It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try, I'm just saying we need advise for the rest of us. If you're not in that 1% group that will make it big at a young age or can retire early, I propose the pseudo-retirement.
I'm middle-aged and slowly but surely optimizing my expenses. Paying down the mortgage. Optimizing the energy use of our home. Going from 2 cars down to 1. Buying extremely durable goods. Cutting useless daily expenses.
The idea is to bring expenses down to such a manageable level so that much less income is needed to keep everything going. Somewhere in the age range of 50-60, we pseudo-retire. We switch to a simple job nearby.
We're in our forties and could already make it on 2 minimum wage jobs right now. We still have a lot of room to cost optimize and if we really stretch it, 1.5 minimum wage jobs in 5 years is on the table, as well as 1 minimum wage job in 10 years. Quite likely we'll go for 2 x 3-4 days/week jobs, but even 2 x full-time would be fine.
The main motivation for this strategy is the very high retirement age (about 70-71) by the time we get there but also to get out of our demanding, stressful jobs. They're frying our brains and sanity.