The ultimate promise: work less and play more. But, what if that were truly possible? And not just “one day” when we are able to retire, but right now. Think about this, what if you could retire this year?

This question never crossed my mind before I found real estate investing.

Sound familiar?

Along this path, I discovered that as I began to redefine retirement, I began moving through three steps. These three steps can help you reframe your beliefs around retirement and make attaining it easier and quicker.

3 Steps to Redefine Retirement

1. Shift your mindset to retiring now.
2. Replace the W-2 income and get money working for you
3. Migrate fully passive real estate investments.

Let’s look at how you can reframe your ideas of retiring to start freeing up your time faster for living the early retirement dream.

Traditional Retirement: Postponing Our Dreams For “One Day”

In our culture, we learn about the concept of retirement at a very young age. We are encouraged to devise our careers and financial lives to work towards retirement — which will come sometime in our 60’s, after about 40-45 years of full time work. 

We all have different visions for what retirement means, but for me, it meant that I would be too old to do the things I love. Instead, I would spend all my time taking care of grandkids, volunteering, reading the paper, going on daily walks and maybe traveling in an RV. 

Not super motivating, to say the least.

This bland and generic picture of being too old, weak and tired to do any of the big things on my bucket list (ski in Japan, surf in Bali…you get the idea) only pushed me to find an alternative way to live, and even made me scrap the idea of retiring altogether. 

I felt that if I’m going to work for 45 years, I might as well find something I loved to do. While I found a career I loved, the amount of my time working seemed totally unbalanced with my other priorities. I’d never find a balance with a healthy lifestyle or pursuing other hobbies and passions.

Redefining What It Means to Retire

I began to think about other ways that I could make money that wasn’t just linked to the bi-weekly paycheck — and that’s when my whole concept of retirement changed. 

It began by thinking beyond the typical 9-5 job.

I started shifting my mindset in a big way. I realized that money could emerge from other sources and that there was literally no limit to how much money I could make for a chunk of my time and effort. 

I started thinking about where I could make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. Sometimes, this has meant doing quite a bit of work up front but with long-lasting and increasing returns with little or no work in the future. 

Then, it hit me.

It was all about time. Being wealthy is about having more time.

Steps To Getting More Time Now.

Steps 1: Shift Your Mindset to Retiring Now

Mindset shifts sound the easiest, but can actually be really difficult. In fact, most people skip this step then wonder why they never moved into the next stages. You have to actually believe that there is a way to have more time freedom. To have Wednesday to Sunday as your weekend.

It begins with trusting that there is a better way.

I knew that I had way more to offer the world than to be stuck behind a desk for five straight days doing work for someone else. I knew that there had to be a way I could take more time off now, while my body can still run marathons or while I can teach my kids to ride a bike. I also believed that the world needs my time and voice to stand up for the causes I believe in.

This step is all about  telling yourself that it is possible. Then believing yourself.

Step 2: Replace the W-2 Income.

Relying on a paycheck is like a ball and chain. Your next goal toward redefining retirement is freedom from a W-2 job. Specifically, you need to stop trading your time for money (i.e. an hourly wage or a yearly salary).

At this stage, we use our financial freedom number as our target.

Work backwards with how much money you need to comfortably live right now. This is your current financial freedom number. As you age your expenses will likely increase. We’ll get to that in the next step.

We believe passive real estate investing provides the best source of alternative income streams out there. Real estate investing can provide great returns, diversification, and reliable cashflow as well as many other benefits. However, to be truly passive involves aligning yourself with the right partnership (the ones who will do the heavy lifting).

Two Structures for Passive Real Estate Investing 

Passive real estate investing happens when a deal is large enough that a team must seek outside funding to make it happen. There are two main groups here, the operators (who do all the work) and the investors (who bring the initial funds). These deals are usually set up as syndicated funds. Investors review the deal prior to joining and once paperwork is signed and funds are transferred, they don’t take any part in the management of the asset. Monthly or quarterly updates will be sent to keep investors updated, but mostly they just wait for their checks.

There are also Joint Venture (JV) Partnerships where both parties are technically active, but where the operator takes on the majority of the day-to-day work and the capital partner provides the funds and input at key decision points. While not 100% passive, these opportunities can require very little time from the capital partner while offering a more personal relationship – and even the potential for higher returns.

Take a look at those big buildings next time you drive through town. Apartment complexes from just a handful of units to hundreds. Or industrial complexes with shipping and receiving departments. These were likely all purchased by people like you and me. And that is just what we can see. We’ll dive into how we use these structures to become the bank in real estate investing next.

Basically, more real estate is purchased in these two types of structures than by individuals. It is a big world full of opportunity out there.

Notes as a Perfect Form of Passive Real Estate Investing

This is where investing in real estate secured notes has launched us into retirement quicker than we thought possible. Note investing provides amplified returns (among other benefits), which means more dollars out there working for us. 

Investing in Notes has provided us:

• Short to medium-term investments that accelerate our wealth building
• Cash flowing assets to replace our income
• Zero property management or maintenance

Notes purchased with joint venture partnerships help investors learn about this little-known secret asset class in real estate investing. Funds allow operators to purchase bigger quantities of notes at a steeper discount. As a member of our Flow State Investor Circle (its free), we’ll schedule a call to discuss these types of options and whether they are a good fit for your investing strategy.

This second step will soon feel like “pre-retirement” where your work involves managing your money and assets and how you are putting your money to work. 

You’ll spend the most time in this step on your journey to redefining retirement. But don’t get trapped in thinking that it takes decades of work. And best yet, it is all on our own schedule. In fact while in this step, I’m able to work about 20 hours a week. 

I’m already feeling semi-retired here. (It is that mindset shift that allows me to do this.)

As we get some traction in this step, we can travel and go on adventures while working on the side at our leisure and on our own schedule. Instead of looking for a higher paying job and sacrificing our personal goals, we are focusing on how our money is making money. We are accelerating our wealth building.

Step 3: Shift to Fully Passive Real Estate Investing and Full-time Freedom

Here is where we set ourselves up to:

1. Never run out of money
2. Increase our passive income to match any increases in expenses.

In step 3, you have fully reached your base financial freedom number through your cash flowing assets. No, you’ll shift even more toward passive wealth building vehicles that require less and less of your direct oversight.

For us, this might mean holding our Re-performing and Performing Notes longer instead of selling them for a one-time profit. 

Think of this as going for buy and hold cash flow instead of fix and flip profits…only no tenants, no property maintenance, and better returns. 

As you spend minimal amounts of time managing your cash flowing assets, they can also be growing, or appreciating in value. The time you do spend on finances is strategizing how to use your existing equity to keep growing. Thus, your income can still increase well into your “retirement years” instead of dwindling down to zero in the traditional view of retirement.

The best part of all three steps is that they are not time-bound. It doesn’t take 40 years to get to step 3. In fact, we expect to move in and out of steps 2 and 3 as we discover new ways to grow our wealth and serve our true purpose.

We like to think of it as retiring early and often. 

Retirement As A State of Mind and Not A Time In Life

Managing money, just like your health, family, or relationships, can also be fulfilling. Even in full-blown retirement, everyone will take small amounts of time to manage their money. 

Would you rather be monitoring your funds as they get smaller and smaller or would you rather be deciding which passive real estate investing vehicle you’ll be growing your wealth in next. 

For me, retirement means that we’ve built multiple streams of predictable and secure income to cover my living expenses (and more), as well as continue to grow my wealth.

In other words, we will never run out of money and we’ll have a lot to give away.

I can travel for months at a time. I can start a nonprofit in my community. I can follow my passion to start a new business. I can spend time with my kids as they grow up. 

This is financial freedom. This is retirement.

You can redefine retirement. Make it a state of mind that can happen sooner. Because with plentiful wealth and an abundance of time, we believe that people will be free to do great things in this world.