Multiple income sources
Today’s post may or may not apply to you, in your estimation, but I’d contend it does apply to all of us today. There are a lot of us, to one degree or another, who are living in an old paradigm when it comes to money and financial security.
I’m 54. My parents generation had a mantra that you got a basic education (maybe including a college degree or maybe not), you got a job, you worked hard, you saved what you could, you stayed loyal to your company and they would take care of you. My generation came along and realized this abject loyalty to a single employer was not being returned by employers. Our belief was that you got an education that included at least a bachelor’s degree and maybe an advanced degree. You viewed jobs the way a monkey views branches on trees. You swing from one to the next, trying to advance as you go.
Both of these paradigms have one thing in common. They both rely on you allowing someone else – a single company or multiple companies – to determine your financial success.
The two newer generations coming up now get kind of a bad rap from the two previously mentioned generations. They’re lazy. They have no direction. They don’t really care about getting ahead. At least, that’s the perspective through the eyes of our old paradigms.
The reality is, they’ve accepted something that shatters the two previous generations’ paradigms. There is no security in a safe corporate job. Plus, it sucks your soul and damns your independence and creativity in return for a paycheck. They’re not playing.
What this has created is a rebirth of entrepreneurism. If you go back a few generations ago, people largely controlled their own financial destinies. They owned a business or a farm. Then factories happened and Walmart happened and that idea of making a go of the world on your terms was decimated.
However, today’s technology and this innovative young generation have turned the tables on that world view. They want to live their life on their terms and they’re finding ways to run “lifestyle businesses” that allow them to earn the money they need while living the life they want right now – rather than waiting for their allotted vacation or retirement time.
Power hack: OK, Ray, so why are you telling me this? The system on which the older generations (including mine) base their paradigm is gone. The corporate career is not safer or more secure. For most people it does not provide financial freedom and the lifestyle we’d choose.
I’m not telling you to quit your corporate job, but I am suggesting you find a way to augment your lifestyle and your income using the tools and ideas that are driving this new generation.
We’ve all learned not to put all your 401(k) investments in one fund. The best practice is to spread the risk. Only we don’t do that with our incomes. We rely on the job and if something happens to the job, we get another job.
What if you turned your passion into a viable revenue stream or multiple revenue streams to open the door to more options than you have today? What if you took a page from this younger generation and refuse to rely on corporations to decide your financial future?
Would it change your future more than another night of reality TV? Would it put the passion back in your day, your week, your year? I can’t tell you what that “side hustle” is for you. I can only tell you that the smart money for living your best life relies in having other sources of income beyond the J-O-B.
Brainstorm some ideas. How could you make a growing side income doing something you love? Need more help?
Checkout these articles with tons of ideas for side-businesses.
You are all the best!
Ray
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