The Unavoidable Two-Income Individual You Will Have to Become

by Case Lane

In a world where labor has disappeared, the stock market is swelling portfolios for the invested, and post-pandemic contemplation has led to a reckoning with one’s life choices, it’s hard to imagine that the average person will have any difficulty living comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But they will…

Underneath the seemingly empowered labor market movements, there is no booming economy, no sense of unrelenting optimism or hopeful joy. But there is a level of fear.

Fear of not having enough money for a successful middle class life, let alone colleges, retirement homes, and the occasional vacation.

As every price for every good and service creeps up, and spending money precipitously falls down, the average person begins to look around and sense that they had best do something soon…meaning, right now.

And that something is…get a second income stream…preferably something online.

The Lure of Entrepreneurship

Even without any looming threat of economic collapse, the average person looks with envy at the Internet millionaires who are living the Instagram lifestyle without seemingly lifting a finger.

There is no shortage of gurus telling you: how to make a million dollars in ten minutes doing nothing, and an equally jaded community of those who have tried, and not succeeded, in following their instructions. But undaunted, they complain and move on to the next one.

There is also another group of side hustlers, as they have come to be known – teachers, nurses, mechanics, technicians, everyone and anyone – who spend their evenings and weekends, teaching art, coding, or reviewing products, for strangers who are waiting to hear from them.

Each hustler is caught up in their own dream…the opportunity at lifestyle freedom. Even though every successful entrepreneur will tell you there is no freedom in being responsible for a business enterprise, and all that could go wrong – the dreamers cling to the idea that on the other side of being your own boss is having your own bounty, and with it, all the choices that will lead to your happiness.

Entrepreneurship is considered the road to that freedom. And with the advent of the Internet, the road has become an increasingly more crowded, no guardrail freeway.

The Support of Technology

Technology and connectivity have given almost everyone the opportunity to start a business from their smartphone, earn income from their thoughts and photos, and build private communities of thousands of followers who are willing buyers of products and services aimed at crushing their own most pressing problems.

Every day thousands of people all over the world pour online to deliver value to the millions who are asking questions, and looking for answers in social media, search and stores. 

Many aspiring entrepreneurs will give up on their quest, but those who don’t will eventually succeed at something – likely not the idea they started with – but something will start making them money online.

Then they will have their own story to tell about ‘making a million dollars in ten minutes doing nothing,’ and the cycle will begin again.

The Unhappy Economy

For those who walked away from entrepreneurship, there will remain a brutally intense pull that forces them to reconcile with their decision every day.

You can’t win, if you don’t play. And you’ll never get out of a job you don’t like, if you don’t make a move to leave.

But to leave…you’re going to need financial support.

The opportunity to have a successful comfortable life comes at a cost. And you won’t be able to pay it, if you don’t have the money.  And maybe you’ll get part of the money from your 9-to-5 job, but where will you get the bump you need to really start enjoying yourself?

At the moment, you live in an unhappy economy.  People have jobs and money, but it’s not enough to get over the hurdles to true contentment.

The Other Side-Effect of the Pandemic

During the pandemic, this gap was made glaringly real. Some people actually enjoyed lockdown. They live in beautiful homes full of all the amenities, every household member had a comfortable private place to work or study, delivery trucks pulled up all day with their orders, and when they wanted a break, they even went off on vacations and extended stays to Caribbean islands that stayed open.

For many, seeing those people (yes, you can view it all on Instagram) opened up a realization that they did not have the kind of money that would have made for a cozy lockdown. In fact, they had to be afraid for their job, their industry, and the future of their community.

When things began to bounce back, with employment and choices for all, they realized just how unhappy they were in their current situation. And how quickly it could be worse.

The Bounceback Will Not Be Cheap

The fact is, most people are holding on to a precarious wedge of comfort that could crack at any time. You can see this in their general unhappiness with their lot in life.

They simply do not have enough money, to do everything they want to do, for themselves and their family.

And as prices rise, especially for housing, their window to make a change gets narrower and narrower.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you are house prices that start at a million dollars for what we used to call a bungalow; food prices that demand a premium to be considered healthy; travel prices starting with gasoline that reflect the need to keep moving; clothing, entertainment and dining out – the malls – building their comeback on healthy price jumps; and healthcare, education and retirement living, directly tying quality and safety to upper echelon prices.

The average person is going to realize that to have a full life with all the amenities, they will have to have more money…a lot more.

Getting an extra job is an option, there are plenty around, but that’s time spent commuting and networking that they won’t get back.

The other option, one that screams out from the Internet is to start something online.

The Online Options

How do people make money online:

• Sell a product
• Sell a service
• Sell ads on a website
• Sell ads on a podcast
• Sell ads on videos
• Get paid by sponsors
• Sell someone else’s product or service

The mechanics are straightforward: Get your product or service in front of the right audience, and convince them you have what they need.

But the results vary widely.

Success has but one common attribute…the entrepreneur is delivering value to those who want or need it.  The value can be anything from cat videos to coding instructions, but the key is it’s valuable to someone. 

And the more people who receive it, the more money the entrepreneur makes.

To become an online entrepreneur, you must understand the problems people want solved, and solve them.

Identify Problems to Solve

For an aspiring entrepreneur, the best outcome for a business idea happens when the target customer’s problem aligns with one the entrepreneur has already solved, usually for themselves, and are ready to help instruct others on how to do it. 

But you can also earn online income by having an interest in an area where others need the information, and have no time to get it. If you are willing to put in the time, and do the work, you are one step ahead of the members of your eventual paying community.

You can also be a middle-person between someone who has already solved the problem, and people you know want to find out about it. For example, there are plenty of travel sites offering guidance to destinations all over the world, and they have ads on their pages, probably making some money just for giving their opinions.

More robust offerings may go deep into a subject like dieting or healthcare, and amass a following by providing practical advice that cannot be found elsewhere.

And others still simply test and promote products, but do it with a commitment to content – posting text, images and videos every day, sometimes multiple times a day, to a growing audience that comes to rely on their advice.

You don’t have to invent the product yourself, there are plenty of sellers looking for affiliates.  But you do have to be in the position where the ‘eyeballs’ fall, and either be selling the product directly from that point, or benefiting from advertisers who want to get to the audience you build by providing great content.

If you are looking at online business, you can be any one of these people. Start where you have an ‘in’ and can get some money flowing immediately and build from there. In Napoleon Hill’s great classic, Think and Grow Rich, he counseled readers to find personal services people need, that’s one thing people will always pay for.

Start somewhere…

Look at Google and Amazon search trends. People are literally making requests all day long, looking for information, products and services to fulfill a need.

Ask around.  Look around. The possibilities are endless.

The idea that ‘everything has been done’ is over-ridden every day by the fact that new businesses are always succeeding, and new ideas emerge every minute.

Why You Need Two-Incomes

The impact of the pandemic has already started. With millions of women staying out of the workforce to care for children, or elderly, there is a need for every person to earn more. 

And an online business provides the perfect opportunity.

Plus, once you know what to do in the online arena where you choose to play, you can do it over and over again.

Your other consideration is simply the cost-of-living.  After the housing crash in 2008, the prediction was people would not risk their income on sprawling homes in the suburbs again, but instead would revitalize the less expensive inner city.  And for a minute that was true.

The 21st Century List of Costs

But now after the pandemic, it’s back to the suburbs…and even further. If you no longer have to commute, you want to be in the most comfortable space, and apparently that means, far away from everyone else.

Demand will drive rising home prices, and the amount someone has to pay will increase, or they will not find a place. That will be the reality.

You’ll want to upgrade your car to electric, upsource your food to local and home-grown, change your child’s schooling to private tutors, and have personalized medical care.

And after seeing the suffering of retirees in group homes during the pandemic, another wave of concern swept those who will not have enough to live safely on their own as they age. Up goes the price of elder care, and the demand of those who want it to be safe, comfortable and healthy.

When you go to travel, you’ll be competing with the new wealthy and rising middle class of countries from Estonia to Chile to Tanzania and back again. Everyone wants to see the Mona Lisa, and you will have to get in line. And let’s not forget the places that are threatening to close to idle travelers, you’ll need more money to see Venice, Machu Pichu or the islands of Belize.

Every aspect of the American Dream has already begun to fade away. 

Rethink How to Get Your American Dream

The picket fence house in the suburbs…unaffordable…

College…unaffordable without debt…

Solid wage job with benefits…maybe independent contractor on your own…

Retirement…a stressful strain without a cushion.

Yet, the last clinging hope remains to the ideal of a middle class, where tens of millions live a comfortable life.

But the definition of ‘comfortable’ will be changed to mean ‘managed’ as a certain taxpayer-assisted core of the workforce gets by on subsidies and credits designed to keep them afloat.

Another core will accelerate forward to adventures unknown, properties unseen, and generational wealth everlasting.

The ‘middle’ will only remain independent, self-sufficient and comfortable, if each individual generates two incomes – typically one from the public workspace and the other from an online venture – and continues to do so throughout their working lives.

Decide On Your Next Action

Turn now to develop your second income stream from an online platform, or hope against hope that the swarming tide does not catch you going the wrong way.

The window to benefit from the available technology tools and open global marketplace is right now. And the need to begin the process is acute.

The two-income individual will be a fact of life, not a burden, but an opportunity to ensure that you are on the wealth side of the income gap, and benefiting not only from the revenue you are earning, but the value you are delivering to those who were just waiting for you to put your talent to work to help them.

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