The year was 2012. Tim Ferriss’ best-selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek, had peaked on the NYT bestseller list for 5 years running. Everyone in my immediate social network and on Twitter was raving about it – this was the path to building a six figure plus ‘passive’ income… focused on outsourcing most, if not all, of the operations of a company to third parties around the world for dirt cheap prices.

The goal? Work from anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than a laptop and internet connection to gain freedom from the 9-5. How? By systematizing your company – having other people complete all the minutiae of the day-to-day operations – you are free to pursue other projects of your choosing. Or not, and just live on a beach in Mexico forever while your machine made money for you.

I, like many others, was shocked that this could even be a possibility let alone reality.