When I retired, the plan was for trading to carry the gap years — the stretch between retirement and Social Security — while the dividend stream compounded untouched. It was a good plan, neatly drawn. Trading stumbled, the dividend stream carried more than I'd anticipated, and I spent this year rebuilding the trading account to get back to the original design.
The plan wasn't wrong. The assumption underneath it was: that one stream, however well run, would be enough. It wasn't — not because trading failed, but because any single stream can falter, and when it does, you don't want your Tuesday depending on it.
That's the lesson this pillar is built on: one stream is a hope; two or three is a business.
What counts as a stream
An income stream is anything that puts money in your account without selling your hours wholesale. The ones I work with:
- Trading income — options premium, run as a business (which is its own essay).
- Dividends — a dividend-growth portfolio that pays you to own good businesses.
- Expertise — consulting, teaching, training. Forty years — from the Air Force through ten companies — taught me things people will pay to learn. The training materials on this site are this stream, being built now.
- Passion work — the thing you'd do anyway, with revenue attached. Not every passion monetizes, and not every one should. But some do, and those are the sweetest streams you'll ever own. This website is my passion work — and so is teaching others to trade.
Yours will differ. That's fine — the number matters more than the names. Two or three streams that don't all break the same way. When trading stumbled, the dividends held. That's not luck; that's the design.
Start before you need them
Here's the part I got wrong, so you don't have to: start building additional streams the day you retire, not the day you need them.
I waited. Trading was working, the dividends were compounding, and building a third stream felt like a project for later. Then later arrived early, and I was building under pressure instead of at leisure. A new stream takes time to cut its channel — the training program, the audience, the revenue. None of it happens in a quarter.
If you're still working, start now. An hour a week on the second stream beats a panicked year trying to build one after the first falters. If you're already retired, start today. The best time was two years ago; the second-best time is this afternoon.
Streams fund the Tuesday
Living Your Best Life asked you to describe your best Tuesday. Building Income Streams is how you pay for it.
Every stream you build buys two things: money, and optionality. Money is obvious. Optionality is the real product — the ability to say no to the wrong work, to weather a bad year in one stream without panic, to choose your Tuesday instead of accepting whatever's left. My fifteen acres, the Potler days, the grandkids' schedules — none of that survives a single point of failure in the funding.
That's what "two or three is a business" really means. Not just more income — more freedom per dollar. A business with one customer is a job with extra steps. A retirement with one income stream is a hope with a spreadsheet.
What's next in this pillar
The essays that follow take each stream apart: how to run trading like a business instead of a hobby, how to build a dividend machine, and how to turn what you know into something people pay for. Each one stands alone. Together, they're the funding for the life you designed in Living Your Best Life.
Start digging. Before you need the water.
This essay is the cornerstone of the Building Income Streams pillar. Living Your Best Life is the life these streams fund; Achieving Retirement is the math that keeps it sustainable.