Pre-FIRE And Pre-Highway to Yeah Steps: Starting At The Beginning Means Starting Before Beginning
One of my hopes for this blog is to eventually provide you with a good roadmap for how to get on and stay on the Highway to Yeah. (See “Snapshot of a Journey to the Highway to Yeah.”)
Discovering and integrating your personal myths and values — living in alignment with your truest self
Developing the freedom to live your truth — time, location, and psychological freedom
Pursuing a worthy quest — I called it an Encore career, but it’s mostly about following your bliss
Creating a radical lifestyle design that supports these objectives
Lately, I have been sharing contemporary ideas and challenges I have been facing as I continue my own journey, and that is fine.
However, I am now ready to go back to the start of this journey I am on. I want to see if I can put some clear baby steps out there for you to start deploying in your own life.
Before I reached FIRE, it was just a dream.
Wouldn’t it be great if someday I didn’t need to work for a paycheck? And wouldn’t it be great if I were able to do it a full 20 years before traditional retirement age?
I was already thinking about this in the mid-1990s, which was very early in my career working life.
The sooner the better, I thought, but I also recognized the need to “compound” my wealth.
Starting in the late ’90s, I began to have 15% of my check withheld for 401(k) contributions.
I predicted I would reach $1 million by the age of 48 and be free to go do whatever I wanted at that point.
Heck, back then the term FIRE didn’t really exist as it does today.
By 2004, though, I was able to start relying on Joe Dominguez’s Transforming Your Relationship With Money seminar tapes I had borrowed from the library.
His concept of reaching the crossover point is essentially the same thing as achieving FIRE.
And that was the big idea that really got the ball rolling on all this.
Up until then, I had been thinking only in terms of finding a good-paying job, particularly one I loved, or, if that wasn’t possible, maybe starting a business to grow wealth and eventually escaping cubicle hell.
The simple idea that all I really had to do to achieve a great life was reach the crossover point was intoxicating.
I was hooked.
However …
Within the next year, I moved, started a new job, fell in love, got divorced, and had a nervous breakdown.
Good times!
Towards the end of that tumultuous period, I also discovered Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover.
That gave me some new tactical ideas to implement and provided renewed inspiration to keep going.
I bring all this up to set the context of how I now think of an effective process for getting on a Highway to Yeah.
Achieving FIRE required taking some preliminary steps before getting to the heart of the matter, which can be represented by improving what I refer to as The Seven FIRE Metrics That Matter.
And so does getting out on your own version of a Highway to Yeah.
There are important preliminary steps you would be wise to take before you move through the process.
Also, I have discovered that I barely put in the required effort to achieve some of these preliminary steps myself.
It’s not that I didn’t do them, but I barely got over the hurdle.
Reflecting back on my journey, I now see that I rushed through them and missed a few very important beats.
Some of these preliminary steps I will cover over the next few articles.
Then we will get into the heart of the matter: the next set of tactical baby steps these preliminary actions set you up to succeed at doing.
Money is a part of it. But our Preliminary currency will be measured as Time.
Hitting your crossover point is still the first major achievement you will shoot for to mark the overarching journey.
This is the point at which your financial assets generate enough cash to cover your living expenses without the need for a paycheck.
But it’s not just about the money.
We’re going to focus on making sure your journey out on a Highway to Yeah starts with creating as much Time Freedom as possible.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more details …