Why I REGRET building a passive income business…
Summary
- I've taken $37.9 million in dividends from my business in the last 36 months.
- The concept of passive income is widely misunderstood and overhyped; true passive income is rare and most often found in things like stock dividends.
- Active income has been unfairly stigmatized—everyone trades time for money, and the difference only lies in the leverage we have in that exchange.
- We are not meant to avoid work; a life solely pursuing pleasure without work can lead to dissatisfaction.
- My wife and I earn roughly $6 million passively each year, ranking around 8.5 on a scale of 0 (completely active) to 10 (completely passive) in terms of our involvement.
- I've found being less involved in my businesses less enjoyable; it's led to a realization that pursuing passive income as the end goal was a mistake for me.
- The advice I was given as a younger entrepreneur—that a business requiring your presence isn't a real business—is flawed; being involved in your business can be fulfilling.
- By stepping back from active involvement to allow others to grow, I've lost the ability to be as involved in the day-to-day without displacing others—a bittersweet realization.
- The glamorous image of passive income and the life that comes with it doesn't always match reality; it can sometimes lead to a sense of emptiness and boredom.
- Work is something intrinsic to fulfillment; the point isn't to work less, but to have the freedom to choose the work you love.
- Having built a business that can grow without my direct involvement, I now choose to work actively, preferring the challenge and engagement it offers.
- The goal isn't to escape work but to love the work you do. Active income and being part of the process is where the real satisfaction lies.
- As I head into 2022, I plan to reengage more actively and aggressively in my ventures, as that's where I find true enjoyment and purpose.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest starting with understanding that passive income isn't just about making money without work. It's more about having the freedom to choose the work you love. So, focus on what you love doing and find ways to add more value there. Don't chase the dream of passive income if it means stepping away from work that fulfills you.
A good way of doing this is by using leverage to trade your time for more money. This can mean hiring people, automating systems, or creating products that don't require your time for each sale. But remember, you're still working; you're just working smarter.
Also, think about what you're good at and double down on it. If you love being involved in your business, don't feel pressured to step back just because others say you should. Being involved in the work you do is what often leads to real satisfaction.
Here's a simple action plan:
- List what parts of your work you enjoy the most.
- Find ways to do more of those things – could you offer a new service or product that aligns with what you love?
- Use automation tools to handle repetitive tasks so you can focus on work you enjoy.
- Consider hiring help for things that take up too much of your time and are not in line with your core interests.
- Reframe the idea of work: it's not about escaping it, but embracing the parts of it that bring you joy and purpose.
- Check on your progress: Have you created more freedom to do the work you love? Are you happier in your daily activities?
In 2022, make a point to reengage with your ventures if that's where your joy is. Work isn't just a means to an end—it's part of what makes life meaningful. Choose the work that excites you and get back in the game if that's what you want. Remember, you build a business to have the life you want, don't build a life around trying to escape work.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"We trade time for money, the only difference is that some of us have more leverage that we with which we trade that time for more money"
– Alex Hormozi
"We are not meant to not work"
– Alex Hormozi
"If you love the game, then why would you want to get yourself out of it?"
– Alex Hormozi
"I'm saying this because I made that the goal and I think that now that I am here, I regret it"
– Alex Hormozi
"We're meant to work, we have the freedom to choose not the freedom to do nothing"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
million dollars in dividends out of my business all right so that's not business sales that's not anything else that's 39 37.9 million dollars in dividends i've taken out in the last 36 months and i wanted to lead with that mostly because i thought it would make the video a hell of a lot more interesting for those you don't know me my name is alex from mostly iowan acquisition.com today i wanted to talk to you uh because i had a really interesting conversation with a um a couple that's an entrepreneurial couple and i caught myself in this tirade this rant about passive income and how it's not as cool as people think it is and i wrote down some of the notes after the dinner and i thought i would share it with you because i think that passive income is one of these things that people talk about all the time it's the great a great headline for uh youtube videos and clickbait and all this crap and the thing is is that number one 99.9 percent of people will never have true passive income or passive income as you know in any material amount if you own stocks and you get dividends from those stocks then that is truly passive but if all you do is actively manage your passive dividend stocks then you have active income and so what i want to do in this video hopefully is make active income great again all right active income's gotten a really ugly name all right let's be real a lot of people are like ah you have a job you know what's real everyone has a job and everyone trades the exact same currency for the exact same output we trade time for money the only difference is that some of us have more leverage that we with which we trade that time for more money but at the end of the day we are always trading time for money period i don't care what anyone says passive just means you trade a smaller percentage and so rather than the and if you've watched my billionaire mental models video then you'll you'll find this familiar we like to speak in the binary of active versus passive when in reality is how passive or how active is this income stream ah interesting and what i want to do today is make an interesting argument for you about why i think passive income blows all right so let us begin number one i live in a building right now of almost exclusively eight figure nine figure and ten figure entrepreneurs so that's ten figures being billionaires 100 millionaires and deca millionaires and i will tell you this having now seen especially lots of guys uh who are in that category who are 40 50 sometimes 60 years old observation number one we are not meant to not work we are not meant to not work we are meant to work all right seeing these dudes pursue a pleasure filled life or a pleasure seeking life uh is one of the saddest things that you can possibly imagine it is the weirdest thing it's like seeing a tiger defanged right it's like it's it's it's not good these guys are gladiators these are guys who know how to win in the arena and i'm not trying to project my desires onto their lives it's their choice they can do whatever they want but me as a passive observer of looking at people that i believe care have a lot of similar character traits to me i see a different different paths that i can go down in my life and i can tell you i do not like it so number one there is no off switch on a tiger when you turn it off it's not pretty number two right now um my wife and i probably make around six million ish a year passively in terms of like we have virtually like on the let's say uh zero is you're literally doing the thing and ten is uh you forgot that you do that there's anything to be done uh and that would be completely passive versus completely active i'd say that we're probably like an eight and a half i'll tell you this it's not fun when we were actively involved uh in our businesses um compared to now i think honestly it was more fun um and i think a lot of people always want to you know portray that their current state is the most advanced state um and i can tell you over the last nine maybe 12 months man i've done almost nothing i mean the the three videos a week i make on youtube are is probably like the most uh engaging work i do it's like the only thing i'm like looking forward to uh every week because of how little that i'm doing in the business and the reason i'm bringing this up is this all right so make sure you hear the right message from this i i'm saying this in no way to flex i'm saying this because i made that the goal and i think that now that i am here i regret it i continued to solve problems in my business and i had the perspective which was spoken to me as a younger entrepreneur which is if you're doing something if you're actively involved in the business it means it can't run it without you which means there is something wrong which means you are not as good as an entrepreneur as you think you are because you are required to make this business work which means it's not a real business right i think that's horseshit and i think that i can tell you right now truthfully because i've walked it it's not just like a hypothetical idea like i truly do almost nothing in terms of what is on my calendar every day and i can tell you i'm bored out of my mind and so next next season so starting 2022 i'm gonna be doing some big stuff right but the entire goal that i optimized around four years was passive income it was i want to build a business that can run without me and from the dividends that i get from that business i can do whatever i want but here's what's crazy that they don't tell you if you love the game then why would you want to get yourself out of it huh isn't that weird it's like i love this thing i'm so good at it that i'm i'm going to play basketball so well that eventually i'm just going to stop playing and the team's going to win without me and so i think what i've given myself permission to do as of late is i've given myself permission to work for the love of working because i choose to and so i think that i had this idea when i was trying to scale my businesses that i wanted freedom to do whatever i wanted right we want the freedom to choose but for some reason over time that got that got morphed into everything has to be passive and i can tell and i'm i'm making this video so that hopefully you don't make the same mistake which is like it's okay to run your business and it's okay to like it because i i miss the [ __ ] out of it let me be honest with you i do but in an effort to create space so other people could rise up and they could have their own growth and development i moved away so that they could have that opportunity and the thing is is now i can't really jump back in the business because otherwise i would i would displace people right i'm not needed and so it's been an interesting interesting process for me to walk through this we have this dream we have this goal to have this thing that kicks off cash flow every single month that's far in excess of what we need to live but i am in a building where i get to see the outcome of what that looks like every day and it's not pretty and i can tell you over the last nine months 12 months of what my life has been it's not pretty it's not fun it's boring it's empty there's nothing to do and i got this quote from talking more and i really like it he said in the bible the first thing that god did and gave adam was not eve it was a job and i think that there's just been this this this i don't know demonic demon of demonification do you know if there's a word there yeah something bad right people have been batting um shaking their finger at work why it's what we're supposed to do and so i think that if we can focus on and this is what i this is where i'm kind of walking towards right now is is now that you at least for me this is me talking to myself is like now that you've you've figured out that you can truly create something that can run without you you've learned the skills of not just quote building a passive business but truly a business that can run without you and grow comma and grow all right there's one thing to create a business that can maintain without you and still continue to generate cash flow it's a totally different thing to be able to put enough talent in place that a business can grow without you that is when you actually have a business i now know that i can do that i can check that box off but i feel like now i can be certain in that i can make the choice to say i know that i can do that and i choose not to because i choose because it is my choice because i sought out freedom right i have the option i know that i can build that but now that i have experience and i've tasted that fruit i know that of the different flavors of fruit the one that i prefer is i prefer the challenge i prefer the game i prefer being in the game rather than watch the team win without me but i just think that passive income uh is not as cool as people think it is i think we need to make active income cool again we're meant to work we have the freedom to choose not the freedom to do nothing because we think that we're we want to have freedom do all the [ __ ] that we want to do but the thing is is in the in the course of building the life that we have there's nothing that's that gives you the rush of business nothing's as high octane as this right and stuff that is as high acting as that if done enough times eventually you're gonna die you got into this game you had these things in these hobbies that you enjoyed you get rid of those hobbies to go double down on the game you go and you continue to play the game you eventually win the game right and then you look back and now you have all this time because you continue to trade things to get more time back get more time back get more time back and eventually you have all your time back but you have nothing to [ __ ] do and so then you're stuck in the position that i'm in right now which is what do i enjoy and i enjoy doing the things that got me here and so that is what i'm going to be doing in the next the next chapter 2022 is i'm going to be doubling down very aggressively and you'll be seeing some moves from behind the sidelines behind the behind the glass of what i'll be doing but i'll tell you that seeking pleasure is not the game it's incredibly boring um and uh and yeah this is something that no one ever shared with me and i figured i would share it with you because moseynation you guys [ __ ] rock love you guys um and if you're new to this world uh i think i said at the beginning but if i didn't my name is auction mosey on acquisition.com we do about 85 million a year and if you enjoyed this video i'm glad you did and keep being awesome and i'll see you guys in the next one
