Kim Kiyosaki Interview — Why Women Must Become (Bitcoin) Investors
My guest on this week’s SANE CRYPTO Podcast is Kim Kiyosaki, who along with her husband and business partner, Robert Kiyosaki, have built the Rich Dad financial education empire.
I was fortunate enough to do two PBS specials, with Kim, way back in the day, titled The Rich Woman In You. So it was really fun to catch up ..
We talked about: 1) Where she and Robert are on their thinking about cryptoassets as an investment; 2) How to approach learning about a totally new investment class didn’t exist for most of us, just a few short years ago; and 3) How to get women more involved in investing in general, and cryptoassets more specifically.
Kim has always been way ahead of her time on the issue of getting women involved in investing. She published two books on the subject going all the way back to 2006.
Here are just a few of the horrifying statistics she cites, highlighting how vulnerable women are financially:
- 47% of women over the age of 50 are single
- 50% of marriages end in divorce
- In the first year after a divorce a woman’s standard of living drops an average of 73%
- Of the elderly living in poverty 3 out of 4 are women — and 80% of them were not poor when their husbands were alive
- Nearly 7 out of 10 women will at some time live in poverty
For Baby Boomers, this is a fundamental issue:
“The number one worry of Americans today is running out of money in retirement. And, you can worry all you want about it. Or… you can go out there and do something about it!” — Kim Kiyosaki
Having turned over a million dollar windfall to a broker, in my late 20’s, and them losing everything I didn’t manage to spend first, I came to the harsh realization early in life that you alone are accountable for your financial situation.
It’s easy to point fingers. But it isn’t your broker, you CPA, the government, your parents… or even your spouse that is responsible for your current or future financial situation. It is you and you alone!
We can all agree that attitude is one of the biggest predictors of success. Yet when it comes to investing, many people — especially women! — continue to have attitudes of confusion, fear, anger, and even apathy.
Changing your attitude is the first step in creating successful investment outcomes.
Nowhere is this more true than investor attitude towards Bitcoin…
I am recently “un-retired”, after having sold my investment firm and spending 8 years living my dream, building my farm, in rural SC.
I used to say it would take a crane to get me off my farm. But I didn’t count on the potentially once in a lifetime investment opportunity that is Bitcoin.
I recently saw a statistic that said $85 billion in new wealth was created by Bitcoin in 2017 and women only got about $5 billion of that.
A former client of mine, when he heard I had been enticed out of retirement by Bitcoin, wrote me:
“Bitcoin, is vaporware, a 1/0 in a computer memory backed up by absolutely nothing as far as I can tell, but I don’t understand it at all. I can’t imagine actually investing in hidden imaginary “money” that amounts to 1s and 0s in a computer somewhere, created to enable dark web transactions to be hidden from the real world.”
Far from being vaporware or imaginary money created for the purpose of nefarious transactions on the dark web…
Bitcoin could end up being the knight in shining armor that swoops in to save the day for millions of Baby Boomers!
Notice I said could.
You need double-digit returns in order to live comfortably in retirement, without being in danger of running out of money and ending up living under a bridge eating cat food, if we have a prolonged market downturn.
Either that or a lot, a lot of money.
Equities have returned 6.5% annually back to 1900. Wine comes in second at 3.7%. In 2017, Bitcoin returned 1,317%!
No guarantee that it will again this year. Or ever. But the fact that it easily could… makes it a modern day version of Pascal’s Wager.
Pascal’s Wager refers to a bet with infinite upside and little or no downside.
Pascal’s Wager was cutting edge, back in the 16th century, because it broke new ground in game theory.
Pascal correctly pointed out, that under circumstances like these, where the outcome is uncertain, but the risk and reward are so asymmetrically lopsided, you MUST take that bet. To do otherwise would not be sane.
Fast forward to today…
As long as you structure the investment correctly, which is key, because almost no one is, you can create a modern day version of Pascal’s Wager, where if you win, you gain all. But if you lose, you lose almost nothing.
Which is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And, has the opportunity to make a meaningful, meaningful difference, in solving the thing Kim mentioned, that most older Americans fret over constantly… running out of money in retirement.
Suffice to say, individual investors like you and I don’t see this sort of lopsided upside:downside skew very often, if ever. Which is why I am so excited about getting the word out about cryptoassets as an investment class.
But more importantly, how to do it in a sane, strategic way that does no harm if we are wrong but can be life-changing if we are right.
Something to consider. I hope you found it helpful …
As always, if you have any questions at all, about this topic, or anything else, just email me at askkim@sanecrypto.com. I read and answer every email personally. Or leave it in the comments below.
And, finally, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer …. Everything I have said is for educational purposes only. Nothing should be considered investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All investments involve risk… especially this one! So do not, under any circumstances, invest money you cannot afford to lose.
