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Episode Summary

After nearly 30 years in corporate communications, Ed Patterson didn’t just leave corporate—he left the country. He and his partner planned their move to Portugal, secured residency, and designed a new life where work no longer sits at the center. We cover what it really takes to prepare (financial, legal, lifestyle), what he’d do sooner, how he reframed success to “quality of my day,” and practical advice for anyone considering a similar shift—whether you move abroad or simply want more control at home.

Chapter markers

• 00:00 Intro: Why Ed left corporate and the U.S.

• 00:45 Ed’s background: PR/Comms, crisis, agency + in-house

• 03:00 The Portugal plan: residency, D7 visa, timelines, consultants

• 05:35 How they prepared: roles, finances, finish lines, advisor sign-off

• 10:50 Healthcare and costs: private insurance, day-to-day expenses

• 14:40 Redefining happiness: “quality of my day,” health, sleep, energy

• 20:13 Advice to 30- and 40-somethings: plan for when you want to—and when you have to

• 26:14 Do an inventory: skills, network, gaps, use corporate to upskill

• 30:11 Action over waiting: fractional, contracts, bridge income

• 33:06 The “adventure years” mindset and inviting questions

• 35:23 Close

Key takeaways

• Plan with intent: set a finish line, pressure-test with a financial advisor, and define roles at home.
• Consider geo-arbitrage: lower costs can pull your finish line forward by years.
• Optimize your day: sleep, movement, and mental space beat title-chasing.
• Treat corporate like your one client: extract skills, network, and education while you’re there.
• Build optionality: fractional work and short contracts can bridge income during transitions.
• Do the inventory: skills, network, marketable experiences, and gaps to close before you jump.
• Prepare for both scenarios: when you choose to leave—and if corporate chooses for you.
• Health matters: design a life you can actually enjoy.

Guest

Ed Patterson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edpatterson1/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twoguysinportugal

Callout quotes

• “We hit our finish line sooner because our costs dropped by a third to a half.”
• “I sleep better, eat better, and feel more creative. That was impossible when work ran my day.”
• “Plan for your choice—and for the day you may not have one.”

Today's guest didn't just leave corporate, he left the country. After decades in the grind, he and his partner planned their escape to Portugal. We're going to talk about what really takes to prepare, what he wishes he had done sooner, and how he's redefined happiness now that corporate isn't at the center of his life. Ed Patterson, welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Okay.

Thanks for having me, Brett. It's been a while. It's been a while.

It has been a while and we got caught up a little bit before we hit record and I just keep nodding my head. I'm like, yep, I get it, man. I love what you're doing. And maybe for the audience, just a little bit, right? You don't have to go deep into your corporate career, but what 20 years, 30 years, and just kind of talk about where you're at today. And I want to dig in.

Sure, sure. So and I'll maybe I'll start where you and I are paths cross. So I've been in corporate communications, crisis communications for the bulk of my career and probably close to 30 years. And so that included you name it, anything from public relations to internal communications. I've worked on on the consulting and the agency side as well as with lots of large brands, both public companies, private companies, which is when

you know, when we met and for your listeners, I didn't tell Brett this before we started, but my experience with him was one of those kind of, you know, those shifted turning points in your career. And I remember I was, I think I was tasked with some big project you were doing and I was supposed to be your comms guy to help shift the internal, all the employees on how they were, how this new process or what you're all working on. And it was at that point I decided I was.

I didn't want to really be an internal comms person. I was a good PR to media relations guy. So I thank Brett, but we got to know each other then. Yeah. So I was in Atlanta most of my career. We had the opportunity to move to Portland, Maine. My husband is a CPA. He went to work for a small startup as their CFO. I was doing consulting work at the time after we left Atlanta. And subsequently, COVID happened and I was ready not to be trowing back and forth to New York.

I had an opportunity with a pretty large bank based in Boston and went to work to lead global PR for them. And that's what I was doing for about the past five years until June 30th, which was my finish line. And in the middle of all of that, about a couple of years ago, my husband and I had made the decision that we wanted to retire overseas.

Um, and we were going to retire in Portugal. So we, did buy a property before property was going up a little bit in Portugal and, um, we rented it out a little bit. And then, um, we were expedited our, I guess, our, um, move here because of a, um, a non-obstacle, um, tax, uh, provision they had for immigrants coming into the country that really gave us some tax benefits for the, for the next 10 years. They were ending that.

And so we expedited our visa application. We expedited our residency process. And I guess in June of last year, we became official temporary residents. So I have a residency card. We were on a D7 visa, which is a passive or retiree visa. And we did that before we actually retired. So the...

passive income that you need here is not a lot to qualify for your visa. And we had a lot of our savings and lot of our investments that were our backup. So yeah, so that's what we did. And then we have residency requirements. so I said to my husband, I said, like, I'm ready to stop this for a variety of reasons. One, I need to be here and I can't do my job from here. But number two, I'm exhausted. He's working 60, 65 hours a week.

Yeah.

Even though I retired early, as you know, Brett, I'm still somewhat long in the two, so it was time to take advantage of this. So that's how we got here. And so since July 1, I've been, I guess, officially retired from corporate America. And I got to say, it's been the best time I've had in the last 30 years. Thanks.

bet. I bet. And so much there to unpack. One, congrats on doing that, right? Because, and people into my story know that I was, I was kicked out of corporate and, it was the best thing that ever happened. It was, I knew it was time. It was just, I just hadn't had the realization that you did. And the fact that you actually planned for it, because that's what I really encourage people. said, in hindsight, what I would have done is planned and been ready to go. even if, and it doesn't sound like maybe a full retirement is in your, you made

Mm-hmm.

get back in and do some things to keep you busy. But yeah, I think that that planning process is so important. maybe kind of walk back through what was it three years ago, five years ago when you just said, Hey, this isn't working for us anymore. What do we want to do? Did you actually sit down and map out what is our future look like? Or was it more whimsical of say, Hey, wouldn't it be cool?

it

Okay.

There's so much to see, we like to travel. And I think, you know, he's a bit older than me, so he was thinking like, yeah, I'm getting ready to do this. But we did plan it out, like how many more years do I need to work to be able to put some money away and do those kind of things. And then at the same time when we were planning for this,

As I mentioned to you before we started, you one thing I've always wanted to do is I've wanted to like teach and lecture. So I knew I didn't get a master's. didn't. So in the same time, I'm back half of my career. I went through an executive program. I got my master's degree. So I'm more attractive to teach, you know, communications and PR. So that was all part of the plan. And we did have some, you we had some finish lines in place. As I said, we expedited it, but we came over here a few times. We

We utilize the consultant over here in Portugal. We knew Portugal was it after so many visits. We love the people. The cost of living is so much less. We knew we could retire really comfortably here and that was starting to get, make us a little nervous in the States. And so we just kind of plotted it out from kind of what we feel comfortable with having in the bank and in our savings. What we want to do when we get here kind of thing. Do we just either keep working?

And then you have to plan for what we do is for just the process of getting here, right? It was two years in the making from where would we want to live? How would we want to live? Start the visa process, start those kinds of things. So we did have a plan in place and it made it easier for, I think it made it easier for us because we just kind of had down on paper what we're going to need if we live to certain age.

our financial advisor walked us through that as well. Said, okay, this is what you guys have. And I think it was, I think Brad, was last, probably last December about this time when we were really getting close to this and Steve had pretty much retired and our financial advisor said, you can do this. You've hit your finish line. And so that kind of drove it a little bit. But yeah, I think you need to think about it and plan for it.

There may be some people that's listening and they're interested or they've started down the process or maybe they just want to live overseas, know, part-time that are probably going through what I'll say visa hell or residency hell. And it has because, you know, there's, you know, there's, I think I read there's like, you know, 33 % more Americans in the last 15 years are getting their social security overseas because so many more Americans are moving. there's...

The number of expats coming to Portugal and other countries has picked up. So the process has really gotten somewhat cumbersome from the time we walked into these Portuguese consulate in Boston to the time we had our interview with the immigration service here and got our residency. It was just six months, lots of planning before then, but I think it's just we had our ducks in a row and we'd done this, but I would safely say we were thinking about this for about six years before we did it.

okay.

That's awesome.

So I would encourage folks to think through that. there's, unlike you, don't have a couple of young, as I say, a couple of youngins to put through college, and we don't have some of those. But we have aging parents, and that was an issue. And so we had to think through all of those things, but I think having your finances in place. But specifically, one thing we didn't worry about even more more so, and that's what your listeners, I know, are interested in is,

We never worried if something went south, could we earn money or earn a living, right? We did, our visa allows us to work in Portugal. It allows us to work in the States. It allows us, know, wherever we may wanna work. As I said, I told you my husband's contracting for an accounting firm back in the States right now and he's doing that from here. So that was never something that worried us. And I think you talk about this all the time and I...

I think that's one of the worries that we took off the table, which was, you know, we felt good about what we had done in our experiences that we've had to be able to live here and work here. And if something catastrophic happened and we felt like we needed more money in the bank for something, I could go work again. Steve could go work again. You know, I could lecture, could teach, I could consult. And so that was one of those things that were like, we knew that's possible and probably more so now than any time before.

Yeah, that's so good. And again, it just goes back to the planning process, right? Having a plan. And again, we just barely touched it off the healthcare too, right? Because one thing transitioning out of corporate in the States is you're responsible for all the costs and it's not cheap here. And now I know a lot of corporations are cutting back on the amount of money they're paying actually on the premium. So healthcare costs is going up for everybody. I'm assuming that's a massive cost savings.

Mm-hmm.

Peace.

Mm-hmm.

in Portugal, right? That are something you don't have to worry about that you would have had to worry about in the States.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think one of the things, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have either thought about it or they've done their research and they've seen some data points. So I'll give you a scenario. When we were in the States and I was working for a very large Fortune 500 company that by any stretch of imagination had good healthcare benefits. But I still, for my husband and I, I was still paying.

Out of my pocket before you know deductibles before copays or anything like that. I'm still paying like $630 a month out of my pocket. We here because of our residency we have we have to have private insurance and and then we get to use the state system and our health care cost on a monthly basis are a third of what we paid in the states plus.

We don't have to deal with deductibles and insurance companies battling back and forth. And so, you know, I, we went to the dermatologist the other day and you just go and it was like 20 euros and that's it. And it's a, and that's private insurance. So we do a private insurance story, which is helpful to us. It's, it's, it's, it's nice. It's good. It's good care. So there's that, but you know, you know, another example is our, know, I think our food costs are probably 25 or 30%.

less than they were in the States. We have two phone lines, internet and TV service in our home and it's 70 euro a month. there's that now, know, income tax is high, good income tax, know, fuel tax. You have to look at all of those kinds of things. But in the grand scheme of things, we think that are, you know, that we're probably, you know, a third to a half of what we would call, what would it cost us to

Wow, okay.

live and that's from our home to our food to our entertainment to all of those kinds of things that are necessities. And that also helped us get to that finish line sooner, right? Because that finish line that I talked about in December probably wouldn't have happened if I were trying to buy a place and retire early in the States because of health care, probably the primary expense, but other expenses are just higher. And I will say we've been

Yeah.

so pleased with our healthcare. We've been very pleased. We've had good doctors, we have good PCPs. Steve sees a cardiologist and they've taken good care of him when he's needed it. So I will say, I think it's a misnomer. Folks think that they wouldn't get good healthcare here because they do and we have. Yeah.

That's awesome. And again, that's what the whole point of this podcast is what's possible, right? What haven't you thought of? Because again, maybe you kind of broke out of this thinking earlier than most of the people I talked to, because most of us are just still, you I even talked to, I think at a post this morning about living my life around corporate when I was in it, right? just vacations were around the corporate job workouts around the corporate job. The kids activities were around the corporate job. And until you can flip that it's hard to see.

Thank

You know that path forward, but the other thing that I also learned, um, in hindsight was I was, I was measuring success the wrong way. Right. mean, good family, everybody groups. So a lot of really positive, good things, but one of the things that wasn't was the quality of, of overall life. And so the way I started looking and measuring his happiness, right. You can define it different ways. Just kind of curious, even go back six years.

Excuse me.

Yeah.

in hindsight looking at your overall happiness level, right? And then last December and now, right? Where does, how does that change? To me, that's, I'm starting to index off that. think a lot more people are so curious.

Yeah, I do. know, shared with earlier, I don't call it like as much quality of life. Now I call it quality of my day because, you know, when I was, and I listened up until June 30 of last year, I was working 60 or 65 hours a week. I had people that worked for me in Hong Kong and people worked for me in London. And so I'm up early, I'm up late checking emails. And I mean, you know this as well. It's not just so many companies that are

That's it.

that are laying off and getting rid of people, but those that remain are overworked. And that was kind of what was happening at ours. We were just a very linked team. So I liked the work. Give me a good crisis and throw me into it and let me talk to a reporter or two about how we're gonna talk about it. And that's kind of what I do. And I enjoyed that part of it, I just didn't, vacations you were still on, right? You still had your...

Right.

your email up or you know it's it's nighttime and and people are like this and you know you've got your laptop out and and I guess there was some sort of like it just became the norm for a while but I have to tell you when we when we when when we saw that finish line coming from like you said six years ago which is kind of what this was to December and

I just kept telling myself like, you know, Ed, in six months, right, you'll be able to do this. And I felt responsible to my company for a little bit, but I sleep better. I eat better. I exercise on a daily basis. You know, I just, have more energy. I feel like I more creative energy. You know, I can listen to a podcast or I can...

a video or something like that and I can absorb things and I think sometimes you get in corporate world and you're just so programmed to get through that day or that week and hope that something doesn't blow up that's going to cost you your weekend and I just that became something that I said was just unsustainable for me because you know people our age are they're dying they're dying they're having heart attacks they're in stress so that was one of the things that I would say to anyone.

used to wake up at five o'clock in the morning, looking at my phone to see if there's something going on and that happened overnight in Europe. And then I wake up in the morning. Now I wake up at nine o'clock in the morning and I'll drink me some coffee out on the patio and then I'll exercise or I'll walk into town or I'll always try to catch up on news and current events. You know, it's, funny. I stay in touch with reporters and journalists that I used to work with and kind of become friends. So all of that stuff just becomes part of that.

Yeah

I kind of see that as working. We're still networking. We're still staying in touch with those people that you may want to. I'm still close to other, you know, communications and PR colleagues that I know. But I do it on my time and we engage and we talk about things like you said, we probably are, you know, are sitting up in the bad seats, you know, evaluating how the quarterback's playing because we don't have to deal with it. I do think one thing that I would say to folks that are

either thinking about this as possibly an alternative. Yeah, I do the plan, but like, just think about your physical health and your happiness. I just, don't, I didn't know how much I was missing, frankly, I didn't. I just, there's a whole lot to be said as we get this age about how you feel, both mentally and physically. And I wouldn't trade it if somebody told me I had to be a barista down there at a coffee shop, but here in Nazaré, Portugal, which is where I am,

Yeah.

To be able to like sleep till nine o'clock and still be happy. How they I do it right you do those kind of things so I would just say make sure your health is is paramount to a lot of your decisions. Yeah.

Yeah. So good. And so true. Right. I mean, I think that is right. It's just the full, you wake up and I think that's where COVID woke up a lot of folks. And, you know, one thing that I, we talk about, or I'm talking about more is it's not just, you know, the Gen Xers that us it's logical, right? We're stepping out. We've earned the, I say we've earned the right, you've paid your dues to do what you want to do on your own terms.

Thank you.

Thanks.

But, you know, maybe we could have learned from Gen Z and some of the millennials because part of what the corporate path doesn't have is a finish line. Kudos to you and Steve for having a plan and being able to execute it. But I would say less than 20 % of the folks that I talked to are no don't have, and again, probably because they're planning to stay in the States, don't have that nest egg or the be able to just stop working.

at the age of, you know, call it 55, whatever it is, right? Because unless you're the, tell people, unless you're in the C-suite, which you're, then you're guaranteed. You get to that level. Yeah. With buyout everything else. Yes, you can retire, but you have a better chance of winning the lotto than making it to the C-suite and make, regardless. So now I want you to go back and think about, because again, some of these 30 somethings and even, you know, low thirties are starting to think, man,

Mm.

Ha

Is there a better, is there more to life than me just building and working around corporate? I long wind up to getting your perspective. What would you recommend to folks? Would you have done things differently in hindsight?

Absolutely. And you know what's really interesting? I don't think anything that we're talking about is just unique to somebody who wants to move overseas, right? Like, you know, there may be friends of mine that I worked with that were in Boston, and they would love to like...

just kind of break free. maybe that means they're okay to downsize a little bit because they're empty nesters or they can move somewhere. But they can also work and they can consult or they can shift gears and do something completely different that you talk about quite a bit with all the opportunities. think that thinking through the plan in place, whether you want to go to overseas or not, that just adds a couple of bullet points to your list.

Because, and I would say this, not just if you're thinking about doing it now, but what if you were one of those that got fired in the last two weeks, right? So I think it's always helpful. I'll be the first one to say, like, couldn't have done this. You probably couldn't have started doing what you're doing without some of the fruits of the corporate life. I said we saved some money. It gave us wonderful experiences. It grew our networks. So, you know, I...

Yeah.

I don't have any shame saying this. They kind of used you for all that time. So use all those things that they gave you to your benefit. Use your network, use your skillset. Look at where there are needs that you can adjust on your skillsets. As I told you, I never taught a class in my life, but that's what I like to do. It's not gonna pay me.

Six figures, but that's okay, right? I'm getting to do something. I'll be able to do something that I want to do that I think I could be really good at and help that next generation of comms people, but plan whether you're doing it or not. hindsight, yeah, I would have figured out a way to do this on my own probably 10 years ago. I just, I just, you know.

Yeah.

I think you said something, I read something that like we are so self-identified in America by the title that we have, if it's a VP or a managing director, whatever else it is. And we just have to break free of that. And I think this younger generation, I will tell you like we run our fun little two guys in Portugal Instagram, we show pictures of us tooling around the country, but I get notes from people much younger than us that are like,

Ha

Can I ask you a question about this? I saw this, you did this. So I think to say that this is something just Gen Xers are doing, our boomers have done, you're probably hearing as much as I do. They've seen what their parents or their older brother or sister or an aunt or uncle has had to go through and they don't wanna do it. They just don't want to do it. yeah, do the same kind of plan that we would do.

Right.

And in preparation for when you can, but also in preparation for when you have to. Because I would say this, I talk to lot of GenXers people that are our age and our generation that either have let go, been let go. And that job market in corporate America, it's much tougher for them than it is for young people. And so I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't plan as if...

Right.

that was your next step or that's how you're going to end your career. That would be my advice.

Yeah, no, mean, and it's good advice too, I think, right, because you keep talking about the planning, which I think is gonna be the definitely the theme of this episode, because until after I was out, I really never sat down. There's a financial plan, right? When you're in corporate, you got the paycheck coming in, you know, you're putting stuff away. But my wife and I never really sat down and said, what do we want? Right, right? When you're living it, it's like, well, we got to get the kids through school.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right. We got weddings, got college, these types of things. So you're living it where when I really sat down and I encourage people again, I don't care if you're 25 or 65, what do you want? Right. Cause there's a good chance if you take care of yourself that you can live till 90, 95 or beyond healthy. So right. What do you want out of that? That next part of your life? And the number of people that haven't done this, I was one of them is, surprising. going through that exercise, even at

Mm-hmm.

30, right? You're going to have some different wants, right? While we want to send our three kids to this. But, I guess maybe the biggest way to rephrase that is be intentional about your corporate job, right? And you, said it in corporate, they did use us. And at the time I was using it as to climb the corporate ladder, but in hindsight, I should have been using it as, all right, am I getting this type of experience? If I want to do this next, am I going to get this at this job or no, it was still, we were still tied to the loyalty.

Mm-hmm. True.

be very intentional about.

No.

Sure.

a bit, even though it wasn't reciprocated ever. So I think that's part of my other advice is to the even the 20 somethings is just be intentional about what you're doing. But think about what you want because you do have this choice. It didn't feel like it until you're out. But then all of sudden you realize, man, you're a perfect example of the pre plan, which is, again, we need to get more people to, again, be intentional and think about what you want.

Yeah, and I've been far from like the greatest planner, but when it came to this, you know, we both knew our own roles and certainly he was the finance guy and I was looking at those things. I'll also say that if one thing that I would say part of the planning process is, you know, do an inventory of what you've got here, right? Like do an inventory of

Yeah.

your network, do an inventory of your skill sets. you've been in front of it, I know I did as well. If there's something you wanna learn, there's some free course, your company that you're in corporate America will tend you to teach you some things about AI or they'll do like that. Until you get to that finish line, take all of that in, right? Those are still skill sets. So I would just say.

Take an inventory of what you've got and what you think is marketable for you outside of the corporate world. And then if there's something missing or you think something be important, I use that as an example. Like see how you can get that out of your corporate, because they will provide that. You my last corporate job was in financial services and investment management. And other than a couple of bank clients at my consulting gigs, I'd never done that before.

My skillset aligned with it given where we were. But my last five years, I gained as much up here that's making me valuable now than I did at any time in my career. So I would just say maybe that's, maybe that's you're in a place where you've been offered an opportunity to go do a assignment somewhere else in the business, gonna teach you a new skillset that could benefit you five years from now. Do an inventory of what you have.

Yeah.

and think about those kind of things and how can your current work if it's in corporate America benefit you because you don't know. So that's just another piece of advice I might give.

Yeah. And it's good. And it's what I do encourage folks, even if you're going to stay in corporate now, treat them as if you were a solo business owner and your corporate job is your one client. may not have the terms you love, right? But you are getting paid, but think of it that way, that it's a two way street, not just, you know, while they're paying me benefits and salaries. So I do everything they say, which you still may have to do. But again, think about what are you, what are you getting out of this again, which in hindsight, I

Hahaha!

Yeah.

I get mine was more driven towards how is this going to get me to the next level? Not how is this preparing me for what I'm going to do next in life? And so again, live and learn hindsight's 2020, but it's a, ahead. Sorry.

Yeah. No, was gonna I was gonna say, I know you've got a lot of these vibrant resources and I don't think it's you know when I talked to some people about this that are that are younger. I don't think it's necessarily like I if I have to quit my if I quit my corporate job now I have to be a consultant at half five clients lined up. That's great if you had that but in today's world, particularly from the time when when you left corporate and certainly I would say probably in the last five years.

Right.

There's so many opportunities if you just need to make sure that you still have some income coming in while you're building that. Like I said, it's fractional work, number one, but there is a plethora of those types of services that want your skill set, right? Because somebody needs a chief communications officer for about two months to help them launch something, or they need some accounting work here like that.

So I would say as part of your planning process, don't think you've got to have, you know, know, know, Ed Patterson, Inc. and a sign outside the door and for clients, if I were in that position, I would probably say, and there's a lot of places I can go that people just want a comms guy or they want somebody with my experience and I can do a couple of contracts and make that part of your plan as well. Have some of that lined up. So you have, if you need an income stream coming in, meantime, you've got more time versus corporate world to really kind of.

think about what you want to do and what you might want to build on your own. that may just be, I think there's a lot more, there's a little more resources out there right now for somebody to transition perhaps into my own consulting firm or my own business. I think there's a lot of transition opportunities. And I know you talk about this.

Yeah. No, and it's, such a good point. And what I'm finding with is the winners. again, winners is relative term are people taking action, right? There's so many people are just waiting for things to happen. And if it's the people, don't care again, back if you have two years experience or 40, somebody's out there having conversations and pushing it and do it just doing, they're getting the business. They're figuring out how to, not in all cases, there's some things that things just don't work out that way. But again, if you keep doing it,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Cause most people won't. mean, that's just human nature. They're, they're not going to do it. And so you've got a benefit. We're heading more to a solo based economy anyway. So you might as well get out in front of this thing. So, yeah.

It is.

Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, no. So I do. Again, I'm sure you're seeing the numbers in people that are watching your TikTok and their podcasts, but I think it's younger. So maybe some of the things that we've talked about, the planning, the transition for somebody who's maybe mid 40s and that first child's getting ready to go to college and they're like...

I just can't do this anymore. Some of the kind of planning and prep and inventory are things are really, really helpful now. if anybody's listening that's younger than we Gen Xers, like this is valuable stuff actually.

Learn from us or learn. Exactly. And, know, it's funny part of when I did kind of a inventory of the collective and who's in there, like we, we have the early forties that the kids are growing up and the father's missing, right? Some of those things. And, you know, we've got the 30 year old first time mother who's, now going back to work and corporate's not designed for, and she's looking for a pass. So everybody's story.

And the Y is a little bit different, but I, what I'm trying to get people is to help them think through the how and bring in folks on like you to show, Hey, this is one path, right? This worked for us. It's working for us. And what we haven't talked about and maybe we can, we can close is you've set yourself up for, you know, the next 20 to 30 years. If you want to work, can work. You can go teach, you can consult, you can freelance. You can basically, like I said, your skillset will transfer to small businesses, startups.

Mm-hmm.

Thank

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

teaching there's other folks probably coming up through corporate comms and like, I don't want to do corporate communications. I want to get into PR and how do I do that? Well, as teaching a class on, or your he's got a program to teach, you know, up and coming. So my whole point with that is you've set yourself up again, but some, you're, you're a good blueprint, right? So if you're thinking about this, not quite ready to take action, learn from what Ed's done because

Is it a necessity to do it this way? No. Will you figure it out? Probably. Will it save you a lot of time, angst and energy? Hell yes. Right?

Mm-mm.

I will I will close this and you know that if there's if there's anybody that that pings you that's like hey, I had a couple of questions for the guy that that's living in Portugal. I'm always we're always happy to help people because we big expat community here and we all kind of helped each other through through that through that process. But I would I would just say that. You know.

It might not be something you've even thought about today, and it may not be something you think about five years from now. But if you thought at some point in your career, maybe you do become mid-50s and you have two kids and they're out of the house, and you're still worried about things like health care and cost of living and safety and those quality of life, quality of your days, it's never too late to just at least know that it could be an option for you and to put it in the back pocket.

Again, and particularly for anything that would help you and your cohort if anybody was like, here's another avenue, you know, I'm always happy to help. But yeah, it's working for us. And, you know, I'll check back in with you when Steve says I have to go back to work and do something, thankfully. Thankfully, cost of living is less here, it's been a great decision for us. as you said, it's really just set us up for what we think are.

That's awesome.

There you go.

not necessarily our golden years, we call them our adventure years because we have so many things ahead of us.

Yes. Yeah. Part two, man. I think it's so good. And just to, cause you said maybe mid fifties expat, there's actually a couple in the collective. I'm going to guess mid thirties. So if they hear this and they're offended, I'm they're older or younger, but they were in the UK and decided that wasn't the life. they relocated to Grenada of all places and they both opened up their own solo businesses and their son. think it's just one son, if I'm not mistaken.

hahahaha

But they just said, we're just taking the entire family on this adventure because what was up there wasn't working for us. So it's, people that are willing to plan and take action are again, it's, it's a life skill, I suppose. But, anyway, so add thank you. Yeah.

Hahaha!

Mm-hmm.

Just don't be afraid. Yeah, don't be afraid. Yeah, I would just say don't be afraid of it, right? Don't be afraid of it. Just like you weren't afraid of it either. Just don't be afraid of it and kind of embrace it. So yeah. You got it. Thank you.

Yeah. And see where it takes you. Right. It's life's too short not to, so, all right. I'd appreciate the time, the insight, the wisdom congrats on everything and we'll stay in touch because I'm sure we will have some, some folks that are thinking about your journey. So we may bring you back in and do a, maybe even some of the community, maybe we'll do a little mini workshop for folks that are considering it. So. Awesome, man. Good to see you again. Uh, take care of yourself. We'll catch up soon.

Thanks. You better.

Sure.

Always happy to help. Thanks. Alrighty. Okay, I forgot them.