#233 - The Millionaire Migrant

The concept of global citizenship has undergone a dramatic transformation in the post-COVID world. What was once considered an unusual lifestyle choice has now become a strategic necessity for many high-net-worth individuals and forward-thinking entrepreneurs seeking to protect their wealth and expand their freedoms.

Jeremy Savory joins us to share his journey as "the millionaire migrant" – a British expatriate who left his homeland in 2000 and has since built a thriving business helping over 11,000 people obtain second passports and residency rights across the globe. His expertise spans real estate investments across 11 countries, citizenship-by-descent strategies, and golden visa programs that provide pathways to European citizenship.

We explore the shifting patterns of global migration, where citizens from traditionally desirable countries like the United States and UK are now actively seeking alternatives to high-tax jurisdictions and political instability. Jeremy reveals how programs like Portugal's Golden Visa have seen Americans become the leading applicants in recent years – a remarkable change for a nationality that historically felt little need for alternatives.

The financial advantages of geographic diversification are compelling. By strategically selecting tax-friendly jurisdictions for both residence and business operations while maintaining dollar-based income streams, entrepreneurs can dramatically reduce their bottom line while improving quality of life. A coffee that costs $6 in New York might be $2.50 in Colombia – a seemingly small difference that compounds dramatically when applied across all living expenses.

Beyond the financial benefits, Jeremy shares powerful insights about the mindset of successful sovereign individuals – from treating yourself as the CEO of your own life to recognizing that discomfort is essential for growth. His personal evolution from salaried employee to commission-only salesperson to business owner in a tax-free jurisdiction demonstrates how strategic relocation can accelerate wealth creation.

Ready to explore your options for global citizenship? Follow Jeremy's work through Savory and Partners or his new educational platform, Millionaire Migrant, and discover how passport diversification might be the missing piece in your financial freedom strategy.

How to reach Jeremy:

https://hk.linkedin.com/company/savory-and-partners-l-l-c

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Chapters

• 1:58 Introduction to Jeremy Savory
• 5:13 Global Migration Patterns Shifting
• 6:48 Golden Visas and Second Passports
• 10:38 Real Estate Diversification Strategies
• 16:13 Financial Freedom Through Geographic Flexibility
• 20:46 The Sovereign Individual Concept
• 30:58 Time Optimization for Wealth Creation
• 48:28 Building a Sovereign Life

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hey, what's going on? Guys? I've got a special guest here. We have Jeremy Savory. He's the millionaire migrant helping people diversify their lives through passports, bank accounts, real estate and investing. Jeremy, we're so excited to have you on the Hashtag Clocked In podcast. I wanted to ask you what are you seeing right now and what do you see for the future that a lot of people are missing? What is it that you're a lot of people are missing, like like. What is it that you're seeing that other people are not? Because I know you are very global. You have a much different experience than most, uh, like the american audience. So so what are you seeing and where are you located right now?

Speaker 2: 1:37

yeah, okay, well, I'm actually. Uh. So I work for a pretty large citizenship and residency by investment company that does a lot of second passports and golden visas. It's about a 15-year-old company. We have offices in different countries, so I'm right now visiting our offices so I just visited our office in Qatar and now I'm at our one in Western Africa. So I have three of my team that have come across from the Dubai head office, but I also have a team on the ground here. So we have three of my team that have come across from the Dubai head office, but I also have a team on the ground here. So we have a big office in a prime location. We have four or five people options, but right now they're looking at real estate in Dubai, the UK because I've invested in both countries successfully and got some pretty good returns, definitely in Dubai, and so people are just really curious about how they can hedge themselves against unforeseen matters in the world.

Speaker 2: 2:39

The reason that I started my Millionaire Mig migrant in the last year it started is really because I think for the first time since 2020, things have changed in terms of how people perceive sovereignty and immigration. So, being in the middle like I'm from the UK and I left and I traveled the world and like, if I was to look at my ROI, had I stayed? Versus my my uh, having leave the left the UK traveled around the world. I mean you can't compare, whether it's financial, how I met my wife and my kids and the experiences I've had. There's just an amazing ROI which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't left, if I had stayed in the UK. But I was one of, probably one of the early ones, because that was 2000. I started traveling since 2000,. Really 1999, 2000. So I was one of those weird guys that basically just traveled the world and people are like, okay, fine, that's interesting, we've got a nice story in the pub for later.

Speaker 2: 3:36

But what I realized is now a lot of other people are doing the same in large, large volumes and they're all coming from places which traditionally would be where people would want to go to.

Speaker 2: 3:47

So in the Middle East I have a lot of people in Africa, middle East, asia, the CIS countries. They want to go to US, get a green card, they want to go to UK, they want to go to Europe. Now they are less interested in that. They're like okay, I'm not sure if I really like what I'm seeing over there and what's happening is the wave is now coming back, so we've got a lot of Americans, brits, europeans all going. We don't really like what's going on here. The tax situation is out of control. I watch a lot of stuff that's happening in the US with the DOG basically coming in and just saying, well, I'm not fully behind what DOG is all about, but I do think that some of the stuff that's happening in New York State with kind of all these illegal immigrants staying in five star hotels, which is really basically should be by for emergencies for American citizens.

Speaker 2: 4:41

It's kind of, in a weird way, what I saw in the Caribbean when there was elections in the governments that do passports, you know, so the countries that allow to give citizenship. It's kind of like a mass version of the kind of crazy stuff I used to see there, where, basically, you're trying to bring in people to try and tip the scales and win the elections and once you start to see that happening in a tier one country like the united states, it's a little interesting, it becomes an interesting.

Speaker 2: 5:08

Yeah, it's something to be aware of and it's not something that is new. This has been happening in other countries. It's just now we're starting to see it. It's, it's.

Speaker 1: 5:15

It's not hidden anymore yeah, yeah, and I think that's what uh doge was kind of bringing that to light. Where it's whoa, there's a lot of unraveling that's got to be done, and it starts to get you thinking, like what's been going on the past 10 years? Yeah, it really makes a question. So you see a lot of people going to Dubai, you see a lot of people traveling. What is this golden visa that you talk of? Like, what are these secondary citizenships?

Speaker 2: 5:50

Because most people are like you're born in a country, you get a passport cool. What are you talking about? So I I think right now a lot of people. I think tax is a real trigger for them, but just the idea of like I don't have full control over my, my life and my future. Because if you think about everything that you achieve in your life or your crew you can get uh, degrees, diplomas, accreditations, you can build a business, you can acquire assets, you can acquire liabilities, you can grow a family it is all.

Speaker 2: 6:12

Whatever you will do in your entire life, how hard you work, how lucky you get or how much you study, it's all tied to that one nationality. That was the only thing that you can actually control. It's given to you at birth, right? You don't have any say in the matter. It's where you're born or who your parents are, and people just find like this is really holding me back right now. So if you're in the US, I would say people in the US for a long time were like I don't really need anything else, I'm fine, I'm good. That has definitely changed and it's not just me saying this. The number supported the largest investor demographic for the Portugal Golden Visa, which is just one of the options that Americans have the top nationality.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Sorry, what does that give you? Like the Portugal Golden Visa. What does that mean?

Speaker 2: 6:54

So the Portugal Golden Visa is essentially a residency program that leads you with a path towards European citizenship and that's why it's so popular and the last three years, top nationality applying, based on the government data, is Americans. Americans didn't really for a long time didn't need anything else. They're fine. But suddenly what has happened a lot of it since COVID and a lot of it with all the political instability we're seeing not just in the US and around the world is making people saying you know what? I need to have another plan. I don't know if I really want to have, even if I'm happy where things are in the US. I still want to have diversification and if anyone who's ever made any money in their life will tell you, you need diversification right.

Speaker 2: 7:33

And the crypto people are the ones which I have seen firsthand, because they're clients of mine, they're friends of mine, they're business partners. They just don't want to let go. They don't want to lose that opportunity cost until it's too late. And they are people that would probably seek to, but they're not the only ones. I met a guy in Kenya and he had a hundred properties and he just said no, I don't really want to buy a property in Portugal. I have that one property in Portugal.

Speaker 2: 7:58

He was married but didn't have a kid at the time. If you had that property in Portugal, you'd at least have euro exposure, you'd have geographical exposure and within one year of residency, if you were to have a child, that child would immediately have European citizenship immediately. Yeah, if you wanted to pay for that, you'd have to do Malta and it costs you a million euros, so it's free. And he just went. You know what? He still said no and he just went. You know what? He still said no. So he got another property in Kenya, so he got 101 properties and guess what?

Speaker 2: 8:27

The currency devaluation just went completely against him. Obviously, property in these countries is an inflation hedge, so his portfolio went up, but the value of it in dollar terms went down. He could have just bought one property and he would have just been like his son would have been a European citizen, right? He doesn't have any other county other than kenyan.

Speaker 2: 8:48

So it's important for people to know about diversification, and today we are seeing so many people going to the uae, to colombia, to paraguay, to panama, to portugal, um, to bali, to thailand all these type of places where they can live a much, much better quality of life, they save on tax, they save on the cost of living. Where they can live a much, much better quality of life, they save on tax, they save on the cost of living. They can still do business in dollars. They can live in countries that are tax-friendly, they can establish business in tax-friendly jurisdictions. They can invest in countries where, if you're in the US and you're looking to buy in the US, everyone else in the US is looking to buy in the US.

Speaker 1: 9:21

So you don't really have that much passive edge, unless, of course, you know you buy in your street, you get a good deal, you buy two on your street, but you still have geographic concentration, risk concentration, yeah yeah, and then if, if a big event or something occurs because that's what I found so interesting about you is I and tell me if I'm wrong, but I think it's 30 real estate properties in 11 different countries, like that's a.

Speaker 2: 9:44

I don't still own 30, but I have done 30 transactions in my life in, yes, 11 countries. The good wins I mean the bad wins were Africa. Africa wasn't. The opportunity was right, the location was right. The execution of the transaction was wrong. If I had done the good execution with the transaction with my business partners, it would have been a good win, but that's, that's the risk of emerging markets. The another one that didn't do too well, uh, was probably well, I didn't do too well. I came out of it fairly well, but I should have probably held on to it longer. Portugal, greece, poland they were like still, I was still up, but not probably as well as I could have done, and those are interesting stories which I can I'll talk more about in my youtube channel. But the big wins were the uk, um, us, and definitely dubai I.

Speaker 2: 10:38

I see a lot of people online who don't talk about UAE. I'm talking about people overseas. They just say, oh, they don't really talk about UAE and they're supposed to be experts in their field. It's like you have missed what is essentially what has been. And I'm not saying that it won't correct. It will correct, but it won't correct as much I think people think. And even if it does correct, you're still up 3x, 4x, even if there is a correction after correction. Yeah, it's still a lot. Um.

Speaker 2: 11:07

And for those people who do crypto and say, well, I've got 5x, 6x, it's like, yeah, but I'm not including the yield that it generated over the last few years either. So if you do do that 6x and you've got downside protection right, because the thing about you know crypto is like it could just go on and on. It could keep going down sub 80, right, we're 80,000. It could keep going on more. But the difference with real estate is that it's not a financial product, right? So essentially, it will continue to generate income for you and you only crystallize your loss when you exit. But if you're on Bitcoin right now, you're kind of stuck. Do you sell?

Speaker 1: 11:45

Do you think a combination of it is helpful? That's kind of like that diversification you're talking about.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Yeah, you should have it. So I have crypto, I have real estate, I have real estate in different countries, I have bonds, I have stocks, I have fixed deposits, I have multiple businesses. So you know, and I would say at one point, my prime, my main businesses, would not do well, but my real estate portfolio would go up, you know. So you need to have. You'd be surprised, you'd be really surprised, how your secondary and tertiary income generators, with their passive active, can suddenly generate much more than your main business. Right, you may have a main business as 30, 40% business profit, but at some point business cycles might get a bit tight, market environment might change, but you'll see that something you invested in a while ago is just slowly picking up.

Speaker 1: 12:41

So that's a really interesting point because a lot of people the conventional wisdom is in America is get a job, put your money in your 401k, hope it's enough when you retire. And what people don't realize is exactly what Jeremy was saying was by you putting your money in the 401k, your investments are starting to build for you. Like that's exactly. People don't view it as investing, but that's investing. Like it's the same thing, where you start getting compounding and you're like, oh, the market was up 27% this year and I had a million dollars. I made 270 grand. It's like, oh, I only make 70 grand a year. I just made three years worth of money in one year. And people don't realize that because you're absolutely right. Everyone thinks it's laser focus on one thing, which is sometimes the truth, but sometimes, like you have to build out these other avenues.

Speaker 2: 13:41

So if I could give one piece of advice, which is, like you know, there's many bits of advice you can give. There isn't one, but one is basically take bigger bets on yourself, on the things that you can control. If you take a big bet on crypto, you don't control the market, you don't control appetite. A lot of people will say, oh you know, crypto is a hedge against inflation or it's risk hedge or whatever it be. But I can tell you, when COVID happened, everything went down Because ultimately, we are all humans, the market is human, we are human and we all behave in the same way. And that's why the best thing about Warren Buffett he just said be brave when people are fearful and fearful when people are brave. But we can't do that because it goes against our natural instincts. But in that moment where people would say you know, what I want to be diversified is, if you're diversified, then you're pretty much covered. But I think the best thing, the one thing I could say, is that if you invest bullish on the things that you can control, so things you control are ultimately the things that are closest to you. So, let's say, the house you live in, you can improve and enhance it because you can physically do that yourself, you don't need the market to tell you. If you bought a new build property, new build property you can't enhance, you can't improve. You might be able to expand it, but you can't really add a lot of value. So what's happening is the only thing that's determining its value is the macro environment right, but you can't control the macro environment. So if the macro environment basically right, but you can't control the macro environment, so if the macro environment basically deteriorates and you had a property that you could say you know what, let me extend it and make it into a gym, let me build a loft, let me make a cellar, let me upgrade the bathroom, you're creating value, but that's because you can physically touch it. The same would be a business. If you're a business owner, you can manipulate the entire thing and back yourself to do it. But if you're putting and you can study the stock market, you can study the crypto market, but ultimately, the further away that that is from what you can actually physically control, you have less influence and therefore don't go bullish on it. Right, Because a lot of people, a lot of people I can tell you at the highest level get wiped out by highly volatile matters like stocks, leverage, crypto, even gold. So, I think, go really hard on the things that you can physically control, that are macro, rather than the things that are macro, because you'll get called out eventually because you just can't control that.

Speaker 2: 15:55

So, using house as an analogy, but I think, coming back to your point, uh, I have, in my years, I've made, I've lost money, but every time I lost money, I learned from that experience. And as long as you keep pushing through those experiences and you keep diversified and you keep thinking about how you can, uh, maximize your output, eventually you will just gravitate towards higher and higher levels of wealth, which will give give you higher and higher levels of advice from bigger people. They always say, if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. That is very, very true. And through my business of helping people to acquire second passports or residencies, tax residencies, opening companies, you get to meet so many people and I get really talented people around me. Um, I think if people were starting the beginning of their journey and just want to say I want to have a diversified plan, I want to have total sovereignty, I don't want to have any external forces in this extremely volatile world we're in right now, when you see gold is touching 3 000 um, I would say basically, if you're just starting out on your journey, make yourself the CEO of yourself. Every decision that you make, make it as if you're reporting to your own chairman or your own board committee and basically said to them I'm going to do this, I'm going to go out tonight with my friends and I'm going to go and buy some beers and we're going to go to a club later and everything. Imagine if your own executive committee were like, okay, how would they react to that? They were like I don't really see that as a wise investment of capital. But if you were to say you know what? I have an idea where I'm going to buy this property in this part of South America. I've visited there. I've got references from other people. I've verified all of them. I know that if the worst case scenario, I can go and live there and add value and create it myself you'd get signed off from your committee. And if people just applied that to every single thing they did in their life, then you'd be surprised how far you could grow.

Speaker 2: 17:53

My first job I was paid a salary, a fixed salary. So regardless of how hard I worked or overtime I worked or how good I was at my job, the money would stay the same at the end of the first month. So at the age of 22, I realized I can't do anything more here. I'm confined. So what I did is I found a job which I realized would come into sales, because in sales if I work harder you pay me more, right, yeah? So I went to sales. I worked harder, worked weekends, worked overtime, made more money. I also bought my first property to have. I worked harder, generated, worked weekends, worked overtime, made more money. I also bought my first property to have my first side hustle, because a property is a passive investment, whereas me, day-to-day, in my work, I'm an active investment. So the passive was weekends and enhancing value, and that property went up in value and made money. But meanwhile active, I was like I want to do sales. I had never done sales before.

Speaker 2: 18:42

I figured that sales isn't really about talking. It's actually just a lot of other simple things which anybody can do. You just need to be organized, structured and relentless. And what happened is I started to get commission. The commission I got was like relative to my salary to my commission, I thought, okay, probably I don't think this is really worth what I'm selling, so either I need to sell something more expensive or I need to let go of my salary and work commission. Only, in the end I did both.

Speaker 2: 19:07

I went to sell houses. So if you're really good at selling pens, you're just getting paid on the value of the pen. But if you're really good at selling cars, you get paid on the value of the car. And then, by extension, if you get really good at selling properties, then you get more money on the properties, but you're still getting a basic salary. So what I said is I just said don't pay me the salary, pay me commission only. I win, you win, I lose, I lose.

Speaker 2: 19:29

And I ended up doing this. What happens? I started getting paid on properties, not on flights, and getting permission only, not on a salary and commission. And then, on top of this, I also said if I'm doing properties in my local area, people want to go and visit properties, so that costing me time to go and visit other properties. But if I was to sell properties to people on the phone in another country, I don't need to physically go there, and if I present all the information. They can buy the properties online. So my time is also maximized.

Speaker 2: 19:58

And then after this I basically realized okay, now I've maximized this, how can I increase also further my return on my investment? In which case I said, well, the only other thing that comes out commission only is to have a business, because then a business can scale and then I can teach other people to do my job and then I can do other things. And so you see that I mean you can apply it. And then I moved to a tax-free jurisdiction where then I wasn't going to get taxed, and then I got, got this, and the jurisdiction where I went, the property prices were higher. So you're just making minute changes between getting paid on time, which is finite, and getting paid on tasks and results. You just make that separation and then you just accelerate, compound, amplify everything.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Yes, yes, and for those who were struggling to catch that, basically jeremy's talking about how he went from salary so just a fixed pay role, then he went salary and commission, so he's getting his fixed pay and commission. Then he went commission. Only then he went business. And then he went business in a tax-free jurisdiction and the biggest thing about that is that it's the biggest leverage you can get. And the part you talked about where you're saying how we need to make bets on ourself and really think about what we're in control of. I really enjoyed that because you're right, we can't control the market. We're not going to bring it with us, even if we go homeless. We can't bring the stock market with us. We can't bring the properties with us, but we do have ourselves and we do have our skills we did develop. So how do you think of allocations in regard to hey, I should put this much in stocks, this much in real estate, this much in investment in myself, maybe conferences, books, etc. Or even passports. How do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 21:45

I think passports should come when you're at a financially comfortable stage to be able to get the passport, because the value you'll add is only to protect the value of the assets that you have. It should be so. If your net worth is $100,000, let's say half a million dollars and the passport is going to cost you $100,000, I think you've got an opportunity cost that isn't really worth it. If you had a lot of assets, liabilities, kids, everything and you start going over and above this, I would say, yes, most of the people that we deal with with passports are high net worth to ultra high net worth, but I had just you know, I just got into time Sorry.

Speaker 1: 22:21

What does that qualify? High net worth, ultra high net worth, high net worth?

Speaker 2: 22:24

is 10 million and above. Ultra high net worth is 30 million and above. But you've also got below high net worth, which is mass affluent, which is basically you could say 1 to 10. But that's liquid assets. So that shouldn't really be the evaluation or appraisal of your business. But this morning I I mean I got in yesterday and I already had this morning three calls from three of my passport clients and they were like super happy. It's like people don't really realize like how much this really transforms your life. You only really realize it when you have it. If people didn't like what they did, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be doing this for 15 years, right? People love it. What?

Speaker 1: 23:00

are the biggest benefits of it.

Speaker 2: 23:03

The biggest benefit is. I think it's just financial freedom, knowing that I mean using the US systems, because you're seeing, as you're in the US, I mean Americans have, really they have all the benefits of freedom of travel. But there is also, as people see, sometimes there are a lot of countries that aren't too friendly to the US because the US is being sanctioning more and more countries around the world, right? So there is always that kind of pushback. Americans, by and large everyone I've met, has been super, super nice. I think a lot of the pushback is not really aimed at the individual but as in kind of the global view of the country. But when Americans want to open bank accounts, you have to specify if you're American and a lot of banks just want to take Americans. I have different banks I have retail, premier, corporate, private and I have investment banking. Investment and private don't really take Americans. They're just like, yeah, you know what, it's just not worth it. So you're missing out on a lot of stuff. And I think for some people who are just used to having money, money buys freedom. But knowing that that money cannot buy you the bank that you want or they're turning you away, you face a kind of prejudice if you will.

Speaker 2: 24:14

Now, I'm not saying Americans need to give up their passport. I just think that there's a lot of value in having a second nationality Because if one day the Portuguese government says congratulations, you've finished your term of golden visa, we'd like to give you a European citizenship. I mean, it's a pretty strong passport. It's arguably up there or slightly superior in terms of countries that you can travel to without a visa. But it's not just that, it's the fact that you'll become a member of the European Union. Now, I'm not a massive fan of the way that Europe is going, but knowing that you have all of this rather than just one country, or even that you're keeping both, I mean you can get an American passport and a European. You don't have to give anything up. But knowing that that would, if you get to a point where you're like you know what this is really, not this kind of the positives of having American nationalities outweighing the benefits. So the positives and the negatives, knowing that you could just say you know what, I want to do this and just give it up and renounce, go to Portuguese. I think you'll see a lot of people doing that and the numbers are picking up. If you look at renunciation data that's coming out and there's a lag. It's picking up a lot. So I don't think that they dislike America.

Speaker 2: 25:19

I think, just generally, there's a global trend of people who really just see that I was born in this country and I'm grateful for this country. But the world is fascinating and my wife is from this country, my husband's from this country, my kids are born in this country and I don't want to feel that my nationality talks over and above who I am as a person and that's something that I relate to. I have four passports. I'm working on two more. Right now I'm still British, but I also have French because I got traced my ancestry and I got citizenship by descent.

Speaker 2: 25:51

I also invested in a passport in the Caribbean. I got citizenship through investment. I also did another one in Africa, which was more of an exploratory type of phase when I first started out, but I'm working on two more which are going to be non-EU, non-u-nato. Um, you know, uh, and I think it's it's good to have that in your portfolio, but obviously I've been doing this for a while. I'm very comfortable taking uh, this exploring, but, um, I think some people I've met in colombia, paraguay, panama, were really young american guys and girls who were just like I just need to get up. I just need to get up and running.

Speaker 1: 26:31

I need to get. Yeah, I mean there's two. I think there's two sides of it, like you were talking about. There's the high net worth, where they're like hey, we got a ton of assets, maybe we've got to protect this, like we got to keep this open. And then there's the other side of the people who are like I am struggling, I don't have enough money and everything is so expensive. And then you move to like a peru, for example, and you're like whoa, I can do a lot more here. I have diversity, I have, I can do these things. So let's dive into like that whole sovereign, individual concept. Like what are you seeing with people now? Because I mean, yes, we can talk high net worth, yes, we can talk. But like overall, like why are people into this travel, sovereignness and like really independence and being their own free person?

Speaker 2: 27:20

I. I think it's just the way the world is going. I think technology, um, I think the ability to work overseas has helped. I think the cheap cost of airlines, airbnb, co-working spaces this whole ecosystem has really accelerated, really down to COVID, and so now you can go and live in Medellin, have a great time there with your buddies. My wife is from Colombia, so I have a lot of fun. Actually, I met my wife there right, so I can tell you that colombia has a lot of other resources, uh, to name a few. But the fact is is that you can go there, be with like like-minded people, you can run an overseas business. Uh, tax there is not the best in south america, so maybe this is a good example, maybe panama, paraguay, but you won't pay any taxes yeah, like I did seven weeks in europe last year and we were just working during the us hour.

Speaker 1: 28:12

we work like two to ten and it's like two years. But you start to realize like the flexibility has never been there before, like the concept is so, like you might be the oldest person to under, like there's people who understand the concept, but you truly understand the concept because anyone older than you is like hey, airfare is like really expensive man, like it's hard to get over there. It's not an easy task, yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:38

Taxes are expensive. When, when, when do people think tax is going to come down? I'd be interested to know what people said. Like whoever you're going to vote for, it's not like they're going to go. Oh, you know what? Like half the tax is going to cut by half. It's never going to happen. As long as you have these fiscal deficits and you have the spending and you have an increasing population, as long as you have government, you know, misspending money, this is never going to happen.

Speaker 2: 28:59

So what you're doing is you're basically just going to another country, pushing down your bottom line. Right, you can charge it in dollars. You can even add value to your local economy. Like people, you might get more business in some parts of the world because you're a foreigner and so, basically, you have a competitive edge, right? So? But your Starbucks is going to be $2.50 in Bogota, in Colombia or Medellin, rather than six bucks, and the six bucks, by the way, you have to go and queue and get it, whereas and the six bucks, by the way, you have to go and queue and get it, whereas in Colombia you can pay, like someone to basically bring it up to you, right, so you're saving time.

Speaker 2: 29:30

Time is money. You can. You run your online business. You'll be charging a dollar still. You can be a fiver, you can be Upwork, you can be in TopTower all this stuff and you can charge there, but your bottom line is tax efficient and cost. So already you're there. You're not giving up your nationality, you're not being unpatriotic. You can still invest in the US stock market. You can still invest in US real estate. You're just basically, just as I mentioned, running yourself like an LLC and just basically making decisions that are pushing down your bottom line and increasing your top line.

Speaker 1: 30:01

I've had so many people come on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 30:02

I've had probably five to 10 people come on the podcast who said we actually moved our business to a Mexico or a Thailand or another place because we wanted to give ourselves more runway, because we were sitting there going like we're running into an issue and like if we keep having like that example right there $250 to $6, that's 250% that example right there $250 to $6, that's 250% that means you can last 2.5 times longer than you can if you did it the other way around. And people don't think that way and they don't realize a lot of that, but it gives you a lot more time to think about. And also, you don't have to grow your business as big and you don't have to do all these different things because you have the assets there and you're able to live the lifestyle big and you don't have to do all these different things because you have the assets there and you're able to live the lifestyle. So I mean, what would you say if someone's sitting there and they want to take action steps on, like building this sovereign life and being this individual who travels and thinks about that? Like how should they think about these action steps Because it's one thing to go hey, I'm going to book a flight to travel which intimidates people to. Hey, let's actually get a passport and let's move somewhat like let's have this other opportunity here as I mentioned.

Speaker 2: 31:10

I think the passport thing probably comes later, but you saw, you said no, people are basically just trying to like when you start a business when I started my business, I'm just like anyone else to start their business, you need to feed the business. You just got to feed the bees feed it. So all that spare capital just goes straight into that business. And so if you can, like you said, move overseas to a place where you can actually free up some capital, put it back in the business. You're just getting, you know, you're amplifying and accelerating your returns. I would say people just starting out, it's just just realize that the world is bigger than your local street, your local town, your local state. Like the worst case scenario, the absolute worst case scenario, is if you get on a, you do your research and you find a country that you want to go, where you have a network of like-minded people or friends out there who can say you know what it's good, come across. The worst case scenario, the absolute worst case scenario, is that you'll go there. Not like it, not the weather's bad, or you lost your wallet in a train station or whatever it has, you'll have a great holiday, right. So the worst case scenario is you're going to check out a country you never went to. You're going to have a great experience and you're going to maybe say you know what, it's not for me and go back home. I don't think people will do that. I think once they go overseas they'll realize like this is amazing. But if they don't, the worst case scenario is a holiday and there's no reward without risk risk.

Speaker 2: 32:29

But I really feel that people, once they do get out of their comfort zone. If you don't get out of your comfort zone, you'll never make it in business, right? Comfort is your enemy in business. You know, the one thing that will keep you going to the end is be constantly discomforted all the time. And guess what? That's why so many migrants become millionaires, right, if they're willing enough to get out of there. So you understand where the. You know because you know I'm a migrant too, like I live, I travel to different countries and I moved overseas.

Speaker 2: 32:51

But the fact is you know if you're going, if you're going through all the stress of displacement, of discomfort, to get to another zone, you're not going back, right? Yeah, so all these people that, let's say, go to the us, which is the american dream. You know you listen to arnold schwarzenegger, patrick Bette, david. You know Elon Musk is essentially it was the same thing Most people who are all going to this part of the world.

Speaker 2: 33:11

They're not turning back. Nobody wants to go back and say I quit, right. So that mental fortitude means that if you're going to take that step, you're going to make sure that you just keep on going. And what happens is it's the, you know, it's that push that you needed to basically say I. It's that push that you needed to basically say I'm not going back. And that is the first step to literally being successful in business, in life, is knowing that you just got out of the comfort zone, got to another country and then said I'm not going back, so I'm going to do whatever it will take. And that's why America was built on so many successful migrants going back even 200 years.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. I think the concept of going from the holiday to the vacation, to the lifestyle, is very interesting, because I actually had another buddy. He ended up traveling to Thailand and he was like, oh, maybe I'll stay here for a month, maybe I'm not. He ends up going to Vietnam from Thailand and he's like I'm living here now and it's like what? And he came back for a month, got all his stuff prepped and then he's like I'm out and the whole reason I say that is because this guy is a 55 year old. Like he's just like the light. Like I have to work so much more to be here.

Speaker 1: 34:17

If I go over there, it's so much more affordable. The doc he's like if I pay more than a dollar on a quote, unquote Uber it's, it's called like grab there, I think. But he's like if I pay more than a dollar, I'm upset, like so the point being here is that. And the way I started to think about this is, as your net worth rises, as your income rises, as all these things happen, you start to look around the world and say, hey, I can actually retire right now and throw everything in and go live here. I could retire right now, throw everything in and live right here, because once you have that freedom, you start going whoa, I've actually made progress instead of this chase of I'm trying to chase 60 years hoping that I have enough to retire at the end. Because, like we talked about, food gets more expensive, houses more expensive, everything's more expensive. So it becomes this challenging dynamic of like expensive. So it becomes this challenging dynamic of like what?

Speaker 2: 35:11

do I do Like, how do I think about this? So? And then, financial independence, retire early fire, right? So people on the plane I was in Miami, like a couple of months ago and I was going to Lisbon in Portugal plane was full of Americans. Obviously it's coming from the US, but they're all residents of Portugal. They weren't going on a holiday. They're like yeah, my money just goes a lot further. Everybody speaks English, the weather is great, the food is great, the wine is great, it's extremely safe, nobody has guns and everyone is really like it's really nice, like they're just, and my money just goes 10 times further. And they're like well, why wouldn't you do it? And Portugal is not like, like you know, you know it's not vietnam by any stretch, right, like it's, it's still europe and everything. But you go to thailand, you'll see more people. But this is what's happening.

Speaker 2: 35:57

2020 has made the. There's been a shift and it was zubi. I met zubi, uh, the youtuber, I think, about six weeks ago in dubai. He's also in dubai, right, so you know pretty much a lot of people in dubai. But what he said is he said we've really seen a shift in terms of people going from here to here. It's the opposite direction. People were saying I can't make it out, I can't make ends meet, I'm going to go somewhere else, and those people are really thriving and having a good time. I mean, there's nothing wrong with traveling the world.

Speaker 1: 36:20

And the other, the other really interesting thing that you everyone's like oh, it's admirable to stay in the place and admirable to do the thing, but you start to think about it and you're like, how much time am I spending on the activities I don't want to spend on? Like if you sit there and do the math, like if you only have to work four hours a day in Portugal and you have to work eight hours in something that you really don't enjoy because of that, you're like, what am I doing? Like you start doing the math equation and you're like, what am I doing? And you start to realize that there's a lot of opportunities out there and I think most of the time we're so closed off and we don't look towards it, we don't open ourselves up to these opportunities. So I hope this podcast is just a framework of like hey, there's actually other stuff out there. Like it's not just only America, america, and it's not just only Europe and it's not just only Asia, it's not only the Middle East there's. So there's like so many different places people can go. There's so many different countries, there's so many different lifestyles, and I think our goal is now to like really just understand people and get to see more of those, which is why I love doing the podcast, because I'm constantly meeting different people and I'm constantly understanding how they do it.

Speaker 1: 37:30

So have you always been like, like, 15 years ago, when you started this business, were you thinking online business? Were you thinking like, was that a thing? Or because obviously you have the office presence, like, so how do you think?

Speaker 2: 37:42

Yeah, we don't have an online business today. Now I'm starting an online business, but because now I actually have something to talk about. 15 years ago I invested in several properties, so I had a bit of knowledge about this. I got my citizenship by descent. I hadn't even started the business. Today, now I've processed, I've helped probably 11,000 people to obtain a second nationality or residency. We're one of the biggest in the world.

Speaker 2: 38:11

So I have also been really more adventurous and exploratory in my real estate. So I've been doing a lot of commercial stuff. I've been doing land, I've been doing foreign mortgages, multi-currency mortgages, I've done Airbnb arbitrages. I've done a bunch of stuff and all the time, as you said, constantly learning. But I've also built a business in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, I didn't know the culture, and literally built it to be one of the biggest in its sector. And now I'm going to build another business. But what I'm going to do is basically share my network and my contacts, my experiences on business, investing and it's not that's just real estate, but there's other asset classes I invest in.

Speaker 2: 38:53

You know the mistakes I made in business, the takeaways that I've got from it, and really I just want people to understand that they are really on the verge of a huge shift in momentum in what was traditionally People don't realize. But a lot of people are leaving and except come back to your point was like, why don't it work eight hours when I can come forward? It's the same thing. Speak to your imaginary CEO, your shadow CEO, and just say you know I'm doing this, and they'd be like well, why should you do it? Or why are you working double the time to get the same results? Time? You can't buy more time. So in the end it's like it's how you use that time and you try and maximize it.

Speaker 2: 39:31

Using the analogy that I gave you earlier, I think also, technology is just accelerating this. It's a bit like AI. We talk about AI. It's very simply put. It's basically either you're going to figure out how to use it and then the demand for you not just from your employer or your boss or your future company that you will be the owner of that company or a government, at whichever scale. You're either going to be in charge of it and then you're going to be having exceptional value to anybody who would just fall over themselves to get you, or you're not, and if you're not, you could be in a situation where it would do your job right, depending on your job and depending on where you are on the ladder. So it's basically it's the same with the world. It's like you're either going to figure out how to get the world to work for you and basically working, going to countries that want people like you and design tax-free concessions for you to basically be there, tax-free concessions for you to basically be there or you're basically going to stay where you are and then you're going to let those countries grow while you miss out on that train.

Speaker 2: 40:31

I mean, I went to the UAE. I didn't know anything about the UAE, I'd never been to the UAE before. I just figured like I need to be in a place where I can sell property at a higher value and then work for a larger company with more seniority, where I oversee a team team, where I get an override on the team, and in a country where I won't get taxed on it. And then that also turned out to be a dirham, which is the local currency, which is pegged to the dollar, which meanwhile was just increasing in strength, as in today, against every other currency in the world. So when I was buying property, I was overseas, my buying power was also getting better. So all of this thing is compounded in a big, big way and there will be another country for other people today, or maybe it will still be the Middle East for some people. But you just need to start thinking how I can make those marginal gains from the beginning to the end.

Speaker 2: 41:18

And I think the key book that I really as we were discussing last time, sovereign Individual this book is really a kind of a glimpse into the future. Now, this was written pre-AI, but this book really really a kind of a glimpse into the future. Now, this was written pre-ai, but this book really talks about how governments and states are really going to have problems in trying to impose themselves on sovereign beings because you have citizenship programs. You're allowed to get citizenship by descent. One in every 10 americans can trace their ancestry to ireland, greece. How?

Speaker 1: 41:48

how hard is that process? Because I've actually considered that and thought about it, like what is citizenship by descent?

Speaker 2: 41:52

One in every 10 Americans can trace their ancestry to Ireland, greece. How hard is that process? Because I've actually considered that and thought about it. Like, what is that process? Like it's not an easy process. I did mine over 10 years ago but it took about a year, maybe a bit more than a year.

Speaker 2: 42:03

There's a lot of time around it's, but you know you're getting a very powerful passport for barely nothing. So it's more time and the stress which, if you've got an you know an assistant who can that you trust with all of this intimate information, you could use them. You can also use certain companies. Last time I checked, there aren't many companies did it. I definitely know that. I'm the ceo of a company that can do it and did it himself, so I I think I'm in a good position to advise. But it's really, you know, people can do whatever they want Nowadays a lot of information online. I think if you just got more money in less time, you just pay someone to do it for you.

Speaker 2: 42:39

But ultimately the states are really going to. Governments are going to have problems trying to control their taxpayers because those people will go to a country like I went to portugal. I did the nhr program, so the nhr program meant that I could live in portugal and not pay any taxes. I was already in dubai, so I didn't need to do this. But I did it because for business and personal reasons. But you can go to uh, portugal, greece, um switzerland, uh, cyprus, uae, thailand.

Speaker 2: 43:10

There's a lot of countries which say basically say, come here and you'll pay no taxes. But how does that make you feel if you're French and you're saying someone who's basically living in you know, use the UAE as an example, paraguay or Panama and that person is there and say, oh, I live here now, so I don't pay your taxes. Meanwhile, france is trying to figure out how to get taxes. I mean, if you look at its debt, it's really high for Europe. And so you look at what the UK has done, what Norway has done, where they basically said all you guys at the highest level of tax, you don't have a non-dom status.

Speaker 2: 43:47

Governments would want high net worth people to come because they're essentially wealth creators, they spend money, they build businesses and so on. So but what happened is that they will say well, look at the UK last year, we're canceling that for you, so if you're living here, you've got to pay 40, 50% tax on your global income. Before it was only what you generated in that country, now it's on everything you own globally. So that top, top people here, who are non-dom people who can go anywhere in the world because ultimately the business is so large, they can just bounce around. They're just like oh, I don't have to stay here.

Speaker 2: 44:22

And so the UK thought well, if we put this tax on them, on their global assets, think about how much money we're going to make from these guys, because we're getting 50% of all the money they make globally. What happened is one small quirk in their miscalculation is that these people can go. You know what? I think I'm just going to move to another country. And in their initial case so they wouldn't send you the passport. No, they keep the passport, they just live, they just leave. But it's not that they had they didn't have yeah, some were british.

Speaker 2: 44:54

The us does it matter us is different, you guys, unfortunately, yeah us is holding.

Speaker 1: 45:01

Yeah, the only place is puerto rico.

Speaker 2: 45:02

I thought because I know which see the, the, the electricity cutouts there. I mean you know it's not an ideal place. Yeah, if you look at the uk, what they've done is they basically said right now you're going to get taxed globally. So anyone who was british or otherwise, living on a non-dom uh fiscal status in the uk is like, well, I'm just going to go. Then I mean I don't want to pay 50 on everything I made.

Speaker 2: 45:27

That money I made made overseas, has got nothing to do with you guys. Like why should I pay it to you guys? You didn't do anything and so the UK has made a big blunder and unfortunately, a lot of all nationalities, not just British, are moving overseas. But what they're doing is that they briefly thought about doing an exit tax, which is like, okay, but before you leave you need to pay tax on the value of your assets before you leave. Even the thought of that and it's not just the UK that thought of it just brings people out, and so people immediately start getting a second passport, which we saw a huge spike in demand. But on top of this, if you can't tax those people on the way out and they've left who's left after those people have gone, you go down to the next chapter.

Speaker 1: 46:12

Because you also don't realize like, the thing that most people don't realize is that those people up top, the entrepreneurs, the high net worth, and they're the ones providing all of this infrastructure for all of these different roles and jobs and people, and you start. That's why you can't get rid of the highest qualified people. You want to do everything to retain them. That's why you try your best and that's what Anne Rand's book was all about.

Speaker 1: 46:37

But the other thing, Jeremy, that I wanted to ask you real quick was you're very creative with your financial literacy and like we had a conversation about a dining room table you had in your office. So are there anything that you do for like optimizing finances? Because someone might look at you and go, oh, he's probably so loose with his money, he probably doesn't know where it goes, he probably doesn't think about it, Just because you see someone traveling here, here, here, you're like how do they manage all that? How does it even make sense? But then I hear this other side of you and I'm like this guy's very intentional with everything he does.

Speaker 2: 47:16

Yeah. So the really successful, wealthy people, they really just, they don't mess around with background noise, they get straight to the point. They don't want to wait and this meeting is booked on an hour and a calendar, but they're like, if it doesn't need to be an hour, we don't need to make it an hour. They calculate that they delegate a lot of tasks, so they have teams, they make sure that by the time it gets to them it's literally something that can't be dealt with by the COO, the CEO, the heads of departments, for example, but I would say a lot of it is just, really just. Sometimes it's really simple.

Speaker 2: 47:57

I mean, for those people who don't know, but the dining table thing is just like I'd have people coming into town say let's meet up, or I'd want to meet with someone, and instead of going, you know, like I would used to get in a car, like I had a car. So I drive my car, I try and find parking or be a valet or whatever, and then I go to the meeting, the lunch meeting, be what an hour and a half, and then I drive back. I mean, if you're putting all that together, it's about two and a half hours for one meeting. So what happened is that first step was like, well, I don't want to be running around trying to find parking, trying to find the location, and I don't want to be on my phone while I'm driving. So I got a driver.

Speaker 2: 48:36

But the next thing was like, well, even still, I'm still losing two and a half hours. So how about I just get a dining table in my office and I'll tell that person to come meet with me and then we can get now with Uber and get really nice restaurants delivering, and so that we can just eat in my office. And so I save well, I save literally two. I mean two and a half hours. I would say probably actually more. Yeah, it could be three hours, let's say.

Speaker 1: 48:59

Because the other thing is like because and the reason I like that so much is because you don't think about it the reason I like that so much is because you don't think about it. But you start to realize, like I drove to pick up my wife from the airport yesterday, I sat in 30 minutes of traffic, like I never sit in traffic, and I was like this is awful, and you start getting in a bad mood. And then you like, get to the place and you're like, oh, like I have to wait on this waiter, like this isn't happening, like what's going on. And then there's the president.

Speaker 1: 49:27

Everyone's trying to be polite and you don't realize that that might ruin a deal. Like you know what I mean. So if they just come to the office, the area is nice, the place looks good, it's clean and they just come and we're just hanging out, buddy buddy and we're breaking bread together in a house. It's like we're saving money. We, we're saving money, we're saving time and we're getting right to the point of what we're trying to accomplish here. And I'm bringing you into my sacred space, which a lot of people are like whoa, I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 2: 49:58

It's brilliant for business because people feel like it's a different experience. They feel like, okay, this is really just. You know, they get to see your office. Right, if you met them in a restaurant, they wouldn't know you from Adam right, anyone can be. And in Dubai there's a big problem A lot of people it's a bit like Miami, monaco people pretend to be something they're not. If they come and see you in your office, like okay, well, I guess you're a bit more real. If you're sitting there and you're dining with them like you said, breaking bread then it's a little bit more of an intimate and you're getting more of a stronger relationship through that transaction.

Speaker 2: 50:23

But all of this just comes to the same thing, which is basically just optimizing time. If you optimize time, you know my wife says I walk too fast. Right, she's like well, walk a bit slower. It's like but I'm just like this, I just. You know I walk fast, I eat fast, I do everything fast, but unfortunately it's just. You notice that a lot of successful people, they have that in them as well.

Speaker 2: 50:43

But it's not rocket science, it's just from the beginning. Just start to think how can I really optimize my time. How can I be paid on results as opposed to the hours that I do? You see online people talk about well. Someone said can you do this project for me and I'll pay you this much per hour? It's like, how about you pay me less per hour or nothing at all, but if I deliver results, I want a bigger piece of the pie. Back yourself to be good. But to back yourself to be good, you have to be good and to be good, you need to study and learn and become really, really strong in your niche, which I wasn't that much before I had this business. But now I feel like, rather than me just talking and waffling on youtube or podcast, I feel like I actually know something a lot more than a lot of people would be interested.

Speaker 1: 51:29

You also start to realize how deep and how long you've been doing the activity and you start to realize, like, whoa, my compounding of having five conversations a day has gotten me somewhere. You're, like, I'm not the only person doing this, like, or I am the only person doing this, and people are actually genuinely interested in this. So, jeremy, where can people learn more about you? Where can they learn more about your company? Where can they?

Speaker 2: 51:58

learn more about, maybe if they want to get a second passport. Okay, so the Sabre and Partners is my firm, which is 15 years old. It is accredited by six governments, so that means we're authorized by the governments. We're vetted by six governments, so that means we're authorized by the governments. We're vetted by the governments. We have to fill a lot of AML and KYC documentation, which means that we have responsibility for our clients' applications. That's Savory and Partners.

Speaker 2: 52:18

Millionaire Migrant is going to be my personal space where I'll be interacting with people who want to get education. They want to get second opinions. Maybe they're in touch with another company for residency or additional nomad visa and they want some input. Maybe they're not sure about that company. Maybe they want to talk to me. Maybe they want to know what's really happening with the delays in that country. Maybe they're interested in financial literacy. Maybe they want to know about how to get up and started at the beginning of their life.

Speaker 2: 52:47

But I think it's just something that it gives me a little bit more bandwidth and leeway to be able to talk about a wider subject range rather than what I've been doing for a long time, which is investing business and citizenship and residency, which are all three very important components for every sovereign individual. But it just means that I can have I can be a little bit more, a bit more latitude, should we say, to be able to talk about, um, a lot of topics which people maybe they want to. They're like me, like when I left 20, 25 years ago, like, okay, I'm about to start my journey, you know what should I do? Where should I go? There's communities of people all around the world and they're very welcoming to anybody who wants to come and be there, and it could be anywhere in the world. It could be South Africa, it could be Kenya, it could be Egypt or any country in the world.

Speaker 2: 53:33

But I started a business with no other people, no investment, no mentor, no education, no, nothing. I started it and it was very, very painful. In a place like Dubai, which is, if people say that, um, you know, business is the most relentless sport in the world and the most competitive. I think Dubai is literally the best business school in the world. I mean it's, it's really, really tough.

Speaker 1: 53:57

Uh, probably there in New York, like it's very aggressive yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:01

It's really tough, and so I've. I've got my scars to bear, um, but I've come through. Thankfully, I've also managed to have a family as well, which was also a key objective for me, which I've thankfully achieved by getting married, having a wonderful wife, amazing kids, trying to be healthy as much as I can. I think I suffered a lot when I started the business. That's why I'm still in my gym kit, even though I haven't trained yet today. It just got really busy, but I'm definitely going to do it after this, I promise.

Speaker 1: 54:30

Absolutely. I love that. I love that and I hope you guys learned a lot from this and I hope you got a ton of value. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 54:37

Yeah, I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.