41
  Speaker: so let's do Joe's way or Joe's
• 31:43
  Speaker: going to have a problem with
• 31:44
  Speaker: this.
• 31:44
  Speaker: Like you shouldn't care what Joe thinks.
• 31:46
  Speaker: Joe's gone, Joe's not the master anymore.
• 31:49
  Speaker: Go forth and conquer.
• 31:50
  Speaker: You know, I mean, we rarely care
• 31:52
  Speaker: what you think and that's and
• 31:53
  Speaker: that's fine.
• 31:55
  Speaker: Um, I think what I heard you say
• 31:58
  Speaker: too, is that you're you set
• 32:02
  Speaker: boundaries, right?
• 32:04
  Speaker: That you said, hey, that I, I know that I don't need to do
• 32:08
  Speaker: these certain things anymore and I can adjust my boundary of when
• 32:12
  Speaker: I need to be there, how I can contribute, contribute, um,
• 32:16
  Speaker: rather than trying to proactively deal with some
• 32:19
  Speaker: things, you know, that you can be there kind of more on call
• 32:23
  Speaker: that that sounds kind of, um, egalitarian and it's really not
• 32:29
  Speaker: it, it really what it really came from the standpoint.
• 32:32
  Speaker: It's like, I never want to be that guy that's like, sure,
• 32:35
  Speaker: Joe's here again and Joe's telling me how to do something
• 32:38
  Speaker: or Joe's critiquing this.
• 32:39
  Speaker: I never want to be that guy, you know what I mean?
• 32:41
  Speaker: So I think I right, I purposefully stand away from
• 32:44
  Speaker: things so that I never, I never get that you, you move the
• 32:46
  Speaker: goalpost, you move the boundary.
• 32:48
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 32:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:51
  Speaker: Jason, what would you have done differently if anything?
• 32:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:55
  Speaker: Jason.
• 32:59
  Speaker: Um, and how.
• 33:06
  Speaker: Is a long time ago.
• 33:10
  Speaker: You have done anything different?
• 33:23
  Speaker: Well, I think I would have given myself more of a break.
• 33:28
  Speaker: Like, I think I jumped into too many other things too quickly.
• 33:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:38
  Speaker: Especially with all the speaking engagements and stuff that I
• 33:41
  Speaker: know you said, and I remember doing the circuit with, with you
• 33:45
  Speaker: on quite a few of them.
• 33:46
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:48
  Speaker: Um, as for me, um, I probably detached a little too fast and
• 33:56
  Speaker: it was not out of me getting rid of the lodge or being happy to
• 34:00
  Speaker: get away from the lodge.
• 34:01
  Speaker: It was just the family work commitment to like.
• 34:04
  Speaker: Like, okay, I've got to get back to that.
• 34:06
  Speaker: I had to swing the pendulum too far the other way and detached
• 34:11
  Speaker: from the lodge.
• 34:11
  Speaker: Probably a little too fast.
• 34:13
  Speaker: Um, explicitly because the Patriot Lodge, as you might
• 34:18
  Speaker: remember, is an academic lodge and we meet at George Mason
• 34:23
  Speaker: University and we have students that come through and then those
• 34:28
  Speaker: students graduate and move away.
• 34:30
  Speaker: So, um, we need out of
• 34:33
  Speaker: necessity, a cadre of past
• 34:35
  Speaker: masters to keep the officer line
• 34:38
  Speaker: filled.
• 34:38
  Speaker: And those past masters will have
• 34:40
  Speaker: to go through a couple more
• 34:41
  Speaker: times.
• 34:42
  Speaker: I wish I had at least been more available to help fill in some
• 34:46
  Speaker: of those seats, because there is some seat juggling that.
• 34:49
  Speaker: That has to happen.
• 34:50
  Speaker: Because even if you train up a good brother, once they
• 34:54
  Speaker: graduate, they're out of there.
• 34:56
  Speaker: Um, so that is one thing that, uh, I wish I had more um
• 35:00
  Speaker: availability to keep the the officer line steady and healthy.
• 35:04
  Speaker: The good news is they are steady and healthy today still.
• 35:08
  Speaker: So that's a, that's a good thing.
• 35:10
  Speaker: Uh, so they survive without me.
• 35:12
  Speaker: Um, but they survived in spite of you.
• 35:14
  Speaker: In spite of me.
• 35:16
  Speaker: Right.
• 35:17
  Speaker: All right, we'll show Ruark that jerk bag.
• 35:20
  Speaker: Um, and so even if I couldn't be there in person, another thing I
• 35:26
  Speaker: could have probably done differently to keep my my
• 35:29
  Speaker: Masonic chops in order and to to do what I love to do, which is
• 35:32
  Speaker: talk about masonry and share, share what I've learned.
• 35:35
  Speaker: I could be mentoring new brothers even remotely, right?
• 35:39
  Speaker: I could still pick up a phone and call these guys.
• 35:41
  Speaker: So, um, so again, to, to use that analogy, I probably move
• 35:46
  Speaker: the boundary a little too far, uh, close to home.
• 35:50
  Speaker: And then there are some things that I probably, if I had been
• 35:53
  Speaker: creative enough, had some wiggle room of how to, um, still, still
• 35:59
  Speaker: keep engaged without just cutting off everything.
• 36:02
  Speaker: Which again, I'm not saying I cut everything off.
• 36:04
  Speaker: It's just that, uh, definitely more dramatic than probably, um,
• 36:08
  Speaker: Joe and Jason, for sure.
• 36:11
  Speaker: Yep.
• 36:15
  Speaker: But you started this awesome podcast and here we are.
• 36:18
  Speaker: And here we are for two more years.
• 36:21
  Speaker: Yeah, but who's counting?
• 36:23
  Speaker: We're going to get there.
• 36:24
  Speaker: We're going to get there one day.
• 36:26
  Speaker: All right.
• 36:27
  Speaker: So the next question is, um, what should we do?
• 36:33
  Speaker: What should we do with our past masters?
• 36:35
  Speaker: What are some ideas to say?
• 36:37
  Speaker: You know what, how do we give past masters a space to land?
• 36:43
  Speaker: What are some best practices from across the pond?
• 36:47
  Speaker: What are some things that we could do to make make those past
• 36:52
  Speaker: masters feel more valuable?
• 36:54
  Speaker: Um, to contribute without being in the way of, of the authority
• 36:59
  Speaker: that's given to the worshipful master and, and otherwise
• 37:02
  Speaker: support the lodge.
• 37:03
  Speaker: So this is the brainstorming part of the show.
• 37:06
  Speaker: Joe.
• 37:07
  Speaker: So is it, where is it?
• 37:09
  Speaker: Where did Jason go?
• 37:10
  Speaker: Where did Jason go?
• 37:13
  Speaker: I'm here.
• 37:14
  Speaker: Okay.
• 37:16
  Speaker: I would say it's it's rather, I think, presumptuous of us.
• 37:22
  Speaker: Not that that stopped us before
• 37:25
  Speaker: to, you know, be thinking about
• 37:29
  Speaker: necessarily, you know, ways past
• 37:32
  Speaker: masters can contribute, you
• 37:34
  Speaker: know, given that that that past
• 37:37
  Speaker: master may, you know, not want
• 37:40
  Speaker: to sure.
• 37:43
  Speaker: That is true, but again, hasn't stopped us before.
• 37:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker: Give them the option.
• 37:50
  Speaker: I'll put it that way.
• 37:51
  Speaker: Sure.
• 37:54
  Speaker: Yeah, I kind of like what, um,
• 37:58
  Speaker: on my first trip and then I know
• 37:59
  Speaker: some other jurisdictions do
• 38:00
  Speaker: this, but, uh, first time I, I
• 38:02
  Speaker: went to lodge in, in England,
• 38:06
  Speaker: um, was the first time I had
• 38:08
  Speaker: seen the immediate past master
• 38:10
  Speaker: position.
• 38:11
  Speaker: So that's actually an officer role in other jurisdictions,
• 38:15
  Speaker: like the United Grand Lodge of England, um, where the immediate
• 38:19
  Speaker: past master actually has a job during the meeting.
• 38:23
  Speaker: Like he, he doesn't sit up in the east.
• 38:24
  Speaker: He sits kind of close to it.
• 38:25
  Speaker: Like if I recall correctly, he sits like where our chaplain
• 38:30
  Speaker: does kind of thing, like not up in the dais, but kind of up in
• 38:33
  Speaker: the front a little bit.
• 38:34
  Speaker: And, uh, you know, he's there for guidance.
• 38:38
  Speaker: He's there for oversight, he's there to correct boo boos and
• 38:40
  Speaker: things like that.
• 38:41
  Speaker: But it is a, it's a full time gig.
• 38:43
  Speaker: It's not just you get the Crustiest pass master out of the
• 38:45
  Speaker: sidelines and you throw them up there, and then they just
• 38:47
  Speaker: complain for an hour and a half.
• 38:49
  Speaker: Um, it's an actual officer position.
• 38:52
  Speaker: Um, that's kind of neat.
• 38:54
  Speaker: I think you, you know, you circumvent that whole, you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker: one and done thing where some past masters and every single
• 39:02
  Speaker: one of our lodges have them.
• 39:03
  Speaker: Like the day installation happened.
• 39:05
  Speaker: You never saw that guy again.
• 39:06
  Speaker: He's gone.
• 39:07
  Speaker: Um, he shows up maybe ten years later to get his, you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker: award or pin for being in masonry for a while.
• 39:14
  Speaker: But, um, yeah, I think that's
• 39:16
  Speaker: kind of neat that they give the,
• 39:17
  Speaker: the last or immediate past
• 39:19
  Speaker: master a job to do that
• 39:20
  Speaker: subsequent year and help make
• 39:22
  Speaker: that transition.
• 39:23
  Speaker: Um, that's kind of cool.
• 39:27
  Speaker: Yeah, I'll add to that too.
• 39:28
  Speaker: The first thing that comes to
• 39:29
  Speaker: mind is because there's so much
• 39:32
  Speaker: experience that you go through
• 39:34
  Speaker: that trial by fire of being
• 39:36
  Speaker: master, even if it's your first
• 39:37
  Speaker: time around.
• 39:38
  Speaker: If I, if I were an organization
• 39:40
  Speaker: like a corp, a corporation, I
• 39:42
  Speaker: wouldn't want to lose that
• 39:43
  Speaker: experience that we've invested
• 39:45
  Speaker: in, right, for seven years to
• 39:47
  Speaker: have them.
• 39:47
  Speaker: Okay, I gotta go deal with my family.
• 39:49
  Speaker: So see you, you know, at the next installation, right?
• 39:53
  Speaker: You want to make sure that the domain knowledge is captured, is
• 39:58
  Speaker: there is present.
• 39:59
  Speaker: It's willing to help again, all without stepping on toes, all
• 40:03
  Speaker: without being the, the crusty pass master who just shakes his
• 40:07
  Speaker: fist at everything.
• 40:08
  Speaker: But again, there's so much that
• 40:12
  Speaker: could be done to keep the
• 40:14
  Speaker: sustainability of the lodge
• 40:16
  Speaker: there.
• 40:16
  Speaker: We've talked about lodge strategy.
• 40:18
  Speaker: We've talked about five ten year plans for lodges.
• 40:21
  Speaker: Right.
• 40:22
  Speaker: So just by just having a guy get
• 40:24
  Speaker: up and leave or not having
• 40:25
  Speaker: something for him to do to help
• 40:27
  Speaker: sustain the long strategic plan
• 40:31
  Speaker: of the lodge, that's, um, it's a
• 40:34
  Speaker: missed opportunity.
• 40:35
  Speaker: I'll put that for sure to say
• 40:37
  Speaker: that, uh, yeah, we, we should
• 40:39
  Speaker: not over estimate past masters
• 40:43
  Speaker: capabilities, but we should also
• 40:44
  Speaker: have them as a resource, um, for
• 40:47
  Speaker: guidance, for help, for reach
• 40:48
  Speaker: back.
• 40:48
  Speaker: For memory.
• 40:50
  Speaker: The corporate memory of the lodge.
• 40:51
  Speaker: Right.
• 40:52
  Speaker: Hey, what what did we do five years ago?
• 40:54
  Speaker: You know, didn't we have some
• 40:55
  Speaker: sort of event that was a
• 40:56
  Speaker: smashing success?
• 40:57
  Speaker: And why haven't we done that in a while?
• 40:59
  Speaker: What do we do differently?
• 41:00
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:00
  Speaker: All those things.
• 41:01
  Speaker: You can't just, you know, go back and hit the rewind button.
• 41:04
  Speaker: Sometimes you need that person there to say, oh yeah, this is
• 41:09
  Speaker: what we did during the year.
• 41:10
  Speaker: Here are things to avoid.
• 41:11
  Speaker: Here's some things to try, right?
• 41:13
  Speaker: Um, just to make sure that the worshipful master has a safety
• 41:17
  Speaker: cushion, right to fall back on.
• 41:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:20
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:21
  Speaker: No, I, I think, well, there, there's two needs that, that two
• 41:24
  Speaker: needs that need to be addressed in your statement.
• 41:27
  Speaker: There's one is how do we keep those past masters engaged?
• 41:31
  Speaker: Number one, right to the point where actually you want them to
• 41:35
  Speaker: feel like they are needed and wanted in lodge, right?
• 41:39
  Speaker: And not just taking up a sideline chair.
• 41:41
  Speaker: Um, you know, that that IPM position could be one.
• 41:44
  Speaker: Um, if your ritual doesn't allow that.
• 41:46
  Speaker: That's cool.
• 41:47
  Speaker: Um, but, you know, giving them a job to do, um, and making them
• 41:51
  Speaker: feel like they're still needed.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Um, the other side of that coin is, and I think we, we talked
• 41:57
  Speaker: about this offline one day is this whole idea of my year.
• 42:03
  Speaker: Um, it's my year, it's my year, you know, my year.
• 42:05
  Speaker: We did this back in my year, we did that kind of thing.
• 42:08
  Speaker: Um, and that's usually less,
• 42:11
  Speaker: less successful than lodges who
• 42:13
  Speaker: actually have a long term plan
• 42:16
  Speaker: that supersedes any one
• 42:18
  Speaker: individual person.
• 42:19
  Speaker: So like the plan will continue if John Ruark is not around or
• 42:22
  Speaker: the plan still goes forward if Joe Martinez isn't around.
• 42:25
  Speaker: So, um, I mean, for me, I, I was
• 42:28
  Speaker: really lucky I came into the
• 42:29
  Speaker: lodge at a time where the guys
• 42:32
  Speaker: that were in line all wanted and
• 42:35
  Speaker: talked about doing the same
• 42:36
  Speaker: sorts of things, you know, like,
• 42:38
  Speaker: hey, we wanted more education
• 42:39
  Speaker: and we wanted masonry to be more
• 42:41
  Speaker: serious.
• 42:41
  Speaker: And we wanted the joking to stop
• 42:43
  Speaker: and the who hying and the candy
• 42:45
  Speaker: wrapper, crinkling, you know, on
• 42:47
  Speaker: the sidelines to stop and us to
• 42:50
  Speaker: be more welcome and opening kind
• 42:51
  Speaker: of thing.
• 42:52
  Speaker: So, you know, the the five guys ahead of me, um, all, we all had
• 42:59
  Speaker: the same strategic plan, I guess you could call it, right?
• 43:02
  Speaker: It's like, we're going to do this and we're going to do that.
• 43:04
  Speaker: And we didn't wait for one single year to drop all these
• 43:07
  Speaker: changes into the lodge.
• 43:08
  Speaker: Like we slowly crept them in there.
• 43:10
  Speaker: So we couldn't identify all
• 43:12
  Speaker: these things with one single
• 43:13
  Speaker: person.
• 43:14
  Speaker: Oh, this was Phil's idea, or this was Clancy's idea, or this
• 43:17
  Speaker: was Joe's idea.
• 43:17
  Speaker: Like we did it together.
• 43:19
  Speaker: So I think for those five or six years, uh, because some of us
• 43:22
  Speaker: had to wait around an extra year that was super successful
• 43:25
  Speaker: because it didn't rely on one person putting the work in or
• 43:29
  Speaker: taking the blame for it either.
• 43:30
  Speaker: Right?
• 43:30
  Speaker: We did it as a group.
• 43:32
  Speaker: Um, so, you know, having a strategic plan with the guys
• 43:36
  Speaker: ahead of you and behind you, um, you know, that can save you a
• 43:39
  Speaker: lot of strife and pain and also all the way back to your point.
• 43:44
  Speaker: keep those, uh, those past masters engaged.
• 43:47
  Speaker: It's like, yeah, I was part of this plan.
• 43:49
  Speaker: This is the plan we're doing.
• 43:50
  Speaker: I can help you succeed in this plan, you know, and it's kind of
• 43:54
  Speaker: organic and you don't need to force people into positions or
• 43:56
  Speaker: force them to, to do anything extra because they have they
• 44:00
  Speaker: have investment in the process.
• 44:02
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker: Indeed, indeed.
• 44:10
  Speaker: Indubitably.
• 44:13
  Speaker: All right.
• 44:13
  Speaker: I have another kind of out of the box question, so bear with
• 44:18
  Speaker: me on this one.
• 44:18
  Speaker: All right.
• 44:19
  Speaker: So imagine that as the past master is leaving the East for
• 44:28
  Speaker: the first time, he gets handed a kit, kind of like a fruit basket
• 44:36
  Speaker: or something like that.
• 44:37
  Speaker: Or a little, little backpack with different things in there.
• 44:41
  Speaker: What types of items would you
• 44:43
  Speaker: include in this kit to help the
• 44:46
  Speaker: past master ease into this
• 44:48
  Speaker: transition?
• 44:51
  Speaker: A support kit as it were.
• 44:54
  Speaker: It could be fun.
• 44:54
  Speaker: It could be serious.
• 44:56
  Speaker: It could be, you know, something tangible.
• 44:58
  Speaker: It could be something intangible.
• 45:01
  Speaker: What would you put in the
• 45:02
  Speaker: support kit for immediate past
• 45:04
  Speaker: masters?
• 45:07
  Speaker: Wow.
• 45:07
  Speaker: That's a good question.
• 45:10
  Speaker: That's what I do.
• 45:10
  Speaker: It's what I do for my living.
• 45:11
  Speaker: Yeah, man.
• 45:12
  Speaker: So glad you didn't prep us with that one.
• 45:16
  Speaker: Because the answers off the top of your head are the best ones.
• 45:20
  Speaker: Well, now I'm going to be staring at Tom's.
• 45:22
  Speaker: That's some Tom's.
• 45:23
  Speaker: Yes.
• 45:23
  Speaker: There you go.
• 45:24
  Speaker: Gaviscon.
• 45:27
  Speaker: For all the bleeding ulcers that you have.
• 45:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:30
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:30
  Speaker: Some Prilosec.
• 45:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker: For sure.
• 45:37
  Speaker: I'll tell you one thing comes to mind, right.
• 45:39
  Speaker: Would be, uh, some sort of like
• 45:41
  Speaker: some of these like, um,
• 45:44
  Speaker: pamphlets about like, well, what
• 45:45
  Speaker: do you want your next career to
• 45:47
  Speaker: be?
• 45:47
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:47
  Speaker: Or what do you want to do in retirement?
• 45:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:50
  Speaker: All these little, like self-help things I think would be fun to
• 45:53
  Speaker: add in, whether they be real or serious or joking.
• 45:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:57
  Speaker: To say, yeah, if we're going to be fun, then I would definitely
• 46:01
  Speaker: put in the, in the kit.
• 46:02
  Speaker: I would put like a, a shrine petition and, you know, a
• 46:07
  Speaker: Scottish Rite petition.
• 46:08
  Speaker: All the petitions, just stuff it, stuff it full.
• 46:11
  Speaker: Tie a bow around it.
• 46:12
  Speaker: Yeah, here's all the go join
• 46:13
  Speaker: something else and get out of my
• 46:14
  Speaker: face.
• 46:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:16
  Speaker: See, that's not a bad idea, actually.
• 46:20
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:20
  Speaker: Oh, you were waiting till you got out of the East to do that.
• 46:22
  Speaker: Great.
• 46:23
  Speaker: Go do that.
• 46:23
  Speaker: There you go.
• 46:24
  Speaker: Here's your invitation.
• 46:25
  Speaker: Goodbye.
• 46:26
  Speaker: Yes.
• 46:27
  Speaker: What do.
• 46:27
  Speaker: What do you think, Jason?
• 46:28
  Speaker: Anything else?
• 46:28
  Speaker: You didn't.
• 46:28
  Speaker: You didn't include.
• 46:33
  Speaker: Um, I would.
• 46:38
  Speaker: I would probably include a, uh.
• 46:44
  Speaker: A list of possible hobbies.
• 46:47
  Speaker: There you go.
• 46:49
  Speaker: With all this free time.
• 46:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:52
  Speaker: Why don't you get into Masonic stamp collecting?
• 46:57
  Speaker: Love it.
• 46:59
  Speaker: I love it.
• 47:04
  Speaker: Maybe some books, like go read a book.
• 47:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker: Some Masonic Masonic books or.
• 47:09
  Speaker: Or non Masonic books.
• 47:11
  Speaker: No, I would definitely go with, like, morals and dogma.
• 47:14
  Speaker: It's like, hey, read this.
• 47:16
  Speaker: I'll see you back in thirteen months.
• 47:18
  Speaker: Yeah, they'll be a report at the end.
• 47:20
  Speaker: The Unannotated version.
• 47:23
  Speaker: There you go.
• 47:24
  Speaker: Invisible.
• 47:25
  Speaker: Nobody says invisible.
• 47:26
  Speaker: How about.
• 47:26
  Speaker: How about a vacation?
• 47:28
  Speaker: So that's what I got.
• 47:29
  Speaker: Um, that was, uh.
• 47:31
  Speaker: So, uh, the brothers at my lodge got together, and they got us a
• 47:34
  Speaker: a weekend gift certificate to Great Wolf Lodge.
• 47:37
  Speaker: Um, they're like, oh, here's
• 47:39
  Speaker: yeah, a two day gift
• 47:41
  Speaker: certificate.
• 47:41
  Speaker: It's like, go take the family.
• 47:42
  Speaker: Get the hell out of here.
• 47:43
  Speaker: Go have a good time.
• 47:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:44
  Speaker: Um, that was actually kind of neat.
• 47:45
  Speaker: So yeah, for sure.
• 47:46
  Speaker: Maybe something like that.
• 47:48
  Speaker: Or if you're Joe, you also get a can of personalized green beans
• 47:54
  Speaker: and, uh, yeah, yeah.
• 47:56
  Speaker: Del Martinez I don't have a mute button for that.
• 47:59
  Speaker: Del Monte.
• 48:01
  Speaker: You know, speaking of funny green beans, we're still finding
• 48:05
  Speaker: cans of, I think, who was it, Alex, who did that?
• 48:10
  Speaker: I don't remember, it was Alex Powers historical light podcast.
• 48:15
  Speaker: Lovely.
• 48:15
  Speaker: Mason out of Kansas, um, who hid an entire case of green beans.
• 48:22
  Speaker: Were you laughing for you were there, you jackass, I forgot, I
• 48:25
  Speaker: forgot about that.
• 48:27
  Speaker: Yeah, it was an entire case of
• 48:29
  Speaker: green beans in a whole bunch of
• 48:31
  Speaker: different places all around the
• 48:32
  Speaker: lodge.
• 48:33
  Speaker: I am still not proud to admit we've not found them all.
• 48:37
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 48:38
  Speaker: But they will show up in the
• 48:39
  Speaker: weirdest places bookshelves,
• 48:42
  Speaker: closets, drawers.
• 48:44
  Speaker: Um.
• 48:44
  Speaker: Yep.
• 48:45
  Speaker: An entire case of green beans is still there in that lodge.
• 48:50
  Speaker: Nice.
• 48:51
  Speaker: So I would not include those.
• 48:54
  Speaker: I did think of one more kind
• 48:58
  Speaker: gesture you could put into this
• 48:59
  Speaker: support kit for immediate past
• 49:01
  Speaker: masters, and that would be like
• 49:02
  Speaker: a reserved, uh, sign that you
• 49:06
  Speaker: can hang on one chair in the
• 49:08
  Speaker: lodge to say, this is your
• 49:10
  Speaker: chair.
• 49:10
  Speaker: Whether I'm not saying it has to
• 49:11
  Speaker: be an officer position or, you
• 49:14
  Speaker: know, some something, but to let
• 49:16
  Speaker: them know that, hey, this, this
• 49:18
  Speaker: space is reserved for this past
• 49:20
  Speaker: master.
• 49:21
  Speaker: And it kind of could kind of be
• 49:23
  Speaker: their seat for the lodge for the
• 49:24
  Speaker: year.
• 49:24
  Speaker: I think that would be kind of fun just to show we still care.
• 49:28
  Speaker: Just get out of the east.
• 49:31
  Speaker: Does it have to be in the lodge building.
• 49:34
  Speaker: Oh.
• 49:36
  Speaker: MM. Ooh.
• 49:37
  Speaker: Maybe.
• 49:38
  Speaker: Maybe.
• 49:41
  Speaker: You reserve a seat at the pub down the street.
• 49:47
  Speaker: I like it.
• 49:48
  Speaker: You're welcome to meet us for drinks afterward.
• 49:54
  Speaker: Nice.
• 49:54
  Speaker: See, that's.
• 49:55
  Speaker: That's a kind gesture, I like that.
• 49:58
  Speaker: Very creative.
• 49:59
  Speaker: Very creative.
• 50:01
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 50:02
  Speaker: Well, this has been fun.
• 50:03
  Speaker: So let's, uh, start wrapping it up.
• 50:06
  Speaker: What are your final thoughts?
• 50:08
  Speaker: So, um, we've covered a little bit about the five stages of
• 50:12
  Speaker: grief that we all go through whenever we have change or loss,
• 50:17
  Speaker: which certainly happens for a lot of past masters.
• 50:20
  Speaker: And we talked about our individual stories.
• 50:23
  Speaker: We talked about maybe what we would do differently.
• 50:25
  Speaker: We talked about, um, what, what,
• 50:29
  Speaker: maybe we could do some best
• 50:30
  Speaker: practices to help with ease the
• 50:33
  Speaker: transition.
• 50:34
  Speaker: And we kind of had some fun thoughts about this support kit
• 50:38
  Speaker: for immediate past Masters.
• 50:39
  Speaker: I need to I need to post that somewhere.
• 50:41
  Speaker: That'd be fun.
• 50:42
  Speaker: Um, so yeah, anything else you want to add?
• 50:45
  Speaker: And let's start with Jason.
• 50:47
  Speaker: What would you say?
• 50:48
  Speaker: Um, any final thoughts on this topic for tonight?
• 50:55
  Speaker: Um. Ultimately, I think whenever I think we need to understand
• 51:03
  Speaker: that for a lot of brothers, um.
• 51:10
  Speaker: The transition out of the East is a major life transition.
• 51:17
  Speaker: And I think because of that, I
• 51:20
  Speaker: think we could do a better job
• 51:22
  Speaker: of preparing our officers and
• 51:26
  Speaker: masters for that, Like I think,
• 51:30
  Speaker: I think there's a natural
• 51:35
  Speaker: grieving that that has to
• 51:37
  Speaker: happen.
• 51:38
  Speaker: But I think it also kind of, you know, in a lot of ways, it
• 51:45
  Speaker: caught me off guard.
• 51:47
  Speaker: I don't know if it caught you all off guard as well.
• 51:50
  Speaker: Um. I think we could do more about investing, you know, in
• 51:59
  Speaker: the mental health of our immediate past masters, you
• 52:02
  Speaker: know, before their, you know, past masters so that they
• 52:06
  Speaker: understand that, you know, either it's coming or they have
• 52:12
  Speaker: resources to, to help them kind of navigate that.
• 52:17
  Speaker: Because, I mean, you can feel
• 52:19
  Speaker: very isolated and alone and
• 52:21
  Speaker: lonely, especially, you know, as
• 52:24
  Speaker: you're, you're driving away from
• 52:25
  Speaker: that installation.
• 52:27
  Speaker: Um. So I think that's where we
• 52:31
  Speaker: could, we could do some real
• 52:33
  Speaker: good.
• 52:34
  Speaker: That's great.
• 52:35
  Speaker: There you go.
• 52:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:37
  Speaker: Turn into a celebration.
• 52:39
  Speaker: Not a sad dismissal.
• 52:44
  Speaker: Celebration of life.
• 52:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker: We're all here to celebrate the year of Joe Martinez.
• 52:53
  Speaker: Oh. Which one?
• 52:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:56
  Speaker: He's not dead yet, Joe.
• 52:59
  Speaker: Yeah, no, I, I thought Jason's
• 53:01
  Speaker: idea was fantastic, but I think,
• 53:03
  Speaker: um.
• 53:06
  Speaker: What I think for me, what I
• 53:10
  Speaker: could envision for some of the
• 53:11
  Speaker: folks that came before me, um,
• 53:14
  Speaker: who have the ability to, to step
• 53:16
  Speaker: away and, and not pick up a job
• 53:19
  Speaker: or not pick up a role is to have
• 53:20
  Speaker: those jobs and those roles
• 53:21
  Speaker: available for, for your past
• 53:24
  Speaker: masters.
• 53:24
  Speaker: Hey, we need more help with mentoring or hey, we need
• 53:27
  Speaker: someone to help with ritual or hey, I really suck at
• 53:30
  Speaker: administrative stuff and you did this so well for three years.
• 53:33
  Speaker: Can you please help with that?
• 53:34
  Speaker: Or our secretary is ninety five years old.
• 53:36
  Speaker: Can you give him a hand?
• 53:37
  Speaker: Like give them something to do that makes them feel like
• 53:40
  Speaker: they're actually still needed?
• 53:42
  Speaker: Um, because if you don't, two things will happen.
• 53:44
  Speaker: One of two things will happen.
• 53:45
  Speaker: One, you'll never see them again.
• 53:49
  Speaker: And two, they're going to find
• 53:51
  Speaker: things on their own to fill up
• 53:53
  Speaker: their time.
• 53:54
  Speaker: Um, and many of those things
• 53:56
  Speaker: will likely get in your way and
• 53:58
  Speaker: disrupt the ideas and plans that
• 53:59
  Speaker: you have.
• 54:00
  Speaker: Um, and that's where that whole grumpy past master syndrome
• 54:03
  Speaker: comes from, right?
• 54:03
  Speaker: They just feel the need to critique and comment and opine
• 54:07
  Speaker: and try to fix all the things when it's not their job anymore.
• 54:10
  Speaker: So give them something to do and
• 54:12
  Speaker: keep them busy and engaged so
• 54:13
  Speaker: that they can stay out of your
• 54:14
  Speaker: face.
• 54:15
  Speaker: Um, so yeah, I think those,
• 54:17
  Speaker: those two things would probably
• 54:19
  Speaker: and have those in your pocket
• 54:20
  Speaker: already or have a long term plan
• 54:22
  Speaker: for those so that you can cycle
• 54:24
  Speaker: different past masters through
• 54:25
  Speaker: that, but keep your past masters
• 54:26
  Speaker: engaged.
• 54:26
  Speaker: Because going all the way back
• 54:28
  Speaker: to the beginning of the show,
• 54:30
  Speaker: some of these guys spent five,
• 54:31
  Speaker: seven, ten years going through
• 54:34
  Speaker: the chairs.
• 54:34
  Speaker: Um, so they do have something to
• 54:36
  Speaker: offer and you don't want them
• 54:38
  Speaker: to, you know, drive away at
• 54:41
  Speaker: their last installation, um,
• 54:44
  Speaker: thinking, you know, what am I
• 54:45
  Speaker: missing or what am I missing out
• 54:47
  Speaker: on?
• 54:47
  Speaker: Or what could I have done different?
• 54:49
  Speaker: You want to keep them just as active in your lodge as they
• 54:53
  Speaker: were that previous day?
• 54:56
  Speaker: Well, well said, well said.
• 54:58
  Speaker: The fun part of going last is all the good ideas are taken,
• 55:03
  Speaker: but I'll add to it just a little bit because I wrote down.
• 55:07
  Speaker: Have something for them to do.
• 55:09
  Speaker: Just make sure that they're not leaving empty handed.
• 55:12
  Speaker: But to make it even better, have
• 55:14
  Speaker: them pick maybe very early in
• 55:16
  Speaker: their year what it is they want
• 55:19
  Speaker: to contribute.
• 55:20
  Speaker: Right?
• 55:21
  Speaker: So I've seen it where an
• 55:24
  Speaker: incoming master says, hey, I
• 55:26
  Speaker: know you're on your way out, but
• 55:28
  Speaker: can you fill in for me for
• 55:30
  Speaker: senior Steward?
• 55:32
  Speaker: And you kind of feel obligated at that point.
• 55:34
  Speaker: You're like, oh, okay.
• 55:36
  Speaker: Because I know you're having a hard time filling the seat.
• 55:38
  Speaker: I really don't want to do it, but I'm a nice guy and harmony
• 55:42
  Speaker: and all that stuff, so I will, I'll do that for you.
• 55:46
  Speaker: And so wouldn't it be great if
• 55:49
  Speaker: the the master, the sitting
• 55:51
  Speaker: master before he leaves gets to
• 55:55
  Speaker: kind of pick what he wants to do
• 55:57
  Speaker: next?
• 55:57
  Speaker: So for example, um, had I said,
• 56:02
  Speaker: hey, because I love Masonic
• 56:03
  Speaker: education so much, I would love
• 56:05
  Speaker: to be lodge education officer,
• 56:08
  Speaker: but the year after I'm in the
• 56:09
  Speaker: East, right?
• 56:10
  Speaker: So that way I can do less logistics and more education.
• 56:14
  Speaker: That would have been great.
• 56:15
  Speaker: Uh, downside is there would be
• 56:16
  Speaker: no Masonic roundtable, but, um,
• 56:19
  Speaker: but that way, um, it's, it gives
• 56:22
  Speaker: them not only some something to
• 56:25
  Speaker: do, but also a little bit of,
• 56:28
  Speaker: uh, ownership in how they can
• 56:30
  Speaker: best support the lodge with the
• 56:31
  Speaker: talents that they know that they
• 56:32
  Speaker: have.
• 56:33
  Speaker: So that would be the only thing I would add.
• 56:35
  Speaker: Give them something to do and let them pick.
• 56:38
  Speaker: So there you go.
• 56:40
  Speaker: This was fun.
• 56:40
  Speaker: This was something that, uh, we've opened up a little bit
• 56:43
  Speaker: about our personal experiences.
• 56:45
  Speaker: And apparently it resonated in the chat as well.
• 56:47
  Speaker: So think of your past masters.
• 56:50
  Speaker: Give them a hug on the way out and make sure you find something
• 56:53
  Speaker: for them to do.
• 56:54
  Speaker: As always, I want to thank you all very much for watching and
• 56:57
  Speaker: keep searching for more light.
• 56:59
  Speaker: Have a good night.
• 57:01
  Speaker: Wow.