Hi, I'm Spencer Sherman (MBA, CFP®). I am a leading financial advisor, meditation teacher, author, public speaker, and the founder and former CEO of Abacus, a financial consulting firm with Buddhist values managing more than $3 billion in assets. A New York native living in California, I now devote much of my time to sharing my mindfulness-based approach to money through my books, courses, and personal appearances.
Many of us are raised to believe that money is about facts and figures, not feelings. As a financial consultant who’s helped many people grow their money, I find the opposite to be true. Formal training and expertise are far less important than the emotional intelligence we all share. By learning to examine the source of our feelings, we can lessen the influence that fear, worry, and shame have on us and make smarter financial decisions from a place of balance, kindness, compassion, and joy.
I don’t pretend to be a typical MBA… but I stand out in the financial world because I know that emotional intelligence determines financial success. Mindfulness, surprisingly, is a more direct path to success than reading financial books or getting an Ivy League MBA.
I started Sherman Financial, Inc. and Abacus Wealth Partners with the foundational belief that each of us can transform our financial situation and relationship with money. That applies to my clients, my staff, and participants in my programs. The lessons of emotional intelligence have enabled me to help people achieve peace of mind and financial success on their own terms. It’s something I might never have learned if it hadn’t been for what seemed like the worst day of my life.
WHAT I SAVED FROM THE FIRE
In the late 1980s, the brokerage firm where I worked was nearly destroyed by the largest commercial fire in Philadelphia’s history. I was so obsessed with retrieving my clients’ files that I entered the building while danger was still present. As it turned out, I had risked my life for nothing. My hard drive was damaged beyond repair. The paper files I tried so desperately to dry out in the sun were useless pulp.
I thought my career as a financial advisor was over. But, in fact, that was when my life’s calling truly began.
As I sat looking at my worthless computer and files, I had a moment of clarity. My post-fire recklessness could have ended my life, and I was determined to learn what I could from this experience, not only for my sake but for my clients’ as well.
The fire was the catalyst for my new financial firms - Sherman Financial, Inc. and Abacus Wealth Partners - and a new approach to financial consulting—one that valued self-worth over net worth and favored calm, balanced decision-making over reckless impulse.
Spencer Sherman
Something extraordinary started to happen as a result of this new approach. My clients’ time was freed up. They retired earlier or worked less. They gave more money and time to family and charitable causes. Not only were they enjoying better financial results, my clients were enjoying their lives more than ever.
I wrote and published my first book, The Cure For Money Madness, to share these discoveries with the world. And yet even then I sensed that these financial insights were just the beginning on my path to help people transform both their finances and their lives.
SEARCHING BELOW THE WATERLINE
I came to see my financial life as an iceberg. The part above the waterline, my conscious and self-directed thoughts about practical money matters, were only a very small part of who I was. The submerged part of me—my unexamined emotions, my inherited beliefs, my autopilot behaviors—were actually calling the shots.
Through Fearless Finance, I’ve helped many people examine their own “iceberg” impulses and take conscious control of their financial decisions.
I have worked with people from a wide range of financial circumstances and from different cultural backgrounds. Whoever you are, however much you have, wherever you are in your financial journey, you can be as successful with finances as many so-called "experts"—you can master your money.
If this is something you’d like to learn more about,
write to me
and tell me about your financial goals. This is where your journey to greater self-worth and net worth begins.