Shane Howard 8:15
Yeah. So you know, I’ll I’ll be I guess I’ll be filtered a little bit just in my in my work.
Rolando Rosas 8:22
I don’t want to don’t don’t censor yourself. Yeah.
Shane Howard 8:26
Truth. Yeah. So I think he’s missing. I think he’s missing the mark here. I think there are a lot of people not I come from an entrepreneurial background. So, so an entrepreneurial background. I mean, my previous company, Custom College Recruiting that I built, literally built from my couch, and we span to 53 different countries around the world. So it’s not for everybody. But yeah, I mean, I think we’ve also seen all the studies coming out were 30 to 40% of all workers that are currently remote. If they if they were asked to come back into the office, they would rather quit.
Rolando Rosas 9:06
There we go. We got it. We got it right here, Shane, we’ve got the survey. This is a Bloomberg survey. And it was 1000 adults were asked and 39% of them said they would quit. And then that number went up to 49%. When you ask the younger crowd, the millennials and Gen Z, that number was as high as 49%. And this was July of first of this year, so it wasn’t last year. It’s it’s much more recent. And just like what you said, folks are saying are and I think I think just the other day I saw our buddy Steve, also put out on LinkedIn some information about how April in May we’ll record months for people voluntarily quitting the workforce.
Shane Howard 9:53
Yeah, there’s a lot of numbers out there that sometimes get confusing for what I will call All the average citizen or the average person paying attention, for example, you know, we look at the unemployment numbers, right? The unemployment numbers, actually, because I’m a single member LLC, in a statistical number, I’m not considered employed. So I’m actually considered unemployed. So, you know, these things don’t get, you know, so while yet there’s these different numbers, it’s actually, we have actually probably record number unemployment right now, because of so many people working their own business and you know, single member LLC out here doing these different things. So these things don’t get taken into consideration. We’re dealing with a lot of archaic systems in this and you know, this gentleman, while there’s no doubt, he’s probably much smarter than I am on many different things, and he definitely knows his business. And I think that’s really what it comes down to, you have to know your team, you have to know your business. And if you’re willing to draw a hard line in the sand, that’s a hill that you need to be prepared to die on. If you know it again, I don’t know his self awareness, I would assume he’s very successful and has very good self awareness because of the position that he’s in. But it’s not a uniform thing that we can say, No, you’re coming back in the office, if you’re a leader, and your individual contributors are struggling with the option, maybe you’re not doing a good enough job of letting them know how safe it’s going to be letting letting them know, their life completely shifted. You know, now all of a sudden, they’re also daycare at home because the daycare shut down and the daycare lost, its, you know, last ditch business. So now, how do you tell people, you know, I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of variables in place, and you have to take those things into consideration. And ultimately, it comes down to leading with empathy, and you have to have those things.
Dave Kelly 11:48
Which was interesting, because, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had a whole episode focused on empathy. I think it’ll be okay, you know, for David to change his tune down the road, I don’t think anyone will call him a hypocrite. And what Rolando and I will continue to do is follow up, these are all current interviews, it’ll be interesting to see how this kind of plays out in the end, because, again, you know, like, if you have a conversation with folks that you work with, that are frustrated, someone might say to that frustrated individual, hey, you’re not on a contract, nobody’s forcing you to work here, you can do what you need to do, that’s best for you stop complaining, make a change in your life for the positive and do what you want to do. When people start taking that with this new trend. I mean, we all we all we’ve all discussed it, you know, there’s a lot, there’s more opportunities, there’s a greater reach new industries that we can get involved in new organizations that weren’t in our backyard. with NASA, maybe back in the 90s, we’d have to relocate. Things are changing. And we’ll stay we’ll stay in front of Mr. Solomon to see if his his opinion changes on that as well.
Rolando Rosas 13:00
Well, I think that, you know, if it’s a smart business person like him, you realize that things are not the same, like you said, Shane, and most people that before, before the pandemic started, had a different idea of work. And if about 33rd, let’s just say a third of the workforce has a different attitude about work, then that will impact the work itself. And if a third of your employees are willing to leave the job, you’re going to have a crisis on your hand. It’s one thing if you have 5%, turnover, six, eight, maybe 10, once you get to a third of your workforce, willing to put the white flag in and walk out the door, you could potentially have big disruptions on your hand, internally, just trying to make things work from a continuity perspective, or operationally.
Shane Howard 13:54
No, I totally agree. And I think it’s one of those things where as a you as, as a listener, or a subscriber to you guys’s platform, I think it’s, you know, you also have to, you have to have to take a self analysis of mounds of your own situation as a leader as a business owner, right. And, you know, what’s good for Goldman Sachs is not good for the, you know, the local entrepreneur who has an office of 200 people, you know, in a local community somewhere, and then you have to say, Okay, why is our team pushing back on coming? Did we not do a good job? Before the pandemic like, we’re like so so there’s, there’s so many variables there of? Is it our fault? Is it our fault that we’re not communicating well, and we’re not doing a very good job and what can we change? And I believe this and I know you guys have Steve on not too long ago. And we talk a lot about this. As an individual contributor as an employee right now. You have more power, and more choice than you ever have in a workforce in this country. In the United States. True?
Rolando Rosas 15:02
I think so. I agree with that statement. And I think the power is shifting. You know, if we just deviate a little bit off topic, I think that that’s really the last frontier left for there’s many frontier. But I think that workers rights is one of those things that is still undone, it’s still not complete, there’s still, I should say, there’s still a lot of work to be done. And as somebody that employs people, I’m in favor for workers, being able to have just as much rights as other countries where, you know, we want to be number one, we have to lead also be number one workers rights as among all other things, and this is a great country and I love this country has given me so much joy, you’re an entrepreneur, and what I want the people that work for me, and that work for other business to know, hey, you know what, we want you as a valuable person to contribute to the organization and treat those people humanely. I think that’s what it comes down to people know, when they’re not being treated, right. And when they’re not. And in this case, where things are shifting underneath every industry right now, the power seems to be sliding over to the employees a little bit bit more than then let’s say two years ago.
Shane Howard 16:17
Yeah, I think it’s one of those things where, you know, I think over the last 18 months, we’ve heard of, we’ve heard the words thrown around a lot equal, right, and we’re talking about people, whether it’s, you know, human rights, or workers rights, these different things, right. And we’ve also heard this word called equity. And I don’t think a lot of people understand both of those. If I have a child who has special needs, and I have two children that don’t have special needs, I can’t treat them equal, I can’t parent them equal, I have to treat them and parent them with equity. So I have to give each one of them what they need to survive and be the most successful human being they can, it just so happens that I may have a child that needs extra attention, needs extra support from hiring someone out or needs extra tutoring, or these different things, that we have to look at that the same way, as a leader in looking at business. You know, here’s what we need to do. And this person is a massive, massive importance to our country, or our to our to our to our company, and we need to say, hey, I need to put you in place, and we need to be a little bit more flexible with that person. What’s funny is in the sales world are very sales heavy, driven by businesses and industries, that typically happens, but it only happens for your top contributors, or your most successful salespeople. Very true. You know, so, yeah, it’s an interest. It’s an interesting outtake or, you know, Outlook on it, for sure.
Rolando Rosas 17:52
But I think it’s, I think it’s just going to get more interesting with time, because I don’t think when you give somebody a little bit of freedom, they want less of it. If anything, people generally want more, rather than less. And this last 18 months, there’s, as demonstrated that, in like you said, people that are working at home, their daycare may have shut down, and it makes it a difficult for some folks working from home, whereas before, you know, just take the kids over to daycare. And that’s what I wanted to also transition into a little bit of was those some of those myths that people have. And I know before the show, we put out a little promo talking about, you know, a honey do list that you know, such and such as husband says, Here you go, you’re working from home. So now instead of watching Netflix, or, or sitting around the couch doing nothing, I want you to go ahead and finish off this list. And I want you to you’ve talked to many people around the world. Just let us in on what your experience has been like with other entrepreneurs as well as other people who work from home. Is that true? Is it is it true that people are sitting at home just consuming Netflix and just have all the time the world to goof off?
Shane Howard 19:06
So the top level answer to your question is Is No. I will also preface this My wife saw that promo Yeah. So so she she, she assumed that that was a story or some information that I have passed along and that was about me. So I laughed for about 20 minutes. She said, Are you serious? Did you like are you and like jokingly she was like, that wasn’t like like, I you know, I’ve not met these guys yet. Like we’re like, what was your last name? Her name is Sarah.
Rolando Rosas 19:40
So he didn’t give us it. Shane gave us no input on that promo. By the way. Actually, we shot that before we knew exactly what we were going to jump into. So Sarah, if you’re all over him, it was just blamed myself and Dave and my producer.
Shane Howard 19:56
I appreciate that. What’s wild is she has actually recently quit her job. teaching job and taking on an online tutoring business that she started. And so we kind of joked and the reason I said that is because the other day, she, you know, teachers are preparing to go back into the classroom and those things and she, she was she was stretched out, sitting up in bed working on a computer, and she took a picture and she says, Hey, if you need me, I’ll be in my office, right? Like she’s so it’s like joking, she’s getting used to this whole work from home kind of thing, right? So is that what people are doing? Here’s what I will say, Sure, you’re gonna have some people doing that, you’re gonna have some people that are probably going to take a break and play some video games, you’re gonna have some people that are gonna take a break, and they’re gonna go out for a run, or they’re gonna go out for a walk, or, you know, those different things. What I will tell people is, if you’re focused on what they’re doing, you need to be more focused on are they doing their job? And those are two completely different things. Is a person meeting quota? Are they are they on time with their projects? Are they doing what I need them to do? And if so, should we really care what time of day it’s done? Should we really care? You know, what they’re doing? Like, how many hours it took to do it, you know, that, like, we have to, like, you know, all these different things? Yeah.
Rolando Rosas 21:23
Well, you know, I had, I had I was thinking about this, as we’re approaching this podcast, what would be the easiest way to explain, like spending work from home or there’s so many different forms, like you said, you can start morning to nine to five, it could be, you know, five to midnight, or whatever. A lot of work can be done just about any time of the day. And there are many flavors of pizza, you have pepperoni, you have sausage, you have combination, you have plain, right? Work is not just sitting at a computer, nine to five, work can have many flavors. And just like a pizza has many different flavors. Some people like some better than others. And if you don’t like pepperoni and you want a vegan one, I’m not going to eat the pepperoni one because I’m a vegan, I’m happy to be vegan, but the, you know, the vice versa. If I’m not, I don’t like vegetables on my pizza. I want the meat lovers. You know, give me all the meats, sausage. All right. So why isn’t why treat work, like one size fits all? Hybrid? I think Steve said this as well. There’s other forms of hybrid work right? In person combined with some remote work, maybe working remotely three days a week in office to 100% remote, right? So I think if you’re listening to us, and you’re an influencer in your organization, I would say, you know, explore what your employees are saying, you know, some of them want to be remote, some of them want to come in the office, right. And that may be because, you know, they may be in a small apartment. They may be a young person living in one of the big cities, and they want to walk to the office every day and work from the office because it’s distracting to have their roommates work with them all the time. It just talk to the employees, they’ll tell you exactly what they think. And that makes the organization much more resilient. And folks want to stick around instead of heading for the exits. Absolutely, absolutely. Sure. Okay, good. Let’s, let’s move on to another topic that I want to ask you about. I want to I want to read them to you from Slate instance, we’re talking about about leaders and managers. Once you put up that quote, Ori. Okay. This is a new Slate article that just came out and it was the manager and they asked for people what they thought about remote work and what’s happening. And in this particular match, it’s been exceedingly difficult to attract any candidates with our no flexibility policies. So someone probably similar to, you know, maybe what they’re they work for Mr. David Solomon, who is has been told not to hire more people for remote working, then this person went on to say, I myself, am looking aggressively to move to a 100% remote position. And I’m far from the only one in my company to leave over our outdated butts in seat mentality.
Dave Kelly 24:32
You can tell that you can you can sense the frustration in his voice when he makes when you’re working that particular quote, you know, as a manager, we’re trying to attract employees. The product is the organization. And that just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth short, Shane, I don’t know. How do you feel?
Shane Howard 24:52
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it goes back to this thing of, you know, leaders. I mean, Like, let’s, let’s be honest, there’s probably many more bad or mediocre leaders in the world than there are great leaders. That’s it. I mean, this is sheer numbers, right? So when you look at that, and you say, okay, so how can I be a great leader? In today’s world? I think the very first thing you can do is have your own self awareness and your own knowledge to what, like, where am I at what like, Are my biases, causing me to make or put some policies in place, that thing doesn’t want that, that we can’t hire people. And, you know, ultimately, hiring people. And there’s a difference in hiring people or convincing people. And if you’re convincing people, they’re not going to stay around if you’re offering these bonuses. And if that’s what you have to do to bring people in, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with the process, and how you’ve hired over time.
Rolando Rosas 25:58
And would you think that speak speaking of that, do you think that so the bonuses and whatnot, it’s just speaking to the moment, as companies are struggling to get their arms around what’s happening? The trend? And the trend where more people are saying, Hey, I don’t want to be somewhere where remote working is not an option? Do you think that’s just a flash in the pan? We’re just kind of this the experience of the moment going through the motions is what’s hot. So we got to cater to those people. What do you think that’s something that’s going to be lasting as as we move through this?
Shane Howard 26:32
No, I think that in some form or fashion, this is going to last? You Have you have you have fast food restaurants, for example. Now fast food restaurants, for example, have historically been a lower wage, you know, job right now all the sudden you see them averaging your advertising 15 $20 an hour? Well, what took you like what, all of a sudden now because there’s a labor shortage, you felt like that that’s the case. Right? And then the second part of that is, I think you have a lot of people, let’s let’s talk about waitstaff. Let’s talk about people who are making three and $4 an hour. That’s right plus tips. Right now, when restaurants shut down, those people still had to make a living. Contrary to popular belief, not all those people went and just sat around on unemployment, they went and found other jobs working online to supplement their income. Well, now they’ve seen Wait a second, I can have a better quality of life, and not have to go to work till two in the morning and deal with bad customers and deal with you know, getting food all over me and dealing with you know, these different things. They don’t have to do that. And Steve put this I hate to keep referencing, see what Steve put this very, very directly about a month and a half two months ago is we’re seeing the greatest career migration in history. And we’re just, it’s just starting, because people who never could have fathom, that they even what I’m doing is going and living in another country. And they never could have Fathom these things that they can go do this, and how easy it is. They have options, they have access, things that are going away that have been barriers of entry for a lot of people in these jobs coming from an entry level job, like, you know, mandatory drug tests, or felonies. Now, you know, that’s probably going to go away and not be a question. Even for me, I don’t have a college degree. So so a college degree is not going to be as necessary, or it shouldn’t be on most things at all. Are you good enough? And can you perform the job and that is what we should go to, and then I’m going to pay for quality people, I’m going to pay you a better than good good wage, because I believe in you and your work the investment. And that’s, I think what we’re going to get to. So I think a lot of these industries are going to struggle, because their economics, quite frankly, aren’t built on it. They’re not built to do what they need to do.
Dave Kelly 29:07
You know, for the for the for the workers, what an amazing time. And I hope that we continue to put this messaging out and I hope that they hear it. You’re Not You don’t have to be stuck. Here. There’s more opportunity. And now there’s more opportunity than ever, you know, you just mentioned industries. Shane, what industries do you think could benefit the most from this hybrid or work from home model? But maybe they’re not taking advantage of it, but they could probably see a great return on it.
Shane Howard 29:37
Well, I think there’s a lot of things that are primed for disruption, and it’s not as much the work from home I think that gets that gets lumped into the flexibility of work. Right. So let’s, let’s look at two industries like education. And let’s look at an industry like, like the fast food business. Okay. Maybe Your employee at the at the fast food restaurant and I’ll, I’m catching myself trying not to name a chain here to single anybody out. But let’s say that they they had to sell their house or they were evicted or you know, whatever happened and now their consent now they’re 25 minutes away from their place of employment, they want to keep their job. But because of their situation now it’s considerably harder for them to get there. And most, and this is the case, most franchise owners in a community owned multiple franchises that they do, right? So rather than say you’re stuck at this place, and this is your place of employment, do I have a location that’s closer? Can you maybe work there two days a week? And then here three days a week? Is that easier? Does that make it better for you, so then you don’t have to have the car as much. And you can share the car within your household if that’s what it takes these different things, right. Let’s let’s look at let’s look at education. Historically, we’ve said, teachers, you have to come in, you have to do this, you have to be here all day, teachers, over half of all teachers polled are considering leaving in the next 12 to 18 months.
Rolando Rosas 31:11
Wow, what’s the number one reason for that?
Shane Howard 31:14
I mean, I think now, you have
Rolando Rosas 31:17
an educator in your house,
Shane Howard 31:18
I do. I’ve got my whole My whole family is educators. I’ve I know a lot of educators I communicate with a lot of educators, I think there’s a there’s a combination of a lot of things, the devaluing of educators and the, you know, unprimed or tising of their success in a lot of ways and say, well, education is about the students. Well, it is but you have to have people there to actually teach the students like you have to take care of these people. And, you know, they’ve had, you know, there’s been a lot of talk about benefits being taken away from and, you know, all these different things. What are we doing to make, like we like I don’t think a lot of people realize there were teachers who’ve never been trained on it, who’ve never been given giving an education on it. During the pandemic, they were in a classroom, teaching to students in front of them in real life, while simultaneously streaming to teacher to students online. Like you like, no, where is that taught? It’s not like you’re asking them to do and, by the way, we also need you to play part time nurse in check temperatures, we need you to make sure you’re also playing the role of, you know, janitorial service and cleaning up and after every classroom, and like, they’re like, and they don’t get paid well as it is. So now we’re looking at a scenario, why not, why not be creative? And say, Look, if you want to teach, you have to teach a minimum of two classes, you don’t have to be here all day, we’ll get creative, and figure out how this works. Because someday, maybe, maybe you get some teachers and say, Well, I can teach in the morning and time until lunchtime. But because of the pandemic, some things have changed in our household, and we don’t have daycare after 1230. I need to be home at 1230. So I can cover these three classes here. And that’s what I can do. So should we go without teachers? Or should he be flexible and say, Hey, these old archaic rules that were put in place that somebody decided they were the standard? And let’s actually disrupt this thing, and let’s hire the best possible people we can, even as 17 of our teachers are part time.
Rolando Rosas 33:23
Well, let me ask you about that. Let’s let’s let’s dive into that a little bit more, because I think a lot of folks have on their mind, as we approach September. Fall is not avoid schools is going to are a lot of places is going to be back for a lot of places back in person full. Are you seeing the same type of pushback like we see in corporate America, where a third of the workforce is saying I’m out of here, if I’m remote, are you hearing from you know, your wife could probably even speak to that that what she hearing from from other colleagues. And you know what I rather do remote teaching, it works out well for me or No, I hate remote teaching. And I want to go back and see the kids in person and my other colleagues and whatnot.
Shane Howard 34:05
Yeah, I’ve heard that. I know, she’s heard that I’ve even talked to some superintendents across the country who oversee entire school districts and they genuinely feel that they have to assess whether or not their entire district ever goes back to a traditional five student, you know, five day students employee thing. And so but again, it’s it’s are we are we romantic to something that was put in place, pre internet, pre education, all these different things? Are we actually going to look and see what makes sense and figure out how we can create the best possible environment, right? It’s like the parent that says, No, you’re gonna play outside, you’re gonna do those things. But if that kid doesn’t want to do that, I’m not saying like, you know, force him to do something, you know, like, yeah, okay, but like, are you romantic to that? It’s like, it’s like so the air so I’m 41 Right, it’s the era of the parents, then my generation, pushing every student to go to university, there was this huge push, everybody’s got to go to university, everybody goes to university. There are parents were 40 years old and hated their job and wish they could change and didn’t know what they wanted to do with the rest of their life. So is that because I want them and I don’t want to be the parent at the cookout saying, Well, you know, you know, my son, Noah, he’s, you know, couchsurfing in Europe, am I embarrassed because he’s doing that or, like, you know, like, we have to, we have to, we have to get out of these, these stigmas, and it’s going to change, you know, it’s not political. It’s not about politics, it’s about adapting, and, you know, kind of going back to what I’m doing and traveling, you know, I heard a statement in researching all of this becoming an expat and, you know, international travel and working from, you know, digital nomads. And I heard a statement that says, go where you’re treated best, right? And to me, that resonates, so much of why fight, you’re not going to win a fight, pushing back against a system that doesn’t want to change. Right? It’s, you know, you, you know, it’s like, it’s like, it’s like fighting an addict, right, until that person actually wants to change, you can tell them all day long, and that they’re ruining their life. Yeah, nothing changes,
Rolando Rosas 36:23
nothing changes. Let me ask you about the hits so many sweet spots there that I want, I want to I want to peel a little more onion on, I find fascinating. I’m wondering if, as the fall approaches, and schools going are going mostly going back in person, and you’re talking about this great conversation that’s happening with educators and school districts, the ability for those school districts, and I’ve put this out on on LinkedIn earlier, you know, talent is everywhere. technology is enabling that for these types of interest, education, and, and others. And if you look at all of the pro leagues, you know, I’m a big sports guy play college sports, every single one of them has people from outside the US. Now those jobs are done in person, right? There’s no way you could play football virtually unless you’re gaming. But why not other industries? Why can’t industries like education, go and get the best talent wherever that is to teach the students whatever, it’s pre K, Middle High School, or even college for that matter, the material that needs to be taught. And if you can find especially I would imagine, for in the US a lot of rural districts that have a hard time attracting talent period, because people generally don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere they want to be, especially younger people, they want to be in a town or city that has more things going on, I would imagine that those smaller school districts may want or are embracing technology to bring in teachers from outside their county or the municipality. So they can have students learn advanced algebra, or physics or chemistry or whatever the heck that they need to be teaching. So that the students in their area, get the edge of the world class education they can get from educators from anywhere that they can hire them.
Shane Howard 38:23
Yeah, and I think you’re right, it’s asking that question of, are we is it more important to have the 75th thousandths ranked chemistry teacher because he can be in person, or through this relationship and our alumni, we can bring one of the top 10 chemists in the world that’s willing to come now and teach because he’s retired and he wants to give back. And but he can only do it virtually, which one is the best education
Rolando Rosas 38:54
for those kids? That a second one? For sure. What abs? Absolutely. So
Shane Howard 38:57
it’s adapting and understanding these things. And I won’t dive too much into it. But I have a previous relationship and a working relationship in with the Minister of Education in Shanghai, China. And they the country of China is short 500,000 teachers who speak English language. Oh, well, so what do you think is going to happen? And now they’re paying for housing. They’re paying for visas. They’re providing flexibility. What do you think’s going to happen if we have a mass exodus of teachers? Say, You know what, you don’t care about us here. No problem. China is going to look and say and it’s not like it’s not about China versus the US. It’s about someone omics taking, taking advantage of an opportunity where someone else missed up in business. So if you look at it, and you say, Okay, this because I promise you, they’re gonna be marketing. They already are. They’re marketing these opportunities to American not just American, but English speaking teachers. All around the world and saying, Hey, we’re going to give you a pay more. Really, we’re going to Oh, absolutely, absolutely, we’re going to give you more access to come over here, we’re going to give you more freedom, we’re going to give you whatever you want. Because we need you 500,000 English speaking teachers,
Rolando Rosas 40:19
that’s a lot raise. Yeah, that would, that would put a hole in the education system as a whole, especially, but I would imagine whether it’s public or private school, for that matter, and and either force school districts to pay more, which is one option, or secondly, to say, we’re gonna get competitive here, we’re gonna look at it like a team, like a team sport. And we’re gonna find the best talent wherever we can get it. Because technology, I mean, that’s part of our show is to talk about technology, technology is allowing us three to talk. And we’re all sitting in different places, hundreds, if not 1000 miles, 1000s of miles apart. But we could still have a discussion, we could still have a dialogue. And if we were teaching and had students said, you know, 50 students or 20 students, whatever the case, they can still learn, there’s no impediment there, from throwing the laptop on a good internet connection, and maybe a pair of headphones, and you’re off to the races. You’re totally correct. Absolutely. Speaking of races, I want to jump into the race for you to go abroad, I want you to talk to folks that are thinking, because one of the things that we talked about leading up to this podcast was, you know, if you’re thinking about working from abroad, you talked about China, you just mentioned China, in bringing people in, possibly hiring a half a million teachers, and there are many others that have started to reassess that after the great pandemic of our short lifetimes. Maybe they want to go somewhere different, maybe lower cost of living is motivating them, maybe that the fact that they’ve been in the same city or town all their lives, doing the job, and they want a fresh start. Or like some companies like Microsoft, who said, You know what, you can work anywhere you want, just get manager approval, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter where you are, get the work done, manager approves it, you’re good to go. And they want to go abroad. What do you what say ye, since you’re in the process of doing that yourself?
Shane Howard 42:18
Yeah, I mean, now obviously, it’s a little different, because I work for myself. So that so I, you know, I have some different freedoms there. And I have, you know, some some different opportunities that are afforded to me, but, but but I do share what I what I’m going through with, with other people who are in leadership positions and different things that that are out there and how there is a sense of, you know, I tell people traveling internationally is very much like getting a tattoo. Once you once you do it once, you kind of have the itch to do it again. Right. And you know, I used my brother, for example, he had never been out of the country, he had never done this, you know, never done these different things. He traveled with me one time, and now he literally wants to go two or three times a year. But he you know, he he’s hooked. And I think having this, this openness to say, I can get really good internet, you know, not to let the cat out of the bag, but I am moving to Lisbon, Portugal, that is where I am, I am going to be relocating. And I can go there, I can get better internet there than the current city that I currently live in now faster speeds, I can have all these different a different work life balance, better weather, all these different things that I can go access, because that is a better situation for me and my family. And having that freedom to go do that. It creates happiness. And ultimately happiness, I believe, is the I don’t know, the the KPI, if you will, of a successful career. And, you know, it’s you know, everybody’s definition of it is happy. I know. I mean, there’s there’s so much flexibility happening, that that this is going to be become a thing is this is going this is going to be a thing.
Rolando Rosas 44:11
I believe it, did you want to ask them Dave? Or do you want me to?
Dave Kelly 44:16
Yes, like what are what are some of those the important things to think about as it relates to like tax and political implications when when moving abroad? Do you still stay a US citizen? You apply for citizenship and Portugal? How does that change your tax situation?
Shane Howard 44:31
Yeah, so I’ll give you I’ll give you some insight into what I’m doing and some of the things now I’m not a I’m not a I’m not a relocation attorney, I’m not a you know, a CPA. So there may be a piece I’ll disclaimer that for all of us here that I may, you know, erroneously state something here but so, so in my situation, I will be keeping my citizenship with the United States for the foreseeable future. Will there come a time to why potentially The would give that up. I think it depends on how big my business is. I think it depends on the tax implications. And I think does it make sense United States, I believe, and I may be wrong by one country here, but I believe is the only country in the world that taxes you on your global income. So no matter where you live, they tax you. Right? Which kind of seems a bit wild. But you know, so then when you actually look into that, so there is a myth out there that some people think that it’s illegal to have dual citizenship. And that’s completely not true, I know of people who have five and six different passports, you know, it is, it is completely legal. Now, the tax implications for me and for what I’m doing and my situation they have in in Portugal, they have what is considered a non habitual resident, so it’s NHR, and that allows me to be there and be a resident of, of Portugal and be tax free on any income that I earn, outside of the country of Portugal. So so my business will still be located here in the United States, I will be subjected still to American taxes, I will not be subjected to Portugal taxes, 14 years on any money that I don’t make, or that I make outside of Portugal, there are a couple other things that are in place in the US IRS tax code. There’s one that is that is termed a foreign earned income exclusion. And that is any adult can exclude up to 100, it goes up every year due to inflation, I think this next year, it will be 109 or $110,000, of federal earned income, I can exclude that from my taxes. So my wife together and I, as employees of our business will be able to, you know, 220, some $1,000 a year plus, there is depending on how your status is we’re, we’re both self employed. So I’m fairly certain will actually qualify for this as well, to where there’s $36,000 a year between the two of us to deduct for foreign housing exclusion for, you know, the cost of us living abroad in those things. So, you know, there’s other benefits and other different things from a tax standpoint. But those mean, I instantly get up get a pay raise by you know, just by moving there.
Rolando Rosas 47:30
head, but the life that I would imagine the cost of living is much lower. And I’ve because it’s a much lower like you said, you get an instant asset like a pay raise. Right? Yeah. But imagine that you’re talking about Internet of these probably cheaper, you said cheaper. So let’s how much would just an internet connection is how much is that going to cost you over there?
Shane Howard 47:51
Well, so they do everything over there and packages. This is this is this is probably gonna this is probably going to make a lot of people upset and certainly frustrated me knowing I gotta continue in a year for this. So So there’ll be a family of five of us. So for cell phones, because I got a four year old he doesn’t need a phone yet. So. So for cell phones, 125 channels on cable, and gig internet service over fiber is about $78
Rolando Rosas 48:20
Get the heck out. Where’s my ticket? I gotta go. Yeah.
Shane Howard 48:24
So again, it these little things cost of living is about half of what it is, of what it is here in the States.
Rolando Rosas 48:32
Wow. So if the if you’re making on our own, just that just to keep round numbers is you’re making 100k and you’re able to take that 100k over to Portugal. It’s almost like making an extra 30 or 40%. More.
Shane Howard 48:46
Yes. And now it’s one or the other $145,000 American money in Portugal is either the top 1% or top 10% earners in their country. And you can live. I mean, you can live a really, really nice life for that.
Rolando Rosas 49:07
Very comfortable I would imagine you could you could have help you have you said you have kids. So you could have you know, Nanny care if you wanted to. Or even privates, I would imagine private tutors for that matter if you’re saving so much more money. So that, you know, if you wanted to have way even more work life balance, you have the help that you need in order to maybe get your business going in in in Portugal. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dave Kelly 49:34
So then are you required to maintain a residence in the States or just a mailing address,
Shane Howard 49:40
a mail, you gotta have gotta have a mailing address. And you know, there’s a lot of different services now that exist out there to where you can have a virtual physical mailing address. It’s kind of weird to say but you know, where they’ll actually scan your mail and then send you PDFs of everything that comes in or you can set it up with a family member. You know, though kind of things. But again, you, you still you still file your taxes in both places where you report your taxes in Portugal, you file your taxes, you know, in America, and there’s so many people out there that the communities for this stuff, really, really are, are super helpful. I’ve met with CPAs, and different things that are living over there that are United States citizens who are registered with the IRS. I mean, there’s so they’re so forthcoming with information and help and you know, it’s a really, really cool thing.
Dave Kelly 50:29
So we’ll have to grab some of those resources. And those groups you have mentioned to me, yeah, there’s a Facebook group. And we’ll make sure that we have those posted in the description on the video. Absolutely.
Shane Howard 50:37
Absolutely.
Rolando Rosas 50:39
Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. That you can, the cost of living is much cheaper. And when I know, for a lot of people, hard to wrap your brain around that there are other places outside of the US that have better if not faster internet, for a fraction of what a lot of us they gave gig internet, including cell phone service for that matter, throat cell phone service, like no cell phone service, you know, I pay like 200 bucks a month. Yeah, so the cell
Shane Howard 51:11
phone. So let me let me let me let me give you another scenario that sometimes I don’t think if you guys don’t mind that some sometimes people don’t think about. So I know of someone just recently who just a very large company that will probably soon go public was just offered a job. And they offered them a job with two different offers. One was as an employee, here’s your benefits, here’s your salary, here’s the value of your equity. Parallel to that was let’s or if you want to be a contractor, here’s a higher salary, higher equity, and then you cover obviously your own benefits, and those things. So so so if you are going to be a contractor, what I would recommend, again, I am not a tax professional, I do not play one on the internet. But if you form an LLC, and then you you that you make that part of what that is right, as a contractor, you set that up as a business. There are many countries out there Portugal included, that if you were to move that business, to their location, you can actually get citizenship not residency, but dual citizenship off of what they call entrepreneurship. Visas. Latvia is a big country that does it, the Republic of Georgia, Italy, there are remote cities in Italy, where they’re actually giving homes or selling homes for like $5,000 to get people to move in and to get to do these things. So it’s not like it’s not a scam. It’s not like these are real, legitimate things that they’re they they recognize and are embracing what is coming, and they’re willing to kind of step out in the forefront and say, I mean, think about it i Well, you know, I live in a town of 50,000 people. If if 5000 People moved here that are making $200,000 a piece. Our community benefits greatly from that,
Rolando Rosas 53:12
whether those dollars circulate, right, and all benefit, absolutely as base benefits from that.
Shane Howard 53:20
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s it’s just like when a company goes public, or gets acquired, and you know, you know, in Chattanooga, for example. That’s why they a lot of people don’t know this, but it’s a huge startup ecosystem to where they had a couple billion dollar exits, and all that money stayed there, those people that got the got the money stayed there as well. They have the fastest internet in the country, they have all these different things. It’s wild. And we like we we don’t think about these things. So there are a lot of these things. There’s digital nomad visas, there’s freelance visas, and a lot of these countries to where there are benefits and you you get privileges and you get special tax breaks just by going and living in another country, where the cost of living is free, your medical is free, all these different things, just because you own a business and you want to come live there.
Rolando Rosas 54:10
That’s it’s just fascinating. And what we’ll need to do is, like Dave said, is have some of those links, because I’m sure that folks that are watching us during the playback, if you’re watching us during the playback, you’d like to know more about you know, maybe you are looking at cotton being a contractor or working remotely. And this suits what you’re looking to do. I want those folks to be able to get to those resources. So we’ll ask you those. If you’re watching us their playback, check out the description. We’ll have links below for you.
Dave Kelly 54:39
You know, this is pretty exciting. We did a we did a whole episode on the top or the top 10 places to relocate here into the United States Rolando
Rolando Rosas 54:49
with our with our friend from PC mag. Yep,
Dave Kelly 54:52
yep. And Chattanooga raided Sasha Siegen Chattanooga rated number one and now We’re talking, you know, we’re expanding on that topic. It’s pretty awesome. Pretty exciting. Hey Shane. Where can where can people find you? I know that you had mentioned that you’re starting a blog for your transition into into Portugal, but how can people find you if they want to learn more about ya?
Shane Howard 55:15
So on the socials, you can find me at The Shane Howard, it’s, it’s pretty easy to find our YouTube channel that we’re launching kind of as a family. So we’re actually a week behind on episodes, you know, hence, why you may want to rethink going into doing a vlog with your family, you gotta, there’s some, there’s some nuances and we’ll get into a cadence of of better reliability each week for that, but that channel is titled it’s time it’s time to travel the world. So it’s time to see the world. So yeah, you can check us out at logos blue with a plane. It’s really, really easy. But yeah, I’m more than happy to connect with anybody who wants resources into looking into these things. It’s kind of one of those things just by conversation a lot of people have, have heard me talk about it. And then now they, you know, now they are looking into it and moving. And we’re probably going to have some folks that I know moving with us when we move. So yeah, it’s gonna be really cool.
Rolando Rosas 56:16
Well, I tell you what, it’s certainly convincing for folks that are, maybe there’s a lot of people that are working very hard. And they’re, you know, if they can work remotely, certainly, again, 20-30, or even up to 40% increase in pay without having to any do anything, but relocate. And on top of that, the possibility of getting some additional benefit. In your, in some situations, it’s a no brainer, if you have that flexibility. And I think I think the world will be diverted from what you’re saying it’s gonna be a very different place. So you have places in Italy doing this in Latvia. I know that’s the case for a lot of countries in Central America as well, as you mentioned, China, you know, they’re they want to poach our talent. It’s definitely going to be very interesting, I would say the next 12 months would be very interesting, as things kind of develop along And I’ll definitely want to check in with you. But before we get to this next 12 months, I want to ask you some some things. These are rapid fire questions. These are just to get so that people get to get to feel you a little bit understand who you are a little bit. These are no wrong answer types of questions. So are you ready for those Ori? All right, so what who is your favorite musician or musical group right now? Or of all time?
Shane Howard 57:35
Right. Right now I’m a big fan of an artist out of Ireland called Dermot, D E. R. M. O T. Kennedy.
Rolando Rosas 57:42
And what kind of music is that?
Shane Howard 57:46
I really don’t know how to it’s probably a little MIT. He’s done some crossover from Ed Sheeran to, to hip hop like it’s it I don’t really know I’m not I’m I’ve worked in the music business kind of behind the scenes. But I don’t really get into the whole genre because it now everybody’s kind of across everything. Some of it even ties into a little bit of folk music, modern folk music, probably from Ireland as well.
Rolando Rosas 58:12
Interesting. Interesting. So check them out if you haven’t heard of them. favorite app on your phone.
Shane Howard 58:23
favorite app on my phone, favorite app on my phone, probably Spotify, that it’s I listen to working from home, I get to listen to music a lot and have my headphones in most of the time. So
Rolando Rosas 58:32
but if i Alright, alright, so we have a Dave and I have a debate about that. I’m a Pandora guy. Oh, no edify guy.
Shane Howard 58:40
You got it. You gotta be converted over Yeah.
Rolando Rosas 58:44
I create playlists now and listen to exactly the music that I want. I know. I think Spotify had that for a long time. planned. Yeah, they brought that over. Yeah,
Shane Howard 58:53
they do. One of the big reasons I like to listen to new music. So it’s how I came across the artists I just mentioned. So their AI engine and their recommendations are really really good at recommending you people who are similar to what you listen to. And that that that really is for me. I won’t leave. I’ll be
Rolando Rosas 59:10
sounds like the the TikTok of of the streaming world that TikTok does a lot of the same you know, recommend Yes, here. Yes. And they’re out. We talked about food earlier. What’s your favorite food?
Shane Howard 59:25
It’s probably more a type of food. So I’m uh, I’m here lately. I’m a big Indian. Curry anything anything curry not spicy. A lot of people don’t try Indian or they don’t venture into it because they associate spices with spicy. And yeah, there’s a lot of and Portuguese food now that I’m heading that way and just left and just just really enjoyed a lot of traditional Portuguese dishes while I was over there as well.
Rolando Rosas 59:55
And you’re going to be you’re right next to Spain’s thread Southern Spain and you’re not too far from France and southern France go enjoy the wonderful food and wine. Me pack my bags and go there.
Shane Howard 1:00:08
Come on a visit. Yeah, come over there. We can do it. We can do it. We can do a week of remote shows like yes, yes. And you come over there.
Rolando Rosas 1:00:15
Yeah, maybe we make a tour of it. You know, we’ll go from Lisbon up to Barcelona. I was in Madrid, Barcelona to do something in can go up to Paris and maybe ended in London or something. I don’t know how you go. I’m
Dave Kelly 1:00:27
glad that I’m glad that this is all being captured on video because there’s proof. There’s no turning back. But yeah,
Shane Howard 1:00:33
proof. Yeah.
Rolando Rosas 1:00:35
hold you to it. Oh, man. At some point, man, I would love to go. I wanted to go before all this craziness. I wanted to go to see some of our we have partners and suppliers that work with us in different countries like Germany. I am dying to go to Germany. See what that’s about? There’s a lot of great cities and stuff in Germany. So hopefully at some point, I’d love to go see some of those partners that we work with out there. And some of these other countries in the European in the EU. And lastly, I want to ask you favorite method of communication. This is a multiple choice. We’ve got email, text, phone, instant message or a DM.
Shane Howard 1:01:18
Probably Probably text.
Rolando Rosas 1:01:22
Text Message. Buddy, Steve said That’s his favorite method, a method right now as well. He’s these big into text. Yeah
Shane Howard 1:01:30
I agree with him being a client of mine. We communicate quite often through text. Yeah, absolutely.
Rolando Rosas 1:01:37
All right. Well, we want to thank you for joining us today. Shane, you’ve you’ve answered all these questions, being a great sport, and dropped a lot of knowledge on us today, a lot to think about. And if you’ve been watching today, we want to remind you to like and subscribe. We want to bring you more content like this, but let us know is are we on topic? Maybe we’re off topic. Maybe there’s other stuff you want us to bring to you. Drop us a comment. Let us know. Reach out to us on all the socials hit the Like, subscribe, all that stuff. Because we sneak out other insights through the week. And we’d love engaging with our audience. Now, before we move on, let’s go and reveal the answer that trivia Dave,
Dave Kelly 1:02:24
wrap it up with a trivia question. You know, this is just kind of ironic, I think with this particular question.
Rolando Rosas 1:02:29
Yeah. We’ll have to ask ask Shane. what he thinks.
Dave Kelly 1:02:33
So Shane, according to expat insider survey, which of these countries is the most welcoming to foreign foreign workers? Canada, Vietnam, Colombia, Oman, Costa Rica, Portugal, Taiwan, Mexico, Cambodia, Bahrain. And thank you to my producer Ori for putting up the longest multiple choice list ever, because you had earlier than I was going to be the one reading this. So thanks. I get you back some other time. So Shane, what do you what do you say here?
Shane Howard 1:03:05
I mean, I actually know this because I’ve actually seen the survey and multiple other surveys. It is Portugal.
Dave Kelly 1:03:13
It is Portugal. So it was some best of luck with your travel. Shane. I’m going to be following you Overlander will be following you through through this trip and adventure, certainly will be inspiring others, for sure. I got this extra grin on my face today, because you’ve already inspired me.
Shane Howard 1:03:32
I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me
Rolando Rosas 1:03:34
know, with a lot to chew on. And oh, thanks for coming on. And if you want to know, bonus tip, the number two country was Mexico and a number three was Taiwan. So there was the I think in this survey the first time, Portugal had jumped all the way to the top spot, because they were always hanging around in the top five. But they jumped to number one, taking over Mexico and Taiwan. So it’s really interesting, you’re going to the best place that that foreigners thinks are very welcoming. So kudos to you will be I can’t wait to see how your your adventures play out online on YouTube. So I’ll be I’ll be also subscribing and liking to your vlog.
Shane Howard 1:04:12
They’re fantastical. Whoa, welcome to the journey.
Rolando Rosas 1:04:17
Awesome. Awesome. And already, we’re going to end screen here. We want to remind people, okay, so I think I gotta look this way. Let me look this up. I think that’s where is that right. So if you made it all the way to the end of the stream, or watching us on Instagram, we have other helpful videos right here in these squares that you want to check out. Myself and Dave, and let’s see we got future of work and some other videos that will be helpful as you your journey goes through the remote working process. Or you want to find out what it’s like when you do work from home and you need technology to make it easier for you. So thank you for joining and I will see you in that and next video.
Outro 1:05:01
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