2023-11-27_Joshua_Sheats_and_Mikkel_Thorup_Interview
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:00:01.160 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:02.720 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need
00:00:04.560 | to live a rich and meaningful life now
00:00:06.320 | while building a plan for financial freedom
00:00:07.640 | in 10 years or less.
00:00:08.760 | My name is Joshua Sheets, I'm your host.
00:00:10.120 | And today I'm joined by my friend, Mikkel Thorup.
00:00:12.560 | And we're here today to talk about internationalization
00:00:15.800 | and specifically the great nation of Panama
00:00:17.920 | as we prepare for our forthcoming Panama adventure
00:00:20.880 | in January.
00:00:21.880 | Mikkel, welcome back to Radical Personal Finance.
00:00:24.700 | - Joshua, I am super stoked to be here.
00:00:26.600 | I think this is gonna be a fun conversation today
00:00:28.880 | and hopefully help your audience
00:00:30.980 | and inspire them a little bit
00:00:32.160 | and hopefully meet them in January.
00:00:33.440 | I think it's gonna be a great opportunity.
00:00:35.240 | - I'm excited about it.
00:00:36.080 | I've been wanting to host events
00:00:37.560 | as part of the Radical Personal Finance work for a while.
00:00:40.480 | And with having a bazillion small children,
00:00:43.040 | it's been difficult to do.
00:00:44.640 | And so when we had the idea of,
00:00:46.000 | hey, Mikkel will organize the details,
00:00:48.760 | he'll organize the tour,
00:00:50.320 | he does this kind of thing quite frequently,
00:00:53.160 | and I'll come and I'll bring my audience
00:00:55.200 | and we'll hang out, I jumped on the chance.
00:00:57.400 | - You do not just Panama,
00:00:59.040 | you've been doing these kinds of investment tours
00:01:01.360 | all around the world, right?
00:01:02.520 | Tell us about that.
00:01:03.840 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:01:04.680 | So we just got back from one in Uruguay last week or so,
00:01:09.120 | and it was amazing.
00:01:10.280 | We had 26 clients who came down with me.
00:01:13.200 | We actually met here in Panama.
00:01:14.680 | I took everybody out for dinner.
00:01:16.160 | We flew down as a group, business class all the way,
00:01:20.280 | had buses pick us up and take us out to the coastline.
00:01:23.840 | And it was just an amazing experience.
00:01:26.880 | The response has been fantastic.
00:01:28.360 | Actually, we just put out a video about the Uruguay trip.
00:01:31.280 | So if anybody's thinking about,
00:01:32.800 | maybe what is the Panama trip gonna be like?
00:01:35.320 | This one we just did in Uruguay is a great example of that.
00:01:38.600 | So maybe you might be able to share with people.
00:01:40.800 | Now we do other trips to Brazil and Colombia
00:01:43.520 | and other things like this.
00:01:44.400 | We've got a lot of experience about it,
00:01:46.240 | but Panama is my home base.
00:01:47.960 | So this is the flagship trip, the flagship place.
00:01:51.520 | It's really special, it's gonna be amazing.
00:01:54.160 | - You've got all the people.
00:01:55.040 | I think meeting in Panama is great.
00:01:56.480 | One of the things that I love about Panama City,
00:01:58.080 | I consider there to be basically two capitals
00:02:02.160 | of the Americas broadly.
00:02:03.960 | One is Panama City, the other is Miami.
00:02:06.600 | And then possibly we could come into something
00:02:08.560 | like Mexico City in terms of the impact that it has.
00:02:10.640 | But Panama City has a great location for that
00:02:13.320 | and tremendous connectivity between South America,
00:02:15.560 | Central America, North America, Europe, et cetera.
00:02:18.880 | Why did you move to Panama?
00:02:20.440 | 'Cause you didn't begin there, you started in Canada.
00:02:22.440 | Why did you move to Panama originally?
00:02:24.840 | - Ooh, okay, long, long story,
00:02:26.800 | but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.
00:02:28.320 | So I've actually been living overseas for,
00:02:30.440 | I'm going on 24 years now.
00:02:32.640 | So I've lived in nine different countries.
00:02:35.080 | I was in the South Pacific for four years.
00:02:37.000 | I was in Asia for a while.
00:02:38.480 | I lived in the Middle East for just under a decade.
00:02:41.360 | I was in Abu Dhabi.
00:02:42.960 | And originally, I've always been very attracted
00:02:47.960 | to tax-free type of places.
00:02:50.960 | And I needed to find another place
00:02:54.160 | when we decided to leave the Middle East
00:02:55.560 | that was gonna tick that box.
00:02:57.200 | Now there were other reasons.
00:02:58.640 | I wanted to homeschool my kids.
00:03:00.360 | I got a couple of kids on my own,
00:03:02.160 | not as many as you do, Joshua, by the way, everybody.
00:03:05.960 | I met Joshua's kids and his family in Panama
00:03:09.600 | a couple of months ago.
00:03:11.080 | Amazing, your kids are brilliant.
00:03:12.760 | You've done such a fantastic job raising them
00:03:16.400 | and teaching them different languages and stuff.
00:03:18.120 | I was super, super impressed with your family.
00:03:20.520 | - Thank you very much. - It's truly amazing.
00:03:22.200 | But I wanted more opportunity for my daughter at the time.
00:03:26.560 | And I wanted to be away from some of the conflict zones
00:03:29.400 | and we can kind of get into the geopolitics
00:03:31.800 | and what's going on in the world
00:03:33.680 | maybe a little bit later in our conversation.
00:03:36.240 | But I could see what was going on in the Middle East
00:03:38.960 | and possible war with Iran and things like this.
00:03:42.800 | And I wanted to be in a more food-independent,
00:03:45.000 | water-independent, energy-independent country.
00:03:47.880 | So we started looking around
00:03:49.200 | and I needed it to also tick a couple of boxes,
00:03:51.680 | like a good immigration plan and the taxation,
00:03:54.040 | like I mentioned.
00:03:55.840 | We had a short list of countries
00:03:57.360 | and we were looking at moving back to Singapore
00:03:59.840 | or to Thailand or different places like that.
00:04:02.000 | But over and over and over again,
00:04:03.600 | Panama kept coming to the top of the pile.
00:04:06.840 | Now my wife had never been there.
00:04:08.240 | She had never experienced the country before.
00:04:10.320 | I had been to Panama 20 years previous
00:04:13.320 | on a trip through the region.
00:04:15.080 | And I really remember it speaking to me
00:04:18.400 | and having fond memories of it.
00:04:20.840 | So we took a chance and we came down here
00:04:22.880 | and we've loved it.
00:04:24.000 | We've been really stoked with our decision.
00:04:26.520 | We've been here going on five years now,
00:04:28.720 | which means actually next year,
00:04:30.480 | I get to make the application for my citizenship.
00:04:33.640 | I was just in with the lawyers talking about it
00:04:35.920 | on Monday or Tuesday of this week, mapping it all out.
00:04:39.760 | So there is a path to citizenship for people.
00:04:42.760 | We've got our life here.
00:04:44.280 | We've bought real estate here.
00:04:45.440 | We have friends here.
00:04:46.320 | We learned the language.
00:04:47.760 | It's just been a tremendous experience.
00:04:49.920 | And I'm very, very happy with Panama.
00:04:51.880 | And I'm super happy to share it with other people
00:04:54.600 | and show everyone what we figured out.
00:04:57.200 | - Yeah.
00:04:58.120 | When you compare, it sounds first of all,
00:05:01.160 | that one of the attractions for you was a city.
00:05:03.720 | You mentioned a lot of cities along there.
00:05:06.000 | Do you think that Panama is best suited
00:05:09.120 | for people who are attracted to the urban lifestyle
00:05:11.240 | or the kind of sitting on the beach
00:05:13.680 | kind of lifestyle as well?
00:05:15.880 | - What an interesting question.
00:05:17.120 | So, okay, let's take even one step further back.
00:05:20.880 | First and foremost,
00:05:21.880 | I believe that Panama is an excellent plan A.
00:05:25.640 | I think that it's a great place for people to live to,
00:05:28.280 | to move to.
00:05:29.240 | Now it does work really well as a plan B,
00:05:31.720 | and we can get into the details of this reason why.
00:05:35.400 | But on top of that, Panama has it all.
00:05:38.720 | Okay, we've got the Caribbean side.
00:05:41.480 | We have the Pacific side.
00:05:43.720 | We've got the mountains and we've got the city,
00:05:46.240 | Panama City, like you mentioned before,
00:05:47.800 | one of the hub of the Americas.
00:05:50.040 | So it doesn't really matter
00:05:51.840 | what type of lifestyle you're after.
00:05:54.600 | You can have any one of those things,
00:05:56.440 | or like me and my family do, we have a combination.
00:05:59.560 | So we have the beach property, which is an hour's drive.
00:06:04.080 | And I'd love to show your audience
00:06:05.680 | if they come on down on this trip,
00:06:07.080 | we're gonna take the drive out there.
00:06:08.320 | We're gonna see the beach area.
00:06:09.520 | We're gonna go and view real estate, rental properties
00:06:12.240 | for short-term, long-term, everything like that.
00:06:14.800 | We're gonna be looking at stuff in the city.
00:06:16.280 | I have a place in downtown Panama City.
00:06:19.120 | I actually bought a new place in downtown Panama
00:06:22.360 | on a man-made island right here.
00:06:24.760 | Just like if you guys think about the palms in Dubai,
00:06:27.080 | if you've ever seen those pictures,
00:06:28.760 | we have two man-made islands off the coast of Panama City,
00:06:33.080 | like right there.
00:06:34.840 | I just bought a new place there.
00:06:36.600 | And we have a place in the mountain,
00:06:38.200 | which is being built right now.
00:06:40.040 | And that's maybe 90 minutes, 75 minutes drive
00:06:44.120 | from Panama City.
00:06:44.960 | So you can see these things are really, really close.
00:06:47.200 | So even if you decide, you know what?
00:06:49.040 | I don't want the hot weather.
00:06:51.280 | I wanna be in the mountains.
00:06:52.280 | I want cooler weather,
00:06:53.360 | but I want access to all of the infrastructure.
00:06:55.800 | Perfect.
00:06:56.640 | Less than an hour and a half,
00:06:57.760 | and you're in downtown Panama City
00:06:59.240 | with the best shopping, the best malls,
00:07:01.240 | the best cinemas and restaurants and cafes
00:07:05.320 | and everything like that.
00:07:06.800 | And even if you didn't wanna drive so far,
00:07:08.920 | you can drive down the hill 15 minutes
00:07:10.960 | and be in a town that still has all your grocery stores
00:07:13.520 | and all those amenities.
00:07:14.800 | So it's quite a compact place,
00:07:17.600 | but it speaks to many different types of lifestyles.
00:07:19.920 | Does that make sense?
00:07:20.840 | - Yeah, I agree.
00:07:22.080 | And the thing that has impressed me a lot
00:07:24.240 | about Panama City specifically, where it's most visible,
00:07:28.280 | I think it applies broadly to the whole nation,
00:07:31.040 | but Panama has developed very, very quickly.
00:07:36.040 | I mean, you said you were there 20 years ago
00:07:38.360 | versus when you moved there five years ago.
00:07:40.800 | I've traveled a lot in Central America,
00:07:43.160 | South America, and you go one place,
00:07:46.120 | some cities you go and you visit,
00:07:48.760 | and then you come back 10, 15, 20 years later,
00:07:50.960 | and it's exactly the same.
00:07:52.240 | Panama City has not been that place.
00:07:53.880 | It has completely transformed itself
00:07:55.680 | over the last few decades.
00:07:57.800 | - Yeah, 100%.
00:07:58.720 | I mean, so in 2003, 2004, I took 18 months
00:08:03.720 | and I hitchhiked and backpacked through Latin America.
00:08:08.040 | So I went to Belize and Guatemala and El Salvador
00:08:10.320 | and Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Honduras, Panama.
00:08:12.880 | I mean, if we compare a couple of those countries,
00:08:16.080 | like, okay, Costa Rica has gone up, it's growing,
00:08:20.480 | but not a huge amount.
00:08:22.280 | Belize has kind of stood still.
00:08:24.960 | Belize is trapped in a time capsule
00:08:27.640 | from 20 years ago or more.
00:08:30.360 | But Panama is totally different.
00:08:32.800 | They've done all these reclaimed land projects,
00:08:35.480 | like Avenida Balboa is reclaimed land.
00:08:38.240 | They've done Santa Maria, which is by the mangroves,
00:08:41.520 | huge development there.
00:08:43.040 | We're doing the man-made islands that we just talked about.
00:08:45.720 | Casco Viejo, which is like a world heritage site,
00:08:48.880 | has had hundreds of millions of dollars rammed into it.
00:08:51.400 | So it's restoration of all these buildings.
00:08:53.600 | It's like a living museum.
00:08:55.600 | If you guys have gone to Cartagena before in Colombia,
00:08:58.520 | it's like Cartagena, but on a smaller scale.
00:09:01.000 | It is right here in Panama, like a hub destination.
00:09:03.720 | So it's cafes and rooftop bars,
00:09:05.720 | and it's just, it's growing so much in the years.
00:09:10.320 | And what does this mean for people like us?
00:09:11.920 | Well, it's a great opportunity to get in on a trend
00:09:15.000 | with any of the investment
00:09:16.680 | because rising tide lifts all boats.
00:09:19.400 | This is new ferry terminal, cruise ship terminal,
00:09:23.840 | new convention center, Casco, which we mentioned.
00:09:26.920 | All these types of things are huge infrastructure projects
00:09:30.520 | that raise all of the value.
00:09:33.000 | - Yeah.
00:09:33.840 | It seems to me, you mentioned the tax efficiency.
00:09:37.080 | There are many people who that's very important,
00:09:39.480 | and many people who it's unimportant to.
00:09:41.720 | But one of my observations over the years
00:09:43.480 | is that in many cases, tax efficiency is one of those,
00:09:48.320 | I don't know if it's a leading indicator,
00:09:49.640 | but it's certainly one of those things
00:09:51.000 | that goes along with a lot of development.
00:09:54.160 | Because if a country knows, every government knows,
00:09:58.440 | okay, we can pass whatever tax laws we want to,
00:10:01.320 | whatever thing we can force the people to accept.
00:10:04.600 | We could put 97% income tax rates.
00:10:07.160 | We could put a two or three X value added tax
00:10:11.760 | or whatever we want on our products.
00:10:14.360 | But when a country makes the intentional choice to say,
00:10:17.800 | we're going to tax very lightly and very thoughtfully,
00:10:21.120 | they're doing that because as I see it,
00:10:23.320 | they're rolling up their sleeves
00:10:24.880 | and going into the world of competition.
00:10:26.600 | And they're inviting people to say,
00:10:27.800 | hey, consider us as a destination.
00:10:29.840 | And that's something that Panama has embraced
00:10:31.880 | for many years.
00:10:32.720 | It's very much part of the culture.
00:10:34.280 | And so boat registrations, banking,
00:10:37.360 | international business corporations, et cetera,
00:10:39.840 | has all gone, a lot of businesses flowed there.
00:10:43.200 | And in response, Panama, I think,
00:10:44.640 | has done a good job of seeking to develop it.
00:10:46.520 | They've tried to build out the transit.
00:10:48.360 | The airport is nicely connected to the city with a train.
00:10:51.640 | The airport itself serves well, the whole downtown.
00:10:54.000 | And so I think people often have this misunderstanding,
00:10:57.880 | especially those coming from the high tax world,
00:11:00.640 | a misunderstanding that, well,
00:11:02.120 | if you go to a place where taxes are light, nothing works.
00:11:05.320 | That's not true.
00:11:06.160 | We've seen it Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, Panama,
00:11:09.560 | countries that know they have to compete,
00:11:11.480 | they actually roll up their sleeves and start competing.
00:11:14.480 | - A hundred percent.
00:11:15.320 | I mean, and those countries that you've mentioned,
00:11:17.240 | I've lived in all of them as well.
00:11:19.360 | I've spent considerable amount of times in those,
00:11:20.960 | and I've seen what happens when they deregulate,
00:11:23.840 | when they lower taxes, and when they're, as you said,
00:11:27.080 | a lot more thoughtful with these types of things.
00:11:29.280 | It's massive amounts of foreign direct investment.
00:11:31.960 | You can build a life in these places,
00:11:34.320 | and you can really participate in something
00:11:37.640 | that's exciting and new and fresh and lively.
00:11:40.880 | And it's just amazing to watch the changes
00:11:43.040 | and watch the grow.
00:11:43.880 | And I'm addicted to that.
00:11:45.240 | I love that feeling of growth, of expanding.
00:11:49.680 | So I think it's really, really amazing.
00:11:51.440 | So I think that Panama has all of those things,
00:11:55.360 | except it's not like Singapore, which is kind of,
00:11:58.040 | I wouldn't say done, but I mean, it's well-established.
00:12:01.280 | Singapore is like super well-established.
00:12:03.680 | You want to go in there.
00:12:04.960 | It's a couple million dollars just to get started.
00:12:07.680 | Panama's heading in that direction,
00:12:10.160 | but your ticket to the ball is not a couple of million
00:12:14.200 | dollars, it's considerably less than that,
00:12:16.440 | maybe a hundred thousand, couple hundred thousand dollars
00:12:19.040 | if you want to get the immigration here.
00:12:21.120 | But I mean, there's so many options.
00:12:23.520 | So it's like, don't wait for these things for five years
00:12:26.640 | or 10 years or something like that.
00:12:27.480 | That you've missed the boat.
00:12:28.840 | I mean, you need to identify what the trend is
00:12:32.320 | and then take a risk and put some time and energy
00:12:37.080 | and effort into this place.
00:12:38.120 | And this is what we're going to be doing.
00:12:40.520 | This trip that we're doing together
00:12:42.560 | is going to be a massive opportunity for people
00:12:46.600 | to really get educated about this.
00:12:48.800 | Not just for me, like, okay, I've been here for five years,
00:12:51.440 | but all of the lawyers that I work with,
00:12:53.240 | the property developers, the banks, the service providers,
00:12:56.880 | all of these people, you're going to meet
00:12:58.760 | all of the network.
00:13:00.280 | This is not a conference with 500 people there
00:13:02.560 | and you just listen to someone talk at you.
00:13:04.880 | This is a small group, say 25 people, 30 people,
00:13:08.480 | maximum, maximum.
00:13:09.960 | So every day we get to share with you, me, the lawyers,
00:13:14.440 | get your questions answered.
00:13:15.560 | It's a shortcut.
00:13:16.560 | I think that's the best way to put it.
00:13:17.880 | It's a shortcut on all of this type of stuff.
00:13:20.520 | - And there is still, even though we have so much access
00:13:23.320 | to good media, there's no substitute for going somewhere
00:13:25.600 | and seeing it and being in a place.
00:13:28.600 | That's what I've been doing very intensively
00:13:30.200 | over the last few years is systematically going
00:13:32.600 | and I take my children with me,
00:13:34.160 | but going to places and seeing things
00:13:37.160 | because once you are actually in a place,
00:13:39.800 | you can very quickly judge for yourself
00:13:42.640 | whether the information that you read online
00:13:44.320 | or the information you were given yourself is right.
00:13:47.800 | When I was with you in Panama City,
00:13:50.040 | immediately after touring Panama City with my family,
00:13:54.200 | we flew directly to Mexico, sorry, to Cuba.
00:13:57.000 | And it was an important trip for me
00:14:00.280 | because I had spent from 2005,
00:14:03.360 | when I had a bunch of left-wing,
00:14:06.720 | I had a professor of mine that was very influential
00:14:09.400 | and he was this hardcore leftist,
00:14:11.600 | very much a hardcore leftist,
00:14:14.800 | a liberation theologian and whatnot.
00:14:16.520 | And he praised to the mountaintops,
00:14:19.040 | Venezuela and Cuba at this point in time
00:14:21.480 | as like being the paragon of development
00:14:24.360 | and human rights, et cetera.
00:14:25.720 | Well, I've watched and have a good amount of experience
00:14:28.000 | with Venezuela, but I had not ever been able to get to Cuba.
00:14:31.520 | And so finally I went and took my family to Cuba
00:14:34.160 | and we spent a week there.
00:14:35.480 | And you just get off the airplane and you go into the town
00:14:38.680 | and you can immediately feel in about 60 minutes
00:14:42.480 | the truth or in this case, the absolute non-truth
00:14:46.560 | of what that particular professor was sharing.
00:14:50.120 | And it made me sad.
00:14:50.960 | It was not a fun trip.
00:14:51.800 | I didn't, it was a very difficult trip,
00:14:53.920 | but it was a very poignant example of how important it is
00:14:56.720 | to get your boots on the ground and feel the place.
00:14:59.280 | I wanna go back because these terms,
00:15:00.960 | plan A, plan B, et cetera,
00:15:02.440 | are probably really comfortable to those of us
00:15:04.560 | who spend a lot of time thinking about internationalization
00:15:07.440 | and plans and going around the world.
00:15:08.760 | But I don't think they're very normal terms
00:15:10.680 | among a lot of people.
00:15:11.520 | How do you define the term of plan A and plan B?
00:15:14.240 | And why is that definition important
00:15:16.440 | in internationalization?
00:15:18.240 | - 100%, we need to make sure that everybody understands
00:15:21.360 | the lexicon and what we're talking about here.
00:15:24.720 | So let's actually do it in reverse order.
00:15:27.560 | A plan B would be someone who's listening to this,
00:15:31.160 | you're in the United States, you're in Canada,
00:15:33.360 | you're in Australia or New Zealand
00:15:34.600 | or wherever you guys are.
00:15:36.200 | And you like your life there, okay?
00:15:38.080 | You have a nice job or you got your business,
00:15:40.400 | you got your family,
00:15:41.600 | you hang out with your friends from college.
00:15:43.360 | Amazing, that's fantastic.
00:15:45.240 | But at the same time,
00:15:46.360 | you're kind of looking around at the world
00:15:47.920 | and you're going, there's some worrying things going on.
00:15:52.160 | There's wars, there were lockdowns,
00:15:55.160 | there's a whole bunch of stuff that maybe you agree with
00:15:59.160 | or don't agree with, but you can understand that
00:16:01.840 | these are, how to say this politely,
00:16:05.000 | these are troubling times, let's just put it that way.
00:16:08.840 | You can identify this.
00:16:10.280 | Now, have you talked to your spouse about it?
00:16:13.400 | Have you talked to your friends about it?
00:16:14.920 | Maybe, maybe not.
00:16:15.880 | But I think you probably recognize
00:16:17.440 | that there's something weird going on in the world.
00:16:19.680 | And you as an individual or a sibling or a parent
00:16:23.680 | or whatever, you have a responsibility
00:16:27.200 | to you and your family.
00:16:28.520 | Part of that responsibility is, okay,
00:16:32.200 | yes, having enough water and food in the house
00:16:35.320 | in case there is a hurricane
00:16:36.720 | if you live in that type of a belt.
00:16:38.640 | But another type of plan B or backup is a political one.
00:16:43.640 | What happens if things happen in your country?
00:16:46.440 | Where are you going to go?
00:16:47.880 | You can't just get on an airplane
00:16:49.160 | and go to another country without a residency there.
00:16:51.360 | I mean, you can under a tourist visa,
00:16:53.400 | you could spend 30 days there,
00:16:54.680 | you could spend 60 days there, maybe 90,
00:16:57.400 | but at some point they're gonna kick you out.
00:16:58.880 | You're gonna be overstaying your visa.
00:17:00.160 | You'll be illegal in the country.
00:17:01.480 | You don't have a legal right to live there or work there.
00:17:05.320 | You might not even have a legal right to purchase property.
00:17:08.200 | So what do you do?
00:17:10.560 | Well, we need to set those things up in advance.
00:17:12.680 | And that's what we affectionately call a plan B.
00:17:15.040 | And inside of that plan B ecosphere is the banking,
00:17:20.040 | the corporate structures, the immigration,
00:17:23.040 | the tax planning, and the investment.
00:17:25.200 | Traditionally, or at least from my standpoint,
00:17:27.440 | the investment side is real estate,
00:17:29.240 | making sure you have something tangible
00:17:31.480 | that will be very difficult
00:17:32.760 | for someone to take away from you.
00:17:34.800 | So that's kind of the idea of a plan B
00:17:37.400 | and where it comes from.
00:17:38.680 | It's political insurance or insurance on yourself
00:17:42.400 | for moving to another country.
00:17:44.880 | Now, a plan A, you would think,
00:17:47.080 | "Okay, well, if I move to Panama, I've got my plan B."
00:17:51.320 | No, Panama has now turned from your plan B
00:17:54.280 | into your plan A because it's your primary destination.
00:17:57.160 | It's where you actually live now.
00:17:58.920 | It's where your kids go to school and all these things.
00:18:01.360 | So now we might wanna set up something on top of that.
00:18:04.440 | Now it might not have to be as many things.
00:18:06.760 | Like I have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, plan A.
00:18:10.000 | Like I have real estate in eight different countries.
00:18:11.960 | So I'm not saying you need to be as crazy as I am
00:18:14.880 | with all of these things.
00:18:15.800 | I tested out, I'm a Guinea pig and things.
00:18:18.000 | But I think at the very minimum,
00:18:20.040 | we need to have a hard look at what your plan A is
00:18:22.640 | and be setting up a plan B, full stop.
00:18:26.200 | - Yeah, when I think about it,
00:18:27.600 | I just think what occurs to me,
00:18:29.600 | and I do think it works better to start
00:18:32.120 | with kind of plan B versus plan A.
00:18:34.480 | Because if people think,
00:18:36.000 | "Well, in order for me to engage in flag planting,"
00:18:39.080 | meaning work with different countries
00:18:41.200 | and do something outside of my own country,
00:18:43.200 | I have to move there.
00:18:44.880 | That's just not, that's not the world we live in anymore.
00:18:47.760 | And it's not even the wisest course of action.
00:18:50.000 | Moving and living somewhere full-time 365 days a year
00:18:54.520 | can be extremely disruptive to your life.
00:18:57.160 | But you don't have to move to a place
00:18:59.680 | to start putting down some connections there.
00:19:02.600 | So I would compare it,
00:19:03.800 | let's say someone is living in the United States
00:19:05.520 | and they're thinking about moving to another state
00:19:07.160 | or another city in another state.
00:19:08.800 | Normally they'll start by going to that place and visiting,
00:19:12.920 | and they'll go and take a vacation,
00:19:14.320 | spend a week or two there, and they realize,
00:19:16.320 | you know what, really like the feeling of being here.
00:19:18.840 | Then they'll dig a little bit deeper,
00:19:20.040 | they look at the economy,
00:19:21.000 | look at what job options are available,
00:19:23.000 | and they might want to start making some connections,
00:19:24.760 | networking with some people,
00:19:26.040 | going and attending a local church,
00:19:27.600 | a local business organization,
00:19:29.840 | seeing what the opportunities are in that area.
00:19:32.240 | Now, when you do that within a country,
00:19:35.200 | pretty much the day you decide to move,
00:19:37.520 | you can deal with all the legal stuff later.
00:19:40.040 | Your bank account works just the same
00:19:42.560 | whether you're living in Florida or in Tennessee.
00:19:44.920 | Your driver's license is just a matter
00:19:46.640 | of reaching out to the state government and saying,
00:19:48.920 | "Hey, can I have this?"
00:19:49.880 | And you have the legal right to live in a country.
00:19:51.800 | When you're going international,
00:19:53.160 | it's not that much more difficult,
00:19:54.920 | but there are a few more points.
00:19:56.600 | You have to get the right to live there.
00:19:58.600 | You have to sometimes step through some hurdles
00:20:00.680 | to set up local infrastructure.
00:20:02.080 | You may need a tax ID number
00:20:03.480 | in order to activate your local utilities
00:20:05.240 | or open a local bank account, et cetera.
00:20:07.400 | And so my preferred approach is to say,
00:20:09.880 | "Where are some places that I'm interested in?"
00:20:12.040 | And then choose to set up plans, plan B of,
00:20:14.960 | "Hey, if I ever needed it,
00:20:16.200 | I could go and live in this country."
00:20:18.160 | So I have a couple of complete,
00:20:19.640 | basically I think of them as packages of,
00:20:21.680 | here is a country where I have a complete local plan B.
00:20:25.360 | I have a residency card
00:20:26.680 | that gives me the permission to live there.
00:20:28.200 | I have a driver's license
00:20:29.440 | that gives me the ability to travel there and drive there.
00:20:33.040 | I have a bank account.
00:20:34.000 | I have everything set up.
00:20:35.200 | I have a phone number that's with that.
00:20:36.760 | So I have everything set up for my identity there.
00:20:39.160 | And if I wanted to move there,
00:20:40.400 | I can just simply get on an airplane and go.
00:20:42.360 | And from day one, I'm ready to go
00:20:44.760 | because everything is established for me.
00:20:47.400 | And that does solve, just having that,
00:20:50.200 | even if you don't move,
00:20:51.040 | it solves some of those big picture ideas.
00:20:53.360 | In many difficult situations,
00:20:55.720 | your best bet is to be prepared to stay at home
00:20:58.040 | or relocate locally.
00:20:59.520 | But there are a lot of national level issues.
00:21:02.280 | Political issues are an enormous risk.
00:21:06.280 | Various economic issues that affect the entire country.
00:21:09.520 | Issues such as national legislation,
00:21:12.040 | we saw during the pandemic,
00:21:13.400 | the country you lived in
00:21:14.400 | made a big difference in your experience.
00:21:15.960 | And so being prepared to have another country
00:21:18.760 | that you can go to,
00:21:19.840 | solves very elegantly some of those extreme situations
00:21:23.520 | that really nothing else does.
00:21:25.160 | But you don't have to move to a place.
00:21:27.240 | Moving to a place is your plan A.
00:21:28.800 | And that's where you say,
00:21:30.000 | I really wanna build my life here
00:21:32.040 | because of the opportunities that are gonna be there
00:21:34.360 | or how my lifestyle is gonna be superior.
00:21:36.840 | And people can pick and choose as they like.
00:21:38.880 | And for most of us,
00:21:39.840 | I think we start off down a road of,
00:21:42.080 | let me try it here.
00:21:43.760 | Let me try opening a bank account.
00:21:46.040 | I remember the first time I opened a bank account abroad,
00:21:47.720 | I felt like a criminal.
00:21:48.680 | I felt like a terrorist or something
00:21:49.880 | trying to do something like crazy and sneaky.
00:21:52.360 | And then I put my money in there
00:21:54.040 | and I had my debit card and I started using it.
00:21:55.960 | And I realized, why was that such a big deal?
00:21:58.160 | But I only realized it wasn't a big deal
00:22:00.000 | when I actually did it.
00:22:01.960 | - For sure.
00:22:02.800 | And I think that there's a lot of emotional stuff
00:22:05.920 | that's going on in the world right now.
00:22:07.760 | And for a lot of people,
00:22:09.240 | there might feel stress or anxiety,
00:22:12.120 | watching mainstream media and seeing what's happening.
00:22:15.000 | With a lot of the clients that I work with,
00:22:16.600 | once we set up this plan B, as you said,
00:22:19.120 | the immigration, the banking, the structuring,
00:22:21.600 | actually a lot of that stress and anxiety starts to go away
00:22:25.000 | because they realize that they're actually
00:22:26.560 | a lot more prepared than anybody else around them.
00:22:29.520 | So just that mental feeling that things are gonna be okay,
00:22:34.280 | I think that's worth its weight in gold as well.
00:22:37.720 | - Absolutely.
00:22:38.560 | I struggle with whether I'll move back
00:22:40.960 | to the United States in the future.
00:22:42.680 | And I'm much more open to it than I ever was in the past.
00:22:47.160 | But what I realized is that in order for me
00:22:49.760 | to feel comfortable with the idea
00:22:51.040 | of living in the United States,
00:22:52.440 | I had to leave and know that I don't have to live there.
00:22:55.240 | And now I can look at it and say, you know what?
00:22:57.400 | That country has many good things about it.
00:22:59.800 | But the peace that came with knowing
00:23:02.240 | I could divorce that country
00:23:03.640 | and never deal with those bozos again in my life,
00:23:06.200 | I would happily repay all of the money
00:23:08.800 | and all of the time and all of the energy that it put in.
00:23:11.480 | I'd do it twice over just to regain that sense of peace.
00:23:15.120 | - It's optionality.
00:23:16.160 | It gives you options.
00:23:17.400 | This type of lifestyle, learning about these things,
00:23:19.840 | getting educated about it, it gives you options.
00:23:22.680 | And with options, you're a lot more resilient.
00:23:25.400 | And I think with the resiliency,
00:23:27.240 | you're gonna feel a lot better.
00:23:28.360 | So I think it's well worth coming
00:23:30.880 | and at least learning about the stuff,
00:23:32.880 | getting educated about it.
00:23:34.280 | - Absolutely.
00:23:35.120 | During this event that we're holding,
00:23:37.160 | we're gonna do in-depth seminars on a lot of subjects.
00:23:40.240 | We're gonna, and we're gonna tour
00:23:41.960 | a lot of different aspects of Panama.
00:23:44.280 | But I'd like to talk just about some of those areas
00:23:46.480 | where Panama really shines.
00:23:48.440 | What are some of the ways that Panama can be useful,
00:23:52.040 | even for those who aren't fully relocating
00:23:55.080 | and living in Panama City as your neighbor?
00:23:57.520 | - Perfect.
00:23:59.240 | So let's talk first about the taxation,
00:24:00.960 | just so you guys have a little bit of an understanding
00:24:03.360 | of how the tax works here.
00:24:05.040 | So Panama is what's called a territorial tax system,
00:24:08.440 | which means that Panama is not taxing you on income,
00:24:12.440 | which is generated outside of the country.
00:24:15.080 | So if you have a coaching business or consulting
00:24:19.440 | or Amazon FBA or drop shipping,
00:24:21.360 | or you work for a company and you travel
00:24:23.280 | or any of these things like that,
00:24:25.000 | you bring the money into Panama,
00:24:26.640 | they're not gonna tax you on any of that.
00:24:28.520 | Now, if you cut hair for a living
00:24:30.720 | and you wanna cut hair in here in Panama,
00:24:32.840 | okay, that's locally sourced income,
00:24:34.920 | and you will definitely need to pay tax on that.
00:24:37.360 | But any of the foreign sourced income,
00:24:39.040 | there's no tax on it.
00:24:40.320 | Now, if you're a US person,
00:24:42.040 | well, we need to talk about that piece of the puzzle,
00:24:45.680 | but that is also ways to navigate that legally.
00:24:50.200 | And there's some programs by the IRS
00:24:52.480 | to make sure that you pay as little as possible.
00:24:55.080 | We'll cover all of those in the program.
00:24:57.640 | But back to Panama.
00:24:58.600 | The other amazing thing here in Panama
00:25:00.840 | is the residency programs here.
00:25:02.680 | So the residency is your legal right
00:25:05.240 | to live and work in another country.
00:25:08.640 | Now, there's different,
00:25:10.840 | every country has their different programs
00:25:12.960 | and different timelines and costs to get involved.
00:25:15.680 | One of the really nice things about Panama
00:25:17.520 | is once you get approved for your residency,
00:25:20.120 | to keep it active,
00:25:20.960 | you have to visit the country one day every two years.
00:25:24.520 | That's it.
00:25:25.720 | So you fly down from the States or from Canada or whatever,
00:25:29.880 | it's a few hour flight.
00:25:31.400 | You come down, you have dinner,
00:25:33.040 | you go to the beach for a day or a week
00:25:36.280 | or whatever you want, and you leave.
00:25:37.920 | If you can do that every two years,
00:25:39.840 | two years, you will keep it active.
00:25:41.960 | There's other programs where you have to spend
00:25:43.640 | 183 days in a country,
00:25:45.520 | which means you become a tax resident,
00:25:47.080 | which means now you have additional tax obligations.
00:25:49.680 | There's some countries where you have to spend
00:25:51.520 | almost every single day in a calendar year
00:25:54.120 | to keep your residency active.
00:25:56.080 | There's ones that have time limits on them.
00:25:58.440 | They're a two-year residency or a five-year residency.
00:26:01.480 | This is a permanent residency.
00:26:03.080 | You can have it for the rest of your life
00:26:05.160 | and you only need to spend one day every two years.
00:26:07.600 | In the world of Plan Bs, this is excellent.
00:26:11.040 | This is like incredibly good.
00:26:14.560 | Then there's a lot of the reasons that we already discussed,
00:26:16.960 | the economic trends that are happening in Panama,
00:26:20.040 | massive amounts of foreign direct investment,
00:26:22.520 | infrastructure projects.
00:26:24.080 | You mentioned also the subways.
00:26:26.520 | They're putting in new subways and train lines.
00:26:28.800 | They're putting in new highways, all of this.
00:26:32.720 | There's a lot of big projects from the banking side.
00:26:36.360 | I mean, we have one of the largest banking sectors
00:26:39.160 | in the world here.
00:26:40.080 | I think it's 93 international banks.
00:26:42.760 | It's mostly down on Calle Cinquenta,
00:26:44.720 | basically Road 50.
00:26:47.520 | There's lots and lots of options from the banking side.
00:26:53.960 | Then there's lots of reasons I think that Panama hits this.
00:26:58.760 | Then, okay, the last one and the obvious one,
00:27:01.200 | and I leave it for last, kind of funny,
00:27:03.480 | is the Panama Canal.
00:27:04.480 | I mean, this brings in billions upon billions
00:27:07.200 | upon billions of dollars into this country.
00:27:09.800 | It's now administered by the Panamanians.
00:27:11.920 | It's an engineering marvel.
00:27:13.320 | It's incredible to go and watch.
00:27:14.920 | Actually, I'm going to take our group down, Joshua,
00:27:17.560 | to see it because I think it's such an economic driver
00:27:19.480 | that people have to see it on the trip to really understand.
00:27:23.200 | But it adds so much stability to the country.
00:27:25.280 | There's so much product that's coming in here.
00:27:27.440 | They've created free trade zones
00:27:29.160 | and special economic zones based around this.
00:27:32.680 | So Panama's an important player in the world.
00:27:35.280 | And with being so well-connected
00:27:37.160 | and so easy access to the states,
00:27:39.400 | I mean, it just ticks a lot of the boxes.
00:27:43.040 | - Yeah.
00:27:44.560 | Don't underestimate the importance, anybody,
00:27:47.360 | of the connection of easy access.
00:27:49.680 | Most of my audience is in North America and in Europe
00:27:53.520 | because most of my content is,
00:27:55.560 | virtually all of this content is in English language.
00:27:58.840 | And that's where the dominant
00:27:59.960 | English language approaches are.
00:28:02.000 | When I first started internationalizing,
00:28:04.760 | I thought, well, I'm willing to go wherever it takes.
00:28:07.560 | I'll do whatever it takes.
00:28:09.200 | I like to travel.
00:28:10.040 | I like to get on airplanes.
00:28:11.200 | Well, at this point, buying seven airplane tickets
00:28:14.200 | and traveling from Miami to Singapore,
00:28:17.520 | I love that travel,
00:28:18.960 | but it's not so easy with young children.
00:28:21.200 | The numbers add up quickly.
00:28:23.240 | It's not the kind of thing that you can just say,
00:28:25.160 | well, let's just go to Singapore this weekend
00:28:27.600 | and meet with my banker.
00:28:29.800 | Panama, on the other hand, has incredible connectivity.
00:28:33.600 | I mean, for me, being from Florida, I'm spoiled.
00:28:35.880 | You've got all the low-cost airlines that fly there
00:28:37.840 | and basically 200 bucks round trip and you're there.
00:28:40.120 | Even for many other parts of the United States,
00:28:42.400 | it's relatively inexpensive to get to, it's short flights.
00:28:45.640 | The time zones are incredibly convenient
00:28:48.320 | being on Eastern time zone.
00:28:51.080 | And even just the US dollar parity,
00:28:53.760 | Panama has its own currency, but it's pegged to the US dollar.
00:28:56.720 | And so that brings a stability to the financial supply
00:28:59.600 | and the currency.
00:29:00.720 | It's really nice.
00:29:01.720 | And one of my favorite things actually about Panama City,
00:29:03.640 | which even the canal zone,
00:29:05.760 | it is probably one of the more welcoming
00:29:10.040 | kind of familiar feeling places in Latin America.
00:29:13.560 | I love the Spanish colonial architecture.
00:29:16.160 | I love visiting different places that feel very unlike
00:29:19.320 | where I'm from in the United States.
00:29:21.200 | But there's no question that going to Panama,
00:29:23.240 | because of the heavy influence of the Americans for so long,
00:29:27.160 | it just feels very welcoming and very friendly
00:29:29.560 | and feels very familiar in terms of how the infrastructure
00:29:31.960 | is set up.
00:29:32.800 | So it's a really great scenario.
00:29:35.160 | - We're going to talk in more,
00:29:36.960 | I think Panama, one of the unique benefits though,
00:29:39.280 | is Panama, even for non-residents is useful.
00:29:42.880 | You mentioned banking, people all around the world
00:29:44.920 | use Panama for banking,
00:29:46.560 | but Panama is enormous in terms of foreign incorporation,
00:29:49.680 | as well as trusts and foundations as well.
00:29:54.160 | Mention a few more things about those,
00:29:56.040 | even in the usefulness of that,
00:29:57.720 | even for people who don't live in Panama.
00:30:00.640 | - Sure, so Panama is a civil law country.
00:30:03.280 | So what that means is you can basically think of
00:30:06.040 | a common law country comes from the UK,
00:30:08.600 | civil law is Roman law or European law.
00:30:11.640 | Because of Latin America is pretty much all colonized
00:30:14.960 | by Europe, by Spain and Portugal and things like this,
00:30:18.040 | it's all civil law countries.
00:30:19.160 | So what we have is the foundation down here.
00:30:21.680 | Now, this is an excellent way that you can organize
00:30:25.000 | your assets, organize your financial life,
00:30:27.880 | especially if you want to invest in other countries,
00:30:31.240 | real estate or banking or precious metals
00:30:33.240 | or stock accounts offshore,
00:30:35.680 | those can all be done through these type of vehicles.
00:30:39.200 | And you rightly said, Joshua,
00:30:41.240 | Panama is one of the largest incorporation destinations.
00:30:45.200 | So it's one of the largest offshore jurisdictions.
00:30:47.800 | Now, okay, Hong Kong is very big as well,
00:30:49.920 | but Hong Kong has come into problems
00:30:51.480 | over the last five or six years.
00:30:53.640 | There's some other countries in the Caribbean,
00:30:56.240 | which are big ones as well,
00:30:58.080 | but they don't have the larger economy to back them up.
00:31:01.560 | They don't have the population.
00:31:02.760 | They don't have the human capital in a lot of those places.
00:31:06.800 | Panama is what I would call,
00:31:08.480 | and I don't mean this as an insult to anybody,
00:31:11.080 | but Panama is a real country.
00:31:12.800 | This is not a tiny little Caribbean speck
00:31:16.120 | with like 40,000 population for the entire country.
00:31:19.480 | Panama is a real country.
00:31:20.760 | I mean, there's a lot going on here.
00:31:22.880 | So even if you decide, you know what?
00:31:24.560 | Okay, forget about, I don't want to live here.
00:31:26.360 | Okay, I don't even want to get residency here.
00:31:28.480 | There's still things here in Panama that speak to people
00:31:32.080 | who decide or who understand
00:31:34.320 | that they need to have a portion of their assets overseas.
00:31:37.760 | They can't have all their eggs in one basket.
00:31:40.080 | They can't just have a stock portfolio at Schwab
00:31:43.840 | and then think that that's diversified.
00:31:45.680 | They realize that there needs to be differences
00:31:47.360 | in asset class, different in structures,
00:31:49.720 | difference in currencies and different programs.
00:31:51.760 | Like we can open multi-currency accounts here.
00:31:54.160 | You can have access to Swiss francs
00:31:55.800 | and different things like this.
00:31:57.080 | So it's just perfectly geared towards this type of lifestyle.
00:32:02.080 | And then, as you mentioned,
00:32:04.960 | you don't need to fly for 18 hours to get to the place
00:32:09.720 | or take four connections to get there.
00:32:12.360 | Like I lived in Abu Dhabi in Dubai for almost a decade.
00:32:16.600 | I loved it over there.
00:32:17.560 | It was fantastic, but it is a complete pain in the butt
00:32:20.440 | to be eight hours, 10 hours time difference
00:32:23.640 | from all of my clients and my friends and family
00:32:25.920 | and everything like that.
00:32:27.200 | And 13 and a half hours flight to New York
00:32:30.200 | or 12 and a half hours flight to New York.
00:32:32.400 | That's a long way.
00:32:34.320 | But if you can come down here in three, four hours,
00:32:36.880 | I mean, you come down in the morning
00:32:38.240 | and we'll go out for lunch in the afternoon.
00:32:39.840 | It's perfect.
00:32:40.680 | I mean, there's no jet lag.
00:32:41.760 | You're basically on Eastern Standard Time or Central Time
00:32:45.280 | the entire year.
00:32:46.120 | Panama doesn't change, the US and Canada change
00:32:49.000 | with daylight savings and stuff.
00:32:50.520 | But you can go North-South really easy.
00:32:52.840 | East-West becomes very challenging.
00:32:54.720 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:56.840 | So you've been doing these investment tours.
00:32:59.440 | I think it best if you just walk through the itinerary
00:33:01.480 | quickly, 'cause this is something you've done multiple times
00:33:03.600 | you've ironed out a lot of the wrinkles and the troubles
00:33:06.160 | and you've learned from doing these tours,
00:33:08.680 | these one week tours in Panama and Uruguay
00:33:11.280 | and Eastern Europe and the Channel Islands, et cetera.
00:33:13.400 | You've learned what really works.
00:33:14.520 | So go ahead and walk us through the itinerary
00:33:17.160 | of what we'll be doing during our time in Panama in January.
00:33:20.600 | - Perfect.
00:33:21.440 | So yes, we've got a lot of experience with these things.
00:33:24.240 | What I have found works really well and is really special
00:33:27.280 | is to keep the group small.
00:33:28.920 | This is the number one thing.
00:33:31.440 | This is not a conference where it's like nine hours a day
00:33:34.920 | of someone talking at you the whole time
00:33:37.480 | and you're just in the receiving end of information.
00:33:40.440 | No, everything is together.
00:33:42.840 | Everybody is together every moment.
00:33:44.960 | So we're sharing our meals together.
00:33:47.480 | We do breakfast together in the mornings.
00:33:50.080 | It's kind of a free flow when you get up
00:33:51.680 | but everybody's always sitting together.
00:33:53.280 | Then we do conference material for two to three hours
00:33:56.840 | in the morning with a nice long break in between.
00:34:00.160 | Now, this is not a rehearsed presentation
00:34:03.920 | that I've done a hundred times
00:34:05.240 | and I'm gonna hit every correct word on this step
00:34:08.480 | and blah, blah, blah.
00:34:09.320 | No, I mean, I do my presentations.
00:34:11.440 | You have a question, you put your hand up
00:34:13.280 | or you interrupt me, I don't care.
00:34:15.000 | And we deal with that issue in real time.
00:34:17.120 | So it's more of a conversation back and forth.
00:34:21.440 | Now, if you're really curious about the immigration
00:34:25.160 | on this particular piece, then perfect.
00:34:27.680 | We'll dig into that.
00:34:28.960 | The important point is that you get your questions answered.
00:34:32.320 | Now, after we do a couple of hours
00:34:34.760 | of conference material in the morning,
00:34:37.000 | we take a nice leisurely lunch.
00:34:38.680 | We all sit together, we relax
00:34:40.760 | and then we go and do a field trip.
00:34:42.640 | So some examples of the field trip
00:34:44.600 | that we'll be doing in January
00:34:46.320 | is I'm gonna take you guys out
00:34:47.600 | to the private man-made islands.
00:34:49.080 | That's gonna be one.
00:34:50.160 | We're gonna do a real estate tour.
00:34:52.080 | That's another.
00:34:53.040 | We're gonna go out to my friend's gold vault,
00:34:54.880 | a gold depository here.
00:34:56.960 | I've known these guys for years and years.
00:34:58.760 | They give us special permission
00:35:00.400 | to actually go inside the vault.
00:35:02.680 | These are things that hold, you know,
00:35:04.200 | two, $300 million worth of precious metals.
00:35:07.320 | You won't even find the place on a map.
00:35:09.280 | It's super highly protected,
00:35:11.080 | but we have special permission
00:35:13.720 | for everybody to go and view it.
00:35:15.640 | We're gonna take you one day,
00:35:16.800 | we're gonna go out to the beach area.
00:35:18.760 | We'll spend some time out there.
00:35:20.600 | So you get to relax on the beach,
00:35:21.960 | see the coastline.
00:35:22.920 | We'll have a bit of a party, some food.
00:35:24.880 | You'll see some of the real estate options there.
00:35:27.120 | We're gonna go out to a self-sustaining community,
00:35:29.600 | a gated community that I'm building
00:35:31.160 | with a business partner.
00:35:32.480 | It's out in the mountains.
00:35:33.880 | So you see the city, the beach, the mountains.
00:35:37.000 | We're gonna go out to the Panama Canal, as I mentioned.
00:35:39.760 | So these are all the different field trips
00:35:41.520 | that we'll be doing for the week.
00:35:43.080 | And then at night, everybody gets together for dinner.
00:35:45.880 | These are real restaurants.
00:35:47.240 | This is not, "Hey, we're gonna serve you
00:35:49.800 | some buffet slop type of things."
00:35:52.680 | This is like, "We're going out for steak dinners.
00:35:54.560 | We're gonna drink a nice bottle of red wine,
00:35:56.280 | and we're gonna brainstorm
00:35:58.000 | and make connections with one another.
00:35:59.760 | I'll be there, you'll be there.
00:36:01.440 | Our friend Gabriel's gonna be there."
00:36:03.200 | So we'll take different times
00:36:04.680 | and we'll sit with different people each night.
00:36:06.680 | And then you're gonna get to meet other people on the tour.
00:36:09.760 | So learn about their lives, what they're doing,
00:36:11.960 | what their businesses are.
00:36:13.320 | Network and make connections with all of them.
00:36:15.800 | And we're going for a week.
00:36:17.600 | So the relationships, Joshua, this is what it's about.
00:36:20.640 | Education, okay, awesome, great.
00:36:23.240 | But the relationships, you can't replace that.
00:36:25.120 | You can't get that in any other type of format.
00:36:28.000 | But in this, it's center stage.
00:36:30.720 | It's at the center of everything
00:36:32.200 | that we're doing with the trip.
00:36:33.680 | And the success we have with these trips,
00:36:35.800 | the response we get is phenomenal.
00:36:38.280 | People go crazy for these trips.
00:36:40.280 | And as I mentioned, we just published a new video
00:36:42.440 | from our trip last week.
00:36:44.640 | You guys gotta see this.
00:36:45.880 | You see this, you go, "Okay, I get it now.
00:36:48.000 | I get what Mikel is talking about."
00:36:50.400 | But it's a tremendous experience.
00:36:53.920 | - I'll make sure to share that on all of my profiles.
00:36:56.360 | Dates of this event are January 22 to January 28.
00:37:00.720 | And that'll be January 20 of the year 2024.
00:37:03.240 | So January 22 to 28 of the year 2024.
00:37:07.320 | It'll be a one week event, a beautiful time of year.
00:37:10.040 | I gotta admit, we did pick it intentionally
00:37:12.120 | when it's cold and snowy.
00:37:14.000 | You wanna come for a tropical vacation
00:37:17.280 | and enjoy some time in the sun.
00:37:19.840 | But I'll be there, Gabriel will be there,
00:37:21.800 | and Mikel will be there.
00:37:23.240 | And I'm making myself fully available.
00:37:25.440 | I'm not gonna bring my wife and children.
00:37:28.120 | I'll be full.
00:37:28.960 | So for me, I'm gonna be on vacation.
00:37:30.360 | She's got the hard work at home.
00:37:31.560 | I'm gonna be hanging out on the beach,
00:37:33.120 | chilling with you guys till midnight,
00:37:35.160 | talking about everything under the sun.
00:37:37.880 | Mikel brings an enormous experience,
00:37:40.360 | a level of personal experience to this discussion
00:37:44.680 | and professional experience.
00:37:45.760 | He's done this, he consults with people.
00:37:48.400 | He has the connections all around the world.
00:37:50.480 | And so it's a great place to bring your questions,
00:37:52.600 | bring your comments.
00:37:53.440 | Mikel, anything we missed
00:37:54.280 | that I should have asked you about?
00:37:55.440 | - No, you're an amazing interviewer.
00:37:57.240 | You're a professional, my friend.
00:37:58.920 | I think we did a great job of covering everything.
00:38:01.880 | I guess my last comment is I'm super stoked
00:38:04.480 | to be meeting everyone in just a couple of months.
00:38:07.000 | I mean, January is just around the corner.
00:38:08.880 | It's gonna be a lot of fun.
00:38:09.960 | I can't wait to meet everybody and share a drink
00:38:12.080 | and share some meals.
00:38:12.920 | And yeah, very welcome.
00:38:14.480 | Everybody's very welcome to join us.
00:38:16.640 | - Absolutely.
00:38:17.480 | Sign up now at expatmoney.com/radical.
00:38:20.440 | I will put the link in the show notes as I do every time.
00:38:23.360 | expatmoney.com/radical.
00:38:25.520 | All the information, all the additional details,
00:38:27.600 | everything is there.
00:38:28.440 | expatmoney.com/radical.
00:38:30.840 | Sign up today.
00:38:31.680 | Look forward to seeing you guys in Panama.
00:38:32.600 | Thanks, Mikel.
00:38:33.960 | - Thanks so much, Joshua.
00:38:34.800 | I'll talk to you soon.