Building passive income is a major goal that I have for my life. It’s not that I don’t like my day job, the opposite is true. I just don’t want to rely on that income to fund my life. What if that job gets taken away? What if my life ambitions are greater than my current income can provide? The more money I have built up, the better my quality of life will be.
The problem is that it can be challenging to build a business, or more than one business, while working a day job. But you know what, I know it is possible.
Passive Income and the Cash Flow Quadrant
Robert Kiyosaki, the writer of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, talks about the Cashflow Quadrant. It forms the basis of his teachings, and serves as a model to help us understand what it takes to be “rich”. I think about this quadrant often.
- Employee. This is what you are when you are employed by someone else. This is trading time for dollars and won’t ultimately lead to being “rich”.
- Self Employed. This is when you start working for yourself for various business models, such as freelance writing, graphic design, or even having an e-commerce business. It is hard to scale a business like this because you don’t have anyone working for you. This likely won’t lead to you becoming rich either.
- Business Owner. This is when you have a business and hire employees. Mostly, you will own a product or service and have the resources to grow and scale your business.
- Investor. This is when your money starts to work for you. This essentially means that the money you have grows into more money. This is true wealth and something to work towards.
Currently, I am considered “self-employed” because I am the one running the show. However, I am striving to build passive income so that will push me into the “rich” category over time, as long as a I work hard and build up enough passive income. I can also outsource help as needed, and scale any of my businesses as needed. The goal is to move away from being an employee and work through each of the phases until I make it to the last part of the quadrant and become an investor, the phase where true wealth happens.
Building a Business While Working Takes Discipline
At times, I find my job to be somewhat stressful. I admit that I let this stress get in the way of working on my business at night. Not only that, but my day job closely relates to what I am doing here, since I work at a digital marketing agency. This is a good thing because I have a strong digital marketing skill set that will enable me to allow my businesses to grow. It is also a challenge because my brain often needs a break after I am done doing with my day job.
The way around this is to use my time management and discipline tactics to make sure I get everything done. It also takes consistency. Create a plan and stick to it, and always commit to working on my business each day. That is the only way I will succeed with the challenging of doing this while I am working on my day job.
