Nomad Capitalist: How to Reclaim Your Freedom with Offshore Bank Accounts, Dual Citizenship

Dateline: Las Vegas, United States

 

There was only one reason I had chosen to return to the United States that cold January evening. After a year basking in the warmth of the tropics, it wasn’t so that US Airways could destroy my brand new luggage (as they had), or so that I could gamble on the Strip (as I had many times before). It wasn’t even for the fluffy cotton candy that graced our dinner table that evening.

 

No, I was in Las Vegas as a messenger.

 

My mission? To deliver a wake-up call.

 

I stood in front of a packed conference room full of guests and declared that there was no reason for them to continue living, banking, doing business, or even being a citizen of a country that no longer served them.

 

They had more options.

 

I knew this because I had spent years observing and taking advantage of disparities in the way things are done around the world. I had worked to benefit from everything other countries have to offer, from higher interest rates to nicer women. The past year abroad was simply an intensification of those efforts.

 

Barely a year before the conference, I had sold my last US-based business in order to go from frequent traveler to full-time nomad. Tired of paying 40% or more of my income in taxes and shopping at the same Trader Joe’s, I was ready to totally transform the way I lived and did business.

 

Finally free, my mission was to find all the gaps in the system. I would go beyond Tim Ferriss’s version of geoarbitrage – using cheap production and labor in one part of the world and selling to high-paying customers in the West – and delve deeper into the global economy to leverage everything it had to offer. I would visit the world’s emerging hot spots, places that few were talking about, and discover the opportunities that still fewer could even imagine. In doing so, I would create the conditions for my ultimate personal freedom and economic prosperity.

 

And that is exactly what I did.

 

I spent all of 2013 traversing East and Southeast Asia, deliberately planning each stop in countries like Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to fully understand where the opportunities existed in those countries, the world’s new frontiers in an Asian century. I met with a cabinet member in the Philippines, the CEO of Vietnam’s largest western bank in Saigon, a private equity fund manager in Cambodia, and countless startups, expat entrepreneurs, and nomads staking their claims and making their fortunes in the world’s final frontiers.

 

Along the way, I shared my experiences and insights with a growing audience of readers, but I knew I could do more to help them. After a year of non-stop travel and research, I returned to the United States to reveal the opportunities I had discovered abroad in person. It was a simple message about how they could keep more of their money and live a better life, but the crux of the whole conference was for them to form their own game plan for everything offshore, ranging from foreign bank accounts to second passports.

 

For the hundred or so folks who had paid $2,000 each to attend, it was a chance to learn the “secrets of the universe” as it were; a new way to live and make money that few knew about or imagined could even be legal. For me, it felt like Napoleon’s return to Paris; the story of a man exiled, yet emboldened to come back one last time.

 

That was because it would be among my last times in the United States. I had made the conscious decision – one you can make, too, if you so desire – that the grass was greener in the Malaysias, Serbias, and Mexicos of the world than where I grew up. Times had changed and the United States that was once lauded as the “best place to be born” was no longer so.

 

Bearing the theme “Fight or Flight”, the conference was designed to help the audience members – who knew little about these greener pastures – decide exactly what they needed to do to survive and thrive in this changing world. Would they stay where things were familiar but in decay, or go where the grass was indeed greener?

 

For most people, front page stories of chaos in the rest of the world are cause enough to stay home; but not for my guests, nor for me. We realized that the real world is far different than the sensational headlines designed to incite fear and keep people from bettering their lives.

 

Despite being more aware of the changing world than most, my guests were naturally still confused about what they should do. Should they move overseas? Open an offshore bank account? Get a second passport? Bury gold inside an ammo can in their backyard and mark the spot with an “X”? They had come to my conference to find out.

 

Amidst the speeches and breakout sessions designed to broaden guests’ mindsets to the world of opportunity just waiting for them, a small group of VIPs and I took to experiencing Las Vegas as Nomad Capitalists in a private dining room with a balcony overlooking the city. The menu was a ‘what’s what’ of hipster fare only found in the Land of the Free, culminating with a dessert of cotton candy and Oreos. Only in Sin City would a $150-a-plate joint serve up circus food for dessert.

 

After dinner, as several of the event speakers and I sat sipping cocktails and conversing about our travels (“I disagree! Rwanda is better in the summer!”), a conference manager came through the restaurant advising everyone that the last shuttle back to our hotel was leaving.

 

When the manager earnestly advised a libertarian raconteur not to miss the final shuttle, the man looked up from what must have been (conservatively) his sixth or seventh rum and Coke and remarked quite matter-of-factly, “Shuttles are for slaves.”

 

His declaration took a while to sink in… “Shuttles are for slaves.”

 

What exactly did he mean?

 

As our conference continued throughout the weekend, however, I realized just how telling my friend’s remarks truly were. We had all joined together to learn how to escape the fate of becoming slaves to the system. We were tired of the government telling us what to do and how much to pay. We felt uncomfortable in a country that called itself “the land of the free” but did not do much to qualify for the claim. We were watching others pass us by as their businesses and wealth grew faster.

 

We were bound and determined to do something to change all that, and yet there we were, waiting for a shuttle to take us from Point A to Point B.

 

How much of our lives is determined for us because we give in to the simplicity of following the system? The masses take shuttles because they are told that it is the way to get from the restaurant to the hotel. We rarely ever consider alternatives to what ‘the man’ tells us to do. If someone says that there is a shuttle, people take it.

 

Of course, they could spend ten whole dollars and take a taxi and have the freedom to stay as long as they wish and go wherever they want, but they are too busy following the herd to think about what they actually prefer.

 

Don’t be a slave.

 

Don’t do what everyone else does.

 

That is what this book is about.

 

To thrive in an ever-globalizing world, you must do what others do not do and go where others will not go. The world economy is changing and those who operate at the edges of this new economy will find the greatest success. The focus should not be on surviving, but on actually thriving; on enjoying the best of life.

 

The week before my conference, it was announced that China would soon overtake the United States in the number of self-made billionaires. Emerging world billionaires were buying up more of the world’s assets than ever before. The United States and western countries were not keeping pace.

 

Today, many in the West wonder if it is even possible to be wealthy and live freely anymore. For the folks stuck in the past, there is a lot to be miserable about. YouTube is littered with documentaries on ‘forgotten Americans’ living on scraps in former boom towns in places like West Virginia.

 

For those of us willing to venture just beyond our original borders, though, the possibilities are endless. Better investments, greater business opportunities, and heightened freedoms are just a few of the advantages I have discovered by choosing to live an international life.

 

My time in Las Vegas was focused on helping my guests realize these opportunities and choose to leave the places that were not improving their life – ‘flight’ – rather than to stay and ‘fight’ in the hopes that things would get better at home. Fighting is messy, it is dangerous, and it is not a lot of fun. FARC rebels living in the jungle fight. Feral cats defending their territory fight. Six- and seven- figure entrepreneurs whose tax bills slow down their company’s growth, on the other hand, would likely be better served by flight.

 

There is no reason to stay in your home country and fight for change, not when you can go to greener pastures where the change you are looking for is already in place. That is the key to making the Nomad Capitalist lifestyle work for you. It is not about running from something, it is about running toward something much, much better. Flight trumps fight simply because there are so many green pastures meant to be explored – greener pastures that can increase your freedom and ensure the success of your businesses and investments.

 

Why sit home and complain about the high-tax, high-regulation, anti-freedom policies of your country when you can just go elsewhere? You have dozens of options. As a businessman, I do not have time to waste on the systems that do not serve me. Chances are, neither do you. As with anything in business, where you bank, incorporate your company, or choose to live is a simple matter of finding and applying a better solution.

 

Fighting leads nowhere. The people who protest paying US taxes to fund wars they did not choose, or those who object to the election of a president by fleeing to Canada, will both end up paying just as much in taxes. They focus on the bad rather than moving toward something good.

 

After Donald Trump was elected President, traffic to my website surged with people searching for ‘fast citizenships,’ thinking that becoming Canadian was as easy as turning up at a border crossing somewhere. Of course, it is not that easy, but then again, becoming Canadian is probably not the best solution. More on that later.

 

That is why this book is not about the doom and gloom that has become so common within the offshore industry. It is about solutions. Being a Nomad Capitalist encompasses much more than the individual shiny objects like foreign corporations or offshore bank accounts. Rather, being a Nomad Capitalist is a lifestyle. It is about being happy. Sure, it is about being prosperous and successful, but only from the standpoint of achieving a better life. It is about being able to have, be, and do anything you want.

 

I fully expect that the ideas in this book will be controversial. Upsetting the status quo is never going to win me universal popularity. When I sat down for an interview with the Huffington Post to discuss my core philosophies on life and business, the 6,000-word interview was swiftly deleted and any mention of me banned within two hours. So much for the free press.

 

But I would encourage you to approach these ideas with an open mind. For example, why is it that only humans submit to the idea of things like taxes and countries? Why is it that so many of us spend our entire life blindly paying taxes because ‘That’s what you do?’ We take the ‘shuttle’ our particular life circumstances have offered us without thinking once about whether or not that shuttle will even take us where we want to go.

 

When it gets too cold in the north, many birds fly south for the winter for warmer temperatures and a more abundant food supply. They do not feel a duty to stay where it is cold simply because that is where they were born. Doing so would be fatal to their survival! Instead, they go where they can thrive. That is the natural order. You can do the same, not only to find warmer locales but also to help your business and your investments prosper.

 

This book will help you adopt the mindset needed to do just that. While we will certainly discuss the many ‘how-to’s’ of international living such as banking offshore, getting a second passport, and even running a company in a different country, the main purpose of this book is to open your eyes to the possibilities of such alternatives to deliver a powerful change in your life.

 

Most of the people I help are young and mid-aged entrepreneurs who have had enough with the current system. For years, maybe even decades, they have paid a fortune in taxes only to see their government treat them with less and less respect. They have been told “you didn’t build that” and had their business accomplishments dismissed by politicians still all too happy to take their money.

 

The truth is that all of these problems are symptoms of living and doing business in a place that does not serve you. There may not be anything wrong with places like the United States per se, but it is increasingly not a good fit for many people. Whatever your situation, the lessons in this book can help guide your path toward greater freedom and prosperity using my ‘five magic words’ that I will share with you in the first chapter.

 

This book will open your mind to ideas that you are not even aware of yet, but that could be tweaked to massively increase your happiness, wealth, and freedom. Perhaps you do not know about the 100% legal ways to reduce your personal and business tax bills. Perhaps you do not know that it is legal (for most of us) to obtain a second citizenship so we always have another place to go. And, perhaps you have never imagined that you can invest all of the extra profits you will earn by doing this into overseas investments that will put the investments ‘next door’ to shame.

 

Once you start to go where you are not only respected but cherished, you will no doubt enjoy a snowball effect of newfound success, prosperity, and fulfillment. The taxes that you save by going to a business-friendly country can be reinvested to grow your business faster, which in turn increases your feelings of satisfaction, which in turn makes you more open to meeting new people who share your values.

 

This book will open your understanding of how the changing world we live in means a new way for you to do business; everything from hiring virtual assistants in post-Yugoslav states, to paying far lower taxes in post-British Chinese enclaves. And you can learn to do it all, no matter your current level of international experience.

 

While most books will either speak down to you as if you could never become an expert in living, investing and doing business around the world, or will rely on pithy memes to implore you to sell all but eleven of your possessions and move to a hut in Bali, this book will do neither.

 

Even if you do not yet have a passport from the country in which you were born, you can take steps to go where you’re treated best to keep more of your own money and increase your freedom. As with anything else, someone new to this stuff should probably refrain from selling their entire 401(k) to invest it all in real estate in Bolivia, but that does not mean that you cannot take the first step now. After all, walking in the right direction is more important than arriving at the so-called destination.

 

This book will show you how to become a Nomad Capitalist by improving your business, your life, and your legacy step by step by step. It is part of a never-ending journey based on a new way of thinking. And it all starts with my five magic words…