How to Make MORE Money While SLEEPING

Hello, Believe Nation! Today I'm going to talk about 7 ways you can make money while you sleep. So in general, I try to actually stay away from these kinds of topics because I think a lot of people who are interested in these things are kind of lazy, are looking for quick ways to be able to make make more money, and they end up falling for schemes and falling into traps and not ever being successful with what they wanna do. You have to understand that to be successful as an entrepreneur, you want to work hard, you want to add value, you want to create something that is meaningful and that lasts. Now, if that's your mindset and your approach, then these 7 things are going to help you be able to make more money while you're actually sleeping. So number 1 is don't trade time for money. One of the hardest ways to make money while you're sleeping is when you're trading time for money, and that would be any kind of service-based business. And I like at the start of a business to actually be service-based because you get cash flow coming in, there are no expenses except your time. But as you build up and as you want to create something beyond yourself, trading time for money is basically the definition of not making money while you sleep, 'cause you have to go out and work. And so thinking about a product that you can sell or a service that you can provide that's online, that's not actually you doing the work yourself, is a big step to be able to making money while you're sleeping. Number 2 is create things that last. So if you look at the videos that I make, most of them are evergreen. It's called evergreen content because whether you watch it today or whether you watch it in 5 years, the content is still relevant and valuable. I love creating things that are of timeless value because it's valuable to somebody today and it's also valuable to somebody next year and in 5 years and in 10 years and 20 years. You know, when we're showing clips of Martin Luther King or Napoleon Hill, the video footage may be decades old but it's still relevant and helpful and valuable to me and to you today. And so how that helps you make money while you sleep is you spend a lot of time making something and it sucks when it only lasts for a day or a week or a month and then it shoots to zero. So if you're doing something around the trend, if you're covering the election right now, it might be really hot right now because everybody's talking about it, but nobody's gonna care once the election is over. Nobody's gonna look back on a lot of the content that was created. And I hate that kind of business because I want to make something and have it live forever, and I want people to pay attention to it forever. And so all the work that I do, every new thing that I add into my business adds multiple streams for me down the future. And so it continues to build and build and build and build. And so I try to create things that last, and if you want to make money while you sleep, having that kind of focus, something that is still relevant and valuable in 5, 10, 20 years, is super helpful to you making money while you sleep. Number 3 is bring on a team. To do anything of substance, to have a big impact in the world, you have to be able to bring on a team and not just do everything yourself. In the context of making money while you sleep, it's also important because while you're sleeping, you know, your team could be out there doing work for you, delivering the work for you. If I look at my YouTube channel, when I started it was just me. I was doing everything. And I was making 1 video a week to 1 video a month, somewhere in that range. And since bringing on my team, and there's what, 7 of us now I guess on the YouTube team, now we're able to make 3, 4, 5 videos a day. And so all of those will help me grow my business today and in the future. I'm still working the same number of hours, but I'm able to get a lot more done because my team is helping me do it. Whatever it is in your business, especially the things that you're not good at or the things that you don't want to be the best in the world at or the things that you don't have a passion for but that needs to get done in your business, being able to offload that onto somebody else, have them do the work, because they're getting paid for it and they like doing that kind of work while you could focus on your genius and what you love doing. That's a fantastic way not just to build a business, but you're leveraging the time of other people to help you make money. And in a lot of cases while you're sleeping. Number 4 is automate your business model. I love automating as much as possible. I sincerely appreciate and value my time, and so I hate wasting time on things that aren't delivering a high payoff. And so when you can automate things, it makes a big difference. As an example, I'm trying to promote Toronto Dance Salsa, this business that we are standing in right now. One of the ways that I'm doing it is through Facebook advertising, right? We have different Facebook advertising campaigns that promote the classes. I would much rather spend time there than going to events, right? There might be a parade or local event that we can go to because it's so much more automatic and easier to scale. Where going to an event involves my time or involves my team's time to go out and actually do, where with marketing, with advertising, yes, there is some time. It's not zero time and just set it and forget it. There is still some work in maintaining it and looking at it and look at the analytics and creating better campaigns, but it's way easier to scale. And so look at how you are manufacturing your product, how you are selling your product or service, how you're getting the word out there, all of the processes that are involved in creating the business, from the idea of a product or service to the creating it to the selling it, all of those processes, how many of those are really labor-intensive and how many can you pull out? Now if you really love doing the work, great, but if you don't, how can you plug something else in there that might be a little bit more automatic to help you scale faster? Because while I am sleeping, you know, at 2 in the morning, somebody is looking at the Facebook ad, clicking and buying a class. And so it's much more automatic, 'cause I don't wanna be up at 2 in the morning going to the all-night parties to promote the business. So if you automate your business model, you have a better chance of making money while you sleep. Number 5 is build a no-crisis business. This is something that I've done almost from the beginning. I hate being reactionary. I hate having to just put out fires. I hate having to say, see customers freaking out and then I have to go and drop everything I'm doing to deal with this one thing and I don't have control over my schedule and what happens. And so from your partners to your suppliers to your teammates to the media to everybody involved in your business, you teach people how to treat you. For me, I don't react most of the time to big problems that are happening immediately and try to empower people to solve the problems themselves. If you remove yourself from the situation, what happens? Does it get solved? Do the, do the people figure it out? And I try to create a business in both of my businesses where that doesn't happen too often. It's a newer process with Toronto Dance House because I only took over in January. With my business that I've had a long time, it rolls, it hums, right? A lot of stuff happens without me having to be involved. We don't have a lot of crises that happen. And so It's one of the reasons why I don't have a phone. I have a cell phone that I use only as a tablet. There's no phone number here, there's no data package. You can't reach me. It's with intention. I don't want people interrupting my day. I need to have my time to focus on building bigger things and working towards bigger projects and not being dragged down into minutia of the day-to-day of running a lot of the projects on the business. And so it may mean firing clients that are too demanding. It may mean that you lose out on media opportunities where the timelines are so crunched that you miss out on something. And that's okay as long as you're investing that time into something much bigger. As much as possible, I really try to focus on building a no-crisis business so that my time is being spent effectively on the important things to build a company. Number 6 is invest. And this isn't something I talk too much about on the channel in terms of investing. I have my own philosophy philosophies and strategies around investing. First off, I believe the best investment you can make is in yourself as an entrepreneur, as a human being, to get better, to learn, to adapt, to grow. You'll make way more money in your own company than you will by investing into a stock market or real estate or something else. But if you're starting to make money and you're, you know, keeping some, pulling off the table, saving for retirement, whatever it is— not that we're really going to retire, I think, if you're really a true entrepreneur— even as a backup plan in case something goes horribly wrong, one of the only true actual sources passive income is investing into the stock market, especially when you don't have to do anything that's managed, right? If you're not buying something you need to check in on all the time. So you can look at index funds, right? An index fund just matches how the market is doing, and you know, the market's going up, you're making more money. And historically, the market's going to go up. It'll have down periods, but overall it's going to go up, and you can just keep putting money into that and it'll keep paying you back when you don't have to worry about doing anything. If you're managing an active portfolio, then there's a little bit more work, just like the advertising campaign. But the idea here is you're leveraging your money to help you go out and make more money. You know, before we were leveraging our people to be able to, be able to bring more in for our business, right? So just another way, if you have some money saved up, you can use it to bring in more money. It's not going to be a huge return on investment, And I still think the best bet is probably in yourself and your own business, but it is another way to make money while you sleep. And number 7, the last way to make money while you sleep is leverage your other assets. And so as an example, if you have a house or an apartment, can you rent that out? Can you put it up on Airbnb and while you're away on the weekend, have people come over? If you have high-end camera gear, can you rent that out and have people pay you to rent out the gear you have? Whatever assets that you have, is there a way to turn that into a rental so that you're making money coming in? You know, I look at our space here, right? We have classes, but the studio is empty during the day and on most Saturdays. So could we rent that out to other businesses who could use a space, an event space for the day, right? It's another potential opportunity. You're looking at the assets that you have. Before we talked about the people that you have, We've talked about the money that you have. What other assets do you have that you could potentially turn into money to make it work for you? I personally avoid this most of the time. You know, I have no interest in renting out my condo on Airbnb while I'm away so I can make a few extra bucks, mostly because I'm not motivated by money. Making extra money is not a primary factor for what I do in my business and in my life. It's just more headache. Like, I hate real estate because I don't want to have to manage everything. And yes, you can have people who can manage it for you. I get it. I don't want the headache and the hassle. I want to build something. I want to invest my time into something. If I'm going house hunting, what am I building? I'm building a nest egg, I guess. I'm building something that can make me money in the future. But it's not of— it's not of impact to the world, right? And so to me, as an entrepreneur, I don't want to spend my time there, right? If I'm doing something just for the money, I don't— I feel like I'm wasting my time. I don't want to do it because I can make money in a lot of different areas. So this is my own personal bias feeding through. But if you have other assets that you have in your possession, from a house to a car to gear, whatever it is, anything of value, you could potentially rent it out to make extra money while you are sleeping. So those are my 7 ways to make money while you sleep. I'd love to know What do you guys think? What's your take? What was your favorite one? What was your least favorite one? Did I miss an 8, 9, 10 that you wanna add to the list? Leave it in the comments below and I will join in the discussion. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Yunji Wu. Thank you so much for buying my book. It really means a lot to me. For those of you watching, you want a chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to pick up a copy of the book and email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.