Creating online content on a single platform is like sailing a ship, and you’re going super-fast, and all of a sudden even though you’re rowing exactly as hard, you haven’t changed your skills, but you still slow down. And then, wait, you’re not just slowing down, you’re actually sinking. And there’s nobody you can ask or blame, and you don’t have a life raft. So now you’re just sunk. The same goes to say if you only have a single income stream. If, for some reason, you lose the job then what will you do for money? Having multiple incomes, hopefully some passive, is a great way to insure you have income.
One strategy is to create a brand for yourself. But that’s a harder task than it sounds and requires more courage and compromise. Last time, I did it with a couple of bucks from my savings, which later turned out to be about $35 (with a 25% margin), I spent two hours a day, for 18 days and I had one client, work was sporadic. Doing that with two full-time jobs ensured I would not compromise. Two different voices. That’s the courage, the best kind.
One of the saddest, if not the sad, facts of this pandemic is that many of the people that would make a difference in global saving are dead. Thankfully, some of the brightest skeptics have become heroes. One of them is Seth Gates. His book Saving a Billion is a must-read. A remarkable 85-year-old philanthropist, Seth Gates has a vision and an impact on how we save the world’s future. Mostly, he saves the money and gives it to his foundation. He has calculated that, by the end of the pandemic, he will have distributed $51 billion to 1.2 billion people. That is an incredible outcome which shows just how focused he is. For every dollar, he wants to make a difference, literally. This story is about how Seth Gates withstood one of the worst pandemics and delivered on his plan to save humanity and make a huge difference to the world.
Humans are basically social animals. If we can save the world by sharing our knowledge and adding to human knowledge, we’ll take care of ourselves and live longer. However, waking up in the morning is an incredible struggle. In a world that values productivity, we prioritize work. Food for thought. Philanthropy and sustainability are tough pursuits to achieve. In the hustle and bustle of life, the struggle for people of all ages is great to see.
The bad news is how hard it is, the good news is there are a thousand ways to be a hero, but we also need to remember what the break-through is, forget the numbers for a second, be bold, and change our mindset, to think big. There is no country that does what you love to do, since you can’t choose what you love to be passionate about. There will always be jobs, and there will always be a crisis. What you choose to make of your life can ripple out into the entire world.
Right now, the future looks extremely exciting. Turning global problems into opportunities. There can even be money and stocks. Rich people getting richer. And there can even be peace, and justice.
As long as your other income streams are still coming in, you should have your insurance policy in place so you can continue whatever profession you love, even though you might be working less than before. Having one income is boring, having four is exciting.
Parents of all generations, I know financial pitfalls can manifest themselves for any child no matter how well you monitor. It doesn’t always mean you should give up all hope of a child being successful in life. There are always lessons to be learned. You may realize life lessons while your children are still small. Maybe your child is born into a poverty-stricken household, ends up being an orphan, and becomes an alcoholic. This can happen to anyone. Now, you raise this child, perhaps as a single mother, and perhaps you educate them well. Both of these tactics will prepare them for whatever they will face down the road. They are now prepared to understand how to survive. If they go on to do something audacious who knows how they will handle it.
What’s the most hilarious thing you and your family have witnessed in your life? I’m viable, but seriously.
Avoid the trap of thinking it’s your main stream of income. There’s a lot you can do with passive income streams (some skill-based) that doesn’t require any additional effort on your part.
Take a hard look at your, “main source of income”. Is this the love of your life or your career? Are you able to put in the extra effort to not take a job that creates the exact same problem?
Look at the content creation tools you own and if the content creation tool you own is only on one platform, then you should look to create content for others elsewhere. Why is the content platform your chosen one? It could either be that you love its UI or its ease of use, or you just really love a platform because some friends of yours on the platform do really well, and you want to help them out, and you just want to make yourself useful and contribute and have some fun. Just pick a platform that makes sense for you and your ops and charms. If you own the content creation tool and can only watch to create on that platform then you should diversify by either renting out space in your home, or go and work on a different platform. Or perhaps there’s a change in the market that you need to consider.
Are you in a brand-new tech company? One of the biggest mistakes you can look to make if you’re just getting started in your brand-new tech company is to build it solely from scratch. You see Success Stories all over the place of people that just went viral with their MVPs or other early experiments in new tech. It didn’t work. The problem with that is the kind of thinking and the kind of ideas you come up with are not sustainable. So first of all, don’t make it. Second, if you decide you want to build it yourself, make sure you give yourself a lot of time to get it right. Otherwise, you’ll get very attracted to platforms that give you shortcuts. A lot of people don’t last more than a week or month in the platform before going back to generic lite-walled box. And then every six months, the viral experiment comes along again with the idea to make it even generic. And so now you’ve got no chance of staying long and that’s where you start to make those enormous mistakes.
On YouTube you can find things like Top 5 most viewed videos, Top 10 most liked, or Top 20 most watched.
