Building multiple income streams is messier than the Instagram version suggests.
If you follow enough people online who are building multiple income streams, you could be forgiven for thinking it looks something like this: a beautifully lit photo of a laptop and a coffee, a caption about freedom and intentional living, and a series of passive income numbers that seem to arrive effortlessly while the person in question is apparently on a beach somewhere.
I’m here to tell you the real version. Not because I want to put you off — I don’t, I think building multiple income streams is one of the wisest things a person can do — but because the sanitised version sets people up to feel like they’re failing when actually they’re just experiencing a wet Tuesday in April!
What it actually looks like
Some weeks everything moves at once. A new ghostwriting enquiry arrives, someone buys through Curated, a conversation about the travel opportunity goes somewhere interesting, and you finish the week feeling like the whole thing is working exactly as planned.
Other weeks nothing moves at all. You post content that disappears without trace (and that can hurt). You follow up on a conversation and get ghosted. You sit down to write and the words don’t come. You look at everything you’re building and wonder, not for the first time, whether you’re spreading yourself too thin. (I’m obviously talking about myself here.)
Both of these are normal. Neither of them tells you very much about whether it’s working.
The spreading too thin question
I think about this one a lot. I’m a writer, a memoir specialist, a beauty curator in training and someone building a travel income opportunity. On paper, that sounds like either impressive range or chaotic overextension depending on who you ask.
What I’ve come to understand is that the question isn’t really whether you’re doing too many things. It’s whether the things you’re doing share enough of the same audience, the same values, and the same version of you. If they do — and for me, they do — then it’s not spreading thin. It’s building wide.
The woman who wants help writing her memoir might also love a good skincare recommendation. The person curious about the travel income opportunity might also be someone who’s been sitting on a story they want to tell. The audience overlaps more than you’d think, and the voice that runs through everything — honest, direct, no BS — is the same voice regardless of which part of the site someone lands on.
What I’ve learned so far
A few things that have become clear in the process of building this:
Consistency matters more than intensity. Showing up steadily over a long period of time is worth more than frantic bursts of activity followed by silence. This is hard to remember on the slow weeks but I believe it’s true.
The income streams that feel most natural are the ones that grow fastest. The writing was always going to be the core of this. Everything else grew around it, and the things that felt forced never really took off.
Patience is non-negotiable. Everything takes longer than you think it will. The site, the audience, the income. If you go in expecting overnight results you will be disappointed every single time. If you go in expecting to be building something over years rather than weeks, the slow periods feel much more manageable.
The architecture matters. Having multiple income streams isn’t just about money — it’s about resilience. If one thing has a quiet month, the others carry it. That’s the point. That’s always been the point.
Why I’m sharing the honest version
Because I’m a writer, and writers tell the truth. Because I’m a memoir specialist, and memoir is about the real version of things not the polished one. And because I think the honest account of what this actually looks like is more useful to anyone considering it than another beautiful photo and a caption about passive income.
I’ll keep sharing it as it unfolds. The slow weeks and the good ones. What’s working and what isn’t. The things I’d do differently and the things I’m glad I did.
That’s what the Journal is for.
If you’re building something yourself — or thinking about it — I’d love to know where you are with it. Drop me a message or leave a comment. The honest conversations are always the most useful ones.
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