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Hi, and welcome to the Longview. I'm Christine Ben's Director of Personal Finance for Morningstar, Inc.

And I'm Jeff Battack, Global Director of Manager Research for Morning Star Research Services.

Our guest on the podcast today is Chris Mamula. Chris blogs on the website, Can I Retire Yet?

He has also co-written a book called Choose FI, Your Blueprint to Financial Independence, which was published in 2019.

Chris is loosely part of the fire or financial independence retire early movement,

but he brings a fresh perspective to the concept.

Chris, thanks so much for joining us on The Longview.

Thanks for having me.

It's good to be here.

We want to talk about the fire movement generally, but before we get into that, I think we'd

like to delve into your personal story and your personal experience with early retirement.

So your career was in physical therapy. Let's talk about some of the factors that influenced

you to retire from that career when you were just 41.

Yeah, so I started my career in 2001,

and it's kind of hard when you're growing up, and I made that decision when I was 18, and you kind of think that's what you want to do with the rest of your life. And there was certain aspects of

being a physical therapist that were very rewarding. You're helping people on a daily basis,

...