If hard work made you wealthy, every factory worker would be a billionaire.
That’s why hard work is overrated. What’s worked for me is a combination of hard, active work combined with some form of passive income.
Without passive income you always have to keep going back to the cubicle to collect more funds. If one day you’re too sick to show up at the cubicle and you’re out of sick days or holidays, well, you’re screwed.
“Do active work before passive income”
The lie with passive income is you make money while you sleep and never work again. That’s not quite true, at least for the majority of us.
There’s always active work in the beginning of creating passive income. And for most of us, there’s some level of ongoing work needed to keep passive income going.
It’s entirely possible to work 4 hours a day in a flow state once you’ve mastered passive income. But to work zero hours is a fantasy.
When you hear the word “wealthy” what it really describes is the simple process of transforming active income into passive income. The ideal ratio follows the 80/20 rule.
80% passive income 20% active income.
But the ratio for everyone is different.
Takeaway: There’s most likely going to be active work to keep passive income going.
Active behavior is required to generate passive income
This is where many people F up.
They’re aroused by passive income. They piss their pants in excitement and tell the world about it on Insta-glam. But they have a passive attitude.
They go into it wanting it to be easy, to happen overnight. And when it doesn’t happen that way, because the results from active work take time to compound and transform into passive income, they get pissed and become upset.
Then they go on social media and become one of those “passive income is a scam” peeps that we’ve all seen before.
Passive income isn’t a scam. Passive behavior with a passive mindset is the actual scam. And we do that to ourselves.
To generate passive income it requires you to rewire your brain. Otherwise all the get-rich-schemes pollute your mind and make you think it’s easy.
Nothing worth achieving is easy, especially not passive income.
Here’s what’s wild…
The process of creating passive income is a blast.
Over the last 9 years I’ve built digital assets that generate some passive income (such as a book). I had the time of my life creating those digital assets. I made some of them with my friend Todd.
He’s now one of my best friends. I consider him family.
Passive income is easier when you actually enjoy it and transcend beyond the shallow idea of “more money, please.”
This is where the best source of passive income comes from
I hinted at it already.
Assets are what generate passive income. And no, a luxury car isn’t an asset. An asset is something that appreciates in value over time, and also, maybe generates income. When both those features exist it’s magic.
The main three types of assets are:
- Digital assets — stuff you create and sell on the internet.
- Financial assets — stocks, bonds, real estate, gold/silver, crypto (Bitcoin/Ethereum), etc.
- A business you own — some invest in financial assets which is fine. But if you back yourself you can make a lot more money owning a business. It’s not for everyone though.
Own assets or be owned.
Because without assets you have nothing to trade for money other than your time. And none of us have infinite time.
Plus our bodies get old and our energy levels fluctuate all over the place depending on our health and life circumstances.
For example, I’m a high-energy bloke. But now I got a little pooper for a daughter, so some nights I don’t sleep and there’s jack I can do about it.
Thanks to assets, I don’t always need to show up for work for the same amount of hours. And I can at least take more breaks without going into a negative bank balance and having to ask my in-laws for $5 to buy a green smoothie.
The simple path to passive income (that anyone can copy)
I’m a sucker for a good formula. I found one I can’t resist sharing.
- Earn income from a business or a job.
- Keep your expenses steady as she goes.
- Increase your income over time by adding to your skill stack, and perhaps even being a people leader.
- Invest whatever money is left in financial assets.
Tell me that’s not the most straightforward path to wealth you’ve ever read. Go on, I double dare ya.
You know you can cheat, right?
Copy someone else’s passive income formula.
That’s what I did at the start because I’m dumb as dog sh*t. Why make life hard for yourself when you don’t need to? Choose a proven path. Get started. Damn, half this stuff is available for free on Youtube.
As you follow someone else’s exact path to wealth you can iterate to your own tastes. It’s your life after all. No point doing dumb stuff you dislike.
The weird way to scale passive income
The model of passive income is evolving.
You’ve no doubt heard real online communities are the future. If you have a workable passive income model, you can use the leverage of a community to help increase passive income without any extra effort.
For example, when I create a book as a digital asset and let one of the largest publishers in the world sell it, I will have to put in some effort to make sure it flies off Barnes & Noble bookshelves.
But my 135,000 email list and 2000+ member private community will help me share the book too. So I won’t be all on my lonesome holding my head in my hands and going “farrkkkkkkk, how my gonna do this?”
Why does a community help with your passive income?
Well, over time your work and (or) leadership significantly impacts their lives. Sharing whatever you built becomes their way of paying it forward.
Communities help build the greatest passive income in history.
Passive income doesn’t have to be your #1 goal though
Wait, what?
Passive income is nice. It’s a good goal to have. But often I think people get the wrong idea. If you’re trying to use passive income as an escape then something is wrong.
The goal is to do active work doing something you love. Doing nothing and becoming a beach bum who never works thanks to passive income is a nightmare. You should want to do active work but only on the stuff you give a crap about. That’s a better goal than never working again.
If you never want to work again then who do you think you are?
Do you really think zero work will help you feel fulfilled and happy? Try it out. I have … and I guarantee you’ll hate it after 2 weeks.
Closing thought
You can ignore this whole article and still shout passive income is a scam. I don’t care because it all boils down to this:
Make passive income or become someone else’s passive income.
