Before you consider investments, products, or platforms, take a moment to reflect: What’s your niche? In a world where AI, automation, and global competition are making traditional jobs less secure, your niche serves as your competitive advantage—the intersection of your passion, skills, and the needs of your audience. From this space, passive income can flourish.

Step 1: Ask Yourself, “What am I good at?”

Start by identifying your advantages in the market, which include your skills and strengths. These can be categorized as follows:

Hard skills: specific, teachable abilities or technical knowledge that can be measured. Examples include graphic design, programming, and financial analysis.

Soft skills: personal attributes and interpersonal abilities, such as communication, problem-solving, and teaching.

Personal experiences: events and situations you have lived through that shape your understanding of the world and influence your thoughts, feelings, and actions. This might include overcoming debt, traveling solo, or managing a chronic illness.

Step 2: Ask Yourself, “What is my passion?”

Next, delve into your passions. Consider your favorite topics, activities you excel at, and things you would be willing to pursue for over two years. You can achieve this by reflecting on your past experiences to identify what excites you and when you feel completely immersed in certain events. Additionally, consider the activities you frequently engage in that you genuinely enjoy. These can be trivial, as long as you can connect them to market demands.

Step 3: Ask others, “Do you want this?”

The final step is to gauge whether anyone would pay for your ideas or outputs. In other words, is there demand in the market? This could involve developing a product or service that has never existed before or significantly improving upon existing offerings in areas that people are not currently being well-served.

Search online: use Google Trends, YouTube search volume, or Amazon bestsellers to determine if people are actively seeking solutions in your area.

Case study: look for examples of products, services, or communities that are already thriving. Their success can be a good indicator of earning potential.

Test it: start small and focus on a specific type of customer before expanding to other groups

Consider leveraging your location as an advantage, as many digital nomads do. However, remember to be authentic; people can easily recognize insincere enthusiasm.

“The riches are in the niches, but the fortune is in the follow-up” – Pat Flynn

Next, we’ll move on to the lesson 2.