Hello again fellow Steemers!

If you don't know me or haven't read one of my posts. I wrote a <a href="https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@kevinpham20/why-i-m-leaving-wordpress-for-steemit">post</a> that ended up in the top 10 Steemit trending posts yesterday. The post was about my plan to leave Wordpress for Steemit. 

<strong>To follow up on my promise, here's a popular article I wrote about life and work on my Wordpress blog (at the end I'll show you how Steem is helping me achieve my goals):</strong>

https://ridesharesabbaticaldotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/10612950_10153589338786091_3983256200664719710_n-e1467860641474.jpg

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This secret allowed me to retire early at the age of 29. But I'm going to warn you, if you clicked on this post expecting to learn a unique financial strategy that enabled me to save enough, over a short period of time, to never have to work again, you're in for a big disappointment.

Although saving was crucial to retiring, it wasn't the most important thing. In reality, I only had about a year's worth of expenses saved up prior to quitting my job, hardly enough to retreat to a tropical island and sip Mai Tais for the rest of my life.

Okay enough stalling. Here's the real secret to how I managed to retire early. Are you ready? Here it is:

<strong>I simply changed my definition of the word "retirement".</strong>

That's it.

I just changed my mindset. I changed what the word "retirement" meant to me and just like that, I was retired.

I changed what I believed was society's definition of retirement:

<strong>When you sacrifice 40 or 50 years of your life doing something you don't like, so you have enough money to do what you want...when you're old.</strong>

To my own personal definition of retirement:

<strong>When you stop doing what you think you're "supposed to do" and start doing what's uniquely right for you...today.</strong>

Once I adopted that frame of mind, I was free to do anything. I stopped looking to others to figure out what to do, instead I looked within, and the answers were obvious.

For all of you thinking to yourself, "This advice is unrealistic new age hippie bullshit!" I challenge you to <em>really</em> think about what I actually <em>did</em>:

<strong>I decided this wasn't for me, I saved for a year, I turned in my two weeks, and I walked out the door. </strong>Simple right? So if what I did was so simple, why do so few people do it?

Real financial hardship notwithstanding (I'm privileged as fuck btw), I think the real reason is that people are terrified of walking away from what's comfortable and familiar, and to instead, embrace the unknown.

If you feel that way, I'd tell you the idea of wasting your one life trying to live up to other people's expectations is a lot more terrifying.

Also you're not going to know what's right for you immediately. The purpose of the journey is to help you figure that out.

I came up with this definition after I was asked when I going back to corporate for the millionth time. My answer always was, "I don't plan to go back, I love my life right now, why would I go back?"

I realized I was already doing what I loved, which was traveling, writing, spending time with the people I love, and picking up gigs in the sharing economy. Why would I want to stop? It was at that point, I realized I was "retired."

You see, I'm not talking about retirement in the financial sense. Notice nowhere in my definition did I mention "money" or "not working."

I'm talking about something bigger than work and money. I'm talking about retirement as a state of mind. <strong>I'm challenging the fundamental premise behind the concept of "retirement" all together.</strong>

The premise that says you can't do what you really want until you've put in time doing what you're "supposed to do"...<strong>like everyone else</strong>.

The premise that has you waiting for the "perfect time" to do something bold. When that perfect time doesn't exist outside of <strong>today</strong>.

The premise that has you putting off making the most of your life today, knowing you can get hit by a bus <strong>tomorrow</strong>.

The premise that keeps you from living according to your unique truths, in exchange for the comfort that comes with <strong>conformity</strong>.

Don't get me wrong. <strong>The last thing I'm telling you to do is to quit your job to travel and freelance like I did</strong>. That was unique to my situation and it's probably not right for you. Especially if you have a family to feed, student loans up to your eyeballs, or actually like your job. And don't look to me or anyone else to tell you what's right for you, <em>only you know that</em>.

However, what I am telling you to do is to stop waiting to "retire" from situations that are not healthy for you and your loved ones. Whether it's retiring from toxic relationships, destructive habits, an unhealthy lifestyle, or an inauthentic life.

My hope is that once you retire from whatever it is that's making you miserable, you'll never have to retire again. For in the process of "retiring," you'll make space to create a life you love, a life that's uniquely true to you, a life you'd never want to quit.

Thank god I did. If I didn't, I'd probably still be sitting in my cubicle writing some mindless report, instead of writing what you just read.

<strong>Update 7/15: I wrote this post 11 days ago on Wordpress, got 1,000+ views, and made $0 dollars. So instead of continuing to do what I felt added the most value to the world (sharing my thoughts), I had to go back to driving for Uber & Lyft to make enough to pay the rent.</strong>

<strong>Upon discovering Steemit and posting 3 articles. I've made over $2,000 dollars. Steemit is validation to everything I wrote in this post. Validation that if you follow your intuition, trust that by creating value for others, you'll be taken care of. My advice for all you new Steemers out there is don't ask how you can make the most money, instead, ask how you can create the most value, if you do that, the money will follow...</strong>