Side-Gig, Side-Hustle, Slash-Career is the New Obsession for Millennials and They're Onto Someth

The 1099 Generation as they are now known almost all have a slash career or side hustle. It allows them to generate hope and a sense of purpose with the potential for future financial freedom. Maybe they are onto something? Being locked into the Time-Money Exchange is almost a losing battle. Have you heard that millionaires have an average of 7 streams of income? Investigating a closer look at this concept Jim Wang writes in an article, How do you accumulate wealth?

Here's the next key to the puzzle.The key to accumulating wealth is uncomplicated:

Sell your time for money,

Spend less than you earn,

Invest your savings so it will grow without your active intervention.

That's it. It's a simple input and output problem.There is just one constraint on the whole system — your time in this world. You probably only have 2.21 billion heartbeats. At 60 beats per minute, that's a little over 70 years. Each beat matters.

There are two types of income – active and passive.

Active income is when you do work and are paid for that work. If you work at McDonald's, you are paid for the hours you work. If you work in an office, you may not clock in and clock out but you are paid based on the work that you do. If you do nothing, you will no longer be paid.

Passive income is when the payment is not directly tied to active work. Interest and dividends are prime examples of passive income. Typical passive income sources are front loaded with active work, for which you are paid a small amount, while the bulk of the income comes later.

Don't mistake passive income with zero work. It's still work, it's just that your income is not directly tied to the hours worked. Anyone who owns rental properties knows that it's considered passive income but there is quite a bit of work involved. The work is front heavy but if you are lucky, you can collect rental checks without incident for many months before having to do work.

Start with Active, Build Up Passive

If you have no other resources, you start by focusing on active sources of income (job) until you've saved enough so that you can build up passive resources.

When it comes to the idea of saving money, there are two schools of thought:

• Save more – This school has you focus on living “frugal” and cutting your expenses to the bare minimum.

• Earn more – This school has you focus on earning more, on side hustles, businesses, etc.

It's a false dichotomy. You can do both and you should do both.

The difference is that cutting expenses is immediate, much like active income is immediately, whereas earning more is often a long term play, like building sources of passive income. So you cut what you can now (ie. cut your cable) and secure immediate savings while you build up your passive sources (ie. put cable savings into dividend stocks).

The importance of saving money, especially early in your life, cannot be overstated.

When you start with nothing, or close to it, you are forced into active income. What you are able to save can be converted into passive income. If you don't save that active income, through your own choices or choices thrust upon you, you will be stuck in that phase forever.

Common types of (passive) streams of income

As you build up your savings and envisage your future passive streams of income, here are some of the common ones (here's a longer list of 21 passive income ideas):

1. Interest – from a variety of loans, either to individuals (peer to peer lending or private notes) or companies (bonds, notes)

2. Dividends – from investments, partnerships

3. Capital gains – from the sale of investments

4. Royalties – from products you sell or license

5. Rental income – from real estate

6. Business income – which may or may not be passive but the idea is you build something that generates income without active work, like a website or the sale of information products

The article goes onto suggest starting an online business or several.

Many people leverage direct sales when they see an opportunity even though they have other careers.

Level V Executive Consultant Rose Gallo-Rojas from Chicago was raised to be a good employee. She got a good education, landed a good job, worked hard and climbed the corporate ladder, reaching a VP title and six-figure income. She expected to retire comfortably on her fixed income and live out the rest of her life alongside her wonderful husband and daughters. But when the economy took a downturn in 2009, her company restructured and she lost her job. However, what could have been devastating proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime for Rose and her family thanks to Rodan + Fields. Rose was skeptical about direct selling when she first heard about Rodan + Fields. But when she realized she would be partnering with two of the most respected and successful dermatologists in the world, she realized this was a unique opportunity and jumped in. Today she has earned a new Lexus, works with positive people all over the country, has more than replaced what it took her husband 31 years to accumulate in his retirement nest egg, and she never again has to worry about being downsized. Rose is working her dream job, only now she's an entrepreneur, not an employee. She loves showing people how they can "reinvent" themselves like she did, and she gets to pay it forward in a big way.

Rodan and Fields is exceptional

Some people who have side gigs are only interested in generating another $500.00 a month for extras like eating out or a vacation fund. Most though if you talk to them would like to generate replacement income. That comes through building a virtual team. Rodan and Fields is a company that has 50 years of clinical dermatology experience between the two doctors. They have published research and ten years of clinical trials, patented technologies all making their brand exceptional.

What is really exceptional is that it is very low cost for a turnkey virtual business that corporate handles everything from a 24/7 access to trained medical and product experts to help customers with concerns. Corporate handles all inventory and shipping. Literally, the entrepreneur just needs to leverage their network to their website. Stated earlier passive income takes time to generate but after a few years of small daily activity you will make residual income and also be able to will it to your children if you wish as a legacy company.

If you are interested in learning more, contact me!