How to Build a Location Independent, Passive Income Business with Matt Bowles

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:01    Why is this so funny? <laugh>, we've been trying to do this interview for so long or this conversation, and now we're doing it in a shopping mall area in Brazil, in the middle of the night.  

Matt:    00:00:18    And it's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be amazing. I'm excited to be here. I'm gonna figure out how to create my own path, create more autonomy over my life. I am gonna start my own business. There's only one problem. Had absolutely no idea how to start a business. Mm-Hmm, right? Because some people might be like, oh, well, we'll just get an office down the street for now and then we'll all work together and then later on we'll figure out. We did not do that. My business partners and I from day one have never even lived in the same city for a day. One important distinction to make is location independence versus nomad. Yes. And that's an important one because I suggest that every single human being should absolutely strive for location independence. So they closing a rental property from on the nomad grid.  

Kristin:    00:01:00    Yeah. With no internet. I wanna just remind everybody that neither of us knew what we were doing. I didn't know anything about real estate before I moved to Costa Rica. I did that for seven years. Like, just because you're out of school doesn't mean you have to stop learning. Like, there's so many ways to learn these days. So it's like anything that you wanna do and you haven't learned it yet, just like go out and do it. Imagine if everyone was sharing these stories and everybody was doing the jobs that they wanted to do. Like that's why we're here. Like, that's why I'm doing this. That's why you're doing the podcast. Like we just wanna inspire people to go and do their thing. And then if everyone's doing it, the world is gonna be more amazing than it is now.  

Kristin:    00:01:48    Hey everybody, Welcome to another episode of Badass Digital Nomads on Digital Nomad TV. I'm here with my friend and fellow badass, assuming I am one, Matt Bowles. Matt is a longtime digital nomad, world traveler, entrepreneur and real estate investor, and he also just launched a new podcast called The Maverick Show, where he interviews entrepreneurs and other real estate investors from all over the world, um, about what they're doing and their businesses and their lives, and how they're living the location, independent lifestyle from countries all over basically. So Matt and I are here on day two of being on land after Nomad Cruise 7. We're in Brazil, as you can tell from my shirt. And we just spent about two weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Barcelona, where we are here, hanging out with about a hundred or so digital nomads, uh, in the month of December, just enjoying the tropical air living, working, hanging out at the beach.  

Kristin:    00:02:53    And basically today is one of those days where both of us have been working all day from sunup until after sundown. And it's just a day in the life of a digital nomad here. So I wanted to have Matt on the show because he has such an interesting story about how he became a digital nomad, pretty much self-made, um, actually is self-made, self-taught. And he's just been on such an interesting journey and he has a lot of great advice for any aspiring or current digital nomads about how this lifestyle can really be maximized.

Podcast Interview:

Kristin:  So welcome, Matt.  

Matt:    00:03:28    Thank you Kristin. Great to be here.  

Kristin:    00:03:30    <laugh>. And how are you liking Brazil so far?   

Matt:    00:03:32    I love it. And I've been here twice before to Brazil, never to Puerto house, so this is new for me. Mm-Hmm.. But I lived in Rio for two months, went to Carnival and we had that whole experience. And when I was there, I literally did not leave Rio Uhhuh for 60 straight days. 'cause I was like, who would leave Rio? That's, I don't wanna miss. I've heard a day of this. That's what, and then as I was traveling around the world, um, last year I met someone and I ask people all the time, what's your favorite city in the world? You know, to well traveled people. And she said, Sao Paulo, Brazil is my favorite city in the world. And I was like, you've been to Rio <laugh>? She's like, yeah. And I was like,  

Kristin:    00:04:05    It's better. Wait, any Brazilians watching this? I don't know. <laugh>. Yeah. And I,  

Matt:    00:04:09    I'm like, you've been to Tokyo and Istanbul and all these places. She's like, yeah. And I was like, and Sao Paulo is your favorite city in the world. She was like, yeah. And I was like, tell me why. And she started telling me. I was like, that sounds like a place I need to go. So I went back and went to Sao Paulo and it was indeed amazing. Yeah. It's one of the top street art cities in the entire South America. It's one of the top culinary cities in South America. So I was blown away by Sao Paulo. And so now I'm super excited to be back in Brazil, yet a different location for my third time. But every time I'm here, it's a really special place for me.  

Kristin:    00:04:36    I am so happy to be here because that is what I've heard from basically anyone who's ever been to Brazil. So I can't believe it's taken so long to get here, but here we are. And by the way, you guys don't know how long it took to <laugh> get seven foot tall. Matt <laugh> in the frame with me, uh, with a short, um, lavalier microphone cord here. So if we are different height, I'm five feet tall. You're how tall? Six foot five. Six five. So like, we're making it work. Right. Better done than perfect. Um, Matt, how, how did you get here? Like, not that you were on a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, but how did you get to this point in your life where you are traveling around the world, where you've been to Brazil three times, you're on the Nomad Cruise, you're working here remotely. Um, how did this all start? Like how did you end up as a digital nomad and how long ago did this occur?  

Matt:    00:05:32    So the first thing that's important to start with is that all of my academic background, including my graduate work and all of my work experience up until the age of 30, has absolutely nothing at all to do with what I'm doing now. Good point. So I had, I have a bachelor's degree in sociology. I have a master's degree in International Peace and Conflict resolution. I worked in the nonprofit advocacy space for a number of years doing really important work that actually really meant a lot to me. It was very fulfilling for that reason. Um, and it was really, really great right up until it wasn't. And we had a change in management and all of a sudden everything just started crumbling quickly in my world. Um, and one day I walked in to work and I unexpectedly got fired from my job, totally outta the blue, blindsided by it.  

Matt:    00:06:20    And it was like, you know, had to get out of the office that day. You know, give us your cell phone 'cause it's a company phone. I literally went out in the parking lot and had no phone. I had to drive to the Verizon store to buy a phone to call my mother to tell her that I got fired. Like I literally had no phone. It was great. So as literally I can remember on that day as I was driving 30 years old, I said, I am not gonna apply for another job. I'm not gonna work for anybody else again. 'cause this could happen at any time. Yeah. I'm gonna figure out how to create my own path, create more autonomy over my life. I am gonna start my own business. There's only one problem. I had absolutely no idea how to start a business because I didn't have any business background white problem.  

Matt:    00:07:03    So, so literally after I went to the Verizon store, got the cell phone, told my mother and my best friend told him what had happened, I then drove straight to the bookstore and I went to the business section. And I literally that day started reading books on how I started a business. Wow. And then each day I went into the bookstore and I just went to the business section. I sat there all day, like they knew me. Right. And I would just order espresso and just read business books. And then that was 2007. And what happened is one day I walked into the bookstore, went to the business section, looked at the new books that had just come out, and there was a book on the shelf that had been released that day called The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. Picked it up, looked at the back, read through the entire book.  

Matt:    00:07:45    Literally, I, I read it the day it came out. Oh my God. And I said, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm gonna build. This is the lifestyle I want to create. And so for me, you know, I had to think about, okay, what do I know how to do that I could build a business out of? And so what had happened was, for the last few years, uh, before I got fired from my job, I had been learning how to invest in real estate on my own. Mm-Hmm.. Because I was like, well, if I'm working in the non-profit space, I'm not gonna make a whole lot of money. So I better figure out this investing thing. So I started, um, investing in real estate and I did that by first of all, buying my own house to live in. But I bought a four bedroom house and I rented out three of the bedrooms to friends of mine.  

Matt:    00:08:24    So I had three streams of income coming in. I was like, oh, that's pretty interesting. Then all of a sudden that one year my house appreciated more than my entire annual salary Wow. Than I made on my job. And I was like, that's an interesting concept. I could have sat on my couch and played video games all day and made more money than I did working 60 hours a week. And so then what I did is I did a, a cash out refinance of my house and I started buying out of state rental properties. Okay. Um, in other states and other markets that were advantageous to own property. And, but I would buy them in a manner that was turnkey so that I didn't have to be the one taking care of the tenant and dealing with all the maintenance and all that. Right. So I had local property managers in place and stuff like that.  

Matt:    00:09:05    And as I was doing this, I was reading everything I could read about real estate and I was studying the model and how I was buying the real estate. And what happened is my friends started coming over to me and they said, how are you doing this? How are you buying these properties? How are you buying outta state? How are you doing this? I said, oh, well I'll show you. And then they're like, can I buy the same stuff you're buying? I was like, sure. So I literally would just bring friends and then they would buy what I was buying. I wasn't making any money of it, I was just showing 'em how to do it. But I understood that from the business model that as I was buying these real estate through the companies that they were making a commission. And it was cool 'cause I didn't have to pay it. It was, you know, the seller pays it, but they were making money off of me and off of my friends and everything else. Right. Yeah. So I was like, you know what, I understand this business model and I also understand how to help people to buy real estate. So I think I could start my own brokerage that could serve real estate investors exclusively. And so, um, we did that, uh, and founded, uh, the company that I still run today 11 years later, which is called Maverick Investor Group.  

Kristin:    00:10:01    Wow. That is amazing how all of these little things came together. And just by putting one foot in front of the other, you went from working at a nonprofit, not making any money to owning your own real estate investment and brokerage and living a location, independent lifestyle with no business background just from reading books and trying things out. Is that right?  

Matt:    00:10:27    Yes. And there's one more key component, which is that as I was reading these books about what it takes to start a business, I realized I did not have all the skills that were required, but I knew that I had a certain section of skills. So I self audited myself pretty openly and honestly and said, this is what I'm good at. I think I can do this is what I'm not good at, have no idea how to do. But for that category, I knew other people that knew how to do those things. Uhhuh <affirmative>. And so I actually reached out and I teamed up with two business partners and the three of us together had very complimentary skill sets that were different from each other. Yeah. And so we came together and we started that business and we've been helping people buy rental properties now for 11 years, um, across probably 15 different US states.  

Matt:    00:11:10    And one of the things that is really important, I think about the entire process is that we, from day one decided we were gonna build this as a location independent business. Right. Cool. And this is certainly not a traditionally virtual category, a real estate brokerage, right? Yeah. It's not a traditionally virtual category. So we studied the four hour work week, we studied the concepts of creating virtual business infrastructure, and then when we designed our business plan, we literally designed it with the end goal in mind. This is the lifestyle that we want the business to facilitate for us. And then we just retroactively designed the path to get from the start to where we wanted it to be. And since we had that vision, we made sure not to make any geographically restrictive choices. Mm-Hmm.. Right. Because some people might be like, oh, well we'll just get an office down the street for now and then we'll all work together and then later on we'll figure out. We did not do that. My business partners and I from day one have never even lived in the same city for a day.  

Kristin:    00:12:13    Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, this is just breaking so many misconceptions about how you have to work. Because like, especially me coming from a real estate background, I thought that I was in a fixed location and that I couldn't get out of that. And I didn't even think of this idea. I wish I did because I think it's a really good idea and I, I wish I thought of it, but um, yeah, like I had the idea that, well, to work in real estate you have to open the door to show the property. But now with technology, there's so many different ways of doing it. And even in 2007, I was working in, uh, real estate in Costa Rica when the four hour work week came out. And I remember reading the book and being like, wow, shout out Tim Ferris. But also that doesn't relate to me because my job is different in some way.  

Kristin:    00:13:02    And I had this like fixed mindset that I couldn't do my job remotely or apply all of the principles that were in the book. So I think it's super cool how you just reverse engineered, um, from the lifestyle that you wanted, the skills that you had, the skills that you didn't have, you went and got from complimentary business partners and then just made it happen. So what are some of the skills that you thought you weren't good at that other people could fill for you? Because a lot of us have these like limiting beliefs that we're like, well, I'm okay at this, but I'm not good at that. Therefore maybe I couldn't do that. Or I don't know anyone who does that. So what is something that was  

Matt:    00:13:39    About, well, I mean for me, I mean anything relating to it, right? Mm-Hmm., like how to build a website, how to do any of this stuff. Like when I started, I mean, I was completely had no idea how to even approach that type of a process. Right. And so I have a friend of mine, um, who is my best friend, who's now my business partner, Valerie. Uh, and she and I had worked together in different capacities, right? Like we had actually done our graduate work together. She was also in the nonprofit space, but she and I had facilitated, you know, group trips to places and we just worked really well together in a totally complimentary way. Like, my skills are not hers and her skills are not mine. And we just compliment each other amazingly well. So she really runs like all of the operational side of our company.  

Matt:    00:14:17    I know that I can sort of do sales and marketing and some of the, you know, PR and like that kind of stuff, but she just like crushes at the operational side. Okay. Oversees all the IT stuff, that kind of thing. Which is really not my strong suit. Um, and then our third business partner was, uh, is our corporate real estate broker. And he actually had experience professionally in selling real estate in the actual industry on the brokerage side of things. Right? Yeah. Which I didn't have. And we needed that 'cause we needed a broker who had a minimum of two years full-time work experience and really understood not only the legal compliance stuff, but the entire business of real estate from the business side.  

Kristin:    00:14:51    Yeah. Because those are expensive and lengthy lessons to learn if you don't know Right. The brokerage side, like you can just lose a lot of money and time for sure. Figuring it out the hard way for sure. But bringing in an expert, I think that obviously the fastest way to fill that need or learn something. For sure.  

Matt:    00:15:06    For sure.

Kristin:    00:15:07     And so now you, it's been about 10 years that you've had this business and um, can you see yourself going back to anything else? Or is this your new normal? Not even new? It's been a while now.  

Matt:    00:15:22    A hundred percent. And one of the things that was really important to us as we went in this new direction was that we didn't leave behind the things that were previously important to us. Meaning that we wanted to totally pivot and create more autonomy in our lives, create more freedom of mobility, create that location dependence, create control over our time so we could have a largely time asynchronous, um, lifestyle design where we can sleep in as late as we want to stay up as late as we want and structure our day. But in moving towards that freedom, we didn't want to give up a lot of the things that were important to us. As I said, Valerie and I came from a non-profit background and doing advocacy work. 'cause those issues are close to our hearts. And so what we decided to do was to create, um, institutionalize into our business from the day one that we founded, that 10% of all of our net revenue that comes into the company before the managers are paid. Anything that we would donate that Wow. To causes that are really important to us. And so we were able to continue to, you know, make the positive change in the world that we wanted to see, but now through increasing financial donations and then to contribute our time on our own terms. Yeah. Not because we're working for an organization that requires it of us for employment. Right,  

Kristin:    00:16:33    Right, right.  

Matt:    00:16:34    So, so we institutionalize that and then we build the business in a way that our customers also, all of our clients could buy investment real estate from anywhere in the world. So you can live anywhere in the us, you can live outside the us you can be a digital nomad, you can be a foreign national, you don't have to live near the property, but you can buy performing rental properties. They've already been renovated. Love that. They already have tenants in place paying rent long term. They've already got local property managers in place. And so you can buy it and own it from anywhere in the world. And you own the actual deeded hard asset. You get all the benefits of owning the real estate, but you don't have to be the one that's the landlord and the rehab and doing the headachey stuff of real estate. Yeah. So the business for us needed to be congruent, which was that it was facilitating the lifestyle design goals of the partners and our staff. Yeah. But it was also helping every single client to create their own location independence and lifestyle design and passive income so that they too could work less travel the world and that kind of thing. And then three is that it was throwing off, um, the 10% towards these causes. So as the business did better, so too did the causes that we cared about.  

Kristin:    00:17:44    That is ama that is such amazing foresight to check all of those boxes. I mean, lifestyle design, that's basically what you did before. That was a thing. You're, um, working while traveling, but you also have passive income. Some people have solely passive income. So what kind of people can buy these types of real estate assets? And then how is that a path to location independence?  

Matt:    00:18:08    Sure. So anyone can buy these type, this type of real estate for us, just to be super clear, we work with individual regular people who Mm-Hmm., maybe they've worked at their jobs, saved up some money, they want to invest it and they're thinking, should I buy stock? Should I buy mutual funds? Should I buy something else? Right. And they want to at least be diversified a little bit, even if it's not the majority. Uh, they want to own some actual real estate, the hard asset and as an investment property because it really is one of the most advantageous asset classes around. Yeah, for sure. For so many reasons. And so regular people, the average property price for us for a fully renovated performing rental property tenants already in place is about a hundred thousand US dollars because we are doing this in markets that are advantageous to real estate investors. Meaning you can buy relatively low and rent relatively high. So the price to rent ratio is advantageous and it's in an economically healthy market. So lower than average unemployment, people moving in lower cost of living. Right. We are not doing this in San Francisco. Right. Or Manhattan or Los Angeles. Yeah. Right. So as a result of that, people can can buy properties like nice single family homes and primarily owner occupied areas for around a hundred thousand US dollars. Now, if,  

Kristin:    00:19:23    And they don't have to know the market inside and out themselves, like you guys go out and find that for them.  

Matt:    00:19:28    So we, yeah. So we provide all of this different market information and we do informational webinars about why certain markets are advantageous to real estate investors. But then also we work with local market specialists on the ground who are acquiring these properties and renovating them. And they're doing it in very specific micro markets. Okay. So if you take a big MSA, a big city in the US and you say, okay, the macro statistics are this. Okay, but that doesn't mean that every property in that market is a good investment. And in fact most of them are actually not a good investment. Mm-Hmm.. And a lot of people aren't gonna tell you that, but the reality is that most real estate is actually not a good investment either because it's too expensive. Yeah. And your rent is not gonna be able to cover all the expenses and still have a profitable operating income.  

Matt:    00:20:14    Right. Or because it's too low end and it's not a desirable area to live in. So you're gonna have very transient tenants, you're gonna have high vacancy, you're gonna have higher than average repair costs for how people treat your property. Right. And that's going to, uh, demolish your cash flow as well. So you wanna buy in what we call the real estate investor sweet spots, which are particular areas of the city, um, where, where that dynamic is optimized. Right. You can optimize your cash flow, but get a qualified stable tenant that's gonna treat your property well and stay there for the long term. So that's exactly what we do. And then we present them as, as a buy private buying opportunity. So this is off market stuff. Mm-Hmm., it's not something a real estate agent can find you. Um, and the properties are already performing.  

Matt:    00:20:53    So as the buyer from anywhere in the world, all you have to do, you're gonna do your own due diligence the same as you normally would. Yeah. But you don't have to be there in person. You're gonna hire a local home inspector to go in and inspect the property. Right. Get to sell it to fix anything that needs to be before closing. You're gonna hire an appraiser. If you get a loan, you have to have an appraiser anyways. Yeah. The appraiser's gonna go in and confirm the market value of the property. Right. You can confirm the property taxes and all your expenses. You're gonna know all of your numbers and everything before you actually close on that property. So as soon as you decide to close, it means it's past your due diligence and you cash flow from day one from anywhere in the world, and you never even have to go to that city.  

Kristin:    00:21:31    That is so cool because there, it's just a complete parallel between the digital nomad lifestyle and the type of real estate investing that you are engaged in and that you've kind of developed. Because as a location in, as a location, independent remote worker, you don't have to work where your office is or where your headquarters are to be able to get your work done. And as a real estate investor, now, you don't have to buy in the market that you're from because that's the only one that you know, or because you have to be there in person to do all of these other things. So I think it's a, a really interesting parallel that like this mindset is changing in so many ways that not only do you have to stay in your hometown or wherever your former office was, you can live anywhere, work anywhere. And then you can also have, um, a physical asset investment that you don't have to physically be there to provide maintenance on or to oversee. I mean, this is amazing times that we're living in right now.  

Matt:    00:22:32    Completely amazing times. Yeah. And we had, there were people on the Nomad Cruise with us that are buying real estate through Maverick Investor Group. Mm-Hmm., we almost, we almost tried to do an epic thing where we actually did a closing on the boat, but we couldn't get Oh really? We couldn't get the documents there in time and get the notary That's cool. Like actually on the boat. But I thought that would be such a cool sort of iconic nomad moment if you're actually closing a rental property from on the nomad cruise.  

Kristin:    00:22:53    Yeah. With no internet.  

Matt:    00:22:54    With no internet. Yeah. Because you, you get the docks and then you get a, you get a mobile notary. But um, but we're probably gonna close it from Brazil, but Yeah. But people are buying these from all over the world and you know, ultimately, I mean I've traveled the world with a number of people who have been able to buy enough rental properties that it covers all of their living expenses. So they've just been able to quit their job and now they just travel the world living off of their passive rental income from their properties.  

Kristin:    00:23:18    Amazing. Yeah. And it's like totally realistic now. And um, so let's talk a little bit about that because you have been on some adventures. Uh, how many countries have you been to? Do you know?  

Matt:    00:23:28    Probably about 65 at this point.   

Kristin:    00:23:30    Yeah, 65. That's, I mean, you've been everywhere, but, um, tell me or talk to us about how you've been traveling lately. Like how did you start out traveling, um, let's say eight years ago for example, or 10 years ago when you were fir when you first became location independent, and then what is the reality now? Um, 'cause I know you've done some interesting co-living and retreats and group travel and stuff like that. So kind of take me through how you started and then why you started seeking out a community more.  

Matt:    00:24:02    Yeah. So first of all, I mean, one important distinction to make is location independence versus nomad. Yes. And that's an important one because I suggest that every single human being should absolutely strive for location independence. Mm-Hmm.. And all that means is that you have the choice where to live, how long to live there for, when to travel, if to travel Yeah. And so forth. It's just your choice. Yeah. So I founded my company, um, in 2007 and for the first six years of running my business, which was a totally location independent business. Right. I was based in Los Angeles, California because I chose to be, yes. 'cause I liked LA and I wanted to be there. I could have been anywhere, but I chose to be there. But I could go home and spend a month with my parents for the holidays and do that, or I could, you know, do any of that stuff.  

Matt:    00:24:47    But I was based in one location. And then over the last, just over five years now, 2013, I left LA and I began nom mattering around the world. And the last five years, I have been to 50 countries now. Right. Um, and so the way that I started doing that, I did it in a couple different contexts, right? So I initially left the US I was in, um, a long-term relationship and my relationship partner needed. She was doing, um, PhD at UCLA in Egyptian history and she needed to go to Cairo for a year to do her dissertation research. I was like, cool, I'm location independent, I'll go to Cairo for a year. Why not? And then these  

Kristin:    00:25:26    Are the cool things that you can do when you are location independent. I've had friends say, Hey, I am gonna be in the Philippines on business. Do you wanna come meet me? Sure.  

Matt:    00:25:35    Go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, and then like after we lived in Cairo for a year, it sort of like clicked that like we could really live anywhere. And so she had a year to write our dissertation. We're like, we don't need to go back to LA for that. Right? Why don't we just pick our top five most exciting locations in the world that we'd most love to live and just go run an Airbnb for two months in each one of those places. One of those places was Rio de Janeiro, which we went to for Carnival and the following two months after Carnival. So in 2015, which was my first time in Brazil, which was totally epic and amazing. Um, and then we were just like, you know, Cape Town, South Africa, Barcelona, and we just picked these places and just went there.  

Kristin:    00:26:12    And you're working and she's writing her thesis. Yeah.  

Matt:    00:26:15    Yeah. We were both working super cool, both traveling. And then when she and I broke up, I then joined a program called Remote Year, which takes, uh, location independent professionals. And they have a programs 12 month long program. They also have now a four month version, but, um, the 12 month is the primary version. And you just go with a community of about 40 people and you travel the world together for an entire year living in one city a month for 12 months across four continents. Yeah. I think now that love that concept, I think now they're even doing five continents. Right. So it's like you get to see the world and experience it and not only are your logistics taken care of, international airfare, accommodations, coworking space access, and then like events on the ground that are planned. So cooking classes and waterfall hikes and wine tastings all available to you. Right. And coordinated. But in addition to that, you have the same community for the entire year that you're seeing every day and exploring the world and having these epic adventures with, which was just a truly amazing experience for how deep and the connection with those human beings can go. Yeah. Truly, it's spectacular. And so once  

Kristin:    00:27:24    You have an anchor, it's like your home, your community, even though you're in a different physical place.  

Matt:    00:27:28    A hundred percent. Yeah. That became family for, I mean yeah. And, and, and the people that you know, finished the program, a couple of people dropped out along the way for different reasons, but the people that finished the program, I mean, that's family for life. Yeah. I mean, we still like have, you know, texting like daily like a year and a half later. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I mean it's amazing. Um, so, so after I finished that, so what I'm doing now, I finished that about a year and a half ago. And since then I have been traveling around and plugging into social communities.  

Kristin:    00:27:58    It's almost overwhelming how many legitimate connections you can make in a year or a few months even by going to these places. Like, I don't know, um, a lot of people from my channel might know that I made an intention in 2018 to meet as many digital nomads as I could because even though I had been living a expat or a location independent lifestyle for quite some time, I wasn't in this digital nomad community. Like I heard about Digital Nomads in 2013 and I never became a part of it really until 2018. Like I used to travel with friends, I would stay in one place for a few months or even years and I would get to know people on the ground. Um, I didn't understand really like the magnitude of, of the community even so early on. Um, and even like something like Nomad Cruise for example.  

Kristin:    00:28:49    Like you could genuinely meet hundreds if not thousands of people in a year by linking up with multiple digital nomad events or conferences or remote work programs. And everybody has this mindset in common where they're all open to meeting other like-minded people and just like embracing you no matter how old you are, what you look like, where you're from, it's like everybody's welcome. So it's such an amazing time to be alive really. And it's cool that you spent the first six years in LA for specific reasons before deciding to travel because I did something similar living in Costa Rica for eight years in Nicaragua before I decided to start nomad around. So yeah, you can work from home. Like I worked from home in Costa Rica for like a year or more, a year and a half before I decided to um, start traveling full time. And I've gone back and forth. It's an ebb and a flow. This is a lifestyle that's gonna happen, you know, hopefully permanently for many people. So where do you see this going in in the future? Like you're kind of part with the 2007 Tim Ferris crowd. Uh, what do you see this transforming into in the upcoming years, decades?  

Matt:    00:30:08    It's so exciting, I think, to see all of the, you know, continue to meet new people. Like you said, there's a lot of events where you can go and just really get immersed. Like you and I both spoke at the  Nomad Summit this year, but different events. Yeah. So I,  

Kristin:    00:30:23    Thailand and Vegas.  

Matt:    00:30:24    Yeah, exactly. So I spoke at the Chiang Mai  Nomad Summit in January and you spoke at the Vegas Nomad Summit  

Kristin:    00:30:30    And we didn't even meet until March or April  

Matt:    00:30:35    On the, on the last nomad you've ever met.  

Kristin:    00:30:37    Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't even know you were at  Nomad Summit until after. This is like parallel lives. There's so many. It's a small world.  

Matt:    00:30:43    Yeah. But like you meet so many people and as you do that, then you start to hear the ideas that different people have and the initiatives that they're doing and how they're building these programs. So like, you know, if you look at the evolution of these programs like that we just mentioned some of them Remote Year and Hacker Paradise and the Nomad Cruise and you know, you talk to the founders of these programs and how are they thinking about the vision and developing and where are they going? And these are constantly evolving things. So it's a very exciting time Yeah. To be part of that and to see where it's going. But I think there's a lot of really amazing stuff coming down in the future and a lot of very exciting things for people to think about. Um, and for some of these companies to solve.  

Matt:    00:31:21    For example, I will tell you where I think one of the biggest opportunities is that I have not seen any company even speak seriously about yet, but I think is, is gonna be just a massive opportunity, which is how to facilitate families doing what we're doing. Right? So if you look at these programs now, right? I mean, Remote Years put well over a thousand people through their program. Hacker Paradise has put well over 500 people through their program. Like, you know, wifi tribe and all these, all these groups, if you combine 'em, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people that have gone through long-term world travel stuff, right? Right. And these people are now, many of them, you know, getting married, having kids doing this sort of thing, right? Are they gonna wanna stop traveling? Are they not gonna want to expose their children to those opportunities?  

Matt:    00:32:05    So I think, you know, just as an example of an, I think an amazing business opportunity is if you take a model like Remote Year, okay. That facilitates all of your logistics, right? Accommodations and airfare and all this kinda stuff. And you add to it a family component, meaning that parents, let's say with children in a, a similar age range, right? So like per program would be with kids in a particular age range, right. Would be able to go and you add an educational component and a daycare component professionally. Mm-Hmm. into the trip. So the students are actually,  

Kristin:    00:32:38    That would be amazing.  

Matt:    00:32:39    They're actually able to get taught, right? As in as in school, right?  

Kristin:    00:32:43    Like homeschool  

Matt:    00:32:44    Homeschool. But you're actually with a whole bunch of other kids. So it's not actually at home  

Kristin:    00:32:48    Just isolated  

Matt:    00:32:49    Individual or isolated. Yeah. You're actually in a class with other kids. So you have the social component, you have the educational component, you're just simply able to do it while traveling the world.  

Kristin:    00:32:58    That's a really good idea. And  

Matt:    00:32:59    Then you have the daycare component. So the parents can also go out and like experience whatever they want to experience Right. As a thing. And you have it all built in so the kids have a social dynamic just like the adults do. I feel like that is, that's  

Kristin:    00:33:11    Super cool.  

Matt:    00:33:12    Really gonna be the next, the next level. Yeah. Whichever company I think executes that properly. I think there's massive business for that.  

Kristin:    00:33:18    Also, a large percentage I heard somewhere along the way, like about 40% of nomads are 38 and older. So they're, I mean a lot of these companies are started by young people and maybe catering towards a certain age range, even though some of them accept all ages, but maybe focused on a lot of singles and self-employed people. But there's definitely an opportunity to help families more. There's tons of families in my group and even though I don't have a family of of my own, I have relocated a lot of families. And it does take a, a considerable amount of work finding schools, things like this, um, to accommodate families. But to really have like a sustainable Remote Year family community on the road with all of these boxes checked. That sounds like the dream.  

Matt:    00:34:02    And how amazing would it be to be able to actually educate your kids by showing them the actual historical sites, the school of the world. Yeah. Instead of reading about it in a book and learning geography. 'cause you're actually going through these countries and learning math through currency conversion and learning language through immersion and you know, all these types of things. I mean, it's, it would just, I it would be amazing.  

Kristin:    00:34:22    Travel is the best education anyway. For sure. And you have been educating people in another way through your podcast by sharing more stories and supporting this global community. Um, tell us a little bit about your podcast. Who is it for? What type of listeners and what type of guests are you having on and what are they talking about?  

Matt:    00:34:42    Sure. So it's called The Maverick Show. Mm-Hmm.. You can find it on every major podcast platform. Just look for The Maverick Show with Matt Bowles, uh, the show notes page. You can also go to the website. It's the maverickshow.com and there you can find all of the episodes as well. And basically the subtitle of the show, it's called, the Full title is The Maverick Show Adventures in Real Estate, entrepreneurship and World Travel. Cool. And so my goal is to interview today's most interesting real estate investors, entrepreneurs and world travelers. People that overlap in at least one, usually at least two of those categories. So you of course were on Kristin and delivered an amazing episode number three. We'll link it. So if you wanna first, uh, you wanna first uh, episode, you can listen to Kristin's. Um, 'cause it's really amazing when we go very deep on some incredibly important, uh, stuff.  

Matt:    00:35:27    And you deliver a lot of value in that episode. So it's people like you who are starting very interesting businesses and running them remotely and having amazing travel adventures. You know, other guests I have, I've interviewed, um, you know, one woman that runs an architecture and design company, award winning. She has Fortune 500 clients. She does designs a retail space for everything from the duty free shops at JFK Airport to sacks off fifth, Wow. To the sharp image to Barnes and Noble. Built it, built it and runs it totally location independent while she's no mattering around the world, she was literally on my Remote Year program. 

Kristin:    00:36:01     Amazing.  

Matt:    00:36:02    And running that kind of a business. So people that are running non-traditional, non non-traditionally virtual category businesses, people that are just doing interesting stuff. And I go deep with them on how exactly did you build that? How exactly do you run that? How do you do that? How do you manage it internationally? Distributed staff? How do you deal with stress and optimize your productivity and manage time zone changes? And how do you structure your travel life and, you know, all of this kind of stuff. So I, I find really, really interesting people that are living this lifestyle. And then I try to go very deep with them on how they do what they do and how they built it and how they sustain it. And I try to pull out the entire goal of the podcast is to pull out actionable tactical tips so that other people can apply them, the listeners can apply them in their life starting right away.  

Kristin:    00:36:47    I love that. And also that when I met you, you didn't have the podcast yet and you were learning how to do it. And I could see now from the story that you told at the beginning of how you got started in real estate, you literally started studying how to launch a podcast, how to create a podcast. And you meticulously followed every step. And I know, 'cause I was on one of the first episodes and I was like, wow, Matt is really doing this by the book. Like everything is, I've, I've studied how to make podcasts before as well. I haven't done it yet. But I think that it's very commendable that you did that Again. You've been able to, um, recognize something that you wanna do, see where your skillset falls short, go out, learn the skills, come back, make it. And now how many episodes have you published?  

Matt:    00:37:31    We are just about to publish episode number 10 and we've got probably about 83, 5 star reviews on iTunes already. Yeah. Like people are really feeling what we're doing and it's a really exciting thing 'cause it's sort of a new space to sort of merge these different things together, I think. Right. So, but people are really responding well to it.  

Kristin:    00:37:50    Yeah. And you didn't have a background in radio or podcasting? I didn't have a background in creating videos, but I knew so many times I was like, I wish I was recording this, this conversation. I wish I could share this with people. I wish I had a GoPro strapped to my head when I did that because that was fucking awesome. And it's like one day I just woke up and said, why don't I do that? And now I'm doing it. But you know, it's been a learning curve, but you could still do it. And so yeah, that's, I wanna just remind everybody that neither of us knew what we were doing. I didn't know anything about real estate before I moved to Costa Rica. I did that for seven years. Like, just because you're out of school doesn't mean you have to stop learning. Like, there's so many ways to learn these days and you can acquire a skill that you want.  

Kristin:    00:38:36    I've been telling everyone, I'm really holding myself accountable now 'cause I keep talking about learning how to DJ something I wanted to do like my whole life. And I finally took some classes doing it and now I'm gonna have to give a show at some point, you or dj. But it's like anything that you wanna do and you haven't learned it yet, just like go out and do it. Imagine if everyone was sharing these stories and everybody was doing the jobs that they wanted to do. Like that's why we're here. Like that's why I'm doing this. That's why you're doing the podcast. Like we just wanna inspire people to go and do their thing. And then if everyone's doing it, the world is gonna be more amazing than it is now. So everybody please make your stuff, sell it to us, share it with us. Just do whatever you're gonna do. Do you have anything else to add, any, any advice for people who might be still on the fences or thinking like, it's in my five year plan, it's in my 10 year plan.  

Matt:    00:39:30    The main thing I think that's really important is to, if you think that, oh, this is only for other people or I couldn't do it because whatever that list is on your, I couldn't do it because if you serious, if you're serious about it, go through each one of those obstacles and think very creatively about how you could potentially overcome that obstacle. Yeah. And I can almost assure you it's possible to overcome. Yeah. And somebody else right now has overcome that exact same obstacle and you're not the first person facing it. So first of all, you can do any of the stuff that we're talking about and you know, thousands of other things as well. Yeah. Whatever your passion is. And I think for people to be able to reconnect with their passion and figure out what that is and what's most exciting to them, and then how to create a path from where they are now to where they want to be. And the most important thing too is just, it is never too late to  

Kristin:    00:40:26    Never  

Matt:    00:40:26    Totally pivot. Totally change direction and reinvent yourself literally at any age. Kristin and I both respectively just separately interviewed one of our digital nomad friends to, uh, today. And, uh, I interviewed him a couple days ago who embarked on his digital nomad journey at age 50. Yeah. And he has the goal of going to every single country in the world, starting at age 50 and documenting it all on his podcast. I mean, there is no age limitation, there's no career. Like, just 'cause you're so far along in your career or you climbed the corporate ladder up to this point, or you've invested that. So-called  --

Kristin:    00:41:05    Forget about your sunk costs,  

Matt:    00:41:06    the sunk cost policy. Right. Forget about that. It's like, oh, I put so much into this. Listen, today is the first day of the rest of your life and the rest of your life is very short. So give a lot of thought in terms of designing it and taking control of it.  

Kristin:    00:41:20    And remember that action begets motivation. You don't need to be motivated to act, you just have to act. And then you're gonna be motivated to keep going because you're gonna be having so much fun and you're gonna be doing so much cool stuff that you're just not gonna wanna stop. So everybody get out there and do it. Thank you Matt, for hanging out and talking to us on DIGITAL NOMAD TV. Guys, if you want to see more interviews, travel videos and vlogs with digital nomads, or go behind the scenes in digital nomad lifestyle, then make sure to subscribe and we'll see you again next week. Bye from Brazil.