Sid Misra

Certified Financial Planner/Advisor, Beacon Financial Group & Founder, MPowered Finance

In this interview we are introduced to Sid Misra, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) at Beacon Financial Group. Sid shares his journey from the insurance side to working directly with clients, emphasizing a holistic approach. As a CFP, he focuses on understanding clients' unique needs and guiding them toward financial success. Sid's personal brand, MPowered Finance, offers free educational content, addressing topics from investing to career changes. He discusses the importance of personalized advice over general information. Sid appreciates Sora Finance's tool for managing debt efficiently. Amid economic uncertainties, he advises clients to focus on understanding their finances and seek help if needed.

Full transcript below:

Siddhartha: Welcome to Sora Spotlights. This is where we highlight some of the incredible advisors who are using Sora and delivering tremendous value to their clients. As always, you can reach out to advisors highlighted in this interview directly if you are looking to drive growth in your own personal finances.

We are joined today by Sid Misra. Sid is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) at Beacon Financial Group, and his personal brand is MPowered Finance. Welcome, Sid. Thank you so much for having me.

Siddhartha: Let's kick off with a bit about yourself and your background. How did you come to being an independent financial advisor, and maybe more importantly?

Sid: Yeah, absolutely. It started with my dad. My dad has been in the industry for about 30 years now. I've seen the work that he's done with clients, I've talked to him about that kind of work, and it's been something that for a really long time I've always thought about doing. I've been interested in finance. I went to the University of Maryland and studied economics there, so it's always been something that I've been interested in. After college and all of that, I worked at an insurance agency or insurance company selling annuities on their variable annuity side, doing internal wholesaling and working with financial advisors.

After some time there, I thought, you know, I could do that job, and my dad does it. I would love to be able to help people on a more one-on-one level and not just work with advisors. I made that change over in 2017, and I've just been learning from him and trying to grow my own book of business and help as many people as possible.

Siddhartha: I'm curious, what would you say have been some of the biggest differences in moving from the insurance side of the industry to now working more closely directly with clients?

Sid: The biggest change I would say is the nature of the business. On the insurance side, it is certainly more transactional. You're trying to get advisors to use your specific annuity, trying to get them to do business with you as opposed to another company in the marketplace. Whereas as an advisor, we're looking at it and we should be looking at it from that holistic and that full-picture view. What are their finances like right now? What do they want to accomplish? What really matters to them? And then how do we bridge the gap between that and look at all areas of their finances? What I was doing before was more specific to a product in a particular company, whereas now I'm looking at it as what is the client trying to do? What's in their best interest? And can we find a solution to fit that? 

Siddartha: That's great. You've touched on the fact that you're more client-focused and really thinking holistically around what the client's needs are, and that seems to really resonate with the CFP, the Certified Financial Planner designation that you hold, which is a big deal to have that. Could you share a little bit about what the CFP means and how you apply that in your practice?

Sid: I'm really happy that I got that designation. I'm really proud of myself for doing it. It was a long process, but I appreciate it because they really teach you the right way of doing things. It's about approaching the client from where they are and trying to figure out what matters to them, what they want to accomplish, what their current finances are. To best guide them from where they are to where they want to be and all the little steps in between. It gives you a process that gives you a framework. It makes sure that you understand all the different sides. I think when a lot of people think about advisors, they think about us as investment managers, and investing is important. It's a small part of the overall picture. We have to look at the other pieces. We can't ignore the other pieces. They are just as important and they all work together. So I love the CFP because it put all that together and it really drove home the point of being a fiduciary, coming at it from that standpoint of doing what's best for the client. It was a little bit, it's interesting, it was at odds a little bit with the previous job that I had where you're just trying to sell. I'm glad I'm out of that kind of side of the business, and I'm glad I can focus more on solutions that are tailored to what is in the best interest of my client

Siddartha: Now, I guess if we're thinking about your clients in particular, there's a whole wave coming up with Gen X, which may have already happened, but also Gen Y. Now, the millennials coming into a time when they really need advisors. I guess I'm curious, if you had a potential client come to you today and they're sort of saying, "Look, I don't really know where to start," where would you start with them? What would you say as a way of kicking things off to bring them into the world of growing their finances?

Sid: Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing I would want to know is, what do they understand about finance? What is their relationship with money? What have they learned from their family, their parents? You know, what are their habits and how does that drive their actions? I think that we need to view it from that base level. It's money, and it's so personal. We all have different backgrounds and histories with it. Mine is completely different than yours. And of course, there will be similarities there, but I think everything is so unique. So the first thing I would want to do is understand where they're coming from.

Okay, well, you understand this, but you don't fully get it. So let's talk about that and let's dive a little deeper. And you know, it starts with the foundational pieces. I say, you know, at the simplest thing, it's can you spend less than you make and then put the difference to work? And I think if you can do that at a base level, you're probably ahead of so many people in life. If you have that as a foundational behavior, the rest of the stuff is just being efficient with it. But if you can do that, you're gonna be successful. On the other side of that, I can build you a great financial plan and we can work together, and I can have the best investments for you. But if you are spending more than you make and you don't have that foundational piece, it doesn't really matter, right? There's only so much we can do. So, just understanding from the base level and then working up from there.

Siddartha: I think what you said explicitly around where you start, which is understanding where someone is coming from, is so important. There's this element of being an advisor about really understanding the human side of finance, of money. That, that you've clearly touched on there. That makes so much sense. You know, now, you also mentioned you sort of look to understand how much someone knows about the financial world and money, and obviously, a great place for people to start if they want to learn more is your own YouTube channel that you have.

Sid: Yeah. 

Siddartha: So in addition to your official role as a CFP at Beacon, you also have your own personal brand, Empowered, where you're putting out tons of content on LinkedIn, a robust podcast, and a YouTube channel. That's a lot. I'm not sure when you sleep, to be honest then, but what's motivating you in that you're almost giving away advice for free there?

Sid: Yeah, I definitely am. I think education is the most important thing. We're all part of the financial system, whether we like it or not, whether there are things that we want to change about it or not. You want to make it more equitable, whatever that may be. We are still all part of the system. You have to know the rules to this system. You have to know how it works if you want to take advantage of it, if you want to use it to your advantage. The people that do understand that are able to build wealth, are able to own their time and live life how they want to. The people that don't or ignore how the rules work are basically just at the mercy of the system, and they don't have any sort of control.

So, I've set up this brand, I've built this brand MPowered Finance to make sure that people understand finances and personal finance and making the best decision for themselves. How does the system work? How do I use it to my advantage? How do I get the most out of it? There are rules to the game, and you've got to understand that.

Siddartha: Now, I did a little digging on your YouTube channel, and you cover a lot of different topics from crypto investing to thinking about career changes, which really do impact someone's personal finances, to using a HELOC to invest in today's market. It's pretty wide-ranging in that way. I guess I'm curious, what topics have you seen really resonating with individuals today with clients, potential clients? What are they thinking about, where are clients focused today?

Sid: Yeah, I mean, I think there's the standard, you know, how should I be investing? What age should I take Social Security out? You know, what things should I be doing as a young professional to get the most out of my time and my resources? Some of the biggest questions that I try to answer too is, you know, how do your finances, how do your finances, how does your account balance translate into your life? How does it turn into what you want to see happen? I think people think about, you know, a big account balance as this nice thing that I have in the bank or my investments, but that's more abstract. How does it actually turn into income every month? Are you taking a vacation? Are you buying a vacation home or a beach home? I want people to think about those answers, and so I just try to put out content towards that. Give them something to think about. And again, it's not the advice that you can just take and possibly use. I mean, you may be able to kind of figure it out on your own, but to me, I think the biggest thing that I also want people to realize, even my YouTube channel, the stuff that you Google is all general information. At the end of the day, you want something that's more personalized to you. You want it to be in your context, and that may be just working by yourself or maybe working with an advisor. But again, this is just general information that we're putting out. There's deeper stuff and there's deeper conversations that we can be having to get really more detailed into your finances.

Siddartha: There's no question about that. The level of optimization and personalization that's required to really grow finances and give your clients a successful financial future can be done by an individual, but it's incredibly difficult to do. And it's part of why we work with financial advisors like yourself. So that makes tons of sense here. Now, let's jump gears and talk a little bit about, obviously, Sora Finance. Why did you start working with Sora?

Sid: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting tool that can be used. It's funny when we talk about debt, even when we talk about money, there are these opinions about it, whether it's either good or bad. And I always viewed money and debt as well as just a tool. And it's how you wield that tool and so Sora allows you to look at that debt, look at that tool, that leverage, that opportunity to finance different things, and make it more cost-effective. Again, when we're talking about good versus bad, getting a mortgage, for example, or getting a car loan, people don't have the cash right now upfront to just buy stuff like that. So you're gonna have to take out a mortgage, you're gonna have to finance your car. Are there ways to be more cost-effective at doing that? If interest rates drop, is there an automatic way for me to look at the prices in the marketplace and make a change if that's necessary? And I think as a financial advisor, being able to look at my clients in real-time, have alerts come up and them tell me, "Hey, this may be beneficial for your client." At the end of the day, I still have to look at that. I still have to review. There's still that human element, discussing it with your client. But having that automated tool definitely.

Siddartha: That's great. Well, that's certainly where we wanna be. We wanna be empowering advisors like yourself to be able to help your clients make those decisions and giving you the right tools to do that. We can start to wrap it up here. Maybe one final question for you, which is, there's a lot on folks' minds right now. Fed just announced another round of rate rises, a little bit slower than I think we had imagined initially. Still fears about a recession. A lot going on. There's still a war going on in Eastern Europe. What are the things that you would talk to a client about today? What are some of the most important things that you would share with a client or a potential client as they come to you with some of these fears?

Sid: I think the biggest thing is, try to tune it out as much as possible. There is a lot of just clickbait, fear-mongering, trying to get clicks, trying to get views. There's always a crisis, right? I just think you have to look at it in terms of your own context. Yes, those things may happen. You have no control over that. You have no control over what the market's gonna do tomorrow, what the Fed's gonna do, who's gonna invade who and who's gonna start a war. What you can focus on is understanding your finances, understanding the rules of the game, and putting yourself in a position to handle that stuff and to take advantage of it. And what I would tell people, you know, figure it out on your own. Or if you can't do that, if it takes too much time, if you just, you know, you don't have the knowledge or the ability to do that yourself, ask for help. I mean, this is too important to just put to the side. So figure out that stuff, figure out, figure it out in your own context. And the rest of the stuff is just noise. You don't have to bother with it. Think about it in terms of decades, the long term, and figure it out in your own context.

Siddartha: That's great. We have, as human beings, fears that can bring themselves into our minds. It's kind of that lizard brain remnant that we still have. And it's easy then to take actions on those fears. And what we really need then is an advisor or a trusted advisor to sort of say, "Hey, look, let's look at this really rationally and think about this in the right way." There will always be these fluctuations, and you gotta continue to invest and grow through it all. Sid, really, really appreciate your time today. Thanks for coming on the Sora Spotlight with us. 

Sid: Thank you for having me. I had a great time.