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Darin Newbold: All right, well good day and welcome to Monsters and Lighthouses. I'm Darin Newbold and with me... Sorry, to do something a little different. Sorry about that, Doug. Hey, in our last episode, we introduced the frameworks of what and I, why we are together and what we bring to the table. Basically, we talked about the Enneagram and the framework I combine the Enneagram with... ⁓
DOUGLAS LYNAM: I'm Doug Linum.
Darin Newbold: purpose factor to create bold GPS. And we're excited. They really come together. They're really complimentary and supplementary in a ways to each of them. So today we're going to dig more into the money side, the money monster side, and specifically the anxious and avoidant. So, I know Doug, that's kind of that first recognition moment for in the whole money pattern play. Tell us about that a little.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah, it's kind of help you understand what we're, we'll get into it in a minute, but like, where do you get stuck financially? And we're gonna talk a little bit about what money anxiety looks like and what money avoidance looks like for each of us and how they show up in different areas of our financial lives and then how they show up for each of the nine Enneagram types specifically.
Darin Newbold: Awesome. Well, let's dive in. So before we kind of name this pattern and let me kind of set this up, what are we talking about when we say someone has a money pattern? What does that mean?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Well, it's the unconscious fears that are driving your financial decisions in potentially unhealthy ways. Sometimes they're helpful, but oftentimes they're not. And so what are those patterns for you? If we can name them, again, we can tame them and we can help move you through, know, bold GPS into a healthier direction so that you really have purpose and clarity in your life. these are your blind spots, essentially. This is where you are most likely to fall flat in your face or Mostly to have a fender bender so to speak in your in your life financial life or get into a car wreck like you'll notice these patterns showing up over and over and over again if you if you're mindful of them and Then being able to find a healthier way forward so you're repeating the same mistakes again and again and again But rather can really live that life that makes your soul sing both personally professionally and financially
Darin Newbold: Do you find that this is a knowledge problem in people knowing? Because I was taught, my parents tried to teach me some really good things and they did. I didn't necessarily listen to all of them, but...
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah. Well, I mean, the problem with these money monsters in these blind spots is, you there's a story that David Foster Wallace told really well, and he said about there's these, may have heard it before, and there's these two young fish swimming down a stream. And then an older fish swims upstream and says, morning boys, how's the water? And the two fish swim along. And one of the younger ones turns to the other and says, what the hell is water?
Darin Newbold: Exactly.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: And the end game is like, it's the water you've been swimming in your entire life, but you can't see it until someone points it out to you. It's the fundamental part of your personality that shapes everything you do and everything you see and everything you experience. But because it's a filter that it's a lens on top of everything that's that's come all the data that's coming into your consciousness, you can't see the filter because it's it's it's shaping everything. And so it's someone has to point out to you know, until your parents or your society or someone says, hey, you've got this blind spot or even a competitive advantage in some ways, it's both a superpower and a weakness. And so to be able to know what it is and to name it is the first step again to taming it. But you're never gonna get rid of it entirely, but you need to understand what it is so that you can avoid the repeated patterns that are causing you suffering for yourself and most importantly, suffering for those that you love. when we when we tend to have Are unaware of our enneagram type or unaware of these patterns they get played out over time and they Inevitably I would say if I could make one universal statement that's been true for my life once once I learned the enneagram I realized that every time I've hurt somebody every time I really wounded someone deeply in my in my life It was because I was acting out the unhealthiest expression of my enneagram type And same thing true when anyone's ever hurt me, is that they're acting out the unhealthiest expressions of their type. And when you know what those patterns are, you can stop doing it, number one, and also be much more forgiving of people around you and understand where they're coming from when they're causing suffering for you, because it's like, ⁓ I see the pattern, and it isn't conscious, but maybe you can help the other person move through it with a little more grace and divinity as well.
Darin Newbold: Yeah, knowing what that pattern is and being able to, one of the things that I really like to work with people on is being able to have that pause. And it's that moment to make a new or a different decision and to really reframe an experience and all of those things. okay, so we got you there on the pattern. We can see that. And until we know what it is, we're not gonna know. And one of the things that's keyed all this that you talk about in this pattern is, and at least pieces of it is this anxiousness and avoidance. And tell us more about that.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Okay, so when we what we want to get you to is to have a healthy relationship with your money, and a healthy relationship with your business and financial and personal decisions. But when we have an unhealthy relationship to money, it can show up in two kind of simplified buckets. It's where we're being avoidant around big decisions where we're
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unconsciously self sabotaging ourselves by not taking responsibility for some aspect of our personal financial life. And we're unconsciously sort of pushing money away. ⁓ Or where we're clinging too tightly, we're too anxious, where we're essentially weaponizing money and we're getting too tight fisted around it and that anxiety is causing all kinds of tension and pressure. It's also kind of creating suffering for ourselves and those around us. So as we talked about in the opening of the first episode, you know, in my childhood, I grew up in a fairly wealthy family where money was abundant, but it was weaponized. My parents, they were very anxious around money. And so they were very, you know, tight fisted about it in many ways. And that created suffering for their children and for themselves. And then in the monastery, we were all voiding around money. None of us wanted to deal with it. So I was pushing it away and that's why our community went bankrupt. So it was like understanding, when you understand this anxiety and avoidance, ⁓ then it really makes, when you put it with your Enneagram type, especially, then it explains, it nails really accurately, like names that pattern, what that money monster is for you. And then maybe we can, we'll spend a lot much more time in later episodes giving you the actual tips and tricks for overcoming it. But that's it in a nutshell. So think Ebenezer Scrooge, think Ebenezer Scrooge and then is the anxious archetype and then the avoidance sort of the ostrich burying their head in the sand.
Darin Newbold: So. Well, and I'm guessing that at any point in our lives we probably vacillate maybe from one to the other. We're not necessarily focused on one all the time, right?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Right. And it shows up. So when we talk about money anxiety or money money avoidance it can show up and most of us are all one type or the other. And there's what I call the four pillars of finance. So the four pillars of finance are going to be earning saving investing and giving. So earning saving investing and giving are the four pillars of your financial life. And most of us tend to be anxious in one area and be avoidant in another. Some of us are avoidant across the board. Some of us are anxious across the board. But typically you'll see we don't we can vastly between these two two tendencies. So for example you might be an anxious earner you might make a lot of money but you might be an avoidant saver. So if you spend everything you have on stuff right then you're you're never getting to the saving part or some people are really anxious about saving. They they're really good at counting every penny and hoarding every nickel but they they're scared of investing. They're they're avoiding around the investing piece which is where where real wealth gets built and created. And then you see people who are great at all those first three, but they're avoiding or on giving it becomes just an egoistic self and grand Isaman project. They're never really using your wealth as a tool for love and service to the world, which I think is its main purpose, right? Money is just a tool, right? It's not good. It's not evil. It's dependent on how we use it. And so the more you have of it, the more good you can do in the world. And that's where we want to help our audience or listeners get to is a space where I'm financially secure, I can prevent the suffering. that comes from poverty in my personal and my family life. But now I also have the resources to go out there and live my mission, live my purpose, and really make the world a better place for the people around me.
Darin Newbold: Absolutely, that's awesome. you started to, you went down the path with the four pillars. I wanted to, this is a great time to kind of pivot just a little bit. And for those that aren't watching this ⁓ live or even watching it and being able to see this, we'll include it in the show notes. But I'm going to have Doug, if you'd go ahead and share your screen, because I think, I think what's going to be best is if we walk through, let's go ahead and go back through our nine types and, and let's just identify. what that looks like, going around the nine types for each one, the anxious and the avoidant and what that really kind of ultimately looks like. And feel free to kind of dig in, Doug, in each different place. I'll obviously, ⁓ as always, ask my questions to help provide some clarity and always a little bit of fun, because who doesn't like that?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah, just to just visually here again, here's the four pillars that we just talked about earning, saving, investing and giving. And then there's a little bit about the money anxious and avoid money avoidant styles, right? So the money anxious again, they're just sort white knuckling their financial lives, you know, that that weaponizing it and, you know, kind of living in perpetual road rage with their finances. We've got that money avoidant kind of always, you know, taking the slow road, just basically take sitting in the rest stop and never getting anywhere. or that jumbled style, you're of like, can't, you're accelerating and breaking at the same time. Like it's just sort of putting both of those together. So that's a quick, we already covered that. I won't spend any more time on it, but here we get to, ⁓ this is where we get to the money monsters. All so this is, we talked about this in the first episode, that color wheel metaphor of if we put these nine types on a color wheel and each one is either in the anger, grief, or fear triad and ⁓ the anger types are of course, what they're really looking for at the heart is looking for control and empowerment. That's what their type is sort of designed to do. Whereas the grief triad is really seeking validation and connection. That's their biggest, deepest need or insecurity. And then for the fear triad, right, they're looking for security and certainty from life in different ways. They're each
trying to get it in a different way. And so we talked about in the past episode, type eights, like they're the challenger and What they have is have this externalized anger. They have this anger, their psychological and biblical core, what I call your sacred wound, get cut by anger that they pushing out against the world. call them the, I call them the Hummer often because they're, again, they can roll over obstacles very easily, but they just aren't very feel efficient with their opinions or emotions. they're, they, they, they like a fight. They like a challenge. They like to push against ⁓ the, the, the, eight Their motto is that the best defense is a good offense. some examples of type eights would be Donald Trump is a sample of a somewhat, you know, not to get political, but he's definitely a type eight. But so is Martin Luther King Jr. These are two people who really have made big impacts in the world different ways, but they're always challenging the status quo. But where it comes about in our in our money style, we've got the anxious and avoidant. the anxious, let's see if I get this to work right. Yep. So the money avoidant type eight. So because eights, they want control and empowerment, the avoidant, I call them the detonator, meaning they tend to detonate prudent financial limitations or boundaries around them. So they hate doing their budgets, they hate the restrictions that lack of resources puts on them. So they tend to just blow it up. ⁓ Like they'll be there may be out at a dinner and they want to grab the check to show everybody who's the boss, even though they're maxing out their credit cards, right? They want to feel like they're in control and have power around them. And money becomes a way of doing that. But they're then they're detonating those prudent financial limitations either in their earning, their saving, their investing or how they're giving right and they can show up in each of those areas in very distinct in different ways. Or they become the dominator. And that would be like just the shows like succession and billions like we want to dump they want all the wealth, because they want to dominate like the landscape in front of them. They feel like this if I have all the money is going to give me all the power I want and all the control I want to assuage this deep existential dread or anxiety they feel that the world's going to harm them or control them. So they're going to basically control everybody back instead. That's a quick overview of the type eight. See if I've nailed that.
Darin Newbold: Doug, yeah, let me ask you, do you find in your experience with the eights that you've met, do you find one type or one avoidant a little bit more than maybe anxious or?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: I would say eights tend to be more anxious around money. They tend to be pretty good with money, like in terms of the nuts and bolts. It's something they tend to gravitate towards ⁓ naturally because they understand the power that it gives them. And so they're naturally attracted to it and tend to do better financially in many ways than most. again, I've seen the detonator show up as well ⁓ in equal measure ⁓ in eights, but more dominator than detonator, but both are a real problem.
Darin Newbold: Gotcha. I would tend to see, at least in my little bit of experience, at least with some, the detonator side as far as just avoiding personal finance stuff. Don't want to have to mess with anything like that or just, hey, forget about it. As long as the checks don't bounce, I'm good.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Mm hmm. Right. They tend to be very good at high level, big picture thinking, but they don't like getting down in the weeds and the nuances of budgets and stuff like that tends not to be a strong space for them for sure.
Darin Newbold: Definitely, definitely. All right. Well, let's take a look at the nine.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Okay, so type nine, the peacemaker we've talked about, they've got this internalized and externalized anger. they're, they're, they're, and we could also say each type, as we mentioned in last episode has a core vice, I call the greatest vice. So for type eight, the greatest vices we see is lust, but it isn't necessarily just sexual, it's that lust for intensity, they love intense feelings, intense experiences, they want, you know, they want a lot of life. But that can get them in trouble financially, but for nines we say that their problem is really sloth. And so what they what they struggle with here is we've got the the spud and the dud. And so because nines are sitting on this volcano of anger that they never want to tap, they're always avoiding their anger and even denying that it exists. They want things they call me I call them the RV of egos. They want things easy going as much as possible. But when they're avoiding around money.
Darin Newbold: Ha
DOUGLAS LYNAM: nine, nines are called the spud because it's the couch potato. It's like, they treat their finances like ⁓ the treadmill in the corner of the room, they never get to working out on right, they know it's there, then they should. But it brings up so much anxiety for them, it brings up so much ⁓ negative emotion that they don't want to deal with the conflict. So they just don't deal with anything at all. So they become the spud or the couch potato when it comes to really looking hard at their financial life. But then The problem with nines is because their greatest fear is that loss of wholeness from conflict, because they're so conflict avoidant, when they do get anxious around money, sometimes I call them the dud, meaning there's a flurry of activity, but the results tend to be a bit of a dud. It means that because they're doing so much, but they don't ever want to face that core conflict, they don't want to have the fight with their spouse. They want to have that confrontation with their boss. They don't want to have a difficult conversation with their... with their employee or their client, then those
conversations, their friendship tends to be a bit of a ⁓ dud. And that's kind of where nines need to get over that fear of conflict, have the fight that they're actively avoiding all the time.
Darin Newbold: That's so interesting, the spud and the dud. I can definitely see that and I have ⁓ a wonderful, lovely daughter that she is a nine and definitely have experienced those. as a father, trying to help her and help move forward can be a challenge when you have someone that so much, you know, wants to keep, you know, the... the internal and the external anger wants to keep it all away and just be at peace. Yeah, it's challenging. But we'll get into those ways of ⁓ taming and that's gonna be the ongoing journey of monsters and lighthouses. But definitely let's continue on around the corner here in the anger triad with our improver, the One.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Right. Yeah. were. Right. So the one again, I call them the BMW of egos. ⁓ They're, they're struggling. So their, their struggle there is that that this internalized anger, the cut that psychological umbilical cord that we were mentioning in childhood, and so that drives it that this inward anger towards themselves when they don't do things perfectly or do things the right way. There's a strong internal moral critic that's always judging themselves and judging the people around them. But when it comes to money, ones want to do it right. They want to do things the right way. So when they become money avoidant, they become what I call the prude. They tend to demonize money very easily. They think money is somehow bad or only greedy, selfish people think about money. And so it becomes a moral self justification. if really what it is, is money avoidance, then with a moral justification laid on top of it, it's like become prudish about their finances, they sort of put their wallet in a chastity belt and treat, you know, their pocket change like it's the devil's, know, pocket lint, you know, they don't, they don't, they think that money is bad. So the best way to deal with something that's inherently bad is not having to do with it, right. So they're, they're creating this weird psychological constraint like on themselves. So because they don't want to be bad person, so I'm just not going to deal with money because money is basically bad.
Darin Newbold: Wow.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: And so they can very prudish around their finances and they tend to judge other people who maybe have more or people who really care about money. I that that's a false way to operate in the world. And it really what it just does it decimates their own financial limitations. And I saw this in the monastery a lot. A lot of prudish behavior around money in the monastery to be sure. ⁓ yeah. It's like money's bad. Money's the root of all evil. know love of money's real. There's lots there's lots of biblical quotes you can find for justifying.
Darin Newbold: Really?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: your money monsters and there's equally ones for being anxious and equal ones being avoidant because anyway our scriptures are in order for our scriptures to be effective no matter what religious tradition you're in. They have to be able to talk to all types all nine any of them types. So some some passages in there were meant for other types they weren't meant for you. Right. So yeah. So it's easy to take something out of context and misapply it in various ways.
Darin Newbold: Right. What? And to your point in your story is money gets weaponized so quickly and so easily. tell us about the pious side of the one.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah. So then the pious is the one who thinks that money is all good, right? if money is good, then the way to deal with that is it be meticulous about it. They tend to, and this is more common in ones where they want to cross every T and dot every I to perfection. They get very pious about their finances and think that a budget mistake isn't just a mistake, it's a moral failing in some sense that if you aren't good with money, then you're a bad person or you've done something wrong. they become very obsessive about their budgets and obsessive about their finances to the point where it actually creates suffering for themselves and the people around them because they're just too fixated that, you know, it's hard for them to let go and have a little bit of fun with their finances and live life fully because it becomes such an obsession for them.
Darin Newbold: So, Doug, just taking a quick pause here and giving you a second to kind of catch up here. Of the eight, nine, and one, how would these money monsters, the detonator, dominator, the spud, the dud, the prude, the pious, how would these show up, whether it's in day-to-day in a relationship or even looking at it as their business because these are going to extend to how you're going to treat your business and those really big decisions. How do you see those showing up? Maybe pick one and if you have an example, quick example, I'd love to hear that.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Absolutely. Yeah, well, mean, eight's easiest one to talk about in business because they're going to be more common in a business scenario to be sure. you know, the detonator is going to be the one who's like, is instead of, ⁓ well, let's see. That's good question. It's a hard question to answer. I'm trying to think of a specific example. I have a client who's a detonator eight. ⁓ And basically, know, they're it's like, there isn't the money for something, but they're going to they're going to spend it anyway. Like they don't want to they don't want to be limited by their budget. And so they're maybe going to extend themselves or extend their business out beyond what's what's really a financially prudent decision in the moment. ⁓ The domineer is going to be someone maybe is so busy trying to crush it that they they can crush their employees and they can even can crush their their customers in a way that they're so busy trying to be in control to the point where nobody
wants to work with them. They always have to be right. They always have to be on top. They always have to be in charge. They're not going to be able to listen to feedback. Or, AIDs are going to struggle with the feedback loop because anything that challenges their authority or control is likely to be a triggering event for them. And so that can get them in all kinds of trouble with their customers, their clients, and their employees.
Darin Newbold: Absolutely. You told a great story about this in Tame Your Money Monsters. ⁓ And I recall, and I think it was a Dominator 8. if I remember right, he was just the bull, proverbial bull in the China shop, as you would describe where, you know, dominating hate and... in a business environment, not only dominating his own business, but then wanting to and ultimately working to dominate others businesses. And that, you know, that was great right up to the point where there was nothing left to dominate and you're sitting there left holding the holding the holding the bag and the music has stopped. So yeah.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah. Or you've dominated to the point where you've cut some corners to do it and then you find yourself in all kinds of legal and personal trouble because everyone, you've put a big target, big old bullseye on your back, right? It's just saying, all right, when you're crushing people around them, they tend to want to crush you back. So they're kind of in this feedback loop of I'm going to push against you, but then people push back and then you're constantly in a fight. Everything's a fight. Nothing's moving smoothly because they just can't. let control go easily. that and that's gonna, you know, there's some things that you can get some degree of control is obviously necessary professionally, but too much becomes the point where nobody wants to work with you. And then then what happens to your clients at that point, or your colleagues?
Darin Newbold: Exactly, exactly. Well, fantastic. All right, well, let's keep moving on around and let's go into that grief triad and starting off with our helper. I believe it's the ambulance that's going to come zooming in to help us in our time of need, whether we like it or not.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Mm-hmm. Right. So two's they're funny beasts. ⁓ And we all we all have our challenges. but eight's again there are two's excuse me they're call them the helper I call them the ambulance of egos. So what the problem is is they have that sacred wound of of externalized grief meaning they feel grief or shame. They grief about how they think people perceive them which is kind of a way of saying shame. And so they this they feel like they're fundamentally unlovable. And so they're always running around trying to help people. in a quest to win that validation and approval from other people by being overly helpful, even if you want it or not sometimes. they can, they're very warm and kind and sweet, but sometimes even intrusive in their helpfulness to the point where it,
and they run themselves into the ground, they tend to overextend themselves with their time, their talent and their treasure. It's like, there's a story of like, there's a parable that says, it's better to give a person It's better to teach someone to fish than it is to give them a fish every day. And that's true, but the two is the kind of person who would rather give the fish every day and create a kind of codependency rather than teach someone how to fish. So they're going to give you that fish with a note that says you're amazing and a side of tartar sauce. And they're going to keep that flow of gratitude to constantly be coming at them. And that can deplete them financially and personally very, very quickly. in ways that are can get very toxic if they're not careful. So for type two, we have the money avoidant bleeder. I call the money avoidant bleeder means they bleed the bleeder because they bleed out their time, talent and treasure serving other people, but they never manage to take care of themselves. There's nothing left over for them. At the end of the day, meet a lot of ⁓ it's just women tend to have a more of a struggle with this one at times culturally, but they end up ⁓ giving so much to their children, so much to their partner, they give so much to their colleagues, to the people in their lives whom they love, but then there's nothing left over at the end of the day, they hit 65 and it's like, well, I've gotten everyone else through their lives, but now where am I? I have no retirement, I've got no savings, I'm stuck. So ⁓ the bleeder needs to be very careful that they're taking care of themselves first before they're helping other people. ⁓ And then the bonder is the two, they make money anxious, that's like, again, person wants to give people a fish every day, they have resources, but they're always using it to create a kind of codependency in the people around them to keep that flow of gratitude never ending stream. so it's either they're giving too much, both are the same mechanism of action, just one basically is without losing all their money and one hoarding their money so they make sure they have enough so they can keep that dependency and gratitude flowing their way all the time.
Darin Newbold: And they're always wanting to find and feel love and be that. And can definitely, in an unhealthy way, go down the wrong path, whether they're a bleeder or a bonder. And this I have seen and even experienced a little bit of. So definitely no fun. And we want to help you and help our listeners as they're on their journey. And so if any of these start to... ⁓ resonate with you, we'd love to hear from you and definitely reach out. But let's continue down the path here. Let's go to your personal favorite, our fun achiever, the three.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yes. Yeah. I'll just tell a quick story about there was a monk in the monastery who was actually type one, it was a prude, who actually thought that touching money was evil. ⁓ And he refused
to touch money for any reason for many, many years. And of course, it was really an interesting story, because then it just meant everyone else around him had to touch it more often to keep his hands clean, which I thought was really kind of a funny, funny, ⁓ logical moral twist. But anyway, that would give you that quick, quick story. But back to type three, the achievers, so that's my type. again, we're, call type three is the race car as well, because as we mentioned, we're always racing towards a finish line. We always want to get the pat from teacher, get the gold star, win the approval from the people around us. But we tend to leave our authentic selves in the dust because we're always trying to achieve things because we have this internalized and externalized grief, meaning the internalized grief means you feel kind of this grief or shame about how we perceive ourselves. And then we have this externalized grief about how we think other people perceive us. And that creates the stereophonic shame that means our greatest fear is that we're fundamentally worthless, that we don't have any value in the world. So always trying to achieve things that society approves of to assuage that sense of worthlessness. But that gets us in the trouble with our finances. And we when we're avoiding, I call them the barrier. And when we're anxious, I call them the blinger. So I struggle with being a barrier three. It's the thing I've had to overcome most is not wanting to look at money because of all the shame it brings up. so with threes, we tend to equate our net worth with our self worth. And if our net worth is low, then our self worth is low. So then our shame level is high. And then we just don't want to look at or deal with it because of all that anxiety, the money is bringing up. we tend to bury our head in the sand like the ostrich. We just don't want to look at it because of all the grief, the emotional stress that our finances are putting on us. So we just bury our head in the sand and pretend it isn't there. And then of course that creates all kinds of train wrecks and pileups if we're not careful. But then on the other side, which is perhaps a bit more common with threes is the blinger, which is we want all the money, but we want it to show off how successful we are. we tend to, we might be high earners, but then most of our money is going to status symbols because the great way to win status in society, a cheap way or a very expensive way, I should say, is to buy a bunch of stuff, right, is to have the fancy clothes, the fancy car, the nice house, the fancy watch, right. So we're blinging out our life in order to make ourselves feel important in the world when in fact no one else really cares in the first place. But it's a way that we get ourselves into trouble financially.
Darin Newbold: Well, that's interesting. And I'm just curious, just because I'm reading this word, the way you have it set up, the barrier, that seems like a unique way of putting that together. Is that something different or special there, Doug?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: From where I'm not quite sure what you're referring to
Darin Newbold: On your three, the barrier, how you have that spelled and set up. I don't know. I have to say, if you're saying barrier, like a barrier, then yeah, that is.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: ⁓ huh. Or did I spell it wrong? Okay, as in bearing a hole in the ground like digging a hole. ⁓
Darin Newbold: ⁓ yeah, okay. Yeah, you're burying. So, gotcha, gotcha. No, that's perfect. Thank you for clarifying that. That makes sense. The ostrich in the ground makes a lot of sense. Well, and that's got to be challenging as a three, wanting to achieve and...
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
Darin Newbold: dealing with that and I can't wait till you get to the kind of the opposite side over to mine there because I'm gonna probably have to leave the show for a while because I'm not sure I'm gonna want to see all that. But let's kick on to our individualist, the fours. I really kind of have a fun relationship with fours. I struggle with them at times just because in some ways we're wildly opposite but yet
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Hahaha
Darin Newbold: With their depth, can really help sevens in a lot of ways find greater depth because depth is not necessarily our strong point. anyway, talking about money and their internal grief.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so fours are, both my brothers are fours. I have a twin brother who's a four, paternal twin, and older brother's a four. So I get to see this play out really clearly. ⁓ know, my brothers and I, we all ran away from the world of money and materialism in different ways. I took a vow poverty by joining a monastery. My twin brother took a vow of poverty by becoming a homesteader in Vermont. And my older brother did it by becoming, ⁓ joining a grunge band in Seattle. So we all rebelled in different ways. It was just our way of getting back at our parents, but. ⁓ But the four is they really do have a hard time with finances, perhaps more than any of the nine types in certain ways, because their core wound is this grief, this internalized grief ⁓ towards themselves. feel this grief about how they perceive themselves or the shame or how they perceive themselves. And it makes them feel like they don't have any unique identity or place in the world. So they're always trying to stand out and stand apart by being different. But that gets in the trouble financially, because a lot of the basic rules of finance are pretty cut and dry. and tend to be a little blase and prosaic or pedestrian from the perspective of a four. So they tend not to want to follow conventionality in any way, or form. But the conventionality is a finance, you know, really are helpful. You know, the basics of budgeting and bookkeeping and these are things that fours tend to chafe at a lot. Because they always want to do it different whatever, whatever if you tell a four, this is how you're
supposed to do it, they're going to kind of their instinct is to the opposite direction just to be different. And so why I call them the individuals, I call them the custom car, right of egos. But when their money avoidant, I call them the flop. And when they're anxious, I call them the flinger. And that the flop because you can almost hear them flopping face planting on the pavement. It's like they're financial when they're talking about their financial life is just everything's just a complete disaster. Because they don't want to follow convention. So they don't want to sit down and do the bookkeeping. They don't want to do the budgeting. They don't want to have the traditional career path. You know, they don't want to follow conventional wisdom or advice. So they want to follow. It's like they want to, it's that Robert Frost poem, which says, you know, the wood, the road less traveled. And says, you know, I have, I'm going to misquote it, you know, in the woods, it's stopping, came across a path and I took the road less traveled. And that made all the difference. But the fours are always taking the road less traveled. And then they end up often in the wilderness lost and completely clueless about how they got there and don't know how to find the way back to civilization. Right. So if you're always taking the road left, let's travel. It can be it can be a bit of a bit of a struggle in your financial life. So that's where the four is. They tend to flop. They don't want to. That's why they they just are really struggling financially. They just don't want to deal with it. And then on the other hand, they can be the money anxious type is the flinger is they're anxious about money. They want it. They want to accumulate it.
Darin Newbold: What you... night.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: but they tend to fling it at forms of self-expression. So there's basically no amount of money they can spend on things that will make them feel special or different. So they're throwing money at priceless art collections, they're throwing money at fancy wardrobes or clothes, they're throwing money at that vintage vinyl record collection or their music career or whatever it is that makes them feel like this is the money becomes that weaponized in a way to make them feel special and different from other people. And that can really decimate their financial future if they're not careful.
Darin Newbold: Absolutely. In fact, if I remember right, the opening story in your book talks about a couple and the husband in this case was ⁓ a four. And I thought it was quite unique how their challenges where the spouse, she was making great money and he was kind of doing his thing to make his, be an individual and really make his own way. And he at times made lots of money, but
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Mm-hmm.
Darin Newbold: Most of the time it kind of came and went just about as fast. And it was quite a story in helping them find their way and find their path. So another great story. But all right, we've got to now embrace fear. ⁓
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Right. Uh-huh. I'm saving the best for last.
Darin Newbold: as one of my favorite movies, Dune would say, fear is the mind killer. So let's walk into type five, our investigator.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yes. Yeah, and that's a good quote. It applies to here. So we say when you're in the fear trie, we say, we call them the head types occasionally that gets used because that's where the wound, fear does wound the mind. It's wounding how you're thinking about reality. Whereas if you're in the grief trie, it's wounding how you feel about reality. And then if you're in the anger trie, it's kind of how you're acting in relationship, how you're taking action in reality. And so, ⁓ And so we call them the body types, the head types and the heart types. But that's another, that's deeper dive. We'll get to that down the road. But if we're in this fear triad, then type fives, we call them the investigator or the observer. call them the compact car because they have this fear that they've internalized towards themselves. They feel this fear about their own ability to navigate reality. so their great sphere is being helpless or incompetent. So they strive to be very, very self-reliant. And that's why we call them the compact car because they have a small gas tank for social interaction. But again, they can go into those tight spaces mentally, they can go places where the rest of us only fear to tread. So there tend to be the brainiacs of the enneagram, they tend to be very head living in their heads a lot. They're investigating, they're trying to figure things out and figure things out and figure things out. Because they, but then the problem with with money is that where it gets them in trouble, if they're anxious, the money avoidant five, I call them the moot. And if they're money anxious, I call them the miser. And mood is a fancy word for meaning irrelevant. they, they, the five basically whose money avoid, they just sort of, they don't want to deal with the pedestrian world of the physical realities of life. So they, they, they're living in their head all the time, and they just think this materialism is irrelevant. So money becomes sort of moot, or it's it's just not something that motivates them, or they want to care about. So they tend to live very, very, very minimalistic lifestyle. with just the bare necessities and just what they need to get by. But that can, you know, they tend to be good savers, but they tend not to have a very robust financial life if they completely ignoring their finances completely. It's just like, yeah, you're getting by, but are you really thriving? You know, that's the real question. Or the miser on the other hand, they want all the money. Like they just can't get enough of it. They want to be very competent. So basically, five can't be super competent with something they run a deal with it. So the if they're not competent with finances, they just think it's irrelevant. They don't want to
face it. Or they when they do they want to be hyper competent at it. And they want to really master it the point where, ⁓ my gosh, it's it becomes almost an obsession. And it's it's their whole life. And so they're the classical Ebenezer Scrooge's in human form when they're the miser, the just that that tight fisted greediness, they can't get enough of money. And they just they tend to take stuff in, but they don't let a lot of And that's the five in a nutshell.
Darin Newbold: Gotcha. That's great. Really puts it into perspective. Let's hit the skeptic, our loyal skeptic of the six with kind of that both internal and externalized fear.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah, sex is the hardest to type or hardest to explain in some ways, because they have this sort of dual nature to them. They're, they're, they're tricky, but they, the skeptic, or I call them the family sedan of egos, right? They're, they're, they have this internalized fear, like the five that they're not capable to meet life's challenges, but they have this externalized fear that the world isn't going to help meet their needs either. So they don't really trust themselves, but they don't trust the world around them. So they're just very skeptical. They tend to have a kind of pessimistic myth. nonetheless very pragmatic approach to life. But they're always worst case scenario thinking about what could go wrong or or or something like that this committee of voices in their heads. It's like Congress shouting all the time about giving them a thousand different options. They never know which way to go. So when they become money avoidant I call them the paralyzed mean that committee of voices in their head giving them all these worst case scenarios. They don't know which way to go. They just just freeze up and they just and they just don't do anything. the grip to kind of paralysis that their fear overwhelms them to the point where they just can't take figure out which way to go or take effective action. So nothing gets done or because what they really want the greatest fear is that they is being without support or guidance. They really want the support or guidance of a community of a structure of an ideology of a political system. So we help anchor them to give them guidance to help them navigate this constant skeptical. approach to life in the universe and everything. that's what I call them the puppet. They kind of go with conventionality. They kind of go with what the tried and true safe route would be. They're always playing it safe. So sort of a puppet to conventionality. And that can give them a solid career, but they tend to want to be middle management. They want to be at the top. They don't want to be the bottom. They kind of want to be kind of right in the middle where they play it safe and not poke their head out too much. Or they they they flip to what I call a pugilist. And a pugilist is an old fashioned word for boxer or a fighter. So they when you threaten their security or anything threatens their their stability they can lash out in a lot of anger at the people the people the systems or the circumstances that are threatening that security that was so hard for them to to try to get. So that gives you a little bit about the skeptic of the six. I hope that that makes sense.
Darin Newbold: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well hey, last but not least, let's hit my personal favorite, the enthusiastic visionary of the 7 or the SUV.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: The SUV, the SUV or the enthusiast, the Type 7. So you've got that externalized fear that the world isn't going to meet your needs. So you're always trying to grab more opportunities and experiences and things to overcome this fear that they decided the world's not going to meet my needs. I'm going to meet them for myself by going out there and getting everything I can in terms of, know, ⁓ just FOMO is the classic behavior of a Type 4, like fear of missing out. They're always living in the future because they don't want to be in the present moment where their pain is. so their money monsters are going to be the gorger and the grabber. So the gorger is like the prodigal son is a classic example of the gorger. Like stuff like the young man who gets an inheritance and just spends it on booze and women and wine and parties and having a good time. Right. So they tend to gorge themselves on experiences and that desk can decimate their financial future because money comes in as an up and down time, let's go to a great restaurant or let's go to a planification or let's let's they want to spend it as soon as it comes in. So they tend to gorge themselves on their financial resources without being able to plan effectively for the long term future needs. Or they become I call the grabber. And that's where they they want to grab all the resources and hoard them because they think that it's going to stave off their any pain and privation. That's the greatest fear for a 7 is being trapped in pain or privation. So they're going to grab at the opportunities and resources and hold on to them because they think that's going to prevent future suffering. And it does to some extent, but it can also cause a lot of problems along the way.
Darin Newbold: ⁓ my, yes it can. And I've lived through all of that and definitely the gorger side for sure. So, ⁓ wow, we're to have some fun things to talk about as we continue this journey. But as we're kind at the end of this one and to wrap it up, maybe just a little bit of a challenge for those listeners. And you can go ahead and stop sharing if you want there, where Doug is really just kind of observe yourself. we've given you a bit of a primer on all of these things and the different aspects and really just kind of notice how you behave around money. Notice when you step up to pay for something or you're at a dinner with friends and they're either gonna do the who pays or how that all works. Notice how you feel. Notice those moments and what's that first feeling and what's that first thing that comes up because it's... Don't judge yourself. This isn't about judging. don't, not trying to shame anybody or add grief or add anxiousness or fear or anything to that, but just notice, just notice. And see then in other circumstances, see if you notice a pattern. See if you notice anything that's starting to come up. Anything else you want to add to that?
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Yeah, all exercise you can try is is to sit down and was very helpful for me is, you know, writing a letter to money, like write a letter to your money, like what would it say to you? And what would you say back if you were to have an honest, heartfelt conversation with your finances? It's like, where where are you anxious or avoid in your financial life? Where in the earning, saving, investing, giving? Where have you gotten it right? Where have you gotten it wrong? And just try to really have a deep dive heart to heart with your finances and just write that letter. But it takes 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or just a journal exercise and see what comes up for you and see what kind of honesty and clarity that might bring forth.
Darin Newbold: That is awesome. So deep. I guess I need to be starting to write a letter. folks again, thank you for joining us here at Monsters and Lighthouses. Your financial behavior, it's not a discipline problem. It's really an information problem. And that information is to help you understand who you are and not about necessarily the money. There's patterns here of anxiousness and avoidance. And we want to help you walk those patterns and be able to recognize and name them. And that's that first step is just naming them and recognizing them and to give you the option to ⁓ take a different path. Well, with that, again, as always, we appreciate you being here we forward to ⁓ continuing the path of money, ⁓ monsters lighthouses ⁓ for time. So again, I'm Darin, happy to Doug here with me as always, and we'll see you next time. Thanks.
DOUGLAS LYNAM: Take care, be well guys.