If Your Not Working Towards Developing Multiple Income Streams?

In today’s economy if your not working towards developing multiple income streams, the chances are you are heading towards financial oblivion!

 

Unemployment is rocketing in the US. Last year (2008) alone saw 2.6 million jobs lost, the most since 1945; and with consumers rattled by ongoing falls in house prices and the lack of available credit due to the tight credit fundamentals, 2009 is also looking increasingly bleak.

 

In the UK, things are looking equally if not worse than our US counterparts. Both governments, as well as other large industrialised economies of the world are spending historical amounts in an effort to prop up their ailing economies and if possible, reverse the sharp downturn. Of course, we will probably all have to pay for this through higher taxes in the future.

 

These are very uncomfortable times for many with a large number of people finding themselves out of jobs and with the uncertainty ahead for those that are still in paid employment.

 

I was fortunate enough to have avoided the last recorded recession in the UK in the early 1990s. This is therefore my first experience of working through a recession. Once again fortune seems to be on my side, as a result of a decision I made back in 2004 to make some changes in my life, which thankfully is seeing me through these tough years. Let me explain.

 

In 2004, a came across a book called “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, which immediately turned my definition of financial success on its head. You see most of us have been taught from an early age that we should study hard, get good grades and a university degree, so that we can walk into a good job or career. I certainly lived up to that expectation. I got my good grades, a university degree, went to law school and got qualified as a lawyer. However, I guess I was a little different from all the other newly qualified lawyers out there, in that very early on in my career I began to get the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with this picture. I was breaking my back, doing all sorts of hours to support a decent lifestyle, but I never quite felt that I was truly getting ahead. The thought that I would have to do the same thing for the rest of my 40-year working life, quite frankly, frightened me.

 

Then I came across Robert Kiyosaki’s book, which succinctly articulated what I was thinking: so long as you continue to base your economic life and future on the business model of exchanging your time for money, you will never live the life that you truly desire. You see the reality is that 95% of people who are employed or self-employed are simply exchanging time for money and are either just treading financial solvency or they don’t have the time to enjoy the money that they are making. That is because for most people there is a trade-off between time and money. If you want more money you need to work longer and harder and if you want more time to enjoy with your family or to do the things that you want to in life, you need to accept less money.

 

I made a decision to look for ways on developing an income that would give me both financial and time freedom. There is no point in having a lot of money if you can’t afford to take the time to enjoy it! I also learned the hard way that it is not safe in today's economic climate to put all your eggs in one basket. You see the reality is these are very fast moving times, businesses come and go and it is not prudent in my view to work on just one project, you need 2, possibly 3 backplans to ensure your financial security.

 

I’ve spent several years just absorbing information both on and off-line and looking at various business opportunities. If you’ve done half of the research that I have done you will have probably come to the same conclusion: with so much information out there and so many opportunities, it is difficult to decide which way to go or which opportunity is genuine or just simply very convincing sells patter that would convince an 80 year old grandmother that the vitamins ‘on time sensitive offer’, turn the clocks back and make her 18 again, are for real!

 

So here lays the challenge that I faced. You may want to start a business but you simply don’t know where to turn, as there is so much hype behind many of the opportunities. It is often, in my view, this sales hype and over exaggeration by some businesses that causes bad press both on and off-line. In reality, the majority of businesses are genuine and you can make money from them, but because they are so over-sold, people’s expectation are high, they expect instant success, when the reality is the contrary. This can often lead to bitterness and the bad press that you so often see on the internet.

 

For some straight talking information about home based businesses check out the free news letter at http://www.grahamcardona.com.

 

If you sympathize with the feeling that I once experienced that you want a home based business but you don't know which way to turn, check out my article "Want your Own Business but Suffering Information Overload; Don't Know which Way to Turn?"

 

Graham Cardona

 

Graham Cardona is the owner of GrahamCardona.com and writes on a variety of subjects. You can visit his main website at http://www.grahamcardona.com.