I spent my afternoon on a beach, eating steaks with an Instagram model. Americans spent their day getting locked down by the government. Some states even went as far as to threaten arrest for any citizen who so much as visits a friend’s house. This is no way to go through life. If you want to escape tyranny, you need to become a sovereign individual.
What does that mean?
Well, it’s a term from James Dale Davidson’s classic book, The Sovereign Individual. And it basically means that you turn yourself into a man so independent from on government or location that you can live almost anywhere.
If your business or lifestyle is dependent on one location, you’re screwed.
Meanwhile people who work online or hold passive income assets can go anywhere they want.
You don’t even need to be rich to become a sovereign individual, either. Done right, you can set yourself up for location independence at almost any income level. In this article, I will show you how while also providing several business opportunities to consider.
The Sovereign Individual Capitalizes Off Geoarbitrage
Foe the unfamiliar, “Geoarbitrage” is a fancy word meaning you live somewhere cheap while making money someplace that’s expensive.
Picture this: You’re a New York lawyer who charges $700 per hour but you work remotely. Instead of living in Manhattan, you live in the Caribbean. There, you enjoy warm weather and delicious seafood while spending 1/10th what you would back home. Because you’re naturally spending less, you also end up building wealth much faster than your peers.
If everyone else in your income bracket is saving 10 – 20%, geoarbitrage allows you to save 50 – 90% of your money.
It’s basically impossible not to get rich this way.
Geoarbitrage also means you can live a higher quality of life for less money, so you can always take a pay cut without suffering. If you make $3,000 per month in the USA, and bug out to Vietnam on an income of $1,200 per month, you’re still able to eat at restaurants or go on dates.
By the same token, geoarbitrage makes it incredibly easy to bug out to somewhere cheap even if you’re forced to live off savings. If I were in America right now with a second wave of lockdowns incoming, I’d race to Mexico as fast as possible. And from there I’d move to a small, cheap beach town where I could stretch my money.
Remember, in some of these places you can live well for under $1,000 a month.
More Money, Less Problems
Having a low income is okay when you’re starting out. But it should never be the end goal. Being poor sucks wherever you live and you don’t want to be that guy who is 45 years old with $700 to his name.
Building wealth allows you to advantage of HUGE opportunities. Especially if you live abroad.
You can get a second passport, join the ultra high-end social scene, own a house, go sailing around the entire continent, etc…
Basically, there’s a lot of opportunity to unlock. But, you need some money to do so. The bar is lower than in the US, but you still a decent income. In many countries this means $50,000 – $120,000 per year.
Vietnam, for example is dirt cheap. You can live like a king – going to fancy restaurants and living in a penthouse – for well under $30,000 per year. In a country like Thailand, you can live in a 5-star hotel go clubbing every night for well under $60,000. While you do need money to live lavish, the bar is much lower than it is back home.
As a sovereign individual you want money because this opens the door to new options. Those already leveraging Internet businesses weren’t affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. They could simply pack up and move to a safer and less restrictive country.
Meanwhile, those with traditional jobs were stuck in place and suffered.
With that in mind, here are some opportunities for you to enjoy complete and total freedom.
What Type Of Businesses Can A Sovereign Individual Launch?
Service businesses are the easiest businesses you can create and profit from. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best business (more on that in a minute), but they are straightforward money-makers. You offer to do some activity (like coding or writing emails) and your client pays you.
That’s it.
Building a service business is all about connecting with clients. If you can do this, you can easily make a good living off simple skills like writing or programming. In case you want to learn more, I recommend checking out Bob Bly’s Secrets of a Freelance Writer. This is a fantastic guide to starting your own freelance writing venture, and it shows you exactly how to build your own successful service business.
While freelancing is great, you are tied to fulfilling client orders. And this means you’re spending time writing, coding, or editing video.
In contrast, affiliate marketing allows you to write one blog post or publish a single Tweet and then reap commissions from all the sales rolling in. This is a little harder and less reliable than building a service business, but it is more lucrative and offers a true source of passive income. Additionally, you can make affiliate marketing much easier by learning the strategies on what to sell and who to sell it to.
Affilorama is a fantastic walkthrough, helping you build up an affiliate marketing business that generates profits on autopilot. If you want to learn everything you need build and maintain a passive income machine, this system is for you.
Final Option
Lastly, I want to offer the ultimate passive income nuclear option. And that’s buying and holding high-yield assets. This could be Bitcoin, real estate, or dividend stocks. Personally, I like dividend stocks since you can often gobble them up at a steep discount to their true value.
This year alone you could have bought shares of Citibank, Dow Chemical, or AT&T at points where each stock offered a 7% cash yield. Likewise, there are stocks like Altria (the company that makes Marlboro cigarettes), British American Tobacco, and the entire Vanguard energy sector fund which all paid out more than an 8% yield.
In other words, if you have $100,000 – $300,000 to invest, you can become fully retired.
If you think that’s crazy, there are people who do this all the time. Here’s one example of a guy who collects $50,000 per year holding cigarette stocks.
You don’t have to be a genius or take massive risks either. Dow Chemical is about as blue chip as it gets. Buying a few thousand shares and enjoying your early retirement is a no-brainer. Of course, you do need to find these deals. And while there are many ways of doing so, sometimes getting outside advice can help.
Using Dow Chemical as an example, the stock never appeared on any of the major financial programs or in any featured investment articles while it was down. And unless you knew what to look for, you missed out.
Because of this, I suggest investing a couple bucks into the Top Dividend Stocks newsletter. You get all kinds of plays in a variety of industries and with companies from around the world. If you want to live off assets, this is the perfect service. With quality information and a few smart decisions and you’re financially set for life.
Closing Thoughts On Becoming A Sovereign Individual
2020 is the dawn of a new era, and anyone who thinks otherwise is in for trouble. If you want to prosper, you’re going to need to prioritize freedom over all else. This means building location independence and escaping countries stricken with totalitarian lockdowns.
Waiting around to see if things get better is a losing move. It has been throughout history (ever hear of the USSR? Nazi Germany?).
Stack your paper, or start a business ASAP. Then catch the first flight you can get.