August 12, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of About That Wallet, host Anthony Weaver welcomes Doug Lynam, a former monk turned financial expert, to discuss the profound impact of money traumas and how to overcome them. Doug shares his unique journey from a 20-year monastic life to becoming a money manager, emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility for one's finances. He dives into the psychological aspects of money, exploring how childhood experiences shape our financial behaviors and beliefs.
Listeners will learn about the Enneagram personality types and how they relate to money management, including the common pitfalls and strengths of each type. Doug offers practical tips on fostering open conversations about finances with loved ones and instilling financial literacy in children. He also discusses the significance of prioritizing self-care in financial planning, especially for those in the Sandwich Generation.
💬 Question of the Day: What money traumas have you faced, and how have they influenced your financial decisions? Share your thoughts in the comments!
🔗 Connect with Doug Lynam:
Website: https://www.douglynam.com/
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✅ Share this episode with friends and family!
=|| 📚 Chapters ||=
00:00 - Introduction and Guest Background
2:01 - Becoming a Monk
5:31 - Financial Challenges in the Monastery
10:01 - Money Trauma and Childhood
15:01 - Enneagram and Money Monsters
25:01 - Four Pillars of Finance
30:01 - Communication and Financial Literacy
35:01 - Future Plans and Public Speaking
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⚠️ DISCLAIMER:
This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Always consult a licensed financial professional when needed.
#AboutThatWallet #MoneyTrauma #FinancialLiteracy #Enneagram #SelfCare
Episode 306
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode is sponsored byPodcast Cola.
What is it?
What are your money traumas?
Where are they coming from?
And how to.
How to.
How to really conquer them?
So that would be my quick tip,my quick take.
No, thank you for the quicktake, because that is definitely
one of the things that a lotof people don't do.
Welcome everybody back toanother exciting show, the about
(00:23):
that water podcast, where wehelp the famous generation build
strong financial habits sothat they can talk about money, spend
money, and enjoy their.
Their money.
I have somebody who has beendoing amazing things around the world,
in and out of the publicservice, and actually doing a lot
of cool things on a religious side.
So this is actually going tobe a cool episode.
(00:44):
But he's also author of Tamingyour money Monster and from Monk
to money Manager.
I'm gonna get that right.
But also, Doug, how you doing today?
Doing great, Anthony.
How are you feeling?
How's your heart?
My heart?
It was actually.
I feel good in my heart today.
Feeling good.
Good.
So one of the things that Ireally wanted to have you on is because
(01:08):
I never had a monk on a showbefore, and can you just kind of
talk about that process?
Yeah, well, I mean, so I'm nota monk currently, but I was a monk
for 20 years.
I was in a Benedictine orderin Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And not everybody can become a monk.
Obviously, you need to besingle, and you need to be, you know,
free from a lot of worldlyattachments if you want to.
(01:29):
You got to let some things goif that's the lifestyle you choose.
And then there's a.
There's sort of an applicationprocess, essentially, that takes
several years.
You tend to have differentstages of your monastic life.
There's a novitiate thing, iscalled postulancy, novitiate, and
then final vows or stages toit to become a fully professed monk.
And that usually takesanywhere from three to seven years,
(01:52):
depending on the community.
But I joined when I was 21,right out of 22, right out of college.
I first went to the MarineCorps enough.
And I went to OfficerCandidate School, and I graduated
top of my class there, andthen had a bit of a spiritual awakening
and realized that, you know,some unresolved anger issues and
(02:12):
high explosives were a bad combination.
And maybe I didn't want tomake killing people a living, killing
people for a living my career choice.
So I went looking forsomething else that would give me
the same kind of structure anddiscipline I loved about the Marines
and the community, this breedof corps, all the positive sides
without maybe so much of the killing.
So it's very hard to say.
And turned out to be a wisedecision because I.
(02:35):
The Iraq and Afghanistan warpopped up shortly after that.
So I would have inevitablybeen in those conflicts, which I'm
glad to have avoided.
And I'm sorry for everybodywho suffered through those.
But then.
Yeah, so 20 years as a monkand then about three years into my.
I kind of joined the monasteryfor a number of reasons, but, you
know, one was to annoy myparents because they were, you know,
(02:56):
kind of very materialisticand, you know, living kind of a.
Back in the 80s and 90s, sortof a yuppie lifestyle that I was
rebelling, rebelling against.
My.
My brothers and I all.
We all took a vow of povertyin different ways.
You know, I became a monk, my.
I have a twin brother whobecame a homesteader in upstate Vermont
and an older brother who ranoff to join a grunge band in Seattle.
So we all kind of pushed awayfrom the materialistic world in different
(03:19):
ways and partly rebellion andpartly looking for some real spiritual
roots, looking for somemeaning in our lives and then.
But I also wanted to avoid theworld of money materialism.
I really hated money and hatedthe whole system, and it was very
unhealthy in many ways.
But to my shock and ironictwist of fate, the monastery went
(03:40):
bankrupt about three yearsafter I got there.
And somebody had to figurethat mess out.
And it turned out we all hateddealing with money.
We all had big money issues.
And if everybody in yourhousehold or your family or your
community or whatever it is,your church, your school, your business,
if you all hate dealing withit, it's just not going to go well.
This is something that youcannot escape even in a monastery,
(04:02):
which I found out to my shockand surprise.
And so I started digging inand started reading all the books
I could in finance andeventually develop some skills.
And it's a much longer story.
I go into it my first book,From Monk to Money Manager.
The subtitle is A FormerMonk's Financial Guide to Becoming
a Little Bit Wealthy and whythat's okay.
And then my new book, as youmentioned, is Taming youg Money Monster,
(04:23):
which is a really deep divepsychological insight book.
But I eventually realized thatmonastic life and I weren't.
Were no longer suited for eachother and I was.
Wasn't growing spiritually.
So I took the skills I learnedin the monastery out to the world
and realized that money couldreally be a powerful tool for love
and service to a suffering world.
When you use it properly.
And that was really the gift Ithought I had to bring out into the
(04:46):
world.
And cloistered monastic lifewasn't really the place for that
anymore.
So I became an investment advisor.
I was a partner at a firmcalled Longview Asset Management
here in Santa Fe, where I comanaged about a quarter billion dollars
in assets.
And then I, I retired fromthat about a year ago to write this
new book, do podcast speakingand public speaking and coaching
and all the fun things I getto do now with my life.
(05:08):
So there's so many things outthere, and one of the things that
comes up a lot is our money traumas.
And what was it when you're atthe age of seven that kind of changed
your outlook about finances orreally started off your.
Your outlook and finances?
Yeah, I think my money traumastarted around that age, around 7
(05:29):
or 8, which is right when myparents divorced.
So.
And you know, I grew up, I wasprivileged to grow up in a fairly
affluent family, which in manyways is a blessing, but it comes
with its own set of challenges.
And so my parents, from, frommy limited childhood perspective.
Right, that was how Iperceived it.
You know, how actually was.
Was up for debate.
(05:50):
But it felt like my parentsused the kids as sort of financial
pawns in the game of financial chicken.
Like, you know, I'd ask my momfor something and she would say,
well, your dad has all themoney, Go ask him.
And I'd ask my dad for some,the same thing, and he'd say, well,
I give your mom all my money.
She's got all the alimony,alimony and child support.
Go ask her.
And you, eventually you stopasking for stuff unless it was really
(06:13):
essential, but it kind of this fight.
So.
And I also, you know, myparents had their own money trauma
because they, they actuallygrew up in poor immigrant families.
And so they had a lot ofmoney, what I would call money anxiety.
And then I developed inreaction to that, what I would call
real money avoidance.
And so I pushed away inreaction to their anxiety.
And so that began this, thismoney trauma that I've been really
(06:37):
trying to overcome.
And I go really deeply into my.
New book now that isinteresting because sometimes we
actually pick up the other,like one of the aspects of either
the mom or usually the parent.
And I did tweet about this.
I was like, I will say thatmost of the time the children will
either adapt the money mindsetof the mother.
(06:59):
So would you say that yourmother is more of like a spender
or the saver?
She was More of this?
Well, she was a certifiedfinancial planner.
And I would say she was more.
She was more of the saver, Iwould say, in the family, but still
enjoyed, you know, thematerial, the good things in life.
So there was definitely that.
And my dad was definitely moreof the spender.
He was, he was kind of the,his nickname, you know, my, my.
(07:23):
My dad's nickname behind hisback was the big noise.
Like.
Cause he always had to make abig presence whenever he entered
a room.
And, and he often used moneyas part of that.
Like why.
He was what I would call.
He was an enneagram type 3,which we.
We can talk about.
But his money monster was whatI called a Blinger.
The person who, who, who workshard, you know, to make a good living,
(07:43):
makes good money, but maybeisn't the best saver because all
their money is going to.
The bling, to the fancy car,the nice house, the vacations.
They want to impress peoplewith their status symbols, essentially.
And so he was definitely alittle more on the, on the.
Less of a saver on that side.
Yeah.
While we on the topic, can youtalk a little bit more about the
different levels of that andthen we can go back to like a family
(08:04):
dynamic?
Yeah.
I mean, are you referring tothe different types of the Enneagram?
Is that what you're referring to?
Well, I mean, the Enneagram isa very complicated system and we
can only just scratch thesurface here.
But essentially what theEnneagram is is it's a personality
typology system that we've nowbeen able to ground.
What I'm really excited about,it's an ancient system.
It goes back, you know, quitea ways.
But it really didn't getdeveloped into its modern form until
(08:27):
around 1950 by two gentlemennamed Claudio Naranjo and Oscar Chazo.
But the important part ofthere is that I think what I've been
able to do in my new book,taming your money monster is ground
it in childhood developmentalpsychology and the latest research
in neurobiology.
So it's not.
Some people think it's a little.
Can be a little woo woo.
But I've really tried toexplain the why it works and to give
(08:49):
you a little taste of it, itsort of look, works like this.
You've got your personalityhas lots of components to it, Right.
You've got your nature, whichis your DNA, and that's your gene
expression.
But then you've got thisnurture portion, which is how you
were raised.
And so the Enneagram helps usto Better understand the nurture
portion of our personality.
It explains the ego defenseswe created in childhood to protect
(09:11):
us from the things thatstressed us or scared us the most
consistently in that environment.
And so it also was how we.
And this is some big terms.
It's how we learned it, whatpsychologists call individuate and
differentiate from our parentsand our siblings and the rest of
reality.
So, but to do that, it works abit like this.
So imagine like when you wereborn, you had a physical umbilical.
(09:33):
Umbilical cord.
Cord that was cut.
But you immediately develop apsychological umbilical cord to your
caregivers, which is necessaryfor them to do most of the driving
for you in the early years oflife, because you.
You're completely helpless.
But there's that egoiccodependency that develops, and that
has to be severed.
And what we know now from theneurobiology is it can only be cut
by the sharpest negativeemotions, because positive emotions
(09:57):
would reinforce thatconnection to your caregivers.
And, and those negativeemotions usually come through the
nose we got in childhood,like, no, don't touch the hot stove,
don't kick the dog, don't biteyour sister.
But, but that, you know, howthose we receive them can.
There's only three.
And this is where this goes off.
The work of a.
Of a.
Of a neuroscientist by thename of Jaak Panksupp.
(10:19):
And what he discovered is thatin the mammalian brain, in all mammals,
your dog, your cat, you, andme, there's really three core negative
emotions.
And all the other morecomplicated negative emotions are
running off this circuitry insome way.
And those three negativeemotions are going to be anger, sadness,
or shame.
They're kind of interchangeable.
It's.
(10:39):
You can use either one.
And then the third one isgoing to be fear.
So anger, sadness, or fear.
Which of those did you kind ofget exposed more to through the stressors
in your childhood environment?
And that gives us sort of.
If you think of a circle, ifyou draw a circle and cut it into
three pie slices, that getsyou what we call the triads of the
Enneagram.
But then there's only threeways to process those three emotions.
(11:02):
So you can internalize thatpain, which is sort of like giving
yourself an emotional wedgie.
You can externalize that pain,which is like having a food fight
with the world, or you can do both.
And that's why there's ninepersonality archetypes in the Enneagram
system.
So three where you land.
So three 3D of emotions, threeways to process each one.
(11:24):
And, and then that gives youthese nine archetypes of personality
and Enneagram mean.
In Greek, enneagram means nineand gram means drawn.
So the enneagram is just thesenine personalities have drawn out
in a circle essentially.
That is so cool.
And, and I'll, I'll.
I'll just maybe I'll explainmy type.
I don't really have time to gothrough all nine of them, but I can
explain you a little bit howthe system works through one example.
(11:47):
So.
So in my childhoodenvironment, what I got exposed to
was more what we call sadnessor shame.
So it's a sort of like atechnical term for a separation anxiety
or it's like a grief aroundhow you perceive yourself.
And so I'm an enneagram type 3.
They're often called theachiever, the performer.
I give all the types, the ninetypes, car nicknames because I think
(12:09):
that's a fun shorthand.
So the nickname for the threeis the race car because we're always
racing towards the next goal.
We're always trying to achievestuff in the world, but we tend to
leave our authentic selves inthe dust to do it.
We're always going for thegoal, but we're were putting on masks
and performing and, and, andtrying to win validation and approval
from the people we're around.
And the reason is, is becauseour, our personality was formed around
(12:32):
a.
A sadness or, or shame that weboth internalize and externalize.
And so what that means is typethrees have an internalized shame
about how we perceive ourselves.
And then we have anexternalized shame about how we think
others perceive us.
You have this internalizedshame about how we perceive ourselves
and, and then we have thisexternalized shame about how we think
(12:53):
the world perceives us.
So it's sort of like astereophonic shame.
And that creates for my type.
And we all have it.
We all, we all have a greatestunconscious fear.
And the greatest unconsciousfear for a type three is that we're
fundamentally worthless, thatwe don't have any value or place
in the world.
Value in the eyes of others,value towards ourselves and value
(13:13):
in the eyes of others.
So what that does is we take.
We tend to go out into theworld trying to achieve things.
You know, get the A plus inclass, win the race, on the track,
athletics, whatever, whatever you're.
Doesn't really matter whatendeavor it is, or start the company,
write the book, you know, get,win applause.
So if I, for example, if I runa marathon and I Come in first place,
you are forced to applaud me.
(13:35):
It doesn't matter whether I'ma good person or a bad person, you're
society is going to applaudyou, right?
So it's trying to win thoseapproval and applause any way we
can get it to assuage thisdeep inner sense of worthlessness
that we have.
And then when it comes tomoney, this is where it gets a little
tricky.
So I've layered on top of theany enneagram what I call the attachment
theory of money, which forlisteners who are familiar with attachment
(13:58):
theory of relationships, it'sexactly the same thing with a little
twist.
And what it says is that wehave two unhealthy ways we can relate
to money.
One is to be anxiouslyattached to it.
Think of like your EbenezerScrooge or your Gordon Geckos from
the, from the movie Wall street.
Or, you know, it's just youcan't get enough of it.
You're very acquisitive, maybeto the, to the detriment of yourself
(14:18):
and the people around you.
And then there's what I callthe money avoidance style, which
is my type, where we tend tohate dealing with it.
We push it away.
It brings up all of ournegative emotions and we don't want
to do our bills or our taxesor, you know, rather not look at
this stuff.
And so that creates two moneymonsters for each type.
So there's nine archetypes,there's 18 money monsters here in
(14:40):
the book, but I'll just talkabout the two for the types of money
monsters for The Enneagram,type 3.
And they.
I call them the barrier andthe Blinger.
So the barrier is the avoidtype 3, which wants to just stick
their head in the sand like an ostrich.
They just don't want to lookat it.
It brings up because three, wetend to equate our net worth with
our self worth.
And so when our net worth islow, our self worth is low.
(15:01):
We don't.
It's just.
And then we just don't want to know.
Thank you very much.
Right.
And then, then there's theopposite side of that, which is the
Blinger, which was my dad.
Right.
So both my dad and I are type Threes.
He was the Blinger, I was the barrier.
You know, kind of interestinghow that played out.
And that's the one who.
All the status symbols to winthe approval of the people around
(15:22):
them by the fancy car, thenice house, all those things.
And then what the book istrying to do is help you get to the
healthiest expression of yourtype, which for type three, I call
it the builder, which isyou're using this wealth and money
that you've accumulated as atool for love and service to a suffering
world, to kind of fix thecrack in the world that you were
born to fix.
And the book really lays outwhat's that journey?
(15:43):
What is the step by step paththat we each need to take according
to our Enneagram type toachieve that level of financial mastery
in all aspects of ourfinancial life.
Now this is where we also haveto talk about if you'll, if you'll
pardon the sidebar here.
There's also what I call thefour pillars of finance.
And so you can be like anxiousin one area and avoid in another.
(16:03):
For example.
So the four pillars of financeare going to be earning.
That's your first step on your journey.
The second pillar is going tobe saving.
Pretty obvious.
The third pillar is going tobe investing.
And then the fourth pillar is giving.
So earning, saving, investingand giving are so the four pillars
of your financial life.
And most of us aren't purelyanxious or avoidant in all areas.
We might be an anxious earner,but an avoidant saver.
(16:25):
Or it might be an anxioussaver but an avoidant investor.
We might be a great investor,but we never give back to anybody.
It's just for me it's selfish.
So how are you using thiswealth as a tool to make the world
a better place?
And so again, going throughall the nine types in the book, it's
like what is your path toovercoming your money trauma?
Identifying your trauma,overcoming your trauma and then building
(16:47):
a robust financial life in allfour pillars.
Wow.
Because it's bringing up.
Because I was thinking aboutlike so many different books of the
one, especially with CharlesDuhigg, which is really understanding
your triggers, figuring outyour routines and then what is that
reward?
It's like everything comingback to threes.
Like I really love this thingbecause from a numerologist, I'm
(17:08):
not a numerologist, but I doenjoy understanding how things come
in threes a lot.
I think Tesla said that was athree, like seven and something else
five or something like thatwas like the common numbers of the
universe.
And I thought that wasactually pretty cool.
And here we are talking aboutit again, which is actually awesome.
But if you want to get, if youwant to get a numerology, there's
(17:29):
a whole thing on the Enneagramand it's really interesting when
you get it gets there's allthese patterns that pop out numerologically,
if you're curious about that.
But that's too much to cover here.
Yes, I'll definitely be.
I'm open to learning aboutdifferent books about it because,
you know, if we can look atthe patterns in life and how we actually
operate and really.
And then think once weunderstand the patterns, that helps
(17:51):
us understand the triggers,then we can start looking at our
routines to start figuring outthose triggers.
On why are we avoiding a saver?
Or why are we avoiding givingto other people?
And then sometimes some peoplejust are like, hey, I don't make
enough to finance all thesedifferent areas.
Right.
Which is fair.
(18:12):
And plus with the sandwichgeneration, which is my audience.
Yeah.
Their money is already tied upwith the kids and also dealing with
their parents.
So how do they find time for themselves?
That's a hard question.
Yeah.
And so it takes a lot ofdiscipline, is the simple answer.
And priority setting, like,I'm not saying it's easy, you know,
and I'm, I'm a little bit inthat sandwich generation myself.
(18:33):
On the edge of it.
But like a lot of it, thefirst rule of finance is pay yourself
first.
Right.
You got to take care of youbefore you're ready to take care
of other people.
And that can be really hard.
Make some very hard decisions,you know, with the people that you
love, you never want to leavethem hanging.
But you also can't, you know,decimate your own financial future,
you know, martyring yourselffor others.
(18:54):
So it's a really.
There's no simple solution tothat, that question, otherwise you
wouldn't have a podcastdedicated entirely to it.
You'd have one episode andyou'd be done.
Right.
It's so true.
Right.
So.
So a lot of it is going to bediscipline and priority setting,
to put it simply.
But if you want to get intomore specifics, we can.
I mean, let's go for itbecause I want people to.
(19:14):
I want the person that'slistening to this to actually have
something to walk away with,like a product sense of like, hey,
I can actually do this today.
Yeah, well, I mean, again,I've got, so I've got.
This is a shameless self plug.
But I would say go, go, gopick up my books that everything
you need is in there.
I've got two books out.
The first book is, Is, youknow, from Monk to Money Manager
is going to give you thepractical tools of how to manage
(19:37):
your money, like thebudgeting, the saving, like the taxes,
the insurance, like how doesall this stuff work?
I would say maybe the simplestthing you need to know is, and I
assume your audience isprobably fairly, at least proficient
in this, which is basicfinancial literacy.
Like, you need to be listeningto podcasts like this.
You need to be reading books.
(19:58):
You need to be.
Make sure you understand thelanguage of finance, because it's
a foreign language and youneed to teach it to your kids.
Like, that was the biggestfrustration for me was that, you
know, my mom was a cpa, my dadwas a CEO of a chemical company,
and.
And.
And talking about money was ataboo subject.
It was easier for my parentsto talk about sex than money.
(20:19):
And I think that's true formany people.
It's like what I would say,one takeaway is start having good
conversations with yourpartner and then with your kids and
with your parents about money.
Like, have open andtransparent communication.
If you can start there, other.
Other avenues will begin toopen up and things will become a
little less.
At least you can get people.
You need to get people on thesame page and understand where things
(20:40):
are really at.
And that means understandingwhere you're at with your finances.
You got to have your house in order.
And so that would be my first.
Become financially literateand talk about money with your.
With the people in your life.
I got two books.
The first book will tell youhow to do it, and my second book,
Taming youg Money Monster, isgoing to give you all the practical
psychological tips about whyyou struggle with money.
What is it?
(21:00):
What are your money traumas?
Where are they coming from?
And how to.
How to.
How to really conquer them.
So that would be my quick tip,my quick take.
Hey, no, thank you for thequick take, because that is definitely
one of the things that a lotof people don't do is.
Well, sometimes it's just acommunication piece.
I'm gonna backtrack that alittle bit because sometimes we are
so passionate about it as faras, like, hey, I just found something
(21:23):
that's really cool that canhelp us out in our family.
It just doesn't come off wellto the partners.
Like, well, I mean, our billsare paid.
Like, what else do you want usto do?
Yeah.
So how do you say would be thebest way to communicate?
Because, you know, with yourwife, how did that work out?
Yeah.
So.
So here's where the Enneagramcan be helpful again.
(21:44):
If you understand yourpartner's Enneagram type, you.
You understand what theirdeepest unconscious fear is and what's
what.
What's triggering them.
What are they really looking for.
From their money and from you.
And if you can address thatfear in the conversation, if you're
talking to the person in theway that they can hear you and you're
not triggering them, thenyou're going to.
Conversation is going to go alot more smoothly.
(22:04):
So each of the Enneagram typeshas different communication styles
in general and around money.
And when you understand that,it's like, oh, this is what's really
going on behind the conversation.
There's a.
There's a reason behind thereason behind the reason of what.
What's.
What's happening here.
And that will, I think, smooththings along a little bit.
And then knowing what yourtriggers are like, okay, this is.
And trying not to take thatbreath, to have that pause when those
(22:28):
triggers come up between, youknow, so you're taking right action
rather than reacting.
And so what happens in moneyconversations is.
And I saw this a lot in myfinancial practices is you see the
couples reacting to each otherout of like, you know, this purchase
brings up all therecriminations of 5,000 things you
did wrong in the past 10 years.
(22:50):
And suddenly we're talkingabout that vacation from Tahiti that
happened in 15 rather than the thing.
The budget on the table.
Right.
Or the, or the thing that really.
So it's really getting theconversation focused and letting
go of the recriminations inthe past and a lot of it required.
Well, I would say I would giveyou three things that would be helpful.
(23:15):
In general, not going into thespecifics of Enneagram types is first,
you need compassion.
You need compassion foryourself, and you need compassion
for the other person.
And then you need contemplation.
You need time to be thinkingdeeply about what's really going
on in your.
In the situation.
And then you need to cometogether in right action.
So there's contemplation,compassion, action.
How do you bring those threetools together to really move the
(23:36):
conversation forward into ahealthy space?
So what tools that youcurrently use to kind of manage your
finances?
Is it like paper and pen?
Excel?
Because I'm still aspreadsheet kind of guy.
I'm so.
I'm a Quicken guy.
You know, I've always used it.
It's not my favorite, but I,you know, the problem with software
is once you start using one,it's very hard to switch over.
So it's not that I have.
(23:57):
I'm not trying to plug thatone for.
But it does work for me and itseems to get.
Get the job done.
Well, they might not beSponsoring now, but we give a shout
out if y' all listening.
You know, if Quicken wants asponsor, I'm happy to sign an endorsement
deal.
Reach out, I'll do it.
I'll tell everybody howamazing you are.
But it is, you know, it's avery popular tool and it's got all,
(24:18):
everything in it that you need.
I could, I could give, givesome pointers on how to improve some
of their windows, but that's okay.
They're getting there.
Yeah, I mean, they workingbecause one of the things that a
lot of us is that we find weknow how to make the money, we can
spend the money.
But what is it in your lifethat you have felt was the biggest
(24:39):
impact to you?
That's a deep question.
It was probably, well, thebiggest impact was the monastery
going bankrupt.
Like, that just was a pivotalmoment where I, I realized no one's
going to care about yourfinances or the money situation in
your life more than you.
And what it requires isradical responsibility.
(24:59):
Even if it's not your fault.
Like it doesn't, it's notabout blame.
It's like you, you might,might be response.
You may have not created thesituation that you're in, but you
are responsible for it.
If you want to fix it, no oneelse is going to do it.
So it's that radical.
So I don't say self relianceisn't, is maybe too harsh because
you need others in your community.
You need to build that trustand support with people around you
(25:20):
as well.
It's not just a solo job, butin some ways it kind of is.
You know, no one's going to doyour budgeting for you, no one's
going to pay your bills foryou, no one's going to make the money
for you, no one's going to dothe saving.
All those things, it's all on you.
And so once you take thatmindset, then it's like, all right,
let's do it.
Like, let's get into it.
And I see a lot of people wantto outsource this to their spouse.
(25:44):
They want to outsource it to.
And some things, if there'ssome tasks you're not really good
at and you have the resources,it's fine.
If you want to hire aninvestment advisor, you want to hire
a cpa, you want to hire a bookkeeper.
If you just suck at it, youjust can't do your bookkeeping and
it's in your budget, we'lloutsource it just like you would
do me Outsource Cleaning yourhouse, you can do it, but you don't
like it.
So I'll pay someone to takethat off my plate.
(26:06):
That, that can be a way around it.
At the end of the day, youcan, and this is something I learned
in the Marines, which I wasvery grateful for, is even when you
outsource work, you can outsource.
What was it?
You can, you can delegateauthority, right?
You can delegate the authorityto a bookkeeper, but you can't delegate
the responsibility.
So true, right?
You still got it.
(26:26):
You still got to be able tocheck their work.
You still gotta be financiallyliterate to know that they did a
good job.
And you gotta be on top of that.
So even when you, when you'reoutsourcing menial tasks you don't
like to do, someone does your taxes.
You should know enough abouttaxes to look at it and go, you screwed
this up, man.
You're not very good.
I'm firing you.
Or, great, you know, thank youvery much.
I'm going to refer you to my friends.
So.
(26:46):
So there's still aresponsibility you have even in those
situations.
Because I'm bringing up twoexamples who when come back to doing
your taxes, I believe TylerPerry had lost almost, what, $10
million because of the taxperson did not file correctly.
And then I think it was.
Forgot his name, but Fat Joe,he's a rap artist, had went to jail
(27:10):
because his tax person wasactually taking the money and not
paying the taxes, even thoughhe was paying the tax person to pay
the money.
So, yeah, and it's your responsibility.
They sign a thing.
And he couldn't fight it incourt either because you said, hey,
I let this person do it on my behalf.
So it's ridiculous.
Like, but still, you got to goback and double check the work and
(27:31):
really make sure it's on whatit's supposed to do.
So being selfish, which is, Ithink it's fair to say, to be selfish
in your financial earnings andyour financial life.
But what is that?
How do you actually spreadthat out to your families?
When you, you know, when youhad your children, did you instill
them in them?
Like, hey, when you get yourfirst allowance, you going to put
(27:52):
your money inside thisparticular jar or this envelope or
this bank account like that,or how did you do it?
Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn'tbe the best person to ask.
I don't have children,children of my own.
I was married for a while andhad a step, a stepson who, who I
adore.
But so, so that wasn't reallyas a step parent I had some limited
(28:12):
ability to influence that situation.
But I was a high school andteacher for 20 years.
I taught economics andpersonal finance to kids.
And believe I think the numberone thing with your kids is, is make
sure they're as financiallyliterate as they are.
Just like want them to be ableto read books like they should be
able to understand.
It's giving them some basic skills.
(28:32):
So allowances are a great wayto start.
You start there.
This would be my tip is likeinstill in the allowance the same
kind of structure you wantthem to have as an adult.
So okay, you've, you've got$10 allowance, 15% goes to savings
right off the top.
We're going to put that into asavings account for you or an investment
account for you, whatever that is.
(28:53):
I think for kids.
Yeah.
And I would say and then helpthem build up an emergency savings.
Teach them what that looks like.
Even for them it might be small.
Okay.
When you get to 50 bucks or100 bucks, now you've got an emergency
depending on their age.
Right.
And you can go up to college,get whatever is age appropriate,
make sure they have anemergency savings first and then,
(29:14):
and then beyond that, makesure they're investing the rest of
it somewhere like that.
The 15% first goes to save tothe merchant.
Now you've got the extra bit.
Now we're, we're buying you anindex fund, right.
And we're putting that intosome long term.
Teach them how an index fund works.
Okay.
And then the, the both ofthose are buckets.
You don't touch and let themsee how compound growth works and
say if you can show a kid fromthe age of 5 to 15 the power of compound
(29:37):
interest and then suddenly nowthey can, hopefully they don't do
it to do something crazy likebuy a car.
But they might have money forcollege, they might have money for,
you know, or they might havemoney for their, if they could keep
that going, they're all setfor retirement by the time they're,
they're 35 or 40.
So that would be my tip.
Okay.
And now because we go to theparents side of the house.
But you know, one of thethings that I was thinking back in
(30:00):
our conversation was yes, themonastery had went.
I'm sorry, is it a monastery or.
Yeah, okay, so if themonastery went bankrupt, what did
you do to kind of get them outof that?
Was it like, did you like,hey, hey everybody, we want to make
some things, we're going tosell it right quick or we don't have
a parade or.
What was it?
Well, that's the beauty ofbankruptcy is it wipes out the debts,
(30:20):
most of them.
So, so that was, that wasprobably why we had to go through.
It was we, we had more debtthan we could service with our income.
So the beauty of bankruptcy isit does give you a fresh start.
And so wiping the slate cleanwas a godsend.
It was very stressful to gothrough, and it was very painful.
But thank God we havebankruptcy laws on our books so people
(30:44):
aren't stuck in indenturedservitude for the rest of their lives.
So getting that fresh startand then rebuilding credit, rebuilding
all the savings, emergencyfunds, and then making sure now that
we've got that blank slate,we're doing it right from the ground
up.
And what systems did you putin place to make sure that they were
able to, to not go into thatsame system again?
(31:04):
Well, I took charge of all the finances.
That's kind of what happened.
This is, this is my, this ismy domain.
I, I, I've, I'm takingresponsibility for it.
You guys want to look over myshoulder anytime, feel free.
And they never did.
They didn't care.
You know, I'm like, here,here's, it's open.
The books are open.
But, you know, we're not,we're not going down that road again.
Okay, so did you make sure?
(31:25):
Like, because I'm not sure.
Can they invest?
Do you put, like, investmentsfor them or just mostly just strictly
savings and give?
There are some investments.
I mean, there's stillretirement just, you know, we were
a teaching order, so we wereall working in private school.
So there's, there's small,there's some small retirement funds
that needed to be managed.
So, yeah, there was someinvesting going on there as well.
The only reason why I asked,because I'm not familiar with how
(31:47):
that system works.
I just knew that they do like,a lot of, I just hear about a lot
of giving to the community,and you don't hear about too much,
too many ways on how they make money.
So, yeah, so, so they'reteaching us how we support ourselves.
But, and, and, and this wasanother money monster that came up
in the community was thegiving side.
It was this, this guilt aroundif someone came to us in need that
(32:08):
we felt compelled to help evenif we didn't have the resources to
do so.
So some of the, some, some,not all the debt was just like over
an overextension of generosity.
It's like if you're Givingmore than coming in.
Eventually, you know, thingsare going to fall apart.
So there has to be.
There has to be somediscernment about what's possible.
So.
But if somebody's a goodgiver, how do you help them?
(32:29):
Like, what is something thatthey can question themselves and
say, like, you know what, youneed to stop this.
You need to focus on self.
Well, a lot that goes backagain back to your Enneagram types.
The.
There's one, and this was truefor one of the key figures in the
monastery.
And I'm not trying to pointblame or anything, but like one of
the archetypes is what'scalled the giver or the helper, excuse
(32:51):
me, sometimes called the giver.
And one of the things withthis is called the type 2 on the
enneagram.
They're adjacent to my typetype 3.
And they're also in the.
In this shame triad, which is.
So the type 2, the helper hasthis externalized shame about how
they think the world perceives them.
And so they.
That creates their greatestfear that they're unlovable.
(33:13):
So they're always trying tohelp others to win love and approval.
And so what the type 2 needsto learn how to do.
But the problem is they give,but they give with strings attached.
It's like, I'm going to giveyou help.
I'm going to.
I'm going to.
Well, you know that there'sthat parable of the story.
It's always better to teach aperson to fish than to give them
a fish every day.
Well, the Type 2 is the kindof person who would rather give someone
(33:34):
a fish every day with a sideof tartar sauce and a note that says,
you're amazing.
Right?
Because they want the constantflow of gratitude.
They're not doing it purely altruistically.
There's a.
There's an unconscious pay toplay scheme that's going on there.
And that.
That was, that came in.
Came in.
That was a factor, not theonly factor.
There were many others that,that caused our community to go a
(33:56):
little bit in the hole is thesense of I'm giving because I want
the approval, I want the calculations.
I want you to see how, howgenerous I am.
And that's a spiritual trapbecause it's not real generosity.
It's conditional.
It's like, I'll give, butthey're feeding off that dopamine
hit of other people's approval.
They're not really giving.
They are helpful.
But.
So that's, that's onearchetype that you know people can
(34:19):
fall into.
And then how you overcome that.
Well, that's a whole.
In the book, I lay out a wholemap about for each of the types of
what's your ego structure,explains what your shadow structure
is, what your enlightenmentstructure is.
How do you overcome it?
It's.
It's not a simple.
It's not a simple answer.
It's, it's, it's, it's not ahard answer, but it's just more than
we have time for in a podcast,let's put it that way.
(34:40):
Okay.
But it's not easy to implement.
Yeah, I accept because mymom's actually one of those people
likes to help.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm like, just say no.
Or like, you don't have tophysically be in their space for
certain times.
Like, just mail them the bookor mail them the gift.
They'll be fine.
Like, they don't have to giveeverybody a gift.
It's okay.
And, and maybe the simpleanswer for your mom and for all type
(35:01):
twos is you gotta find that inlove internally through your spiritual
practice, whatever that is,you need to connect deeply with that
source, God, divine.
Whatever your, whatever yourunderstanding of God and the divine
is, you need to feel that loveinside yourself first towards yourself,
and then you don't need itfrom the outside world as much.
(35:21):
And then you're more groundedand you're giving from a place of
authenticity and freedomrather than from compulsion.
I like that.
So as we go into the thirdsegment here, which is the futures,
because you already, you'vebeen through the Marines, you did
the tough stuff.
You've been through some toughstuff from early childhood, and you
even been through some toughstuff going through the monastery
(35:43):
and now challenging yourselfto actually be a speaker, to be out
there in the real world.
What is next for you?
Well, hopefully, you know, I'mjust getting.
I'm launching myself on thepublic speaking stage and having
a lot of fun with that.
So I, in a year from now, Iwould like to be doing a lot more
public speaking, selling a lotmore books.
I would also like to work onmy next book.
I've got two more in the backof my brain that I want to work on.
(36:06):
So there's more books in the future.
There's a lot more publicspeaking in the future and then coaching
clients.
I love working individually,one on one with people and really
helping them through their struggles.
It's.
It's one of my greatest joys.
And this is awesome.
I would love to catch up withyou in a year, just to kind of see
where you're at and maybe Imight see you on stage with me.
Yeah.
Anyway, listening.
If you want to come talk toyour church, you want to come talk
(36:28):
to your, your business, yourcommunity, whatever you got a corporation
needs.
You got money monsters hangingaround, Come, come check me out.
You can find me on mywebsite@dougline.com shameless plug.
And also my books are there, too.
Awesome.
Is there anything you want tosay to the audience before we get
to the final four questions?
I think, you know, any way youcan support my work, I'd appreciate
it.
Awesome.
(36:48):
All right, you ready for thefinal four?
All right, so the final fourquestions are four questions that
I asked every guest for thepast three years, four years now,
because they've been changing around.
But I try to make sure theseare about the same questions.
And so let's go.
Number one, what does wealthmean to you?
It means having the options tolive a life that makes your soul
(37:12):
sing.
Number two, what was yourworst money mistake?
Outsourcing my responsibilityto other people.
Can you say one of them?
I'm sorry, like, if you canexplain that a little bit more.
Well, like I mentionedearlier, you know, no one's going
to care about your money morethan you.
And so it was that sense ofabdicating my responsibility for
my finances to other people,trusting that, you know, trusting
(37:33):
that they knew it more than Idid, they were more competent, they.
But they weren't going to careas much as I did.
And so things fell apart.
Like in the monastery.
I was completely oblivious towhat was going on financially in
the community.
I just took a hands offapproach and figured these people
who are older and wiser inmany, many ways are just going to
be.
Just because someone'scompetent in one area of life doesn't
mean they're competent in another.
(37:54):
And so people who I trustedbecause they were so wise in so many
and so knowledgeable and soexperienced and so amazing in so
many aspects of life, doesn'tmean they're competent at managing
money.
And I, and I sort ofoutsourced my responsibility even
for the community's finances,and that didn't work.
And so I learned that lessonthe hard way.
So powerful.
(38:15):
Number three, is there a bookthat inspired your journey or changed
your perspective?
Yeah, I think that there's abook I really love by Charles Whelan.
It's called Naked Economics.
And it's a good primer for.
It's not really about.
If you really want tounderstand how economics works.
Like if you're if you'reinterested in the big picture.
And also it's a very entertaining.
(38:36):
It's funny, it's well written,it's an easy read.
It will break things down,these very complicated economic concepts
in a really simple way.
To give you an understandingof how finance investing in the.
The whole system really works.
I'm going to have to checkthat one out.
Like, I've never heard of that one.
That's a good one.
Number four, what is yourfavorite dish to make?
Spadini.
Now, it's an Italian dish andit comes in a lot of different varieties.
(38:59):
But the way I was taught tomake it is you get a really nice
piece of steak.
I like to use like a.
A New York strip steak worksreally well, but you gotta get it
from your butcher and you haveto have them slice it.
Sort of like if you put the.
Put it outside and slice itvertically in slices.
So you get these really thin,long strips of meat, and then you
pound it with a mallet totenderize it.
And in one end, you stick abig hunk of whole milk mozzarella,
(39:21):
grate a bunch of pecorinoRomano cheese on it, throw some salt
and pepper on it.
Then you roll it into.
Into like a little like a roll.
Stick a toothpick in it ortwo, whatever you need.
And then you fry those inbutter until they caramelize.
And it's just absolutelydivine that with a big loaf of a
good baguette and a bottle ofred wine and a good salad.
Oh, you're all set, man.
(39:42):
Okay.
I'm starving.
Like, making me hungry.
Oh, man.
So this was awesome.
This is the very last questionof the whole show.
You mentioned it before, butwe got to say it again.
Where could people find outmore about you, Doug?
Yeah, my website isdouglineham.com that's D O U G L
Y N as in Nicholas, A m as inMichael.com and you can find all
(40:05):
kinds of great resources there.
I've got.
I've got my YouTube stuff,I've got all the podcast appearances.
I've got articles, resources,books, coaching tips.
Awesome.
And thank you so much for yourtime that this has been amazing.
I've learned a lot.
Definitely.
I'm going to do some moreresearch about the Enneagrams and
so that I can actually knowwhat my, like, at least know what
(40:26):
my fear is about finances.
Like, I think I know what itis, but this is actually going to
take me to the next level.
So thank you so much.
If you want to stick aroundfor a few minutes.
I can help you type yourself.
Yeah, let's do it.
All right, so for you who arelistening, please make sure that
y' all go back, rewind it,take notes, leave a review, and I
(40:47):
just want to continue on andmake sure that you all are successful.
Thank you all.
Take care.
Thanks, Anthony.
Appreciate a lot.
This episode is sponsored byPodcast Cola.
What is it?
What are your money traumas?
Where are they coming from?
And how to.
How to.
How to really conquer them?
So that would be my quick tip,my quick take.
No, thank you for the quicktake, because that is definitely
one of the things that a lotof people don't do.
Welcome everybody back toanother exciting show, the about
(00:23):
that water podcast, where wehelp the famous generation build
strong financial habits sothat they can talk about money, spend
money, and enjoy their.
Their money.
I have somebody who has beendoing amazing things around the world,
in and out of the publicservice, and actually doing a lot
of cool things on a religious side.
So this is actually going tobe a cool episode.
(00:44):
But he's also author of Tamingyour money Monster and from Monk
to money Manager.
I'm gonna get that right.
But also, Doug, how you doing today?
Doing great, Anthony.
How are you feeling?
How's your heart?
My heart?
It was actually.
I feel good in my heart today.
Feeling good.
Good.
So one of the things that Ireally wanted to have you on is because
(01:08):
I never had a monk on a showbefore, and can you just kind of
talk about that process?
Yeah, well, I mean, so I'm nota monk currently, but I was a monk
for 20 years.
I was in a Benedictine orderin Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And not everybody can become a monk.
Obviously, you need to besingle, and you need to be, you know,
free from a lot of worldlyattachments if you want to.
(01:29):
You got to let some things goif that's the lifestyle you choose.
And then there's a.
There's sort of an applicationprocess, essentially, that takes
several years.
You tend to have differentstages of your monastic life.
There's a novitiate thing, iscalled postulancy, novitiate, and
then final vows or stages toit to become a fully professed monk.
And that usually takesanywhere from three to seven years,
(01:52):
depending on the community.
But I joined when I was 21,right out of 22, right out of college.
I first went to the MarineCorps enough.
And I went to OfficerCandidate School, and I graduated
top of my class there, andthen had a bit of a spiritual awakening
and realized that, you know,some unresolved anger issues and
(02:12):
high explosives were a bad combination.
And maybe I didn't want tomake killing people a living, killing
people for a living my career choice.
So I went looking forsomething else that would give me
the same kind of structure anddiscipline I loved about the Marines
and the community, this breedof corps, all the positive sides
without maybe so much of the killing.
So it's very hard to say.
And turned out to be a wisedecision because I.
(02:35):
The Iraq and Afghanistan warpopped up shortly after that.
So I would have inevitablybeen in those conflicts, which I'm
glad to have avoided.
And I'm sorry for everybodywho suffered through those.
But then.
Yeah, so 20 years as a monkand then about three years into my.
I kind of joined the monasteryfor a number of reasons, but, you
know, one was to annoy myparents because they were, you know,
(02:56):
kind of very materialisticand, you know, living kind of a.
Back in the 80s and 90s, sortof a yuppie lifestyle that I was
rebelling, rebelling against.
My.
My brothers and I all.
We all took a vow of povertyin different ways.
You know, I became a monk, my.
I have a twin brother whobecame a homesteader in upstate Vermont
and an older brother who ranoff to join a grunge band in Seattle.
So we all kind of pushed awayfrom the materialistic world in different
(03:19):
ways and partly rebellion andpartly looking for some real spiritual
roots, looking for somemeaning in our lives and then.
But I also wanted to avoid theworld of money materialism.
I really hated money and hatedthe whole system, and it was very
unhealthy in many ways.
But to my shock and ironictwist of fate, the monastery went
(03:40):
bankrupt about three yearsafter I got there.
And somebody had to figurethat mess out.
And it turned out we all hateddealing with money.
We all had big money issues.
And if everybody in yourhousehold or your family or your
community or whatever it is,your church, your school, your business,
if you all hate dealing withit, it's just not going to go well.
This is something that youcannot escape even in a monastery,
(04:02):
which I found out to my shockand surprise.
And so I started digging inand started reading all the books
I could in finance andeventually develop some skills.
And it's a much longer story.
I go into it my first book,From Monk to Money Manager.
The subtitle is A FormerMonk's Financial Guide to Becoming
a Little Bit Wealthy and whythat's okay.
And then my new book, as youmentioned, is Taming youg Money Monster,
(04:23):
which is a really deep divepsychological insight book.
But I eventually realized thatmonastic life and I weren't.
Were no longer suited for eachother and I was.
Wasn't growing spiritually.
So I took the skills I learnedin the monastery out to the world
and realized that money couldreally be a powerful tool for love
and service to a suffering world.
When you use it properly.
And that was really the gift Ithought I had to bring out into the
(04:46):
world.
And cloistered monastic lifewasn't really the place for that
anymore.
So I became an investment advisor.
I was a partner at a firmcalled Longview Asset Management
here in Santa Fe, where I comanaged about a quarter billion dollars
in assets.
And then I, I retired fromthat about a year ago to write this
new book, do podcast speakingand public speaking and coaching
and all the fun things I getto do now with my life.
(05:08):
So there's so many things outthere, and one of the things that
comes up a lot is our money traumas.
And what was it when you're atthe age of seven that kind of changed
your outlook about finances orreally started off your.
Your outlook and finances?
Yeah, I think my money traumastarted around that age, around 7
(05:29):
or 8, which is right when myparents divorced.
So.
And you know, I grew up, I wasprivileged to grow up in a fairly
affluent family, which in manyways is a blessing, but it comes
with its own set of challenges.
And so my parents, from, frommy limited childhood perspective.
Right, that was how Iperceived it.
You know, how actually was.
Was up for debate.
(05:50):
But it felt like my parentsused the kids as sort of financial
pawns in the game of financial chicken.
Like, you know, I'd ask my momfor something and she would say,
well, your dad has all themoney, Go ask him.
And I'd ask my dad for some,the same thing, and he'd say, well,
I give your mom all my money.
She's got all the alimony,alimony and child support.
Go ask her.
And you, eventually you stopasking for stuff unless it was really
(06:13):
essential, but it kind of this fight.
So.
And I also, you know, myparents had their own money trauma
because they, they actuallygrew up in poor immigrant families.
And so they had a lot ofmoney, what I would call money anxiety.
And then I developed inreaction to that, what I would call
real money avoidance.
And so I pushed away inreaction to their anxiety.
And so that began this, thismoney trauma that I've been really
(06:37):
trying to overcome.
And I go really deeply into my.
New book now that isinteresting because sometimes we
actually pick up the other,like one of the aspects of either
the mom or usually the parent.
And I did tweet about this.
I was like, I will say thatmost of the time the children will
either adapt the money mindsetof the mother.
(06:59):
So would you say that yourmother is more of like a spender
or the saver?
She was More of this?
Well, she was a certifiedfinancial planner.
And I would say she was more.
She was more of the saver, Iwould say, in the family, but still
enjoyed, you know, thematerial, the good things in life.
So there was definitely that.
And my dad was definitely moreof the spender.
He was, he was kind of the,his nickname, you know, my, my.
(07:23):
My dad's nickname behind hisback was the big noise.
Like.
Cause he always had to make abig presence whenever he entered
a room.
And, and he often used moneyas part of that.
Like why.
He was what I would call.
He was an enneagram type 3,which we.
We can talk about.
But his money monster was whatI called a Blinger.
The person who, who, who workshard, you know, to make a good living,
(07:43):
makes good money, but maybeisn't the best saver because all
their money is going to.
The bling, to the fancy car,the nice house, the vacations.
They want to impress peoplewith their status symbols, essentially.
And so he was definitely alittle more on the, on the.
Less of a saver on that side.
Yeah.
While we on the topic, can youtalk a little bit more about the
different levels of that andthen we can go back to like a family
(08:04):
dynamic?
Yeah.
I mean, are you referring tothe different types of the Enneagram?
Is that what you're referring to?
Well, I mean, the Enneagram isa very complicated system and we
can only just scratch thesurface here.
But essentially what theEnneagram is is it's a personality
typology system that we've nowbeen able to ground.
What I'm really excited about,it's an ancient system.
It goes back, you know, quitea ways.
But it really didn't getdeveloped into its modern form until
(08:27):
around 1950 by two gentlemennamed Claudio Naranjo and Oscar Chazo.
But the important part ofthere is that I think what I've been
able to do in my new book,taming your money monster is ground
it in childhood developmentalpsychology and the latest research
in neurobiology.
So it's not.
Some people think it's a little.
Can be a little woo woo.
But I've really tried toexplain the why it works and to give
(08:49):
you a little taste of it, itsort of look, works like this.
You've got your personalityhas lots of components to it, Right.
You've got your nature, whichis your DNA, and that's your gene
expression.
But then you've got thisnurture portion, which is how you
were raised.
And so the Enneagram helps usto Better understand the nurture
portion of our personality.
It explains the ego defenseswe created in childhood to protect
(09:11):
us from the things thatstressed us or scared us the most
consistently in that environment.
And so it also was how we.
And this is some big terms.
It's how we learned it, whatpsychologists call individuate and
differentiate from our parentsand our siblings and the rest of
reality.
So, but to do that, it works abit like this.
So imagine like when you wereborn, you had a physical umbilical.
(09:33):
Umbilical cord.
Cord that was cut.
But you immediately develop apsychological umbilical cord to your
caregivers, which is necessaryfor them to do most of the driving
for you in the early years oflife, because you.
You're completely helpless.
But there's that egoiccodependency that develops, and that
has to be severed.
And what we know now from theneurobiology is it can only be cut
by the sharpest negativeemotions, because positive emotions
(09:57):
would reinforce thatconnection to your caregivers.
And, and those negativeemotions usually come through the
nose we got in childhood,like, no, don't touch the hot stove,
don't kick the dog, don't biteyour sister.
But, but that, you know, howthose we receive them can.
There's only three.
And this is where this goes off.
The work of a.
Of a.
Of a neuroscientist by thename of Jaak Panksupp.
(10:19):
And what he discovered is thatin the mammalian brain, in all mammals,
your dog, your cat, you, andme, there's really three core negative
emotions.
And all the other morecomplicated negative emotions are
running off this circuitry insome way.
And those three negativeemotions are going to be anger, sadness,
or shame.
They're kind of interchangeable.
It's.
(10:39):
You can use either one.
And then the third one isgoing to be fear.
So anger, sadness, or fear.
Which of those did you kind ofget exposed more to through the stressors
in your childhood environment?
And that gives us sort of.
If you think of a circle, ifyou draw a circle and cut it into
three pie slices, that getsyou what we call the triads of the
Enneagram.
But then there's only threeways to process those three emotions.
(11:02):
So you can internalize thatpain, which is sort of like giving
yourself an emotional wedgie.
You can externalize that pain,which is like having a food fight
with the world, or you can do both.
And that's why there's ninepersonality archetypes in the Enneagram
system.
So three where you land.
So three 3D of emotions, threeways to process each one.
(11:24):
And, and then that gives youthese nine archetypes of personality
and Enneagram mean.
In Greek, enneagram means nineand gram means drawn.
So the enneagram is just thesenine personalities have drawn out
in a circle essentially.
That is so cool.
And, and I'll, I'll.
I'll just maybe I'll explainmy type.
I don't really have time to gothrough all nine of them, but I can
explain you a little bit howthe system works through one example.
(11:47):
So.
So in my childhoodenvironment, what I got exposed to
was more what we call sadnessor shame.
So it's a sort of like atechnical term for a separation anxiety
or it's like a grief aroundhow you perceive yourself.
And so I'm an enneagram type 3.
They're often called theachiever, the performer.
I give all the types, the ninetypes, car nicknames because I think
(12:09):
that's a fun shorthand.
So the nickname for the threeis the race car because we're always
racing towards the next goal.
We're always trying to achievestuff in the world, but we tend to
leave our authentic selves inthe dust to do it.
We're always going for thegoal, but we're were putting on masks
and performing and, and, andtrying to win validation and approval
from the people we're around.
And the reason is, is becauseour, our personality was formed around
(12:32):
a.
A sadness or, or shame that weboth internalize and externalize.
And so what that means is typethrees have an internalized shame
about how we perceive ourselves.
And then we have anexternalized shame about how we think
others perceive us.
You have this internalizedshame about how we perceive ourselves
and, and then we have thisexternalized shame about how we think
(12:53):
the world perceives us.
So it's sort of like astereophonic shame.
And that creates for my type.
And we all have it.
We all, we all have a greatestunconscious fear.
And the greatest unconsciousfear for a type three is that we're
fundamentally worthless, thatwe don't have any value or place
in the world.
Value in the eyes of others,value towards ourselves and value
(13:13):
in the eyes of others.
So what that does is we take.
We tend to go out into theworld trying to achieve things.
You know, get the A plus inclass, win the race, on the track,
athletics, whatever, whatever you're.
Doesn't really matter whatendeavor it is, or start the company,
write the book, you know, get,win applause.
So if I, for example, if I runa marathon and I Come in first place,
you are forced to applaud me.
(13:35):
It doesn't matter whether I'ma good person or a bad person, you're
society is going to applaudyou, right?
So it's trying to win thoseapproval and applause any way we
can get it to assuage thisdeep inner sense of worthlessness
that we have.
And then when it comes tomoney, this is where it gets a little
tricky.
So I've layered on top of theany enneagram what I call the attachment
theory of money, which forlisteners who are familiar with attachment
(13:58):
theory of relationships, it'sexactly the same thing with a little
twist.
And what it says is that wehave two unhealthy ways we can relate
to money.
One is to be anxiouslyattached to it.
Think of like your EbenezerScrooge or your Gordon Geckos from
the, from the movie Wall street.
Or, you know, it's just youcan't get enough of it.
You're very acquisitive, maybeto the, to the detriment of yourself
(14:18):
and the people around you.
And then there's what I callthe money avoidance style, which
is my type, where we tend tohate dealing with it.
We push it away.
It brings up all of ournegative emotions and we don't want
to do our bills or our taxesor, you know, rather not look at
this stuff.
And so that creates two moneymonsters for each type.
So there's nine archetypes,there's 18 money monsters here in
(14:40):
the book, but I'll just talkabout the two for the types of money
monsters for The Enneagram,type 3.
And they.
I call them the barrier andthe Blinger.
So the barrier is the avoidtype 3, which wants to just stick
their head in the sand like an ostrich.
They just don't want to lookat it.
It brings up because three, wetend to equate our net worth with
our self worth.
And so when our net worth islow, our self worth is low.
(15:01):
We don't.
It's just.
And then we just don't want to know.
Thank you very much.
Right.
And then, then there's theopposite side of that, which is the
Blinger, which was my dad.
Right.
So both my dad and I are type Threes.
He was the Blinger, I was the barrier.
You know, kind of interestinghow that played out.
And that's the one who.
All the status symbols to winthe approval of the people around
(15:22):
them by the fancy car, thenice house, all those things.
And then what the book istrying to do is help you get to the
healthiest expression of yourtype, which for type three, I call
it the builder, which isyou're using this wealth and money
that you've accumulated as atool for love and service to a suffering
world, to kind of fix thecrack in the world that you were
born to fix.
And the book really lays outwhat's that journey?
(15:43):
What is the step by step paththat we each need to take according
to our Enneagram type toachieve that level of financial mastery
in all aspects of ourfinancial life.
Now this is where we also haveto talk about if you'll, if you'll
pardon the sidebar here.
There's also what I call thefour pillars of finance.
And so you can be like anxiousin one area and avoid in another.
(16:03):
For example.
So the four pillars of financeare going to be earning.
That's your first step on your journey.
The second pillar is going tobe saving.
Pretty obvious.
The third pillar is going tobe investing.
And then the fourth pillar is giving.
So earning, saving, investingand giving are so the four pillars
of your financial life.
And most of us aren't purelyanxious or avoidant in all areas.
We might be an anxious earner,but an avoidant saver.
(16:25):
Or it might be an anxioussaver but an avoidant investor.
We might be a great investor,but we never give back to anybody.
It's just for me it's selfish.
So how are you using thiswealth as a tool to make the world
a better place?
And so again, going throughall the nine types in the book, it's
like what is your path toovercoming your money trauma?
Identifying your trauma,overcoming your trauma and then building
(16:47):
a robust financial life in allfour pillars.
Wow.
Because it's bringing up.
Because I was thinking aboutlike so many different books of the
one, especially with CharlesDuhigg, which is really understanding
your triggers, figuring outyour routines and then what is that
reward?
It's like everything comingback to threes.
Like I really love this thingbecause from a numerologist, I'm
(17:08):
not a numerologist, but I doenjoy understanding how things come
in threes a lot.
I think Tesla said that was athree, like seven and something else
five or something like thatwas like the common numbers of the
universe.
And I thought that wasactually pretty cool.
And here we are talking aboutit again, which is actually awesome.
But if you want to get, if youwant to get a numerology, there's
(17:29):
a whole thing on the Enneagramand it's really interesting when
you get it gets there's allthese patterns that pop out numerologically,
if you're curious about that.
But that's too much to cover here.
Yes, I'll definitely be.
I'm open to learning aboutdifferent books about it because,
you know, if we can look atthe patterns in life and how we actually
operate and really.
And then think once weunderstand the patterns, that helps
(17:51):
us understand the triggers,then we can start looking at our
routines to start figuring outthose triggers.
On why are we avoiding a saver?
Or why are we avoiding givingto other people?
And then sometimes some peoplejust are like, hey, I don't make
enough to finance all thesedifferent areas.
Right.
Which is fair.
(18:12):
And plus with the sandwichgeneration, which is my audience.
Yeah.
Their money is already tied upwith the kids and also dealing with
their parents.
So how do they find time for themselves?
That's a hard question.
Yeah.
And so it takes a lot ofdiscipline, is the simple answer.
And priority setting, like,I'm not saying it's easy, you know,
and I'm, I'm a little bit inthat sandwich generation myself.
(18:33):
On the edge of it.
But like a lot of it, thefirst rule of finance is pay yourself
first.
Right.
You got to take care of youbefore you're ready to take care
of other people.
And that can be really hard.
Make some very hard decisions,you know, with the people that you
love, you never want to leavethem hanging.
But you also can't, you know,decimate your own financial future,
you know, martyring yourselffor others.
(18:54):
So it's a really.
There's no simple solution tothat, that question, otherwise you
wouldn't have a podcastdedicated entirely to it.
You'd have one episode andyou'd be done.
Right.
It's so true.
Right.
So.
So a lot of it is going to bediscipline and priority setting,
to put it simply.
But if you want to get intomore specifics, we can.
I mean, let's go for itbecause I want people to.
(19:14):
I want the person that'slistening to this to actually have
something to walk away with,like a product sense of like, hey,
I can actually do this today.
Yeah, well, I mean, again,I've got, so I've got.
This is a shameless self plug.
But I would say go, go, gopick up my books that everything
you need is in there.
I've got two books out.
The first book is, Is, youknow, from Monk to Money Manager
is going to give you thepractical tools of how to manage
(19:37):
your money, like thebudgeting, the saving, like the taxes,
the insurance, like how doesall this stuff work?
I would say maybe the simplestthing you need to know is, and I
assume your audience isprobably fairly, at least proficient
in this, which is basicfinancial literacy.
Like, you need to be listeningto podcasts like this.
You need to be reading books.
(19:58):
You need to be.
Make sure you understand thelanguage of finance, because it's
a foreign language and youneed to teach it to your kids.
Like, that was the biggestfrustration for me was that, you
know, my mom was a cpa, my dadwas a CEO of a chemical company,
and.
And.
And talking about money was ataboo subject.
It was easier for my parentsto talk about sex than money.
(20:19):
And I think that's true formany people.
It's like what I would say,one takeaway is start having good
conversations with yourpartner and then with your kids and
with your parents about money.
Like, have open andtransparent communication.
If you can start there, other.
Other avenues will begin toopen up and things will become a
little less.
At least you can get people.
You need to get people on thesame page and understand where things
(20:40):
are really at.
And that means understandingwhere you're at with your finances.
You got to have your house in order.
And so that would be my first.
Become financially literateand talk about money with your.
With the people in your life.
I got two books.
The first book will tell youhow to do it, and my second book,
Taming youg Money Monster, isgoing to give you all the practical
psychological tips about whyyou struggle with money.
What is it?
(21:00):
What are your money traumas?
Where are they coming from?
And how to.
How to.
How to really conquer them.
So that would be my quick tip,my quick take.
Hey, no, thank you for thequick take, because that is definitely
one of the things that a lotof people don't do is.
Well, sometimes it's just acommunication piece.
I'm gonna backtrack that alittle bit because sometimes we are
so passionate about it as faras, like, hey, I just found something
(21:23):
that's really cool that canhelp us out in our family.
It just doesn't come off wellto the partners.
Like, well, I mean, our billsare paid.
Like, what else do you want usto do?
Yeah.
So how do you say would be thebest way to communicate?
Because, you know, with yourwife, how did that work out?
Yeah.
So.
So here's where the Enneagramcan be helpful again.
(21:44):
If you understand yourpartner's Enneagram type, you.
You understand what theirdeepest unconscious fear is and what's
what.
What's triggering them.
What are they really looking for.
From their money and from you.
And if you can address thatfear in the conversation, if you're
talking to the person in theway that they can hear you and you're
not triggering them, thenyou're going to.
Conversation is going to go alot more smoothly.
(22:04):
So each of the Enneagram typeshas different communication styles
in general and around money.
And when you understand that,it's like, oh, this is what's really
going on behind the conversation.
There's a.
There's a reason behind thereason behind the reason of what.
What's.
What's happening here.
And that will, I think, smooththings along a little bit.
And then knowing what yourtriggers are like, okay, this is.
And trying not to take thatbreath, to have that pause when those
(22:28):
triggers come up between, youknow, so you're taking right action
rather than reacting.
And so what happens in moneyconversations is.
And I saw this a lot in myfinancial practices is you see the
couples reacting to each otherout of like, you know, this purchase
brings up all therecriminations of 5,000 things you
did wrong in the past 10 years.
(22:50):
And suddenly we're talkingabout that vacation from Tahiti that
happened in 15 rather than the thing.
The budget on the table.
Right.
Or the, or the thing that really.
So it's really getting theconversation focused and letting
go of the recriminations inthe past and a lot of it required.
Well, I would say I would giveyou three things that would be helpful.
(23:15):
In general, not going into thespecifics of Enneagram types is first,
you need compassion.
You need compassion foryourself, and you need compassion
for the other person.
And then you need contemplation.
You need time to be thinkingdeeply about what's really going
on in your.
In the situation.
And then you need to cometogether in right action.
So there's contemplation,compassion, action.
How do you bring those threetools together to really move the
(23:36):
conversation forward into ahealthy space?
So what tools that youcurrently use to kind of manage your
finances?
Is it like paper and pen?
Excel?
Because I'm still aspreadsheet kind of guy.
I'm so.
I'm a Quicken guy.
You know, I've always used it.
It's not my favorite, but I,you know, the problem with software
is once you start using one,it's very hard to switch over.
So it's not that I have.
(23:57):
I'm not trying to plug thatone for.
But it does work for me and itseems to get.
Get the job done.
Well, they might not beSponsoring now, but we give a shout
out if y' all listening.
You know, if Quicken wants asponsor, I'm happy to sign an endorsement
deal.
Reach out, I'll do it.
I'll tell everybody howamazing you are.
But it is, you know, it's avery popular tool and it's got all,
(24:18):
everything in it that you need.
I could, I could give, givesome pointers on how to improve some
of their windows, but that's okay.
They're getting there.
Yeah, I mean, they workingbecause one of the things that a
lot of us is that we find weknow how to make the money, we can
spend the money.
But what is it in your lifethat you have felt was the biggest
(24:39):
impact to you?
That's a deep question.
It was probably, well, thebiggest impact was the monastery
going bankrupt.
Like, that just was a pivotalmoment where I, I realized no one's
going to care about yourfinances or the money situation in
your life more than you.
And what it requires isradical responsibility.
(24:59):
Even if it's not your fault.
Like it doesn't, it's notabout blame.
It's like you, you might,might be response.
You may have not created thesituation that you're in, but you
are responsible for it.
If you want to fix it, no oneelse is going to do it.
So it's that radical.
So I don't say self relianceisn't, is maybe too harsh because
you need others in your community.
You need to build that trustand support with people around you
(25:20):
as well.
It's not just a solo job, butin some ways it kind of is.
You know, no one's going to doyour budgeting for you, no one's
going to pay your bills foryou, no one's going to make the money
for you, no one's going to dothe saving.
All those things, it's all on you.
And so once you take thatmindset, then it's like, all right,
let's do it.
Like, let's get into it.
And I see a lot of people wantto outsource this to their spouse.
(25:44):
They want to outsource it to.
And some things, if there'ssome tasks you're not really good
at and you have the resources,it's fine.
If you want to hire aninvestment advisor, you want to hire
a cpa, you want to hire a bookkeeper.
If you just suck at it, youjust can't do your bookkeeping and
it's in your budget, we'lloutsource it just like you would
do me Outsource Cleaning yourhouse, you can do it, but you don't
like it.
So I'll pay someone to takethat off my plate.
(26:06):
That, that can be a way around it.
At the end of the day, youcan, and this is something I learned
in the Marines, which I wasvery grateful for, is even when you
outsource work, you can outsource.
What was it?
You can, you can delegateauthority, right?
You can delegate the authorityto a bookkeeper, but you can't delegate
the responsibility.
So true, right?
You still got it.
(26:26):
You still got to be able tocheck their work.
You still gotta be financiallyliterate to know that they did a
good job.
And you gotta be on top of that.
So even when you, when you'reoutsourcing menial tasks you don't
like to do, someone does your taxes.
You should know enough abouttaxes to look at it and go, you screwed
this up, man.
You're not very good.
I'm firing you.
Or, great, you know, thank youvery much.
I'm going to refer you to my friends.
So.
(26:46):
So there's still aresponsibility you have even in those
situations.
Because I'm bringing up twoexamples who when come back to doing
your taxes, I believe TylerPerry had lost almost, what, $10
million because of the taxperson did not file correctly.
And then I think it was.
Forgot his name, but Fat Joe,he's a rap artist, had went to jail
(27:10):
because his tax person wasactually taking the money and not
paying the taxes, even thoughhe was paying the tax person to pay
the money.
So, yeah, and it's your responsibility.
They sign a thing.
And he couldn't fight it incourt either because you said, hey,
I let this person do it on my behalf.
So it's ridiculous.
Like, but still, you got to goback and double check the work and
(27:31):
really make sure it's on whatit's supposed to do.
So being selfish, which is, Ithink it's fair to say, to be selfish
in your financial earnings andyour financial life.
But what is that?
How do you actually spreadthat out to your families?
When you, you know, when youhad your children, did you instill
them in them?
Like, hey, when you get yourfirst allowance, you going to put
(27:52):
your money inside thisparticular jar or this envelope or
this bank account like that,or how did you do it?
Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn'tbe the best person to ask.
I don't have children,children of my own.
I was married for a while andhad a step, a stepson who, who I
adore.
But so, so that wasn't reallyas a step parent I had some limited
(28:12):
ability to influence that situation.
But I was a high school andteacher for 20 years.
I taught economics andpersonal finance to kids.
And believe I think the numberone thing with your kids is, is make
sure they're as financiallyliterate as they are.
Just like want them to be ableto read books like they should be
able to understand.
It's giving them some basic skills.
(28:32):
So allowances are a great wayto start.
You start there.
This would be my tip is likeinstill in the allowance the same
kind of structure you wantthem to have as an adult.
So okay, you've, you've got$10 allowance, 15% goes to savings
right off the top.
We're going to put that into asavings account for you or an investment
account for you, whatever that is.
(28:53):
I think for kids.
Yeah.
And I would say and then helpthem build up an emergency savings.
Teach them what that looks like.
Even for them it might be small.
Okay.
When you get to 50 bucks or100 bucks, now you've got an emergency
depending on their age.
Right.
And you can go up to college,get whatever is age appropriate,
make sure they have anemergency savings first and then,
(29:14):
and then beyond that, makesure they're investing the rest of
it somewhere like that.
The 15% first goes to save tothe merchant.
Now you've got the extra bit.
Now we're, we're buying you anindex fund, right.
And we're putting that intosome long term.
Teach them how an index fund works.
Okay.
And then the, the both ofthose are buckets.
You don't touch and let themsee how compound growth works and
say if you can show a kid fromthe age of 5 to 15 the power of compound
(29:37):
interest and then suddenly nowthey can, hopefully they don't do
it to do something crazy likebuy a car.
But they might have money forcollege, they might have money for,
you know, or they might havemoney for their, if they could keep
that going, they're all setfor retirement by the time they're,
they're 35 or 40.
So that would be my tip.
Okay.
And now because we go to theparents side of the house.
But you know, one of thethings that I was thinking back in
(30:00):
our conversation was yes, themonastery had went.
I'm sorry, is it a monastery or.
Yeah, okay, so if themonastery went bankrupt, what did
you do to kind of get them outof that?
Was it like, did you like,hey, hey everybody, we want to make
some things, we're going tosell it right quick or we don't have
a parade or.
What was it?
Well, that's the beauty ofbankruptcy is it wipes out the debts,
(30:20):
most of them.
So, so that was, that wasprobably why we had to go through.
It was we, we had more debtthan we could service with our income.
So the beauty of bankruptcy isit does give you a fresh start.
And so wiping the slate cleanwas a godsend.
It was very stressful to gothrough, and it was very painful.
But thank God we havebankruptcy laws on our books so people
(30:44):
aren't stuck in indenturedservitude for the rest of their lives.
So getting that fresh startand then rebuilding credit, rebuilding
all the savings, emergencyfunds, and then making sure now that
we've got that blank slate,we're doing it right from the ground
up.
And what systems did you putin place to make sure that they were
able to, to not go into thatsame system again?
(31:04):
Well, I took charge of all the finances.
That's kind of what happened.
This is, this is my, this ismy domain.
I, I, I've, I'm takingresponsibility for it.
You guys want to look over myshoulder anytime, feel free.
And they never did.
They didn't care.
You know, I'm like, here,here's, it's open.
The books are open.
But, you know, we're not,we're not going down that road again.
Okay, so did you make sure?
(31:25):
Like, because I'm not sure.
Can they invest?
Do you put, like, investmentsfor them or just mostly just strictly
savings and give?
There are some investments.
I mean, there's stillretirement just, you know, we were
a teaching order, so we wereall working in private school.
So there's, there's small,there's some small retirement funds
that needed to be managed.
So, yeah, there was someinvesting going on there as well.
The only reason why I asked,because I'm not familiar with how
(31:47):
that system works.
I just knew that they do like,a lot of, I just hear about a lot
of giving to the community,and you don't hear about too much,
too many ways on how they make money.
So, yeah, so, so they'reteaching us how we support ourselves.
But, and, and, and this wasanother money monster that came up
in the community was thegiving side.
It was this, this guilt aroundif someone came to us in need that
(32:08):
we felt compelled to help evenif we didn't have the resources to
do so.
So some of the, some, some,not all the debt was just like over
an overextension of generosity.
It's like if you're Givingmore than coming in.
Eventually, you know, thingsare going to fall apart.
So there has to be.
There has to be somediscernment about what's possible.
So.
But if somebody's a goodgiver, how do you help them?
(32:29):
Like, what is something thatthey can question themselves and
say, like, you know what, youneed to stop this.
You need to focus on self.
Well, a lot that goes backagain back to your Enneagram types.
The.
There's one, and this was truefor one of the key figures in the
monastery.
And I'm not trying to pointblame or anything, but like one of
the archetypes is what'scalled the giver or the helper, excuse
(32:51):
me, sometimes called the giver.
And one of the things withthis is called the type 2 on the
enneagram.
They're adjacent to my typetype 3.
And they're also in the.
In this shame triad, which is.
So the type 2, the helper hasthis externalized shame about how
they think the world perceives them.
And so they.
That creates their greatestfear that they're unlovable.
(33:13):
So they're always trying tohelp others to win love and approval.
And so what the type 2 needsto learn how to do.
But the problem is they give,but they give with strings attached.
It's like, I'm going to giveyou help.
I'm going to.
I'm going to.
Well, you know that there'sthat parable of the story.
It's always better to teach aperson to fish than to give them
a fish every day.
Well, the Type 2 is the kindof person who would rather give someone
(33:34):
a fish every day with a sideof tartar sauce and a note that says,
you're amazing.
Right?
Because they want the constantflow of gratitude.
They're not doing it purely altruistically.
There's a.
There's an unconscious pay toplay scheme that's going on there.
And that.
That was, that came in.
Came in.
That was a factor, not theonly factor.
There were many others that,that caused our community to go a
(33:56):
little bit in the hole is thesense of I'm giving because I want
the approval, I want the calculations.
I want you to see how, howgenerous I am.
And that's a spiritual trapbecause it's not real generosity.
It's conditional.
It's like, I'll give, butthey're feeding off that dopamine
hit of other people's approval.
They're not really giving.
They are helpful.
But.
So that's, that's onearchetype that you know people can
(34:19):
fall into.
And then how you overcome that.
Well, that's a whole.
In the book, I lay out a wholemap about for each of the types of
what's your ego structure,explains what your shadow structure
is, what your enlightenmentstructure is.
How do you overcome it?
It's.
It's not a simple.
It's not a simple answer.
It's, it's, it's, it's not ahard answer, but it's just more than
we have time for in a podcast,let's put it that way.
(34:40):
Okay.
But it's not easy to implement.
Yeah, I accept because mymom's actually one of those people
likes to help.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm like, just say no.
Or like, you don't have tophysically be in their space for
certain times.
Like, just mail them the bookor mail them the gift.
They'll be fine.
Like, they don't have to giveeverybody a gift.
It's okay.
And, and maybe the simpleanswer for your mom and for all type
(35:01):
twos is you gotta find that inlove internally through your spiritual
practice, whatever that is,you need to connect deeply with that
source, God, divine.
Whatever your, whatever yourunderstanding of God and the divine
is, you need to feel that loveinside yourself first towards yourself,
and then you don't need itfrom the outside world as much.
(35:21):
And then you're more groundedand you're giving from a place of
authenticity and freedomrather than from compulsion.
I like that.
So as we go into the thirdsegment here, which is the futures,
because you already, you'vebeen through the Marines, you did
the tough stuff.
You've been through some toughstuff from early childhood, and you
even been through some toughstuff going through the monastery
(35:43):
and now challenging yourselfto actually be a speaker, to be out
there in the real world.
What is next for you?
Well, hopefully, you know, I'mjust getting.
I'm launching myself on thepublic speaking stage and having
a lot of fun with that.
So I, in a year from now, Iwould like to be doing a lot more
public speaking, selling a lotmore books.
I would also like to work onmy next book.
I've got two more in the backof my brain that I want to work on.
(36:06):
So there's more books in the future.
There's a lot more publicspeaking in the future and then coaching
clients.
I love working individually,one on one with people and really
helping them through their struggles.
It's.
It's one of my greatest joys.
And this is awesome.
I would love to catch up withyou in a year, just to kind of see
where you're at and maybe Imight see you on stage with me.
Yeah.
Anyway, listening.
If you want to come talk toyour church, you want to come talk
(36:28):
to your, your business, yourcommunity, whatever you got a corporation
needs.
You got money monsters hangingaround, Come, come check me out.
You can find me on mywebsite@dougline.com shameless plug.
And also my books are there, too.
Awesome.
Is there anything you want tosay to the audience before we get
to the final four questions?
I think, you know, any way youcan support my work, I'd appreciate
it.
Awesome.
(36:48):
All right, you ready for thefinal four?
All right, so the final fourquestions are four questions that
I asked every guest for thepast three years, four years now,
because they've been changing around.
But I try to make sure theseare about the same questions.
And so let's go.
Number one, what does wealthmean to you?
It means having the options tolive a life that makes your soul
(37:12):
sing.
Number two, what was yourworst money mistake?
Outsourcing my responsibilityto other people.
Can you say one of them?
I'm sorry, like, if you canexplain that a little bit more.
Well, like I mentionedearlier, you know, no one's going
to care about your money morethan you.
And so it was that sense ofabdicating my responsibility for
my finances to other people,trusting that, you know, trusting
(37:33):
that they knew it more than Idid, they were more competent, they.
But they weren't going to careas much as I did.
And so things fell apart.
Like in the monastery.
I was completely oblivious towhat was going on financially in
the community.
I just took a hands offapproach and figured these people
who are older and wiser inmany, many ways are just going to
be.
Just because someone'scompetent in one area of life doesn't
mean they're competent in another.
(37:54):
And so people who I trustedbecause they were so wise in so many
and so knowledgeable and soexperienced and so amazing in so
many aspects of life, doesn'tmean they're competent at managing
money.
And I, and I sort ofoutsourced my responsibility even
for the community's finances,and that didn't work.
And so I learned that lessonthe hard way.
So powerful.
(38:15):
Number three, is there a bookthat inspired your journey or changed
your perspective?
Yeah, I think that there's abook I really love by Charles Whelan.
It's called Naked Economics.
And it's a good primer for.
It's not really about.
If you really want tounderstand how economics works.
Like if you're if you'reinterested in the big picture.
And also it's a very entertaining.
(38:36):
It's funny, it's well written,it's an easy read.
It will break things down,these very complicated economic concepts
in a really simple way.
To give you an understandingof how finance investing in the.
The whole system really works.
I'm going to have to checkthat one out.
Like, I've never heard of that one.
That's a good one.
Number four, what is yourfavorite dish to make?
Spadini.
Now, it's an Italian dish andit comes in a lot of different varieties.
(38:59):
But the way I was taught tomake it is you get a really nice
piece of steak.
I like to use like a.
A New York strip steak worksreally well, but you gotta get it
from your butcher and you haveto have them slice it.
Sort of like if you put the.
Put it outside and slice itvertically in slices.
So you get these really thin,long strips of meat, and then you
pound it with a mallet totenderize it.
And in one end, you stick abig hunk of whole milk mozzarella,
(39:21):
grate a bunch of pecorinoRomano cheese on it, throw some salt
and pepper on it.
Then you roll it into.
Into like a little like a roll.
Stick a toothpick in it ortwo, whatever you need.
And then you fry those inbutter until they caramelize.
And it's just absolutelydivine that with a big loaf of a
good baguette and a bottle ofred wine and a good salad.
Oh, you're all set, man.
(39:42):
Okay.
I'm starving.
Like, making me hungry.
Oh, man.
So this was awesome.
This is the very last questionof the whole show.
You mentioned it before, butwe got to say it again.
Where could people find outmore about you, Doug?
Yeah, my website isdouglineham.com that's D O U G L
Y N as in Nicholas, A m as inMichael.com and you can find all
(40:05):
kinds of great resources there.
I've got.
I've got my YouTube stuff,I've got all the podcast appearances.
I've got articles, resources,books, coaching tips.
Awesome.
And thank you so much for yourtime that this has been amazing.
I've learned a lot.
Definitely.
I'm going to do some moreresearch about the Enneagrams and
so that I can actually knowwhat my, like, at least know what
(40:26):
my fear is about finances.
Like, I think I know what itis, but this is actually going to
take me to the next level.
So thank you so much.
If you want to stick aroundfor a few minutes.
I can help you type yourself.
Yeah, let's do it.
All right, so for you who arelistening, please make sure that
y' all go back, rewind it,take notes, leave a review, and I
(40:47):
just want to continue on andmake sure that you all are successful.
Thank you all.
Take care.
Thanks, Anthony.
Appreciate a lot.
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