Most doctors are high achievers. You’ve built a career that required sacrifice, discipline, and years of delayed gratification. The result is often a high income—but also a lingering question that doesn’t get answered in medical school:
How do you know when you’ve reached “enough”?
That question sits at the center of what Terra Firma calls the Freedom Point: the moment your assets can sustain the life you want—so you can work because you want to, not because you have to.
The Freedom Point isn’t just about retirement. It’s about control, margin, and peace of mind. And for many high earners, the hardest part isn’t the math—it’s clarity.
What the Freedom Point Really Means
The Freedom Point is the intersection of:
- Your lifestyle vision (what you want life to look like)
- Your monthly cost of freedom (what it takes to live that vision)
- Your investable assets and cash flow strategy (how you fund it without running out)
It’s the transition from “I need my job” to “my portfolio supports my life.”
And for doctors who love what they do, it often becomes a different kind of goal: the ability to scale back, say no, or practice on your terms.
Why High Earners Get Stuck Defining the Number
Many people freeze when asked to name their Freedom Point because they’ve never had to define it.
In medicine, the default path is:
- train longer
- earn more
- keep going
- postpone the deeper questions
For high performers, “more” becomes the operating system. But “more” is not a destination. Eventually, burnout or life transitions force the question:
What am I actually building toward?
Without that answer, it’s easy to keep accumulating without ever feeling safe or satisfied.
Start With the Real Question: What Does Freedom Cost Each Month?
A practical way to unlock clarity is to think in monthly cash flow, not just net worth.
Ask yourself:
- If I had complete freedom, what would I do with my time?
- What would my ideal day look like?
- What would I stop doing immediately?
- What would I do more of?
- What experiences, travel, generosity, hobbies, or family goals matter most?
Then translate that into a number:
How much spendable money per month would fund that life in today’s dollars?
For some families, that number is $10,000/month.
For others, it’s $30,000/month or more.
There’s no universal answer—only an honest one.
A Simple Conservative Formula to Estimate Your Freedom Point
Once you know your annual lifestyle cost, you can back into a conservative Freedom Point.
- Take your monthly number
- Multiply by 12 = annual number
- Multiply annual number by 23 = rough investable asset target (conservative)
Why 23? It’s a simplified way to estimate sustainable returns without relying on aggressive assumptions. It also frames a scenario where you’re not forced to drain principal just to live.
Example:
- $30,000/month → $360,000/year
- $360,000 × 23 ≈ $8.28M
Example:
- $10,000/month → $120,000/year
- $120,000 × 23 ≈ $2.76M
This isn’t meant to replace a real plan. It’s meant to give your brain a starting point—so the Freedom Point becomes a solvable problem instead of a vague concept.
“Die With Zero” vs. Legacy Planning: Two Different Roads
Your Freedom Point also depends on what you want your money to do after you.
Some people want to spend intentionally and “die with zero.”
Others want to build generational wealth and leave a legacy.
Many want a balance: leave enough to expand opportunity, not enough to remove purpose.
Whatever you choose, the key is intentionality—because legacy planning without structure can create the opposite of what you want.
Practice Owners Need to Think Differently About Freedom
For doctors who own a practice (or any business), the Freedom Point has an added layer:
A large portion of net worth may be concentrated in the business.
That creates both opportunity and risk:
- the business can fund freedom faster
- but it can also be vulnerable to market shifts, regulation, staffing crises, or industry collapse
That’s why many practice owners benefit from converting business success into diversified, investable assets—so freedom doesn’t depend on staying in the business forever.
What If You Have “Enough” but Still Don’t Feel Free?
This is more common than people admit.
Some doctors reach financial milestones and still feel:
- uncertainty
- scarcity
- anxiety about stepping back
- fear of losing identity
- lack of clarity about what’s next
That’s why freedom is not only financial. It’s also purpose-driven.
Without a vision, people drift. Or worse—they unconsciously create chaos so they have something to solve.
A better question becomes:
What’s my next chapter—and what kind of life am I building capacity for?
A powerful approach is creating a family vision:
- What do we want to build together?
- What impact do we want to have?
- What does an ideal year look like for our household?
Purpose is the difference between reaching freedom and actually enjoying it.
The Bottom Line
Defining your Freedom Point requires two things:
- Clarity on the life you want
- A plan that turns cash flow and assets into freedom
Start with your ideal day, week, and year. Put a number on it. Then build toward it intentionally.
If you’d like to learn more about this topic, watch our episode of Wealth Mavericks where we discuss further: https://youtu.be/l-OZ2kHzFEA?si=MtRHwlrrFY4Ef0BX