S6E11 - Larry Sprung
This week’s guest is Larry Sprung, founder and wealth advisor.
Larry is the founder of Mitlin Financial and the story of the naming of the firm is a sweet one. His reasons for going into wealth management are a reflection of the values shared in his family and the result of his upbringing. It is his way of serving others through the work he does.
Larry also created the Mitlin Money Mindset podcast. After publishing a blog but wanting to say more in a different way, the podcast was started as an opportunity to share content in a different way. Guests talk about getting into the success mindset and more.
Until recently, Larry served on the national board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. His involvement with the organization began after facing the loss of his wife’s brother. He started out by doing a golf fundraiser and now along with is wife, partners with romance authors for a book fundraiser every May. Through all of the efforts, they have raised over $1.7 million dollars for AFPA.
Peconic Hockey Foundation is another place Larry gives his time and effort. They are bringing hockey and awareness of the sport on the East end of Lang Island with the ultimate goal of building a facility so more families have access to the sport.
Note from Rabiah (Host):
Listening back during editing, I remembered that was having a major hay fever bout during this episode! Don’t worry, I cut out the coughing fit! This episode coincidentally is being posted during Suicide Prevention Week. The work that the guest Larry and his wife have taken up for this cause is extraordinary. They turned tragedy into action and if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while you’ll know that this is something I hold dear after my own losses around other circumstances and with regard to my own mental health. I’ve made a modest donation to the Keith Milano Memorial Fund to thank Larry for sharing his story and encourage you to do the same!
TW: mention of suicide
Rabiah (London) chats with Larry (Long Island, NY) about his business and his work in philanthropy.
Transcript
Rabiah (Host): [00:00:35] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week, I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer, and of course podcast.
Thank you for listening. Here we go!
This week, my guest is Larry Sprung. He's a founder and wealth advisor. Thanks for being on Larry.
Larry Sprung: All right. Thanks for having me, Rabiah. I appreciate it.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, definitely. And where am I talking to you from today?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So, uh, our office and I live on Long Island which is the Eastern most tip of New York. And, uh, we're out here about 55 miles outside of New York City.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great area. Just New York in general, but it's kind of nice to be [00:01:35] out of the city probably.
Larry Sprung: Yeah, it's nice to be outta the city. And it's nice to be in this area, especially as we enter the summertime because uh, a lot of beaches, it's a good place to be. And no snow like the winter
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. yeah, exactly. I know. We're all. I'm in London and it, it kind of. It became all seasons this weekend. So it was kind of fun for the, the Queen's Jubilee. It was really nice. And now it's over. So now the sun's over it's
Larry Sprung: there you go. It
Rabiah (Host): we're concluding . Yeah. So first of all, let's just talk about what you founded and what you're doing as a wealth advisor.
So you founded Mitlin Financial. And so can you talk a little bit about what you do there, and also, I know in your first episode of your podcast, you tell the full story of how you named it. But if you wanna talk a little bit about that too, it's a pretty nice story.
Larry Sprung: I appreciate that, Rabiah. Yeah. So I'll kind of start there. So in 2004, I launched Mitlin Financial and one of, one of the things and one of the most common asked questions and it's kind of funny cuz being in financial services, people think that, you know, the most widely asked question is how much money do [00:02:35] I need to retirement or do I have enough money to retire?
And our most asked question is where the heck did the Mitlin name come from? Because, your last name's not Mitlin and nobody there is named Mitlin. So it's an interesting story and it's more or less a mashup of uh, M I T was my wife's grandfather Mitchell, and L I N was my mom, Linda. You know, they passed away literally within hours of each other.
And then my wife and I met each other. We didn't even know each other. We met each other after, like within a couple of months after their passing and we were, you know, just talking as you normally do as a new couple. And we were kind of reconciling where we were and what we were doing and it, we put it all together and it turns out that these two individuals passed away within a very short period of time of each other.
And when we were looking at starting the firm and naming the firm, you know, it was looking at my mom, she battled breast cancer for about 13 or 14 years and, and lost her battle at the age of [00:03:35] 47. And she was probably one of the strongest people I knew. One of the you know, most positive attitudes I've ever seen.
And she was just really well liked. And had great, you know, values and, and just really a, a good human being and learned a lot from her. And my wife's grandfather was a a veteran New York city police officer, similar in nature. He was a type of guy that when the ice cream man came down to block, he would buy the whole block ice cream, you know, whether he knew you or not.
And, you know, we thought that what a great way to honor these two great people and have a firm that represents their values as ours and look to build a practice where we work with families that are similar in nature and similar with those core values. And that's what we did. So. We're essentially a wealth management firm.
We help people become and remain financially independent. We do that through working with them to design and develop a financial plan and help them manage that plan [00:04:35] over time, which may include their investments, budgeting and things of that nature. Because you know, if you're looking to build wealth and retire one day and potentially live without a paycheck from a job, you have to create that wealth and you need a plan to get there.
So we help people start formulating that plan early on and execute it over time.
Rabiah (Host): And so how did you get into that aspect of like wealth management, financial management versus other areas of finance? What was your path there?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So again, I think that roots back to my upbringing and, and seeing what happened in my own family. You know, growing up, I was not, we were not rich. We weren't poor. We were, you know, probably a, a middle class family. And I watched my dad, you know, basically balancing working as a teacher full time, having a business on top of that in order to make ends meet.
And then when my mom [00:05:35] was diagnosed very early on with her illness, watching him that juggle that too. And one of the things that kind of you know, left a, a mark on me was the fact that he did not have a financial advisor. And I, I will say that, you know, having a financial advisor would not have mitigated or gotten rid of the problems that my mom had, but I think it would've helped him ha in having somebody to help him navigate some of the financial hurdles and obstacles that he saw during that time, if he had an advisor to help walk him through that, I think it would've been very helpful to him. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be, I was always kind of philanthropic. I wanted to have a, a career that was gonna be meaningful and help people. And, you know, further on when I went into college, I had an opportunity intern at a major brokerage firm at that time.
And it just, it, it hit me that this is where I wanted to be. I felt it was a great career where I could help people. Help them reach their goals and work [00:06:35] towards their goals. And it would be something that was rewarding and something that I could get a lot from. And, you know, the families we're serving today in some respects we're serving their second and third generations of those families.
And it, it is just a rewarding career to help people and watch their progression and be able to start with a family. Watch their kids go to college and, and you having an integral part in helping that savings plan, or seeing them get married or buy a house. You know, these are all great events. And quite frankly, there are the other side, right?
There's the illness and, and the the early death or disability. And we have to deal with that too. Not as pleasant, but at the same time, we can feel very proud with the families that we serve knowing that they were hopefully prepared much better off because of the planning we did for those, you know, not so great events too.
So, you know, again, it rooted from when I was a kid, it was an area that that was of [00:07:35] interest to me. And it, it was, it was something that I felt I could have a long career, very rewarding. And it, it stuck, you know, I've been in the business since let's say '96 when I first started and left college and haven't looked back since.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Yeah, that's great. And it's, it's nice to be, I mean, service is a big part of my life and just thinking about what I do and how it can serve others, even in my corporate roles, like how can I serve my, my peers and stuff? And so I think it's, it's cool to have that aspect and you've been recognized too, right?
You've re received a few awards for your work that you've done and your company and yourself like the 40, under 40 list for the Long Island Business News and things like that. Can you talk about kind of how that feels for you? Because sometimes if you're a service minded person, it's also hard to get recognition, you know,
Larry Sprung: mm-hmm yeah, I mean, listen recognition is great. And if you could be recognized as a 40, under 40 by Long Island Business News, or we were [00:08:35] 2021, we were one of the top 100 investment advisors with Investipedia. It's all good. And the recognition is nice to have your peers or organizations recognize the contributions you made.
But, you know, for me, it's really, I, it's not about me. It's about my entire team and the stakeholders that are here and part of Mitlin Financial, because if it wasn't for them and all the hard work that they did, I wouldn't even have an opportunity to be considered for those roles. So, you know, it's really a team effort that has allowed us to be recognized and, you know, it's just nice, cuz we, you know, I feel like recognition is enough when we work with a family and they thank us for helping them towards a specific goal or helping them through a specific time of their life. And that's just like an extra, you know, icing on the cake when we get that recognition from outside the company.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, for sure. I'm sure it is. And yeah, it's funny cuz I never, like, I never did the whole financial advising thing for [00:09:35] myself. I just kind of always do whatever I do with my money and make decisions that probably aren't great. But I think I learned a lot when I finally worked with one for a little while, at least cause that I was able to achieve a goal.
And do you find that people sometimes come to you, you guys and think, I don't even know how I'm gonna make this happen, but this is what I want. And how do you kind of help people build confidence in themselves?
Larry Sprung: Yeah, I, I think the biggest, you know, one of the biggest hurdles or challenges that we have is people getting to the point of understanding that they need somebody to help them through this portion of their life. It's just one of those areas that most of us inherently don't have, you know, the tools or the knowledge in order to navigate through it and, and get, you know, get the results that we essentially want.
So that's typically the first challenge. And I think the second one is people are a little fearful of what they're going to hear, whether [00:10:35] it's gonna be positive or negative. And I, I think the third piece is a lot of folks don't even understand what an engagement looks like or what they should expect to get out of working with an advisor.
So, you know, one of the things that we do to kind of dispel that is we always start out with a potential client uh, with a, what we call "is there a fit?" meeting and really it's to determine what they're looking to accomplish what they're looking to get out of an engagement with us. And then also at the same time, tell them how we work with families that we serve in order to see if there's a baseline inherently that makes sense for us to move forward and work together because we don't wanna work with folks that don't have problems or issues that are in our wheelhouse that we could effectively work through and help them solve. You know, they may come to us thinking that they need to solve X and that may not be in our wheelhouse.
So we might be able to refer them to some, someone to help them. [00:11:35] But I think the important thing is number one, recognizing that you need the help. Two, understanding what we're going to do and what we're not gonna do. And finding an advisor, who's a fiduciary, who's gonna act in your best interest, always to work with.
I think those are three key factors. And then everything else could be worked out and, you know, it depends on what you're looking for. If you don't, maybe you don't know. You know, if you have 30, 40 years until retirement, you may not know exactly what you want retirement to look like, but here here's where the benefit of working with an advisor comes in.
At least you could start with whatever the game plan is today. And once you have that information and you have that kind of in a plan, as your life changes, it's easy to update and amend it and keep it moving in the direction that you're going, and allow the advisor to help advise you along those different stops along the way.
If you don't, you know, you might find yourself five, 10 years away from [00:12:35] retirement, and now all of a sudden you have a good handle on what you want retirement to look like. But two things, one, you don't have a much, you don't have as much time on your side at that point, number one. And number two, now, you have to basically engage with an advisor and give them a lot more information than you would have if you started longer before and kind of worked with them incrementally along the way. So, you know, we, we always say we would rather work with folks earlier, cuz it gives us the ability to help you a lot more because you have more time to make meaningful changes.
And it also helps us guide you along the way, because you only know what you know, and if something comes up and you don't have us, you may make a decision. It may be in your best interest that may not. But if you have us as part of your team, you give us a call and we can tell you, we may not be able to tell you inherently that A is the right choice over B, but we can definitely lay out options that, Hey, if you do a, this is gonna, how [00:13:35] you know, this is how the pros and cons look like. And if you do B, this is what the pros and cons ultimately, it's your decision. It's your money? It's your hard earned effort. But we're just here to kind of give you a taste from our experience, as far as what we see as the pros and cons of those various choices that you make. So the earlier you start with somebody the better, but it's key to find a fiduciary. Don't find a salesman or a broker who's just gonna sell your products to solve a problem and get them paid. You wanna find somebody who's gonna act in your best interest.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, no, that makes sense. And yeah, the get rich quick kind of things and do these two steps and you're a millionaire. Those kind of things get kind of, kind of weird. I'll get in inquiries for the podcast where people will say, oh, I'm gonna make your listeners millionaires. And I'm like, you're not, cuz you're not gonna talk to them.
Larry Sprung: Yeah, nothing. First of all, nothing works for any everybody, right? So when, when I hear folks who are talking about it, if you do this, if you're anybody and you do this, it will work. That's not true. And no [00:14:35] advice is right for everybody typically across the board, you know. I think that's a fallacy and the reality is.
You know, if there was a way to quote unquote, get rich quick everybody be doing it. The reality is the only way to build wealth is to be smart about it. Be mindful about it, have a game plan and work really hard to do it.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, no, I agree. And speaking of just kind of having your mindset on it, you have a podcast called Mitlin Money Mindset. So how did you decide to do a podcast? I mean, I'm on, I'm doing a podcast. I recognize that. So , we're, we're doing them, but how did you decide to do yours?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So I mean, it, it came down to a couple of things. Number one is, you know, I like communicating with people and I like putting out content and conversations and, and talking about slash writing about different topics. And quite frankly, I used to do a blog for a very long time and it took a lot of effort.
Um, I'm just not a person who likes [00:15:35] to write as much as I like to speak and have conversations. So, I saw it as a method to kinda add to the content that we put out as an organization and you know, utilize it as a tool to either enhance what we're currently doing, cause some people are more.
Inclined to read a blog. Some people may be more inclined to listen to our podcast and some people may never look, listen to our podcast, but all of a sudden we have one great guest that they're interested in hearing and they may you know, start listening. So I just wanted to use it as a tool and what it's really turned into is a podcast that's really about getting your mind right about all things money. And bringing on engaging guests, who I find interesting that I really wanna have conversations with and kind of drill down into, you know, how money has helped them or hurt them and find out, you know, you know, how they're building their business and how they're an entrepreneur. Or maybe mental health [00:16:35] related. Or I have athletes.
So they're really interesting people to me, and I wanna share those conversations to the world. And, you know, we, we bring a whole lot of joy as I like to say along the way, because our, our signature question, if you will, at the end of every show, is "what did you do today that brought you joy and, and put you in the right mindset for success?"
And that's what it's all about. We wanna have joyful experiences and, and be successful at the same.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Yeah, that's great. And is that, is your podcast weekly or how often does it come out? If people wanna.
Larry Sprung: Yeah, we are weekly. We release a new show every Wednesday. We're gonna be celebrating our hundredth episode in September of 2022. So, you know, we're gonna be shortly two years after that and we're, we're excited. It's we've had some great guests and very interesting topics thus far and even more so to come.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Super. Yeah. And we're about the same as far as our episode count and stuff. That's cool. And it's, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it cause you get to talk to talk to cool people like, like I'm [00:17:35] doing now.
So.
Larry Sprung: you go. Yeah,
Rabiah (Host): Uh, um, so
As far as what you do outside of work, and I think that's what resonated with me the most was was that for this podcast in particular, but you are very active in mental health.
You've been on the National Board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Can you talk a little bit about your work there and how you got into that?.
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So, I mean, essentially it dates back to, you know, almost the same time that I launched my firm. So as I said earlier, I launched my firm in October of 2004. In September of 2004. I lost my brother-in-law to suicide, Keith Milano. And uh, that he was my wife's brother. And you know, there was some conversation about whether or not I was going to hold off on launching my firm, but I decided, and, you know, with the support of my family and, and my wife, Keith's sister,
we decided to go ahead and, and launch it. So we lost him in September of 2004. And it was really an eyeopening experience for me [00:18:35] because I had never lost somebody close to me to suicide. You know, he definitely had, you know, issues. He was diagnosed as bipolar. You know, it wasn't like this was a complete shock in terms of, you know, losing him because we knew that there was an underlying condition, et cetera.
And my wife and I were very supportive of him. And I had spoken to him the night before we lost him so we had, we had spoken on the phone. My wife used to go to appointments with him. So it really spurred this need or desire to help more. And you know, one of the things I was always, as I mentioned earlier, I I've been always philanthropic.
After losing my mom at a very early age, a lot of my efforts were to breast cancer because that's what we lost her from. And after losing my brother-in-law, I started looking at the statistics and basically we, at that time we lost almost. Exact same number of folks to breast cancer as we did to suicide.
But if you looked at the funding breast cancer got an enormous [00:19:35] amount of money and suicide prevention, mental health got a fraction of it. So I made a concerted effort to start putting my efforts behind mental health and suicide prevention. Essentially we started a golf outing and started raising money that way. To date now, it's morphed and we do a a book fundraiser every may for mental health awareness month. We have an awesome group of romance authors that donate a portion of their proceeds from their book sales for the month of May. And this year we had about 40 authors partake. We don't have the final numbers in yet for 2022 but we're gonna be announcing that in the coming weeks as those total start coming in. And over that the last 17 years or so my wife and I, with the help of this great community, the romance community, all the folks that helped support the golf outing when we had it, we we've raised in excess of about 1.7 million for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention which is held at the Keith Milano Memorial Fund, [00:20:35] which is a memorial fund that we set up at AFSP.
If you wanna kind of learn more about his story and why we do what we do, if you go to Keith Milano dot org (keithmilano.org), His entire story's there. And I, you know, also in addition to the fundraising, I also spent about 12 to 14 years on the the national board for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I just rolled off recently because I hit my term limit and actually the term limits were something I helped install in the organization in order to keep things fresh.
I still sit on the finance and investment committee and I'm very involved. And I will tell you .We've become de facto resources for folks. We get emails, texts you know, messages through social media, asking if we could assist, if we have you know, resources for certain folks and we've become a defacto resource to a lot of people out there and even more important than the money, the money's great.
And we've done some great things with it. You know, I know for a fact that we've saved lives and we've helped [00:21:35] people, which, far outweighs any money that we could ever raise, knowing that we've helped save lives along the way.
Rabiah (Host): Mm-hmm . Yeah, it's it's I didn't know that about the funding for breast cancer versus this, but that's an interesting statistic. And, I think there's been different ways people have talked about mental health and suicide in that time, like since 2004 until now.
Larry Sprung: Oh, it's changed quite a bit. Yes.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. And
I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. That should be said yes.
For the good. It hasn't like people haven't become more cavalier about it, but did you notice anything just in your work during the pandemic? I mean, that was a big time of change in coming out of it. I think there was more awareness of mental health in general because people experienced issues that had never experienced them before, just cuz of the new times.
And have you heard any stats or anything like that kind of made you more like, yes, this is what I need to be doing even other than your brother-in-law, but just helping people in [00:22:35] general.
Larry Sprung: So, I mean the stats, they, they only publish stats about suicide rates and how many folks we lose usually annually, which is around November. So the stats for 2021 won't come out till the end of 2022. The numbers that did come out at the end of 2021 for 2020 actually showed a reduction in in suicide rates which is kind of counterintuitive because if you listen to the news and the radio and all, all the media, you know, they're leading you to believe that there probably would've been a spike in 2020 due to the pandemic. So, you know, I think people are waiting to see what the 2021 numbers look like to see if there's, you know, a, a longer version of this, where we see a spike or if there's a continued decline.
And I think there is at this point, an expectation that there is actually gonna be a continued decline. I, I think what you're seeing, and this is just merely my opinion- I'm not a medical doctor or a researcher [00:23:35] by any stretch of the imagination. But I think over the last 17 years, you've heard a lot more about mental health, a lot more about suicide.
And I don't think that suicide is more common, or mental health issues are more common. I think we're hearing and talking about it more. So it kind of gives you the impression that you feel about it. Remember when my brother-in-law passed away 17 years, there was really no social media, you know, 17 years ago, it really didn't exist back then.
There wasn't a platform for everyday people that say they were struggling or they had issues or talk about what was going on in the news. So I think we're hearing about it a lot more which is good because I think the more we have conversations about it, the more we speak about it, the more we normalize it, the more encouraging it is for those that are suffering or feeling like they're having an issue with a bout of depression or anxiety will feel comfortable enough to come forward and, and seek the treatment or the help that they need. I think to some degree, some people have a misconception that [00:24:35] if you ask for help that you may need help for the rest of your life.
And that, that may not be the case. You know, there are plenty of situations that I've seen personally and in those that I know and are connected with where there might be a specific period of your life where there's a high level of anxiety and a couple of things may be happening all at once and may be leading you to some issues that you need to talk to somebody about. And it may just be one of these things where you have to talk it out for a couple of months and then you move on and you're over that period. I think that just normalizing it and, and encouraging people to have these conversations is, is excellent and the more people start sharing stories, I think enables that type of conversation and enables people to say, Hey, oh, I didn't realize you had an issue. You know, I do too, and you got help and you got better. Maybe I should try that too. And I think the more we do that, the better off we'll be.
And a lot of that didn't exist 17 years ago. There's been a huge, huge change in that regard. And my wife and I [00:25:35] say from time to. When we see something going on or we see somebody talking about it, we'll say, you know, kind of tongue in cheek, we, we wonder what, what would've happened. If my brother-in-law was around today and felt the more normalized to have these conversations, because he was always of the ilk at that time, you know, nobody was talking about it and he is like, nobody understands what I'm going through.
They just, they just don't get it. And I think today people get it more than certainly more than they did 17 years.
Rabiah (Host): Mm-hmm . Yeah, completely. I mean, I, I had it on this podcast the first season, cause I've made seasons just to give myself a break. Every once in a while really is the only reason a guy Chad Moses from To Write Love on Her Arms. And they were the first organization that came to my attention when I was struggling.
And I hid, I hid depression from my family for about eight years, as well as you can hide it. I mean, you can only hide these things so well, just cuz of the shame around . It. And then when I was able to talk about it... now, it's like, I can just say how I'm feeling [00:26:35] and it's okay. But being in my twenties, going through that, it was a lot different.
And so I do think that things have improved now to the point where, where people are talking about it more and yeah. Normalizing and sharing the stories. I mean, one reason I have the podcast is to share stories. Right. But,
Larry Sprung: Yeah. I mean, we, listen, we still have a long ways to go. We're definitely in a much better position. And you know, the only thing I could say is I encourage any of the parents out there that might be listening, you know, start having these conversations with your kids at a very early age. Now, you're not gonna have the same conversation with a five year old that you are an 18 year old, but you can start having these conversations at earlier ages, making it normal for them because then when they hit that period, if they hit that skid or they hit that issue that they you know, are having trouble with, they'll be able to come forward and have a conversation with you or somebody else about it and hopefully get on the other side of it without any you know, ill ill circumstances taking place.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, it's great advice. So a, another area that you work in [00:27:35] too, is the Peconic. I hope I said it right. Peconic Foundation
Larry Sprung: Yeah. Peconic Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. And so what do you do with them and how, and what's hockey mean to you?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. First of all, I'm a big hockey guy. I'm a big hockey family. I grew up playing through college. My two boys play still today. One's in college and one's in prep school in Minnesota.
They both play hockey at p retty high levels. So hockey's meant a lot to me. And there came an opportunity to get involved with the Peconic Hockey Foundation. And what they're all about is just raising awareness and bringing hockey to the east end of Long Island. Essentially where I am located more or less is the Eastern most hockey rink that there is on Long Island and you could probably go out another 50 or 60 miles from here.
So there's a lot of opportunities being missed because kids either aren't taking up the sport because it's too hard and there's no nobody around to show them or a rink for them to [00:28:35] go to, or if they are playing, they have to, you know, the families have to drive long distances. So we're, you know, we're doing significant amount of fundraising to try to RA raise awareness about what's going on in the East end try to build up a hockey program out there.
And then the ultimate goal is to build a a facility on the East end to long island that would. Be able to be used by uh, families that are looking to play hockey and who are located out there to make their life easier so they don't have to travel, you know, perhaps an hour each way, just to to go to practice a few a week and make it a little bit easier for them.
Rabiah (Host): Hmm. Nice. Yeah, that's great. And yeah. And sports are so important for kids and I know hockey's a big one and especially in that part of the country too, so
Larry Sprung: Yeah, we wanna make the sport, you know, more accessible for as many kids that wanna play should be able to play. Unfortunately it's not necessarily the case due to cost due to geographic location, et [00:29:35] cetera. So I'm just trying to do a little, little bit to to make that those barriers a little bit lower and grow the game.
I think it's a great sports given me a lot of lot of life lessons, a lot of opportunities in life. I've done a lot of things and met a lot of people because of hockey and my kids have had the same experiences. And it's just a, a way to give back in, in a little way.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. That's great.
So one thing I like to ask guests is just, do you have any advice or mantra that you like to share?
I mean, you've already given some advice, but sometimes people have something that they like to tell people.
Larry Sprung: Yeah, so, I mean, I, I think that the, the one thing I would leave with your listeners is one thing that I talk about a lot, which is pay yourself first. And what I mean by that is I think a lot of us get hung up, you know, with life, with working. And what we do is we get our paycheck and immediately we're looking at what bills we have to pay and kind of paying them.
And we have a tendency to then look at what's left over [00:30:35] and then utilized that for ourselves, whether it be saving, retirement, discretionary spending. However, however you wanna kind of slice that up. And I think we have to put that on its head a little bit and, and get into a mindset of paying ourselves first.
So, you know, if you read for example, The Richest Man in Babylon, that book talks about paying yourself 10% and paying yourself first. So if you get in the habit of paying yourself 10% first, whether that be to your retirement account savings, however, and then utilizing the remaining 90 to pay those bills you know, you'll end up learning to live within.
Those means we have a tendency to kinda, you know, change things and morph to whatever or wherever we need to be and, and uh, make things work. But I think that we have a tendency as people to kind of overlook ourselves first, pay everybody else before we pay ourselves. And I think we have to turn that on it's head and, and pay ourselves first.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. That's that's cool. I haven't heard that. And I'm definitely [00:31:35] gonna be looking, looking that up cuz I could, I
Larry Sprung: you go.
Rabiah (Host): 10%. Oh
Rabiah (Host): So I just have a set of questions called The Fun Five that I ask every guest. So I'll start with those. What is the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
Larry Sprung: So that's a tough question for me because I have a lot of very old t-shirts and my wife gives me a hard time about them, cuz I usually keep 'em around because when I play hockey, I usually wear a shirt underneath my gear. So those are great shirts, but one of them in particular, as I was reading, you know, I had given me that question in advance and I started thinking about it and probably one of the, one of the best shirts that I still have is I went to Bighamton University and we used to have, I lived in the Newing Community, and within that community, there were, I believe, five dorms. And there was a thing called Newing Navy at the end of the year. And it was basically like a color war between the five dorms. And we made a t-shirt every year and I was there. [00:32:35] I lived in Broom Hall and we won 10 years in a row. And I still have that t-shirt from the, from the the 10th win in a row. I still have that t-shirt to this day. One of the residents would design the t-shirt and was like a hand drawn thing that we turned into a a t-shirt and it's still in my closet. Albeit it usually is under my hockey gear, but I still have it.
And.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. That's awesome. That's good cuz a lot of people got rid of their t-shirts during the pandemic or something and I still have my old ones, so I'm glad you, I'm glad you held onto
Larry Sprung: I saw it still survived. It
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Tell your wife. No, I needed it for this question. So at
Larry Sprung: there. You.
Rabiah (Host): that's a good reason. Alright.
So if every day was really Groundhog's Day, like in the movie, what song would you have your alarm clock set to play every morning?
Larry Sprung: Yeah, I would say I'm not a big fan of KISS, but this one song really resonates with me in particular. And I think it would be a great tune to wake up every morning to, and I wanna rock and roll, you know, I wanna rock and roll all nite. [00:33:35] I think that would be a great you know, good way to start the day, wanna rock and roll, you know, for the day. So, what better way to wake up?
Rabiah (Host): Nice. All right. I think it's end party every day anyway, so you can
Larry Sprung: Yeah, it might be, well, I, I don't wanna party every day, but I wanna rock and roll every day for sure.
Rabiah (Host): All right. Cool. And coffee or tea or neither?
Larry Sprung: So I'll drink both, but I prefer coffee's a daily uh, occurrence black and as strong as possible.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Okay. Sounds good. Can you think of a time that you laughs already cried or just something that cracks you up when you think about it?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So, you know, one of the, one of the things that I, I think about that we it kind of it's, it became a joke in my house. I guess one, one day when my kids were going to bed, I kind of said goodnight to them in a weird voice. Like I like a very high pitch voice, like "goodnight", and now it became, it's become a thing.
Like if the boys are going to bed, they'll say goodnight and like so much so that I've called my, my oldest son in college on FaceTime and just sent him that voice memo and it always makes us [00:34:35] laugh. It's just, just one, one of those things, I guess you had to be there to to experience it, but it still gets a chuckle out of all of us.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, but that's great. That's one of those family things. And then like siblings will share
forever.
Larry Sprung: There you Yep. For sure.
Rabiah (Host): Okay. So last one who inspires you right now?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So, I mean, that's a great question and I think I'm gonna go back to my family for this one. I think, you know, you know, just kind of at this very moment and because we're kind of wrapping up the school year here on, on Long Island, and my oldest son's in college. My younger son just finished up his first year at prep school, boarding school, several states away.
They really inspired me this year. And the reason why they inspired me is they, you know, at the age of 15 and 18, they left the house, went out, went off on their own and they found their way. And they were able to do their thing. They played hockey at a high level, enjoyed every minute of it.
And both my boys did incredibly well in school. [00:35:35] So they, they really inspired me because you never know, right? You do everything you, you think you're doing as a parent, you're hoping you're doing uh, As best you can. And I think you know, my wife and I say often our job is really to grow good humans. And uh, they've really inspired us over the last year because they've really shown that they're turning into great humans and, and good students and, and doing everything.
Preparing themselves for the the real world and that's inspiring to me because it, it, it really makes you feel like you did a good job, and there's a lot of inspiration to be drawn from, from that.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, cool. That's great. That's a really nice for you to talk about your kids that way too. So, if people wanna find you Larry or the podcast or your company where should they go?
Larry Sprung: Yeah. So I'm all over social media. I'm pretty much on every uh, platform except for TikTok, because we can't figure out a way to archive that, but LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram [00:36:35] were all over those on all those platforms but Instagram, you could find me as Lawrence sprung, L A W R E N C E Spung (@lawrencesprung).
On Instagram, on Larry Sprung (@larrysprung), it was a little bit of a marketing snafu very early on by me. I shouldn't have been handling my own marketing and I, I, I mess that up. So you could find me on all those platforms and then our podcast is found at Mitlin Money Mindset. M I T L I N Money mindset dot com (mitlinmoneymindset.com).
And you could also find our firm, mitlin financial from there as as well.
Rabiah (Host): cool. Well, thanks so much for chatting, Larry. It was really nice talking to you and learning about what you do and what you're doing for others.
Larry Sprung: I appreciate the time and, and the the platform Rabiah and make it a great day.
Rabiah (Host): Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A. Rob Metka does all the design for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching [00:37:35] Rob M E T K E.
Please leave a review if you like the show. And get in touch with feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at at more than work pod (@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah comedy (@rabiahcomedy) on TikTok. And the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com). While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
