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Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Jeremy Savory - Millionaire Migrant Founder | What Rich People Know That's Making Them Leave Everything Behind
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- [00:00]
A
HubSpot is a success story. Partner now, if you're an entrepreneur, listen up, because HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. If you are building a business, you need to get HubSpot. Why? Here's the perfect example. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. A problem that every single business in the world has. But with a 900 page website, even the tiniest update took 30 minutes to publish. Now Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in a fraction of the time. And the results? 30% more page views and visitors now spend 27% more time on their site. If you are ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot. Com.
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B
So sovereignty is about being unique to yourself, being answerable to yourself. Crypto has told us that there are other ways to bank if you're not happy with the way that the current system works.
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A
What if your passport wasn't a lim limitation, but a strategy? Jeremy Savory is the founder and CEO of Savory and Partners. A global leader in citizenship by investment. For over a decade, he's helped high net worth individuals secure second passports, unlock global freedom, and build generational security across borders.
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B
I look after a lot of high net worth people. They don't have a problem with paying taxes. They want to be part of society. They have a problem with where their taxes are being spent. The more poor decisions being made by governments around the world, more people are moving. You just need to go where things are in your favor and that is taking advantage of the playing field that we're in in the world.
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A
Trusted by royal families, CEOs and elite entrepreneurs, Jeremy isn't just selling paperwork. He's rewriting the rules of what it means to belong in a world divided by borders. He's in the business of building bridges, the uae.
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B
Right now, in the short term, you need to be really careful about what you buy because you're either going to get stuck with a dud or you're going to find a gem. Nothing is as it seems. There is so much in the public domain. There is so much in life that is not real. But just understand that if you really want to achieve something, there is no other way to succeed than hard work.
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A
All right, Jeremy, I want you to explain the concept of countries competing for capital and talent.
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B
Well, let's use a case in point here is that it's nothing new that countries constantly send trade delegates to other parts of the world to know position their country as the place where you want to set up your, your factory or your, your business. And so and they'll design incentives so they'll give you concessions on tax, on duties, moratoriums on, on, on different matters on other taxes. You know, they'll support you and sometimes even give you a bit of capital to start your business. But today it's not just companies that get this is that individuals, countries design programs, residency programs, citizenship programs and tax residency programs to be able to attract the world's best talent and capital. So you have citizenship by investment programs, residency by investment programs, but you also have tax residency programs, territorial tax where or low tax jurisdictions. They design this so that they can really make it as attractive as possible for, for all the best or the high net worths but also the talented digital nomads.
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A
When you describe what a sovereign citizen or a sovereign individual actually means because I, I've heard that term being thrown around a lot. Just explain exactly as context for why somebody would be looking. So let's tee up who the average person that consumes your content is. It's probably somebody at least who listened to this show would be in the US and they're trying to figure out okay, should I stay in the US Should I live here? My tax is very high, I want to maybe reduce my tax burden. I've heard of all these programs, you know, everywhere in the world, Dubai and a variety of other places. And then I hear this term sovereign individual or sovereign citizen. What does that actually mean for that person?
- [04:11]
B
So sovereignty is about being unique to yourself, having, being answerable to yourself. So what's happening right now is people are finding that they don't really have that sense of sovereignty. Much like a country has a sense of sovereignty. People are finding that they are under Covid has been a great example of is that you could feel that you have complete agency and autonomy over your life and you know, do whatever you want to do. But at any given moment a country could make a decision that would impact your sovereignty that you know, it could be debanking you for example, it could be increasing taxes on you, it could be starting a war in another country. That means that you're unwelcome to invest in other countries. If you're a Russian giving a case in point, if you're Brexit, if you're in the UK that you didn't want to leave the European to have the good agreement that you had with the European Union and, and Covid that you, we felt that you were locked down for Three years in Australia, for example. And increasingly governments are making decisions which are, that people are finding are not in your favor and people don't like that. People don't like to feel that I pay my taxes and I vote and I play my part in society, but decisions are being made that have been taken out of my own hands. And so people want to be truly sovereign to themselves. And so some, one of the ways of doing it is obtaining another nationality or obtaining a residency as a plan B, not putting their money totally in fiat. I mean, if anything the crypto has told us that there are other ways to bank if you're not happy with the way that the current system works. And I see that the AI is also going to be another way that really empowers us to be able to make decisions, to be able to improve our quality of life and feel that we've got control over our lives and not the state.
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A
I think a lot of people get angry because they feel like they don't really understand where their tax dollars go and if it actually benefits them. And I would make the argument that if you are making a lot of money, it's good to give back. It's, it's always good to support, you know, your fellow human. But I don't think that a lot of your tax actually benefits your life.
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B
Yeah, I, I look after a lot of high net worth people, mass affluent even so not even technically high net worth or even I have a lot of ultra high net worth as well. I don't think they're reverse to paying taxes. They don't have a problem with paying taxes. They want to be part of society and the fabric of society and they want to be able to pay their fair share and bring everyone up with themselves. They have a problem with the way their taxes are being spent and it's very subjective to say you're not paying enough tax or I pay too much. You'll never win that argument. There'll always be two sides to it. And there's different parts of society where they'll say the rich are paying more than rich people saying, well, how much is enough? I think it's more just there isn't any accountability in where the money is spent. And you see with the Doge experiment, much waste. Yes, there's so much waste. And I can tell many stories just from my own experience growing up in the UK where I, I mean it's, it's always coming up in the news that, you know, somebody invested an entire council's or municipalities money in an investment. And it was only because one civil servant got very friendly with another guy. And then whatever happened, and this isn't just in the uk, this happens all around the world. And unfortunately that I think is where a lot of people see where the problem is rather than people should be paying too much tax because if anything we'll show us right now is that you can squeez a certain segment of society, actually squeeze all society because 40% can start a lower bracket. You don't have to be ultra high net worth. But it gets to the point where everyone's happy with 20, 30, 40, 45, 50, 55 and some countries 60%. When you get to this, then eventually as we were talking about earlier, people at that level of society that have the capability to pay that much money, 60% and contribute not just 6% of their net worth of the wealthiest people sometimes is more than, you know, millions of people who pay. But what happens is that those people, the more they, the higher they go up in society in terms of net worth or you know, power, they can just leave. And that's what's happening. And that's why we called our company Millionaire Migrant. It's because we're seeing the largest migration of millionaires in history. 2024 had the most elections and had the most flare ups in terms of war or civil unrest ever. And so those both happen in the same year. And so you can see just everybody is in a different place. You're in a different place, I'm in a different place, everyone's in a different place. And there's a book called the Sovereign Individual. So we're talking about that right now. And I'm, I'm reading that book again for the second time and it talks about where the future will take us and that governments will really struggle to keep people, keep track of people, whether they are, whether to get their taxes from them. Because the borders are being broken down, technology is enabling us, cryptocurrency is enabling US travel, Wi Fi, 4G, 5G. All of this is just helping people to be able to be a lot more mobile. And they'll just go, okay, well I can go and live in this country and then I'll tomorrow I'll go move in this country. And this is, this is happening, this is actually happening right now. And the more government decisions, poor decisions or unpopular decisions being made by governments around the world, more people are moving.
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A
I think that the, the individual who does make an exceptional amount of, creates an exceptional amount of wealth, creates an exceptional amount of value as well. And that person, you know, Elon, is the person who's talking about government waste and doge and how to, you know, sort of track where the money's going, which is a very, very important objective. But I think a lot of people look at the government and the waste and they think, well, if I kept more of my money, I'm good at creating value in society, I'm good at creating jobs. And if I take x percent more of my money and my wealth, not only can I build a bigger company, but I can also, you know, contribute to philanthropic efforts. I can do, I can do a lot more with my money. And I can be sure that the money that I actually spend actually benefits versus is wasted. That's, I think that's a general entrepreneurship idea that they can probably do a better job with the money than the government can.
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B
100%. Yeah. And, and you know, as you have a business and I have a business, we're more, we can tackle the problems. We back ourselves, we took risks, we understand a little bit of every single part of 360 of the business. The legal, the recruitment, tech, sales, marketing, whatever it be. And so we're just, we just don't feel that the money's being spent. But it comes back to the whole point where governments will say, well, we need to pay for the public sector because this does provide us with education, healthcare. And nobody's, nobody's denying this. It's more the fact that, yes, but we have a public sector and then we have a private sector. But the private sector is about wealth creation, right? Well, private sector is what we're either employed or an employer in the private sector. Private sectors contribute a lot to society. They're actually the main things that contribute to society. But what happens is that if you try and make, if you try and limit or tax excessively, those who really push themselves to innovate and create, invent, scale, recruit people, employ people, and if they see that the higher I go up, the more I'll be hounded, penalized, penalized, then unfortunately, those people will leave. And then also those people who want to start the journey are disincentivized because they see that this is not a meritocratic society, therefore I'll leave as well. And then what happens is that the public sector increases its scope, increases its capacity, and then you move towards socialism. And you know, some governments in, in Europe, they, you know, public servants, probably civil servants are essentially 20 to 25% of the, the, the working population. But this is now happening where that is just inevitably just going to have to go up and then that's when you're going to get towards socialism, unfortunately.
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A
When did you first explore the idea of a sovereign individual? Like, at what point in your life? What was the inflection point? I mean, we can talk about. You had an interesting upbringing and an interesting childhood, but obviously that was way before you started to build out this business in this company. So I'm more curious, what was that inflection point that sort of opened your mind and it could have been when you were a kid, I have no idea. When it opened your mind to sort of seeing the world a little bit differently?
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B
Well, I, well, from a young age I saw the world differently because obviously the way I was brought up, it was different to a lot of people. I mean, my parents were deaf, so at a young age, I had to go to the bank with my father. I had to meet with the insurance broker, my father, I had to go to the mechanic with my father. You know, I had to. I was an interpreter, you know, for my mother as well at times. But it meant that no one was telling me how the world works. You know, I had to figure it out. Like, you know, normally everyone has a dad or a mom who is, you know, a school teacher or a banker or, you know, it could be any type of profession. But my father was as a carpenter and then became an interior designer, and my mother, you know, was a housewife. So there wasn't anyone teaching me any life lessons or definitely in business at all. And so the good thing about that is I see that looking back is it just made me an, an outsider. So nobody was telling me, oh, this is how we do things. These are the norms. These are societal norms. It was more just had. It was a blank canvas. So that was the early stages where, like, why do we do this? Why does it happen like that? I would say it was probably what I realized is that the. I had never really left the UK until later years, until my teens. And then every time I went to Europe, I saw, wow, this is amazing, there's another country. It's exotic, you know, the, the, the food, the culture, the language. And then every time I went there, I realized that probably by chance that I ended up getting jobs that meant that I would have to be in those countries. So I was a tour guide. And then I worked in a. In a theme park. And then I, you know, I took odd jobs here and there. And then I realized that there's more opportunity on foreign shores. So that's what gave me the, the taste for adventure. And then obviously, as I traveled to Africa, Asia, South America, and then ended up in the Middle east, which is where I really realized that you need to find your blue ocean. As, you know, as businessmen, we understand this. And I was like, hold on a minute. I can. Where I see opportunity, this is where there are less people with comparable skills at the time that I arrived, which is my background is real estate. And, you know, it's a frontier market. You know, the bravest people, you know are often the most successful. And then I, then that's how I started things. But it's only by taking risks. It's only by getting out of our comfort zone. There is a correlation, I find, between discomfort, success. Right. We are at least successful when, in a sense, when we're comfortable.
- [14:53]
A
It's interesting because from an entrepreneur perspective, you always have to balance two ideas. Right In. In the red ocean, where most people play in the US that's. It's red ocean. A lot of the things that people are doing or building have already been done. The market's already established, so at least there's a little bit of a blueprint. When you go after a blue ocean, there's no blueprint. You have to figure it out yourself. And I think that when you can, when you have the personality or whatever that X factor is and being able to figure it out yourself, then obviously you can succeed as, as you have. But when you think about the way that you've structured your life, a lot of your life is blue ocean. A lot of your life is doing things or guiding people to do things that they've never done before. What do you think is the personality that's allowed you to succeed in a blue ocean repeatedly? Or what is even the personality trait that you see in some of the people that you work with, where you can literally pick up your life and leave everything you know, and then build a new career, a new business, a new opportunity in a completely different part of the world. Because I think that that's whatever personality trait that is, I, I think that's an incredibly useful skill.
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B
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's bravery. It's fearlessness. I mean, you, if, if everyone else, if you're in a country that is a developed market, for example, then there are high barriers to entry everyone else, because everyone else is doing the same thing. It's not difficult to find someone who can do the same thing almost as well, if not better than yourself. When you go to other parts of the world, there is a scarcity of. Of talent that is the same as you or the talent that you have. So using real estate as an analogy, some of the best deals I've ever made in the investments I made were in countries where most people wouldn't even have even been on holiday or were more complex or were more risky. But essentially that's just the same thing as business. It's just like if you do the same where everyone else is, there isn't really a lot of upside if you go where other people are not, or people are scared to take risks. I mean, I'll give you a good example as well as when I was. When I first moved to Dubai, I was single. And in Dubai, men outnumber women 2 to 1, probably even 3 to 1. You could argue we earn tax free. And so everyone is earning more than they did back home, which that type of quality of life or spending power suddenly makes everyone a little bit. The ego gets affected, should we say? And so what I notice is like, okay, this is not an easy place for me on the dating scene because people have. I just arrived, I don't have much money. People have money than me, and there's more men than women. So this is not really working in my favor. And so what happened is I spoke to a friend of mine. He said, let's go to where you going on holiday? He said, I'm going to Colombia. And I was thinking, normally people. And then normally people would think, wow, that's crazy. Like, why do you want to go? Columbia. That's. That's a dangerous place. But for me, I was thinking, well, why not? You know, let's just go there. What's the worst can happen? Well, the worst thing could happen is I found my future wife. Because when I went to Colombia, I think that everyone knows. I think there was even a study that came out. It's just like they ranked people's opinion of the most beautiful women in the world, and Colombia came first. Does. And I can definitely, you know, whether my wife would like me to say this, but I definitely agree.
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A
Well, she was from there, right?
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B
She was from there. Okay. But she wants her to be the one. Not like.
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A
No, only she was the last one.
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B
She was the last one. Yeah, she was the last one. Luckily, she came with me. So essentially I went to. To Colombia and I ended up marrying a woman that is just incredible. Like, I have no other way. Just on, you know, obviously we could be a little bit superficial, but as a person and her values and her Family and the person she is is it. I think a lot of my success I credit to her, even though she's not involved in the business. But nobody was going to go to Colombia because they're like, you're crazy. And they would say all the negative connotations that come with the Colombia. But guess what? I came back and I found love. And I know people who still single in Dubai to this day. And this is going back 15 years. You just need to go where things are in your favor and that is taking advantage of the playing field that we're in in the world.
- [18:47]
A
So I kind of understand what was the reason why you wanted to leave and why you wanted to sort of explore. When you think about the average person that you work with, what is the thing that prompts them to look outside of the country that they've been loyal to their entire life?
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B
Well, I don't think we can confuse loyalty to country with loyalty to opportunity. I think my clients are highly successful people. If you can afford to be able to invest overseas, invest in a second nationality or a residency, you know, it's not a small amount of money money. And those people have proven that they're willing to take risks. But what happens is that they have lost confidence in the governance of their country and they don't want to be having all these assets and liabilities which they themselves, you know, sometimes inherit. But largely, let's say you, you build an empire or you build a business and it's all from you taking your exams or you getting qualified or you taking risks or you, you know, gambling with your own money to, to, to make money and then to find that everything you've built, all the assets, liabilities, bank accounts, properties, holdings, everything you have are all under one nationality. Which tomorrow that the, that country could decide, you know, what we're going to start tariffs against China or we are going to start a war that is going to push oil price, fuel prices up, or we, you know, something that is something that's out of your control. They say you know what they are, they want to be able to have things in their control or at least a second a plan B, at least that my money is in another country. At least my gold is another country. At least, you know, my, my, you know, I don't keep it on the hot wallet. I'll put it on the cold wallet. They want things to be diversified. They want to be seeking opportunities. They're perennially curious about life. But, and sometimes they just know that I'm comfortable and I need to push myself to another level. You know, I don't like going to the gym, but I know the outcome of it is I'm in better shape or the muscles grow or I don't want to start a new business. But I because know that it will be a risk that I might not make work, but if I do, things will come from it. And the thing is, is like they are sometimes they just don't want to be in a level of comfort. They want to, they want to test themselves.
- [21:00]
A
Have you ever gotten pushback from people that say you should be loyal to a country and loyal to a government and loyal to the, the system that gave you the opportunity?
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B
People don't say it to me, but I imagine when I left the UK probably a few of my friends were saying, you know, oh, okay, you go to Dubai then? By the way, I, I didn't like Dubai before I went. I'd never been to the country. I literally just accepted a job and turned up the day after. It was Ramadan. All the party established.
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A
That's not a good time to go. Well, time to go.
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B
Yeah, yeah. You know, to be respectful to my toys, you know, to the people of the, the region, I would say all the bars were closed, all the clubs were closed or if they were open, they didn't serve alcohol and it was 45 degrees in summer. And most people probably would said, you know what, this isn't for me and go back home, home. But I stuck it out and the rest is history. But yeah, people probably thought, okay, you're going to go over there. I'm not, I'm not massive, I'm not in favor of Dubai. I'm just objectively seeking all the opportunities that work for me.
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A
So I love this. So what was the word you said, you said arbitrage. But what was the, what did you call? Geo arbitrage. So explain that concept. I, I like you. You've sort of at a rudimentary level mentioned like you're taking advantage of, of, of where your skill sets or where the opportunity is and you're, you're loyal to yourself. But go, go a level deeper.
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B
Okay, well let's use a case in point. What is happening right now in the UK is really serious and as much as people are talking about it, it's a lot worse because I am at the, I'm very close to people who work in the high net worth space is there is an enormous exodus of British nationals and foreign nationals leaving the UK because they have canceled the very, the, the non dom Fiscal status, which minimal fee, you could stay in the UK presiding presuming that you could show that your ties were elsewhere and that you were only staying, you know, for inverted commas, a temporary period of time, they've canceled this. And now all those people where they did their calculation and they said people are going to stay here and pay taxes on their global income. Whereas non dom status would mean that I don't, I don't have to pay any money on the, the income that I generate overseas, foreign income income. And the UK was like, you stay here, you pay taxes on what you know, vat and anything that any business you do in, in the UK you get taxed on. But the condition is by put saying that you have a non dom status, you would say that all that foreigner income, you could receive it and it would not be taxed. Then they stopped this and this happened in the previous covenant. The new government has doubled, has stuck with it as well. And now what's happened is that all those people saying, well the whole reason I was here was because you didn't tax me and because I like the uk, the UK government calculated that if we just canc or that those people, where are they going to do? They're going to go to some tiny little island in the Caribbean? No they're not. They're going to stay in the UK and then they're going to pay the, the, their taxes here. So all that worldwide income will get taxed and all that money is going to come to us in uk.
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A
So like a bait and switch. Yeah, yeah.
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B
And they said you've got a grace period if you want to leave and that's fine. But now that all the money is going to come here. So they just a very granular, simple calculation. That was zero sum game. That money's not coming in now. It's going to come in because they said no one's going to go and live in, I don't know, Grand Cayman for example. But what they didn't count on is the fact that those people are incredibly mobile. They can afford to be anywhere they want and that other countries have programs that are just as attractive. And so what happened is they go to Italy where Italy will charge you a lump sum of €200,000 a year plus it goes up depending on the size of your family. And then everything you earn over and above from all your stocks or dividends or foreign properties or royalties do not get taxed all around the world and you just pay us 200€000 and then you Just be on your way, whether you want to live in Milan or Rome or Sardinia or Sicily or, you know, the Amalfi coast, if you want to. It was very popular with Americans and so they were like, yeah, so I'm going to go there. So all the private equity professionals are moving to Milan. Not all of them, but the vast majority. Or they're going to go to Abu Dhabi or they're going to the uae, or they'll go to Spain, where Spain has a similar program, but you just pay 20, 25% flat.
- [25:05]
A
Flat.
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B
And then you can come here. So why not live in Barcelona? Sounds good. Or live in Majorca. Beautiful country. And so they were just leaving and the UK's and the figures just came out is that the economy is, is now was. It's technically into a recession right now. And you could blame that on the tariffs, you could blame it on, you know, poor, you know, managing of the, the, the government finances and a number of things. But I, it's clearly.
- [25:32]
A
So this is like the millionaire exodus.
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B
Yeah, they're all leaving. Yeah, they were leaving. They were going to. Some are going to the us, some are going to Cyprus, some are going to Singapore, but they were leaving. You. You can't. You know, I think that the thing that makes it even worse is that those people are leaving. What makes it worse is compounded by the fact that now people are not going to come to UK because it's like, well, I don't want that. What. Why would I go and do that?
- [25:58]
A
Do that. Right.
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B
I can. There's. There's a lot of other attractive countries where I can have a really good quality of life and that country will recognize that I made that money outside. It's already probably getting taxed in that other country. Why would I pay the difference? Or, or the same tax? Americans are actually moving to the UK now. But I think that is not. Because it's so suddenly. It's clearly not for a tax play. It's just America's attacks wherever they live anyway. And so. But they're leaving because they're not happy with the way that United States is right now. So my contacts in, in this space have said, well, there are quite a few, but Americans also going everywhere. They're going to Portugal.
- [26:32]
A
Well, that's what I was going to ask. So, you know, your number one client now is, is Americans, but America. So I'm Canadian, so I don't have global taxation. So if I leave Canada and I'm not a resident of Canada, I have to pay my tax Wherever I'm a resident. But I don't owe Canada anything anymore because I'm not, I'm not living there. But in the US very, very different. So if most of your, if most of your clients are Americans, what's the advice to them? To start to take advantage of, of, of different tax breaks or different spots in the world? Because I think most Americans realize that they're going to be taxed regardless of where they live. So why would, why would they be your number one client outside of political climate, right? Like, I mean like that's one reason that they may not want to stay here anymore. They don't like Trump, then fine, they want to go somewhere else. But that's.
- [27:18]
B
Yeah. Well, I'll preface this and say that obviously this is not financial advice. I'm not a financial advisor. What I am is I'm a businessman, a self made businessman who took advantage of all the opportunities around the world. I respect to my wife that I wouldn't want to say that was part of the play. But essentially, you know, I look around the world and I know I have a team that advises all tax jurisdictions, all residency jurisdictions, permanent residency jurisdictions, citizenship jurisdictions and real estate investment jurisdictions or even non real estate options. And we just through my wide circle of ultra high net worth clients which I have, which will be 15 years, I have a large, probably 11,000 passports that we have issued or residency cards, Golden Visas. But you know, that's, that's a very good circle. I mean it's enough to build a small private bank, if you will. I mean a few people in private banking have told me that we have enough. But from access to those people, you understand, you know, opportunities and you, I'm able to centralize it to a certain extent. But to come back to your point, it's like if you're an American, why would you want to leave and what the reasons you're leaving? I would say that it's, it's nothing that is unique to the US But I'll tell you one story, story. I was in Lisbon where I'm actually a Portuguese resident as well. So I, I know firsthand why people move to Portugal. We've helped more than 250 families move to Portugal with the Golden Visa, D7 as well, D2 programs as well, NHR as well, which are the, which is the fiscal status program. So we've helped a lot of people in Portugal. And I met one chap and he was from the Napa Valley, from the, and he worked in downtown San Francisco and I, and he told me, he said, jeremy, it would take me about, about close to two hours to drive into work. And then I would come to work and then I would just see homelessness and things that, that hurt my eyes, have to step over people to go to Starbucks. It's not, it's not nice. I don't like to see it. I'm all. And it's not because I'm not trying to improve things. I'm already paying 50 tax. So he's. It's not. He felt sorry for those people, definitely. But it's not like he, he was paying 0% and seeing poverty. He was paying already 50 and yet still seeing this. And then he would drive two hours back from home in his house on which he paid tax, property taxes, on the value of his home, which is, you know, on top of every other tax he's paying. And then his daughter would come home from su school and he would say, how was school? And he said, oh, we did an active shooter drill today. And then he just said, you know what? I pay all this money. I spend all this time in traffic. I see things which I feel like I'm already trying to pay enough to try and stop and help people, other people around me. And then I see that also my family is not safe. And then he said, I just went to Portugal where I have a better tax status. He still taxed globally. He could renounce if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. And I respect that. But I don't pay any taxes. The cost of living is much less. I don't. And I feel safe and people are very friendly and welcoming and more and more people are coming. So I feel like my own community is coming with me as well. So why wouldn't you want to do that?
- [30:22]
A
No, it's. Do you see a lot of Americans renouncing citizenship as well?
- [30:26]
B
It's no, it's the minority. However, it's increasing and the data is, is a bit behind from the US but it, it is slowly ticking up. Yeah, but I, I think people are still want to be patriotic, which just because they want to leave doesn't mean any less patriotic. I'm British, but I also got my French nationality through dissent and I have other nationalities through investment and so on. I don't feel any more or less. I just understand that that is the way the world is going. My wife is Colombia. My kids have Colombian passport. If we move to Spain, we could get the Spanish passport. I think it's just. And I want my kids to be Proud of their Colombian heritage and, and I love the country. I think it's a F and I wish more people would visit it with open eyes, but essentially the world is going that way. We are. Look where you are or look where you know, your wife could be from another country, your kids will be born in a country and you know, if the UAE would give grant citizenship then we would probably become UAE citizens. But I think it's fantastic.
- [31:19]
A
It's just so interesting to me because you do want to respect the country that gave you so much opportunity. But I mean there's parts of this country that like you mentioned, California. Right. California has a GDP larger than some actual countries and again it's a lot of mismanagement of money and funds and I was actually more curious just personally for a situation like that. If you leave, if you leave California and you go somewhere else in the world, of course you owe federal tax for sure. But could he not like stop over in Florida and claim Florida residency and then reduce the, the, the state tax and then go over.
- [32:01]
B
So then yeah, people, people move to, to Florida. I mean look at, look at how.
- [32:04]
A
Because I'm trying to think. Because yes, global taxation for sure. But if he's, if he's abroad, does he owe. This is probably more of a, a CPA question. Does he, does he owe the, the state tax, California that he was.
- [32:16]
B
He would do probably your fe. The foreign income exclusion and he would do all, you know, all that paperwork and he, he'd have to have a CPA in the US he'd have to have one in Portugal. So Americans are unique case. There are only two countries in the world that tax their citizens.
- [32:33]
A
Who's the other one?
- [32:34]
B
Eritrea?
- [32:35]
A
I don't know. I sound so ignorant. I don't know.
- [32:38]
B
Oh no, it's fine. But you know, I, I have clients from Eritrea and they've done passports with us. You know, they've, we've helped them to get nationality. So I've got the number of nationalities we've helped people to obtain. A second nationality or residency is as I mentioned, it's in the thousands. But, but the only difference between those two countries is one country can enforce it and the other can't. But I genuinely foresee that citizenships based taxation will not be limited to United States in the coming years. It won't be in the next few years. But France has already started. It's been going through the, the parliament in the government. Last year, I believe it was. Yeah, last year where the French government is looking about how losing A lot of money. Why are they losing lots of money? I mean they.
- [33:20]
A
So, so interesting because if they just managed money properly, unless people felt the need to leave, then more wealth would stay in the country. But they're not. So they're looking for a band aid solution to a problem that they're too scared to actually address themselves.
- [33:32]
B
Well, I mean you could, yeah, you could expand that conversation to the fiscal deficit. It's like people don't have a tough conversation. So, you know, this big beautiful bill that got camouflaged by, you know, the Harvard ban on foreign students. It was just kind of like a smokescreen, you know, because you've got now more fiscal spending, which means you're going to have more asset inflation, which means that the younger generation of people are going to find, even owning own home or, or any kind of wealth mobility, social mobility is going to be diminished because assets are going up. I mean you can make. In the last few years I made more money from buying a property and just leaving it than I actually did for my business. I mean, you know, it's. But that's bad. That's bad. So the fact is you've got that. And so what needs to happen is people need to take matters into their own hands and be a lot more mobile. Because I think the biggest misconception about what I do is, is that geoflag theory or geo arbitrage or global citizens is the whole idea is that passports or residency is about geographic mobility. I would say that it's not just that mobility, it's wealth mobility. It's about wealth creation, it's about tax mitigation, but it's also about social mobility as well. And I say this because I would not be where I am now if in Miami, Florida or where I was, yes, day before yesterday in Istanbul and Turkey in the day two days before this in Kenya and four days before that, five days before was in Dubai. I wouldn't be doing any of this. And because none of my, my business or businesses now or any of the teams I've grown, we have about 75 people now in eight offices. Not. And I have a very large portfolio in different countries. None of that. And a beautiful wife in a foreign country. None of that would have happened if I just stayed in uk but by take, by moving to another country and noting the opportunity that was in that country. In my case it was Dubai, but for somebody else it might be in Paraguay or it might be in Cyprus or wherever it may be. And it could be a high tax jurisdiction, could be In Canada for example. But being able to go to that none of my situation would have come if I just stayed in the uk. But I ended up moving to a country you talk about earlier. How did I join the dots and a few things it's like well first of all it was changing time for out results. So rather than getting paid for the hours I put put in I get paid for the results. And all my career that got greater and greater until it reached the point where it's like well tax is still eating away. How do I manage the tax? UAE was one place but UAE was also the dirham is pegged to the dollar which mean I would get buying power. Okay recently now with the euro it's a different story but it's very powerful currency which allowed me to invest in the UK and European properties at a discounted rate because the dollar was stronger. It would also mean that there was a concentration of wealth. So you've got, you know, oil money, you've got, it's a headquarters, it's a global headquarters, it's a trade hub, it's a transport hub and it gave me proximity to high net worth people. And then from this, you know, you who's better to do business with than high net worth people? So but all of this came from and this is social mobility. You know, I, I, I, I got, you know, social mobility came from me actually traveling to another country where I saw opportunities community.
- [36:44]
A
NetSuite is a success story partner. Now what does the future hold for business? If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers. Bull market. Bear market. Rates will rise, rates will fall. Honestly, I just wish somebody would invent a crystal ball. But until then, over 41,000 businesses have future proof their business with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one Cloud ERP. Bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid dynamic platform. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. If I had needed this product, this is what I would use. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. The guide is free. That's netsuite.com/scott clary indeed is a success story partner. Now say you just realized your business needed to hire someone fast. How can you find amazing candidates fast. It's easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed Sponsor Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. And with Sponsor Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Plus with Indeed sponsored Jobs, there's no monthly subscription, no long term contracts. You only pay for results. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility. Just go to Indeed right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring. Indeed is all you need. When you say Dubai can make wealth, how? What kind of people? Entrepreneurs. People looking to advance their career. Like I know a friend, he was an M and a lawyer in New York and he started working for a Saudi company, company and he moved his whole life over there and he's doing it for a couple years and he's making probably netting plus minus a million dollars a year with very little tax. He's going to do like nothing and then he's going to come back and then he'll, you know, have a nice little lump sum saved. So a lot of different ways to look at wealth. It's not just entrepreneurs, it's career advancement, whatever. But when people come to you and they say, hey, listen, I'm, I'm down to move somewhere to improve my situation, what is the advice you give them? Where, how, what are the ideas you have to think through?
- [39:27]
B
Well, first of all, for your friend there, you said he's going to do that for a couple of years. I also thought I'd be in Dubai. There's an expression in Dubai where we all say we're staying for two years and then it's 17 years I've been there. And I don't think your friend will leave after two years once he had a taste of it. No, Dubai is a millionaire magnet. Why? Because it is a forward thinking country in which it's, it's very interesting. And by the way, it's not the only country. You have Singapore, which is also medio magnate. And you could say, you know, other countries probably to a lesser extent maybe, but the difference between Singapore and The ua, which I think are the ones which have proven that if you've got a small, a small indigenous population, but with a. How can I say this, A tight control on how things should be done, some things are tolerated and other things are not tolerated and people will talk ad nauseam about, oh, but you don't have, you know, you know, you don't have any freedom and all that stuff. It's just like, well, I've, I, I've only seen One fight in 17 years in Dubai. One. I see one a month back in the UK.
- [40:29]
A
See one a day in Miami.
- [40:30]
B
Right, okay, Right. So maybe I don't want to see those things. You know, I've been to, I've seen people accidentally show me nudity twice. Accidentally. And both times remind me, by the way, you don't see that in the uae. And maybe people don't want to see people accidentally nude. For me, it was a guy. The other time was a woman, but the other time was a guy. But the thing is, it's just what the difference probably between Singapore and the UA is that in the ua, there's an alignment between residents and locals. Everyone is truly happy that they're here. There are not people in there grumbling about, oh, you know, I don't really like it here. I feel like I don't want to be here. Everyone is aligned. Residents are just as happy because they feel safe. They feel that the country, country is looking after their best interests. Singapore, I don't know so much. I was at a dinner with a few expats who'd recently moved from Singapore, and they were seeing that job opportunities were getting limited because they felt that their expat residency status was not being renewed because they wanted Singaporeans to kind of take over those jobs. That in the ua, hasn't been happening. And yet our expats outnumber the locals by 9 to 1, 8 to 1. And yet the, the locals are, you know, happy that people are. And creating what is, you know, look at how Dubai has transformed in two decades and it's expanding to Abu Dhabi, Raso Kaima. Now they're building the, the Wynn Casino. There's going to be all of that going on also.
- [41:58]
A
Qatar to a degree or no?
- [42:00]
B
Qatar. No, I don't, I don't think so. I think there's definitely, there's definitely an economy there. We have an office there. But I think in. It's not, it's not managing to get what Dubai is doing. Saudi is looking to, in a certain extent, extent, but I Think it's, it's a big country, it's got a very large population and you need really a lot of buy in to make these, these things happen. But it's definitely making a lot of strides. I've got a lot of friends moving to Saudi, very happy, they're earning good money there. But yeah, like some people, it's not for them. I know but by the way it's a minority. It's a minority of people I know who moved to UAE and then went back of their own accord.
- [42:39]
A
What I wanted to understand understand is for somebody listening to this, I want them to understand based on what I'm working on right now is the move right for me. And the reason I asked this because I think a lot of people listen to this show, they are entrepreneurial. Like listen, if you can go find a job that pays X amount dollars more and you, you know, don't have any commitments, don't have any kids, don't have any responsibilities in the US Maybe just try it. That's, that's the, that's the answer. But I, I think the other cohort of people that listen to the show are people that are building and they're wondering, okay, if I'm going to start a company, is there an issue with me finding clients or finding investors if I go to Dubai compared to if I want to be an entrepreneur and go to Silicon Valley and I want to start something in San Francisco?
- [43:24]
B
Oh, I mean if you're in the tech space then you know, you can't really compete with Silicon Valley. But it's not the only part of the world. Singapore is very good actually for, for people in the tech space is a good place to incubate and start up up.
- [43:35]
A
I think like most people are so US centric in, in their thinking.
- [43:38]
B
Yes. And, and if you, if that works for you that's great. But sometimes it might be a bit crowded trying to get an in with somebody in Silicon Valley. Sometimes you might want to go some another part of the world. So you know Singapore, Singapore is very friendly towards tech startups. It's a good place to incubate. The banking system is very robust and well respected globally. Switzerland as well is very crypto friendly. Although the news that came out recently was not good news about that they would have to div, you know, people involved in, in crypto investments in Switzerland that didn't go down too well. But again you know, it's Switzerland and you know there's positives and negatives but yeah, I think if you want to start your business. I mean, everybody knows you just want to be where the capital is. So whether it's Silicon Valley, uae, Singapore, whichever.
- [44:25]
A
What do you, what is the, what is the best way to live as a, a sovereign individual? Like, how do you structure your life in terms of, terms of how you run your businesses even? I mean, if you have a family and kids, like, because you travel all over all the time. So what's the advice for somebody who wants to live a similar lifestyle to you?
- [44:43]
B
I mean, as you mentioned, I've got kids now, so I'm, I'm, I still travel extensively. I actually take my kids with me three months a year. So I travel all of, all four of us.
- [44:51]
A
I think that's very good, though. It gives them.
- [44:53]
B
It's very expensive, I can tell you. I mean, you know, we have someone to come out with us because I've got two kids who are. How can I put this? Very sociable.
- [45:00]
A
Yes.
- [45:00]
B
So, you know, we usually have to bring a member of family. Family. So we're five. So that's five people traveling to many countries three months a year. But for me, it's, it's what got me to where I am. And so the more that I can have my kids getting a taste for that life, I mean, I'd never left, I'd never been to any country other than France or Spain until I was 20 years old. My eldest son is eight and he's been to 18 countries already. But, but he gets a taste of it. He, he knows a few words. He knows about the, the culture, the food, the museums. You know, he picks up a bit of the language. So I think it's, I think it's really important to be very aware of these things because the way the world is going right now, we're meeting all different people from different parts of the world, and if you can build some kind of commonality with them. I found in business, it really, really.
- [45:47]
A
Helps when we talk about, when we talk about sort of mitigating tax as much as possible. I think that's something that everybody is interested in to some degree. You haven't, and don't have to, excuse me, pay tax until 20, 30, 33, because of a program in Portugal. So explain some of the, you can explain the program that you're taking part in and some of the, in some of the ways that you've structured and optimized, like your tax, your tax strategy, but also other ideas and other ways to optimize tax strategy for people that, again, are okay. Leaving the US looking to move abroad. And that can be anything like from where you're living to how you sort of structure where your income goes, etc. Etc. And obviously this is not tax advice, just the disclaimer is go speak to a professional. But I know that you've encountered probably a million and one different ways that you can structure your tax so that you're still paying what you have to pay and you're not paying what you don't.
- [46:48]
B
Well, the first thing is if you're living in a high tax jurisdiction, you're going to have to leave if you want to, you know, legally reduce those taxes. You can't just stay there, put everything in a BVI and then, you know, hope for the best. So you need to do that. But you have countries which are very attractive. They have territorial tax programs such as Paraguay, for example, you know, even Philippines, you can live in the Philippines and then you can receive your pensions or passive income into the Philippines tax free. You've got, I mean there's a lot of countries that you could look at doing. Panama is another one. So it really depends on that person myself personally. We moved to Portugal, we did the Portugal residency. I invested in a, in a fund there, I bought a property there, I bought a small team there to handle our clients, clients. But I also made friends there and I know all the best restaurants in town and the little, tiny little fisherman places that are even better. But I signed up for the non habitual residency program which is a fiscal status that gives me 10 year exemption. And, but what you need to, but the, and by the way, just to go a little bit off tangent with this one, I, that I have a tax free status. I don't pay any income tax in the UAE. There is corporate tax now at 9%. But again, you know, there's certain bits and pieces to do with that. But to come back to the Portugal part is that that is a fiscal status that's valid for 10 years. So what it means is that I renewed it just a year ago and so I have a tax exemption for the future. So if I ever go back to Portugal, let's say the UAE tomorrow, and it could happen in any country suddenly they say, you know what, now you need to pay taxes. I've also got another tax free program that can take advantage which is valid till 2033. So if you calculate when I moved to UAE in 2008 up to 23, I have not paid any income tax for 25 years. Quarter of a century, right? So yes, as much as I optimize my investments, whether it's financial, whether it's bricks and mortar. It's also about optimizing the quality of life. And yeah, I would have a lot more money if I didn't travel or scuba dive or fly so much. But that's my weak spot. That's where I like to spend my money. But right now, there are other places you can go. Paraguay is a place, it's very easy to get a tax residency. You can move there. Whether you want to live there there really depends on you. But there's all these opportunities around the world. You just need to be able to know which is the one that best suits you for your lifestyle, for objectives. I think also I think one people just need to know is that having a second passport is not going to fix your tax. You wear, your resident or where your fiscal residency is, your tax residency is. And you need to calculate how many days you're going to be because you can't really say, I live in the middle of the ocean.
- [49:32]
A
Well, I was going to ask, like, do you actually have to live in Paraguay or anything? Any these other locations for X period of time to claim tax?
- [49:39]
B
As a rule of law, yes, you have to be there for a period of time. But there are other countries which are a little bit. What? Paraguay. Let's use Paraguay. Paraguay is a place which is not the most probably strictly controlled country, should we say? So people are in, you know, people look at Paraguay saying, a place where I don't have to be there all the time and I could be moving freely around. But there are other countries that are a lot stricter, for example, so. So yeah, as again, like, I have a team that takes care of that. We have a team that takes care of the citizenship. And then I have a residency and then I have another team that helps people to make money for investing overseas. So I was in Kenya with a few of my clients over there and they're just like, you know, if I do this real estate, if I do this project or if I invest in this, what is my roi? And I said, oh, this one you're probably making, which I thought was Quite good, is 8 to 10%. But obviously you've got your capital growth, which is another 5%, and then, then, you know, you can create equity value another 5%. And they're like, you know what, Jeremy? If you're not really getting 25 ROI in Kenya, it's really a bad deal. Like, you know, you know, yeah, yeah. There's people in the world for whom 6, 7% is like amazing, but it's people in other parts of the world. It's like, I'm not making 25. It's just, it's not really that interesting for me. And so what you need to do is try and get those people in those parts of the world to other parts of the world and just say, look, look, this opportunity gives you the roi because the reward is, is correlated to the risk. You're investing in Africa as Kenya, but as long as you're comfortable with that and obviously some currency risk with the Kenyan shilling, you know, two, three years, you flip it, you're out, you know, you're 50 up, you're 60 up, 70% up.
- [51:21]
A
Well, that's remarkable.
- [51:22]
B
It's amazing.
- [51:23]
A
But, but people that are again, North America or U.S. centric are not going to think like that because first of all, okay, so I put money into Dubai and that was already like risky for me as somebody from Canada, right. That was like a little bit stressful. Now I had, I had somebody close who does a lot of investment in Dubai. So, you know, didn't stress me out too, too much. But if somebody doesn't have that person or that team, like your team, no one's going to put money into Kenya. Like, like you go tell, you go tell your investment advisor you're going to put money into Kenya. The wrong with you. I mean, like, yeah, what, what, what email did you get that makes you think it's gonna be a good idea? What scam did you?
- [52:00]
B
Well, I've been investing. I mean if you look at property, I've been investing for 23 years. My bought my first property when I was 23 and then I bought a property in Poland for 100% mortgage. I literally put any money down. Can you do that?
- [52:16]
A
You can do that?
- [52:16]
B
Yeah, I did do that. That was in 2005 or 2000.
- [52:19]
A
Still have that?
- [52:20]
B
Well, I sold the property a year ago and I still made, I made money on it. Could have made more, but the problem was the 100 down came from a Swiss bank. So when the GFC happened, the Swiss franc went up. And so it wasn't the best deal ever. But the fact that at 20, my mid-20s, I bought property in a foreign country which by the way, I never visited in 18 years. But that with, I didn't put anything down and made money doing with no money down. But nobody would do that in right mind at 20s and take a hard 100, you know, Swiss currency mortgage, Swiss franc mortgage on a Polish lottie property. But I, you know, I bought, I just bought an apartment in Tbilisi, Georgia, just this last week, which would probably get us annualized 80, 90% return. I'm buying a penthouse in Medellin, which even the lawyers were saying to me, this is a complicated deal. We should probably move on to something else. And they did that more than one occasion. And each time I was like, it's okay, well, you know, let's just move forward. Let's move forward. And if the deal comes through, it's going to be an incredible deal. But I do those things because I'm kind of gone past the vanilla stuff right now. I do.
- [53:27]
A
Have you ever been burned?
- [53:28]
B
Yeah, yeah, I got burnt. I got, I got burned on one property in Dubai. But as I always keep reminding myself is the times you get burnt, the other times you make money because, because you go through why you, why it didn't work, what did you do wrong? And you go all the way back. And ever since I made that mistake on that one property, I have gone back into Dubai and done more deals, bigger deals, more complex deals, more exotic deals. And in some of them, I've 10x my money.
- [53:59]
A
What was the, what was the thing that burnt you? Was it a scam, fraud?
- [54:03]
B
No, no, no, it was. Oh, sorry, you're talking about that. No, I haven't had the. I, I haven't had a fraud. It was a. I just bought a property without giving it the proper time and due diligence. I didn't think about what. I just, I was too busy on the company. I was probably earning more money than I should at that age, and so I was just reckless. And I see a lot of this with crypto clients, actually. I see a lot of this. They, they make it so fast and so they spend it so fast. And when it comes to something outside of crypto toe, they generally get wiped out because you, when you earn it too quickly, you don't value it, you don't do your dd, you don't, you know, you don't do your research. But, but yeah, so I have, I have lost money. But no, it wasn't. I mean, there's some crazy things in, in Dubai real estate, but it hasn't, it wasn't illegal or fraud, anything like that. But I have in all my real estate transactions in Dubai, seen a lot of crazy, crazy stuff. It's a, it's a fantastic market and, and congratulations for you for doing that because, because not enough people from North America buy in the uae. I think they're the least represented buyer segment in the whole world. I think that will probably change. And I'm going to try and do my best to talk about it on my podcast to explain how it works, how to make money from an investor point of view. Because I'm not a broker, and the issue is everyone is only getting information from brokers. But brokers are not going to give you the nuts and bolts. They're not going to give you the ugly side of the. The story. I can tell you the good, the bad and the ugly. And I think, by the way, the other reason why you did, and I know you've done very well. We were talking off camera how well you did on real estate. I was with a realtor this morning, a Miami Realtor. Every country I go to, I talk to people in real estate. I want to know what's going on because I'm always curious. And he was like, jeremy, I got a multi family home, I can't remember, not far from here. And we can, we can probably get you 7% net paid for upfront and the tenant is going to Airbnb arbitrage it, and he's going to do it. And I was like, great, 7% net net. He said, yes. I was like, that's, that's okay. That's interesting. Maybe I've got some time. I'm going to have a look. How much is. How much can I borrow as a non resident? He said, probably 50%. Okay. And what's the interest rate? Said 7%. 7%. 7%. You know, what are you doing? Like, you're just washing your face with the whole thing.
- [56:25]
A
Right.
- [56:25]
B
You're just hoping for Capital uplift was 20, 25. Any capital uplift we've had, obviously, you know, this big, beautiful bill is going to help infl that.
- [56:32]
A
That's why, that's why nobody buys real estate in Miami right now. Because there's two ways to make money in real estate. Right. You have your appreciation.
- [56:38]
B
Yeah.
- [56:38]
A
Or you have your cash flow, your month. And like, nothing's really appreciating that much. And interest is killing your cash flow. So now it's like, why am I putting money into Miami?
- [56:47]
B
Exactly. And then it was just like, you know, in the UAE, you can borrow at 4%, 4%. And the dirham, the UAE dirham is pegged to the dollar. So you have stable current. You don't normally, when you can get finance in a foreign country, there is currency risk, but you're pegged to the dollar. You're pegged to the dollar, but you're getting 4% here, you're getting a dollar at 7%, you get an ROI at 7%. UAE you're borrowing at 4% and then you can get yields of 7, 8, 9%, even 10%. And sometimes you can do more. And then as we know, leverage is the game. The thing about Dubai that I don't think people really understand, I think it's only because a lot of brokers, and no disrespect to brokers, I use some of the brokers, they're really good ones. But there's a lot of brokers who don't, who were, who were, I'm not joking. One of them used to cut my hair like he's not a real estate broker in the uae. They don't understand that the best thing they should be talking about is rather than saying buying this off plan property, buying this launch and everything, the most important thing that they are not telling their clients is very, very simple. You're getting emerging market returns but with developed market financial rigidity. So you're essentially getting lending from banks that have been very high capital ratios. Right. The UAE banks now they're, they're very robust, a lot of them consolidated. But you've got, you've got emerging market returns with leverage at developed markets rates. I mean it's a no brainer, it's arbitrage.
- [58:10]
A
Is there anywhere else in the world where you can get that?
- [58:12]
B
No, not that I'm aware of. I, I really don't. And even if I, I, I pretty much, if we chat GPT it right now, I'd be very surprised you get somewhere else we can get that type of ri. Because by way, the, the way 7, 8, 9% is pretty decent on real estate considering it is a passive asset class. But that you can borrow at 4% and borrow at 4%, not at 50% but up to 80%. They didn't do it, they don't do it now. But you used to be able to borrow even on the closing costs, which is your land registration fees and your broker fees, they don't do that now. And I think that was a bit excessive, to be honest. You don't want to go that far. But getting up to 80% and then getting your rent to be paid, your mortgage to be paid by your rent and then you're also getting capital uplift on top of that. So forget about the, the yield, you got capital uplift which as we saw, I mean some, the report came out, it's like 60% some of the properties 100%. I've got properties that went up 200%. You can't get that. And, and there's still opportunities today. It's just that you have to look at, be a bit more careful now.
- [59:11]
A
It's not so that, that was going to be my follow up. So somebody. Okay, so now the person who's listening to this has graduated from trying to look outside the US and now they are active investors in Dubai Real estate.
- [59:22]
B
There's not really advice.
- [59:23]
A
Yeah, it's not real estate advice. Not, not tax advice, not financial advice, not investment advice, not real estate advice. Do your own research. Do you think that there is still opportunity in Dubai because there is so much supply? When do you think demand's going to run out?
- [59:38]
B
This is a very important question. I think this needs to be nuanced because the world that we are in right now is headlines, clickbai. And you're either this or this. In the short term you have to be and this is just someone who is someone who worked in real estate at very high level. I work for sovereign wealth funds. I work for, you know, government developers, I work for international growers. I've done feasibility studies in Africa and Central Asia. But as someone who has bought over 30 properties in 11 countries the UAE right now in the short term you need to be really careful about what you buy because you're either going to get stuck with a dud or you're going to find one a gem. And I have my own real estate analytics team and I have my own brokerage so that we can suss stuff and plus I have my network so I, I get sent stuff. You're going to have to look at a variety of opportunities that are outside your traditional I've just buy an apartment in downtown Dubai. You're going to have to be really selective right now because there's a lot of stuff coming on online and if you don't do your calculations and you don't get the, the data, you'll be, you'll be really stuck with something. The Fitch came out with a report saying that they estimate the property prices will correct not more than 15% this year by the end of this year and by the beginning of 2026. Now when you see that it's not because all properties are going to go down 15% what's going to happen is some properties won't go down. So prime real estate, you know your jewels in the crown that no one, you know, people aren't going to distress sell and some might go to 5% there might be a soft happening but what's going to happen is that if that is the zeros and fives then to get to 15 we could be looking at 25% and that will be probably apartments because there is as much as expats typically arrive and take apartments. There's also a lot of apartments coming on stream. But what I would say is that again you need to caveat it based on location, view, floor, elevation, orientation, lots of other things but in the median to long term it's still a place you've got to buy. You've, I genuinely feel, feel that you. Where else can you put money into real estate that is going to work for you? Now I'm buying in Colombia and Georgia and other parts of the world. That's not your cup of tea but if you want to have definitely with it from a leverage perspective but a country that is really putting itself on another level every five years in the global master plan. People talk about Dubai now like you would never have bought in Dubai 20 years ago, 10 years ago. You're buying and there'll be more, more buying. But it's not just what's happening in the UAE which as I mentioned there is going to be a lot of supply coming on. It's the, it's just like there will always be a buyer or a migrant. An immigrant like me, I'm a migrant moving to the uae. As long as these decisions are being made around the world that are forcing quote unquote people to leave. So the UK's or France saying they're going to do citizenship based taxation or European decisions. I mean Europe is, is clear is in a bad state. But, but I also a good friend of mine said Jeremy and he's not a real estate guy. He actually I'm one of the people I advise for. He's a, he's a high net worth person and I advise his for his real estate. He said Jeremy, a third of the world's population lives less than a four hour flight from Dubai.
- [62:52]
A
Wow.
- [62:53]
B
So when you hear something like that and that you know that the UA is open for business. Anyone can buy cash, crypto, wire transfer. No, no restrictions on Russians, other nationals like other countries. There is no, the banking system is very much pro mortgage, you know, non resident finance. You have the golden visa program which is historically the biggest, the most popular residency program in history. You have a golden visa. I have a Golden Visa. There's seven ways you can get Golden Visa. 1. Real estate is only one of the options people don't know about that so that's just saying, you know what, let me just take this right. Residency my clients, we did an analysis of the data and we found that the, the majority of our clients in their top if they had three properties or more, one of those property in the world, one of those properties was in Dubai. The other place it was was in London. But now everyone is selling their properties in London. I speak to all my clients like yeah, the third place was their country of birth which is normal, right? Like you would have a Canadian property for example. I'd have in the uk. UK and now I, I see. So you know, and that was that, that study was over five years ago before covered. Now I'd say that of those people, those three, the London one they're selling, they might have some random place like Slovenia, Slovakia, but they will have at least one or two properties in the uae. The and then I'll give you another anecdote. I am French. So I saw a property near Monaco and I wanted to, wanted to buy it. I said no brainer, I have a French nationality, I have significant you know, income statement. I have, you know, I have bank accounts in, in Europe and you know, and, and I was like yeah, I just want to buy this property. And it was tiny. It was like €400,000. Okay, not tiny but like it was a small amount. €400,000. Just want to get mortgage €200,000. When they show me the list of documents I had to provide to be eligible for non resident finance I was like who is going to do all of this work? Who is going to do all of this? And I said listen, if you can give me a 99% chance I'll get approved for this, I'll do it. And he said, and then he just turned around and said to be honest, I don't think you should even bother because looking at your affordability and taking away xxxxx we probably won't give you a mortgage anyway. So you won't let a foreign, a French non resident with a good, you know, I'm very low risk, you know, with a good financial capability buy a property and then if I do, you're going to have to ask me to fill in all of this. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to buy another property in Dubai. People are buying Dubai because other countries are not giving them the opportunity.
- [65:28]
A
I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Hemp for supporting today's episode. Now Cornbread Hemp CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. I don't use them every day, just when I want to unwind after those extra busy weeks, but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance. Really just shut off from work. And what makes them special is how Cornbread Hemp crafts them. They only use a flower of USDA organic hemp plants. That's the best part for the purest, most potent experience. No fillers, no artificial fluff, just clean full spectrum goodness and delicious watermelon, berry and peach flavor. I keep them in my nightstand for those moments when I just need a little extra help relaxing. And I love how transparent they are too. Every batch is third party lab tested so you know exactly what you're getting. And they put together a special offer for all Success Story podcast listeners. All listeners can save 30% off their first order. Just head to cornbread hemp.com success and use code success at checkout. That's cornbread hemp.com success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing gummies. The HubSpot Podcast Network is a Success Story Story partner. Now if you like Success Story, you're going to love other podcasts in the HubSpot podcast network. One of my personal favorites is I Digress, hosted by my boy Troy Sandage. Each show is under 30 minutes. I digress helps eliminate complexity, complications and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies to achieve true, scalable and sustainable success. If you're an entrepreneur building anything you need to listen to I Digress. This is one of the most useful business podcasts, trust me. Go do yourself a favor and listen to I Digress. Wherever you get your podcasts. We've covered a lot of different, I don't know, how do I, how do I word this? Different groups of people. Whether or not you are interested, interested in investing in Dubai, whether or not you are somebody that is actively looking to mitigate their tax situation abroad, whether or not you are somebody that doesn't even have a passport. I think the goal is to just like constantly be vigilant about the opportunities that like the world presents. Just be so curious. Dubai to me is such an interesting option. I think more people should look at it. Obviously we're invested in it. But you mentioned something that I think would be interesting to unpack for the audience as well about golden visas. And I'm sure there's a lot of different countries that have programs but that particular, that particular visa, because I know that it's trying to attract investment, it's trying to attract influencers as well. I don't know what the other five visas are, but for somebody that is an entrepreneur or an influencer or a content creator or an investor, maybe just give a rundown of what that golden visa does. And this is just something that I know because I, because I've put money into Dubai and I've spent some time there. But it's a really, really attractive visa.
- [68:21]
B
Yeah, it's, it's got a lot of benefits. I mean, it's not for everyone. I'd say a golden visa from Greece or Portugal is much more attractive because, you know, Portugal. A case in point is that you can get residency status in Portugal. You only need to go for one week every every year. And then after five years you can apply for a European citizenship, very powerful European citizenship. And without having to be a tax resident, without having to physically be there, that's a, that's an absolute no brainer. And that's one of the reasons why it's so popular, the uae. And bless, even during that period of time that you, you are the holder of that residency card, you can travel freely within the eu. So if you need a visa, you don't need a visa now because you have a residency. And if we go to the uae, it will only give you obviously the residency of the United Arab Emirates. The, the advantage of it is that it's over. The other residency status that you could have, which is traditional regular unemployment visa, employer visa, is that you don't need to renew it every six months. You don't have to travel in and out every six months. You just go once and you, when, whether you go again or not, for the next 10 years, it doesn't matter. So you get a lot of flexibility. What is really good about it is the fact that you feel a connection to that country. And it's really smart that the UA really makes it very accessible to a lot of people because they want you to just go, oh, here you go, here's something. And you can do it through an exchange for deposit investment in a business by having a particular threshold of income. And as you mentioned, you can also get nominated. So, you know, I was nominated, so the government of the UAE nominated me because, because they probably saw that I have a large portfolio of high net worth clients. And so I was very grateful for that. And it was a, it was, you know, again, like, you know, it's, it's nice to be getting something like this. And so they would give it to people of Strategic value, for example. And this is really smart because what it does is it gives you something and you feel like, okay, well let me just check it out, what can I do with it? And it just slowly just makes you go, okay, well now I've got the residency. It means that why don't we just stop in Dubai next time? Why don't we just open a company, why don't we just get a bank account, why don't we just, you know, go and spend the holidays there? And it's very, very smart. And, and it really works in terms of the, the benefits. Aside from that, I would say it's mainly just having a place that you could go to and stay indefinitely. So if something happened to you and you're in a part of the world that was a little bit dangerous, knowing that you had that residency, you could just be there. Whether it was title property or not is very attractive. So a lot of clients have golden visas now. I mean it's, it's really an increasing, increasing number. But yeah, it would give you a residency status. So obviously you'd get resident finance as opposed to non resident finance. So you can start using that leverage to build your real estate portfolio in the uae, which is one thing, but I think it's, I think it's more the benefits from the UAE side more so than an actual consumer. You know, the consumer benefits aren't, you know, enormous other than those that I've just mentioned. But I think if it benefits the uae, it also benefits the consumer as well because the better the UAE does and you have a golden visa, the more you're going to be benefit from it.
- [71:24]
A
Yeah, no, and I think that one thing that you mentioned as well, just because again, a lot of the, a lot of the audience, they are either investors or entrepreneurs or both. I guess sort of two questions from that I'll, I'll ask, I guess just about for investors first, when you do, let's just, let's just pick Dubai and, and UAE as a, as a, as a place where people are interested in investing, because I think they are and especially people that listen this class, spoken about it several times now. What would be some of the strategies in terms of investment that are smart investment strategies that are sort of more specific to the UAE or Dubai that maybe they would not be aware of if they've only put money into real estate in the US before?
- [72:06]
B
You mean investing in property in Dubai?
- [72:08]
A
Yes.
- [72:10]
B
I think that's a tough question. I mean there's many different ways to make it happen, but I can tell you I've done, I've done Airbnb arbitrage and done very well out of that. I've done commercial properties, I've done flips, I've done co working, I've done. What else? I've done renovations of offices, I've done renovations of houses, I've done short term lets, I've done long term lets. There's all different. I mean, I was even looking at land the other day for warehousing. I mean, it you. It's not just the sector. I mean, sometimes sectors are probably more attractive. Right now, I would say warehousing and commercial is, you know, villas and townhouses. There's still some good opportunities. What I would say is that, let's say, for example, if I'm an investor and I saw that Fitch is coming out and saying that there is likely to be a correction of prices, which there's a lot of pushback on this guess what? Mainly from brokers, which is to be expected. But I would say that if there is a correction of 15%, then you will see some people who would have bought at the wrong time being maybe saying, you know, I'm in negative equity and I would like to offload or if it's on a pay stage payment plan. You know, I think during the Trump tariff, it got a lot of people cashing out their investments. They were getting margin called or somewhere else, or there was people who just panicked and wanted to let go. You just had to be there and you just see someone say, you know what, I'll just take, you know, 80% on the 80 cent on the dollar and I just walk away from the sound. You could have caught something there. But I would say if there is going to be some kind of software happening, the braver people, some people say, well, I'm just going to wait and see where we land. But there'll be other people saying, if I can get someone who's just ready to walk away from something because he cannot complete the next statement, next installment, you could take over that at a discount. I've already started to see that. You're starting to see that already there's a few people ready to sell less than what they paid for. But you have to be careful. There's those pitching it as selling below asking price. But then you have to run the numbers and then you realize like they're not actually doing that. So that's what happens. A lot of my clients, clients, they get offers and then we just, we just run the numbers on it has.
- [74:21]
A
Dubai because they've, they've launched all these visas. Have they created any programs to support entrepreneurs? Have they created any programs to support people that are building incubation, any sort of, any sort of networks that you're aware of?
- [74:36]
B
That's something that I haven't really looked into. I'm sure there are, there's a lot of different visas now and I would say that uae, I'm sure they probably do because they're really pro growth and they really want people to set up there. You'll see that a lot of companies are moving the headquarters there. So you've got Binance that's moving there. Obviously that's not a startup but it tells you the path they're going into. The financial center is doubling now in size. They just reached capacity. I would, there's also a lot of networking hubs, a lot of co working places, a lot of communities for startup entrepreneurs. And I think actually if there is a softening of the real estate market, market, it's going to be a win for the UAE and it's going to be a win for entrepreneurs and people just starting their, their journey. Because what it will do is it will pull down the, the rent price, it will stop the market from being so hot and make rents affordable, which brings more people and allows people to, you know, choose the UA as a destination to start. So I, I see that from a positive side of things because rent is high, because there's so much demand and because there's so many people moving there.
- [75:40]
A
So what would be interesting because obviously, obviously you've built a very successful business but just because of your clientele, you deal with heads of state. I think you've met like 11 of them. 13, 13, 13. And you deal with high net worth, ultra high net worth. So when you look back at your own journey and some of the people that you work with and you and you deal with on a day to day, how do you think different when you, when it comes to building a business, building wealth, how do they think different?
- [76:09]
B
Yeah, I've met so many interesting people. It's really, I mean it's really some that just, just an hour in their time you'd learn something. You get a contact, you get insight at the top, at the highest level which I would either apply my personal life or in my investing life. I mean I tried to think off top of my head but you know, I've been in, in intimate surroundings with top, top, top athletes, billionaires, finance guys, crypto guys, highly successful people, all types of people. All different walks of life. And you know, you, you get to see a little bit their mentality. By the way, not all people who have money also are successful people. I think it's, it's important before, you know, because I, you know, as a father with two young boys, boys, there's a lot. I think everyone is cognizant that there's a lot of pressure on young men to be X or Y. And if you're not, then you're a failure. I mean, my life wasn't easy growing up. It was not easy having, you know, deaf parents and nobody. And at school, you know, you don't want to be the one who's got deaf parents, for example, just like you don't want to be the one that is too fat, too tall, too spotty, whatever it is. Everyone's wanting to blend in the school and no one wants to get the attention. But unfortunately in life I've met people who just got lucky. I mean, I've met guys who, right place, right place, right time, or people who act on behalf of somebody who doesn't want to be visible in some of these emerging markets. Africa, for example, where it's just like, okay, you know, I think I smell bullshit. Much, much better. People come in and they're like, oh, this guy's. I see someone on social media, I've got this, I've got this. So I meet people in Dubai. I can, I can, I'm really good because I, I now know what real wealth is because if you can afford to invest half a million euros in, in a passport or $100,000 or two, sometimes we've done two, three, four million dollars. You've been around real wealth and you understand how real wealth moves. And so when you see other people and the way they behave, you can kind I can suss out much faster. So that, that's been really helpful for me. But yeah, sometimes, sometimes people's right place, right time, sometimes inherited young people right now who want to start their journey will not succeed because they are not patient. Why do we have rich kids? Because it means that they inherited it from somebody else. So if it inherited it, it means their parents must have done it in the 50s or 60s or even further back. I've met three, four, four generation wealthy Indians in, in Eastern Africa, for example, or in the Caribbean or Lebanese families. There's 100 years of wealth. But because they go around and say, this is my life, somebody who's just starting now with like 10,000 pounds, $10,000 is going, oh my God, I'm not wealthy. It's like no, some you just. But you can get wealthy if you just live below your means, right? You've got calorific deficit, so just what is the financial equivalent? It's just live below your means. Don't go out and buy silly things that you can't afford on credit at, you know, 18, 19%. So money accrues compounds over time. You just need to make sure that it works. You strip, you sweat it as much as you can be diversified. This is another thing I've noticed with my clients they don't have though, and this is actually something I apply in my own life is I get really, really, really, really good at one thing specifically and then maybe a second at max. But no one's really good at six things. So. And I talk about that in a. Either in business sense, but if I was to be really, really good in skills, I would be really good at two, three things and then those I'm not. I'd make sure that I was friends with, doing business with or recruited someone who's really, really good in those areas. And then I'd make sure that I knew just enough to make sure that I know if this person is good or not, always on top of the game or not.
- [80:08]
A
I try and learn everything to a rudimentary degree myself when it comes to building, building a business. I think that most good operators and entrepreneurs, they do learn a little bit of everything to start and to your point, then they figure out what they're good at, what they're not. I mean I'll learn, you know, how to code a basic website, how to write good copy, basic graphic design, you know, what does a P L look like, how to hire the right person, sales, marketing, et cetera, et cetera. And then you can call on when you're hiring somebody and they say they do something or not, and that's how you hire well. And I think that's probably one of the most useful skills. Just being able to jump into something, being able to learn it to a very basic level and then hiring somebody that's exceptional at it, world class at it. If you, it's not your sort of zone of genius or core competency, just like let, like letting them run with it. And most good entre because again, this show I listen to and sit down with, I interview incredible entrepreneurs. They all did everything they want. There was nothing glamorous about the companies that they, they built. They all figured out everything and then they hired out the best people to help Them.
- [81:15]
B
Yeah, I think at a, at a basic, basic level, what really helped me was from a very young age, figuring out how money works and how people works. I think from. I definitely know rich. That Poor dad was the first book that I read, which is the same for a lot of people. The second one I can't remember, but I think it was something about a book of tells or something, which is how to know body, you know, probably because I grew up with deaf parents, but you know, how people behave and how people act and why people act as such. And I think a case in point is that, you know, I, I, in part of my portfolio, I have different asset classes and I have different banks and so on. But one of the guys I work with is a tactical day trader and he makes, makes me alpha returns. He takes alpha risks and gets alpha returns. And I would know a lot of people would either just run away. I've told people this is what he does, and people just run him up like, no, no, I'm not. Like, that sounds crazy because he gets really, really good returns from me. But it's because they're scared of the risk. Was like, well, if you don't want risk, go for really low risk and put it in a bond or an ETF and then don't complain. And then, but then you run away. When I show you someone who can do it, it. But this chap here. So what happens is that when the Trump tariffs came along, the banks I work with, investment banks, private banks, they're like, sorry, we're down 5, 10%, whatever it was in the early days before everything, you know, bounced back up and he was up 5% when everyone was down. And I said, well, why did you do that? He said, well, he clearly is not of. He's clearly do. He's. The way that he's thinking is not logical. Therefore, I don't trade in the markets because I take high risk, high leverage to do things, but I need to kind of know where we are before I take these calculations. And so he said the minute he said he was going to input tariffs on China, what was it the first time? 145, 100%. He was like, this is not logical. This is a, this is part of a, a wider game, so I can't be part of the markets. And he just stepped out. And what happened is he went up 5%. And then conversely, when I think it was just about a few weeks ago, he, he lost me a lot of money. Like a really a lot of money. I mean, I'M still up, up, up fantastically. But he lost me a lot of money. And I was like, but why? Wow, that's a, that's a really big loss. Why did you lose this? He said, the market is not acting logical. And I said, what do you mean? He said, the tr. The t. The tariffs are in place. The t. The tariffs are here. The economic signals are not going to look good. We are, you know, companies are having to pivot. Companies are to going, going to be sitting on the sidelines waiting, not hiring, not recruiting. He said the figures are bad. And he explained, you know, I don't want to quote him, but he was explaining a few things. He said, but retail investors are rushing back in and buying the dip and buying the dip, but we're pretty much where we were and yet the economic fundamentals don't look good. And he said I got wiped out by the retail investors. Retail investors don't think logically because retail investors are, you know, let's be honest, like kids on, on phones, buyers stuff. And so a guy who is extremely sophisticated in signals and buying and, and everything, who's clearly at the top of his game otherwise I want to give him any money and other people wouldn't give money, gets it wrong and loses a lot of money because other people are buying things that beyond logical sense. So what this comes back to is the fact that the illogical things, things have negative effects on us, but it is just the society room. A lot of things are happening that don't make a lot of sense.
- [84:54]
A
Correct, but to a point that you alluded to earlier, having a healthy relationship with risk and leaning in regardless is how people win. So all the people, and I'm curious what your take on this is, but that gentleman as well as all the people that you work with who are high net worth, ultra high net worth, have successful, succeeded, not been given a handout, are not trust fund kids, but have made the money themselves. They all have a really healthy relationship with risk. So that, that trader, yes, the market is illogical right now and he lost a lot of money in the short term, but his relationship with risk over the long term will allow him to win. Same like every entrepreneur that's made any amount of money building something from scratch, betting on yourself, there's an inherent risk with that, but over a period of time, if you that risk repeatedly, eventually it will work out. Yeah, it will.
- [85:50]
B
You're doing, but only because you're doing what the majority of people won't do. So it comes back to the blue Ocean, red ocean. You know, if you do risk, we are the expression creatures of comfort, is there for a reason, is because we like comfort, we're averse to risk. You know, this is a guy who I put money with and when I've introduced him to other people who have also money money, they felt uncomfortable with him because he was saying things which you shouldn't actually say to people. And I was like, well, if you want to. And he, they just said, yeah, I don't know, man. I just, I don't feel like that comfortable with him. I was like, if you want. You can't get unorthodox returns with orthodox investing, right? There is a correlation. If you want to meet a private banker and they all wear this, this private banker suit, the dark blue suit with the light blue shirt, and he'll sit with you and he'll drive his BMW 76 series, you're going to get orthodox returns because he is orthodox. But if you want unorthodox returns, you've got to do unorthodox things. So it could be buying warehouses in, in Kenya, it could be buying, you know, commercial property in Colombia, whatever it may be. But you're going to have to do the, you're going to have to go to places where other people don't want to go.
- [86:57]
A
But that's a life lesson, right? Like if you want an unorthodox life, if you want a life that is better than 99.99% of people, people, you have to take unorthodox action.
- [87:07]
B
Correct?
- [87:08]
A
That's that, that's what people have such a, a tough time understanding. They want the outcome. They don't want, they don't want to take the risk. They don't want to be uncomfortable on the journey there.
- [87:18]
B
But they also have resilience because if you take risks, you won't get it right all the time. I've got, I've got things wrong. You've got things wrong. People get things wrong. It's how you, how you react to it and you accept that it, it was, that it was part of the process and that you move on. Because I know a lot of people who lost a lot of money and just said, I'm never doing it again and just went in something safer. Every time I've lost money, I've just gone back in because the lesson is learned. You know what to do this time. And therefore, by theory, as long as you don't go straight back into the fire knowing it's insane, usually come out of it. And I, I Have a lot of, you know, and, and that's what happens, right? You, you need the resilience. You, you need to, to be. You need to understand that you will get slapped. I mean, I've, I've done, I've been, I'm still at my age, still doing, you know, driving to middle of nowhere, getting up flights in the middle of the morning, because I understand that you will get. Being denied and being rejected is just part of the journey.
- [88:15]
A
If you think about a lesson that you've learned over your life or your career, a lesson that you wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through, but has been very valuable for you. So think about. Of. Well, while building the business, what would be something that happened, Sort of a low point that would hopefully teach someone who's listening a lesson that I've had.
- [88:38]
B
I've had a lot of low points. I've had a lot of. I'll tell you a funny low point, which is really odd. But it is another thing. There is a lot of imitation in business. You'll see that a lot of people copy. There's a lot of copycat. And I think it's good also to copy other people because, you know, sometimes if it's working, then just do the same thing, I think, put your own. What's the word? Your own style on it, your own personal touch. Don't just completely copy. But there was a moment when I started the business and it was the early days. I couldn't afford an office. So I asked a friend of mine could I sublease an office from you? He had about 5,000 square foot office, something like this. And I said, could I rent from you, sublease from you around 400 square foot. So about as big as this studio, right? And I could only fit. Fit three out of push people in there. And he said, yeah, sure, no problem. And so what happens is he was doing a business that was kind of related to perfume somehow. And there were some display shelves and there was a reception in the middle. And so what happened is that I would pay him the rent and he would. And the receptionist, I tell her, listen, if there's a client coming for me, you tell them, you, you give me the sign. And then you tell them, yes, it's for, for Jeremy and you take them through to the boardroom and I'll come and join you. And he was like. She was like, no problem. And then what happened was that his. Because they were selling perfume, the room always smelled really nice. But what happens before client come either Me or my colleague who's now my coo, we'd have to go and take the perfume boxes from the display cabinets and hide it so people would come in and just think, hold on, I'm looking to invest in a second password, an intangible asset that cost 300, $400,000. And I'm, there's perfume on display on the, on the thing. So we took it away, but people still came and just went, the office smells really nice. I was like, well, you know, we, and you know, try and make it presentable. And I, we'd have to pull up this roll up which said our company name and then take it down when the people came from the perfume.
- [90:32]
A
It's a true startup.
- [90:33]
B
This is a true start. This is real stuff. I mean, startup stories are the best. And then it gets weirder because what happens is he was reporting to the, the, the head office, which I think was in Singapore, and he says to the, the guy, the guy's like, oh, you know, so what's going on with this office? Why are we, we subleasing it? And he said, oh, it's just a friend of mine. I'm just helping out. He's starting his business. I was like, okay, how's he doing? He said, seems to be doing really well because he started with one and now he's like three, four. You know, even asked him to take a bit more space. He's like, what's he doing? He said, oh, he's doing. He's helping people to obtain a second nationality. And he's like, okay, that sounds a bit dodgy. And he's like, no, no, it's legitimate, it's legal. You know, he has all the, you know, and I can see that people are getting the passwords. I mean, it seems to be words getting around town. And so the guy goes, that sounds like a really good idea. We should probably do the same thing. And he said, okay, boss, whatever you want to do. So they set up a second passport company as well. And then with his millions and millions of millions, he started running Google Ad campaigns and he started doing events and seminars. He hired about eight salespeople, hardcore salespeople who all just moved in and just started hitting the phones and getting all the inbound leads and cold coin leads. And I was like, are you serious? Curious, like, is this really happening right now in the same office that we are, we are now two passport companies in the same office. And, you know, it was a rule, it was real low point because it was just like, it's hard enough trying to fight competition as it is without having to go to office with your competition. And we just outlasted him and he just, you know, they just stopped it and they moved on different things. We end up getting our own office at around 1200, 1300 square feet in the end, you know, big times, I think. But it was really, really tough because, you know, the bank account was going down and it was really tough to get. You know, every client was a win or a loss for that month or that quarter. But yeah, that. I mean, having a competitor in the same office that you are physically in is, Is a new one.
- [92:28]
A
I know. If you were going to give, you know, based on your experience in building, how many years have you been in this game now?
- [92:35]
B
15.
- [92:36]
A
15 years. 15 years. And I mean, like, that's. It's a great testament to what it actually takes to build something meaningful. Like, it takes a significant amount of time. But if you stay in the game, you'll find a way to make it successful. But if you were going to give one piece of advice to an entrepreneur who's just starting out, because you've given a lot of advice about how to position yourself strategically, globally, but just for that person who's just starting out in their. In their business and they're starting from scratch and they're, you know, learning from what you've built, what would that piece of advice be?
- [93:06]
B
I think there was a Swiss guy. He gave me, I think probably my first or third or second or fifth file, like just when I was starting out. And he said, and he was Swiss, so you'd understand where this come from. He said, there's two things in life. You need to keep your word and keep your time. And he said, that's all you need, just a word in your time. And you can see the time thing is like, okay, be punctual, don't be late. Nobody likes that in any society. You know, French people are 10, 20 minutes late. You know, in the Middle east it gets a bit worse. And in Africa sometimes, sometimes they don't show up. But, but the time thing, yes, I think, you know, there's some things that will never change in business. But yeah, keep your word is very important. I would also under. I would also say karma is really underrated. I think that if. If where I am today, I think a lot of it is just constantly doing the right thing, constantly doing the good thing, and it will come back around. It's been, it's. I just think that's something that is important to Consider. I think you should. Yeah, I think keep your word and keep your time. You just never know when it's going to come back and repay you.
- [94:10]
A
I want to, I want to make sure that people know where they can connect with you if they want to learn more about what you're working. I know like listen, you're building at your YouTube channel now. You're putting out a ton of content. I'm excited to see, I'm excited to see your, your, you know, your audience and your message sort of grow. But where can people connect with you if they want to. First of all they want to actually do business but also all the different social handles that you want to send people to.
- [94:33]
B
Okay, so look, if you just want to have a second passport, a second nationality, a second residency or whatever it may be, Savory and partners is the 15 year old six times government, six government licensed agency that is accredited with six international governments and you know, 500, you know, 200 Google reviews and so on. On. That's, that's the company that I started and is, is a very big player in this industry and very well recognized that comes with limitations. So I set up Millionaire Migrant. The reason, the reason being is that if there's a lot of things I want to have more bandwidth to kind of COVID topics from my own personal stories, lessons I've learned from my clients. It's a more of a personal type of journey. Things about investing overseas which is not relative to citizenship and residen decency, many, many things. It just gives me more freedom to cover more topics. That's Millionaire Migrant. So I think on Instagram is Millionaire Migrant because I got Millionaire Migrant on my personal handle and then they've rejected me somehow some shut out. So it's Millionaire Migrant.
- [95:40]
A
We'll put it all in the show notes too.
- [95:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Millionaire Migrant on YouTube recently started. It seems to be getting a lot of traction on particular topics. So yeah, that's, that's where to, to find me. And I chose that because people were taking Nomad and Expat and you know those sound like really cool, cool things and I just thought, you know what, I'm a migrant, right? You know, I'm an immigrant. I'm an immigrant. I'm a migrant. So you know, that's it is what it is. And I just put millionaire because I.
- [96:05]
A
Just think people just everyone wants listen every, everybody, everybody who's thinking about how to better their life, how to change countries, how to lower their tax burden, how to look for new job opportunity, where to build a business. All of it is about, it's about wealth. It's about wealth and happiness. Yeah, it's. And when I say wealth, I, I'm. Yeah, for sure. Financial. Financial wealth. But where should I raise my family so that they're safe? Where should I raise my family so that we have the access to the best health care so that we can be physically okay, where, you know, where can we avoid conflict? Where can we avoid whatever. So everybody's looking to live this, their best life, their. Their highest quality of life. And, and that is the true definition of wealth and success. And I think that it's naive to put pursue any definition of success and think that you can achieve it or in the most optimal way by just staying in one spot. Because to truly achieve success, yes, the US Offers a lot of great. But there's a lot of other options outside the US as well where you can, I mean, in terms of healthcare, in terms of safety, whatever that metric is, nothing is given. Yeah, yeah. Last thing that I like to ask, because you've given over a wealth of. And knowledge. I know you have, you have two kids. And the way that I like to frame it is if you could just pass on one lesson, the most important lesson that you've learned over your entire life and your entire career and the one thing that really stands out, what would that lesson be that you want to pass on to your kids and why?
- [97:35]
B
Nothing is. Nothing is as it seems. There is so much in the public domain. There is so much in life that is not real, that is misrepresented, that is purported to be something else. You know, I've met over a thousand multimillionaires, billionaires, elite athletes, heads of states. I've sat in rooms with them, discussed many things with all these people literally at the top of whatever, you know, enterprise or public or private, whatever it may be. And it's not what you think think it is. It's really. The game is played very different. It is not politicians act to be like this or famous people are meant to be like this. You know, I've seen their bank statements, I've seen their bank accounts, I've seen their assets. I've seen, I've sat with them and see how they behave. You know, I've had some of the biggest football players in the world who look all bling and, and you know, get on private jets when I sit in the room, politely get a chair for me and let me to, to sit down, shake by the hand, turn up on time, you know, or you know, politicians that would say, oh, we're doing this and then I see they're doing something else. Or so called multi millionaires online have $10,000 in their bank account. It nothing is as it seems. So the as a young person starting out and as for my kids, the first thing I would tell them is that if anything we have as a family right now, it just came from hard work. And nobody likes to hear that. Nobody likes to hear that you need to do hard work. Everyone wants to hear a hack, a shortcut, or you know, this, this coin here or this mem coin here. Everyone wants them because that's what people want. And yet they do that because they see people online have this and that. I know those people online do not have that money. The car is rented, the house is rented, the clothes are rented, the, the private jet is stationary. The whole thing is fake. And the first thing I would tell him is that as long as you block out and understand that you can't take any of this at face value, the more successful you will be because then you won't have to worry about all this background noise. You won't have to compare yourself with this or that or the other thing. Just do you and, but just understand that if you really want to achieve something, there is no other way to succeed than hard work. And I, and one of the mottos I live by is to suffer. To suffer is to succeed. If you're not suffering, then there's really nothing at the end of it, right? Because if you're not suffering, there isn't. There isn't anything there. Nobody ever got anywhere without some kind of suffering.