Back in the company where I previously worked, I attended a seminar where the speaker, unknown to me at that time, began the talk by asking: “Do you want a life free from worries? Do you want to wake up everyday not having to think about paying the bills, your kids’ tuition fees and other daily expenses? Do you want to have a comfortable life for your family, enjoy vacations, buy the things that you need without worrying about where to get the money?”

Then he went on to tell his story.

He started, like most of us, as a regular employee. But early in his career, he already knew that he doesn’t want to work all his life but still want to continue earning. So he turned his gears on becoming an entrepreneur. He went to work during the day, but spent his nights building his business.

He even enumerated the ways he employed to source money for capital, including withdrawing cash advances from credit cards, to get things moving for him and his ideas. It took him 2 years to pay his credit card debts, but he said he didn’t regret the decision because that gave him something to start with. Later on, needing a bigger funding for his budding company, he drew a business plan, which according to him is a very lousy document by today’s business standards, and presented it to a rich couple who eventually lend him the money he needed to fund his business.

It was an uphill battle, but unrelenting determination, sheer hard work and unwavering faith in himself carried him for so many years until he was satisfied with how the company turned out. Then when an opportunity came along, in the form of a larger company offering to buy his company for $100 million, he knew his efforts finally paid off.

With that huge sum of money sitting comfortably in his bank account, he and his family was set for life. But so strong is the entrepreneur blood that runs through his veins that he decided to start again, venturing on a new company and hoping it will duplicate or surpass the success that he had with the previous one.

Just recently, I got a copy of the book “Go Negosyo” which lists the Top 50 successful and breakthrough entrepreneurs in the Philippines. And I recognized that it was Joey Gurango, the same Joey Gurango featured on page 132 of the book, who was speaking in front of us that day and imploring us to dare to dream and move to make that dream come true.

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The post above is an excerpt from my other (now defunct) blog.

I realized much later that Joey Gurango was introducing to us the concept of passive income. Like web copies that proliferates the Internet today, he started his talk with a question that prodded us to dream. Suffice to say, he instantly captured my whole attention. But unlike the same web copies that proliferates the Internet today, he didn’t pepper his talks with less-work-more-pay illusions. He told the truth.

So how do you earn a passive income?

If you’ve known passive income through sites promising you $$$/day by signing-up to a membership or buying an eBook, you are terribly misled. While it is possible to earn $$$ a day, putting up a one-page website and waiting for people to click that same button and make the same mistake that you did is not the best way to earn that much. Certainly, those sites won’t tell you that to earn a handsome, free flowing passive income, you’ll have to work really hard because if they did, you won’t be enticed to buy their ultimate working-for-2-hours-and-be-set-for-life secret.

When I unearthed that blog and read the posts that I have there, I suddenly realized that I haven’t exerted substantial efforts towards my goal of earning a decent passive income. I am trapped by the urgency of the things that I want to do now. So my passive income, or the ways that I envision I would earn it, is pushed to the side. Occasionally, I will be inspired and I will remember it. But when it comes down to actually getting down to work, I always end up giving in to procrastination.

Procrastination is an ugly habit and it’s a lot like getting drunk. It feels okay while you’re doing it, but you’ll regret it the morning after. But it’s a reality that happens to every people who dreams. We experience resistance. We slack, we doubt, we fear. And it’s normal but you can’t let that stop you from working because there’s no other way to get around that dream. You have to consciously remind yourself, everytime you stop to give way to some nasty little vices, you need to get back to work.

But work alone is the not key. Online freelancers and even regular employees are often limited by the idea the working is the only way to earn money. So their focus is to find more work. Sadly, with this scenario, the moment they stop working is the moment they stop earning.

Passive income changes all that but you must carefully choose where you will direct your efforts. Remember that passive income is a positive cashflow that is consistently generated with minimal or no input at all from you. So work to invest rather work to earn. Investment doesn’t necessarily mean money that you put in a bank or a financial firm for the purpose of earning interests. It can also come in the form of time and hard work invested in an idea that will become a self-sustaining business in the future.

Putting it all together, earning a passive income looks like a long, arduous task. It is in most cases. But people have proven that it can be done. And what’s possible for them, is possible for you too, if you are willing to give what is necessary.

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Okay, no expert here. I’m just sharing my thoughts on passive income. But actually, this post is for myself, sort of like throwing my thoughts against a soundboard and hoping that when the words bounce back to me, I’d finally get the message that it is TIME TO START MOVING!

Joey Gurango, passive income Insights