If so, what were the key ingredients or tactics you used to make this work?

Seems like a low risk strategy for you to start taking action on your dreams, which is the crucial ingredient towards reaching FI. 

I think the freedom of not paying your primary mortgage would be a huge stress relief and allow you to deploy cash quicker in the future and feel safer taking risks when you know your own living situation is covered.On the rental side, I know the magic ingredient in real estate is time and the sooner you get properties, the sooner they appreciate and are paid off by tenants and 5+ rentals 20-30 years from now would definitely be worth more than the one primary.Would love anyone's thoughts on how you would go about this situation!

Baking a CakeYou can read up on what a cake is, what goes in a cake and go stock up on a bunch of ingredients.  

Failure is the required ingredient.

It would be more the owner of a restaurant hires a good chef, and then tells the chef what to cook and what ingredients to use.

To echo all of the above tips, the key ingredients to all of this is consistency. 

There is 3 primary components, ingredients, required to achieve such elevation of self in financial success your speaking of. 

Until we see 6 month of inventory, 25+% of listings expire without a sale and the average sale taking 150 days or more you don't have the ingredients for a market crash defined as more than a 5% correction.Will we see corrections like in Austin, where an exuberance of appreciation sorts itself out?

However, investing is a bit like cooking; cash flow is just one of the ingredients needed to keep things moving, but it’s important to consider other factors to make it a tasty dish.