Having $1M may count as being HNW, but in expensive locales that may be woefully inadequate, especially if you include your primary residence equity.

For example, in San Francisco, the median home price is over $1.2M (https://www.zillow.com/home-values/20330/san-francisco-ca/). If you bought a home there 20-odd years ago when home prices there were 3x lower (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS41884Q) and have paid off all but $200k of your mortgage, you'd have $1M in your home equity. However, since this doesn't provide any income, it wouldn't provide any financial independence.

A far better measure of wealth is your investable net worth, since that's what you can use to create passive income. Once your passive income is higher than your expenses, you're financially independent.