The Learning Library
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I joined the Marine Corps in 2002. Not by accident, and not for lack of conviction. I joined because I believed in it — because the idea of standing for something larger than myself, of courage, of doing my part, felt obvious. I was eighteen, and the world was simple. The war cycle happened to…
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Two Loyalties, One Lie We’ve been taught, from the time we’re children, to conflate two very different kinds of loyalty. The first is loyalty to the people who matter most in our lives — our families, our children, the communities we choose. The second is loyalty to a geographic location, to borders drawn on maps,…
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The System That Taught Me Won’t Teach My Kids I grew up in the public school system in a small Canadian town. It wasn’t great, but there were good lessons being taught. I excelled in math and engineering disciplines — the kind of skills that got rewarded in the 90s and early 2000s. I could…
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I used to think I could explain it — why giving birth abroad was something we needed to do, why it was worth the risk, the distance, the uncertainty. I thought if I just laid out the facts clearly enough, she’d see what I saw. But facts alone don’t move us toward life-changing decisions. Most…
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My son doesn’t know he’s lucky. He just knows that in Brazil, soccer meant running barefoot through neighborhood parks every evening, the whole community cheering from the sidelines. He knows Festa Junina means dancing in a straw hat while bonfires flicker and the air smells like sweet cake and smoke. And this weekend, like so…
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I still remember the moment each of us was handed our permanent residency cards in Panama. My spouse first, then me, then each of our children. Four cards. Four keys to a door that can never be locked. Standing in that office, it hit me: our kids will always have somewhere to go. No matter…
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You’re standing at the airline counter. Both passports are in your hand. The agent is waiting. Your brain freezes. Which one? WHICH ONE? If you hold two passports, you’ve definitely had this moment. Even experienced dual citizens get turned around the first few times. But here’s the thing: it’s actually simple once you get the…
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I’ve sat across from families who’ve built extraordinary wealth — eight-figure, nine-figure or more portfolios, multiple businesses, real estate across different markets. By every conventional measure, they’ve won. But when we start talking about the future — where their kids will live and grow up, what happens if tax policy or the social climate shifts,…
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A friend of mine has a daughter in high school who wasn’t connecting with her math teacher. Instead of accepting this limitation, she hired an english speaking Brazilian PhD engineer over Zoom—someone who genuinely loves math and charges what amounts to a modest fee in U.S. dollars. After a few months of personalized instruction, that…
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I did the math: 8 hours at work, 2 commuting, 8 sleeping. That left 4 hours a day with my family — one-sixth of my life. So I left my high-paying Seattle job and took back 40 years of my life. Now I work an hour a day from anywhere — and actually live.
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The first time I traveled alone with my children through a U.S. airport, my daughter was strapped in a stroller and my son could barely toddle. I remember standing in that security line, watching it snake endlessly ahead of us, and thinking: This is going to be hell. I was right. In the United States,…
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We still use language from the Cold War to describe a world that no longer exists. First World. Third World. The terminology implies a hierarchy that made sense in 1975 but has little to do with how millions of people actually live today. The Moment I Knew When we first moved into our apartment abroad,…
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Tired of trusting politicians with your family’s future? Discover how simple moves — a fallback place, foreign income, or wealth abroad — give you freedom they can’t screw up.
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The Ceremony You Didn’t Expect Picture this: You walk into a British embassy in a foreign city. The Consul General greets you personally at the front gate—not with bureaucratic coldness, but with warmth. He escorts you into a private room that’s been prepared and dressed up specifically for this moment. The room is formal. Your…
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The Jet-Setter Fantasy When most people imagine global diversification, they picture a very specific type of person: Eduardo Saverin renouncing US citizenship for Singapore. Peter Thiel quietly securing New Zealand residency. Tina Turner giving up her American passport for Switzerland. Multi-millionaires. Tech founders. Icons. It feels like a game designed exclusively for the ultra-wealthy—people who…
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The Endless Loop You wake up. Check your phone. The headlines flood in: another political scandal, rising tensions overseas, economic warnings, a tragedy that dominates every conversation for weeks. You tell yourself you’ll disconnect, but the pull is magnetic. Notifications keep coming. Conversations at work, at dinner, with friends—they all circle back to the same…
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Most people see immigration, residency, or citizenship as walls designed to keep them out. But the truth is, the global infrastructure is already in place — not as walls, but as doors. The only shift required is learning how to open them. Every country has its own immigration rules: who can enter, who can stay,…
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The first time you stand beneath a monument, wander through ancient ruins, or sit at a table savoring a new cuisine — it imprints on you. But after you’ve done this five, six, ten times in different places, something happens. Another statue, another waterfall, another restaurant — it all starts to blur together. Tourism, by…
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I’ll never forget what my mentor told me when I first started looking at Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programs. He didn’t hesitate: “Skip the real estate. Make the donation.” I looked at it like an investment, because as the name suggests, Citizenship By Investment…so it was hard to justify just giving away $150 to…
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One of the biggest myths I hear from entrepreneurs and middle-income families is this: “I’ll start thinking about international diversification once I have millions.” That belief is the reason so many people never act. They think that second residencies and citizenships are reserved only for the ultra-wealthy. That is a trap: you don’t need millions…
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Five years ago, I stood in a government office filling out visa paperwork to enter the country where I was born. My passport had always been my golden ticket. For decades, I’d traveled freely, never thinking twice about borders or permissions. But there I was—needing a visa for the place I was born. That’s when…
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The world our children are growing up in isn’t the same one we knew. Power is shifting. Economies rise and fall. Cultures and opportunities are no longer centered in one place. We live in a multipolar world, where no single country defines the future. For parents, that means we can’t just think about where our…