 at michelle ashira is where you can find me across all my social in this particular session we dive into an interview that looks at youth investment opportunities in studio i'm joined with elizabeth and cuckoo she is an invest investment advisor and she does a lot of other things so before we start this conversation i'd like to quote wild bank and according to wild most african countries have a low selling so saving and investment culture of around 17% of their gross domestic product products that's according to wild bank so no father do like us to dive into this conversation that we look at investment opportunities that are there and tapped opportunities that is that is for the young people welcome so much welcome to uh why to prefer elizabeth thank you michelle how are you feeling how is your day starting off i think good good to be here good to share insights and learn a few things in there i keep saying that most of us that's understanding investment much later i wish this could have been touched to us a little bit earlier because then you create a culture whereby you are ready to grow but um have we interacted with investment was really let's pass the exam for those of us who are lucky to be in business oh yes that's such a because it's also not uh mandatory it's not there in even it comes to uh our school system you know taught about finances and what it involves uh for you what what growing up what was your relationship with money or how are you brought up what sort of environment brought up when it comes to you relating with finances were you the spender or more of a saver actually none of the two i was i i for me looked at money as a way of getting to what i needed to do i remember this time i i used to i used to school in eldorette my girls and we were given some cash by the old president mr moey and i was like oh yeah i can buy everybody up here or shoe at home so um for me i have always looked at money as a way to get to what you like or what you want but now looking back i should have maybe created a culture of more savings as i even try to grow the rest yes and uh compared to your generation to now the generation whereby i believe you will have you're a mother uh so what sort of difference is there when you talk about you talk about money with your kids and what are you doing differently compared to back in the days during your time so one of the things is really to show them that first uh you have to earn because in respect of the whether they want something that i can afford we have to delay you know delayed gratification because i believe that it's you knowing that i can wait for this that is going to help uh going forward then the other thing is you have to save and put your money somewhere that it's multiplying so i have a daughter who is 13 years uh she has a money market fund account and uh every time i ask her for money she's always like but he said you should not touch your money so it creates some sort of uh balance for me we are starting it and right now i think for people who are enlightened there are options that you can tap into even for your kids so that they can actually see the benefits i think uh sometime back it was all about maybe putting money in a piggy bank not really working for you it's really saving but now how do you convert that saving to something that is growing even as you as you're really doing nothing how do you make your money work for you elizabeth you mentioned something very important you spoke about mmf the money market fund tell us more about that what it is um so what let me take a step back there are two ways of investing so you can actually invest formally whereby you're engaging the capital market players or you can actually just invest informally with your you get with your girls the charm or uh or uh the middle ground so when you go to formal investments a lot has happened i think there's a lot of addiction that is coming in and the capital markets have a lot of products that people can engage in so one of them is a unit trust and unit trust that's how we find the money market fund so unit trust is basically um lumped funds or pulled funds that people can buy into they're usually open ended that you can come in get out at the time and you're getting your money in the returns are largely derived by what is what is the investment behind it so for money market fund the behind investments are money market instruments the money market instrument is things like deposit treasury bills commercial papers and all that they are short term in nature for money market fund your capital is protected and i think i have seen a lot of innovation as well with automation you can dial in open an account and withdraw your money anywhere it is so a lot of innovation going that end all right when you talk about the money market fund what is the initial amount that one can get into it for as low as a thousand you can actually be able to invest so and it's a thousand that people you can top up five hundred using your investor so that i think the thing is to understand who is the provider and how the level of automation and what is their minimum so that is on the lower end there are those there are those providers who are doing up to a thousand but there are those who are high and that they're looking at a at a million a minimum of one million so again it all depends on what you're looking for and what you have but for me i think starting with even at one thousand learning the process before even jump into more makes a difference all right let's look at i would like us to shift a little bit because most of the people who are watching us are the young people and in most cases when you know immediately graduate we always on there look out to just searching for our jobs the white collar jobs to be specific so my mentality is on that particularly so how can we shift that culture to a state whereby we are not just thinking about looking for a job but also creating job opportunities for not only yourself but other people around us it is it's good to be employed i keep saying that if you have that opportunity to get employed it helps create a system of stability and when most of us are living in college we really did not have clear ways of this is how my day is going to be you only were structured based on the classes the way they were so if you're lucky to get a job it's definitely a good place to go but even as you go to that job how what difference are you making other than just um do this abcd what i what difference are you making if you're not so lucky to get a job immediately i think that the starting point is to ask yourself what do i have and what do i what am i passionate about and how can i monetize it i think with this time when there is a lot of gigs that you once can do right for for people um start this biashara you can actually look at that biashara and say let's say something as simple as um hairdressing how do i do it the very best so that the day i do that hairdressing to one person they will definitely send me a lot of referrals and over time you'll actually command your space um so for me the thing is what is it that you're passionate about what do you like if i'm like baking how can i monetize this baking for me how can i make it how can i make a living out of it do do that business as if your life depends on it because over time you actually learn and as you learn you can actually command a premium for what you're doing the only challenge i see is um most of us wants to start today and become successful tomorrow it does not work you have to get rich quickly that's not what you have to pay the price you have to sweat you have to cry you have to do everything for you to stand out so it's just fully knowing that it's a journey and do not despair and be consistent about what you're doing success will come okay success will come another challenge for what you've said is i believe most young people they have these different ideas they want to get into business and they have the fear of losses and not knowing when or how what would you say in terms of describing the difference between investing blindly and actually taking a risk i think there's always a disconnect there all investments is taking a risk so it's the calculated risk what i what i find if you investing blindly most of the time is following the crowd i come and tell you know what i made money i doubled my money over this period of time without fully knowing how did they exactly make their money so when you're looking at investments the first thing is understand the business that you're investing in how you're going to make money and how how is it going to turn to profitability because if you're not able to know this is how i'm going to make money you cannot even be able to drive yourselves so before you invest in anything just to ask that question how are you making money and how are you monetizing that money how am i able to collect it if there is a doubt in terms of i cannot explain to you this is how i'm going to grow myself and this is how i'm going to be profitable don't take that risk the biggest challenge i say is someone will come and tell you know what give me your hundred thousand and you know what i'll give you 200 000 in three months and that sounds a good deal are they material how we'll be able to do that so it's just it's just knowing that there is no easy way to doubling your money all the investments are are called fundamentally driven so you have to understand what drives their returns and then once you understand what drives their return then you're able to sit back and say okay fine i will i can't wait what a couple of untapped investment opportunities that you've seen in the market that you feel the youth are not really getting creeps on on these opportunities that every time you look at these untapped ventures you feel like if most people most young people would actually jump into these particular opportunities they would actually gain more for me i'll approach it from i'm largely a capital markets person so i would go back to the passive investments so most of us will make money so let's say for example i have done my ratings have been paid and you see that money comes in very it's very erratic so i don't i don't see that money i don't put that money in a money market fund i don't put that money in an equity fund i don't put that money maybe in shares or treasury bills so people do are not taking advantage of the available formal ways of investing and i believe it's because it looks sophisticated you know you're like ah you sit i'll ever so you end up not even engaging with the process because i you see an investment the result of consistency they need to be consistent for you to see the to reap the results most of the time when you invest in a venture that you will be able to get the money or tap into the money that consistent is consistent is not there so what i believe is people being able to tap into the formal ways of investing whether i'm employed or not employed at least i know that i am investing towards something and the way to do that i think is to more educational and i think like what you're doing today it's very important because people end up knowing other than um what other than maybe lending money to in a table banking format i can actually put away my money aside and get something better and i can access it when i really really need it all right and another issue that young people are facing is identifying credible platform to actually invest in there's so many organizations that are coming up especially on social media we have i-genius we have hyperverse bleeds that say that invest your invest your money here and in a couple of few days you know your money has multiplied and they use influencers that actually when you look at their lifestyle they're living they're living large they're wearing brands different designers so you feel you feel you know i would like to be part of this organization and make such amount of money how do you weigh on or rather how do you identify credibility that these people actually genuine when it comes to investment again investments is fundamentals what is driving these investments can you be able to spot and say you know what i understand where these people are investing their money and this is how it's coming back because if you are not able to point out that definitely as long as you have a question mark then there's a challenge because there is no magic in investments it is basically how are you driving returns what is your underlying asset if you cannot be able to see this person investing this company and this is how they're going to get money and this is how the money will come back it's a red flag so and then the other thing is there is basically the way you can look at their returns someone who is going to give you returns that's out of this world you know anything that would be i would even say more than you almost like 50 return on a one year it is highly unlikely so it is good to relatively look at how do i understand what kind of returns that someone can get really on a realistic basis then i think there is these other things about maybe the crypto currencies their currencies themselves bitcoins and all that do you understand how and when you're getting into some of those risky investments are you what is your risk level so when you're doing investment it's it's more about looking at yourself retrospectively and say what is it that i understand understand for and if this money went barely up will i survive to see tomorrow or how will my life look like so when you're getting into some of this risky assets just make sure that it's a really small portion of your money such that even if it didn't make it if you just lost the money your lifestyle not it and well from anyone who's watching this conversation as i am person they feel like i still have time you know i mean my maybe a late uh early 30s i feel i'm still i have i still have time maybe i'll start thinking about investment when i get to 40s or 50s during my retirement why should you start investing when you're young um investing is discipline if you're not disciplined today you'll not become disciplined in 40 when you turn 40 or when you turn 50 there'll be less definitely lessons that you'll have learned along the way but most of the time you don't change a lot later on in the in your years then life is unpredictable so today maybe you have a good job and since you have a good job if you don't put the money away today if covid happens i get what happens to you you know a lot of things i think covid does a wake up call for most of us so i buy i don't have an emergency kit or i have an emergency kit that is six months of my living expenses i am laid off so what happens so i think you have to start early you create the culture and also there is what is called the the magic of compounding the earlier you start the better it is for you because then your money is working for you so any of these are big investors it just that you know like they are good at stock picks they're just like consistent at what they are doing so you have to create a way that i will lose and i will i will learn and then reinvest again yeah so you're trying to tell us that we should start thinking about retirement as early as we start getting like income you should set you should start thinking about retirement as the first time you get your paycheck and not retirement in the context of maybe i really need to leave a job and i need this money but whole family how will my life be in retirement what will be my everyday sort of lifestyle so you are not looking about money at money only you're just looking at when i wake up in the morning how will the world look like and then start investing today because if i retire at 60 i'm still very energetic if you look at 60 all these days they are very energetic so even if i have money so now so investing is not necessarily investing in our business it could be even investing in self so i'm saving towards my master's my phd so that the day i retire i can actually take a gig on consultancy so you have to think about it broadly it's not only an issue of i want to get an income okay speaking about consulting you run a consulting farm take us to that what do you guys do and what kind of services do you offer okay um at least consulting we're divided into two so we have people who are hard focused on individuals and on individuals what we do we do two things so first of all we train you we go through that training and then after the training we graduate into our wealth management and what we ensure is that once we have given you the basics is what you need to do and the training really captures up things like how do i what is almost like deciding what is myself status in terms of finances how do i do my goals are they realistic and what do i have to meet these goals what are the investment options that i have and how do i select to to work the journey with then once you're done with that we have to create help you create a portfolio one of the things we want is the your wealth has to outlive you because we do not want you are living well and then thereafter maybe for example go for bid you pass on your kids are fighting so we want to make sure that there is order in what you do so we shall take you through even uh return uh retirement planning we shall take you through succession planning and estate planning taxation all that is what you do for people on the individual side then if you look at the statistics um for you for most of the people who create wealth it's likely through business so then the question becomes how do i create a business that is attractive to me i'm making money but it's even making money i can be able to uh to bring in more people to actually uh grow it and take it to the next level so what are the key foundations that i need so again we take you through a training it's called our business structuring masterclass whereby we shall ask go through with you what are the key things what are the key pillars i need the right people i need the right processes i read the i need the right finances i how do i put all this together so that my business will outlive me again as a founder most of the time we do not want you to be there forever how can this thing stand on your own on its own without you and what will that entail so we take you through that that course and then provide the various um services that you'll need basic support like accounting um transition filing and all basic support and and registration then transactional advisory i wanted to sell this business or i want to fund raise what do i do how do i put together all this thing then we shall take you through that process and do that for you as transactional advisors and then finally you have done everything but it's you feel like i need to this it's time for me to revamp my business i need to change it so we shall take you through business re-engineering because we believe that um with things things change and says things change then what am i doing to make sure that i'm catching up with the change so those are the two packets so business and individuals and for the aim is to make sure that what you're doing today outlives you we didn't session part of a lot of succession may apply so one of your quotes is that financial piece is in the position of staff it's learning to live on less than you make so you can give money back and have money to invest all right so here's the thing most young people we don't live within our means we want to live large we want we want to be bolding on social media we want everyone to know that i got a fendi bag i got zara i got any sort of brand or any sort of design or brand or anything out there and even we desire that and we go to the extent of just not being able to live with Vietnamese how important is that um i think this this age of social media it brings its own challenges people you want to be seen to be the person who is going to the very best places and that that's a lot of pressure but but at the end of the day when you sleep you know you have you have an opportunity to think about yourself and you're like yeah even me and i'm this one doesn't it can't i can't work like this and that's why the debt the debt debt becomes a big problem and i think there's a lot of debt issues and the digital lending has not helped the situation and some people even lose their job because of that if your boss is called that you haven't paid uh then there is a challenge so my view is as an individual understand yourself and accept yourself and things fall into place so that it's how do you create a culture of contentment and just self-acceptance again so do not compete with anyone everybody has their path and today if you invest whatever you think that you're missing out imagine you'll be able to own that to earn to own it and actually live a better life but it's at times it's difficult so i i i keep saying that it's a balance because i cannot invest everything for me not to live today you have to make sure that you're putting aside and there is basic a basic rule that you can do you can just say 10 to 20 of my money i will first put it away okay and the best way to put it away let it not hit your account and if it hits your account have a standing order because the moment you have access to it you will tell yourself i'll do it tomorrow so once you have those basic rules 10 percent of my money will go to investment it doesn't matter what it is and then these are the one these are the 50 percent will go to my basics if i'm able to squeeze my basic set that i've saved on transport or i have saved on food then i can buy that thing that i wanted but also have a 10 20 percent that you can say let me tell myself polio on this one so that you don't also feel guilty that you're missing out on stuff but if you have those clear bucket bucket at times difficult but you can just give um you can actually be able to demarcate them so that the money that is that is for food it's in a different maybe card account and yeah all right we're still in the early year and people have goals and uh they have virtually put on a bucket list of the things they want to achieve and when it comes to finances and savings yeah what is the best uh of or rather tips to go about it you mentioned an 80 20 rule when you are actually earlier on so take us through that the best saving uh way to go about it like tips so um the starting point is i keep saying understand yourself and know you want to go and not compare yourself with anyone yeah it's you elizabeth this is what you have be real to yourself i think when you're thinking about finances they're starting when it's honesty and not honesty to you it's honesty to myself because i need to be i cannot be saying that i want to a stevex and i can't really i can't say there is nowhere i can start there is nowhere to even i want to drive a car or i want to upgrade my car but i'm looking at i don't have a salary maybe uh i have kids to take to school my reality cannot get me too buying a car and once you see that that is not where i'm going to go then you start with where you are so understand where you are and do you are balance sheet do you are profit and loss i always say that treat yourself like a company once you start looking at yourself like a company you reality checks in because if my even my income is a hundred thousand my expenses are 120 it's die work they just as much that it will come in it it just leave book and so you just need to make sure that you understand then look at your assets there are those assets that you have that are not they're not generating anything they're not appreciating don't have attachments just sell and just put the money in something that is going to make sense to you so once you have done that you have done your reality check you haven't done your goals you know this is what i need to achieve and you're very realistic with your goals ask yourself what are they are what are the means and ways of getting to where i'm going the means and ways is what are the available investment options that i have and remember not only in terms of money i also need time if i say for example i wanted to start a business and i'm fully i'm full-time employed may not maybe be making sense because i love to employ someone who also maybe is not that trusted so you need to make sure that you're looking at your resources in terms of money in terms of time in terms of relationships in terms of people and then think what can i do once you've understood your options select the one that gets you there then things will change we you see the thing the thing is um when you put when you start the year we want to start with these goals and i want to achieve them but we are human things happen so be real and just say you know what i thought i would get to a million i didn't so what do i do and then get corrective as we wind up i like us to look at the short-term investment opportunities for young people that they can get into and you know as you mentioned earlier there's no getting rich real quick so you have to be patient about it so what a couple of short-term investment opportunities that will require minimal start seeing capital i think you can in my view you can start with if you have if you have no capital you are getting money that is coming in tripling in put it in your money market fund that start if you want to start a business i think the easiest businesses to start is what is your passionate about and you care for i think looking at the pain area in the area that you are in let's say for example you um where a place where there are many people in the market so or there is a place where maybe a car wash or something just people maybe need food but how what is the easiest and cheapest way for you to provide that food because you're sure they will get hungry at some point such that it doesn't require a lot of capital if for example you're passionate about fashion and design i think with social media today you can actually market and go buy and deliver so you do not have to have a lot but do that which your heart really cares for because if you do something because driven 100% driven by money you want to do it very well and it will people your customers will see so if you're good and you would like to say let me say for example you want to get into um hair dressing just take that thing that you like because if you do something that you're like ah he nipesa too even you will complain when you're crazy when you take another client so don't stretch just do that which drives you all right yeah okay so Elizabeth as we went up if anyone wants to reach out to you i'll keep the conversation going i would like to join a reach out for advice when it comes to investment even financial advice how can they reach out to you so we do free webinars every wednesday at 7 30 so tomorrow the whole of this month we are doing about debt and debt we have a debt series because we believe that we have to get right in terms of debt so we shall be this mystifying debt tomorrow and then we shall do how do you find yourself in a debt situation how do you get yourself out of it then how do you can use debt to leverage your business and grow as an individual so every wednesday at 7 30 you uh join us follow me on facebook i always give tips on that okay every every monday and every friday i actually do investment tips as well uh through so please uh subscribe to our mailing list just go to my website my website is www.elizabethgoku.com subscribe and every week twice we shall be giving you tips on investments you can follow me on instagram and on linkedin again if you want to chat please don't send me a message you can send me on a whatsapp message on my number it's on my website or you can write 0728-600-576 we shall get back to you or email us on info at elizabethgoku.com yeah elizabeth uh elizabeth it has an end right yes elizabeth and 11 kuku.com on their website right yes thank you very much for creating time to believe that elizabeth are taking us through youth investment opportunities we appreciate you and kary busana i'll be part of the webinar it's tomorrow right it's tomorrow i'll send you a whatsapp thank you very much all right guys keep it right here at why in the morning remember the hashtag tears is the hashtag entrepreneurship tuesday we have so much coming your way so stay locked at michela shira is where you can find me across all my social and why too for the channel is where we are across all our social media and it'll be right back