The Fourth Turning: Generations in Lodge

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
you've reached the internet's home for all things
masonry.
Join on the level podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
craft and try to unlock themysteries, dispel the fallacies
and utilize the teachings offreemasonry to unlock the
greatness within each of us.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I have you now, let's go.
Oh my goodness, welcome back.
Oh, please ladies and gentlemensit down, please Calm down.
Welcome back.
Oh please, ladies and gentlemen, sit down.
Please Calm down.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Calm yourself.
There you go.
Calm down people.
It's just Matt and Chris.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hey, what's up everybody?

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I hate to go there so quickly.
Do you have a gift of a crutchbehind you?
Is that what I'm looking at Acrutch?
Is that a crutch with a bow onit?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
no, that is um.
Well, it's a little bit furtherover.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hang on, hang on oh, it's a shovel okay.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Okay, so you got a, you, you got a gift that was a
shovel okay yeah, so, uh, thebuilding that we occupy right
now for work, um, it's about aoh gosh, 30,000 square foot
warehouse, um, and so this iswhere I work out of, and that
shovel was a gift for wheneverthey broke ground in 2001, and

(01:37):
we finished in early two sorry2000, we finished in early 2001.
That shovel was a gift forbreaking ground whenever we
started this lab.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I had to get out of the way because people are going
to wonder what the hell isgoing on behind him there.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, you know what?
I just keep random gifts in myoffice.
That's just how I roll.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
So every episode we'll see a different thing
wrapped in a bow behind you.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Probably, and it might be me at some point.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh, put it on your forehead girl exactly just like
like a christmas ninja head offcenter, off center.
The bow should be like overhere, yeah you know what?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
yes, uh, and I should also have cat ears and whatever
else the young kids are doingthese days.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I don't know I'm so excited because you have been
referencing, for at least thepast year, on multiple podcasts,
this amazing book you've read,yep, and you often relate it to
Freemasonry called the FourthTurning.
I love this book and we weactually saw somebody posting
about this publicly and that'swhy I was like, hey, matt, we

(02:41):
should do that like now, becausepeople obviously love this book
.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
If you look at, hold on, I got it pulled up right
here.
Juan Sepulveda.
We did an episode with him fivemonths ago where he was looking
at a like a space telescope.
It wasn't Hubble, what was theone he was looking at?
Do you remember the James Webbtelescope?
The James Webb telescope thisbrother and I love him.
He's the Winding Stairs podcast, so if you haven't checked him

(03:07):
out, go check him out.
He is phenomenal.
But Juan was looking at thisJames Webb Telescope and did an
entire block of Masoniceducation on how, whenever the
James Webb Telescope went outinto space, the light from the
sun was now behind it and itcould see more clearly all the
stuff that's out there in youknow, in the, the universe and
the galaxy and everything, andhe's like you know what.

(03:28):
That's a great example of whatwe deal with in masonry that
whenever you put the noisebehind you, you're able to see
more clearly.
And I'm like this guy is goingto put me to sleep in the best
way possible.
Yeah, it was.
He's got such this like smooth,like relaxing voice.
I'm like this guy can read mecat in the hat and I would be
happy yep, yep, I saw him dothat presentation live and it

(03:51):
was.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
It was kind of hypnotic I, I tell you what.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
what a unique mind to have the fact that you're
looking at a telescope andyou're like, oh no, this is a
great analogy for life.
Like talk about puttingeverything in symbols and
allegory, my goodness Wellastronomy is one of the big
things we talked about that.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I'm excited about the podcast.
We got a lot of good feedbackon the last episode we did,
which was the top 10 things thatChristians hate about
Freemasonry or that they thinkthey hate about Freemasonry.
I think you did a pretty goodjob dispelling most of those
myths for the Christians.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Chris, we did a good job at dispelling those myths.
Thank you very much.
It's a we thing, sir Dang.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Right, let's go so to be fair, I have not read the
Fourth Turning.
I have educated myself a littlebit about it.
Obviously, I've read somethings online.
I familiarize myself with theauthors and who they were when
they wrote these books and thetheory of generations that they
made, which they eventuallyturned into this book, the

(04:51):
Fourth Turning.
Yeah, so the authors areWilliam Strauss and Neil Howe.
I don't know if they've writtenother things.
Have you read anything elsefrom these guys, or just this
book?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
I know I think it was , oh gosh, one of them.
So they wrote a follow-up tothe fourth turning.
I haven't read all the waythrough it yet because it was
just kind of, you know,expanding upon what they've
already covered in the fourthturn yeah uh, and then I know
one of them is still alive andhe still does interviews and and
all kinds of stuff, but Ihaven't seen anything on him
recently, um, but yeah, I meanthey're still very active in

(05:24):
what they do, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Good for them.
This, uh, the the strauss howgenerational theory devised by
these guys, basically like thebig picture is.
It describes a theorizedrecurring generational cycles in
not, I guess, western history.
This isn't for the world, right, this is mostly no, they call

(05:47):
it anglo-american history whichthey trace back to the 1400s the
1400s?
Yeah, okay, but according tothis theory, the historical
events are associated withrecurring generational personas,
or you call them archetypes.
Right, archetypes?
Yeah, archetypes.
I say archtypes, but it'sarchetypes is the proper

(06:10):
pronunciation of that.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I'm assuming so, because there's an E on it.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Generational archetype unleashes a new era
that they call a turning, whichlasts something like 21 years
Does that sound right?
Yep, in which new social,political and economic climates
or moods exist, and those arepart of larger cyclical seculum,
which is it means a long life,a long human life, which usually

(06:37):
spans about 85 years.
Yeah right, some have lastedlonger.
The theory states that a crisisrecurs in American history
after every seculum, which isfollowed by a recovery or a high
, and during this recovery,institutions and communitarian
values get strong.
Ultimately, succeedinggenerational archetypes attack

(07:00):
and weaken those institutions inthe name of autonomy and
individualism, which eventuallycreates a tumultuous political
environment that ripensconditions for another crisis.
That's kind of like the gist ofhow those cycles go right.
There's a period of greatnessfollowed by a decline, followed

(07:21):
by a crisis, followed by arebuilding, and those are the
four turnings.
The four turnings, according tohis book, are the high.
The high is the first turningwhich occurs after a crisis.
Right During the high,institutions are strong and

(07:42):
individualism is weak.
Society is confident aboutwhere it wants to go
collectively, though thoseoutside the majority often feel
stifled by informity.
According to the authors, themost recent first turning in the
US was post-World War IIAmerican High, beginning around

(08:03):
1946 and ended after theassassination of JFK, which was
in 1963, which, interestingly,our government just formed a new
department that's based ondisclosing things about, and the
first thing they tackled wasJFK.
I am so down.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
That MLK Jr.
Let's just blow it all off.
So there's a guy who's outthere in the podcast world
called Judge Joe Brown.
Have you heard of him?
No, okay, judge Joe Brown, hewent on a number of podcasts.
He went on Patrick Bet-David,candace Owens.
This guy knows where all theskeletons are.
It's insane.
And so he's like no, I've readthe MLK files and he's like and

(08:47):
the fact is, it was not who theysaid who shot him.
And the same thing with the JFKfiles.
It wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald, itwas two Marine snipers that
were up on top of a railroadtrack right down the road.
So he calls all of it out, yeah, and he starts naming these
people by name, like he has theand because he's a ballistics
expert as well.
And he knew the type of rifle,he knew the caliber of round, he

(09:08):
knew the fact that thegovernment bought 60 of those
rifles and only got 59 of themback.
Oh yeah, dude, he blows the lidoff of all of it.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, I'm curious to see what this new agency
uncovers, if any of that turnsout to be true or not.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
You know what?
So, even as a moderatelyconservative guy, if there is
corruption or wrongdoing that'sto be had in our government, I
want to see it so bad.
I want to see it so bad andit's like no, these people have
gotten up there with theirwalkers and their ties and
they're in Congress untilthey're like Dianne Feinstein, I

(09:44):
think, like she voted forsomething the day before she
died and it's like no, enough isenough.
You guys have had enough.
You know, at the steering wheel, it's time Like y'all need to
step away.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Here's the thing that bothers me as a moderate.
I call myself a moderate.
This new agency is called theHouse Oversight Task Force on
the Declassification ofGovernment Secrets.
I like it.
Do you know what the?
If you use the first letter,every word spells out Sorry.
What was it called again, houseOversight Task Force on the

(10:18):
Declassification of GovernmentSecrets.
What does it spell?
Hot dogs, nice.
What does it spell hot dogs,nice.
Like this administration is somuch about trolling.
I.
That's the part I can't getpast like dude.
How much more went into?

Speaker 2 (10:35):
that one.
How do I love it?
Because I've been followingelon musk and doge and
cryptocurrency for a couple ofyears now and whenever they were
like you know, because that waselon musk thing is he was like
oh, doge to the moon, doge tothe moon.
And then whenever they're like,oh, we're going to come out
with a branch of government,that's strictly about whittling
away government efficiency theDepartment of Government.
Efficiency, the Department ofGovernment Efficiency.

(10:56):
We're going to call it doge.
I'm like oh, the trolling isnext level.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
We have the hot dogs.
The hot dogs, the HouseOversight Task Force on the
Declassification of GovernmentSecrets.
Hot dogs.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Now here's the funny thing.
I'm sorry I'll probably get introuble for saying this here on
the livestream, but the funnything is did you hear what one
of the analysts are called thathe brought in to Doge?
What his screen name is online?

Speaker 1 (11:19):
No.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Okay, it's Big Balls B-A-W-L-Z, so that was his
screen name.
And so then Elon Musk, becausethe media jumped on it and
everything and they were likehow unprofessional all this
other stuff, so he changed hisTwitter handle to Harry Balls.
Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I was like the trolling is awesome.
These are the leaders of thefree world.
Come on, man, I know it'shilarious.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
There's a time and a place for that.
I don't think.
When you're leading thegovernment during a, you know, a
period of unrest, you probablywant to be trolling.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
I mean, from a comedy standpoint, it's gold, it is
hilarious, like you're not wrong, but from a comedy standpoint
it's.
I don't think anyone knowsabout the hot dogs thing.
I've never seen it reported.
Do you know when the last highwould have been?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
the last high would have been I think you just
mentioned it earlier.
It was think you just mentionedit earlier.
It was post-World War II.
Post-world War II.
So you're talking about the GIgeneration that had just came
home and the silent generationthat was either part of that war
or they were their kids.
And then that's whenever thebaby boomers come around,
because they were the kids ofthose GIs that came home.
So that was the whole reasonwhy they got the nickname baby

(12:22):
it's because they were part ofthat generation.
This was also the samegeneration, by the way, the GI
generation, and we'll get intothis with some of the
characteristics, but they werethe ones who started Social
Security to take care of theirailing parents, and that was
their whole thought process isthey were like no, we're going
to start Social Security, we'redoing well in life right now.

(12:42):
We've got the money to spare,so let's take care of our old
parents that don't have, youknow, finances or resources or
whatever the case might be.
And then the mindset of socialsecurity has shifted throughout
the years and I've heard olderpeople say this I paid my money
in, therefore I deserve it backout.
It's a misconception on socialsecurity.
You did not pay money in thatyou're getting back out because

(13:03):
it's ran horribly inefficiently.
You'd be better off by throwingit in like a high interest
savings account or investmentsor something like that.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's what I did.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
But the concept of Social Security is, is that the
current workforce pays to helpthe elderly.
So boomers did not pay theirmoney in and getting their money
out.
Boomers paid for their silentgeneration and gi generation
parents and then likewisemillennials and gen xers and gen
zers.
We are now paying for theboomer generation.

(13:31):
That's the way it was alwayssupposed to work.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
The, the high is followed by a period called the
awakening.
The awakening is the secondturning Yep and, according to
the theory, this era is wheninstitutions are attacked in the
name of personal and spiritualautonomy.
Just when society is reachingits high tide of public progress

(13:58):
, people suddenly tire of socialdiscipline and they want to
recapture a sense ofself-awareness or spirituality
and personal authenticity.
Young activists look back atthe previous high as an era of
cultural and spiritual poverty.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
So to put it in a more localized context, so we
all understand it, you can takethis back and you can rewind it.
You know, almost 600 years isessentially what you're dealing
with is you've got the firstturning, which is the high,
that's the gi's coming back,giving birth to the baby boomer
generation.
Then you have, as the babyboomers, become of age, so
they're somewhere in their teens, 20s, somewhere around there.

(14:37):
That's where you get thegeneration of woodstock anti-war
uh, jenna from forest gump.
I'm sorry I had to throw that inthere jenna, jenna by the way,
I just want to go ahead andthrow this out there jenna was
the largest villain of any movieever she's the worst she's, and
don't you dare say it's becauseshe's a woman.
No, it's because she ended upgetting pregnant with that man's

(14:59):
kid.
She had nothing to do with himthe entire time.
Kid shows up at almost you knowwhat, five, six years old and
she's like by the way, I haveaids and I'm going to die.
Yeah, that man loved you.
Just give him a chance.
That's what I'm screaming.
So she did not give him a chanceshe didn't, and there was
enough room for both jack androse to be on the door.
If you know, you know, so I'llnever let go.

(15:20):
Oh, I have to let go now.
Yeah, no, no, I gotta let go soeither way, yeah, so think, uh
think that time frame right.
The second turning would havebeen the essentially kind of
like a not necessarily arevolution or a renaissance, but
similar to it to where therewas this giant push for
counterculture.
So you have purity that wasvery popular in the time and
then the boomer generationwanted to rebel against that.
That's where you get the movieslike dirty dancing.

(15:41):
So, either way, that's kind ofwhere that second turning comes
into place.
Is it's that shifting from aculture that the previous
generation had set them up forsuccess, and now you have this
culture that and every singlegeneration does it where they're
like man.
I have a problem with the waythings are, just because they've
always been this way and yousee that reflected in every

(16:02):
single generation.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
So you could look at, I guess, the 60s when you had
the hippies and the anti-warpeople and sex, drugs and rock
and roll, all that.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
You've got so many things that happened in the 60s.
One of them was the StonewallRiots.
Are you familiar with that?

Speaker 1 (16:18):
No.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
So the Stonewall Riots I think were in New York,
if I'm not mistaken, so beforethe 60s.
You know, the talk of ahomosexual lifestyle was like
really kind of frowned upon,like nobody really talked about
it.
If it was done, it was kind ofdone in secret.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
So the Stonewall riots were when else are you
going to do the gay sex?
I mean not in public.
You got to do that in secret,right?

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah Well, not at a pride parade these days, but
that's a different conversation,so anyway.
So basically, what had happenedis this bar in New York was
under suspicion for allowinghomosexuals into the bar, and it
being a homosexual-exclusivebar.
So the police go and raid it,because there were laws against
that at the time.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
They go and what.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
What's that the?
Police go and what they raidthe bar.
So, either way and thishappened, by the way, the
morning of June 28, 1969.
So this wasn't that long ago so, basically, what happens is the
police end up getting overtakenby the people who were there,
and so they end up locking thepolice inside the bar, and then
they set the building on fire.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Did they not?

Speaker 2 (17:21):
So that's the Stonewall Riots, and a lot of
people really hinge that momentas the, I guess, birth or
explosion of the LGBTQ movement,because it went from Stonewall
Riots to Harvey Milk, to thecreation of the pride flag in 78
.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
So it just all kind of escalated from there, but its
linchpin was the StonewallRiots in 1969.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Which would have been part of the awakening, which
makes sense.
I guess it would have been partof the awakening.
It is the note.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
We're just going to push the boundaries and we're
going to recreate society theway that we see fit and then
again, I guess in the 80s, wehad the tax revolts, yep, which
was a whole nother one.
Um, so now, after the awakeninghappens, the third turning,
according to House and Strauss,strauss and Howe, is called the

(18:10):
unraveling.
So the unraveling, the mood ofthis heiress, they say, is in
many ways the opposite of a high.
Institutions are weak anddistrusted, while individualism
is strong and flourishing.
The authors say highs comeafter crisis, when society wants
to coalesce and build and avoidthe death and destruction of

(18:33):
the previous crisis.
Unravelings come afterawakenings when society wants to
atomize and enjoy, they say.
The most recent unraveling inthe US began in the 80s and
includes the long boom in theculture war.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, so you had the unraveling and the way and my
generation experienced theunraveling as children, by the
way.
So you had, you know, gasshortages.
You had scandal in the WhiteHouse with Bill Clinton.
You had the Afghanistan war,you know, or the war in the
Middle East that I should saythat we should have never been
in to begin with.
So the interesting thing aboutthis fourth turning book is it
was written long beforeSeptember 11th and these guys

(19:08):
actually predicted in the fallof 2001 that there would be a
huge financial crisis or therewould be a physical attack on
our land.
So these guys flat out predictedthat September 11th is going to
happen, just from looking atstatistics.
And you know history repeatingitself at statistics.
And you know history repeatingitself.
So then you have September 11thhappens 61 years after the um,

(19:29):
after the last fourth turningright.
So we're at the unravelingpoint in 2001,.
September 11th happens.
Uh, you have the Patriot Act,which I think is the greatest
violation that you know that anyof us had here in the United
States.
So you have bringing into thePatriot Act.
You have the war started in theMiddle East.
We were in the Middle East for20 some odd years.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, the Patriot Act , I think goes hand in hand with
the what was the name of theact where they allowed foreign
corporations to donate asindividuals.
I think that, along with thePatriot Act, those were two
things that basically startedthe unraveling in the United
States.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Horrible.
And so you see this.
Over the last 20 years, you'veseen this growing distrust in
institutions, and it doesn'tnecessarily have to be
governmental institutions.
You see that there's adeparture from people from the
church.
You see there's a departure ofpeople from the lodge.
You see there's a departure ofpeople from all these
institutions that have beenaround for hundreds of years,
because this next generationwants nothing to do with the
corruption that is found withinthem.

(20:29):
So it starts to unravel, as thename would suggest.
It starts to unravel Now.
Keep in mind September 11thhappened 61 years after the end
of World War II.
That brings us to 2025 today,where now we are in that same
timeframe of the fourth turning.
So, chris, if you wouldn't mindread the description, of the
fourth turning.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
I loathe to read it because we're in it.
According to the authors, thefourth turning is called the
crisis.
This is an era of destruction,often involving war or
revolution, in whichinstitutional life is destroyed
and rebuilt in response to aperceived threat to a nation's
survival.
After the crisis, civicauthority revives, cultural

(21:14):
expression redirects towardscommunity purpose and people
begin to locate themselves asmembers of a larger group.
The author says the previousfourth turning in the US began
with the Wall Street crash in1929 and climaxed at the end of
World War II with the GIgeneration, which they call a

(21:36):
hero archetype, which we'll getinto here in a minute.
That's when the hero archetypecame of age was during that
period, in the 60s.
They say.
Their confidence, optimism andcollective outlook epitomize the
mood of the era.
The author asserts thatmillennial generation your
generation right which alsodescribed as a hero archetype

(22:00):
born between 1982 and 2005, showmany similar traits to those of
the GI youth, which theydescribe as including rising
civic engagement, improvingbehavior and collective
confidence.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
So hero you're a hero archetype, so yeah, so when?
And I want to be clear aboutthis, I told Chris that I was
going to do this before westarted recording, because I
feel like sometimes I have toprep Chris for the stupid stuff
that I'm going to do.
So, having said that, you youwill see at least three
generations represented, orthree of these archetypes, I

(22:38):
should say represented in thelodge Right.
So let's rewind the clock andlet's talk about the boomers for
a second.
And I want to be clear inwhenever I say this.
I want to be super clear.
I am not speaking abouteverybody out of that generation
when I talk about generations,right?
Because that was the one thingthat I noticed over and over
again.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
But you can't right.
We're talking about themajority of people, basically.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Right.
We're just talking aboutstatistics.
That's all we're talking about.
So whenever I talk about okay,the boomers act like this, I'm
not saying all boomers.
When Gen Xers act like this,I'm not talking all Gen Xers.
When I say millennials are likethis, I am not talking all
millennials.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Basically everyone listening, excluded from
everything we say okay, Justassume we're not talking about
some of you fit beautifully intothese categories.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
So so either way.
So I tried, I tried to save us,but yeah, yeah, so so either
way.
And that's another thing is,within the boomer generation,
especially given their positionin the fourth, turning what the
what you'll see in the boomergeneration is you'll see the
rise of a character, andtypically it's an older male,
and so this older male is what'sknown as the gray warden.
So, for example, whenever youlook at at here, just in our

(23:48):
country, uh, here in the UnitedStates, and especially whenever
you look at United StatesMasonry, the picture perfect
gray warden that you're going tofind that was a Mason is George
Washington.
It's that guy.
And so what he did is he was anolder man at that point.
He took all these young men towar.
He had a really hard timetrying to get his troops to even
fight because a whole bunch ofthem would retreat, so he had a
really hard time with that thenends up becoming the president

(24:10):
of the united states, and thisis the real big key factor.
Whenever george washington waspresident of the united states,
they were encouraging him to runfor additional terms.
They wanted him to set up amonarchy yeah, and he was like
we knew.
You know that's the onlygovernment like yeah, people had
ever seen, so they just assumedthis is how it had to go so
this is a completely new form ofgovernment that the world has

(24:30):
never seen before, at leastnever seen represented well, I
think the last time you sawsomething remotely close to it
was was rome rome back wheneverrome was a thing.
So, either way, you have GeorgeWashington who said, who
willingly stepped back, and hesaid no, this power and
authority needs to be given offto the next generation, and so
he gave up that for thecollective good.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Man.
Imagine that.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Imagine anyone in modern society that would have
the fortitude, in the like youknow, just be good enough person
to do that and, honestly, wewe've got a couple in the in the
fraternity, but the problem isthat they're not people of power
and authority and they shouldbe.
Uh, and that's the thing thatgets me is, it's like the people
who do not want power andauthority, like they want

(25:16):
nothing to do with it, they'rethe ones that deserve it the
most.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
They're the ones that need to have it the most right,
right.
I tell people that all the timeI said, why haven't you run for
this or that?
And you're like I would neverwant to do that.
I'm like that's a problembecause the people seeking the
power are the ones generallythat probably should not under
any circumstances have thatpower.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Right I mean and look to be clear, I am.
I am of this opinion not justin masonry.
I am of this opinion inpolitics I'm of this opinion in
the church.
I'm of this opinion in society.
Those who clamor for powertypically should not have it.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, yeah, I really think like the ultimate way to
do this is the way um it done in.
Was it Troy or Sparta, where itwas a lottery?
Citizens randomly had to serveevery year for one year and you
didn't have a choice.
If you got pulled in thelottery, you served and you had

(26:15):
to put your life on pause for ayear.
But that caused the citizens toall have to stay up to date
with what's happening, becausethey might have to serve their
country randomly, yeah, and sothey had to be at least aware of
the big picture stuff going on,in case they got tapped and
then they're out.
So you know, it's hard topre-affect the person that's

(26:36):
going to get picked in thelottery because you don't know
who they're going to be.
It's a random drawing, so youcan't start schmoozing them two
years in advance with money andgifts and stuff and they're in
there for one year.
So you know, I think generallythat's a better way to do it
than saying, hey, if you want it, just run for it.
Yeah, that means you're goingto get the worst yeah, I'm

(26:58):
actually not opposed to that.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
I, I don't.
I think if you had a societythat was more up to date on laws
, social issues, things likethat, um, I think that could
work really well.
I don't know if it would workreally well in our society today
because and I'm blaming mygeneration for this we're the
fricking Tik TOK generation.
It drives me nuts and we allhave the attention span of a
goldfish.
It makes no sense.

(27:19):
So I think if you were to havea more educated society, then
that would work really, reallywell.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
We just covered four termings, right, and I think we
said that each one of those fouris, on average, about 21 years,
so we're talking about cyclesof 85 years, roughly right yep
80 to 85 years and each of thoseum generations that live or

(27:47):
participate in those cyclesbecome our archetypes.
So maybe we should cover thearchetypes, because that's
what's really going to relate to.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
I think freemasonry is the archetypes yeah, and and
to be clear, um, you know thatthat whole gray warden thing and
I apologize, I didn't finish mythought on that, that's my
fault, but you also see itrepeated so whenever you go from
Revolutionary War GeorgeWashington's time and he was the
gray warden of his time, therewere a couple of others, but he
was the gray warden of his timeyou fast forward 80 years and

(28:16):
you find yourself at the CivilWar and in the civil war.
You have people like abrahamlincoln, ulysses s grant.
Uh, robert e lee.
You have all these differentnot?
Not ulysses, sorry, albert pike.
Yeah, yeah, right, so eitherway, you see all these different
people that are the olderpeople, regardless of which side
on the war they foundthemselves on.
Uh, you see these older peoplethat are trying to lead a

(28:37):
younger generation into a majorconflict.
Fast forward another 80 years,you're at World War II.
And so then you have, oh mygosh, churchill.
And was it?
Hoover?
Was the president at the time.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
World War II.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, so either way, and even still, the president of
the United States at the timewas a Freemason, and so was
Winston Churchill.
I always like to mess withpeople and I was like, hey,
freemason, we beat the Nazis.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Ooh.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yes, I'm throwing down the gauntlet.
So you have these older peoplethat are leading these younger
people through times of calamity.
Right.
Fast forward another 80 yearsand you find yourself at about
2025.
Or sorry, another 80 years andyou find yourself at about 2025.
So we're in the fourth turning.
Right now we're in a period ofcalamity.
Whenever you have a conflictoutside of those timeframes,

(29:25):
whenever you look at like theVietnam War, the Korean War,
they were not successfulcampaigns, so they weren't
successful on the battlefield.
Whenever they came home.
So you had the wrong archetypeleading the battle.
You had the wrong archetypefighting the battle and then you
had the wrong archetypewelcoming those soldiers back
home.
Any sort of military campaignwe've ever had outside of that

(29:47):
80-year mark has been a disasterand I'm sorry but it has.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
That's so interesting that you could tie it to these
cycles.
I never even heard of thesecycles before you mentioned this
book, so really fascinated tosee how this is playing out and
how it can predict the future.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Well, not only predict the future and this is
the angle I really wanted tocover on this was generational
communication, and, I'm sorry,I'm a millennial, so I have a
whole lot of interactions withboomers.
I have less so interactionswith Gen Xers, so just to kind
of talk about the personalitytypes between them and how they
debate, how they converse, howthey argue.
So whenever, as a millennial,you got to understand

(30:27):
millennials are very headstrongindividuals, very, very
headstrong individuals, and wewill burn this mother to the
ground and rebuild it in howeverway we want to.
So I've had a joke that I'vetold some older people whenever
it gets into heated debates, andI was like, hey, you can be mad
at me all you want, but at theend of the day I have the clock
on my side.
Either get on board or get out,like whichever one you want,
and by the way I had a pastgrandmaster tell me something

(30:50):
similar.
So it's not abnormal to havethat mindset, because an
80-year-old man told me if youdon't like it, get the F out.
It's like, okay, say less.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
A past grandmaster said get the F out.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yep, yep.
If you don't like it, get the Fout.
I'm not going to say who it was.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Was that an entire lodge meeting?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
No, no, no, that one was um.
That was the one where hecussed at us.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Uh, was a tiled lodge meeting uh said that our
grandmaster cussed at you in atile lodge meeting.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yep, I'm not going to say who, I'm not going to say
where, but we were told that ourthat would be controversial.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, we wouldn't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
So, having said that, what you'll typically have in
the millennial generation is themillennial generation are very
headstrong.
They do not like theinstitutions that are currently
set up, because the institutionsthat are currently set up are
either ran in a way thathistorical documents don't lean
to hey, they should run this way.
Or they're ran in such a way towhere it benefits one
generation only.

(31:41):
They don't necessarily like itand it's like, okay, well, if
you're going to sit here andgatekeep the authority, you're
going to gatekeep the operationof whatever this institution is.
It doesn't matter if it'sgovernment, if it's church, if
it's lodge, it doesn't matter.
If you're going to gatekeepthis, then I'm just going to
wait out the clock and I'm goingto ruin your legacy and I'm
going to rebuild it the way thatit should be built Again,
according to historicaldocuments and what's made for

(32:02):
the common good.
Millennials, or the heroicarchetype I should say, are very
, very community based, right so?
Or society based, so it's likethey're taking into account
other people's stuff, things,you know, all these items to
where they're saying, no, thisneeds to be better for the
collective good.
You have Gen Xers, and I loveGen Xers, but you have Gen Xers

(32:26):
that are nomadic and they actexactly as their archetype name
would describe.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
So I'm a Gen Xer, right, I'm a nomad, apparently.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
I know a couple of them and, honestly, the Gen Xers
that I know.
They fit beautifully into theircategory where typically
growing up, whenever they're intheir late teens, early 20s, 30s
, they're coming into adulthood,they're just going to kind of
go along with it and they'regoing to side with their boomer
parents until the millennialgeneration comes of age, starts
taking a little more authority,and then they're going to side

(32:56):
with the millennials and be like, yeah, actually we're with you
guys, millennials, and be like,yeah, actually we're with you
guys.
Fun point about that thenomadic archetype is the only
archetype that in the history ofthe United States we have not
had a single president presidentout of that archetype it's
never happened.
That's why whenever KamalaHarris was running, she's a Gen
Xer.
That's why whenever KamalaHarris was running, I was like
there's no, statisticallythere's no way she could win

(33:16):
because we've never had anomadic president.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
So um.
So, essentially, there aredominant generations and there
are recessive generations, right, and the dominant generations
are the prophet and the heroes,correct the idealist and the
civic-minded folks, and therecessive generations are the
nomads and the artists, thereactive nomads and the adaptive
artists, and so I think that'swhat you're referencing.

(33:42):
You don't typically have arecessive generation leading
successfully, however,apparently, from what I've read
about this theory, I'm in thenomad generation, and as the
nomads get older, because of theposition they have to play as

(34:02):
an advisor or a leader during atime of crisis, right, but
they're not going to lead afterthe crisis successfully anyway,
right.
So we should talk about thearchetypes.
The first archetype is theprophet.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Ah, my boomer brothers, let's talk now, these
are the boomers.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Okay, the prophets are idealist.
Generations enter childhoodduring a high are the prophets?
A time of rejuvenated communitylife and consensus around a new
societal order?
Prophets grow up as theincreasingly indulged children
of this post-crisis era.
Spoiled brat.

(34:44):
They come of age asself-absorbed young crusaders of
an awakening.
They focus on morals andprinciples in midlife and they
emerge as elders guiding othersduring the crisis, or at least
they should.
Examples of those are thetranscendental generation, the
missionary generation and, sayit, the boomers, our baby

(35:05):
boomers.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yep, so we have a lot of baby boomers in our lodges
yeah, um and so, and actuallythere's another, there's another
interesting point to that.
So and again, brothers, I wantto be clear.
I am not talking all babyboomers.
Please do not come at me in thecomments.
So yeah, so, either way, you'lltypically find and I've said

(35:26):
this before on the podcast, butyou'll typically find two
different types of boomers thatare found within the lodge.
About 20% of them are the realcontentious, troublesome ones,
or at least in a local lodge,from what I've seen, there's not
a very large percentage of them, because I am of the opinion
and this is just my opinion ifyou are a boomer who has sought
out masonry and you've dedicated20, 30, 40, 50 years to this

(35:47):
craft, you typically have workedon yourself so much that you're
not going to exhibit thetypical boomer mentality, and by
typical boomer, mentality Ilike that philosophy, I like
that concept.

(36:13):
Yeah, and by typical boomermentality I mean it is somebody
I like that concept have inmasonry.
But whenever I talk to some ofthe other ones, I have to keep
it.
I have to really keep my tempercalm and because here if I show
any sort of emotion whatsoeverit's just going to escalate
because their mindset on a on aconversation or a debate is, if
I am more offended than you,then I'm right, and it's like,

(36:34):
well, you gave me this paper cutright here and this paper cut
really hurt.
It's like, yeah, but you shotme in the leg.
Like it's a very differentthing.
And so you'll see that a heckof a lot, especially in uh,
again, the less disciplinedboomer generation and I'm going
to say less disciplined becausea lot of our brothers in the
lodge again, it's only about 20%of them that don't have that
same level of discipline Um,about 80% are very disciplined

(36:57):
in that, and so they cover thatrole known as the Grey Warden,
where they want to bring up thatnext generation and help that
next generation succeed, basedoff of wisdom, successes and
failures that they've had in thepast.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
So that's what they're.
As they get towards the latteryears of their life, they become
Grey Wardens.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
The boomers no, no no , it's not a later in lifetime.
No, it is a mentality thing, amentality thing A mentality.
A Grey Warden is a mental stateof a prophetic archetype, and
that is.
I know that this world does notbelong to me.
I need to make sure the nextgeneration is ready to run it.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, that kind of doesn't go with this generation
of baby boomers.
Because I read a book.
It's called the Theft of aDecade Okay, and it's about how
the baby boomers stole themillennials' economic future.
So they weren't looking formaking the next generation
better, they're looking out forthemselves.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
A gray warden is incredibly rare.
It's very, very rare.
So there's a reason why,whenever you look back
historically, you can only namea handful of Grey Wardens.
It's because they're not foundvery frequently.
Makes sense, it's like I boughtmy house for a box of matches
and a used napkin.
It's like, okay, now it's worth$3.5 million, Okay.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Can we name some examples of prophets?
We know we had Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yeah, you got Lincoln , you got Washington, you got
Ulysses Grant, robert E Lee, allthese great leaders Woodrow
Wilson, winston Churchill All ofthose are examples of the
prophetic archetype that wereGrey Wardens.
And again, especially wheneverI talk about Robert E Lee, I
understand, fully understandthat argument on both sides of

(38:42):
that war.
It's not about the topic of thewar, it's about the fact that
it was an older man who ledyounger men.
That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So the second archetype which I fall under
called the nomad, which is areactive one like we talked
about.
Yeah, my generation enterschildhood during an awakening, a
time of social ideals andspiritual agendas, when young
adults are passionatelyattacking the established
institutional order.
Nomads grow up asunderprotected children during

(39:12):
this awakening right.
We come of age as alienatedpost-awakening young adults.
We become pragmatic midlifeleaders during the crisis, um,
and we age into resilientpost-crisis elders.
Uh, and examples of thisgeneration are the gilded

(39:32):
generation, the lost generationin mind, generation x, which you
know what I think that'sgenerally true.
Like I grew up watching startrek, for example.
Star trek gave me in my youngmind the ideas about equality.
You had every race representedon the bridge.

(39:53):
It was about the hopefulness ofthe future and how technology
can save us didn't star trek hadthe first interracial kiss on
TV?

Speaker 2 (39:59):
They did, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
That's right, William Shatner.
There's a great documentarythat kind of goes into that and
it talks about how it wasn'tsupposed to happen.
They didn't want that to happen.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
However he could not keep his passions within due.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Let's just do one real quick.
And then he soaked up the wholeday trying to do that.
Yeah, so we had no option butto air it because it had no
other content.
It was great.
But, yeah, that's what I grewup with and that's my generation
.
Right, we've got theseidealistic views about
everything, but we aren't.
We're reactive, we're not likeout there leading the charge and

(40:42):
trying to revolutionize asociety.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Yeah, which is totally fine.
And here's the thing, and Iwant to be very clear about this
just because you don't fit intoan archetype, but you think you
should fit into an archetype,does not mean that it's a bad
thing at all.
I mean, different people havedifferent personality types for
a reason.
So you do have those types ofpeople that, hey, they're just
really good at being a supportrole.
But at the end of the day,again, statistically, if you

(41:06):
take somebody of an artist or anomadic archetype and then you
have them lead an institution,especially really trying to
drive that institution forward,statistically it's going to hurt
that institution and not helpthat institution.
I'm not saying in all cases,I'm saying statistically.
So the fact that you have thenomad and the artist generation
that are that are known as arecessive generation or a helper

(41:28):
generation, there's absolutelynothing wrong with that, because
you need those strongpersonality types that are the
boomers and the nomads in orderto move institutions forward.
And it's like my wife and I I amreally good at pushing the
envelope on a lot of things.
This shouldn't surprise anybody, but I really am good at
pushing things forward, comingup with new ideas.

(41:48):
The execution of those ideas.
My wife is phenomenal at adminwork and the details and coming
up with a specific plan.
All right, at 2.32,.
We're going to be at this exactpoint in the day.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
My wife is good at that too.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
She is so good at 2.32,.
We're going to be at this exactpoint in the day and it's like
she is so good at that.
So, it's like all right, thatmeshes really well in my
household because I can say, allright, big picture, here's
exactly what I want done.
Are you on board, yes or no?
And she's like, all right, I'llwork out the details.
Or hey, maybe we should alterit to this.
Okay, yeah, and then we work onthe details.
There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
No, and the one thing I most identify with what I
just talked about with the Nomadis that they grew up we grew up
as underprotected children,like we weren't.
We didn't have participationtrophies.
When I was a kid, you know,there was nobody cared about you
getting kidnapped when I was akid.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, you guys went outside and you had to be home
before the streetlights came on.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Exactly that was my generation.
We had to be home before thestreetlights came on.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
I think they call it the turnkey generation, don't
they it's like your parents wereworking it off doing other
stuff.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
So they left the key under the mat.
Yeah, exactly, that's exactlyhow it was, and you know there's
pros and cons to that.
We became independent people.
We don't rely on anybody, wedon't need to be given things,
we don't like to get aparticipation trophy.
We want to win something basedon its merits.
So definitely I can identifywith those aspects of the nomad.

(43:14):
Yeah, Now my generation isfollowed by the hero, which is
your generation.
Yeah, nice, let's go See why helikes this book so much.
The heroes are civic, sothey're in their childhood,
during the unraveling.
It's a time of individualpragmatism, self-reliance and

(43:38):
laissez-faire meaning Frenchword for hands-off.
Heroes grow up as increasinglyprotected post-awakening
children.
They come of age asteam-oriented young optimists
during a crisis, emerging asenergetic, overly confident
midlifers and age intopolitically powerful elders

(43:58):
attacked by another awakening.
Examples of this are theRepublican generation, the GI
generation and now themillennials.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yep, the millennials.
So I want to be clear wheneverI say this Every single
archetype that we're going totalk about has its positives and
has its negatives.
Sure, I will say, themillennial generation bugs me to
no end, on just how dang lazywe are.
It drives me nuts.
It's like no, if the millennialgeneration were to get off of

(44:30):
its rear end and, guys, we're inour thirties and forties now,
it's okay, um, you know?
So, for example, I'll give youa, for instance, um, for
instance, uh, whenever it mywife and I were trying for our
first child, it was one of thosethings where some people were
happy for us.
But there I am in my 30s, I'm 34, 35.

(44:51):
At this point, I mean, you justdon't know how much
responsibility that is.
That's going to changeeverything.
It's just so muchresponsibility.
It's like, yeah, I'm aware, andI'm still pulling the trigger
on this, metaphorically speaking, it's like I'm a grown adult
that pays taxes and everything.
I understand whatresponsibility is.
Get out of my face, actuallysteps up and they take charge
and they do things.
You see a lot of positive comefrom that and especially, you

(45:25):
see it in the lodge right now Alot of these young guns that are
stepping up in the lodge.
You're going to get one of twodifferent people that try to
stop them, and I've experiencedboth.
You're going to get okay.
I'm trying to step up in thelodge.
I'm creating a plan of action.
I'm coming up with eight to 11years of fresh leadership.
I run two businesses.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
So it's like you can't tell me that I don't know
how to organize something,because I do it for a living
Like this is my job.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Right.
So either way, and it's neededin the lodge right now, like
we're desperately in need ofthat no-transcript and it's like
no, am I a master mason or not?

(46:10):
Pick a lane, I don't care whichone you pick, but pick a lane.
And even still and this is thebest part about that, chris, do
you know the guy that told methat whenever he got raised, he
immediately got appointed tosenior deacon, really, and he
thought that was okay, but itwas not okay for it to happen to
me.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Right, well, it's a different time, right For him.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
No, Masonry's timeless Like seriously.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I don't know how you rationalize that in your mind
other than, hey, it was adifferent time and it was okay
then, but now it's not okay.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Well, essentially, what it boils down to, it's an
argument of rules for thee butnot for me.
Do as I say, not as I do, thosesorts of things, and so.
I'm not saying that I'm exemptfrom me possibly doing that one
day.
I'm going to really try to keepa star on that and make sure
that I don't do that.
My goal is, especially as amillennial or a younger man in

(47:01):
the lodge I'm 38, is I want toencourage the next generation.
I really want the nextgeneration to be trained up and
taught up properly.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
And that's a hallmark of the millennial generation is
they're very team oriented,right.
They don't need to do it all bythemselves.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
They would rather do it with a community of people
and pull in a coalition to worktogether well, and even still,
our lodge phrased this year uhand ryan came up with this and I
think he even put it on hiscoin that he had his uh, his
works for master coin from hisinstallation is light, or many
hands make light work, that'shis whole thing.
So it's like that beautifullyencapsulates what we're trying

(47:37):
to achieve as a lodge locally.
The more people we can get tohelp with these things, the
easier it's going to be on allof us absolutely now.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
You're the hero generation and behind you is are
going to be the artists, right?
The artists are a generationthat entered childhood during a
crisis like the period we're inright now, um a time when great
dangers cut down social andpolitical complexity in favor of
public consensus, aggressiveinstitutions and ethic and an

(48:10):
ethic of personal sacrifice.
Artists grow up over, protectedby adults pre-preoccupied with
the crisis.
They come of age as thesocialized and conformist young
adults of a post-crisis worldand they break out as process
oriented midlife leaders duringan awakening and age into
thoughtful, post-awakeningelders.

(48:31):
Examples of this generation arethe progressive generation, the
silent generation and thehomeland generation.
Homeland generation I haven'theard of that one.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
The homeland generation is gen z that they're
calling them homeland zoomersgen z the homeland generation
now you want to know what'sfunny about that is.
Reading this book has actuallymade me kind of adjust how I'm
raising my daughter really mydaughter.
You don't want her to be atraditional uh my daughter is
yeah, is the next propheticgeneration, so she's the next

(49:04):
generation of the boomers.
Okay.
So it's like, no, I've got toreposition how I, how I'm
raising her, I am raising her tobe independent, um, you know.
So, for example, if she's like,oh, I can't get my bike started
, and it's like, no, here's howyou do it, I'm not doing it for
you, you know, you've got tofigure these things out, or no,
I can't fit this toy into thisthing and keep working on it,
like, and that's that's kind ofthe thing that I say to her.

(49:24):
A lot is I'm like hey, you know, what do you do if you can't
figure something out?
Because typically, what kidswill do is they'll just sit down
and work on it and figure itout.
Don't cry, just slow down, lookat it.
And I had a great example ofthat yesterday.
Yesterday I told you before westarted recording I helped a

(49:47):
buddy of mine change a starterin a 2021 GMC 1500.
By the way, if we have anybrothers who work for GMC in the
engineering department who hurtyou Honestly, who hurt you,
because I remember back in theday, back in my day- yes, you
are that old.
I am that old.
Back in the day if I needed tochange a starter on a vehicle, I

(50:09):
opened up the hood and it wason the passenger side, right by
the battery.
It was right there and then twobolts and I'm done and that was
replacing a starting solenoidand an 86 Bronco with a fuel
injected 302, because that's thefirst year they did the fuel
injected 302.
Thank you very much.
It's the greatest motor ever sochevy 350.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Guys don't come at me , but um anyway all like so
compacted now right, like allkind of like so jammed in there
because let me tell you what wehad to do.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
So normally what the dealer would do is they'll
remove the cab and they'll justwork on it from the back, just
standing right over the chassis,right, but no, what we had to
do because we had none of thosetools and we're in a garage
sweating our rear ends off forfive hours.
Uh, we had to take thepassenger wheel off, take out
the fender flare that's on theinside, it's a cloth fender
flare.
Take that out, remove a.

(51:00):
I don't even know what thatwent to.
I think it might have been likesomething turbo related or
something.
So I had to remove a hose, theexhaust, um, and then like a
couple of sensors or somethinglike that, and then we and a
heat shield and we were finallyable to access the starter.
Here's the reason why I say whatI said to my daughter is I
could tell my buddy was gettingsuper frustrated underneath that

(51:21):
truck and his hands messed upand he's trying to get this heat
shield out.
He's starting to yank and allthis other stuff.
And anybody knows, working on anewer vehicle, when you start
yanking parts, you break partsand it costs you more money.
So I said hey, bro, tag outlike I got this.
I kid you not, I get up inthere and it's just like I'm
playing with like a kid's littleyou know, like the red and blue
ball with the shapes in it andeverything.

(51:42):
I'm like doing that underneaththis truck, so I'm just like
gently moving it.
Finally I get the angle on itand just pull it right out.
I'm not going to say all thecuss words that he said, but it
was how on earth did you do that?
And I was like oh, I have atoddler Like we.
We play with shapes.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I don't know what to say, but that's how long did it
take of your day to try to dothat one project?

Speaker 2 (52:09):
That one project.
I got there at two o'clock andwe ended up getting back to
their house for dinner by seven.
So it took five hours total forus to do that that's insane.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I would not invest five hours of my day into that.
I I can't do it.
It was time well spent and thatactually that's a great segue,
that story into how thesearchetypes can be encountered in
the lodge and how you canapproach them, knowing the the
kind of archetype they mightfall into, how you can, uh,
communicate with them to helpyou communicate better with

(52:36):
those archetypes, since you kindof you know this is broad
strokes we're talking about.
We're not talking about everyperson that you're going to meet
, but broadly is good because itgives you at least an approach
that you can try on people andsee if it works, and
statistically it should moreoften than not.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
And honestly, once this is explained and here's I
want to be clear on this pleasego read this book, please read
the book, get the audio book,read the actual book, because it
does a far better job than wedo in the hour and some change
that we have to talk to you guysabout this.
So what you're going to see,especially in the boomer
generation, you're going to seetwo very different types of
people.
You're going to see those thatare power-hungry and

(53:18):
argumentative, and you're alsogoing to see those that are
power hungry and argumentative,and you're also going to see
those that are more laid back.
They typically are not in theelected.
Chairs Might be like yoursecretary, your secretary might
be one of these, like ours is,but they want to see the next
generation advance and moveforward.
And what does the secretary do?
The secretary does paperwork.
That's not a position of poweror authority, even though it is
a very pivotal role in the law.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Yeah right, power or authority, even though it is a
very pivotal role in the lodge.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah right, it's supposed to be a very
subservient role, right, mostlodges, because the masters
don't understand how Freemasonryworks, how the digest works,
how these chairs are supposed tooperate, right, they let a lot
of that authority fall into thesecretary because they're not

(54:01):
willing to do their jobs Rightand honestly, the two lodges
that I've been a part of, bothsecretaries at the two lodges
that I've been a part of, arepicture perfect Grey Warden
people.
I mean picture perfect.
They're like you know, becausethey know the digest, they know
the laws, they know what aworshipful master can and can't
do.
They know these things.
Any good worshipful master,whenever he has a question on

(54:27):
what he can and can't do, thefirst thing he's going to do is
look to his left and say,brother, secretary, can I do
this?
Because the secretary shouldknow all of these things.
I mean, we talk about that inthe ea degree, about
circumscribing our passions andour, our desires and keeping our
passions within due bounds.
It's like that includesconversation, like and again, if
you're that kind of, we had itrecently.
We were talking about somebodywho's wanting to buy our
building over at Lakeland and sothe conversation switched from

(54:48):
the technical data letter ofintent you know dollars and
cents, all of that and then itwent into well, no, this is a
foolish idea because of X reason, and at that point you could
tell the brother who stood upand was talking about that.
He was getting emotionallyinvested in the conversation.
The second you get emotionallyinvested in a conversation, you
need to take a step back.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Pretty much time to disengage for a bit.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Right, you've got to disengage, you've got to pull
yourself back and you've got tosit there and think okay, I need
to be able to speak logic andfacts.
And so the end result that wecame up to, to your point of
when you have a collectiveconversation, you'll typically
come up with a better idea thanthe first one that was presented
, because different people lookat things different ways, and
that's okay.
But the conversation ended withwe're not going to talk about

(55:34):
the selling of the lodge anymoreuntil there is a letter of
intent or a contract and asurvey of this potential new
property that they're wanting togive us to kind of sweeten the
deal.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
So you've read this book, you've absorbed the
teachings of this book.
I've read this book like fourtimes.
Four times.
And now you're in Freemasonryas an appointed officer
currently.
So how can you help thebrothers that are listening to
this, or the people that aren'teven Masons might be listening
to this?
Like, what have you been ableto use that you've learned from

(56:07):
this book in the lodge?
Give me some examples of howyou can use this knowledge.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
I'll give you an example out of the lodge and
I'll give you an example in thelodge, out of the lodge,
typically, the give you anexample in the lodge, um, out of
the lodge, typically, theprophetic generation is a very
emotional generation and theyare I mean, there's just no way
around it the boomers, yeah, the.
The prophetic archetype is avery emotional archetype and so
again, I'm raising a prophetic,you know, young woman.

(56:35):
Um, I'm going to have to teachher how to control her emotions
and think logically.
Um, so I weep for whoever triesto date her.
I'm going to have to teach herhow to control her emotions and
think logically.
So I weep for whoever tries todate her, because she is going
to be a menace.
So so, either way I mean that'sthat's the honest truth of it is
, they are a some of them Ishould not all some some are a
group of people that theybelieve, if they are more

(56:55):
offended than they are Right.
Here's the second part of that.
The second part of that isthey'll typically speak from a
highly emotion state, right froma heightened emotion state, and
so their whole thing is becausewhenever I get into
conversations or debate withpeople, I typically stay very
calm, and not only do I stayvery calm, but I'll also crack
jokes.
You and I had one on Facebookthe other day where I was like

(57:18):
in the spirit of harmony, let'sjust do this.
Right, and I meant it as a jokeand it was taken as a joke, so I
got it.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
I thought it was hilarious.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
I'm a little upset that Facebook hid my comment,
though they hid it.
They hid the comment, yeah, soyou actually have to go in drop
down and hit all comments inorder to see what I put.
So, either way, again they speakfrom this heightened emotional
standpoint and again theirmethodology is well, if I'm more
offended than I'm right, fastforward in those conversations.
Why I stay so calm?
And again, my eyebrows don'teven change angle.

(57:48):
I mean, you know it's the samevoice, my heart rate doesn't
elevate nothing, but it's one ofthose that if I were to speak
to an emotional boomer as thatemotional boomer were to speak
to me, it'd probably come toblows.
They cannot handle somebodyspeaking to them in the same way
that they speak to others, andI don't know if it's a conscious
decision or not, but they justcan't handle it.
And back to the communicationaspect, because this is the

(58:10):
thing that I learned the most isdealing with a whenever I just
said okay, I stay very calm in adebate, especially with a
boomer, and I've detailed it onthis podcast before, where I
offended a brother who is aboomer and he was so angry with
me over a very low ball comment,like a low, real low handed
comment Um, not low handed, Ishould say I call it a solid

(58:31):
flying circus monkeys.
Um, and he got very, veryoffended by that, to the point
where he was shaking.
And I'm like this guy is, I'msitting here watching this going
and it hit me as I in real timefrom like this guy's
emotionally compromised for whatI meant as a simple stupid joke
, a very stupid joke.
So I walked over, stayed calmand apologized and his response

(58:52):
was well, I was highly offendedand so then I had to take a step
back and point out the logic ofokay, I've now apologized to
you.
It's your decision if youaccept that or not.
That leads into another caveatabout it.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
I mean, yeah, responses.
I can clearly see that you arebothered by it and that's why
I'm standing here apologizing toyou, to try to help relieve
some of that pressure.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
The other aspect of it is and this could be applied
to boomers, gen Xers,millennials and again, this is
not exclusive to one generation.
This is applicable to all ofthese generations is that if I
cause offense, say Chris and Iare having a conversation, I
cause offense to Chris or viceversa.
Let's say Chris causes offenseto me, which is not going to

(59:37):
happen.
I'll try.
Give it your best shot, dude.
So either way, I just don't getoffended by stuff and, uh, you
know the old expression of likewater off a duck's back, um, but
either way, if I now do theright thing and I apologize for
that thing and they are stilloffended, even though I gave a
very heartfelt apology, or viceversa I'm still offended, that
sin is now me.

(59:57):
It's now my problem that I'mstill ticked off, right, this
guy who has since apologized forhis actions.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
And it's not an apology.
I want to be clear.
It's not an apology of I'msorry that you got offended or
I'm sorry you feel that way.
No, it is.
I'm taking responsibility formy actions.
I caused offense, I didn't meanto.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
So change the way you apologize to people.
Sometimes it needs to come froman honest place, like and
that's you know.
I just had this incident happenthis morning, um, in a game, so
, but hey, they're still realpeople.
And, uh, the person said I wantapology from that person before
I I come back to the team and Isaid, okay, let's talk about
that.
Like, what do you expect themto be apologizing for?
And when we got into it, it wasjust ridiculous.

(01:00:43):
This person was expectingsomeone to apologize for doing
the right thing.
No, it was your ego.
You wanted an apology.
That's why you wanted your egowanted an apology.
Yeah, if you look at itlogically, that person has
nothing to apologize for,neither do you.
Right, it happened because of amisunderstanding and that's the

(01:01:03):
facts.
So I got that person tounderstand and come around and
say hey, look, everybody wantsyou, you're wanted here, you're
needed.
The only apology is that youdidn't take the time to
communicate longer to sort thisstuff out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
It's amazing whenever you use calm words and a calm
mind just what all you canconvey in a good way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Changes it instantly.
When you start talking from asupportive place, you know it's
like hey, you're valued, Peoplecare about you.
You're misunderstanding thesituation.
They listen sometimes, but whenyou apologize, you should know
what you're apologizing for,right?
Yeah, or why are youapologizing at all?
Don't apologize if it's notgoing to be a legitimate apology

(01:01:45):
.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
And I've seen that before as well.
Again, you know, with familyand other people of you know.
Hey, by the way, you didsomething that offended me.
I haven't even told you whatthe item is yet.
Oh well, I'm sorry.
No, and we always joke about thedifference between my mom and

(01:02:07):
dad, and so my dad passed away15 years ago complications with
cancer, and it was soentertaining to watch their
different forms of anger in bothpeople.
Because my dad I would considermy dad a gray warden, not
because he's my dad, but he'sliterally the strongest male
I've ever met in my life, likejust mentally, emotionally.
The man had it.
You know, we went from atrailer park with dirt roads uh,

(01:02:29):
so represent tpt, um, trailerpark trash for those scoring at
home tpt, yeah, tpt, so uh,either way, we started in a
trailer park and he built amulti-million dollar business.
The man had it.
So it was so funny, though, towatch their different types of
anger.
When my mom gets angry, wealways said that it's it's like
a nuclear bomb or it's an atombomb, like if you're in a blast
radius, you're gonna get it.

(01:02:50):
Like it doesn't matter, youcould be the mailman, it did not
matter, everyone's gonna get itright.
And that was my mom's versionof anger.
My father-in-law is the exactsame way.
It's a blast radius so.
But my dad, on the other handand I'm more this way as well my
dad was a sniper, and so itwasn't just that he was mad at
that one person, no, he was madat that one thing that that one

(01:03:11):
person did, and he would.
He would dial it down that smallto the point where there were
multiple times after he passedaway, I was talking to different
people in the constructionworld and I'm like hey, what are
your memories of dad?
And I talked to an inspector atone point and he's like the
most fond memory that I have ofyour dad, he goes and it's.
It's not going to sound like it.
I was like all right, what yougot he goes is?

(01:03:31):
He chewed me out over redtagging a job and he was in the
house yelling, screaming in myface that I had red tagged this
job over something that he hadperceived he had done right and
literally told me meet me out inthe street so we can fight this
out.
He goes, we hammered it out, sowe can fight this out.
He goes.
We hammered it out, we got itfigured out, he got it corrected
, everything is good.
And then I kid you not, itwasn't five minutes after he was

(01:03:54):
yelling and screaming at me.
He's like hey, you want to gograb some lunch, I want to buy
you lunch.
So it's like dad was so carefulwith his anger and with
addressing controversy.
He was such a sniper with itwhere it was like no, I'm not
mad at you as a person.
I'm mad at this one thing youdid and I honestly like I prefer
that one better I think so too.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Um, my wife and I are opposites in this.
Like she can get mad quick andshe will tell you what she
thinks, and then she's fineafterwards, like she just has to
get it out.
Yeah, whereas I have a longfuse, like I take so much stuff,
um, and that the people getused to that.

(01:04:36):
And then when I snap it's ashock.
It's like wow, he never got madbefore.
Like, and why is he mad overthe socks?
That's such a weird thing toget mad about.
And it's like no, I'm an idiot.
I let all that other stuffbuild up and now I'm using the
socks as the reason to go out atyou.
Right, like, and I can't turnit off.
Like, once the anger comes,it's not stopping, time's the

(01:04:57):
only thing that makes it go away.
So my wife will be, like theconversation's over, everybody's
happy.
And I'm like no, I need to gooutside, I want to be happy
right now but I'm still mad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I'm sorry.
I need to go distance myselfbecause we're just going to keep
fighting.
Honestly, my wife's like thattoo and I noticed it whenever I
specifically noticed it withdealing with family.
And then I've noticed it againin raising our daughter is my
daughter, and anybody who has atoddler at home.
You know exactly what I'm goingto talk about.
You love your kid.
You will do anything for yourkid.
I will take a bullet for mychild with a smile on my face,

(01:05:35):
like it's just, there's noquestion of what I will do for
the protection and safety of mydaughter, no question.
Having said that, there's.
Sometimes she's annoying, likeshe's super annoying, like she
talks too darn much and thenshe's telling me, like just
going on and on and on aboutspider-man is doing this, and
I'm like baby, if I hear onemore time about this one episode

(01:05:55):
of spider-man, that I've seenlike five times with you, right
like.
But she wants to sit down and Ihave to be aware of this right.
She wants to sit down and andif you look at it from a more
broad picture, 30 000 foot viewthis is a daughter just wanting
to talk to her dad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Right, that's all she wants to do, so it's like baby.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Yes, I would love to hear on how the Green Goblin
threw pumpkin bombs for like thefifth time.
Like I want to hear all aboutit.
But I still have to slow downand make time for that precious
little three-year-old that justwants to connect with her dad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Right, it's really just your attention.
They just want to feel yourattention.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
And they don't know any other way than what they're
interested in.
Yeah, it's not like they cancome up or ask you questions
about your day.
You're going to have to talkabout things that interest them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
So back to the communicational aspect.
So that's one thing that I'venoticed outside of the lodge is
that they're going to be moreoffended Now.
In some instances in the boomergeneration, the only language
they understand is a higher formof aggression.
That's the only thing theyunderstand and then they will
respect that.
So it's not necessarily thatthey've accepted it, but they
will respect that.
If you cross this boundary,there are now consequences that

(01:07:02):
come with you crossing thisboundary.
So in some of them that's thecase.
But what I find in the lodge isif I have a highly emotional
brother sit down, take theconversation very slowly and I
cannot accentuate that enough.
You've got to take it slowbecause the faster especially
you know the difference in ages.

(01:07:22):
Admit that any human it doesn'tmatter a younger brain is
firing at a faster ability thanyour typical older brain is
right, especially people who areretired and they haven't
exactly had to exercise criticalthinking skills in a while.
So I'm sorry, I'm not trying tobe ugly, but everybody knows
that once you retire, unless youstay active, you start to lose

(01:07:44):
some of that cognitive abilitythat you had when you were in
your heyday.
Like it sounds ugly, but I'msorry, that's just what I've
observed.
So, having said that, whathappened?

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
There's a lifestyle thing.
Like they grew up reading thenewspaper.
You know they were adultsreading newspaper.
Yeah, that's a time.
Takes time to consume thatinformation.
Your generation is like I spent10 minutes on the internet and
I learned 85 things Like that'syour generation.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Yeah, when in 10 minutes?

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
they got through like five paragraphs about one story
reading a newspaper.
So it is a lifestyle thing?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
I think too.
Yeah, and it's like the oldjoke of you know, whenever I was
growing up, pre-internet days,one of the one of the
expressions of you would saysomething random and an old
person would go what does thathave to do with the price of tea
in China?
And now I can find the price oftea in China in half a second.
It takes longer for me to writeit out than it does to get the
result.
So it's like we're living in aninformation age and there's
there's no debating that we are.

(01:08:40):
But again, take theconversation slow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Yeah, the irony of that is we live in an
information age and people aregenerally less educated and no
less than Dumber, yeah, isn'tthat?
Ironic we live in aninformation age, yet people have
less information.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Yeah, and so when you are in those conversations and
again I'm just speaking from a,speaking to the boomer
generation, and we'll get to GenX and millennials here shortly
but when you're speaking to aboomer, the faster pace you keep
that conversation, the higherthe probability they're going to
misunderstand something or notunderstand a concept that you're
trying to convey and that willdirectly communicate to anger

(01:09:23):
because they don't understand it.
Because they don't understandit's just going to escalate
because that's what they'veknown their entire lives.
So it's just going to escalateand then it turns into I'm the
more offended party.
Therefore, I'm right If youkeep the conversation very slow
and I'm not saying that they areslow-minded people, that is not
what I'm saying If you keep theconversation slow and you give
that other party time to processwhat you just said.

(01:09:44):
Obviously we know that I like totalk fast so I can convey an
idea pretty quick.
It doesn't translate very wellwhenever I'm talking to people
in the lodge, or even my wifesometimes.
Sometimes I have to saysomething and let her sit with
it for all of that to reallysoak in and again, it's not an
insult.
So there are some tipsCommunicate a little slower.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Keep it slow and keep your emotions out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
If you you're gonna walk up to a boomer and you're
gonna say the word yeet, betswag, I don't care what you're
gonna say.
Change your language.
Change your language tosomething that they can
understand because you're usingenglish language yeah, so you,
because you're gonna say thingsthat they don't understand.
You're gonna be like, oh well,I was on tiktok the other day
and they were like are youtalking about the game where you
do the little hatchings, do x'sand o's?

(01:10:28):
oh, I got tic tacs right hereyeah, that's tic tac toe for
those uh, for the rest of you,x's and o's yeah, so, especially
like whenever we're like chris,like you did, the grand lodge
reimbursement program.
You know where it's like.
You're talking about websitesand you're talking about
reimbursements, advertising onfacebook, so you're talking
about all these things.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
The older generation that had nothing to do with the
internet whatsoever are notgoing to understand the nuances
not only would they notunderstand, they would have a
visceral emotional reaction ofit scares me, I don't like it,
right, and that would comeimmediately.
So what I learned aboutcommunicating to that generation
?
Because I'm not a boomer, I'mgen x right, yeah, and I saw and

(01:11:09):
I felt how they were receivingthis information.
So I would change it and makeit.
I would tie it only to theemotional things that they care
about.
Like, instead of talking abouthow it works and what you've got
to do, I would talk about thefact that we can all agree
masonry is dying, right?
We can all agree that we needmore people in our lodge, right?

(01:11:29):
Like, do you know that you havethe power to do that?
You can do this yourself andyou don't need Grand Lodge.
You don't need anyone else totell you you can or do it, like
it's within your power to do it,don't?
You want to do that?
People would agree.
Yeah, of course, so it's free.
You have to change the way youtalk about things based on who
you're talking to, and that'swhat we're talking about here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
I did air conditioning sales for 20 some
odd years.
So whenever?
Now, to be fair, I was amediocre salesman, and I was a
mediocre salesman because I'mnot very pushy, so it's like I
wouldn't push you to close thedeal, like I would just inform
you now, mind you, I had acouple of summers where I did
over a million dollars, and Ithink it was 2006 or 2007.

(01:12:11):
There was two years back toback.
I was top five in the state ofFlorida for carrier air
conditioners.
Yeah, I was in the top five forthe state of Florida Impressive
.
Well, the reason why I say allthat is because to explain my
sales tactic, my sales tacticand I even used this recently I
had to run an estimate to acandidate, potentially a

(01:12:31):
candidate that we're going tohave here pretty soon, but his
air conditioner is out in hishouse.
And whenever I explain airconditioning, can I go off about
reversing valves and Schradervalves and Freon and how long it
takes for a coil to reach dewpoint?
Yes, I can speak mechanical andtechnical air conditioning to

(01:12:51):
the point where I can keep upwith mechanical engineers.
That is not bragging, it issomething I spent my life
studying Right, so I can keep upwith every single bit of it,
but I had to explain airconditioning to everybody, from
soccer moms to mechanicalengineers and everybody in
between.
So what did I do?
Whenever I get to talking aboutokay, you got a problem going
on with your air conditionerwhenever you get a surge, for
example, we sell surgeprotectors for air conditioners

(01:13:13):
One of the things that I wouldsay is the thing that it
protects the most is yourcontactor and your capacitor.
Right, your contactor is likethe ignition to your car.
What did I just do?
I took a complex item that getsa call for it to send power to
the rest of the unit and Icompared it to the ignition of a
car, because everybody knowswhat the ignition of a car is.

(01:13:35):
Yes, I had to change mylanguage, right?
Yes, so essentially what you'redoing the capacitor.
The capacitor is basically justan extra jolt of electricity.
If you want a hard start kit.
That's like putting a secondbattery in your car.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
I know that you need a flux capacitor if you want to
go back in time.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Yes, you absolutely do so.
Having said that and the reasonwhy I point all that out is
because you do have to changethe way you word things sometime
Whenever we're talking about aGrand Lodge reimbursement
program, you could say hey, thiscould be equivalent to the
Grand Lodge reimbursing you fora full-page ad in the Sunday
paper or a board on the side ofthe road yeah, ad in the Sunday
paper or a board on the side ofthe road.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Yeah, you need to use something that they can connect
and understand.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Right, and so that's changing your verbiage in order
to be able to communicate withsomebody.
Likewise, when I'm talking to amillennial or a Gen Z-er
because I taught young adultclass for years at my church I
have to change the way that Iword things.
I can't word them the same waythat I would word it with a
boomer.
I have to speak their language,and that's part of being an
effective communicator.
I'm not saying that I'm good atit.

(01:14:31):
I'm just saying it's somethingthat I've learned throughout the
years.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
It's true, people need to think about these things
.
It'll help you get along betterwith people in your lodge and
it'll help you get more thingsdone in your lodge.
Anything else you want to talkabout with this?

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
as we're going here, I'm trying not to make our
episodes more than an hour and ahalf, because I respect people,
fine uh well, I mean, evenstill, like even in our fellow
craft degree, um, part of someof the stuff that we study is
grammar and rhetoric.
Yeah, grammar, rhetoric andlogic.
If you just apply those three,communication becomes so much
easier.
Um, whenever you're speaking toa millennial and I'm speaking

(01:15:06):
to our boomer brothers out thereyou got to understand a
millennial, a good millennialand I say that because there are
bad millennials out there.
Trust me, I can rail on themall day long.
Whenever you're speaking to amillennial, you're dealing with
a very effective person,especially if they're a driven
millennial.
If they're a driven millennial,the only thing that you need to

(01:15:27):
do as an older generationbecause that was one thing that
we had in our church for thelongest time is that the older
generation didn't want to doanything because they were tired
.
Oh, that's just a lot of workand it's like well you?

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
don't understand.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
there's like 20 of us here that can do all this work
between millennials and Gen Zers.
There's like 20 of us and wecan handle a lot of stuff the
transition of an older person,and this isn't exclusive to
boomers, this is all generations.
As time progresses, one dayI'll have to cross this bridge
as well.
Your role needs to shift fromleader to wise counsel.

(01:16:01):
It has to, and it has to happenthat way in the family unit.
It has to happen that way ingovernment, in church, in the
lodge, in everywhere.
It has to happen.
At one point, as a man, I am nolonger going to be the head of
my kids.
My kids are going to becomeadults and my job at that point
is to be wise counsel.
Yeah, so I'm not telling youwhat to do.
As a 30 year old, you know 25,30 year old, you know my

(01:16:24):
daughter.
My job is to advise, hey.
I would do this, but wheneverthey go out on their own, I need
to transition to wise counsel.
Same thing can be said inchurch.
is that at some point you haveto transition to wise counsel to
the elders of the organization,especially in the in your lodge
, specifically in the lodge,because, like right now and you

(01:16:45):
and I have talked about this wehave a young line in our lodge
and I see this playing out inreal time.
You have some of the brotherswithin the craft not
specifically our lodge, but inthe craft as a whole that they,
they don't want to see certainthings happen because we tried
to do that 20 years ago.
That was 20 years ago, likegeorge was still in office every

(01:17:05):
lodge everybody hears thatyou'll bring up an idea.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Yeah, and somebody one of the older guard will say
we tried that and it neverworked, or it never made money
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
My my response to that has been um, that's great
that it happened 20 years ago.
I was not a mason at that time.
Um, so, while we have, uh,youth currently, and while we
have the energy, let's use it.
Let's use it while we have it,you know, because eventually,
have the energy, let's use it.
Let's use it while we have it,because eventually, one day I'm
going to need a walker to get inthe lodge.
I'm sorry, time comes for allof us, and that's another thing.

(01:17:38):
to bring up, gosh, I can go onfor hours about this, but that's
another thing that gets broughtup is whenever a younger person
I'm speaking specifically toelderly people, and it doesn't
matter if you're a boomer, a GenXer or a millennial, because
we're all going to be there atone point.
When a young person asks you aquestion, even if it sounds like

(01:17:58):
it's in opposition to whatyou're saying, that doesn't
automatically mean they're beingdisrespectful.
I need data, especially in someof the scenarios I find myself
in within the lodge.
I don't care about theemotional aspect of this.
I don't care what happened 20years ago.
I don't care what happened 42years ago.
I am focused on trying to buildthis lodge and move this lodge
forward and hand this off to thenext generation.
That's my job, and so I want tohand this off to the next

(01:18:19):
generation.
But in order to do that, I needto know some of the fail safes
you guys have had.
I need to know where yourfailures were.
Your successes were, theresources that you got things
from.
I need to know those things,and your job as that elderly
person in the lodge is totransition from leader to wise
counsel if you have that in yourlodge.

(01:18:39):
I realize all of our line rightnow are all younger people, gen
X and below, so I realizethat's abnormal in the lodge as
a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
But don't stop the younger brothers from stepping
up.
It should be more and morenormal.
I mean, we need to have youngergeneration in our lines now.
Yeah, they're not even youngergenerations, they're modern
generations of people.
This is the age of people thatshould be in the line right now.
Right Are the Gen X and themillennials, and there's nothing
against being older and beingin the line right now.

(01:19:09):
Right are the gen x and themillennials, and there's nothing
against being older and beingin the line.
I'm just saying, generallyspeaking, the leadership should
be of people that are living,you know, their their midlife
now, and we were talking aboutthis before recording about
politics, why are all of ourpoliticians in their 80s?
Um, and most lodges are notright now?
They're having to recycle thosepast masters for the eighth

(01:19:29):
time, to run their lodge againand again and again, because
they don't have new peoplecoming in.
And guess what?
We have ways to help you getthose new people in.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
Yeah, and even, especially millennials.
Like millennials, you got tounderstand whenever you're
dealing with a boomer, they'regoing to come off Sorry, the
prophetic archetype.
Whenever that person speaks,it's going to sound like it's
heavy handed offense.
They don't always mean it likethat.
So in that aspect, a millennialis going to need a little bit
of understanding.
Circumscribing our passions.
You're going to have to slowdown a little bit, like I stated

(01:20:03):
before.
Okay, brother, I heard what youjust said.
How did you mean that?
And I do that with my wife, Ido that with family, I do that
with absolutely everybody.
Again, I'm not saying that I'mthe picture perfect communicator
here, but it has yieldedpositive results of you just
said this why did you say that?
And then they'll go into afurther explanation.
Even though it sounded like aheavy handed off offensive

(01:20:24):
comment, they might not havemeant it that way.
So it's going to take a littlebit of grace and understanding
from the younger generation.
I'm speaking to our millennialbrothers.
You're going to have to maturea little bit in your
conversation, right, and thiscould be with your spouse, this
could be with people in thelodge, people in different
institutions you find yourselvesin.

(01:20:44):
You know work, it doesn'tmatter of.
Okay, well, I said, I said blah, right, and they're coming off
of this highly animated,heightened emotional state.
Just that's what they look likewhenever they're saying this.
I hear what you just said.
It sounds like you just saidthis.
All right, can you expand onthat a little bit more?
You have to slow theconversation down.
Yeah, some of them and this isa very small number of people,

(01:21:07):
and this is not exclusive toprophetic archetype, because I
know a millennial who's this waySome people are just looking
for a fight, and that'suniversal across all generations
.
They are just looking for afight, man.
So if they don't get that fight, it spirals them even more.
They just get more pissed off,right?
So you've got to be the one toslow that person down.
I hear what you're saying.

(01:21:28):
Okay, it sounds like you'resaying this.
Is that what you meant by that?
Or can you expand on thatcomment you just made?
Right, all of them will do it.
All of them.
There may be an insult thatcomes your way, and if it
typically is, you can'tunderstand plain English.
Okay, but again, there has tobe that little bit of
understanding.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
So conversation on both sides right.
Both sides need to try tounderstand the other better well
, and it's all about havingemotional intelligence.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
That's all it is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
That's the whole point of this podcast is
hopefully going to encourage youto try to understand other
generations better, yeah, andlearn what they need and what
you can give them to communicatebetter.
I think this was an awesomepodcast.
I'm really happy that we got totalk finally about this fourth
turning um that's it.

(01:22:14):
You don't want to keep doggingon different generational
archetypes I mean we can, weshould do another, maybe we do
another episode.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
Honestly, I would love to do another episode, but
I would love to have arepresentation, so all we need
is a boom yeah, I want to love aboomer archetype to be on here
and let's just have a debate,right, let's just debate
something stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
It would be easy for us to get a boomer on here, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
Because then you can actually see the archetypes in
action.
You've got Chris, who is thepicture-perfect example of a Gen
Xer he is.
You've got me that I kind offit into that millennial
category pretty well.
We know about being headstrongIf I will burn all this to the
ground and recreate it and theway I see fit.
And then of course let's justget a boomer on here.
That's a little more emotional.

(01:22:57):
Maybe some fireworks will flyand we should.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
We should do more of that.
We should have opposing views,debate it so people can see how
this can happen withoutdevolving into name calling and
fighting each other.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
I think masonic debate is a beautiful thing if
it's handled properly.
So long as it's handledproperly, you'll achieve so much
.
If if it's trying to worktogether to achieve a common
good.
It is such a beautiful thingbecause it's like, look, I'm not
trying to offend you or hurtyou in my words and I hope and I
think that you're not trying tooffend me or hurt me with your

(01:23:32):
words.
So, okay, again, the guardshould be fully lowered, your
offense should be on zero.
You know, and so long as youcan keep that mindset, if you
start to get emotional in aconversation, disengage, totally
disengage and say, okay, can wetable this for the next meeting
or can we table this for anoutside conversation?
Honestly, like I said, it's anabsolutely beautiful thing.
I love debate, I love doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
I think anytime you can get in a conversation with
somebody that isn't going totake it personally, it's going
to be a good conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
Yeah, whatever, brothers, that is a 30,000 foot
view of the fourth turning.
Please read the book.
It is a great book to have, soit's going to be part of, if I
ever become a Lodge mentor,lodge instructor, catechism
instructor again, any EA that webring in.
I'm going to have them read twobooks in that timeframe One is

(01:24:22):
going to be Born in Blood, whichis another one that we're going
to cover here shortly, and theother one is going to be the
Fourth Turning because it'llhelp your generational
communication so much.
But we do have some others onthe horizon and I would love to
hear from all of you.
Of what topics do you think weshould cover next?
We talked a little bit beforewe started recording of possibly
going through the digest andexplaining the different types

(01:24:43):
of trials, what types of trialsyou can have, what can bring you
up on charges, what aWorshipful Master can and cannot
do according to the Digest.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
There's a lot of misunderstanding about the
Digest in general.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
There are so many misunderstandings.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
Yeah, you'll hear from one person that you respect
.
This is the truth.
And then you go look it up andyou go back and say, where did
you hear this?
Well, I heard it from somebodyof authority.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
It's like okay and and that's the issue is, as I
just this past week, I spoke totwo people from our grand line
this week and they both had twodifferent opinions on what the
digest said, and this is part ofour grand line.
Um so, uh, we ended up findingout what the right answer was,
but you also have that one rumorthat's out there of the
grandmaster can unmake someone amason on the spot that that is

(01:25:28):
not something that is affordedto the Grandmaster, and I heard
that from a past Grandmaster.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
No, he has to automatically unmake someone a
mason.
Yes, so not on the spot, but hecan do it.
It just takes a minute.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
There are some loopholes, but either way,
there's a lot of misconceptionsabout what all can and cannot
happen within the craft.
So if you guys want us to seeto do a dive into the digest the
Florida digest of Masonic law,uh and say, come up with a top
10 list of misconceptions, wewant to hear from you.
So leave a comment on ourFacebook page, on our YouTube
page.
We want to hear from you guys.
As far as what, what directionwould you like the show to take

(01:26:03):
and maybe provide a little bitmore Masonic education, so all
of us can be on the same page.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
We'll put a feeler out there to try to get some
feedback from you guys.
Please help us out.
Take a minute.
Just say something that youwant to learn more about, or you
had an experience.
Maybe someone told yousomething was true and you found
out later it wasn't.
Those are the kind of thingsthat we want to bring up so that
other people don't have to dealwith the same thing you did.
Matt.
Chris, this is a great episode.

(01:26:28):
Thank you for bringing thefourth turning into the
zeitgeist of my life.
I'm really interested to readthe book.
I'll put it in my rotation.
Anything else you want to addto the for the brothers before?

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
we head out.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
No may peace and brotherly love prevail may peace
and brotherly love prevailuntil next time.
Brothers on the level podcastis the love for bill.
Until next time brothers on thelevel podcast is out, out.

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