"I Quit My 9-5 Job and Moved to LATAM" - James Nuveen | Ep. 6

Mike: Thanks for tuning in to The Grupo Podcast. Today I have James Nuveen on the show. James quit his 9-5, moved to Latin America and grew his marketing and coaching businesses to multiple six figures in revenue. Now he tweets his story through the Freedom Files. could find him, James | Freedom Files, on Twitter he documents his journey to ultimate freedom and helps young entrepreneurs start their online first businesses.

We talked about life in Latin America, specifically which countries to move to, what the future looks like as far as immigration to Latin America goes. We discussed some of the demographic changes and trends happening, and then throughout the Business model, an idea at the end. I hope you enjoyed this conversation.

Please share it, give it a thumbs up wherever you listen to it and give us some feedback. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

Thanks for watching!

Mike: So you have your Freedom Files and then you have your digital marketing agency.

And thinking about how the two coexist is something that I think more people experience and more people think about than may be obvious, because you have this online identity where you're sharing your story, which is really engaging, and I think people feel attracted to that story. As they're living vicariously through your adventure.

Maybe they're stuck in the US or somewhere in Latin America or anywhere in the world and they're just looking at you saying, Oh, we can just book a flight. We can just go and meet somebody and work remote. just setting the table here. I feel like the last five years in particular, maybe the last 10 extended, the idea of working remote and completely living remote is all of a sudden now totally table stakes.

You can do that. even when I was starting my career as an entrepreneur, I lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And like the idea of moving to another country would mean you basically forgo the ability to build a local office and have a business there. And so that's one thing. I think the overall ability for people to create content online is a business model.

decentralization of the startup hubs, which is probably catalyst by COVID. Those two phenomenons together seem to have distributed, call it tech remote work across the US and Austin and Miami now major hubs, but also across the world. I'd say, maybe you tell me, maybe this is a good place to start.

What do you see as the largest hubs now that are starting to emerge, south of the US, we'll call it?

James: not just south. Of the US, but all over the world, like you said, I would say if we're just talking about Latin America, the biggest hubs would be Mexico city with such easy access to the US and Canada.

that's, an hour long flight for people from Texas. we're talking two, two, three hour flights from New York, San Francisco. Maybe a little bit longer than that. But a direct flight and really easy access and also a ton of resources and amenities for remote workers. It's the second largest city in the world.

So we're talking a huge hub for remote work. And we've seen, I believe, I'm not going to have the numbers correct here, Mike, but Mexico City a year ago was, I think, the 26th most expensive city. in the world and now it's jumped to like number six or some like huge jump. Maybe that was just Latin America.

I'm not sure, but they, the, cost there because there's been so much interest in expats and nomads, and just normal backpackers not working. It's gotten a lot more expensive. So if you're looking for affordability, I don't think Mexico City is as great an option as it was, a year ago, two years ago, before it was discovered, I say that in air quotes, after the pandemic, but apart from Mexico City, I would say that, Medellín, Colombia, which is where I'm based, Buenos Aires, which is having its difficulties, but because of those difficulties is extremely affordable for someone earning dollars.

Or Euros, Rio de Janeiro, I would say those are probably the big hubs. and then there are countries that I think attract a lot of attention as well. So Costa Rica, you're not going to save any money going there. However, the quality of life there is fantastic. The weather is fantastic and it's much more like off the beaten path.

yeah, you can go a whole lot of different directions when you're talking about hubs, and it obviously depends on what you're interested in, but if you're earning dollars, if you head south, of the United States, of Canada, you can save a ton, especially when you're growing a business or, working remotely.

Mike: You know what would be awesome is if there was like a, maybe you've made this or maybe you see this, but like a comparison graph that have an extremely detailed analysis of what are the taxation implications for a American that was down there on a work visa. what's the overall popu population is the easy one, right?

BA, Buenos Aires, Rio, Sao Paulo. maybe even like Lima. These are just large cities, so they're going to have some sort of technological hub there because it's just the sheer mass of people. But then it's like, what are the, cities that hit above their weight class that are for some reason or another?

just exploding uniquely in their small scale with excitement. you mentioned, Costa Rica, Tulum. I don't know if that would be a tech place, but the idea of a small place that has something really special because the cohesiveness of that small city is what makes it feel magical.

San Francisco in the early days, had this special feeling of like, tech is just, it's just like this secret sauce that people would come there for. And Costa Rica gives me a little bit of that sense that people would go to Costa Rica to build a remote business and live that lifestyle.

it's probably the quality of life, the safety, the tax implications, access to nature. Maybe the physical infrastructure with, hacker hubs or these sort of like houses. Are there other things that come to mind? You think that if you're, I'm almost picturing if you're running a city, if you're a mayor of a city in Latin America and you want to take advantage of this globalization that's happening and economic opportunity becoming equally distributed, what should cities do to attract people?

James: That's a really good question. So I think you first have to understand how people are entering countries right now in order to then think about, okay, how can we get those people and attract more on tourist visas, on work visas, because those are very different conversations. So as it stands right now, most countries in Latin America and around the world, give you, especially if you're from the U.

S. or Canada, any Western country, OECD country with a stronger passport, you have about 90 days on a tourist visa, meaning you can, you have visa free access to that country and you can enter, without any issues. You get 90 days to, build your business or work and have fun, play, whatever, for 90 days.

And for most places, it's like that in Latin America. Then, once you reach those 90 days, Some places, some countries will allow you to extend that to 180 days, 183 days, Columbia included, so I, know a lot about Columbia having been based here for about two years, you have a 90 day visa, a tourist visa, and you can extend that to 180 days, so you can spend around the world.

Six months here without having to get any particular visa that you have to apply for, any difficult process. Very easy. Most countries are, have a structure where you can spend 90 days in that country on a tourist visa and then leave the country, come back for another 90 days. And your whole system resets and then you can leave after those 90 days and come back.

So those are called tourist runs where you have to leave the country and you can come back after those 90 days. and that could be, I don't, different countries have different procedures where you have to come back within 24 hours if you want to come back. Or 48 hours sometimes, but that option is open to, I believe that's the process how it works in Argentina, in Costa Rica, I believe it's how it works in Panama as well.

But when you start getting close to about 180 days, This is where tax implications start falling into place, right? in most countries around the world, if you spend 180 or 183 days, sometimes that's their limit, their threshold, in a country in any year, any calendar year, or sometimes in any 365 day period.

So that could be June to June. If you spend 183 or 180 days in that country in that time, you become a tax resident, which can be a very dangerous spot for a lot of people because they don't realize that they have become a tax resident because they don't know these rules. So that means that you would be liable to pay taxes in that country or at least file taxes, which is different than paying taxes, both in your home country as your tax residency.

Especially as Americans, because we have worldwide taxation and that country that you spent 180 days in. So for Americans, that can be a very tricky situation. For, Canadians, Western Europeans, if you claim another tax residency. As your tax residency, you can figure out ways to, optimize for taxes and only pay taxes in one of those jurisdictions.

That's, why I like to warn people about that six month limit, or six month threshold, where you gotta start thinking about, okay, how close am I becoming? How close am I to becoming a tax resident in this place and having to pay taxes in a jurisdiction that I didn't plan to pay taxes in. So you got, you have to be very careful,

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Taxes are definitely a major consideration. I have some friends who moved to Dubai almost with the dominant reason being taxation, famously. that's gotta be a major factor, in addition to the other ones. I think, I'm trying to get a sense, I'm curious your thoughts on the sense for the, current market size and then the growth rate of nomadic, we'll call them like nomadic remote workers versus permanent residents.

Because from a city's perspective. The former is much less, maybe they're like a kindling wood for the fire. if you have a bunch of people from the U. S. come down for three months stints, they live here, they go to meetups, they host events, and then they're gone. They probably don't contribute to the tax basis, but maybe they do for a year or two.

But it seems like the, second piece of saying we're going to become a attractive place for immigrants to come from other countries, the United States is facing A whole bunch of financial, political, and economic challenges, we'll call them. And we can go into details on those, but I feel that there's a high likelihood within the next decade, maybe sooner, where there'll be mass emigration, people leaving the U.

S., driven by the debt crisis. And the easiest place to go is straight down the time zone. South Mexico and other cities in Latin America. And I think if there's a, if there's a country, Costa Rica comes to mind as being one that I'm personally familiar with. But if there are countries that are just set up to where it's okay, come on down guys, weather's great.

Immigration's easy, tax code is simple. It would be such a power move, and I'm just wondering if, that's got to be the big, that's got to be the big economic opportunity for some cities and countries in Latin America, as opposed to the nomadic travelers. I'm curious if you have any response to that, if you've seen any specific cities, like formally acknowledge that opportunity of, or ambition to attract people, yeah, and if anything's changing on that front.

James: I will say, and I also want to go back, Mike, to your previous question, because I don't think I answered it fully, where you were talking about, are there any things that mayors and governors and presidents can do in order to really attract this talent and business growth, economic growth, really? I think these two questions are really similar.

some things that, that countries have certainly done is waive any tax implications as part of those digital nomad visas that you've seen pop up in countries around the world in the last five years. For example, Spain. I know that's not Latin America, but, it's relevant to this conversation. They, it, taxes are very high.

I'll just say that. Taxes are very high in Spain. It's a EU country. And I'm not sure the exact tax percentages, but I know that it goes up to about 50%. if not slightly above 50%, if you're earning, in the top tax brackets. However, with their Digital Nomad Visa, because they think that those people will not be permanent residents, they're not here permanently, we might as well get something out of them and encourage that, economic stimulation, that economic growth here.

Because a lot of them are high earners. So they reduced the tax rate for just that Digital Nomad Visa to about 24%, I believe. down from those higher tax rates. So people are encouraged, come live this Spanish quality of life, come enjoy our tapas, come enjoy our cerveza, and you can also have a tax, a reduced tax rate.

So that's just one example of people, like a policy, an actionable, real policy that a country has implemented in order to attract that talent into that country. Apart from just the digital nomad visa and having some type of permanence to that way of life, instead of having to do border runs, like I was talking about earlier, Columbia, for example, doesn't have that.

so Columbia has a digital nomad visa, but if you spend 183 days in that country, in any 365 day period, so any. Any period, so that could be June to June, you're liable to file and sometimes pay taxes, and that, that is a very high rate. I believe it's about 35 to 40%. and just because you're paying taxes in your home country, like Canada or the United States, you would also have to pay.

here in Colombia. So there's certainly tax policies that countries can change. Mayors and governors don't have as much control over those policies because they are federal. However, what we've seen in nomad hotspots like Medellin, like Mexico City, there are certain portions of the city that really cater.

to the nomads and the expats and the non native language speakers there. languages that are, I'm sorry, restaurants and businesses, institutions that have dual, do, duolingual, or bilingual workers, menus. Information, language meetups, nomad meetups, co working spots, yoga, yoga, businesses, all of these different types of things.

Those really cater to those digital nomads and expats because that's just our way of life in the United States and Canada. That's not as common here. So you wouldn't see that, you wouldn't see a lot of locals going to yoga on a Saturday morning in, in Mexico City, Panama City, Bogota. That's not as much of a thing as it is in the United States and Canada.

So a lot of new businesses are sprouting up, a lot of new policies, tax policies are sprouting up. Digital Nomad Visas are becoming a thing, when five years ago they weren't. So there are a lot of things that federal governments can do. mayors and governors from a city standpoint can really invest in infrastructure to help these people get around, to allow rideshare apps to come into their country and their cities, because in most city, in most countries in Latin America, rideshare is not legal.

so making things a lot easier for nomads and expats, That, would be the answer.

Mike: Yeah, Another one I think would be really relevant would be, maybe not today, but possibly in the future, would be the protection of Bitcoin assets or just cryptocurrency assets. You in the U. S. there's increasing tension between the federal government and the state government.

It's not contingent on cryptocurrencies, it's really contingent on border control. It is Also maps the same lines. The red states tend to be and are explicitly in favor of, cryptocurrency protection like Bitcoin. The government doesn't have the right to seize your Bitcoin. In 1935, the government, the U.

S. federal government made it mandatory to take everyone's gold. And during times of extremely high debt crises, alternative assets could be like an escape hatch. And so the governments have an incentive to block that. And I think it's quite possible I think it's important that people leave the US with a lot of their holdings, a lot of their savings outside of USD and a country that were to say, hey, we're gonna, El Salvador is famously on Bitcoin standard as well as USD.

But if a country were to say, we're going to respect your right to own. Bitcoin, and we're not gonna let the United States come and take it from you. That's another thing, you add that to like, an overall cultural beacon, taxation favorability, infrastructure, and all of a sudden it's you're just like creating this lighthouse that I think is, if I'm Thinking about it from a Latin American city perspective or state perspective, it's really setting yourself up for at least growth.

that would have to be something that you have to be explicitly wanting to.

James: Yeah. And I would loop that in with taxation policy because I, apart from seizure, you're also talking about whether Countries are allowed to tax capital gains on those digital assets. El Salvador is a great example.

Another thing I want to add to this conversation is that it may be more than any other region in the world, Latin America has many territorial tax system countries, which means that, that country does not tax foreign sourced income. So if you're a remote worker from the United States, or if you have a business located in the United States, And you establish your tax residency in Paraguay, in Latin America, or Uruguay, or Panama.

And I believe Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala also make this list. So there are a ton of countries and options. Belize is also on this list. there are territorial tax systems, so they don't tax Any income that is sourced outside of their borders. If you have a business set up in Paraguay, for example, and you live there, you have your tax residency there, then they believe that they're, that you need to file and pay taxes there.

But if your business or your job is headquartered outside of that country, They say, come to our country, fine, stimulate our economy, spend your money here, but if your business is not our business, if your business is not located here, then we have no business taking your money. So obviously territorial tax systems are huge.

Draw for people earning money outside of that country, especially online.

Mike: Yeah, God, that is such a, that's such a huge policy. it's like basically as the world becomes more globalized and people start to build more online businesses than offline, there'll always be plumbers and mechanics and restaurants and local businesses, but there'll just be an increasing percentage of our attention that's placed online.

Like how much. 24 hours in a day, you're asleep eight hours. What percentage of your waking hours are you looking at a screen? this full hour, we're engaged. Like it's probably less hours than it is in, the physical world. And that is representative of where dollars flow or, where the economy goes.

And so I, It's, just a fascinating policy,

James: Yeah. And I'll also add that probably many people in your audience are American, as you are, as I am, Mike. we got the raw end of the deal on this one. The United States is a tax haven. Mountain Man people know that. Many Americans don't know that.

And the reason they don't know that is because it does not apply to us. If you are a non US citizen, you have the ability to, in most cases, Move your tax residency at will. And if you're from Germany, if you're from France, if you're from the UK, you can go to Paraguay and spend, I believe their tax residency is 120 days.

So not 180 days, just four, is that four months? Yeah, it's four months. Doing a little quick math there. just spend four months there a year and establish economic ties, which requires a few things. and that's all it takes to become. Tax free. And obviously this is not tax advice, this is not financial advice, but if you move your tax residency from a country in Western Europe or Canada even and establish a tax residency in another country, especially a territorial tax system, like Paraguay, like Uruguay, like Panama, then you're paying 0 percent on your income tax.

You don't have to pay for it in your home country, but

Mike: the

James: difference is that Americans, we are taxed on our worldwide income. this is only, we're like one of three countries, that do this?

Yeah, two. Two, yeah. And the other one is Eritrea in Africa, which most people

Mike: can't even put on a map.

Yeah, got it. And you have to think, so what's, what are the implications of that? Obviously the U. S., uh, the largest or if not, top two economies in the world, every person who's a resident here or taxpayer has to pay tax to the U. S. federal government regardless of where they are in the world.

Unlike every other country except for one.

James: If you spend zero days in the United States in a year, you are still liable to pay taxes to the IRS. but that is citizens. That's U. S. citizens. So there's a big difference between citizens and residents. and citizens have to pay U. S. tax no matter where they live, no matter where their business is.

they have a lot of systems set up in order to track all that information, make sure that U. S. citizens do pay their

Mike: tax. And the externality of that, I would imagine, would be that U. S. citizens are disincentivized to think of themselves as international business people. there's no, there's like what you carved out there, okay, you're from Spain or Portugal or Canada and you go to Uruguay, then you have this tax benefit.

That doesn't exist. So there is no, it's almost like Insular effect where the U. S. citizens are just like, they're like, regardless of where I go in the world, I'm still going to pay these taxes. So I might as well stay here. It like, yeah, it's seems like

James: either that Mike, or I can travel all I want, I just can't spend it or I can't make another place, my tax residency, because then I have to pay taxes in two countries, the U.

S. and that other country, like I said, for. Almost all countries in the world, that's not the case. If you establish tax residency in another country, you just owe taxes to that country. And if you make that country a territorial tax system where your foreign sourced income is not taxed, You're paying income tax of practically zero.

You might have some extra like bonus taxes, but much smaller amount to compare to what you were paying in your home country.

Mike: Yeah, that's big. money drives a lot of behavior and incentives create a lot of behavior. Are you seeing from friends of yours and people you've interacted with over the last few years in Latin America, are you seeing?

The U people in from the US increasingly. So start to travel around Latin America or establish more permanent residences in, Latin America, or are you seeing like slow growth, fast growth there from the US or other countries? Are there any like trends of note that you're seeing from the demographics or people?

James: Yeah, I will say that the US does give some benefits for traveling. So if you spend. There are two qualifications for this Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, F E I E. If you spend less than, I believe it's 35 days in the United States, uh, in any 365 day period, so not a calendar year, then you can get up to 126, 000 tax free on your income.

Your first 126, 000 are tax free. So if you earn less than that, you can almost you can't not pay income tax in a given year if you spend less than 35 days in the United States. The other test of that is if you establish a tax residency outside of the United States. So if you spend 180 days in a territory, territorial tax system where income tax is not taxed.

And then the rest of the time in your home country of the United States, you can still get that foreign earned income exclusion and get your 100, your first 126, 000 tax rate. And that number goes up every year based on inflation. So I think in just the last few years, it's risen from like 105 to 126. I think it is about 2024.

as far as trends go, Americans, American wise, you don't see, Puerto Rico also has some tax advantages, so a lot of people establish tax residency in Puerto Rico, which is an American territory, so you still owe the IRS taxes every year, no matter where you go in the world, but it, and it's very strict, the, policy with Puerto Rico, so if you move, I think you do have to move.

and buy a home or either rent a home in Puerto Rico and spend a lot of time there. I think, I believe it's 90 days or maybe it's 180 days. I'm not sure on that. but that's one thing that a lot of Americans do to reduce their tax rate. Apart from the foreign earned income exclusion.

I'll just say F E I E for now, that's easier. but I don't see a whole lot of people establishing tax residencies outside of the country because they. They still have to pay American taxes.

Mike: so is it true to say then you're seeing few Americans live this lifestyle? So when I think of it, I think of the primary incentive for someone to travel and work remote is the thrill, maybe unless their business is specifically catering to that experience.

Like in yours is an example where you're, advertising or. Marketing, sharing a story, and that's part of your business operations. But for most people, if they're running a digital marketing agency or doing something remote, software development, whatever it is. They may just have a desire to travel, which is, require, it's like, it's harder and costs more to travel than it does to stay where you are.

So I'm, curious if you see, you look forward five, ten years, do you see, like, how does the world look different? Do you see ten times as many people traveling around Latin America, or are there other like a trend that you would pick up on early, given your position?

James: Man. Good question.

I, the way I think the world will move, and it's crazy because if you have ever heard of the Sovereign Individual, which is a book written in the 1990s. They laid out a lot of these things that are happening right now. They laid out the pandemic, the introduction of digital currencies, all this kind of stuff.

The rise of the government as a, as like an anti state in a lot of places. they predicted all of that. And what they predict next, I think is actually going to become true. Where countries will have to compete For people. The way that they laid it out is that we should think about countries as companies, just as we would in a grocery store.

We pick this grocery brand or this cereal brand versus this one versus this one There are many out there, but why do we pick this one? It's because of the nutritional value. It's because of the price. It's because of the brand. We trust them. It's because what that maybe cereal reflects to others about us.

What it makes us look like, they think countries are going to be the same way. It's going to be their job to recruit us versus us just thinking, Oh, we're born here, so we have to pay taxes here. We have to learn this language. We have to adopt their customs, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be companies trying to attract customers.

Because at the end of the day, that's what this relationship is. You pay taxes. In order to remain a citizen, just like you would pay a price in order to get that cereal box. A subscription. so exactly. So the way they're, they laid it out is that we citizens of the world will think a lot more about taxes.

We'll think a lot more about the culture that we want to surround ourselves with. The diets that all of these different countries have, the climates that they have. The business friendly environments, whether they're friendly or not, all of these different factors. And what is going to interest you, Mike, is not necessarily going to interest me.

So one country might serve you better than it would serve me. And vice versa, one country might serve me better than it would serve you. So I really see that as being the future of how we interact with all these different governments and nations. It's going to be, we have the power, and with our dollars, with our families, we can move wherever we want because we work online, we're location independent, and it's up to you countries in order to recruit us.

What do you have that this country does not have? What do you not have that this country does have? So I think that's going to be the next kind of phase. Of human government interaction and the relationship between citizens and countries.

Mike: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think the, the early adopters for network states, Bology's book and associated podcasts around this idea.

I think the nomadic traveler, nomadic remote worker is going to be, and probably already is in the places that they have established these kind of residencies or small, I don't know if the cities at this point, there's one in, Phoenix, outside of Phoenix that, Escapes me. Coldisact is the name.

It's basically like a city block that is intentionally designed, they don't have any rights on taxation, but they have a bunch of transportation systems, the little scooters, rental bikes, everything's digital. It's like swipe a card. It's It's like you're living on a campus, and then the idea is to expand that, and then from there, if you have a large audience, and you have a constitution, effectively, then you can go to existing countries or states in the US, and say, I'd like to purchase 10, 000 acres of land, and here's my development plan, and I'm not going to pay any state taxes, but I'll pay like a, a fee per person in this city, and thereby get to control around the world.

The healthcare policy, the police policy. And so there'll be like a negotiation that starts happening, between large developers who want to build these like city states. So I think you're right. I think it is existing countries will have to compete, but I think existing countries. will be forced to compete when new emerging countries start to, I don't want to say take their lunch, but really compete for the smartest, most exciting place to live.

And then you'll see mayors and governors and, different state leaders pop up and say, Hey, we got to get in this game. we have to become an exciting place to live. Otherwise it's like a brain drain. And, you were There's all sorts of problems with that.

James: Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

Maybe what we think about, what we think our country is today may not be countries in the future. what would define a country in, 2050? Maybe we have no idea what that is like.

Mike: you could certainly draw two distinct definitions. One is a state and one is a nation. A state has a set of tax policies, maybe a military, you're either in or not.

You have the passport or you don't. And then a nation is like a set of cultural and civilizational cohesiveness. like Japan is a state and it's a nation. That's pretty tight as a nation. The United States is like one state, but arguably two nations of the politically left and right. And there's tension there, right?

It's like they almost want to split off and become new states and split into two states. But there's not a clean line, because everyone's so intermeshed on top of each other. thus creating so much political agitation. But then maybe it says, okay, let's create a new, state somewhere.

And I think that'll be, that might be the gold rush of digital nomads and remote life. Is you can just move to one of these places.

James: Yeah. I think what we saw during 2020 was like a microcosm of what is to come. During that time, if you had the power to work online or earn money online, you could go wherever you want it.

You could go wherever you wanted. If you had multiple citizenships, you could cross borders, which a lot of people could not. And actually, on that topic, that year opened a lot of eyes to the control that one authority can have over people. what happened during that time? we don't have to get too into it, but There was a lot of censorship, both of speech and like financially, like people could, governments could freeze assets of individuals, which to a lot of people is just crazy.

migration routes were closed. A whole lot of other stuff that we don't need to get into. But during that time, a lot of people awakened to the idea that, huh, if I don't have. If multiple languages, if I don't speak multiple languages, if I don't have multiple bank accounts, if I don't have multiple income streams, if I don't have multiple residency permits around the world, if I don't have multiple citizenships, if I don't have multiple assets, those authorities can cut off where you're getting your money from, or where you can live.

Where you can be mobile, where you can, move your family, where you can educate them. A lot of people realized that during that time, and I was one of those people. on that note, I think it's not just a one nation state that will serve people in the future. I think it will be multiple. I think people will have What I was just talking about, multiple citizenships, so that they can diversify in the event that one company or one authority, one government becomes too powerful and can control how you live your life, how you earn online, how you live or where you live, how you go to school, how you go to work, multiple citizenships, multiple residency permits.

I would encourage multiple income streams, multiple languages, multiple bank accounts so that you minimize your exposure to any one person, any one authority, and I'm not saying anything as bad as going to happen, but in the event that it does, It's best to have really wild diversification across all of those different areas, so that as a sovereign individual, as a free man, you can move, you can have the liberty to go wherever you want, the liberty to earn more in this income stream than that income stream because that one was shut down by a world event.

So I, I think it's just more than one. nation state that people will belong to. I think it'll be multiple and the rise of kind of the sovereign man instead of the community.

Mike: I think that's right. I think that'll be a trend. I would probably argue that it doesn't become the majority, because there's a cost to that, that, redundancy.

there's you have to physically go there, once you get into your thirties, kids. Like the idea of traveling is a lot harder or certainly relocating is harder. So I think that's, but I think you're right. I don't think it's wrong. but I think older people and after you have family, it becomes less attractive.

And then the other reality is that the farther you are philosophically or ideologically from the state leaders, the higher risk you are. So that's why you see a lot of, the beauty of the United States is that it's many states. You can move to a state that has policies you more or less disagree, agree with more.

And I think that, that, competition, so to speak, is what allows for The flourishing of the whole, and in Latin America, there's, that too, the countries compete with each other, albeit they don't have, maybe Brazil and some other countries have exclusive states. One thing I know you've tweeted on, I think it's worth just calling out is that.

People in the US, even if we go through a massive debt crisis and there's pressure for people to leave, I think Latin America is way more attractive than Europe because you're, you can, stay within your same social network on this latitude, to, to travel around the world or you just work with people in other parts of Europe, India, Asia.

It's hard because the sun doesn't change. we're always going to, human beings are going to want to be awake when the sun is awake. And so commerce tends to fall on latitude lines more than longitude lines. And I think that's the probably underappreciated massive upside to Latin America is that we're just like, basically in the same time zone as the United States.

James: Yeah. Yeah. At least in the next few years, I don't think there will be a better place to make money than in the United States. That's true right now. It was true five years ago. It will be true in five years. but apart from the United States, yeah, the, time zone is one of the reasons I came down here first in Latin America about two years ago.

Mike: I want to make sure we talk about it a bit. So we were diving into these two separate entities you have, and two different initiatives. I would imagine that there's some combination of intentionality that you said, okay, I want to share my story on Twitter. And then you Also realized business opportunities to, to do other things.

How do you think through, or maybe we could just think through it together, this, what, when I look at you and I look at what you're doing on Twitter, and I see other people doing a similar thing, which is very courageous, which is to share your personal story. And in so doing, inspire people to maybe see the world differently or at least see the path pathways for them differently.

Maybe something opens up for them and they say, Oh, I could do that. I put my face where James face is and, go and do things that he's doing. And the internet allows for that to be possible and that business models on content creation and everything else. you have this other side view that is building this marketing agency or this, this growth agency.

How do you think through the way this, like, how does this look in the long term? Do you view it as necessary? and you can speak from your own perspective and experience, as well as like high level advice. I tend to believe that our efforts compound the most when we work with the same people doing one singular thing and one singular focus.

More so than four different projects or, more. but that's anecdotal and everyone is different. Do you see a benefit to keeping these projects separate? do you feel like they would be stronger together? Tell me what you think.

And maybe describe what I'm talking about in your words. Yeah,

James: exactly. Let's go back to the background first, because I would correct a couple of things about what you said. but you're, pretty close. So two, two years ago, two and a half years ago, I. Quit my job in, the Midwest in the United States and didn't really have any plans to do anything next, but I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

So started a digital marketing company and was doing everything under the umbrella of digital marketing, really realized that I loved writing and was good at writing and writing could actually make some money for me. So really focused in on that. And while at the same time leaving the United States about six months later, in order to reduce my costs, in order to travel, I had never, I didn't get the opportunity to study abroad during college.

So that was something that I had really missed. And, and since I was working online, I was running my own business. There was no one controlling my schedule or where I worked. That was for the first time a possibility. So I came down here to Latin America. lived in seven different countries in the span of two years, and in that time, fell in love with the idea that location independence is a huge part of becoming ultimately free.

Becoming independent. Becoming sovereign. And, at the same time, I was also running an online business, and I found out that, okay, this I'm heading on the right track because both of these things, online business and location independence, are really key in order to build a free life in 2024 and beyond.

Because that online business allows you to become location independent, it allows you to, the internet allows you to create so many different income streams. and some of them passive, so I would say that not all of them you have to be going full steam on to make money. but anyway, during that time I figured out that, okay, I want to create a base here.

I want to work my way toward permanent residency and citizenship in some Latin American country. I had also met some incredible people here in Colombia. and this became my favorite place in the world. So I invested here in Colombia and I have temporary residency on my way to permanent residency and citizenship if I don't get married before then to a Colombian, and.

I'm still running my own business and that business has shifted focus from just digital marketing with no niche, no target market in mind to really helping, our CBI firms, which is residency and citizenship by investment firms. So a lot of, uh, immigration lawyers, tax accountants, people like that, because I was scratching my own niche.

I went through this process here in Colombia and I know how difficult it is for people. most of the, their target market is like high net worth individuals, ultra high net worth individuals. But it's, a very complicated field. And having gone through this process in at least one country, I'll do it in many others as well myself.

I know a lot about it and can help these firms talk about what they're doing, not from just a legal standpoint, but why become free standpoint. And like we were talking about earlier, I think having multiple residency permits, investing in multiple international bank accounts, investing in different citizenships is a really, that's a key for the future, especially for high net worth individuals.

So that is the market that I really serve now in my content marketing business. We do video, email, and social. And on the side, just about eight months ago or so, I started sharing my experience. I had been told so many times that, wow, your, life is so cool. Wow. I want to be, I want to trade shoes with you.

and that's, humbling and everything, but I knew that I could help people, I knew that I could help people quit their job. I knew that I could help people start an online business and start take those first steps toward freedom. I knew that I could help people leave their home country in order to explore and work from.

Other countries learn new languages, fall in love with other people and other cultures. And that was the, ambition and the impetus behind the Freedom Files, which is, um, this side business that I, started and the personal brand that I started. So I'm just sharing my experience between all of those different life events, hoping that they really help people.

Through those things, and I think the world is better off when people take their life in their own hands, run their own business, especially entrepreneurs. If you're not an entrepreneur, that's okay. You don't have to be, and I wouldn't encourage it if you don't feel like it. but I feel like the world is a better place when people come more free and have more liberty.

that's, my intention of helping more people become more free.

Mike: Yeah, I love it. On the first business, I, can't help but just throw this at you, is that I remember being down in Costa Rica visiting a friend of mine and driving around and seeing these advertisements for local land property for sale, or local land for sale.

And then looking online and just not seeing those properties or seeing them misrepresented. And it seemed like this problem is quite pervasive that I think people take for granted in the US where if a property or a piece of land is for sale, there's like MLS and Zillow and Redfin and all this, these like infrastructural people.

tools to gain visibility and transparency to the purchase history and, tax implications, education, all the things. And there, it's just it was so much more organic and, non transparent and just who's the guy who owns this? Oh, it's, it's Tony. We got to go find him. And It was a lot harder and I felt if there was a resource, a website somewhere that could walk people through the purchasing of land and property.

where you have, say, maybe your customers today, which are these lawyers, you say, those are now your partners and you help create experiences online where people can go and click, see inventory, click purchase, send the money, bam, it's in a waiting period. Okay, this lawyer is going to come in and he's going to do this work and it's like minimal work.

I think that would be minimal work, high trust. That's the ratio. It's if you, basically there's billions, I'm sure billions and billions of dollars that are not being invested into Latin America from the US, that would be if an even partial contribution, you could have imagine me and four other people that wanted to go and split like a 50, 000 plot of land as an investment, if you could facilitate partial transactions and more complex transactions, it would open up the market tremendously.

It's food for thought. you'd have to have trustworthy lawyers that know what they're doing and some ability to set up a software experience that allows people to do this and understanding of the regulations in different countries. But to compare the countries together and, look at it from that lens, I don't think anyone's doing anything close to that.

I think it's big.

James: Yeah. And there are certainly reasons for that, that, that's not by mistake that There is no centralization of all those different things. So at least from my experience, and I'll get into the reasons in just a second, but at least from my experience here in Colombia, I invested in real estate about six months ago.

There's no Zillow, so it's very difficult to find properties. there's no centralized place, I should say that. There's no Zillow where everybody puts their property. There is Facebook Marketplace, where a lot of people list their properties, which is funny. There is something called Finca Raíz here in Colombia, which is like Zillow, but people after selling their properties don't even update them, so you're reaching out to someone who sold their property three years ago and it's still on there, but you can't rely on it.

There's Word of mouth, which is the most common and most successful way of finding and buying property. So no centralized place. Apart from that, there's no MLS, like you were saying. So I could become a realtor tomorrow here in Colombia. They don't have any training. They don't have any education. On how this works, they just can hop in, represent someone and take 3 percent of the sale.

So very different from how it works in the United States because of that. I should say there's, I think there are three reasons why something like Zillow hasn't worked up to this point. I'm not saying it won't work in the future. Technological, cultural. And now I'm forgetting that third piece. I was thinking regulatory.

Mike: okay.

James: maybe. Oh, there it is. They're not as capitalist here in Latin America. So you don't have entrepreneurs. Waiting in the wings to take over on an opportunity. We Americans American entrepreneurs, and of course this is very general, but, we American entrepreneurs are jumping at the bit to take on opportunities like this because we know the financial benefit that it will have and the, help that it would provide a community to have a centralized place that it, it doesn't really work with that concept doesn't really apply.

Here as much as it does in the United States or Canada. it's not, entrepreneurship isn't as much of a drive. Although there are small business owners all over the place, entrepreneurship and scaling and the, capitalist attitude of making money. is not as ingrained. Yeah. Second thing, culturally wise, word of mouth is still king.

We live in a very low trust society here in Latin America. They're much more communal than they are

And because of that, the,

I would say that because it's a low trust society, they don't think about, uh, again, this is very general, generally speaking, but they don't think about since I just sold this property and, oh, it was so difficult to find someone and it lasted on the market for five years, I should go create this, uh, app to help people in the future find properties.

it doesn't really work that way and people are willing to sit on their properties forever. And then the last thing I would say is technological. So the internet is much more a newer concept here in Latin America than it is in the United States. We've had, what, 25 years, 30 years in the United States to front run all of these other different societies on the internet and entrepreneurship on the internet.

This is much more a new concept here in Latin America, especially In the pueblos, in the campo, in the country, those many people don't even have internet or phones. So in the cities, obviously that's much more common. However, people aren't yet. So accustomed to earning a living online as they are in the United States.

Technology is just not as ubiquitous.

Mike: Everything you said makes sense as an explanation for why things are the way they are. but it also is still, to me, it seems like a great idea. where are you? Okay. So it's here's how I do it. no idea if you're interested in this, maybe someone is that's listening, but I just, I thought about this.

So I'll run it by you. So you basically pick some cities that you think would be interesting from an investment perspective from international folks in America. And you say, we're going to target two demographics from people in America. One is people who want to buy land or possibly property for the idea of an investment.

And then two, they want to buy something that they intend to come and live in. And the first really being more interesting. So you say, okay, what type of person, what are you interested in? You click this, then it goes to a list of places that are available. You get that list and those profiles from paying someone locally, either an individual like photographer or a real estate agent who knows the area, but they basically drive around, they find the properties, they take five, six pictures of the properties.

And if it's land, that's simpler. If it's a, if it's a physical place, that's more complex, but you could start with just land and then there's plenty of places that are just selling land. And then you have an inventory of the prices and now you have price transparency. I agree with you that technology is slower.

Word of mouth is very different, but everyone loves to get the best price. I'm sure people in Colombia, Costa Rica will haggle just as much as they would. So the more people who are, the more buyers there are, the better the price you can get. So when you have that transparency, you have comparables. Maybe you even have a topography map, but either way you have a profile.

And then I think that the phase two is to allow a simple and high trust experience for people purchasing land internationally. Okay, here's how it works. Here's the lawyers that are going to be working on the case. And the lawyers get paid like a, per transaction fee. And you know these people and they're trustworthy people.

That's where a core part of the experience is going to be, is like making sure people are trustworthy behind the scenes. And then just allowing for transactions and whatever regulatory or tax stipulations there are, you build that into the experience and then you basically certify the ownership of this.

no one can double sell land or there's no shady stuff that happens.

James: I will say the angle that I was originally taking was. Latinos selling to other Latinos. You're talking about a whole different platform when you start thinking about, Oh, we're going to sell internationally and all the different processes that have to go into that.

If you're selling to a non citizen and the, regulatory capture that would have to take place. But also again, going back to my cultural point. Columbia is extremely different from Ecuador, is extremely different from Peru, is extremely different from Mexico. And I think building one platform for all of them would, you would have to take a very, slow approach to, entering each of these different markets because of the different regulations, because of the different cultures, because of the different.

Norms of how real estate works. So I'm, certainly interested in the idea, especially as more people invest in Latin America, get residencies and citizenships and get visas and diversify their properties and assets, that's only going to become more important and more popular, a trend. Something else who exists.

Mike: Yeah. I think you're right. It will certainly need to be a country by country expansion and probably like a local geography by local geography within those countries. But to get to a place where you can compare land purchasing, you say, okay, here are the taxes. it's almost like you go and book an Airbnb and you get the final price after all the taxes and cleaning fees and Airbnb fees.

You don't care about any of that. All you want to know is what's the final price to get this apartment. And I think that's the. That's the value. It's okay, the long term vision is we get to 15 countries in Latin America, and you can see here's the cost, the transaction history of this land, here's the tax implications, here's the travel implications.

You have to be here for one month, a year, whatever it is. And then you can go through and you can filter and be like, okay, that's the one. and you're opening up a, demographic that is not currently open. There's no way to compare by city and by country. and I agree if you were to, if your target market were locals, it'd be a lot harder.

But if it's international, you're opening up a new market and like a new level of, cost comparison, which I think is interesting. I just, anyways, I just bring it up cause you have a really cool background and you have relationships with these folks who. are doing these kinds of deals, I think.

anyways, but James, we covered a lot of stuff, man. I want to show up all your day. I really appreciate your time. I love what you're doing, man. And I hope to continue the relationship. So thanks for hopping on today.

James: Thanks for having me, Mike. It was a pleasure.

Mike: Talk to you soon.

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