I was still at school when I first came across the idea of passive income. Not as a slogan — as arithmetic. Money you’ve already earned can go out and earn more, whether you’re at your desk or asleep.

I couldn’t let it go. It reframes the whole problem. Work stops being the only lever you’ve got, and the goal stops being a bigger salary. The goal becomes owning enough that your assets cover your life for you.

That idea is why I studied finance, and why I’ve spent my whole career in advice. Nearly two decades on, it still gets me out of bed.

It’s a road I’m on myself, and it’s worth saying what it actually looks like for me. Financial independence has never meant stopping. It means working because I want to, with a small number of clients I genuinely enjoy working with. That’s the whole point — not escaping work, but choosing it.

So I’m not advising from the sidelines. The strategies I take clients through are the ones I use with my own money. Same principles, same discipline, same long game. It’s easy to recommend something you’d never do yourself.