The Nomad Executive and How to Work from Anywhere | with Michael Cohen
GAIN Momentum episode #40 - The Nomad Executive and How to Work from Anywhere | with Michael Cohen
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, technology, and food service. Our co host today is Chris Tomseth. Chris, how are you?
Chris Tomseth: I'm great. Thank you for having me.
Adam Mogelonsky: Great to have you. And our special guest today is Michael Cohen.
Michael Cohen: Hello.
Adam Mogelonsky: how are you?
Michael Cohen: I'm awesome. I'm, uh, in one place and I'm happy to spend time with you guys on this topic today.
Adam Mogelonsky: Now, for listeners and viewers, this is a special episode. We don't have a outside guest coming on. We have three GAIN advisors here, and we're interviewing Michael on a very specific topic that is a mega trend that is important for us to understand and to come to terms with for how it applies to our businesses.
And [00:01:00] also our lifestyles, and that is being a nomad exec, a nomad executive, and traveling around the world and working abroad. It is a huge trend. So, Michael, to start off with, just for context, to give people a visual, can you describe, over the past few years, some of the places you've lived and worked in, and we'll take it from there.
Michael Cohen: Sure. So I have been the Nomad Exec or Nomad Executive since around October of 2021. so over the last two to three years, uh, you know, post pandemic transition of travels coming back. things are opening up. I really saw it as an opportunity for me, my lifestyle personally, et cetera, to grow a business, to work with, incredible people in a very dynamic industry, but not to be tethered to one location or one corporate office, [00:02:00] et cetera. And to really, maximize the use of. technology, of, the acceptance of what we're going to talk about today, that's a big, big part of this is the cultural acceptance or cultural awareness of beyond work from home, work from away, you know, all these things. So long and short of it is, I have lived in Central America, South America, West coast of North America. I worked, lived in Europe, for two to three month stints in a rotation, about four to six months a year for basically the last two and a half to three years. And most importantly, I guess, is, Obviously the experience has been positive or I wouldn't be planning about what the future is, but in the future, it's going to be now a full lifestyle decision and to set the expectation here, I will be living without a permanent partner. Residency, I will have multiple residencies that will be rotating through the [00:03:00] world that are logical for my business, logical for my professional aspirations, and logical for my lifestyle.
Adam Mogelonsky: So you talk about lifestyle and the first thing is you talked about the macro here in terms of where you lived. What's the day in the life of a nomad exec?
Michael Cohen: Well, the day in the life of a nomadic exec is doing your job, primarily, because you're still an exec. You're not on vacation. but, um. Wonderful, you know, benefits for the right kind of person or the right kind of time in their life, whatever the right scenario is, is that it's everything around what you do all day as a business person or as an everything else. is magic. You have this ability to immerse yourself for longer stay experiences and build some almost like mini routes in different locations around the world that enhance your life experience. Have a great, quality of life. If that, if, you know, it's a cliche, but it's true. If that's what works for you. [00:04:00] But the key is you're still doing what you do for your career. You're still meeting your KPIs. You're still traveling to a trade show where it makes sense. You're still interacting with your team. You're still meeting with investors. The reality is, is that what we're doing today, right now, even in this interview, the virtualized. extension or virtualized, integration into the day to day business world from an executive level perspective. And I'm not saying everyone has to be an exec to do this. Obviously, the vast majority of this trend is digital nomads in general. And that's traditionally early in people's careers, they're experimenting or they're making the most of the opportunity that they have a gig. That they're able to do while they're living near the beach in Bali in the in the most cliche trope, which is literally true. And you have this ability to earn a good living, have some growth and aspirational [00:05:00] direction in your career, but you don't have to do it sitting, you know, in a basement apartment in Brooklyn in that part of your career.
Chris Tomseth: Michael, question for you. so particularly when you're in a time zone far away, like when you're in Europe, how do you manage that? Are you primary? I know you're still taking like U. S. meetings during U. S. business hours, but are you, are you making a shift where, for example, if you're living in Western Europe, that you focus, a disproportionate amount of your time on European centric meetings?
Michael Cohen: So it depends on your role and responsibility within your organization in many ways too, because we are talking about the nomad exec lifestyle, right? So a couple of things. first of all, I have always respected European executives. Who worked long hours to facilitate business with their North American headquarters or their North American clients or their South American clients. So as a European, a temporary Western [00:06:00] European, I'm just doing what many, many execs who are listening to this or watching this, they do it every day. They've done it forever. Having the flexibility, maybe having different, you know, breaking up your business days. You're not sitting in front of your computer or constantly working for eight hours.
Maybe there's, it's broken up where it's over a 12 hour cycle, but it's eight or nine hours in a 12 hour cycle. So you can move your commercial day, your professional day a little bit around to hit all the spots to hit all the time zones. Listen, one, one important thing about at a high level, but a nomad exec is you need to be respectful to the parameters and responsibilities of your position as well. So that means. Would I love to be doing this, in, uh, Koh Samui in Thailand full time? Sure. Not realistic, not responsible, will not achieve the commercial goals for my organization or my investors or my own, goals. [00:07:00] Is that a good answer? You know what I'm getting at? Like we have to play within the parameters that we can continue to exceed as executives, as business people, as professionals, but now you have some flexibility on how you implement that, which opened up this opportunity for a nomad executive experience.
Chris Tomseth: Got it, thank you.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, you touch on living in Europe, Chris, and now you've touched on Koh Samui, which is Asia. And I believe the term I'm hearing being tossed around is the trifecta, which is
four months in Americas, four months in EMEA and four months in APAC. Michael, could you see yourself doing that and living that way as a nomad executive?
Michael Cohen: So let me just explain a little more why that is a really interesting concept. So what we're literally talking about is. It could be a choice. It could be for personal financial choices. This is also a bit part of this is that there are scenarios, very legal, appropriate, professional executive [00:08:00] scenarios, where if you do this on a reoccurring rotational basis and you're outside of in certain countries, not all countries, but if you're outside of your country of citizenship for more than 183 days a year, You have the ability to be a non resident, and then you have some financial, positive, uh, ramifications to that. that's not a requirement for doing this Trifecta scenario, but the Trifecta is what I would call hardcore. It's a hardcore, nomadic sec, digital nomad choice. What we're really talking about is that you're leaving your home country, Beyond visits, you're leaving your home country in a rotation. So you have some, you're building some roots, maybe do it recurring every year, you do a third, a third, a third, and what it, what the trifecta does.
And actually, I do have a, we'll talk about this a little bit later, this principle of threes. Nomad, my, the nomadic exec experience for me and what I'm kind of organizing perhaps for others that I'll be coaching, doing some business coaching with over, over time. That's something I plan [00:09:00] to do as part of my general interest and career, outside of my pure play executive responsibilities, is this third, a third, a third, or, three different locations. You have reoccurring relationships, you have reoccurring, mini routes settled. You know what you like, you know which, you know, short term leases or Airbnb or extended stay hotel experiences. You know what you like. You know where, where it's at, you know you can do work from there effectively, and you also know that the quality of life and the experiential opportunity is magical. So that's what the trifecta, strategy is, and, and I personally, starting in the fall of 2024 will be on for the next few years at least, this ongoing rotation of locations. Thanks. Every three to four months. So there's three major locations a year, and that will be my lifestyle as a nomad exec. And I personally, I'm looking, and from my experience, I'm looking at one quarter or one third of [00:10:00] the year in Central America, one third of the year in, Western Europe and one third of the year in North America, and that may be in Canada or in the United States.
Chris Tomseth: Speaking of that, uh, and that type of thing, so in your travels, and you know, so this is kind of more broadly travel, but are there things that are available to you or that you found to be available in, for instance, Latin America that you might've wished that you had in Europe and or North America and vice versa?
So, you know, are there things that. People in your position can learn from, and essentially, if you designed your ideal destination, what would you bring?
Michael Cohen: you know, there are some foundational components to being a successful nomad exec. first of all, there needs to be safety and security, of course, like any other scenario. There needs to be infrastructure, both technologically and transportation infrastructure needs to be reasonable and, and strong. But to your point about, let's say, using the general area of South America, what I [00:11:00] found is that travel within South America is, if you do it right, is incredibly cost effective and you get a tremendous value and quite luxurious experience or upper scale experience for a much more reasonable transaction cost. Travel, you guys know this, travel with many of these people who are listening to this, perhaps they notice that. And when you're in, once you're in Europe, the travel, air travel is incredibly cost effective. Once you're in Asia, Southeast Asia, for example, the air travel is incredibly cost effective. It's getting your bum to the, into the region is the challenge. So if you have an ability to schedule things out early enough, like any other lifestyle, and you can find and wait for the appropriate. Cost effective transaction, transactions in regards to long distance air travel, you have now opened up an incredible flexible lifestyle where you're delivering on your executive responsibilities. you're [00:12:00] growing your own personal experience and enriching your life, and you're doing it in a way that frankly is surprisingly cost effective than Sitting in your home or condo, which is what most of us do. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously it's to each his own, but the lifestyle costs, the living costs, the costs of travel are diminished in certain parts of the world, or there's lower, I guess, where you can have more for less. While you're still doing all your, again, I'll harp on this the whole conversation, you're still delivering on your KPIs. You're still managing your people. You're still interfacing with clients either virtually or in person where it makes sense. And yes, you have to schedule, be realistic about where you are in the world for what your industry or what your responsibility requires. so that's my answer to that. One of the big things is that it opened up, frankly speaking, cost of living. in certain parts of the world, frankly, in, uh, you know, Portugal and Spain, and obviously through, uh, South America and into certain parts of [00:13:00] Asia, it's a game changer.
So that's a biggest part of it.
But when I, what I've also found is travel within the region is incredibly cost effective and efficient once you're in the region.
Adam Mogelonsky: So I'm, I'm wondering just to give our listeners more context and getting into your mindset here about how you choose a specific destination. So you've mentioned Portugal, Spain, Southeast Asia, South America. How do you choose as a nomad executive? A specific city to live in. what is your mindset on that?
Michael Cohen: layer. It needs to be some level of a gateway city so that there you know, convenient multiple opportunities to travel when required for business or otherwise, you know, internationally, regionally, like expanded wise, infrastructure, the ability that it has a very consistent electric grid, you know, internet connectivity is, Rock solid, [00:14:00] which, you know, if you were having this conversation 10 years ago, then I am like an outlier. Now, you know, 80 percent of the developed world has quite consistent internet connectivity, which we know is the oxygen that that drives being a nomad exec, digital nomad, or just as someone who's working on their vacation. So, so really it's about gateway, I will say, a big consideration is the culture, because just going away to work away versus not, is not the end all. There needs to be culturally, experientially, maybe adventure. To a point, that, uh, soft side of this, there's the hard side and the soft side. The soft side is, you know, will this area, will this location, will this city, provide the kind of, experience, life experience, new network to expand, you know, culturally, food, wine, lifestyle, health, you [00:15:00] know, uh, obviously, different, uh, time of year is different weather, which is a huge consideration, because let's be really clear about this. In North America and in Western Europe, you know, as a Canadian, we call them snowbirds, but you don't get the retired lifestyle has been doing this for 25 years, 30 years, they go to the sun, they live six months or five months there, and they come back. So in some ways, that's the, you know, the kind of dual or maybe three different locations a year where a couple or an individual lives as a retirement plan. The beautiful thing about being a Nomad Exec, if your lifestyle is, uh, set up for that, which means you and your wife or you and your partner, have the ability to do it, or your kids are of a certain age where you can take them and maybe they're, you know, young teenagers and they can go to an interesting school system for a period of time.
And it becomes a wonderful, lifestyle and cultural experience for your children. You know, that's the driver of all this, but it's not, [00:16:00] Unknown, this concept. Traditionally, it's been corporate executives who have been transferred to Dubai or transferred to Frankfurt and become, and then the kids become army brats or navy brats or exec brats who are flying around.
Or as Chris knows from his experience from the, you know, diplomatic corps, et cetera, and things like that. So all the nomad exec structure philosophy is, is taking that, that framework or those parameters and fine tuning them into a consistent, responsible, impactful lifestyle and professional career choice that makes sense in all ways.
Adam Mogelonsky: So a large part of our guests are, they're vendors of some sort. They're going to be hotels or travel companies. And you mentioned Plunking down in a spot for three months, let's say, and therein, uh, I didn't hear specifically the term short term [00:17:00] rental, but that is more attuned to the product you're looking for.
And you mentioned key features like good internet, access to cuisine and wine, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of a hotelier, and I know Chris can get into travel companies. What can hotels do to better target and acquire people like you?
Michael Cohen: So, I'm going to give some very specific examples.
Selena, have nailed it. People see the success and growth of Celina as they're a hostile company that kind of upgraded the experience. Very true. So obviously, the digital nomad world and the explosion of that has, they have overlaid on that in many respects. They came out with a co living program where you could do month to month. It's a program. You pay into it, you're involved in it, and then you have the ability to do extended stay, hotel [00:18:00] extended stay, Selena Hotel extended stay scenarios in their portfolio in a region. So you pay and you're into a monthly fee, but I can go to I can go to San Jose, Costa Rica, or, Tamarindo. I can, you know, move, move down to Buenos Aires in Argentina, or I can go to Mendoza in Argentina to, to live at the Salina there for, and also visit, you know, other places. All the most amazing Malbec wine miners in the world. So a company like Salina have nailed it and I am a member of that program. so that's not an endorsement, but it's not, not an endorsement either.
Like it works and we're happy. The other scenario that's really important from the hotelier perspective and we all live it is because of the, leisure trend, The pleasure trend, if that's the right term, the concept of, you know, combining a property that has great facilities that people can obviously experience as a, as a tourist and are relaxing and it's beautiful, but also have great facilities to [00:19:00] work out of the hotel, out of the hotel suite, out of the hotel room, beyond simply what we all know and love, which is the business center. you know, which has been minimized in many respects, but now these almost co work hotel experiences.
and how that's been normalized. See, that's the thing, folks, is yes, what I'm doing is strange to many, and yes, it's odd to some, and maybe exciting to others, but it's become normalized. I'm not a trailblazer. I am living a particular life. So I'm going to be talking about a very simple choice of lifestyle that fits for my personal situation, that only enhances and grows my belief of my experience of the world, business experience of the world, more networks, more contacts, etc. But doing it on an infrastructure that has been pushed out from short term rentals, extended stay hotels, the leisure trend, which is a mega trend, obviously as well, and the acceptance of work from away.
So I'm going to be talking about a very simple choice of lifestyle that fits for my personal situation, that only enhances and grows my belief of the world, business experience of the world, more networks, more contacts, etc. But doing it on an infrastructure that has been pushed out from short term rentals, extended stay hotels, the [00:20:00] leisure trend, which is a mega trend, obviously as well. WFA. So, all those layers, and it had made it something that I felt was a blinding example, the obvious, for someone like me, to be able to overlay my life on all these investments and all these strategies and all this technology That have been deployed around the world.
Chris Tomseth: Michael, you, uh, hearing you mention that, it reminds me of, I don't know if these still exist anymore, but they used to, like, essentially, airplane passes that, uh, you had to be a non resident to get. So U. S. airlines used to sell these, but you had to prove that you lived outside the U. S., And then if you get something like For example, 30 days of travel for a set price. And so that kind of like what you were describing with Selena would be similar and certainly with rail as well in Europe. I think
Michael Cohen: Yeah, I mean, I mean, transportation, I mean, this is sort of like a, some of it's back to the future, Chris, if you know what I'm getting at, a little bit's back to the [00:21:00] future. A lot of these things existed for transient travel, right? Fun trans, like a, usually, usually young people, or retired people, uh, who had time, and they wanted flexibility, and they had these all in scenarios.
Air travel, rail travel, hotel, some hotel experiences, obviously you, the more you stay, the more you get benefits, et cetera, et cetera. So loyalty programs. So you're correct. But what's important to understand is in the Nomad Exec lifestyle, you're not constantly moving. What you are is you have multiple hubs. The whole philosophy of the, of the Nomad Exec relation to travel, relation to hospitality and short stay and extended stay, et cetera, is hubs. So there's criterias that you have, either personally, that are maybe your personal criteria, or the obvious criteria, some of them that we mentioned about transportation, about security, about language may be an issue or not,
for some, etc.
But you, identify hubs, three or four [00:22:00] hubs, five hubs, that are your primary hubs. And those are your hubs for travel. Those are also your hubs for residence, if you know what I'm getting at, for like three or four months at a time. And even to the point where some of them would become recurring, hey listen, some people may say I'm going to purchase, you know, a future retirement property in Italy, but I'm going to start being a nomad exec and interacting with that property for three months a year in my 50s well before I'm ever going to be retiring in my 60s. So I'm going to get the advantages of that plan early, and then back to what we talked about the industry, the short term rental industry, the ability to put your, if you choose that method, you're putting your inventory that you own, that you're only there three or four months of the year, now you're putting that into the system, the short term rental system of whatever particular, platform. So there is this confluence of. changing in societal norms, the [00:23:00] explosion of everything, everywhere, all the time, the ability that the technological infrastructure is laid out, and the fact that this is even a concept now it's acceptable to some. It's not acceptable to all. The pandemic was brutal, we all wish it never happens again, and it was, it was a terrible three years, two and a half years.
Chris Tomseth: Speaking of technology, this is a little bit micro, but it's relevant. So if you're in, for example, Portugal for two months, it would obviously be beneficial at times to have a local Portuguese mobile number. But at the same time, it's better Hugely important that you keep your main number that everyone knows and how to get in touch with you.
So how do you manage that? And I guess two part question one, how do you manage that? And maybe depending on that answer, what do you wish existed?
Michael Cohen: So, what I wish existed, exists.[00:24:00]
Thank goodness. Because I've been doing this off and on, and even just long international trips like many of us in the industry and who are watching this outside of the industry, you know, the roaming, the telco roaming nightmare, you know, the criminal scenario that it has been for the last 25 years. And the incredible roaming expenses. Of course, it's been minimized and it's become better and better. And United States viewers will say, T-Mobile, I can go anywhere. Again, it's a lot better than it was. You're paying a daily fee sometimes, et cetera. But now the EIM technology, so E sims. So Sims are the traditionally are the physical cards that go into your mobile device.
That is your. The E Sim technology is so elegant now. And the business models have come down in price so incredibly. There's a particular, I'll give them a shout out because I'm a huge user of this company, They have this, this company and what [00:25:00] they've done, there's others, but they've done it really well, have actually facilitated the Nomad Exec lifestyle for me and others. It's called Airolo. Airolo has an ability where you literally will go to a marketplace, their marketplace, and you're downloading and purchasing an eSIM for the country that you're going to be in next.
And the costs are 7, 10 for one gigabyte, three gigabyte of voice. So, including voice and data. It's outrageously cost effective, incredibly seamless, so the ability to embed a series of eSIMs on your physical device and turn them on and off when you're in the countries, and then, and then re, reload the time like any other, you know, device. Sim scenario that you do when you get out of the airport, it's even more cost effective. It's more efficient. So eSIM technology and the business models that have come with that with companies like Airolo and [00:26:00] others they have greased the engine of, being a nomad exec.
Chris Tomseth: Amazing.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, we're talking about, I guess, technology in general, telcos, and I'm wondering, from my perspective, I work in hospitality, so I'm wondering, you mentioned technology, what can hotels do to better enable guests like you coming on site?
Michael Cohen: I do think, and many do, I do think the reconfiguration of some of the business models, like to encourage. Longer stay guests, so it's not literally like I'm booking 60 days of, of a one night fee that is, that the revenue management system has set up and I'm just booking 60 units. of it, like the, to make it a part of the business model and to encourage people to say, okay, I'm going to stay at this, my particular brand or my certain level, and there's some economies of scale for the hotel that I'm there for extended period of time. I will probably [00:27:00] be consuming some F& B while I'm there for a particular extended period of time. And again, many brands do this, but many do not. Make it clear and seamless so people can, you can on ramp, let's call them extended stay executives,
in your properties all over the world. Make it a program.
Make it a club. Make it a separate kind of loyalty program that encourages people to make that kind of investment for one month, two months, maybe even three months in your property at that location. We know that there are alternatives in the short term rental space like Airbnb and others who have Tweaked their business models and tweaked their scenarios for multi month stay or extended stay or one month stay. And again, many hotel brands have done as well, but not to the same extent. And I think that is, um, one of the true barriers to having this purely explode onto the pure play hotel [00:28:00] scenario.
Adam Mogelonsky: from GAIN, you founded GAIN, are the managing partner and GAIN is a remote organization. We are advisors around the world and there's likely some founders out there who are thinking right now in 2024 saying, I don't need to have a central office. They want to found another remote company, whatever that company does, or they have a centralized office and they are looking at their office lease and thinking, uh, how do I shift to a remote company structure?
What advice would you have for these individuals?
Michael Cohen: Well, first of all, really, really good point to bring up because there's a, huge paradigm shift, mega trend, whatever you want to call it. to, have start ups, scale ups, and conversions of existing businesses virtual headquartered remote organizations.
And as I talked about just for Chris's question, the pandemic was terrible.
It was a [00:29:00] disaster, but what it did was it normalized these ideas and discussions about the some, sometimes some of the efficiencies of a remote organization. Again, it's not the answer for everything. Not every industry, not every company can do this, but many, many, many can and are and have. So now they have a remote organization because of all the technologies and the slacks and the zooms and the, cloud based systems and everything else. But now you take it one step further. The other challenge and requirement of organizations to really be, you know, a virtual hub methodology is things like services, insurances, you know, HR systems, that's all also being converted. Over the last five years, even before the pandemic to support all these virtualized, companies, corporations, smaller, smaller organizations with 50 people, but they're based all over the world. So you're getting the best people sometimes at the [00:30:00] best price, because you're, you're providing them their ability to live where they want to live and do the work they have to do wherever they are. So companies like Safety Wing, it's another company that I'm involved with, as a consumer and also as an ambassador, they have a tremendous. Virtual infrastructure for health insurance. they're building out a whole remote organization, HR services pack. So you can do all you need to do for your staff, for your employees, for your executives, but it supports the concept of these virtualized organizations or a nomad exec as an individual or smaller group of individuals who are, you know, in different parts of the world. So again, even things like the bloody insurance industry. We have transitioned into this opportunity and very innovative, new thinking has come into banking, fintech, obviously, and insurance to give these platforms that are geared [00:31:00] towards Nomad Exec, Digital Nomad, and virtualized, uh, you know, global organizations.
Adam Mogelonsky: So just to close the book on, in the insurance side, And we have mentioned travel and medical insurance. Do you have any other advice there for sorting through these, issues which can be a logjam for a lot of people?
Michael Cohen: Again, it's about mentality. It's about risk management. It's about a lot of things. what I've learned from my experience of doing this off and on for 10 years, but very heavily for the last, let's call it two and a half, three, and into the future, is specifically as, Western Europeans and Northern Western Europeans and North Americans. We have not always the best, I'm generalizing, the best opinion about, infrastructure or organizations or governmental services in other parts of the world. I have learned that's actually a mistake.
People have heard this, they've watched the YouTube [00:32:00] videos, you know, the, the, the travel vloggers, Chris, you know, all that kind of
cool stuff, right? and they, what I found is on the ground, once you get on the ground, It's amazing the healthcare services, the transactional healthcare services that are available, you know, from a quality of life perspective are very, very, very strong. they're not anywhere near the expense of North America and Northern Europe, and the quality of service is as, or sometimes even better. So if you have everything you got to do as a nomad exec, you have to create, again, remember this principle of threes and everything else. I'll talk about that a little bit later if we have time, but you know, you have to have this foundation. And one of the three components of your foundation is your safety, security, and health.
So you have, like everyone knows, travel insurance, of course, but there's deeper kind of nomad experience insurance now. There's products that have been brought to the market specifically for people like myself and others [00:33:00] who are, into this kind of, different life experience. But then the reality is to have the confidence and to the research that when you're on the ground in Argentina or you're on the ground in Costa Rica or you're on the ground in Portugal, there are certain scenarios that you can just pay for. That are, when you pay for it out of pocket are incredibly, incredibly cost effective so that it kind of, you create layers of, services around the foundation. And, as good, if not better than what I experienced in North America.
Chris Tomseth: Amazing.
Adam Mogelonsky: So on the note of foundations, and you've mentioned three, I want to pick out one, which is health. We have Chris here, who's our Gain Travel Advisor. And I'm increasingly becoming the Wellness Advisor. Within Gain. And I'm wondering there is, first off, I'd like to talk about your tips and tricks for jet lag,
but more importantly, how does one stay healthy when they're traveling around the world?
Michael Cohen: you know, when people say great question, Adam, that's really a good [00:34:00] that's really a good question, Adam. So we all know what it feels like. Either as a short, you know, two week vacation or three week vacation or a trade conference in Asia, trade conference, you know, international travel for a limited engagement.
Let's call it that way. It's hard. The turnaround's hard. You know, you, you get the crap kicked out of you. You have to be on, you know, when, when you land, there's all these challenges that, and that's historical. That's been forever. And that's never going to change. What's nice about, it's not even slow travel. It's limited travel, even though
it's maybe far away or exotic to some people, it's limited travel. So you're actually not constantly on the road. You're setting up hubs. So the reality is, is that you're, you know, you have to deal with the, anyone's reality of, usually, you know, eight hour, 10 hour, 20 hour flights and all the, all that comes with that, et cetera. And listen, like anything else, I'm not [00:35:00] personally, I'm not a big drinker, so I'm not drinking on the plane, which sounds like such an obvious thing and almost a cliche, but I'm We've all been there, we've all seen, and we have all friends who,
as executives or business people, they happen to have a couple of drinks on the plane to Japan, they get out of the plane, and suddenly they're done for two and a half days because their recovery is damaged.
And they, so you need to be a steward of your self. When you do this kind of, um, you know, hub, nomadic exec travel, A lot of what we're talking about, Adam and Chris, is you need to be a cognizant, a cognizant steward of yourself, more so in my opinion than when you're at home with your friends and family or your comfort zone. You need to be aware, you need to be organized. And you need to take good care of yourself. It's not because the travel is so hard, it's because you're learning about new things, you're experiencing it, maybe you're eating new foods, you're working with different time zones, Chris, as we talked about, so that could be [00:36:00] somewhat challenging over time. There's, I wouldn't say a discipline, because it's such a pleasure, for me anyways, and many other Nomad Execs that I know, that I'm interacting with and networking with. Like, it's such an amazing, wonderful, consistent experience. So it's not a two week vacation, and it's not a vacation in general, but it's a change of lifestyle that is creating this wonderful energy, wonderful life experience.
But you need to be a steward. So it's important, even more so, it's important to do physical activity. It's important to, you know, to exercise, etc. So things like You know, where you're staying. Is there a gym facility nearby or within the place you're staying? Are you staying in a location that is comfortable or secure or easy to do your workouts, to do your runs, to do your walk?
Encouraging you to do more of that, which is wonderful, by the way, because you're in new environments and you're in new experiences in general. So you're [00:37:00] encouraged just by osmosis to get off your butt and get going. And go out and experience, walk
the city, walk the beach, hike the mountain. That's all happening while you're doing your job, sitting in the right environment intellectually and with your communication tools and your computing tools to execute your management position if the industry and your company can support that. But you're also in an environment that encourages you to experience physically and mentally something better, hopefully, and different. So from a mental wellness perspective, And from a physical perspective, I found, my personal experience, is that I am healthier, happier, and more relaxed, sleeping better, eating better, by living this lifestyle than I did by living in a major North American city full time.
Chris Tomseth: So speaking of that kind of thing, so when you spend as long as you do in a given place, it's much different than if you're there for a three day business trip or even a week's vacation [00:38:00] and you kind of touched on it, you're really absorbing into the culture two ways. I mean you're absorbing what's there and they're absorbing you. Is there anything Kind of, as you've been doing this for the past couple of years, that kind of sticks in your mind, like, you know, I don't know, but maybe when you were in Central America or somewhere, you, you observed a cultural habit and you kind of took that away and said, you know, I really liked that.
I'm going to start doing some of that in my life. Lifelong
Michael Cohen: one is, I'll go physicality of things, like, I, I, on multiple occasions, and I will in the future, I lived in Brazil for two or three or four months at a time. Stereotypically, that's a culture that international people see as a beautiful, they're beautiful people, they're physically fit. Well, that doesn't happen by accident. Culturally, being physically fit, culturally, doing it in a way that is more organic, uh, meaning usually outside, [00:39:00] usually in kind of like beautiful environments, literally. I mean, you know, the incredible, places to work out, to run, etc. Which there's lots of places in the world, lots of places in California, lots of places in, British Columbia.
I'm not saying exclusive to that, but when you combine The prioritization of, in Brazil for example, of physical health. With the location benefits of executing that, so you're very motivated in certain cultures like Brazil to be fit, to, to stay active, to be friendly and open and accessible, and that's culturally as well. We know the blue zones in different parts of the world and some of my strategy about the hubs is based on blue zones, which if not, everyone knows what those are. United Nations and other organizations have designated certain parts of the world as blue zones, which because it's for longevity, it's for quality of health, and it's also because of the lifestyle, what they eat, what they drink or not drink, how they live their life from a [00:40:00] professional perspective, from a cultural or regional perspective, you know. I'm aligning the blue zone scenarios to some of my decisions of where I'm going to use as hubs. So, that kind of scenario of, food, exercise, and continued want to learn more. Inquisitiveness. To, you know, As we know, Adam, I think you're an expert, keeping the mind cooking, being inquisitive is how you have, you maintain some of your cognitive, forces as you get older in life.
I think it's
been a proven scenario when you combine that with some, well, yeah, and then what you're eating. And then of course, if you're eating things that are geared towards longevity and wellness, non inflammation, there's a lot of cultural realities with that in certain parts of the world where, Let's be real.
Some of what we do in North America. I'm not trying to diss North America. I'm a North American. Of course, I'll always be North American. But some of what has become normalized over the last decades is not actually the best intake to, uh, [00:41:00] enhance or grow your life or longevity. And some parts of the world, it's the alternative.
So, yeah.
Yeah. Thanks.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, you mentioned Brazil and one of my favorite posts, because I follow you on LinkedIn religiously, it was nothing to do or almost nothing to do with gain or with work or the travel and hospitality business. It was a picture, a series, an album of you with your son who came down to visit you in Rio while you were living there, and it's just It encapsulates so much about why we're doing this and why we're here because it is all about family and those, moments that you can generate.
my point here is, of course, you, we all have families and one of the barriers to becoming a nomad executive or a digital nomad is the separation from the family. So how do you find that balance and what would other people need to take [00:42:00] away to consider for that balance?
Michael Cohen: So again, it's, it's about, aligning your, present situation, your positive present situation, family, uh, health, career. If things line up that you have the flexibility to do something like, the Nomadic Zep lifestyle. First of all, you have to do it. You got to go for it. Second thing is, to specifically what you talked about, two things.
A family moving to, for three, for three months, four months, six months, somewhere, and having two or three locations. It sounds like Lifestyle the Rich and Famous, but it's not. It's a choice.
You rent out your home, you, sell your assets, maybe, maybe not, whatever, but it's, these are not bad investment decisions, they're just different investment, different life decisions as a family. It's not for everybody. But let's talk about a nomad exec scenario, which usually means, you know, a senior executive usually is in their 60s. And in that range, usually, your children are usually at [00:43:00] a age where they may be going off to university or they may be young in, you know, early parts of their career, and they're off and running. So what was specifically exciting about what you're talking about with my son, Max, And I'll be doing this with my daughter Emma in the end of 2024, uh, we're planning that as well. Is my son is a young executive of his own startup, very successful startup in the digital media space. He came down to live with his father, who was a Nomen executive living in Brazil, while he was running his digital marketing media company from Brazil. So. He had the digital nomad experience for three weeks while I was having the nomad experience for three months.
Additionally, the world is huge, but it's become so much smaller. He got the ability to meet with some of his employees. who live in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that he never met before. [00:44:00] But he's been working with them, their employees in his organization for the last two years. So he came down to experience a micro version of what his dad's Nomad Exec experience is, ran his business, and also met his employees.
Chris Tomseth: Amazing.
Adam Mogelonsky: It's a win win.
Michael Cohen: Yeah,
Adam Mogelonsky: So, Michael, I have one final question for you and it sort of ends on an existential note. So, something that I personally have been tackling with and I'm sure others have, whether they can verbalize it or not, is the question, how do you know that where you were born is where you're meant to be? And on that note, what advice would you give to aspiring nomad executives to help them figure out where they're meant to be?
Michael Cohen: That's a, wow. Okay. Couple of things. Opportunity, technology, let's be clear, [00:45:00] being born into a first world country creates a lot of opportunities that are not available for everyone in the world, and let's be very clear and let's be respectful of that, but that still doesn't mean you shouldn't explore the opportunity. Here's the reality, traditionally, we were born, we lived, and we died within a 250 mile radius. and that was the traditional experience, et cetera, over the last 30 50 years. That's expanded, let's call it to nationwide or whatever, you know, larger regional areas of, opportunity. Now because of technology, because of, uh, you know, the change in demographics because of what the, pandemic, opened up and changed. Encouraged as a, as a, as a medicine to this terrible, tragedy. The world is your oyster. That's a cliche, but it's literally true, you know, very, very importantly. And it's also, it's possible now, and that's [00:46:00] requires research. That requires experience that requires potentially talking to someone like me. I mean. But to know what's really possible and that the frameworks, infrastructures, technologies, governmental programs in different countries are set up to encourage, support, and scale this kind of lifestyle choice. And so now, and we know this, The young, cohort, the young demographic is not partially because of financial realities, but partially because of lifestyle choices.
They're not that focused on getting the first house and locking themselves down, you know, with anchors, which is perfectly fine, which the majority of people do, which I did, which we've all done in some ways. that next cohort that's happening, They are living a global life. And when I talk to those that level, they're just going, Yeah, I can't wait to get to what you're doing.
They don't go. What is it? Why is it? How are you doing it? They're like, [00:47:00] totally makes sense. I want to do that later in my career potentially, too. You know, and I think that's changed everything, Adam. So that people need to understand that there are pathways to this different types of lifestyles. They also understand that with FaceTime and video calls and everything else, it's not the same as being in the same room as grandma, but you can still hang out with grandma. Every week if you want and have a deep discussion. if she's living in Chicago and you're living in LA, it ain't no different.
If the amount of times you're going to be visiting grandma from LA. So those type of, it's a mindset layered on top of what's possible and also frankly what's acceptable. Being a nomad exec is still So, you know, I call it an edgy choice still, but that's changing, uh, quite quickly because being a digital nomad is almost a normalized experience for, you know, young [00:48:00] people in their twenties. It's not a misnomer. There's no drag. I don't even think it has any drag on their professional prospects when they decide to stop being a digital nomad, perhaps. Or maybe they become a digital nomad and it's their lifestyle forever. That's a possibility, but that never was even a conversation 10 years ago. Now it's absolutely a conversation. And what people like myself are doing, we're not special, we're not smarter. We've just decided to go for it in a organized, responsible, scalable, supportable way.
Adam Mogelonsky: fantastic, fantastic episode. Eye opening on, for my part, and I can't thank you enough for sharing your thoughts about what it means to be a NOMAD executive.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, look, it's my pleasure. I do appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion, on this platform. I will be expanding in my own time outside of [00:49:00] my, my corporate responsibilities and leadership responsibilities, Doing business coaching and and so on. So the Nomadic Zech, you know, it's being launched on LinkedIn and different social media Scenarios. I look forward to having chats with friends or people in my network or people I don't know on how they can do this as well. If it fits their time of life, if it fits their career path, if it fits You know what they want to do when they grow up. I'm gonna be happy to have those chats and those discussions.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome.
Michael Cohen: Thanks.
Adam Mogelonsky: Michael, thank you.
