‍S2E2: Insights on Finding Joy in Financial Planning with Larry Sprung

Seth Waters Well, welcome to the Purposeful Prosperity Podcast. My name is Seth Waters, and I'm here with Jack Smith. And you know, Jack. Jack is a founder, entrepreneur, investor and world changer. Excited to be with you, Jack.

Jack Smith I'm excited to be here too, Seth.

Seth Waters Today, we have a conversation with Larry Sprung. And what a great conversation it was.

Jack Smith Right. Mitland Financial, right? Yeah. And the Mitland Money Mindset.

Seth Waters Yeah, one of the things that Larry talked about in your conversation that really stood out to me was, as purposeful leaders asking the question, what did you do today that brought you joy? How important is it, Jack, that as purposeful leaders, we are finding joy in what we do?

Jack Smith Well, that's really the definition of prosperity, right? Prosperity isn't how much money in the bank, it's how much joy you have in your day. Hmm, let's go to the end of the day. I mean, that's joy. I over COVID, we discovered Marie Kondo, I think, us and a lot of other folks too. But what was so fascinating to that was our attachment to things and how we put emotion into the things that are around us. And some of that breeds obligation. And so we as a society, I think have almost prioritized obligation over the things that bring us joy. And that's how you put your mask on first. If you're not smiling and happy, that's contagious. It's gonna pass on it. So is that growl. So it's important to us as leaders to manage those moments of joy and to prioritize joy for our staff and ourselves so that we can be those purposeful leaders that really breed true prosperity for ourselves and our communities.

Seth Waters Wow, that's really good. One of the comments you made in the interview was that happiness is the pursuit of the moments that bring us joy.

Jack Smith Absolutely. Well, I mean, it's That's really, happiness is what makes you smile. And that's different for everybody. But pursue it unabashedly. I'm a nerd, I'm a geek, you know, however you want to call that. That movement is so genuine, it's so authentic. And I go to Comic-Con and I love to dress up. I got a closet full of costumes and more fan art than I should. But that's okay. It's passion. And that's really, as leaders, it's our job to be vulnerable and to kind of share that and pursue those moments of joy without apology, unabashedly.

Seth Waters Wow. Well, that's really good. And I am looking forward to this. Let's dive right into our conversation with Larry Sprung.

Larry Sprung Excellent.

Jack Smith Perfect.

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Jack Smith Welcome to the Purposeful Prosperity Podcast. I'm your host, Jack Smith, and I'm very excited today to have Larry Sprung with me. He's CEO of Mitlin Money and one of Investopedia's top 100 advisors of 2023. Thanks for coming on today.

Larry Sprung Hey, thanks, Jack. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.

Jack Smith You're also a bestselling author of Financial Planning Made Personal. That sounds very purposeful and prosperous. So can you tell me maybe a little bit about what you are at Mitlin and kind of how that led you to write this book?

Larry Sprung Yeah, so I'm the founder and wealth advisor here. And the book was really 10 years in the making. It was something that I had thought about for a long time, but just didn't have the time to put in and write it. So after my oldest son started college and my younger son moved away to boarding school, it freed up a lot of time and afforded me the ability to write the book. Really what it is at its heart is financial planning made personal, just like it says, and its subtitle is, What Did You Do Today That Brought You Joy? And I think a lot of people get overwhelmed by financial planning. And they forget about what it's all about. It's really a means to an end in terms of getting joy out of their lives, whether it be buying a house or looking towards retirement or saving for a child's education and watching them go across the stage at graduation. So it really is personal. You know, there's a lot of rules of thumb out there, but it really comes down to building, designing a plan for you and your family and finding the joy in the process.

Jack Smith Very cool. So tell me more about the joy in the process, because I love that pursuit of joy. That's really what prosperity means to me, is that the pursuit of the moments that bring us joy, whether that's money or time or people or humans or whatever. So tell us a little bit more about how you incorporate joy. How do you evaluate that from a financial aspect?

Larry Sprung Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's really dependent upon the family. Everybody, every family that we work with is quite different. Uh, as you alluded to some families, they get joy out of looking at their bank account and they want to see a certain value or a net worth. Uh, other people don't, other families don't care so much about the balance. They care about experiences, you know, and taking their family on vacation and seeing various experiences. Or their joy may be, like I said, you know, one day having a retirement where they have a passive income that they don't have to proactively work. It really can run the gamut. I think the important thing is that we spend the time with the families that we serve to decipher what that joy is for them. And we start there and then build their financial plan around that joy and their goals and objectives to make sure that everything is working together in harmony.

Jack Smith Absolutely. And is there any way that you kind of quantify that? I mean, I assume as a financial planner, right, money and metrics, numbers are kind of matter, but joy is very an intangible valuation of things. So how do you help personify that?

Larry Sprung Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not something that you can really quantify. I think the way that we look at it is when we sit down with a family, we set out for whatever those specific joyful moments are to take a look if we're actually helping them reach those joyous occasions and have those joyous experiences and joyous moments. That's really how you, how we quantify it, because if they set out a goal to be able to fund their child's education at whatever level to see them, you know, walk through graduation and we don't help them get there, then that's a, you know, a fail on our part in terms of reaching that joyous occasion. But if we make it there, then I think the, uh, you know, it's basically self-reporting and tells us that we help them reach their goal, which also means we help them reach their financial goal because they were able to help pay for that education and reach that joyous occasion at the same time.

Jack Smith Excellent. Well, I appreciate that very much. So tell me a little bit about what Mitlin means.

Larry Sprung Yeah, so that's a great question. And thanks for asking me, Jack. Mitlin, you know, it's the most asked question that we get here. People think that because we're a financial firm, the most asked question is, how much do I need to retire? How much do I need to send my kids to college or a financial number? And that's not the most asked question we get is, you know, what's Mitlin mean? You're not Mitlin, your last name's not Mitlin, nobody works here. So it was actually the first show that we did for the Mitlin Money Mindset, our podcast, we went out and explained that. And, you know, for your listeners, essentially, and viewers, you know, Mitlin is a smash up of two people in mine and my family's life. It was MIT from my wife's grandfather, Mitchell, and L-I-N from my mother, Linda. Essentially, to give you a little background, Mitchell was a veteran, NYPD police officer, just an all-around great guy. He was the type of person that when the ice cream man came down the block, he would buy ice cream for everybody. Not because he was wealthy, but because he got joy out of doing it. And my mother, Linda, unfortunately, she became ill at a very young age. I was about 12 or 13 years old, fought about a 10-year battle with breast cancer and ended up passing away at the age of 47. But she left me with so many life lessons and taught me so much in her short life and her battle with a devastating disease. And she was such a well-liked, you know, well-spirited individual that when we were thinking about coming up with a name for the firm, we thought we would use these two individuals' names to do that. Fast forward, one other piece I should tell you is that when my wife and I met, we didn't know each other. We were reconciling what we had done over the months prior to us meeting each other. And it turns out that her grandfather, Mitchell, and my mom, Linda, literally passed away within hours of each other. So again, when we were thinking about the name, what a great way to honor these two individuals, come into the office every day, see the name of the firm, everything that we're doing. and know that it embodies all of the great character and all the great representations that these two individuals represented. And we have that filter not only through myself as a person, but at our organization, our stakeholders, as well as the families we serve. We all think as we're one big family and try to maintain those values and those traits that these two great people had.

Jack Smith I love that. So that's really where that Mitlin money mindset comes from then, I would guess. So maybe, can you tell me a little bit about what that money mindset is and maybe where our listeners can find you?

Larry Sprung Yeah, so Mitlin Money Mindset is really found on any place that you consume your podcasts. We can be found, that's our show, and we talk with a lot of entrepreneurs about money mindset, athletes, and we also have a large contingency of people that speak within the mental health space. So, you know, when we talk about mental, money mindset. It could mean various things to different people, but that's where you could find the show and the great guests that we have on.

Jack Smith Absolutely. And the mental health is so important with anybody's mindset, right? And mental health is something that I think you spend a lot of time dealing with. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Larry Sprung Yeah, so, I mean, the way we approach things and the way I look at things is there's really, it's a three-legged stool or a three-legged approach, and you can't really be successful in any one area without having success or addressing all the areas, which is you have your physical health, you have your mental health, and you have your financial health. And if you think about it, if you're lacking in any one of those areas, it makes it very difficult for you to be successful in another area. So, for example, if you're suffering from poor mental health, you're probably not going to feel like going to the gym and taking care of your physical health, nor are you going to feel like you need to take care of your financial health. And you could kind of, those three items are really so intertwined that's important. So, you know, mental health is extremely important to me for those reasons. But in addition to that, I've had personal experiences in terms of losing my brother-in-law at the age of 27. He died by suicide after a long battle with bipolar disorder. And You know, it was a real big eye opener for me and my wife, and we swore that on his passing that we would not let him go quietly. And we were going to raise awareness and let people know what happened with my brother-in-law to hopefully encourage others. to either find the help they need or tell their family member's story, because we found that there are so many people affected with poor mental health or even suicide within their families. And many didn't at that time, you know, 19 years ago or so, were not talking about it. So we wanted to create an environment to encourage people to talk about it. and lower the stigma around mental health and mental illness.

Jack Smith Sounds like you're continuing to do that to this day. And if you started this 19 years ago, then your impact is being felt because the world is starting to talk more about mental health. I think I was telling you earlier, almost every whatever podcast we shot this month has been talking about some aspect of our mental capabilities when it comes to purpose and prosperity. You can't have prosperity without putting your mask on first. And that means mental health as well as physical health and financial health.

Larry Sprung I love that. Yeah, it's extremely important. And in terms of making sure you have mental health and talking about it, I'm glad more people are talking about it. I think we still have a long way to go, but You know, we've been successful in the work that I've done with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. You know, I sat on their board for about 12 years. They're a leader in suicide prevention and mental health space. I currently sit on their investment and finance committee. And, you know, just this weekend alone, I got a call from a friend of mine whose stepson was having struggles and he didn't know where to turn. you know, we were able to help guide him to, you know, find the right direction to get him the care that he needs. And that is tremendous, because I think 19 years ago, I may not have gotten that phone call. I may have gotten a very different phone call, unfortunately.

Jack Smith Absolutely. And that's part of the, I think, the efforts that you guys have, you know, played a part in. And I think society is finally waking up to recognizing the whole person and that it's really in those vulnerable moments where we find community and connection. Uh, and we can't do that if we're not being honest about where we're at mentally. Agreed. Very cool. Um, well, I hear that, uh, people ask you a lot where, what rink is Larry at? Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Larry Sprung Yes. I mean, that's something that just kind of happened organically several years ago. Essentially, kind of how it came about, the genesis of it, was my younger son was in a hockey tournament and he took a penalty late in the game and went into the penalty box. and it was a tie score. I'm sorry, it was a tie score in the game. And he went into the penalty box towards the end of the game. It really wasn't a smart penalty. And he ended up coming out of the box at the end of his penalty, went straight out on the ice, grabbed the puck, and ended up scoring a goal. And we put up a post for my firm on it showing the video and with words about, hey, listen, it's not about what you do. uh you know it's about what you do after and what you learn from it and clearly my son learned that he didn't do the right thing originally by taking the penalty and made up for it because he went out and scored the winning goal and uh you know took ownership of it uh you you know in that clip you can see it and and people started guessing what rink we were at and and we were playing at that weekend And I was like, oh, you know what? I wonder if we could have some fun with this because I go to a lot of rinks. So we started basically every month I would take a video at a rink and post it and basically tell people to guess what rink I'm at. And what we do is at the end of the week, we take all the right answers and we pull one out of a hat and basically make a hundred dollar donation to their charity. So they name what rink I'm at. They tag their favorite charity. And we pick a winner and donate $100 in their name to their charity. So it started a few years ago, and we continue to do it every month during the hockey season. And it's a lot of fun. And thankfully, I haven't run out of any rinks yet. So it will continue for the 2023-24 hockey season.

Jack Smith Excellent. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm sure our listeners will be, too. Thank you very much for sharing your story. Is there anything else that you didn't get a chance to share with our listeners, maybe where they can find you and a little bit more about the Money Mindset podcast?

Larry Sprung Yeah, so I mean, if you want to reach out to us, if you think we might be a good fit for you, you can take a look at MITLINFinancial.com, M-I-T-L-I-N-Financial.com. That's the firm website where you can learn about us, schedule an Is There A Fit meeting. If you're interested in the book and you want to get some joy and understand how financial planning Made Personal and What Did You Do Today That Brought You Joy comes together. Just visit FinancialPlanningMadePersonal.com and you can take a look at the book. We have it in all formats, hard copy, paperback, as well as audio. And, you know, I'd be happy to connect with anybody who's interested or has questions. You can find me anywhere on social media. And the podcast is linked out to both the book as well as the website as well.

Jack Smith Very cool. Well, I really appreciate your time and your wisdom. And thanks for all of you do, especially the vulnerability. It's really important that we create that space for that community connection. So thank you for your time today.

Larry Sprung Yeah, thanks, Jack. And keep having the people on that are talking about mental health, because I'm grateful for folks like you giving people like that a platform, because hopefully the next 19 years will be even exponentially more so, you know, moving mental health and mental illness out of the darkness. So thank you for that.

Jack Smith I love it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate your time here on Purposeful Prosperity. Tune in next week, where we'll bring you another amazing entrepreneur. Keep doing good in the world.