Active-Passive Income?

I used to read a blog called Smart Passive Income A LOT a few years ago. It was amazing to me that this guy Pat could pull in $15k a month and probably sit on his ass (if he wanted to). I got inspired, and I came up with some ideas myself. Needless to say this didnt really work out.

What I was missing is that it wasn’t truly passive income. It was never a situation where he would have some trust fund and then did no work to receive big payouts for that investment. What he actually did was worked really, really hard by writing a review book for LEED and took advantage of the huge influx of people looking to pass the exam. From this point he was able to truly start out on his own. He quit his job and made it a full time job reporting on his passive income endeavors, all the while starting up more ideas. This to me is not passive income in the sense of the example of sitting back and collecting on a trust fund. Actually, It is working really hard on a project and then sitting back and collecting on that hard work – Active-Passive Income.

Currently, it seems like the LEED thing slowed down considerably, but now he makes a TON of money on his blog using Adsense and Affiliate advertising. I am extremely happy for him and a little jealous (obviously).

What I finally realized is that Pat really didnt make his money from “passive” income ideas, he made it because of his passions for LEED and sharing with the world his desire to be financially independant, and have the freedom to follow his passions. Without those passions he may have never put in the time to write the LEED E-book, or write about it on his blog. Pat is the epitome of what people want, people are sick and tired of working 9-5 for corporations, and he was able to capture their passions and make it a possibility, genius in my eyes.

I might go as far a calling Pat’s ideas truly active income, but I would hate to attempt to compare it to the typical 9-5 that everyone is used to. It is obviously much different than a 9-5 because he truly has the freedom to do what he wants.

If I have one goal with this blog, it is to inspire at least one person to be financially independent, follow their passions, and to donate $500 to me (that last one was a joke). Seriously though, inspiring someone to follow a path where they would do what they love and sit back and watch all the hard work they did pay off? Sounds like a great plan to me.