Working Hard or Hardly Working: A Few Thoughts on Passive Income
When I was younger, I used to play a little game with myself. I’d try to think of businesses I could start that would take a little bit of work and would send me millions of dollars for the rest of eternity. I wanted truly passive income.
It was a fun game at first, but with a success rate of 0%, it got old quickly.
Later, I moved to another fantasy. I’d try to think of businesses I could start that would take a lot of work, but would still support me for life if I decided to quit doing it.
This actually became attainable; the problem was that the work up front was usually so great that I never got around to actually doing any of it. Overwhelm overload!
Fed up, I finally let myself have fun and just think of little things I could do that would bring in a little money. I quit worrying about whether I’d have to keep working at it or how rich I’d be if it worked out.
That was a few years ago, and it’s when things started to finally click for me. Today, I have a few sources of income that most people would consider passive.
The funny thing, though, is that I work pretty hard for my “passive income.” And most others I know making a living from passive income are the same.
The cruel truth about passive income is that it seems to only come when you don’t really care about it anymore. Once you make the decision to spend your time doing work you enjoy regardless how much it will earn or how hard you’ll have to work to earn it, that’s when things tend to start falling into place.
It isn’t obvious, but it makes sense; when you work on something you truly enjoy, you put a lot more thought and care into it.
Thought and care are two non-negotiable requirements for producing passive income because passive income typically requires a long, hard slog of very, very active income before it can become passive.
This is why, when someone asks me how to start a business that makes passive income, my answer is always:
“I don’t know!”
If you spend all your time thinking about how to make passive income and aren’t having much success, you might be missing that critical “thought and care” requirement.
To me, passive income is something you transition to, not something you start out with.
If you want to make money passively, first think about how to make it actively. Think about the things in your life that you’d do even if no money was involved, and then think of ways to bring money into those things. Find ways to provide real, valuable services to people who are like you and frustrated by the same things you are.
Don’t skip this step!
Don’t try to go from idea directly to passive income. If you do, you risk missing the point of starting a meaningful business—to help people solve a problem in their lives.
You solve problems by working hard to understand people and what they need. Working hard is not passive.
Once you figure out the hard part, then you can worry about how to start working less. But until then, going after passive income is mostly a fruitless endeavor because you’re focused only on the money, and the money doesn’t come until you’ve figured out how to help people—the hard work.
If there’s something you love, something you’re good at, and you have an idea about how to help people, then go for it. There’s no reason you can’t get started for less than $100. But don’t bog yourself down trying to figure out how to lay on the beach and earn a living.
That day may or may not come. In the mean time, just focus on getting paid to help people. Once you run out of hours in a day and can’t help any more people, that’s when it’s time to look for passive income.
Good luck!
P.S. On Monday, April 23rd, I’ll be launching my latest project, The Bootstrapper Guild, for a few days only. If you’ve thought about earning your own income from a very small business, and you’re not afraid of working hard, we’ll help you get started the smart way.
–>You can sign up for more information over here.
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Image by: dotpolka