Multiple sources of income: your own money tree

One day when I was about 7 years old, my mother and I were at a store and I saw a toy that I "had" to have. I asked my mom to buy it for me. She said: « Dominic, we can't afford to buy that, money doesn't grow on trees you know. » My mother was a widow with two children and was not rich. We had enough to get by, but anything more was usually out of reach.

I daydreamed about how much fun I could have if I had such a tree. I saw myself picking a few twenty dollar bills from that tree, with a big smile on my face thinking of all the cool stuff I was going to buy with it. About twenty years later, I am amazed that such a tree actually does exist: the multiplis streamae incomum.

Plant a tree, reap the rewards

image: Christian Ferrari

What first caught my attention in multiple streams of income is the possibility of having many different automated or semi-automated income generating systems. It seemed like a great way to make a living. The internet brought this possibility to anyone who has a little bit of knowledge about the way the web works.
There are many advantages to this approach:

1. Security
   If you lose one of your "jobs", you can count on your other ones to keep you going. Something catastrophic would have to happen for you to lose all your sources of income.
   
2. Low cost
   Many streams of income can be set up at little or no cost. All you really have to spend is a bit of your time, more initially, then less and less afterwards to keep your system oiled up and running. You might want to pay for advertising, but then again, there are many great ways to advertise for free.
   
3. Frees up a lot of your time
   Once you have put an initial investment in time (and sometimes a small investment of money), you can let your system, your automated machines, do most of the work for you and start piling your money. While it's true that many will seem to generate only small amounts of money at a time, they will all add up to a substantial amount fairly quickly. Once your machines are set up and running, you'll have more time to do the things you really want to do and best of all, since most of your money will be coming from automated sources, you will earn money even while you sleep or when you are on vacation!

I love the idea of passive income; income that does not require your direct involvement. You'll want to put your streams on auto-pilot as much as possible.

Be ready to fail many times

Brian Tracy said that « The best way to have good ideas, is to have lots of ideas. » The same thing applies to your streams of income. Set up a few streams, keep those that bring you money, and toss those that don't. It's as simple as that. By knowing from the start that some of your streams will not work, you won't be as disappointed and it will be easier for you to keep your focus and your drive. Don't be scared of failure. Fail a lot! Try as many different ideas as you can, especially if there is no up-front cost to you. This way you will have the best chance of succeeding.

Stay focused

Try not to do everything at once. Start small. Focus on one stream until is has a life of its own, then move on to another idea. Don't try to make it perfect from the start either. It always seems to be easier to improve something that has already been set up, once you have seen it running for a while.