Living Free as a PT

by Mark Emery

  Here’s how this works to your benefit.

  I was visiting family back in the states. I had a rental car and I’d be cruising through an area at a reasonable safe speed, which of course was speeding. I got pulled over. That NEVER happens, right? What are the odds?

  So we start the routine with the officer. I give him the papers of the rental car (not registered to me), those papers show the insurance, and I give him my Costa Rica drivers license.

  Immediately Mr. Officer is thinking to himself, “Hmmmm. It’s not his car, he’s not registered to the state, he’s not a resident or doing business in the state, my state has no interstate compact with Costa Rica as we do other states in the US… no contract equals no jurisdiction equals no violation!

  “OK Mr Emery. I pulled you over because you were going a little bit fast. Would you please slow down next time you’re in the area? We’d like to see you have a safe and enjoyable visit. You’re free to go. Have a nice time!”

  I’m thinking to myself, now isn’t that nice. I sure wish they treated me that way all the time! Well, maybe as a PT, from now on they will!

  On the flip side, I got pulled over in Panama once. There, they don’t chase you down in cars, they stand on the side of the road and point at you and you’re suppose to pull over. It’a kind of like the IRS ‘voluntary compliance’ thing.

  I’ve been ‘pointed at’ more than once in Panama and I’m like…. “Whaaa? Who? Where? Over there? And I keep going. I usually just ignore them. I’m just a dumb gringo! Who’d a thunk it?

  The one time I did feel reasonably culpable to stop, you’ll never guess what I did! I did what any reasonable Permanent Tourist would do, I pulled out my ‘foreign’ USA passport. He gave it a cursory look and not a word was said. He motioned me to go.

  I did get pulled over in Panama city once for ‘who knows what’? It didn’t matter really. The poor tired, underpaid traffic cop made a deal. No ticket, ‘if you just drive me home!’ It’s just a few blocks from here! He just wanted a ride!!

  And in the developing countries there is no ticket that $10 can’t fix. The routine is just like this, ‘I’d like to pay the fine now and be done with it. What is it? $10? OK here. Be sure to pay it for me, OK?”

  The people are so underpaid here that $10 or $20 holds some sway. It’s not a bribe at all. You’re pleading guilty and just asking the officer to pay the fine for you! They’re honest, right? What could be done in more good faith and legal compliance than that?

  The Permanent Tourist Residency Program

  While living in Costa Rica for seven years I bought a couple of cars and paid cash, started several businesses, had two offices at one point for two difference businesses, I had personal bank accounts, several business bank accounts, a couple of different corporate attorneys, bought some land and lived in a gorgeous mountaintop home. One could say I was quite well entrenched in Costa Rica just like you’d expect of an ‘old timer’ who had a long history and family roots there.

  I spent the entire time there on a ‘tourist visa’ which expires after 90 days.

  At the time it was so simple. Tourists with the stamp on their passport could only legally stay in the country for 90 days before their ‘tourist visa’ expired. But to get another 90 day visa to be legal in the country, all you’d have to do is to leave the country and get an exit stamp on your passport, be gone for at least 3 days and when you’d come back you’d get a new 90 day tourist visa.

  This onerous, heavy handed law forced me to take a series of long weekends and travel to explore the area. Can you imagine the horror?

  The bus trip north to Granada Nicaragua was quite an experience. I stayed in the historic central district with my wife at the time and will never forget the little kids who had basically nothing, trying to hustle a quarter at a time shining shoes or doing whatever they could. Hardly any of them had shoes and I wondered how they managed walking on the hot pavement which was baking in the sun all day.

  My wife agreed to take them all to the market and buy them some ‘filp-flops’. It was so funny. When the appointed time came she met about 12 of them in the square and as she led them to the market it was like the Pied Piper of Hamilton. They all followed her calmly and practically in single file. You’ve never seen kids so happy as to have a $2.00 pair of sandals! They acted like they were in heaven!

  It’s amazing how such a little thing can make someone happy and it’s the same with us. Remember that the next time you have a chance to be kind to someone.

  During my stay in Granada a weekend fair was going on in the old colonial square in front of our hotel. We agreed to buy some of the kids meals as it was plenty of good food for a very low price and we could tell, they had nothing. I’ll never forget some of these kids who’d receive a nice box of good food and many of them wouldn’t eat it all. I thought that was odd. We finally asked them… why don’t you eat?

  “Oh I have to take some home to my mother, or brother because they don’t have anything.” It brought tears to our eyes. These kids who had nothing for themselves were so thoughtful for others they loved. What could we all learn from this?

  On another weekend jaunt, I was ‘forced’ to hop on a small plane for the 45 minute light plane flight to the small Caribbean island of San Andres. San Andres is just off the coast of Costa Rica but is Colombian territory. It is well known as a tourist attraction largely for Johnny Cay, a small island in a series of ‘keys’ off of San Andres and it’s known for its sugary white sand beaches and aquamarine shallow waters which make it perfect for swimming, snorkeling and other water sports. After suffering here for a few days we’d return back ‘home’ with our new ‘PT Visa’.

  Panama was a frequent destination as was Miami Beach where I got to know South Beach, Hollywood Beach and that area quite well.

  So, you can see that to maintain my Permanent Tourist Visa status required diligence and commitment! In fact, this situation allowed me to maintain status as both: a ‘Permanent Tourist’ living as a permanent resident in Costa Rica and as a ‘Perpetual Traveler’ both at the same time.

  I felt like I was starting to get good at this ‘PT’ stuff!

  Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

  - Edmund Burke

  5

  How I became a ‘person of Talent’

  Probably the single most important requirement of becoming a successful PT is in having the right mindset. You have got to be crystal clear in your own mind on who you are, where your power comes from, what you have to offer this world and be confident that your will and intent are so strong that nothing will stop you.

  You get blocked, you go around the obstacle. You get stymied, you outsmart your opponent. No challenge will defeat you in achieving your goals. You must understand that at the beginning of your PT Quest, you’ll have more questions than answers, but you move forward anyway.

  You’ll ‘learn by doing’ and along the way you’re likely to rack up a pretty impressive string of experiences some of which will be failures which are nothing more than empowering building blocks of knowledge to get you closer to your goal despite the result. Throughout this process, you’ll be developing the talents that you already have, and you’ll be acquiring new ones.

  Sadly, most people today don’t have what it takes. They’re too conditioned to be comfortable having someone else make their decisions for them and taking care of them. They wrap their personal identity up in ‘what they do’. “Oh I’m an IT tech,” or “Oh I’m a real estate professional”, or “Oh, I’m a medical technician”, etc. etc. etc. And that’s how we define ourselves. That’s ‘who we are’ and we live in that little limited world day and night and we die that way.

  We get the pay that comes with the job, and no more. We get the respect that the community gives us for that ‘job’ and we accept that just fine. We get
the feeling of security knowing that we have a paycheck to keep us from foreclosure for another month. And we don’t have to have the responsibility of making the wrong decision too often because our boss, our company, our creditors, our bankers, our local town council and state and federal representatives are making most of the other decisions for us so we know who we have to pay, for what, and how much and how often and the decision is easy because if we don’t…… it gets ugly.

  I’ve seen comments on my YouTube channel saying things like, “I wish I had his confidence!’

  Confidence is not something that can be given to you, nor can it be bought. It must be earned and acquired by the willful ‘action’ of pro-active people who are determined to succeed.

  I’ll give you the three keys to acquiring supreme, unshakeable confidence if you think you could use them. Most people won’t, but I’ll take the chance that you might. But before I do, let me give you an example of what you can do with this unshakeable supreme confidence.

  I was looking at a piece of property in Panama. It was the most stunning gorgeous piece of property you could imagine. Imagine this. 19 Hectares (over 45 acres) of pristine tropical cloud forest with lush tropical vegetation and wildlife on the ridge of a mountain with views looking down on the skyline of Panama City and the Pacific coastline below. It backed up to the border of the Chagres National Park which is a forest preserve protected for its value as a water shed resource for the canal, so it would never be touched. It was perfect for the project I had in mind which was an eco-friendly natural spa and healing center for recovering patients. The air was pure and it felt ionized, it was perfect.

  So I had to have it. But there was a small problem. The problem was that the property cost about $500,000 and I had only $50,000 cash and no credit. Through my passion and determination I was able to convince the seller to sell it to me on a short term contract. I would pay him $50,000 cash now to secure the contract and he’d give me 90 days to come up with the rest.

  At the time I had no way, nor any idea on how to come up with the rest.

  Now conventional thinking tells us what? It tells us that I’m an absolute fool for risking my last dollar with $49,999 others and making a commitment which, by all practical means and purposes I was highly likely to default on. What kind of a fool puts $50k at risk knowing he can’t complete the commitment?

  I’ll tell you what kind of a fool. The kind of fool who is bound and determined to do whatever it takes to make it happen and who refuses to fail regardless of how many times the devil will tempt him to quit. This leads directly to the mindset we talked about above.

  Losers will typically say: “Well I’ll try.” “I’ll see what happens” and there is no commitment in that whatsoever. When you hear that, run because you’re dealing with a loser. The person doesn’t have the mindset to win, period.

  So what did I do? First of all I prayed on it. I asked God for guidance on making the right decision and I prayed for assistance in making this a successful project to the glory of HIS name. This is my silent partner and let me tell you, He’s good!

  I made the commitment, signed the contract, paid the $50k, and got busy. I started talking to consultants, realtors, money brokers, working out presentations to put together an investor group or a syndicate and I was talking to anybody who would listen. I found all kinds of talkers but few who could back it up and actually perform.

  30 days came around and I needed to pay another $100k. I didn’t have it. I only had $25k raised. I went and had a meeting with the seller. I showed him all that I was doing and what I had put into motion and sold him on my commitment to make this happen and that he’d get his money. He worked with me. We went through this routine with several deadlines coming and going and I fell short every time but was working my tail off to make it happen. The seller could see that and when the final deadline arrived to complete the contract, I had to renegotiate it and we agreed that I would pay extra interest for the delays. No problem. This property was worth it. The contract was still alive and so was my $50k!

  In the end, I was way behind schedule having defaulted several times but I had finally accomplished what conventional wisdom would have told me I was crazy to even attempt by putting that $50k at risk to begin with. I had been stressed out many a night lying in bed thinking about what a fool I’d been to have paid all that money and now staring at a likely failure by all practical measures.

  Through the grace of my partner (God himself) he softened the heart of the seller for me and worked with me enough to allow me to finally complete the contract.

  Remember I told you that I only made that important decision after praying on it and waiting for the spirit to move me. Well, it turned out that the seller was also a Christian and was a fair minded, good hearted person which I didn’t know in the beginning.

  There are so many people out there who are only motivated by avarice and who would have been delighted to take my deposit and several significant payments as ‘free money’ when I defaulted on the contract, but it didn’t happen that way.

  So this is one of many examples I could use to illustrate how commitment, action and confidence are bonded into success with faith and the proper mindset.

  So now, with this example as a backdrop, let’s get back to the three keys in developing ultimate confidence. Here they are:

  Turn off the TV and other distractions which waste your time and start reading and learning and empowering yourself with something new and productive every day. Days quickly turn into years and before you know it, you have years of acquired knowledge internalized.

  Take this knowledge and apply it in practical ways in your life. There is no better teacher on this planet than experience. Be prepared to fail and expect it as a necessary requirement to learn and advance. Most people will use it as an excuse to quit. This is the difference between losers and winners.

  Your biggest dreams, visions and plans are nothing compared to what God can do for you. HIS plan and love for you is so much greater than we can even imagine it’s impossible for me to even try to describe. Your ability to make decisions and take action in faith, always seeking HIS counsel guidance and provision is a guaranteed formula for success even though sometimes it doesn’t appear that way initially. And we have to be careful how we define success. Success isn’t always in getting what you want, but in getting what you need to be stronger, better, or better equipped to advance to the next level of personal and spiritual development! This doesn’t mean that your plan or desires will arrive by limo all gift wrapped for you. You can expect to struggle, to stumble, to be exhausted to endure pain in getting to your goal but these things are the result of ‘Action’ done in ‘Faith’ with a willingness to sacrifice and do your part.

  So with the foregoing in mind, to be a successful PT you will learn to be a Person of Talent, perhaps you’ll discover talents you didn’t even know you had or of talents you don’t have now but will need to acquire or develop.

  It’s funny that on this big property deal I did, I had absolutely zero experience in real estate. None! Nada. I had only just purchased my first home in Panama at the age of about 48.

  I had never done anything in real estate before either personally or professionally. I knew nothing about it and here I was wheeling and dealing in a land deal, leading to a multi-million dollar project in a country where I didn’t hardly speak the language, it had a different legal system I wasn’t familiar with so you get the idea. (This is where you can insert… ‘WTF’?)

  Now with the land deal under my belt, I was now working on the health resort project doing topographical mapping, project layout and design work, taking soil samples, doing environmental impact studies, doing water table analysis, getting necessary approvals and the works. Well, it wasn’t me actually, of course it was my team but I was driving the stage coach with the reigns in one hand and the whip in the other.

  So how
do you do it if you have no experience? This is so simple. If you don’t have the expertise, just build a team around you who does! Stay involved so you know what’s going on. You learn as you go and after your first deal, you’re all of a sudden the expert with first hand experience! You now have become a real ‘Person of Talent’ when you never had any of that talent before!

  The key is taking action and you can do that without being 100% prepared or confident when you know you can rely on your silent partner to back you up!

  Retired or Semi-Retired

  Maybe you’re fortunate enough to have sufficient fixed income coming in from investments or a passive business interest. You are in the perfect spot to be a PT. You can now spend more time developing your map of 5 flags.

  Then you have the opportunity to develop your talents in things you have a passion for. Maybe you’d like to learn a new language or learn the fine art of perfecting French cuisine. Or if you love children you could coach a soccer team at the local school. In Central America you don’t need to be certified. Just show up and volunteer and you’re in!

  Maybe you’ve always had a hankering to learn to play the guitar or harmonica! Harmonica is the best instrument to play and anyone can learn. Learn some blues licks and you can stick it in your pocket and take it to the beach, to a picnic, on a hike. anywhere you go. Try doing that with a piano!

  Consultant or Self Employed

  To be a successful PT you must have a source of cash flow to support your lifestyle, right? That’s one of the obvious keys. And if you’re not yet a seasoned entrepreneur you might be a little hesitant on this point.

  Take heart. When you eliminate most of your debt and tax obligations (the Lighthouse Law Club can help you with that) your cost of living goes down dramatically and you’ll be able to get by on much less than you are now. I can show you how to do that in another venue.

  You’ve likely heard that when deciding on a business venture to start, you should find something that you have a passion for!