The conventional playbook sounds reasonable: save 10-15% of your income, invest in index funds, and wait until you're 67 to enjoy life. But let's do the math. If you're earning $60K and saving 15%, you're putting away $9,000 a year. At a 7% return, that's roughly $900K after 30 years. Sounds good until you realize you spent your best years waiting for "someday." Here's what traditional advisors won't tell you: their model depends on your money staying invested for decades because that's how THEY get paid. Every year your money sits in their funds, they collect fees. They have zero incentive to help you retire early. Meanwhile, the wealthy play a different game entirely. They use leverage, tax strategies, and income-generating assets to build wealth faster. They house hack to eliminate their biggest expense. They travel hack to see the world for pennies on the dollar. They geo-arbitrage to cut their cost of living in half overnight. These aren't secrets.. they're just strategies that don't make Wall Street any money, so you'll never hear about them from a traditional advisor. The real question isn't "How do I save more?" It's "How do I need less?" When you reduce the amount you need to retire, you collapse your timeline from 30 years to 10 or even 5. That's the game-changer.