This is the third part of my 5 Reasons Online Businesses Beat the Terd Out of a Job series of posts so today you get my third reason for loving online passive income streams.
Wait for it…..
It is actually less risky than going the traditional route of having a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke for the uninitiated)!
How is that possible you ask? Right now I go to work, put in my time and get a set paycheck every two weeks. That’s great for right now but what happens when the company you work for decides to make some changes? What happens when they do a little restructuring? What happens when the shit hits the fan like it did in September 2008? You put your head down and pray for the best is what happens and that is no way to live!
When you work for someone else you put at least a little bit of your destiny, your fate and your freedom into their hands. What happens when their hands are tied and they just can’t hold you up any longer?
You are S.O.L is what happens.
Now they will tell you they didn’t want to do it. That it hurts them too. That this is no reflection on your job performance or your personality. It’s just business and it’s what they HAVE to do. Do you really want to put your fate, your families fate in a position where someone HAS to completely derail you? Even if you never get laid off you entire career (lucky you) will you have put yourself in a position to be comfortable when you retire.
Maybe you will never quit your day job. Maybe your online businesses will be a supplemental retirement plan. Maybe they will be a vacation fund or a college fund or a safety net. Either way you will be creating something for yourself that no one will ever HAVE to take away.
Sharing is Caring
Please let me share with you some of my personal experience here. In September 08 I was employed as a Sales Rep for a TV station in Charlotte. My wife was employed as a Sales Rep for a radio station here. You may not know this but when they economy nose dives like it did back then the first thing businesses cut are their advertising budgets. They go into survival mode. They hope to curl up like a potato bug and just make it to the other side of the recession. For the months of August 08-December 08. I was scared out of my mind. I had no idea what each day would bring. Which client would call and try cancel their order. It was literally gut wrenching. And then it happened….my wife was laid off.
It was January of 2009. We had lived in Charlotte for 15 months. We were in our new house less than a year. And now it seemed like everything was going to be taken away. And my wife was pregnant with our second son!
This is when we really found our stride on the internet. I had been “playing around” online since late 07 and was generating a few hundred bucks a month in passive income. Now it was time to really put the pedal to the medal. We devised a plan. We researched resources that could help us get there. We invested in ourselves. And we worked our asses off.
That work has become the foundation of our online businesses and has saved our asses on more than one occasion. YOU can do this. It is not rocket science. When I got started all I did on the internet was check e-mail and surf the net.
Now I can build a website it about an hour and can get #1 rankings in Google in a few weeks. It really is all about believing in yourself and implementation. So many people research this stuff but never actually do anything with the information they find (or pay for).
This is why I say that starting an online business is the biggest risk you will never take. Fact is…its not that risky. You can get started with some simple web hosting and a nice WordPress Theme. Hell, I’ll even do all of that for you. But most people, never actually do it. They get caught up in questions like:
What if it doesn’t work?
What if it does work?
Where can I find the time? (my biggest pet peeve…MAKE the time already)
I am too old for this….or too young
Name the excuse, people will use it. I am not preaching here, I have gone through all of this mental masturbation. It is hard when you try to go it alone without the perceived safety net of a company backing you up. But here is the truth: That company isn’t looking out for you. Only you care about your financial and mental health. No one else is going to care for you.
So just do it already and get started. You don’t have to quit your job tomorrow. But it will be nice knowing that you have set the wheel in motion so that you you can quit (if you want) in a year or so. Try that hat on for size and see if you feel a little bit better about yourself after you get started….I guarantee you will!
So here is step one. Declare publicly that you will begin this journey. Leave a comment about why or how or when you are going to take this first very BIG step. We all started somewhere, you should start in the comments below….
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I am very glad you took the time and said that post!!
Best regards,
Robert
Great writing, been waiting for that!?!