A YouTuber built a channel documenting American life in Germany, then leveraged it into an actual self-employment visa, and eventually German citizenship, without ever going through a traditional employer sponsor.

Donnie Ashburn, a dual American-German citizen and content creator, joins the podcast to walk through his path from dependent visa to self-employment to citizenship, and what he'd tell anyone considering the same route.

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CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

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00:00 - Quitting two jobs, traveling nine months, and landing in Germany by chance

02:43 - COVID and the moment "backup plan" stopped being hypothetical

08:10 - What Germany's self-employment visa actually required, dollar for dollar

21:18 - Why becoming self-employed meant giving up his wife's EU Blue Card

23:11 - The real bureaucratic weight of running a business in two countries at once

27:35 - Why he pursued German citizenship as insurance, not just a milestone

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ABOUT THE GUEST

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Donnie Ashburn is a dual American-German citizen and content creator living in Germany's Pfalz region. He built a YouTube channel documenting life as an American in Germany, later turned that platform into a self-employment visa, and became a naturalized German citizen in 2025. He now helps other content creators navigate Germany's self-employment visa route.

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

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Arielle Tucker, CFP® & IRS Enrolled Agent with Connected Financial Planning, is a cross-border financial planner based in Switzerland helping Americans living abroad navigate U.S. taxes, international investments, and cross-border financial planning.

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Follow the show and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it's the single biggest thing you can do to help other cross-border families find this show.

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ABOUT PASSPORT TO WEALTH®

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Passport To Wealth® is the platform for current and aspiring US expats. We connect globally mobile Americans with vetted, licensed cross-border financial advisors, tax professionals, and relocation experts who understand the financial and legal complexities of life abroad.

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LINKS & RESOURCES

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Website: https://www.passporttowealth.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passporttowealthofficial

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passport-to-wealth

Subscribe to Donnie's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PassportTwo

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This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Individual circumstances vary. Consult a qualified cross-border financial professional before making any financial or tax decisions.

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Donnie Ashburn is a dual American German citizen living in Germany. He built a social media brand from scratch and now helps others navigate the German self-employment route, bypassing the traditional employer-sponsored route entirely. He eventually leveraged that foundation into earning him full German citizenship. He came from a place of confidence with his US passport and then shifted his thinking deliberately towards nationality diversification as a way to protect his family's options.

Donnie, I'm so excited to have you on the Passport Ball today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, well thanks so much for having I'm excited about it.

Okay. And you're and I'm sorry, my intro is a little because we had I had to rework it a little last minute because we were talking about your social media empire that you have built. And so I'm really curious if we caught could talk a little bit about how you built your content brand and then I and and really just talk about your path into Germany and then that transition into becoming self employed in Germany. That's a lot. So I'll let you talk and and I'll have lots of questions to ask you.

Mm.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, so I I Matt first off, I wouldn't call it an empire yet, but it definitely has been a journey. So we started it in twenty eighteen. I'm I've always just enjoyed watching YouTube and everything. I've always wondered kind of about the business side of it. And so in twenty eighteen my wife and I both kind of met a point with our careers where we were just kind of tired of our jobs and frustrated with

Just things that were going on professionally. And so we both decided to spend a year. Everybody always says, you know, before you have kids, get out and travel. And so we thought, well, let's take this seriously and not be ones that regret it. So we quit our jobs, did a year of traveling. And while we did that year of traveling, I thought, I'm gonna build a YouTube channel and just try to see is it possible to earn money off of it. And I wanted to be able to show our families kind of what we were doing on our world travels. And so anyway, so about nine months into that.

I had started making videos about three times a week and it wasn't really going anywhere, wasn't really doing much until my wife found a job in Germany and we were able to move here full time and just kind of on a whim, I didn't know what exactly what I was gonna do yet, and so I started making a few videos about our experiences as Americans living in Germany, and those videos I found the most success I had ever found. Just I guess I kinda tapped into a market realizing that Germans love to kind of see a foreigner's outside perspective on what life is like in Germany.

Wow, so you were already thinking about it leveraging it to be able to stay in the country. And I think that's a really smart thing because we were talking before we hit record and you were saying that you basically moved there on a family reunification visa, correct?

yeah, well it was I was on a dependent visa. So my wife is a speech pathologist, so she had a EU blue card when she came over here 'cause it was like a special job in the medical field. And so I yeah, I was on a dependence visa, which I you know, I don't remember exactly what the name of it was, but maybe it is kind of like a reunification visa, yeah. Exactly, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, it's yeah, it's just under the class of like a f a family re reunification. So you are able to work when you are a spouse on a blue card, but you are all kind of tied to this one job over here. and so that's always I think it's really important that people realize that re regardless of where they're moving in the world, is if your job is tied to your job title, which is how the blue card is, like she's a speech pathologist, she can only work as a speech path.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pathologist in the blue card without having to do a whole visa change, you're really tied. So it's really important to think about once you land in the country, I love that your wheels were already spinning. How if we wanna change a job, if we wanna do something else, how can we stay? And that's a really smart angle to be navigating this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, well that was I in preparation for this, I was kind of just looking back trying to figure out, yeah, what was the timeline of our journey to where we are now? And I found in twenty twenty where I had emailed our local foreigner's office and asked them kind of I think I worded it saying like in the case that my wife were to lose her job or something were to happen and she wasn't able to work anymore, what would our options be? And they had kind of laid out like, well this is how long you'd be able to stay in the country and then at this point you would have to have something figured out and so it was kind of like i I was y my wheels were turning

just a few months in, just like I mean, something could happen and we wouldn't have a visa to stay here anymore. And I didn't like that feeling of I guess just like

lack of security. And so yeah, so I was already kind of figuring out and then and then so my follow-up emails too that was so I'm kind of starting to earn money doing this. I'm trying to build up a business. What would I need to be able to maybe be self-employed? Because I kind of liked how the lifestyle I was building already was I was my own boss, able to do my own thing. We would be able to travel when we want and I could kind of work out wherever I wanted to. And so I I knew there would always be an option of I could go get a you know a job somewhere if my wife lost her job to be able to get a visa but I was kind of liking the life that

we were establishing even within those first few months of being here, kind of being on our own terms, I guess you could say, of course outside of my wife's job.

Yeah, and also if we just frame like the time frame, because we also lit let moved to Germany in August 2019. We moved to Berlin. and right the pandemic hit in March and the world shut down. And so that I think especially prompted a lot of people, myself included, where are we living? How are we living here? What's the visa options? And I always remind my I always remind people, anyone who was living in Europe that time, or even just navigating the craziness of the world at that time.

Okay.

Yeah.

I say, you know, if borders shut down like they did in twenty twenty, where do you wanna be? And do you have a visa or a citizenship in that country? 'Cause otherwise you might actually not allow to be to go you you might not be allowed to go there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I th I think that definitely is true and I'm I'm I think I'm I'm trying to think of what was it, about February of twenty twenty when started people started talking about COVID and what was happening and so I mean my wife was no longer allowed to see kids in person anymore at that point. Everybody was scrambling because we're kind of in a unique area where there's actually about fifty to sixty thousand Americans that live in our area because there's Rammstein Airbase, which is the largest, you know, American

Wow. Okay.

presence outside of the US, I think. And so so we kind of live in a weird bubble where she's not licensed as a German speech pathologist, but she has an American license. And so then there were were questions of like, okay, so you can't see children in person. So how do licensures work in terms of doing teletherapy? So there was a lot of kind of questions that we had. And I think that probably fed into my feelings of we need to have a backup plan because a lot there's so much uncertainty even about your job right now. So I think yeah you're definitely right to point that out.

Okay, so you start emailing the office, right? And you're emailing them directly. So are you speaking German at this point? Like where how did you even have the confidence just like to navigate thinking about this process?

So we're we're kind of lucky that again, because our area has such a strong American presence.

Germans are so used to Americans, and it's not just Americans. I mean, this is a huge NATO base. So there's people from Spain and Estonia, I mean from all over NATO that are stationed here. So the Germans here are extremely used to foreigners being here. So where in other parts of the country I've heard horror stories of the foreigner's office being very strict about speaking German and doing things their way. In our area, they're a lot I would say they're a little bit more relaxed about it. So we had one guy, we had kind of a connection in the foreigner's office, who was this young guy who was the most friendly.

guy that we had already worked through to get our original visa. And so I already knew I could email him directly in English and he would respond. But then there was also some times where I felt guilty about doing that and and living here. And so I would use like Deep L or Google Translate to send him an email in German to try to butter him up even more than that. But he was he was super helpful and super nice. So it wasn't it wasn't that intimidating, I guess, compared to like what other people experienced, I think, in Germany.

And when what kind of questions did you ask him?

I it was basically just what would happen if if my wife no longer would work? And then also I mean it was just straight up what do I need to prove that or first I think I first asked, is a self employed visa even an option? And two, what would I need to show to be able to get that? Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. And so what did you learn? Like what did you learn? And I'm s give me a second here.

Okay, there you go. Sorry. Well, clap that out. this is my son just came home. okay, sorry, back to the the question. s what what did you learn from the foreign office?

No worries.

So what did I learn from the Foreigners Office about what I need?

Yeah, so I learned that it actually wasn't nearly as difficult as I was anticipating it being. but I also learned just how where

I guess Germans in my mind are very rule following and very they have very specific rules kind of for everything. I learned too that the foreigner's office, it could just be in our area, but I do think I've heard it's kind of across Germany up to the foreigner's office's interpretation of the rules. And so honestly in one email, which I was kinda surprised they wrote this in email, they said, this would be an option, but because you're an American, we would be able to work with you a little bit. And I was really surprised for them to even write that out.

Due, if you're not if you're li listening this on audio, my face I just gave me away because I am shocked that that is the answer that you received.

Yeah.

Yeah. but then the next response was a little bit more of like bullet points of kind of like here's what we would look for and it really wasn't that that big of a deal to be honest with you. one, I needed to register my business at our local town hall, the rat halls. And so that was literally I just went down there and I think it was just like a single

sheet of paper that I just had to write a few little inf pieces of information on. So I have that document to show them that it was a registered business. I needed to prove that I had income that could that could provide for a family. And even that

excuse me, was a little bit of an easier requirement than I expected. So they said that I needed to have four hundred Euros per adult living in the house, plus whatever I would need to cover our rent and our health insurance. And that was all that I would have to show. And they did say we could look into like savings or we could look at like what other type of funds you might have. They said, but that also usually doesn't apply. So that again kinda told me like, okay, we'll we'll try to work with you a little bit. We'll figure out what we can do. and then

Okay. Wow.

also I I mean then I needed to fill out a application form for the visa. I need to have a passport photo and I needed to pay the fees, which at the time was like ninety eight euros to submit the application. So that was it. It was just kind of like show that I could cover like our most basic needs and then show that I had a business registered. And then to be able to show my income I I at that time had already been paying taxes in Germany for my business. So I was able to show them a Streuebescheid to show them that like I had official documentation. but

like you kind of alluded to, I've helped other content creators move to Germany sponsoring themselves. And so they didn't have a story of Bescheid. And so they've had to find other means. and so it's so it was just kind of like whatever you can find to prove your income, they're willing to accept.

And as you help other content creators move to Germany, are do do you find that the barrier is harder for them, especially if they're going to different regions of Germany? Are they looking for more income or do do you feel like it's been a really easy process for you and for everyone else that you've been supporting?

Yeah, no, the other ones that I've talked to have actually had a pretty I I mean, I say a relatively easy go at it as well. But I think part of that plays into a lot of the people that I've worked with are moving to like Düsseldorf or Berlin or other areas that are you know, are other large have large international, I think, communities. And so again, I think those foreigners office from what I've heard through them are also kind of used to working with

these types of people and also I think are a little bit more open to this being a line of work. nobody that I've talked to yet have been you know are are moving to like the most rural parts of Bavaria where this probably will be a shock to that system perhaps. but it it really hasn't been too difficult from what I can tell so far.

Okay, well great. I'm happy to hear it. you're the first person that makes German bureaucracy sound approachable and easy to navigate, so I'm absolutely here for it.

Well, I mean I always have to I always have to put an asterisk on saying that like everybody's experience is going to be very dependent on where they are and who they're working with. Because in my office as well, there is one or two people too that if you get your number called by that person, everybody goes, no, I'm in for it today. But if you get the other guy, then it's like, okay, I'm w this is a piece of cake, no worries. So it it can it can vary from city to city, office to office, and worker to worker.

Yeah, and I find that I found that when I we were living in Germany, I found that so applicable. Like, cause we lived in the north, we lived in the south, and it really like depended on who you got. And I remember within my first month of being in Germany, we landed in an immigration office, and for whatever reason, they would only in this was Berlin, they would only speak to us in high German. Now, we had just moved from New York and my high German was terrible, and there was like no way. So I always had to bring a colleague or a

yeah.

Like a translator to sp to speak to our contact because they were very strict. And I I mean, even my colleagues were shocked because they were like, Well, that's crazy because it's Berlin. Why no one is even speaking English when you go out? So they were really shocked that that was the experience that we had because it didn't really mirror anyone else's. So it is good to put an asterisk of it really depends on who you get.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so I wanna talk a little bit about your content journey because I I have loved following you and seeing your content and you talk a lot about just like different cultural moments. Is are there like some funny highlights that you can share with us and share with our audience today about some of the things that you've learned about about Germany?

yeah, I mean the whole thing has just been a blast. I th sometimes people have asked me if

I hadn't started a YouTube channel, would I be as invested in learning about Germany and its culture? And I always tell them that like that's just my personality, is like I just am not the type of person that goes and dabbles in anything. I go all in. And so that's been just one of the most fun things about the whole journey. It's just been like how in-depth I feel like I've gotten to connect to Germany. but also one of the most fun things I think has been to learn about just like how incredibly diverse Germany is. and so much of my audience, you know, it's like I used

Be a lot better about like in every video talking about like this is my experience in my part of Germany because it's gonna be different for everybody because there's so many different cultures inside of Germany itself. and so I'll get people commenting all the time that like what I'm talking about is wrong or inaccurate, and that's because like North Germans are totally different than like our part of Germany and stuff. but one of the I think one of the most like fun things for me has been like as I've learned German. when I moved here, I I got and signed up in an intensive German course. I was learning four hours a day.

Day, five days a week. And I did that for a a year to get to C one. And I learned all this German and I also play the bagpipes and I found a bagpipe band in our city that I was gonna go join, but I I didn't want to be the one American that was holding back all the Germans from having to speak English. And so I waited until I got to like fluency and then I went and joined this band. I was like, All right, let's do this. And then I get in there and everybody's speaking in the local dialect, and I couldn't understand anything anybody was talking about, which is it's Feltzish. And I was like, What the heck? Why did I spend an entire year?

learning this language and then I come here and none of you are speaking anything of what I've learned. I can't even understand anything you're saying. And it's taken me an additional like two years just to get to the point where I can finally somewhat communicate with everybody in the band unless they switch into like standard German. but that's been one of the most fun things I think is just learning about the vast I guess differences that you can find all across the country.

What is the dialect called Frigger Region?

So i w it's pronounced like feltish, so P F and then A umlau L Z I S C H. But here they leave out F so they all say Peltsish instead. but it is like

Okay.

This is a region where th you there's some parts of Germany where like they say they have a dialect, but like it kind of is dyed out or no one's be here it is like a massive part of the culture and they are extremely proud of their ab of their dialect and it is very different. Like an example would be like potato in standard German, Kartoffel, and then like here it's Grumbia and and then like there's just so many things like that. And then like instead of chooth or fitness, here they say a la hop to say goodbye. so there's like really vast differences.

that make it extremely difficult to understand if you didn't grow up here.

Yeah, so basically it's either a feltish or English is what I'm hearing when you're walking around day day.

Well, I mean it gets even more complicated than that because like within Feltzisch you have like Vortefalz and Westfeltzisch and so like there's sub dialects within here and then right next to us we have Saarland, the tiny little Bundesland of Germany, and they have Zarlandish and some of our band members speak Zaarlandish. And so it's it gets even more muddled than just English and

Feltzisch. And then a lot of people of course speak standard German, of course, and so they'll switch to that for me at times. But when you get a big group of them together and I'm the only one that's not from here, they just kind of tend to stick to the dialect and I think they just assume I'll pick it up one of these days.

I it is so interesting to me. I mean, when people say they want to move to Germany, it's just like saying you want to move to America. It's like where? Where your experience is gonna be so different, like you said, from North, like even Berlin. Berlin is like not Germany. I'd like like I it's it's really not. It's so different. Or when we were living in Bavaria, th they're Bavarian. They're not German, they're Bavarian. So it is so it's so interesting to me how these these little subcultures really stick and that's gonna have a huge impact.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

on your experience as an American, like moving, integrating, right, learning the language, it's it's it's gonna be super different. Do you have tips to people who call you and say, I want to move to Germany? I mean, do you talk them through this or do they usually just want to go to a major city because they know it's more international?

yeah.

I feel like a lot of people are going to like major cities. and I don't know if it's necessarily because it's like they're choosing it because it's more international. I feel like a lot of times when people are moving here, it's because they have you know opportunity. And that was kind of like our case. It's like we moved here. It wasn't because we'd ever been here or we knew there was like so so many Americans. We moved here just simply because my f wife happened to find this one little job that brought us here. and so sometimes

Were you guys like any anywhere in Germany? Is that w I mean, is that what you were like anywhere in Germany or anywhere in Europe? Like how did you end up in this little town in in Germany?

Yeah, so no w we so I studied abroad in Germany when I was in university but it was like a f four week program. I was three weeks in Bonn and then one week in Berlin. and so I I knew that I enjoyed Germany and so I told my originally I asked my wife if she would just be open to living in Germany like one year. We never had the intention of moving here permanently. we were just gonna do an adventure. But with her job being an English speaking, you know

Mm-hmm.

Kind of restricted job. We kind of had ruled out Germany. We tried to do the UK, but the UK Brexit happened and we could not get anything. And everybody told my wife, like, no one's giving visas because there's so much uncertainty about the UK. So that's why originally that spurred us along. We'd like, well, we know we want to do some kind of international adventure and we don't want to waste too much time. So we just traveled for nine months. And while we were traveling, we were just searching literally like jobs in Germany, jobs in Europe, jobs in the UK. We both actually became certified English as a second language teacher.

teachers because we thought we'll just go anywhere internationally that needs to learn or or needs English teachers. And so when we were in Greece nine months into our traveling, my wife happened to, I think, Google speech path jobs in Germany one more time and this one popped up. And so we packed up our we had we had sold like all of our belongings already. We had like two bags. We flew to the States to kind of say like, all right guys, this has been fun for nine months, but now we're moving permanently abroad. I mean permanently like we again thought for one year.

And then we just came here. So we had never we never visited. She didn't do a an in person interview. It was all online. And so we just kinda plopped down and this is just kinda became home.

that's amazing. I have a I just had another question about your visa process. Going back, you applied for the self-employment while you had that blue card, like that dependent blue card. Were you able to keep the blue card component of your visa when you transitioned to self-employment?

no, so there was a there was like another added step in where

My wife was wanting to kind of adjust her hours at work and the way that she adjusted hours and like the the effect it had on her pay, I think it ended up like I can't remember if it was the hours or the pay, but something dropped her below the threshold for what she needed for a blue card. And so basically she had a conversation with her boss and they said, Well, what do you what's more important to you? To have the blue card or to do the or to switch up your work life balance kind of and I think at the time we both again were in the mindset of like, Well, this isn't a permanent move, so let's just get rid of the blue card so we can have the lifestyle that we want. and then I was

Hm.

I think I was earning more money at the time to kinda make up the difference and so we s actually switched we were a blue card, we switched down to like a regular work visa that I was so dependent on and then we went to the self-employed visa after that. So no, we didn't get to keep any of the EU blue card benefits.

Okay. And I j I am t just kind of trying to highlight the blue card 'cause I think it's an excellent pathway into Germany and like you kind of alluded to before, it's for highly compensated

Yeah.

Highly specialized individuals who are filling a gap, right, in the German economy. So think of the engineers and speech pathologists, doctors, nurses. there's this like kind of easier pathway into that into into Germany. And also the another benefit is kind of a faster path to permanent residency and citizenship. And so that's really the benefit of the blue card. And in my own story, when we were moving into Germany, my employer was just like, okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

just like apply for residence save for you. And I was like, no, but what about the blue card? And I had done some research and then they're like, yeah, we could do that too. It takes a little bit longer, but like we'll do that. But I knew enough to ask that question. And so if you're moving in with an employer, you should be asking that question and advocating for yourself to get that card because it is a better visa type.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Absolutely, yeah.

Great. So you sorry, so you switch to the regular employment, then you s you switch to self-employment. And I asked that question because I think it's important to understand, like when you're self-employed, it is a little bit harder in Germany. So can you talk to can you talk to us about some of the downsides of being self-employed and the realities of being self-employed in Germany?

yeah.

Yeah. well added significantly more stress, I feel like, to just like my day to day. whereas before I was worried about like well what happens if my wife loses her job or what if we you know what now I was worried about like well

what if I have like bad months or what if I have a bad year? I didn't have the security anymore of like, you know, a s of of a paycheck that I knew I could count on. And so there was significantly more stress. there was there was freedom in it because I was, you know, on my own terms. But there was

I f I did feel like I was constantly treading water. and there would be periods where I would have like a series of videos or something, or I would have sponsors that I would get contracts for that would that would kind of like pile up and so I felt a little bit more security and I was able to relax a little bit. But but then there would be like really low periods and so then there was that's kind of I think what sort of made me feel a little bit more pressure about getting German citizenship eventually. was that would kind of relieve some of that pressure too.

And then just like the amount of just like I mean, of course Germany's famous for its bureaucracy, but there was so many

different elements of being I guess a business owner here where I would get letters in the mail and even though I was learning German or at that I had learned German, there's still so many vocabulary words and things that like they don't ever teach you because they don't ever think that you're gonna need some of these things. and so many people are moving here not to own a business per se. And so that was difficult. And then just learning to deal with like sometimes German accountants and the verbiates there that was difficult. And just so there's always something that I've learned

yes.

that I didn't know before or maybe like months later I would understand something that I had misunderstood and so I would say like that's a big downside is probably like added stress that you don't necessarily have to have if you have employment. But it's just a it there's freedom but there's a different kind of stress that comes along with it.

Totally. And one of the things I like to just kind of do a quick comparison on is US self-employment versus German self-employment because it is not the same at all. I don't think I truly appreciated how easy it is to just like crack your knuckles and form an LLC in the US and you've got limited liability protection. Super easy, super, super easy.

In the US, it's not like that, or in Germany, it's not like that at all. There is so much bureaucracy, so many so many tax forms and documentation that you need to maintain your self employment, that it just kind of comes with like this this whole other level that you really have to be like thinking about like, am I ready to tackle this paperwork? And if I don't want to tackle this paperwork, am I making enough money or is my pipeline like gonna am I going to make enough money where I can pay someone to do this?

for me because it's it's a lot. And I I I get into conversations with clients sometimes who have like this little, you know, they do some, I don't know, pottery making on the side or something, and the compliance costs costs more than what they make for the year. And I'm just like, is it do you still want to do this? Does it still make sense for you? You really have to think about it a little more strategically when you're navigating just German compliance but also US compliance on the side.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well and that's I think one of the big things too that a lot people don't realize coming in too is that like just because you live in Germany, you're not just you're not just responsible for Germany. You're still responsible for things in the US and I'm not just dealing with German taxes, I'm also dealing with American tax forms too. So so there is there is, yeah, almost double the amount of work that I originally anticipated too coming into Germany and doing it, but

Yeah, it to it exac no, and I think that's it. When you have a dream, when you have a vision, you can get through the annoying systems, but when you lack that vision, I think it makes it much harder.

It's all for the dream. I don't know.

Yeah. Well and I think I probably benefited from the fact that like I don't know if this is dumb to say, but I benefited from almost a ignorance to all this from the get-go, because I think I c I could have easily have gotten overwhelmed and probably would've not have done it from the beginning if I would have known everything that I know now. But because I didn't know and I was just took things kind of like one step at a time and okay, I've learned that now, now I know. Now I've learned this now, now I know.

Now I can look back and be like, wow, I I I've really come a long way from the beginning and it's not it's not as overwhelming, I feel like, because I came in that way. I'm not saying I would advocate for someone to come in ignorant. I'm just saying it kind of it kind of helped because I didn't get overwhelmed by the process.

That's the beauty of the entrepreneur path though, right? Like it is, it's it's like a building building blocks to it. Okay, I we're I know we're just about at time, so I wanna kind of touch one more point around your citizenship diversification plan. So you did actually become German. So talk to us a little bit about that process and really what does holding two citizenships really mean for you now?

Yeah, I think it's probably one of the things that I'm most proud of that I've done. because I think f one it it it almost is like for me like a diploma from from studying is like I've invested so much time in learning about German culture and and Germany. Now I can show this to be able to be like, look at all this that I've learned and what I've built and now I can have this to hold. But it also for me represents

I think a more accessible future for my family, especially my children, because where my wife and I had to try to find a visa to be able like live in Europe or maybe live in the UK or this or that. Now they just have this this ability to live in Germany and hopefully the EU for their lifestyle for for their lifetime. so I I just hope that it gives them a lot more broader opportunities to be able to live here or in the US depending on wherever they want to be. but also I feel like there's a you know, there's an investment

mentality or mindset that you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket and one investment. Well there was kind of a point where I reached and I like, well I feel like we're doing that with our citizenship. Like what if something happens in the US and you know, do we have a backup plan if we need to be able to go somewhere else? And so getting an getting an EU passport and a German passport specifically gave us the ability to diversify, I guess, kind of like our nationalities. If if something happens, we have backup plans. We have options. We have abilities to go somewhere else if we need to. but the process to get there was

was that was really cumbersome and really bureaucratic and difficult. but that was yeah proving German proficiency, taking citizenship exams, filling out tons and tons of paperwork, and then providing more paperwork and more paperwork on top of that. I was having to prove my income once again, even though I had proved it to get the visa, I had to prove that I was able to maintain that income.

And yeah, I think it was in the end it was like a seven-month process, which I think is actually relatively quick compared to other parts of Germany from when I applied to actually receiving my German passport. Yeah. Yeah, and that so I applied, I want to say it was like September, let me see. I have my nose actually. I it was like September of twenty-four, and I got it in May of twenty-five. and so yeah, and and that i there's kind of like a balancing act, I feel like, where

That's very quick. That's very quick, yeah. What year was this? Just out of curiosity.

Wow, yeah.

You have parts of coun parts of the country which have a huge international population, so there's lots of people applying, creating a backlog of applications, but a lot of times that motivates some of those areas, I think like in Berlin is an example of that, to digitalize the process to start speeding it up a little bit. Whereas you have some other areas where you don't have very many foreigners living there and they might have like one or two people working on the staff, and so there's really not a lot of motivation to update the system, which is the case in our our area, where even though there's like fifty, sixty

Americans and there's all these NATO none of those people are applying for for citizenship. they're only here for diplomatic or military purposes. And so our office, it kind of seemed like had no motivation to advance their systems. So everything was very old school personal meetings and giving hard paperwork. You couldn't upload anything anywhere. and they only had, I think I want to say it was like two people on staff to do process everybody's applications. and so it was it there's like this balancing act of like you

Mm-hmm.

You don't wanna live in an area that's s so backlogged and there's so many international applicants that it was gonna take forever to get it, but you also don't wanna live in an area where there's absolutely no international people that are z that you know, it might take a long time to process because it's it's such an old school system. In our area, I don't know, we're kind of like in this middle ground where they're it's not very digitized, but there's also not very many people applying, so they're able to process it a little bit faster, so yeah.

Well, congratulations. I think a lot of people are thinking about multiple citizenships as a way to diversify their life and their financial plan and just have more options. I know this is something my family is also working on. So I think that's a wonderful point to to end on. Donnie, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you sharing your insights.

Yeah.

Yeah, well thanks so much for having me. It fun.