The doctor’s words hung in the air, quiet but heavy. “I’m going to give you a few minutes to say your goodbyes. When you’re ready, I’ll come back in the room and turn off the ventilator.”

Just a few hours before, I’d been at home when a frantic call from my mom sent me speeding down the highway for four hours, the entire drive a blur of wondering if my father was still alive. When I finally walked into the cramped critical care unit, I found him hooked up to a web of tubes and monitors. The only sound was the mechanical rhythm of air being pumped into his lungs. He was there, but he wasn't. "He has no brain activity," my mom whispered.

Months earlier, he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma. The doctors were vague about his prognosis, but just days before he collapsed, he told my mom he felt like his time was running out. In the months following his diagnosis, I made that long drive often. We had the kinds of conversations a son hopes to have with his father, and I’m so grateful for that extra time.

But one conversation, relayed to me by my mom, has never left me. She told me about a day he was in immense pain and finally broke down. "He said he wasn't ready to go yet," she told me. "He said he never got to do the things he wanted to do with his life." He confessed that as a boy, he’d dreamed of being a pilot, but his own father shut the idea down. He never brought it up again. This story hit me hard. It was a part of him I never knew.

The High Cost of a Paycheck

For most of my life, my dad was a pastor. When he burned out after decades of preaching, he took a job at a call center for a cable company. He was surprisingly good at it, consistently a top performer in sales, able to handle irate customers with a smile. But he hated it. His days were micromanaged down to the minute, and he’d come home so exhausted he’d collapse on the bed, wake up for dinner, and then go right back to sleep.

He did this relentless, soul-crushing work to support my mom and himself. By his seventies, he had no savings. That job consumed the best years of his life. A year before his diagnosis, I finally told him, "Dad, I know this job is killing you. I want to help. Put in your two weeks. I’ll get you out of debt and take care of you and mom."

For the first time in his life, he didn't have to work. I bought them a house near a beautiful lake in South Carolina, and he spent his days out on his boat with his dogs. He was living his dream. But the decades of brutal work had taken their toll. His health was shot, and he couldn’t stay active. My father ran out of time before he could truly enjoy his retirement. I was left boiling with questions. Why did he spend his whole life doing something he hated just for a paycheck?

Choosing a Different Road

My father’s dream for me was simple: get a job. But I’d seen too many miserable people working jobs they disliked. There had to be a better way. I ended up at Appalachian State University, not because of a specific career path, but because it was near ski resorts. I eventually settled on a major in Leisure Studies (yes, that’s a real thing) and spent most of my time rock climbing and exploring. I didn’t take school seriously, but the experiences I had outside the classroom shaped my life philosophy: to live an extraordinary life, one that wasn’t defined by a regular job.

This philosophy is about building true wealth—not just in dollars, but in minutes and hours. It's about creating a foundation that allows you to walk away from a boss for good. The plan is to figure out the monthly income you need to live, then identify and build assets that generate that income. This means thinking about passive income investments rather than just a salary. We’re moving away from ideas like "dollars per hour" and toward concepts like "cash flow" and "discretionary time." While everyone else is working to earn a living, we will live off our assets.

The Problem with Work Today

It seems I’m not alone in feeling this way. We’re in the middle of what experts call "the Great Resignation." Millions are walking away from their careers, driven by toxic work cultures and the feeling of being disrespected. A Reddit community for fed-up employees, r/antiwork, has millions of members. It seems that for a huge number of people, work just isn’t working anymore.

Research backs this up. A World Economic Forum study showed that the happiest countries in the world are the ones where people work the least. When Microsoft Japan experimented with a four-day workweek, they saw a 40% boost in productivity. Working less isn't just a fantasy; it might actually be better for everyone. This isn’t about being lazy or opting out of society. It’s about reexamining our relationship with work.

So, let me ask you the Powerball Question: If you woke up tomorrow and won $132 million, would you go to work? If we're honest, most of us would quit. We work for the paycheck. Winning the lottery would suddenly free up our time for all the things we really want to do.

The Dream We Lost and How to Get It Back

Think back to when you were a kid. What did you want to be? An astronaut? A rock star? An archaeologist like Indiana Jones? We dreamed of adventure and excitement, not middle management. We never imagined sixty-hour weeks or the dread of a Monday morning alarm. As children, we only dreamed about what lit us up.

This is the mindset we need to rediscover. The goal isn't just to make more money, but to become what I call a "passivepreneur"—someone who is rich in both money and discretionary time. These people have mastered the art of creating passive income. Their financial well-being comes from a side income business or asset that requires little of their time to maintain. This is the core of what is passive income—income that isn't directly tied to the hours you work. They’ve built reliable sources of cash flow, which is one of the most effective ways to make passive income.

Finding your "why" is the fuel for this journey. Maybe you want to sail around the world or volunteer full-time. Getting clear on that deep desire is what will push you through the hard work required. And make no mistake, it won't be easy. This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a three-to-five-year plan, not a three-to-five-decade one. It’s about working your tail off for a short period to create results that last a lifetime, potentially turning a side hustle to full time freedom.

The Myths That Hold Us Back

We live in an incredible time. With just a laptop, you can launch a business with the potential for massive wealth. Yet, so many of us are held back by old beliefs: "Money doesn't grow on trees," or "If you don't work, you don't eat." We get trapped in the big 'P's of life: pay increases, promotions, and pensions, instead of pursuing choice, freedom, and fulfillment.

Even the dream of entrepreneurship can be a trap. We're told to "be your own boss," but the stark reality is that many entrepreneurs are broke and work far more hours than their nine-to-five counterparts. They don’t own a business; they own a job. The goal isn’t to work for yourself; it’s to stop trading your time for money altogether. This is why starting a side hustle while working full time is such a powerful strategy; it's a bridge to a new way of living.

Another huge myth is "do what you love and the money will follow." This is terrible advice. For every Jay-Z, there are millions of talented musicians who don't make a dime. Don't try to monetize your passion. Instead, build passive income investments so you can do what you love without worrying if it pays. Stop trying to make your passion support you; instead, make your money support your passion.

The Only Resource That Matters

I like to visit the historic graveyards in Charleston. On every headstone, you see two dates: the year born and the year deceased. Between them is a single dash. That dash represents an entire life. It’s a stark reminder of how short our time is.

Life is precious because it's finite. You can't save it or store it for later. In a world of seemingly unlimited resources, time is the one thing that is incredibly scarce. We need to realize there is no dollar value you can place on that dash. So many high-net-worth individuals I've met are obscenely wealthy but utterly time-bankrupt. Their lives are often a mess of failed relationships and deep unhappiness because they traded everything for another zero in their bank account.

Wealth isn't just an abundance of money. My definition of wealth is an abundance of passive income, discretionary time, and free choice. Money is just a tool, a means to an end. The real goal is to use that tool to buy back your life. The path there involves identifying the right ways to make passive income, whether through one solid side income business or even multiple side hustles, and building a system where your money works for you, freeing you up to live out that dash to the fullest.