June 18, 2025 • 51 mins
Today’s guest, Doug Lynam, has lived an extraordinary life! From overcoming bankruptcy to achieving financial security, taking vows of poverty as a Benedictine monk to managing over $250 million in assets as a wealth advisor, and graduating top of his class as a Marine to spending 20 years in monastic life, Doug’s journey is as diverse as it is inspiring. We have plenty of questions about how his unique experiences shape his approach to money and life, and what we can all learn to improve our own financial outcomes. We’ll also dive into his new book, Taming Your Money Monster: Nine Paths to Money Mastery with the Enneagram, which comes out next month. Doug takes spiritual wisdom, blends it with some psychological insight, all in an effort to help folks to successfully handle their money!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking from Monk to money Monster with Doug Linum.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, Joel, So I don't think it's a requirement to
have the lived reality of life.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Experience to be able to speak to our particular subject.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But I think he can certainly help, which means our
guest today, Doug Liman, is someone who we are very
excited to speak with as his incredibly varied life as
well as career, it spans more than I thought was
possible in a lifetime. So he's been broke and bankrupt
to living a comfortable life. He's taken vals of poverty
to helping oversee over over two hundred and fifty million
(00:54):
dollars in assets as a money manager. He's graduated at
the top of his class as a marine to living
for twenty years as a Benedictine monk. We've got plenty
of questions for him.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We're also going to get into his latest book, Taming
Your Money Monster, Nine Paths to Money Mastery with the Enneagram,
which comes out next month. Doug, he takes spiritual wisdom,
he blends it with some psychological insight all and an
effort to help folks to successfully handle their money to
reach their financial goals. Doug Lineham, thank you so much
for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Thanks guys, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We're glad to have you, Doug. First question we got
to ask, got to get out of the way. We
ask everyone who comes on is what do you like
to splore? John Matt and I are drinking a craft
beer and some people are like, you spend how much
on a bottle or a cannon of craft beer?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
A very nice one from for months? That's right, Yeah,
this is good here.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But what's that for you? Where people might be like,
what what are you thinking over there? Man?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I probably it would be art. Like I have a
lot of like art in my house, and I have
a hard time. It's just too much. Like you know,
I don't I don't always go like like, you know,
high and original stuff. I'm not like Castas or anything
like that. But you know, but I do like Picasso
and like so you know, I get reprints mostly, but
(02:07):
I try to get really high quality reprints of famous art.
And whenever I go, I to pick stuff up, and
you know, my walls are just covered in an art. Okay,
there's a guy named Ladimirkush who's who's an artist from
Russian artist and lives in Paris, And anytime I come
across one of his stuff, I just I.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Gotta grab it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So when you're grabbing his stuff, are those originals since
he's not nearly as well known.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Okay, even still, see, if you're gonna go for originals
like I do, you gotta go with the super cheap
folk art variety that's.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
That's trained living out in the cabin in the woods.
Like you don't have a.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Plenty of that too? Yeah, I got plenty of I do.
I do have lots of originals. You're just not like
the Yeah, but not the you know, still find a museum.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, I got it all right, Joel, I only have
to look in look into some Vladimir push Doug. In
my opinion, considering or in your case, joining the Marines,
like you graduated top of your class, that seems like
a path of that.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I don't know, quasi.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Reasonable, Like there's there's there's millions of folks out there
who have joined the military, who who have served our country.
But when it comes to joining, uh, I don't even know, like,
how do you join, like how do you become a monk?
And specifically, I'm curious what caused you to go in
that direction after having graduated at the top of your class.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Well, it's a big question. The simple answer is, and
I think I joined the Marines to kind of impress
my father. I wanted to prove to him that I
was a manly man who could do manly things and
didn't really work. He didn't, he didn't bother showing up
to my graduation. And I also had a bit of
a kind of a spiritual epiphany at the time, and
(03:43):
I realized that, you know, unresolved anger issues and high
explosives were probably a really bad combination and that maybe
might not be the best career choice for me. So
I decided to turn down my commission as an officer
in the Marines and went and just ran out. After that,
joined a Benedictine monastery. And you know, it was also
(04:05):
I did it for a couple of reasons. One of course,
I was looking for a higher calling and something that
would give me all the things I loved about the Marines,
like they spread a corps, the camaraderie says a purpose
and structure that I liked without necessarily having to go
out there and kill people for a living, so that
that seemed like a way trade up. And it was
(04:26):
also a great way to really annoying my parents, Like
it just absolutely flabbergasted them, Like I couldn't have picked anything.
Being a MinC was about as radically different from the
way I was raised as you could imagine, and you know,
it did a really good job of pissing my parents off,
so that was a bonus.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So there was like a sinful desire.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
There was, yeah, like a sense of rebellion, of that
rebellious spirit, so that that caused you to do that.
But it's one thing to have done it for just like, okay,
you end up doing that for a couple of years,
like you turned down your offer or your post or
something like that post graduation. It's one thing to do
that and maybe just do it for like a couple
of years, but you did it for all long time,
Like this is yeah, this wasn't just sort of like
a like a wild hair. This was something something that
(05:06):
you stuck with for like two decades, is that right?
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That's right? Twenty years And it was a teaching order,
so I was. At the same time, I was teaching
in a private school. I was the head of a
math department and and yeah, it was it was a
good life. I mean, there were there are parts about
it that I really loved. And then after a while
things kind of got a little stale. And I think
the struggle with all monasteries is that most of them
(05:28):
are dying, Like monastic life is just not that popular anymore.
And at the time, I was the youngest monk by
almost thirty years, and there were really no new monks
coming into the community, and it just got older and older.
It was like, well if at some point, you know,
this is like you're on a treadmill and people are
falling off and there's no one coming up behind me, Like, well,
how is this going to work? Like what's my life
(05:50):
going to be like if I stay? And yeah, and
it was basically I eventually just ended up being, you know,
doing hospice care essentially, and then I'd be the last
one standing and that just wasn't and the community kind
of got a little rigid and a little you know,
it had its other issues, other issues as well, but
eventually I realized that this was not going to be
(06:15):
this was up the place. It's kind of a marriage,
you know, you kind of it's good at the beginning,
and then it's not good at the end, and you
stick it out hoping it's going to get better, and
then it doesn't, and eventually you just kind of got
to pull the plug. So that's that's kind of what happened.
And and then of course I went into finance after that,
So that's another story.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
What was the tell me about like the declining monastic life?
And you talk about in your first book the financial
difficulties that your monastery was facing, and it forced you
to kind of have to confront money head on in
a way that you you never had to before in fact,
like army or you know, life in the Marines, and
then and then monastic life kind of insulated you in
(06:57):
some ways from having to think about money too much.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Well? No, okay, yes, and no, I mean that was
the hope. I mean, I certainly joined those I was
hoping that those would be a lifestyles that would allow
me to avoid the world of money because I was
really you know, I hated thinking and dealing with about
everything to deal with finance. I just was kind of
allergic to it because of the way my family treated
money growing up, which was to weaponize it. My family,
(07:22):
you know, my father was a fairly successful executive for
an oil company, and and in my in my childhood environment,
I assumed that kind of money was the root of
all evil or something like that. It was just so
that's kind of why I did run away to the marine,
so wise to trying to get away from money. But unfortunately,
about three years into the monastic journey, the community went bankrupt,
(07:44):
and so like somebody had to figure out this. It
turns out if you live in a community where everybody
hates dealing with money, like, it just doesn't end well,
this is not going to work. And we basically took
the vial of poverty a little too seriously, and so
it was a real mess. Like and so here I
was joining them, honestly hoping to get hoping to get
away from money, and I end up having to deal
with it more than I would have if I hadn't
(08:05):
joined the monastery, because you know, it was just it
was just an absolute train wreck. And so it took
me a couple of years to figure that problem out,
but I did and got the community on you know,
solid financial ground. And then because I was the head
of a math department at the school, I decided to
start offering economics and personal flience courses to the kids
(08:26):
because I thought one of the real problems in our
society is we don't teach kids about money. We don't
teach them how to the basics of budgeting and you know,
how to earn, save, and invest, all these things that
are just basic skills that everyone needs to have. And
so I did that well for maybe ten twelve years
while I was teaching. And then just then what got interesting.
(08:49):
As I was doing a class project with the kids
and for fun, I thought, well, let's just open up
the school retirement plan and show the kids how retirement
plans work. And I did that, and as soon as
I opened it up and started looking around, it was
a complete train wreck, Like if for those who were
familiar with the world of finance. There was essentially no
fiduciary oversight. The fees were very high on the funds,
(09:14):
the performance was terrible. There was the thing hadn't been managed.
No one had done any maintenance on this plan for
twenty years, so it was completely adrift. And I'm like oh,
this is a nightmare. And so that I went looking
around for a company that could do a better job.
And then what I realized is that almost every school,
every retirement plan, and almost every private and public school
(09:36):
in this country is an absolute mess. It's a disaster.
And I couldn't find a company that I really liked
that would do a good job on this to solve
this problem. And so I was, well, that's a pain point,
and I know how to do it. So I had
this crazy idea is I'll start my own investment advisory
firm while I'm a monk, and so I did. So
I started my own firm to solve that problem, to
(09:59):
build better uh retirement plans were schools and colleges. And
then this just by and then of course I left
the monastery, started this business and I and then I
actually merged my firm very quickly after that with a
larger company in Santa Fe. But what was really just
(10:20):
bizarre stroke of luck is right when I was launching
this business, the New York Times did a six piece
expos on the problem of teaching retirement plans across the country.
So every month they were doing this hard hitting article
about how awful the school retirement plans were. And then
I just reached out to them on Facebook and said, hey,
I love what you guys. I love these articles. I
(10:42):
here's me, this crazy monk starting this business to try
to solve this problem. And they loved the idea. So
they flew Ron Lieber, who's the financial column the columnists
for the financial section of the New York Times, flew
out to Santa Fe did spend the day with me,
did a big piece that went on the cover of
the Business section of the Times, and that went viral.
(11:03):
That just launched my career in finance. So that's kind
of it's kind of how I got to that point
in my life.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So it was almost out of a I mean it
was necessary, Like, like you said, there is a pain point,
but it's something that y'all are facing there as a
monastery in and of itself. We've got more questions here
specifically too about your monastic journey. But just as like
a small tangent, like it sounded like the fees were
the worst part about the retirement plan there for the monks,
(11:27):
Like I almost picture you cracking this thing open, and
it basically had fees from twenty thirty years ago, like
from the eighties, and like, would you say that that's
one of the best advancements of retirement funds and the
ability for individuals to manage their own retirement, to manage
their own iras is the fact that, yes, we have
total control, but just we've seen fees decrease significantly. I'm
(11:48):
curious if that's what you saw when you took a
look there.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Oh yeah, fee compression is great, Like fees are going
down funds. But also like in a retirement plan, you
don't have infinite choice, Like you have have control over
your investments as the individual, but the plant administrator, whoever's
running the show, it gets to pick what funds. You
get to choose from inside the plan. And so yeah,
(12:13):
so the fees were high, but the funds were terrible.
They should have just been you know, some of those
should have been mothballed, you know, decades ago. So it's
it's fees, it's it's performance. I would say those are
the two biggies. But there's lots of other subsets my problems.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You mentioned taking the valve poverty too seriously, and when
you look at kind of like church history and stuff
like that, there are you know, the desert Fathers or
whatever who took a valve poverty to the extreme, And
there have been many examples, I think throughout the ages
and different religious sects. But now you're like a money manager,
which is kind of the exact opposite of a valve
(12:49):
poverty or feels or feels like it. They feel like antitheses, right,
So what's your take on that. I was you're reading
a book on spiritual disciplines recently, and the author talked
about how like, hey actually in the hands of Christians
doing good work with that money. It's like that's the
best place that money could be. So I'm curious to
hear your your take on that duality or seeming contradiction there.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Well, I'd agree with you the last thing you just
just said, which is that so money is power, right,
and it's also morally neutral. Money isn't good or bad.
It depends on how you're using it. So if you
if you take all the good people in the world,
the Christians of the world, and you take the money
from them, and you take the power from them, then
(13:31):
it's all going to people who you know, maybe I'm
not saying they're bad people, but you're you're essentially what
came to mind, sorry is like basically says a castrating
yourself and your ability to like make a real big
difference in the world in terms of you know, having
this impact, that money is one of the best tools
we have for love and service possible. Now that now,
(13:53):
I don't want to take away from the people who
take a vile of poverty either, Like I think this
gets maybe gets into my new book, what I call
my new book is Taming your money Monster. And there
are people who take a poverty for the right reasons,
and they take it because they want to live in
solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and I think
that's extremely noble. But then there are people like me
(14:14):
and the monks in the monastery who took a viole
of poverty because of their money issues, because they were
avoidant of money. They there was unconscious they were doing it.
On this there's some good obviously good reasons on the surface,
but deep down it was like this rebellion against my parents,
rebellion against society. It was like it wasn't a healthy
(14:36):
rejection of money. It was an unhealthy rejection of money.
And on the same side, you can have a healthy
relationship to money and have a lot of it, and
you can have an unhealthy relationship to money and have
a lot of it. It's really about what's going on
in unconscious and your conscious and most importantly your unconscious mind.
What what's driving you here and motivating you? And then
(14:57):
what's the outcome is it? Is it outcome going to
be more love and service in the world than great
if it's more selfishness and more greed or more like
so like for example, you know, we obviously can think
of examples like you know, Gordon Gecko on Wall Street
and you know, all these people who were going after
money in a horrible, greedy, avaricious way, and that's one
(15:18):
model that we obviously don't want to want to emulate.
But then there's people who have a lot of money
and they have all this ability to like heal our
broken world. That's great. But on the flip side, for example,
there was a monk in the monastery, I'll call him
Brother Pious. You know, he refused to touch money for
any reason, Like there was he wouldn't he wouldn't use
(15:41):
a credit card or a debit card or cash. For
years he went without thinking that money, to even touching
money would pollute his soul in some weird way. And
so the weird thing about that is it made all
the other monks around him touch money more often to
keep his soul pure and clean and so right, and
and what it did is it it act? It didn't.
It didn't diminish his ego. It inflated his ego. It
(16:05):
gave him a sense of superiority from the other monks.
He was on this sort of pious perch that he
could look down on the rest of us who are
handling and handling this dirty, dirty money all day to
keep him fed and housed. And it was just it
was it was utter insanity, right, And so so it
really isn't the vile poverty, or it isn't having a
(16:25):
lot of money. It's like, well, why are you doing this?
Is it? Is it reducing your ego? Is it making
you more loving and kind or not? And it's you know,
it's by the fruits you shall know them. And so
that's really So it's a bit of a long winded
answer to a complicated question. But there isn't a simple
It isn't a simple black and white issue.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah sure, yeah, Well so for a second there, like
you touched on selfishness and greed.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
At one point you said like you are trying to
encourage folks to become capitalists, not consumers. And it seems
like you like you are pointing folks more towards the
like that selfishness mindset. Uh, if we are sort of greedy,
how that could lead folks down paths of disaster as
opposed to criticizing the overall system of capitalism. It sounds
(17:10):
like you're you're basically pushing folks towards frugality to a
certain extent, which I don't know, that's something that that
we talk about a good bit here on the show.
But can you talk to that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
So, yes, So, so it's frugality is important. You got
to you got to save more than you earn if
you ever want to have real wealth. And so yeah,
it's the idea that you you know, as I put
in the book capitalists or somebody who invests and saves
and invests and has wealth, and a consumer someone who
just sort of goes out, goes out there and spends
everything they have on stuff and then they're broke and
(17:40):
so they're sort of they're they're sort of that they're
they're feeding into the negative side of the capitalistic system.
And so where capitalists has positive and negative connotations, and
maybe the language here is a bit of a bit
of a barrier, but essentially, what you need to be
able to do is to have enough money to take
care of yourself and and and really, you know, live
(18:00):
a comfortable life. And what that means is for me
and what that means for you might be very different things.
But what I don't want is for people to endure
the unnecessary suffering that poverty produces in their lives. Because
we know from the science that your socioeconomic status is
(18:20):
the best predictor of mortality. So the less money you have,
the more poverty. Poor people get hit with more bad
things that you don't want in life than you could
possibly imagine. So poor people have higher rates of obesity,
of drug addiction, of domestic violence, of crime, of workplace injury,
(18:41):
you know, cancer, all the things in life that you
don't want to get hit with. Poor people get hit
with it more than the rest of us because the
stress of being poor is unrelenting. It's it's like walking
over a pit of alligators on a tightrope every single day.
It's just it's truly something that we should be trying
(19:01):
to eliminate from the world. So is it is it
so much like, oh, I want everyone to be abilities. Well,
that'd be great, But mostly it's like I see this
as a way of preventing suffering, like helping people with
their finances. It isn't just about oh, being super rich
and greedy. It's about no, it's about it's about being
(19:22):
a suffering prevention specialist, is what I call myself. Sometimes
it's like, I'm gonna try to help you avoid all
the pain. It's unnecessary if you can get your finances
in order and have a robust and healthy relationship with money.
So that's I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Gonna update my LinkedIn now change my title from Suffering
Prevention special host to suffering Specialist. I love that, I think,
I mean, I think that's true. I've never thought about
it like that, but that's like a big motivation behind
what we do is to help people not suffer with money.
And we talk about this even in kind of our
our bios on the how to Money website. It's like,
you know, neither of us are aiming for Elon musk
(19:58):
levels of wealth and in fact, like not even not
even close to a goal that registers on my radar,
but helping other people like not mess it up the
way I've seen people, including people in my family that
are close to me mess it up that that creates
so much hardship that that's certainly a goal. I'm curious too.
You mentioned in your book you that you had a
(20:21):
minister friend of yours who's quite stingy, and that left
an impact on you too. So part of yeah, this
goal of inspiring not only good money habits but also generosity,
you've seen the opposite at play. Yeah, what's your take
on on stinginess and money?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Stinginess is a real problem for some people, right, and
so there's there's you need to be frugal, but maybe
we did just maybe distinguished frugal and stingy and I'm
just kind of winging it here a little bit on
these definitions. But like, frugal is all right, you need
to be prudent about how much you spend because you
need to have money to save so you can invest
(20:59):
you can, But then stinginess is this kind of avariciousness
that that is basically a lack of love. It's a
lack of it's like where generosity is a virtue. Let's
put it that way as well, Like, so, so saving
is important, but you need to learn how to be
generous with your with your resources at the same time.
(21:22):
So there's a balance between like, well, why do you
have all this money, Well, the point of having it
is again to love and serve God in the world. Like,
that's that's why you've got it. So if you aren't giving,
if it's so, it's what I call the four pillars
of finance, and the four pillars of finance for me
are earning, saving, investing, and giving. And so you kind
(21:45):
of got to master this the first three pillars before
you have any money to give, but once you have
some wealth, it's really that's that's the final pillar that
is essential that everyone should be giving back and to
the extent that they're able to fix the crack in
the world that God put them on this planet to heal.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So you are segueing very nicely into your new book
before and we're going to talk more about the enneagram
right after the break here, Doug, But before that, I
guess I got one quick follow up, so you mentioned
with your pillars giving being the essentially sort of like
the final step. What are your thoughts on folks giving
money essentially all along the way, so as they are
first learning how to handle their money well while they
(22:27):
are still in debt, perhaps to essentially build that muscle,
because that's something that we've talked about here on the
show before, and it's something that we both that Joe
and I both have done too, where it's always been
a part of I guess just how it is that
we handle our money as opposed to seeing it as
like the sort of finish line like, oh, because once
I get to this certain net worth amount or once
(22:47):
I get to this whatever promotion, then I'll finally be
able to be a giver.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Can you can you speak to that?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yeah, I mean you want to be generous along the way.
It's just a matter of it's the giving needs to
be in proportion to your income, and so as long
as you're not, you know, harming yourself in some significant way,
then of course you need to be giving. Again, all
four pillars have to be in place at all times,
and so as as your financial health improves, then all
(23:17):
four pillars sort of rising together. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna get you more on the aneagram.
Talk about Doug's book, and if you don't know what
the enneagram is, we'll talk about We'll inform that it's
actually a really beautiful way of understanding yourself and how
you're created, and then how that impacts how you think
about and handle money. We'll talk more about that with
Doug right after.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
This we are back from the break talking with Doug.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Lineup how he got from being a monk to a
money monster and Doug, let's talk about the enneagram. I
think before the break you're you mentioned brother Pious. If
I remember correctly, I think that was avoidant behavior of
an aneagram number one. Uh, you can correct me if
I'm right there, but you got it? Okay, awesome, Awesome.
We have seen just a rise in the popularity of
(24:09):
the anagram. I feel like I read a book on it.
I don't know, maybe like several years ago. I'm still
not totally sure what number I am. But can you
explain to listeners maybe who aren't as familiar with it,
what it is and why you yourself have gravitated towards
using it.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Sure, so your personality has two components to it. There's
a nature component, which is your DNA that in your
genes that it has a very deep and profound impact
on how your personality is going to be shaped. But
then there's also a nurture part to your personality, and
the anteagram explains that side of who you are, how
(24:43):
you how your childhood environment shaped your personality and shape
the ego defenses that you had to have and how
to develop in order to survive in this world. And
what's interesting about the anagram is what you know as
to think of a color wheel. If you're thinking of
a color wheel and a circle, and then if you
(25:04):
were to divide that up into nine slices, like nine
pie slices, then those where each of those pie slices are,
that's a kind of an archetypal pattern of personality that
you can develop in your childhood. So there's nine archetypes
of personality in the enneagram, but there's also an infinite
variety inside each one of them. So it's got lots
(25:28):
of flexibility in room for all of our unique individuality.
But there's only so many ways you can design a
human ego. Think of it like this, and I'll like
to use car metaphors. I think it helps. So you
can think of it like a car. The car you
drive has a unique year, make, and model, and your
car is completely unique from every other car on the road,
(25:50):
and yet it still has like a structure. We could
put it in kind of a category of a type
of car, So we can have SUVs, we can have
compact cars, we can have family sedans, you can have
you know, hummers or you know, there's all these different ways.
So there's a kind of a model of car, style
of car that you're driving, and that style of car
(26:13):
determines how you're going to experience the road of the highway.
But same thing with the enneagram, Like your ego is
the thing you're driving around in, and the style of
ego that you have determines how you perceive and see
and interact with everything in life. And so it's a
really robust and really important tool to help you understand
(26:35):
who you are. And one of the things I've done
with this book is try to really ground it in
both the most the latest research in neurobiology and childhood
developmental psychology, so it's it's got really robust scientific validation
these days. It used to be a little woo woo,
but it's not that anymore.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well one of the things too, I guess if someone
is really first beginning with their personal finances, they might say,
I got to start tracking my right, that's an important part.
I got to make sure I save up that initial
emergency fund. I should probably look into kind of my
credit score and the importance of that and how that
impacts like the whole rest of my financial life. And
you you basically say, actually understanding your enneagram type ranks
(27:15):
up there at least with some of those things. Why
do you think it's so powerful for people who want
to handle money better? Why do they need to dig
into kind of some of that personal personality stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, because what the anagram will tell you is what
your deepest unconscious fear is, Like, what's the thing that
you're really most terrified of in life?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Because that was not like sharks or anything like that, right.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Well, it could be see, it could be I mean that,
but there's a there's something deeper down down even below
the sharks. If you if you, if you get, if
you really get into its.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Keep peeling back the layers and keep pulling.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Back the layers. So so each each of these archetypes
of personality, the anagram is running off of, well here,
here's a way of thinking about it. If I could
go a little deep. We're into it with you. So
you have to imagine, like what it was like in
your in the in the womb when you were when
your consciousness first flickered on. And my hypothesis with the
(28:11):
enneagram is that you were probably in a state of
unconscious unity, meaning you were one with your environment and
you were but you were, but you were unconscious. You
didn't have a clear sense of what's me and what's
not me. You're just kind of floating in this oceanic
bliss of oneness in your mother's womb. And then eventually
you get born, you get popped out, and it's like surprise,
(28:34):
there's more to reality than just you suddenly, and then
there's a physical umbilical cord that gets cut, obviously, and
you're physically separated from your mother, but instantly there's a
psychological umbilical cord that forms between you and your caregivers.
Because you developed this egoic codependence on your caregivers immediately
(28:57):
at birth, and because they have to do almost all
all of the driving of life for you for the
first several years of your existence. So they're essentially, you know,
driving you around in reality, keeping you safe, from protecting
you and telling you what to do and what not
to do. Right because you don't have a reality, you're
still trying to figure out what this reality thing is.
(29:17):
But over time, that psychological umbilical cord has to be
cut in order for you to have an individuated sense
of self, in order for you to have a unique
distinct identity from your caregivers, from your siblings, from your
all of the rest of reality. And so that psychological
umbilical cord has to get cut over time, and it
(29:40):
has to be cut with sharp negative emotions, because positive
emotions will just reinforce your connection to your caregivers. And
so what the enneagram tells us is that there's we
know from them the neurobiology, and that in all mammals
there's really three core negative emotions and they reside in
the in the mid limbic re of the brain for
(30:01):
all mammals, and all other negative emotions are some combination
of these big three negative emotions, and the big three
are anger, sadness, and fear. So anger sadness, and fear
are the sharpest emotional lives, and your anagram type is
determined by which of those three emotions you experienced more
(30:24):
of in your childhood. Where did you experience more anger
or sadness and some of them shame is another term
we use for sadness in the anagram, and that's fine
or was it fear? And so which of those emotional
lives did the cutting of that psychological umbilical cord? And
that gives us what we call the three triads of
the anagram. So this this color wheel we've got, you
(30:46):
can break it into three sections or three quadrants, and
then each of those three triads, those quadrants can now
be broken down into three subsets. That's what gives the
nine types. Because there's three core negative of emotions that anger, sadness,
for fear, and then there's three ways you could process
that negative emotion. You could externalize it. Let's say we're
(31:09):
dealing with the anger. You could take that anger and
you could externalize it, and that's like having a food
fight with the world, and that would call it what
we call that the type eight, which is the challenger
and they hate, hate being harmed or controlled and so
that's I call them the hummer of egos. Or you
can take that anger and you can internalize it and
(31:29):
you get a type one, call them the improver or
the BMW of egos. And their greatest fear is being
bad or defective. So they're always trying to improve themselves
or improve the world around them, and they can, you know,
and they're very good at that, and they can also
be you know, we all of us have our quirks
and can be annoying when we go when we get
too deep into our unhealthy parts of our type. So
(31:51):
that's but then there's a third option here is which
you can have both. You can both internalize that anger
and externalize that anger, and that gives us the type nine,
which is called a peacemaker, or I call them the
r V of egos, meaning their their greatest fear is
a loss of wholeness from conflict. So Titanis are sitting
on so much repressed anger. They've got this internalized anger
(32:12):
themselves for not being able to meet their needs as
a child, and they've got this externalized anger at the
world for not meeting their needs well either, and so
they want everything around them as peaceful as possible because
they're they're terrified of a loss of wholeness, of the
anger ever came roaring out. And so that's just that's
just a quick I'll stop there. But yeah, it kind
of gives you a sense of how the enneagram works,
(32:33):
how it forms, and what your greatest fear is. And
then and then we can really we can relate it
to money here in a second.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So the goal of recognizing that, right see, is essentially
shining a light on ourselves, how we take how we
function that maybe we go through life more unaware of
typically and because we haven't done the introspection, we we
don't really know why we do some of the things
that we do. And once we dig a little deeper
into the why behind how we work, that's that's gonna
(33:01):
reveal some stuff to us. It's going to help us
get better with our finances.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Absolutely. And then and then what I've done with the
with the anagram is I've so I've taken the anagram,
I've layered on top of it what I call the
attachment theory of money. Now, the attachment theory of money
is very similar to the attachment theory of relationships. It's
almost identical to it. Just apply to money if those
of you you're listeners who might be familiar with it.
But but what the attachment theory of money says is
(33:26):
that there's there's two unhealthy ways that we can relate
to money, which is we can be anxiously attached to it,
which is like the Ebenezer Scrooge or the Gordon get
Goes of the world right. Or we can be avoidant
of money. We can push it away like I did
as when I was younger, people who are fearful of it,
who who hate opening their bills or doing their budget,
(33:48):
or just the world of finance scares them too much.
And so you can be anxious or avoidant. And then
that gives us two money monsters for each of the
nine enneagram types and so and then also going back,
if we could just do those four pillars of finance
which we talked about earlier in the show, which was earning, saving, investing,
(34:09):
and giving. Now you can be anxious or avoidant in
different areas of your financial life. You might be an
anxious earner and savior an investor but an avoidant giver.
Or you could be an anxious earner but a terrible
saver of if you spend avoid saving. So the system
of the inteagram, combined with the attachment fear of money,
(34:31):
really dives deep into where you're likely to be struggling
in your financial life why and then offering people the
tools to overcome those problems.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Is there a something that determines whether or not someone
takes a more anxious approach or a more avoidant approach,
Because as I was reading your book that like there
was I saw myself in both of those behaviors at
different points in my life, and sometimes like almost simultaneously
regarding the same task. Right, So, like you're talking about here,
going back to the four pillars, even when it comes
(35:01):
to let's just like choose one like saving, like I've
seen at different points in my life, a more anxious
approach whilst simultaneously somewhat beating being avoidant when it comes
to I'm just thinking of like certain bills or something
like that. There have been times where I am very
on top of it. And this isn't to like turn this.
It's not like Matt any agraam time. But oh come on,
(35:22):
let's just some dissecting here. But I guess I'm curious
to hear your thoughts there, Doug. What is it that
causes someone to take a more anxious turn versus a
more avoidant turn where they were just ignoring it all together.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Yeah, that's a hard question to answer. I can only guess,
and I would just say it probably has to do
with childhood. Most of the stuff goes back to childhood issues,
like you know what kind of childhood traumas you might
have had as a kid around money, the emotions, the
positive or negative emotions that come up for you around it.
If you if you grew up in a really some
people who grew up in a lot of scarcity and
(35:53):
your poverty or tend to be more anxious about money.
It's an oversimplifying. It's a really complicated question, no right answer,
But the simple asses probably just goes back to your
child and it's it's for whatever reason it's triggering either
an anxious or avoidant emotion around the money, depending on
the context. And we and we could be jumbled in
our style, right we most of us are not all
(36:15):
anxious or all avoidant. We we tend to be jumbled.
We're anxious in one area and avoid in another. And
we can flip back and forth depending on the time
of day or or a mood.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Okay, so you're not necessarily like locked into one type
of no process. Okay, yeah, dogs right, but you're gonna
have a.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Pattern if you will see tend to see a pattern though.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, okay. So so it's interesting. My wife's been studying
the aneagram much longer and in more in depth than
I have. I have. I have like peripherably scanned some
of the materials, including your book, Doug, but I pretty
instinctively knew almost seven like that to me resonated really
quickly when I read about that personality type of the
anagram and one of the lines let's let's maybe we'll
(36:58):
turn these so one of the lines in your book
in that section you say money anxious sevens treat budgets
as fun sucking vampires and will often work to have
enough money so they don't need to worry about a
detailed budget. And I was like, I feel seen right now,
Doug knows me.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
No, je a budget is a permission slip that gives you.
I know, it's a hall pass to allow.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
You to spend.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
You're right, like, I see the wisdom in that, but
I also see my own intuitive response, which is I
don't like the details. I like to fly by the
seat of my pants, and so what allows me to
do that is to have enough savings to where when
stuff flies at me in the face, like I don't
get nearly as anxious or fearful if I have done that,
(37:42):
or even just about an expense. So I'm just excited
about and I'm like, this is more than I assumed
I would spend, But I've got the money in savings
to back me up, so it's okay. So I guess
I don't know what would your suggestion be for someone
like me who tends to use savings as a way
to maybe avoid some of that money hygiene I should
be practicing.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
The first thing is just to be aware of it now,
you know, So what are you to do about it?
Like it's up to you to figure out, you know,
how you want to be able to you know, if
it's working for you, then it's working for you. Like
you know, you don't need to become a different person
or other than you are. But if that's how you
want to roll, if it's working, then great, I think
(38:26):
that's fantastic. If you want to If you think you
could do better, and you think that there's a more
robust way forward for you to have a healthier financial life,
then okay, well then maybe just try baby steps like
what's uh, what's one thing you could do that each
week that would that would sort of resolve that issue
for you. But again, you don't have to be someone
(38:49):
when you're not. You just need to be able to
work around the own your weaknesses and own your strengths
and and try to minimize the weaknesses and maximize the strengths.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Nice, Doug, we got more to get to. We're gonna
I've got another Enneagram question for you. We got more
to get to here with you.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Right after this, we're back still talking with Doug Lineham,
who former monk now manages money and really helps other people,
especially with this new book, figure out, Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Who are you?
Speaker 1 (39:25):
How do you handle money? What are the ways that
your personality is biased towards handling money so then you
can shine a light on it and make some changes
to improve your finances over time. I'm curious to Doug,
especially coming from the monk perspective. You talk about the
mindful practice of managing money, and you kind of seem
(39:47):
to link money habits to religious practice. Do you think
there's overlap there and is there something we can maybe
learn from some of the tenants of classic religious practice
that can help us with our finances.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
That's a big question. My brain just sort of short
circuited on that question, such a big one. Well, you know,
traditional we're just practices. What they're doing is they're giving
you a structure that allows you to live a healthier
and happier and more loving and compassionate life. And so
when you bring that in alignment with your financial life,
(40:21):
when you bring those two things in harmony, now you
have like, as we talked about at the beginning the show,
you have this this super money is like your superhero
utility belt. If you use it right, that allows you
to do an awful lot of good in the world.
And so it has to be wedded to a spiritual
practice or else it's going to be used in the
(40:43):
most it's just inevitably going to be used in an
abusive and harmful and selfish and self centered and greedy
and narcissistic and you know, jerky ways, you know. And
so without a spiritual practice, everything in your life is
probably going to be very, very challenging, but especially how
you're relating to money and how you're using it and
(41:06):
how you're earning it, and how are you living an
ethical life. It really can't live a deeply ethical life.
I don't think if you aren't bringing your spirituality into
how you earn, how you save, how you invest, and
how you give. So is there a particular like rule
that from a particular religion. I don't think I could
(41:26):
come up with that in my head on the spot,
but I do think it's essential that you have a
spiritual practice.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, I'm sure there are some people listening right now
and they're like, it's I mean, they think it's interesting,
they're curious about your story, but they're also like, either
I went to church and I was burned, or I
haven't been to church. I'm not interested. And they've also seen,
of course some hypocrisy or injustice done by the church.
Inst they're saying, well, religious practice, and I think I
(41:54):
can keep those separately and do pretty fine with my finances.
What would you say to someone like that, like, Hey,
do you actually need a spiritual life or are there
things that you can glean from spiritual practice without practicing
spirit anything spiritual yourself.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, I mean, I want to respect people who have
been burned by traditional religions and might suggesting that everyone
needs to go out and join the church or on
the street corner of the street. But I see, I
know lots of people who are very spiritual, people fall
into the spiritual but not religious category, people who have
a spiritual practice but maybe aren't doing it in a
(42:29):
traditional way. I think that's wonderful as well as long.
But I mean, obviously you can do just find in
your finances without without a spiritual practice.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
You don't have to have it.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
But I think if you want to be happy in life,
it's about being connected to community. It's about being connected
to your sense of the divine and God in whatever faith,
tradition that whatever that looks like for you. But essentially,
I think it's really about how do you have community
and how do you have how do you find love
and service in the world, Like what does that look
(43:04):
like for you? And I just would suggest that that's
something that we all want and long for it. I
think it would be fully happy and complete as human beings.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, Okay, going back to I guess the anagram for
a second, I'm I'm wondering if you think that there
are a type, like different types of anagrams that we
tend to see more in the world. Like you you
mentioned it almost as like a color wheel, and I
like you think about colors in the world and then
like if you zoom out enough, like the earth is
blue right, like like the blue marble right like out
(43:37):
out there floating out in space. Sure, is there a
type of vineagram number that you tend to see over
and over in your life? Maybe I don't know, that
might be helpful for folks to hear you maybe quickly summarize.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
I mean, there are some types that are lots common,
like type fives are maybe one of the least common types.
But other than that, it's it's kind of I don't
know the exact statistics on it, but it is a
pretty it's pretty evenly spread. There isn't one type that's
more common than other types. I think statistically, you know,
it's around seven to twelve percent of the population is
(44:11):
one type or the other.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
I think that's that's the rough Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So for someone who's listening and they're like, oh, I
took the Myers Briggs back in the day. Maybe that
shed a little bit of light on on on who I,
how I think about myself, and how I understand the
personality that I have. What would you tell them, like,
is there a good place to get started to figure
out what their aneagram number is, because especially if it's
so revelatory and it's going to help us understand how
(44:35):
we tick so that we can then understand why we're
using money in the way that we are. Where's a
good place to figure out, well, what the anagram number
we are and find out some more details. Obviously your
book would be a place to kind of do some
digging on that and anything else.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Yeah. So I have a licensing deal with a company
called it's called i e Q nine and they have
an excellent anagram test and I can send you all.
I have a promo code and link. It's a great test.
And the reason I partnered with them is because it's
got the it's the most scientifically rigorous and accurate enneagram
test out there. There's lots of free ones, and they're
(45:10):
just not great. The free ones are maybe fifty percent accurate, which.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Is not great. It's accurate as a coin flip.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
And this one is closer to like over nine ninety
five percent accurate and much more detailed, So it's worth
I think it's worth it to spend a few bucks
and do it right.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
The free one told me I'm gonna tipe thirteen and
wait twenty second. How that happen?
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
We appreciate you taking.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
The time to chat with us, and I will definitely
link to your site. I know you've got that test
linked as well, and we'll make sure to include any
sort of promo codes that might help listeners get a discount.
But can you share your ur L with folks who
may not navigate over to our show notes where they
can find all that?
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Sure? Just my name good Doug linum dot com. That's
l y n a M dot com, and you'll can
find perfect kinds of cool resources on my website.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Awesome, Doug, thanks for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Thanks man, Joel, appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
All right, So, Joel, do you think that you need
to join a Benedictine monastery in order to find a
sense of purpose?
Speaker 1 (46:11):
So do you feel like you've already got it? I'm
going to inform my wife this evening. Take a vow
of celibacy. I was going to say, she'll be devastated,
but she might not be. Who knows. If she's not devastated,
then I'll be really sad.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Dang it. I thought you'd be bummed out, babe.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
So you're gonna try to get me today? No, okay,
uh okay, let's talk about big takeaways. Yes, yes, mine
was when he said part of his goal is to
help people avoid the unnecessary suffering of not having enough money.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
That's the uh suffering prevention specialist. Yes, phrase that he
put out there, and that was so good. I love that.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
I mean I think of that, never really boiled it
down to that before, but I really do think of
that as one of the major goals that drives what
we do. And it makes me think of somebody who
doesn't know how what a balanced diet looks like and
how that informs a healthy body. Right, And so they
might assume that, oh, it's just about the amount of
calories I in takeover a given day, and then they
make Donald's.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
That used to actually be a plan weight watchers. It
doesn't matter, it's just the calories come from.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
But come on, yeah, we all knew that was a
whole lot of a whole load of bunk, right, And
clearly you're not getting some of the really important things
that your body needs, and so you're probably not going
to feel nearly as good. You might try to go
for a run and like peter out pretty quickly because
you're just not providing your body the nutrients and resources
it needs to thrive. And I think the same thing
is true with money. You might assume think some things,
but then you don't know what you don't know. And
(47:26):
so I want to see people avoid unnecessary suffering on
the money front, and so much of that is kind
of just getting that baseline education that and even beyond
that kind of a greater understanding of yourself, like Doug
talked about on this episode. But man, I love that framework.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
There's not enough introspection just to even understand yourself. So
I guess, kind of piggybacking off what you said, a
big part of preventing that suffering is it's an other.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Sort of focused approach to the world. And so my
big takeaway.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Is going to be how he was talking about, and
I'm putting within our framework, which is you can be frugal,
which he described as being prudent or you can be cheap,
which is a focus on avarice, and there's greed at
the heart of that, and what is that but a
lack of love towards whom, towards others, towards other people.
And so that just helps me to think through because
oftentimes we talk about something that's either frugal or cheap
(48:19):
here on the show, and I think when you are
thinking about yourself, it can be easy to maybe justify
something a purchase or an action, but when you start
thinking about others and how you treat the other people
and the the overall benefit that you're able to provide
those whether you're helping them when it comes to knowledge
and preventing them from suffering in a financial way, or
just the countless different actions that we can take in
(48:40):
our lives. I think that can help act as guardrails
in a sense, to guide some of our actions and
to ensure that we have this sense of unity and
harmony within our lives, which I feel like was just
like kind of a running theme throughout everything. He was saying,
like that's why he's talking about the enneagram because he
wants us to have harmony, like internal harmony with our
when it comes to our actions and how it is
(49:01):
that we handle our money and how that aligns even
with something as kind of high level as just our
our spiritual walks.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, I think too. Being cheap or being greedy is
often that sort of attitude of like I got to
secure my bag, I got to look out for number one,
which is potentially an American an American quality more so
than most places. Sure, but that is something certainly to
be pushed back against, I think, because that's that's not
a healthy habit and ultimately it's not going to lead
(49:29):
to Yeah, well, it might lead to more money in
the bank account. It also might not, like because you're
not playing the long game. But at the same time,
it certainly won't lead to we don't think greater levels
of happiness totally.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Our beer Joel that you and I enjoyed today was
called an elaborate metaphor this is a New England pale ale.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Oh, it's a pale.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
I didn't realize that it had very New England hazy.
I pa it sortes going on.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I didn't know that this is by Burlington Beer Company.
I didn't realize it was a pale either. I was
gonna say it tastes like a session IPA. To me,
it tastes very like light and it had this soft
mouth feel, and so yeah, I thought, if you put
it in that session IPA category, it's fantastic. Same with
a pale ale, I think, and I don't, to be honest,
what's the difference between session ip and a pale They're
pretty pretty much the earliest anonymous Yeah, yeah, but this
(50:15):
I thought this was not like a mind blowingly good beer,
but especially given kind of thing that I know, it's
a pale, it's really really tasty. It kind of like jumped,
like leapfrogged a little bit because it's like, oh, this
is a pretty good IPA, but actually, no, this is
not an IPA. This is a fantastic pal al in
my opinion, because it's got all the complexities and the
nuance and the flavor profile and the hops that you
expect with a hazy but just a lighter, easier to
(50:35):
drink version of that. So I'm like in the moment
changing my rating of this beer from from like a.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Three seven five to like a four and a quarter.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
If I were to rate this screen, if you're rating
it against other pale ales, it stands out. Yeah, absolutely,
all right, that's gonna do it. For this episode, we'll
link to some of the resources we mentioned up in
the show notes on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Until next time, best friends out and best Friends
Speaker 4 (51:04):
BEFO.
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking from Monk to money Monster with Doug Linum.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, Joel, So I don't think it's a requirement to
have the lived reality of life.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Experience to be able to speak to our particular subject.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But I think he can certainly help, which means our
guest today, Doug Liman, is someone who we are very
excited to speak with as his incredibly varied life as
well as career, it spans more than I thought was
possible in a lifetime. So he's been broke and bankrupt
to living a comfortable life. He's taken vals of poverty
to helping oversee over over two hundred and fifty million
(00:54):
dollars in assets as a money manager. He's graduated at
the top of his class as a marine to living
for twenty years as a Benedictine monk. We've got plenty
of questions for him.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We're also going to get into his latest book, Taming
Your Money Monster, Nine Paths to Money Mastery with the Enneagram,
which comes out next month. Doug, he takes spiritual wisdom,
he blends it with some psychological insight all and an
effort to help folks to successfully handle their money to
reach their financial goals. Doug Lineham, thank you so much
for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Thanks guys, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We're glad to have you, Doug. First question we got
to ask, got to get out of the way. We
ask everyone who comes on is what do you like
to splore? John Matt and I are drinking a craft
beer and some people are like, you spend how much
on a bottle or a cannon of craft beer?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
A very nice one from for months? That's right, Yeah,
this is good here.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But what's that for you? Where people might be like,
what what are you thinking over there? Man?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I probably it would be art. Like I have a
lot of like art in my house, and I have
a hard time. It's just too much. Like you know,
I don't I don't always go like like, you know,
high and original stuff. I'm not like Castas or anything
like that. But you know, but I do like Picasso
and like so you know, I get reprints mostly, but
(02:07):
I try to get really high quality reprints of famous art.
And whenever I go, I to pick stuff up, and
you know, my walls are just covered in an art. Okay,
there's a guy named Ladimirkush who's who's an artist from
Russian artist and lives in Paris, And anytime I come
across one of his stuff, I just I.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Gotta grab it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So when you're grabbing his stuff, are those originals since
he's not nearly as well known.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Okay, even still, see, if you're gonna go for originals
like I do, you gotta go with the super cheap
folk art variety that's.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
That's trained living out in the cabin in the woods.
Like you don't have a.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Plenty of that too? Yeah, I got plenty of I do.
I do have lots of originals. You're just not like
the Yeah, but not the you know, still find a museum.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, I got it all right, Joel, I only have
to look in look into some Vladimir push Doug. In
my opinion, considering or in your case, joining the Marines,
like you graduated top of your class, that seems like
a path of that.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I don't know, quasi.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Reasonable, Like there's there's there's millions of folks out there
who have joined the military, who who have served our country.
But when it comes to joining, uh, I don't even know, like,
how do you join, like how do you become a monk?
And specifically, I'm curious what caused you to go in
that direction after having graduated at the top of your class.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Well, it's a big question. The simple answer is, and
I think I joined the Marines to kind of impress
my father. I wanted to prove to him that I
was a manly man who could do manly things and
didn't really work. He didn't, he didn't bother showing up
to my graduation. And I also had a bit of
a kind of a spiritual epiphany at the time, and
(03:43):
I realized that, you know, unresolved anger issues and high
explosives were probably a really bad combination and that maybe
might not be the best career choice for me. So
I decided to turn down my commission as an officer
in the Marines and went and just ran out. After that,
joined a Benedictine monastery. And you know, it was also
(04:05):
I did it for a couple of reasons. One of course,
I was looking for a higher calling and something that
would give me all the things I loved about the Marines,
like they spread a corps, the camaraderie says a purpose
and structure that I liked without necessarily having to go
out there and kill people for a living, so that
that seemed like a way trade up. And it was
(04:26):
also a great way to really annoying my parents, Like
it just absolutely flabbergasted them, Like I couldn't have picked anything.
Being a MinC was about as radically different from the
way I was raised as you could imagine, and you know,
it did a really good job of pissing my parents off,
so that was a bonus.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So there was like a sinful desire.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
There was, yeah, like a sense of rebellion, of that
rebellious spirit, so that that caused you to do that.
But it's one thing to have done it for just like, okay,
you end up doing that for a couple of years,
like you turned down your offer or your post or
something like that post graduation. It's one thing to do
that and maybe just do it for like a couple
of years, but you did it for all long time,
Like this is yeah, this wasn't just sort of like
a like a wild hair. This was something something that
(05:06):
you stuck with for like two decades, is that right?
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That's right? Twenty years And it was a teaching order,
so I was. At the same time, I was teaching
in a private school. I was the head of a
math department and and yeah, it was it was a
good life. I mean, there were there are parts about
it that I really loved. And then after a while
things kind of got a little stale. And I think
the struggle with all monasteries is that most of them
(05:28):
are dying, Like monastic life is just not that popular anymore.
And at the time, I was the youngest monk by
almost thirty years, and there were really no new monks
coming into the community, and it just got older and older.
It was like, well if at some point, you know,
this is like you're on a treadmill and people are
falling off and there's no one coming up behind me, Like, well,
how is this going to work? Like what's my life
(05:50):
going to be like if I stay? And yeah, and
it was basically I eventually just ended up being, you know,
doing hospice care essentially, and then I'd be the last
one standing and that just wasn't and the community kind
of got a little rigid and a little you know,
it had its other issues, other issues as well, but
eventually I realized that this was not going to be
(06:15):
this was up the place. It's kind of a marriage,
you know, you kind of it's good at the beginning,
and then it's not good at the end, and you
stick it out hoping it's going to get better, and
then it doesn't, and eventually you just kind of got
to pull the plug. So that's that's kind of what happened.
And and then of course I went into finance after that,
So that's another story.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
What was the tell me about like the declining monastic life?
And you talk about in your first book the financial
difficulties that your monastery was facing, and it forced you
to kind of have to confront money head on in
a way that you you never had to before in fact,
like army or you know, life in the Marines, and
then and then monastic life kind of insulated you in
(06:57):
some ways from having to think about money too much.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Well? No, okay, yes, and no, I mean that was
the hope. I mean, I certainly joined those I was
hoping that those would be a lifestyles that would allow
me to avoid the world of money because I was
really you know, I hated thinking and dealing with about
everything to deal with finance. I just was kind of
allergic to it because of the way my family treated
money growing up, which was to weaponize it. My family,
(07:22):
you know, my father was a fairly successful executive for
an oil company, and and in my in my childhood environment,
I assumed that kind of money was the root of
all evil or something like that. It was just so
that's kind of why I did run away to the marine,
so wise to trying to get away from money. But unfortunately,
about three years into the monastic journey, the community went bankrupt,
(07:44):
and so like somebody had to figure out this. It
turns out if you live in a community where everybody
hates dealing with money, like, it just doesn't end well,
this is not going to work. And we basically took
the vial of poverty a little too seriously, and so
it was a real mess. Like and so here I
was joining them, honestly hoping to get hoping to get
away from money, and I end up having to deal
with it more than I would have if I hadn't
(08:05):
joined the monastery, because you know, it was just it
was just an absolute train wreck. And so it took
me a couple of years to figure that problem out,
but I did and got the community on you know,
solid financial ground. And then because I was the head
of a math department at the school, I decided to
start offering economics and personal flience courses to the kids
(08:26):
because I thought one of the real problems in our
society is we don't teach kids about money. We don't
teach them how to the basics of budgeting and you know,
how to earn, save, and invest, all these things that
are just basic skills that everyone needs to have. And
so I did that well for maybe ten twelve years
while I was teaching. And then just then what got interesting.
(08:49):
As I was doing a class project with the kids
and for fun, I thought, well, let's just open up
the school retirement plan and show the kids how retirement
plans work. And I did that, and as soon as
I opened it up and started looking around, it was
a complete train wreck, Like if for those who were
familiar with the world of finance. There was essentially no
fiduciary oversight. The fees were very high on the funds,
(09:14):
the performance was terrible. There was the thing hadn't been managed.
No one had done any maintenance on this plan for
twenty years, so it was completely adrift. And I'm like oh,
this is a nightmare. And so that I went looking
around for a company that could do a better job.
And then what I realized is that almost every school,
every retirement plan, and almost every private and public school
(09:36):
in this country is an absolute mess. It's a disaster.
And I couldn't find a company that I really liked
that would do a good job on this to solve
this problem. And so I was, well, that's a pain point,
and I know how to do it. So I had
this crazy idea is I'll start my own investment advisory
firm while I'm a monk, and so I did. So
I started my own firm to solve that problem, to
(09:59):
build better uh retirement plans were schools and colleges. And
then this just by and then of course I left
the monastery, started this business and I and then I
actually merged my firm very quickly after that with a
larger company in Santa Fe. But what was really just
(10:20):
bizarre stroke of luck is right when I was launching
this business, the New York Times did a six piece
expos on the problem of teaching retirement plans across the country.
So every month they were doing this hard hitting article
about how awful the school retirement plans were. And then
I just reached out to them on Facebook and said, hey,
I love what you guys. I love these articles. I
(10:42):
here's me, this crazy monk starting this business to try
to solve this problem. And they loved the idea. So
they flew Ron Lieber, who's the financial column the columnists
for the financial section of the New York Times, flew
out to Santa Fe did spend the day with me,
did a big piece that went on the cover of
the Business section of the Times, and that went viral.
(11:03):
That just launched my career in finance. So that's kind
of it's kind of how I got to that point
in my life.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So it was almost out of a I mean it
was necessary, Like, like you said, there is a pain point,
but it's something that y'all are facing there as a
monastery in and of itself. We've got more questions here
specifically too about your monastic journey. But just as like
a small tangent, like it sounded like the fees were
the worst part about the retirement plan there for the monks,
(11:27):
Like I almost picture you cracking this thing open, and
it basically had fees from twenty thirty years ago, like
from the eighties, and like, would you say that that's
one of the best advancements of retirement funds and the
ability for individuals to manage their own retirement, to manage
their own iras is the fact that, yes, we have
total control, but just we've seen fees decrease significantly. I'm
(11:48):
curious if that's what you saw when you took a
look there.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Oh yeah, fee compression is great, Like fees are going
down funds. But also like in a retirement plan, you
don't have infinite choice, Like you have have control over
your investments as the individual, but the plant administrator, whoever's
running the show, it gets to pick what funds. You
get to choose from inside the plan. And so yeah,
(12:13):
so the fees were high, but the funds were terrible.
They should have just been you know, some of those
should have been mothballed, you know, decades ago. So it's
it's fees, it's it's performance. I would say those are
the two biggies. But there's lots of other subsets my problems.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You mentioned taking the valve poverty too seriously, and when
you look at kind of like church history and stuff
like that, there are you know, the desert Fathers or
whatever who took a valve poverty to the extreme, And
there have been many examples, I think throughout the ages
and different religious sects. But now you're like a money manager,
which is kind of the exact opposite of a valve
(12:49):
poverty or feels or feels like it. They feel like antitheses, right,
So what's your take on that. I was you're reading
a book on spiritual disciplines recently, and the author talked
about how like, hey actually in the hands of Christians
doing good work with that money. It's like that's the
best place that money could be. So I'm curious to
hear your your take on that duality or seeming contradiction there.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Well, I'd agree with you the last thing you just
just said, which is that so money is power, right,
and it's also morally neutral. Money isn't good or bad.
It depends on how you're using it. So if you
if you take all the good people in the world,
the Christians of the world, and you take the money
from them, and you take the power from them, then
(13:31):
it's all going to people who you know, maybe I'm
not saying they're bad people, but you're you're essentially what
came to mind, sorry is like basically says a castrating
yourself and your ability to like make a real big
difference in the world in terms of you know, having
this impact, that money is one of the best tools
we have for love and service possible. Now that now,
(13:53):
I don't want to take away from the people who
take a vile of poverty either, Like I think this
gets maybe gets into my new book, what I call
my new book is Taming your money Monster. And there
are people who take a poverty for the right reasons,
and they take it because they want to live in
solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and I think
that's extremely noble. But then there are people like me
(14:14):
and the monks in the monastery who took a viole
of poverty because of their money issues, because they were
avoidant of money. They there was unconscious they were doing it.
On this there's some good obviously good reasons on the surface,
but deep down it was like this rebellion against my parents,
rebellion against society. It was like it wasn't a healthy
(14:36):
rejection of money. It was an unhealthy rejection of money.
And on the same side, you can have a healthy
relationship to money and have a lot of it, and
you can have an unhealthy relationship to money and have
a lot of it. It's really about what's going on
in unconscious and your conscious and most importantly your unconscious mind.
What what's driving you here and motivating you? And then
(14:57):
what's the outcome is it? Is it outcome going to
be more love and service in the world than great
if it's more selfishness and more greed or more like
so like for example, you know, we obviously can think
of examples like you know, Gordon Gecko on Wall Street
and you know, all these people who were going after
money in a horrible, greedy, avaricious way, and that's one
(15:18):
model that we obviously don't want to want to emulate.
But then there's people who have a lot of money
and they have all this ability to like heal our
broken world. That's great. But on the flip side, for example,
there was a monk in the monastery, I'll call him
Brother Pious. You know, he refused to touch money for
any reason, Like there was he wouldn't he wouldn't use
(15:41):
a credit card or a debit card or cash. For
years he went without thinking that money, to even touching
money would pollute his soul in some weird way. And
so the weird thing about that is it made all
the other monks around him touch money more often to
keep his soul pure and clean and so right, and
and what it did is it it act? It didn't.
It didn't diminish his ego. It inflated his ego. It
(16:05):
gave him a sense of superiority from the other monks.
He was on this sort of pious perch that he
could look down on the rest of us who are
handling and handling this dirty, dirty money all day to
keep him fed and housed. And it was just it
was it was utter insanity, right, And so so it
really isn't the vile poverty, or it isn't having a
(16:25):
lot of money. It's like, well, why are you doing this?
Is it? Is it reducing your ego? Is it making
you more loving and kind or not? And it's you know,
it's by the fruits you shall know them. And so
that's really So it's a bit of a long winded
answer to a complicated question. But there isn't a simple
It isn't a simple black and white issue.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah sure, yeah, Well so for a second there, like
you touched on selfishness and greed.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
At one point you said like you are trying to
encourage folks to become capitalists, not consumers. And it seems
like you like you are pointing folks more towards the
like that selfishness mindset. Uh, if we are sort of greedy,
how that could lead folks down paths of disaster as
opposed to criticizing the overall system of capitalism. It sounds
(17:10):
like you're you're basically pushing folks towards frugality to a
certain extent, which I don't know, that's something that that
we talk about a good bit here on the show.
But can you talk to that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
So, yes, So, so it's frugality is important. You got
to you got to save more than you earn if
you ever want to have real wealth. And so yeah,
it's the idea that you you know, as I put
in the book capitalists or somebody who invests and saves
and invests and has wealth, and a consumer someone who
just sort of goes out, goes out there and spends
everything they have on stuff and then they're broke and
(17:40):
so they're sort of they're they're sort of that they're
they're feeding into the negative side of the capitalistic system.
And so where capitalists has positive and negative connotations, and
maybe the language here is a bit of a bit
of a barrier, but essentially, what you need to be
able to do is to have enough money to take
care of yourself and and and really, you know, live
(18:00):
a comfortable life. And what that means is for me
and what that means for you might be very different things.
But what I don't want is for people to endure
the unnecessary suffering that poverty produces in their lives. Because
we know from the science that your socioeconomic status is
(18:20):
the best predictor of mortality. So the less money you have,
the more poverty. Poor people get hit with more bad
things that you don't want in life than you could
possibly imagine. So poor people have higher rates of obesity,
of drug addiction, of domestic violence, of crime, of workplace injury,
(18:41):
you know, cancer, all the things in life that you
don't want to get hit with. Poor people get hit
with it more than the rest of us because the
stress of being poor is unrelenting. It's it's like walking
over a pit of alligators on a tightrope every single day.
It's just it's truly something that we should be trying
(19:01):
to eliminate from the world. So is it is it
so much like, oh, I want everyone to be abilities. Well,
that'd be great, But mostly it's like I see this
as a way of preventing suffering, like helping people with
their finances. It isn't just about oh, being super rich
and greedy. It's about no, it's about it's about being
(19:22):
a suffering prevention specialist, is what I call myself. Sometimes
it's like, I'm gonna try to help you avoid all
the pain. It's unnecessary if you can get your finances
in order and have a robust and healthy relationship with money.
So that's I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Gonna update my LinkedIn now change my title from Suffering
Prevention special host to suffering Specialist. I love that, I think,
I mean, I think that's true. I've never thought about
it like that, but that's like a big motivation behind
what we do is to help people not suffer with money.
And we talk about this even in kind of our
our bios on the how to Money website. It's like,
you know, neither of us are aiming for Elon musk
(19:58):
levels of wealth and in fact, like not even not
even close to a goal that registers on my radar,
but helping other people like not mess it up the
way I've seen people, including people in my family that
are close to me mess it up that that creates
so much hardship that that's certainly a goal. I'm curious too.
You mentioned in your book you that you had a
(20:21):
minister friend of yours who's quite stingy, and that left
an impact on you too. So part of yeah, this
goal of inspiring not only good money habits but also generosity,
you've seen the opposite at play. Yeah, what's your take
on on stinginess and money?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Stinginess is a real problem for some people, right, and
so there's there's you need to be frugal, but maybe
we did just maybe distinguished frugal and stingy and I'm
just kind of winging it here a little bit on
these definitions. But like, frugal is all right, you need
to be prudent about how much you spend because you
need to have money to save so you can invest
(20:59):
you can, But then stinginess is this kind of avariciousness
that that is basically a lack of love. It's a
lack of it's like where generosity is a virtue. Let's
put it that way as well, Like, so, so saving
is important, but you need to learn how to be
generous with your with your resources at the same time.
(21:22):
So there's a balance between like, well, why do you
have all this money, Well, the point of having it
is again to love and serve God in the world. Like,
that's that's why you've got it. So if you aren't giving,
if it's so, it's what I call the four pillars
of finance, and the four pillars of finance for me
are earning, saving, investing, and giving. And so you kind
(21:45):
of got to master this the first three pillars before
you have any money to give, but once you have
some wealth, it's really that's that's the final pillar that
is essential that everyone should be giving back and to
the extent that they're able to fix the crack in
the world that God put them on this planet to heal.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So you are segueing very nicely into your new book
before and we're going to talk more about the enneagram
right after the break here, Doug, But before that, I
guess I got one quick follow up, so you mentioned
with your pillars giving being the essentially sort of like
the final step. What are your thoughts on folks giving
money essentially all along the way, so as they are
first learning how to handle their money well while they
(22:27):
are still in debt, perhaps to essentially build that muscle,
because that's something that we've talked about here on the
show before, and it's something that we both that Joe
and I both have done too, where it's always been
a part of I guess just how it is that
we handle our money as opposed to seeing it as
like the sort of finish line like, oh, because once
I get to this certain net worth amount or once
(22:47):
I get to this whatever promotion, then I'll finally be
able to be a giver.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Can you can you speak to that?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yeah, I mean you want to be generous along the way.
It's just a matter of it's the giving needs to
be in proportion to your income, and so as long
as you're not, you know, harming yourself in some significant way,
then of course you need to be giving. Again, all
four pillars have to be in place at all times,
and so as as your financial health improves, then all
(23:17):
four pillars sort of rising together. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna get you more on the aneagram.
Talk about Doug's book, and if you don't know what
the enneagram is, we'll talk about We'll inform that it's
actually a really beautiful way of understanding yourself and how
you're created, and then how that impacts how you think
about and handle money. We'll talk more about that with
Doug right after.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
This we are back from the break talking with Doug.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Lineup how he got from being a monk to a
money monster and Doug, let's talk about the enneagram. I
think before the break you're you mentioned brother Pious. If
I remember correctly, I think that was avoidant behavior of
an aneagram number one. Uh, you can correct me if
I'm right there, but you got it? Okay, awesome, Awesome.
We have seen just a rise in the popularity of
(24:09):
the anagram. I feel like I read a book on it.
I don't know, maybe like several years ago. I'm still
not totally sure what number I am. But can you
explain to listeners maybe who aren't as familiar with it,
what it is and why you yourself have gravitated towards
using it.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Sure, so your personality has two components to it. There's
a nature component, which is your DNA that in your
genes that it has a very deep and profound impact
on how your personality is going to be shaped. But
then there's also a nurture part to your personality, and
the anteagram explains that side of who you are, how
(24:43):
you how your childhood environment shaped your personality and shape
the ego defenses that you had to have and how
to develop in order to survive in this world. And
what's interesting about the anagram is what you know as
to think of a color wheel. If you're thinking of
a color wheel and a circle, and then if you
(25:04):
were to divide that up into nine slices, like nine
pie slices, then those where each of those pie slices are,
that's a kind of an archetypal pattern of personality that
you can develop in your childhood. So there's nine archetypes
of personality in the enneagram, but there's also an infinite
variety inside each one of them. So it's got lots
(25:28):
of flexibility in room for all of our unique individuality.
But there's only so many ways you can design a
human ego. Think of it like this, and I'll like
to use car metaphors. I think it helps. So you
can think of it like a car. The car you
drive has a unique year, make, and model, and your
car is completely unique from every other car on the road,
(25:50):
and yet it still has like a structure. We could
put it in kind of a category of a type
of car, So we can have SUVs, we can have
compact cars, we can have family sedans, you can have
you know, hummers or you know, there's all these different ways.
So there's a kind of a model of car, style
of car that you're driving, and that style of car
(26:13):
determines how you're going to experience the road of the highway.
But same thing with the enneagram, Like your ego is
the thing you're driving around in, and the style of
ego that you have determines how you perceive and see
and interact with everything in life. And so it's a
really robust and really important tool to help you understand
(26:35):
who you are. And one of the things I've done
with this book is try to really ground it in
both the most the latest research in neurobiology and childhood
developmental psychology, so it's it's got really robust scientific validation
these days. It used to be a little woo woo,
but it's not that anymore.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well one of the things too, I guess if someone
is really first beginning with their personal finances, they might say,
I got to start tracking my right, that's an important part.
I got to make sure I save up that initial
emergency fund. I should probably look into kind of my
credit score and the importance of that and how that
impacts like the whole rest of my financial life. And
you you basically say, actually understanding your enneagram type ranks
(27:15):
up there at least with some of those things. Why
do you think it's so powerful for people who want
to handle money better? Why do they need to dig
into kind of some of that personal personality stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, because what the anagram will tell you is what
your deepest unconscious fear is, Like, what's the thing that
you're really most terrified of in life?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Because that was not like sharks or anything like that, right.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Well, it could be see, it could be I mean that,
but there's a there's something deeper down down even below
the sharks. If you if you, if you get, if
you really get into its.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Keep peeling back the layers and keep pulling.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Back the layers. So so each each of these archetypes
of personality, the anagram is running off of, well here,
here's a way of thinking about it. If I could
go a little deep. We're into it with you. So
you have to imagine, like what it was like in
your in the in the womb when you were when
your consciousness first flickered on. And my hypothesis with the
(28:11):
enneagram is that you were probably in a state of
unconscious unity, meaning you were one with your environment and
you were but you were, but you were unconscious. You
didn't have a clear sense of what's me and what's
not me. You're just kind of floating in this oceanic
bliss of oneness in your mother's womb. And then eventually
you get born, you get popped out, and it's like surprise,
(28:34):
there's more to reality than just you suddenly, and then
there's a physical umbilical cord that gets cut, obviously, and
you're physically separated from your mother, but instantly there's a
psychological umbilical cord that forms between you and your caregivers.
Because you developed this egoic codependence on your caregivers immediately
(28:57):
at birth, and because they have to do almost all
all of the driving of life for you for the
first several years of your existence. So they're essentially, you know,
driving you around in reality, keeping you safe, from protecting
you and telling you what to do and what not
to do. Right because you don't have a reality, you're
still trying to figure out what this reality thing is.
(29:17):
But over time, that psychological umbilical cord has to be
cut in order for you to have an individuated sense
of self, in order for you to have a unique
distinct identity from your caregivers, from your siblings, from your
all of the rest of reality. And so that psychological
umbilical cord has to get cut over time, and it
(29:40):
has to be cut with sharp negative emotions, because positive
emotions will just reinforce your connection to your caregivers. And
so what the enneagram tells us is that there's we
know from them the neurobiology, and that in all mammals
there's really three core negative emotions and they reside in
the in the mid limbic re of the brain for
(30:01):
all mammals, and all other negative emotions are some combination
of these big three negative emotions, and the big three
are anger, sadness, and fear. So anger sadness, and fear
are the sharpest emotional lives, and your anagram type is
determined by which of those three emotions you experienced more
(30:24):
of in your childhood. Where did you experience more anger
or sadness and some of them shame is another term
we use for sadness in the anagram, and that's fine
or was it fear? And so which of those emotional
lives did the cutting of that psychological umbilical cord? And
that gives us what we call the three triads of
the anagram. So this this color wheel we've got, you
(30:46):
can break it into three sections or three quadrants, and
then each of those three triads, those quadrants can now
be broken down into three subsets. That's what gives the
nine types. Because there's three core negative of emotions that anger, sadness,
for fear, and then there's three ways you could process
that negative emotion. You could externalize it. Let's say we're
(31:09):
dealing with the anger. You could take that anger and
you could externalize it, and that's like having a food
fight with the world, and that would call it what
we call that the type eight, which is the challenger
and they hate, hate being harmed or controlled and so
that's I call them the hummer of egos. Or you
can take that anger and you can internalize it and
(31:29):
you get a type one, call them the improver or
the BMW of egos. And their greatest fear is being
bad or defective. So they're always trying to improve themselves
or improve the world around them, and they can, you know,
and they're very good at that, and they can also
be you know, we all of us have our quirks
and can be annoying when we go when we get
too deep into our unhealthy parts of our type. So
(31:51):
that's but then there's a third option here is which
you can have both. You can both internalize that anger
and externalize that anger, and that gives us the type nine,
which is called a peacemaker, or I call them the
r V of egos, meaning their their greatest fear is
a loss of wholeness from conflict. So Titanis are sitting
on so much repressed anger. They've got this internalized anger
(32:12):
themselves for not being able to meet their needs as
a child, and they've got this externalized anger at the
world for not meeting their needs well either, and so
they want everything around them as peaceful as possible because
they're they're terrified of a loss of wholeness, of the
anger ever came roaring out. And so that's just that's
just a quick I'll stop there. But yeah, it kind
of gives you a sense of how the enneagram works,
(32:33):
how it forms, and what your greatest fear is. And
then and then we can really we can relate it
to money here in a second.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So the goal of recognizing that, right see, is essentially
shining a light on ourselves, how we take how we
function that maybe we go through life more unaware of
typically and because we haven't done the introspection, we we
don't really know why we do some of the things
that we do. And once we dig a little deeper
into the why behind how we work, that's that's gonna
(33:01):
reveal some stuff to us. It's going to help us
get better with our finances.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Absolutely. And then and then what I've done with the
with the anagram is I've so I've taken the anagram,
I've layered on top of it what I call the
attachment theory of money. Now, the attachment theory of money
is very similar to the attachment theory of relationships. It's
almost identical to it. Just apply to money if those
of you you're listeners who might be familiar with it.
But but what the attachment theory of money says is
(33:26):
that there's there's two unhealthy ways that we can relate
to money, which is we can be anxiously attached to it,
which is like the Ebenezer Scrooge or the Gordon get
Goes of the world right. Or we can be avoidant
of money. We can push it away like I did
as when I was younger, people who are fearful of it,
who who hate opening their bills or doing their budget,
(33:48):
or just the world of finance scares them too much.
And so you can be anxious or avoidant. And then
that gives us two money monsters for each of the
nine enneagram types and so and then also going back,
if we could just do those four pillars of finance
which we talked about earlier in the show, which was earning, saving, investing,
(34:09):
and giving. Now you can be anxious or avoidant in
different areas of your financial life. You might be an
anxious earner and savior an investor but an avoidant giver.
Or you could be an anxious earner but a terrible
saver of if you spend avoid saving. So the system
of the inteagram, combined with the attachment fear of money,
(34:31):
really dives deep into where you're likely to be struggling
in your financial life why and then offering people the
tools to overcome those problems.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Is there a something that determines whether or not someone
takes a more anxious approach or a more avoidant approach,
Because as I was reading your book that like there
was I saw myself in both of those behaviors at
different points in my life, and sometimes like almost simultaneously
regarding the same task. Right, So, like you're talking about here,
going back to the four pillars, even when it comes
(35:01):
to let's just like choose one like saving, like I've
seen at different points in my life, a more anxious
approach whilst simultaneously somewhat beating being avoidant when it comes
to I'm just thinking of like certain bills or something
like that. There have been times where I am very
on top of it. And this isn't to like turn this.
It's not like Matt any agraam time. But oh come on,
(35:22):
let's just some dissecting here. But I guess I'm curious
to hear your thoughts there, Doug. What is it that
causes someone to take a more anxious turn versus a
more avoidant turn where they were just ignoring it all together.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Yeah, that's a hard question to answer. I can only guess,
and I would just say it probably has to do
with childhood. Most of the stuff goes back to childhood issues,
like you know what kind of childhood traumas you might
have had as a kid around money, the emotions, the
positive or negative emotions that come up for you around it.
If you if you grew up in a really some
people who grew up in a lot of scarcity and
(35:53):
your poverty or tend to be more anxious about money.
It's an oversimplifying. It's a really complicated question, no right answer,
But the simple asses probably just goes back to your
child and it's it's for whatever reason it's triggering either
an anxious or avoidant emotion around the money, depending on
the context. And we and we could be jumbled in
our style, right we most of us are not all
(36:15):
anxious or all avoidant. We we tend to be jumbled.
We're anxious in one area and avoid in another. And
we can flip back and forth depending on the time
of day or or a mood.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Okay, so you're not necessarily like locked into one type
of no process. Okay, yeah, dogs right, but you're gonna
have a.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Pattern if you will see tend to see a pattern though.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, okay. So so it's interesting. My wife's been studying
the aneagram much longer and in more in depth than
I have. I have. I have like peripherably scanned some
of the materials, including your book, Doug, but I pretty
instinctively knew almost seven like that to me resonated really
quickly when I read about that personality type of the
anagram and one of the lines let's let's maybe we'll
(36:58):
turn these so one of the lines in your book
in that section you say money anxious sevens treat budgets
as fun sucking vampires and will often work to have
enough money so they don't need to worry about a
detailed budget. And I was like, I feel seen right now,
Doug knows me.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
No, je a budget is a permission slip that gives you.
I know, it's a hall pass to allow.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
You to spend.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
You're right, like, I see the wisdom in that, but
I also see my own intuitive response, which is I
don't like the details. I like to fly by the
seat of my pants, and so what allows me to
do that is to have enough savings to where when
stuff flies at me in the face, like I don't
get nearly as anxious or fearful if I have done that,
(37:42):
or even just about an expense. So I'm just excited
about and I'm like, this is more than I assumed
I would spend, But I've got the money in savings
to back me up, so it's okay. So I guess
I don't know what would your suggestion be for someone
like me who tends to use savings as a way
to maybe avoid some of that money hygiene I should
be practicing.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
The first thing is just to be aware of it now,
you know, So what are you to do about it?
Like it's up to you to figure out, you know,
how you want to be able to you know, if
it's working for you, then it's working for you. Like
you know, you don't need to become a different person
or other than you are. But if that's how you
want to roll, if it's working, then great, I think
(38:26):
that's fantastic. If you want to If you think you
could do better, and you think that there's a more
robust way forward for you to have a healthier financial life,
then okay, well then maybe just try baby steps like
what's uh, what's one thing you could do that each
week that would that would sort of resolve that issue
for you. But again, you don't have to be someone
(38:49):
when you're not. You just need to be able to
work around the own your weaknesses and own your strengths
and and try to minimize the weaknesses and maximize the strengths.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Nice, Doug, we got more to get to. We're gonna
I've got another Enneagram question for you. We got more
to get to here with you.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Right after this, we're back still talking with Doug Lineham,
who former monk now manages money and really helps other people,
especially with this new book, figure out, Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Who are you?
Speaker 1 (39:25):
How do you handle money? What are the ways that
your personality is biased towards handling money so then you
can shine a light on it and make some changes
to improve your finances over time. I'm curious to Doug,
especially coming from the monk perspective. You talk about the
mindful practice of managing money, and you kind of seem
(39:47):
to link money habits to religious practice. Do you think
there's overlap there and is there something we can maybe
learn from some of the tenants of classic religious practice
that can help us with our finances.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
That's a big question. My brain just sort of short
circuited on that question, such a big one. Well, you know,
traditional we're just practices. What they're doing is they're giving
you a structure that allows you to live a healthier
and happier and more loving and compassionate life. And so
when you bring that in alignment with your financial life,
(40:21):
when you bring those two things in harmony, now you
have like, as we talked about at the beginning the show,
you have this this super money is like your superhero
utility belt. If you use it right, that allows you
to do an awful lot of good in the world.
And so it has to be wedded to a spiritual
practice or else it's going to be used in the
(40:43):
most it's just inevitably going to be used in an
abusive and harmful and selfish and self centered and greedy
and narcissistic and you know, jerky ways, you know. And
so without a spiritual practice, everything in your life is
probably going to be very, very challenging, but especially how
you're relating to money and how you're using it and
(41:06):
how you're earning it, and how are you living an
ethical life. It really can't live a deeply ethical life.
I don't think if you aren't bringing your spirituality into
how you earn, how you save, how you invest, and
how you give. So is there a particular like rule
that from a particular religion. I don't think I could
(41:26):
come up with that in my head on the spot,
but I do think it's essential that you have a
spiritual practice.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, I'm sure there are some people listening right now
and they're like, it's I mean, they think it's interesting,
they're curious about your story, but they're also like, either
I went to church and I was burned, or I
haven't been to church. I'm not interested. And they've also seen,
of course some hypocrisy or injustice done by the church.
Inst they're saying, well, religious practice, and I think I
(41:54):
can keep those separately and do pretty fine with my finances.
What would you say to someone like that, like, Hey,
do you actually need a spiritual life or are there
things that you can glean from spiritual practice without practicing
spirit anything spiritual yourself.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, I mean, I want to respect people who have
been burned by traditional religions and might suggesting that everyone
needs to go out and join the church or on
the street corner of the street. But I see, I
know lots of people who are very spiritual, people fall
into the spiritual but not religious category, people who have
a spiritual practice but maybe aren't doing it in a
(42:29):
traditional way. I think that's wonderful as well as long.
But I mean, obviously you can do just find in
your finances without without a spiritual practice.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
You don't have to have it.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
But I think if you want to be happy in life,
it's about being connected to community. It's about being connected
to your sense of the divine and God in whatever faith,
tradition that whatever that looks like for you. But essentially,
I think it's really about how do you have community
and how do you have how do you find love
and service in the world, Like what does that look
(43:04):
like for you? And I just would suggest that that's
something that we all want and long for it. I
think it would be fully happy and complete as human beings.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, Okay, going back to I guess the anagram for
a second, I'm I'm wondering if you think that there
are a type, like different types of anagrams that we
tend to see more in the world. Like you you
mentioned it almost as like a color wheel, and I
like you think about colors in the world and then
like if you zoom out enough, like the earth is
blue right, like like the blue marble right like out
(43:37):
out there floating out in space. Sure, is there a
type of vineagram number that you tend to see over
and over in your life? Maybe I don't know, that
might be helpful for folks to hear you maybe quickly summarize.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
I mean, there are some types that are lots common,
like type fives are maybe one of the least common types.
But other than that, it's it's kind of I don't
know the exact statistics on it, but it is a
pretty it's pretty evenly spread. There isn't one type that's
more common than other types. I think statistically, you know,
it's around seven to twelve percent of the population is
(44:11):
one type or the other.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
I think that's that's the rough Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So for someone who's listening and they're like, oh, I
took the Myers Briggs back in the day. Maybe that
shed a little bit of light on on on who I,
how I think about myself, and how I understand the
personality that I have. What would you tell them, like,
is there a good place to get started to figure
out what their aneagram number is, because especially if it's
so revelatory and it's going to help us understand how
(44:35):
we tick so that we can then understand why we're
using money in the way that we are. Where's a
good place to figure out, well, what the anagram number
we are and find out some more details. Obviously your
book would be a place to kind of do some
digging on that and anything else.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Yeah. So I have a licensing deal with a company
called it's called i e Q nine and they have
an excellent anagram test and I can send you all.
I have a promo code and link. It's a great test.
And the reason I partnered with them is because it's
got the it's the most scientifically rigorous and accurate enneagram
test out there. There's lots of free ones, and they're
(45:10):
just not great. The free ones are maybe fifty percent accurate, which.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Is not great. It's accurate as a coin flip.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
And this one is closer to like over nine ninety
five percent accurate and much more detailed, So it's worth
I think it's worth it to spend a few bucks
and do it right.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
The free one told me I'm gonna tipe thirteen and
wait twenty second. How that happen?
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
We appreciate you taking.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
The time to chat with us, and I will definitely
link to your site. I know you've got that test
linked as well, and we'll make sure to include any
sort of promo codes that might help listeners get a discount.
But can you share your ur L with folks who
may not navigate over to our show notes where they
can find all that?
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Sure? Just my name good Doug linum dot com. That's
l y n a M dot com, and you'll can
find perfect kinds of cool resources on my website.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Awesome, Doug, thanks for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Thanks man, Joel, appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
All right, So, Joel, do you think that you need
to join a Benedictine monastery in order to find a
sense of purpose?
Speaker 1 (46:11):
So do you feel like you've already got it? I'm
going to inform my wife this evening. Take a vow
of celibacy. I was going to say, she'll be devastated,
but she might not be. Who knows. If she's not devastated,
then I'll be really sad.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Dang it. I thought you'd be bummed out, babe.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
So you're gonna try to get me today? No, okay,
uh okay, let's talk about big takeaways. Yes, yes, mine
was when he said part of his goal is to
help people avoid the unnecessary suffering of not having enough money.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
That's the uh suffering prevention specialist. Yes, phrase that he
put out there, and that was so good. I love that.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
I mean I think of that, never really boiled it
down to that before, but I really do think of
that as one of the major goals that drives what
we do. And it makes me think of somebody who
doesn't know how what a balanced diet looks like and
how that informs a healthy body. Right, And so they
might assume that, oh, it's just about the amount of
calories I in takeover a given day, and then they
make Donald's.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
That used to actually be a plan weight watchers. It
doesn't matter, it's just the calories come from.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
But come on, yeah, we all knew that was a
whole lot of a whole load of bunk, right, And
clearly you're not getting some of the really important things
that your body needs, and so you're probably not going
to feel nearly as good. You might try to go
for a run and like peter out pretty quickly because
you're just not providing your body the nutrients and resources
it needs to thrive. And I think the same thing
is true with money. You might assume think some things,
but then you don't know what you don't know. And
(47:26):
so I want to see people avoid unnecessary suffering on
the money front, and so much of that is kind
of just getting that baseline education that and even beyond
that kind of a greater understanding of yourself, like Doug
talked about on this episode. But man, I love that framework.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
There's not enough introspection just to even understand yourself. So
I guess, kind of piggybacking off what you said, a
big part of preventing that suffering is it's an other.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Sort of focused approach to the world. And so my
big takeaway.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Is going to be how he was talking about, and
I'm putting within our framework, which is you can be frugal,
which he described as being prudent or you can be cheap,
which is a focus on avarice, and there's greed at
the heart of that, and what is that but a
lack of love towards whom, towards others, towards other people.
And so that just helps me to think through because
oftentimes we talk about something that's either frugal or cheap
(48:19):
here on the show, and I think when you are
thinking about yourself, it can be easy to maybe justify
something a purchase or an action, but when you start
thinking about others and how you treat the other people
and the the overall benefit that you're able to provide
those whether you're helping them when it comes to knowledge
and preventing them from suffering in a financial way, or
just the countless different actions that we can take in
(48:40):
our lives. I think that can help act as guardrails
in a sense, to guide some of our actions and
to ensure that we have this sense of unity and
harmony within our lives, which I feel like was just
like kind of a running theme throughout everything. He was saying,
like that's why he's talking about the enneagram because he
wants us to have harmony, like internal harmony with our
when it comes to our actions and how it is
(49:01):
that we handle our money and how that aligns even
with something as kind of high level as just our
our spiritual walks.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, I think too. Being cheap or being greedy is
often that sort of attitude of like I got to
secure my bag, I got to look out for number one,
which is potentially an American an American quality more so
than most places. Sure, but that is something certainly to
be pushed back against, I think, because that's that's not
a healthy habit and ultimately it's not going to lead
(49:29):
to Yeah, well, it might lead to more money in
the bank account. It also might not, like because you're
not playing the long game. But at the same time,
it certainly won't lead to we don't think greater levels
of happiness totally.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Our beer Joel that you and I enjoyed today was
called an elaborate metaphor this is a New England pale ale.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Oh, it's a pale.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
I didn't realize that it had very New England hazy.
I pa it sortes going on.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I didn't know that this is by Burlington Beer Company.
I didn't realize it was a pale either. I was
gonna say it tastes like a session IPA. To me,
it tastes very like light and it had this soft
mouth feel, and so yeah, I thought, if you put
it in that session IPA category, it's fantastic. Same with
a pale ale, I think, and I don't, to be honest,
what's the difference between session ip and a pale They're
pretty pretty much the earliest anonymous Yeah, yeah, but this
(50:15):
I thought this was not like a mind blowingly good beer,
but especially given kind of thing that I know, it's
a pale, it's really really tasty. It kind of like jumped,
like leapfrogged a little bit because it's like, oh, this
is a pretty good IPA, but actually, no, this is
not an IPA. This is a fantastic pal al in
my opinion, because it's got all the complexities and the
nuance and the flavor profile and the hops that you
expect with a hazy but just a lighter, easier to
(50:35):
drink version of that. So I'm like in the moment
changing my rating of this beer from from like a.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Three seven five to like a four and a quarter.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
If I were to rate this screen, if you're rating
it against other pale ales, it stands out. Yeah, absolutely,
all right, that's gonna do it. For this episode, we'll
link to some of the resources we mentioned up in
the show notes on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Until next time, best friends out and best Friends
Speaker 4 (51:04):
BEFO.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.