Yohance:

We are. Almost. All right, there we go. So, Larry, you say you're an open book, but you mean that kind of literally and figuratively, am I right?

Lawrence:

I do, yes. Yes. I've shared a lot out there publicly, and I have written many things in books, so.

Yohance:

Yeah, you have. So take us back. What was the first book that you ever wrote or that you wrote for?

Lawrence:

Yeah, so the first book I ever wrote was my own book, which we launched in 2023. Financial planning made Personal. What did you do today that brought you joy? It was probably 10 or 15 years in the making, and my oldest son finally went to college, and my younger son, at the age of 15, decided to go to boarding school. So that gave me the time to write the book. So that's what I did.

Yohance:

Wow. So. So you said it was 15 years in the making. I mean, a lot of us, I mean, you hear the old saying is we all have a book in us. Tell me, what was it like holding on to that for 15 years and then finally getting it out?

Lawrence:

Oh, it was great. I mean, it was really awesome. You know, I have a lot of, you know, thoughts about the profession and people and money. And, you know, I.

Yohance:

From.

Lawrence:

From. For a long time, I kept it up, you know, kept it inside. And then I. I really wanted to use the book as a tool to dispel a lot of the quote, unquote pundits that are out there. And, you know, there are a couple in particular that drive me nuts because they always talk in generality saying everybody should be doing this, everybody should be doing that, and it doesn't work that way. And, you know, with. With our vision around and trying to bring joy to the money journey, you can't work with people and tell them that they can't ever buy a Starbucks because they need to put that $5 into their retirement plan. Because for one family, that might work out great. For another family, they may derive a lot of joy from having that Starbucks, which. Which I do. So as long as you budget for it, you can afford it. And it's not, you know, impeding what your day to day is. You should be able to. So really, the book was really to, you know, throw caution to the wind around that and to really get people thinking that financial planning is personal. There are general rules of thumb out there and you could use them as guideposts, but the end. At the end of the day, you got to figure out how to make that specific concept work for you, or maybe it doesn't work for you at all. And you throw it out.

Yohance:

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm one of those Starbucks families. I, I need my Starbucks now. I will admit there was a time where I had a problem. I lived across the street from Starbucks and my office was three blocks down, so it was very easy to go downstairs, go across the street, and go through Starbucks on my way to work and sometimes go through Starbucks on my way home. When my wife and I started planning for a home, it was when I realized I had a real problem because sometimes she participated in that Starbucks, but not all the time. So when the real numbers were revealed, it was like, okay, I can do better now. I didn't quit cold turkey. I stopped going on Mondays and then I stopped going on Thursdays and Tuesdays and. But I still go once a week. I, that, once a week. That first sip Starbucks, I'm just that guy. I like that. I, I need it at least.

Lawrence:

It's good. It's good. I, I don't drink any of the crazy drinks. I literally drink just coffee, black.

Yohance:

Okay.

Lawrence:

But, but I love it.

Yohance:

Pike's Place guy. Got it. Okay.

Lawrence:

Yeah. Well, I usually ask for whatever the dark roast is, but. Yes, okay.

Yohance:

Okay.

Lawrence:

After, after, after. I think two o'.

Yohance:

Clock.

Lawrence:

They normally don't have the dark roast, so I have to go first hike.

Yohance:

Yeah, that's true. So when you, when you speak to the, the generalization and then the difference in the personalization, can we tie that to the joy piece that you mentioned or you speak so eloquently?

Lawrence:

Yeah, I mean, really, it comes from personal experience. You know, I talk very openly and honestly, as you mentioned in the, in the opening, how I'm an open book. You know, I talk about my mom in particular. My mom was diagnosed with cancer in her 30s. She ended up passing away at 47. And I, I think about her often for a lot of different reasons. But early on in my career, I was like, you know, if my mom and dad, if all they did was put every cent they had to save towards retirement, and for example, didn't take their bucket list trip when they did to Hawaii, my mom would have never experienced retirement. My dad wouldn't have experienced that experience with her. So, you know, I, I think it's, it's easy for us to say that we should be saving for retirement and, and we should, but at the same time, there's got to be a happy medium between enjoying the life we're living today, because many of us are not going to have the opportunity to experience retirement later on. So we have to balance that joy today with that, you know, that joy in the future and find a way to do that. So that's what we talk about quite a bit, is how do we balance your financial life in a way that it's a joyful life and it's not one where you're scrimping and scraping and never enjoying. And then all of a sudden, at 65 or 67, whenever you decide to retire, you know, assuming you make it there, which hopefully you do now, all of a sudden you get to pump the brakes and find joy in your life. I don't, I don't see that as a way to live. And, and you know, you have other factors. Are you going to have the health you need to experience the joy you want to. So, you know, I, I've read like Die with Zero, for example, and I don't know that there's really a, a real way to do that. But I think there's a mix between the die with zero mentality and the mentality of we gotta suffer, scrape, scrimp, put everything towards retirement. And that's really where that joy, you know, factor comes in.

Yohance:

I, I can relate to your story a bit. My mother also died relatively young. Her ailment was CTE from a car accident that led to seizures and the seizures led to more head trauma. And ultimately it was CTE that, that, that she died from. And I remember early in her diagnosis, my cousin was in the local mall. I think they were in Belts or Ivies or one of those. And this was in Charlotte, North Carolina. And they had the, the box sitting on the jewelry counter that said register to win a free trip to Paris. And she filled it out and she was with my mother. And my mother just rolled her eyes and said, nobody ever wins those things. That's, you're just giving them your information and they're just going to send you stuff in the mail courses for the email time and fast forward, two months later, she gets the call from the radio station that tells her that she has won a free trip to Paris for two.

Lawrence:

Wow.

Yohance:

My mother had never been overseas before and there was a lot of concern about her seizure epidemic and, and or diagnosis, her seizure diagnosis and how she would be able to cope with this long flight and going overseas and etc. And I remember when she sat the family down and she said, we're going to figure this out and we gave her all our blessings and she went to Paris and not want. Not that she admitted to. She didn't. I'm sure. Who knows what happened while she was there. But there were no trips to the hospital, there were no serious falls, and she got to see Paris. And as she got older and the seizures can play a pretty terrible game on memory. So some dementia started to show up very early. But the one thing that she would bring up that she could remember is she would remind us when she went to Paris. So I. I'm with you 100 on how I'm glad that she got to experience that joy to be, as they say in Francis, and, and got to have that experience, even though, you know, could my family at the time afford a trip to Paris? Absolutely. And so it was incredibly special for me last year when I took my wife and daughter and my mother in law who was also disabled, she's actually right next door sitting outside getting some sun. We took her to Paris. And, you know, I didn't get to attend with my mother. So that was. To attend with her was a really touching experiment or experience for all of us. And like you said, just having that joy of blending the two together. And sure. Could I have taken that same money and put it in my 401k or my Roth IRA or any of those other places? Absolutely. But did it bring me the joy that I had of my family standing under the Eiffel Tower or roaming around Disney Paris?

Lawrence:

That's right.

Yohance:

I was willing. I said, if I have to retire two years later. So,

Lawrence:

yeah, yeah, it's all about trade offs.

Yohance:

Right?

Lawrence:

It's about trade offs and planning for that joy and around the joy so you can make that happen. And that's really what it's all about.

Yohance:

Froze. Sorry about that. My Internet.

Lawrence:

Yeah, you froze up there.

Yohance:

Now we're back.

Lawrence:

All right,

Yohance:

so hopefully that last piece was there.

Lawrence:

If not, they'll make it sound good.

Yohance:

They'll make it sound good. They will. All right, so Larry, you share with us about book number one. What was the next book that you wrote or help write?

Lawrence:

So recently this year I was in a book for Rebel Dads. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but there's a group.

Yohance:

Yes. Okay. I did not know you were part of that group. Okay.

Lawrence:

Yeah, so they, they just recently put out a book with. I think it's 105 stories from dads about the. The dad and entrepreneurial journey. I've been on two of their trips to Necker island in 2025 and 2026. And it's been an excellent experience being able to collaborate and being in a book and sharing Some of my personal story in there for other dads who are on the entrepreneurial journey. So, so that was, that was an, an interesting and fun project to be part of.

Yohance:

Now were you there with Necker Island? Isn't that where. What's his name? Branson?

Lawrence:

Yeah, it's Richard Branson's private island. So he, he loves our group. He wrote the forward to the book and he's actively spoken about the book in public and he's, he's very much in favor of what we're doing. So much so that when we, we've taken the trips out there, he spends almost the entire time with our group and we really get some meaningful quality time during meals. I took myself and a bunch of others took a pretty difficult bike ride. He's a rock star on a bike up some of the biggest hills on Virgin Gorda. He's not the fastest, but he keeps his legs moving the whole time and he can really get to the top without a lot of effort. And I was not as lucky and, but he, he's, he's in great shape and he's, he's a wealth of, of knowledge and information. He really is.

Yohance:

So does that lead us to the book that we did together?

Lawrence:

Yeah, that's where we're here. More than money, even more than. There we go. Yeah. So I was, you know, like you, I was grateful to be selected and, and write a chapter for that book just recently which you know, is, is hitting shelves as we speak.

Yohance:

As we speak. Yes, I have, I, I did my unboxing before I left. I do have my books, but I think they're in a suitcase somewhere. I'm going to give them as gifts to my team members. I'm bringing my team out to Puerto Rico as well for our team retreat that we do once a year. So I'm excited to gift a copy to them. So let's, let's spend a few minutes on, on your chapter. And even more than money, can you tell us a little bit about your. The, the catalyst behind the chapter that you wrote and specifically what money is for in your chapter?

Lawrence:

Yeah, so you know, I wrote for the money is for enduring section of the book. The chapter I wrote was titled why Didn't I Know he could Die? And it was basically written in reference to my brother in law Keith who we lost to suicide back in 2004. And really talking about. Yeah, thank you. And talking about, you know, the journey in terms of, you know, it was kind of weird timing. He passed and then I started my firm A month later, and we had talked about, you know, whether we were going to do that or not. But really the, the emphasis of the book and the chapter is really to share that, you know, money is not just to accumulate a balance in a bank account and say, hey, I got whatever amount of money in the bank. Great. You know, really the money is for a lot of the things that we've been talking about. It might be for Starbucks to get joy, it might be, you know, taking a family vacation to Puerto Rico and being able to experience that lifestyle. It may be for enduring and creating a legacy to help other people. You know, one of the things that has come out of my brother in law's passing is we've become a resource for those who are suffering or who have family members who are suffering. So there's a lot of different things that money could be used for. And I think that's really why the book's titled Even More than Money. And, and we really wanted to contribute to this enduring section around, you know, money is for enduring, whether that's creating a financial legacy through charitable means or just creating enough space so that you can spend time on other meaningful areas of your life. And telling his story has done that for myself, my wife, and my, you know, my entire family, really.

Yohance:

Can you touch on Larry bit? The writing process mean that you've written a book on your own. You written for the rebel dads and now written for even more than money. What is your process? Are you, are you the Stephen King type where you wake up every day and, and write until you fall asleep? Or what do you, what do you do? How do you get it out?

Yohance:

Yeah, I, I am not the greatest writer. So really, you know, my key to success is having a really good editor and having somebody to clean up. So I try to get my thoughts and, you know, the writing down in as good a position as I possibly can. And then I work with an editor to basically flush it out. I'm much better at having dialog like this and having conversation that comes very naturally and easily to me writing, not so much. So it's a lot easier just to get those thoughts and know what I want to get out and what I want to share and then work through the editing process just to make that into a nice clean version, whether that's in my, you know, my book and going chapter by chapter or in this case just writing that chapter and sticking to the parameters because we probably had significantly more words than we were allowed or needed to for this chapter and we had to Narrow it down to make sure that, you know, the content was there, the impact was there, and, you know, that comes with great editors. I don't. I don't think there are many people who write books, write them really well, so well that they go from, you know, looking at their own work a couple of times, trimming it down, cleaning it up, and then putting it out. I think a lot of them, a lot of folks really rely on that editing process and having a good editor you can't ever underestimate.

Yohance:

So with your process, is it sit down for an hour, type out thoughts. Are you more of a spider web? And, you know, and you have these different topics that you're trying to tie together. I mean, I'm trying to get to the core of your process. You seem to be doing really well.

Lawrence:

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's just sitting down and writing it. I mean, this. Quite frankly, in fairness, this one was probably one of the easier projects that I worked on because it was more or less telling my story, which I've told hundreds, if not thousands of times. So it's. It was fairly easy. And it's something that I have done repetitively and honestly. Same thing with, with my book, right? My book. There. There were sections in there that really shared different segments that I've talked about for a very long time. It was just a matter of taking it from up here and what I've been saying for all these years and putting it down on paper. So I'm not very creative in the sense that I would have that spider web and be able to put it all together. It's really more or less a way of sitting down, taking those stories out of my head and that I've. That I've had conversations with about for, you know, long periods of time. And then putting those words. I would say pen to paper, but nobody does that. Those words down in the, you know, the word document, and then, you know, looking and editing it down to, you know, being more concise instead of run on and then working with the editor. But, you know, most of the stuff that I write about, even just simple blog posts, right. It's. It's usually stuff that either I've experienced or I have a story behind

Yohance:

to a reader or someone that's passing by this book in the airport because it's going to be there eventually, they're walking by this book in the airport and they pick it up. What should they expect from getting from this book if they decided to take it on their next vacation?

Lawrence:

Yeah, I think it's a great book to really put things in perspective. It's not like your normal, what I would call financial book. It's not going to talk to you about kind of the methods and the means to be successful in retirement or with a retirement plan. It's really about, you know, what is money about? What is it really there for? What can it do for you? It's really about more or less the why behind the money than anything else. And it's broken down into a lot of great chapters that kind of talk about that. So I think if you're one of those people that are accumulating money in a bank account and you're like, I don't really have a lot of meaning behind what I can do with this or what it's about. I think this book is a great read. Not to tell you what you should do, but give you some great ideas about what you can do and maybe reposition how you're looking at the money that you've accumulated and the money specifically, you know, on those statements, whether it's your retirement account or bank account, what have you.

Yohance:

I would agree. I feel the same way about this book. I think that this book is really about, at the end of the day, your relationship with money. And I think people are going to gravitate towards one or more chapters more than others, depending on the stage that they are. And like you said, money accumulating in their bank account. Account. And. And I think they'll also be able to relate a lot of the stories to things that happen in their own lives. As I started reading through some of the stories, I was like, oh, this sounds familiar. Oh, this I know someone that went through. And also, you know, I know a lot of clients, so I've also known clients. I mean, every story that was told, it's like, oh, this is this client, this is that client. So I think that that many people will find a chapter or two that they can definitely personally relate to their relationship with money and how they want to see their relationship with money evolve in the future. And that's what I'm really excited about is I really hope that this book can change some lives on. On. Just. And again, not necessarily the commas that are in their 401k, just their relationship with those comments and what it means and how they make their future money decisions.

Lawrence:

Yeah, it could have a change, could have a change in direction. If they, if they find a cut, like you said, even just a couple of chapters, if they find that resonate with them, they lean into it and they really implement it and work through some of the thought provoking questions. You know, it could potentially be a, a life changing purchase for them in terms of the book.

Yohance:

So speaking of life changing books or purchases, I'd like you to name three things that you purchased that changed your life and at least one of them has to be a book.

Lawrence:

Interesting. That's a, that's a bit of a good question. Does it have to be really specific or could it be general as well?

Yohance:

It could be general as well. But the three purchases, three things that you've invested your money and one needs people, the other two can be anything else.

Lawrence:

Okay, so I think my, the number one thing that I have, you know, purchased, I, I think it's more of an investment has been for travel and experiences for my family. I think hands down, you know, people look at travel and experiential things as a cost, an expense. I, I don't look at it that way. I look at it as an investment. I think people who travel, people who have experiences are more well rounded people and I think they have something that other people who don't do that, you know, don't have the luxury of having. And you know, we always, we always start, we always forego birthday parties for the kids for experiences or big events for experiences. So that by far I think is the biggest and the best investment we've made. Second, I don't know if this counts as a purchase and I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but purchasing a wedding ring and marrying my wife is probably that. That is up there as one of the biggest life changing things. I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of finding a good spouse and somebody who's supportive and behind you. And I work with my wife every day. We're with each other quite a bit and we love every minute. We're going to be married 26 and you know, yeah, our kids are probably the biggest and the best thing that you know, our biggest legacy when it comes to things like that. And the third thing is, you know, you said book. I would have to say that there are a couple that fall into that category. I think the Infinite Game by Simon Sinek really helped position like my view when, when launching a firm and developing a firm. You know, there's a number of Dan Sullivan books that have had huge impacts on me who not how and looking at business. So those are just a couple of them. I think reading is so fundamentally important if you want to grow and develop as a leader, as a Person, as a business person, entrepreneur. So I would say those are the three things that, you know, I have no problem ever investing in and have been the biggest impacts on, on my life.

Yohance:

For sure. I love Simon Sinek's work. Shortly after starting my firm, I picked up Start with why. And I think I read that book at least 10 times and listened to the audible and watched the TED talk until it was flowing through my veins. And oh my goodness, I still, even to this day, whenever a client says to me that they want to start a business, I recommend that book like start Here.

Lawrence:

Well, if you haven't read Infinite Game, I highly suggest that too.

Yohance:

So it's, it's on my. It's been on my wish list for a while and I haven't hit the purchase button, but now that I've heard it from you, I will go ahead and hit that button. Enjoy it while I enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Lawrence:

There you go.

Yohance:

Well, Larry, thank you so much for spending some time with us on the Money Script podcast. If anyone wanted to find you, what is the best way to locate you or any of the books that you've written? And we'll make sure to tag them in the show notes.

Lawrence:

Yeah, I mean, the easiest thing is if you go to Midland financial.com that's, that's the easiest way. We have a link out to the book, a link out to our podcast, a link out to our YouTube channel. That's the easiest and the best place to get access to everything that we've been involved with and, and put out as, as me personally and as a firm.

Yohance:

Wonderful. We'll make sure to link it here in the show notes. Larry, thank you so much for spending some time with us on the podcast and I look forward to seeing you on the book tour.

Lawrence:

Sounds good. Enjoy. Enjoy the rest of your vacation.

Yohance:

Michelle. Thank you. All right, Good stuff, sir. Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Jessica will be in touch. She'll let you know when all the links are ready and all that good stuff and.

Lawrence:

Okay, we'll share it out and everything. You got it.

Yohance:

All right, man.

Lawrence:

Enjoy. Enjoy Puerto Rico.

Yohance:

I shall. Thank you so much.

Lawrence:

All right, be well.

Yohance:

Bye. Bye. Welcome to the Money Script podcast. It's your host, Johans Harrison. So happy to be with each and every one of you today. I'm coming to you live from Puerto Rico. Oh, you guys can. But there's a window outside of Puerto Rico. So having some fun here with the family. Also with team for the team retreat. Shout out to the whole team. So excited. To host you here in Puerto Rico for our annual team retreat and then joining all of the doctors at the National Medical Association. Oh my goodness. They have a packed agenda for us. So by the time you're hearing this and probably already back home. But while I was here, I had a unique opportunity to meet with one of my favorite people on the planet, Larry Sprung. He is an author, he's a financial advisor, he's a speaker, and I've been following this guy for a long time. When I saw that I was also going to be alongside him in the co writing of Even More Than Money, I said, larry, please will you hop on a podcast? And he said, of course. Now I did have to reschedule him. I felt bad about it. But I also had an opportunity to go see the Jay Z concert, which we will talk about that in another podcast. I have so much to say about that concert. It was incredible. But I had to reschedule it. And then the only opening that we both had was while I was here in Puerto Rico. So I begged the wife, please I just do this one podcast. And so here we are. So without any further ado, I want you to to give a warm welcome to Larry. He's going to talk to us about the other books that he's written and co written some of his journeys up and down the Mountaintop with. He's going to speak again. Larry's going to be sharing with us about his writing process on the other books that he's written, his Journeys up and down the Mountaintop with Richard Branson. Yes, Richard Branson. And apparently Richard Beat him up the Mountain, which shout out to Richard, I need to learn whatever he's doing for defying age and also of course learning more about his story that he wrote for even more money. We're also going to talk about Starbucks a little bit and nerd out a bit about some of our other favorite authors. You're in for a real treat on this one. Thank you for joining us here from Puerto Rico or wherever you are. And I do encourage you, like Larry said, or we'll say to you here shortly, get some life experiences. You know some sometimes those experiences are worth more. The comments that are in the bank account. Not telling you to go crazy here, but the balance is important and so I hope everyone can give that some thought. We'll see you later.