Hello SOTGC community,
In my last post I discussed how some women feel ashamed about their lack of skills or experience in managing their money. They didn’t take an interest in saving and investing when they were younger, and now they wonder if they have enough money to support themselves in retirement. Very few people I know want to work into their 70’s and 80’s but that is the reality many women are facing.
Shame is a dangerous and destructive emotion. I wrote Every Woman Should Know Her Options because I wanted to have an impact on transforming the emotion of shame many women experience into emotions of pride and empowerment. When I informed men who work in the financial services industry that I was writing a book to encourage more women to trade options as an investment strategy, I received a variety of reactions. Although some men who provide trading platforms or educational content cheered me on because I have the potential to grow their market, mostly I got the response that it will be “a tough sale.” When I probed further, a few men came out with what they really thought: that options trading is too complicated for women.
Did these men think that women don’t have the intellectual horsepower to understand and trade options? Perhaps they assume that women aren’t tech savvy enough to use the Internet to trade options? I enjoyed dispelling both myths at the same time with my zinger: “Did you know that even grandmas trade options?”
In fairness, many men have asked for my advice on how to help them persuade their wives to take a more active role in portfolio management. One man told me that since he was overweight and in poor health, he knew there was a high likelihood that he would die before his wife. It made him crazy to think that he would leave millions of dollars to his wife and she would fall in love with a con man who would take all her money.
Women, on average, live five years longer than men. There is an often-quoted statistic that half of all marriages end in divorce. While it’s not pleasant to think about, the bottom line is that you could be one of the women ending up widowed or divorced. That is why it is so imperative that you understand how to manage your investments, and it is never too late to learn.
Along with technical information, my book includes inspirational interviews with women of all ages who have decided to take responsibility for managing their own money and become their own financial advisors. These women no longer feel shame about money…they feel proud and empowered.
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