Jamal Robinson has known since he was 17 that he wanted to retire early. Last year, he made it happen by quitting his corporate tech job at age 39. He now has no debt and $3.6 million across his investments, savings and checking accounts.

Robinson, now 40, has made a few big life changes as he's settled into early retirement. In recent years, the Georgia-born American has lived in Mexico City and Paris; he moved to Dubai in April 2024 and has been there ever since.

As Robinson adjusted his lifestyle and spending, he realized one big misconception about leaving the working world behind: "Retirement is not a destination," he tells CNBC Make It. "It's really a new phase of life."

"A lot of people think that they're going to retire, and then after that they're pretty much done and they can ride off into the sunset," he says.

He likes this analogy instead: "Retiring is like getting married. If you plan all your life to get married, but you only planned up until the wedding, you would be sorely missing a lot of things that are going to be really important in your life."

For example, many people work in jobs that provide a sense of purpose. Once they stop working, they may lose that sense of identity. So, it's important to develop pursuits that you can do in retirement to find that similar feeling of fulfillment, Robinson says.

For Robinson, that means pouring his time and energy into his creative interests, like DJ-ing, producing music, writing a book, continuing to produce his podcast and possibly going back to school to study film.

He's also having to get comfortable with not plotting out his every move.

"I want to focus on myself [and my] spiritual growth," he says. "When people ask me what's next, I'm really focused on being more present and not trying to think and calculate about the future."

Recovering from a lifetime of aggressive earning and saving

Another big misconception Robinson learned is that the habits that led you to career or financial success while you were working won't necessarily "take you to the next level" in your retired life.

For example, he says, "saving as much money as you can, spending all of your time [earning] money is not going to make a lot of sense in retirement, because now you have ample time and there is no need to trade off on your relationships or your health or various things to be able to make enough money."

"Not working" isn't exactly in Robinson's nature. He got his first job as a church janitor when he was 14, then worked in fast food through high school and college. His first full-time job after college was in the power and energy industry and paid $41,000 per year. He eventually transitioned into tech, and in his last job brought in $1.1 million a year working as an executive focused on generative AI.

He saved and invested aggressively, stashing up to 90% of his pay, to fuel his retirement dreams.

Robinson says he's spending his early retirement repairing his scarcity mindset around money and actually using it to enjoy his life.

"I still, even to this day, view myself as this minimum-wage guy making $5.15 an hour," he says. "I would make a $1 million a year, and I would struggle to spend over $50 on an item."

Part of his new perspective comes from reading the book "Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins, which encourages readers to spend and give away their money in impactful ways within their lifetimes.

As such, Robinson plans to live off at least 5% of his investment portfolio a year, which is about $185,000 in 2025. That's much more than he's used to spending, but he's reconfiguring his habits to spend his money in meaningful ways, like on world travel and prioritizing his health and wellness.

Overall, as much as Robinson is proud of his early retirement, he says it's "important for people to think through what life looks like in retirement, and not just that retirement is a place that they get to and everything's perfect. It truly is just another phase in life. And a lot of things that existed before are still going to exist then, minus some of the work aspects."

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