Eighteen months ago we removed the need to work for a living. For us this meant we no longer needed to be employees (or contractors) for big business. And in turn this means we have taken back control. Control, at a very personal level.

Which I can assure you was, and still is, a bewildering joy. This is the source of said giddiness:

• We no longer have to sit in traffic, wasting precious heartbeats, every working day of our lives.
• We no longer have to fight for somewhere to park at work.
• We no longer have to stress about whether we’ve remembered our work passes to get into the building, or go to the toilet.
• We no longer need to go through the comical process of performance reviews.
• We no longer find our chests tightening with stress.
• We no longer need to feign interest at the latest announcement of re-organisations or corporate strategies.
• We no longer have to check phones for work emails at night or at weekends.
• We no longer care if it’s Monday. All days are equal.
• We no longer find ourselves, day in, day out sat next to endlessly negative co-workers.
• We no longer find ourselves working for managers foisted on us, people we had no choice in selecting.
• We no longer have to fight co-workers for the right to a day off.
• We no longer need to be woken by an alarm.
• We no longer find ourselves being told our job’s changed, you now need to commute to Germany, tough.
• We no longer have to do stuff which we consider to be unethical.
• We no longer sit at a desk, bored close to tears, watching a clock for permission to go elsewhere.
• We no longer have to queue for anything, we just go when everyone’s at work.
• We no longer stress about our jobs being made redundant, or outsourced abroad.

This is taking back control to me. This is what it means to be free.

Taking the steps needed to lift yourself onto the path to financial freedom are hard. The shift in mindset is hard. The learning about risk and investing is hard. The need to act differently to the people around you is hard. Something needs to pull you along and for us it was the things listed above. What will it be for you?

Cheers, Jay