Mailbox Money
There’s this term I heard on one of the podcasts I listen to regularly. The term was “mailbox money.”
In pro wrestling terms, the concept of mailbox money is when the wrestling organization doesn’t have anything for a wrestler to do so they simply mail them their checks and let them sit at home until they do have something for them.
Essentially, it seems as if they get paid to do nothing. But that’s not really the case.
You see, if a wrestler just sits at home while they collect mailbox money then they aren’t really doing anything to get back in the game. They need to be more proactive rather than reactive when it comes to these things. Sure, they need to be patient because a lot of what they are experiencing is out of their control . But they also need to make sure that they do the things that they need to do that are under their control, such as stay in shape, practice new holds, and even think of their own creative ideas that they can bring to the table.
You see, mailbox money isn’t money that will last. Eventually the checks will run out and nothing will end up in their mailbox unless they do what they can to keep them coming.
One wrestler, Bob “Hardcore” Holly, collected a lot of mailbox money over the years. That’s because he stayed with the WWF/E for over 15 years. He went through gimmick changes, from being a good guy to a bad guy and back again, and climbed and descended the pecking order several times during his tenure. But he never really rested on his laurels. He never really complained. He did his job both while waiting on the sidelines and while in the ring.
And here’s the thing… this doesn’t just apply to wrestling.
I know plenty of entrepreneurs that enjoy receiving their own mailbox money in the form of affiliate funds and things of that nature. But unless they keep plying their trade — unless they stay active and do what they can to bring in income that they can control — that passive income (which really isn’t all that passive) will start to decrease until it’s gone.
You could also argue that mailbox money is a lot like those easy and automated tasks that you find on your to-do list. These are the types of tasks that really require little to no effort on your part and give you a false sense of real productivity along the way. You can’t just let those tasks define how productive you are — you need to do more challenging and fulfilling work to measure your productivity accurately.
Mailbox money — in all of its forms — is nice. But if you keep mailing in your effort, that nice feeling won’t last. And if you’re not careful, the payoff you receive from it will disappear from your mailbox altogether.
