We all possess assets that can be classified into two categories — tangible and intangible.
Tangible assets are those possessions we normally list on our personal balance sheets. These would be hard cash, real estate, stocks and bonds, among others. These are the assets that financially cushion us from falling too hard and quickly if we should make a wrong life turn.
Then there is our knowledge, skills and experience, connection to key persons, those things that come easily to us — our gifts or talents, if you like. Our reputation — our personal brands. These constitute our intangible assets.
Multiple sources of income (MSI) is a concept nearly all prosperous people employ. They are just that — income from several sources. I am not referring to another job, a better job or even a job at all.
MSIs are about adding a fresh dimension of useful and fun ideas you already have into your everyday life. It is an idea that enables you to legally provide a service for which you are compensated. The compensation could be a couple of thousand to several million shillings a year.
Multiple sources of income should not interfere with your primary source of income — job or business.
An MSI should ideally be a passive source of income. Please marinate in this for a moment to appreciate this. Multiple sources of income are not a part-time job.
While I agree that a part-time job would be one way of increasing your income, it's not what I am advocating here because a part-time job would require you to trade your time for money. And that's quite alright but you do realise that you will soon run out of time — I mean you only have 24 hours a day. If eight of those are already taken up by your primary income source, another six-eight to rest at night, you're looking at another eight-10 divided between family, chores and travel-time. While on this, I am steering clear of the chunk of your time taken up by travel, especially Nairobi traffic.
What you want to do is create sources of income that are as passive as possible. Passive means it shouldn't take too much of your time.
Sure, they will be time-intensive at their set-up stages but should thereafter earn you money with minimal input from you.
Some multiple sources of income examples are writing a book, song or play, produce some "how to" audios or videos in your chosen field, real estate (and please burst the bubble while you're at this one), royalties — give our idea to others and receive payment for use of your intellectual property, join network marketing — everyone on your downline is an MSI. Passive income, remember? You get the idea and I am sure you'll come up with several others.
I encourage you to get really creative with MSIs. If you're an independent contractor — an architect or a graphic designer, create plans and designs then have developers and agencies use them.
Instead of charging your regular fee upfront, opt to take a percentage of the total sales and even offer to design for no upfront fees.
You’ll more than recoup your time investment and it is money that keeps coming as long as your client keeps using your designs. If you aren’t already doing this, start right now.
Jot down 10-15 great skills you have, evaluate them as MSIs and get to work.
On discussing prosperity, Wallace D. Wattles said: “Never look at the visible supply. Always look at the limitless riches in the formless substance and know that they are coming to you as fast as you can receive and use them. Nobody, by cornering the visible supply can prevent you from getting what is yours.”
Here’s to you!
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