What does the word PASSIVE INCOME really mean to you? Philosophy Question...

Hmmm.... and they got rich that way?

I don't think so!

In any case, if you have money, you can spend less time in your business and pay people to do stuff.

If you don't have money, you have time, and you put it in.

Also, the apartment building thing is not true - you'd still have to make sure things work. If not for any reason other than the fact that it's your building, and no-one cares about it more than you do.

Other people may stop working for you, or start their own businesses as well.

"In theory" sounds about right. In order for network marketing to work others have to be active. However since those in your downline ( I cringe as I write the 'd-word') are also sold on the idea of passive income they aren't active enough to make you money.

So in the end ain't nobody doing nuthing... so the only thing that's "passive" is time and gas.

The question didn't have anything to do with getting rich.

Any passive income, defined the way Jeff Smith defined it, is a very good thing. If you work at creating lots of passive income, you can create income streams that can continue for years or even decades.

Diversifying your sources of passive income gives you a very comfortable cushion against economic changes. It becomes highly unlikely that everything would fall apart at once.

Remember, not everyone here is trying to get rich. Some are trying to create the lifestyle of their dreams. For example, I have been in Maui since January, swimming with giant sea turtles every morning, working for about two hours in the afternoon and then reading novels on my lanai until sunset. Partly that's possible because of passive income.

I am not rich. But I don't know a single other person I went to school with who has this kind of a lifestyle prior to traditional retirement age.

Marcia Yudkin

I suppose the true meaning of "passive income" is making money without having to do anything. However, I actually like what I do so I wouldn't want to leave it running without me! haha!

For me, "passive income" is when you're in a place where you don't have to work all the time if you don't want to and when you're working it's because you enjoy working on it.

There are many people that are working and spending many more hours on their business than they "need" to in order to survive and keep enough money coming in - they're working on it because they enjoy it.

That's where I am right now. I don't need to be working all the time but I often do because I like doing it. I think that "passive income" is the ability to be able to work more freely and enjoy what you're doing because you know that you don't have to be doing it. It's a passion, not a necessity for survival.

For me, it means you aren't working for an hourly wage.

Your just working away each day, while money hits your account as and when.

thats pretty much my definition

i'd like to retire early too

I've taken a look at that site

seems really interesting

anyone making any money being an affiliate for it?

Also, how long do you think you can sustain the 97?

i made pretty good adsense income before panda

now, it aint too passive anymore

Nothing is really truly passive, pretty much everything requires a bit of maintenance and supervision here and there. If something was truly passive, you could lie in bed for the next year and not see a change in income.

Passive or not, stability and enjoyment are the most important sources of income in my opinion.

Guess you could class benefits as passive income, all you have to do is walk down to the office.

Hi Guys and Gals,

I agree that it IS possible to create that elusive passive income. In fact, it's exactly the way the really rich folks like Bill Gates and Donald Trump have done it.

They spend time creating an income producing asset. In Gates's case, it was his Windows software that made him, at one time, 'The World's Richest Man. I think he actually outsourced the creation of the later Windows's scripts. And Donald Trump creates assets in the form of Hotels, Golf Courses and the like. And I can't quite picture him out there, laying bricks, on a New York winter's day, so - once again - creating assets by outsourcing.

But whether you outsource or do it yourself, there is a key element that puts most folk off ever getting to that stage of enjoying a passive income. Let me demonstrate ...

I have web site 'assets' which I built five years ago. And I've done nothing to them since - not even any traffic generation.

Yet, despite that, I've today received my weekly ClickBank wired payment, which includes the funds they still generate. Maybe it's precisely because they have nothing to do with internet marketing (they're in the alternative health niche) that the income is being sustained.

But, of course, I did spend unpaid time originally, creating the product, setting up the site and did a lot of work putting the traffic generation assets in place (creating videos and the like).

But - just like Messrs Gates and Trump, once those assets were paying me an income, I was free to invest my time in creating more assets to add more income.

But here's the uncomfortable truth:

I did all that work without any guarantee I might ever receive a single penny. But it paid off. And now, five years later, I'm still enjoying the holy grail of passive income.

That's maybe easier for me, because I've been in business on my own account since 1972 and been in marketing all my working life, so I'm used to working hard without the immediate prospect of any return.

And that's a problem for most folks. Because the only way they have made any money - until now - is in a job, where a certain number of hours worked guarantees a certain payment.

So that's quantum shift in mid set you need to make to reach that passive income Nirvana.

Here's to your great success!

Paul