‘My Self-Belief, My Journey’ contest was jointly launched by Tata MF and Cafemutual for highlighting the success stories of real life heroes. These are MFD heroes who surpassed all limitations and made their own path to success overcoming all adversity.
Continuing with the series of inspiring stories of ‘My Self-Belief, My Journey’ contest winners, here is the story of Suda Bhanu Prasad from Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh.
Suda was affected by polio when he was 9 months old and has a 90% disability of lower limbs. He was operated 5 times and can walk with the help of crutches. Going back to his school days, his parents used to carry him to primary school. As he moved to the secondary section, he had to walk 1 km daily.
He started his career as a life insurance agent for a living and made modest earnings. Later, he became an MFD to help clients achieve financial goals. Eventually, on sensing opportunities in the financial planning space, he became a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser.
Suda faced financial constraints and travel difficulties through his journey but he never give up. During his life insurance and MFD days, he travelled on a try-cycle for 10 km to 20 km daily to meet clients and prospects. In addition, he travelled from Kakinada to Hyderabad every week for one year by train which is almost 1200 km (to and fro) to pursue CFP. He believes forgetting his disability liberated him and made him successful.
Today, he runs his advisory business - Paisa Health and offers financial, retirement, and wealth advisory services amongst others. His clients typically visit his office but owing to the pandemic the conversations shifted online. While managing assets of around Rs.10 crore, he has been helping 40 clients.
Suda also surpassed geographic boundaries and expanded his reach overseas with clients across Australia, the US, South Korea and Dubai.
Suda also writes a blog and runs a Telugu YouTube channel titled ‘Paisa Health’ for spreading awareness on personal finance. He shares that 80% of his new clients are his viewers. He converses with his clients in Telugu in order to keep financial conversations simple and easy.
This is Suda’s story which shows self-belief wins against all odds. It teaches us to be resilient and to stay focused for reaching closer to our goals.
Stay tuned and keep watching this space for the remaining 4 stories …