A Mason's Work

Internal gratitude is a powerful force, but it remains incomplete until it is expressed. In our final installment for the week, we discuss how moving gratitude from an internal experience to an external action becomes "the trowel in motion," applying brotherly love to improve the world.

Key Highlights:
  • Expression vs. Approval: The difference between a genuine "I saw what you did" and a hollow "good job".
  • Changing Hearts: How making someone feel seen and appreciated fundamentally changes their behavior and encourages them to keep improving the world.
  • The Contagion of Gratitude: How a single expression of gratitude can start a chain of events that transcends the original feeling.
  • A Quick Technique: Go tell someone—with full sincerity—how much you appreciate their behavior or the way they are in the world. Watch their body language change instantly.
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  • Tim Dedman
  • Jorge

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] Yesterday, I said that gratitude and appreciation can combine and become a nourishing force,
[00:08] something that you can turn into this capacity that increases your agency and your ability to
[00:15] change the world around you. Today, I want to talk about what that actually looks like
[00:19] and how it works because gratitude and appreciation as personal experiences are great.
[00:30] But they're incomplete. Just like a rough Ashlar and a perfect Ashlar, there is a resolution to
[00:38] the internal gratitude that you're going to experience or the internal appreciation.
[00:43] And that is expression. That is when you take the contents from the internal experience and
[00:49] extrovert them in some capacity. You write that handwritten note that says,
[00:56] thank you. I saw what you did. This is something that changed the way we approached a situation,
[01:03] or this made a meaningful difference in the outcomes that we've experienced, or this really
[01:10] brought someone back into the fold. That's different than approval. So to be clear, you're not just
[01:16] saying good job and patting somebody on the butt and going back to the sidelines. This is genuine
[01:24] appreciation, genuine gratitude. The expression of these things is when you express it, it needs to be
[01:31] complete. This is the distinction between sincere gratitude and sincere expression and the kind of lip
[01:39] service that we oftentimes will see when someone says, good job, buddy. And they don't mean it. And you can
[01:47] tell. And this is where folks that are trying to use the secret sauce of gratitude to achieve results that
[01:55] just are false by emulating a behavior and not experiencing it by acting instead of doing.
[02:04] Meaningful expression is super important to the way this must work. People that feel seen,
[02:14] that feel appreciated work differently. They stay longer, they behave, they do the discretionary stuff
[02:21] that no one asked for. When we express this in a meaningful way, you begin this process of changing the
[02:35] hearts of the people around you. When someone feels seen and they feel appreciated and they feel that
[02:43] gratitude, they will behave differently. You are encouraging them to continue doing the things
[02:54] that improve the world around them. This isn't merely an appreciation for the trivial. This isn't just like
[03:08] your hair. Your hair looks great today. Although there's plenty of reason to express that kind of
[03:14] stuff. When we talk about how we've noticed the things in the world impacting other things in the
[03:24] world, people themselves raise their awareness of it that they may not have had. And this conscious
[03:30] awareness increase increase over time across people out in the world is the agent's agency and capacity to create
[03:43] change. This gratitude expression is the application of brotherly love and affection. It is the trowel in motion.
[03:53] And if you just apply it to yourself internally, that's super important to do. You thou shalt. I mean, this is that
[04:03] level of important to do. But if you don't then take it outside and express it with others, that change stops with
[04:11] you. And in reality, we're trying to build this broader capacity to improve the conditions for everyone.
[04:20] So as you are learning to express gratitude and experiencing those deeper levels of gratitude,
[04:29] that surrender gratitude, as well as those moments of appreciation, you're going to cultivate this
[04:35] awareness and that deeper awareness, that stronger awareness probably is a better phrase, is what's going
[04:42] to give you this opportunity to approach this as often as you need to, to recharge your own batteries,
[04:49] to help improve the people that you're interacting with on an everyday life in everyday life. I'll tell you a
[04:57] quick technique that you can apply right now. Go tell someone with full gratitude in your heart or with full
[05:05] appreciation, how much their, their behavior or the way they are in the world, how much you appreciate
[05:13] that. And their day will instantly improve. You'll see it. Their body language will change. They will
[05:20] carry themselves differently. They'll stand a little taller. They'll smile a little bigger. And that,
[05:26] you never really know how far that goes. I can tell you in my lived experience, people will come back
[05:39] and reflect that gratitude back to me and say, you told me something that you were grateful for. And
[05:45] man, I had, I took that, that experience, that positive experience, and I had a great day with my
[05:52] kid. And now they've got this new thing that they want to learn how to do, or this new hobby, or this
[05:59] increased capacity for risk, or what have you, it doesn't really matter what the nature of the change is.
[06:06] What matters is as you begin to express this, you begin to meaningfully change the subjective
[06:13] experience of the people around you. And that sharpens their consciousness and creates
[06:17] this amazing potential. And that's the work.