“Get off your butt and start your own online passive income streams”

well, that’s me messing with a quote by Robert Kiyosaki as you see in this video:

which I watch every now and then to remind myself of Robert’s explanation of the idea of “financial IQ” and what you need to do if you want to change your situation:

ignore your life-long programming to be a “good employee” and start a business

(watch his bit on “Financial IQ” and how smart you are at solving problems! Most people “work harder”, get a 2nd job … whereas the real solution to your problems is to start a 2nd business)

For me, it’s not even about the tax-side of things, but in a job, you’re basically limited to your personal capacity to do work.

But, when you take this online, that limit suddenly disappears.

The Internet, or Online Marketing has given us probably THE biggest opportunity so far in human evolution at LEVERAGING our own talents.

Create something once, then sell it a thousand/million/bazillion times over.

Writing a good email takes somewhere between 1 and 2 hours. Sending it out adds another 1min until you’ve pressed all the right buttons.

And that time does not change no matter if you’re sending it to 1, 10, 100 or a million subscribers.

Your results do though. (by factor 10, 100 or a million!)

Now, what’s even better:

if you’re willing to look at the results you’re getting, and learn from them … you can re-deploy something that works over and over again.

And now, suddenly, you have yourself an asset.

Again, watch Robert’s video for that brilliantly simple explanation of what an asset really is – because most people get that completely wrong:

Turns out, an email list by itself is not an asset.

Neither is an email list combined with a great relationship.

Nor is a big authority site … if there’s no traffic to it.

Nor is “the perfect product” an asset when nobody buys it

and so on

What is an asset though is things like:

• evergreen autoresponder sequences (tested and proven to convert of course)
• stupid simple mini-sites/pages/properties that provide enough value for someone to say “yes, I’ll give you my email address for that!”
• and if you’re not into email, of course stupid simple mini-sites/pages/properties that get people to say “yes, I’ll get my CC out for that!”
• and that could be something where you either convert paid traffic profitably … or of course the biggest prize of them all: organic traffic
• now in its simplest form, the asset could be something that has a flow of visitors to it … and then monetize it with the most passive forms of monetization: Adsense.

the possibilities are literally endless. (see this brilliant article on Tiny Asset Engines for further suggestions, opens in a new tab)

And yet, rather than build out one at a time and then STICKING WITH IT until it works … most people give up just before the final hurdle.

(and yes, I’ve been there, done that)

And I reckon, it goes back to the “financial IQ” Robert mentions in the video:

we are so brainwashed into “adding another job” when we’re in a tight spot, that the immediate reaction is: “ok, this isn’t enough, let me quickly do something else“.

Sadly, experience shows: this “tight spot” … the question: “is this really going to work for me” usually happens literally 1 step before the darn thing finally gets to escape velocity!

End-result:

you’ve got yourself a job manually slogging away … and if you were to count the hours and the income generated, you’d probably end up with a lousy hourly rate at best … and with a liability at worst.

So, my take (and the reason I keep watching the video, because I’ve been brainwashed all my life too, thanks mum….), and I guess my ‘recipe for improving your financial IQ’:

1. acknowledge that you’ve been conditioned to “work harder” …
2. … and one of the consequences is that you end up focusing on too many things, and getting none of them to where they actually spring into a life of the own (as in: they’re not only self-sustaining, but an asset for years to come)
3. and then use all the focus and will-power you can muster to F.O.C.U.S (follow one course until successful) with just one tiny asset.

Sure, the first one is (in all likelihood) not going to be at the same level as Robert’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” … but if you finish one and let’s say it makes you anywhere from $20-$100/day … then start the next, finish that, start the next, finish that … that does add up over time!

And to quote/paraphrase Robert one last time:

it’s not the school you went to, it’s where you focus your energy on

Get off your butt and start your own online passive income streams!

Veit

PS: I hope the subject line makes sense now: there really isn’t much of a (if any) difference between ‘passive income’ and ‘assets’. Our big advantage is that we’re effectively creating businesses … and they can be leveraged a whole lot further than the interest you’re getting on your deep-frozen assets like money in the bank, or gold-bullion under your bed. Heck, over time, I’m pretty confident they even out-do Bitcoin;-)