00:00:00 Sana: Have you ever noticed how often people say something like, someday I'm going to move somewhere peaceful? Maybe by the ocean. Maybe somewhere slower. And then life happens. The dream stays a dream. The someday never quite becomes a date on the calendar. But here's something interesting. Listeners. Researchers studying happiness. You know, like the famous Harvard study of adult development, keep coming back to one core truth. Our environment and relationships deeply shape how fulfilled we feel in life. Not just our careers, not just our income, but where we live, who surrounds us, and how aligned our environment is with the life we want to build. And today's conversation looks right at that intersection place, lifestyle, and intentional living. Because moving somewhere new, especially overseas, it is not just about real estate. It's about identity. It's about culture. It is about choosing a life that fits the person you are becoming. And that's where today's guest comes in.

00:01:30 Sana: So welcome back, listeners to another very, very refreshing and interesting episode on the podcast. And I'm your host, Sana, as always. And let me, let me share a bit about my guest with all of you. He is not your average CEO. Over the last twenty five years, he has helped thousands of people turn the dream of living abroad into a real practical decision. From building communities across Belize, Nicaragua and Panama to guiding people through international property ownership and lifestyle design. He has seen what happens when people choose a place. Not just with their wallet, but with their values. So today, definitely, we are going to explore something bigger than buying property. We're talking about how choosing the right place can reshape your life. So listeners, let's welcome our incredible guest, Mike Cobb. Mike, welcome to the show. And yeah, it's, it's such a, it's such an honor to have you here with us.

00:02:32 Mike Cobb: Well, Sana, thanks for having me. It's it's an honor to be here with you. What a wonderful introduction and lead in, uh, one of the things I picked up on, uh, you, you talked about, you know, the people we are becoming or we want to become. And I think that just so encapsulates why, uh, this idea is so powerfully intriguing to people and, and, and, and as people, you know, make the actions, right? Because it's always about the actions, right? The steps, the physical steps towards this becoming. Um, and, and when we go overseas, we really have this incredible opportunity to reinvent ourselves in meaningful, significant, wonderful ways. And, and I hope maybe we can talk a little bit about that today as well.

00:03:21 Sana: Absolutely, Mike. Absolutely. And, I, I think it's not just overseas. I mean, if you, if I kind of, uh, um, extract, uh, kind of an example from my journey or, or with the people with whom I interact, uh, you know, in India, it's, it's a huge country. And, uh, the most not lucrative, I would say the most challenging, lucrative and career defining jobs are kind of condensed in specific cities throughout the country. So, uh, so many, uh, I mean, you know, kids after graduation or, you know, if they want to make their careers and that too. You know, each and every city is defined, characteristically defined. Uh, you know, connected with the careers that people want to make. If they want to make creative careers, they would go to specific city, Mumbai. It's like the, you know, the creative kind of capital in there. Um, if somebody wants to make a career in tech, they would go to Bengaluru or Bangalore. It's in the south of the country. So, you know, it's, it's very, very interesting to see how this is all, not only the technical part, the real estate or the rent or the wallet, the money, but it's, it's social, it's individual, it's cultural, it's identity related. So it's a very, very interesting topic that you're bringing for the listeners today.

00:04:42 Mike Cobb: It is. Yeah. And you're right, it does not have to be international. It can be a domestic move, as you've mentioned. Um, but I think when we, when, when, when we, when we physically move, we also give ourselves the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. And what I've found is, is that when people move overseas. Um, it it maybe opens up a broader. I don't know, path, right? That the path is a lot wider than it is if we're moving inside our own country, because I think there are certain expectations and cultural boundaries that that limit us inside our own culture, right? And if we're living, I mean, I understand in India, there are different cultures depending on where you are that, you know, in the south and the North and, and in the United States, that's even true as well, right? Northeast, you know, Boston is a very different culture from New Orleans, say, um, but, but when we move outside our home countries, I think then, then those, those, uh, those, those lanes get a lot wider. And, and it really affords us the ability to, um, you know, to, to, to do something and it's always do something, be something is, but, you know, but the dew is a very important part. Um, and we've just seen so many people make the move overseas and find themselves wanting to and then fulfilling that desire to lead more significant lives. And, and, and by significance, you know, look, success is what we do for ourselves. You know, it's our career. It's, it's earning a living. It's taking care of our families. You know, that's, that's success, right? Significance is what we do for other people. And, and, and I, I've just seen so many people make the move overseas to my part of the world, which is Central and South America and, and plug into different organizations or create their own organizations that are really life changing for the bigger, broader community that they now live within. And it's, it's inspiring to say the least. And sometimes it's inspiring, tear producing. I mean, it's so wonderful that, you know, it just brings tears to your eyes to see how people are changing the lives of other people for, for the better and just powerfully wonderful ways.

00:06:56 Sana: Exactly So I'll kind of bundle up two questions in this because a lot of, lot of it's coming to my mind. Um, and I think thirty minutes is not justified, but yeah, let's try. So a lot of people romanticize the idea of living abroad. In fact, a few years back, I was also considering, uh, but you know, the current situation. Yeah, I, I think, okay, let's, let's put that, um, on, on the side, let's think about it later. But then, uh, this idea of living abroad, you know, um, uh, beaches or sunshine or slower mornings, like a bit of a peaceful, uh, comfortable in their own way, maybe a hammock somewhere in the background. I mean, you have spent decades helping people actually make this move. So from what you have seen, what's, what's the biggest gap between the dream people imagine and the reality they eventually experience. And now I would like to connect with another question that comes to my mind. What kind of difference are you seeing in these, you know, uh, recent five to ten years in there because a lot has happening, a lot has been happening. A lot has happened. It's happening. So how do you see the differences now?

00:08:12 Mike Cobb: All right. Well, if it's okay, may I, may I unbundle the two questions and answer them separately because. Yeah. Thank you. Um, you know, the first question is, is so right on the money is I always like to say, you know, every rose bush has thorns, right? Or it's not all peaches and cream, right? This, this romanticization of this move overseas. Um, you know, people come with that. You're right. Because it's the, oh, I've been working a stressful job, stressful life, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go, you know, lay on a hammock and, and, and you can and it's wonderful. But, but you know, that's not particularly fulfilling for most people, right? And so, so there's sort of the, the, the next element of, okay, what do I do next? Or what do I do? Additionally to that. Right. So that's one element of it. But the other side of it is much more practical, which is what I wrote my book about. Right. How to buy your Home overseas and get it right the first time, because there's a very practical aspect to this. You know, rose bushes have thorns, and some of the thorns are that we don't know how to buy property or make investments or transact outside our home countries very well. And, and, and so a lot of us and Canadians make a lot of, you know, I hate to call them stupid mistakes, but, but mistakes that they shouldn't make because they make assumptions about how things are, but they're not that, you know, they don't know the rules of the game. And so, so, so I've written my book to help people with the practical nuts and bolts to take the romantic side out. In fact, my book has nothing romantic in it at all. It's all nuts and bolts. This is what you need to do. This is how you need to do it. These are the are the things you need to watch out for. Because if somebody buys their home overseas and it goes well, as opposed to turns into a disaster, which it can, right? If it goes well. Well, then the romantic part of it, like, you know, the hammock, the nice weather, the beaches, the mountains, whatever it is, right? Like all of that stuff can actually, you know, come into your life in wonderful, you know, permeate you and, and, and you can be a part of it, right? But if you're struggling because the house you bought is falling apart or this doesn't work, or, or something else happens, then you don't get to participate in the romantic part because you're consumed by the, you know, the nuts and bolts or the of the transaction, right? So, so getting it right is critically important. The second part of your question is, is really interesting because coming from a US and Canadian, so North American perspective, um, you know, for the first, you know, twenty five years of our business, we've been around a little over thirty years now. The first twenty five years of our business, we were serving a retiree, someone who had the luxury of moving overseas because, you know, if you have a job, you can't move overseas. But, you know, Covid and the government's reactions to Covid, basically saying stay home, uh, really forced businesses and workers to adapt to a new reality. And Sana, this is huge for the first time in human history. I mean, this is huge. First time in human history work and the location of work have been decoupled for a large segment of society. And so now if you can work from home, well, then you can make home someplace awesome, right? Where you, you know, you've always dreamed about being. And so what we've really seen is in the last, you know, four or five years, the shift in the marketplace, we're still serving the retiree, uh, demographic because again, they're looking for lower cost of living, better weather, you know, higher quality of life. But we're now also serving this digital nomad that's kind of getting used a lot. But the digital nomad, uh, generations because they now have the ability to work from a foreign destination, which gives them the cost of living, quality of life. Uh, and, and, and the, you know, the romantic, the romantic parts of living overseas. So yeah, the marketplace is absolutely, uh, shifting.

00:12:14 Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:12:14 Sana: I mean, that's, that's kind of a cool thing, you know, just, just looking at this from a very, um, you know, positive perspective because I have had actually many conversations with people who are actually following the digital nomad lifestyle in there. And that is something that, you know, it's, it's really cool to think about. I mean, it really speaks about how quickly, um, what was relevant a few years back or decades back Is kind of being, uh, you know, put as an option in there. It's kind of a choice. You make a choice. It's not driven by that. You have to do it. You can, you may do it. It's totally up to you.

00:12:58 Mike Cobb: Exactly. You may do it. Right, which I mean, and that's new. Look, if we go back and we look at something like the agricultural revolution, right? Took us from caveman like that took thousands of years, right? The industrial Revolution took the agriculture or the agrarian society and moved it to industrial. And that took, you know, one hundred, one hundred and fifty years. Now we're moving into the post-industrial society and it's taking, you know, maybe a decade or two, right? So, so this pace of change is, is astronomically increasing as well. And, and yeah, people now can do it. They may do it and, and, um, uh, this, this is, this is, this is wonderful in so many ways because it's, it's freedom at the end of the day, it's real freedom for people in a way that they've never had freedom of location in the past. It's, it's, it's it's tremendous. Yeah.

00:13:53 Speaker 3: It is, it is. I think it's also.

00:13:56 Sana: Something that you mentioned higher quality of life.

00:13:59 Mike Cobb: Yes.

00:14:00 Sana: Well, especially people in India. I mean, uh, I'll be very straightforward. Many people aspire, they, they, uh, build up their savings, they build up their, they plan with that big dream of having that higher quality of life, uh, maybe in some other country or maybe somewhere else. And, and they plan everything accordingly, meticulously. And that is something really, really interesting, very, very interesting to look at.

00:14:30 Mike Cobb: It is, you know, coming out of North America, you know, there's a perception, I think it's an accurate perception that if you stay in North America, in order to have a higher quality of life, you must spend more money and just want one very simple example in the US. Um, you know, we have a grocery store called Whole Foods and it sells organic foods and I call it whole paycheck because if you, because if you, because if you go to buy a grocery cart full of organic fruits and vegetables and free range meats and hormone free cheeses and eggs and right. If you want to eat really, really healthy, right? It costs a fortune to do that. Whereas in Central and Central America, that's actually the least expensive food, the organic foods, the free range meats and, and cheeses without hormones and things like that. That's what you buy at the local marketplace. And so all of a sudden you're eating far healthier and it's costing a lot less. And so this is sort of a weird paradox for a lot of North Americans, right? It's, you know, it's like, wait a minute, I can have a higher quality of life. I can live healthier. I can spend more time outside. If I have a maid that takes care of a lot of my chores, maybe a guy that cuts my grass for me and, you know, does the odd jobs around the house. You know, all of a sudden that doesn't cost very much money. But I have all this extra free time, so I'm eating healthier for a lot less money. I'm maybe allocating part of that money to a maid and a gardener so that I don't have any chores. And now I get to go to the beach or go to the mountains, or go, go hang out with my friends or do whatever it is I want to do. This is a quality of life enhancer, but it costs less. And and that's what I think is hard for a lot of people to get their head around that. I can go have this quality of life that's higher and it's going to cost less. Um, but it's true. I mean, I lived in Nicaragua for fourteen years and I had a quality of life I could never even have imagined having in the United States. And it cost me about half of what it would cost me just to live in the United States. Forget about the maid and all the other things, right? Just my cost of living was half. My quality of life was ten times better.

00:16:44 Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah.

00:16:47 Mike Cobb: Yeah.

00:16:48 Speaker 3: Oh.

00:16:49 Sana: You mentioned something in the beginning and the question kind of connects with that. So the let's talk about the practical realities that, you know, people overlook in there. So specifically when buying property in another country, it can involve, you know, like legal frameworks, um, tax tax implications, cultural differences, and sometimes completely different systems, you know, than what people are used to. So, uh, what, what are the common mistakes people make when buying overseas?

00:17:21 Mike Cobb: Yeah, sure. I think they boil down to two. I call them, you know, mental frameworks, right? I think that that, you know, there are two sayings I have. We don't know what we don't know. Right? We can't. Right. We don't know what we don't know. And we need to forget what we think we know. Basically, the assumptions that we bring, and I'll just give one example. Most North Americans would assume that a house has hot and cold running water in all the bathrooms, right? But that's not that's not an assumption. That's correct in a lot of Latin America. You know, a lot of the bathrooms have cold water only, which means your shower is cold water. Now, most North Americans fully expect to take a hot shower. They don't expect a cold shower. Right? But in Latin America, many of the showers are cold water only. So if we we don't know that. So we don't know what we don't know. And then we bring this assumption because there's two handles in the on the faucets, right? That, that oh, there must be hot and cold water because I see two handles, but they're both. But there's a, there's a splitter that takes cold water to both of them. Right. And the showers are cold. And so what, what I really talked to people about and the book has thirty examples, right? There's probably three hundred examples, but I picked thirty examples that the goal is to help people change how they think. So if you take if you take these two concepts, we don't know what we don't know. And we have to forget what we think we know and we synthesize them. The singular word is humility. And if we approach our transaction with humility, we need to ask every question that comes to mind. We need to ask the dumbest questions we could possibly ask because they're not dumb. And, and and, and there are three principles like so I have thirty questions in my book, and there's ten questions for each principle because I think most people can remember three things. And here they are. Sana by what you see, right by what you see. If it's there, it's there. If it's not there, maybe it'll be there. Maybe it won't. And that includes like testing for hot water and doing an internet speed test and some other practical, you know, very simple practical things you can do to make sure you get what you think you are going to get right. You verify right. Verification. The second thing is own community. And by that I mean there are a lot of projects out there that are just simply lots on the beach with no houses and, and, and, and if you want to live all by yourself out on a beach all by yourself, you know, great. But the but that's not what most people want. People want community. And in order to have community, you need to have restaurants and clubhouses and tennis courts and whatever it is. Right? You have places for people to gather, right? And the third one is no, the developer. Right. To make sure that they actually have the money, the capacity, the team, the track record to complete what it is they're working on. And so you know by what you see. Own community. No, the developer, if people were really remember those three things, they will do a far better job of, of buying a property overseas. Um, but you know, again, by the way, Sana, I make my book available for free. It's on Amazon. It's on Amazon. Sana. And if if anybody listening wants to copy the book, we will send them a coupon to go to Amazon and download a copy of my book for free. It costs me a little bit of money, but it's okay. I want people to transact with, you know, with, with, with this resource in their hands, because if they have a good experience, right, and they get the product they want, they'll have a great life, they'll be able to enjoy the sunsets and the hammock and the mountains and the cool breezes and all the things that they want to enjoy because the the home that they bought will be what they want it to be. But here's the real reason, and we talked about this at the beginning. The real reason is when people move overseas, many of them find that they want to join the Rotary Club, the Lions Club. They want to work with faith based organizations. They actually because they have the time and it doesn't take a lot of money. It just, you know, they have the time if they're retired especially, but even if they're not retired, you can plug in and you can you can make such a wonderful positive difference in the lives of people, you know, all around you and the broader community, right? And, and at the end of the day, Sana, like that is the magic. That's the magic of what we do as a business. That's the mission of our business. Yes. We serve a consumer. We want them to get the house or the home or the condominium that they want or the apartment that they're renting, right? We want them to have a very wonderful living experience, ownership and living experience. But the mission of the company is to leave the world a better place. And when people move overseas, they have the ability to really do that in some, some powerful ways. And, uh, and we've, we've helped it happen. We've watched it happen. Um, you know, we participate at many levels in that, um, and, and so, yeah, we, we, we want as many people as possible to, you know, to, to fulfill the dream to take the step. You said a lot of people have the dream, but they don't, they don't actually engage it. Right. And we make it as easy as possible to engage that process and move overseas. And, and by the way, people move overseas, it's not forever. It doesn't have to be forever, right? You can move overseas for a year or two. Rent a home. Don't, don't buy a home. Rent a home for a year. If you like it, well, then maybe you want to buy a house and stay a while. But. But if at the end of the year you're like, well, this was fun, but it's not for me, you know, move home, right? So again, this is, this is part of the part of the discovery process that we help folks through.

00:23:12 Sana: No, that's actually very, very, uh, I must say it's not once again, love or, uh, romanticization. I mean, it's practical with that hope and positivity and the freedom of choice, but I think the most important word, which I'm gonna take away, and I'm very sure our listeners will take away is the humility part that you mentioned, because we are not just, um, uh, physically living there or going to build our world in there or just co-mingle with that community. But we are, we are going to, we, we are going on a foreign land. And with the humility, if they are accepting us, we should also accept their culture, their entities assimilate. I think that's where. Uh-uh. Yeah. Good.

00:24:03 Mike Cobb: Like no, no, but I think that's right. Look, one of the things that we talk I talk about it in my book, but I also speak about I was just at a conference last weekend and in Las Vegas speaking about this. And one of the things that I, I use as an analogy is, you know, we are a guest in somebody else's country. But but that's hard for people to understand. So what I, I just simply say, just imagine that you went to somebody's home, right? You have a friend, a married couple or whatever you go to. Their home. You're a guest in their home, right? You know, you're going to want to, you know, maybe do the dishes, right? You're going to want to take out the trash. If they if they happen to get into an argument, you're not going to go jump in the middle of their argument. You're going to, you know, go back to your bedroom and, you know, turn on the TV and up real loud, right? So you don't have to hear it. Um, and I think the, I think the idea of being a guest in somebody's home and we just say, look, when we're in somebody else's country, we need to act like we would act if we were a guest in somebody's home. And when we do that, that is the assimilation. We eat what they serve, right? We, we and we and we do the dishes, we help out whatever. And, and we and we contribute to that, to that home. So, so when we go overseas, that, that humility and the assimilation. That's a great word to Sana, by the way. Assimilation. Um, it allows us to really experience. Experience something that if we didn't assimilate, if we didn't have humility, we didn't assimilate like we wouldn't, we wouldn't have the richness of the experience. But when we assimilate, the richness of this experience is magnified a thousand fold, right?

00:25:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.

00:25:46 Sana: Totally brilliant. Mike, in the interest of time, once again, I'm, I'm very sure our listeners will be so curious to get a hold of your book. So once again, if you can share how they can connect with you, get a hold of your book and have your being generous. Yeah.

00:26:02 Mike Cobb: Sure. I mean, the easiest thing to do is simply send an email, uh, info at e I development.com info at e I development.com. And if you just put in the subject line, Mike's book, uh, it'll go over to the folks that'll send a coupon. And then you just go to Amazon and you plug in your coupon and then you can download a copy of my book. And, uh, and, you know, one of the things that I love is I love hearing from people who get the book, uh, and if they, if they read it and use it, right, a lot of people read it and don't use it. But if you read it and use it like, you know, hey, I was down in, you know, Costa Rica or Thailand, it doesn't matter. My book, by the way, works anywhere outside your home country. And Indian who's buying a piece of property in Thailand or Vietnam would get benefit from my book. Right. And so I love hearing from people who say, yeah, I used the book or this helped me or something. It's just very rewarding as an author to know that, that we've helped somebody, you know.

00:27:06 Sana: Absolutely, absolutely. It is. It is brilliant. So let's just, uh, yeah, what I'm, what I'm going to do is have all the links mentioned in the show notes. So yeah, Mike's book and, um, uh, listeners, I mean, you know, this is, this is one thing that I am taking away. And of course, the humility part, but especially moving somewhere new overseas. I think it's less about geography. It's more about alignment. Alignment with your values, your lifestyle, with the kind of life you want to wake up to every day. But I think sometimes real transformation isn't the place itself. Mike. I think it's the moment someone slows down enough to ask a deeper question. Where do I actually try? So thank you so much for sharing your perspective, your stories with us. Yeah, this has been such a fascinating, fascinating episode. Thank you. Oh, and thank you to all the listeners for tuning in. Follow the episode. Do follow the follow the show. Share this episode with someone who might need a little inspiration today. And I'm your host, Sara. Until next time, I'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you.