Navigating Crypto: Scams & Due Diligence with Corey Geary

Jordan mendoza (00:01.072)
So Cory, some of those soft skills that I just mentioned had to have been beneficial as you started in real estate because you are meeting people face to face, you're shaking people's hands, you've got to maintain eye contact, you've got to build relationships. I mean, essentially, real estate is the definition of sales and marketing, right? If you're not visible, if you don't have great customer service, if you're not cordial.

then you're probably not going to have as many transactions at the end of the year as you wanted to have. So can you talk a little bit about how that 15 years, you know, pretty much in customer service, I mean, you were in customer service, you were in hospitality, you know, you were in sales. You know, how did that translate as you got into leaders, to the real estate sector?

Corey Geary (00:39.285)
in the

Corey Geary (00:48.565)
Absolutely, man. In the beginning of real estate, like, like anything else, you're building your business from the ground up. So I was the acquisition guy, right on the marketing and wearing all the hats. So I'm the one talking to homeowners. So in the beginning, it's gonna be you out there, you know, grinding, hustling, you the one talking to homeowners, you one locking up those deals, getting the contracts. And so like, that's where it really, really was an easy transition for me.

to go right into that role because I was used to talking to strangers. I was used to talking to people who had issues and problems and hearing their problems out. And that's what you need to do. And really, you need to be a listener. You need to be a problem solver. You have to be there for the homeowner. You're there to fix their problem. You hopefully have the solution to the problem. And that's what it's all about. And we get paid for fixing problems. And so that's where it was really, really beneficial.

is because in the, in the early days it was, you know, okay, homeowners where, is where my sales skills, it was needed most. And then after that, obviously I took, I kept continuing myself, my sales education. I went through John Martinez, education. I went through spin selling education. And so there, I didn't stop like, you know, moving forward on my sales skills just because, you know, I had good people skills. I feel like that's what the casino gave me was really good people.

saw skills, but the actual sales skills to handle a conversation and drive it forward to a desired result was something I was still lacking a little bit of and a little bit of, you know, training and we were we were good to go. In fact, I'm still a student of sales to this day. It's always, you know, ongoing. And so in the early days, yeah, I was it was homeowners where it was beneficial, beneficial the most then it turned into war is more b2b.

with, you know, relationships of building the business and like, and negotiating with other contractors or affiliate partnerships or whatever maybe even when I started the the real estate mastermind, and I created my course, you know, getting that out to the world and figuring out how to get marketing correct. You know, all that stuff came into play. And I can say it's funny now that we even we try and we've crossed over to a crypto and it's a different space.

Corey Geary (03:09.813)
but different asset class, but a lot of the same skills cross right over like, you know, us growing this mastermind is the same sell skills I learned and marketing skills I learned from growing and scaling the real estate mastermind. There's really no difference in the two, except for the, once again, the widget I'm selling, right? And that's where it really transfer, where transfer to transfer over. And plus when you're in the beginning too with your buyers, you got sell skills too.

it's a different type of sales skill when you're talking to your buyers, and it's just usually about numbers and negotiating. Their their their pain is, you know, they need more properties to flip, or they need unrental property or wherever it may be. That is, you know, their pain and you have to be the business guy on the other end to be able to solve that, that business need with your buyers. And so it's just a it's a different, it's just a different hat of a sales skill hat you got to put on.

whether it's gonna be the buyers in the real estate company or the sellers in the real estate company, or if you're trying to figure out how to sell an education around that platform. So it's, yeah.

Jordan mendoza (04:17.584)
Very cool. Yeah, it's all helpful, right? I mean, I think there's none of it was unwasted, you know, information or experiences because yeah, I mean, if you can communicate effectively with people, like you said, it doesn't really matter the vertical. It doesn't matter the product or so, you know, or anything like that. You can have success for sure. So, so let's talk a little bit about real estate in general. So I know you mentioned you kind of, you know, you were in the real estate sector and then you went full into crypto, but.

Corey Geary (04:20.405)
Yeah.

Corey Geary (04:24.021)
Now.

Corey Geary (04:33.493)
You throw to make it happen.

Jordan mendoza (04:47.376)
Do you, on the personal end, do you still own real estate and is real estate something that, you know, for listeners out there, would you say, hey, you know, if you want to get started investing in anything, real estate is definitely a great vehicle.

Corey Geary (05:00.913)
it's a great vehicle. As far as like trying to get off the ground and really starting to get your your net worth, you know, going in the right direction. I mean, if you have no money, obviously wholesalings and option ovations is a great option. It was a part of a tool a strategy in the tool belt there. And you know, when you start getting some capital fix and flipping, you know, I've made some really big spreads on fixing flips.

And then if you want, I'll generate some more long -term. There's nothing wrong with rental properties. It's not really my shtick. And I do own a couple houses still in Arizona, but I had sold the majority of my rental portfolio for crypto because this is the opportunity right now. We're at the beginning of the market cycle. This is where the bull run is starting out is right now with the Bitcoin ETF just getting approved, the Ethereum ETF just getting approved. The Bitcoin halving just happened about a month ago.

the next year to year and a half is very critical. And this is where the opportunities are. So I wanted to make sure I'm all in here. But the answer to your question is no, I'm not done with real estate. We have a saying we want to use cryptocurrency as a wealth creation tool and use real estate as a wealth preservation tool. And so we want to go back into real estate at the next market cycle top, which will be sometime in 2025.

And the great part is now as we built this community of 100 and we have 190 members in there now. It's been awesome, including Robert Allen, Robert G Allen, the billionaire, he's in there and we're teaching him crypto like, and we're going to be able to go into these guys as deals. Cause these guys got, we got apartment syndicators in there. We got mobile home park guys in there. Obviously we got, we got, we got fix and flippers and wholesalers and everyone else. But like, I only want to be the money in deals from now on. I never want to find a deal ever again or run a deal ever again, not.

Not that I won't ever, if I need to, of course I will. Like I want to make sure I'm humble in that way. Like those are skill sets that I have that helped me never be go broke. But ideally this moving forward, I only want to be the money in deals and I want to invest in good deals, but that only will start after 2025 when we're taking profits and taking chips off the table in the cryptocurrency markets.

Jordan mendoza (07:12.592)
Very cool. Very cool. So what I'm hearing is, you know, the time is now, right? If somebody is listening or sees this conversation or a clip of this, you should inquire about, you know, how you can get involved in the cryptocurrency space. So what would be, you know, the one action for someone that's like, you know what, this after hearing this, it sounds like there's some urgency in Corey's voice. Like, maybe I really should take this thing seriously. What should they do?

Corey Geary (07:39.413)
The

Corey Geary (07:43.093)
Yeah, I mean, besides, you know, reaching out to me to find out more about our community, if you want to just do one action and one action alone, that's very easy. And this is not financial advice. But you could just go buy Ethereum. That's it. The ETF just got approved. But trading has not gone live and it won't go live for another two months. Okay, and between a month and two months. And so the the parabolic price movements of all the different

layer one blockchains. The all these stuff that's built on a theory on a theory of itself has not moved yet. Ethereum did a little bit. It went from 2900 up to 3600. I think it's a 3800 today. But we're expecting it to go probably anywhere from a five to a 10x higher through this market cycle. So that's gonna be the easiest move if you want to just go in and take action something. Now we'll say this. If you're watching this podcast or hearing about this part, you know, listening to us.

six months from whenever this date came out. It might be a little bit late because if you get involved in this asset class at the wrong time of the cycle, you can really lose a lot of money. You have to be careful. So if you come in and buy the top of these assets, when the bear market comes, you will lose 75 to 99 % of your economic value. So you want to make sure you ride this stuff up.

And then you're selling when you know, it comes time. But most people do it backwards. Most people come in and buy the top because that's when it's like the next best thing since sliced bread again. But it's the old Warren Buffett saying you buy when people are fearful and you sell when they're greedy. And that holds more true in crypto than anything else because crypto loses so much value in the bear market. But yeah, that's that'd be the easiest play if someone's watching this or hearing about this.

here in this podcast, you know, shortly after this interview, just go buy aetherium or I would do it never financial advice. And otherwise, if you want, you know, the 10 X's, the 20 X's, the 50 X's, the 100 X's. Well, that's what we do. We're investing in brand new layer one blockchains that are emerging in this bear market, or the now we're kind of the end of the bear market.

Corey Geary (10:00.693)
that have been emerging, that are still emerging and we invest early because that's where the real gains are made. If you would have gotten Ethereum on day one, Ethereum launched at 30 cents a coin. It hit $5 ,000 a coin on the last bull run. Ethereum did a 15 ,000X, meaning if you would have put $1 ,000 in Ethereum when it launched last cycle, I'm sorry, when it first came out.

you would have made and sold sold last cycle, you would have made $15 million off of your $1 ,000. Cryptocurrency is the highest appreciating asset class known to mankind if you know how to play the game. And so you just gotta be very careful. It's a highly volatile asset class. But it's an asset class. And if you study it and learn it, if you really learn it, there's a lot of money to be made here a lot of money. Now if you don't want to learn it team up with somebody.

who knows what they're doing. The same thing when I'm in real estate. After I lost all that money on my third deal, I was like, holy crap, I need to like join Masterminds, hire a private mentor. And that's what facilitated my success. This is no different. This is absolutely no different. Team up with somebody who's already kind of got the know -how. If you're wanting to really get, make some serious money in this asset class. So, but easy, quick hit, go buy Ethereum. That's the easy, quick hit.

Jordan mendoza (11:17.872)
Very cool.

Jordan mendoza (11:21.744)
Yeah, no, very cool. And a couple of things you've hit on multiple times has been mentorship. So talk about a mentor in your life that means a lot to you and what role have they played in your world?

Corey Geary (11:29.637)
Yeah, big believer.

Corey Geary (11:40.725)
So I can give you a few, you know, I would say my biggest mentor who I respect in the real estate world would be Sean Terry. Sean Terry was like critical to my success. I mean, he, I joined his masterminds. He was like the first course I bought too. I think he flipped the freedom. That was the name of the course. And so, and he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a God loving man. He's a family man.

So he embodies all the values that I've grown to, you know, I love and grown into. So that's what I still love Sean to this day as a mentor, as a person, even though he does real estate, although he does stocks, he's a stock guy and he's a real estate guy. In the crypto space, man, you know, there's a few of them that I have. At the top of my head, I would say probably Richard Hart. Richard Hart is definitely, he embodies the ethos of crypto.

crypto. He he's also an entrepreneur heart he had one point had a company with 150 employees in it and he sold that company but he was in mining Bitcoin back in 2011 when it was getting 50 Bitcoin a block and so like he just he wrote a book for people how to get wealthy and he's just on the crypto space I would say he was probably the most instrumental to my success in movement and crypto and then

Yeah. And I also say, I want to say Robert Allen too, has also been a massive, just as a mentor in general, even though he's in our community to learn crypto, we learned a lot from him about business. Like the guy is just, I mean, he's in his seventies and he's done over $1 .5 billion in business. And he's, you know, really specializes in the teaching space, the education space. And so like he's, you know,

He's awesome. I mean, we meet with him weekly. So there's another one for you.

Jordan mendoza (13:42.032)
Love it. Yeah, very cool. I love that. Yeah, it's so important that we recognize mentors and coaches and give them credit and let them know how they have impacted us. It definitely always goes a long way. So another thing that you've mentioned is education. You mentioned that when it came to real estate, one of the things that helped is when you launched the education side courses, membership, things like that. Can you?

Talk a little bit about the importance of building community like that and what the upside is if you have that versus if you didn't have that in place.

Corey Geary (14:21.525)
Yep. Well, the first thing if you become an expert in something and you create wealth, you know, it's something significant of value and you've put in 10 ,000 hours into that into that skill set, or business. If you've done that you're doing yourself you're doing your not only yourself a disservice, but also all the potential students and people's lives you can change by not offering.

that part of, you know, for that service up where you will teach people how to do what you did. So the biggest aha for me was like when I, when I kind of cracked the code on nationwide innovations, and we got really good at it. And people were reaching out to me all the time. And, you know, you only have so much time in a day. So obviously you need to start charging. And yes, that's what we did. It happened organically though, like I said, they were reaching out to me.

And I was all my time is just I was giving information away for free. And then eventually like, okay, you know what I need? I do need to charge for this. And I think people want this they like this, it can help them scale their real estate business and puts another tool in their tool belt. And I was right, I was right, I created the course around it, the course, it took off, we sold a bunch of those and then I created a mastermind around the nationwide novation strategy, where we taught even like how to like,

run your whole business. We taught PPC, we taught like, you know, leadership skills on how to run a team, like it was how do you build this type of business. And I had 50 members in that community, we built up to there. It was great because in that community, we were doing deals together. So there's a great benefit of building community. Because I mean, everyone's got everyone's back. And so it was it was a mate an amazing journey. And that was the beginning of my, I guess, my education type of

you know, what a skill set or business experience. There we go. The beginning of my education business experience was through real estate. And then we were doing, we did the same in crypto. We started making so much money in crypto that when I wound my company down and I even told my real estate mastermind, I look guys, I'm going to be like, I'll still keep you guys going and answer questions. But like, I'm letting you know, like I'm dissolving the real estate company and I'm moving to Puerto Rico.

Jordan mendoza (16:25.392)
Hmm.

Corey Geary (16:47.573)
I don't want to be a guru. I always want to be a do -roo and I want to be a fake guy. So we, you know, we're not going to be bringing any more new people into this mastermind. And for you guys, I'll keep serving you as long as you need, but understand that I'm no longer doing the business. And a lot of them are like, Hey man, teach me what you're doing now. I want to know what you're doing now. What do you mean you're doing a crypto? Like how are you making passive income at this stuff? Like,

Can you show I want to learn how to do this? And that's where that kind of like, okay, well, I can show you. Yeah, of course. And now we have 190 members in that community. It is wild. My partner, Dane, he's another real estate investor at the time, a real estate investor that was kind of going through the same transition transition as I was going through. It's really remarkable. And we ended up teaming up. And now we like I said, we have 190 members in there and it's

just been a blast and to serve that community and teach them what we do and how we do it. Or if they don't even want to like so much to learn. The cool part is they could come in and we'll do all the due diligence and you know, research and we can show up and like on our zoom call and be like, look, push this button here, push this button here. Cool, man. I'll see you in two weeks. And like they go off and crush the world and be the entrepreneur of who they are and then let us do the heavy lifting on.

on the crypto stuff. So now we get to be a service to them. And it's just, yeah, man, there's nothing better than community, man. It's amazing.

Jordan mendoza (18:21.904)
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, everybody, you know, Sharon, like you said, you got a guy that, that's done a billion and a half and you get to, to talk to him and, and, and also as he's adding value to you, you probably are adding value to him, right? Because there's things about technology wise or things with social media that maybe he doesn't really understand from a marketing standpoint. So he's like a sponge and he's getting, you know, new information. And so, yeah, it ends up.

Corey Geary (18:37.749)
Exactly.

Jordan mendoza (18:50.192)
Really ironing sharpening iron sharpening iron, but like you said too is yep

Corey Geary (18:52.661)
Yeah, because your community grows, it grows and we have them guys, we have guys in our community that have been with for a couple years now and they're like become crypto experts. We have one guy he's like an expert of meme coin launches. And so like he would announce all the new meme coins that are actually worth a damn in our community. One guy he caught one launch, he put three grand in and turned into the $350 ,000 in five days. It's just like...

And that was all done in our community. It's really cool to see that kind of like, you know, that that that living breathing thing that we created from two years ago is it's massive value now and everyone is serving everybody. It's awesome.

Jordan mendoza (19:35.92)
So if I'm going to say a statement and you just tell me if this is true or false, crypto is still the wild wild west.

Corey Geary (19:48.757)
100 % true. 100 % true. It's unregulated. Yes.

Jordan mendoza (19:51.12)
Okay. So if you want to blaze a trail, folks, there is a trail to be blazed, if that's what I'm hearing from Corey here. So.

Corey Geary (20:01.845)
Yes. Now with with that comes opportunity, of course, right? Because you get to be early to something and you can make a lot of gains. But mind you, with that also comes scammers and guys out there just doing you know, doing everything they can to do you wrong so they can get to your money. So be mindful that you have a lot of that going on a lot of pawn.

Jordan mendoza (20:15.792)
Sure.

Jordan mendoza (20:25.648)
What is the, like let's get down to the dark side of crypto, right? So like, what would you say is kind of the top, like spamming or phishing scheme that's out there right now that people need to be aware of?

Is it WhatsApp? Is it like, hey, a Telegram message, a WhatsApp message? Like, where are these people lurking? OK.

Corey Geary (20:42.261)
So one of the biggest is...

Corey Geary (20:47.253)
The telegram trading bots are massive right now that they're they're they're scamming that they don't they're not good at what they do. They're paying you off of what other people are buying into those telegram trading bots. So you pay for this bot you go in and put money in there. They're using that money to pay other investors. And so like it's just it's a Rob Peter to pay Paul type Ponzi system.

So that's a big one going on right now. when, when we get back in the midst of the bull run though, you're going to see a lot of the scams that we saw last cycle come back. A lot of the NFT type scams, not that empty entities are not scams themselves, but there's a lot of NFT scammers and you're going to see a lot of the Ponzi type, projects like time wonderland time. Wonderland was a big, it was massive last cycle. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.

were lost in that Ponzi and that's another one where people would invest money in and then they were they you know, it was typical, you know, what's I can't remember his name, the Ponzi guy but you pay you rob Peter to play Paul kind of thing and you're paying old investors and new investors money and that that that's very huge in crypto. You just got to know okay, so if you're looking here's the one thing you got to do.

If you're looking for passive income in crypto, it's there and there's a lot of places you can get it, but you need to be able to pinpoint exactly where that yield or passive income is coming from. Because if you cannot pinpoint it, or if you don't know where that yields coming from, you are the yield. Basically, then you know what the positive you need to pinpoint down exactly how am I making this money? Why is this a thing? They're promised me they're saying I'm making 70 % APY.

Where does a 70 % come from? You need to be able to prove that yourself on chain, or at least have somebody who works for money and knows how to do that. You know, don't don't don't go to your random YouTuber, or your or your or maybe one of your famous crypto YouTubers and rely on their information. And most of those guys are scammers themselves, because what they do is they'll buy up a token, and then they'll they'll shill it on their show.

Corey Geary (23:04.149)
And after you go buy it, they're dumping on your head. That's one of the biggest crypto scams there is and it's still going on to this day. And those were the lot of the bigger crypto you inflow influencers. So you got to be mindful of that. And so it's everywhere. It's everywhere out there. It's because it's like you said, it's a wild west of finance because there's no clarity around it. Now, you're not in the United States is starting to have a little bit of clarity on certain things. In fact, we've seen a little bit of

I would say forgiving or forgiveness or kindness towards crypto since the whole presidential election and Trump's going out there and saying he's pro crypto. And like now we're seeing all this like, you know, that's when the Ethereum ETF got approved before. I don't think I don't think the Ethereum ETF was going to get approved this year. If it went for Trump saying he was pro crypto, it put the pressure on the Biden administration and they're like, crap, we need to do something. We're losing a lot of votes here. And so they're approved. They approved the Ethereum ETF.

I'll take it. I'll take it. But yeah, it's everywhere, man.

Jordan mendoza (24:01.776)
So.

Yeah, so I would say to everybody, just be careful, just like with everything, whether it's the scams around taxes or whether it's crypto or whether it's real estate or a bill collector, you always have to be careful. Do your due diligence. Don't just kind of click on the first link that pops in your inbox or your DMs and spend money on it. So do your due diligence. And then so Corey, you know,

Corey Geary (24:26.485)
Jordan mendoza (24:32.208)
I appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your story and journey. And one thing I think that can be said is that, it's not how you start, right? We all have ups and downs. We all go through stuff. I've been the knucklehead teenager, just like a lot of people have, right? But we can take the lessons and we can extract the things that have helped us and helped shape and mold us. And we can leverage that to be...

the number one thing that helps us get to where we want to go. So I appreciate you taking the time. Where's the place that you want folks to go after hearing this?

Corey Geary (25:11.317)
Man, the best place is my social media is like Facebook. It's going to be just how it's spelled here. C O R E Y Gary G E A R Y or Instagram is the Corey Geary. So it's the exact same all one word, the Corey Geary DM me. Like it's I answer my own DMS. I don't have a VA on there. you know, if you, if you want to inquire more about what we're doing at crypto, be more than happy to, you know, talk about that. Or if you have any crypto questions, like,

I would be more than happy to talk about that too. You know, it's I love talking crypto. I talk about it all day. In fact, it's what I do all the day. All I do is family. I do family, God, and then crypto. That's it. You know, not what's gonna be God, family, then crypto. God's always first. So, so yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's it, man. Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (25:56.24)
Very cool. Appreciate you sharing. Yeah, of course, we're going to make sure all that gets linked in the show notes. Keep blazing your own trail. I'm definitely interested in learning more. You definitely have gotten my ears raised for sure. It's one of those things that education is usually what you need to have success in anything. So I need to get educated. If I don't know the info, then I need to go to the experts. Folks, if you're...

Corey Geary (26:19.541)
Yeah.

Jordan mendoza (26:24.656)
Looking for an expert to help you along your journey. Make sure you guys reach out to Corey Corey Thanks again for coming on the blaze your own trail podcast

Corey Geary (26:33.397)
Appreciate it, Jordan. Thank you.

Jordan mendoza (26:35.248)
Thank you.