The truth about passive income that most people fail to mention
While surfing the internet as of late I’ve been noticing a ton of articles, videos, how-to guides, etc. about how to make passive income.
You know the ones I’m talking about.
You’re on Instagram or TikTok minding your own business (not really) just thumbing through your feed and then BOOM!
Just as if you were searching for them, a guru appears on your feed showing you how they easily make 6 figures via several different streams of passive income.
They show you their income dashboard, that you can totally trust by the way, as they begin explaining all the seemingly simple ways to generate your own passive income.
Before you know it, you have this newfound energy to become an entrepreneur, envisioning yourself sipping cocktails on your yacht watching your bank account grow in commas.
You’re all excited now at the thought of it raining benjamins on your head as you begin setting up blogs, writing eBooks, and setting up dropshipping stores on Shopify.
After launching whatever methods you chose of passive income you go to sleep on cloud nine excited at the thought of waking up with a new income stream.
Instead, you wake up on ground zero next to your shattered hopes when you realize no one has even noticed your venture, let alone generated any income.
How could this happen?
The truth about passive income
What the guru’s failed to mention is how much time and effort goes into generating these streams of passive income. The amount of research needed, the perseverance required, and the marketing strategy behind creating successful forms of income.
The fact is, no self-made millionaire became a millionaire by having only one source of income.
Passive income isn’t fictional and can be a huge contributor to one’s success.
But it also isn’t easy to establish these revenue streams substantially enough to make a real difference to your overall income.
This is the most overlooked fact people fail to mention when discussing how they are generating so much money in their stories.
That being said, here are some forms of passive income you can create with realistic expectations on earnings and timelines.
Here are two ways to generate passive income online
Now that I’ve level set your expectations on passive income, here are some forms of passive income you can start on with little to no experience.
Blogging
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but it’s true, blogging can generate income in a couple of ways.
Medium is probably the most popular form of blogging today and they have a great partnership program that can generate income for you depending on how well your article does amongst readers.
Now, if you’re like me, the only writing experience you have is writing frustrations down on a piece of paper whether at work or at home before bedtime.
I literally feel like I’d be the only person who’d enjoy my writing, but, I don’t care and frankly, I don’t know that for sure.
You never know how well an article you write can or will perform so why not try anyway?
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”
— Wayne Gretzky — Michael Scott
The trick is to find a topic or niche you have a genuine interest in and just write about it.
Keep your audience in mind and speak to them.
Try to provide as much value as possible without selling to them. Focus on being informative.
It never hurts to be entertaining. Speak your mind and maybe even give a dash of razzle-dazzle!
Most importantly, and this ties into the whole premise of this article, don’t get discouraged if your writings don’t gain any attention right away.
The more you write the greater the chances you have in an article taking off while building a following of readers.
I know my own writing is less than impressive. But I also know how much better it will be 6 months from now after being consistent.
And that’s the key.
Should I start my own blog?
Short answer: Sure.
Long answer: It’s complicated, and here’s why…
It really depends on your intentions of the blog. The reason it’s ‘easier’ to make money from blogging on Medium is because of the huge amount of members the platform already has, plus the algorithm they have in place to get your article in front of readers.
Using Medium is sort of using the fast lane to a traffic source.
When you start your own blog, you’ll need to set up a domain name and hosting, likely using WordPress.
This is fine, except unless you’re an exceptional digital marketer, it’s going to take a while before traffic begins reaching your blog.
The plus side, if you own or run a business, frequently posting on your blog is huge for SEO (search engine optimization). Google LOVES relevant content on websites so this is a huge proponent in ranking in search results.
Start a YouTube Channel
YouTube has become extremely popular for passive income.
However, there is a much greater learning curve associated with it if you aren’t accustomed to creating and editing videos.
Successful YouTube channels are successful for two main reasons.
Content and quality.
People will only watch you or subscribe to your channel if you are creating content that is beneficial to them in some way.
This doesn’t mean the content needs to necessarily be informative or solving a problem. I’ve been seeing a ton of channels lately with over 100,000 subscribers and it’s literally of just a person or people reacting to new music.
The difference between the people reacting to new music with 100,000 subscribers vs others who are doing the same thing? Quality of video.
Keep these things in mind when launching your awesome YouTube channel!
How do you make money on YouTube?
You’ll need to enroll in their YouTube Partner Program
Then, to actually start making money, your channel will need to have at least 1,000 subscribers AND your videos will need to accumulate 4,000 hours of watch time.
Once those requirements are satisfied, you begin generating income based on the number of views your videos have.
Have you noticed it?
I’ve only mentioned two forms of passive income. Both forms can generate some serious cash flow if done right.
What you should notice is that both forms require WORK.
Passive income only comes into existence after the hard work has been put in. You’ll experience a lot of failures along the way. You will learn from those failures and it will propel you to the next level.
Our failures are our greatest professors.
What’s important is that you continue to create. The more body of work you have the more opportunity you are giving yourself to break through and be able to start earning passively.
Before you know it you will generate revenue from videos or articles you forgot you created!
Anything you make lives forever unless you remove it.
But as long as is has a home on the internet it will continue to collect attention.
In conclusion, there is nothing passive about passive income in the beginning. The more you engrain that into your head the greater chance you will make your passive income dreams a reality!
If you want more passive income ideas (since I only listed 2 of them), please give this article a clap or share it with others who might need to read this, and I will post more articles on more ways to make passive income.
Believe in yourself and achieve great things!
