Most people live from paycheque to paycheque.
By Mute Efe

Life gets a lot easier when you have more than one source of income. If your standard of living cannot be sustained if your salary stops coming then you are very much in the rat race.

At this point you are likely thinking if I am asking you to go and start your own business. No. There is a place for that but that is not what I am driving at here. There are many people running their own businesses as it were who are still living from paycheque to paycheque.

Business has become a generic term used by anyone who is not earning a salary by working 9 to 5 in an organization owned by someone else. So every self employed person says "I run my own business. Nobody pays my salary."

If you are self employed, there is a 99% chance that you are still in the rat race. As long as whatever you do will require your physical presence and if you stop doing it you won't get paid and if you don't get paid then you cannot sustain your present lifestyle then you are still in the rat race.

Artisans like plumbers, electricians, brick layers etc., fall into that category. They have to physically get the job done otherwise they won't be paid. But even if you are a motivational speaker, coach, consultant, etc., which is becoming the fad, you are also in the same category as the plumber and electrician.

Being a speaker, coach or consultant may be a fancy title but when the rubber meets the road your physical presence is required for you to do your job. You physically have to go for that speaking engagement or consult for that client for you to be paid.

So, while in form you may be different, the truth is, in substance you are not really different from the plumber or electrician. It does not matter whether you have 1,000 clients. As long as you physically have to be present to get the job done to get paid then you are living from paycheque to paycheque.

Both the plumber and the motivational speaker are both self employed but they still rely on the next paycheque to survive. So finding your path out of the rat race is not about resigning from your current job to becoming self employed.

One person can have a regular 9 to 5 but is not in the rat race. Another person may be self employed and still very much be in the rat race and vice versa. So it is proper we understand that not being in the rat race is not so much about the type of job you have.

Not being in the rat race is about being able to sustain your current lifestyle even when your regular monthly income from your job stops coming. That means you have an income line that does not require your physical presence. It is known as Passive Income.

Passive income is an income line that does not require your physical presence. While the idea of passive income sounds enticing, most of the time it requires that you already have some level of income saved which you can then invest in another venture that will be yielding a second income.

The second income yielded may be daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. But that becomes another source of income that does not require your physical presence. And there are many options available. Let's look at some examples.

Example 1: Assuming you disciplined yourself in terms of your spending and you were able to save a certain sum which you placed in fixed deposit and the interest yielded monthly could take care of your monthly expenses then you are financially free.

You may or may not be working anymore. But even if you were still working with your company you don't really depend on the salary you are being paid to survive. The fear of losing your job will not be there anymore because you have another income line that can take care of your bills.

Example 2: If the motivational speaker we saw earlier decided to write a book that can be downloaded from his website at a certain amount. If the sales of the book every month can take care of his bills then he is free. He no longer depends on his speaking engagements.

Most people who read my works see me as a motivational speaker or coach. I am self employed. I don't earn a salary. In this year 2017 I only honored one speaking engagement. I never had any live coaching session with anyone and the virtual coaching sessions I had all through the year were two.

How then do I make money? From sales of my books and my classes and both of them don't require my physical presence. I have structured my business such that I can run it from anywhere in the world without disrupting anything. That is why I can honour or turn down invitations at will without any fear. I don't depend on clients to survive.

Example 3: A business example. Let's say you are in a neighborhood where there are no drycleaners. Everyone in the estate has to take their dirty laundry to a drycleaner outside of the neighborhood.

You can decide to set up a drycleaning business within the estate. You hire a wash man to do the washing. You hire someone else to do the ironing. Someone else for the book keeping. Someone else to do deliveries to customers, etc.

All of these people in your employ do the day to day job required and they earn salaried in return while you make the profit from the business. Even though you set up the business, it does not require your physical presence but it brings in money to you.

Example 4: Network marketing. You can get involved in a network marketing business also known as multilevel marketing (MLM). Most MLM ventures will require an initial capital to get involved.

At the initial stage it will require you doing a lot of work but as your down lines increase you begin to earn passive income from them till you get to the point where your passive income can take care of all your bills.

All those examples are just a few of many ways by which you can generate passive income. All of those people can have a regular job but they also have an income line that does not require their physical presence or minimal physical presence.

Having two or more jobs do not mean you are generating passive income. It just means you have two or more jobs as long as you physically have to do the job.

A passive income must be an income line that requires minimum or no physical presence.

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What you just read is an excerpt from one of the chapters of my new eBook titled *Are You Like Most People? Finding your path out of the rat race* The eBook will be released on my birthday December 11th but you you can pre-order now to get a 33% discount.

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Written by Mute Efe
Facilitator, School for Personal Leadership
www.facebook.com/personalleadershipwithmuteefe