Almost everyone lately is looking for a "passive income" as it has become so difficult to live on a single income in recent years, and we are all in some way looking to improve the quality of our lives. With that in our mind, we look for the so-called "passive income" streams. The income that I can generate while sleeping, while relaxing on a beach, and while working a 9-5. Well, that is how they define it.
Generating passive income is not as simple and straightforward as some of the richest people make it seem to be. In your pursuit to form another stream of income, it is important to note that every flow of cash requires a fair amount of work. The way passive income has been sold is all a myth.
Honestly speaking there is no such thing as easy money. But we listen to the "rich people" who tell us how easy it is to automate a "system" that automatically generates money while you sleep, and so forth.
When you look deep into such statements, the people who say such are always trying to sell you something. If I can convince you that with my "system", you will automatically make R1000.00 a week, and I present my rich lifestyle as if it was brought by that system, chances are, you are more likely to believe in that so-called system.
In recent years, we have seen how real estate has been portrayed as the safest form of passive income. Ask people who are in real estate how passive that is; they will tell you it is not as passive as it is portrayed to be - Wait until you receive a call at 02:00 am, your tenant complaining about his geyser burst and how soon he needs it fixed, and tell me how passive that is.
Successful property management is never really passive. Dealing with maintenance, bad tenants, constantly pursuing more tenants, and some unexpected expenses are one of the things new property investors have to deal with on a daily. Obviously, with growth and scale, it can become passive as you can afford to delegate a team to deal with specific issues related to your property. But what is being sold that property investment is an automatic passive income is so false.
The worst of all is Forex. These "Forex Brokers" will tell you how easy, and simple it is to generate a passive income through their strategies. There is no such thing, they say that because they are salespeople, their ultimate goal is to sell you a course or something, and the best way to sell is to tap into people's emotions.
With the economic conditions we are facing, people are in desperate need of that additional income stream, and if something is appealing especially to my needs, aspirations, and goals, I will definitely be more susceptible to falling for such things.
In reality, everything has to be worked for, you need the skill, and experience to successfully have a stable and solid passive income stream. This notion that we are sold of what passive income is, is completely incorrect. It is perpetuated by people who are just trying to make money. People fall into these traps, and they find themselves deep in situations where it's hard to get out.
One of the new passive income myth I've noticed is the eCommerce business. There's a huge increase in the number of eCommerce "experts" in the country who are teaching people how to create a passive income by creating their own online store.
An eCommerce store is no passive income, these things take time for you to build and be at a point where you can fully generate an income passively. I joined an eCommerce Facebook group, and just this year one man shared his story on the group. He left his job, used his savings to buy a course and build his eCommerce store. A few months later, he made no sales, was broke, and was about to lose his home.
There are of course legit ways of generating an income passively such as royalties, investments, and venture capital/angel investing. Those are one of the few legit ways to generate, even so, there's no "system" that you can put on "auto-pilot" that will generate profits.
I think it is high time we look and think deeply about this passive income notion. Most of what you think is an avenue for a passive income is not, it is all a myth.
Before committing to invest our money, time, and energy into passive income streams we have to fully understand what it takes to build something that will generate passive income, and be careful of the lies that we are being fed out there.
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