Mikkel Thorup Discusses being an Expat and Optimizing Money

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

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Jaden Norvell: 0:55

over 10,000 and counting total episode downloads in over $5,000 raised for charity in our first six months nominated for the 2022 People's Choice Awards in LA and are current finalist for those awards under the category of Best Business Podcast. This is your one stop shop for all talk on entrepreneurship and self development in making smart investments hosted by yours truly Jaden Rush Norvell, also hosted and founded by Dr. Dustin Steffey without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to chopping with fire Let's Chop it up

Dustin Steffey: 1:32

Hello and welcome to another episode of chopping with fire you are joined with your hosts today Dustin Steffey and

Jaden Norvell: 1:39

Jaden Norvell. What's up chop nation?

Dustin Steffey: 1:42

How you doing today? Jaden.

Jaden Norvell: 1:43

Good. I didn't get my coffee this morning. But besides that, how to it all right, are you doing?

Dustin Steffey: 1:50

I'm hanging in there was up at 5am I knew that we had a lot going on today and kind of just hit the ground running. So that's where we're at.

Jaden Norvell: 1:59

What were you doing at 5am?

Dustin Steffey: 2:02

Walking the Dog working out getting my routine in right in a couple of pages for the book.

Jaden Norvell: 2:08

You got a new dog right? I don't think he have you told me told Chuck nation about the new dog yet?

Dustin Steffey: 2:13

No, he's still up for debate. So he's still proven itself. Yeah, he has himself to me. That That being said, a couple housekeeping things before we jump into our episode today. One if you guys haven't done so already, please reach out to us on any of our social media platforms. We do have Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat as of right now. Probably more to come. We're looking at a discord and a couple other things. But for now, please reach out to us on one of those social mediums. And of course, we have our website www dot chopping with feiyr.com. And we also have our YouTube which posts and houses all of our trailers for the episode for the day before to let you guys know what we're going to be discussing. So please if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to one of our channels.

Jaden Norvell: 3:14

Guys, please hit us up like Yo Gotti said it goes down in the DMS slide in you guys want to join the show. You can always register as guests on our website as well. Talking about cystic fibrosis you guys have already raised over $3,000 for cystic fibrosis CF is a terminal lung disease, which affects everyone does not matter your age, makes it hard to breathe and decreases your lung function. We want to do our part and give back you guys can donate cff.org backslash donate,

Dustin Steffey: 3:44

and then live event. Jaden, you're looking at big Venue. Correct?

Jaden Norvell: 3:50

Correct. Trying to get a lecture hall or just an event center that we can do the podcast in it's going to be in November. We're super excited. More details to come on that later this week.

Dustin Steffey: 4:04

Yeah, I think for the month of October we'll release small little snippet details and then at the end of the month will encompass it with everything just surprised everyone maybe have the secret catering on there. If you guys have any recommendations for the Colorado Fort Collins area, let us know we will try our best. Yes

Jaden Norvell: 4:23

sir. Sounds good to me.

Dustin Steffey: 4:25

All right, and diving in. We actually have a special guest for you guys today. I'm excited. We have McHale thorup on right now he's the founder and director at expat money. It's a private consulting firm that started in 2017. He also hosts popular weekly podcasts which include the expat money show and he wrote a number one best selling book called expat secrets How to Pay Zero Taxes, live overseas and make a lot of money. With that being said McHale Welcome to Joplin with fire.

Mikkel Thorup: 5:02

Thanks very much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Dustin Steffey: 5:05

Thank you for coming on with us, we actually humbly enjoy having you on.

Mikkel Thorup: 5:10

Great, so happy to dive into whatever topics you'd like today, hopefully inspire your audience and try to educate them a little bit on the offshore markets, and being an expat and all these types of things. So it should be fun.

Dustin Steffey: 5:24

Excellent. And before we dive into those fun details, let's let's dive into some fun details about you.

Mikkel Thorup: 5:30

Sure, for my story, I have to go quite far back in time, but I'll try to make it as quick as possible. So when I was a child, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. And my teacher pulled me out of class and they sat me down in a little room, and the principal was there and the vice principal, and they said, Miguel, something doesn't work quite right and your brain. And what we want to do is send you to a special school special school for special boys. So that's what they did Dustin, every day, for three years, I got a little white bus and I took a little white bus across town and I went to this quote unquote, special school. Only problem was it wasn't actually a special school, it was actually a regular school, it was a special class. So you can probably imagine what happened. I got in a lot of fights, and I got picked on and I got bullied. And it was all around a terrible experience. Now this is no woe is me story, poor McHale, victim victim. I mean, I got hit, I hit back twice as hard if I could, you know, I'm not going to ever claim otherwise. But it did leave a very bad taste in my mouth for education for public education. So anyways, after three years of going to this quote, unquote, special school, I got to return to my neighborhood school and I got to see all my friends. And I thought, it's going to be amazing, everyone's going to have missed me so much. And, you know, so curious what happened. And, you know, day one, you can probably once again, imagine what happened, everybody starts whispering and gossiping. Oh, I remember McHale he went to some retard school. Thanks, guys. Totally politically correct. You know how sensitive children are. And I just decided to stop going. So I would fail, and then they would send me to summer school. And then I would fail that and somehow, I get pushed through. And I just keep stopped going again. Long story short, at at 12 years old, I stopped going to school, and at 15, I had officially dropped out. And I started traveling internationally. Not shortly after that just a year or so after that. And when I started traveling and meeting all these people around the world, I saw that there's really not only one way to do things, or one way to learn things. And I started meeting these amazing people who were going about their lives in a totally different fashion who didn't know my story of this learning disability. Which sidenote is dyslexia, which is turns out to not be a big deal whatsoever. But you know, 1980s, and you know, they make a big deal out of kind of everything with these things. So, fast forward, I have been traveling for 22 going on 23 years straight now. I've circumnavigated the globe over 400 times I've visited 110 countries, I think almost 10 countries and lived in nine different countries. So I've really built my entire life around traveling and being an expat. I do it for a living. It's in my personal life. It's in my writing. It's everything. There's no separation of me of McHale and expat. I mean, it's, it's kind of one in the same. So that's kind of how I got into these types of things. And we can talk about, you know, the entrepreneurship side, or the investing side or how I built the business. But it's really up to you which whichever direction you'd like to go,

Dustin Steffey: 8:43

well, first and foremost, I I empathize with kind of your upbringing and your beginning story. I'm, I'm definitely for the little guy, especially the one that was made fun of at a younger age, because I too, was bullied and made fun of and told that I wasn't gonna make it. And here I am a Phoenix like you rising from the ashes and paving my own way. And so, I mean, I really can I can relate with you on that main thing that came up was expat. And for for the listeners that don't know what that is, can you define that?

Mikkel Thorup: 9:20

Sure. So a little bit on the lexicon. An Expat is someone who is going to move overseas live overseas, but probably has the intention of going back to their home country, or moving on to another country at some point. So that's kind of the difference between a immigrant and a expat. An immigrant is going to be someone who's normally going to move to a country and that's it. That's their entire life there and they're never going home or they're not moving on. An Expat will kind of live in a place for a year or a couple of years and then move to another one for a couple of years or, or head back home. The other popular term is a digital nomad. digital nomads usually stay in a place for a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months. They have no permanent residency, they don't have the right to live, legally live and work in a country. expats always have the right to live and work in a country. So you might go for a job or you might go because you just want the adventure and the cultural experience of living in another country. But it kind of fits halfway between the digital nomad and the immigrant, you could say,

Dustin Steffey: 10:27

excellent. Thank you for that. And then the other thing I wanted to highlight, I didn't hear anywhere in your story. And this isn't a negative, I'm just kind of highlighting it didn't hear anywhere in your story that you you dropped out of school. And so did you ever go back pursue any advanced education or you just hit the ground running you are entrepreneur through and through and you just made it work?

Mikkel Thorup: 10:54

Yeah, I'm what I described as a autodidact, POLYMATH. So I am an expert in multiple different fields. And I'm completely self taught. So I read somewhere, somewhere well over 2000 books specifically on this topic, and and business in general. As well as worked with a number of mentors, I've been very fortunate over the last 20 years to have a lot of mentors that I've apprenticed under, specifically really world class lawyers and accountants and, and learned from them. And a lot of I Am I a guinea pig and test these things out and figure it out. Now, I'm not a lawyer, myself, a CPA myself, I don't have a license for these types of things. But what I do have is full time lawyers that work for me, as well as a lot of other people that I joint venture with my business, you can kind of describe it as a family office style, or a shared family office or virtual family office style. So I work mostly with high net worth individuals and then bring them offshore. But there is no university degree for the work that I do. I mean, yes, you have lawyers, and they will understand certain things. But putting all of the pieces together that I do, there's no there's no program, or course or anything like that that exists. I kind of created my own job and my business from scratch.

Dustin Steffey: 12:21

And for our listeners, I just want our listeners to understand that there's more than one avenue to create and pave your own success. And McHale is a poster child of creating his own success through learning. And through educating himself and big word that he brought up. having mentors, which we brought up in the past mentors are an important piece of the puzzle to be able to create your own success. I also wanted to highlight the fact that in your story you said you had when you had a learning disability? Well, us here at Chapman woodfire we don't we don't see that learning disability at all McHale you are successful in your own right. So it's it's awesome what you've overcome. So I appreciate hearing your story and kind of how you came up from it.

Mikkel Thorup: 13:13

Thanks, Dustin. Yeah, I mean, it was something that took a lot of work to get over. And certainly as a child, you know, you grow up with, you know, a lot of embarrassment about something like this, I started talking about it. When I started producing my podcast six going on seven years ago, the expat money show, and actually got a lot of great feedback from people who have been through similar situations or dropped out of college or dropped out of school or had a learning disability or told that they were not able to do something. And so I do share my story, because I want people to understand that there are many different ways that you can go about learning things and building a life and a business. And just because, you know, mainstream media or Hollywood or the government or anybody tells you that you can't do things or that there's something wrong with you, that is not the case. And you really have full control over your destiny. So that's something I fully believe in and I work my butt off every single day and try to help as many people and I'm not gonna let anything like that. Hold me back.

Dustin Steffey: 14:23

That's awesome. Thank you for that Macau is impressive.

Jaden Norvell: 14:26

2000 books with dyslexia is not an easy thing to do.

Mikkel Thorup: 14:30

Yeah, a lot of lot of audiobooks. I'm a big audible fan. I used to well, and it's a great it's great to be able to start a podcast because this type of medium fits right in with these types of things. Now I do I have learned how to read normal paperback books and have a full library of books but I'm I'm definitely predisposed to audio type of thing.

Jaden Norvell: 14:56

I can relate to that too, because I had ADD so I was in all the special classes to cya. prove people wrong too. I also have sleep apnea. So I just, sometimes I'll be like, well, if I can do it now, I can do it later. And there's no excuses. So that's, that's awesome.

Dustin Steffey: 15:14

Amazing. I won't dive into what I have, I grew up with the good old fashion fist in my face from my father. So that was his, that was demeaning in itself to me. And kind of messed with me a little bit as I was growing up. And I had a speech impediment elementary school as well, too, which I got made fun of for. And I'm currently being made fun of by my lovely partner right now. So but that's okay, here at chopping wood fire. We accept everything, except for Jaden. So McHale, let's dive into the fun. So I mean, I gave a pretty big introduction of what you do. And I think it encompasses a lot more than kind of what a Summary provides. Right. So let's let's dive into the fun part. So you help high net worth individuals kind of with taxes with their income and making sure that they're maximizing the net worth of themselves? Correct?

Mikkel Thorup: 16:23

Yeah, that's one way to put it. I mean, I deal specifically with the offshore market. So with tax havens, and what we would consider offshore jurisdictions which really mean very strong asset protection laws, and very favorable tax situations, mostly what I'm doing is I'm moving them out of Canada, or the United States and relocating them and their business and their wealth into offshore jurisdictions. Now, I mean, I follow the letter of the law, and we use the law to our favor, and everything that I plan and work on, I have a lawyer, a tax lawyer, who will sign off on everything. So it's not like, you know, I don't deal in the black zone, or in the gray zone, like everything is above board. You know, I've spent 1000s of hours reading the IRS website and going through everything and asking a lot of questions. And, and it is very good. I mean, yes. You know, my main business is as a consultant, working with high net worth individuals and helping them plan these types of things out. But we also produce the podcasts, we have a blog, and a newsletter, all of these types of things are at expat, money.com. And a lot of the strategies that we write about and talk about can be used by anyone, not just high net worth individuals. But but the one on one stuff. Yeah, those have to be done, because there's a certain amount of fees that have to be paid, you know, for my services, but also for the structuring, so it needs to make financial sense. And it's only going to make financial sense if there is a certain amount of legal tax savings or investment that you're going to be able to make.

Dustin Steffey: 17:58

So let's just dive into the big question, right? Why would individuals want to use your services and move their wealth off shores?

Mikkel Thorup: 18:09

Like why do people want to save money on taxes?

Dustin Steffey: 18:12

Well, no, because I mean, it's, it's it goes without saying everybody wants to make as much as possible and save money on taxes. I guess the question is, is, if, if this is saving so much money on taxes, why isn't everyone doing

Mikkel Thorup: 18:27

the funny thing is that everyone is doing it? Now, we're seeing a massive exodus of human capital and of just capital from North America these days, I have never been busier, my prices have gone up drastically over the last couple of years. Because there's just so little time and so many people to help. So there's a supply and demand. But we're seeing just tons of people who are fleeing what's going on in the US in Canada right now, with Justin Castro, you know, deeming his own citizens terrorists and reaching into bank accounts and freezing accounts because of truckers, the trucker convoy, it's, it's really crazy, and vaccine mandates and locking down countries, and all of these vac masks, you know, there's a lot of people who don't agree with these types of things, and they want to move overseas to somewhere that has a lot more freedom. So we're at some point, you know, there was a, you know, I will contribute through taxation and pay my fair share, quote, unquote, which I've never quite understood, you know, that term, but now, the log of the tax dollars are really going to support ideas and organizations and governments that people don't accept or or want to encourage or be part of whatsoever. So I think that there's a huge moral reason that people want to leave the US and Canada right now.

Dustin Steffey: 19:53

Now when you say they're leaving the US and Canada, they're not physically leaving. They're just physically

Mikkel Thorup: 19:58

leaving. Oh,

Dustin Steffey: 20:00

Lately, we live in basically

Mikkel Thorup: 20:01

in the US and Canada, tons of them 1000s of people. And these are the people who are building businesses who are entrepreneurs, the people that you know, the tax the rich and go after everybody who has some money, you know, these are the people who are creating a lot of jobs. So, you know, a lot of the investors, a lot of these people are leaving, and it's going to leave a giant vacuum in the countries. So there's other countries out there in the world who are happy to accept FDI, foreign direct investment, and will give you a lot of benefits, tax benefits, residency citizens citizenships, if you move your business to another jurisdiction,

Jaden Norvell: 20:40

so you just help them get set up in a new country.

Mikkel Thorup: 20:43

Correct? Yeah, so there's a lot of countries in Central America and Latin America, which follow what's called a territorial tax system. So if the money is made outside of the country, then it's tax free inside the country. So you can physically live in, say, Costa Rica, which is a beautiful country, you can live there. And you know, if you're an online consultant, or you do Amazon FBA,

Jaden Norvell: 21:07

now, let's say I didn't want to FDA pay taxes like that. And I wanted to do that, could somebody be an expat and live in Puerto Rico and come back to the US? Or do they have to stay there.

Mikkel Thorup: 21:18

So Puerto Rico is a slightly different story, because Puerto Rico is still part of the United States. So they have what is called X 60. They used to have Act 20 Act 22, which will reduce a lot of your capital gains. That's why a lot of hedge funds move there and crypto investors and stuff like that. But there's still a lot of fees. So I mean, there's a donation to the government, and there's fees that need to be paid, which can help a lot. But if you're a married couple, then you both have to do it. You

Jaden Norvell: 21:46

know, for college, you got to live in a state for three years, or however many years to get in state tuition, to not pay taxes. Do you have to live in that country for permanently? Or can you move back and forth between the US and travel?

Mikkel Thorup: 22:00

Good question. So usually to become a tax resident of another country, and this is completely general. And nothing I'm saying today, you should be taken as individual tax advice. But normally, you want to spend at least 183 days in another country and get a tax certificate, that you are an Act tax resident of that country, Americans have to pay taxes on their worldwide income. It doesn't matter where you live. But there are some plans by the IRS where you can drastically reduce this. So the number one is called the foreign earned income exclusion, FBI II. And basically what it says is, if you live in a foreign country for a certain amount of time, there's two type of prerequisites, once the physical presence test, the other is the bona fide residency test. But if you are living outside of the United States, and your feet are physically on the ground, and in another state, you can exclude the first $112,000 of earned income. And if you're married, then there's a doubling effect. So now we're talking about just under $225,000, that you can earn and you still have to file, but you've you file a special form for it. And, and the US excludes this amount. And then as I said earlier, if you're living in a territorial tax system, where they don't tax, now, you've got almost a quarter of a million dollars that you get to earn without paying tax on it. I would

Jaden Norvell: 23:20

ask you where you live, I don't want to work for some places that you've that you've lived, because you are about you because we have a bunch of entrepreneurs on here. And guys that maybe didn't go to college. And I think you have a really cool story. So if you could tell us more about just how you got some tips and tricks for people who don't go to college, China.

Mikkel Thorup: 23:42

I left as a as a teenager and started traveling internationally. I think my my first trip was to Ireland, England and Wales when I was a teenager, and then I went back to Western Europe when I was 19. I traveled around Western Europe for about four months. And then I went to I went to North Africa to Morocco for two months. And I actually spent, I visited like 20 different towns and cities and I actually went to Algeria on a camel for like three, four days and back again. So, you know, I was a pretty fearless teenager now now I'm a happily married man and and I got two kids at home and I got a family to support I'm not sure I'm gonna be doing stuff like that. But after that I lived all over Canada and the states and traveled and lived all over Canada in the States spent 18 months hitchhiking backpacking through Central and South America in 2002. Then lived in Australia for three years New Zealand for a year, I was in Singapore for a year. I spent 366 days in the Arctic. I lived in the Middle East for eight years. I was in Guatemala and Brazil, both for six months. And I'm based out of Panama Panama City, Panama. Now I've been here for the last three and a half years. So lots of lots of different countries. Lots of not all of the countries are tax free. But certainly there's some tax favorable ones there. Panama, Singapore, the UAE, like Abu Dhabi, Dubai, there's no income tax that doesn't exist there. So there's no one to pay money to. And they don't even have a building for it. So So yeah, lots of good places that I had a chance to travel to tell me about

Jaden Norvell: 25:25

the Arctic, you if you lived in the Arctic, that's an unusual place. Yeah.

Mikkel Thorup: 25:31

I lived in the Baffin Islands, which is right next to Greenland, in a city called or not even a city, a town called a calot. And it was pretty wild. You know, it's exactly like they say with, you know, half the year is completely dark, and half the year is completely bright. So you have 24 hour daylight for like a few months on end and 24 hour darkness for a few months on end. And you see, yeah, you see the northern lights every night in the winter. And it was beautiful place. It was really amazing

Dustin Steffey: 26:02

McHale you talk about moving people out of the US and into other countries and moving the wealth over. One of the questions I have is when someone decides to pull the trigger on that, are there any tax implications in the US for moving over to another country? Like do they have to pay any sort of fees? Or any sort of taxes before they move into the country? Or do they just disappear from the US and then automatically go into these other countries? If that makes sense to you?

Mikkel Thorup: 26:39

It does make sense. It does make sense. So I'll do a comparison. So I'm Canadian citizen, as a Canadian, we do have an exit tax, we would have a deem disposition, which is basically an imaginary sale of everything that you own, you would pay taxes on anything that you were to owe for that. And you would leave the US is slightly different because Canada, we're paying taxes on which is a residency based taxation system. So if you're a tax resident in Canada, then you're paying taxes on your worldwide income. But the US is different. Us is not a resident. Well, actually, it's a residency and citizenship based taxation system. So you can actually live in the United States, not be an American, be a resident by the substantial presence test and have to pay taxes there.

Jaden Norvell: 27:27

Could I go to another country for 180 days, get residency, not pay the taxes, and then travel back to America? And all your business stuff be out of country still?

Mikkel Thorup: 27:39

No. So what would happen is you need to be in a foreign country for 183 days, which would make you a tax resident of the country. And if you remember earlier, when I was talking about the foreign earned income exclusion, there's two tasks, so I'll go into them because I think it'll answer the question more clearly. So the physical presence test is 330 days in a foreign country. So that doesn't mean on an airplane traveling from New York to Paris, it doesn't mean on and around the world cruise, it doesn't mean on your sailboat, sailing through international waters in the Caribbean, it means your feet have to physically be on the ground in a foreign country. Okay, so that's test number one. Now, we usually do this, the physical presence test during year one, because its objective, its mathematics. If you're there for less than that time, then you do not qualify. The second test is called the bona fide residency test. And it's a lot more subjective. So what this means is we need to build the case for you that your life is not in the United States, it is in this other country. And we do that by having a residency in another country, which is the legal right to live and work there. It is the you know, trade changing over your driver's license, having a rental agreement or owning property. If you go to church than you know, being part of the church community. If you are into fitness and you go to the gym, having a gym membership, or library card or any of these types of strong ties that we can clearly show the government that your life is not in the United States anymore, it is overseas and you have no intention of going back. Now, what this does on the on the second test is allow you to spend slightly more time in the United States. So on the first test is 330 days in a foreign country, which would mean a maximum of 35 days. In the US with the bona fide residency tests, you're gonna talk maybe, you know, 30 to 60, maybe you can push it a little bit further than that, but you don't want to be working, you know, you want to be on vacation. When you're back in the United States. There's a whole bunch of things that you need to look at. So that's why someone would want to work with a professional on this. Like I highly, highly encourage. If you have a international lawyer that you work with already or you know your lawyer has experience with these types of things then fantastic. Otherwise, you reach out to us at expat money.com. I will tell you very simply your your neighborhood CPA or your neighborhood lawyer, they will not know and understand these types of things, they will have to go and look and research everything. And they probably will not understand a lot of the nuances, because I'm just telling, talking about one of the very basic tools in the toolbox for saving money on taxes. When you move overseas, there's actually a couple of different or a number of different programs by the IRS that you can work through. Does that all make sense?

Dustin Steffey: 30:31

So with that being said, we talk about individuals moving their income over to other countries, is there a minimum threshold that you work with, or a minimum threshold that someone should kind of look into before they want to move? Like so? A good example is like, say, Jaden, and I for our business, we only make $150,000 a year, right, that we can invest in, move over, is that too little like is there a certain threshold that you would recommend?

Mikkel Thorup: 31:06

Yeah, I can tell you that the majority of my private clients are between the two and two and $10 million net worth range. Now, that doesn't mean the strategies that we're discussing today are only applicable to millionaires, what it means is to pay my fees and work with the lawyers that I work with and pay for everything. That's the people where it really starts to make financial sense, because I always want to be a value add, like you might pay me but it will never cost you anything, you know, either by making sure that we save you money in taxes, or we're putting you into investments that are going to do very well. Or I just keep you away from fraudulent people and making mistakes when you go overseas. And, you know, making sure that you work with really sound people, we do a ton of due diligence, like I've spent literally millions of dollars to build up this knowledge base and this network of professionals that I work with. And you know, you get to tap into all of those types of things. But if you just want to live overseas and move overseas, I mean, like digital nomads are doing it and making $1,000 a month or $2,000 a month. And they're that's their income, and they can still have a better life and sit on the beach and work from their laptop. I mean, you can move down to Mexico for cheap, cheap, cheap. I mean, there's lots of ways that you need to do this. So I don't want to come across as you know, this doesn't work. For me, this doesn't apply to me, because, you know, I only make 150,000, or I only make 200,000 or more, I only make 30,000. Actually, I mean, it doesn't really matter. There's a lot of options and a lot of ways that you can go about this. And one other point that I'll make on this one is earlier, I said that a lot of people don't agree with what's happening in the United States and Canada right now. So a lot of people are not doing this for tax reasons. They're doing this for moral reasons, for ethical reasons. And I'm not here to talk about a left, right, divide, I don't actually care what side of the aisle you sit on, it doesn't matter to me whatsoever. All I'm saying is that a lot of people don't agree with what is happening, and they want to build a new life abroad. And that's, that is a viable option for a lot of people.

Jaden Norvell: 33:18

Let's take it back to you first started, can you walk us through how you started your business and just how you built this empire that you have when it took some of us?

Mikkel Thorup: 33:29

Sure, sure, sure. So, you know, when I first started traveling, I didn't have this idea in my head, I was just a stupid kid who just wanted to go out there and explore the world. I mean, I was working in hospitality and doing, you know, whatever I could to make $1 Like I just wanted to travel and explore. Eventually, I got into personal finance and then investing and I started trying trading options. So I got really big into Options trading for about seven years, and made a lot of money and lost a lot of money in the derivatives market. But I was still always fascinated with finance. You know, during this time I had of traveling the world I had been getting different residencies and bank accounts and figuring a lot of things out and, and working on tax issues. And eventually I had got into entrepreneurship and wanted to start a business and you know, crashed and burned on a couple of business like you do, which is a completely normal thing. And and then finally had the idea that I want to take, you know, my love and my passion for entrepreneurship and investing and my love and passion of living overseas and traveling and put it together in some type of a product and that's what I did. So I took the two things and I mash them together and I created expat money, you know, a very, very creative title I know. But, you know, like I said, we've been going for about six, seven years now. And you It's grown a lot and helped so many people and it's, you know, 5060 hours a week, grinding this out and working with clients and helping figure it out and a lot of time on zoom with private clients and with the lawyers and, and going through everything. But I mean, you as an entrepreneur, as a new entrepreneur, you just have to find the things that well, first of all really resonate with you that you have a passion for. But more than that, something that someone will actually pay for the knowledge base that I've built up over the last 22 years. It's highly, highly specialized. There's very few people on planet earth that do this type of thing. So the more you specialize in something, the higher your fees can be, because there are no other McKell Thorpe's there's no, no one else who has this experience or this type of a backstory or is self taught and had to, you know, figure it all out piece by piece. So I

Dustin Steffey: 35:55

trolled the expat money site before we had the interview. And something interesting that I saw on there is you offer a school. There's a link for a school for teaching young kids, even some of these habits. Can you explain that to me a little bit?

Mikkel Thorup: 36:14

Yeah, absolutely. So I am not a teacher, obviously. But I partnered with a gentleman named Michael strong. He's a very well respected curriculum developer in the United States. He wrote the book actually wrote two books on Socratic thinking, we partnered together and took a lot of his concepts that he was doing domestically in the United States, and brought them offshore, so that a lot of my clients who want to move overseas, we have a viable option for their kids. So the school is called expat International School. Well, the full title is expat International School of freedom and entrepreneurship. And I think that really summarizes what the school is about, you know, our value system is libertarian. You know, I'm very upfront and open about those, you know, I believe in peace and prosperity. And that's what the school reflects, as well, that and entrepreneurship, you know, building something, creating something, solving problems, and helping people, you know, I'm a huge one for wanting to help and educate and inspire others. So, you know, this came about because working with so many private clients, they kept complaining that there were no good options for the kids, if they were going to move overseas, or they just got into a good school district. And so they, you know, were fearful of leaving, or were worried about what would happen. So we created this school together. And it's amazing. We have kids in all over the world, and in many different countries now, and the school is really taken off. And, you know, they get together a couple of times a year and do school trips, we actually have a trip planned to Panama next year. They just got back from Greece, all the kids went to Greece together. But it's it's a virtual school, it's not video programs or anything like that. It's like a Zoom Room like this with a maximum of 15 kids, based on Socratic thoughts. So a lot of dialogue, a lot of conversations about ideas. And I'm just super grateful to be a part of it and to be able to make people aware. And yeah, it's, it's a fantastic experience.

Dustin Steffey: 38:23

I also want to do applaud you for your podcast. I mean, looking looking at it, if I'm accurate, guys are over 200 episodes in and looking at some of the episodes. I mean, it's really others talking about their experiences in moving into other countries, or the one that I listened to was about traveling for free using miles and just kind of traveling for free. And I thought that was really fun and entertaining. So I mean, if if our listeners haven't done so already, we will put the link in our description for the expat money show. Because I think that there's a lot of value there in that podcast. And they're not that long of episode. I mean, some are longer than others, but the majority of them are 1515 minutes ish. No,

Mikkel Thorup: 39:18

no, no, no, no, no, not at all. So what we're doing right now, there's a couple of bonus episodes that we're putting out that are about 15 minutes long, but I think we've done it 204 205 episodes, almost every episode is between one and about one hour. We just have a couple of little bonus episodes that are going out right okay. Yeah, they're pretty in depth, like masterclass type of episodes. So we go really, really deep on one specific topic, like the one that yours talking about is basically how to get a million frequent flyer miles and travel the world for free and this one

Dustin Steffey: 39:53

was an hour long. Yes. Yeah. So

Mikkel Thorup: 39:56

almost all of the podcast is, is quite a substan actual podcast. But it can be found on pretty much any podcasting app. You know, Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, Amazon, Stitcher, radio, whatever you'd like to listen to podcasts on, you're going to find it that.

Dustin Steffey: 40:13

So dream of Jaden and I is we're, we're a global podcast already. But we want to be global, not with an asterix. We want to be global, where like, every little area within these different countries can listen and use the resources that we offer.

Mikkel Thorup: 40:34

Yeah, I think that, as I said earlier, you know, my private clients, majority of them come from United States and Canada, because that's really the the area that I specialize in with private clients. Now saying that I have Norwegian clients, I have German clients, I have Serbian clients, I've got Thai clients, I've got people from many different places, but predominantly is from North America. That is for the consulting side. Now, for the blog, for the podcast for the newsletter for the summit. For the book, everything like that is for everybody in the world. You know, we try to make the things evergreen, we try to help as many people as possible, and make the information and the stories available to everyone.

Dustin Steffey: 41:19

How long did it take you to write that book of yours?

Mikkel Thorup: 41:24

You know, the writing of the book is kind of like a day, but then the editing of the book is like eight months. So it's kind of this giant brain dump of trying to get a ton of things on the page. And then you spend the next several months trying to organize everything and put it in the logical places. But the book came out in 2018. You can find it on Amazon. It's called expat secrets, How to Pay Zero Taxes, live overseas and make giant piles of money. Super humbled title, I'm a very humble guy, Dustin, you know how I roll so. But the all the content in there is really evergreen, I think that a lot of the things are still applicable. That came out in 2018 as they are today. At some point, you know, we would like to put out a revised edition. But until then I think that this book is really good. And we've sold 10s of 1000s of copies of it and gotten some really great feedback on it. And yeah, I would highly encourage people to pick it up.

Dustin Steffey: 42:22

I am in the middle of that process that you are talking about where I word vomited everything on to my document, and now I'm trying to organize it before submitting it to a publisher to criticize it a little bit more to perfect it to the point where it can go out.

Mikkel Thorup: 42:45

It's it's not an easy process for sure. We're in the process of writing five different guide books. So basically expats guide to Mexico expats guide to Costa Rica, expats guide to Panama, etc, etc. With the overall idea that we'll do about 20 of them with our publishing company. But those should be coming out in the next six months or so. And they'll all be focused on individual countries. So we got a lot on the go. I mean, we've got the podcasts, the the, you know, we do the newsletter. It's an email newsletter about five times a week, we've got the new books that are coming out to consulting. And then the really big thing that I'm working on right now is the summit. So we're expecting we're hoping for about 30,000 attendees. It's a completely online Summit. Tickets are free, you can grab them at expat money summit.com We've got some really big name speakers. We've got my friend Doug Casey, Ron Paul. We just got word yesterday. It's not 100% finalized, but I might as well come forward and say it that Jim Rogers should be speaking at my Summit. He was on my podcast about four years ago. So we've emailed back and forth a few times and stayed in touch over the years. So he should be coming on. And then a ton of of guests were presenters who would actually never know their names and that's okay. That's the That's because it's the lawyers that I work with the accountants I work with the property developers, the people I work with in the crypto space and I'm a big proponent and fan of crypto and you know was buying Bitcoin at three figures and you know, we talk a lot about these types of things as well. So they'll be on the summit as well. So at expat money Summit, you can pick up a free ticket there and come and join us for it.

Dustin Steffey: 44:37

I encourage all of our listeners after listening to the show, go into the links below and pick up a tip ticket because McHale is just he embodies he's, he's humble guys as as we've already outlined, but in all seriousness, he's well accomplished and definitely knows what he's talking about. And I think that there are a lot of Good gold nuggets to pick up from this. Furthermore, McHale, I challenge you to take a look at some of the experts that we've had on with cryptocurrency and NF T's we've had about 10 or 12 guests, roughly and they all are in a different realm of the metaverse with different investment strategies. I know that you're a professional audit, but I think for people like you, me and Jaden, we never stop learning. There's always something that comes out of anything, so it might help you out.

Mikkel Thorup: 45:33

Absolutely, it sounds amazing.

Dustin Steffey: 45:35

So for people that want to get a hold of you, we've already kind of let the cat out of the bag with your website, um, social media wise, what social mediums do you have?

Mikkel Thorup: 45:46

Pretty much all of them I'm, I mean, we're active on social media, but I'm not the biggest fan of social media, you'll see lots of stuff there. But if you guys want to get a hold of me, you got to go to expat. money.com, subscribe to the free email newsletter, or, you know, subscribe to the podcast, that's certainly the best way to go about it. But yeah, we're on Twitter, we're on Facebook and Instagram and things like that. You know, I have staff who deal with a lot of that for me, because it's just, there's there's too many things out there in the world and too many different types of platforms. But the main ones is the email newsletter and the podcasts and, you know, bookmark the website at expat. money.com.

Dustin Steffey: 46:26

I know how you feel about too many things, we're not at the point yet where we can have someone manage all of ours. So I am managing all wars right now. And it is a full time job in itself.

Mikkel Thorup: 46:36

Yeah, I've got 17 staff who work for me. So I outsource a lot of this stuff or not outsource I mean, I, I hire them full time to do things like this for me, because it's just, you know, when you're starting out as an entrepreneur, you have to wear 1001 different hats and do so many different things. And when you're trying to build something and create something from scratch, you know, that's the way it is. But at a certain point, you know, as soon as you can outsource a lot of these types of things, and look at the best things that you can do to generate an income and figure out what those are and make that switch. That's a game changer. So in my case, I write and I speak, that's, that's it, those are my core competencies. I write and I speak, I work with private clients, I do podcasts like your amazing show, I host my show. And that's it. I don't deal with social media, I don't deal with graphic design, I don't deal with audio engineering for the podcast, I don't deal with building my website or anything like that I hire full time people. And they do all that and I pay him for it. And I'm happy to do so because it, you know, allows me to have a lot more flexibility with my time and do the things that I'm really, really good good at.

Dustin Steffey: 47:48

And that's the name of the game. As you're starting as an entrepreneur, like you said you were 1000 hats. But as you start going down that journey and start outsourcing a little bit, your main hats come out where you really start to shine. So that's where we're heading as well. So, appreciate that. Caden, do you have anything you want to add? Before we close out?

Jaden Norvell: 48:09

Yeah, just thanks again, for coming on. I know that you're busy guy, any last, you've traveled the world and you've met a lot of people any advice for dealing with different types of people in business or just in general?

Mikkel Thorup: 48:22

Well, I can tell you that after visiting over 100 countries and spending 20 years on the ground and other countries, that people are inherently the same. It doesn't really matter. I mean, we I've drove across Africa, I've lived in Asia, I've lived all over the place and spent so many time with people from every corner of the earth. And you know, I do the same with my family and my kids, my my children have traveled extensively. People want a roof over their head, they want a full belly, they want to be loved, they want to protect their family. I mean, I have never met anyone, or anywhere in the world that don't want these types of things. So like I've traveled extensively in Iran and in North Korea, I can tell you that the people there they want the same. So when you hear on mainstream media, the axis of evil or how horrible these people are from this country, we can tell you it's not true. Governments, on the other hand, governments are corrupt and horrible and, you know, are overreaching into every aspect of life where they have no right to do this. But the people themselves are just fantastic. So try to look at some things from someone else's perspective. Try to understand the world through their eyes. My wife is from mainland China. I know what I'm talking about. These are very different cultures. But people want the same thing. So that's kind of my my final advice for you is go out there and explore the world and see what's going on and make your own decision about things. Don't believe the government don't believe mainstream. Media see with your own eyes.

Jaden Norvell: 50:02

It's awesome. It's great advice for our listeners. Thank you.

Dustin Steffey: 50:05

Awesome and for our listeners if McHale picked your interests which I know he did for us and we could talk for a couple more hours if we wanted to please click on the links that we're going to have in our episode description for his website his book we'll make sure to link on there if you want to pick that pick up a copy and read and then obviously to get a hold of McHale please go to his website at WWW dot expat money.com And I believe there's a contact me drop down in send in send all your information that way to get in touch with Macau Macau on behalf of JD and and I thank you for coming on. We really appreciate you.

Mikkel Thorup: 50:49

pleasures all mine thanks so much for having me.