I need a new career that will lead to financial freedom.

[Mrmoneypeachfuzz]

Hello, my name is Tyson. I’m 34. Newly married, no kids. Currently living in Hawaii. Some college, yoga and massage certificates. I need help deciding what career path to choose. Ideally, it would have location freedom, pay well enough to achieve early retirement and would require 2 years or less of schooling. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your thoughtful responses.

[LAGuy]

Wow, well that's open ended. But let's start with the biggy. Do you often tell people, "I can't do math." If so, can't help you.

[Mrmoneypeachfuzz]

No, I do not often say that.

[MrUpwardlyMobile]

Let’s start with where you are now. What are you earning?

[JustGettingStarted1980]

Why don't you start your own business in personal lifestyle management,? Focus on both 1:1 massage (while building up your business to have others do that massage) as well as 1:1 yoga sessions (ditto). There are likely an infinite number of clients in tourist-friendly Hawaii.

JGS

[MrThatsDifferent]

Tyson, read some of the main articles by Mr Money Miustache. He’s got 2 posts about jobs that pay over $50k.  Then you need to understand that as long as you’re saving at least 50% of your income, you can most likely become financially independent in 10 years. The trick is to keep your expenses down. That means tracking your expenses and then finding ways to reduce them.  The other trick is to invest your savings in things that will accelerate their growth. Again, all of that information is in his articles.  Read through them, start with the most popular ones. Yoga and massage can both be well paying and transportable careers as well.

[Tom Bri]

I went with nursing. 2-year degree (if you have the pre-reqs done), total location freedom once you have the degree. Get licensed in one state and it's routine to re-license in any other. Pay is decent. I live in an area where nurse pay is fairly low, and make a bit over 50K. I could easily shop myself around and make more, a lot more if I did travel nursing.

You have to be able to get all 'A's and 'B's in Algebra, Chemistry, Anatomy, Microbiology before any nursing school will consider accepting you. It's a great career for men. High demand.

[BuildingmyFIRE]

This is not the question you asked, but I highly recommend that you start by reading The Bogleheads Guide to Investing, which will give you a pretty good roadmap for how to get to financial freedom, and the Millionaire Next Door, which provides pretty good reinforcement that a majority of FI people are not living high on the hog.  The same author who wrote Millionaire Next Door wrote a subsequent book, the name of which I'm now forgetting, but a key takeaway is that a large segment of wealthy folks started their own businesses.  If you have a background in massage and yoga and you live in Hawaii, it may be that what you need is some education on how to run your own business.  There are some great free online courses if you don't actually need a piece of paper in your hand and you just want the education.  Then you'll need to come up with a business plan and find some seed money.  Hope that helps.