Traveling as a Transformation – How Living Abroad Changes Your Mindset with Gregory Diehl

Keep an open mind – this is critical to succeed in international business. To see different viewpoints, to see different cultures, get a holistic picture. This is what happens when you travel outside of your home country and keep a different viewpoint that those you grew up with.

Today’s podcast we talk about this transformation, Greg Diehl is on the show to give us some unique viewpoints and things to ponder. I have to say, he had some very bold and interesting items to use as food for thought, and I hope you enjoy this lifestyle focused podcast today!

We Got a review- Max Martin

191 episodes and still going strong — 5 stars
– by max-martin from United Kingdom on Sep 6, 2017
I’ve listened to 191 episodes and they just keep getting better! – each one is an interview and Michellini gets them to open up on their Asian business experience – what works and what didn’t work – so you can avoid their mistakes.
Sometimes in business you’re trying strategies until something works, while the competition circle overhead, and suddenly one chance conversation changes everything – with Global from Asia you’re getting that conversation every week.

√ Gregorydeihl.net
√ Brand Identity Breakthrough
√ Travel As Transformation
√ Olivier Wagner’s new book – U.S. Taxes For Worldly Americans
√ Greg’s new publishing company – Identity Publications
√ Serpent Za’s youtube video on some of the pitfalls foreigners fall into in China
√ Uncomfortable Conversation With Gregory podcast
√ Identity Publications

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Aurelia Pay. I use them for sending money to my Chinese supplier from Hong Kong – it is a cross border payment solution between China, Hong Kong and South East Asia. So when I need to make a payment to a Chinese supplier, I just hop in to place a remittance, pay to their HK bank account, and Aurelia Pay settle RMB within the same business day! Check them out

So that is it – keep an open mind! Step out of your comfort zone and be a hero. Do it like your home country is counting on you. Those who venture out of their home countries are representing this culture, and it is our responsibility to be a positive influence in the global community.

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“Never just settle on anything that whatever you happen to inherit from your culture immediately around you. And there are plenty of ways to do that to get new ideas in your head that normally wouldn’t exist that you just stayed but what was immediately available to you.”

Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice and now your host, Michael Michelini.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Aurelia Pay. I use it personally for sending money to my Chinese suppliers from Hong Kong. It’s a cross border payment solution between China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. So, if I need to make a payment to a Chinese supplier, I just hop online to place the remittance, pay to the Aurelia Pay Hong Kong based big account and Aurelia Pay will settle RMB within the same business day. So, check them out online at www.aureliapay.com A U R E L I A P A Y .com or check them on their link at our show notes.

Mike: Alright Global From Asia Episode what number is it, Angelica?

Angelica: It’s episode 195.

Mike: Awesome. Episode 195 www.globalfromasia.com/episode195 for links and notes and all that fun stuff and pictures things like that. I was just talking on Angelica, she knows I’ve been pretty beat up the last couple of weeks. I mean, this has been fun but you know when the Shanghai Chat Conference meet up there for Global From Asia, meetup in Guangzhou saw Alibaba and then came back down to the South. Spend the last 3 days back to back interviews in Factories and Chinese Amazon FBA sellers. There’s a huge massive millionaire sellers. It’s gonna be amazing video series. Were also gonna be some open to audio podcast you guys can listen in if you don’t want to watch the videos. It’s gonna be some awesome content for the Cross Border Matchmakers that’s the main point. Angelica would gonna start having this massive sellers on this youtube videos and audio podcast to share their stories and how they are making millions on FBA in the US and overseas. So I’m really kind of curious to see how the, how you guys react on that. But we also rush really hard talking Kris, too. Everybody’s rushing before the holiday. I don’t know if you know, there’s no holiday in the Philippines, right? But in here in China there’s a week holiday next week, do you know that?

Angelica: No, I don’t. So what would that holiday be?

Mike: Basically, I think its 2 holidays in 1 longer than usual. Its mid autumn festival which is, in Chinese called (foreign language). Basically this Mooncake. Have you heard a mooncake?

Angelica : Yes, I do.

Mike: You would seen them around. Im sure in the Philippines there’s gonna be some kind of festivities but you’ll see this mooncakes everywhere. I don’t want to disrespect anybody’s culture but I don’t really like eating them, do you eat them before? Do you like them?

Angelica: Yes I do. I eat them.

Mike: I guess the Starbucks ones are pretty good. I don’t think they like normal ones. Normal ones, they have that egg in the middle like a boiled egg in the middle, not my style. And also, there’s another holiday, it’s a national holiday so I think they’ll celebrate Chinese army some thing like that. But we’re getting political maybe I’ll disappear one day if I get too political. So well how about this week’s your member series it’s getting, how works, how many of them? What number on member series we have for VIP members?

Angelica: Actually, we already featured 5 members. The featured member of this week is Sandor Weyers, he’s the founder of Elementz and iDopt. So yeah, it’s been great and there will be a couple of more this coming weeks. So, hopefully they read our member series blogs.

Mike: Sure, we’ll like it up on the notes. Yeah, Sandor is awesome. He’s based in Hong Kong, we worked together on projects and he’s doing great things bridging South Africa and Hong Kong and China in Asia. So, he’s a great guy and you guys check out that blog series. Well and now we got for us the podcast, so the podcast this is one of the recording with Greg Diehl. He got very strong opinions and we had a long, not long average talk about travelling as a Transformation. It is actually the title of one of his books. He’s written bunch of books, he’s also helping others write and publish books so as an author he’s got really cool perspective. So this is kind of, this podcast is more of a lifestyle category here at Global From Asia we mostly talked about business. But sometimes we talked about lifestyle. He has a very unique perspective on life and perspective on the way we live and the way we think. So I think it really does challenge the ways of how people think and he had some experience in China that he didn’t like and he talks about in the interview. So without further adieu, I think we’ll tune in to the interview with Greg, are you ready?

Angelica: Okay, cool.

Mike: Alright! Thank you everybody for tuning into another Global From Asia podcast. We have with us the deal maker, Gregory Diehl. Thanks for being here, Greg.

Greg: Thank you and thanks for having me and thank you for reading my books. Thanks a lot.

Mike: Yeah, It’s very fascinating and I’ve been reading a lot of, you’ve been involved with quite a few books that seems or writing like a lot ahead of me I think. I tried to keep the habit but you’re definitely a very active writer and I have read and reading your books and books that you are involved with and it’s really been fascinating. So, thanks for contributing that knowledge to the world.

Greg: It’s just amazing to me. It seems such like untapped outlet. I mean, it was just a couple of years ago that I figured out that this could even be done as whole self publishing the book language. Unfortunately, I came as a real by somebody who helped me, they were gonna help me publish the book and then I have figured out to do it on my own and I said and I realized this is not hard to figure out. And my first book got to pretty high ranking on Amazon then I had another book about travel and then I started helping other people write and produce their own books. The most recent one was when about taxes for US expats who left the country but still have to pay taxes back to America which was the primary author was a CPA named Olivier Wagner. But I wrote for that too and help them publish and produce it and so its just I feel like endless idea out there now that I can neither write as my own book or help other people publish and produce.

Mike: Yeah, it’s been very, very cool. I’ve got a couple out there living more niche or maybe I’m just not good marketer. But I love writing and sharing so your books have really helped me with my mindset. I think my favorite one was travellers transformation. Is that your latest book, I believe, right?

Greg: Yeah that one came out about 5 or 6 months ago. No it’s not that long, 3 or 4, 5 months ago. Traveller’s Transformation so just Chronicles, I wanted to read a travel book that wasn’t a travel book like go to this really interesting place and have amazing experience like what a great world person you’ll become. I wanted to be more just about how you as a person change in your perspective of yourself and the world around you as you experienced its different kinds of places. So I do of course talked about places I’ve been to but is more about, here is what I learned from each place I went to over the last 10 years as I went from country to country now having been to about 50 of them.

Mike: Yeah, so today I was actually interested on highlight on some of in my, I remember specifically here in China experiences and I related and somehow stay here although seems like your opinion is like in a way I agree but I love to talk about this. It’s a very interesting country I mean the people are amazing right and people and country are not always the exact, you can’t judge a book by its cover may be or you can’t. But I mean Chinese people are amazing, I remember your experienced is kind of being helping with English course as a common way here to earn living is teaching English and there was a family that was like really wanted you to stay right? That was some I really start, of course I’m a guy in China, foreigner in China so that stuck out to me and I was actually curious coz to hear more of that if you’re willing or you remember that kind of part.

Greg: Ohh I remember, I don’t think I could ever forget China. China is like comment in the book probably the worst experienced of my life without exaggeration. That chapter I talked about was titled Arriving at the Dark Knight of the Soul so that should give you an idea of my opinion of it. But because of that I think I learned the most from China more than any other place I’ve been in the world because it really showed me a completely different way of society being structured people being taught to live and to think and just. Some things you never would have been considered possible until you see it played out on a mass scale all around you. And I did work in education while I was there for about 6 months so I saw a different perspective on than the tourist just goes there and does get involved in the society. I’ve worked in government schools and worked in private schools and then I worked privately with this family who basically I was gonna leave because I was so miserable there. And they begged me to stay because they have been looking for years for somebody who could work with their kids to get them full in English as well as I did because apparently that is really difficult to do find somebody who could actually create some kind of emotional connection and get them excited about learning wherein school they are just packed into this classrooms like 60s and hundred kids at a time and they just wrote numerization, learned this repeat this, learn this repeat this. So they learned English, learned quotes for 12 years or so in school and at the end I can barely ask hello, how are you? I’m fine thank you and you? And you and sounds like making fun of them but that’s literally the extent of most of their English after 12 years of studying in school. For somebody who can’t even speak anyway so it was big deal for them and seeing to them how important it was that I was there to help them because they were trying to immigrate to the US and their kids need to fill an English to do that. And they were desperate to get out of China, this place I myself want to get out of. Yeah it really forced me to alter my perception of humanity and a lot of things about myself. Interesting experienced. I recommend it for somebody who wants to see very extreme perspective on humanity. But that’s about all I can say about it.

Mike: Yeah, I mean I have my love here. Im writing on the board of Hong Kong and China. So I’ll actually going to Hong Kong in a couple of days for a couple of days, I have a small office there and home office in Shenzhen so I’m back and forth. But yeah I could totally understand you seem like pretty deep into China, right. I forget where else about you were?

Greg: I primarily spent time in Hangzhou and Dalian.

Mike: Yeah, that’s a little bit pretty local and North. Dalian I spent a few months in Dalian in Incubator. And was it winter time?

Greg: Yes, it was cold when I was there.

Mike: Okay, so transformation I think it’s very important I think for people to leave their home country whether it’s the dark side of you know Mainland China or all these amazing places around the world. I was actually just watching a YouTube, first YouTuber in China Serpent Za. He’s a South African here in China and making a full time on YouTube so doing pretty well. He was just kind of venting about getting people immediately thinking that he is like a sex tourist or a loser back home, LBH, I never heard of that I just watched his video. When you go this and I’ve been following your facebook, too. When you go South America now.

Greg: I’m in Peru at the moment.

Mike: Peru, and you’re trying to get some rest at a reasonable hour and by asking your neighbor to turn the sound down, they consider you a foreigner.

Greg: It was just this sounding, like, you see all kinds of people when you travel and I know everybody likes to say the travel the stories this negative stereotypes of people. You learned how wonderful people are because you meet them in person and you see how great they are. Some of that’s true. But that’s the way have to story coz I think you learned both extremes and I think you learned how great people are and how horrible they are because it’s both and I would never, I don’t see the world at the rose color glasses. I don’t believe that humanity’s fundamentally wonderful i think we are all over the map, we are the best and worst you could possibly imagined. Sometimes it just comes out and it’s really weird obnoxious ways like I’m having a great time in Peru. Pleasant little town, lots of cafes, and tourist attractions and in general people are very friendly. Good service in the restaurants and I’m not even at the center of the city right in this fairly nice house and music is blasting until 3 in the morning from my Peru neighbor. I’m there with my girlfriend, none of us can’t sleep, we’re getting pretty irritable. I walked over, knock on the door to this very loud party with a lot of drunk people and I say to him in Spanish, like hey, we’re trying to sleep will you please turn off or turn down the music like it’s 3 in the morning, Im not being dick about it, i’m just saying come on it’s 3 in the morning come on be reasonable here trying to sleep. He comes outside and says to me in clear English, well this is my home, this is where I lived, how would you like if I came over to your house and knock on your door and said I don’t like foreigners living here. I’m just like melt at gate at that point. First of all, how did you even equip those 2 things, did you blast the music so the entire neighborhood could hear 3 in the morning versus me from being in another country are somehow the same thing like that’s an attack on your personal space the fact that I’m from another country. And just the balls of this guy can you imagine someone in America saying that to a Mexican immigrant or something like, ohh you should go back to mexico if you don’t like it beaner. Can you imagine that like it just shows you people are both wonderful and terrible and then later my girlfriend went over there said the same thing essentially even later on when they hadn’t stop and she’s an attractive 23 year old girl from Eastern Europe and instead of being rude to her they try to pull her in and flirt with her and hit on her. These are all like 50 year old men with families, ohh where you come from, come in, sit down coming out with us and she’s just get disgusted and screams at them and leaves. Again it just shows you like even though I really like Latin America in general. I’ve got a property in Ecuador just north from here. Sometimes you just realized how crappy people are not in the world super villain kind of way where they just horrible people doing distractive things in the world but they just have no respect for other people at all. I don’t throw any distinguishing lines between whether some local or foreigner or I should treat them one way or another. I’m just a human being and you respect other human beings and their privacy and their personal space and you don’t things that are gonna interfere with their peace of mind in general. But I guess not everyone follows that rule.

Mike: Yeah, I know, what we’re saying here is what’s, for us travelling to another place is very eye opening. But then you get surrounded by locals whether it’s in China, Peru. Even but of course at the same time foreigners going to America, Iranians or whatever, they have these, just because based on where you’re born, right. Like the color of your skin and the people have these idea of who you are before they even talk to you. I have seen more and more is getting really kind of scary but it’s something that we have to learn as, is it expats? What are we actually, are we digital nomads? I guess that is something as curious, am I an expat because I have been here for almost than 10 years? I guess.

Greg: We’re kind of embodying a new territory that is not a lot of precedent because travel is now more accessible that has even been before. And I talked about this with Olivier Wagner, the guy I wrote with the US Taxes for Worldly Americans book. We tried to define who the target market was and we open up the book saying, you probably fit on one of this 3 categories if you’re reading this book. You either an expatriate somebody who has relocated to a new country as more or less stable there maybe you still go back and visit the US from time to time. But basically settled in the new country become a resident or even a citizen in that country and spend most of your time there. Or you could be a perpetual travellers/digital nomads which means you worked online from a computer which I do of course like technically I’m a digital nomad. But I don’t always feel like I fit into this stereotypical image of digital nomad. Just somebody going from country to country not really staying in one place long enough to be considered a resident there especially tax resident or you could be an accidental American as what you call those people who have American citizenship but then they realized they didn’t like. They are from Canada but they were born in America and if you are born in America you are technically an American citizen and apparently this thing is more common, they didn’t realized there’s still taxes in America even though they have never been to America besides being born there or something.

Mike: Craziness. So I’m still deep into that Olivier’s book. He was actually on this very podcast earlier talking about renouncing US citizenship. I don’t know about others but I got really emotional on that. I did it in person he set next to me in my Hong Kong office when he came for conference and I didn’t expect it. It was really, really crazy. I got into tears, I got choked up. I kept going I just, I don’t know if people can tell when they’re listening but it happened to me before. I think it’s just because I’m born American. I don’t, never expected to live in China or outside of America my whole life. I first came into China for my sourcing of products from my ebay and ecommerce business in 2007. And he’s there. I knew it will be interesting topic coz my podcast in my blog and audience is also kind of interested and living abroad. When I was asking kind of like digging into deeper about how to do it and I’m thinking about my Mom and my Dad. They are not happy that I’m outside in China especially my Mom. It did choked me up quite a bit and I think, maybe I will not put his name into this. I think a lot of people say, it’s kind of like where a country brainwashes us right. Like it’s part of their branding. I guess just like Louis Vuitton was made up buy their bag the country wants me to be branded and loyal to following what they say is right maybe. It’s always creating, really racism to me because then it’s like, I don’t want give some Donald Trump stuff, but it does create this walls they are going up now brags it, Trump, even stuff has been happening in Asia. It’s just scary to me. I don’t really know your answer or your reaction maybe you can react to that. But I just haven’t still recovering from that interview in a way, at the back of my mind. But just overall, I guess I’m surrounded by this issue. I’m actually planning to be overseas long term, I have 2 kids. I have a Chinese wife. It’s crazy stuff.

Greg: Yeah, that’s a topic that definitely covered both in my books and in Olivier’s book. When you get to the final chapter it’s all about why you might want to consider renouncing your citizenship and he’s taking from the angle of taxes. The only way to stop paying taxes as an American is to no longer be in America. America is one only 2 countries in the world that has an insane worldwide tax laws which basically as long as you are technically an American citizen. No matter where you live or work or how you make your money, you must pay taxes to the US government. And there are loopholes legally around that things that a foreigner didn’t come exclusion with the foreign tax credit where you can oftentimes lower your tax literally to zero but you are still obligated to file and if you make a lot of money, heaven help you, it’s just insane especially who don’t even have active ties to US anymore. You still travel on US passport some of the time, I’ve been fortunate that I have been able to get 2 passports in the last year. I’ve become both Georgian and Armenian. So I have some back ups now when I start adding few more to my collections. But even something like that like being a multinational citizen is such a relatively new concept for people. Even though it’s been technically possible for a while its just hasn’t really come into our minds is something that is appropriate like people think it’s illegal and think like I’m James Bond or something that even having a second passport little on the third one. So we definitely want to cover that in the book is an option for people first to get additional citizenships. Sometimes it’s easier than you might have anticipated, sometimes it takes a few years, sometimes it take a little bit of money. If you got ancestry in certain places, my grandmother was from Armenia that’s what I got an Armenian passport the country most people probably never been heard of except for Kim Kardashian. And then he talks about once you’ve decided you no longer want to be an american then you have some other options to fall back on, here’s what you have to do to officially stop being American, you just don’t get to say screw you america I don’t consider myself American anymore. You have to go through a very lengthy usually expensive process but that’s what you got to do if you want to be completely off their radar otherwise they’re gonna follow you around for life.

Mike: I’m interested to get into that part. I try to keep, yeah I mean chip away books, I do get drawn but I tried to read at least 10 minutes a day so sounds like not much. But it does get through books, I mean. I’m actually similar, I’m an Italian American and working on my grandfather came to America from Island and there’s records, there’s stuff like that.

Greg: Italy and Ireland are the 2 biggest ones in Europe for citizen by descent, Italy and Ireland if you can prove you got to grant parent from one of those 2 places.

Mike: Yup, I have. So it’s something is going on. I really talked about them in the podcast. It’s so early but I guess why not break it up now. It’s still actually another podcast is gonna be before yours is already recorded Seasteading I don’t know if you’ve heard that term. But I just did an interview with the Tahiti, a french Polynesia has approved the Seasteading Act MOU. So they’re building a Seasteading location there and will be helping, couple of years out but was approved by the government in Polynesia has approved of it in exchange for the smart people of Silicon Valley and around the world to come there and help there. Their islands are not getting submerged underwater due to global warming and all that. So they’re trying to fix the sea levels or you know somehow solve that problem. So there gonna be calling digital nomads and the smart people to be coming over to Tahiti if you want in there having a conference about in May. I’m thinking about going, I’m working on going to. It’s amazing, I never would have expect it to be considering to go to Tahiti. My wife is down actually. But that’s why I mean back to travelling as transformation is just, opens your mind like I think I was a little bit more like what that with the horses to have the blinders on, you know. When I was younger you know, I’m American. I don’t think I was ever like, I was like kind of living like open minded but definitely nothing like I am now and it’s definitely just because you know going abroad and just keeping an open mind and being I’m a little bit local side, right. Going at it, so for some listeners, there’s still listeners that are still or they visited in China but they’re still going back to America and they’re totally like mind blowing that people like us can kind of like on a longer term basis live overseas. It is just not for everybody you think or what?

Greg: I absolutely don’t think it’s for everyone. I mean I know people who embraced this digital nomads phenomenon especially if they are younger and everyone should travel, it’s amazing, it’s easy bro, come to hang on in Bali or Thailand. I really don’t think it is for everyone. I think people should travel at least once their life, just for the perspective of living this life cycle of going from place to place. It’s definitely not for everyone but I think the perspective and education it gives you, I don’t know of any other way to get that, right. I do try to talk about that in my book, like I don’t think this lifestyle is for everyone but at the same time it has shown me and taught me things that I don’t know how else would have learn this things. I just don’t think it would have been possible with any other path I could have taken in life and now I get to used those lessons and this new perspective that has given me. So for the right kind of person someone who has really, really curious about how the world works and feels like they’re trap with the options they were given in their home culture, I’m from San Diego which is a very comfortable place in that way and sort of a prisoner in the first 18 years in my life there and I had no idea what other possibilities even existed and now I’m still discovering new ones everyday despite the fact I have been all over the world. So for that kind of person absolutely you got to break out to that self imposed cultural prison and it goes back to that branding thing. Like if you’re an American citizen you know it’s not just the passport or it’s not just the label it’s the mindset that you have that you consider that place your home that’s where, you’re comfortable those are the rules you’re familiar with the way of living it and everything else just foreign to you. To really live in another place is to change your mindset and adopt new cultural ways for living and since where now living in an age where you can do this with many places all over the world we are sort of embodying this whole new multi cultural mindset. Were not a legion just to one place and you don’t have to follow just one set of rules, you’re free to picking choose your own values and I think that’s terrifying for some people. Really makes you wonder you know 10, 20, 50 years what is the world go look like, just like how the internet has changed how we communicate and work and share information, how is if people are living a multi cultural lifestyle a couple of decades like just the norm that you’ve lived across many different countries, what is the world go look like.

Mike: It’s true, I mean maybe will be on Mars or whatever we think. I think beyond Mars is working on that. I don’t know I’m always, I was even talking to, I have prior to this conversation is, with friends that what’s the government gonna be in Mars? Is America gonna try make me be American in Mars if I could go to Mars? I wonder about, I guess it will, right. China and America.

Greg: A sort of defense who’ll get there first. The free market capitalist are always trying to stay one step beyond to reach the government so Seasteading is another great example to oceans where no government can tell him what to do. The Mars has just taken that . If you (blurred) it’s the Mars before the US government does who has the authority over Mars.

Mike: Well, I think it’s funded by the, I’m not totally sure but, I’m pretty sure that some of this stuff is funded by the government. But I’m don’t want to be quoted on that do some research. But we’ll see, I mean all this, you know companies, like its all another thing about the why Facebook blocked in China and actually you should hear this conversations about Chinese saying agreeing with the blocking because it’s the US government has controlling Facebook. We air this actually somewhere in China, I don’t know if Chinese people are listen to podcast because it’s a little bit of a newer thing. I wonder what they would think about this. But it’s just been fascinating for me, I mean and you I mean, I read the books and this just whole lifestyle. I think its both sides has a fence right. Like I remember I used to kind of like, I have Chinese friends as cool as, I’m talking about 3rd, 4th grade they would karate chop me, man. They would have been race to themselves back flip me on the front lawn of a walk back from school. I remember Sean Lou, I remember I never thought I would lived here but they’re trying to come back here and Chinese are buying all the US real estate now and it’s just fascinating world and I think the main point is what they gained by travelling as transformation as your book is titled then. If people can’t travel maybe they don’t, their family or physically, I mean is there any other way you could think that they could get that experienced, I mean. But what is the?

Greg: The whole thing is about challenging what you believed. Never just settle on anything that whatever you happen to inherit from your culture immediately around you. And there are plenty of ways to do that to get new ideas in your head that normally wouldn’t exist that you just stayed but what was immediately available to you. Because information is so widespread now. Read unconventional books that challenge you even watching movies that introduce new questions, new philosophy into your brain if there will in that movies, whatever it is. Talk to people in other countries I don’t know but you have to somehow constantly be questioning whatever you believed to be true or real or not just real in the objective sense like 2 plus 2 equals 4. But what is true about you is what you believed, what you preferred the way you live and kind of person you want to marry kind of life that you want to live, is that an authentic to you. Or is that just the first thing you learned. How do you know when you wouldn’t try other things, right. How do you know until you have a question, do I actually care about this, do I actually want to do this.

Mike: I like that. I mean just keeping an open mind, challenging yourselves. I like the Steve Jobs quote I mean so many of them but there’s one video that they found from the archives that the basic, I remember is society is just kind of stay on track and not being against, I remember he used to say bang against the walls, they won’t let you stay, you go to the school, you get into debt, you got a job, you buy a house, you get into more debt, you stay in your job. But that the track you’re supposed to go on but so many are afraid to go like get off that track and being against the wall and spin out and crash but I think it’s really about trying that whether you leave the home country, leave your hometown or whatever. But I think, you’re saying is just trying to break out on the mold that were trying to be put into and trying to get break out of the matrix.

Greg: That’s a great analysis. Limits to your thinking.

Mike: It’s been a fascinating talk and I respect your time. We talked about some books now definitely I’ll link everything up the show notes. How us, people can find you and what you’re doing online?

Greg: Well, my books are primarily sold to Amazon. First on its brand identity breakthrough which is just better way to communicate as an entrepreneur, then there’s this travellers transformation and oliviers books US Taxes for Worldly Americans. But if you want a little more about me, go to www.gregorydiehl.net. You can listen to my podcast on comfortable conversation with Gregory were we talk about things like this. Like the limits to your thinking, the limits to your comfort zone. And I just recently started the other night a publication company as a result of having help some people launch successful books now which is Identity Publications. So my partner Anastasia and I have an operation going kind of like book in a box but cheaper, better and focus on like really high caliber ideas. So check that out and I’m happy to talk to you add me on Facebook we’ll see if can make something happen.

Mike: Very cool, Gregory and thanks so much for coming on the show.

Greg: Thanks for having me.

Mike: Thank you Greg for sharing. I got some interesting perspective but I totally agree, travelling does transform us and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same 10 years in China. I mean I went to Italy the first time, I got love that coz I got orange sneakers from the US when it was cool. But if you haven’t, if you’re still in your home country and never left whatever age you’re at. I really strongly suggest taking some travel time and it makes you have an open mind. Makes you flexible so I would strongly suggest to do that. Well that’s all we got for today. You know I’ve been pushing this Cross Border Matchmaker, I don’t know if you are still listening www.globalfromasia.com/matchmaker Friday October 27 and all the bunch if probably can’t make it out to China but if you do it’s a reasonable price a little of you know like 100 bucks. It’s gonna be an amazing action packed day for qualified ecommerce sellers business owners. These guys, these Chinese sellers are actually not scary like you think, they want to meet you. We want to make some relationships, make some things happen and I’m gonna pass out, Im exhausted. So I hope you guys enjoy this show, feedback, ratings, reviews, emails, I do read them. Take care, bye bye.

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