Image by porbital - freedigitalphotos.net
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest that you reap, but by the seeds that you sow” – Robert Louis Stevenson
I had a great surprise this morning. I woke up and went through my normal routine: had breakfast, made myself a cuppa and sat at the table. My email happened to be open, so I glanced at the screen. I looked twice in disbelief: a performance payment for some articles that I wrote a couple of years ago – the fruit of so-called “forgotten effort”.
Could wealth building really be as easy as planting the seed and waiting for it to bear fruit?
I have always been a fan of the book: “Multiple Streams of Income” by Robert Allen because of the principles taught. In the book he advocates building 4 “pillars” to wealth: Real Estate, Business, Internet and Stock Investments. If you develop these four “pillars” and all goes well, you will be receiving multiple streams of income to fund your lifestyle.
The underlying premise is that you put in the effort only once and then receive the fruits of your labour for years to come.
Examples would be:
* Doing the research, building a portfolio of Blue Chip stocks and receiving dividends for years
* Save, do the research, buy a piece of Real Estate and receive rental income
* Build a portfolio of digital properties, receive sales or advertising income or performance payments
* Build a business, appoint and train a management team and receive income.
* Compose music/write a book/design a gadget and receive royalties
(Note: some of these streams need more upkeep than others)
The great thing about attempting to build wealth this way is that it allows you time flexibility.The fundamental constraint with most jobs are that you are paid for the time you spend. If you don’t spend time, you don’t get paid. With these income streams, once the work is done, you still get paid (if it is a success). This way you can build up a cluster of these projects: spread you crumbs, so to speak. This is what successful serial entrepreneurs do.
Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?
So why doesn’t everyone do it?
The truth is that building wealth this way is very risky and building up these income streams takes time and provides cash flow that is spotty, at best. This is especially true at the beginning – ask any successful blogger, artist or businessman.
Bottom line: Don’t give up that 9-to-5 yet!
…Don’t stop building those income streams either, though…
Readers of this post may also like:
