‘Assets are a tool to bring clients joy'

Not everyone can add being a best-selling author to their resume. Fortunately, Lawrence Sprung can.

The founder and wealth advisor at Long Island, New York-based Mitlin Financial Inc. pointed out this is likely one of his main accomplishments after being named as an InvestmentNews Awards 2024 Excellence Awardee. Winners will be announced on June 20 at 583 Park Avenue, New York City in a glitzy, red-carpet ceremony. Click here to register to attend.

The Amazon best-selling book Financial Planning Made Personal is dovetailed with Mitlin’s tagline, ‘What did you do today that brought you joy?’ This is where Sprung thinks it’s garnered a following, “in terms of looking at the work that we do, with the families we serve,” he says.

“Not only from the nuts and bolts of what most financial advisors and wealth advisors do, like working on the numbers or the financial piece but focusing in on it and the joy that families are trying to achieve with it.”

Sprung is quick to point out that most advisors focus too much on whether clients have enough money for retirement or whether their asset allocations are properly set up. What differentiates himself amongst his fellow nominees and colleagues is taking those worries a step further.

After all, it’s not about the investment strategy, he says, but about helping people understand what planning can provide, and how assets are a tool to bring clients joy.

“The money thing is really table stakes. That's something that anybody who's in our profession has to be good at,” he said. “Where we go that extra mile is really in understanding the families' why, and how this money and this work and this planning is designed to bring them joy within their life and understanding what that joy means to them, what joy they're looking to get out of life and constructing that plan. Everything that we do as advisors are around those important pieces.”

For more details about the InvestmentNews Awards, including a list of all finalists and details of how to attend, follow this link.