March 27, 2025 • 37 mins
Every once in a while, we sit down with a true Renaissance man: our very own Clinton Christensen. The youngest of 14 kids, an accomplished French Horn player, show choir singer, and certified EMT. Can you say well-rounded?
Reed and Clint discuss the “rumination trap,” paralysis of analysis, and establishing authentic friendships as the bedrock of the lodge experience. Cue up the John Philip Sousa, it’s an all-new Minnesota Masonic Histories & Mysteries.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello again everyone and welcomeback.
(00:01):
It's another episode ofMinnesota Masonic Histories and
Mysteries.
My guest today has been on thelist to get into the studio, and
I'm happy to see you herefinally.
It's been a long wait.
Clint Christensen.
Welcome.
Thank you for having me, Reid.
You were born in November of1979 in Minneapolis.
Lived in Edina until you were inthird grade, and then moved to
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Bloomington.
Went to Jefferson High School.
Now, during the course of theseinterviews, I like to ask, tell
us something about you that wemay not know, and I did not know
that you played the French horn.
In concert and marching bands.
And you were a singer in thejazz and concert choirs?
I did.
Little known fact.
Um, yeah, I played, I music wasa huge part of my life from as
(00:46):
far back as I can remember untilI started my career in the home
improvement industry and, had towork and didn't have the time
for.
Orchestras and bands.
But yeah, it was a full-timeFrench horn player.
Is that something you thinkabout?
I should pull that out and playit again.
And it just, time goes too fast.
All the time.
Yeah, all the time.
You also enlisted into thedelayed entry program of the
(01:07):
United States Marine Corps.
Passed by auditions to play theFrench horn for your country.
But due to family obligationsyou did not enlist once that
term expired.
Studied, uh, studied music atNormandale Community College.
Then started making a living,see adulthood gets in the way.
Mm-hmm.
Conflicted with studies andstopped two credits short of
(01:27):
your associate's degree to beginyour career.
But you did get your AA degree,you finished in home improvement
business, is that correct?
I did Still constantly learningin recently.
You became an EMTI What was thatlike?
It was fun.
It was fun.
we do a lot of camping andthought that, um, learning how
to splint legs and any of thatwould be a, a good education to
(01:50):
have in the event of anemergency.
Um, still kind of figuring outwhat I want to do with that.
Maybe a volunteer, firefightervolunteer, EMT something,
Certainly a good resource ifyou're off the grid and camping
and someone needs Sure.
Some immediate help or, youknow, I mean, given our average
age in this fraternity, ifsomebody hits the floor, it's,
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it's good to know CPR and, youknow, ways of resuscitation.
Very true.
I, I don't even, why I saw thestat recently that firefighters.
80 to 85% of the calls they goon are medical assists.
Yeah.
I had no idea.
Yeah, it makes sense though.
Very little, very littlefirefighting in a firefighter's
world.
I wonder if volunteers know thatwhen they sign up They must, you
(02:31):
know, having gone to severalmeetings, they do a pretty good
job of telling you that.
Okay, good.
I would, but their training isall first responders, so Yeah.
It's not quite as in depth as a,as an EMT or a paramedic.
I admire you for doing that'cause I, thanks.
Just don't have the stomach forthat.
And God knows we need peoplewith those skills around us at
all times.
Now you also worked at two majorhome improvement companies from
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2001 to 2009.
You started your own company.
You've had multiple companiesover the years, house flipping,
remodeling, investmentproperties.
On the personal side.
Parents divorced in 1981.
Your dad, he moved to Nevada in1984.
He did?
Yeah.
My, my dad was in Minnesota fora short period of time when he
met my mom, and as soon as theysplit, uh, he went to warmer
(03:19):
climates, never to come back toMinnesota in his, in his older
years when he had to choosewhether to be close to me or my
sister.
It was an easy choice for him.
My sister lived in Las Vegas.
Okay.
So that's where he went for allthe same reasons you had said
your dad was a superhero in thecourier business and mom
unfortunately suffered a strokein oh seven.
(03:39):
Some pretty serious sideeffects, but now getting great
care in the Minnesota Masonichome right here.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Six siblings and I belief youhad shared when your father was
married to his third wife.
His wife had seven kids.
So you were the youngest of 14.
Yeah.
And someday, I'll show you thepicture of that family reunion
when I was four.
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they had both been married theirfirst marriages, they both had
five children, both had a set oftwins.
I.
All roughly about the same age.
Then they both got divorced andmarried their second spouses.
My dad marrying my mom both hadtwo about the same age.
Mm-hmm.
By the time they got together,they were high school
sweethearts, so by the time theygot together, they both had
seven kids.
Wow.
Uh, thankfully for all of us,they didn't have more.
(04:21):
But yeah, the youngest of of 14kids.
It was an ex, it was ainteresting childhood.
It's a level of chaos.
I can't even fathom.
Yeah.
You know, they were allsignificantly older.
So my oldest sister is 20 yearsolder than me, so they weren't,
we really, none, none of us everlived in the same houses.
Okay.
Um, my brother, my, my mom'ssecond or first child, my
(04:42):
brother, we, we lived togetherfor the majority of our lives,
but the rest of'em, you know,kind of came and came and went.
Mm-hmm.
College, uh, other parents andthings like that.
So.
Sure.
On the Masonic side, youpetitioned and were initiated in
Corinthian Lodge, number 67 inFebruary of 2013, served as
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master in 2018.
You were a district rep 2019 to2021 area Deputy since 2021, and
also a first grade monitor.
So you're obviously very skilledin the memorization and the
details.
Known as our, our ritual.
Mm-hmm.
That's outstanding on that.
And while you were not highschool sweethearts, you've known
(05:24):
your wife Emily since 1991.
I've always wondered, how wasit, you could be best friends in
high school, you part ways for awhile and then reconnect and
here you are.
That's, that's so cool.
So yeah, we, here we are, 90, 91is when we, we, we went down
memory lane one night and pulledout all our old yearbooks and
that was the year that we signedeach other's yearbooks.
(05:45):
So that's kind of the date.
It, it might be earlier thanthat, but that was the date
where, you know, we circledpictures and.
Signed each other's yearbooks.
yeah, when we were best friendsthroughout high school, we
kissed once.
It was weird.
Um, we kind of decided not to dothat again.
And then, uh, after high school,she went off to college.
I went and did the things thatyou've already mentioned.
Mm-hmm.
(06:06):
And then, uh, via Facebook, wereconnected and I don't know,
what year did I put there?
20.
12 ish.
2013.
2012.
2013.
Yep.
Bought a hobby farm 2015.
Married in 2016.
You have three kids together.
Love to travel.
I know London is a big highlightfor you guys.
Mm-hmm.
Camp whenever you can.
Always looking for some crazyadventure.
(06:26):
Mm-hmm.
So you're a busy family man.
You have projects going on ofall varieties at all times.
Clearly a very dedicated andbusy Freemason.
Mm-hmm.
the other day we were chattingabout the Masonic experience
that we are in the relationshipbusiness.
Mm-hmm.
And so often we talk about whowe are and what we do with
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somewhat of that insiderbaseball terminology.
when you really boil it down,the Masonic experience is really
about authentic friendship,personal developments and
building community, bothinternally and in our literal
communities.
How do we go about providingthat experience that our new and
(07:09):
existing members are seeking?
You know, I think a lot of thatcomes back to, and I've, I've
picked up and started talkingabout it more and more is the,
the brand recognition that youand John have been doing in your
civility project and trying toget our image from being the,
you know, older guys sittingaround playing whatever game it
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is that that lodge plays, youknow, with, with coffee and, and
turning it into and attractingthe younger.
Generations to be doing thingsin the community.
Um, whether that's, you know,the, the waffle breakfasts,
which we've done forever, or ifthat's, you know, working at a
food shelf or donating FSTs and,and fire suppression.
(07:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Fire suppression.
Um, and those, and those typesof things.
And increasing the, the brandawareness, you know, to get back
to that point where.
The cashier at the gas stationknows exactly where the Masonic
Lodge is.
'cause either he or his father,you know, is a Mason, you know?
Oh yeah.
Down the street there.
They're, I share this frequentlyon the podcast that in speaking
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with a.
The new generation of young menseeking more information and
possibly joining a MasonicLodge, the number one thing they
want is the opportunity to giveback to the greater good.
To do something in that.
Mm-hmm.
Around that building communitypiece.
And when I visit a lodge thatmaybe has little to nothing
going on in that realm, that's aproblem.
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And there's a lot of them thathave little to nothing going on
in that realm.
And there are some that aredoing a fantastic job.
in the construction trades, youknow, the, the, the, the desire
is always good, fast, and cheap.
And we've always said you can,you can have any two.
Um, hold on.
I want to good, fast, cheap, andcheap.
Yeah, but pick two.
But yeah, you can't, you justcan't have good, fast and cheap,
(09:03):
right?
You can't have good and fast, oryou can have cheap and good,
but.
you know, in, in the Masonicworld, it seems like those three
things are, you know, saycharity, ritual, um, and
community.
And it seems as though in mytravels, I found lots of lodges
that have two.
It's kind of the same thing.
Mm-hmm.
You can, you can have any two.
Um, but the, but the lodges thatare doing amazing work on
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charity and ritual are not doingreal great in the community or
the ones that are doing reallygreat in the community, and
they've got fellowship andthey're, you know.
Doing things outside the lodge.
Well then the ritual's terrible.
I've been trying to find a lodgethat fires on all three, but I
don't know that it exists.
And I think there's several thatare making the effort towards
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it.
Mm-hmm.
I know that that, that threelegged stool analogy is very
difficult to have all of thoseaspects at a hundred percent.
But making the effort at leastto cover that and not just say,
well, we we're just not gonna begood at that, is.
A big portion of what we've beenactively working on with lodges
to mm-hmm.
(10:06):
Share what's the shortcoming orwhere's the, where's the area of
opportunity that the lodge wantsto improve?
Is it, is it with the bonding asfriends and brothers with some
authenticity?
I.
Is it in the personaldevelopment or the lodge
education, something meaningful,something relevant.
And we just talked about thatbuilding community piece.
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'cause that could, it's not justgoing out into our respective
cities and suburbs and donatingour time at a food shelf.
It, it is partially that, butthe building communities also
internally as well.
Sure.
Well, and if you don't have theexternal part of that and you're
having membership problems,that's part of your membership
problem.
(10:46):
It happens a bit too often wherewe share that this is what the
Masonic experience entails.
And once a new member goesthrough the process and becomes
a voting member, becomes amaster mason, and then may say,
Hey, by the way, where is blankthat you basically promised is
going to be part of thisexperience.
(11:08):
We time and again, it feels likewe, I.
Keep looking for a complicatedanswer to some relatively simple
questions when we address that.
Mm-hmm.
You know that if you listen tothis podcast, I like to quote
all sorts of influencers andauthors, and I'm such a big fan
of James Clear.
He wrote a book.
Mm-hmm.
(11:28):
Atomic Habits.
He's on the podcast circuithimself.
He said the following quote.
It's so easy to overestimate theimportance of one defining
moment and underestimate thevalue of making small
improvements on a daily basis.
Too often we convince ourselvesthat massive success requires
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massive action, and it could beanything, losing weight,
starting a business, achievingany goal.
I would add to that improving anaspect of the Masonic experience
at the lodge level, and hefinishes this by saying, we put
pressure on ourselves to makesome earth shattering
improvement that everyone willtalk about unquote.
(12:12):
before you read that, I wasgonna say, you know, from a
community aspect, um, gettingback to that for just a second,
that you don't have to have thisgrandiose plan of, you know, how
are we gonna raise the money foran FST, for instance, so that we
can donate back to ourcommunity.
A lot of times it's just showingup.
Yeah, right.
We, um, uh, to pick on my ownlodge for a minute, we own a
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cemetery just on the other sideof Farmington I found out at one
point that we were having thatthere's a huge Memorial Day
celebration in our cemetery.
We have a flag by a, by a markerfor the unknown soldier.
Um, the firefighters mark theirheadstones.
Um, our, um, sextant marks theMasonic headstones, the VFW
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marks, and there's this huge,they get the, wind ensemble from
the high school to play all themilitary marches, and it's this
big event.
Nobody in the lodge knew aboutit.
and I made this, I made thishuge stink and, and kinda
shamed.
Everybody said, you know,they're having a party in our
house and we're not there.
Right.
and now, so every year, um, Ireached out to the yellow Ribbon
network who's in charge of thewhole thing.
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And, and now on Fridays beforeMemorial Day, we go out and we
mark the.
Um, cemetery and help with that.
And we show up with our lodgeshirts and we don't really do
anything.
We just make, it's just apresence.
Sounds like all the pieces werein place.
Yeah, we did.
You know, but I thought, geez,you know, what kind of message
are we sending if we don't showup to a party in our cemetery?
(13:36):
Right.
You know, to, for lack of abetter explanation.
And now we go, you know, nowit's, it's a annual event on our
calendar that this is happeningon Monday.
If you can help set up onFriday, if you can help tear
down on Tuesday, really onlytakes two or three people to go
yank markers and.
I, I mean, that, that's, that'sthe example that you don't have
to have a, a huge event or plana huge event, which, you know,
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we're all, um, overtaxed in manyways.
Just gotta show up, Show up inreminding ourselves that it
doesn't always have to be acomplicated equation to start
doing something with smallmomentum and build on that.
And, and maybe that's theendurance that we lack in this
world in general.
We we're so used to pushing thatbutton, push button, get banana,
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push button, and uh, socialmedia, Amazon.
Mm-hmm.
It's immediate.
It's just really challenging to.
Not fall into what I once hearddescribed recently is the the
rumination trap.
May I share a anotherinteresting perspective?
The rumination trap is thatyou're trying to forecast into
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the future, and unless you canget a perfect outcome, you just
kick the can down the road.
Ultimately, there's not any roadleft except for a bunch of cans.
You could have resourcefulness,clear thinking, but without
intentionalism, you're basicallyscrewed.
I.
I heard that on a, a podcastcalled Modern Wisdom Thought.
(15:02):
Wow, is that, does that notdescribe how we operate
sometimes, or what it does?
We forecast into the future, butunless that outcome feels
perfect, we just keep kickingthat can.
Yep.
So how do we get out of therumination cycle?
The difference between clearthinking and muddy thinking?
You draw it out, write it down.
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Create an equation.
Don't listen to the voice thatwhispers it can't work, or it
may not be an overnight mass ofsuccess, or people will judge me
if it's not a hundred percentsuccess, perfection, or whatnot.
Well, there's a, there's a fewthings there, right?
Um, we need as a, as anorganization, and I think pretty
much every lodge will say that.
(15:44):
Is that it?
We've got a lot of lodges wherethose ideas are being done by
one person, true, or two people,right?
Mm-hmm.
Or however many, not enough.
Um, lots of idea guys.
And, and that then the, thewhatever event or action you
want to take falls on the samepeople.
And those people have generally,to your point, um, failed at it
(16:07):
and realized that, that they'renot gonna get judged.
Right.
That if it's, if it's this epicfailure and it gets canceled or,
or nobody shows up, I.
I think everybody willacknowledge that, hey, at least
you tried.
Yeah.
At least you, you, you, youtried to make it happen.
And sorry that, you know, maybewe could have done this
differently.
Maybe we could have donedifferent this differently, but
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you did everything that youcould have done to make it
happen or to make it successful.
To at least give that, thateffort.
It, it's right.
The same conversation I'd heardthey were talking about.
There's this endless loop ofthoughts.
You can always have an oldthought in a slightly new way,
which gives it a sense ofnovelty.
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It's why we like to get togetheras men and just kinda rehash the
same thing.
Old thoughts are familiar to usand it gives us comfort, right?
It's fun to discuss and we staysometimes in life in general or
thinking about lodge activities.
We stay in a static doom looptype of cycle, and we focus on
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outcomes.
Not inputs, rather than callingit a decision, call it an
experiment.
Right.
'cause when you really boil itdown, five years spent
ruminating about differentoptions, you spend more time
making a decision than itwould've taken to see whether it
was going to work or not.
And you do.
And you the, what's that othersaying?
(17:31):
You, you mentioned a sayingearlier before we were live.
Um.
We used to, in, in the salesworld, we'd call it paralysis of
analysis.
Yeah.
Right.
And you, and, and my family willtell you that, that one of the
things I can't stand the most isjust continuous talking about
doing something right to the, towhere I'm the guy that stands up
and say, all right, here we go.
(17:51):
We're gonna go, we're gonna givethis a shot.
We're gonna try this.
you touched on something a fewmoments ago about the challenge
of having a small amount.
Of people, of personnel doingthe majority of the work.
Used to hear that as the 80 20rule.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
In corporate America, infraternal and civic
organizations and churchsettings, sometimes that feels
(18:14):
like it's even more of a 90 10.
Mm-hmm.
How do we remedy that?
Is it is simple, possibly asleveraging some new opinions,
some new takes on things.
How do we give that sense ofownership, and especially with
the lodge setting.
To have someone say, I want tohelp with this, and give them
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the runway to like, like we werealluding to in all of this, to
give something a shot, trysomething new, and it may not be
an overnight success, but let'stry.
in my opinion, you, you said itis to give them the runway to
succeed or fail and be okay withit if they fail.
Right.
It's, it's kind of like.
I'll compare it to our ritual.
(18:56):
You got a, a new guy that'slearned a new part.
He doesn't know it real well,but he wants to be, you know, a
senior deacon for a degree.
and yet you've got five guys inthe rooms room that are, are
proficient, they're monitors orcustodians.
Um, for our listeners that don'tknow what that means, they have
tested out and know the script,basically word for word with
(19:17):
pinpoint accuracy, right?
Um, so now you got this new guythat's learned it.
And he is for the candidategoing through the degree, it's
best to let that guy that, youknow, is gonna be perfect.
'cause that's gonna give thecandidate the best experience.
But the only way for the new guyto become that guy is to let him
fail a few times and let thecandidate have a lesser
(19:41):
experience.
Right.
So there's a, a catch 22 to thewhole thing.
Mm-hmm.
but all the people that do itwith pinpoint accuracy didn't
always.
So when it comes to that event,getting back to that, if you're
going to let a new guy handle anevent, be his mentor, which we
also are not particularly goodat, like, Hey, uh, Reed, we need
you to have this party thatwe've never done.
(20:03):
Here's, here's what I want youto do.
Off you go fire and forget.
Yeah.
Right.
And then if it, if it wins,great.
If it fails, then we just neverask greed to do it again.
Um.
And, and, and ridicule, andshame him in the process, right?
No.
Well, well, at least he tried.
Right?
but if you let that, that guygive him the runway to fail and,
and maybe not to fail, but tonot do as good as, as, as you
(20:25):
would've done, right?
Or, or the other, you know, 10%of guys that have been doing it.
but then work with him toimprove it.
Right.
The, the after after actionreport, what can we, what could
we have done better?
What can we do better next year?
You know, do we do it again nextyear and, and do quit and quit
expecting it to be this amazingsuccess the first time.
(20:48):
That really plays into mentoringin an active way of.
We just had a couple laughsabout it, but not the fire and
forget not, Hey, go do this andI'm just gonna ignore the person
that I'm delegating this to.
Mm-hmm.
And then I'm gonna have thesehigh expectations on it,
actively checking in details,execution, sharing institutional
(21:11):
knowledge of something we mayhave tried that was either great
or wasn't so great.
But I, I can't stop thinkingabout the, let's look at this
through the corporate setting orthrough the job site.
You bring on an apprentice.
Mm-hmm.
Who is trained in certainskills.
You're building a home, you'rebuilding a structure, or in a
(21:31):
corporate setting, someone new,New-Ish is going to manage a
project.
I.
How would we handle that inthose settings?
If a mistake was made in, in thework world, we would not just
castigate someone.
We might acknowledge, obviouslywe have to acknowledge what
didn't go well, but we wouldbreak that down and help develop
(21:52):
them, mentor them to get it evenbetter next time.
Sometimes we're a product of ourown criticism.
Mm-hmm.
Where.
Are we just simply wanting thata hundred percent accuracy in
our ritual or with an event thatif it doesn't raise$10,000 the
first try, then it was an abjectfailure.
Mm-hmm.
No, neither of that.
There's, like you said, there's,there's a catch 22 that really
(22:15):
is vital in life and in lodge.
Sure.
to relate it to the job worldfor home shows, for instance,
right?
A lot of, a lot of what we do inthe remodeling world is home
shows, right?
The convention centers and thesmall high schools, and you
know, the big ones, the smallones.
we used to have a rule, um, thatbefore we called a show a
(22:35):
success or a failure, we had togive it three years.
Because there's all sorts ofoutside factors that, that come
in.
Um, we did an event, uh, we hada ritual competition that we
tried.
Uh, of course the first year wascovid.
So we would, we would call thata failure.
Um, the second year there was asnowstorm.
Uh, we, and we had to cancel.
So we would call that a failure,right?
(22:56):
All out of our control.
And the third year, it justdidn't happen.
Uh, we just didn't do it again.
'cause I think people were,nobody.
Nobody registered, no teamsregistered.
So.
But if you were to gauge it offof either of those first two
events and say, well, nobodyshowed up because there was 12
inches of snow, we're nevergonna do that again.
(23:16):
Well, it's not gonna have 12inches of snow every year.
Right.
It's Mother nature.
Right.
Come on in April it's, andthat's when it was.
Or Covid.
You know, what are the odds thatthere's gonna be a pandemic
again?
So hopefully not in our lifetimefalls into.
Playing the long game.
Mm-hmm.
We talk about Simon Sinek onthis podcast a lot.
The, the infinite perspectivethat he talks about is really
(23:40):
what is really the key tosuccess in any organization,
whether it's the work world, thevolunteer world, looking at
making sure that I'm leavingthis in a better condition than
I found it.
Mm-hmm.
Which sometimes feels a tadcliche, but it's so, so true.
Right.
I always look at, uh, starLodge.
The hog roast.
(24:01):
Sure.
It's coming up when with time ofrecording.
Very soon they have been.
Slowly building that event forover 40 years.
Oh, wow.
And they do incredible work.
They raise a ton of money, butthat started out small.
Yeah.
It was managing thoseexpectations and taking those
slow, sustainable progresssteps.
(24:23):
There's, there's several ofthose, right?
Uh, red Wing has their salsa, onthe first Tuesday of.
April?
Yes.
Coming up on April 1st Is thetime of this recording?
Yeah.
April 1st.
Um, and that started as a, as afairly small event and now is
just huge.
Um, the, uh, Dave Vice MemorialClay shoot.
Yes.
I maybe not, maybe not using theright words in that title, but
(24:45):
Helios Lodge also started as asmall event and now is, is huge.
That's coming up in, uh, firstweekend in May.
Sure.
The common thread for all ofthese, we could list many, many
more.
Sure.
Is that it's been a slow burn inbuilding momentum.
It takes extended focus and morepersonnel than just a handful
(25:05):
of, of guys and their familiesto make it a success and to keep
mm-hmm.
The snowball effect going.
Well, and you brought up thatthe, the idea of, you know,
having an event and if you don'tmake, you know,$10,000, then
it's a failure.
Well, if you make.
$1,000, it's a success.
And then if you make 1500 thenext year, that's a, yeah.
(25:26):
Better success.
Right.
How long does it take to get tothat 10,000?
And that obviously depends on avariety of things.
Right?
Well, and in fairness to what's,what's the reach, what did we do
to impact?
Mm-hmm.
What, what did that event do toimpact a young person, a
community, somebody in need?
Right.
I know of a smaller lodge.
Within the central portion ofthe state, they do a book drive
(25:47):
every year.
Mm-hmm.
It may not be the biggest eventever, but I can tell you
unequivocally that thefoundation that receives that
donation of the books, thestudents and the kids and the
families appreciate it so, sovery much for even touching a
handful of lives, that's a win.
Mm-hmm.
I've noticed over the yearsthat, that we as a fraternity
(26:08):
are really good at advertisingour events to ourselves.
And I, and I think we're allguilty of it, um, from the top
down to the smallest lodge thatif you want to a, have a
successful event or, um,fundraiser like we're talking
about, or if you want to have,IM improve your brand.
We as a fraternity need to beadvertising outside of our own
(26:31):
walls, and getting out into thelocal community, right?
Flyers in, in, in shop windowsand public Facebook.
Posts and social media, not, youknow, the Freemasons homepage or
Right.
You know, the private groupsthat we all have, you know,
we're all talking to ourselves.
Yes.
And that, and that's somethingwe're really putting a big push
(26:51):
and effort into, especiallyaround Masonic charities.
Mm-hmm.
And I know you're a bigsupporter of Minnesota Masonic
charities.
Mm-hmm.
And that's something that wewant to continue.
Bringing the lodge experiencecloser together with what the
work charities is doing With theSeptember gala every year We are
very fortunate in Minnesota tohave our Masonic Cancer Center,
(27:14):
our Masonic Children's Hospital,and the several other endeavors
we have through MasonicCharities.
And the commitment of growingthat support as far as medical
research, children's health.
That is something that we notonly should be proud of to have
right here in our backyard, butsomething that every Mason in
Minnesota has a piece of that.
(27:36):
And when I go out in my travelsand we, we talk about, well, how
would you like to support, I.
Sometimes the answer may be,well, I, I don't necessarily
have a, a huge amount that Icould contribute.
That's okay.
You've heard me say this before.
None of us will ever know who's$5, whose a hundred dollars will
be the amount that pushes thatresearch into a next, the next
(27:59):
level of breakthrough.
Yeah.
Um, John's always, always said,I've heard him speak at lodges.
You know that, that it's a, it'sa combination of lots of tens
and twenties.
You know, not, it's not millionsor tens of thousands that people
are donating.
For the most part, it's There isa lot of planned giving that
does occur, and that's very muchencouraged and, happy to help
with those accommodations.
(28:20):
But you're right, it, it's givewhat you can when you can and
knowing that it's going to sucha tremendous cause, you know,
and they're doing such amazingwork, um, at the university
that, you know, I, I lookforward to the future and hope,
you know, maybe in my lifetimeWhen there is a cure for cancer,
it's going to be in large partdue to the work that they're
doing at the University ofMinnesota.
(28:40):
and that work is in large partdue to the, the donations that
Minnesota Masonic Charities hasgiven.
And you know, if that happens inour lifetime, we can all hold
our heads high and say, Hey, youknow, we helped do that.
You know, however, however we dothat, whether it's time or
money, or.
Whatever we're doing, charitablythat that feeds that effort.
It will be a momentous day.
(29:01):
Every Mason in Minnesota has apiece of that, and when that day
comes, we'll have a piece ofthat.
Mm-hmm.
To hear the medicalprofessionals like Dr.
Toller and Dr.
Y Dr.
Poynter talk about the, they do,the work that they do.
In large part, from the supportof the Minnesota Freemasons, we
(29:23):
really have something specialhappening.
Mm-hmm.
Again, right in our own stateand the more of our brothers
across Minnesota that Getinvolved in all of these
endeavors, the better we're allcontributing.
Mm-hmm.
Our time, our talents, ourdonations towards, to your
point, that cure for cancer iscoming.
Yeah.
You know, I, I, I'm, I'msurprised often on how many
(29:44):
people when I've talked, whenthey say, Tell me about
Freemasonry or whatever it was.
It was, uh, recently at a U of Mfootball game.
Um, the one that, um, theGrandmaster and John had
presented.
Oh, November the last donation.
Yes.
Guy behind me started asking mequestions about it, and, you
know, I said I'm often surprisedat how few people know a little
bit about Freemasonry and theyknow about the Masonic
(30:08):
hospitals.
Have never connected those dots,right.
That the Masonic Children'sHospital is Freemasonry and the
Masonic Cancer Center isFreemasonry.
And I've recently, you know whenI say you've heard of the
Masonic Children's Hospital?
And they say, well, yeah.
And I say, well, we are theMasonic.
In the Masonic Children'sHospital.
They go, oh wow.
Never, never thought of that.
(30:29):
Mm-hmm.
Right.
And then I can, then I can godown that road of, of Masonic
Cancer Center, the MasonicInstitute for the Developing
Brain, which kind of going downthose things and talking about
the things that we've done in,uh, jointly with the university,
And you can see the light bulbgo on.
You know, they kinda Oh, thatFreemasonry.
Okay.
It's the lodge that they'vedriven past in their community
(30:49):
Yeah.
A thousand times and just didn'tconnect that the two are
connected.
But yeah, they're, you know,they're, they got Da Vinci Code
and National Treasure over hereand the, and the lodge building,
or the Masonic Hospital overhere and never connected.
It's all the same, We all loveDan Brown's books.
The Hollywood movies areentertaining very often I have
(31:09):
that conversation with guys thatare interested in learning more
I tell them if, if you thinkthere's even a, a modicum of
that, that's going to be in thisexperience mm-hmm.
You're gonna be very, verydisappointed because we are
about, like we talked aboutauthentic friendship.
We are in the relationshipbusiness.
And we're striving to makebrotherhood be a tangible thing,
(31:32):
not just that abstract term ofthat, the personal development.
Mm-hmm.
How are we becoming, how are wetaking the actions individually
to become that better version ofourselves?
We, we, that, that abstract lineof we make good men better, not
a fan, because we don't makeanybody anything.
We do have a roadmap of how eachcan, each individually and
(31:53):
collectively become a moreself-aware, better version of
ourselves, better husband,better colleague, neighbor,
better person in this worldwhere there's a whole lot of
static and we need less of that.
And we've talked a lot about thebuilding of the community.
That's what we do.
Mm-hmm.
And while we have a greatopportunity to continue
(32:15):
educating on that with our brandawareness, there are some great,
great things happening at thelodge level across the state.
You know, that, that making goodmen better.
It's not as though that there'sa, like a class or a, or a.
(32:36):
A degree that we put the, thatyou're a good man and we're
gonna make you better by doingthis, this, this, and this.
Um, and I think that that isoften misunderstood, that it's
more of in my own personalexperience, it's a more of being
a part of something with men Iadmire that are inspirational to
me to be a better dad.
(32:57):
Right.
They do this, you know, they didthis, they made these mistakes,
right?
Their kids are older, they don'tdo this, Clint right.
Do this.
And I can take that home.
I can, it makes, you know, andthen I can take that into my
marriage.
I can take that into myprofession.
I can take that anywhere, right?
And, and we all have, I'm notgonna name any names'cause I'll
name the, you know, leavesomebody out.
(33:19):
But we all have those guys thatwe.
Say, geez, I'd like to be alittle bit more like that guy.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
I get, I get off the phone withpeople and I, and I'll tell
Emily, I'll say, geez, you know,if there's, there's one guy, you
know, in the world that I'd liketo be more like, it's, it's this
guy right in this way.
He's just in this area, soawesome.
but that same, that buildingrelationships, that is, in my
(33:42):
opinion, the heart and soul ofall, most.
Successful lodges?
Is that, are you doing thingsoutside of your lodge?
Are you, are you actuallyfriends or do you just get
together and, and have a quickmeeting and do it as fast as you
can and hit the bricks?
Um, are you doing mealsbeforehand?
Are you going out afterwards?
Are you doing barbecues on theweekends and all of these
(34:04):
things?
And Corinthian Lodge inFarmington, we, we do a
phenomenal job of doing that andknowing each other and liking
each other.
And it truly is a family.
We're growing, right?
People come to our lodge andjust recently we've had five
petitions for affiliation.
Wow.
That they come to our lodge andthey're like, holy cow.
My, my lodge doesn't do any ofthis.
I wanna be part of this.
(34:25):
They're not leaving theirlodges, they're just mm-hmm.
Coming to us for something thatthey're not getting in theirs.
And here again, like I, I said,we have our own faults.
Um, but that's just not one of'em.
Versus the, you know, in mytravel, sometimes I go to
lodges.
That gavel hits at seven 30 andby eight 30 they're out of there
and the door was unlocked fiveminutes before the meeting and
(34:46):
it's locked.
Five minutes after the meeting.
Everybody goes home.
Sprinkling the word brotherhoodin there.
But the reality is sometimesintimate strangers.
Yep.
We want to continue to.
Work on that.
Yeah.
'cause to your point, andCorinthian does a tremendous
job.
I visited a lodge recently, verysimilar.
Everyone went around the, thelodge education that night was,
(35:07):
what's going on in your life?
What do you wanna share?
How has Masonry impacted yourlife in a positive?
What are you struggling withright now?
Mm-hmm.
Took a little bit for men,everyone, nobody wanted to maybe
be the first to speak.
Sure.
Why was that powerful?
I felt like it was brotherhoodon display in that led to the
(35:29):
following week and weeks afterchecking in with each other.
Yeah.
Hey, how, how did it go withyour loved one's, surgical,
whatever health issue they had?
Yeah.
How did it go with your, your,your child had a tryout for a a,
everybody knows what's going onin each other's lives.
We really are and have been.
(35:50):
Designed to be mm-hmm.
A men's support system mm-hmm.
In that rollercoaster of life.
But it starts with therelationships that is a
foundation.
Yeah.
No, I'm, you know, it, that,that conversation, I, I would've
loved to have been there and asthe, the lodge education officer
at my lodge, Those conversationsare absolutely painful to get
started.
(36:10):
Yes, right.
That, that getting that firstguy to open up, you know, but
then, you know, an hour and ahalf later, you can't get
anybody to stop talking.
You know, the masters in theeast pointing at his watch, you
know, you gotta wrap this upguys.
so those conversations arereally, really important.
And some of those, um, I wasgonna say, some of those private
conversations that you have.
(36:32):
Equally, you know, equallyimportant to have with that guy.
you know, personal issue that hewants to talk about.
and, and having and being therefor that guy when the
opportunity presents itself.
Well, Clint, it's been greathaving you in studio today and
talking about a wide range oftopics across the board of life
of Freemasonry.
(36:53):
On behalf of the craft.
We really appreciate all thatyou do in your lodge and beyond
you, your efforts with GrandLodge and some of the concordant
independent bodies that you'reinvolved with.
This really is the journey of alifetime and it really takes the
workers like yourself to seesuccess.
Well, thanks for having me read.
(37:14):
It's a pleasure to be here.
And, uh, truly a, a pleasure tobe part of the craft and, um,
laboring in the quarries.
Look forward to seeing you soon,and thanks again for listening,
everyone.
This has been another episode ofMinnesota Masonic Histories and
Mysteries.
Hello again everyone and welcomeback.
(00:01):
It's another episode ofMinnesota Masonic Histories and
Mysteries.
My guest today has been on thelist to get into the studio, and
I'm happy to see you herefinally.
It's been a long wait.
Clint Christensen.
Welcome.
Thank you for having me, Reid.
You were born in November of1979 in Minneapolis.
Lived in Edina until you were inthird grade, and then moved to
(00:22):
Bloomington.
Went to Jefferson High School.
Now, during the course of theseinterviews, I like to ask, tell
us something about you that wemay not know, and I did not know
that you played the French horn.
In concert and marching bands.
And you were a singer in thejazz and concert choirs?
I did.
Little known fact.
Um, yeah, I played, I music wasa huge part of my life from as
(00:46):
far back as I can remember untilI started my career in the home
improvement industry and, had towork and didn't have the time
for.
Orchestras and bands.
But yeah, it was a full-timeFrench horn player.
Is that something you thinkabout?
I should pull that out and playit again.
And it just, time goes too fast.
All the time.
Yeah, all the time.
You also enlisted into thedelayed entry program of the
(01:07):
United States Marine Corps.
Passed by auditions to play theFrench horn for your country.
But due to family obligationsyou did not enlist once that
term expired.
Studied, uh, studied music atNormandale Community College.
Then started making a living,see adulthood gets in the way.
Mm-hmm.
Conflicted with studies andstopped two credits short of
(01:27):
your associate's degree to beginyour career.
But you did get your AA degree,you finished in home improvement
business, is that correct?
I did Still constantly learningin recently.
You became an EMTI What was thatlike?
It was fun.
It was fun.
we do a lot of camping andthought that, um, learning how
to splint legs and any of thatwould be a, a good education to
(01:50):
have in the event of anemergency.
Um, still kind of figuring outwhat I want to do with that.
Maybe a volunteer, firefightervolunteer, EMT something,
Certainly a good resource ifyou're off the grid and camping
and someone needs Sure.
Some immediate help or, youknow, I mean, given our average
age in this fraternity, ifsomebody hits the floor, it's,
(02:11):
it's good to know CPR and, youknow, ways of resuscitation.
Very true.
I, I don't even, why I saw thestat recently that firefighters.
80 to 85% of the calls they goon are medical assists.
Yeah.
I had no idea.
Yeah, it makes sense though.
Very little, very littlefirefighting in a firefighter's
world.
I wonder if volunteers know thatwhen they sign up They must, you
(02:31):
know, having gone to severalmeetings, they do a pretty good
job of telling you that.
Okay, good.
I would, but their training isall first responders, so Yeah.
It's not quite as in depth as a,as an EMT or a paramedic.
I admire you for doing that'cause I, thanks.
Just don't have the stomach forthat.
And God knows we need peoplewith those skills around us at
all times.
Now you also worked at two majorhome improvement companies from
(02:54):
2001 to 2009.
You started your own company.
You've had multiple companiesover the years, house flipping,
remodeling, investmentproperties.
On the personal side.
Parents divorced in 1981.
Your dad, he moved to Nevada in1984.
He did?
Yeah.
My, my dad was in Minnesota fora short period of time when he
met my mom, and as soon as theysplit, uh, he went to warmer
(03:19):
climates, never to come back toMinnesota in his, in his older
years when he had to choosewhether to be close to me or my
sister.
It was an easy choice for him.
My sister lived in Las Vegas.
Okay.
So that's where he went for allthe same reasons you had said
your dad was a superhero in thecourier business and mom
unfortunately suffered a strokein oh seven.
(03:39):
Some pretty serious sideeffects, but now getting great
care in the Minnesota Masonichome right here.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Six siblings and I belief youhad shared when your father was
married to his third wife.
His wife had seven kids.
So you were the youngest of 14.
Yeah.
And someday, I'll show you thepicture of that family reunion
when I was four.
(03:59):
they had both been married theirfirst marriages, they both had
five children, both had a set oftwins.
I.
All roughly about the same age.
Then they both got divorced andmarried their second spouses.
My dad marrying my mom both hadtwo about the same age.
Mm-hmm.
By the time they got together,they were high school
sweethearts, so by the time theygot together, they both had
seven kids.
Wow.
Uh, thankfully for all of us,they didn't have more.
(04:21):
But yeah, the youngest of of 14kids.
It was an ex, it was ainteresting childhood.
It's a level of chaos.
I can't even fathom.
Yeah.
You know, they were allsignificantly older.
So my oldest sister is 20 yearsolder than me, so they weren't,
we really, none, none of us everlived in the same houses.
Okay.
Um, my brother, my, my mom'ssecond or first child, my
(04:42):
brother, we, we lived togetherfor the majority of our lives,
but the rest of'em, you know,kind of came and came and went.
Mm-hmm.
College, uh, other parents andthings like that.
So.
Sure.
On the Masonic side, youpetitioned and were initiated in
Corinthian Lodge, number 67 inFebruary of 2013, served as
(05:02):
master in 2018.
You were a district rep 2019 to2021 area Deputy since 2021, and
also a first grade monitor.
So you're obviously very skilledin the memorization and the
details.
Known as our, our ritual.
Mm-hmm.
That's outstanding on that.
And while you were not highschool sweethearts, you've known
(05:24):
your wife Emily since 1991.
I've always wondered, how wasit, you could be best friends in
high school, you part ways for awhile and then reconnect and
here you are.
That's, that's so cool.
So yeah, we, here we are, 90, 91is when we, we, we went down
memory lane one night and pulledout all our old yearbooks and
that was the year that we signedeach other's yearbooks.
(05:45):
So that's kind of the date.
It, it might be earlier thanthat, but that was the date
where, you know, we circledpictures and.
Signed each other's yearbooks.
yeah, when we were best friendsthroughout high school, we
kissed once.
It was weird.
Um, we kind of decided not to dothat again.
And then, uh, after high school,she went off to college.
I went and did the things thatyou've already mentioned.
Mm-hmm.
(06:06):
And then, uh, via Facebook, wereconnected and I don't know,
what year did I put there?
20.
12 ish.
2013.
2012.
2013.
Yep.
Bought a hobby farm 2015.
Married in 2016.
You have three kids together.
Love to travel.
I know London is a big highlightfor you guys.
Mm-hmm.
Camp whenever you can.
Always looking for some crazyadventure.
(06:26):
Mm-hmm.
So you're a busy family man.
You have projects going on ofall varieties at all times.
Clearly a very dedicated andbusy Freemason.
Mm-hmm.
the other day we were chattingabout the Masonic experience
that we are in the relationshipbusiness.
Mm-hmm.
And so often we talk about whowe are and what we do with
(06:47):
somewhat of that insiderbaseball terminology.
when you really boil it down,the Masonic experience is really
about authentic friendship,personal developments and
building community, bothinternally and in our literal
communities.
How do we go about providingthat experience that our new and
(07:09):
existing members are seeking?
You know, I think a lot of thatcomes back to, and I've, I've
picked up and started talkingabout it more and more is the,
the brand recognition that youand John have been doing in your
civility project and trying toget our image from being the,
you know, older guys sittingaround playing whatever game it
(07:32):
is that that lodge plays, youknow, with, with coffee and, and
turning it into and attractingthe younger.
Generations to be doing thingsin the community.
Um, whether that's, you know,the, the waffle breakfasts,
which we've done forever, or ifthat's, you know, working at a
food shelf or donating FSTs and,and fire suppression.
(07:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Fire suppression.
Um, and those, and those typesof things.
And increasing the, the brandawareness, you know, to get back
to that point where.
The cashier at the gas stationknows exactly where the Masonic
Lodge is.
'cause either he or his father,you know, is a Mason, you know?
Oh yeah.
Down the street there.
They're, I share this frequentlyon the podcast that in speaking
(08:18):
with a.
The new generation of young menseeking more information and
possibly joining a MasonicLodge, the number one thing they
want is the opportunity to giveback to the greater good.
To do something in that.
Mm-hmm.
Around that building communitypiece.
And when I visit a lodge thatmaybe has little to nothing
going on in that realm, that's aproblem.
(08:41):
And there's a lot of them thathave little to nothing going on
in that realm.
And there are some that aredoing a fantastic job.
in the construction trades, youknow, the, the, the, the desire
is always good, fast, and cheap.
And we've always said you can,you can have any two.
Um, hold on.
I want to good, fast, cheap, andcheap.
Yeah, but pick two.
But yeah, you can't, you justcan't have good, fast and cheap,
(09:03):
right?
You can't have good and fast, oryou can have cheap and good,
but.
you know, in, in the Masonicworld, it seems like those three
things are, you know, saycharity, ritual, um, and
community.
And it seems as though in mytravels, I found lots of lodges
that have two.
It's kind of the same thing.
Mm-hmm.
You can, you can have any two.
Um, but the, but the lodges thatare doing amazing work on
(09:24):
charity and ritual are not doingreal great in the community or
the ones that are doing reallygreat in the community, and
they've got fellowship andthey're, you know.
Doing things outside the lodge.
Well then the ritual's terrible.
I've been trying to find a lodgethat fires on all three, but I
don't know that it exists.
And I think there's several thatare making the effort towards
(09:45):
it.
Mm-hmm.
I know that that, that threelegged stool analogy is very
difficult to have all of thoseaspects at a hundred percent.
But making the effort at leastto cover that and not just say,
well, we we're just not gonna begood at that, is.
A big portion of what we've beenactively working on with lodges
to mm-hmm.
(10:06):
Share what's the shortcoming orwhere's the, where's the area of
opportunity that the lodge wantsto improve?
Is it, is it with the bonding asfriends and brothers with some
authenticity?
I.
Is it in the personaldevelopment or the lodge
education, something meaningful,something relevant.
And we just talked about thatbuilding community piece.
(10:26):
'cause that could, it's not justgoing out into our respective
cities and suburbs and donatingour time at a food shelf.
It, it is partially that, butthe building communities also
internally as well.
Sure.
Well, and if you don't have theexternal part of that and you're
having membership problems,that's part of your membership
problem.
(10:46):
It happens a bit too often wherewe share that this is what the
Masonic experience entails.
And once a new member goesthrough the process and becomes
a voting member, becomes amaster mason, and then may say,
Hey, by the way, where is blankthat you basically promised is
going to be part of thisexperience.
(11:08):
We time and again, it feels likewe, I.
Keep looking for a complicatedanswer to some relatively simple
questions when we address that.
Mm-hmm.
You know that if you listen tothis podcast, I like to quote
all sorts of influencers andauthors, and I'm such a big fan
of James Clear.
He wrote a book.
Mm-hmm.
(11:28):
Atomic Habits.
He's on the podcast circuithimself.
He said the following quote.
It's so easy to overestimate theimportance of one defining
moment and underestimate thevalue of making small
improvements on a daily basis.
Too often we convince ourselvesthat massive success requires
(11:50):
massive action, and it could beanything, losing weight,
starting a business, achievingany goal.
I would add to that improving anaspect of the Masonic experience
at the lodge level, and hefinishes this by saying, we put
pressure on ourselves to makesome earth shattering
improvement that everyone willtalk about unquote.
(12:12):
before you read that, I wasgonna say, you know, from a
community aspect, um, gettingback to that for just a second,
that you don't have to have thisgrandiose plan of, you know, how
are we gonna raise the money foran FST, for instance, so that we
can donate back to ourcommunity.
A lot of times it's just showingup.
Yeah, right.
We, um, uh, to pick on my ownlodge for a minute, we own a
(12:34):
cemetery just on the other sideof Farmington I found out at one
point that we were having thatthere's a huge Memorial Day
celebration in our cemetery.
We have a flag by a, by a markerfor the unknown soldier.
Um, the firefighters mark theirheadstones.
Um, our, um, sextant marks theMasonic headstones, the VFW
(12:55):
marks, and there's this huge,they get the, wind ensemble from
the high school to play all themilitary marches, and it's this
big event.
Nobody in the lodge knew aboutit.
and I made this, I made thishuge stink and, and kinda
shamed.
Everybody said, you know,they're having a party in our
house and we're not there.
Right.
and now, so every year, um, Ireached out to the yellow Ribbon
network who's in charge of thewhole thing.
(13:15):
And, and now on Fridays beforeMemorial Day, we go out and we
mark the.
Um, cemetery and help with that.
And we show up with our lodgeshirts and we don't really do
anything.
We just make, it's just apresence.
Sounds like all the pieces werein place.
Yeah, we did.
You know, but I thought, geez,you know, what kind of message
are we sending if we don't showup to a party in our cemetery?
(13:36):
Right.
You know, to, for lack of abetter explanation.
And now we go, you know, nowit's, it's a annual event on our
calendar that this is happeningon Monday.
If you can help set up onFriday, if you can help tear
down on Tuesday, really onlytakes two or three people to go
yank markers and.
I, I mean, that, that's, that'sthe example that you don't have
to have a, a huge event or plana huge event, which, you know,
(13:57):
we're all, um, overtaxed in manyways.
Just gotta show up, Show up inreminding ourselves that it
doesn't always have to be acomplicated equation to start
doing something with smallmomentum and build on that.
And, and maybe that's theendurance that we lack in this
world in general.
We we're so used to pushing thatbutton, push button, get banana,
(14:20):
push button, and uh, socialmedia, Amazon.
Mm-hmm.
It's immediate.
It's just really challenging to.
Not fall into what I once hearddescribed recently is the the
rumination trap.
May I share a anotherinteresting perspective?
The rumination trap is thatyou're trying to forecast into
(14:41):
the future, and unless you canget a perfect outcome, you just
kick the can down the road.
Ultimately, there's not any roadleft except for a bunch of cans.
You could have resourcefulness,clear thinking, but without
intentionalism, you're basicallyscrewed.
I.
I heard that on a, a podcastcalled Modern Wisdom Thought.
(15:02):
Wow, is that, does that notdescribe how we operate
sometimes, or what it does?
We forecast into the future, butunless that outcome feels
perfect, we just keep kickingthat can.
Yep.
So how do we get out of therumination cycle?
The difference between clearthinking and muddy thinking?
You draw it out, write it down.
(15:23):
Create an equation.
Don't listen to the voice thatwhispers it can't work, or it
may not be an overnight mass ofsuccess, or people will judge me
if it's not a hundred percentsuccess, perfection, or whatnot.
Well, there's a, there's a fewthings there, right?
Um, we need as a, as anorganization, and I think pretty
much every lodge will say that.
(15:44):
Is that it?
We've got a lot of lodges wherethose ideas are being done by
one person, true, or two people,right?
Mm-hmm.
Or however many, not enough.
Um, lots of idea guys.
And, and that then the, thewhatever event or action you
want to take falls on the samepeople.
And those people have generally,to your point, um, failed at it
(16:07):
and realized that, that they'renot gonna get judged.
Right.
That if it's, if it's this epicfailure and it gets canceled or,
or nobody shows up, I.
I think everybody willacknowledge that, hey, at least
you tried.
Yeah.
At least you, you, you, youtried to make it happen.
And sorry that, you know, maybewe could have done this
differently.
Maybe we could have donedifferent this differently, but
(16:28):
you did everything that youcould have done to make it
happen or to make it successful.
To at least give that, thateffort.
It, it's right.
The same conversation I'd heardthey were talking about.
There's this endless loop ofthoughts.
You can always have an oldthought in a slightly new way,
which gives it a sense ofnovelty.
(16:49):
It's why we like to get togetheras men and just kinda rehash the
same thing.
Old thoughts are familiar to usand it gives us comfort, right?
It's fun to discuss and we staysometimes in life in general or
thinking about lodge activities.
We stay in a static doom looptype of cycle, and we focus on
(17:09):
outcomes.
Not inputs, rather than callingit a decision, call it an
experiment.
Right.
'cause when you really boil itdown, five years spent
ruminating about differentoptions, you spend more time
making a decision than itwould've taken to see whether it
was going to work or not.
And you do.
And you the, what's that othersaying?
(17:31):
You, you mentioned a sayingearlier before we were live.
Um.
We used to, in, in the salesworld, we'd call it paralysis of
analysis.
Yeah.
Right.
And you, and, and my family willtell you that, that one of the
things I can't stand the most isjust continuous talking about
doing something right to the, towhere I'm the guy that stands up
and say, all right, here we go.
(17:51):
We're gonna go, we're gonna givethis a shot.
We're gonna try this.
you touched on something a fewmoments ago about the challenge
of having a small amount.
Of people, of personnel doingthe majority of the work.
Used to hear that as the 80 20rule.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
In corporate America, infraternal and civic
organizations and churchsettings, sometimes that feels
(18:14):
like it's even more of a 90 10.
Mm-hmm.
How do we remedy that?
Is it is simple, possibly asleveraging some new opinions,
some new takes on things.
How do we give that sense ofownership, and especially with
the lodge setting.
To have someone say, I want tohelp with this, and give them
(18:34):
the runway to like, like we werealluding to in all of this, to
give something a shot, trysomething new, and it may not be
an overnight success, but let'stry.
in my opinion, you, you said itis to give them the runway to
succeed or fail and be okay withit if they fail.
Right.
It's, it's kind of like.
I'll compare it to our ritual.
(18:56):
You got a, a new guy that'slearned a new part.
He doesn't know it real well,but he wants to be, you know, a
senior deacon for a degree.
and yet you've got five guys inthe rooms room that are, are
proficient, they're monitors orcustodians.
Um, for our listeners that don'tknow what that means, they have
tested out and know the script,basically word for word with
(19:17):
pinpoint accuracy, right?
Um, so now you got this new guythat's learned it.
And he is for the candidategoing through the degree, it's
best to let that guy that, youknow, is gonna be perfect.
'cause that's gonna give thecandidate the best experience.
But the only way for the new guyto become that guy is to let him
fail a few times and let thecandidate have a lesser
(19:41):
experience.
Right.
So there's a, a catch 22 to thewhole thing.
Mm-hmm.
but all the people that do itwith pinpoint accuracy didn't
always.
So when it comes to that event,getting back to that, if you're
going to let a new guy handle anevent, be his mentor, which we
also are not particularly goodat, like, Hey, uh, Reed, we need
you to have this party thatwe've never done.
(20:03):
Here's, here's what I want youto do.
Off you go fire and forget.
Yeah.
Right.
And then if it, if it wins,great.
If it fails, then we just neverask greed to do it again.
Um.
And, and, and ridicule, andshame him in the process, right?
No.
Well, well, at least he tried.
Right?
but if you let that, that guygive him the runway to fail and,
and maybe not to fail, but tonot do as good as, as, as you
(20:25):
would've done, right?
Or, or the other, you know, 10%of guys that have been doing it.
but then work with him toimprove it.
Right.
The, the after after actionreport, what can we, what could
we have done better?
What can we do better next year?
You know, do we do it again nextyear and, and do quit and quit
expecting it to be this amazingsuccess the first time.
(20:48):
That really plays into mentoringin an active way of.
We just had a couple laughsabout it, but not the fire and
forget not, Hey, go do this andI'm just gonna ignore the person
that I'm delegating this to.
Mm-hmm.
And then I'm gonna have thesehigh expectations on it,
actively checking in details,execution, sharing institutional
(21:11):
knowledge of something we mayhave tried that was either great
or wasn't so great.
But I, I can't stop thinkingabout the, let's look at this
through the corporate setting orthrough the job site.
You bring on an apprentice.
Mm-hmm.
Who is trained in certainskills.
You're building a home, you'rebuilding a structure, or in a
(21:31):
corporate setting, someone new,New-Ish is going to manage a
project.
I.
How would we handle that inthose settings?
If a mistake was made in, in thework world, we would not just
castigate someone.
We might acknowledge, obviouslywe have to acknowledge what
didn't go well, but we wouldbreak that down and help develop
(21:52):
them, mentor them to get it evenbetter next time.
Sometimes we're a product of ourown criticism.
Mm-hmm.
Where.
Are we just simply wanting thata hundred percent accuracy in
our ritual or with an event thatif it doesn't raise$10,000 the
first try, then it was an abjectfailure.
Mm-hmm.
No, neither of that.
There's, like you said, there's,there's a catch 22 that really
(22:15):
is vital in life and in lodge.
Sure.
to relate it to the job worldfor home shows, for instance,
right?
A lot of, a lot of what we do inthe remodeling world is home
shows, right?
The convention centers and thesmall high schools, and you
know, the big ones, the smallones.
we used to have a rule, um, thatbefore we called a show a
(22:35):
success or a failure, we had togive it three years.
Because there's all sorts ofoutside factors that, that come
in.
Um, we did an event, uh, we hada ritual competition that we
tried.
Uh, of course the first year wascovid.
So we would, we would call thata failure.
Um, the second year there was asnowstorm.
Uh, we, and we had to cancel.
So we would call that a failure,right?
(22:56):
All out of our control.
And the third year, it justdidn't happen.
Uh, we just didn't do it again.
'cause I think people were,nobody.
Nobody registered, no teamsregistered.
So.
But if you were to gauge it offof either of those first two
events and say, well, nobodyshowed up because there was 12
inches of snow, we're nevergonna do that again.
(23:16):
Well, it's not gonna have 12inches of snow every year.
Right.
It's Mother nature.
Right.
Come on in April it's, andthat's when it was.
Or Covid.
You know, what are the odds thatthere's gonna be a pandemic
again?
So hopefully not in our lifetimefalls into.
Playing the long game.
Mm-hmm.
We talk about Simon Sinek onthis podcast a lot.
The, the infinite perspectivethat he talks about is really
(23:40):
what is really the key tosuccess in any organization,
whether it's the work world, thevolunteer world, looking at
making sure that I'm leavingthis in a better condition than
I found it.
Mm-hmm.
Which sometimes feels a tadcliche, but it's so, so true.
Right.
I always look at, uh, starLodge.
The hog roast.
(24:01):
Sure.
It's coming up when with time ofrecording.
Very soon they have been.
Slowly building that event forover 40 years.
Oh, wow.
And they do incredible work.
They raise a ton of money, butthat started out small.
Yeah.
It was managing thoseexpectations and taking those
slow, sustainable progresssteps.
(24:23):
There's, there's several ofthose, right?
Uh, red Wing has their salsa, onthe first Tuesday of.
April?
Yes.
Coming up on April 1st Is thetime of this recording?
Yeah.
April 1st.
Um, and that started as a, as afairly small event and now is
just huge.
Um, the, uh, Dave Vice MemorialClay shoot.
Yes.
I maybe not, maybe not using theright words in that title, but
(24:45):
Helios Lodge also started as asmall event and now is, is huge.
That's coming up in, uh, firstweekend in May.
Sure.
The common thread for all ofthese, we could list many, many
more.
Sure.
Is that it's been a slow burn inbuilding momentum.
It takes extended focus and morepersonnel than just a handful
(25:05):
of, of guys and their familiesto make it a success and to keep
mm-hmm.
The snowball effect going.
Well, and you brought up thatthe, the idea of, you know,
having an event and if you don'tmake, you know,$10,000, then
it's a failure.
Well, if you make.
$1,000, it's a success.
And then if you make 1500 thenext year, that's a, yeah.
(25:26):
Better success.
Right.
How long does it take to get tothat 10,000?
And that obviously depends on avariety of things.
Right?
Well, and in fairness to what's,what's the reach, what did we do
to impact?
Mm-hmm.
What, what did that event do toimpact a young person, a
community, somebody in need?
Right.
I know of a smaller lodge.
Within the central portion ofthe state, they do a book drive
(25:47):
every year.
Mm-hmm.
It may not be the biggest eventever, but I can tell you
unequivocally that thefoundation that receives that
donation of the books, thestudents and the kids and the
families appreciate it so, sovery much for even touching a
handful of lives, that's a win.
Mm-hmm.
I've noticed over the yearsthat, that we as a fraternity
(26:08):
are really good at advertisingour events to ourselves.
And I, and I think we're allguilty of it, um, from the top
down to the smallest lodge thatif you want to a, have a
successful event or, um,fundraiser like we're talking
about, or if you want to have,IM improve your brand.
We as a fraternity need to beadvertising outside of our own
(26:31):
walls, and getting out into thelocal community, right?
Flyers in, in, in shop windowsand public Facebook.
Posts and social media, not, youknow, the Freemasons homepage or
Right.
You know, the private groupsthat we all have, you know,
we're all talking to ourselves.
Yes.
And that, and that's somethingwe're really putting a big push
(26:51):
and effort into, especiallyaround Masonic charities.
Mm-hmm.
And I know you're a bigsupporter of Minnesota Masonic
charities.
Mm-hmm.
And that's something that wewant to continue.
Bringing the lodge experiencecloser together with what the
work charities is doing With theSeptember gala every year We are
very fortunate in Minnesota tohave our Masonic Cancer Center,
(27:14):
our Masonic Children's Hospital,and the several other endeavors
we have through MasonicCharities.
And the commitment of growingthat support as far as medical
research, children's health.
That is something that we notonly should be proud of to have
right here in our backyard, butsomething that every Mason in
Minnesota has a piece of that.
(27:36):
And when I go out in my travelsand we, we talk about, well, how
would you like to support, I.
Sometimes the answer may be,well, I, I don't necessarily
have a, a huge amount that Icould contribute.
That's okay.
You've heard me say this before.
None of us will ever know who's$5, whose a hundred dollars will
be the amount that pushes thatresearch into a next, the next
(27:59):
level of breakthrough.
Yeah.
Um, John's always, always said,I've heard him speak at lodges.
You know that, that it's a, it'sa combination of lots of tens
and twenties.
You know, not, it's not millionsor tens of thousands that people
are donating.
For the most part, it's There isa lot of planned giving that
does occur, and that's very muchencouraged and, happy to help
with those accommodations.
(28:20):
But you're right, it, it's givewhat you can when you can and
knowing that it's going to sucha tremendous cause, you know,
and they're doing such amazingwork, um, at the university
that, you know, I, I lookforward to the future and hope,
you know, maybe in my lifetimeWhen there is a cure for cancer,
it's going to be in large partdue to the work that they're
doing at the University ofMinnesota.
(28:40):
and that work is in large partdue to the, the donations that
Minnesota Masonic Charities hasgiven.
And you know, if that happens inour lifetime, we can all hold
our heads high and say, Hey, youknow, we helped do that.
You know, however, however we dothat, whether it's time or
money, or.
Whatever we're doing, charitablythat that feeds that effort.
It will be a momentous day.
(29:01):
Every Mason in Minnesota has apiece of that, and when that day
comes, we'll have a piece ofthat.
Mm-hmm.
To hear the medicalprofessionals like Dr.
Toller and Dr.
Y Dr.
Poynter talk about the, they do,the work that they do.
In large part, from the supportof the Minnesota Freemasons, we
(29:23):
really have something specialhappening.
Mm-hmm.
Again, right in our own stateand the more of our brothers
across Minnesota that Getinvolved in all of these
endeavors, the better we're allcontributing.
Mm-hmm.
Our time, our talents, ourdonations towards, to your
point, that cure for cancer iscoming.
Yeah.
You know, I, I, I'm, I'msurprised often on how many
(29:44):
people when I've talked, whenthey say, Tell me about
Freemasonry or whatever it was.
It was, uh, recently at a U of Mfootball game.
Um, the one that, um, theGrandmaster and John had
presented.
Oh, November the last donation.
Yes.
Guy behind me started asking mequestions about it, and, you
know, I said I'm often surprisedat how few people know a little
bit about Freemasonry and theyknow about the Masonic
(30:08):
hospitals.
Have never connected those dots,right.
That the Masonic Children'sHospital is Freemasonry and the
Masonic Cancer Center isFreemasonry.
And I've recently, you know whenI say you've heard of the
Masonic Children's Hospital?
And they say, well, yeah.
And I say, well, we are theMasonic.
In the Masonic Children'sHospital.
They go, oh wow.
Never, never thought of that.
(30:29):
Mm-hmm.
Right.
And then I can, then I can godown that road of, of Masonic
Cancer Center, the MasonicInstitute for the Developing
Brain, which kind of going downthose things and talking about
the things that we've done in,uh, jointly with the university,
And you can see the light bulbgo on.
You know, they kinda Oh, thatFreemasonry.
Okay.
It's the lodge that they'vedriven past in their community
(30:49):
Yeah.
A thousand times and just didn'tconnect that the two are
connected.
But yeah, they're, you know,they're, they got Da Vinci Code
and National Treasure over hereand the, and the lodge building,
or the Masonic Hospital overhere and never connected.
It's all the same, We all loveDan Brown's books.
The Hollywood movies areentertaining very often I have
(31:09):
that conversation with guys thatare interested in learning more
I tell them if, if you thinkthere's even a, a modicum of
that, that's going to be in thisexperience mm-hmm.
You're gonna be very, verydisappointed because we are
about, like we talked aboutauthentic friendship.
We are in the relationshipbusiness.
And we're striving to makebrotherhood be a tangible thing,
(31:32):
not just that abstract term ofthat, the personal development.
Mm-hmm.
How are we becoming, how are wetaking the actions individually
to become that better version ofourselves?
We, we, that, that abstract lineof we make good men better, not
a fan, because we don't makeanybody anything.
We do have a roadmap of how eachcan, each individually and
(31:53):
collectively become a moreself-aware, better version of
ourselves, better husband,better colleague, neighbor,
better person in this worldwhere there's a whole lot of
static and we need less of that.
And we've talked a lot about thebuilding of the community.
That's what we do.
Mm-hmm.
And while we have a greatopportunity to continue
(32:15):
educating on that with our brandawareness, there are some great,
great things happening at thelodge level across the state.
You know, that, that making goodmen better.
It's not as though that there'sa, like a class or a, or a.
(32:36):
A degree that we put the, thatyou're a good man and we're
gonna make you better by doingthis, this, this, and this.
Um, and I think that that isoften misunderstood, that it's
more of in my own personalexperience, it's a more of being
a part of something with men Iadmire that are inspirational to
me to be a better dad.
(32:57):
Right.
They do this, you know, they didthis, they made these mistakes,
right?
Their kids are older, they don'tdo this, Clint right.
Do this.
And I can take that home.
I can, it makes, you know, andthen I can take that into my
marriage.
I can take that into myprofession.
I can take that anywhere, right?
And, and we all have, I'm notgonna name any names'cause I'll
name the, you know, leavesomebody out.
(33:19):
But we all have those guys thatwe.
Say, geez, I'd like to be alittle bit more like that guy.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
I get, I get off the phone withpeople and I, and I'll tell
Emily, I'll say, geez, you know,if there's, there's one guy, you
know, in the world that I'd liketo be more like, it's, it's this
guy right in this way.
He's just in this area, soawesome.
but that same, that buildingrelationships, that is, in my
(33:42):
opinion, the heart and soul ofall, most.
Successful lodges?
Is that, are you doing thingsoutside of your lodge?
Are you, are you actuallyfriends or do you just get
together and, and have a quickmeeting and do it as fast as you
can and hit the bricks?
Um, are you doing mealsbeforehand?
Are you going out afterwards?
Are you doing barbecues on theweekends and all of these
(34:04):
things?
And Corinthian Lodge inFarmington, we, we do a
phenomenal job of doing that andknowing each other and liking
each other.
And it truly is a family.
We're growing, right?
People come to our lodge andjust recently we've had five
petitions for affiliation.
Wow.
That they come to our lodge andthey're like, holy cow.
My, my lodge doesn't do any ofthis.
I wanna be part of this.
(34:25):
They're not leaving theirlodges, they're just mm-hmm.
Coming to us for something thatthey're not getting in theirs.
And here again, like I, I said,we have our own faults.
Um, but that's just not one of'em.
Versus the, you know, in mytravel, sometimes I go to
lodges.
That gavel hits at seven 30 andby eight 30 they're out of there
and the door was unlocked fiveminutes before the meeting and
(34:46):
it's locked.
Five minutes after the meeting.
Everybody goes home.
Sprinkling the word brotherhoodin there.
But the reality is sometimesintimate strangers.
Yep.
We want to continue to.
Work on that.
Yeah.
'cause to your point, andCorinthian does a tremendous
job.
I visited a lodge recently, verysimilar.
Everyone went around the, thelodge education that night was,
(35:07):
what's going on in your life?
What do you wanna share?
How has Masonry impacted yourlife in a positive?
What are you struggling withright now?
Mm-hmm.
Took a little bit for men,everyone, nobody wanted to maybe
be the first to speak.
Sure.
Why was that powerful?
I felt like it was brotherhoodon display in that led to the
(35:29):
following week and weeks afterchecking in with each other.
Yeah.
Hey, how, how did it go withyour loved one's, surgical,
whatever health issue they had?
Yeah.
How did it go with your, your,your child had a tryout for a a,
everybody knows what's going onin each other's lives.
We really are and have been.
(35:50):
Designed to be mm-hmm.
A men's support system mm-hmm.
In that rollercoaster of life.
But it starts with therelationships that is a
foundation.
Yeah.
No, I'm, you know, it, that,that conversation, I, I would've
loved to have been there and asthe, the lodge education officer
at my lodge, Those conversationsare absolutely painful to get
started.
(36:10):
Yes, right.
That, that getting that firstguy to open up, you know, but
then, you know, an hour and ahalf later, you can't get
anybody to stop talking.
You know, the masters in theeast pointing at his watch, you
know, you gotta wrap this upguys.
so those conversations arereally, really important.
And some of those, um, I wasgonna say, some of those private
conversations that you have.
(36:32):
Equally, you know, equallyimportant to have with that guy.
you know, personal issue that hewants to talk about.
and, and having and being therefor that guy when the
opportunity presents itself.
Well, Clint, it's been greathaving you in studio today and
talking about a wide range oftopics across the board of life
of Freemasonry.
(36:53):
On behalf of the craft.
We really appreciate all thatyou do in your lodge and beyond
you, your efforts with GrandLodge and some of the concordant
independent bodies that you'reinvolved with.
This really is the journey of alifetime and it really takes the
workers like yourself to seesuccess.
Well, thanks for having me read.
(37:14):
It's a pleasure to be here.
And, uh, truly a, a pleasure tobe part of the craft and, um,
laboring in the quarries.
Look forward to seeing you soon,and thanks again for listening,
everyone.
This has been another episode ofMinnesota Masonic Histories and
Mysteries.
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