Go-Global Playbook I - The Country Isn't the Decision

In our opinion, lifestyle objectives, knowing yourself, and thinking through a 5 year plan are more important than flavor of the month countries and tax structures as you begin your "Going Global" journey. In our "Go-Global playbook and framework" we believe that your relocation decision should start with you, rather than a country.

Relocating your business and life for global advantage, or protecting assets from capital controls, trying a new digital nomad style life, or deciding to take an early retirement to somewhere with cheaper cost of living and better climate, or wanting to control your food food quality and overall quality of life through country sustainable living, are all common and valid objectives, but to avoid pitfalls in a process that has some hidden complexity, not just regulatory, but in life impacts, it is important to consider the full set of relocation, and personal and lifestyle preference and change factors in your plan.

We say "Plan your life - Choose your country - Build your future", and really the planning part is in many ways the most important. The reason we begin with a comprehensive framework, is because we think the process of some consultants - having a one hour discussion followed by a template solution delivered by someone who barely knows you, followed by a hefty up-front commitment, doesn't allow you enough time to really develop and think through a plan in depth, that truly represents your personal objectives and preferences, before laying out significant dollars on execution.

While it doesn't have to be - in many cases a global relocation is one of the more significant decisions of your life. It deserves adequate thought and planning. Jumping off, after a solid weekend of googling simply isn't enough - or at least is very risky. Sometimes its difficult to find others with similar priorities to talk through the many trade-offs of this decision, and if you do its still challenging because no two people have exactly the same priorities. We think bite-sized discussions, in a "pick what you need" format, as few or as many as you find helpful, plus providing access to our extensive network from our own "boots on the ground" experience, without big up-front fees, is a more practical and customer-focused structure, and provided by some consultants including ourselves, and also our friends at Imontheball.com. In our own relocation stories we found that our understanding of our needs and what was important, changed as we learned more about the process, and realities of destinations, cost us time and money changing directions later, so our goal is to use our experience to shortcut your process.

Our Framework:

So here's the "Juice". We start our framework with 6 "pillars", and 14 "plays" in our playbook, framework and scorecard. This planning process is deeply personal so you take the questions and factors and use the ones relevant to you to initiate a internal discussion where you weigh and consider various factors, to allow you to more accurately visualize outcomes. These are yours and you share only what you need help with. Whatever format or lists you use, whether it is structured or unstructured, this is what will form your vision of the future you will try to achieve, and as with anything the future is not fixed - it is variable based on your actions, so it is best to have as much information and as many factors as possible to consider.

It is normal in this process you will have some information but not all, and that is where consultants like ourselves can step in to help. Remember to separate facts from opinions and weigh accordingly, and each consultant will have their own opinions on countries and approaches, and understand these will and should change with your own weightings of values, risks and preferences. Then convert this information into your own personalized version framework that represents data converted to your own preference equivalence, and use it to create a clearer picture in your mind to start planning the future that seems best for you.

Our 6 Pillars are:

Pillar 1: Know yourself - likes, dislikes, tolerance for certain items, how well you do in certain situations, what your financial resources are, how well would you do with a foreign language, do you have family considerations, children's needs, dependent parents, what are you specifically trying to gain or lose by considering relocation, and several other factors. We call this a pillar because this is the foundation of your plan.

Pillar 2: What life do you want - what are the things you want to achieve by relocating, what do you want your life to look like, are there asset, income, business, tax objectives, are you looking for beach, rural, or city or a combination, do you want to integrate or associate mainly with other ex-pats, who will be your new network of friends, will you work or retire. How will you keep in touch with family and friends, and many others.

Pillar 3: What matters most - now lets try to weight these items to understand what is most important to you, which are essential and which "nice to have's". Which combinations are not possible, how do you weight tradeoffs, what is the liklihood of achieving certain goals, and relative costs of items and situations considered, plus more.

Pillar 4: Which Countries fit - weighing factors, benefits and cost, against personal priorities and how suited each is to creating the life you are aiming for, while keeping your highest priorities at the forefront.

Pillar 5: The country is only half the decision - knowing the wide range of possibilities, lifestyles and costs and varying factors associated with each sub-location and type, within a country and the options to separate things like banking, entity structures and investments, so that you may live in one country and have business and investment interests in another.

Pillar 6: Income, Real Estate, Networks, Lifestyle - Build your Future. Now the conceptual design possibilities and preference weighting is complete, this is the more practical pillar which involves modelling a range of scenarios and possibilities in a more mechanical way, like a simple business plan laying out practicalities of each favored scenario, and mechanically comparing them to find a winner or a pecking-order you can later test and change, for example when you visit and personally experience locations, or talk to other expats already living there, to share their experiences, if your first choice becomes less desirable you already have a couple of backup options to shift your focus to.

Pillar 7: Dip your toe before leaping. While talking to others living in a country already, is very helpful, really the acid-test is to make a brief visit yourself. The cost of a trip to feel first hand, or bring current, the culture and pace and lifestyle you have been envisaging, is the best way to bench-test the more subjective assumptions in your plan.

While the list is valuable on its own, the trick is in taking time with the list, the honesty in your answers about your own preferences and needs and capabilities, and also in the information you receive in your research of the external factors. Where many people need help is mentoring them through the thought process, completeness, and finding good information and contacts.

In addition to the Pillars we believe a good framework includes consideration of certain key human decision aspects in addition and sometimes running cross-current to the 7 pillars. We call them "Plays" because we feel these are key strategic gates in the planning process that require specific consideration. For example Play01: Should I stay or should I go, Play02: The Country isn't the decision, Play03: Don't let Tax choose your life, Play04: The five anchors of a Global Life ......  Play 14: The 5-year look-back test. Ill be covering these in my next blog.

Happy and safe travels.