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May 30 - June 24, 2020
To thrive in an ever-globalizing world, you must do what others do not do and go where others will not go.
Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, most of my friends supported the local sports teams. I never cared much for sports and I never quite understood why everyone in one place would universally choose to support the same teams.
We all have parts of our lives and businesses that could be improved by merely walking across some imaginary line called a border.
When you objectively evaluate places to park your cash, Singapore comes up at the top of almost every list.
“Three Flag Theory,” which suggested that those seeking sovereign freedom do three things: Have citizenship somewhere that does not tax income earned outside the country. This was the personal safe haven. Have businesses and investments in stable, low- or no-tax countries. These are called the business havens. Live as a tourist in countries that support your values, rather than society’s. These countries are the lifestyle havens, or ‘playgrounds.’
And yet, the money we pay in taxes pays the salaries of people we do not respect, for violations of human rights with which we do not agree, and for wars we do not want.
His forty-year plan involved a unique form of investment in the potential of the country itself.
Going where you are wanted is a crucial part of going where you’re treated best.
Countries most people have never heard of will use low-tax, business-friendly, people-friendly policies to vault themselves to the same level in our lifetime, and you can be part of it.
A lot of the multi-million dollar earners I have worked with say that routine is one of the most important elements in their ability to focus and achieve success.
My first base was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a great base, especially because it gives you access to two airlines that fly everywhere very affordably, plus quick access to Singapore for even more options. KL is also a great base because you can bank and store your assets in neighboring Singapore while living in the more interesting and cost-effective Malaysia.
The Base City + Focus Cities Strategy
The benefit of having focus cities is that you can develop habits there.
This is the way that we boring business types, unable to pole vault or compose a concerto, can obtain exceptional citizenship for contributing to another country. Instead of adding to the art and sports scene of Singapore, we can help create the next Singapores of the world.
The concept of ‘world schooling’ is one that has been catching on quickly as an increasing number of expats and world travelers discover that traditional schooling no longer suits their needs or those of their children.
As my friend Taylor Pearson discusses in his book The End of Jobs, the days of getting ahead by hanging a sheepskin on your wall are quickly coming to the end. The children you give birth to today will enter a totally different economy than the one we were educated for. Numbing indoctrination by college degree is no longer the meal ticket it once was.
If we raise our children as if it were 1993, they will be as ill-equipped to compete in the world as a child raised learning inefficient farming practices after the dawn of the industrial revolution.
I was blown away. There I was with four interesting and smart women and the entire interaction was effortless. In the United States, I had always felt that it was too much effort to make anything happen, like I always needed to be entertaining someone to get their attention. It was the complete opposite in this situation and has been with so many of the women I have met while traveling. Dating has become effortless. It is possible to find people who make it easy to converse and create a relationship. By traveling to more places, you are expanding your pool and increasing the possibility of
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That is the most powerful part of Nomad dating: you have the ability to reset your mindset and open yourself up to the possibility of something real happening with someone you truly care about who shares your worldview and meets your wildest expectations.
Takeaway: You can enhance your dating pool and find the kind of people you can effortlessly connect with by choosing to date overseas. Once you find someone to create a life with, there is no need to give up the Nomad Capitalist lifestyle. In fact, giving birth to and educating your children on the road will give them a leg up in life and will create more opportunities for you to plant flags.
We have been trained to think that, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes,” but that is far from the truth.
After all, you would not give away that $10,000-a-month AdSense website, so why would your company in the United States simply gift it to your shiny new offshore company? You wouldn’t, and the tax man knows that. If you have hard assets that you could sell, you will need extra professional advice on how to handle your new company.
Now, up-and-coming markets may be up-and-coming for any number of reasons. Real estate in some parts of Italy doubled in the two or three years following adoption of the euro.
But I am never going to improve the wellbeing of the folks in Guatemala or the United States or anywhere else by living in a hut so that we can all be equal. We cannot poverty ourselves into equality.
Estonia is one of the great Baltic success stories. All three Baltic countries offer something different, but Estonia in particular is working hard to cater to business people and was the first country in the region to introduce a flat tax in 1994. Estonia continues to be the clear economic leader in the Baltics and was ranked as the most entrepreneurial country in the European Union according to the World Economic Forum.
Montenegro is very open to business and foreign investors. For entrepreneurs looking to do business on the ground, options are somewhat limited to tourism due to the country’s size and small population of only half a million people. But they are very open and eager to do business. Literally, I met with the prime minister’s right-hand man to discuss investment promotion. That does not happen in every country I travel to, but you will find that there are a lot of open-door policy small countries like this.
Macedonia is another good country that is trying very hard to stand out. Geopolitics are making things a little difficult for them, but the country is becoming more and more transparent and attractive for business. Macedonia is very well-located close to other markets where you could expand your business. More importantly, nobody knows that they copied Estonia’s zero corporate tax model in which you pay zero tax on profit until you pay yourself.
Georgia is the kind of place where everything is easy. If you have a big enough idea, they are open to hearing it, there is very little bureaucracy, everyone you deal with in the government and elsewhere is young, and it is easy to get land. Everything is easy. The fees are low, taxes are just 15% and the government is open and eager to make things happen.
residency in Belgium can be obtained by anyone willing to start a small business there. There are no official requirements, but the most important factor in getting approved is to provide a good business plan, which should usually include hiring at least one part-time employee.
Lithuania will grant you residence if you hire just three people and make a small initial contribution to your company in the low-five figure range.
Portugal’s Golden Visa program is, in some ways, even more attractive than Bulgaria’s program if you compare the requirement to hire ten people at face value. Portugal has higher taxes, so I would probably just run a staffing agency through the country rather than live there. However, if you prefer to live in Portugal, you can get a visa and pay the higher tax rates.
When I go to a new country, I start by hiring a great lawyer. I overpay them. They then introduce me to other people that I need to connect with – real estate agents, developers, government officials, the ‘who’s who’ of the local entrepreneurship scene. My lawyer then helps me figure out how to place job ads and does stuff that even a lawyer usually would not do. He or she becomes my point man.
After years of doing this, I prefer the risks of frontier markets and all things offshore in comparison to the risk of becoming entrenched in systems that no longer work.
But are you really on the edge of the new economy? Perhaps you feel you have pushed so hard and come so far that you have made your way into an entirely different world of opportunity. And you have, because everything that you have done up to this point is risky. But why stop now? Why content yourself with being an entrepreneur in the West when there is more opportunity in the rest of the world?
Understand the Government’s Hot Buttons
