The people I know who retired or are scheduled to retire the quickest
Cops.
Also military. Defined pension benefits and health care (such as it is) for the rest of your life. Of course, you must be in the military for 20+ years, which I'm guessing is not what the OP is looking for based on his/her other comments. :-)
Oh, and a practical question (for the US people) -- once you retire at, say, 40, what are you going to use for health insurance and does your retirement planning cover the medical costs?
I experienced this to some extent (a long story I won't go into here). For a while, we paid for a high-deductible plan on the state exchange since we were both relatively healthy and mainly looking to not be bankrupted should we experience a medical emergency or suddenly fall ill. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), our other income was just high enough that we didn't qualify for federal subsidies so we were paying over $400 per month for a bare-bones plan for my husband and me. Doable, but not ideal....definitely something people need to plan and budget for when considering early retirement.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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