The Chaplain's Hustle with Harland Merriam
In this episode of Keep Hustling, host Aaron Gordon sits down with Harland Merriam, a Presbyterian pastor, a retired Army colonel with thirty two years of service, a real estate investor, and the author of Profit Seeks Purpose. Harland has spent a career asking people the questions they tend to avoid, and he has a name for the one that stops successful people cold. I have achieved everything I set out to achieve, so is this all there is? The conversation keeps circling back to an idea Harland calls the pause. Not quitting and not slowing down for its own sake, but stopping long enough to ask why am I doing this and who am I becoming, then letting the answer set the next direction. Aaron and Harland work through what the military teaches about trust and commitment, why a purpose can hold steady while an identity keeps changing, and what happens to a person whose entire sense of self is their job when the job goes away. Harland also explains why he facilitates a weekly mastermind of accomplished entrepreneurs, a room built for the doubts nobody posts on LinkedIn.
Get To Know Harland Merriam
Harland Merriam is an author, entrepreneur, coach, and Presbyterian pastor with more than fifty years of experience helping people discover purpose, develop character, and lead with integrity.
After decades of ministry, military chaplaincy, and leadership, Harland entered the world of multifamily real estate investing, where he discovered that many successful entrepreneurs share the same quiet question: "I've achieved success, but is this all there is?"
That question inspired his book, Profit Seeks Purpose, and continues to shape his work today.
Harland now brings together faith-driven entrepreneurs in small mastermind communities where they find clarity, encouragement, accountability, and the courage to take their next faithful step. His passion is helping leaders build businesses that not only create profit but also bless people, strengthen communities, and leave a meaningful legacy.
He served in the Army Chaplain Corps with both Reserve and Active Duty units across thirty two years, achieving the rank of Colonel and finishing his military career as Division Chaplain in the 90th and the 75th Divisions. As a Presbyterian minister he led congregations in Martinsville, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Dallas, Texas, and Beaumont, Texas. He is also a graduate of Stetson University, where he majored in Mathematics and Physics, and where he now serves as University Chaplain. His real estate work includes a local portfolio of rental properties and a syndicated 129 unit apartment complex in Tallahassee, and he leads a monthly meetup that teaches local investors how to invest wisely and ethically. He and his wife Barbara, whom he has known since kindergarten, live in DeLand, Florida.
Buy Harland's Book
Read the First Chapter
3 Key Listener Takeaways
1. The pause is part of the hustle, not a break from it. Harland makes the case that the adjustments that matter almost always arrive after a deliberate stop and a hard question. Why am I doing this, and who am I becoming? Hustling harder in a direction you have never questioned is just passing time with more effort.
2. Your purpose can hold steady while your identity keeps changing. For years Harland answered the question of who he was with his title, chaplain and pastor. When the uniform came off, the purpose of serving people did not disappear, it expanded. Aaron and Harland agree that it is fine to define yourself by your work, as long as the work is not the only thing holding your purpose up, because careers end and purpose should not end with them.
3. Doubt belongs in the room. Quoting his friend Rabbi Hyman, Harland offers that faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin and you cannot have one without the other. That is the reason he facilitates a weekly mastermind of highly successful entrepreneurs, a space built for the failures, the errors, and the questions that never make it into the LinkedIn version of a life.
Show Overview
00:00 Meet Harland Merriam
00:42 Thirty two years of military service
01:40 The one word behind all of it
02:49 The pause and the question that redirect a life
03:12 What the military teaches about commitment
04:13 A mission bigger than today
05:02 Trusted with everything at twenty one
07:11 University chaplain, fifty years older than his students
08:07 Purpose stays, identity evolves
09:23 How to commit when purpose keeps changing
11:35 Taking off the uniform and expanding the purpose
12:09 The first chapter, a man who turns outward
13:54 Rabbi Hyman on faith and doubt
14:42 A mastermind where the LinkedIn mask comes off
16:05 Complete does not mean perfect
20:11 When the job becomes the whole purpose
22:20 Two 14ers in Colorado with his son
23:17 Profit and purpose need each other
24:20 Harland's closing quote