You Could be Rich, but You Keep Chasing "Easy Money"
The pursuit of passive income is often misguided and can prevent people from building real wealth.
The Cultural Origins of Easy Money:
Influenced by ideas from Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad (trading time for money is bad) has given everyone unrealistic fantasies, and now many chase passive income as an escape from hard work. This leads to avoiding customers, learning how businesses work, marketing, or consistent effort, essentially seeking “easy money” without realizing wealth requires intense work upfront.
Real Estate: The Oldest Passive Income Lie
Real estate is often held up as the gold standard of easy money. Buy a rental property, collect checks, build wealth. But real estate requires huge capital, carries risk, and isn’t truly passive (e.g., managing properties involves ongoing work).
The Vending Machine Dream: A Case Study in Failed Passive Income
The vending machine boom of the 1980s and 1990s perfectly illustrates how passive income fantasies collided with reality. Thousands of people were sold the dream: buy some vending machines, place them in high-traffic locations, collect cash weekly, and watch the money roll in while you sleep, but the good spots (factories, offices, schools) became saturated and competitive. You cold-call or knock on doors endlessly, pitch owners on revenue shares (often 10–30% of sales), and sign contracts. Many locations flop. Machines break constantly: coin/bill jams, refrigeration failures, spiral motors dying, or vandalism/theft. Parts are expensive and often shipped from China, weeks of downtime while a $5K machine sits dead. You need regular cleaning (moldy snacks = complaints), cash collection (or card reader fees), and restocking. It’s not “set and forget” as most owners drive routes weekly, spending hours refilling and fixing.
Modern Easy Money Strategies
Most passive income schemes today have low-odds of success (dropshipping, affiliates, etc.), wasting years and money.
It distracts from building real businesses, which are statistically easier and allow hiring help later for similar freedom.
Advice
Embrace hard work in something you enjoy. Trade time for money initially, but then build a real business. Fall in love with effort.
Overall message: You’ll become rich if you don’t chase “easy money” as the primary goal. Focus on meaningful work instead. The passive income comes later, as a natural byproduct.