Passive Income Perspectives

TL;DR - Guru schemes have led people to adopt an unrealistic idea of passive income. - As a result, people have adopted an opposing, negative view of passive income that is also unrealistic - Owning assets is realistic and is most often a better source of income then a job or an actively managed business. - But acquiring worthwhile assets is not an easy task and will most certainly require exceptionalism in some regard. - A black and white perspective on assets/passive income is a poor understanding and a higher level, nuanced perspective is needed."The universe can count beyond two, and so should you"When it comes to passive income I generally see two dichotomiesBuild a passive income business that lets you make 7 figures from your laptop on the beaches of cancun. Throw something like dropshipping, T shirt business, bitcoin, a mobile app, whatever in there while you're at it.Passive income isn’t real, you’re going to have to be grinding forever. Queue the commenter that wants to feel superior by bringing the naive redditor with stars in their eyes down to the cold surface of reality.The root of this starts with gurus like Tai Lopez, Tim Ferris, whatever. Hyping and selling the idea that its easy to start up a passive income business and live it rich while doing whatever you want.Well those gurus made a lot of money off of that and as a result many started copying what they were doing. This led to a big propagation of get rich schemes and gurus, giving way for the idea of “easy passive income” to enter the collective.But eventually as time went on, more aware individuals have caught on and guru schemes have started to come to light. Say what you wan’t about redditors, but their cultural skepticism means there is a demographic that is least vulnerable to these schemes. As a result you see a lot more guru-busting on reddit then you might on other platforms. The anonymity helps a lot too.But people don’t usually do well with nuance. Binary points of view are likely inherent to the human condition and redditors are not perfect human beings. (also water is wet and the pope is catholic)So on this subreddit you now see a different perspective that has formed as a reaction to the common naive beliefs regarding this topic:“Passive income doesn’t exist, life is a grind and you’re grinding until you die.”You can see this in recent movements such as the growth of r/sweatystartup.I’m not exactly in solidarity with the way the sub expresses the idea (I don’t think a labor based business is right for most) but the concept of moving away from flashy and sexy start up ideas and moving towards less romanticised business practice is a very positive outlook. As a sub It’s worth checking out and there’s a lot of wisdom in its perspective.Keep in mind that “Easy passive income” and “Passive income doesn’t exist” are two extremes. Most people are not either or but I believe that most will trend strongly towards one end of the spectrum.You can probably deduce that I will suggest a more healthy middle ground and you would be correct.Before I get to the main point I want to differentiate between practically passive income and technically passive incomeTechnically passive income is things that you own that generate money with no time investment whatsoever. These aren’t common but are generally highly scaled conventional assets that usually come with some form of hired management. Most people don’t have this and its realism for most people is highly debatable. I will readily admit that I don’t know all too much about things that are pure passive income and won’t be able to give very good examples. Its not a common occurrence and I’m not really interested in it as a result.What is more realistic is practically passive income. Practically passive income is an income that will almost certainly require some mix of hard work, drive, intelligence, skills, and luck. It is a business and comes with the same demons. It usually requires some form of maintenance and monitoring. A good example is web and technological assets such as sites, apps, and software. These can also be real estate investments, business equity, and a lot of other things that probably don’t come to mind as I write this.This is very similar to the perspective offered in Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. I haven’t read the book and franky haven’t heard great things about it but it’s one of the most notable resources that talks about the perspective of assets vs job.And that’s fundamentally what we’re landing on here.You have to realize when most people come to this sub they are coming from at least normal 40 hour work weeks(if not more) making a relatively average income. Any positive shift in the time-working/money-made ratio will almost certainly be better when those variables are compared.A resource that helps individuals learn how to acquire money making assets is incredibly valuable and a higher level of understanding is needed if we're going to understand more about it ass a community. And while this isn’t a subreddit for passive income specifically, it is a topic that I feel has been misinterpreted by black and white perspectives.Yeah, so thank you for coming to my TEDx talk now subscribe to my email list and buy my online course, or whatever im not your mom or anything see hubwealthy.com/wealthy