Episode 91. Momentum (ft. Zeb Dudek)

Zeb Dudek brings his diverse set of skills (and his ruck sack) to the show this week. Hot topics across the board on this one, like the perils of “tradition prevailing,” rethinking internal lodge infrastructure, and the necessity of partnering with community groups.

“Whatever your lodge is working on, you have to keep that momentum going.” 

Planning way ahead + effective communication = breaking out of that  holding pattern…it’s Minnesota Masonic Histories & Mysteries. 

Transcript

0:00

Life is simple, but we tend to make it very complicated. We often know what to do, but making ourselves do what's necessary is the hard part. What are your thoughts on that? Absolutely. Um, it's hard to say no, it's hard to go against the status quo. I read a book one time, um, authors Mark Dev Divine, and he said, if you don't agree with something, do not be afraid. He was a former Navy seal, by the way. Do not be afraid to rock the boat so hard that it, capsizes shark comes up to you, punch it in the nose and get in the next boat and embrace the suck. it's okay. And keep moving forward. Zep dic, welcome to the studio today. Thanks for making the journey to Bloomington. You are 42 years old and raised in Chatfield, Minnesota, the fifth generation, ick, Frank and Anna Ick immigrated from Bohemia. And settled roughly five miles from the house that you were raised in, where your parents still live today. That's quite the longevity on the genealogy front. It is, it is. And we're super lucky because all of the original Dak property was out of the family for decades. roughly like the fifties is when the last portions of the property, there were several farms. Um, so in the fifties, the last portion was sold in, in, I wanna say it was 1976 when my parents got married. Uh, a section of acreage, 40 acres came up for sale. That was at one time part of the original Dak farm, a wooded property, and my dad was able to purchase it. So that's how it got back into the family. And then I, I hope, I hope at some point maybe I'll find myself on my parents' property, whether that happens or maybe it's one of my boys, I don't know. But it'd be great to keep it in the family. Speaking of two boys, Frank is going to be 15 on the 11th of this month. We're recording in September, and Victor is nine. You're a single father. In your own words, you're crushing it. You're fortunate to have a good friendship, co-parenting relationship with your ex-wife, Michelle. What's life like with two teenage boys in this world right now? It's, it's interesting, right? There's a lot of different dynamics. So my boys are, they're six years apart. You know, Frank's gonna be 15 and getting his permit and he's active in high school, active in the sports. Victor is nine, so he's still pretty young, super active, high energy kid. Frank is very laid back. Um, we were talking the other day, just all the different things that Frank is gonna start experiencing now that he's 15, he's got more. More, his social life's gonna change, right? There's more things happening. And just keeping that open dialogue at home, I think is probably the most important part, so that we stay connected as far as what's going on. And then he knows that he can come to me or he can go to his mom and talk to us about certain things that he experiences and hurdles that he has to go over. And Victor just goes with the flow right now. He's just, whatever. It's all good. how terrifying is it having a teenager driving? I know it's nothing new. Everyone's been through it, but what does that feel like with Frank? I'm really not too concerned yet. Um, the other day I was talking with my coworkers at work and. They're like, you know, some kids become the driver, or everybody leans on them to be the driver, and some kids are always the rider. They're like, who do you think Frank's gonna be? I'm like, Frank's gonna be the driver because he's the most responsible out of the group. And they're actually gonna ask, they're probably gonna ask him to drive. They already ask him whenever. It's like, Hey, we should get together and at somebody's house and watch a movie or have a bonfire. Frank, you coordinate it, you put it together.'cause you're the only one. Responsible enough to do it. And he always jokes about like, yep, I'm putting it together'cause no one else can and blah, blah, blah. Well it sounds like a chip off the old block. Yeah, for sure. Right. Details, right? Yeah, exactly. Um, so he'll probably be the driver and I guess I'm okay with that'cause they obviously rely on him as being the responsible one and I think he will be the responsible one. I think he, he's definitely the rule follower. I was too. I I definitely did my own things that, um, very few if, if anybody knows that I did. Um, so we definitely, everybody's got a little rebel in him. Um, he definitely will too. And I hope he does. Like sometimes I just like, God, would you make a mistake? So I could just tell you, shame on you once, gimme the satisfaction of being dad here. Exactly right. Come on, screw up Like you need to in your free time, you are a road. Cycler. Rucking. Now this reminds me of a. Fort Benning and putting the ruck sack on this is carrying a weighted backpack for miles. You participate in rucking challenges through an organization called Go Ruck. These last, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours in October. Tell us about, you're gonna be attempting, is it a 48 hour rucking challenge? Correct? Yep. So the 24 hour event is called a heavy, a 12 hour event is called a Tough, and the six hour event is called a basic. And I've done events where they do all three of them back to back. Oh God. 24 hours take like an hour, hour and a half break, do the 12 hour, hour and a half break, do the six. And I've done that twice. one of my goals is to accomplish is what they call a double heavy. So two twenty four hour events back to back. And they've got one scheduled. There's gonna be, at a minimum, there's gonna be, or no maximum. Maximum, there's gonna be an hour and a half break in between event one and event two, and that's gonna be enough time to change your clothes. Get a whole bunch of more calories in your body. Yeah. Um, do some stretching. Anything you need to do to fix yourself and start, literally start all over again. So all the things that we, you know, it doesn't, it's not like a continuation, like everything that you did before, you have to do a PT test. You have to go through the welcome party where they, they try to break everybody down to the same level. You know, it's just mass chaos and that, you know, a 24 hour event, the welcome party I've been on welcome parties that lasted four to six hours long, where it's just continuous physical endurance for four to six hours. Like, do this now, do this, now do this. Is this basically like the Iron Man version of wrecking to do that double heavy? You, you could say that, yeah. It's a team challenge. You know, it's not, it's not an individual challenge by any means. If 50 people show up, all 50 of you are gonna be doing the same thing together. it was created by a former Green Beret. And it's supposed to model like the Special Forces Qualification course. I was going to ask, is this supposed to be fun? Is this supposed to It it is. It is fun. It's called Type two Fun. It's fun when it's all over with in the moment. It is not fun. you know, to say I've never cried during an event is a lie. Um, to say, have I ever dropped out? Like just said, Nope, I am done with this. I've done that a couple times. I've done over 56, I think I'm at 56 events, ranging in that, you know, six hours to 24 hours. so yeah, so it's modeled after, uh, the Special Forces Qualification course. Uh, the cadre, all the cadre that lead the events are former active duty special operators from all the branches. Okay. So whether that be Army Rangers, Marine Recon, Rangers, green Berets, Delta Navy Seals. Wow. So you had to have the Special Operations identifier to be able to be, to be, to be a cadre for, for a Go Rock event. And so that's, that's, they take all of their leadership and team building experiences and they try to pass that on to us during this, that, that is the objective. How can we show you how to be leaders, how to organize. And they always use their experiences. Like sometimes they'll be like, all right, story time. And they'll share one of their stories and they'll be like, this is how you can implement this in your personal life, whether it be professionally or at home. This is how you can lead if you're, if you're working in the blue collar business world. And I think that's something that really attracts me to it. So I love the physical challenge, but there's, there's always lessons. I mean, these, the special operators are, they're teachers. They're extremely intelligent individuals. Everybody thinks they're all, all the muscle is in the special operations, right? Actually, all the int intelligence people are in the special operations'cause they can make anybody physically strong. But you have to be intelligent and have to have these really strong personalities that you can connect with people and work collectively as a team. And I, I've used it in all aspects of my life, whether it be as a father, as an individual, as a professional, um, and even as a mason, like a lot of the things, a lot of my drive, a lot of my mind like, Hey, like we need to do this and we need to make this change. It comes from, this is, I've, I've done it. This, it's worked. It's worked in a Go Rock event, and I know this is not a physical endurance event, but it will transfer over and work the same. And you enlisted in the Minnesota Army National Guard your senior year, just two months after nine 11. You did four years, and then also started a professional career at a local manufacturer in Rochester in production control. He did that for, for several years, worked for Olmsted County, you missed serving others, and in 2020 you became a volunteer firefighter in your hometown of Chatfield and later in EMT. You rolled the dice at the age of 40 and took a risk. You decided to leave a well-established career and 20 years of experience you had at the time in procurement became a full-time firefighter for the city of Rochester. Would you say that was one of the best decisions you've made, even though there was some risk involved? How did you arrive at that top? Yeah, top, top three. Best decisions. Tell us more. You know, best decision number one, joining the military best decision. Number two, having kids best decision number three, taking the risk and changing my career after 20 years and going down the path of being a firefighter. It has been, uh, two years in to being a full-time professional firefighter, by far the best job out there prove me wrong, like it is. It is amazing. We have our horrible days. Where in a 24 hour period we might have, I think my best, my busiest day was 20 calls in 24 hours. No kidding. And the first call came in at like 11. We started at eight. First call came in at 11:00 AM and maybe like two or three in the morning was the last call. So those 20 calls were crammed in less than 24 hours. And it was just go, go, go, go. And some were very difficult. I mean, obviously we might have a day where only one call comes in, but it's a super difficult call. but then we have days where just it's great, you know, I've, I've found myself coming back to the station at 2:00 AM after we go out on a lift assist call where we have to lift grandma or grandpa off the ground and we're coming back to the station. I find myself 2:00 AM half awake, just smiling like, you know, this job. So, like, this is awesome. Like, yeah, we just, they fell off their bed. They were very thankful, very grateful for us coming, you know, they couldn't thank us enough. and they were really embarrassed. But what we, we helped'em out. We made their night, and now we're gonna go back and we're gonna go back to bed. I think the interaction with the community's awesome. It hits so many, so many positive things like the community, the community interaction, the, the team building with my, with the crew that I'm on. Like we're constantly working with each other and we're working with each other on our own personal things. Like there's one guy on, on my crew that's, if he wasn't a firefighter, he should be a financial advisor because he understands it really well and it comes time to open enrollment. We literally go into the training room together and each of us take a turn on the computer with it being projected on a big screen, and we go through open enrollment together. Why are you choosing this? Well, what if you invested this way? Or what if you did this this way and this is why, and here's this data and here's that data. Like we do it together. like where do you, where else do you go to work? And everybody hops in the conference room and does open enrollment together. And we sit around the kitchen table sometimes and solve all the world's problems. Like, you know, if, if we were in control, this is what we would do. Here's how it should be. Yep. This is how we would run the fire department. This is how we would run everything. it's a great job. It, it hits so many things. It's a level of comradery. It sounds like that not only in the field you're supporting each other, but that band of brothers that, is it safe to say a mentor mentee relationship when you, okay, now we're gonna gather and talk about open enrollment or this particular colleague that can impart wisdom about and perspective on financial planning or whatever the topic might be. Yep, a hundred percent. we help each other with everything. Even even life problems, you know, like when I, you know, there's different steps in divorces and stuff like that. So I'd been divorced for a while before I even started it as a full-time firefighter. But things come up and, and like, Hey, here's my current scenario that I'm in. Here's my current dilemma. Let's, let's talk about it. it's kind of like an outlet. I can get it all out. you know, I'm like, am I wrong in thinking this way? Am I approaching this right? I'm trying to keep emotion outta it. Am I looking at it logically or what are your guys' honest opinions? And, and they'll share it. we help each other in so many different ways, and I think that's what makes the job amazing. as you share that dynamic of bouncing things off of one another, you can't solve their problems, they can't solve yours, but you can be there for each other. You can share cautionary tales, anecdotes of life. What would I tell myself in that same situation if I were going through that? And it sounds like it very much parallels the Masonic experience, the Lodge brothers quality, authentic friendships. did you start your Masonic journey, your senior year of high school? I did. when my grandfather died in 1998, I remember going to the Masonic service and I was an eighth grader and it just sounded interesting, like hearing like the men working in the quarries and this person's no longer working in the quarry such and such. And my Uncle Dave, he joined shortly after my grandfather passing away. And my Uncle Dave has been a role model in my life. From the beginning. He taught me how to ski. He taught me how to fish. He taught me how to hunt, all those things. Not that my dad was very, very involved with my, with my, um, with my life and my upbringing and everything. but Uncle Dave was, he was the wild, crazy one. He was the one that, he was the adventurous one. Okay. And whatever Uncle Dave did was cool. Yeah. Right. So Uncle Dave joined the Masons, and I remember my grandma being so excited that, you know, Dave joined the Masons. Dave got his third degree. Dave's going up to the cities, he's gonna get his 32nd degree in the Scottish Rite today. She was so proud of it. And so right away I'm like, well, how do I join? He's like, well, you're not old enough. You gotta be 18. Okay. And that was that. And then when I turned 18, I'm like, Hey, I'm still interested. So I turned 18. Yeah. March of my senior year. And, uh, by the time I graduated, I was a, um, a 32nd degree Mason. Like I went, I, I went through my three degrees right away in spring, and then I caught the mail, the May one day to Scottish Rite. Oh, the reunion? Yeah, the reunion. Uh, this is all at the age of 18? Yes. And interesting. So you see a lot of, like, I, I think I heard that. Masonry in your family as well? Yes. I read a book one time. I gotta find the book'cause I rem it was such a good book. It said masonry should not be an heirloom. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Um, and it's not that you or I who have relatives that are masons and we're masons. Not that we shouldn't become Masons, but is it always right for everybody in the family? Should it be something that we pass on? And I, I agree that not necessarily true, and just because somebody's relative, whether it be brother, father, grandpa, whatever, just because they were Mason doesn't mean that individual. Is the best fit? Was I ready at the age of 18? I was probably pretty p pretty mature for an 18-year-old. I was like, my son, Frank, you know, like, do something wrong, come on pr. Right? But at the same time, looking back at it, my late twenties, early thirties, I was like, no, I probably wasn't as, I didn't really truly know what I was getting myself into. Like I really probably wasn't ready. It all worked out and I grew into it, but was I truly ready? Probably not. And I think that makes a big difference. And then there's some people that I just, yeah, their dad was a Mason and their dad was a phenomenal mason. But you know, you're an awesome person, but maybe this isn't the right fit for you. And that's doesn't, it's not to be negative towards that person. That person's got a heart of gold. They're an amazing person, but maybe it's just not the right fit for them. How has that changed for you over the years? Because the perspective of what the ritual imparted some of those timeless core values that rule and guide to our lives, anyone at 18 or early twenties is probably in a different, as you've matured and you've gotten older, how has the ritual in our value teachings, how have those things impacted you differently? Have you had those aha moments? I think there's been a couple aha moments for sure. I think just as a person, as I've gained more knowledge just in life in general, just experience, life experience, I think is where some of those. Important things that are taught to us in our ritual have come to light. Like now I see it, now I see where that comes from. You know, the patience, you know, being a father, you have to become very patient. as a parent in general, um, getting married, you know, being patient with your spouse, um, learning how to navigate difficult conversations in the business world, how do you grow as an employee? How do you advance in your career? A lot of the things that I got from those experiences, I can see the parallels to the teachings that come from our ritual. When I first met you a few years ago, I was at the York Wright one day Conferral, and you delivered the long journey. Without going into detail. Well, on a side note, when I was a candidate going through chapter, Jim Burlingame Sr. Delivered the long journey. And it wasn't until later that I realized he memorized it was all off the top of the head. And then to see you from the sideline delivering that to, to say you're an exceptional ritualist is an understatement. as much as I'd love to get into how in the world are you able to memorize things so well. You are involved in the York Rights, the Scottish Rights. You've been Secretary of Your Lodge at Meridian. Meridian Lodge, number 25 in Chatfield. We've talked a lot on this podcast and in lodge visits across the state about today's Masonic Lodge. Striving to provide an experience, an experience in which members are encouraged to actively pursue becoming a better version of oneself. And that can come in many forms. It's finding that self-awareness as we grow and we mature, committing to be a better person, But self-awareness takes work and listening to things maybe you don't wanna hear, or admitting that you're wrong, like you said earlier, it's not an heirloom and maybe it's not for everyone in life. Everything is more difficult than our plan for it. And that's why we started today talking about that, that life's simple and we, we tend to make it over complicated. But you have overseen, can I call it a transformation at Meridian Lodge in Chatfield? Can you share some perspective and say more about where things were at to where things are right now? Yeah, absolutely. Meridian Lodge, number 20. So Chatfield, to give high level, Chatfield has roughly 3000 people. Our lodge was targeted in 1858, same year that Minnesota became a state. And up until a year ago, our lodge building looked the same way it did since the early 1950s. Literally nothing had been changed. And I think that's very common for almost every Masonic lodge you walk into. Mm-hmm. And that's just, that's just the reality of our current state in Freemasonry to some extent. and. We were, we were dying, we were, we were bleeding out. And, uh, it needed more than just a tourniquet. It, it, it needed something bigger, better. we were reaching the point. We were coming to the lodge and doing the same thing. Like we came to lodge and said, Hey, we need to schedule the roadside cleanup, for our designated part of the HO Highway. And we'd spend 15 minutes trying to decide what was the best date. And it was just, you just had a, as a 40-year-old, I just wanted to poke my eyeballs out. And I was like, why am I coming? This is so frustrating. And they're like, well, how do we get more members? You know? So there's just this continuous circle. And finally, I, on my own, I started kind of putting together a proposal, like I'm gonna approach the lodge and say, we need to do something, or we need to shut this thing down. And. We were very fortunate to have been given a gift by a former member in his, in his will, uh, a financial gift that allowed our lodge to have quite a bit of funds where we have the ability to do, to do something, that would require funds for. so I came to the lodge and said, okay, here's, here's the thing. If we want people, our target market, like, I don't know, everybody has their different, different opinions on target markets, but I would say for the Masonic Lodge target market, based on my personal experience, let's say 30 years old to 45 target market, right? They've had a little bit of life experience. They've got their families established, they've got careers established, They've got some base knowledge. They've, they've got a foundation of life beyond their adolescence. how do we get these people to join our lodge? Well, I guarantee you they don't want to come to lodge and spend 15 minutes trying to decide when we should do the roadside cleanup and, and simply picking a date. Yes. Come on. Yeah. And, uh, because not everybody's gonna be able to come. Right. So throw a dart, get the dart board out, throw a dart at the calendar and be like, that's the day whoever can show up. Come, if not, cool. We'll catch you next time. And so I came to the lodge. it's musty. It smells like an old church basement. It reminds me as a kid, I went to a Presbyterian church, just reeked. It was just musty all the time. And that's what the lodge was like. It was just this musty, dungy dark space, you know, wood paneling, you know, just. I don't wanna be here. Like, it's just, it's not welcoming for somebody at my age level. And I was like, here's what we gotta do. Here's a plan. I've looked at all the numbers being the secretary and, and the treasurer. Like, I had all that access. So I'm like, here's the numbers. We don't wanna spend all our money because then we're, then we're in a real pickle, but how can we spend some of it to rejuvenate our lodge? How can we remodel? How can we make it look, you know, keep some of that cool 1858 charm to it? Mm-hmm. And the building was 1872, so like, you know, it still had some great charm to it, but how do we keep that charm but yet make it warm and welcoming to that younger generation? And so the plan was we're gonna take this many funds and, and do a remodel of our building. So we're gonna start there. So actually take a step back. Step one was how, let. Let's reorganize our finances. Let's invest this way instead of that way, because this is the way we've always been doing it. And that's a very conservative route. There's nothing wrong with that because we don't necessarily have, you know, we're not a business, we don't have a necessary income, but yet we can be a little more risky. So let's make it a little more risk, but yet still be conservative. And so that was step one, was finances reorganized. Step two was let's rejuvenate our building, let's update it. So we did a massive remodel. we were basically shut down for like a year. And we're talking massive. I've seen the photos. Massive. This was stripped down to the studs. Yeah. Yes. Studs came down, all new electrical got pulled. A hundred percent new plumbing. Um, the photo of this is terrifying by the way. yeah, it was a mess. I remember the first time when the, when the contractors first started pulling plaster off the walls and I went up there. And I was like, oh boy, what did we get ourselves into? Because you know, you know, with old buildings, as they open stuff up, they're gonna find things. Right. And we definitely had those change orders. Like, well, we weren't gonna take the plaster off the ceiling, but the next thing you know, we are gonna take the plaster off the ceiling. Which ended up being a good thing because then we didn't have to run the hard conduit on the outside where we were gonna do it before we could actually tuck it in. And we took all that weight off that, that roof we took. Yeah. You know, thousands of pounds off, off of weight off of that. So this was like a year process? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, we were, we got dispensation to meet in my uncle's barbershop actually. I remember kind of towards the end we were kind of getting hinted like, Hey, you guys, you guys need to do something. You need to get back in your building.'cause I don't know if we can continue this dispensation. I was like, well, come on though. Like the end results could be way better. So like, we're still opening, like we're doing better than everybody else. We're doing our business. Yeah. Um, so yeah, massive remodel projects. So that was like, that was step two because now if you say to somebody, Hey, would you be interested in joining the Masons or whatever? And if they visit to try to learn more information or whatnot, or let's be more open to the public, like, we've been here since 1858. the, the building or whatever below us, the rent, they actually, we own the top half. Another private, uh, person owns the bottom half for a long time it was a hardware store. It was hardware, Hank. They're like, well, where is the Masonic Lodge? It's above the old hardware, Hank. Really? How long has it been there? Since 1872. I didn't know that. No idea. Yeah, exactly. Right. but how do we make that building so when people come, they're like, oh, wow, you guys look organized. Like you, you've, you've done something, you, you're doing something with your building. It, you know, the, the toilet flushes, you know, the, the sink isn't like the old cast iron sink and, and, um, the tiles on the floor aren't the, um, asbestos tiles. Right. You know, the, the, and broken. And broken. Right. You know, don't step on that one.'cause it comes up when you, when you step on it, you know, and then we have to try to stick it back down with, with more glue or whatever. And, you know, new lights, modern lights, uh, modern furniture, you know, with these, the old wooden chairs. I'm a skinny guy. I'm 155 pounds and my skinny butt could barely fit in these wooden chairs. yeah, it's like we need, we need different chairs. Little updates. Yeah. Yeah. Little updates. So big remodel project, you can go out, uh, uh, if you, if you do the Facebook thing, uh, Meridian lodged number 25. We have a Facebook page and there's plenty of pictures from all the different stages in there. And now, now we're kind of moving on to the next phase. The next phase is we have to figure out what we wanna be able to do. You know, first of all, as officers, what are our roles and responsibilities? Now there's roles and responsibilities that are in the, um, installation ceremony process. Yes. Where it kind of talks like Mason, what our responsibilities are, but what works for us. On top of that, what works for us as a lodge, because you've talked about another podcast I've heard, where it's one or two people doing everything. The secretary basically runs the lodge. You know, you become secretary, your secretary until you die. Well, that's first of all, that's a, that's a whole nother podcast. Shouldn't happen. Yes, agreed. And yes. Um, or the doing everything. Well, no, the masters should be delegating everything. Like he should have, the person that goes through the line should have to take on added responsibilities as they move up in the line. If they, those, if they so choose to move up in the line. And if they are nominated and elected. And I say that too because one of the phrases I hate the most and hate's the strong word, and I hate this word or phrase, one of the phrases that I hate the most in, in our fraternity is, tradition prevailing. They will be master in three years. That's not nec. I don't think that should be a thing because. It doesn't mean they don't make, don't meet the qualifications to be master. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be a master. Maybe they aren't ready to be mastered yet. So what's wrong with them being nominated to be junior warden a second time, a third time until they're ready? Or maybe, maybe that's just where it stops. They got to the junior warden spot and it's like, that's just where it ends for them. And it's, again, it's nothing against them. And that's that those, those are those d difficult conversations again, right? But that's where it stops. It needs to stop. And then how, if that's something that they really wanna do, how do we help them as a fraternity? And, and sometimes a lot of that ownership falls on that, that individual themself. They, they have to change something to go on. so finding out, Hey, you know, the junior deacon's gonna be responsible for this, the Tyler's responsible for this, yada, yada, yada. So every officer has tasks and responsibilities. So the master, he comes up with his own calendar per se. You know, there's like the standard things that happen in the lodge, and then whatever the master has planned for his year, he finds out how he wants to divvy that work out to his officers. And literally the master for the most part, should, he should be riding high. Like he's just there, he's, he's got the calendar, he knows who's doing what, but he's just making sure that they're doing it. Everybody should be reporting to him like, Hey, worshipful master, let's say the senior deacon is re in charge of scheduling that roadside cleanup. So he does that offline. He, he links up with the members offline, you know, whether it be email, phone call, whatever. And. Does like a little poll of like, what's the best date where I can get the best bang for my buck? Most people, eight people can do it on this date versus five on this date. All right. We're taking the eight we're doing on this date. So then he tells the master the week of like, our lodge meets on a Wednesday. So let's say a week before, Hey, we're so master. We're scheduling our roadside cleanup for October 12th at one o'clock. Perfect. So during the meeting, the worshipful master, all he says is roadside cleanup. October 12th, one o'clock, brother, secretary, will you send a notice out to the members? Done. That's it. That's it. How long did it take me to say that? Not very long. Right. delegating that work out. Everybody's gotta have roles. It can't be just the master doing it. Mm-hmm. It can't be just the secretary doing it. It has to be, it has to be the officers and that has to be communicated to them. We've done a horrible job communicating to our. Members, when we ask somebody to become an officer of what, what is, what is the, what are the standards and expectations? Yes, those are my two favorite buzzwords. Standards and expectations. What are they? And now we're gonna hold you to'em. And that's where if you aren't holding yourself to them and we aren't holding yourself to them, then maybe you shouldn't advance in the line. And that's exactly it. You, if you want the gig, we'd love for you to, to serve in that capacity. However, the standards and expectations to do it well look like this. And if your are cable to, if your, if your ability to commit the time, then the energy to said role is not, it's okay. Yeah. It's okay to say Not right now. I will take another swing at percent this later Why is this so difficult? Yeah. Lodge comes last. I want you to do all the things. You know, I've got young kids. If you can't be there, you know, and somebody's like, well we can't give them these responsibilities. What if they can't be at the lodge meeting? They don't need to be at the lodge meeting if they're doing the right thing. Right. They don't need to be there. Mm-hmm. As long as they've communicated like, my responsibility is this, and is it that time of year or is it right around that? Are we talking about this? Whatever, do I need to be communicating to the master that I've got my task done? If not, great. He has to say is, I, I can't be there. We don't care why you can't be there. It's none of our, none of our business. so go do what you need to do. We'd love, we'd love to have you here a hundred percent. But if you have a child's, there's a con a band concert, A, you better be doing it. You need to go to your daughter's. There'll always be another lodge meeting. And I have your updates, uh, and I will share your update in lodge. Yep. Thank you. Perfect. We're covered. Or why didn't you, you know, like well, okay, cool. It's our September meeting. We typically do our full roadside cleanup in October. Do you have, you know, the master's not doing it. Do you have an update for me? I don't yet. Why? We still got a week. Can you get me an update? Can you get me a date before our meeting? You know, that's where the master has to take that leadership role that he has to kind of have that hard stance of, alright, we got a week out. You're telling me you can't be there. That's not a problem, but you don't have your tasks done. Can you get me that information by and don't give them, don't give'em that much leeway. Like the meeting's on Wednesday, like, can you get me that information by Monday? And if they don't, then you just have to, you know, you have to go to the meeting and be like, we don't have an update. As soon as we do, we'll get it out to you. And then that's enough of that conversation. But those are the patterns and you gotta give'em the benefit of the doubt. You have no idea what's going on. So don't be upset with them. Yeah, because they might have something going on. Follow up with'em afterwards, figure it out, move on, move forward, whatever. but then if those are the patterns that you watch for, and if those are repeated patterns, then that's how you identify. Maybe they're not the right person for that role. And again, nothing wrong with it because they're doing whatever they need to do and that makes them that special individual that they are. We should cherish that and love them for who they are and still support'em in any way we can. So yeah, that's stage three figure out. I'm gonna, I'm gonna add one thing to that, that, that's so crucial to do because I, I've heard from a lodge recently that I'm working with and, and someone within the lodge said, well, we need more members simply because we need officers. So your, rationale in that is to add numbers to the roles, to the roster simply for the lodge's interests. Yeah. And that's not gonna work. That's gonna fail. Well, and and that's a disservice to both. If you're going to force this upon a new member, first of all, who Yeah. Barely knows, doesn't even know how to, How to open a lodge property, doesn't know what they as a sideliner are supposed to do when a lodge is opening. And then we're selfishly saying, oh, by the way, we're going to foist you into this position too soon. And we don't care about your personal obligations. We're, we're gonna talk to you about the 24 inches. We're gonna talk about all of these things in theory, but in reality, we just need you to sit here and do all this work. And, and, and that is the tricky balancing act for which it's not easy, but boy, that rumination trap, like you talked about the, let's just kick the can down the road. Yep. On lodge improvements realigning, how a stated meeting is functioned. Let's just keep not making a decision. Inaction becomes our greatest form of action. And when we get to the end of that, kicking the can down the proverbial road for 10 years, 20 years without making a decision, we've simply are left with a bunch of empty cans. Yep. And no action. Yep. man, you guys have really made some bold steps, but then now you're on third phase. Yep. Yep. So that's third phase. Um, figure that out. And then phase four is kind of a, I think a double, um, we're trying to say what do we want to do internally as Masons? What do we hope to get out of this? What do we hope to get out of coming to Lodge, being a part of lodge? And how do we, how do we present ourselves to the public? How do we present, you know, from the outside, how do people perceive us from the outside? Um, so internally, a lot of lodges do. Charitable events or charitable acts in their communities, whether it be, uh, pancake breakfast to raise money. Uh, Chatfield used to do, um, the Bikes for Books program, and we would do a pancake breakfast. Well, then we ran into competition where the, the high school FFA group was doing a pancake breakfast, and then a church was doing a pancake breakfast. So there was like five pancake breakfasts happening in Chatham. That's a lot of pancakes. That's a lot of pancakes in a town of 3000 people. Yeah. And bless everybody's heart. The people come out for'em. But as time went on, I, we heard a lot of people say, can you guys do something other than pancake breakfast? We'd love to support you, but we're already going to three others. And it just seems like a lot, for any of those things, any of those charitable events that lodges are trying to do, it's not that, it's not that they shouldn't do them, it's not that they're doing anything wrong, but. We have taken an approach to what is available in our community of 3000 people. And there's two organizations that really stood out to us. One is called the Chatfield Alliance. Their mission is how do we help the community? How do we have, grower's market on Thursday where we close down a, a section of a street and vendors come? Local vendors come in with their, it's a farmer's market. Farmer's market. Yep. Yep. Grower's market, farmer's market. Um, they have a little band plan usually in, in the park and just activities they do. Uh, Chatfield has their annual summer celebrations called Western Days, second weekend in August. How do we, the alliance, put together events for the youth? You know, a fun run scavenger hunts, tractor pedal, tractor poles. just all kinds of fun little activities for the youth. So they're, they're definitely on the community side. You know, do we need, do we need more picnic tables in our parks? Do we need whatever, all those little things in the community that make'em awesome. Mm-hmm. Right. Details, details, right. And then the other organization in Chatfield that really stuck out to us, it's fairly new. I think they're in their third year. It's called the Chatfield Education Foundation. Their mission is how can we help not necessarily cover, how can we pick up the gap of the funding and education? There's only so much funding coming from the state in, in any school. But how do they get. How can we help our school have better tools, better resources, whether that be, Hey, the iPads are five years old and the 5-year-old iPad is an outdated iPad. Yeah, it is. So how do we get'em a new iPad? Right? There's only so much funding, so they can't get iPads every two years so. That was one of the things that the Education Foundation did. They got iPads for the elementary classes, and They put together an outdoor classroom space. one of the board members runs a landscaping business. So, you know, it was all about, they're all community members, right? And they all, some of'em have businesses, some of'em work, you know, work for businesses or whatever. How do we leverage all those different things as that organization to, to do that? So this outdoor classroom has. You know, nice big giant rocks that the kids can sit on and trees for shade. And it's just this awesome outdoor classroom experience and so many other things in the classrooms, whether it be additional supplies for art or all the things that a lot of times you see teachers spending their own personal money on to have in their classrooms. Right. The education foundation is covering, um, my son Frank, my oldest son this summer, uh, Chatfield through, uh, a tour group does a trip out to Washington, DC uh, every class between going in, going into ninth grade, the summer between eighth and ninth grade year, uh, gets to go on a bus trip to Washington, DC. And we got the buses all loaded at the high school and somebody got on the bus. It was a representative from the Chatfield Education Foundation, and they handed a personal envelope to every student on the bus with$125 in it and said, this is spending money for whatever you want on your trip to Washington, dc. You know, things like that. So it's like these two organizations, the, the board members, the people that are on these two organizations are definitely the movers and shakers in Chatfield. They've got a variety of age. they're primarily younger, which is great. Um, but they definitely have some senior members on there, which, you know, that's kind of like the legacy members I would say. You know, they, they bring that experience of knowing Chatfield longer than the younger ones. So it's a good mix and they're working on proving our community at two different levels, but really strong. So our approach is instead of like, don't recreate the wheel, don't try to reinvent the wheel. We only have, right now Chatfield has 28, our Masonic Lodge has 28 members. So how do we, until that changes, how do we succeed in the aspect of being involved in our community on a charitable level, giving back to the greater good? Correct. so we're trying to find a way to partner with these organizations and through that, I think so many, there's so many positives, there's so many wins in this because there might be opportunities through the Minnesota, Minnesota Maan charities for matching grants. An endless opportunities there, but these people are, they're already doing it. So when the Chatfield Education Foundation has their annual live and silent auction in November, maybe they need, they always are looking for volunteers to help set up tables and chairs, take down tables and chairs, help park cars in the parking lot because there's tons of people, the whole town comes to this thing. People from surrounding towns come to it. This is an organization, again, they're three years old. Coming into the third year, their first two years, they had this live and silent auction, and it lasted one hour. And both years they made over a hundred thousand dollars in that one hour timeframe. Mm. In a small town of 3000 people, they are doing tons of, tons of good things and it takes a ton of work. So. Going back kind of twofold. So we definitely wanna partner with those, those two organizations. And that's happening. It it is. Yes it is. It is. It's still early in its development, but I think, I think we're gonna have some good stuff there. so maybe that's a good outlet for us to do that because we're already stretched thin as the 28 people that belong to our lodge. And as we, here's the other side of this. As we look forward to other people in our community that we think would be good members in our lodge, if they're already active in organizations like that and some of those people in those organizations just based on their own personal individualism, their personality, their morals, their ethics, everything, they would make great masons. And I think they all are also searching for something more in life. that joint part, yeah. Reciprocal. Yeah. Yeah. That joint partnership. Um, and we're trying to make, uh, I, I told the lodge, I says, we need to work on making our meetings. Let's shoot for 15 minutes and put a cap of 20 minutes on our meetings. So how do we do that? Is it posting the, the previous meeting minutes on a wall somewhere along with the treasury report so somebody can just say, let's, you know, a motion to approve the minutes as posted versus reading through'em. the roadside cleanup, uh, example I gave earlier where the senior deacon just comes to lodge and said, you know, the date's already set so that we can get through that business portion.'cause that's the operational, that's the management part of the organization. That has to happen, has to exist, but it's not why we're there and it's not why we should be coming to lodge. It's not the sole focus. Correct. Right. It's, it's just, it's a necessity of the, of the organization. So let's hammer that out in the most efficient way. Uh, let's break that mold, let's break that status quo where they, they were an hour long of talking about all these things and then the rumination trap. Yeah. And then, and then everybody's like, oh, so now we should go in the, in the club room and, and have social period. And everybody's like, I gotta go to work tomorrow, or I gotta go home and get the kids in bed. Or, we've been here two hours now. Yeah. Like, I, I'm done. My, my fun leader's full. I'm outta here where, let's hammer it out in 15 minutes and spend the other 45 minutes connecting as brothers and having those conversations like I was talking about, we have at the fire hall where, you know, here's a dilemma in my life today. What are your guys' thoughts or, Hey, I'm thinking about making this type of investment. Has anybody ever done that? You know what's having those conversations and that's how you connect. That's how you bring bringing that brotherhood back to the lodge. Let's go back to the base fundamentals of why are we here, and I think brotherhood is, brotherhood to me is my, that's the Zeb Doak approach to the Masonic Lodge. It's about that brotherhood, it's about that connection and everything else on top of that is icing on the cake. Um, and it's good and it's positive, but how do we make it in the most simplistic form? Our world is crazy. Our world is busy. We heard so many people talk about during the pandemic when. All this, the kid youth activities were canceled and stuff like that. You couldn't have it. Yeah. And people were just like, man, I feel so much more relaxed and I don't, I have all this time and I'm able to talk to people and I haven't had this level. And we've been doing that for a long time. We've been doing it poorly. So let's, let's circle back and let's start doing it. Well, so when you come through that door to the lodge meeting, you know you can shut your phone off. You can disconnect from that crazy day at the office and all, you know, I've been going to, I. Uh, multiple volleyball tournaments every weekend, or a football tournament on the weekend, or basketball or whatever, all that stuff. And you can just come up there and for just an hour, just an hour, hour and a half, you can totally disconnect. It's a mental reset. Exactly. 15 minutes was just this business stuff that we needed to knock out. We opened, we did really good ritual in our opening. We knocked out the business and we did a really nice ritualistic closing boom, we're sitting on the couch, we're sitting in the chairs. We're just, we're just chatting it up. We're just talking. We know what's going on in each other's lives. Yeah. And we have this awesome, comfortable space that looks modern, but still has that cool, uh, it's so great eccentric look to it. Right. You know, it's, it's clean, it's bright, it's, it's refreshing. And I've already noticed, you know, people come to the lodge. An hour before our lodge meetings, people were showing up just as we were starting. If people are coming in an hour early now they come early, now they're coming early and they're staying later. Mm-hmm. We haven't, we haven't quite hit that 20 minute mark. We've been doing pretty good. We're right around 30 to 35 minutes. It's still good, but we're, we're getting there. We're we're, we're shortening it up, but yeah, they're coming earlier and they're staying longer because we have this space that's just, it's warm, it's welcoming. Yeah. It's not cold and Dungy. It's not, having been there in August when we had the Meet the Freemasons event, and that coincided with Western Days. You guys did incredible work. It is so beautiful and welcoming and inviting everything you've said, and it still maintained the essence of the history of the lodge. There's still that, that retro vibe, but it is absolutely amazing the work that you guys did and you took the long approach to it. You knew this was gonna be a slog that year long process of stripping things down beyond the studs it's really motivating and you have 28 members. That's fine. Yeah. Correct. I would say that's, that's, I would say Chatfield, 3000 people. I would say no more than 40. Well, there, there continues to be this, this perception that if a lodge doesn't have a hundred members on the roster, then well then what? Because there's a certain threshold of a lodge getting too big. Correct. In a smaller lodge setting, when you have that opportunity to know everyone to, to notice when someone's not in attendance that night. Yep. To know what's going on in each other's lives. I think there's something to be said that that's more of a win. That is a sweet spot. A hundred percent. thinking about the challenges of being in that smaller town, we can't control deaths. We cannot control the level of which people depart and leave a small town, but in the case of Chatfield, 3000 people in the community. That collaboration with other groups in the community, that's where it's at. Yeah. pretty confident in saying every town has the same thing. They have community organizations that are doing the same thing. If not, come to Chatfield and, and model some of ours, our education foundation modeled their foundation off of Spring Grove. we mentored Spring Grove's Education Foundation for a couple years and then the people got it started. So if you don't have one come model, ours, model, spring groves, whatever, it's an amazing thing, for the community, for the kids, whatever. every lodge should find those organizations in their community and find out how to partner with them. Yes. So, you know, we just. We always talk about getting stretched thinned and in lodge and doing multiple things. You know, you definitely see it when you're involved in, you know, the Scottish Rite York. Right. And we're spread, we're spread so thin, stuff like that. Well, now you're going back to your lodge and having to do, do more, which yeah, you can, you can if you want to, if that works for you. If that works for your lodge, awesome. Good for you. but how can you, how can you leverage the resources around you? You know, earlier we were talking about the, the Go Rock events and the Special operators taking their skills and transferring'em to the business world. One of the things they talked about was they're all trained to a base standard. Uh, special Forces Green Beret, team 12 guys. They're all trained to the same standard. And in that team of 12, each one of'em has an individual speciality, whether it be an engineer, medic, weapons specialist. communications, intelligence, whatever. if they're going into a particular mission where they need other resources, they find those resources. They don't try to become the masters of everything. They, you, you can't, so they find out who do we need to talk to? They come into that country or that community, who do we need to talk to? Who, who are our resources? Oh, wait a minute. We need an Air Force combat controller attached to us, because based on where we're going, they're gonna have that expertise to be able to handle that same thing. That's, that's the correlation. Same thing in the lodge. Like, we don't, we aren't necessarily gonna have all those resources, but find those resources in your community. Who do we need to talk to for this? That's how, that's how the Education Foundation became so successful in Chatfield so fast. None of the board members said they were gonna be able to do this all on their own. Right. They knew they needed to have. People in different fields or different knowledge sets, skill sets to make this happen. And they had all the courage in the world to go out and say, I need to talk to you. Can you help us with this? we need to start doing that as lodges going under our community, asking the people like, we need help doing this. How do we do this? How do we, how do we become better at this? Or Can you help us with this? Can you provide this for us? A partnership? Correct. We're not asking an outsider to do the work for us. No. But can we make a bigger, better event that includes members of the Masonic Lodge and another fraternal organization or the, the, the team, the people that coalesced around the education pursuit in your community. It's not complicated, but it does require a lot of communication and looking for those opportunities. Yep. circling back, um, where this all began with the whole Chatfield, Meridian Lodge number 25 project. How it really, how this whole thing got started with that proposal. When I came to the lodge and I laid it all out, I did a really nice PowerPoint presentation. I was super excited about it. borrowed a projector, made it really big, knew I was making some people really nervous'cause definitely some touchy subjects in this. My last two slides, slide number one, uh, second to last slide was we have two options. We can take a risk, we can spend some of this money to try to maintain the big pool of money in Chatfield to help our community and help ourselves. Or we can close. And I had this, I. Picture this image on the slide with this old door, old rickety door that reminded me of like our rickety lodge door with this clothes sign on it. I'm like, or we can close the lodge and if we don't make a decision tonight, if we don't make a decision to take the risk and do it, I am going to make a motion at the end of this meeting that we surrender our charter. Try me. I will do it. And you could definitely see some eyes in the lodges, like, is he gonna really do it? Is he real? Yeah. And there's a couple people like, oh yeah, he'll, he'll do it, he'll do it. I'm like, what are we out? Like I had a former, I was talking with you earlier, I had a former manager that whenever we wanted to do something different. His thought process was, let's see if we can break it. Let's do the risk mitigation. Is anybody gonna die? Does anybody get hurt? Are we gonna violate any laws or are we going to, you know, lose all our money? Does anybody get in trouble? You know, all the risk mitigation. Okay, we, we've taken all, all the major risks, so let's try it, let's see if we can break it. So that's basically, that's the words I used in, in, in the lodge that night. Like, let's see if we can break it. Let's try it. Oh my, oh my, let's try it. I was really surprised. I, I had no idea how this is going. I was talking to my dad several, several times before this, like, he knew I was doing this. He's not a mason, but he, he and I talk about it all the time and he always laughs. He goes like, this is why I'm not a mason. Like this is, you know, you guys are frustrating. And I'm like, well it is frustrating, but it doesn't need to be frustrating. So I was sitting there after I gave my presentation and I, I'm ready to make the motion to close the lodge.'cause I'm like, they're gonna be like, well, we aren't sure we really want to do this. Let's table this and think about it. Yeah, yeah. Right. No, we, we are not, we are making a decision tonight. Like, I didn't give them an option like we are making a decision. And so it was crickets at first. And then I said, all right, well, I'd like to make a motion that we accept this proposal. We make the financial adjustments, we contact a contractor, he gets us some, because I had already had some rough estimates. I already talked to a couple of contractors and had some rough estimates. You researched this already? Yeah. So I already did a ton of work ahead of time. So I had two quotes. Like I already had like the next meeting's agenda already set, like, here's the two estimates, here's what the remodel would look like, blah, blah, blah. it was a, it was like, yeah, let's do it. I was like, whoa, you, you, you're kidding me. Like everybody was like, yeah, let's do it. There was, there was the one guy, of course there was the one guy, you can't spend our nest egg. We'll, we'll be outta money forever. Well, what, we aren't doing anything with it. We are literally like, buddy, we we're gonna close this thing. Like this is it. I'm not coming to lodge anymore to do nothing. I'm not, I have, I left my two young kids at home. They're fine. But I left them at home. I could be hanging out with them. Yeah. I already have short nights with them or less nights with them. One, because I'm divorced, two, because I work a job that I work 24 hour shifts. So when I have them, it's, it's special time. Give me a reason to leave the house Exactly. And make it good. Yes. And I kind of, I've get to the, I've gotten to the point where I feel that about all my Masonic activity, whether it be Blue Lodge, Scottish, Wright, York, Wright, or all the, any of the individ invitational bodies that I belong to, gimme a good reason to be here. And if I get here and we're doing the same thing and we're not making any progress and we're just spinning our wheels and it's. Bad ritual work. It's bad leadership. Like, everybody's like, oh, what's next? I don't know. And the read the minutes. The person, the person in the hot seat, the master in the east or whoever it is, in whatever body they're looking at, the secretary, um, brother secretary, what's next? What do we have for social events? Well, this is what you're supposed to do next. And the secretary like, no, like, I'm done. I'm done with that. Yeah. And why would I, why would I ever, ever, ever suggest to anybody, anybody that I know, like, Hey, I think you should join the lodge so you can come and watch us do, do nothing. And it's just like, no, like stop this. Stop, stop this chaos. Like stop this endless cycle. Oh, it's horrible. It's just horrible. So it was horrible, but now things are correct. Yes. Um, He was against it, but he was like, oh, alright. So he would, he would kind of go with it. He was a little nervous. I personally invited he and his wife, his wife, uh, Chatfield, has an Eastern Star chapter as well. His wife is very active in the Eastern Shar. after remodeling stuff, I, I invited them both personally to come and I wanted to give him a tour and gave him a tour and showed'em everything. afterwards, um, his wife texted me and she's like. Thanks again for doing that. She goes, it looks really nice. Like, so it kind of like, oh wow. They, like, they saw, they, they just, it all came together. It all came together. Yeah. They, they needed to actually see it, to believe it. And, and I get it. Everybody's like that. Um, but yeah, so we did it. We pulled it off. are we gonna be able to make it sustainable? I hope so. But we all learned something. I learned a ton during, you know, being the project manager through the remodel project. Um, every, we all, you know, I was very transparent through the process with our members. Here's where we're at. We need to make a decision on this. Never thought this would come up, but it did. How do we navigate this? And we all learned a lot. So if anything, like it was a win-win either way. Certainly a lot of steps involved to bring all of the moving parts and pieces together, but ultimately not complicated. No. If there's patience and if there's an an endurance factor that we can play the long game. We can, in fact, right, the ship. Yeah. And you have to be there. There has to, I am not an ag by nature. I am not an aggressive person. But I've learned where I need to be aggressive and where not to be aggressive, and I'm still fine tuning that. There definitely is times where it's like, Zev, you need to back off a little bit like I do. I am self-aware and I do see that, or sometimes I'm driving home after a lodge meeting, I'm like, well, probably shouldn't have done that or probably was a little rough. But you're aware of that though? Yeah. Yeah. Correct. But. So when you're making these things, you, once you get that ball rolling, you can't let it stop. Right. You gotta, you gotta keep it moving. You can't, you can't stop. And that's with. Whatever your lodge is working on, you have to keep that momentum going. It, it can't be this stagnant, like, oh yeah, I think that's good. You know, there are, there are times where research and additional information is needed, and it is necessary to table something. But your leadership, your master needs to make sure that immediately goes on his agenda, not the secretary's agenda, his agenda for the next meeting. Like, Hey, where were, where are we at last time we talked about this and we said we were gonna table it. Where are we at? Because I go to so many Masonic meetings where we talk about something, there's no action items assigned, or even if there is actions items assigned, and you come back for the next meeting and they don't even come up again. It's like, all right, here we go again. Again, gimme a reason to come because this is baloney. I, I'm done with this. And I agree about some things do need some more time, but when we're talking about a long-term, a year becomes, a decade, becomes another decade. When inaction is our greatest form of action, then we're sleeping in the hole that we've dug for ourselves. Yep. And credit to you for leading the way, being that spark plug at Meridian to make some necessary, some hard decisions. I'm sure this wasn't easy. No. But it's the, the progress that's come out of this. I, I'm, I'm very excited to visit again and get back for a, a stated meeting now in the fall as we get back rolling in full, full motion. Now Earlier you mentioned you're not an aggressive person, but you're certainly passionate, driven and very authentic, which is such a plus in this world today. Did I miss earlier? You're a collector of Star Wars action figures from the old school days. Oh, oh yes. yeah. The crazy firefighter who does these wild rucking endurance events and gets tortured for 24 whatever, 48 hours. I have a geek side. Uh, yeah. So when I was younger, my grandma, my grandma Doak, she was the queen of garage sales. This lady could garage sail to, there was no end. She went to every garage sale. And she came home one time. She always brought toys home for, for my sister and I to play with at her house when we were at Grandma's house. Um, and they all came from garage sales. And she came home and, and there was, I wanna say it was like six or seven characters, figures, action figures. And she says, Hey, I picked these up at a garage sale. I'm like, okay. She goes, they're from a movie called Star Wars. Okay. So I had these action figures and I'd play with them at her house. And then two, three years passed by and I actually saw Star Wars. Uh, it was Return of the Jet. I was the first one I saw. I saw it on tv. And I was like, oh, now I can correlate these action figures to this. And my grandma was a collector of everything my grandma loved to collect, and she was always trying to get my sister and I to find something that we were passionate about to collect. And my grandma was like, well, there's, there's several more of those characters, action figures. Come to find out, there are 96, I think it's 96 96 action figures from 1977 to 1984. And so I started digging into it and found out about'em. And of course, you know, trying to find'em where they're in mint shape and they have all their weapons.'cause who, you know, when you're playing with these things outside and you lose their weapons, you lose their capes. Yeah. Lose their helmets, whatever. yeah. So I started slowly collecting, and then I started going with my, my parents to, uh, antique shows, gold rush shows, whatever. And I carried a backpack on the back of the backpack, had a sign, we'll, we'll buy and trade Star Wars action figures. And I had all of my action figures individually packaged in Ziploc bags, and I was always looking for like the next improvement. So I might be able to sell this guy. And get one, a different guy, but in better condition or you know, can I sell two guys for one or whatever, you know, like, so I quite the barter. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, so I had, I had duplicates of some action figures, you know, and I was always working my way. And then of course the internet came around and you can find anything on the internet and you can literally find them all. Like if you, this is, is eBay a dream come true for this? Uh, yeah, yeah. eBay's, yeah, eBay's pretty good, but there actually are, um, a couple good, um, businesses that handle vintage, whether it be Star Wars, GI Joe, ninja Turtles, and, and handle both, all, all of'em, right. And throughout the years, uh, I've been able to acquire all the original action figures from 77 to to 84. In, in top mint shape? Not in, and not in their package. I, okay. I definitely don't have the income to be able to do the, the packaged, uh, action figures, but I have them all loose with all their accessories, uh, in a really nice display case. Do you get into the Legos of Star Wars? I don't. My, my, my boys definitely do. I'm glad I don't'cause that's. That's expensive too. Like I, you know, the vintage stuff is expensive. I mean, my most expensive action figure. Here's, here's a good, the most expensive action figure that I have is roughly about$800. Okay? That's just the action figure alone. Which one is it? Who was it? Um, 1984. it was only released in Canada. The character's name is Yak face and he's, he's seen in Return of the Jedi, and it's basically just like instant camera shot. Like either you catch him or you don't, So, so there's great trivia with it too. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. I just saw a headline randomly on Instagram or someplace that the Death star, Lego. Set just came out is the most expensive ever. Like a thousand bucks for that. Thousand bucks for, wow. Yeah. Uh, the boys definitely, I came home from work and they're like, dad, there's a new Star Wars death Star. I'm like, there is. They're like, yeah. So of course to the tv we go log in, get YouTube up. There's a video of the guy, you know, from Lego whatever, highlighting it, going through all the pieces and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. And then they get to the end and it's a thousand dollars. I'm, by the way. Yeah. And of course, both boys were like, yeah, we want it for Christmas. I'm like, oh yeah, keep kids. It's nice to want things, guys like, yeah. You know how long it took me to get that yak face? Like, see, there's your father moment you were looking for. Yeah, exactly. The answer's No, the answer's no. Yeah. Yeah. And they, they knew it. So I know you're only a few weeks away now from the Go Ruck event, what's the dumbest way you've ever injured yourself? The dumbest way I've ever injured myself. Oh boy. That's, that kind of is a long list. What's the first one that came to mind? First one that came to mind, it was just a couple years ago. it was at a Go Rock event and the cadre bring all these extra things for you to carry. So not only do you have your 40 pound rock sack, they bring sandbags that can weigh from 40 pounds, 280, some even have 200 pound sandbags. And they don't bring just like one or two of these things. They bring a ton of them. So almost everybody's carrying something. from time to time, like, you know, they carry it so long along with your rucks, you might switch, you might find a partner switch. Mm. And as you're the, you're moving forward, the entire group is mo moving forward and you can't leave anybody behind. And some of the cadre are really good about, like, you can't have be more than an arm length behind somebody. And if, if that catch you, you're that far out, then everybody's gonna have to do more pushups. And so I was doing a sandbag swap with somebody and it was uh, an 80 pounder. So basically you go, you go back to back and you kind of turn and roll it off of one person's back onto the other person's back. And then you have to run to get caught back up. And they always want the people with the sandbags in the front of the line'cause you're gonna move the slowest. And we were on a paved like bike trail hiking trail down in Iowa. It's. Roughly like 11 o'clock at night. We started at nine o'clock at night. We always do these things in the middle of the night, you know, like, why not? it's gotta rain too. It's always gotta rain. and so I got the sandbag and I'm like, I gotta get up front right away. So I just took off running hard as I could, and I was coming up to get in the front and I stepped off the side of the path and the ground was, was uneven. Mm-hmm. And heard it, felt it, my ankle was just, was done. Oh. And I, I'm like, oh, I'm only two hours into this thing. And of course I go head first into, into the dirt and I've got the 40 pound sand, 40 pound backpack and an 80 pound sandbag on my back. Like, I just, bam. Like that's just. And I'm, I'm a firefighter now at this point, I'm just like, oh, like, Seb, this is not worth it. Like, you can't, you can't, can't get hurt anymore because you could, I, I could hurt anything and go back and sit in a chair in an office. Sure. But now, like, I really can't, like, oh no. And I finished. It was a 12 hour event, and I finished it. Like, I just got up. You kept going? I kept going. Yep. Kept that, uh, did not take my boot off. He's like, you know, should we take your boot off and look at your ankle? I'm like, Nope. I'm like, I think we should keep that thing as tight as we possibly can. And the Cadry was like, good call. And, uh, we kept moving and for a while there I, I, somebody else carried my rock sack for a couple miles and didn't have to carry a sandbag for a while. Um, just to get moving. And I think the moving helped. but yeah, after the event, uh, I always ride, I always drive home. In sandals, like, get, I can't wait to get my boots off after an event. And I, by the time I got home, I could barely get my sandal off. Oh no. My, my, my, but that was the dumbest thing. It was just like heading just dumb. Right. Just, I'm gonna get back in the front of the line with my heavy rucksack where I, where I'm supposed to be everybody up with, with the sandbag up front and be careful in October. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, uh, okay. I have a new different approach now that my career requires me to come back. And What grownup problem were you least prepared for when you entered adulthood? Oh boy. least prepared for. Navigating. Coworkers or other people that I interacted with that didn't hold themselves to the standard that I was trying to hold myself to. and being okay with that, you know, learning. Like if I hold myself to this really high standard, like we were talking about lodge earlier, like, you know, I'm very passionate about it and if I think I should be at this level, everybody else should be at this level. And realizing not everybody's there, whether it be Mason, professionally, whatever. And that's okay. And navigating that and accepting it, like as long as I'm not lowering my expectations of myself and they aren't doing anything wrong and they're still working hard, they're still doing everything right. that's okay. Like that's, that's, that's all right. You know, they're, they're, they're doing good things. They're doing good work. Um, would I like it done faster? Would I like it done better? Or could you be more detailed? Yeah, but it's okay. Like, it's not, it's not sub work. It's not below a any standard. It's, it's good, good work, but it just, being okay with that, like that was a problem. I, I never knew I would run into like, What TV show was canceled way too soon? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The original. Was that a shortlived? Yeah, it kind of was. I think it had. I think there was four or six seasons. I honestly don't know, but yeah, I, you know, like the Simpsons Simpsons has gone on forever. Forever. Yeah. Like I would be that geek that would still watch Ninja Turtles today, even now. Yeah. I watched it with my boys, the original ones with my boys, and I was, I was so happy. Like at the same time I was like, oh my God, I watched this. This is horrible. But at the same time, this is awesome. Some nostalgia even when it's bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Zev Eck, we really appreciate you being in studio today and sharing some detailed perspective of all that's been happening at Meridian Lodge in Chatfield and beyond. a question I heard asked recently at Lodge was, is what you're doing right now serving the person you wanna become? Gwen de Bogle said that your future self is watching you through your memories. And whether it's with pride or regret depends on what you do. Now, I feel like that rings true for the efforts that have been put into Meridian a hundred, a hundred percent. Um, an additional quote that I think kind of mirrors that to some extent, Walt Disney has a quote, and this isn't a hundred percent, but Walt Disney has a quote, and this was my last slide that I used in my presentation to my lodge. Disney's quote was, do what you do so well that the people want to come back and see it again, and they'll bring others with them. I appreciate you, my friend. I appreciate you. Thank you very much.