It is by no means impossible to make a lot of money off a passive income strategy. Icons like Pat Flynn and Tim Ferriss have both earned substantial profits from businesses that, once established, generate passive income.
That said, such cases are outliers. While planning out your strategy carefully certainly boosts your odds of making a lot of money, you shouldn’t count on becoming a millionaire off an e-book or online course. You’re more likely to make some extra cash on the side that supplements your main source of income rather than replacing it entirely.
Some people are discouraged by this fact. They don’t believe starting a side business that generates passive income is worth the initial effort if they can’t use the money they make to replace their primary income and retire early. While this is an understandable reaction, it’s not necessarily a fair one.
Even if you don’t make a tremendous amount of money off your passive income business, there are still advantages to starting one. The following are some reasons you should absolutely strive to make some money on the side, even if you won’t make enough to live off of:
Pursuing Your Interests
This is one of the key principles behind Tim Ferriss’s approach. He doesn’t believe that people should develop their passive income strategies hoping to get rich quickly. He does think, however, that they should decide what interests they would pursue if they weren’t so preoccupied with making a living income.
Perhaps, for instance, you love playing music. You never got a big break, and you’re not likely to ever get famous from your music, but you’re still skilled enough to earn money for gigs. You might not make enough money as a musician to sustain a decent lifestyle. As a result, you may feel stuck working a job you dislike in order to pay the bills. It’s a situation many people find themselves in.
However, if you were to have a reliable source of passive income, you could make enough money to devote the rest of your time to your passion. Music alone might not yield enough money to pay the bills, but music combined with a source of passive income could bring in more than enough.
You can apply this to any passion that enables you to earn a partial income. By earning an income on the side, you’re free to do the kind of work you actually enjoy.
Avoiding Stressful Employment Situations
Far too often, people take jobs that make them unhappy because they don’t feel comfortable turning down a raise. Many people value salary over job satisfaction because they feel they don’t have a choice in the matter. They have families to take care of, and they can’t imagine a good reason to turn down a high-paying position, even if it leads to stress.
You don’t need to accept a high-paying, stressful job if you’re already earning a passive income on the side. When you have a constant source of money, even if it’s not enough to support your lifestyle on its own, you’re free to turn down job offers that would result in unhappiness and dissatisfaction. This results in greater happiness not only for you, but also for your loved ones; when you’re stressed about your job, it’s easy to share that stress with others in your life.
Developing New Skills
Gaining new skills and abilities is, quite simply, a lot of fun for many people. Sadly, if you’ve been working in the same job for a long time, you may feel as though you’ve stagnated.
You don’t need to. Starting a passive income-generating business involves some heavy lifting during the initial stages. This shouldn’t deter you. Instead, it should inspire you. Now you’ll have the chance to explore a new type of work. You don’t need to place undue pressure on yourself, since any money you make will be used to supplement the money you’re already making from your day job.
Because of this, you have the unique opportunity to enjoy the process of expanding your existing skillset without worrying about whether or not you have what it takes to succeed right away in a new line of work. While it can be fairly easy to make a passive income if you strategize properly, if you do hit roadblocks, they won’t impact your ability to pay your bills.
Again, it’s not completely impossible to earn a significant amount of money through passive income, but that shouldn’t be your initial goal. Instead, your goal should be to use the money you make to enhance your life as it is now.