Made Money While I Slept

This morning I woke up to some Gumroad emails that I made several sales from the brand personality workshop kit. It gives me tremendous encouragement. Two-thirds of the sales came from the newsletter readers, you! I can’t say how much I appreciate it; it means a lot to me, thank you!

That gives me a significant mental shift. I have made money via my passion projects, primarily by publishing ads on my sites, but never by charging for the project itself. It gives me confirmation that this route could work. I need to work harder, finding more pain points and good solutions to address them, and that is all!

A few of my readers have written to me expressing they will be joining me on a similar path. I want to share a few quotes that clicked with me while I was making the hard decisions. Maybe they can bring you courage too, and make the decision less scary.

“You are not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of the business—to gain your financial freedom.”

This quote clicked with me at “renting out your time.” It is not the prettiest way to describe employment, but there is some truth to it. I think passion plays a significant role in this: if employment is the only way to do the work you are passionate about, then forget about the whole renting out your time thing. You would spend the time doing it nevertheless. But if you have itches that are outside of your work, and you would prefer to spend time on them even when not being paid, then maybe the phrase will start to hit you the same way it hit me.

“If you don’t build your dreams, then someone else will hire you to build theirs.”

This quote clicked with me at “building someone else’s dream.” I think working in big corporate, the dreamer often is too rich that I wouldn’t care to help build their dream, like Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos thanked all Amazon employees for paying for his outer space ride. Exactly.

Fact: There are three types of income: 

• earned income (e.g., W2 salary)

• business income (e.g., startup company)

• investment income (e.g., stocks)

Earned income is the most taxed income in the United States (and maybe elsewhere too). 

This fact is why wealthy people pay fewer taxes; they have little to no earned income. It shocked me when I first learned this, and I started sharing it with people around me. It turned out that most people didn’t know that either. I don’t think it is fair, but what can I do other than diversify my income to the other two types?

If you are thinking about quitting your full-time job and would like to share your story, feel free to chat with me by replying to the newsletter, I am all ears! Thanks for tuning in!