Episode 1658: Interview with Doug Lynam About His Path from Marine to Monk to Money Manager

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,658 of the Inspired Stewardship podcast.

Douglas Lynam: I'm Douglas Lynam, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize that money is a tool, no more, no less, is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast, with my friend Scott Maderer.

There's this impulse for tribalism and, and finding your tribe is good. Finding your people is, is essential. You need, you need to be in community. That's, that's core, but it's how do you... The problem is there's a temptation when you say there's an us, that then you create a them, and there's an in-group and out-group, and then there's a temptation to demonize the out-group, and that can happen in [00:01:00] religion.

It can happen in money, too.

Scott Maderer: Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact

Douglas Lynam: the

Scott Maderer: world.

In this podcast episode, I interview Douglas Lyneham. I ask Doug about how he moved from Marine to monk to money manager, and yet sees all of those as related to his ultimate calling. I also ask Douglas about the Enneagram and how he uses it to focus on your relationship with money in his book. And Douglas also shares with you how many of the sacred wounds we carry unknowingly sabotage our

Douglas Lynam: [00:02:00] money relationships.

Scott Maderer: I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living: Assemble the Puzzle of Your Calling by Mastering Your Time, Your Talent, and Your Treasures. You can find out more about that book over at inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information, and you can sign up to get some mailings about it as well as purchase a copy there.

I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. A Marine, a monk, and a money manager walk into a bar Actually, they're all the same person. Doug Lyneham's career path has been wilder than a rollercoaster designed by Salvador Dali on a sugar high. From Marine Officer Candidate School to 20 years in a bene- as a Benedictine monk, before emerging from his monastic life to become a financial advisor, business coach, keynote speaker, and bestselling author.

His two books, From Monk to Money Manager and Taming Your Money Monster: Nine Paths to Money Mastery [00:03:00] with the Enneagram, revolutionized how we understand our relationship with money. His popular TEDx talk on finding purpose and wealth has garnered over 400,000 views. Doug's insights have been featured on CNBC, The New York Times, and major financial publications.

He now serves as a financial advisor at Innovative Advisory Group, working with clients from Hollywood superstars to impact-driven organizations. His unconventional journey earned him a private audience with Pope Francis in 2022, and established him as a leading voice on the intersection of wealth, meaning, and purpose.

Welcome to the show, Doug.

Douglas Lynam: Thanks so much. Great to be here, Scott.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So I talked a little bit about, in the intro, about some of the, the things that you've been doing. I love, I love what, uh, designed by Salvador Dali on a sugar high. Uh-huh. I think is how you, how you put it at your intro. But, uh, [00:04:00] which is probably the best, best description of a life journey that I've ever heard.

With that in mind, you know, I, I always think of intros and, and these sorts of things as they're, they show us where we're at, but they don't really- Uh-huh ... show the whole story of how we got there.

Douglas Lynam: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: And obviously you've had a very interesting journey. Uh, that's part of what attracted me to talking to you.

But talk to us a little bit, take us back in time, and how has your journey evolved, and why is this where you kind of feel that you're at now, and the message that you feel called to, to share now?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah, I mean, I just love, I love helping people with their finances, and particularly entrepreneurs and people who are getting businesses off the ground or struggling, to kinda give them the tools to live a life that makes their soul sing so that their...

You know, you know what? Financial stress is, is, you know, the best predictor of mortality actually, is you know, if you, if you wanna know when someone's gonna die, you need to track their socioeconomic income and you've got, you've got a pretty good metric there. Because all the things you don't want in life [00:05:00] get worse as your financial situation deteriorates, including obesity, you know, mental illness, divorce workplace injury.

Go down the list. So you know, all the things you don't want. Drug abuse, alcoholism. The metrics are staggering. And so what I realized in my journey is that if I could alleviate people's financial anxieties and struggles, uh, and help them find that comfortable, secure space m- just both with their bank account and with their in their life situation, then I could alleva- alleviate a lot of suffering.

And so I often call myself a suffering prevention specialist, just kind of a... That, that's really what I, I feel called to do, and offer some tools to make that, make that possible. So that's kinda where I'm at now. If you wanna back up and go to the childhood story and, and see how I got here- Yeah

that's a, that's another journey.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. Um- That... How, how did you get... I mean, ob- obviously a Marine- Mm-hmm ... monk. But even Marine how did you- Go [00:06:00] into that. Why did you start your journey, you know, post-childhood in that kind of going into the military, becoming a Marine, doing all of that?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah, yeah. Well, so, you know, I, I grew up in outside Chicago in a kinda affluent suburb called Naperville, Illinois, and money was relatively abundant as I was growing up. You know, my dad was a CEO, my mom was a CPA. There was resources, but you know, money was a taboo topic. It was, it was harder to talk about than sex.

And money, it felt like from my childhood perspective, it felt like money got weaponized, where it became a u- a tool for control and manipulation and revenge, basically, in in a pretty bitter divorce. And so the kids kinda got put in the middle of a constant game of financial chicken, where it's like you need something, you ask your mom, she says, "Ask your dad."

You ask your dad, he says, "Your mom." And you just get... end up kinda going without some basic things that even middle-class kids had, like new shoes for gym class. I was like, "I'm wearing these shoes with holes in them. Why?" Because it's just such a horrible fight to [00:07:00] try to get something, you know, out of a, it's from the situation.

It was, it wasn't worth the, the politics to, to ... At any rate, so I, I, I grew up with a very negative men- mindset around money and capitalism and corporations, and realized that over time that was just me projecting my daddy issues on things. Um, so I had to get over that. But I first went off to the Mari- I was looking for a life that was completely radically different from how I was raised.

I went off and tried the Marine Corps. I thought that would be a great way to prove I was a manly man who could do manly things, and maybe, maybe actually get some approval from my dad. Didn't really work. Uh, and so I... And I also realized that unresolved anger issues and high explosives were a bad combination, so I should probably think of a different career choice for my life path.

And I kinda had a spiritual awakening and thought, "Well, what would be a higher calling? If I'm gonna leave the Marines, what's a higher calling than that?" And so what I... My, my thinking at the time was like, "Well, okay [00:08:00] I'll go off and join a monastery. That sounds ... " It was a great way to really annoy my parents.

They were absolutely flabbergasted. But I was hoping it would give me the com- like, kind of the esprit de corps I loved, the sense of purpose, the discipline, the community, and maybe a higher purpose than, you know, blowing people up. So, uh, not, not that... I love the Marines. I actually respect them immensely.

We need them. I'm not trying to put them down, just m- yeah, it was kind of from where I was at in that space. So I th- I thought I was gonna escape the world of money and materialism forever and, and by taking a vow of poverty and living this life of, you know, radical simplicity. But then I got to the monastery and in a very ironic twist of fate a couple years l- after I arrived, our community went bankrupt because I guess we took the vow of poverty a little too seriously.

You know, we all sort of hated dealing with money. It was a it was still a taboo topic and the, even though we had... [00:09:00] our hearts were in the right place our minds were not. W- like, wi- why... we were smart, we were educated, we were disciplined, we had all the things, and yet this money thing was just a, a constant drag on the community.

And so for whatever reason, I sort of volunteered to take on that project 'cause no one else wanted to do it, and I didn't know anything about finance 'cause I was financially illiterate at the time. You know, I walked out in the world knowing nothing about the world of money management. But I self-taught and then pulled us through that and yeah, there's some, there's, I guess, that's a long story.

But essentially, you know, I was in the monastery for then for 20 years and then, you know, after I built up some skillsets of, of some self-confidence around this topic, monastery guests would often come to our community looking for spiritual guidance and looking for, you know, help. And I realized that, you know- [00:10:00] They asked me to pray for them, but I realized a budget would actually work a little bit better.

We could do both. They... These aren't mutually exclusive. That you can pray all, all day, you w- all, all day if you want, but if you don't take right action there's gonna... If prayer alone was gonna solve our financial problems, then w- we monks- Would've solved them already ... should be billionaires, right?

Yeah. It's like, it's just not how, just not how reality works sometimes. And so a lot of the spiritual problems that people were coming to me with really were financial problems or, or had a financial problem in the background that was causing stress. You know? Mm-hmm. Somebody dies, but there's an estate to probate and they don't know what to do.

You're a widow, I don't know how to... Or y- you know, like a, like I have a widow who comes and her husband handled all the money for their entire lives, and now she doesn't know, "Well, what do I do?" Okay, so you're dealing with the grief of the loss, but now you're trying to figure out all of finance at the same time, a- and it's, it's really overwhelming.

That's just one example. Um, and so, so I got kind of good at that, and I was also in a teaching order, so we w- it was a Benedictine [00:11:00] monastery, Catholic and I was the head of the math department at a prestigious private school. And I thought it was a shame that we were sending kids out in the world financially illiterate, and I didn't wanna re- have them have the same problems I did, so started doing that for m- over a decade.

And then took those skills and leveraged them when I was ready to leave the monastery into a career in finance, and became an investment advisor to try to, you know, help people with their money and, and take these skills and build a, a new life for myself. So I became an investment advisor.

My weird story, and I'm skipping some some stuff here, but I then got featured in The New York Times and I got a two-book deal from Harper Collins, and so on and so forth. So my career really took off at that point, and, uh, and here I am today talking to you.

Scott Maderer: So a couple of questions came to mind. I, I noticed that you know, the Marines and even the monastery are both considered they are, I would think from looking at them from the outside, you know, they're, they're [00:12:00] highly structured, they're highly disciplined.

Mm-hmm. There, there's, there's hierarchy, there's expectations. A- and even to some extent, money management, you know? Right. Is that kind of... There's rules, there's things- Mm-hmm ... that you do, things that you don't do. Do you think how do you think that... Those are all things that are in common with your career, and yet you also were trying to...

You, you went from, "I'm gonna be a Marine so that I i- impress my parents," to, "I'm gonna be a monk 'cause it ticks them off," you know? Right. And yet you're still attracted to the pl- the discipline, the hierarchy- Yeah ... The rules. Yeah. How do you think that played out?

Douglas Lynam: Well, I think because I grew up in such a chaotic- environment in childhood.

You know, there's this, a good friend of mine, Richard Rohr, he talks about, he calls it the wisdom pattern, in that you wanna... We're always moving through th- this cycle of what he calls order, disorder, and then reorder. So we're, we're, that's just sort of is this natural process- Right ... of life, and that for [00:13:00] kids, you know, what you really wanna do is start them in order, right?

Give them a strong structure and order, an ordered environment, and then they can move into, they can rebel, they can go into disorder, and then there's reorder and a kind of maturity. But I think I missed the order part as a kid. And so I, I had to kind of back, it was sort of a weird backtracking in a way.

Like I felt so lost. I felt so without purpose or direction or guidance. And so I, I think I was looking for those things, and th- those different structures provided it for me, even if it's in a bit of a cookie cutter way. It helped me and helped me mature, and I, I'm very grateful for those opportunities.

Scott Maderer: I- other than that, are, what else do you see as kind of the threads connecting those decisions that you made?

Douglas Lynam: I mean, looking to be of service. Looking to live a life of purpose, meaning some- something higher than myself. So the Marines are serving a very important and, and essential and beautiful purpose that we need it, we [00:14:00] need them.

And then it, you know, didn't, wasn't, wasn't the career for me, but but it, it certainly had that sense of honor and duty and self-sacrifice. I just really admired that about the Marines. And then s- very similarly in the monastery. It was just, it's just a different... Same motivation, just different, different direction.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm. So let's, one of the things I like to, uh, unpack on the show is what I call the intersection between our, our faith journey and our life journey, and then our life journey back to our faith journey, and how those often have a feedback loop. You know, as we go through life, both positive, both negative.

It affects us. Mm-hmm. So for you, how do you think your faith journey has evolved as you've, as you've gone through this journey?

Douglas Lynam: A lot. A lot. I mean, I, you know, I sort of... I ha- I just did a podcast yesterday where I just talked about this. We- well, it was the whole show.[00:15:00]

Um, we were just, it was a Christian podcast, and we were just talking about my faith journey. And, you know, it's, it's a long and complicated... It's, my faith journey is even more complicated, I think, than my, my career journey. But you know, I started, um- You know, I, I first got in- introduced to Christianity really in my teenage years.

M- I wasn't raised in any, any faith tradition at all, but I had a good friend of mine, my best friend, And so I always tried to, like, m- get out of my house as much as I could. So I was doing sleepovers. Steve Olson is a g- was my friend in high school, and his family was a very evangelical household.

And he wasn't particularly religious, but his parents were, and he would start... They would say, "Well, you're spending the night here Saturday night. We're going to church Sunday. Do you wanna come?" I'm like, "Sure." So, uh, I found real community there, and it was a, at Whea- it was in Wheaton College, if you're familiar with that.

And it was a... But it was a very, It was beautiful. They were a very loving [00:16:00] family, but then I found over time that kind of rigid dogmatism got under my skin a little bit. So I found the fa- this family very loving and kind, but the theology not so much. So I, I, I sort of re- rejected a sim- it was sort of a simplistic theology, so I, I rejected God, I rejected Christianity because of of what I saw as some hateful behaviors within the, within that church community.

Uh, but realized I was re- it took me a while to realize I was rejecting a, kind of a dumb definition of God. Two different

Scott Maderer: things. Yeah.

Douglas Lynam: You know? I'm not re- y- so I went atheist, agnostic for a long time, pseudo Buddhist, and then I I joined a monastery without any faith, which is odd. Yeah. I wasn't Catholic, and I wasn't particularly religious, but I thought there was some real wisdom here in these monks, and I wanted to learn from them, and I thought if I was gonna figure this junk out w- where better to do it than in a, a contemplative monastery?

And so when I was [00:17:00] there it certainly started off in the Catholic faith, but then, you know, our community was, was surprisingly open theologically, and, uh, I got to explore all the world religions over those 20 years. You know, people would come to our community of all faiths, actually Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever.

And so I got a really good grounding in all the different core r- world religions because we found them, that those things don't detract from your Christian faith. They can enhance it.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm.

Douglas Lynam: You know, you can actually... There, there's a lot to be gained from a, a cross-cultural communication, I believe, 'cause I think God's in everyone and everything and is manifesting through all these different m- ways of, f- the sound we make with our ape faces to name God is not matter, right?

We could use- Mm-hmm ... different language with our f- sounds, but we're still trying to express the same fundamental reality that we're trying to get closer to and love and loving your neighbor as yourself, and loving, uh love, love your neighbor as yourself and lo- love the Lord God. Two commandments.

Love the Lord God with all your heart and [00:18:00] our strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now-

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm

Douglas Lynam: Y- you can do that through an- any number of different mechanisms. And I- our community even spent a summer in India at an ashram there, uh, d- exploring some different traditions as well. So, so it, it really got a...

I got a rich, deep, philosophical, theological w- whirlwind tour. And then when I left the monastery, of course, my faith c- collapsed. It was an, it was not an easy transition out, and not a happy one, I'm afraid. So that was a, a dark, a very much dark night of the soul period for me, where I felt like because our community got very scrol- scrollic and rigid and not dogmatically, but politically and interpersonally.

There was a lot of, a lot of conflict that, that, that needed to be... W- was unresolved. And some... R- but I saw some real ab- abuses that, that I thought were unfortunate. So I [00:19:00] I sort of threw it all away for many years when I left. Um, and then I've sort of come full circle slowly over the past decade to really embracing my faith again and going back to church every Sunday and finding that th- that's the ground u- upon which all of my being rests upon, without which I feel very, very lost and fragmented.

Y- I'm in a very different space now than I was even just a few years ago. So I... That gives you kind of the broad strokes of it, but it- there's been, it's definitely been... It's ebbed and, ebbed and flowed at many, many times over the- Yeah ... over the decades.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. I, I think I, I hear some similarities to many of things in my own journey of in, out, in, out as a thing.

And once a, a very close pastor friend of me once looked at me and said, you know, "Boy, you really don't do anything halfway. You're either, like, all in [00:20:00] or all out," you know? Yes. You don't, you don't have that middle ground ability, do you?

Douglas Lynam: We are, we are in the same camp on that one.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. It's like, "Eh, I'm afraid not."

Yeah, I, I, I... Sometimes I wish I did, but I, I, I really don't. So it sounds like you've got some of the same genes for whatever

Douglas Lynam: reason. Yes I have many... I would s- You can say many things about me, but I think one word that does get used occasionally or regularly is in- intense. Yeah. I have, I have an intense personality.

I, I...

Scott Maderer: Yeah.

Douglas Lynam: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: So when, when you think about that it, it's... And I, you know, I agree with you by the way that I think... And I've done the same thing where I've gone and attended and studied and interacted with folks of many diverse re- religions, and I always come away feeling like I've learned something.

You know, it it, uh... A- and it's true even when I interact with people from other denominations and faiths within Christianity. You know, even if what I'm learning sometimes is what I do or [00:21:00] don't agree with- Right ... it's still things I'm learning. You know? Yeah. There's always something I can take away.

And yet I think i- it's hard sometimes for us to look at things that way. You know as humans, we like to find a group, belong to that group, and then anything that attacks that group must be bad. You know, that, that's, that's just we're very tribal, we're very- Right. Yeah ... you know in that sort of way.

How... I- in reflecting on the work you've done around money- Mm-hmm ... uh, 'cause I think there's a connection there, but do you see some of that same thinking of belonging and identity? How does that play out when it comes to our money and the relationships that we have with money as well?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's a difficult one, you know, 'cause, 'cause there's this impulse for tribalism and finding your tribe is good.

Finding your people is essential. You need, you need to [00:22:00] be in community. That's core, but it's how do you... The problem is there's a temptation when you say there's an us that then you create a them.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm.

Douglas Lynam: And there's an in-group and an out-group, and then there's a temptation to demonize the out-group, and that can happen in religion.

It can happen in money, too. So I saw that in the, in many, what we call dualistic thinking. So a, a good mentor of mine named Father Richard Rohr, he, uh, often talks about this sort of dualistic thinking around religion and around... And I'm of course applying it to money is we, we wanna think that there's the good guys and there's the bad guys, and we wanna put ourselves in the good guys camp.

And that was... So what I saw in the monastery was this unhealthy attitude towards money at times and I was guilty of it, too. It's like and there's a lot of religious scripture that needs a little bit more nuanced understanding when we, when we... Like it's easier for a, a camel to go through the eye- Mm-hmm

of a needle than for a rich person to en- enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or money is the root of all evil. And all these things that w- [00:23:00] which, which when you dig into the actual text, it's, it doesn't translate quite the way we interpret it, and I could give you a theological deep dive on that.

But I'll move forward and just say, like, there was this temptation to say the rich people are bad and poor people are good, right?

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm.

Douglas Lynam: Po- rich people are evil, and poor people are somehow, you know- Holy ... more b- blessed or you're, you're... There's something more inherently virtuous or d- or unvirtuous about having wealth.

And then vice versa, you see that people who glorify wealth, and they say- Mm-hmm ... "Well, I'm rich and you're poor, and you must be lazy and stupid," and, A- it's just, it's just nonsense, right? That you're... W- what it took me a long time to realize is that there's good people all over the world and your your level of, of we could say virtue or your level of decency as a human being, it has no correlation to your bank balance.

Those things are just uncorrelated, [00:24:00] right? A- and once you kind of get your head around that, it kind of helps you get out of these dualistic traps of thinking one side or the other is good or bad or evil or right or wrong. Mm-hmm. And it it kind of opens things up a bit. And it also frees us as entrepreneurs to say like there's nothing inherently bad with wealth.

It's how we're using it that needs to be, be examined, and whether we're using it for, for love and service and, and to make the world a better place, or are we using it for egoistic self-aggrandizement or- Yeah ... or har- actually harming people.

Scott Maderer: Or, or making the wealth at the expense- Right

of other people as- Exactly ... opposed to- Right ... out of service to other people. Right. The, the interesting thing to me, too, is I, I've been in a church environment where I've heard four views- held up all as 100% true

And what's interesting is they are, if you're poor, you have virtue

If you're poor, it must mean you lack faith, and therefore you're not being blessed

Douglas Lynam: Right [00:25:00]

Scott Maderer: If you're rich, it's because you lack- You-

virtue and you're evil. And if you're rich- It's just because you're blessed ... it's because you've got great faith and you've been b- blessed. And I like to point out there's no possible way all four of those can be true. All,

Douglas Lynam: all of that is bullshit. Let's just, let's call that bullshit right off the c-

right off the bat. Let's just call it what it, excuse my language.

Scott Maderer: All four of those can't be true. It is not possible. Absolute

Douglas Lynam: nonsense

Scott Maderer: Cause what that tells me is you've already decided that the person is good or bad, and then you've applied the- the wealth as a reason as opposed to, or lack of wealth as a reason.

Douglas Lynam: And it's usually the camp that you're in is the good one, and the camp that y- everyone else is in is the bad one. It- It's just, it's a kind of tribalistic stupidity.

Scott Maderer: The, the old joke is how, how much money is too much money for a good Christian to have? About $3,000 more than I

Douglas Lynam: have. Right. That's a good one.

I haven't heard that joke. I'm gonna use that.

Scott Maderer: You know, 'cause it is. It is like, yeah, oh, they're a little richer... Oh, well nope. Ah. Nope. [00:26:00] Yep. It's, and unfortunately we all, we all have versions of that that we can fall into very easily if we don't if we don't pay attention. So I love I, I want to talk to you about, uh, Enneagram because I, I use DiSC and I love it.

Uh-huh. I've t- studied all of, you know, Myers-Briggs and Enneagram- Mm-hmm ... and all of these. Mm-hmm. I like to tell people I like DiSC just 'cause it's simple enough I can hold it in my head.

Douglas Lynam: Yep.

Scott Maderer: And Enneagram sometimes challenges me a little bit more apparently. Yep. You know, it's a little harder.

Uh, but I definitely have interacted with it and and I'm a fan of it. 'Cause I think all of these tests are, you know, peek holes through towards the- Yes ... reality that God has designed us with. They never are the complete picture, but that doesn't- Of course ... mean they're not very useful views. So I- Like I

Douglas Lynam: say, all, all, all models are wrong, but some models are useful.

Scott Maderer: Useful. And we'll see. Yeah. They may still play. They... Some information may be better than no information, even if the information's not complete. So to walk [00:27:00] us through, uh, Enneagram and, and kind of how it works- and, you know, why has that been an approach that, uh, you know, you've found attractive and useful in the work that you do.

Douglas Lynam: Yeah. Well, I found it helpful because it, it... First of all, I find that it works. You know, there's a sort of empirical v- validity to it. And I've really tried to ground it in my latest book, Taming Your Money Monster: Nine Paths to Money Mastery with the Enneagram, shameless plug. So let me plug my, plug my book a little bit.

But what I've tried to do is ground it in the related research in neurobiology and childhood developmental psychology, 'cause sometimes it gets into the woo woo space a little bit, and as someone with a math science background, I'm like, "Okay, how do we make this really, you know, deductive in its approach?"

So to make it a little simpler, easier to get your head around and understand. Do you know your type by the way? Just out of curiosity.

Scott Maderer: Uh, I did, but I, uh, off the top of my head-

Douglas Lynam: Well, don't... Well, well here's- No, I

Scott Maderer: don't remember off the top of my head. Sorry. Well, here- I'd have to pull it out. [00:28:00] Well,

Douglas Lynam: here's a fun...

We can tr- we can try this just a- as a teaching tool if we could try to- armchair diagnose your type

Scott Maderer: Sure

Douglas Lynam: And then that can give you, kind of people a sense of how it works

Scott Maderer: And, and I'll pro- I'll probably be able to remember if we do it- Yeah ... whether or not that's what I got the last time I took a test.

So let's,

Douglas Lynam: let's, uh And, and I, and I can't explain all of it, you know, in just a few minutes, but essentially what we know from the neurobiology is that in all mammals there's three core negative emotions. There's fear, there's grief kind of slash shame. It's, they're kind of inter- Mm-hmm ... It's hard, they're sort of interchangeable, but it's the grief circuitry but it comes out as shame sometimes in humans.

So think of it as, as anger, grief, shame, and then the third one is fear. And so what happens is and I, and I, and I won't go through the whole process, but essentially, Well, I may have to... If- Keep going So when, basically, when you're born, right, you, you sort of get you, we develop what I call a psycholo- we- you have a physical umbilical cord that gets cut, but then you develop this [00:29:00] psychological umbilical cord- Mm

to your caregivers, so they can do the driving of your ego when you're in your infancy. And that psychological umbilical cord h- also has to get cut, but it can only be done so with negative emotions. And so these are the big three negative emotions that do the cutting that allow you to do what we call individuate and differentiate.

And it typically gets cut through the boundaries the necessary boundary setting that, you know, the nos that your parents put on you. Like, "Don't touch the hot stove. Don't kick the dog. Don't bite your sister." Like, those nos have to be backed up with a certain kind of negative force and the three- it has to basically be fear uh, grief or shame, and then f- uh, anger.

Or I got them, I flipped them, right? Anger-

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm ...

Douglas Lynam: uh, grief, shame, and fear.

Scott Maderer: Anger, grief, shame,

Douglas Lynam: and fear. Shame and fear.

Scott Maderer: Yeah.

Douglas Lynam: And so, so the Enneagram basically explains how that, w- which of those three emotions you got hit with more of and cut that psychological umbil- We get all three of them, but one t- one of those tends to be more prominent And so [00:30:00] if you think of a color wheel, right?

Take a, take a circle, draw a color wheel. Now we're gonna break it into three pie pieces. We're gonna break it into the anger types, the fear-shame types, and then the, the fear types, right? And then there's three ways you can process that emotion. You could either internalize it, like it's kinda like giving yourself an emotional wedgie.

Y- you can externalize it, which is like having a food fight with the world, or you can have both. And so that gives nine types in the Enneagram system. So the enne- word Enneagram, enne in Greek means nine, and gram means drawn. Mm-hmm. So it's these nine archetypes of personality. There's infinite variety inside each of them, so it...

But it, it... And I use car metaphorics. I, I think they're helpful. It's like there's only so many ways you can design a car and have it be roadworthy. Even though you drive a unique year, make, and model, we can kinda put your ch- the ego defense structures that you developed in childhood to protect yourself from this anger, fear, this anger, grief, or [00:31:00] shame into these archetypes.

And so, you know, just like cars, there's sports cars, there's SUVs, there's compact cars, and the Enneagram kinda tells you what's the, what's the chassis of your ego structure. Even though you can trick it out and customize it a thousand different ways, there's still... What it tells you at heart, and this is the, the punchline, once you know your Enneagram type, we each develop a, a, a core unconscious fear that we're trying to protect ourselves from, from that s- what I call your sacred wound, that, that severing of that psychological umbilical cord.

So to figure out your type, here's my first question for you and, and for your listeners, is to kinda take a pause, take a breath, and just think about particularly your teens and 20s, but even now, ' cause y- the Enneagram has a growth model built into it, so we, we mature, wh- which is why I kinda like it more than DISC, 'cause it, it has a growth model.

I- and so we're not static in the system. Even though your type is [00:32:00] fixed it has lots of variety for levels of health. But when you think about your darkest emotional moments, particularly when you're younger, but even now, which negative emotion tends to come up more for you? Is it more anger? Is it more grief shame?

Or is it fear?

Scott Maderer: Probably more of the grief shame, I would say.

Douglas Lynam: Okay. So if that's true, then that, now we've, we've narrowed the nine choices down to three. So now we gotta f- figure out from the three types in that grief-shame triad. So there's... So I'll give you three choices and see which one of these, these fits you. So if you were to externalize that, that grief, what that means is you would feel grief about how you think people perceive [00:33:00] you which is another word for shame, right?

That's why we kinda... It's a dual term. Mm-hmm. Put

Scott Maderer: those together. A- and that's what we call type two, and, like we call them the helper because their greatest fear is that they're fundamentally unlovable. And so they're always kind of running around being of service to people. They're very helpful, they're very warm, they're very kind, but they're looking for validation through their acts of service.

Douglas Lynam: Like, if I flatter you, if I tell you how wonderful you are, if I'm helpful to you, I do these things for you, th- they kind of give, they're in this, um, uh, pay-to-play system w- they're kind of stuck in. Like, if I am really warm and kind to you, then you're gonna love me back. You're gonna tell me how wonderful I am.

And so I call them the ambulance of egos 'cause they're kind of always running around- ... rescuing other people. But often not... Then their own financial life often suffers because of that. So that's, that's one choice to sit with s- and you can jump in at any point here if one of these rings a bell.

Okay.

Scott Maderer: But

Douglas Lynam: I think I've already, just from our, our intro [00:34:00] conversation, I think I kinda have a suspicion of your type already. Um, and then there's, we're gonna jump over from two to four for a reason that'll be obvious here in a minute. Type fours take that grief and they internalize it. It's a grief or shame about, it's grief about how they perceive themselves.

So it's an internalized kind of shame. And so they, they feel like they don't have an identity or place in the world. And we call them the individualist or I call them the custom car. Mm-hmm. So they, w- if the culture says zig, they tend to zag. They c- they tend to be the iconoclasts, they're artists, creative thinkers but they're always sort of rebelling against the conventional norm to stand apart to get a sense of identity.

Like, who am I? I don't know who I am. I don't feel like I have a place in the world. So they're always sort of looking to stand out by being different. So that's type four. And then la- then in the middle is type three. W- [00:35:00] of- we often call them the achiever or I call them the race car. And so they have both that internalized grief and the externalized grief so stereophonic shame about how they think the world perceives them and how they perceive themselves.

And so what... That, that creates their greatest fear of of being fundamentally worthless. So they f- they feel a sense of worthlessness in, deep inside them that they're always trying to assuage through external achievements. Like, "If I run the marathon, you have to applaud me. Like, I've won the validation.

If I start the company, I've won the validation from the people around me, or I get the gold star, I get the A+, I get the pat on the head from teacher." Um, but threes tend to be really good mask changers. They're sort of always shifting to whatever the need of the people in front of them needs to be in order to get that validation, but they tend to have a hard time finding their authentic selves in the process.

Scott Maderer: Um- That one's probably the closest of the three you've described.

Douglas Lynam: Yeah. I- it's kind of how I [00:36:00] pig- I pegged you at that when we, when... From something you said earlier was, uh, I forgot. It was a key word you said. I was like, "I think you're a three." And, and I'm a three, too, so we can commiserate there a little bit.

So we're, we're in the same boat there. So that gives you a little sense of how it works, and then we can talk a little bit about how that can relate to money and finance and entrepreneurs and business.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. So, uh let's... I, 'cause I know there's nine types, like you said. Mm-hmm. So there, there are some other types.

Real quickly, could you kind of go through the other blocks for those folks- Sure ... that maybe, you know, didn't hear, and the three that you've already said- Sure ... "Hey, that's me."

Douglas Lynam: It'll take a little, take a little more time if you, if you're okay with that. That's

Scott Maderer: okay. That's okay.

Douglas Lynam: So let's just jump over to the anger triad.

That would be... We'll start with type eight. So we're kinda... Yeah, we're gonna kinda go around this- Mm-hmm ... color wheel. And then, and the numbers don't mean anything. The numbers are just placeholders. They're- Just where they are on a circle ... it's not a ranking. Yeah. You c- you could call them a number, you can call it a color, you can call it whatever you want.

It's just a, a l- literally- Yeah ... a placeholder. So type eight [00:37:00] they're in the anger triad, and so they take that anger and they've externalized it. And so type eight, w- we call them the challenger. I call them the Humvee of egos because what happens for the the type eight is that, that, that sacred wound or that psychological umbilical cord got, got cut by anger.

They external... And so they're always, It creates their greatest fear, the, or their greatest unconscious fear of being harmed or controlled.

So they hate being controlled, so they're always pushing against the boundaries of reality to try to maintain that control. So they kind of... W- we, we call them the Hummer 'cause they kind of run over a- Yeah

almost any obstacle in front of them pretty easily.

Scott Maderer: Like, "Please follow. Get out of the way or I'll run over you."

Douglas Lynam: Right. And they tend not to be very fuel efficient with their opinions, right? So-

Scott Maderer: Yeah.

Douglas Lynam: You know, so, so some examples, like, so for example, Donald Trump is a... lo- lo- love him or hate him, not getting political here, but he's a really good example of a type 8, right?

Yeah. That, that... And so is Martin Luther [00:38:00] King Jr. Yeah. He's also a type 8. What are the, whatever the limitations are- Fill,

Scott Maderer: fills the room. No matter what room they're in, they fill the room. Yeah.

Douglas Lynam: You got it. Yeah. Uh, okay. So then we'll jump over to type, uh, 1, 'cause th- they're on the other end of the spectrum here.

They take that anger and they internalize it. Mm. We call them, uh, often call them the perfectionist. Um, I call them the BMW of egos, uh, because they're sort of precision engineered, but they, they take a lot of maintenance. But they've taken that anger and they've internalized it and they direct it towards themselves, and that creates their greatest fear of being bad or defective.

So they have this really kind of this inner drill sergeant inside their head that's always telling them to be better, shape up, "Be a good boy. Be a good girl. Do it right. Do it the right way." So they tend to be very principled and very orderly and very conscientious, but they're always trying to fix themselves or trying to fix the people around them or fix the macro structures of society, 'cause they're always see...

They, they, they instantly see what's wrong with everything-

Very easily. [00:39:00] It and, and they're very self-critical and it can be v- very, E- every type has its own cross to carry, let's put it that way. Sure. And we could, just to circle back m- another way to frame this for people I should have started off with this, but given that you have a, maybe a, a religious audience, is each type also tracks with what we would call a deadly sin or a, a greatest vice, right?

So we, we used to say there were seven deadly sins, but it turns out there's nine. Uh, we forgot two and we added them about a couple of hundred years later. And we forgot about cowardice and we forgot about deceit. So when you add those two deadly sins into the seven original, you get the nine, and your Enneagram type also tells you which of those you're more prone to, right?

So if we go back to the 8 their greatest vice you would say is lust, but it, it's not just sexual, it's lust for intensity. Mm. It's that lust for l- life- Adrenaline junkie ... even. Right. It's like, like more, right? Just that po- you know. [00:40:00] And then for 1, we would say that their vice is anger, right? They're ver- they get, they have this anger inside them that, that really e- e- eats away at them.

So those are the, those are the... And then if we jump into the middle between those, we get type 9 and we call them the peacemaker. I call them the RV of egos because they have both this internalized anger at themselves kind of for not being able to meet their needs in childhood, but then they have this externalized anger at the world for not meeting them either, and they, they sort of learn to, to go along to get along.

Like, if I don't care about what the outcome is, then any outcome is acceptable because I'm, I'm not gonna get what I want anyway. And so we say that they're very peace-loving, very peaceful, but their vice, their great- or greatest sin is, tends to be sloth. They have a hard time taking action and getting off and or asserting their real needs and saying, "This is what I want."

You know, if you ask them, "Where do you wanna go for dinner?" Like, "Well, where do you wanna go for dinner?" Like- Mm-hmm ... you

Scott Maderer: know, "

Douglas Lynam: What do [00:41:00] you wanna for me? Where do you wanna go? What movie do you wanna see?" It's like they're so, they're so easygoing that they tend to... Because what they're afraid of, th- the greatest fear for a nine is we would say loss of wholeness, which is a weird way of saying they're afraid that if they ever r- express themselves too much, that volcano of anger is gonna come out like the Hulk and rip them and the world apart.

So they're always sort of tamping down their anger and tamping down their needs so that doesn't come out. And when it does erupt, rarely, then you get this kind of explosion, right? Okay, and then I'll just, I'll just go back to the shame types just to name their greatest sins really quickly. So type two, the the helper their greatest vice is pride in what a good helpful person they are.

Type threes, their greatest vice is deceit, um, because we're always mask changing to to make, like, uh, to impress people. Like, I'm always gonna show you the best side of me. I'm never gonna show you the dark side of me because... And that's a kind of deceit about [00:42:00] how they're approaching reality. Type four, that individualist, their worst vice is envy.

They, they have envy about ev- they see the unique place that everyone else has in the world, but they don't see themselves in that, so they're sort of jealous of what everyone else has that they don't have, so they've gotta stand apart and be different to try to stand out.

Okay, to wrap it up, and I'm going long, I apologize for the lecture.

Scott Maderer: No, you're good. Go keep going.

Douglas Lynam: Then if we go to the fear types, we're gonna go over to type five. We're kind of going clockwise around this circle. Um, type five, they're, they have internalized th- fear, meaning what that does, it, it, it creates their greatest fear of being incompetent or helpless.

So they strive to be very self-reliant and self-sufficient. So I call them the compact car of egos. They, um, they tend to be we call them the observer or the investigator. So they tend to take a [00:43:00] lot of information in but not let a lot out. You know, Albert Einstein's a good example.

Even Warren Buffett's an example. Like, people who, who are very good at figuring things out in their head, they tend to be- Very, um, they think it trapped in their head sometimes too. They're very, tend to be the brainiacs, uh of the Enneagram in many ways. But they, they're, they're so concerned about being competent that it's like...

I, I, I'd also call them the compact car, 'cause they, they have a very small gas tank for social interactions. 'Cause they're always taking information in and, and there's this infinite amount of emotions and data and stuff coming at them, and they're trying to figure it all in their head, and it kinda wears them out really quickly.

So they they're the people who are gonna leave the party early generally. They just, they're overwhelmed, they've had enough.

Scott Maderer: See, I'm seeing, I hear a lot, I hear a lot of myself in that one too. Yep. And ho- honestly, that's the other one that's, you've said so far that I went, "Yeah, I got a lot of that."

Douglas Lynam: Okay. Well, maybe you're a five. Yeah, so that's another possibility. [00:44:00] W- the thing you tell about a five is they, they are tend- they do tend to be more introverted and threes tend to be more extroverted. So not, that's not an easy armchair diagnosis, but something to think about. Okay, now we're gonna jump over to type seven.

We're gonna skip six. Sevens externalize their fear, and they tend to be very outgoing and gregarious, kind of the opposite of fives. They got that, that sacred wound, that psychological umbilical cord gets cut by fear that then they're afraid the world isn't gonna meet their needs. Their, they, they kind of grew up in a, I mean, inconsistent household.

Um, sometimes their needs got met, sometimes their needs didn't get met. So they figured the best way to get their needs met is to do it themselves. So they're always want more. Or, uh, and so they're, we say their greatest vice for a seven is gluttony. They just, they want more of everything. And so they often have what we call FOMO or fear of missing out.

They're always planning for the future, always looking forward to what's next. So we call them the [00:45:00] enthusiast, or I call them the SUV of egos, because they're ready for any off-road adventure, go anywhere, do anything, as long as it doesn't involve being in their pain in the present moment. 'Cause the greatest fear for a seven is being trapped in pain or privation.

So they're always trying to m- be, avoid pain and avoid privation by getting more of whatever it is that they want into their lives. And then six, and I, I, I didn't mention the vice of the five, I think. So the vice of the five is avarice the, the, that pulling in, always wanting more information, right?

Six is, their greatest fear is cowardice- Um, and so sixes have this internalized fear. They feel like they don't have... They don't trust themselves like the five, and they don't trust the outside world like the seven, and that kind of traps them in this place where they're always looking for security and certainty.

So they're the ultimate what we say, um, uh, risk mitigation specialist. Like they, they always know what's going, gonna go wrong. They're [00:46:00] always, uh, worried about what could go wrong in a particular scenario. So they're worst case scenario thinkers, so always planning for disaster all the time, and this is like, th- they're, they're, th- they...

So I call them the family sedan of egos because they want every safety feature possible, and maybe a few they can invent themselves. Or they're also called the skeptic sometimes as well. So that gives you a quick rounding out of all the nine types. I realize that was a bit of a fire hose for your audience.

No, that,

Scott Maderer: that's fantastic for, cause I've actually, no one's ever broke down Enneagram before on the show. So that's part of the reason I wanted to spend a little extra time on it because again, like I said, I think all of these diagnostic tools are, are useful. And honestly, I'll be... Uh, to be honest, that's the best I've ever had it broken down for me.

So- So I'm being selfish and saying, "Yes, I, I, I, I wanna learn more about it, too," and, uh, and I figure if I do, there's somebody else out there that doesn't, and if not, they can fast-forward through that part. [00:47:00] Yeah. It's okay.

Douglas Lynam: Great.

Scott Maderer: But reflect on that in terms of, of money. What... In broad strokes, you know, how, how do these sacred wounds, these memories, or these ways that we've externalized you know, and broken free with anger, grief, shame, and fear-

Douglas Lynam: Yeah

Scott Maderer: how do they affect our relationship with money as well?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah. And I, I wanna just put a little caveat in here. We're just touch- touching the surface of the Enneagram here. Ab- absolute, absolutely. And there, there's, there's these things called wings, which we don't have time for. There's instinctual variants.

There's subtypes. So each type actually has three subtypes that go with it and then there's all kinds of other complexity you can add to get more nuance and flavor. Um, so if we're... Sometimes you, you give people the the broad strokes, and they go, "I don't, that doesn't fit me." Well, yeah, but if you get down into the subtypes you might find something that, that clicks a bit more.

But, so to your point about money, and this is maybe helpful for entrepreneurs, is to understand your money type. It's also really helpful to understand your [00:48:00] client's money type. So if you're in any kind of sales position, um, it's really useful because like I, I met you and I kind of felt like I had a sense of what your type might be.

Might be wrong, but I can, I... Over an hour or so, I would probably be able to figure it out pretty quickly, even if you, I didn't ask you these questions. And w- in broad strokes, if you're in the if you're in the f- uh, anger type, w- whether you're at, an eight, a nine or a one, what those people, what those clients, what those colleagues, what those employees are really looking for is s- control and empowerment.

Mm-hmm. So if you're selling a product, if you're selling a service, like, oh, I know what quadrant you're in. Well, I know that what you really want out of life at the deepest level is some sort of control and empowerment. I, I know how to talk to you maybe a little bit more effectively about how, h- or how to work with you as a, as a- Mm-hmm

as a colleague.

Scott Maderer: Or what things to point out.

Douglas Lynam: Point out. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. You see, let's talk... And then if you're dealing with someone in the, in the g- grief shame triad, what they [00:49:00] want is validation and connection, so they need that heart center. They need that heart connection, emotional center. Uh, they wanna be validated, so they're looking for you to s- see them in some way, and they need that coming off of you in order to f- feel like they're, uh, uh, valued as an employee or they're valued as a client.

And then if you're in the fear triad, what they're looking for is security and certainty. And so just knowing those broad categories, those buckets, you can sort of... Once you put somebody in, in... Even if I don't know exactly your type, if I can get close or I can get down to one or two choices I can really, uh, craft my- Right.

Mm-hmm ... pitch or craft my proposal or, or how I'm gonna deal with you in a difficult conversation it is gonna change, and it, it, it really ef- affects group dynamics very, very deeply, and I do whole workshops on this. Quick plug and then I'll get to your money question, the real money... The real answer to your question, which is if anybody's looking for c- coaching or workshops on this, I do workshops for teams on this [00:50:00] stuff.

It's really helpful. But then w- what I'm layer... Now, to, to add more complexity to all of this, where the money piece comes in is I've layered on top of the Enneagram what I call the attachment theory of money, and it's based on the attachment theory of relationships, if anyone knows what that is. If you don't, it's fine, but what the basic premise is, is that we can have two unhealthy ways we can relate to money.

One is where we're anxiously attached to it in an unhealthy way. Think Ebenezer Scrooge or the show Succession or Billions, right? You see these people whose greed and their, and their avarice and their desire for wealth creates suffering for themselves and others around them. It's causing problems fundamentally in the world.

And obviously from a spiritual perspective, that's kind of the thing that, you know, we're we see a lot of that in the Bible. But what we don't often talk about in the Bible is this- What I call an avoidant personality around money, right? Is people who are pushing it away unconsciously because of [00:51:00] their fear, their shame, the anxiety, the grief that it's bringing up for them.

And I... You know, that was where I was at, and that's where the mo- the monks in the monastery were at. You know, there was one monk in our community, I, I call him Brother Pious, who refused to touch money for any reason because he thought it polluted the soul. And I'm like, "Okay, great. So you get to never deal with this thing you don't wanna deal with, but now somebody else has to touch money more often to keep your hands clean.

Like, how does that work?" so there's there's... We can be anxious, we can avoidant, and that creates two money monsters for each of the nine types. And, okay, I'll be paused there, but then there's another l- quick layer on top of that which is most of us don't typically fall cleanly into one camp or the other.

We tend to shift or depending on the context.

And so th- there's what I call the four pillars of finance, and the four pillars of finance are going to be earning, saving, [00:52:00] investing, and giving. So earning, saving, investing, giving. These are your four pillars, and most of us tend to be, be anxious in one area but avoidant in another.

Hmm. So you could be an anxious... I see this a lot in my, in my, in my financial practice, like, people who are high earners, they make a lot of money, but they're avoidant savers. They spend everything that comes in the door, and so they're broke, right? Or you see people who are really hoarding, anxious savers, but they never invest.

They never capture the power of compound interest or get into the markets 'cause they're afraid of it, so they're avoidant about investing and growing their wealth. And then you see people who grow their wealth, but then they're avoidant givers. They never do anything with it that's, uh, meaningful.

They're just- Hmm ... it's a, it's a narcissism project. Okay, great. Good for you. So what? So that k- that's giving you this nuance and, and in flavor to how, how all this might play out.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, I love that because I'm literally, as you're going through that, I'm thinking about specific clients that I've had over the years.

[00:53:00] Mm-hmm. And, and how that has played out in their minds as well because I, I do think that we have,

we have those behaviors that we, we all have that uh, a- and a lot of times I think it's becoming conscious of them is so important because it, you know, it's... U- until you know that there's a problem, you can't do anything about the problem, so to speak. Mm-hmm. Um, and so much of this stuff we...

Because, especially because it starts getting programmed into us so early that we almost are blind to it. You know, it's sort of the... It, it's just the environment that you've existed in so long that it's just normal.

Yeah,

Douglas Lynam: exactly. Yeah, and so again, it's about exploring your childhood wounds and exploring the money traumas that we have that maybe push us into these different, different unhealthy ways that we can relate to money.[00:54:00]

Scott Maderer: So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there is there anything else about y- your work or your books that you'd like to share with the listener?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah, I think I think the one thing about this book, Taming Your Money Monster, that I'm so excited about is... A- and kind of the intellectual project I was trying to sol- the intellectual riddle I was trying to solve with it is, excuse me, is there an intellectual framework, is there a way to help people make better money decisions, more ethical decisions around their finances that transcends religion, politics, and culture?

What would that be? Like, 'cause if there isn't some universal framework that we could all agree upon, then we don't have any way to, to talk about this in a in broad strokes. And so that's the kind of, the nut I was cri- trying to crack, and I, and I think I've done it, and I think that's what I'm really most proud of it with this work is [00:55:00] like, okay, now there's a univer- it's a, it's a universally applic- you don't have to agree with it, you don't have to believe in the Enneagram.

Maybe it's not, maybe it's not your cup of tea, but if it is, then, you know, it doesn't really matter what your religious background is. It doesn't mat- matter what country you live in. Um, someone in, at, or was it, uh, in Afghanistan just reached out. They're translating it into Farsi right now because it, it's working well there, and someone in India is translating it 'cause it's working well there.

So it, it, it has... and some of the book sales have been higher over in, in Asia than even in some of the, you know, Western countries. So it's really kind of fascinating to see how it, it really does transcend all those barriers.

Scott Maderer: So my brand is Inspired Stewardship, and I kind of run things through that lens of stewardship.

Mm-hmm. And yet I've discovered over the years that that's one of those words that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

Douglas Lynam: It means aligning my my, my [00:56:00] earning, saving, investing, and giving towards a higher purpose, towards a purpose that makes my soul sing.

That all of it is working towards the greater good to the best of my understanding, that it's in service of God, that it's in service of lo- in service of love. Now, we could, you know, whether we wanna h- whatever y- I don't wanna put any theology on the word God too much. I wanna leave that a bit of an open for the listener to, to the God of your understanding, right?

And that ultimately that God has to be, I think all of our traditions that God is fundamentally rooted in love. And so, so that m- money, m- my money, m- my career, and I'm trying to model it to the best of my ability and n- never being perfect at it. Good Lord knows, far from it. But that it all aligns f- towards something, a higher purpose, so it, it, it makes life worth living.

It makes work meaningful. It makes the... Even though there's tedium in it, there's joy in it. And to feel like when I die, like [00:57:00] I've, haven't wasted my time here and done a, made it a little bit better than I found it, hopefully, for some people.

Scott Maderer: That brings me to my favorite question that I last like to ask everybody.

Uh, imagine for a moment that I could invent this magic machine, and with this machine, I could take you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And through the power of this machine, you are able to look back and see your entire life-

See all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left.

What impact do you hope you've left on the world?

Douglas Lynam: Well, first, I hope people forgive me for my mistakes. I hope there's some grace that the world will have and look back and say that, "Yeah, you made some m- terrible catastrophes in your life and yet it was worthwhile. It was... There's something ultimately redeeming about the work I've done to, to..."

A- I, I think for me, what I- my greatest [00:58:00] hope is that I've added something meaningful to the great conversation of civilization in some small way. Through, through my book is sort of a ripple in the pond of all the other books that have been written, but I h- hope people can pick it up and improve upon it and, and, and build on this really...

The Enneagram is an ancient system. We've been, we've been developing it for millennia, and to, and to feel like I've contributed something to that conversation and also to the greater conversation of what it, what it means to live a good life.

Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you continue on your journey?

Douglas Lynam: Yeah. Uh, you know, just continue to, you know, promoting the books. Starting a public pu- public speaking tour, so I'm, I'm looking for more speaking opportunities, so if anybody was looking for a keynote or y- you're looking for some help with your businesses, uh, doing workshops or talking to groups, that's my main jam.

I'm kind of doing a tour of some churches right now, giving, uh, church workshops, and then also just continue to grow my [00:59:00] my business of helping people with their finances and helping them invest with their values and really build wealth and in, in service of your higher purpose, whatever that is for you.

Scott Maderer: You can find out more about Doug Lynam over at douglynam.com. Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Doug, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

Douglas Lynam: Oh, just go out there and love and serve. L- love more, serve more, be more.

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