Today we have a great case study of somebody that I really respect, and who has been able to achieve financial independence, at a really early age. I wanted this episode to be relevant to you no matter where you are on your financial independence journey, so I thought we could approach it from two angles: If you are in the asset accumulation phase and working towards financial independence, we get into how you can get there quicker AND also enjoy the process and not get burned out as you're working your way towards it. If you are already financially independent or are getting close to it, we tackle how to live a happy, fulfilling and meaningful life once you transition to the financially independent stage of your life. Questions Covered: One of my favourite things to do on the show is interview those that have achieved financial independence early, where they can retire if they choose. Then, I like to dissect and take lessons from that journey, that we can all learn from and apply to our own lives to help us get to financial independence quicker, and to actually be happy with the journey before and after achieving financial independence, where we can retire if we choose. There are lots of different paths to get there. For anybody hearing about you for the first time, can you tell us about your journey and how you got to early financial independence? I’ve been following your work for a long time, and it’s clear that you definitely don’t need to be working at all anymore, and definitely don’t need to be taking on any new income producing projects in your semi-retirement. Yet, it seems like you keep taking on significantly large projects, like the YouTube channel that you launched and worked a lot on to get to where it is today, and of course you have your giant book launch today that took you three years. All this takes up a good amount of time obviously, and I imagine it’s really not about the money anymore for you. So what keeps you going? Why not just relax, or at least scale things back a bit? How many years have you been financially independent now? What were some of the most critical lessons that you learned about financial independence? Was there anything that surprised you? You’ve interviewed over 450 entrepreneurs on your My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. Some were incredibly successful where they are most certainly financially independent and could just close up the business or sell it, and just live off the proceeds from their investments. Have you found commonalities in regards to what keeps them going? Why do they keep working? What are your sources of fulfilment in semi-retirement? and what have you found to generate the most meaning in your life after hitting financial independence? From those that you interviewed, have you noticed any patterns in terms of what tends to add the most to that feeling of fulfilment, purpose, and happiness once money is no longer the priority? Our Guest: Steve Chou Steve's New Book: The Family First Entrepreneur Steve is a highly recognized influencer and speaker in the e-commerce space. His blog, MyWifeQuitHerJob.com has been featured in Forbes, Inc, The New York Times, Entrepreneur and MSNBC. His podcast, My Wife Quit Her Job, is one of the top 25 marketing shows on all of Apple Podcasts, and he and his wife run a 7 figure e-commerce store called BumblebeeLinens.com Steve also runs one of my favourite marketing podcasts here.