Escaping Stress: Finding Freedom in Latin America

Ever wondered what it takes to transition from a high-pressure corporate job to an adventurous, fulfilling life in Latin America? Join me, Matt Chambers, as I chat with my friend Tyler, who did just that! Tyler's journey from Texas to Medellin is packed with inspiring experiences, from his early days at KPMG to spontaneous trips across Latin America. Learn how he found balance between a demanding work ethic and the relaxed, vibrant lifestyle that cities like Medellin offer. This episode promises to be an engaging exploration of professional growth, cultural immersion, and the unexpected twists that make life abroad so captivating.

Discover the stark contrasts between life in different Latin American countries as we recount Tyler's transformative experiences in Nicaragua, Colombia, and Mexico City. We'll share tales of cultural integration, emphasizing how embracing local customs, like latin dance, enriches one's life abroad. Hear about the challenges Tyler faced, from working long hours independently to adjusting to new cultural norms, and gain insights into the rewards of stepping out of your comfort zone and immersing yourself in a new way of living.

Whether you're contemplating a move abroad or simply curious about life in Latin America, this episode offers practical advice and personal anecdotes to guide you. From language learning strategies to financial considerations and the intricacies of international banking, we've got you covered. Tune in to hear about the unmissable destinations and hidden gems that make this region so enticing. Prepare to be inspired by Tyler's story and find out why making the leap could be the best decision of your life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Matt Chambers Connects, a podcast hosted by Matt Chambers. This is the podcast that transcends boundaries, empowers cross-cultural connections and fosters a more connected world. I'm your host, matt Chambers, and I invite you to join us on this quest to expand our understanding and build bridges between my two favorite places on the planet Latin America and the United States. I've been traveling, living and doing business in Latin America for nearly two decades. So, tyler, what's up, man? How are you?

Speaker 2: 0:48

What's going on, man? I'm good man, good, good, good. Hey, man, I appreciate you coming on the show. How's everything? How have you been Doing? Well, man, just living life, you know, living here. We're from Medellin, as we're looking out this window see, you know the mountains and all the buildings here in the valley, but just here, working, working remotely that is, and, yeah, enjoying life. Yeah, good deal. Yeah, no man, medellin, it's been so fucking hot man, the last couple of months, you know, and it's just fucking hot man. It's like sweat and just waking up in the morning. Yeah, we're in the summer months.

Speaker 2: 1:29

I suppose you know it's not really winter, it's not really seasons here, but that's what they say, you know, winter months versus summer months, so less rain, so a little bit of sun. It's so funny, you know, when you're in the us and you hear winter, you think snow, freezing temperatures, icy roads, and when people here complain about the winter, it means it's. You know, it's raining a little more than usual, it's down around 65 instead of 72. Is it really winter, like in our mind? Is it really uh, can we consider that winter? I don't know. Now you have to go to the mountains. I suppose it's snow, but uh, or maybe down in the streets, I don't know. Now you have to go to the mountains. I suppose it's snow, but uh, or maybe down in the streets, I don't know. You know, but uh, yeah, that's nice man.

Speaker 2: 2:10

I don't like the cold, so it just works for me. Yeah, no, I don't like the cold either. I used to live in minneapolis, used to live in chicago, and god was miserable, dude, you can't get outside seven, eight months a year. Um, no, it's miserable. Medellin 70 75 every day, well, except for december january. I think it's miserable. Medellin 70, 75 every day, well, except for December January. I think it's been in the 90s most days, the last 60 days.

Speaker 2: 2:32

But either way man, awesome, awesome city. As you know well and I know, man, take me back when did we meet originally? I think we met at Dance Free, right, we were both trying to learn to dance. So I think we're on year six of knowing each other, because I came here first May of 2017. I don't think I met you my first time here. I said May to July and I think when I came back is when I met you.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Oh, we didn't meet in the beginning, because I remember vividly being in class and those people saying, oh man, you should meet Tyler.

Speaker 2: 3:04

I didn't meet in the beginning, because I remember vividly being in class and those people saying, oh man, you should meet Tyler. I didn't have any clue who you were for for several months and then I saw your crazy ass coming in there and taking poro classes. It was like the only white dude I've ever seen dance in poro and like Medellin Colombia, I'm like who the hell is this dude? Yeah, man, I in. Like Medellin Colombia. I'm like who the hell is this dude? Yeah, man, I kind of grew up here. Yeah, you did. You were what? 20 when you came here, 21 when I came here.

Speaker 2: 3:32

So I finished school pretty early and decided to come here in between for the work for KPMG. Right, yeah, I was like this would be a cool spot. I come. You know they said you come here and it's hard to leave. So so, speaking of uh being a boy, I guess, and uh and getting a getting the work with kpmg, won't you take me through that? You know? I know you grew up as a, as a young guy in texas and then got your master's in accounting and and then obtained your cpa and spent some time with kPMG and some other major. No, yeah, I understand accounting is very boring for people, right, but it's fucking terrible. On the sales floor it's the worst thing I could possibly think of doing. But for numbers, it's not too complicated for me. Basically, yeah, I started in New Orleans.

Speaker 2: 4:21

Actually after Katrina I got sent to Texas, you know, looped around with different foster parents and then got adopted, did high school in Texas, started working at restaurants and then was obtaining my university degree during that time, right. So I think you told me, and when you were working in the restaurants, I mean you, you were just flipping burgers in the end, I mean you might have started off like that, but you were managing at some point, right, and you kind of worked your way up the ladder pretty well. Yeah, so at 15 I started car hopping. So I was like a waiter for cars. That's on, it is that one with, like, the people that like come car to car and they came here correct, to be on the window. But that's how I started.

Speaker 2: 5:07

I got a management role there. They went to water, we came up with a restaurant manager there and then, you know, I had my life. I went to an NRC just works, did a master's degree in three years and then so I did take a little break. Yeah, yeah, yeah, come a little bit closer to the camera. I'll edit this part out later, but for some reason it's not picking up your sound very well from that side. I hope you got it in the beginning, but I'm sure you did.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Good deal.

Speaker 2: 5:38

So how long were you with Water Burger? So I did two years at Sonic and then my general manager got me on a water order as a manager. Two years there, the whole time, you know, going to school full time, working 50, 60 hours a week Plus school, plus full time school. So you know 15, 18 hour course loads each semester, no breaks went to school under school. That's when I finished in three years. So then I did an internship with KPMG and then I had a tough decision to make. I got to renounce the restaurant life to be able to accept a job for whatever the school was for. Did you do that? I had to do that. You ren renounced the rest of your life, went to KPMG, spent some time. Was that just for your internship? So you renounced, I had to do it for my internship. So it was like December 2016. I graduated high school May 2013. So three years, that's basically. I got the master's. I did the internship in January 2017 to April and here I'm at Life coming so one of my cooks at Water River.

Speaker 2: 6:54

The year prior I got real close to him and his family. He's Nicaraguan, he'd invited me for Christmas in Nicaragua and then I went back again. I ended up spending a total of six months there, and so going there I was like this is great, I love this, but it is third world. Nicaragua, nicaragua, right, since Colombia. Yes, california is third world, but I had heard Colombia was a happy medium, right, it wasn't quite as third world, humble as Nicaragua. Yeah, but it was the United States. So that's what I want. Or Mexico I've been to Mexico and I just thought it was the US. Mexico, it's the same damn thing. Yeah, they just think Spanish there, right, no for sure, and you know, I live in Texas, so that's basically Mexico as well. So, yeah, so that kind of got me in that. Oh, okay, let me see what this is about. Just booked a trip from May to July, came here, lived in like a barrio, like you know, way out there with the family. They took me to a finca. First day they took me to a finca Finca, a farmhouse.

Speaker 2: 8:07

People had a list down there like what the hell is a finca? He's saying that the family he lived with took him to a farm, a mountain house, which is a you know pocketbook thing in Colombia. Yeah, what I related to in Texas high school the families were weak or lake house. So, yes, this is a, not a lake, there was just a pool with a house out there. Really, they're generally big, massive houses that maybe have a lot of impact 10, 20, 30 bedrooms. I mean the big, huge ones, right, I mean they have 30 bedrooms and they'll house all the cousins and the uncles. The idea is that it, you know they're, they're built to house the entire family. So that's the idea.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Yeah, going, going back to mexico, man, I spent some time there last year and I, you know, I always think it's funny for guys like you and I I've had a lot of experience throughout all of latin america pretty much uh, when people in the states tell me, oh yeah, I've been down there, I went to mexico, and I'm like that doesn't even count, dude, like mexico is just, it's no different, not much different than going to destin, florida, except for it's cheaper and and they speak spanish and it's a little bit of a different experience. But you know, especially if you fly out of you know land wherever and you end up in a resort in cancun. All you do is fly into the airport, you get a fancy bus, bus or limo to a fancy resort. You never leave the resort. I'm like did you really go to Mexico? There are parts of Mexico that are definitely no. I actually so.

Speaker 2: 9:38

When I was working at KPMG it's a little bit fast forward In Dallas one weekend, our boss, our boss was like hey, you guys have a three-day weekend, right, you don't have to come to work on saturdays, we'll work in seven minutes. So I had this great idea from dallas to take a bus down to mexico, mexico. So I left at like 6 pm. So I left at like 6 pm across the border at Larero, nuevo Larero. I woke up, went back to sleep on the bus. First town I got to was Matehuala, san Luis Pueblo, in Mexico, and so I got out. A very humble town and I'm back on the bus in the night with the san luis potosi. It was like in between, you know, you see the highways and everything club down there. I had a great night, got back on the bus, see you, see you at the mexico, mexico city on sunday, flew back for work for Monday? No way.

Speaker 2: 10:45

What did you think? Did you get time to spend in Mexico City? Or were you there for a short time, about 12 hours? God, what a great city it's like. It's way better than New York, right? And you know, I don't know if it has more culture. It certainly has more Mexican culture than New York, obviously, but I was just amazed by that place, man, mexico City.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Everywhere you go, there's culture, there's learning, the food's incredible. I just had an incredible experience. But for someone like you who's now had, you know you've chosen to live in Latin America. You're living here for the last six, seven years. What aspects of the lifestyle and culture do you find most appealing? That work for you? I hate to compare, it's a comparison. Living here, people are less cold. We don't really have that in the US. The neighborly will be further back 18.S anymore, maybe back in the 50s, the neighborhood and whatnot will be further back, right, yeah, yeah, so 18th, 17th.

Speaker 2: 11:48

But now you go back. You know, here you've got to say hi to people. You walk past the store, the porn store, the panaderia. You know where they make bread. You say hello, hello, hello, how are you? It's only like three minutes before you ask for what you want. That doesn't happen. And every time I go back I do try to bring a little bit of that there, right, but that is where I truly enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 12:15

I have this funny story about that. You know, I was here full time for, yeah, pretty much full time. I'll say like seven, eight months a year for five years straight. And you get used to that the hey, how are you, how's your day going? Before you ever ask the, the question which obviously, like you said, you're not used to in the united states, but I had spent like eight months straight here and then, so you're used to this and then went back back to the U? S.

Speaker 2: 12:42

I went to Miami. People man, rude as shit, yeah, it's mean as shit there, um, but I'm on muscle beats on on South beach and right on muscle beach where they're, where they have the outward gyms and stuff. And you know, here, if you take your bag and you have a computer in it to the gym, you ask the lady at the the front. You're like, hey, can you take care of my bag while I work out? Yeah, my problem. Yeah, yeah, sure, let me take it, put it in a locker, or they'll just put it in their office, whatever right. Well, I was in that mindset, and the first day I got to Miami, in my you know apartment that I rented, I'd go out to Muscle Beach for a workout. But I had been at Starbucks earlier that morning working on my computer and I sat my backpack. That on muscle beats, there's a building that houses all the weights at night and they lock them up, so that way no one steals, all right.

Speaker 2: 13:31

well, I had sat my bag in the corner behind everything so no one would steal it on the beach while I worked out. But there was a guy sitting in there and I asked him. I was like, do you mind just making sure watching my bag while I'm working out? He was sitting in there that I asked him. I was like, do you mind just making sure watching my bag while I'm working out? He was sitting in there. That's all he was doing was guarding the weights right, and he looks and he goes. Well, I'm not a watch boy. How long are you gonna be gone? And I'm like I don't know, dude, I'm gonna do some sit-ups, bro, like I'm gonna do some sit-ups, maybe some push-ups.

Speaker 2: 14:01

And so I think when you get used to this and then you go back and you experience that, but it's a big slap in the face like oh shit, not people there, they can't be bothered. Smart, that's like that. And I get it. You know they're, they're. You know america's. Well, we're all busy.

Speaker 2: 14:18

But at the same time I think your point is you, we probably lost that human element, that ability to build friendships, true friendships. You know, I tell that to people that live there all the time. I got friends from 30 years ago. I'm like do you really Like? You know, I was here for a year straight at one point or something like that, eight or nine months straight at one point. And then I went back to have a lunch with a buddy it was my birthday, not a big deal, I don't care much about my birthday. But I go back and I texted him up and and I said, man, I haven't seen you in a year, let's catch up. And he's like I do, I can see you at one o'clock, um, on saturday morning or saturday afternoon, right, one o'clock in the morning. I'm like okay, one o'clock, I thought one o'clock, we'll hang for a couple hours. I've seen this guy in a year. Right, we're close friends, bro, like 1.56,. He's like I got four more minutes, see what I got to get you know. Then it hits you in the face. You're like oh man, we're. I'm schedule my outing for friends. When I have to schedule my not only schedule my outings with friends, I might understand that a little bit because people are busy. But if I haven't seen you for a year, you know, come on, dude, pick a time where we can spend an afternoon together and catch up for four hours in four hours a year. So, yeah, no, I understand that this place is certainly a lot more comfortable in that regard. So let me ask you this though Moving from big four accounting firms to living in Latin Americas, obviously it's got to be a hard decision, dude, most people in the States would most CPAs or people that aren't CPAs would long to work for somebody like KPMG, right?

Speaker 2: 16:09

How do you make that transition from that corporate job to Latin America? Yeah, so it was always the goal. It was always the goal. Once I started working at KPMG, I was coming back here for holidays, three-day weekends and whatnot. In Dallas, where I started at KPMG, I asked for the transfer to Miami, coming back here, you know, for holidays, three-day weekends and whatnot. In Dallas, where I started at MG, I asked for the transfer to Miami. They granted me that transfer after six months, so a little bit closer to Columbia, right? I was able to go back and forth, and then the pandemic just sped everything up. I was probably one of the first points, probably the first point that went remote. At least, I kept in jeep to go remote internationally, right, and nobody knew what I was doing. They didn't even really understand the rules out there, right? Yeah, at that point it was just starting. It started now. People were like hey, you can't do that, you can't do that. But yeah, I took my laptop and I go to Colombia.

Speaker 1: 17:06

How do you?

Speaker 2: 17:06

balance that though? I mean here you have a relaxed lifestyle where people you know people okay, they work eight hours a day, but not really, right, I mean, they're working, but it's in a relaxed environment, so our boss doesn't care if they leave to go and take their kid to the doctor for three and a half hours. You know, it's just like a more chill environment. How do you balance yeah, it's different um, the values in america that we put kind of like on your career first, career first, career first here. It's more family and these guys like having good times. Uh, there's a lot of holidays. That's what holiday it is. They don't even, they just don't.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Um, so that was very good, especially being young. You know, I want to go out, I want to party. Everybody's asking why am I not able to do this? The holidays don't go inside and I there, everybody's off, but I'm still working, yeah, so that I had to learn, right, it's very tough. Um like, yeah, you know, you just discipline, self-discipline, you know, you know you're going to do this, just, at least you can do. You're making american money, right, and then you're living for fourth of the cost, right, you just gotta respect it, you know. And then, uh, obviously, it gets even easier once you go in, right, sure, sure, then you know, you don't have to worry about the boss, you don't have to worry about his daughter hey, he's in Colombia, so that's why he's not on the computer, you know, yeah, that part of it gets easier.

Speaker 2: 18:35

But as an independent person myself, I feel like you know, I feel like people that have never worked for themselves think that working for yourself is the easiest. And if you work for yourself and it's easy, then you're probably not doing things right. Because I feel like if you're an entrepreneur or working independently, you work twice. Email, because you just do. You're doing so many different jobs, right, right, you can't get off at four and just stop when you know you're late. But the thing is, you don't want to. That's right. No, you don't want to. You're doing what you want. You get passionate about it. So I was never passionate about doing art at a tip-in. There's a way to build experience. I learned a lot. I'm very grateful for the opportunities. However, now that I work independently, I don't want to sleep, I want to burn my friends. I jump out of bed. I'm, of course, probably putting in more hours, but it's what you want to do.

Speaker 2: 19:35

I'm building Exactly so for a successful Western, someone in the US that has never lived internationally but would like to. What advice would you give them on how to get started with that? I think there's a big part of that that people have to get their mind right. I've talked to people who have studied for years and built spreadsheets for years, built PowerPoint presentations for years on where they would go and how the money would work out and all these different things they're trying to piece together. And, of course, my advice with everything in life is hey, man, I'm not a teen years old, so it's like something hits me, an idea hits me that I think I'm going to enjoy and be passionate about. I should do it, there's no question. There's no spreadsheet, I'm just doing it.

Speaker 2: 20:24

So what's your advice for those types of people that are sitting in the United States right now looking for a new life but maybe don't have the career yet? You still have to calculate the risk right. I would say book a flight first. It's not hard to book a flight. Make sure you have all the shots or whatever here. You don't need any of that. Book a flight, call in here or a few different places. See what you like. Talk to some Americans or whatever country that you can speak to, how they live. You can see. If it's for you, then something. But I, I think there's.

Speaker 2: 21:08

You know, even for me, way before I started traveling, I would look around like where do I really want to go? Like latin america was always a thing that was in my mind, but I didn't know where I wanted to go. I mean, if you just sit home and Google, I mean there's what? 22, 23 countries down here, something like that, and you know a million cities within those 22 countries. So how do you figure out where you want to go? The only way is just to pick a couple of places and go right. Go for a couple of months, sure, but what do you got Like? Let's not lie, that's not like Colombian women are beautiful, right, I went to Peru, not so much. So if you guys do that, if you do that, it's fine.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Be honest with yourself, because here you're going to find plenty of it. What else do you got here? Weather, right, it's nice here. Eternal spring, yeah, spring Lord. Eternal spring, the city of eternal spring, yeah, if those are the things you value, then yeah, of course, medellin is an incredible place. It offers so much more than that. There, right, I don't think that there's no ability to sit home in the United States and freaking Kansas and get on Google and learn everything you can learn about any place. There's no other way to go experience it. If you were to look up Medellin, colombia, you're going to see all kinds of stuff that once you get here you may not even experience.

Speaker 2: 22:27

Yeah, common fallacy is that it's dangerous, right Dangerous, whatever city you go to. There's spots you don't go to, yeah, if you like it, you can go to Graf.

Speaker 2: 22:40

If you're it, you'll find it. You're going to find it, so you know. You just got to know where to go. So do a little bit of reading but don't, you know, bore yourself or get psych yourself out with reading statistics or stories, because you know, south Side of Chicago is not for you. Yeah, yeah, I lived up there. Man, it's brutal. And my mom came to visit me one time. This is probably 20 years ago. My mom came to visit me.

Speaker 2: 23:04

We were looking for giordano stuff. Crisp pizza, it's one of the top two. There's lou malnati's and giordano's that I thought this one, I think, I think I've been there's well, giordano, those are two of the most famous and I think, like Lou Malinotti's might be the most famous, and then Giordano's is somewhere maybe top five, I'm not sure, but I had found it on Google and I really didn't know the city that well at the time. Mom's there, she's never had stuffed crust pizza. You know, chicago style, it's stuffed crust, yeah, but that's Chicago style pizza and I'm like Mom, let me get you a Giordano's, right. So we ordered it and I thought it was close to my house.

Speaker 2: 23:39

At that time I was living in Bucktown, which was close to Lincoln Park, okay, and all that. And so I was living there and I didn't realize that the address where we ordered pizza from was literally in one of the worst parts of Chicago. Yeah, so I take off driving GPS, right, gps in through Chicago, not nowhere else. We ended up in this place. Man, these people look like zombies. They weren't even walking, they were just like floating around. You know, I mean in Medici. I would say, yeah, you could find them. There's places in Central where you can definitely find a lot of them, but you have to go looking for them.

Speaker 1: 24:14

I could take you but you, you got to want to go there, right, right, you don't want to go.

Speaker 2: 24:19

You're not just running into zombies, right? We're not going dressed like this, we're going home with it. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So let's switch gears for a second. You know, you and I are, by the way, gino's Peace. You ever had that one? I? It's like a four-floor restaurant in Chicago. No, I think I remember that and I don't remember if I've ever had it.

Speaker 2: 24:41

I lived there for about a year in a lot of places. I know I've had Lee Malnati's. I know I've had Giordano's. All I know is that when we went to pick up Giordano's man, I was scared for our lives. I'm like, oh my God, I just brought my mother I've been selling her on this pizza for a month, right, and I just brought her into the worst part of freaking Chicago to get it. I'm going to get my mom killed. I'm really seriously worried about it, and that can happen in Medellin too. But again, you have to try, sure.

Speaker 2: 25:15

Let's go back to the salsa dance thing that I kind of mentioned earlier. I know you've been more of a cumbia porro dancer, which is a local folk dance, more in Medellin. But that said, you end up learning them all. So you've done yourself well with all of them. But how has that cultural integration played a role in your professional, personal life? Here For sure.

Speaker 2: 25:41

For example, you know in the US, say, you go to a club, right, watch out that someone comes up. You know, are you going to go ask some guy, his girlfriend, to dance? Yeah, in the US they're not going to do that, not going to do that here. That's common practice, it's normal. Yeah, it's normal. Wherever you go, you're switching partners all the time. So you're used to just going up to people. You're more social and everything. So you see that, right, you know you're doing that. That first time, you, every night, the first one you have to ask is the harness, and after that you're good, yeah, so that helps build up confidence. You can take that to work. So every day of life, yeah, yeah. It's so funny.

Speaker 2: 26:22

When I first came down here I didn't really have the, not that I didn't have the guts, one, I didn't dance. So you don't have the guts because you don't know what you're doing. But then, even when you start learning, it's so weird Everyone's dancing with everybody's boyfriend and girlfriend and all this stuff. And then, yeah, you're right, it just becomes a natural thing and no one cares. I think I'm repeating what you said, but you do that in the States and people look at you. That's kind of interesting, right, yeah, and especially when you're rolling into a Latino bar and you're the only white dude in there, it's like or cutting up the rug, right, you're rolling into a Latino bar and you're the only white dude in there, it's like, of course, setting up the rug, right, you're cutting rugs. These guys are like what do you know? I come from. It's uncomfortable, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:08

So what about the language? I know you do really, really well with language. Where would you say you're? I know where I think your comfort level is. I see you speaking it on the streets. You do very, very well. But how did? What's? What's your personal comfort level?

Speaker 2: 27:22

How'd you get about learning? Yeah, so I got lucky. You know, living in Texas. You know, growing up with some Hispanic families working in the restaurants I love. I heard I get old when I was nine years old Dance bachata. It's such a big thing, right. So I started learning things. You know, working in a restaurant in Texas. You know, took a test that said I was fluent before coming here, right. But you get here and it's like, oh shit, you're not a strut, now, this is easy. What's left, you know, to advance my Spanish is honestly, going to other countries and getting as comfortable with them speaking as I am here. Yeah, and that's an interesting point that I think people who don't have any language skills should know, and for me it still happens. I definitely consider myself at a pretty high level of fluency not quite native yet, but high level of fluency in the language. But no matter where you learn it, if you learn it in Mexico City, if you learn it in Venezuela, if you learn it in Argentina, wherever it is, when you learn those colloquialisms and the way they communicate, and then all of a sudden you get a flight to another Spanish-speaking country, you're just learning, you're almost learning, to do it right. Well, we can all understand each other, right, we're going to be able to. But there's just these abacus.

Speaker 2: 28:54

You know the slang words. Maybe one word means something. It means something different. I had that happen. I don't know if I told you that, but in Venezuela they use the word arrecho. They say that kind of stuff in Venezuela. Arrecho in Venezuela means like I'm pissed. It can mean I'm pissed. It can mean like I really hate you. It means like it was cool. Or esto arrecho can mean I'm pissed. It can mean I'm pissed. Or it can mean like really good. It's like ah. The other eight cheddar means ah, that was cool. Or esto es lo que ha hecho. It can mean I'm pissed right. Generally it means I'm pissed, but in Colombia it means I'm horny. I also thought that too. It's similar to right. Exactly, it means that in Colombia. So I was talking to this Colombian girl when I first came to Colombia and I was pissed off about something else. I can't remember what it was. It wasn't a curse, something else was going on. And she's like what's going on? Why are you?

Speaker 2: 29:46

I was kind of humbled and irritated and I was like, ah, at that time I didn't speak much of the language, I didn't understand those differences they were talking about. And I look at her with this pissed off face and I'm like, which is like in Venezuela? I'm pissed. But here it's, I'm horny. And she's looking at me and she's like, well, your face doesn't tell me that you're horny, your face tells me you're pissed. And I'm like that's where I learned the difference in those two words. I guess those two emotions, those two words, could be linked right. I guess I don't use it in her pissed off face, I guess, but I'm not using her fist to her face. She's like well, that's not taking care of this problem. Exactly, I guess that's true. I didn't think about it that way.

Speaker 2: 30:26

So this is your second language. Spanish is your second language. Yeah, I started learning a third. But knowing what you know now about learning, I think there's a big piece of language learning, that's learning how to learn that language. Now that we've learned how to learn language, what are you going to do your third time around when you go to a certain language? What do you think you'll do different? What do I do different? Maybe this time I'll just go to school.

Speaker 2: 30:57

I never went to school for Spanish. Maybe, going to school then I didn't, never went to a school for spanish and maybe, you know, going to school would be easier, yeah, but you know, maybe less time, maybe I'll be able to pick it up quicker. Yeah, you know, because spanish was just street traveling and then, before you knew it, figured it out. Yeah, um, yeah, I didn't go to any classes either. I mean, I went to song, right, the ones that forced me to go to, and then everyone told me that you know, needed to go to class and all this stuff. And I tried it. This class shit's not for me, man, like so, and um, yeah, it sucks, it's.

Speaker 2: 31:31

You know, they put you through this. Yeah, I mean, I know people that have studied spanish for 12 years and my spanish is better than theirs, which managed better than theirs at this point. Your Spanish is better than theirs at this point, because all they're doing is reading books. I don't know, I don't know. I'm saying that, coupled with going out dancing After a few drinks, you're a little bit more confident to speak. You're going to learn a lot more. I don't encourage drinking more than you should, but I would say that gives you the confidence to go out and speak. You know all these guys here in Columbia. Once they have a few drinks, all of a sudden they're drinking.

Speaker 1: 32:06

They'll drink their food.

Speaker 2: 32:07

Yeah, all of a sudden they're drinking. So I would say that I get out there, don't be scared to go to the grocery store and buy food, yeah, yeah, because even if you're not speaking, just being at the grocery store and looking for green olives, you still have to look at the bottle that's going to be in Spanish, or the jar it's going to be in Spanish. And so there you start picking up vocabulary. Every experience that you have has a different vocabulary, which you may not Exactly. If you only speak one language, you probably never learn that because you just learn it so naturally as a kid. That's why it's fun to do. You know, for me, sometimes it's the first time I do something in Spanish. Also, first time you go to the zoo in Spanish, the first time I play ajedrez, chess or yoga, right. So that, for sure, I think is important to have those experiences in Spanish, right, learn things in Spanish. And then also, you, you know, I would say you just need to make sure you have likes in that language. If you don't like music or if you don't like a tv show, it's going to be a lot harder. Yeah, for sure, I, you know, I think, um, I, I think that's important to me.

Speaker 2: 33:16

In many ways it's like a person that doesn't like to go to the gym. If you don't like to go to the gym and hop on a treadmill and go lift barbells, that's cool. You don't have to do that to be in shape. You can also walk through the jungle, you can go swim in their lake. You can do cool things that don't make it so boring. You can go on a bike ride, and I feel the same about the length.

Speaker 2: 33:38

I think you're right, you're playing, like if you start to fall in love with the music, right, right, or soap operas if you like soap operas in english, maybe you like soap opera in spanish movies, whatever and then you start slowly, slowly picking it up in a fun way, right, as opposed to going to you know class for three and a half hours a week learning grammar. I mean, I just don't care, I don't know one grammar rule. There's not one, I don't know one, I don't know one. People are like oh, the present participle of any, anything but throw me in the jungle and I can. Yeah, no, I'm not proud of my ignorance, but I would say or however. No, I'm not proud of my ignorance, but I would say, or however.

Speaker 2: 34:26

You know, I would say that stuff is, I guess, important. But you know, what I do every week is I go to the movies. Right, something like that is extremely Sure. Right, you got to get over it. Sometimes it can be tough, which Americans are like, eh, you know. But we also need to think about we're fortunate to have Hollywood and everything Most of the great movies that come out are American. Right, if you get over it, you're going to pick up a lot Just going to the movies once a week. Plus, let's not lie, you also get to go to the movies every week with a very beautiful woman For sure. We've been dating for a long time, so you're a wonderful woman. You get to go out and be with everybody. So you went in several ways with that. So I think I'm circling back a little bit.

Speaker 2: 35:12

But to go a little bit more in depth with you know, for someone that hasn't had this international experience, living in a different region, especially a different country, comes with different financial considerations. Right, can you discuss for the listeners how you navigated the financial aspects of living and working in Atlanta, especially coming from an accounting? You guys no, and that's super important, very important, I would say that's that should be one of the higher priorities when you're planning on coming. Right, you need to know how you're taking out money. You need to not get lazy and just take out money every time from the same. You know, cajero atm that you see down the block. Learn how much fees are taking and how much you're losing, right, and figure out how other people do it. Right, you know there's accounts we both know one that they reimburse your ATM fees very easily. Right?

Speaker 2: 36:12

There's another ATM here, right, that is notorious. For if you decline the conversion, right? Right, they ask if you want to convert it. Then's a dollar for place, right, you don't lose anything. Well, I think that's extremely important, right? Yeah, it's such a little scam going on here. I don't know what the hell that decline the conversion or accept the conversion so crazy. I don't know if I told you this, but for many years I did that I would accept the conversion. But so, just for the people listening, you go to these ATMs and they ask you do you want to accept the conversion or decline the conversion before you finish the transaction? I used to think that declining the conversion meant oh, I don't like this amount, I'm going to go to another ATM and say cancel, and what it really means is, if you accept the conversion, you're accepting the lower rate.

Speaker 2: 36:59

that bank wants to pay you for the money you're taking out and if you decline, the conversion.

Speaker 2: 37:05

It turns that over to your bank in the US. So your bank then gets to look at it and say, oh well, and they give you a better rate. Essentially, yeah, they're like, oh, the dollar is how many faces today? Let's just keep them there, guaranteed. I probably lost ten thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, for that bullshit and that's.

Speaker 2: 37:23

It's hard to think that way, and it's true in my case as well, but you have to, and you just have to move forward, say, hey, going forward. Am I doing this anymore? And another thing I think is important you do really well with this. It took me years to really figure this out too. I used to translate the conversion in my head, right? So I would look at something that's 30 000 pesos, which at some point back in the day was about 10 bucks. Now it's like seven bucks or something, um. But I would look at 30 000 pesos and be like, oh, it's 10 bucks, I don't care, right, but you can get a meal. If I was paying 30 000 for that meal, what I wasn't calculating or even thinking about was that I could have gotten a very similar meal for $12,000 or $15,000 somewhere else.

Speaker 2: 38:05

I think it's important, especially if you have that strong dollar against the currency where you live in. It's important to think in their money. You know it, around at the end of the month you're like shit, I spent kind of shit. So I spent a lot of money translating or trying to convert. I think when you come to a country like this, you just forget the conversions and start looking directly at their prices. You need to, because here's another thing Even though the dollar says it's this much and pays those you can't, I have money at the house, us dollars and coins.

Speaker 2: 38:42

I have like 20 us dollar coins. They don't accept that. Yeah, so is it worth anything? No, so, and also, you gotta just plan, just in case, for some reason, you can't pull money out for extended period. Just, it'll be smart, weird stuff. We don't, we don't, we don't have our American base physically here. That's the issue, yeah, so eventually it'll take a little bit longer. Eventually, it's a good idea to have money coming in here some way. You know, pay it somehow here, to pay here, to pay here, and then you're safe, right, there's just all kinds of weird. To your point, there's all kinds of weird things that happen when you're in a session, right, I mean, I have a Charles Schwab bank account and a couple others, but I use my Schwab most in Latin America there are ATMs that literally I go to the ATM and they'll just tell me the banks don't communicate, so my bank and their bank don't even have a relationship to where their ATM here recognizes the car or the opposite.

Speaker 2: 39:47

I'm not sure exactly how it works, so it's not like you can just walk up to any ATM and take the money. For the most part you can Right. There's big banks. The biggest one here is Buffalo. They're everywhere. Normally I tell a lot of my friends that come here like that's guaranteed. Almost it is guaranteed. But man, that's really yeah, we can definitely customize it. That's my show. Say whatever the hell you want. I'm a free speech guy dude. That's tough.

Speaker 2: 40:20

So, given your extensive travel in Latin America, you've been to several different countries. We travel a lot in Colombia. If people Google, it's obvious they're going to see the big places. What are some hidden gems, lesser known places that people might find interesting? That you found it In Colombia or Wherever? This isn't just a Colombia thing, sure, okay, yeah, expanding it a bit. You know I've been to Mexico. We talked about that a little bit.

Speaker 2: 40:52

I live in Nicaragua. Oh, that's right, you've lived there for six months. Yeah, so Managua is the main city in nicaragua and then leon is where we're staying. There's a family there that has a big estate and then every weekend we take a two hour check down to san juan de sur, which is on the border of costa rica. So you're basically getting costa rica by in nicaragua. So that's a hidden gem, I would say, and like, if you think Colombia is cheap, you're going way cheaper in Nicaragua. So, but, you know, maybe not as beautiful people, depends on what you like, or, you know, maybe not as many centro comerciales shopping malls like we have. We're so blessed, you know, go to these shopping malls. Yeah, if you're coming for beautiful people, it's Columbia, right? Yes, if that's all you're interested in, it's not that you won't find beautiful people in other places, it's just it's Columbia. Yeah, it's for physical beauty and to me, just Just incredibly nice people.

Speaker 2: 41:56

But you went to some cool places in Peru that have gone off the beaten path, right, peru, yeah, we went to. So, you know, got into Lima and what a culture shock. Lima, lima, yeah, you know, everybody has a car, yeah, yeah. Then you come from here where you have a motor. Yeah, barely see that. You know Lima's so weird because it's a desert but it's on the ocean. So, you know, lima's so weird because it's a desert but it's on the ocean. So the whole time I was there for 44 days no sun. None, we never got sun. I've been there. I was there for about a week. It's great. Yeah, every day is great. Sierra Negres what they say, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but from there, we went to Cusco right C. We went to Cusco, right. Cusco is about an hour from Machu Picchu, just for people that are listening.

Speaker 1: 42:41

It's kind of the town that most people stay in.

Speaker 2: 42:44

It's a big city, it's a capital, I believe. Over there, where it is, I believe I mean it's big, for if you're in that part of the country yeah, the part with it's not big, but it's the biggest city close to Machu Picchu. That's where most people end up staying, and then you have about an hour-long trip into Machu, depending on how you go.

Speaker 2: 43:03

There's a million ways that they A million tours. They tell you to get to Machu Picchu. So it depends, but about an hour, hour and a half, right, right, so that was more of like. You know, I'm not really a backpacker trip guy, so, like a, you know, we go to Cusco and, like you said, from there you know, machu Picchu one day, the mountain of seven colors another day. You know all these different shit to do, right. And then I go back to Lima and I'm back in my city. I didn't know what downtown was like Architecture, I like mixing with the people, having all these restaurants, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:42

And as I go, back to my apartment.

Speaker 2: 43:43

I'm working. I'm working abroad. Yeah, it's a beautiful life. I think you just gave four or five different places in Latin America that most people that have never been down here and done the extensive travel that you and I have done wouldn't even. You can't even google a lot of these places, right, I mean, I guess you can. You gotta really really really dig. Um, I, I think latin america is just a place where you could never, you never get bored, right? No, no matter what you want to see, if you want lakes, you got. If you want those, you need mountains, whatever it is like, it's here, it's everything, everything's here. And then jungle as well. That's something that's still happening, but the jungle's massive dude.

Speaker 2: 44:24

I mean, I did a hike through Peru. There's two different. Well, there's several different hikes. When you're in the Machu Picchu region, cusco region, they didn't do it on Inca Trail. Well, the Inca Trail is backed up, right, it was backed up for like two years, so you had to literally apply yes, and then, once they approved you, it was like two years before you could go Because it's deteriorating and so I couldn't get on it. We decided kind of last minute to go. I couldn't get on the Inca.

Speaker 2: 44:50

The next best thing was the Salconte, and Salconte has a lot of history if you look it up, but I believe it was about, if I'm correct, about 50 or 60 miles a hike. It's something crazy, a crazy mile hike. And you know you start out from somewhere a little outside of Cusco and then you know you walk. It was five days. It was four nights and five days and the very last night you end up. You're going to Snow Peak Mountain. You went all the way up to 15,000, 16,000 feet above sea level. People needed oxygen, not everyone. I didn't need any. I took some medication. You ended up having a headache at all. I had nothing because I had to prepare. I was in Bogota. Bogota is 8,000 feet above sea level. I had gotten some medicine for the altitude and started taking it from Hawaii before in Bogota. And then, once you get into that region, the coca leaves right. They sell. I was going to say yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:50

For the people listening coca leaves. It's actually the leaf that they use to make cocaine. Obviously, there's a process involved in making that, so it's not the drug you're taking, but you're getting the raw ingredient, and they sell these dried out coca leaves in bags all over Peru, bolivia and those places. So once I got to Cusco, I started chewing on these coca leaves, because it's also about 8,000 feet above sea level, correct. So I had gone from 8,000 to 8,000, something like that. And then the next day we started hiking and we went up to 15,000. We doubled the altitude. I definitely felt it and you get tired and exhausted. But there were people with us that weren't prepared. They had to hire horses. Extra oxygen tanks I mean people were on oxygen home. So extra oxygen tanks I mean people were on oxygen walking over there.

Speaker 2: 46:42

So it's serious. I mean you walk up to 15,000, 16,000 feet above sea level, and then you go down the other side and then you know, you make it into a town called Aguas Calientes, which was essentially Machu Picchu, and then the next morning you wake up. It's after five days of hiking. It's awesome. Your body's just, you don't have anything left. You walk up and you have an hour up those stairs to get to Machu Picchu. But man, does it work? No, you know, every morning when we're there you know Cusco, we do these different rides. It's like, you know, wake up at 4 am, it's two hours wherever you're going, and then two hours back. You know, I was so having to be done with it. You know, oh, wow, you know it's like, going there, you're not spending a lot of money for these adventures, right.

Speaker 2: 47:25

So it was fun, but we did have a little bit of a headache. You know, at the beginning I was like I heard about it. Right, it's like that's the average person, right, you know, one fit, whatnot. That's not gonna happen to me. But you know, I did have a slight headache, for sure.

Speaker 2: 47:41

Well, I was lucky because I had, I had prepared significantly for it. Taking the altitude medicine helped me out a lot and you know, I guess it's that time I was in pretty good shape. I also had a lot of weight on that trip. I mean, just in four or five days you're walking 50, 60 miles and it's up and down hills, across lakes and river. It's crazy. Yeah, I was probably the opposite in my case, because the food was so good. It's incredible. You know, I don't know, you know, I don't know if it's fries and different potatoes in there. Did you have the alpaca steak? I had a pork hamburger. Why don't you start with the burger first? Yeah, yeah, I had. I had several alpaca steaks and you almost feel bad about eating them because you know when you get too much, you can finally get too much.

Speaker 1: 48:23

You can't get too much of a peachy, which is magical.

Speaker 2: 48:25

Right, it's worth it. I'm 100% going to see that.

Speaker 1: 48:28

Yes.

Speaker 2: 48:29

Because I found it just to be absolutely magical and I know that's kind of a weird word, maybe an overused word, but I find it to be just absolutely amazing. But I had eaten several alpaca steaks before getting there. And then you get to Machu Picchu where there's all these alpacas live, real alpacas. There's hundreds. They're just kind of a little Machu Picchu pet and then you kind of feel better man.

Speaker 1: 48:55

I ate this nice little animal.

Speaker 2: 48:57

And I love eating animals. Don't get me wrong, I don't eat a guy at all, carnivore and everything but for some reason, those alpacas, I had a little soft spot before. I mean, it's unusual for us. The next step would be koi. I eat one of those too. I have not had that that. I would feel very weird about it. They're pets in the US. I would feel very weird about it. There are pets in the US, yeah, and they are pets in the US, but they're disgusting pets, right, I suppose. So I mean, I find guinea pigs scary. They're nicer than mice or rats, though, right, I don't know. I mean I don't know. Is there anyone else that wrote it?

Speaker 2: 49:33

I guess I have to study that, because, you know, I had friends that, as a real small child, had these hamsters Disgusting and for some reason I roped in guinea pigs at that same thing. I don't know, but when I was there, we were hiking through the jungle on that same hike, the Salcante Trail, and these guys that were guiding us were like hey, do you guys want to have Kool-Aid? And we're like, sure, whatever, why not? We literally go to this guy's house no lie, it's a regular house and we walk through his living room to his back door and he has all these little guinea pigs fenced in. And the guy goes out and picks out the guinea pigs and he grabs them, puts them in a bag of lye, ties the bag all and they're moving and squealing the whole time. We're in the van and I'm like man, I don't know if I can do this Right. And so we get to this um so this guy's factory farming.

Speaker 2: 50:29

Get it, he wasn't in factory farming, he had a backyard fenced in it. I'm sure you've seen this. Yeah, I says, is right. You have these dudes with a mobile home or whatever and in the back they put a fence up and they have Something like that. Right, it was this type of situation. And you walk through his front door, through his living room, out the back door, under his little deck and there's like 100 guinea pigs. You just pick the ones you want and stuff them into a feed sack right, I don't know burlap sack or whatever. And so we have four or five of these little sacks with live guinea pigs and then we go back to the place where we were staying.

Speaker 2: 51:11

I didn't even want to know what happened. I was like, well, I'm not going to know what happened, I didn't want to see it for sure. And then all of a sudden, man, they bring out this big exquisite play with these whole guinea pigs. Obviously they're skinned and all that stuff. At that point I didn't enjoy it. I don't know. Sure, it doesn't taste like a pig. It doesn't taste like a pig, it tastes maybe like a rat would taste, I guess. I don't really know. I certainly didn't enjoy it. I don't know. I'll eat anything to try at once right now, I suppose. I mean, that's just how I work. I've eaten a lot of weird stuff over the years, with all my travels, yeah, and most stuff. I would go back and eat again. I don't think I had any reason to eat again. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1: 52:03

I could get you on one though.

Speaker 2: 52:04

Would you ever try thawing? No, okay, no, I love thawing, exactly so. They're amazing. That's the only thing I would never try. You couldn't do that? Yeah, but when I was in China, you know I spent a lot of time in China, exactly you build. I was one of the people that back in the COVID days, they were like all this disease came from bats at a wet market and I was like it did. Sounds crazy, but if you've been there, that's the bullshit they were making.

Speaker 1: 52:33

But it very well could have, but it didn't.

Speaker 2: 52:35

Now we know what it did, but I had been there. I'd been in those wet markets and seen a lot of weird stuff. I was like, possibly what? You been there? I mean, you know they're not long for sanitation. That's just my thought, for sure, for sure. Yeah, china I had some good experiences there. I've been there three times and every time that I went, you know, I spent at least three or four weeks every time. It takes some getting used to it, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2: 53:08

But I think something that's really important that people probably want to know you know someone that's already made the decision to come here, or making the decision to come here is making connections. Obviously, latin America is a place to make connections. How have you done that? How have you built community and formed connections? What role has that played in your experience here? For sure, so I think I've found it's good to have a good mix.

Speaker 2: 53:32

Right, when you come here, you know you've got to remember the reason you came here. Right, you're not here for the American experience, right, you're here for the Latin American experience. So you want to make sure you're making those connections with the locals and whatnot At the same time. You are going to yearn for that. You know another American or European that can understand you. So you want to have a group of expats. Not too much. Not too much, because then you're just creating an America and in the US or North America. In the US, that's what the, you know, americans complain about the most is Hispanics or Asians come over there. They just stay in their communities. They haven't learned the language Right, so you don't want to beat that.

Speaker 2: 54:17

You want to learn a language. You want to, you know, be within the culture, right, do things, but you also want to have some American friends here to relate to. Yeah, yeah, you're going to need an outlet at some point.

Speaker 1: 54:30

These are going to frustrate you.

Speaker 2: 54:33

Yeah, the only way to get through it is to have those guys and understand your frustrations. For sure, and it's not a negative thing. That's going to happen, no matter what country you go to. If you go from the United States to Canada, the United States to Italy, the United States, wherever it is, you're leaving your own country because you want to experience things you've never experienced. And one thing I never understood about America, or the worst of that, is everywhere that there are americans, they try to turn that place into it in the united states. And, um, you know, that's the reason most people need frustrated or they want a different, they want something different, right and then. So to me, it doesn't make sense to go to a place and try to turn it into what you left.

Speaker 2: 55:21

Well, I'll say, you know, find what we do better in America, and I think there's one we do a lot better. Say, you go to a restaurant here, like customer service at a restaurant compared to customer service at a restaurant in America, oh, it's so much better there, exactly. So then look at that as a business opportunity. Oh, these guys don't really know food cost of your service, all right, so let me have a business that's with you in a second. You know, because here it's just a little bit. You know they're. They are not quick to give you the bill, they're not quick to fill up your water. Oh yeah, you know, in america they're at the orders.

Speaker 2: 56:01

Well, I think the rule at most restaurants in the United States is you want to go greet the person in the first 30 seconds, right, and get them to water battle in the first two minutes. You're touching tables. We used to say the restaurant industry manager. He's getting out there and he's going hey, all good, that doesn't happen. You may not get greeted here for the first 10 minutes. You'll be sitting there at the table when your home's for 10 minutes. Where the hell are these people?

Speaker 2: 56:28

Yeah, that's one thing I learned. It took me a long time to learn. I used to go out three meals a day. I'd go out and eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and I quickly realized every single meal. There's no way you can go to a place that doesn't take at least an hour, or if it's lunch or dinner, it might take two plus hours. Everything's so slow. So if you have a busy day, eat at home. You've got to stay home.

Speaker 2: 56:55

Do you see yourself living? You'll be in Latin America long term. I think you'll be here the rest of your life. I'm still very young Right now. That's the goal.

Speaker 2: 57:02

I know it sounds crazy, but I haven't had any ambition to go to Europe yet, or Asia. To me, south America is still very unexplored for myself. I haven't been to Conozor. I don't know Argentina, waterway, bolivia. Know there's Olivia, resilient of a bit too. It's still a lot here to see. Um, so I want to keep exploring. You know, at the moment this is my own base, right, yep, yep. And then, from here, I'll take trips for a few months within the Americas. For now, do you miss the US up? I have a loveate relationship with the US.

Speaker 2: 57:41

So during the pandemic, when I came here, you know the lockdown was a little more stringent here, brutal, brutal. They had tokenized cadets for a whole weekend, which is lockdowns for entire weekends, miserable, miserable. So, come March 2021, I decided to accept a consulting role that had me traveling 100% of the year, 100% of the time. So and I was thrilled, I was like, oh, I'm seeing Detroit, I'm seeing Chicago, indiana, you know, ohio, jackson, all this stuff. So that was fun for a year, yeah. But then you know, you remember all this stuff. So that was fun for you.

Speaker 2: 58:22

But then you know, you remember the goal again. Things start getting normal here, the world goes back to normal. It's like, yeah, america sucks. Paying a lot of money for the same things, less, less. Not having as much fun when I go out to people around me, you know. So then, not having as much fun when I go out to people are family, you know so.

Speaker 2: 58:41

Then again I come back here, working from here. How can I do this? How can I do this? You know? So, figure it out. For me it's always like, it seems like it's always two months at the two month mark, at the two month mark in South America. I'm longing for that American mentality and my you know, my American side really comes out. And then I get back to the US. It just hits you in the face. It's more of a culture shock for me now to go to the US, to come here. Absolutely Good question.

Speaker 2: 59:15

But if you were to pick out a few things that you missed the most about the US, what would that be? I do, like I said, said I miss the customer service, right I? I miss just the small manners you know that we have. You know you wait for somebody to come out of the elevator before getting to hear these people, right? Uh, we're little more orderly when it comes to lines. You don't walk your way to lines, they just run off to the counter. They make lines but they skip. Yeah, exactly, they'll skip you in a second. So there's that. There's more. You know I mean things I miss. I guess there's more education, that's right.

Speaker 2: 59:59

So you're going to have a little bit higher level conversations there or there, here, yeah, yeah, exactly. But there, yeah, here, the conversations. If you go far between when you find it here, it's like wow, this guy knew about American politics. It's incredible, he's an educated guy. I'm going to be friends with him, exactly In the US, it's like sure, but I don't know about them. It seems shady. Yeah, you find yourself making friends with Americans here that you probably wouldn't be friends with here. So much Just because you do need those higher level conversations, all those things. But, yeah, I find myself just maybe teetering on the edge of being a little bit of a nuisance to my friends here who I find educated, because I long for that. I long for that high level conversation business, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 1:00:59

I've really enjoyed my time in Latin America. I love it. It's time for me to go back to the other side, though, but it's an incredible place and for somebody that works remotely, fully and is comfortable, you know, working from wherever I think you'd be doing yourself a massive disservice if you work remotely or you're already retired, have a bunch of money and you don't want to work anymore. Whatever the situation is, if you don't actually have to be in the U? S, I think you're doing yourself a massive disservice by not exploring anywhere in Latin America. I don't care if you got in.

Speaker 2: 1:01:35

Sure, learn so much from travel, I mean, I would say before I started travel I mean, I wasn't near as intelligent as I am now. Right, exactly, yeah, for sure. But what do you miss the least about? What is what you miss? You know I hate to make this about money, but you know, spending $2,000 a month on an apartment, you know, apartment in Miami, spending $20 a week and it's not even that good of a loss for $20 in Miami, right, $20. Yeah, I mean, I could go on and on with the price differences, so that obviously, that's a huge reason. It's just nice. However, again, it was more fun over in America, right, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

Also, it's so political. You don't really talk politics here a lot, which is probably good, you know, in the US it's no problem. What are you, team Trump, biden, team Red Blue, team Trump Well, not about. Yeah. What are you, trump, biden, team Red Blue, team Trump? Well, I know a couple of questions. If you're giving me that choice, I would fucking Team Trump, yeah, so it's like it's just this constant. You know, listening to, like Joe Rogan, who looks like tribalism, right, yeah, he's very right, that's what it is. You don't really see that. Yeah, yeah, you don't. You really don't. I guess.

Speaker 2: 1:03:03

To sum it all up, the US is. You know, if you only are concerned about business and making money, man, you should never spend one minute anywhere else in the world besides the United States. If you're wanting to speak with some of the, if you want to have high-level business conversation every day, there's probably no reason to leave the United States. If that's your only goal and I have friends I go back and meet with them. They don't have any stories other than how our business is doing. They don't have anything to talk. The only thing we can talk about is their business, because they don't have shit else to tell me, and I get a little bored with that For sure. So if you're that person, I would say stay in the US, yes. But I think those people are probably going to get to 80 years old and have.

Speaker 2: 1:03:51

I was thinking about this today. I think that guy that's only done business gets to 80 years old and has a lot more regrets, yes, than the guy here that gets to 80. It's crazy cool. I've lived both lives. I mean, yes, you know, I've lived in high end great places in Chicago, atlanta, you know, right in the heart of Buckhead. I mean I couldn't have lived a higher-end life in Atlanta, miami. I've spent time in all those places and you know, frankly, I see people here that are way happier than the people I met in all those places. I think they have it figured out. You know the work-life balance. You know that cliche thing, but for sure, some people do, but some people are. I would say a lot of people here are. You know they're struggling for a reason because they're not working enough, right, that's true too. So that's, you know it's hard to say hey, wake up Get to work.

Speaker 2: 1:04:52

I've learned I don't think you can wake someone up that doesn't want to wake up. Same brain in the culture. There's not that drive. You get things done, they don't have it, they don't have it. What are your current future plans, professionally, personally, I guess near future, immediate future. So I'm really excited. Right now I'm at a really good point in my life.

Speaker 2: 1:05:19

You know I did KPMG right five years and then did that consulting role for a year and basically earned the business of consulting right. And I took that as was like what can I do with myself? And I got I guess I got extremely lucky. I left them and it immediately was booked independently as a role remote. And then again I got booked and then again immediately. So three times in a row I was like wow, it's incredible. But the third one was 100% remote, but they wanted me to go in a quarterly in Los Angeles from there. So it's kind of annoying. So I cut ties with them because then they offered me a job and I said I'm not going to do that. So now I'm continuing more independently, You're doing an independent account.

Speaker 2: 1:06:14

So now I'm continuing more independently but even people outside of the US. Now I've kind of expanded my knowledge. Now I have an IFRS certificate, international Financial Report Standards for other countries now. So now I can do that. You can do it like you did in the last year in the National Academy Exactly Exactly. So I just expanded my opportunity.

Speaker 2: 1:06:37

I'm working with somebody in Australia right now, for example, so I'm excited about that. I'm at a point where I'm literally seeing my monthly income go up each month. That's exciting. So I'm trying to become rich here first. Actually, maybe, maybe it will give me a desire to do that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:54

I think if you're working remotely, becoming rich here is is better. It's easier, right, because there's so many. We kind of hit on it, but there's so many things that you can do here that are some of the best fun you ever have in your life for free or for very little money. You're not doing shit in the US for free. You go to a salsa dance class Okay, cool, it's going to be 25 bucks to get in, right and then they're going to bitch at you, especially in Miami. They're going to bitch at you for being in there and not drinking. It's like looking at you weird. Here, you know, you can go and sit in a place for an hour hour and a half, drink a coffee. No one cares if you order anything, it's just a cool, cool environment.

Speaker 2: 1:07:35

So, all that said, I mean I think there's a hell of an opportunity there for the international accounting thing, because there are a lot of firms in the US that just won't even do it. They will not do it. Well, you were with me when we went to that coffee shop up in Alves, miami, yeah, yeah, the owner stopped and talked to me because I was wearing a Kik PMG jacket. Still, you know, he asked me about his accounting situation. He didn't know how to work their software in a coffee shop. So I mean that, right, there was an opportunity, yeah, sure, so, and I haven't really marketed myself that yet here. Maybe I will in the future, maybe you just market yourself to the americans that are coming. I mean that would be because, honestly, to work for you know places here they couldn't pay, no, they can't pay. It would honestly just be for fun, fun for sure, just learning, you know, which wouldn't be so bad, right, I mean it's so bad, just a few jobs, because if you do learn, uh, the accounting.

Speaker 2: 1:08:31

You know the tax codes here then, you're going to be able to do that for all the Americans that come here, that live more than that. Yeah, if you live here more than six months, you have to start filing taxes and stuff. So you could easily do that. These guys would totally pay an American American prices just to know that it's getting done the right way. Because here it doesn't matter if it's a lawyer, a banker, an accountant. You can ask 10 people anything. You get 10 different answers. Because in Latin America, unfortunately, there is just not a uniform set of rules for anything. In the States there's a uniform set of rules. Every accountant has to go by the tax code that's written by the government. Some know it better than others.

Speaker 2: 1:09:16

Obviously, here I think there's this communication error. Sure, things change and they don't tell people they changed. They're laxed on tax rules. For sure they don't pay your taxes. You don't file. Oh, you're done. People get the. They don't, they don't. You guys don't pay your taxes. You don't file. You're going. Oh, you're done, you're it's over. People get the email. It's time to file. They don't file. So, but they're going to get us, the Americans that come over. Well, for sure, I'm going to make sure they they. They on bus, you know we have a fine. Well, we're going to be the ones that go yeah, so it's not me, man, I'm not saying so, yeah, it's all you.

Speaker 1: 1:09:57

So but um, all right, man, hey, it's great.

Speaker 2: 1:10:00

Uh, great to have you on the show. I'm glad you took the time out to come. Do that Um really, really to the lives of my listeners and is there any way that they could reach out to you? Are you open to reach out to you for your services or your advice? Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn. You know Tyler Wayne Toad, right, tyler Wayne Toad Is that funny. They can find me on LinkedIn. I want to give my email to him. Yeah, yeah, linkedin is best. Linkedin is probably the best, right? Tyler Wayne Toth on LinkedIn. Yeah, good fun, man, I hope this thing grows for you. I'm sure it will. I think you've got a little niche, but probably not a lot of competition down here, especially with your background. All right, guys, if you guys need this guy, reach out to him on LinkedIn. Thank you, guys, so much for listening and we'll catch you next time. Thanks for that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:58

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Matt Chambers Connects. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we'll dive deeper into these two fascinating worlds. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Matt Chambers Connects. You can also find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music and many other major podcast platforms, so you don't miss a show. Also, please join us on our social media channels so you can connect with other listeners and ask your most pressing questions and also tell us what types of guests you'd like to see on the show. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.