I'm in the same boat and doing many things to get there.
On the one hand i do what Tonyvee says, i save as much money as possible and invest it. Just 3 minutes per month to put it in some index ETFs, only passive investing.
On the other hand im also working on 'starting my own business'. This year May i went from 5 days a week to 4 days a week at my slave job to free up some time to things about what to do with my live in general. One day in the week does not sound like a lot of extra time, but i have found that you can actually do A LOT in a day, especially when you do things that you like/love to do.
I have used that time to finish my B&B, i have a pretty big garage which had no real purpose. So i remodelled it to a room with a bathroom. Since august i have started renting it out, and had already 40 nights booked, so it is doing very well. I'm also using my day off to produce, in this case in the garden. I'm turning my lawn into vegetable garden and working on increasing the fertility. I haul horsesh*t into it (for free) and hope to grow some more food next year. I'm also thinking about maybe making natural hard soaps and selling them. We spent quite some time looking for them and locally there seems to be nobody making it. These are some of the small things i doing now, and i will see where it goes.
Basically my 'philosophy' here is to be able to do as much things as possible myself. I see it as my hobby to do everything for as little money as possible. When you do this, you will learn many new skills and all these skills will have added value imo. Also you will save a lot of money (i think), but it will be small amounts that are difficult to track. For instance, i spent 14 euros to buy some buttons and elastic bands to fix my garden lounge set pillow casings, instead of buying new. The same applies to sewing on a button on your pants, or fixing a whole in your shirt instead of buying new ones. Closing a hole in your biketire, changing your own car oil, instead of hiring a plumber try to unclog your own sink, instead of buying a (very expensive) big garden planter buy some wood and screws and make your own. Buying finished products is for chumps, only buy raw materials ;-). When trying all these new things you will also notice what you really like to do, and that might be something that you could use to start a business. After all, if you like doing something, you will eventually be good at it. And i think you are doing REAL things, everyday things, things that will always be needed. You will automatically be NOT working on trendy/nonsense things that will blow over in a couple months. If you like doing one of these things, you will have a possible stable market. People will also need to eat, need somebody to fix there car/house etc. People do not always need trendy/nonsense. The other route would be to find a whole in the market and fill it, but i think there is a very big chance that you will end up doing something you do not like and/or doing trendy stuff.
My wife is Spanish, and likes language. Since we live in the Netherlands she has an easy market. She started her own Spanish teaching business ~3 years ago, because she couldn't find any job at the time. It really took at least 1 year to get the ball rolling. But we really notice that when you have made a nice name for yourself people will find you. When she started she had to look for students and did a lot of promotion, but now people are finding her. She is not making a full time living on our own yet, but she will get there i think.
So i would say that you have to start DOING. I personally, and my wife also, tend to spend to much time thinking about everything. But then you end up doing nothing and also learning nothing. The real learning start when you DO things. Do not think you can just jump from employment into your own business, it has to grow slowly. Which is nice, since then you can have the 'safety' of your employment and work on your business in your spare time.
I also see/read a lot that people that are self-sufficient might not have 1 business, but many small business. So i try to focus on making/saving money everywhere i can and maybe after doing that for some years i will make a full salary.
I got pretty inspired by mr moneymoustache. He has a blog where he discusses FI and ways to get there. He has a lot of good ideas there.
I really like discussing/thinking about these things. So if you want to discuss more specific topics, let me know :-)
