Its been interesting, that's for sure.
The positives:
I am more open with feedback at work, I developed the "superman" theory, which is I'm no longer worried there is someone waiting in the wings to rip their shirt off and reveal a superman logo and take my job. I'm one of a hundred people in my position in the company and I know I'm in the top quartile of performance and ability.
We went through a major medical issue with my wife that dragged on for much of 2017, so many other people going through this also had major financial stress and job worries. I didn't. I focused on whats important, did what I could for work, but also had a good team I had built and trust.
I am getting more disciplined with my schedule at work. There are things I like to do and things I don't like to do that don't really have an immediate impact, its more long term business development and long term political capital in the company. Since both are becoming less valuable each month, I do less of the things I don't enjoy (howdy doodie calls with existing clients with one of my employees, after work networking events, client lunches). I will be better in 2018, I've just decided to use breakfast for business development meetings and stop by my house to have lunch with my spouse.
I'm getting looser on spending. There is such a ridiculous amount of compensation in my last fifteen months that some of the small stuff really doesn't matter. I'm even debating paying a housekeeper to clean our house 2x/month.
Our company has an incredible deferred comp plan and now that I've hit my FI number and have good taxable savings, I've ramped that amount way up and defer 40% of my comp pre-tax. It then gets paid out over 15 years monthly when I separate service and grows in a Total Stock Market Index in the meantime.
The negatives:
I know I'm potentially giving the best year of my health for money I don't really need. That's very challenging to stomach. I still have two potential dates in my head, July 4th 2018 or March 2019. I can't get that out of my head every week. I'm having OMY syndrome and will chronicle this in detail on a post I'm working on.
Scheduling out my vacation is frustrating because I only have so many days, even though I always do some minimal work on vacation (there are just yes/no decisions that are easy for me to make quick). I enjoy having flexible schedules.
I'm still frustrated about my particular job level, even though I shouldn't be. I'm outperforming peers and I know they're compensated higher with less responsibility. My spouse reminds me constantly that I'm insane to even worry given what I make, but alas comparison is the thief of joy.
I really wish I could tell my boss and a few corporate sponsors, they've been great advocates but there's a fine line to walk between showing interest in the next level job and just telling them I want to complete the RE of FI. If I'm let go, which is possible by letting them know, I walk away from just under half a million dollars due to me over the next fifteen months (we get a huge chunk of our comp in Q1 each year). It would be nice for my management chain to know, they could send the restricted stock pool to other coworkers who would actually see that money. I'm going to forfeit $300,000+ of restricted stock back to the company when I resign.
I always know there's more I can do and make a bigger impact, I just don't want my job/position to define who I am.
The person I was grooming to replace me just accepted a promotion to another team, so there's that. I care about my employees and who they will work for when I'm gone.
As you can see, these are all first world problems.