MarketHive Accessibility and Income Streams

People who stay stuck generally make this too complicated. They’re too focused on choosing the right income stream, as if there can be only one. They’re too concerned with making mistakes, as if that matters much. What they should be focused on instead is what’s right in front of them. There are probably just a handful of highly accessible streams to start with, and it’s good enough to choose from among those.

I created my first passive income stream by selling computer games in the 1990s because it was accessible to me. I knew how to program, I’d previously written some commercial games that were published, I understood the business model, and I knew a good artist. I was a gamer and had lots of gaming experience. The pieces were there. I still had to do more research and to learn a few things, but the accessibility factor was key to getting started. So I started.

I didn’t do well financially though. While the game development side was accessible to me, the game selling side wasn’t. I was able to create some games, but they didn’t sell well enough to cover my expenses – not even close. I had to fix that, and accessibility was again the solution. I had been a member of a trade association with lots of other software developers, but I was never an active member. All I did was read their monthly newsletter for the first three years. I started volunteering, which began with a highly accessible offer to do so, and I became a lot more active in the group. I made friends with other developers, and that opened up the whole marketing and sales side of the business. Through these friends I learned what I needed to learn, I applied their advice, and soon my business began doing well. It was all about following the trail of accessibility crumbs, one crumb at a time.

I continued to follow this accessibility trail through many other forms of income. I created streams of income by taking actions that were right in front of me. I just had to keep leaning in the direction of the types of streams I liked and the lifestyle options I felt good about.

Don’t think of this as a maze of options that you have to fathom in advance.

Just enter the maze, and start exploring. You’ll find your way eventually.

The more I leaned into the accessible income streams, the more I met other people who were into this type of lifestyle, and the more possibilities opened up.

I see this same pattern again and again, especially among my friends. Look to your hobbies because I’ve seen lots of people build successful income streams around their hobbies – music, art, dog training, baking, herbal remedies, corset making, media coaching, social media skills, beer making, travel skills, etc. They started with what was right in front of them, sometimes literally right in front of them. Just pause for a moment and look around you.

There’s probably a potential new income stream in your field of view right now!

Many of my entrepreneurial friends these days either earn money through ongoing passive income streams, or they use a launch-based strategy to earn a surge of income in a short period of time. I’ve only been getting into the launch-based approach this year, and I do have to say it’s a lot of fun. It’s not passive income per se, but if you enjoy the process, then so what?

It is possible, however, to turn a launch-based model into an ongoing passive income stream. That’s called an evergreen launch. I’ve been using a variation on that model in my own business for more than a decade for some streams of income, but I’ve recently learned that there are even better ways to do it.

"Republished from StevePavlina.com"