Boundaries Build What Anger Can Only Damage

Show Notes

Anger comes from care. That single recognition, sitting with it honestly, reorders a lot of what men in leadership roles think they need to fix about themselves. You are not flying off the handle about things that do not matter. You are losing it about the things that are most important to you — your kids, your lodge, the people you have taken responsibility for. That is not a character defect. It is misdirected investment, and the redirection is the work.

Brian closes the week's arc by making clear that patience is still not the answer — but it is also no longer the question. When you shift from outcome orientation to process orientation, patience develops as a natural byproduct. You cannot be angry at a seed for not growing fast enough if you understand how growing actually works. The same logic applies to children, lodge members, and employees. Risk tolerance and behavior tolerance are not weakness. They are the conditions under which agentic, capable people are built. Crush those conditions with outcome-focused rage and you get people who close up, avoid risk, and stop growing — which is precisely the opposite of what a father or a Worshipful Master is trying to build.

The practical tools are boundaries: principled, clearly communicated, aligned with what you actually believe as a man and as a Mason. Boundaries set in that spirit make honest conversation possible and create the relational safety that lets people take initiative without fear. Brian points back to earlier episodes on contracting in the A Mason's Work catalog as the operational complement to this week's framework. And as Father's Day arrives, the invitation is simple: take a moment to reflect on what you are building and who you are building it for.

• Anger as misdirected care, not evidence of a broken leader
• Why patience follows the process shift rather than preceding it
• What happens to people on the receiving end of unmanaged anger
• Principled boundary-setting as the operative alternative to rage
• Risk tolerance and agentcy as the outcomes of boundaried leadership
• How this framework extends outward into broader compassion and perspective

When you get this right, the way you move through the world changes — and so does the way you read everyone else moving through theirs.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

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