Gizane Campos 0:03

Hello and welcome back to Be Global, the podcast where we explore how wealth, freedom, and opportunity intersect in today's world. I am Giusanne Campos, and today's episode, Reimagining Retirement, is inspired by the latest global retirement report from Global Citizen Solutions. We will be looking at what it really means to design a life of freedom and flexibility in today's changing world. Joining me is Mike Swingansky, best-selling author of Global Career, a TED speaker and seasoned digital nomad. Mike has traveled to over 100 countries while building multiple location independent businesses, making him the perfect guest to help us rethink what retirement can look like.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to dig in here.

Gizane Campos 1:06

Me too. I'm also so excited. Mike, just to break the ice, tell us where in the in the globe you are right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, so I'm currently in Koosamui, Thailand. And if you're watching the video, this is the beautiful view I get to wake up to every day. So it's a tropical island, and it's where the most recent White Lotus season was filmed. So it's an absolutely stunning place. Yeah.

Gizane Campos 1:33

Amazing. Yes, I've watched White Lotus, and um, and I've been to Thailand before, so I know how magical that island is. Um and and Kosamoy, that's where I got my paddy um license. And um, but yeah, it was I have really, really special memories um from that region. Uh Mike, but it's just not about me, it's about you. So you've built a life of freedom and flexibility that many people dream about. Um, what led you on this journey? Where are you at now?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, so it's been like, you know, 15 years in the making, and it definitely didn't happen overnight. Uh, I would say like there were some pretty important milestones that kind of led me to where I'm at now. I first am originally from Wildwood, Missouri. So I never really flew around the world. I wasn't like some Globetrotter family. I didn't step on an airplane until I was like 18, and that was like my first flight. We used to take the occasional road trips uh outside of Missouri, and we would go down to Florida or something, but it wasn't until I uh I actually studied abroad in Italy that I really caught the travel bug. And so that was like my first time overseas and kind of my first time uh flying and you know being abroad, and I just absolutely fell in love with it to the extent that I was organizing like uh study abroad program events with Italian students, with American students. And the leader of that study abroad program was like, hey, you should apply for uh the next year's program. And the way they did it, it was like a two-year uh sort of internship for the University of Missouri. And so as soon as I got back, I was like, okay, if I can get this, I can go back overseas next year and essentially get paid to do it. So I applied for a study abroad program and was accepted to be the student manager for Prague. And so that was like the big light bulb moment and kind of like chapter where I was like, man, I can actually now get these study abroad students overseas. I can start living a life and helping others also have that great experience that I had studying abroad. And so over the next, let's just say 10, 15 years, it went from studying abroad to working abroad to working remotely, and then finally, you know, building remote companies and empires from overseas, all from my laptop. So that's kind of the short version, but I can uh, you know, I turned it all into a book. If you if we have time, I could talk about it for three or four hours.

Gizane Campos 4:17

Surely I'll I'll definitely ask you about the book at the end. But then I'm still I'm intrigued. So what made you um what was the uh the catalyst? What changed it the Missouri boy to an international uh global um Italian student? What what was the the the flip there?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yeah, so I would say the biggest catalyst was during my senior year uh before I was graduating. So this was my final year, and I was kind of on a you know a crossroads. I had some job offers to go down the corporate world, and I also had this other like unknown path where I was like, all right, I I have to lead or I get to lead another group of students to Prague after I graduate. And so the big catalyst was my my mom was uh was sick. She was sick with cancer, and my junior year, the year before I went abroad, she had basically gotten a cancer diagnosis, had gone through treatment, had gone into remission, and from this point we thought she was cured. After a trip abroad, I came back and found out that she wasn't, in fact, like the the cancer had come back, and she was had a terminal diagnosis. So my senior year, the a month before I was graduating, she sadly passed away.

Gizane Campos 5:44

I'm sorry to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

It's still yeah, it's it's tough to to talk about, even though it's been you know 15 years. It's I was you know, a mama's boy, I would talk to her every day. But I will say like her passing away was something that I didn't want to you know just sit down and like do nothing. So I used that pain as motivation to to decide from that point on I was gonna live a life of adventure and immense purpose. So from that catalyst, it pushed me to this other path of the unknown, where I basically just booked a one-way flight over to Europe with no sort of plans, and I was like, okay, I'll just try to get a job over in Europe. And this was back in 2011. There was no real remote working back then, unless you were like a developer. And so I landed in Europe and uh I started utilizing my network, and I was able to find a job teaching financial economics at the university where we brought study abroad students, and that was that big light bulb moment for me where I was like, oh, I can actually live overseas, make a good income, do a job that I'm like thrilled about and learning, and get to travel all at once. That was like where I got the idea for the global career. I was like, man, I can actually have it all. I can live this life of travel and freedom and like living the life that I always dreamt of. Uh and so that was the big catalyst for me. Uh, and so that was like the thing that really changed the trajectory of my life.

Gizane Campos 7:27

That's fascinating, Mike. Well done for um reframing this pain and turning it something big. And I'm sure your mom would is super proud of what you achieved today, and um, and all and I'd like to talk about all the freedom that comes with it, with this discovery um of um you know of a life uh abroad. So but we also need to think that uh take into consideration that freedom is one of the hardest things to achieve, but it's also the most rewarding. I'd like to ask you personally, how do you define freedom and how does it guide the way you live?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways, and I would say the way I define it isn't necessarily gonna be the same for everyone else. The kind of technique or pillars that I use for defining freedom in my life is financial freedom, location independence, and time freedom. And so going a little bit deeper in what that means because everyone's gonna hear those words and have a different thing that pops in their mind. So let's just start off with financial freedom or financial independence. That's essentially being able to be in control of your money. How much money you make each month or every year is dependent upon you. There's no ceiling, you can work as hard as you want, or you can have a certain base income level that is going to pay for all your needs and all your everything you need. So I would say that that's the first step is like trying to get that. So either getting a higher paying job or building a side hustle or eventually just going into a business that you really have control of where you can get all of the upside. So that's kind of the first step that I think most people think about when freedom is you have the the finances to to kind of build and pay for the life that you want. That's the first pillar. I do think that is, you know, occasionally the most essential thing to build the other ones, but some people can have location independence and not financial freedom. And location independence is just having the ability to live anywhere in the world and essentially anywhere that has an internet or Wi-Fi connection. Uh, so that's how I define location independence. And then for the last part is time freedom. I basically consider time freedom as from when you wake up to when you go to sleep, you can do whatever you want. If I don't want to work for two or three weeks, I don't have to. If I only want to work, you know, one hour a day or 30 hours uh a week or 40, 50, whatever, I can kind of structure my day around that because I have full control uh of my life. And again, these all all these pillars have different layers to it. And so, like I would say, you might be uh starting off on layer one on one pillar, but you might have layer four of full autonomy on another. And so what I suggest doing is like when you're building a character for a video game and you're trying to level up certain areas like strength, stamina, or speed, you know, you got to figure out which which one's more important to you, put it in an order, and then make that priority because you can't have three things at the top priority. And so different chapters of my life I've had different sort of priorities for what I'm looking for. And so that's the way I think about freedom. And surprisingly enough, I don't think enough people actually do this. They don't actually like sit down, write down on an Excel sheet or note, like, hey, these are my this is my vision for freedom. These are what I'm gonna prioritize. And here's what I'm gonna say no to to allow myself, because to have this freedom, you have to say no to a lot of stuff. You have to sacrifice other things in life.

Gizane Campos 11:18

Absolutely. I agree with you. There's no growth if you don't learn how to say no to a couple of things in life. Um, and I love the analogy of uh building the character game. It's pretty much um it's spot on. You choose what powers are more important to have at this uh uh point of your life. Um I think there's also one concept that you often talk about and it um and it it goes along with um the uh financial freedom, location independence that you mentioned right now, the pillars that you mentioned, um, which is the concept of geo arbitrage. Can you explain what that means and how it fits into the bigger picture of uh reimagining retirement?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, I think a lot of people are familiar with the concept of geoarbitrage, they just haven't heard the term. So geoarbitrage is essentially being able to move to a lower cost living area while maintaining your income level. The example I like to use, which is the the easiest to understand, is the person who has a New York City job who lives in Wall Street, and then they they get a place that's upstate where it's like three or four times cheaper, they can have a bigger house, and they can commute to work. Now, there's a lot of levels of this. There's also the person who has the New York job on Wall Street, but convince their boss to let them work remotely from Wildwood, Missouri, where they can literally have a mansion, they can have 10 acres, and they can actually pay less and get more, right? The cost of living is substantially lower, and they're gonna get more for that lower price. Then you can take it to the 10x degree and live overseas on that US-based salary. And so there's a lot of ways to access geoarbitrage. And I would say, like, for anybody who's living overseas or Americans, you can access the remote workplace. I've helped people from developing countries literally get five to ten times more than their average salary in their country, and they have no experience, no skill set, no degree just by accessing the right job title, accessing the right sort of marketplace. And within six months, they're making more money than their family or their uncle who's a doctor in their country. So that's just to show an example of the power of geoarbitrage. And again, there's a lot of ways to utilize it in a strategic way that will essentially allow you to retire 20, 30 years earlier. Or if you're an entrepreneur, it's gonna give you more uh more runway for your business, more of that uh percentage of profit from your take-home income to reinvest into your personal business, into traveling, into you know, retirement, whatever it is, you're just gonna have more of a net profit take home, and you're not gonna have to sacrifice some of the finer things to elevate your lifestyle.

Gizane Campos 14:26

Absolutely. Thank you. And I think I want to, you know, we have a lot of um Americans uh who listen to our podcast, and I'm gonna give you an example, um hypothetic example, but I think it's important for them to um have like a clearer uh picture of uh what geo how geo arbitrage could work for them. So let's say a couple in the US has a comfortable pension, but is concerned about the cost of living or the direction things are going at home.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, I think it's a valid concern. I think the finances is like the number one thing most people need to consider. And I think people have a warped view of how much life costs abroad, and I think it's due to them accessing when they go overseas the top 1% of everything. So think about this example. Uh, I was just in Rome, Italy, as a tourist, right? It's hard to find a place like a nice five-star or like elevated apartment for under 500 euros a night in Rome. But if I were to go there for living long-term or retirement, I wouldn't be accessing those $500 night hotels or apartments. I'd be looking at one-year long-term leases. I'd be utilizing a local Italian broker who's accessing the local market. I'd probably be living in like a different area of Rome that's not right in the main tourist spot. So it'd be a lot more affordable and just better for like an expat or somebody to live. And so when you when you really understand that like I think it's like 90% of the world lives on under $2,000 a month, that's their average income per month for the majority of the world and a big portion of Europe is around that, especially when you go further east. People are able to survive and thrive on that sort of income level. You just haven't been able to access the local markets or locations in cities to access that same sort of value that they're getting. Uh again, it's a lot more complicated, but I think people really misunderstand short-term travel to let's just say retiring overseas or even just digital nomading where you're getting longer-term leases for three, six, or twelve months.

Gizane Campos 16:48

Absolutely. Yeah. And then um, as you mentioned, it uh people thrive um in these regions with this uh with the salary they get, they get, but also because uh some of the services that are not subsidized in in the US are subsidized in in Europe, including uh the universal healthcare. So there's there's a lot to factor in that could help stretching the dollars further. Now, talking about stretching, beyond stretching the dollars, your dollars further, um what are some of the lifestyle benefits of um living in the country with a lower cost of living?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, I would say like the the first one that comes to mind is you know the dollars sort of at a you know all-time low, I think, since 1973. So if you're concerned about that, literally moving to a place where you have uh purchasing power uh against that currency, you know, that could be, hey, everything's gonna be 20, 30, or 40% cheaper just on the conversion rate. And then you have the the other next layer there that which is going to be the cost of living. So just a breakdown of like what it looks like in Thailand is I'm able to live in uh you know a sea view villa that's three bedrooms, four baths, we have an infinity pool, we have a really great, you know, we're five minutes away from the the ocean, we have a chef, we have drivers. To replicate this same lifestyle in the US would be about 10 to 20 times more. Then you're gonna get access to some of the best medical care in the world overseas for a fraction of the price. So you can really have you can elevate your lifestyle for a fraction of the price, and that's kind of the the thing that I don't think a lot of people understand because they go overseas for two weeks out of the year and they're like, man, it was expensive. I spent so much. So I think that's like the the one mindset shift you need to adjust is I'm in Koosamui, which is one of the more expensive islands or regions of Thailand, but there's you know 20 other options. If like you're really wanting to live, you know, ball out on a budget, you can live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a thousand dollars a month and have a really good lifestyle. You can eat out every single day, you can go to the top places for restaurants and you know, all the amenities for what you need. So there's different levels and layers to it, depending on what is most important to you.

Gizane Campos 19:19

Sure, sure. You could also learn the language. Um, Thai is quite difficult though. But um uh there are lots of other things that you you could perhaps um achieve once you dropped your cost of leaving. Um, yeah, that goes beyond going to restaurants and so on. Um fine. So okay. I want to ask you, it's an acronym, and I've realized now that there are quite a few acronyms um that we will go through uh during this podcast, including the Nomad one. But I want to talk to you about the FIRE movement, which is F for Financial, I independence, R retire, and E early. Um, and this movement has exploded in popularity. Can you walk us through what FIRE is and how we connect to geo arbitrary?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, I think the biggest issue, and I I'm a part of a bunch of the Reddits for fire, fat fire, uh, so I'm I definitely stay in tune and what's going on. And I the the recurrent thing I see is everyone's thinking so narrow. They're thinking, like, how can I fire my current life in tier one city US location? And I'm like, well, you're you're considering that because you have to have your job there, so you're not able to access other geos in the US or other parts of the world. If you're able to just even get uh the same income and then move to a place where, let's just say you're in the US, you can move to a place where it's 20 to 30% cheaper while maintaining that same income, and then you reduce all the commute and all the other expenditures. Well, what if you can go 50% just by moving over to Thailand or Mexico? Well, that timeline, that 50% reduction is going to get you so much faster to firing uh on a s on a much shorter period of time. And I think that's the thing most people don't consider, at least from what I've seen in a lot of the fire subreddits, they're thinking very very narrow, is like, okay, I'm in New York City, I have to calculate my fire for my New York City life, but what if they were able to change their geo, drastically reduce their uh expenses, and you would be able to fire, you know, 10, 20, 30 years earlier if you're able to do it in the correct way.

Gizane Campos 21:46

Would you say that the fire concept is it's a byproduct of uh geo arbitrage?

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I I think the fire movement has a lot of layers to it. From what I've seen, I think a lot of the In general, that I read is mostly American uh people, but it is definitely an international you know phenomenon here, I guess. But from what I've read, most people are mostly focused on firing and staying in their city or in the US. So I think there's a lot of different levels to it where you can just move overseas, fire early, but in general, like there's there's not too many ways to really expedite it faster than just getting on a plane and moving to a cheaper geo.

Gizane Campos 22:35

Right. That's clear now. Now, Mike, tell me from your experience, what is the real, the real, the real deal, the real secret to retiring early? What have you done that you think, okay, this was different and it really works?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, I think the big the big factors are are always gonna be rent. So, like what's your rent, uh, what's your mortgage? You know, just look at those big, huge expenses that you have in life. For example, I wrote a blog article and like I traveled for two years on what it would cost somebody to buy a car. And this was back in my 20s, and I was like, man, I just did took the average cost of buying a car, uh not a new car, but a you know, depreciated car, all the maintenance insurance over a couple years, period. And I was able to, you know, basically calculate, I was like, man, I'm living my whole income and expenditure on the price that most Americans pay for a car over a couple years. Again, there's a lot of factors to consider there, but I was living really cheap in my 20s. I had roommates, uh, I had a high-paying job, so I was just really living below my means, I guess. And so that gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility. But in the US, I see a lot of tears on what prevents people from retiring early, is usually the the first step is most people go into debt for university. I was very fortunate to have options. Uh again, not everyone's in that same situation, but I had a lot of cards to play. I had full ride uh scholarship offers for universities to play sports. Uh, I had very supportive parents who basically told me that if you are going to be an engineer or go into business, we'll support you with your education. We'll still support you if you want to do something else, but not financially. Uh, is I think is advice that I think almost every parent should give to their children. If your career path is not going to lead to an ROI, they you shouldn't support it, or you should try to figure out a way where college education is going to have a clear path to getting that investment. And I think everyone should look at every major investment that through that landscape. So the second thing is uh most people go into debt for university. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think there's a lot of scholarships. Uh there's a lot of people that should just go to community college for two years in the US, then transfer, or you can go to overseas and get a really good education for a fraction of the price. So and so I was able to not go into any debt for my education. I also didn't buy, I've never bought property. I think every time I've looked into doing it, uh, that money is better spent on other acquisitions. So I've, you know, my background's in MA. So when I look at it, I'm like, if you're gonna spend fifty to hundred thousand dollars on a down payment, where can I better put that? So I bought I buy businesses, so I've like, okay, I can cash flow uh, you know, two, three thousand dollars on buying an online business. I could probably grow it by 20 to 30 percent every year. And so I look at that return and that amount as like, okay, where can I put this money that's gonna give me the highest return? And so those are the major uh points, but the other biggest one that I think keeps people broke is they're living in very high cost of living areas, and they they don't have uh a huge way to increase their income because working a corporate job, you you're really you're looking at like five to ten percent increases, maybe each year. And so if you're outpacing inflation, you're doing good, but if you're not, you're really like every year you're actually getting paid less.

Gizane Campos 26:26

Yeah, and Mike, thank you very much for such a um uh candid and honest um um accounts of your um of your uh family life. Uh you explained that you didn't have the financial burden of uh university, but uh there are choices for people. Um and you rightly so mentioned um going to pursue your studies abroad, which is great. Um now I also want an honest reply from you. I'm going to ask you about your personal favorite retirement spots.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, so I mean, I I know I it's we've talked about Thailand a lot, but I I do really love Thailand. I think it's one of the best places where again you can retire early because the cost of living is really good. They have a lot of good options for uh retirees, like as far as like visa options, healthcare options, you know, the the cost of living isn't that that high, and like they have some of the best medical like working done here. Like, I actually look forward to going and getting my dental cleaning here. Like you walk in and like somebody's you know putting slippers on you, the doctors, there's two or three doctors waiting for you in the uh you know, in the room. They put a TV above your head, they give you like all these amenities. And again, I'm like, they have figured it out for a fraction of the price, the quality is higher. And that's been my experience with almost all the medical stuff overseas is these people are are giving a better, uh, let's just say, day-to-day experience, a better quality of that experience of what's being performed, and at a fraction of the price. So I think a lot of retirees, the medical thing is probably the biggest uh hurdle that I've at least from what I've seen, is medical visas and then like family, you know, like support. So I think it really depends on what you're looking for. Mexico is a big one for a lot of retirees. I think Mexico has a lot to offer, but I've traveled pretty extensively around Mexico and I just didn't find that destination that really you know jumped out of me as like, hey, this is a really good value destination with enough happening. And so I think pre-COVID there was a lot of destinations in Mexico that offered that. Um, but I would literally, you know, travel there every year, and then after COVID, prices went up three, four, or five times. Uh, it it kind of turned in from like you know, hidden gems to people trying to rip you off. So I wouldn't say that uh that's my top recommendation, but again, there is a lot of great spots in Mexico that I haven't been to that people really love. Um, but I I think now like Europe is also a really great place. A lot of people are going to Portugal, a lot of people are going to Spain, uh, but it really depends on again, go back to uh you know my sort of pillars, and then we can kind of get into the nomad situation uh about what to consider with that. So is that fine for me to kind of overview the nomad method that I created for for everyone?

Gizane Campos 29:52

Sure. Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So I think before anybody moves abroad, or if you are retiring abroad, you should really write down this acronym and then arrange it with a number. So I I arranged it with what I think is the most popular, which is the N is network and community. But again, a lot of people who are retiring, that might not be as important to them as the young 20-year-old person who's looking to mingle a network. That's probably gonna be a higher priority for them. So network and community might be at the top of one person's list, but it might be at the bottom of yours. So you really need to understand that this is not, you know, the only order you got to figure out the order that works best for you. Uh, this the O is opportunities for geoarbitrage, and that's gonna be essentially are you getting a high quality of life for a good price overseas? That's essentially the easiest way uh to figure it out. And if you've only traveled somewhere, don't go off that sort of you know gauge. Talk to people who are actually living, talk to a local who's living in the city, and then talk to uh uh an expat, and you can likely find a delta between those two, and that's where reality usually sits. Because I've talked to a lot of people who've been overseas and they're just getting ripped off uh because they didn't do that. They're like, oh, you know, it's 20% cheaper than New York, so I thought I was getting a good deal. And then you look at the local prices and you you realize, like, hey, you're getting taken to the bank here. Uh and again, you have to be wise, and you know, over time you'll you'll kind of learn about that. Um, the M and nomad is going to be mobility and visas. This is again a huge barrier, but I haven't found a country or destination where there isn't some workaround, whether it's going as a student, a digital nomad visa, setting up a business, you know, getting some ancestry option. In almost every country in the world, there's a lot of options, and a lot of options most people don't know about. Um, I suggest going to a place for uh as long as you can, if you can go for like three months as a tourist and kind of understand the long-term lifestyle. I would say check out a couple destinations, try to go there for uh at least a month to see how you like it, and then you can get a better feel about the mobility and visas that are offered there. Uh the A in nomad is amenities and safety. Uh, a big thing that I think a lot of people take for granted is safety. I've lived in some destinations where, you know, when you're there for two weeks, it's not really a concern. But then when you calculate, oh, I'm here 365 days a year, I'm noticing safety concerns every single week, and I'm having people who lived here undergo certain safety concerns, it does become a thing where you're like, oh, I'm living my life differently based off of this. And so that's just certain areas where I'm like, okay, the safety issues are a real concern, and I wouldn't want to live there longer term. And then the the D in nomad is desirable climate. And so again, most people are looking for uh a place with sunshine and rainbows, and uh that's going to really limit your your search. But in general, if you're looking for really good weather, you kind of got to go south of the equator, but there are still a lot of good destinations where it's warm-ish year-round.

Gizane Campos 33:25

So sure. So there was a nomad acronym for deciding where and how to retire abroad. And you talk about it in your book, The Global Career, correct?

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, I talk about that and like a ton of other things here. I've got a copy, but uh basically inside the Global Career book, I basically just journey about traveling and working in a hundred countries, and I walk people through the steps of either working remotely, uh, studying abroad, working online, and some of the options that people have, like for working holiday visas. I actually just spoke to a person who read my book on Monday. She sent me an email. She said, Your book changed my life. I read it, and now I'm living in Australia, and she was able to move to Australia, get a job working for a you know, her dream job overseas. And it was one of those things where I was like, this is exactly why I wrote this book, was to help people. And she was able to get a visa over in Australia that a lot of people don't know about. It's called the Working Holiday Visas. And so it basically allows you to live in Australia and do any job that an Australian person can do. And so if you're looking to actually work physically abroad, it can be one of the best ways to actually go about doing that. And so before all the remote working and online visas, you know, I was working physically overseas. So this was a huge option, and it's still a great option for some people who want to work. So she was doing a hybrid approach uh in Sydney, and you know, she jokes around with her friends. She's like, I'm living in Australia now because I read a book, and so it's uh it's really cool seeing that transformation for some people.

Gizane Campos 35:13

Absolutely. Lastly, um, Mike, for many people that are interested in living or retiring abroad or for short-term relocation, but feel overwhelmed by the information or even afraid to take the leap. What advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

I think just go. Go and check it out. You can always go home.

Gizane Campos 35:34

Book a one-way ticket.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I I don't know if they need to book a one-way ticket, but I'm like, I always say walk before you run in everything. It's like, especially I talk to a lot of people who want to start a business, and they're like, I need to get an LLC, I need to talk to a lawyer, I need to get a bank account, I need to get a credit card. I'm like, no, you don't. You don't need to do any of that, any of that. Just stop. Stop thinking about that, focus on getting your first customer and do that as fast and cheap as possible. And I think it's the same sort of advice I give for people who want to go overseas. Book a trip for as long as you can, go for a month or two, check it out, make sure you enjoy it. This lifestyle abroad is not for everyone. I'll be the first person to admit it. There's people who need their family and support network. There's people who can't live without getting access to the products that they they grew up with. There's going to be certain people that this lifestyle is not for. So I always say walk before you run, take the the easiest path of lease resistance, which is usually going overseas on a tourist visa for two to three months. And if you really want to check out a few destinations, spend at least a month in each destination, get a longer-term lease for that month. So that way you get an understanding of what it's going to be like. And if you're booking your place on Airbnb, you're likely paying 30 to 40% over market rate. So you can utilize that as a calculation of what you're looking at. Usually it's 30-40% more, but some destinations like New York or popular places are going to be way higher than that. So I always say walk before you run, go try it out. And then, you know, if you like it, take the next next step up. So maybe from living there a month, you're living there, you know, six months a year, whatever it is, and seeing uh what's what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy. And the great thing about this lifestyle is you can always go back, right? There's not like uh you don't need to renounce your citizenship that's it, you know, after one week abroad.

Gizane Campos 37:34

So walk before you run, Mike. Thank you very much. This is great advice, and uh thank you for sharing your insights and and experiences, your personal experiences with us today. Um, it's clear that um reimagining retirement is about more than just stretching your dollars, it's about it's about designing a life filled with freedom, with purpose and um and possibility, no matter where you choose to call home temporarily or definitely. For anyone listening who is curious about taking the leap, remember that with the right plan in your mindset, retiring abroad can be the start of your most exciting chapter yet. Totally recommend to start by reading Mike's book, Global Career. You will see the link here as well. Thanks for tuning in to Be Global. You and um if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, share it with someone who might find it helpful, and check out the resources we've mentioned in the show notes. Until next time, here's to living and reti retiring on your own terms. Bye bye.