Douglas E. Lynam is what happens when a former Marine turned monk decides to become a financial advisor—a walking contradiction who found his calling by combining seemingly opposing worlds. Having lived under a vow of poverty in a monastery for nearly twenty years, Doug learned the hard way that poverty isn't particularly spiritual, and being broke doesn't help anyone.

After graduating at the top of his class from Marine Corps Office Candidate School in 1995, Doug turned down his commission to become a Benedictine monk. He realized that unresolved emotional issues and high explosives were a bad combination. So, he joined a monastery to find God, annoy his yuppie parents, and escape the world of materialism forever.

In a cosmic twist of irony, his monastery went bankrupt in 1999. Doug then began studying finance with the same intensity he had applied to his contemplative practice to pull his community out of their fiscal ditch. As the most junior monk in his community, he was discouraged from offering spiritual advice to monastery guests because he was "too immature." But he discovered that a good budget could help resolve people's personal issues as effectively as good prayers, so he offered his financial services pro bono to friends of the monastery as his gift. This became the foundation for his future career in finance.

A graduate of St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico (also known as the Great Books School), Doug's rigorous liberal arts education equipped him with the analytical and philosophical tools to tackle any intellectual challenge. While a monk, he served as the head of the mathematics department at a prestigious private school, where he taught a range of subjects including economics and astrophysics.

One day in 2014, for a class project in his Economics course, he opened up his school's retirement plan to show the kids how it worked. What he discovered was a mess. He soon learned that almost all teacher retirement plans across the United States were equally problematic. So, he launched his own investment advisory firm from inside the monastery to build better retirement plans for teachers.

After twenty years of still being the most junior monk in his community and not being allowed to have an opinion in what turned out to be a cult, he left the monastery in 2017. He then merged his financial services company with LongView Asset Management in Santa Fe, NM, a sustainability-focused B Corp, where he helped manage over a quarter-billion in assets.

Doug went on to build the first fully environmentally sustainable 403(b) retirement plan for any school or non-profit in the US, but he couldn't make a meaningful dent in solving the broader problem of teacher retirement plans. He left LongView in 2024 to become a full-time writer, coach, and contemplative hermit.

Doug's first book, From Monk to Money Manager: A Former Monk's Financial Guide to Becoming a Little Bit Wealthy—And Why That's Okay, combined practical financial advice with spiritual wisdom. Now, in Taming Your Money Monster: 9 Paths to Financial Mastery with the Enneagram, he merges the profound insights of the Enneagram to help readers transform their relationship with money. Most importantly, it offers a universal framework for ethical money decisions that transcends religion, politics, and culture.

A Type Three on the Enneagram, Doug has spent years studying how personality impacts financial behavior and has counseled numerous A-list Hollywood celebrities. His own journey through financial chaos has given him deep empathy for others struggling with money issues. When not writing about himself in the third person, Doug can be found in Santa Fe, NM, hiking the mountains and probably overthinking something about the nature of consciousness while trying not to be vain about his humility.

For professional inquiries or speaking engagements, contact doug@douglynam.com.