What is passive income?

We recently read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki (http://www.richdad.com/). He lists various ways to create passive income, that is, to put your money to work for you. They include: buying real estate, investing in the stock market, and creating intellectual property (such as patents, books, and music that will generate royalties).

Passive income is great, but even if you’re wealthy, you’ll still want to do things that you enjoy. Why not make your passion work for you and become part of your income? There are many ways to take a hobby or interest and turn it into a business. We’ll use our own situation as an example.

First, don’t let the term “business” faze you, especially if you’re a creative type, like us. Lately we’ve been “working on our business,” which sounds dry and boring. But we’ve been having an incredibly fun time, overflowing with creative ideas and epiphanies! It’s amazing how easy it can happen if you let go of the stereotypes of doing business the way you’re “supposed to.” Instead, do things like you do them.

The key word here is “do.” Taking inspired action is a way to move energy and thus create new opportunities. How do you get inspired? Find like-minded people who have creative ideas to share. We recently listened to a free teleseminar by Christine Kane, about how to “Uplevel Your Business” (http://uplevelyourbusiness.com/). By opening ourselves up to some new tools that she offered, we came up with lots of ideas and strategies for our business, ones that are fun to create and implement.

As creative people, we chose to start with creating content such as books, guided meditations, music, and other projects. As we build our business around these creations, we can re-invest in it and then expand our offerings as we go, such as adding retreats and online classes. We want to encourage our passions, so the passive income we’ll be generating can support the next set of adventures we want to explore. We’re integrating our passions with our business, and allowing our “passion income” to flow freely into our lives.