What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Money Mastery Through Self-Discovery
What happens when a former Marine becomes a monk for 20 years, then transforms into a pioneering financial advisor? Doug Lynam's extraordinary journey reveals profound truths about our relationship with money that most financial experts never discuss.
Growing up in an affluent but emotionally complicated home where his parents weaponized money during their divorce, Doug developed deep-seated negative beliefs about wealth. This led him to reject materialism entirely, first joining the Marines and then taking monastic vows to escape what he saw as a corrupt financial system. The universe had other plans. In a twist of cosmic irony, just three years into his monastic life, the entire monastery went bankrupt—and Doug found himself responsible for solving their financial crisis.
This unexpected responsibility became Doug's awakening to the powerful connection between psychology and finance. Over two decades as both monk and math teacher, he developed revolutionary insights about how our personality types shape our financial behaviors. His latest book, "Taming Your Money Monster," uses the Enneagram personality system to explain how each of us develops distinctive "money monsters" based on our core fears and desires.
Doug challenges the false choice between spiritual fulfillment and financial success. He argues that rejecting wealth can be just as ego-driven as hoarding it, and that money itself is simply a tool that amplifies who we already are. Most powerfully, he shows how unhealed trauma gets transmitted through our financial decisions, affecting not just ourselves but everyone around us.
Whether you're struggling with debt, building wealth, or somewhere in between, Doug's compassionate approach offers a path to healing your relationship with money by first healing your relationship with yourself. By understanding your unique "money monster," you can transform financial management from a source of stress into an expression of your highest purpose.
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I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you think you are?
Speaker 2:All right, everybody. Another day, another dollar, another interesting and amazing episode of my favorite podcast, because, yes, I am biased and definitely this man is definitely the definition for me of what, if it did work. Definitely an interesting story. Doug Linham, former Marine monk you usually don't get those two together. Money manager, keynote speaker, celebrity coach, best-selling author. The man, the myth, the legend How's it going, doug? I'm doing great, omar. How's your day going? The man, the myth, the legend How's it going, doug? I'm doing great, omar. How's your day going? When I saw you on the schedule after I've been seeing you relentlessly, your ads for your new book, oh, great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was honored to read it way beforehand and all that, so thank you for the digital copy. So I have to ask, like, what drove you just that path, just being a Marine Corps officer all the way to, when I think of monks, definitely especially Benedict Monk. You know there's two different types of monks. There's those that they watch, the Golden Child and the Tibetan monk, and then, yeah, you know, the, the christian, the catholic monk, the monastery what was that? Something that would that you always thought, maybe one day as a as a kid, that you wanted to become a monk, or was that was just something that just one day you're like I gotta do it?
Speaker 3:oh, it was just one of those one day things I I never, never, dreamed of being a monk at all. That wasn't on my radar as a kid. I wasn't raised in a religious household. I didn't have a very strong, any real spiritual practice as a kid, and so for me during the monastery it was kind of a way it was well, it was a transition from the Marines and we can go into the whole story. I mean, we can back it up. But but you know, we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 3:But essentially, um, you know, when I left the Marines, I was looking for, uh, uh, something that would give me a similar sense of higher purpose, like what would be a higher calling that I'm gonna leave the Marines? What would be a higher calling that would give me the esprit de corps that I love, the discipline, the, the, you know, the camaraderie. This is a purpose. And then also, it was a great way to annoy my parents. It really just flabbergast them and kind of. You know, it was kind of a great way to thumb my nose in an act of rebellion in many, many ways. And so I kind of went looking for God. I thought, well, if I'm going to find God, we're better to do it than in a monastery. In a monastery, and so I think I succeeded in finding my connection to the divine and also succeeded in really flabbergasting my parents, it worked out great.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, usually the key to success is immersion, but usually when it comes to like spirituality and religion, people don't do the deep end, unless you know, know, they had that spiritual calling from an early age. Like you said, it was just one of those things that, uh-huh, I'm sure your parents were like oh my gosh, doug, you know, you, you were on a pet, an officer, so educated, and yet just one day you're a monk. They for sure had that knee-jerk reaction. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:And I would say I always had a deep spiritual longing. I think spirituality and philosophy and the bigger, deeper questions on the meaning of life were always forefront in my mind, even as a kid, even if I couldn't articulate them very clearly. So the quest was always there, but having any sort of grounded practice wasn't.
Speaker 2:Now 20 years, though, right, 20 years of being a. I mean I I almost took that path because I had a degree in journalism, so it's like a vow of poverty, while but my sure is, so I I mean it's just an incredible path. Uh, I mean from it, and, like what you said, your parents weren't even spiritual they're. They're more like on the the hippie side, weren't they? No, just, the opposite.
Speaker 3:Um well, maybe let's let me just start from the beginning. I'll't they? I know just the opposite. Um well, maybe let's let me just start from the beginning. I'll give you kind of the version of the story you got like the lifetime you've, you've got.
Speaker 2:You're like a little bit of lifetime, a little bit of the spirituality you've got like the, the wall street.
Speaker 3:You're like the whole package well, thank you, I appreciate that nobody can fit you into any box that.
Speaker 3:That is fair.
Speaker 3:That is very fair. Well, I grew up in a fairly affluent home. My mom was actually a certified financial planner. My dad was eventually a CEO of a chemical company and also an executive before that for an oil company.
Speaker 3:But when my parents divorced when I was about seven or eight money really from my limited childhood perspective, this is how I perceived it the it no reality and how you, how you see things as a kid, and how things actually are sometimes don't always jive. So I don't want to throw my parents on the bus entirely. Um, they're very loving, very kind, great people. But um, when they were, when, when they divorced, it felt like they they um money got weaponized. It became the tool that they used to get back at each other and they often put us kids in the middle. And it was like you'd ask my mom for something and she'd say, well, go ask your dad, he's got all the money. And I'd ask my dad, he'd say, go ask your mom, she gets all my money, she gets all the alimony and child support. And you're like, okay, well then, what do I do? And just kind of get went without. A lot of times it was kind of odd to see sort of my middle-class friends with a lot more stuff, so to speak, than I did by far, because it was always this game of financial chicken for anything I needed. So you just kind of learn. So I had some really bad money attitudes. I learned some bad what we call money scripts or just money attitudes, and I had this really negative perspective of wealth and this negative perspective on capitalism and capital markets and the whole game, the corporate system, and so I really rebelled against it. My brothers did the same. So my brothers all took a vow of poverty in different ways. I have a twin brother who ran off and became a homesteader in upstate Vermont and I have an older brother who ran off and joined a grunge band in Seattle. So we all kind of rejected the whole materialistic thing in different ways and rebelled in very different ways.
Speaker 3:And so, anyway, so I first went off to the Marines. Well, I first went to college and studied philosophy and mathematics and went to this really cool but very funky liberal arts school in Santa Fe, new Mexico, called St John's College. It's often known as the great book schools. It's a very rigorous academic program, sort of the Marine Corps for academics for anybody who's interested, but that's another story, but at any rate, so then I went to officer candidate school. While I trained with them during my summers when I was in college and I graduated, taught my class from Marine Corps officer candidate school, and then they, because I finished the training between my junior and senior year, they sent me back to finish my last year of college.
Speaker 3:I had a year off to kind of like think about it, you know, and what do I really want to do? And I kind of had this sort of epiphany, awakening whatever you want to call it, and and actually turn my. So I did not go active duty, I turned my commission down to go join a monastery. It's like, well, um, and I realized that, uh, unresolved anger issues and high explosives were a bad combination. So I probably don't want to be going out and blowing people up around the world just to deal with my daddy issues. So, uh, I was like, well, let's, let's, what would what, as we talked about it before, what, what would be? You know, something that would be even perhaps more noble and the Marines is a very noble profession, don't get me wrong but what would be, you know, kind of a, maybe a level up a little bit spiritually and so, and then that's why I looked at the mind. I had a mentor at the time who was the head of this community and was very influential in my life, and so I thought I'd try it. For me it was like going to grad school. I thought it was going to be an experiment. I'd do for a year or two and figure something else out.
Speaker 3:But anyway I joined the monastery and I ended up staying 20 years and a lot of it was great, some of it not so much, but in a great. And part of my reason for joining was also to try to escape the world of money and materialism forever. I reason for for joining was also to try to escape the world of money and materialism forever. I thought I'm taking about poverty, I'll never have to deal with this money thing, we'll never beat it, I can just check out of this whole game. And then, in a very ironic twist of fate, about three years after I I joined, the entire monastery went bankrupt. The community went under, was insolvent because of a number of long-standing, long-standing financial issues that were draining the coffers, and so again, more irony it fell into my shoulders to solve that problem.
Speaker 3:For a number of reasons, and so I ended up having to then take this problem on and actually learn about finance, which was kind of the last thing I wanted to do. But I ended up just going to a bookstore and grabbing a dozen books off the counter and just like all right, what do we got? And that was something I'm grateful for. My college training gave me the ability to read books and learn, and that's what I don't think we get enough in academia these days is just the ability to really think for yourself and be able to teach yourself. So anyway, I did that.
Speaker 3:It took me about two half years to really get the community back on solid financial footing and then I was in a teaching order. So the community I was in, all of us were working in academia. I was teaching at a very prestigious private high school and I was there for the entire time I was in the monastery. So 20 years in academia and 20 years in the monastery concurrently. And about that same I, about that same time, I became the chair of the mathematics department. So I was heading the math department and I realized like, hey, this is a um, we're not teaching. We're teaching kids the quadratic formula, but we're not teaching them anything about finance or budgeting or how to like, earn, save, invest. You know all the things that they're going out into the world, financially world.
Speaker 3:As financially illiterate as I was which was terrible my parents talking about money in my home was more taboo than talking about sex. It was easier to have the sex conversation with my dad than it was to talk about the money thing. I knew nothing. I didn't know how to balance a checkbook. I didn't know how to taxes. I didn't know nothing. I thought this is a real shame that we don't offer kids basic, we don't make financial literacy a core requirement to graduate high school. So anyway, I started offering an econ and personal finance courses at elective and did that for over I mean well, over a dozen years, and so fast forward a ways into the future.
Speaker 3:One day, for a class project, I opened up the school retirement plan to show the kids how it worked. I wanted to give them a hands-on, practical, real-world experience and what I found was a complete train wreck. The whole thing was a disaster, as you're probably aware and I'm sure many of your listeners are probably financially savvier where there's this thing called fiduciary duty, which is sort of the legal oversight of the of the plan. There was no, there was no fiduciary oversight. The fees were high, the funds were poor, uh, performing poorly. No one had looked at this thing for 20, 30 years. It was drifting, and so I I thought, well, let's go find a better company, can you do a better job? And I went looking around and I, after you know a great deal of research, I realized that this is a. I couldn't find a better company than the one we had that I liked, because no one wanted the fiduciary duty for the plan and without charging an insane amount of money. And then I couldn't find and this was an endemic problem across schools across america, private and public, across the board.
Speaker 3:And about this time and so to your, to your podcast, is what if it worked? I was like, well, what if? What if I could build a better mousetrap? What if this is a multi-billion dollar problem across the country? Could I, could I design something better? And I thought, well, hell, yeah, I mean, I know, I know what. And so I did it. Um, took, I took a big risk, I did all the trainings and got all the licensures.
Speaker 3:While I was a monk, I started my own investment advisory firm, called an RIA, while I was in the monastery and got a client and it was like, oh my gosh, this is working. And then there became some real tension in the monastery between what I was doing with the financial thing and a lot of reasons which we could go into if you want, but it's a very complicated story. But I decided to leave the monastery in 2017. And then, right when I launched this business full time and then took my tiny little firm and I merged it with a larger company called Longview Asset Management in Santa Fe which I'm very grateful for them for doing taking me on, because I was way over my head on a bunch of fronts like regulatory compliance and things like that, of course. So it was good to have mentors and some wiser heads there in helping navigate the financial markets.
Speaker 3:But the key point is that, right when I did that, the New York Times launched a six-piece expose, a big spread article once a month, every month for six months, on the problem of teacher retirement plans in the country. They were highlighting and pointing out the very problems that my company was trying to solve, and this is where you know again. Just grace of god, you know, sometimes these, sometimes you just get lucky. And so I reached out to a guy named ron lieber, who is the financial columnist at the new york times. Who, who, who wrote these pieces with his partner I was I forgot her name, sarah, I believe. Anyway, um, and they were excited about my story and, and just a quick Facebook hey, I love what you guys are doing, and here's what I'm doing and here's who I am. And then they flew. A reporter, ron Lieber, the guy from New York Times, flew out to Santa Fe a couple weeks later and did a full day, spent a full day with me and then did this big interview and that went on the front page of the New York Times business section and went viral, really launched my career.
Speaker 3:I got a two book deal from HarperCollins out of that article, which is where, which was kind of how I'm on your show now is I've got. My first book is called From Monk to Money Manager, a former monk's financial guide to becoming a little bit wealthy and why. That's okay. And then my newest book, which just came out last month, is called Taming your money monster nine paths to money mastery with the enneagram, which I'm really excited about. I think it's a groundbreaking book. It's got some really cool new ideas in it. So, um, and then I took a I basically took a buyout from longview about a year ago to get this book out the door and become an author, speaker, coach, and I've worked with celebrities of the high I'm allowed to like, share my client list, but let's just say big names and and some big projects I've been able to work on or to work on, and so I think one of the reasons why you have big names is because you're unique.
Speaker 2:This when I first your publicist came to me, I'm like, oh my gosh, you know and I. I was a financial advisor a million years ago.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, oh my gosh, we're it's just, it's going to be another book about you know where to invest mutual funds and no loads. And then it hit me like, like reading your book, and oh my gosh, I wish I would have had this like years ago, because just the same way that you spoke about, like your emotional attachments are limiting beliefs that you had as a kid I had it was. It was like the complete opposite. My mom and dad divorced before I was born. I was the only, I was the only child, and my grandparents, my grandfather, was affluent, but everybody like to this day, nobody's touchy feely in my family. So the way to express love is to buy things, material items. So, and the more, the more I made for so many years it was like, oh well, this is the way I need to show love to my two daughters, to my ex-wife oh, I'm feeling down, I need to buy things.
Speaker 2:And I used the stock market. I mean, yes, made money, saved, but it wasn't always to look towards the future or to invest more. It was like, oh my gosh, well, I made such a return. Or I made 400. We made, as a couple, four hundred something thousand dollars in this year. What better thing to do than reward myself with a hundred thousand dollar car right? What better way, yeah, appreciating asset that? You know I'm married, I've got two kids. I'm at the time I'm in my mid-40s you know this is hashtag winning, yes, even though you're gonna laugh. But you know we all have common sense. Yeah, but because everybody can listen to the Ramseys everybody but it doesn't matter. You can read a book on Peter Lynch, on investing, and you know the Vanguard Fund and there's so many books, and you can be hanging out with Warren Buffett, but really it's what you feel money is if it's a tool or if it's something to spend, or if it's evil or if it's something that you run away from, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:Until you tackle those things, all the other things will always be there and maybe we should back up a little bit for your listeners just to explain a little bit what the book is doing. So it's really a book of financial psychology. It's really trying to get to the what is the again. Taming your Money Monsters is the title, and so what are those money monsters that show up according to our personality type? And for those who aren't familiar with the Enneagram, it's a very robust personality typology system that explains how your ego develops in childhood, and so there's only so many ways you can form an ego and there's infinite variety in the system and it's very complicated in some ways, but essentially there's just these, not. Ennea means nine in Greek and gram means drawn. So there's these nine different archetypes of personality. We can draw them on a circle, we could draw them on different shapes, and so basically it says there's these nine buckets. That you're if you think of it.
Speaker 3:I use car metaphors quite throughout the book. I think those are kind of helpful. I use car metaphors quite throughout the book. I think those are kind of helpful. If you think about cars, there's only so many ways you can design a car and still have it be roadworthy, but there's lots of styles of cars. So there's SUVs, there's compact cars, there's race cars, there's family sedans. And so to think of your ego as a car, like, okay, what's the kind of style of car, of ego that you're driving? And then, just like, your car is totally unique, you know you're, you can find yours in a parking lot, it's different from everybody else's.
Speaker 3:But it kind of falls into these general categories and it explains the enneagram really. Probably what it's most important thing is what it tells you is what's your greatest unconscious fear that formed your ego in the first place and what's your greatest hope. And then there's there's all these sort of different reactions. We have that, that, um, ways, it's basically the lens through which you're viewing the entire, all of reality and and and it's pretty shocking, that's shocking but intriguing, I would say to realize that we're all not viewing reality through the same lens, where it's like you're wearing this tint of glasses or so, or you're driving this car. It it affects where you can go and where you can drive and how you experience the highway of life. And so if you're driving a compact car, you probably don't want to take it off roading. If you go drive a big Hummer, you don't want to put it in a compact spot and anyway, and so, um, there's these nine types which we could go into with if we've got time.
Speaker 2:We have plenty of time. This book is so groundbreaking, really, and for me, you know I can be like, oh well, we're two authors, but no, literally it was one of those books. Read it and then I saw it's on Audible. I listen to two books a month. Either we're growing or we're dying. So I mean I listen to it and it's one of those books. I mean there's some books you listen to it and you're like, oh okay, yeah, but no, I mean this is a book that every type of person, whether you're uber wealthy or if you're struggling to me, if you're struggling, this has all the answers. It's not, it's not rich dad, poor dad, because no matter what you read or no matter what you do, until you figure out everything that's underlying it's just going to be those repetitive patterns. You'll be like running in that proverbial hamster wheel.
Speaker 3:You'll be like running in that proverbial hamster wheel. Yeah, we're basically popping the hood, seeing how your engine is designed for your ego and then understanding how that's going to shape the way that you relate to money in very unique and very predictable ways. And so I've layered on top of the. So, for those who are familiar with the Enneagram and those who aren't, I've sort of layered on top of it yet another theory, which I call the attachment theory of money, which is based on the attachment theory of relationships, if you're all familiar with that, and it's basically the same idea just reapplied to money, and the basic gist of it is this is that when we have an unhealthy relationship to money, we can either be anxiously attached to it, kind of like the Ebenezer Scrooges of the world, where we're too fixated on it and maybe it obsesses us a little too much in harmful ways, or we push it away. We're avoidant, we're money avoidant and we hate dealing with it. Or even, in a way, buying $100,000 on a car is kind of what I call an avoidant saver. You're maybe the anxious earner, but you're an avoidant saver. You're not saving adequately and buying too many impulsive things, and so then the the this anxious or attachment theory that it gives us two money monsters for each of the nine enneagram types, which gives us 18 money monsters in total, but you as a reader only have one or two to deal with. Um, but then they tend to show up in different areas of our life and most of us don't fall neatly into all anxious or all avoidant.
Speaker 3:It tends to be that we there's what I call the four pillars of finance, so you can be anxious or avoidant, or money secure in any one of these four areas, and that would be earning. That's your first place to start, of course. Then there's saving, step two uh, investing right and then giving. So earning, saving, investing, giving are the four pillars. Uh, finance. And then, and then how? What are your money monsters in each of those categories and how do they show up and how they express themselves? And then how do you overcome them? Essentially is really the big idea of the book.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and it was funny because when you're talking about the Ebenezer Scrooge, if you have, like such a traumatic experience in the sense that your parents divorced and one parent not that the money disappeared, but one parents like, oh my gosh, I don't have any money because of your, your mom, or because of your dad, or you see, your parent, they're an entrepreneur or whatnot, but they overextend themselves and the economy turns and they lose their business, then it's almost like, yes, that ebony's, like oh my gosh, no matter how much I have, it will disappear soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because because my, my, my well, she was my part, my business partner as well, my, my ex-wife, her, her father dealt with that he was an entrepreneur and he lost it all, got it all back, but he lost it all. But she had sort of so much trauma. It was always like, I mean, she's, her personality, is the type that she could be like frigging Cornelius Vanderbilt, and it would still be like, oh my gosh, you know, something bad's going to happen and this is all going to disappear and I'm going to be in the soup kitchen line somewhere in a year or two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's. I mean, maybe one of the key points of the book is that most of our money issues they're really not about money at all. They're really about trauma, our money traumas, you know, are the? What are the? What are the different traumas we had, as a kid particularly, you know, in general, but also around money, and then how they they, how those things, those traumas, influencing how we're navigating life, and then how they tripping us up and causing a whole bunch of, uh, unnecessary suffering, mostly for ourselves, but also especially for those we love.
Speaker 2:Well, too, also, like it helps you also understand the other person, communicate. Because you know we I mean I operated for so many years thinking, well, you know, why aren't you as appreciative? Because I love you so much, I'm giving you this right did you figure out what your Enneagram type is?
Speaker 3:Do you know from reading the book? Have you figured that out yet?
Speaker 2:No, no, cause I'm, I'm one of those that it's, it has to be right. I have so much trauma that I'm like a perfectionist, because it was always like, since mom and dad left or broke up and my father was never there, never met the man to this day, so it was always like I need, I need this, perfect, or else you know I'll leave and. And now that's like and that's that's what drove me was like like acceptance, like validation, like, oh my gosh, I'd like I never thought, oh, I need to to go to college and then I needed to get a master's and then I needed, because I needed. Oh, the cyber hugs, the kudos, the. Oh, you're doing an amazing job. So, yeah, I'm rereading the book and I'm listening to it in the car again, and what I love about it is it's a big book man, because it's deep.
Speaker 3:It covers a lot of ground.
Speaker 2:I mean my personality, you know, yes, I've done all the work and all the personal development, but it's always, like you know, surface level. So a book that deals with deep stuff, it's like, oh my gosh, this is I. I don't want to read this. This is can't. Can't you just ask me, like, how's the weather? Or you know how are you doing? Or or you know, like most business books or money books, you know, most are really vague and like, hey, you know what? Overall, make money, save, don't overspend, live within your means, take that money, invest, make more money, invest. And it's like you know you could read and a lot of it's fluff, because it's just that simple principle, that common sense, yeah, but you know, and and it's funny because you're gonna laugh at this doug in life, haven't you noticed like we do know the answer, but we, we pretend we don't. It's like all these people I need, I need this new shot to lose weight, or I need a new book to to what's the new guide to lose weight? And it's like, well, maybe don't eat pizzas, maybe don't drink the six pack, maybe don't eat dessert every day, yeah, and it's like, oh my gosh, really, really.
Speaker 2:It was like, you know, years ago, when they had the biggest loser on for 20 years. It was on for 20 years because people would be like, yeah, I never knew, and I would watch the show and everybody would play victim. Yeah, I never knew, I, I weighed this much. So you're telling me, wearing, weighing the size like 50 and eating two large pizzas, are you? Are you serious? And that's the same way with money. I'm sure people with the people on instagram, when they're not trying to be like Doug, I can get you 5 million followers, just pay me, even though I only have 300, but I'll show you the way that there's people out there like help me, I don't know anything about money and it's like and that's why it's like, read the friggin book. To me it's like an analogy you read, you read this, this book, and then you, you read your, your, your first book yeah, yeah, I mean between.
Speaker 3:I mean basically, you know, there's an old adage in publishing that every author really writes to themselves, and I think that's true for me.
Speaker 3:It's like this is all the stuff I wish I hadn't known. So my first book is really more of a primer of, of, like the how it is, it's, it's it, I. There's nothing I wouldn't say there's. I don't want to put myself down, but it it's, it's entertaining and it's a totally different approach to how do you ethically build wealth and how do you do it, you know, um, while staying true to your highest values, but at the same time, the basic financial advice is pretty standard.
Speaker 3:It's like how do you, you know? So it's covering the, the basics of like earning, saving, investing, taxes, insurance, you know how do you, how the nuts and bolts, the stuff that you need to know to be financially literate, essentially. And then the second book is really diving into the deep, deep, deep dive into human psychology of money. And then how does it, you know, as we've talked about, you know, how do you really, what's your unique relationship to it in the, in the unhealthy ways, and how do you become a true money master. How do you really build wealth and then learn how to use it. Build wealth ethically and then use it as a tool for love and service to a suffering world.
Speaker 3:Like. That's the. I think that's one thing that's sometimes missing from a lot of the finances books is why are you doing all this? What's the point? It's like well, you know, the point isn't just to be rich, although there's nothing wrong with that. The point is to live a life that makes your soul sing and that allows you to live your highest purpose, and that's, you know, money is a tool, and it's a wonderful tool, but, like anything else, you can use it to build something beautiful or whack yourself on the thumb, and so why do we keep often whacking ourselves on the thumb or bang ourselves in the head Financially?
Speaker 3:You know what's the psychology of that? That trips us up, that prevents us from being able to take the practical steps of just, you know, saving, investing following the traditional advice, it's like, and after working with clients over many, many years as an investment advisor, it was really clear that people's personality types really had this profound impact and how they relate to money and how and how that, what their investment strategies are going to be, and you know, whether they're going to be even open to taking advice. You give people good advice. They don't take it like why, why, why won't you take this good advice. It's like oh well, you've got these blocks, you've got this trauma, you got the stuff that you're just it's getting in the your trauma is getting in the way and we need to clear some of that trauma out. And then then the the more practical nuts and bolts stuff becomes a heck of a lot easier and much more easier to, much more easier to implement.
Speaker 2:Well, doug, I'm definitely. I'm going to buy the book and listen to it on Audible from Monk to Money Manager, because what I love about it? Just reading what it's about in the linear notes, just the simple fact that you go through telling people you know God doesn't want you, like so many people go. I'm broke now because my treasure awaits me in heaven and it's like that's our mission exclusive.
Speaker 3:Why do you think those two things are opposed to each other? I mean, you can have them both.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I've always told people well, if you're made in God's image, why would God want you to suffer? Why would God want you just have the crumbs of life, of love, of success? Oh my gosh, do I pay the phone bill or do I pay the light bill? No, you weren't meant to struggle like that, and that's why, just because so many people are like, okay, yes, I'm be, I'm beyond mediocre, or yeah, I suck in finances, but you know I'm, I'm not, I'm not bad, because a lot of times, though, too, it's hollywood.
Speaker 2:You know the money. The guy has a monocle and he's like greedy, like Ebenezer Scrooge, right, like he had to have the ghost of Christmas, past, present and future. I mean, the guy was horrible. His partner died, you know he. His, his one employee wants him to work Christmas. He doesn't care if the kid has polio or whatnot, He'll do anything for a buck. That's how a lot of people view money. And then you said it best it's a tool, that's all it is, and it'll amplify you. If you're an amazing person and you're a spiritual person, I mean you can help out your community, can help out your church. You can do so much. The person that's thriving and succeeding can help out a lot more than the person. That's thirty thousand dollars a day. Right, it's not gonna be like oh, you know what, I'm gonna go help out the soup kitchen because that was the thing.
Speaker 3:This, this is what I really. This is one of the big takeaways I learned in the monastery. This is kind of what kind of got me excited about finance was realizing that you know everyone in the monastery good hearts, good minds, advanced degrees, brilliant people but why did? Why did these really smart, very caring, very loving people who are trying to do good in the world make such terrible financial decisions? And myself included, you know, I mean I kind of came in late to the show, to the financial problems there, but but certainly didn't didn't uh, see it coming, and so the that really got me interested in this question of like well, the what I saw was that we as a community wanted to do a lot of good in the world and did some good in the world, but we were really hamstrung by the lack of financial resources at our disposal. It's like, okay, we've got all these big ideas about what we want to do to help make the world a better place, but we have no money to implement any of this stuff. And so it's like, if you don't, unless you've mastered the art of multiplying the lows, lows and the fishes, I mean you, you need money to feed people, to heal people, if you want to help out Whatever suffering is out in the world, if you want to be part of the solution, you're going to need money to make that happen, because money is the tool for most action. You can't really do much of anything in a modern economy without some money in your pocket.
Speaker 3:So it's like how do we have a healthier relationship to money? So we're not stuck in this false dualistic thinking where we're either ebenezer scrooge or gordon gecko or we're saint francis cc taking about poverty these are. It's a false choice. There is a middle way where you can. You can't have it all. You can't be and this is the other thing I realized in my time in the monastery is like there's no like be a decent human switch that flips on or off depending on your bank balance. Like there are brilliant, wonderful, caring, decent people who are extremely wealthy and there are some really awful people who are wealthy. And the same thing, true among poor people. Like your tax bracket does not determine, you know, know, the quality of your character. And so this, this notion that somehow wealth is inherently corrupting or it's going to be, make you a bad person or like I, and that was really the the biggest trouble I had with the monastic communities. Okay is, even after all the work I did, we're still as anti-materialistic, anti-money, anti-world.
Speaker 3:I would just say it's like somehow the spiritual realm is all that matters and the material world doesn't. It's like, no, they got to go together. You got to put this stuff into some holistic package and make sense of it in order to really make a difference in the world and live a meaningful life, and what I would call your divine purpose. You know what is. What does that god put you here to do? I think we all have one, and I think, um, the enneagram helps explain what that is, what what your greatest gift is to all for the world. I try to try to give each uh credit, create a roadmap for that, for, for, for the reader, to help you figure out what your highest purpose, in its general flavor, might be. And then, um, how do you get there? And then, how do you use money as the tool to put that into action in the world?
Speaker 2:well, it's like I remember listening to gene simmons in an interview and he said the money is not the root of all evil, it's's the lack of money.
Speaker 3:Well, it's actually, it's actually Mark Twain said that. Mark Twain said, yeah, he said and I actually used that quote quite a bit yeah, money is not the root of all evil.
Speaker 2:Evil poverty is right, it is because I mean, okay, divorce happens, but the number one reason for a lot of times, divorce is money or a lack of so why wouldn't you want to rectify that by not having to argue about the lack of the resource, because money is a resource, time is a resource. But the best part about money is, unlike time, we don't have a flux capacitor. We can't go back to the past, we can't, you know, rewind, and once the time's gone, it's gone. But money, you can literally amplify it, and rather quickly, if you're highly intelligent or, you know, if you don't do anything, because a lot of times we get burnt by touching the, the stove, the hot stove, and like, sometimes it's just common sense, like when you hear stories like you know, the bernie made off, oh well, that's because people were greedy. Well, no, he, he said the the re, he didn't blame himself, it was his clients that were super, even though he never made an actual trade Freaking crazy person as it is. But yes, they could have lost a lot less money. If the market is going down and someone's telling you hey, no, yes, this year it's 20% down, but I got you a 25% return, right, I mean yeah, and that's that's why sometimes we have to if someone's like tout and something's amazing.
Speaker 2:I remember I was. I was at Edward Jones and I was thinking of switching to Morgan Stanley. And I'm here in the bullpen because getting to do the interview and I'm hearing everybody yes, I know Enron's right now it's at $349. But you know what? Talk about a hell of a company. Sure, months ago it was at $80, but you're buying it at the ground. The only way to go is up and I'm like, oh, oh my gosh, are you serious? And I'm hearing like everybody's, just like, like you know, the retail, the, the institutions, all dumping it. But you know they need to prop it up.
Speaker 2:And but why and here it's the common sense is why are you gonna buy a falling knife? Yeah, and you're like well, because the guy's a stockbroker, no, he's a sales guy. And they're telling you so, yeah, oh my gosh, I bought Enron. Or I thought Planet Hollywood was an amazing stock, or WorldCom. And it's because sometimes, you know, when it comes to stuff like that, sometimes we have to look within and sometimes you just have to dust yourself off because there's an ebb and flow. And as long as you learn that lesson and you realize you know, as long as you have a sound plan and you keep on doing it, yeah, there's hiccups, but that's that's called life. I mean, there's nowhere in your book does it say hey, you know what you know zero to hero in only two years.
Speaker 3:Right, it doesn't work that way. I mean, sometimes it does, but it's.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 3:But that's the, that's the, that's the random outliers that you can't predict.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, exactly no-transcript and the power lottery and all those. I've never played any of those, but I do know when it's huge it becomes, it increases the. It's up to $500 million.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:And what I'm not going to play because it's not me, it's not a financial strategy, whether it's in the lottery or the stock market. If you're just throwing money at random things, it's like no, thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, usually people like that, it's because the market is so heated and even though Warren Buffett's like man, if people are piling into it, you have you have to be a contrarian. And I remember, like, right before we had that bump with all the tariffs, it was, it was just economy, everything goes up and down. You know, he sold like months before that happened and everybody, I remember, oh, that guy's like an old man, he's finally lost it and it's like, well, he was the wealthiest man in the world that one time, until he started giving out billions of dollars to share which, by the way, like what you said, it's a tool, yeah, hence he could do that. And all these people that we paint as evil because they're billionaires, whether, oh my gosh, the Bill Gates or, yeah, well, think about it If, if, you can help out other people especially your family.
Speaker 3:I mean it kind of work out in concentric circles like a bullseye yeah, take care of yourself first, then you get your family, and they get your extended family, wider community, your churches, your communities, and then I'll play the whole world. There's a certain loyalty that when you really embark on this spiritual adventure and you see yourself as a fractal piece of the divine and you see everything as a fractal piece of the divine manifesting, it's like okay, then you have a certain responsibility to try to alleviate suffering where we can, because I firmly believe that we're the hands of the hands of god, we're the eyes and ears god. God lives in us, through us and with us, as us, and that's the, I think, all of our spiritual traditions. Doesn't matter what you believe. I think that that's a common ground we could all ultimately, I hope, rest on and that and that from there it's like okay, what am I going to do to like, make the world a better place, and and and without money in your pocket, you're really kind of stuck. It's just, and I'll share a quick story from the another, quick anecdote from the monastery. This was another.
Speaker 3:A big aha moment for me is there was one brother in the community who refused to touch money in any form for many, many years, cause he thought money was inherently corrupting and pollution. It would pollute, pollute the soul in some weird way, and so he just wouldn't have anything to do with it and wouldn't touch cash, credit cards, debit cards. It's like, okay, well, if that's true, if this hypothesis is correct, that touching money somehow creates some inherent impurity, then you're forcing all the other brothers around you to touch it more to keep your hands, hands clean. And how is that? How is that loving, how is that kind?
Speaker 3:And so what I realize is that rejecting money for the wrong reasons is just as can create a spirit we'll call a spiritual ego. You can, can, you can be just as um egotistical in the ways that you reject money as it is that you accumulate it, and so it isn't just because you're. You know, to me that's what I would call money monsters like you have this money monster and I you've, you've, you've used religion and philosophy to justify it, rather than looking at yourself and seeing. This is actually some work. I have in my brain some hang up and and some misguided notion about how reality works, and then what you're doing is then creating all this pain around you for no reason.
Speaker 3:And so you know that rejecting money and being overly greedy are both two sides of the same coin. It's like how do you, how do you find the you know that, that that appropriate balance between you, know, you know, you know we obviously don't want to be at the ebony's or scrooges of the world, but you know, you just can't get any done in the world without any money in your pocket.
Speaker 3:So why don't we teach people how to ethically build wealth and how to use it for a higher purpose?
Speaker 3:And maybe here's another quick bit of a sidebar. But going back to the trauma question, which is that one of the other things I learned, this is a quote from a friend of mine, richard Rohr, who wrote the foreword to the book. If anyone knows who he is, he's a Franciscan priest and 30, 40 books bestselling author, et cetera, et cetera. But he said that if we don't transform our pain, we are destined to transmit it, and then most especially, to those that we love. Now I would add on to that saying since money is the tool for most action, money then transmits our trauma in all these subtle and not so subtle ways, and I really want to teach people what are those money monsters you have and how are you unnecessarily creating suffering for yourself and the people around you and the world around you because you've got these mental blocks or these mental hangups or this trauma that you're basically just transmitting through your money and through the, through the, through your unhealthy uh, financial habits?
Speaker 2:the weirdest thing, though, is because that story about the, the monk that didn't like that, felt like touching money would somehow you would have to call father damien and father caris and do an exorcist on. Is so, according to that theory, that if saint mother, saint theresa of calcutta, mother theresa, was alive and she started touching money, that all of a sudden she would just be like this, like money hungry but here's.
Speaker 3:But she did touch my shoe, touched millions, and that's what that's what I was like she fun.
Speaker 1:How did she fund her movement?
Speaker 3:I mean, she didn't keep any of it for herself, she passed it all through, but she handled vast sums of money. So do people like martin luther king, jr right? Look at the civil rights movement like? Who funded all that? You know, and some big lots of people did, obviously, but it took dollars to actually make these things happen, and so if you don't have money, you can't do anything. Mother teresa couldn't get anything done without the millions going through her charities, nor could martin luther king, and nor could could anybody else who's actually out there trying to try to do some good in the world.
Speaker 2:The one thing, people, that the book does offer which you can buy Amazon and audible. It's got practical tools. Because so many frigging books? Uh, you read them. They're vague as heck and it's like usually with these books. The vague books are like buy my other book and you'll have the answer. That or yes, I gave you some of the answers. They really didn't, but what you need to do is you need to go to my one of my seminars, which we offer quarterly.
Speaker 3:For $2,500,. You can find the answers.
Speaker 2:And then you go trust me, I'm a slow learner. You go because I would do this for personal and business development. It's like an MLM. There's multiple layers. So you go there and you know it's an amazing. You get that high, you get the dopamine high. You're like, oh my gosh. You know I'm with like-minded people, it's amazing, I'm gonna get the answer for the low, low price. You went to the 2500. This isn't this. This one, this seminar is for people that really want the answers. This is for successful people. This is this seminar is for people that really want the answers. This is for successful people.
Speaker 3:This isn't for everybody. This is probably for you.
Speaker 2:This is for Joe Schmoes Only for special people, this is for only special people.
Speaker 3:And then you go and then ultimately you know it's all a scheme, it's all a scheme, and that's why, like literally Send me, ask you, send me your money and I'll make you rich fast, right, exactly? So what?
Speaker 2:I have to say Doug's book Taming your Money Monster. It literally it's right there. There's practical tools, it's tools. He's not. And I told you, yes, read this and then read. I haven't even read the second book, but I know, read this book.
Speaker 3:Well, this is the second book, Well, no?
Speaker 2:I'm saying that this one read this one first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is the place to start.
Speaker 2:This is the second book, you see, for a guy that has two communication degrees no, taming your Money Master is the book, because this is the foundation. Yeah, this is the foundation, people, and yes, he wrote from monk to money management first. Then read that, because until you master the emotions, you master everything that's underneath the surface. Because we're all, most people, are surface, and if you don't think that's true, when somebody says, hey, how are you doing? I want you to be honest, I want you to be open with someone and go. You know what? I've been having anxiety for the past couple of months. I haven't slept in a while because and they're like holy smokes I just wanted the person to go. I'm doing cool. Oh, yeah, me too. Take care, because we're surface, we're surface're surface level. But definitely, I mean, think about it, doug has gone, he's done everything.
Speaker 2:Grew, grew up with two highly I mean your, your parents were at the peak, highly successful people, went to college, did the university thing, did, did the military thing, was a monk for 20 years, helped them find the simple fact that you helped them overcome their money issues, and all that in some weird way. You have to laugh about that because you know, I guess a lot of people, though. They believe it's like the Beatles. That song all you need is love.
Speaker 2:Well, no, pay your bills first right have enough money and then you can say, hey, all you need is love right.
Speaker 3:It's easy for the beatles to say that when they're sitting hundreds of millions of dollars and then they had that hippie image.
Speaker 2:but they even their stories that, like john and paul, would be like oh yeah, this song right here, it is going to get us all a brand new car Right. And then when you hear that, it's like, yes, because no matter what movement, it creates money. You need money. Even the hippies Woodstock, you needed a ticket. Everybody got paid. Carlos Santana and all those people weren't working for free no and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.
Speaker 3:Your audience members aren't doing that either, you know. Hopefully they're able to. You know we're all.
Speaker 2:Whenever I hear people say that they have issues, especially an entrepreneur, I'm like so are you for profit or do you consider yourself not for profit? Because there's a major difference. So, doug, ultimately, I know how to find you. I've seen your social media. How do people find you and get in contact with you? Because, let me tell you, man, if everybody follows this, you've always been in service, but this book is to serve. It's literally helps create a movement that, if people, if enough people, do this, imagine the possibilities in just a short amount of time, what the world could look like yeah, that's my hope.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so, so all my social is pretty much just my name. So if you want to reach to me directly, you can always email me at Doug D-O-U -G. My email is Doug at DougLynumcom, so it's D-O-U-G at D-O-U-G-L-Y-N, as in Nicholas A-M, as in Michael, and then you can go to my website, dougouglinehamcom, and you can also check out my social media handles, which are all at Doug Lineham. You can find me on Facebook. You can find me. I've got a great new YouTube channel. It's really taken off. I've got a great Substack channel it's taken off. So if you want to reach out to any of those platforms, I'd be honored to connect.
Speaker 2:Doug. And one final question. I always love to ask random questions. What do you tell here? I'm this guy, the money downer. You know what, doug? I don't know, man, maybe money's just not for me. Every time my paycheck hits on that Friday, I look Monday and I'm waiting for Friday again. How do I get off? It's like the same thing. Every day is exactly the same. I get all excited about Friday. Monday comes, money's not my money-making activity day.
Speaker 3:I'm literally yearning for Friday, doug. What am I to do? Well, okay, so this is a complicated question. So I have a number of questions I want to ask you about that. But the first point is that if nothing changes, nothing's going to change.
Speaker 3:So obviously somebody's not working with the way you're relating to money and the way you're relating to your finances. So what are you willing to sacrifice in order to have a better life? And so to that person I would say if you believe money's not for you, then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your mindset around it matters tremendously. So if you talk yourself into that hole, you're always going to stay in that hole. So how are you going to try to try to work your way out of that? What are some of the practical steps as we lay them out in the book? You know, and I'd want to know, first of all, what's, what's your enneagram type? Yeah, that would be probably the first thing I'd really want to dig into, um, and then try to figure out well, where are you struggling with money and why are you struggling? Is it you're an overspender or is it you're an under earner? You know where someone like that is probably both. The person you described is probably having aid. They're probably making enough, they're under earner and they're an under saver. So you got these.
Speaker 3:It's hard to save if you don't have like you don't have any enough money coming in. If you're living paycheck to paycheck. It's incredibly, incredibly stressful. That's one of the worst ways to go through life. Having been there myself, it's like walking over a pit of alligators on a tightrope. Every single day You're just one slip up from catastrophe, and so what we know from the research is that financial stress is incredibly debilitating, and poor people get hit with a laundry list of everything you don't want to have in life. You know they get that. Well, here's the here's. The scary fact is that your, your socio-economic status is the best predictor of when you're going to die, like your longevity and your mortality is directly connected to your income and your socioeconomic bracket, because poor people get hit with higher rates of obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse, workplace injury, domestic violence down the list. Everything gets worse for you the less money you have.
Speaker 3:So we got to figure out well, is it a lack of training and education that's preventing you from leveling up in your career? Well then, we need to take some practical steps to get you some skills. How do we level you? Um, so you're making more money would be the first question I'd want to try to dig into. Because because, again, going back to the four pillars of finance, earning has got to be number one and then saving. We got to work on that because you're dealing with, you're dealing with a double whammy there of a lack of income and a lack of savings, and then we need to get to the investing and the giving part down the road.
Speaker 3:But those are, those are sort of those are, those are sort of tertiary questions. Those need to come later. So I'd really want to figure out, well, how are you making your living and what could we do to improve that income stream for you would be the number one question. And then, where is your money going? Is it going to stupid stuff? Are you blowing it on kegs of beer every weekend? Or is it simply that you just don't have enough to cover your bills, your basic living costs? So it's a. It's a very complicated question that has doesn't have a. There's no one. Maybe this is the point of the book is there's no one size fits all answer to these questions. It really depends on you, know you and your personality and your personality type and your psychology and your mindset and where you're at, and we need to dial in where you are and how you got there and then we can figure out how to get you the heck out of there amazing, just like your books, brother no, thank you thank you.
Speaker 2:you've always been in service. Being being a monk to me is being in service, thank you. You served our country. Thank you for that and thank you for being you. Thank you, doug Lynham, author of an amazing book, best-selling book Taming your Money, monster Taming.
Speaker 3:Your Money Monster.
Speaker 2:Money Monster yes, yes, that's called the Flub Taming your Money Monster and From Monk to Money Manager, both available on Audible, both available on Amazon. Buy it, read it, and the number one thing you have to do and Doug will tell you this implementation is key and do everything on a consistent basis and don't half-ass anything. Amen, amen, brother.
Speaker 3:If I can make one more quick last plug Go ahead, man, if I could.
Speaker 3:So, Omar, if you like the book, or anybody out there who enjoys it, if you could post a review on Amazon. So far, I've got all five-star reviews on Amazon, so more of those would be greatly appreciated. Anybody who wants to help me out that way would be great. So more of those would be greatly appreciated. Anybody who wants to help me out that way would be great. I also do financial coaching, so you can reach out to me on my website at douglinehamcom or my email, doug at douglinehamcom, and I also do a lot of keynote events. So if you have an event, you want a good keynote speaker who wants to deliver some powerful material to your audience, reach out to me on my website as well.
Speaker 2:And watch the TEDx talk. He's got one, you see, I watched it. Thanks, dude. I love I always, because I felt like mine was, because I always, like I said, I'm the biggest critic. The biggest critic I have is myself. Yours was amazing, brother. Thanks, man, thank you for the time man. Thank you for the time man, Thank you for the hour, Thank you for giving your time, because I know you're a busy guy and you're trying to save the world. Brother.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, Omar. Best of luck with you and your podcast. Hope it continues to be a huge hit.
Speaker 1:For sure. Action and made it happen. It's gotta live in the side of your purpose. What if it did work? Right now you can make the choice to never listen to that negative voice no more. The hardest prison to escape is our own mind. I was trapped inside that prison all for a long time. To make it happen, you gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work.