2021-06-23_Dont_Leave_Your_Home_Country
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00:00:30.620 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:00:31.860 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:33.520 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need
00:00:35.620 | to live a rich and meaningful life now
00:00:37.660 | while building a plan for financial freedom
00:00:39.240 | in 10 years or less.
00:00:41.040 | My name is Josh Rasheeds, I'm your host.
00:00:42.540 | Today on the show, I'm gonna talk to you
00:00:44.380 | about why you probably shouldn't leave your home country,
00:00:48.580 | why you should probably stay put where you are.
00:00:52.840 | In the most recent Friday Q&A episode,
00:00:54.920 | I dedicated the last 20 minutes of that podcast
00:00:58.020 | to simply sharing with you in a rather casual way
00:01:01.220 | some things that I really appreciate
00:01:02.820 | about the United States of America, where I currently am.
00:01:05.520 | Haven't been back in a while, but here I am right now
00:01:08.320 | in Florida right now, and just,
00:01:10.260 | there are a lot of things that I appreciate
00:01:12.340 | about the United States of America broadly
00:01:14.940 | and Florida specifically.
00:01:16.400 | And so if you wanna hear some of those things,
00:01:17.980 | you can listen to them in the most recent
00:01:19.500 | Friday Q&A episode.
00:01:21.280 | However, I did hear from a number of listeners
00:01:24.180 | how they appreciated those thoughts.
00:01:25.840 | And I realized in thinking about their responses
00:01:28.580 | that I probably haven't been as balanced
00:01:31.320 | as I would like to be when talking
00:01:33.980 | about the advisability of leaving.
00:01:36.260 | Anybody who's listened to Radical Personal Finance
00:01:39.300 | for any time has probably heard me talk
00:01:42.100 | about how leaving can often solve problems better
00:01:46.460 | than almost any other tool.
00:01:49.360 | And this is true on the micro level and on the macro level.
00:01:54.480 | When I observe the problems that people get themselves into,
00:01:59.480 | I often see how if somebody would just train themselves
00:02:03.300 | to walk away, either quite literally or figuratively,
00:02:08.300 | at the first sign of danger or problems,
00:02:13.340 | they can avoid the vast majority of long-term problems
00:02:19.020 | by simply disciplining themselves to leave
00:02:22.300 | at the first sign of trouble.
00:02:24.380 | And for me, while it was difficult when I was younger,
00:02:28.780 | because I had some of the youthful macho zeal to say,
00:02:32.340 | "No, I'm gonna solve my problems,"
00:02:34.420 | I have since realized that there have been many times
00:02:36.520 | in my life where I have been fortunate
00:02:38.340 | that I didn't let that youthful macho zeal
00:02:41.020 | get out of control, and I simply have left
00:02:43.200 | problem situations and I've avoided situations
00:02:46.060 | that were rather difficult.
00:02:47.980 | If you go through the day-to-day things
00:02:50.320 | that affect many of us, and you think about leaving
00:02:53.740 | as an option, you will realize very quickly
00:02:57.620 | that it can solve so many problems,
00:03:00.820 | whether it's the schoolyard bully.
00:03:04.540 | If you're being bullied in school,
00:03:06.220 | one of the things that you can do is simply leave.
00:03:09.220 | You can leave.
00:03:10.460 | You can walk away from the pushing and shoving
00:03:13.280 | and shouting match.
00:03:14.540 | You can not go back to that school.
00:03:16.180 | You can quit the school, move to another school.
00:03:18.100 | You can homeschool.
00:03:19.200 | You can just simply leave.
00:03:22.020 | If you're in a, all of a sudden,
00:03:25.060 | there's an unfriendly altercation,
00:03:26.580 | your local restaurant or bar or a concert
00:03:30.780 | or something like that, you can always turn around
00:03:32.620 | and walk away, and if you discipline yourself
00:03:35.700 | to simply turn around and walk away,
00:03:37.380 | you can avoid the more painful results
00:03:40.860 | that can often come from violence.
00:03:44.580 | Perhaps you're going to, I don't know,
00:03:47.220 | a protest of some kind, and all of a sudden,
00:03:51.180 | things start to get unruly.
00:03:52.900 | Well, if you just simply leave,
00:03:54.100 | you can avoid the majority of problems.
00:03:56.780 | I was just rereading recently the book
00:04:00.700 | by Wes Denham and, I forget his co-author's name,
00:04:05.540 | called Arrest Proof Yourself, to date,
00:04:07.300 | one of the top five most popular episodes
00:04:09.300 | of Radical Personal Finance ever made,
00:04:10.660 | and as I was rereading it, I was just struck again
00:04:13.660 | by how good this advice is.
00:04:15.780 | For example, the author in that book
00:04:18.440 | called How to Arrest Proof Yourself
00:04:19.860 | talks about altercations, domestic violence altercations,
00:04:24.860 | and quite literally, he talks about how there are some people
00:04:30.020 | who often get involved in domestic violence complaints
00:04:33.300 | and some people who don't, but his advice very clearly
00:04:36.920 | is if you're involved in a situation,
00:04:39.300 | your loved one is yelling at you, there's raised voices,
00:04:43.860 | you must immediately assume that the police
00:04:45.780 | have been called, and you must immediately leave.
00:04:49.460 | You must terminate contact and you must walk out the door.
00:04:52.260 | Don't get in the car, it's easier to find.
00:04:53.740 | Walk away, go somewhere else, and solve it from a distance.
00:04:57.900 | And while sometimes you recognize,
00:05:01.020 | hey, people yell at each other,
00:05:02.880 | when you think about people who get in trouble, right,
00:05:05.540 | with the police being called over some kind
00:05:08.660 | of allegations of violence, if they had simply followed
00:05:11.460 | that advice to leave, things would have been better, right?
00:05:17.460 | For example, if I wanna stay faithful to my wife,
00:05:19.620 | what do I do?
00:05:20.700 | Well, I need to train myself that if I'm ever
00:05:22.900 | in a situation where I even have an inkling
00:05:26.460 | that something might be going in a direction
00:05:28.900 | that wouldn't result in my being faithful to my wife,
00:05:31.240 | I need to train myself to leave,
00:05:33.140 | to get up and just simply leave.
00:05:35.340 | If you're involved in a company
00:05:37.380 | where something is going wrong, right,
00:05:40.380 | you're concerned, is there honesty here?
00:05:43.940 | Maybe I'm being mistreated in some way.
00:05:46.660 | Maybe there's something here where, you know,
00:05:48.940 | this probably isn't gonna work out for the long term.
00:05:51.180 | Whatever it is, oftentimes you can simply leave.
00:05:54.140 | And by the way, this protects you
00:05:56.380 | in the worst of situations, right?
00:05:58.420 | Maybe you're going to be taken advantage of
00:06:00.820 | or mistreated in some way.
00:06:03.300 | Well, the best thing to do is avoid the mistreatment
00:06:05.180 | in the first place, right?
00:06:06.460 | Don't sit around and say,
00:06:07.300 | well, at least I can file a lawsuit.
00:06:08.440 | No, get out of there and leave.
00:06:10.380 | But even in the best of situations, right,
00:06:12.220 | sometimes people will be at a job
00:06:13.760 | and they just are looking around
00:06:15.920 | and, you know, nothing's wrong with it.
00:06:18.380 | Nobody's committing any kind of criminal acts.
00:06:20.920 | No one is being abused in some way,
00:06:23.840 | but there's just, there's not a lot of positive things
00:06:26.160 | that can be said about the job.
00:06:27.780 | Well, one of the best things you can do is simply leave
00:06:30.140 | 'cause all of the time that you spend
00:06:32.440 | in that mediocre situation
00:06:35.960 | is time that you can't be then investing
00:06:38.640 | into a really positive situation.
00:06:41.520 | And so I always try to include the option
00:06:46.520 | and the possibility of leaving as a choice
00:06:50.880 | that should be recognized and considered seriously
00:06:55.880 | as a way of solving problems.
00:06:58.760 | And if you're accustomed to thinking that way,
00:07:00.120 | you probably say, well, duh, Josh, well, we know that.
00:07:01.680 | Like, that's obvious, right?
00:07:03.120 | But amazingly, you will find so many people
00:07:06.200 | that don't think about that.
00:07:08.360 | And often it's those who are in the most difficult
00:07:10.920 | of circumstances because there are all kinds of reasons
00:07:12.800 | why they can't leave or why they think they can't leave.
00:07:15.720 | Meanwhile, you watch your children being around people
00:07:18.640 | who are not a good influence on them.
00:07:20.600 | You watch your family being surrounded by circumstances
00:07:24.240 | that are terrible for you.
00:07:26.000 | And you think, well, I can't leave because, because, because.
00:07:28.360 | Well, the answer is yes, you can.
00:07:30.480 | And of course, I've expanded this significantly
00:07:32.920 | to the county level, to the state level,
00:07:36.440 | and to the country level.
00:07:38.320 | If you don't like the way that you're being treated
00:07:40.640 | in the town that you live in,
00:07:42.360 | you should consider leaving and moving to a different town.
00:07:45.440 | If you don't like the way that your state is treating you,
00:07:48.040 | you should consider leaving and moving to a different state.
00:07:51.400 | Why sit there in a place that's mistreating you
00:07:56.320 | and be abused when you have the choice to lawfully,
00:08:01.320 | peacefully, voluntarily pick up and go somewhere else?
00:08:06.440 | And you say, well, I'm gonna make it better.
00:08:08.200 | I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna make it better, right?
00:08:09.760 | Whether that's fighting physically
00:08:11.520 | or fighting in a court of law.
00:08:13.200 | Yeah, maybe, right?
00:08:14.520 | There are some people who do it.
00:08:15.960 | But for every one person who paves the way
00:08:19.840 | with the legal victory, there are dozens of people
00:08:23.200 | who just simply had their lives slowly destroyed
00:08:25.360 | by the circumstances that they're in.
00:08:26.960 | And so if you can do that, great.
00:08:30.280 | But why do it if that's not for you, right?
00:08:34.400 | You should be very thoughtful about what you actually do
00:08:37.600 | and the battles that you actually engage in.
00:08:39.920 | You need to be really careful.
00:08:41.480 | And people often don't think about leaving.
00:08:44.160 | So I have talked about leaving
00:08:46.840 | and finding things that are better.
00:08:50.000 | And this is one of those things that you can continually do.
00:08:53.120 | Again, better job, better town, better house, better country.
00:08:58.120 | There are lots and lots of countries around the world
00:09:03.480 | that you can choose from.
00:09:05.120 | And for certain people, there will be things
00:09:08.720 | that are better in another place.
00:09:11.480 | On Friday, I talked about a simple example.
00:09:16.240 | Let's say that you need 24-hour nursing care.
00:09:18.840 | Well, if you live in a place with high cost of nursing care,
00:09:24.920 | you might spend $150,000 a year
00:09:28.200 | to have that 24-hour nursing care
00:09:30.160 | and get a very poor quality product.
00:09:33.360 | Well, if you leave and you go to another country
00:09:35.880 | where you can hire qualified nurses for less,
00:09:39.200 | you may be able to get a better quality of care
00:09:41.920 | for yourself at $60,000 per year
00:09:44.360 | instead of $160,000 per year.
00:09:47.120 | That can make a massive difference
00:09:49.360 | in your personal standard of living.
00:09:51.160 | I could go on for 20 minutes with good examples,
00:09:54.760 | but I'm going to stop and I'm gonna pivot.
00:09:57.760 | Because while leaving is something that can,
00:10:03.280 | in many circumstances, measurably improve your life,
00:10:06.920 | without question, leaving has costs.
00:10:11.160 | Anytime you leave and go from one place to another place,
00:10:15.360 | from one situation to another situation,
00:10:18.160 | you will face challenges.
00:10:21.160 | Yes, the child who's being bullied in school
00:10:25.320 | might be able to end the current round of bullying
00:10:28.560 | by leaving one place and going somewhere else.
00:10:32.840 | But they'll have to learn a whole new school,
00:10:37.760 | a whole new social system, a whole new set of rules,
00:10:41.200 | a whole new group of friends.
00:10:43.480 | It's not free.
00:10:44.480 | And the same thing applies
00:10:46.320 | when changing your country of residence.
00:10:49.880 | To do so can often be quite expensive.
00:10:53.000 | Now, I've tried to acknowledge this,
00:10:54.960 | and I've tried to talk about it in this way.
00:11:01.000 | It's one thing to actually choose to leave,
00:11:03.840 | and it's another thing to simply be prepared to leave.
00:11:08.200 | I frequently find myself consulting with people,
00:11:12.680 | and in my courses that I teach on some of these subjects,
00:11:15.400 | I frequently find myself saying,
00:11:17.280 | if you will simply prepare yourself to leave,
00:11:20.000 | then you'll be most of the way there.
00:11:25.640 | And you don't actually have to leave
00:11:27.560 | unless you're sure that you want to.
00:11:30.280 | In the most recent Friday episode,
00:11:31.920 | I shared that three years ago,
00:11:33.880 | I did not have the personal infrastructure in place
00:11:37.880 | where I was prepared to leave.
00:11:40.200 | I didn't have another country I could move to.
00:11:42.920 | I didn't have another country I could go and work in.
00:11:45.920 | I didn't have my money squared away
00:11:48.200 | to where I could get at it in another country.
00:11:50.200 | I didn't have the infrastructure.
00:11:51.480 | I didn't have the paperwork.
00:11:52.520 | I didn't have the experience.
00:11:54.520 | And so I was stuck, quite literally,
00:11:59.040 | in the United States.
00:12:00.480 | Now, there are worse places in the world to be stuck,
00:12:02.560 | but I don't like to be stuck anywhere.
00:12:04.880 | And I was stuck, quite literally, in the United States.
00:12:07.240 | And it took several years of hard work
00:12:09.400 | to put in place an appropriate infrastructure
00:12:11.680 | to where as now I can choose from a handful of places
00:12:15.280 | all around the world where I can go and I can live,
00:12:18.040 | I can work, I can do business,
00:12:20.520 | I can support my family, I can live.
00:12:24.600 | And so now, three years later,
00:12:27.120 | I now look at the United States with a different attitude,
00:12:30.520 | knowing I can leave.
00:12:33.280 | And so now I can appreciate more easily
00:12:36.320 | the things that are good about the United States,
00:12:39.320 | the things that are good about Florida.
00:12:41.560 | And I think people often experience this
00:12:43.280 | on a smaller scale, right?
00:12:44.840 | You might grow up, a friend of mine grew up
00:12:47.120 | in small town Indiana and lives in Miami, Florida now.
00:12:51.440 | And he is very much looking forward to going back
00:12:54.680 | to his small town in Indiana for the 4th of July.
00:12:59.120 | And when he was younger,
00:13:00.640 | all he wanted to do was get out of there.
00:13:02.640 | And now he really appreciates it for what it is.
00:13:05.760 | Because he's not stuck in that small town in Indiana,
00:13:09.640 | he can appreciate the small town for what it is
00:13:12.560 | and what it offers.
00:13:14.000 | And so I often approach this and say,
00:13:16.960 | if you'll put in place the infrastructure
00:13:19.400 | so that you know you can leave at any point in time,
00:13:23.200 | and if you'll even make it so that you have good options
00:13:26.000 | elsewhere, if it's leaving countries, right?
00:13:28.760 | I'll talk to someone, I'll say,
00:13:29.600 | listen, do you have a home in another country?
00:13:33.720 | Do you have the paperwork necessary
00:13:35.840 | to live in another country?
00:13:37.480 | Do you have a residence permit or a citizenship?
00:13:39.680 | Do you have a driver's license?
00:13:41.040 | Do you have a local bank account?
00:13:42.640 | Do you have a home that you could go to that you know,
00:13:46.200 | a place that you're familiar with and you're accustomed to
00:13:48.680 | and you can get around, you know how to live there.
00:13:51.280 | If you have those things and you maintain those things,
00:13:54.080 | then you may or may not actually have to do it,
00:13:57.280 | but it'll give you that sense of peace,
00:13:59.320 | that sense of security.
00:14:01.360 | But should you actually go and leave?
00:14:03.560 | And I think in the majority of cases,
00:14:05.320 | the answer is probably not.
00:14:08.160 | Probably not.
00:14:09.640 | Because leaving and actually going somewhere
00:14:12.000 | and committing to it can set you back significantly in life.
00:14:18.560 | And the older that you get, the bigger the cost is.
00:14:23.560 | The cost for, you know, a young man or woman, a teenager,
00:14:27.640 | someone in his or her early 20s,
00:14:29.600 | the cost for that person to leave and go somewhere new
00:14:32.840 | is probably modest.
00:14:35.400 | Especially if they don't have a developed family network
00:14:40.400 | or friend network or something that they can tap into,
00:14:43.480 | it's probably modest.
00:14:44.840 | But for someone who's 30 years old, 40 years old,
00:14:47.760 | 50 years old, the cost of leaving and going to another place
00:14:51.520 | can be really, really substantial.
00:14:53.360 | Let's talk about those costs.
00:14:56.640 | I think that by far the biggest cost
00:15:00.840 | is likely to be the human cost.
00:15:03.320 | And there are different components to it.
00:15:07.440 | The obvious human cost that I think most people
00:15:11.520 | are tuned into would simply be the cost on your social life,
00:15:15.800 | your family, your friends.
00:15:17.520 | Our family and our friends are the things
00:15:22.200 | that make our local living what it is.
00:15:26.060 | None of us live where we live
00:15:31.840 | just because of a certain geographical feature.
00:15:35.620 | You can have great weather in many cities
00:15:39.160 | all around the world.
00:15:40.000 | You can have great surf in many places all around the world.
00:15:43.120 | You can have great skiing in many places
00:15:45.400 | all around the world.
00:15:46.500 | Those factors alone are not enough of a reason
00:15:52.640 | to pick up and go somewhere new.
00:15:55.120 | At least, if not for everyone,
00:15:57.360 | I think the vast majority of people.
00:15:59.300 | I've never actually met someone who lives in a ski town
00:16:03.440 | who skis every day.
00:16:05.680 | Even the most ardent of skiers
00:16:08.960 | has a life outside of skiing.
00:16:13.560 | The same can be applied to almost any activity.
00:16:16.080 | And so, while I think you should consider those things,
00:16:19.600 | realistically, you can do those things in many places
00:16:22.960 | or you can fit them into your life in many ways.
00:16:25.700 | There are many other factors, right?
00:16:31.000 | Certain freedoms to do certain things.
00:16:32.840 | I wanna, I don't know, shoot my rifle off my back porch.
00:16:35.960 | Okay, well, how much are you actually gonna do that?
00:16:38.600 | There are things that are very important to people, right?
00:16:42.000 | I wanna be able to homeschool my children
00:16:44.560 | with minimal interference.
00:16:46.080 | That's a very fair thing.
00:16:47.720 | And each of us will have our own set of criteria.
00:16:51.040 | I want to live with progressive neighbors
00:16:55.040 | that match my political identification.
00:16:57.760 | Great.
00:16:58.720 | I want a certain kind of nightlife available to me
00:17:01.280 | at walking distance from my apartment front door.
00:17:03.480 | Fine.
00:17:04.600 | But at the end of the day,
00:17:05.420 | it's the people that are going to most significantly
00:17:11.200 | affect how you live.
00:17:14.160 | And there can be different sides to this.
00:17:16.040 | So, on the one hand, you could say,
00:17:18.960 | I wanna be close to my mom and dad.
00:17:20.960 | And if you wanna be close to your mom and dad,
00:17:23.360 | you'll find that that makes a big difference
00:17:26.400 | in your lifestyle.
00:17:27.280 | For some other people,
00:17:28.360 | I need to get a little farther away from mom and dad.
00:17:30.960 | Fair enough.
00:17:31.800 | Siblings, friends, the people that we like to be with
00:17:36.960 | make a big, big difference in our life.
00:17:38.960 | Now, here's what's difficult.
00:17:41.120 | I don't think anybody would say
00:17:43.040 | that you have to be near these specific people
00:17:48.040 | in order for you to have a fulfilling social life.
00:17:52.500 | You can build a fulfilling social life afresh
00:17:55.540 | in another place.
00:17:56.680 | But there's something about those long-term relationships
00:18:01.920 | that lead to a real sense of fulfillment
00:18:06.060 | and satisfaction in life.
00:18:07.760 | When you have those friends
00:18:08.960 | that you can truly, genuinely be yourself around,
00:18:12.080 | when you can truly, genuinely feel comfortable,
00:18:14.840 | when you have those family relationships
00:18:16.680 | that tie your family together,
00:18:18.840 | potentially over the generations,
00:18:21.080 | that can be extremely valuable.
00:18:23.140 | It's not only valuable to you,
00:18:27.480 | it's also potentially valuable to your children.
00:18:29.880 | Having your children have the context
00:18:35.240 | of a broad social network
00:18:38.560 | can make a tremendous difference in their life
00:18:41.040 | and in their sense of stability and sense of security.
00:18:43.740 | With my own experience growing up,
00:18:48.860 | I always thought that it would be really fun to be homeless.
00:18:53.520 | I don't know why.
00:18:54.360 | Some people have, some people play golf.
00:18:57.040 | I think about what it would be like to be homeless,
00:18:58.880 | and I read books and stories about homeless people,
00:19:02.120 | quite literally, and I tell you,
00:19:03.120 | here's how I'd be a hobo, right?
00:19:05.040 | Here's how I live.
00:19:06.280 | And I think that's interesting.
00:19:07.840 | The problem is that, obviously,
00:19:10.200 | there's a big difference between the interest of it
00:19:11.960 | and the actual doing of it.
00:19:13.640 | While it's fun to think about sleeping on the street,
00:19:16.280 | the actual experience of sleeping on the street
00:19:18.120 | is not so interesting.
00:19:19.800 | But my entire life, I knew that this is just
00:19:22.440 | kind of a far-fetched mental game,
00:19:25.160 | because I could never imagine
00:19:28.040 | not having a place to sleep tonight.
00:19:31.260 | I could never imagine what it would be like
00:19:35.120 | to be someone who didn't know literally dozens of people
00:19:39.440 | where you could feel totally comfortable and safe
00:19:43.400 | showing up unannounced, knocking on their door,
00:19:46.480 | and saying, "I'm hungry and I'm cold,"
00:19:49.360 | or, "I'm hungry and I'm hot,
00:19:50.520 | "and I don't have a place to sleep tonight.
00:19:51.760 | "Can I stay here?"
00:19:52.920 | That's powerful in terms of a psychological profile
00:19:59.960 | that you can give to a child.
00:20:04.100 | Now, unfortunately, there are many people in the world
00:20:05.800 | who don't experience that kind of thing.
00:20:07.800 | But if you have that, and then you just have this knowing,
00:20:12.760 | this knowledge that you never had to go out and acquire,
00:20:15.040 | this just sense of knowing that,
00:20:17.320 | well, my uncle so-and-so lives here,
00:20:19.320 | aunt so-and-so lives there,
00:20:20.880 | my dad's friend blah, blah, blah lives over there,
00:20:23.960 | so-and-so that I knew from high school lives there,
00:20:26.360 | my friend here, that broad network
00:20:29.340 | is extraordinarily powerful.
00:20:33.080 | And this is my second category, is this network.
00:20:35.860 | So the first category of people is friends,
00:20:37.940 | families, friends, but the network that you have in a place
00:20:42.760 | is usually what makes the biggest difference
00:20:46.020 | in your ability to navigate through it.
00:20:48.320 | You're arrested by the police, you're in prison.
00:20:54.400 | Who can you call who's going to start
00:20:59.100 | the appropriate processes working to get you out?
00:21:03.060 | If you can make a call to one person,
00:21:06.760 | that person says, oh, I need to call so-and-so
00:21:08.960 | as an attorney, I know so-and-so is a judge,
00:21:11.160 | they'll give me advice on who I need to call.
00:21:13.360 | We don't have any money, but I know so-and-so has money,
00:21:16.240 | and that person will lend me money,
00:21:17.680 | so if necessary, I can pay a bail charge
00:21:20.760 | and we can get Joshua out of prison.
00:21:23.320 | That kind of network is a big deal.
00:21:25.320 | Who could you call to be able to get work?
00:21:28.880 | My entire lifetime, I've never worried
00:21:31.660 | about not having a job, because if I needed money,
00:21:36.220 | I can pull out my phone and I can call quite literally
00:21:40.100 | hundreds of people who would know my name,
00:21:42.900 | would take my call, and would make phone calls for me
00:21:46.780 | if they didn't have something themselves.
00:21:48.740 | They would say, well, Joshua, I don't have work
00:21:51.980 | for you right now, but let me call a few of my friends
00:21:54.700 | and see if we can get you work.
00:21:56.600 | Again, that's a powerful benefit of having stability,
00:22:00.340 | of having a network in a place.
00:22:02.540 | This goes even deeper if you're in cultures
00:22:06.980 | where the network is how you get things done.
00:22:09.580 | Now, the United States is kind of a mixture
00:22:11.820 | of this type of society.
00:22:14.100 | The United States is very much a world
00:22:17.020 | in which the network makes the difference for you.
00:22:20.520 | The good old boys' network is pivotal to long-term success.
00:22:25.580 | You have to know how to tap into the appropriate network.
00:22:29.840 | Who is the person with authority?
00:22:31.320 | Who is the person with power?
00:22:32.600 | Who is the person with connections?
00:22:34.360 | If you don't know that, you're gonna be out of luck.
00:22:38.800 | But there's also a sense in which you don't need
00:22:41.920 | that stuff to survive, because the United States
00:22:45.240 | is a very, it's a merit-focused society, a meritocracy,
00:22:50.240 | and because there's this concept
00:22:52.560 | that we should all be equal before the law,
00:22:54.600 | you don't need it to survive.
00:22:56.580 | If you need to go and get a driver's license,
00:22:58.200 | you just go to the driver's license DMV and get it done.
00:23:01.740 | If you need a certain function done,
00:23:03.540 | if you wanna open a company,
00:23:04.800 | you just go to the website and open the company.
00:23:06.660 | You don't have to know somebody in government
00:23:08.300 | to get things done at that level.
00:23:10.540 | That's very different in some other places.
00:23:12.700 | And so if you leave the place where you have the network
00:23:16.460 | and you go to a place where you don't,
00:23:20.780 | you can often find yourself incredibly stymied,
00:23:23.580 | just blocked.
00:23:25.380 | I wanna open my company, but I need this permission,
00:23:28.520 | and I've submitted the application four times
00:23:30.580 | to the government office, and nothing gets done.
00:23:33.340 | And then all of a sudden, you connect with the right person,
00:23:35.260 | and they say, oh, well, hold on a second, let me call,
00:23:37.060 | and they call so-and-so, and so-and-so
00:23:38.380 | makes the proper introduction, and all of a sudden,
00:23:40.100 | your paper gets moved to the front of the line,
00:23:41.460 | and boom, you're done, stamped out the door,
00:23:43.500 | move on with life.
00:23:44.560 | So you wanna be very careful before you give that up.
00:23:48.180 | So think carefully about the people.
00:23:50.780 | I think this is the single biggest cost to leaving a place.
00:23:55.780 | And this is a cost that grows over time.
00:23:59.520 | Again, if you talk to an average, you know,
00:24:04.060 | successful 50-year-old man or woman,
00:24:07.100 | and you ask them to really think about their life,
00:24:09.120 | to give up a place where you know people,
00:24:12.300 | where you have a network of contacts,
00:24:14.640 | that's a powerful cost.
00:24:17.460 | It's on the big picture, right?
00:24:19.900 | Who do I call to bail me out of jail?
00:24:21.820 | And it's down to the little things of,
00:24:23.300 | oh, yeah, I have a trusted mechanic,
00:24:25.180 | or I know who I can call if I need a trusted plumber.
00:24:27.980 | The knowing who to call is a big, big deal.
00:24:31.000 | And I've enjoyed learning this all afresh
00:24:33.840 | in my travels over the last couple of years,
00:24:35.780 | being in some new places.
00:24:37.340 | I've learned how utterly closed
00:24:39.740 | and unfriendly a society can be
00:24:42.380 | until you make the right connection.
00:24:44.280 | Now, you can make the right connection.
00:24:47.200 | I've done it.
00:24:49.040 | I've done it, and I can do it again.
00:24:50.560 | I might do it again, who knows?
00:24:52.520 | But until you make that right connection,
00:24:55.480 | you're kind of lost.
00:24:56.840 | And then you start to figure out,
00:24:59.160 | ah, this is the person that's connected.
00:25:01.280 | Hey, will you please help me?
00:25:02.720 | You know, here's what I need, reach so-and-so,
00:25:04.720 | and then the network opens up for you.
00:25:06.760 | But to give that up is a big, big deal.
00:25:08.720 | Humans and the network, biggest cost.
00:25:14.840 | I think the second biggest cost
00:25:17.200 | to leaving is a sense of simply knowing how things work,
00:25:22.200 | having a sense of just basic knowledge
00:25:25.120 | about how things are done, where I'm from.
00:25:28.640 | On almost every level, in almost every society,
00:25:33.720 | there is a culture of the way things are done.
00:25:37.720 | In some places, you have a very direct culture.
00:25:42.000 | For example, I have a friend of mine
00:25:43.400 | that I was just talking to on the phone,
00:25:46.000 | was from a different culture,
00:25:47.000 | different country, different culture.
00:25:48.800 | And every time this guy and I talk,
00:25:51.800 | he's like, "Joshua, how are you today?"
00:25:54.680 | And I'm from kind of a business,
00:25:56.800 | I don't really ask people how they are much,
00:25:59.000 | although 'cause I'm from the United States,
00:26:00.680 | where when we ask people how they are,
00:26:02.040 | we don't actually care how they are,
00:26:03.880 | we just expect them to say fine and get to business.
00:26:06.040 | And so then having spent so much of my life on the phone,
00:26:09.320 | I just learned to skip all that stuff.
00:26:11.880 | And so I say, "Howdy, you know, bump and go to business."
00:26:14.920 | And there's this like awkward thing where I realize
00:26:16.960 | I'm not fulfilling the cultural norm here.
00:26:19.280 | You know, I'm approaching this with the US American
00:26:21.960 | get to business mindset.
00:26:23.200 | I don't wanna ask how you are,
00:26:24.360 | if you'll tell me if there's a problem,
00:26:26.000 | and I care how you are,
00:26:27.080 | but I don't wanna engage in these pleasantries.
00:26:29.440 | And he's coming from a culture
00:26:30.800 | where the pleasantries are important.
00:26:32.800 | And so there's a little clash.
00:26:34.360 | Well, take that and multiply it times 1,000.
00:26:37.080 | And almost everything from how you greet somebody
00:26:39.200 | to not how you greet someone.
00:26:40.720 | And I mean, quite literally, right?
00:26:43.840 | What do you say to the baker at the shop
00:26:46.200 | where you get your bread?
00:26:47.040 | Do you even get your bread from a shop
00:26:48.160 | or do you get it from a plastic bag on the shelf?
00:26:50.840 | How many times do you kiss someone on the cheek
00:26:52.760 | or not kiss them on the cheek?
00:26:54.360 | Do you, how hard do you press their hand
00:26:56.720 | when you have a handshake?
00:26:58.000 | These little things are just the tip of the iceberg
00:27:00.880 | in terms of understanding how things are done,
00:27:03.920 | understanding how you interact,
00:27:06.600 | understanding, well, what level of obsequiousness
00:27:09.840 | do I need to display to this government agent
00:27:12.720 | in order for me to get my document stamped
00:27:14.840 | so I can go and do my thing?
00:27:16.560 | Am I being ripped off by this guy or not?
00:27:19.960 | Is this guy mistreating me?
00:27:21.240 | Like all of this stuff, it just builds.
00:27:24.600 | And it can be very, very inefficient
00:27:27.320 | if you don't know how it's done.
00:27:28.960 | And so you wanna make sure that you have an understanding
00:27:33.200 | of those things.
00:27:34.240 | And this is where, if you're young and you're adapt,
00:27:37.600 | or young and or adaptable in your mindset,
00:27:40.720 | it's not that difficult to go to a new place
00:27:43.040 | and work your way through it.
00:27:44.200 | It's kind of a sense of adventure.
00:27:45.960 | But this will be very frustrating to you
00:27:47.800 | if you're old and successful and established,
00:27:50.640 | and all of a sudden you find that
00:27:53.560 | I'm going right back to the beginning, right?
00:27:55.840 | I just don't know how things work here.
00:27:58.040 | And that can be quite frustrating to you, so be aware of it.
00:28:01.000 | Don't expect to easily go from where you know
00:28:04.480 | how everything's done, you know how it works,
00:28:06.880 | even if you don't like it, at least you know how it works,
00:28:10.480 | to a place where you don't and expect that to be easy.
00:28:13.400 | Third major cost.
00:28:17.000 | The time.
00:28:21.760 | It's very, in my experience, difficult and time-consuming
00:28:29.920 | for you to learn these lessons.
00:28:33.800 | And there is a major, major element of time needed
00:28:38.920 | in order for you to get things set up.
00:28:42.160 | Now, time is not the perfect category
00:28:43.800 | 'cause it's time and permission.
00:28:45.920 | For example, if you are from the state of Pennsylvania
00:28:50.520 | and you decide to move to Indiana,
00:28:53.480 | you can accomplish that very, very quickly.
00:28:58.460 | Everybody from Pennsylvania
00:29:01.920 | knows how to make things work in Indiana.
00:29:06.000 | You know that if I'm gonna move my stuff,
00:29:07.760 | I either need to fit it into my vehicle
00:29:09.720 | or I need to go and hire a U-Haul
00:29:11.520 | or a big yellow Ryder truck, or maybe a budget truck, right?
00:29:14.920 | There's three brands of big trucks.
00:29:17.000 | That's what you're gonna do.
00:29:17.840 | Or you're gonna hire a mover
00:29:19.160 | who's gonna be a full-service mover.
00:29:21.040 | That's it, you know what that is.
00:29:23.040 | You know that when I move from Pennsylvania to Indiana,
00:29:26.600 | I'm gonna need to rent an apartment.
00:29:30.440 | You understand the apartment culture.
00:29:33.600 | You know what's gonna be asked of you.
00:29:35.080 | It's gonna be a first, last, first month,
00:29:37.080 | last month security deposit.
00:29:38.800 | There are little regional variations, right?
00:29:41.040 | You might find a few regions of the country
00:29:43.000 | where appliances are not included.
00:29:45.400 | That's different,
00:29:46.240 | but it's not that big of a hard thing to do.
00:29:48.180 | Then you know I need to change my driver's license.
00:29:50.400 | I need to change everything on the utilities.
00:29:52.080 | And so basically in say two to three days
00:29:54.440 | of administrative work, you can have everything done.
00:29:56.720 | You got your new driver's license in hand.
00:29:58.400 | You got all the utilities switched over.
00:30:00.160 | You're familiar with the whole process.
00:30:01.960 | You've got, you're done, right?
00:30:03.320 | Two or three days, you're ready to go.
00:30:04.920 | You don't have to go and deal with a work permit.
00:30:06.840 | You know, hey, I'm a US citizen.
00:30:08.380 | I've got my, you know, my driver's license.
00:30:10.400 | This proves this.
00:30:11.480 | I'm ready to go.
00:30:12.680 | And so in a few days, you're ready to go.
00:30:14.440 | You can start your business.
00:30:15.360 | You can get your new job, whatever it is.
00:30:17.320 | Things work pretty, pretty similar.
00:30:20.280 | Now I want you to imagine moving to Mexico.
00:30:22.440 | That's very different.
00:30:26.240 | What's the name of the DMV in Mexican Spanish?
00:30:34.160 | What is, who do I talk to?
00:30:36.760 | How do I get the power turned on?
00:30:38.420 | Is it a government company or is it a local company?
00:30:41.680 | And what identification do I need?
00:30:44.040 | And it's very difficult, very difficult.
00:30:49.040 | Now you can work it out, right, with the right fixer.
00:30:51.640 | Maybe you have an attorney who tells you, oh, do this.
00:30:53.820 | You have a friend who does that.
00:30:55.600 | But if you show up and you don't know anybody,
00:30:58.440 | that's very, very difficult.
00:31:00.360 | And then all of a sudden you find yourself
00:31:01.880 | waiting in lines all over the place.
00:31:03.560 | It can take, I mean, can take quite literally months.
00:31:07.340 | I worked my way through a residency process
00:31:11.480 | over the past few years that because of coronavirus
00:31:15.120 | wound up taking months, months and months and months.
00:31:19.000 | And I had all of my T's crossed, all my I's dotted,
00:31:22.200 | and it still was months.
00:31:24.060 | And so by the time I had finished the whole deal, right,
00:31:29.160 | got my residency card, got my driver's license,
00:31:31.480 | just got everything lined up,
00:31:32.780 | like by the time I had done the whole thing,
00:31:34.960 | I had a huge amount of time invested into it.
00:31:38.720 | I went back to the government offices countless times.
00:31:41.480 | In hindsight, I promised myself, I'm not doing that again.
00:31:45.160 | I will use an attorney from here on out,
00:31:46.940 | and I will just simply pay the money
00:31:48.040 | 'cause it wasn't worth the time.
00:31:50.480 | That time is a big deal.
00:31:52.240 | Time is quite literally money.
00:31:54.920 | And so imagine doing that in a place of,
00:31:57.760 | in a time of duress, right?
00:31:59.740 | Imagine that you fled your country
00:32:01.640 | because of some war or something going on,
00:32:04.480 | and you had to get out.
00:32:05.800 | And all of a sudden you find yourself
00:32:07.280 | in this totally new place trying to set this stuff up.
00:32:10.280 | That's incredibly stressful.
00:32:12.080 | So that's why I set it up in advance.
00:32:15.120 | But you probably shouldn't leave
00:32:16.400 | because you'll find the time is massive.
00:32:19.260 | What about the money?
00:32:20.800 | Okay, you are going to spend a lot more money
00:32:24.760 | if you move and leave and go elsewhere
00:32:27.760 | than you are if you stay put,
00:32:31.120 | at least in the beginning.
00:32:33.200 | You're gonna spend a lot more money.
00:32:34.720 | I don't care how much cheaper the place is.
00:32:38.120 | Or you can say, but Joshua, listen,
00:32:39.800 | if I move from Pennsylvania to Mexico,
00:32:43.360 | I'm gonna cut my rent by 50% or more.
00:32:47.000 | That's true.
00:32:48.720 | But you're gonna spend more money on everything
00:32:53.520 | until you figure out how to go, how to go and do it.
00:32:56.320 | You're gonna go buy a car.
00:32:58.080 | Well, you're gonna get the gringo pricing on the car.
00:33:01.280 | And you're not gonna know,
00:33:02.980 | am I getting the real price or not?
00:33:04.120 | You just don't know.
00:33:04.940 | You don't have that intuition that you have in other things.
00:33:08.920 | And can you get a car cheap?
00:33:10.040 | Yeah, but you just don't know.
00:33:13.400 | When you, insurance, well, how do I get quotes on insurance?
00:33:16.200 | Who do I talk to?
00:33:17.040 | You're not familiar.
00:33:17.860 | You haven't watched all the things.
00:33:19.240 | Where do I go to get my kind of groceries that I want?
00:33:21.440 | Well, it takes time quite literally
00:33:23.280 | to figure out what are the grocery stores?
00:33:25.400 | Where do I go to get this certain thing?
00:33:27.840 | Oh, we want new curtains.
00:33:29.640 | Where do I go to get new curtains for the house?
00:33:32.280 | Where do I go to get furniture?
00:33:36.760 | Where do I go to hire a painter?
00:33:39.140 | Where do I go if I wanna paint myself?
00:33:42.360 | I don't know.
00:33:44.000 | And so you spend a lot of money figuring that stuff out.
00:33:47.960 | Now, in the fullness of time, right,
00:33:49.400 | you can learn pretty quickly.
00:33:50.440 | And after a few months, ah, I see.
00:33:52.160 | Well, for this one, I go to this store.
00:33:53.600 | For this, I go to the other store.
00:33:55.120 | These things are really expensive.
00:33:56.560 | So we send these things to our friend,
00:33:58.640 | and then he brings them in with us when he flies in.
00:34:01.080 | You can figure it out,
00:34:02.000 | but it's really expensive in the beginning.
00:34:04.260 | And what I've had to learn to do
00:34:06.840 | is to not worry about being frugal in the beginning, right?
00:34:11.840 | You go to a new place,
00:34:14.040 | you're gonna spend a lot more money
00:34:15.720 | getting everything set up.
00:34:17.120 | Cab fees, government costs,
00:34:19.880 | paying a fixer to help you solve something.
00:34:22.720 | Just you're gonna pay a lot more money in the beginning.
00:34:26.480 | Now, if you make good decisions,
00:34:28.400 | you genuinely can live in a place longer
00:34:31.800 | for a significant, for less.
00:34:35.360 | But it's not longer in the short term.
00:34:37.240 | Sorry, it's not less in the short term.
00:34:38.840 | It's gonna be more in the short term.
00:34:40.400 | And so I think you gotta give yourself some permission
00:34:42.840 | to just recognize that that's gonna be the case,
00:34:45.800 | and then make sure you have some money saved.
00:34:48.640 | Now, this is true with almost any move.
00:34:51.440 | Anybody moving from Pennsylvania to Indiana
00:34:53.480 | has experienced how expensive it winds up being
00:34:56.120 | because of all the costs that you didn't factor in.
00:34:58.200 | Moving is expensive.
00:35:00.400 | It's time consuming,
00:35:01.680 | and you gotta figure out where your new stores are
00:35:03.400 | in Indiana, just like you do in Mexico.
00:35:05.840 | But these things are real factors.
00:35:10.340 | And it is a big, it does make a big difference.
00:35:14.780 | There are other costs as well.
00:35:16.600 | Big costs.
00:35:19.120 | Things like culture shock.
00:35:20.720 | Now, culture shock is a somewhat ambiguous term.
00:35:25.440 | I'll tell you how I have experienced culture shock.
00:35:28.000 | It's not for me a specific sense of being shocked
00:35:34.720 | of here's how things are done here.
00:35:36.760 | I personally am not that surprised by most things.
00:35:40.480 | Like, okay, here, we don't have sit-on-them toilet seats.
00:35:44.600 | We have squatting toilets.
00:35:45.980 | Okay, no big deal.
00:35:46.960 | Been there, done that.
00:35:47.800 | That's not hard for me to deal.
00:35:49.200 | Here, we eat with our hands.
00:35:51.120 | Okay, fine, all good.
00:35:53.640 | Here, we put lots of hot sauce and everything is spicy.
00:35:56.360 | All right, I can deal with that.
00:35:58.600 | Where how I've experienced a lot of culture shock
00:36:01.140 | is just a sense of not fitting in
00:36:03.000 | and a knowledge that I'll never fit in.
00:36:06.480 | Now, that's interesting because I've generally been
00:36:11.060 | somewhat of an iconoclast.
00:36:12.960 | I don't fit in in many circumstances.
00:36:16.760 | But when you recognize I'm the foreigner
00:36:19.880 | and I'll always be the foreigner.
00:36:22.880 | This is one of the places where, in my opinion,
00:36:24.720 | the United States shines more than any place
00:36:27.680 | that I have been.
00:36:29.240 | Maybe there are better places.
00:36:30.940 | The United States is the most welcoming place
00:36:34.660 | I have ever been to foreigners and to foreign cultures.
00:36:39.660 | You can assimilate into the American culture so quickly
00:36:46.320 | and Americans will accept you no matter where you're from.
00:36:51.520 | And it doesn't mean they'll ignore the fact that,
00:36:53.600 | ah, you're originally from Pakistan.
00:36:55.560 | But Americans don't hold it against you.
00:36:59.420 | There's not a culture, not a country, not an ethnicity,
00:37:02.440 | not a color of skin that is not easily accepted
00:37:06.780 | in the United States of America.
00:37:08.800 | And I wish more people noticed that,
00:37:12.260 | more people appreciated that,
00:37:13.960 | that you'll never find someone saying to you,
00:37:17.180 | oh, I'm an American citizen.
00:37:20.600 | And you'll never find someone who's surprised
00:37:22.680 | at the color of your skin or how you speak
00:37:26.080 | or your accent or anything like that.
00:37:28.160 | The most accepting, welcoming country I've ever been to.
00:37:32.780 | My experience, it is not that way
00:37:35.280 | in many other regions of the world
00:37:38.080 | where ethnicity, cultural identity reigns supreme.
00:37:44.280 | I find, in my experience, for example,
00:37:49.340 | and I find that Asia is the most racist region
00:37:53.640 | of the world I've ever been to.
00:37:56.520 | But it's kind of a weird, a weird thing.
00:37:59.880 | Because on the one hand, I'm very rarely mistreated.
00:38:04.880 | I'm often treated very well, right?
00:38:08.600 | You get extra benefits and privileges
00:38:11.000 | from being the wealthy white foreigner.
00:38:13.060 | But you never fit in, right?
00:38:17.160 | I will never, no matter how perfect my Chinese,
00:38:20.660 | I'll never be accepted as Chinese.
00:38:22.720 | And this is similar in many countries in the world.
00:38:28.380 | That's a hard thing to swallow, right?
00:38:30.340 | It's hard to always be the outsider.
00:38:33.540 | It's hard to be the outcast.
00:38:34.980 | It's hard to be the guy who will never fit in.
00:38:38.140 | And that's significant.
00:38:39.740 | Now, boo-hoo, right?
00:38:42.800 | Throughout all of humanity's history,
00:38:46.020 | people have wandered around, they've moved from here,
00:38:48.800 | moved to there, and they have not fit in, right?
00:38:52.540 | Boo-hoo.
00:38:53.840 | There's no point in crying about it.
00:38:55.640 | But it is something that you're gonna face
00:38:58.520 | and you're gonna experience.
00:38:59.920 | And I think that you should be just thoughtful about it.
00:39:04.600 | I think it's a big deal to make sure
00:39:06.360 | that if you do go somewhere, that you go to a place
00:39:08.900 | where you feel like, maybe I'll never be perfectly accepted.
00:39:13.760 | Maybe I'll always be the foreigner.
00:39:15.920 | But at least I like this.
00:39:17.860 | I think here, there's a good argument
00:39:19.480 | for places that are very foreigner-friendly, right?
00:39:22.440 | A Dubai, somewhere that's super international
00:39:26.120 | and virtually nobody is from here, but we're all here, right?
00:39:31.080 | Or you get into a bigger city, right?
00:39:32.680 | An international-level city
00:39:34.280 | where you don't get stared at all the time
00:39:36.400 | and everything is a little bit more easygoing.
00:39:39.100 | But those things are costs
00:39:43.520 | and they can affect you over time
00:39:46.160 | and they're worth considering.
00:39:47.720 | In my course that I teach on,
00:39:51.200 | that includes a lot of internationalization,
00:39:52.760 | how to survive the coming economic crisis,
00:39:55.480 | I strongly advise against moving outside of your country.
00:40:01.340 | I think that if you're experiencing
00:40:04.000 | an economic crisis in Florida,
00:40:06.960 | it'll be easier for you to get in your car
00:40:09.020 | and drive to Maine or to Texas or to Alaska
00:40:13.280 | and try to make it there,
00:40:14.960 | than it will be for you to get in your car
00:40:16.760 | and drive to Mexico City and try to make it there.
00:40:19.640 | Or get in a boat and go to the Bahamas
00:40:21.160 | and try to make it there, right?
00:40:22.800 | You probably, especially in a time of crisis,
00:40:25.640 | you should stay in your home country
00:40:27.340 | where you have the appropriate paperwork,
00:40:29.720 | the ability to, the right, the legal right to work,
00:40:33.980 | the simplicity of proving citizenship
00:40:36.540 | and belonging and all that stuff
00:40:37.960 | where you speak the language.
00:40:39.060 | I didn't even talk about language difficulties
00:40:40.920 | if you're in a place with multiple,
00:40:44.360 | that's a different language than your home language.
00:40:47.160 | I think that you're better off
00:40:48.560 | staying in the majority of those circumstances.
00:40:53.080 | That's not to say you're better off
00:40:54.380 | staying in all circumstances.
00:40:56.080 | And even in that course, I talk through it.
00:40:57.720 | What are the issues that could affect you, right?
00:40:59.640 | You can have genuinely national level issues.
00:41:02.700 | You could have a national political crisis, right?
00:41:05.520 | You could be somebody who is facing persecution.
00:41:11.160 | In a certain country, it can be political persecution,
00:41:14.160 | religious persecution, racial persecution,
00:41:17.960 | facing some kind of persecution.
00:41:19.880 | You could be facing some personal sense of,
00:41:23.640 | you know, you're accused of committing some crime.
00:41:26.600 | And the only way you can get,
00:41:28.440 | you're accused falsely,
00:41:29.360 | you're not morally responsible for something,
00:41:30.880 | but you are in legal trouble, there's warrants out for you.
00:41:33.800 | Well, the only way you solve that
00:41:35.720 | is either by dealing with it head on or by leaving.
00:41:38.560 | And so that's a really good reason to leave.
00:41:41.960 | You could be facing some kind of
00:41:45.120 | thing that just makes life really difficult, right?
00:41:48.120 | Maybe, I have a friend of mine recently got a DUI, right?
00:41:51.800 | Okay, well, you got a DUI, you can't drive,
00:41:54.840 | license is suspended.
00:41:56.280 | Well, why are you gonna sit here in the United States
00:41:58.400 | where you can't drive,
00:41:59.560 | and yet you live in a driving culture
00:42:01.720 | and pay thousands and thousands of dollars in Uber fees
00:42:04.360 | when you can hop on an airplane and go to London
00:42:08.440 | and live in London for a while
00:42:10.480 | and enjoy the public transportation system?
00:42:12.760 | Why, why not, right?
00:42:15.440 | So your national level problem can be solved
00:42:18.340 | by you simply moving.
00:42:20.080 | Or there could be a massive economic crisis.
00:42:22.080 | There could be an economic crisis in the currency, right?
00:42:26.680 | The currency collapse of some kind.
00:42:28.600 | There could be currency control laws.
00:42:30.560 | Many things can happen on a national level.
00:42:32.760 | And for those circumstances,
00:42:34.280 | I believe that an international relocation
00:42:37.040 | is your simplest and best tool to solve that.
00:42:40.920 | But the international relocation
00:42:42.800 | doesn't have to be permanent, right?
00:42:45.120 | It can go for a few years, and that'll solve many problems.
00:42:48.120 | And it'll be, and if you do choose it,
00:42:54.120 | you can choose it and be quite happy
00:42:55.640 | as long as you go in with your eyes open, right?
00:42:58.220 | I don't know where I'm gonna live in the future.
00:43:01.700 | I do know that I could move back to the United States now
00:43:07.480 | much more contentedly than I could have a few years ago.
00:43:10.320 | And I'm very aware of these issues.
00:43:13.260 | I'm aware of the cost to my personal network.
00:43:17.540 | I'm aware of the cost to my children.
00:43:20.000 | I'm aware of, I think a lot, right?
00:43:23.480 | Am I doing the right thing?
00:43:25.360 | Will my children have that same sense of security
00:43:28.640 | if I'm traveling a lot or if I'm not in my hometown?
00:43:32.280 | Will they have that same sense of security that I had?
00:43:35.560 | If not, am I setting them up to be unstable people?
00:43:38.540 | Wish there were a handbook that told you all the answers,
00:43:42.160 | but unfortunately you find as a parent they're not, right?
00:43:44.260 | You're trying to judge and just think critically about them.
00:43:47.260 | So I could move back to the United States
00:43:50.360 | or I could quite happily continue to live
00:43:53.160 | in other places around the world, I think.
00:43:55.360 | Time will tell.
00:43:56.320 | But don't let anyone tell you that moving
00:44:02.400 | and leaving your country is gonna be all good.
00:44:06.060 | When I say it like that, then you say,
00:44:08.460 | of course, I know, Joshua, it wouldn't be all good.
00:44:11.980 | But I wanna emphasize, don't let anyone tell you
00:44:15.060 | it's going to be all good.
00:44:16.820 | Don't let anyone just focus on the rosy picture
00:44:20.740 | on how things are gonna be great.
00:44:22.620 | There will be some things that you will be able to enjoy
00:44:26.460 | about, look how amazing this new place is.
00:44:30.060 | Look at how this is so much better.
00:44:31.400 | That is so much better.
00:44:32.340 | I feel so much better here.
00:44:34.940 | But there are also gonna be a whole set of things
00:44:37.180 | that you're gonna miss.
00:44:38.340 | So recognize that that'll be the case
00:44:41.660 | and then make sure that your reasons
00:44:43.120 | are strong enough for going.
00:44:45.340 | I hope that talking through some of these costs,
00:44:47.960 | some of these reasons not to go somewhere
00:44:50.540 | will help you to think about them.
00:44:52.900 | And then my closing encouragement is this.
00:44:56.900 | Take advantage of the benefits of wherever you live.
00:45:04.620 | Doesn't matter where it is.
00:45:05.460 | Wherever you are now, make sure that if you recognize,
00:45:08.020 | hey, my network is gonna make a big difference
00:45:11.980 | to my future success.
00:45:13.100 | Am I actively and intentionally cultivating a network?
00:45:16.740 | One of the things that I have done
00:45:18.740 | over the last couple of years for the very first time
00:45:21.660 | was start from scratch, not knowing anybody
00:45:24.380 | and saying, can I build a network of friends,
00:45:27.500 | connections, relationships?
00:45:29.340 | You can do it.
00:45:32.980 | Can you do it intentionally?
00:45:35.060 | Can you recognize that this network that I build
00:45:37.780 | of contacts in a new place
00:45:39.380 | is gonna make all the difference?
00:45:41.240 | Because leaving is still gonna be a powerful tool,
00:45:43.740 | especially if you need to get away from something rough.
00:45:46.260 | Maybe you hung out with the wrong sort of crowd,
00:45:49.460 | got in trouble with the wrong people,
00:45:51.020 | and you want a fresh start.
00:45:52.380 | Brother, get in your car and drive.
00:45:56.140 | Go to a new town, get in with the right sort of crowd,
00:45:59.980 | get a fresh start.
00:46:02.300 | Even if it's something as simple as,
00:46:04.100 | you know, you got your fat loser friends,
00:46:06.520 | you're gonna be fat and a loser like your friends.
00:46:08.660 | Then all of a sudden you start hanging out
00:46:10.140 | with some buff chads that you meet at the local park.
00:46:14.340 | Well, you're gonna look a little different
00:46:15.820 | if those guys are your buddies.
00:46:17.780 | You ever notice just groups of friends
00:46:19.160 | always look the same?
00:46:20.540 | I was at the airport last week
00:46:21.900 | and these like 10 guys come in.
00:46:24.460 | They're all American guys.
00:46:25.620 | We were flying from Costa Rica to Florida.
00:46:28.660 | And these 10 guys come in
00:46:30.660 | and they'd all been on a buddy trip.
00:46:32.900 | But they looked like spitting images of each other.
00:46:35.760 | They're all tall, all muscular to some extent,
00:46:39.820 | obviously differences, but none of them were fat.
00:46:42.340 | They looked all identical.
00:46:46.060 | And yet I'm listening to them
00:46:48.460 | and they're from all over the country,
00:46:49.560 | but this was their buddy group, right?
00:46:51.100 | And that's why I'm just thinking about
00:46:52.820 | how like you look like your friends.
00:46:55.040 | You're gonna do the same kinds of things with your friends.
00:46:56.640 | Sometimes, best way to change your life
00:46:58.460 | is change your friends.
00:47:00.120 | So always recognize this as an option.
00:47:02.500 | Nothing is gonna come free.
00:47:04.180 | You can genuinely live better in another place, right?
00:47:07.560 | Go where you're treated best,
00:47:08.780 | as Andrew Henderson is wont to say.
00:47:10.720 | But,
00:47:11.560 | recognize it's not gonna be free.
00:47:15.420 | So if you're looking for kind of a halfway measure,
00:47:19.080 | some people don't do well with halfway measures,
00:47:21.660 | some people do.
00:47:23.060 | But if you're looking for a halfway measure,
00:47:24.880 | go and just start spending time in a place.
00:47:26.980 | Takes time to figure out where am I gonna live.
00:47:28.900 | Takes time to get your paperwork sorted out.
00:47:31.620 | Get your residency visas,
00:47:32.820 | get your driver's license squared away.
00:47:34.940 | Get your utilities in your name, et cetera.
00:47:38.080 | You don't have to go all at once.
00:47:40.340 | But then you'll get an accurate idea
00:47:43.260 | and you can count the cost more thoroughly.
00:47:45.060 | Hope that helps.
00:47:45.900 | If you've got more specific questions,
00:47:47.100 | I'd love to talk to you on the next Q&A show.
00:47:48.380 | Call me up and we'll talk about that.
00:47:50.420 | If you're interested in information on that,
00:47:51.740 | go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.
00:47:53.740 | Sign up to support the show on Patreon
00:47:55.780 | and that'll get you access to the next Q&A show.
00:47:57.820 | Thanks so much, have a great day.