Niko Mercuris - Crypto Renegades Founder | How I Rebuilt From Zero Three Times

Summary

Success Story with Scott D. Clary

Episode: Niko Mercuris – Crypto Renegades Founder | How I Rebuilt From Zero Three Times

Date: December 19, 2025
Host: Scott D. Clary
Guest: Niko Mercuris

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Scott D. Clary sits down with Niko Mercuris, founder of Crypto Renegades, investor, entrepreneur, and author. The conversation dives deeply into Niko’s remarkable journey: rising to success, losing everything multiple times, and rebuilding from scratch. Niko shares practical, hard-won wisdom about investing, entrepreneurship, personal growth, and the foundations of true wealth – both in mindset and money.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Only Real Difference: Not Quitting

Timestamps: 00:20–00:55, 16:36–17:19

• Niko reiterates that mastery and success boil down to persistence:

  "The very simple difference between the people who become successful and the ones who don’t is just not quitting." (00:55, 17:19)

• Most people quit when they encounter adversity or taste failure; the winners simply stick it out longer.

2. Building from Zero & Early Lessons

Timestamps: 06:40–13:19

• Niko shares his dramatic childhood shift from wealth to poverty after the death of his father, learning adaptive resilience from his mother’s entrepreneurial resourcefulness.
• He details hands-on experience, working every role at his first call center, scaling it from himself to 150 employees through sheer grit and stepwise delegation.

  "I already did the low level work first. I was a sales rep, then I became a trainer... I did every job first." (11:43)

3. Mindset of a Successful Investor

Timestamps: 01:25–06:16

• Niko challenges the notion that intelligence or money is required to succeed in real estate or investing:

  "You don’t have to be smart to become rich in real estate. You just have to do the same thing over and over again." (00:55)

• Passion is more about mastery and focus than chasing initial excitement:

  "No one wakes up... and says, I have a passion for low income housing, right? But... if you figure it out and you’re good at it, then... you start to become passionate about it." (03:38)

4. Bouncing Back from Major Failures

Timestamps: 13:23–18:31

• 2008 real estate and financial crises: Niko went from multi-millionaire to broke, losing properties and contracts simultaneously.
• Key to recovery: commitment to educating himself about real estate and learning from mistakes, not blaming circumstance.
• Realization: It’s more about how you respond than what happens.

5. The Myth of 'Multiple Streams' & Focus

Timestamps: 17:33–17:58, 67:20–67:51

• Niko debunks the "seven streams of income" myth, emphasizing that focus is critical – build one thing into a "roaring river" before diversifying.

  "You should focus on one thing only, until you make that thing a roaring river of income..." (17:37) "If I would have just focused... I would have probably been much wealthier 20 years sooner." (67:51)

6. Giving Without Chasing: Paradox of Wealth

Timestamps: 22:29–23:50

• Chasing money rarely brings wealth; instead, Niko found financial abundance by focusing on helping and delivering value, often for free.

  "Chasing money is the hardest way to get money." (22:08) "I didn’t have to try to chase the money. People just wanted to give me money to help them." (23:50)

7. Principles for Financial Success: Leverage & Discipline

Timestamps: 26:08–31:45

• True wealth creation comes from understanding leverage (using other people’s money to build) and discipline (especially in risk management).
• Cautions against bad leverage (credit cards, frivolous spending). Advocates strategic debt for income-producing assets.

8. Real Estate Investing Strategy

Timestamps: 27:51–31:45

• Buy large, distressed multi-family properties from distressed sellers, creatively structuring deals to minimize personal capital outlay and maximize upside.
• Seek deal flow, rigorously vet opportunities ("try to find all the reasons not to buy"), remain disciplined in analysis.

9. Trading and Risk Management (Crypto/Markets)

Timestamps: 34:47–38:43

• Proper risk management defines success in short-term trading. Always use stop losses; never risk more than you can afford to lose.

  "The higher your leverage, the closer your liquidation is to your entry price... You have to use proper risk management." (36:17)

• Observes that women often outperform men in trading groups, simply by following the rules and being less prone to risky, emotional bets.

10. Time Commitment & Picking Your 'Hard'

Timestamps: 39:42–41:52

• It’s about choosing your challenge: "You can spend 60 hours a week at a job you hate, or you can spend four hours a week making more than you’ve ever made – but you gotta learn how."
• Learning to trade is hard — but so is being broke. Choose where to put your energy.

11. Relationship with Money: Detachment and Abundance

Timestamps: 55:51–61:04

• Heal your relationship with money by detaching emotion – treat money as a tool, not as your self-worth or identity.
• Reframes the value of time vs. money:

  "If I guaranteed you $10 million... but you only get to live another 48 hours, would you take it? No… So just waking up one more day is worth more than $10 million." (57:14)

• Money should be deployed (invested) to work for you – not hoarded.

12. Advice for Beginners: Start Simple, Focus, Educate

Timestamps: 61:07–64:43

• If starting from zero: focus on earning and saving a small base, avoid distractions (especially expensive dating), and discipline yourself before adding complexity.

  "Start a sales job, save up $5–10,000, don’t get sidetracked." (61:14)

• Draws a parallel with lottery winners–those who suddenly get wealthy without building skills or the right mindsets usually lose it.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"The very simple difference between [successful people] and [others] is just not quitting."
— Niko Mercuris (00:55, 17:19)

"Chasing money is the hardest way to get money."
— Niko Mercuris (22:08)

"If you just could be happy with the process… the result is awesome, but so much is in the journey."
— Niko Mercuris (12:35)

"Leverage and discipline. The millionaires, the billionaires you respect — they all used a tremendous amount of leverage."
— Niko Mercuris (26:08)

"Money is like little soldiers… You put that money to work for you, and let them come back with interest."
— Niko Mercuris (59:50)

"If I would have just focused… I would have been much wealthier 20 years sooner."
— Niko Mercuris (67:51)

"Pick your hard. Being broke is hard. Learning to trade is hard. Sitting on the couch is hard. Make a choice."
— Niko Mercuris (39:42)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment Topic | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|--------------------| | Introduction & Early Mindset | 00:00–06:16 | | Niko’s Backstory & First Business | 06:40–13:19 | | The 2008 Crisis & Rebuilding | 13:23–18:31 | | Focus vs. Diversification | 17:33–17:58 | | Mindset, Passion, and Mastery | 01:25–06:16, 03:38 | | Wealth Paradox: Value Before Money | 22:08–23:50 | | Principles: Leverage & Real Estate Strategy | 26:08–31:45 | | Trading, Risk Management, and Psychology | 34:47–38:43 | | Time Commitment: Pick Your "Hard" | 39:42–41:52 | | Detaching Emotion from Money | 55:51–61:04 | | Beginner Advice & Learning Before Earning | 61:07–64:43 | | Key Takeaway: Focus on One Thing | 67:20–67:51 |

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Final Takeaways

Niko Mercuris’s story is a testament to the resilience and focus required for entrepreneurial and investing success. The episode is packed with actionable mental frameworks—whether you're starting with nothing, recovering from loss, or scaling new heights. The emphasis is always on discipline, continuous learning, purposeful leverage, and focusing energy on what you can control. True financial and personal abundance comes not from chasing quick wins, but from deep work, commitment, and helping others on the journey.

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Where to Find Niko Mercuris

• Instagram: @NikoMercuris (look for the blue checkmark for authenticity)
• YouTube: Niko Mercuris
• Comment or DM referencing this episode to receive free access to a previously paid 5-day training and a link to Niko’s next live trading webinar.

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One Piece of Advice to His 20-Year-Old Self

"Get rid of shiny object syndrome. Focus on that one thing… Put the distractions down. If you can do that, you’re gonna be way ahead." (67:20–67:51)

Transcript

[Nico Mercuris]

Most people, when they think about investing, they think they need money. They look at other people who have what they want. A lot of people have to try something first before they know whether they have the passion for it or not.

[Scott Clary]

Some people chase attention, others build influence quietly and let the work speak for itself. Nico Mercuris is a strategist and operator known for turning complex ideas into scalable systems.

[Nico Mercuris]

I already did the low level work. First I was a sales rep, then I became a trainer, and then I became a manager. People are so in a hurry these days to just get from point A to point B that they don't realize that all of the good stuff is in the process. Your only competition is yourself and whether you're willing to have the stick to it. Iveness to just do it long enough until you master it. Most people quit when they have this adversities or they get a little taste of failure and they think that's it.

[Scott Clary]

Focused on leverage, clarity, and long term value creation across ventures, investments and advisory roles, Niko plays the long game. Building foundations that last, not moments that fade.

[Nico Mercuris]

The very simple difference between the people who become successful and the ones who don't is just not quitting. Don't take this the wrong way. If you're a real estate investor. The majority of the millionaires I know know in real estate are the least intelligent people. You don't have to be smart to become rich in real estate. You just have to do the same thing over and over again. The people who really get ahead in life. Give yourself an hour to really focus on something and when it goes off, okay, take a break. If you can do that, you're gonna be way ahead of everyone else.

[Scott Clary]

Nico, what's the mindset of a successful investor?

[Nico Mercuris]

First is that, you know, most people, when they think about investing or they learn that they should invest, the first thing I think they do is they think they need money. They need to work on getting the money together. Or they either have a job or a business that generates some kind of income. And then they look at other people who have what they want, right? They, they look at people who have the nice car, the nice house, or maybe they went to a real estate seminar or webinar and they learned about apartments or houses, or maybe I should invest to this. Or then they see this guy over here is a stock pro and they're like, oh well, he makes a lot of money trading stocks. Well, what about this guy over here? He does crypto and maybe I should do that. And so I think first of investing in things you like, that you're interested in. First of all, think about that. If you're a dentist, for instance, you may have a dental website, but let's say your passion is golf. You can't be a pro golfer because you're a dentist, but maybe you can design your website with a golf theme. So there's a way to include your passion in what you do. And that. With that example. What I'm getting at is that if you're, if your goal is just to make money, which a lot of people are, they just want money. And they do what other people do because they got money, but they start doing and realize that they have no passion for it. They don't really like what they're doing.

[Scott Clary]

They don't like where they're investing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nico Mercuris]

Or they get involved in crypto and they're like, oh, I don't like to look at charts. I don't like to watch the day trading charts. I don't like to, you know, go long and go short. Or real estate. You know, I own a lot of apartment buildings. I don't do it because I love being a landlord. You know, I do it for money, but I also have a passion for real estate. So it's okay, I can deal with it. But I'm more of an asset manager. I don't manage the properties. I have property management and so I manage the managers. We have calls once a week and we go over everything, make sure all the numbers work out right. But, but I love the idea of having lots of units, a lot of passive income coming in. But I also like the idea of providing housing for people. So I feel like I'm doing a service. You know, some people put landlords in a bad category because they're like, oh, he's one of those slumlords. No, I'm providing low income housing for people to help people have a place to live. And we try to do it better than everyone else. We try to provide a good quality place to live. But I also know that this is a business and I need to make money from it. And so we have to lower our costs and expenses and increase our profit sharing.

[Scott Clary]

But I was going to say, like, I think that one thing that you picked up on that I love is, yeah, it's good if you, if you're an investor, you should try and find something you're passionate about. But also passion comes through knowing something better than anyone else. Like, I love this idea of, okay, so you could be passionate about anything. If you spend enough time learning it, figuring it out, and it pays you and it's successful, like no one wakes up and you know, the day they're born, they're like, I have a passion for low income housing, right? But if you figure it out and you're good at it, then on the journey you start to become passionate about it because you know it better than anything else. And I think that that's where people screw up passion, especially in entrepreneurship, which is something that I know more of than investing. But people I want to be, I want to be passionate about the business I'm building. I'm like, start a business, get good at it and passion will come. But you don't need to be passionate about dog food. But if you find a way to build a successful E commerce dog food business, passion will come with that. That's true. So it's almost like the mindset is, is obsession, is mastery, is focus, is all these things that eventually like lead to passion.

[Nico Mercuris]

When an investor is thinking, oh God, invest, first of all, what's going to have the highest return for your, for your dollar in the shortest period of time in the safest way possible? You got to look at all these different things and maybe not put all your eggs in one basket. But I look at real estate, I'm a real estate investor. I also look at crypto. It is the, it is the future. It is happening. The government, the president is crypto friendly, the administrations, all of the laws are being changed to go towards that direction. It's something that's going to be around for a while. So I think all people should learn it and understand it. Even if it's not their passion, they should understand what's happening. Space and owning some Bitcoin or XRP certainly not going to hurt you because if the value goes up 10x or 100x, that's an investment that will make you money. So understanding these different things, diversifying your portfolio, but pick one or two that you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life and apply yourself that way and don't think of it. And then as far as mindset goes, because here's what a lot of people make, the mistake is they'll get involved with something, they'll start investing and if they have a bad experience or it doesn't work out, they buy a duplex and one tenant moves out. Now they're, now they're not making money. It's not because the investing doesn't work or that the real estate doesn't work. You probably didn't have a great deal. You didn't buy a distressed property from a distressed seller, you didn't improve it and raise the rents properly. Whatever reason, you didn't know what you're doing right. So always get educated on the investment opportunity that you're looking to get involved in first from people who are actually doing what it is that you're trying to do.

[Scott Clary]

Where did your investing philosophy, spending the time learning the thing, achieving mastery, adopting the right mindset, where did that come from? That come from your, your businesses you've built. Is that something that you've just learned through trial and error? Like where did that? Because obviously now you're very level headed, smart trader, investor. But were you always like that was something you picked up from your past life or was that through losing too much money?

[Nico Mercuris]

Losing money, trial and error. My mother, My mother was. When my father died when I was eight years old, I have this weird thing. You know, people hear rags to riches stories, but we had like a richest to rags story. My, when my dad, when I was, when I was a kid, up until eight years old, we lived in a beautiful house on the water in Terra Verde island and had a big yacht in the backyard. My dad had a Rolls Royce and in the garage and you know, people would think we were rich. But my dad died at 48. I was only six years old. And I didn't do anything to create that wealth. I was just a kid. But when he died, my, my mother, everything had to get liquidated to pay his taxes and all his debts. He owned a successful restaurant in the area, it was called Never on Sunday back in the 60s and, and celebrities were there all the time. And my dad was like, didn't expect to die, didn't plan to die. So when he died, my mother had to start over from scratch. She had nothing. She. All she had was the antique furniture that she bought at like estate sales and garage sales at the, at the house. When she was forced to sell her own beloved furniture, she realized that she could sell it for more than she paid for it. Then she started a business after my dad died, we literally had to move into a motel, not a hotel, but a motel for like six months before my mom got on her feet. And so then, you know, in and out of middle school and high school, I worked for her because she opened up a furniture store, antique store and jewelry store. I was, I thought I was going to become a gemologist. That's what I wanted to do back then because she had jewelry and I was Trying on bracelets. And I still like jewelry to this day. But it's funny because I learned from her. While my dad was, you know, an immigrant, he was basically, you know, from Greece and had no education and had a very successful business. So I learned from both of them that it wasn't a college degree, it wasn't, you know, a diploma or anything that's going to make me get what I want in life or become successful. It was, it was finding something that you like or passionate about. And at the time, I really didn't have any passions. I just knew I wanted to, I wanted to get back what I thought we lost when my dad died, which was money. And so I, I just started looking at everything in the financial world. I, for some reason I was drawn to the stock market. I was drawn to real estate. All the things that people talk about as how you get rich, real estate, stock market. This was before crypto and, but I went to work at a telemarketing office, got a job as a telemarketer, call center, quickly became one of their top salespeople because I was doing something different than everyone else. Instead of trying to read the script and pitch people, I was asking, you know, questions and I was, I was doing what we call today attraction marketing. Back then there was no Internet, there was no Facebook, there was no Instagram, there was none of that stuff. But I understood how I wanted to be talked to from working from my mom, probably in the, in the ironic.

[Scott Clary]

The best way to sell anything to anyone, you just treat the customer like.

[Nico Mercuris]

You want to treat respect, right? Yeah, yeah. But it was funny because it was a one call close situation. Like if we didn't sell these people on this call, we'd lose them forever. There was no follow up emails, it was not none of that. So it was like. But I was good at it. So they took me off the phones and wanted me to teach other people how to sell in the, in the office. And so I became the trainer and then eventually became the manager and then the director of operations. And then I, the owner died of that company and I ended up starting my own call center. And very, I wouldn't say quickly, it took about three or four years, but I built that up to about 150 employees. And I did it. What to me sounds logical but for most people, like, wow, I can't believe you did that. I, I opened up an office. I had it all outfitted with all the stations and the computers and the phones and the systems and everything. And it was just Me in this office with 24 seats. And because I already knew from working at office what needs to be done first.

[Scott Clary]

So when you first started your own.

[Nico Mercuris]

First started my own office. So instead of hiring anybody, I just set up the office because I knew that that needed to be there first. And this is kind of like what I teach people now, is that don't worry about this down the road, just do this next step first. So that's what I did. I set up the office, got everything ready, and then I ran an ad in the paper and for employees. And then when they called, I answered the phone as the receptionist and I booked. I set the interview for them to come in for an interview. And I would book like 10 interviews for, like, one day. They would all come up to the office and they'd be in the lobby and I would come out of my office and I would interview one at a time. I would take them back to my office, interview them, hire them, if not, or, or not, and then schedule them for training. And then after I went through 20 or 30 people, hired them all or whatever, they would all come back on a certain day for training. I was the trainer. I was training them in the sales office. And it was just me in this whole building, no one else. And then.

[Scott Clary]

So this is like how you start this. You just got to do whatever it takes.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah. And I brought these salespeople, and then I told them to show up on Monday for. For to start. And then they show up into the sales room. I'd bring them into the sales room where all the stations were, and I was the manager, and I would manage them, and I would. I would listen to the conversation and I would tell them what to say. And. And as soon as I found one of these 10 people or so that started to get the hang of it quickly and understood things. I took him off. I said, you're the best one here. Get off. You're going to be the manager. You're going to be the trainer. So now I'm still doing. Taking inbound calls from ads. I'm still scheduling people for interviews. I'm still doing the interviews. But now when they come in for training, this guy, the top salesperson, is the trainer. And. And then I did that repetitively over and over again until we had 24 seats filled for day shift and night shift. And then I took someone else off to become the manager. And I pretty much outsourced myself.

[Scott Clary]

I.

[Nico Mercuris]

And then I got. The last person I put in was the receptionist. Like, I kept doing that because I didn't really need her. I was. I was. So then I had a receptionist, I had a trainer doing the training, I had a manager managing the sales floor. And then I was just kind of overseeing everything. And so. And that became very successful. We built that up to $12 million a year in gross revenue within, you know, two or three years. And. But it's because I already, I already did the low level work first. I was the. I was a sales rep, and then I became a trainer, and then I became a manager. I did every job first. And so this is what. People are so in a hurry these days to just get from point A to point B that they don't realize that all of the good stuff is in the process, but it seems like the worst stuff. Everybody just wants the result. But if you just, if you could just be happy with the process, like actually enjoy doing these steps to building that thing, then you're going to be a lot happier because the result is.

[Scott Clary]

It's.

[Nico Mercuris]

The result's awesome, but it's.

[Scott Clary]

But I don't even think you can ever achieve the result without going to. Every entrepreneur that I know, not, not CEO from, you know, Ivy League that worked for McKinsey, that's transplanted in. But every true entrepreneur, when they started, they've done everything in the business. Like, that's just what it takes. And I think that that's the difference between like a CEO, a professional CEO, versus, like, entrepreneur can tell you in detail every single part of the business runs. And they'll probably, like, talk your ear off. They know so much about their damn business. Like, but this is what it takes.

[Nico Mercuris]

Even to this day when we hire someone to run our ads for us, Facebook ads, whatever. They talk to us like, we don't know anything. And I'm like, you have no idea. We've already done this ourselves for like three years.

[Scott Clary]

So this business is going well.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah.

[Scott Clary]

What happens in, in 2008, 2009, and how many employees you had what, you had like over 150 employees at this point.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah.

[Scott Clary]

And then it. It all went to zero.

[Nico Mercuris]

Well, what happened was, is the real estate market crashed and I had about $4 million worth of that property. I had condos on the beach. I had a couple horse ranches basically over in Odessa and Tampa, Tarpon Springs, and. And I was living in one, and I would go stay in the other, and I'd go down to the condo on the weekends. They were all empty. These were not, they were not investment. I wasn't even renting them Out. So this is how I learned about real estate. So because when the real estate market crashed, I had mortgages on some of these that I ended up owing more than they were worth. So I did something called short selling where I basically sold them back to the bank for less than what I even owed. Pay the difference. It was dumb. I didn't know what I was doing. But what I, what happened was, is that I said, okay, that's not going to happen again. Because someone after the fact told me what I did wrong and what I should have done. And I was like, I could have kept all that. In fact, right now, if I would have kept all that, It'd be worth 10, $15 million today, probably more than that. And my debt on it was about three at the time. And so I just didn't know what I didn't know. And so I decided to go to workshops and boot camps to learn about real estate because I realized the mistake I made. So that was one of the times. And also at the exact same time, the real estate market crashed in 2008. Going into 2009, I lost a million dollar year contract in the call center and that was bringing, netting me about a million dollars a year in revenue. So it was like a double whammy. So now I had money saved up and I'm, you know, I'm confident in myself. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm, no, no big deal. I'll, I'll figure out something else. And over the, I probably lived off my, my savings and my income and dwindled it down to almost nothing. So I went from multi millionaire down to pretty much broke again. Had to sell the, the properties I was in. And I was like, if I would have just knew, known a little bit more about real estate, I could have rented this one out and that would.

[Scott Clary]

Have covered the cash flowed and I.

[Nico Mercuris]

Could have done a lot. Yeah, I think I was in a state of shock for a little while and didn't realize, you know, how the severity of the situation until, until I, until after it was too late. Since then, I mean, I built up a portfolio of over 300 units and I've done it again. But that's the thing. It's like most people quit when they have this adversities or they get a little taste of failure at something and they think that's it and, or they just say, you know what, I tried that before, I'm not going to do that again. And the difference, I think the very simple difference between the people who become successful and the ones who don't is just not quitting. I mean, I used to tell people, Nike, the slogan for Nike, just do it. We. I didn't think much about it until one day I was realizing that everything I've ever done, every success I've ever had, wasn't because of. It was just because I just did it. It was just because no matter what. And it was funny because we were talking about this before, before I came on today, is that, you know, I don't put anything off. Like, if I can get something done, I do it and I do it right then. And no matter whether I have butterflies in my stomach or I'm nervous or I'm scared about it, the difference is, is I just do it anyway. And if people can just get that mindset, I mean, the stick to it in this, that just see it through, you know, until the end, they would see a lot more success with the things that they've already given up on.

[Scott Clary]

So how did, how did the business die? Because the business was. It wasn't a real estate business.

[Nico Mercuris]

The call center didn't die, actually. I. What happened was I brought in a partner to help, and he had some different contracts to sell. And then we together started another business, which was an Amazon business, where we were. This was like back in the beginning when Amazon was just first starting and I was doing fulfillment by Amazon FBA, which is a big thing now, but I'm talking 20 years ago when no one was doing it. And we built that to like, I did that. I did like 400 grand my first year selling some gadgets and widgets. And so I sold. I traded with him. I traded 50% of my ownership in the call center for the entirety of the, of the Amazon. Because I saw the direction going online. I wanted to get out of the call center. I didn't want to deal with employees anymore. And so I went that direction and started building products online. And that Amazon business didn't last, but that was also my fault. I was doing really good with it. And I created a second product and then a third product.

[Scott Clary]

So it was like you were just. You were diversifying yourself too much.

[Nico Mercuris]

I was doing too many things.

[Scott Clary]

Too many things.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah, right. And why. Because somebody once said, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard this, is that, oh, you need multiple streams of income. You should have. You should have seven streams. And income does bullshit. And the fact is, is that you should focus on one thing only until you make that thing a roaring river of income. That's when you start your second stream and your third stream.

[Scott Clary]

So what was the rock bottom moment for you? Because I know that there was points in your life where you know you're. You're short selling your real estate back to the bank, you made a couple bad business moves and obviously that didn't work out. So what is the rock bottom moment that sort of reinvented, sort of the new version of you, the one who starts figuring out how to invest properly starts eventually at some. I mean, fast forward today, now you teach people. But what was that moment when you realize, okay, life is not working out the way that it is right now? I got to do something different.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah, I was, you know, I wrote. I wrote a book called Millionaire Mindset Mastery I mentioned to you earlier. And it was kind of funny because I then after that watched a movie called the Secret. Very popular famous book and movie now.

[Scott Clary]

Right.

[Nico Mercuris]

But I actually wrote that book before then and it was very similar. But I did read some books before I wrote my book Science of Getting Rich by Walter Wattles and think grow rich. But I always had that mindset and I always, I always felt like everything always is going to work out. Everything always does work out. Everything I touch turned to gold. I mean, that wasn't necessarily the case, but that's what I thought of myself. And I ingrain that in my head all the time, that everything's perfect, everything's going exactly the way it's planned. But there was a time when I was questioning my own belief in that because things were not going the way I wanted them to. And I was. And it's very difficult. And I know a lot of people can, can appreciate this, is that when someone says, just think positive or someone says, oh, just think, you know, picture yourself already rich and already walking to your. And you're in a bad place mentally or financially. It's very difficult for you to assume wealth in your mind and riches or act as if you already have it when you're not there. Right. And so. But I did that for so long and it seemed to work for so long that it was very difficult for me to not do that. And so people be like, oh, you're losing your house. Where are you going? How are you so positive? Why you. You still walk like you're a millionaire. I said, I mean, I don't know, what else am I going to do? I gotta. But anyway, I did. I had to. I got foreclosed on on my house, a beautiful gated estate. I put so much money into it, I mean, I spent 30 grand putting rocks around my pond and, you know, statues, and it was ridiculous, it was stupid, the money I was spending. But that's the mistake. I mean, that's the learning experience. I realized that, that I was not investing when the money was coming in. I was not investing. I was blowing it. And so I think that some people have to go through this sometimes to learn the lesson and understand it. And instead of me getting resentful or bitter or go crawling in a hole and being depressed, I said, you know what? Okay, I, I did this, I did this wrong. This is what I'm not going to do anymore. And next time I make money. And I was very confident that would be a next time. I'm going to invest it properly this time. I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to do what I already knew or what I actually tell other people to do. But I wasn't doing myself because I got to that point where I was like, I know, oh yeah, this is what you should like. I was, I was telling people how to lose weight and I was 70 pounds overweight. I was like, I know, I know.

[Scott Clary]

How to do it.

[Nico Mercuris]

I mean, I've done it before. I lose 30 pounds in 30 days, right? I was like, come on, you know? And then I started, who am I? What? You know, if anybody's going to listen to me, I have to, I have to be the person. So I lost the £70. I got in the best shape of my life. I built a multi million dollar business again. Then people started asking me my, you know, my opinion. I realized I have no business teaching anybody until I've done it. And so, and that's what I see these days. I see a lot of people online teaching they haven't done. Maybe they learned something from someone else. And I even tell people sometimes, I'm like, I even told somebody, you know, you heard that old story that it takes like 10, 000 hours of mass to master something. I told somebody, no, I. You can teach me something right now and I could immediately teach it to someone else five minutes later, but I don't have to have ever done it. I could literally, you could teach me something right now and I'll teach it to someone else 10 minutes later. And, and I'm teaching the same thing you just taught me, but I don't have the experience. I don't have the, you know, the, the work ethic behind it to you never, you never, you never did it. You're like parroting it and that's what's happening right now. That's what I see happening a lot online. I see these young kids. You know, I made $25,000 last week, day trading. I'm like, you're still in your parents. You know, you're still in your parents house. I can tell that's your bedroom. And it's like there's nothing, there's no furniture there. You haven't really made any money, so. And. But you got 10 million followers on Tick Tock. I'm like, this is amazing.

[Scott Clary]

That's dangerous.

[Nico Mercuris]

It's dangerous. Crazy.

[Scott Clary]

Like one of the quotes that you said also, which I think is sort of like shown how your relationship with money has changed, especially now that I know a little bit about your story. You said chasing money is the hardest way to get money. So explain what that means. Why are people chasing money? What does it mean to chase money? Why is it that, why is that not the way to actually get money?

[Nico Mercuris]

Well, you know, it's almost like human nature. You know, if you chase a girl and you're all, you know, constantly chasing her, she runs. If you chase a dog, the dog will run. If you run, the dog will chase you. Same with a cat. It's just the way the universe works. It's kind of interesting that way. But money, the, the more you try to catch money, the more you try to try to get it. Sometimes it's evasive and it's, it's literally, it's not, it's not trying to teach you a lesson. What it's, what's happening, I think is the universe is simply saying, okay, keep trying. Let's see, how, how bad do you want it? What are you, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to go through? What are you willing to endure? And failure eventually will give up on you. Failure will keep failing you, keep failing you, keep failing you. But if you never quit, you never give up, you keep pivoting, you keep trying something new. Failure is going, look at you one day and say, holy cow, this guy, this guy is never quitting, he's never giving up. Let's just go ahead and let him win. And then you get a win. And then you, you're, you're, you know, you're restoked. You're like, you're all excited again. But, so when I, when I gave that quote though, what I, what I learned was, is that I created something online that I was passionate about. I created a coaching program where I was literally helping people and I was giving so much free Content.

[Scott Clary]

You were teaching the stuff that after all the you've gone through, you've now like, okay, so now I figured out the game again. I figured out the money game, how to make it, how to invest it, and that's when you give the value back.

[Nico Mercuris]

I gave the value, I gave the value free.

[Scott Clary]

Free.

[Nico Mercuris]

And then people just started pouring in. It was like, I didn't have to advertise, I didn't have to sell anything. I didn't have to try to chase the money. People just wanted to give me money to help them. And I was like, wow, this is interesting. This is a new concept right in the beginning of Internet and. But now it's a big thing and people teach that concept in marketing.

[Scott Clary]

How do you get over the human nature of like, it's almost like this hedonism, like greed, fear, like all these different things that sort of push you in the wrong direction in anything in life. How did you get over it? Like, how did you get over it so that you can invest properly, that you like, what was the, what was the secret or the hack? Because everybody wants a secret or that maybe there is no secret or hack.

[Nico Mercuris]

I said to myself a long time ago, I saw people who gave up on their dreams and they were living, you know, lives of quiet desperation and just, you know, money's not important. They would come up with excuses. Ah, money's not everything. Money doesn't make happy. That's what everybody says when they've, when they've resigned to the fact that they, you know, they don't have what it takes or they don't have the, the discipline to stick to something or make it happen for themselves, or they just don't want to try anymore. But I knew that. I knew what I wanted. I knew the lifestyle wanted. I've seen other people living it. I know it was possible. I've seen people with much less intelligence as me having what I wanted. In fact, I, I've known, I've said that. And don't take this the wrong way if you're a real estate investor, because I am one too the least intelligent people. The, the majority of the millionaires I know in real estate are the least intelligent people. They just did something. It's a formula that anybody can do. You don't have to be smart to become rich in real estate. You just have to do the same thing over and over again. And it gets boring sometimes, just like trading. You know, a lot of people take big risk and swing for the fence because they want to double and triple their account overnight. But if you just take the simple, boring setup every, every day, your account will grow and grow and grow to the point where you have hundreds of thousands in your trading account. But people like, oh, it's a boring. Oh, I made enough money this month. Let me try and swing for the fence. Let me try to hit home run. And then they, they knocked themselves back a few feet. So to answer your question, it was. I figured that if it took me the rest of my life and I died trying, then that's what it's going to take.

[Scott Clary]

I will never extend your time horizon.

[Nico Mercuris]

I cannot, yeah, I cannot even imagine the time where I look back and say, well, Nico, why did you give up on your dreams? Why do you not have what you wanted? I gave up. Eventually I won. Somewhere down the line, I just. I just couldn't deal with it anymore. But that's not going to happen to me because I will just keep trying until I die. They're like, well, what about life?

[Scott Clary]

Life?

[Nico Mercuris]

Don't. Don't you want to take vacations? Don't you want to go? I do that stuff, but it's not my priority because to me, I will rather work harder. And I'm not a grind mindset. I'm not like, oh, grind your way. You should take a break. You should enjoy your life. You should do all those things, but you should get right back to it. And my opinion, because I've, you know, if you go sit on a beach for a week or two, try it, if you haven't, you're going to be bored and you're not going to be able to do that for long. I'm a creative mind, so I like to get back to work. That's me personally. But, but if you have any, any, any delusions of becoming rich in this world, when I say rich, I mean 5, $10 million in the bank or more, or 10, 20, $30 million with assets, which a lot of people, that's not even that huge these days, they're. I mean, it is, don't get me wrong, that's life changing money. But if you have any illusions of getting to that level, you need to understand a few things. You need to understand leverage and discipline. Because, you know, the millionaires, the billionaires that you, that you respect and look up to financially, they all used a tremendous amount of leverage. They either borrowed a lot of money from the banks to build businesses or buy apartment buildings or real estate. Elon Musk, I think, borrowed $40 billion against his Tesla stock to buy Twitter and Jeff Bezos borrowed $200 million against the stock portfolio to buy a yacht, a mega yacht. And you know, people say, oh well, Dave Ramsey says you shouldn't get in debt. Well, don't listen to him. You're going to be broke your whole life. Yeah, you won't have any debt, but you won't have anything either. You have to use leverage. You have to understand how to use it, it properly. And, and that's the thing, a lot of people use it the wrong way. They get their credit cards, they go to the mall and they buy stuff.

[Scott Clary]

Yeah. Bad leverage or. Yeah, so let's talk about leverage, AKA debt, but also discipline. What? Those are two important ideas. How do you apply them to like your investment thesis?

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah. So when it comes to real estate, we built a large portfolio, I have a couple partners and we're over 300 units and probably eight or nine buildings. And we don't buy duplexes. We buy like 45 unit apartment buildings or 60 or 80 or 100 unit apartment buildings. And I was scared to death to do that. In fact, the first programs I went to, they said start small, buy a house or buy a duplex, buy a quadplex, work your way up. And then I saw this guy who said, well I was going to do that, but then I just, my very first building was 50 unit. And now. And he realizes that the way I look at it, and I know this is a little off topic, I'm going to get to it. But 50 units, if you buy a duplex because you think it's the safe approach, and you put two tenants in there and one tenant moves out for whatever reason, you now have 50%, half the income coming in than you did. You're losing 50% of your income. If you buy a 50 unit apartment building and one tenant moves out, you still have 49 people paying rent. You could lose 10 more tenants and still have enough money coming in to not only cover all the expenses but still be profitable. So it's actually safer to buy a more higher, a bigger building. A lot of people think it's scarier, but it's actually easier to buy. The banks want to lend on it more because they know it's more profitable. They look at it as a business. And so, and, and, but how you buy it is important. So you don't just go buy anything just because it's for sale. There's a lot of stuff for sale out there.

[Scott Clary]

And also people that are listening to this probably don't have tens of millions of dollars cash that they're going to put into an apartment building.

[Nico Mercuris]

And even if you did, I don't recommend you do. So what we do is we look for de stressed properties from distressed sellers, not just one or the other. And there's a reason why. Because a distressed property usually means that the seller, the owner didn't take care of it, they didn't understand how to manage it, they didn't have property management or they managing it themselves or they're out of towner and the places just run down. But it has a lot of potential. And then you got that mixed with the seller who's also desperate for money and they need to get out. So they're willing to sell this place at a tremendous discount. The after repair value of it could be $10 million. But you're able to buy it for 2.3. Let's just say hypothetical, but this happened to us once, so it's a good example. And so now they need cash right now. But you don't really want to go conventional because a bank's not going to loan on a de stressed property from you. So you work out a deal with the seller. Okay, listen, I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars down that, that'll, you know, you just, we'll just take over your first mortgage, we'll take over your debt and you carry a note for us for the next 10 years or 20 years at this much with no interest. You get someone who, and I know that might sound. Well, who's going to agree to that? Many people do, we do this all the time. But you have to find the de stressed seller with a de stressed property who's in a desperate situation, who's willing to do that. It's a win win situation. You're taking over their debt, you're able to take over the property. And if you have a little income or some partners that do, you can then slowly rehab that those units, get tenants in there. And then the income coming in from those tenants are going to help you continue to rehab it until it's fully rehabbed, fully occupied, restabilized and now worth five, $10 million. Then what do you do? You refinance it, pull all that equity out, pay off the first seller, pocket all that equity tax free because it's loan proceeds. And then your tenants continue to pay off that new debt. You take that money and go buy a new unit. So do you need money to buy real estate? Yes. Does it have to be your own? No. But you definitely need money.

[Scott Clary]

But not that much.

[Nico Mercuris]

But not necessarily that much. So we bought a, we bought a 4 million dollar apartment for instance with a hundred thousand dollars down. But you need, in order to find those kinds of deals, you need what's called deal flow. You need a way to get those kinds of deals coming across your desk so that you can actually analyze them. But we would analyze 100 deals to find one like that. So, but that's the thing. That's where discipline comes in. Like if you're not willing to look to do the, to the work the underwriting for 100 properties before you make one good offer. And by the way is another thing that a lot of people don't know. We, we, we try to find all the reasons not to buy a property. That's, that's, that's our, that's our vetting process. We look at, okay, let's, let's figure out why this isn't a good deal. Let's, let's try to, to eliminate this from a deal. And if we can't find a reason not to buy it, we buy it. And so it's like a process of elimination like those most people aren't willing to go through this process.

[Scott Clary]

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[Nico Mercuris]

And so we made money during that.

[Scott Clary]

That because we were short. You were shorting. So two things, first of all. Well, actually, we'll talk about, we'll talk about when to short, when to go long in a second. But how do people not, how, how should people not use levers? Like, what were people doing wrong? How did they get wiped out? And, and you know, there was people that killed themselves because they lost so much money. What, what was happening?

[Nico Mercuris]

That's hitting. Swinging for the fences with no safety.

[Scott Clary]

Net, no, no discipline, jumping out of.

[Nico Mercuris]

A plane with no parachute. So what we do is, and that.

[Scott Clary]

Gives leverage a bad name.

[Nico Mercuris]

It gives leverage a bad name. Okay, you, that's like buying the house with leverage. For the example I just gave putting 20 down 200,000 on a million dollar house and then never paying the mortgage payment, what's going to happen is the bank is going to foreclose and take it back and you're going to lose your 200 grand. That's a simple explanation. But with trading, if you go long or short, for instance, and you're betting the farm, you're putting a lot of money at risk. 50,000. Because I know, you know, Donald Trump's going to give tariffs, he's going to talk about tariffs, and the market's going to crash. So, so I'm going to go long or whatever, or short. And you don't have a stop loss in place and you get liquidated. Well, the higher your leverage, the closer your liquidation is to your entry price. So if you enter at a hundred thousand dollars for Bitcoin and you think it's going to go to 120, then, and you don't have a stop loss, your liquidation might be at 95,000. So if it drops to 95, you get liquidated. So if you have 20 grand on that trade, you lose the 20 grand. But if you put a stop loss at 99, 10% away from your entry and you have 20 grand on the trade and it goes down and hit your stop loss, the most you can lose is 10% of your 20 grand, which is $2,000. So what does that do? Well, it allows you to live to trade another day for one thing. You don't lose everything. You don't get liquidated. You got stopped out instead. And what that does is it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate the situation. Look at, okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's not going, maybe it's going down. And then you can reverse your position and go short instead. But by using a tight stop loss or using a proper stop loss, it's simply risk management at all.

[Scott Clary]

So why are people not doing this? Like, it doesn't make. It seems like it's very easy.

[Nico Mercuris]

It seems obvious, right?

[Scott Clary]

Yeah.

[Nico Mercuris]

They don't know how or they don't or, and this is why I said, I think we talked about this before, is that women do better in our group because they follow the rules. We, we show you the rules, we tell you how to put proper risk management on your trades. And some men don't. Some, I wouldn't say some men, probably women too, but some people just don't because they want to give it room to go against them because they've seen here's, here's the excuse. I was in a trade before and I had a tight stop loss and it hit my stop loss and then it still went the way I wanted it to go afterwards. So I'm not going to use a stop loss this time or I'm going to move my stop loss lower to give it more room. And they do that and it goes against them, keeps going against them, keeps going against them. And finally they have to either close the trade out with a loss or get liquidated. So I would say let it hit your stop loss. That the whole reason it's called a stop loss is to stop your loss. That's the name. And so out let it hit your stop loss, reevaluate situation and reenter at a better time. But it's real simple. If you got 10 grand in your account and you risk 10%, that's a thousand dollars. If you put a 10 stop loss on that, that means you're really only risking 100. So 100 is 1% of your entire account balance. So you could have 100 losing trades in a row before you blow through your $10,000. We have a 70 win ratio in our group, so that's unlikely to ever happen. 100 losing trades in a row. But so if you use proper risk management, you live to trade another day. You and, and if you're doing it right, you might have seven winners and three losses. So on my three losers I lose 100 bucks each, but on my seven winners I make a thousand dollars each. You just have to understand that that's the cost of doing business.

[Scott Clary]

So you notice that, you notice that women play by the rules that you're setting up and are, and they just, just, they follow the system more, more often than men do.

[Nico Mercuris]

It's weird. We have women killing it in our.

[Scott Clary]

Group and that's so funny.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah, it is funny because they're, they're a little bit less risk averse. They don't want to, they're not trying to hit home runs. They're trying to really learn. They're, they're more by the book. They're following the rules and they're having consistent gains and consistent.

[Scott Clary]

And long term they end up with a better result.

[Nico Mercuris]

They have a better result.

[Scott Clary]

Yeah. When somebody. Okay, because again, you kind of do the 2, 2 opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to investing. Right. You do the long term real estate plus you, the very short term stuff. Stuff I think that people can wrap their minds around long term real estate. It makes sense. It's, it's not like stressing me out day to day. If somebody actually wanted to do this, like, what is the amount of time they should actually, you know, allocate towards learning, understanding? Because even some of the words that you're talking about now, they're already like, oh my God, that's a lot. That's like, that's too much for me. It sounds like I got to be like in it every single day, every single hour. And I, and I do know some people that are, are into day trading. And that's sort of like a general term I just use for like people that just look at the trades and the investment every single day. Second hour, they're like bringing their laptops to coffee and they're bringing their laptops and they can never, never not be in front of a laptop.

[Nico Mercuris]

It could be addicting.

[Scott Clary]

Yeah. And I'm like, that doesn't seem like a great life either. So what when you, when what, what is the advice for somebody who wants to start this?

[Nico Mercuris]

That's a great point. And to everybody listening, pick your heart. Okay, you can spend 60 hours a week at a job you hate to barely make enough to make ends meet, or you can spend four hours a week making more than you've ever made in your life. But you gotta understand how.

[Scott Clary]

The chart.

[Nico Mercuris]

You gotta understand how to read a chart. Well, when I look at the chart, it looks like Chinese. No offense to anybody, Chinese, but if you're English speaking, then that's a, that's a term that we use to, to indicate that something seems complicated, but once you really understand it, it's not. And when you understand where support and resistance is, and you can just follow simple instruction, and not only that, but in our group you can just do what we're doing. Like we give signals and we tell you where to enter and where to exit and you just follow. You just copy trade, basically. But what happens is if you copy trade someone long enough, just like if you went to Mexico and you didn't know Spanish and you went with someone who speaks Spanish and you, he, he or she was with you everywhere you went, and you started to hear how he asked for a drink or how, where's the bathroom? You will pick it up, you will get to that point where you, you don't need the interpreter anymore and you don't need us anymore. But the funny part about it Is, is that, you know, people think, oh, that looks hard. So go back to doing what you're doing. That is much harder, in my opinion. You know, getting in shape and seeing your abs, that's hard. Sitting on the couch, eating Twinkie, Twinkies, getting fat, that's hard. You know, having diabetes is hard. You know, having joint pain and inflammation is.

[Scott Clary]

Being broke is hard.

[Nico Mercuris]

Being broke is much harder than being rich. But getting rich is just as hard as being broke, as working your job, keeping you broke. And I'm not saying that a job is not good. I think everybody should keep their job and keep their business if they have one. Most of the people that come to us are entrepreneurial minded. They either have a business or had one in the past. So they understand, keep that definitely. But I don't know of anything else. And I've done a lot and I've made money in multiple different niches. I don't know of anything else that you can do concurrently, simultaneously with whatever it is you're doing now. Keep your job, keep your business. I'm. I'm walking down the aisle at the grocery store and I make enough money to pay for my groceries. By the time I get to checkout, I mean, I'm at this red light, you know, waiting for the light to turn green, and I look at the trade, I enter, and then by the time I get the next right, I close the trade out. I mean, you can do this while you have a job, you can do.

[Scott Clary]

This while you're second nature after it becomes second nature.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah, and I don't really know of anything else because any other business that you start to make money, shopify, you hear them all, you know, Amazon, you're going to need inventory, you're going to need maybe a location. If you want to start a hair salon or a coffee shop or a pet grooming facility, you're going to have to show up every day. You're going to have to, first of all, you're going to have to maybe rent the space or buy the building, decorate the place. There's a lot of money, a lot of risk going on in anything you do. And if you just have a regular job, you're building someone else's dream, you're spending 60 hours of your time, so. And taking home just enough to keep you coming back. The truth is, is that you never get paid what you're worth. And it has to be that way by design, because if they paid you what you worth, then they wouldn't be able to stay in business. They have to actually pay you less than you produce in order to, for them to have a profit.

[Scott Clary]

Right.

[Nico Mercuris]

So when you know all this stuff, what are your choices? This kind of goes back to what I said earlier. I will die trying to get rich doing this or doing anything to get rich, because what are my choice? My choice is a, a life that I don't want, want to live. I'd rather spend my whole life trying to get to a point where I can have the time, freedom and do whatever I want than to suffer miserably always wondering what would have happened if I would have just tried that. And so I try it all. I try, I try everything and then I stick to the things that work.

[Scott Clary]

And this is the thing that if you learn it, you spend the time. It works just for people that are listening that again, have not played in this space at all. You mentioned a whole bunch of different kinds of investing. You mentioned like day trading, swing trading. You mentioned scalping. Like what are the terms that people should know just so that they can sort of like start to research and what should they start with? What should they stay away from?

[Nico Mercuris]

I think that with day trading, I'm going to use that term because that's the most commonly known term is day trading. That's what you hear stock traders do, right? So, but that's kind of what we're doing in crypto market. It's the same thing except for the differences. Is crypto's open 24 7, stock market closes at 5pm on Friday, doesn't open till Monday. There's something called gaps. So over the weekend you could get gapped out when the market opens back on Monday. If you stayed in a trade on Friday, you could lose a lot of money. You got to be very careful in the stock market and you got to have a lot of money in the stock market. So you put $20,000, you buy $20,000 worth of Amazon, let's just say, and you're trying to go long or you want it to go up in value, let's say it goes up 1%, 2%. Okay. Are you gonna get rich? What's 1% of $20,000?

[Scott Clary]

No.

[Nico Mercuris]

So the difference is, is in crypto we can take $20,000, we could take a thousand dollars or $2,000 and make the same amount with leverage than you could options trading or playing in the stock market, it's open 24 7. There's no restrictions. There's no day trading rules where you have to have a certain amount of money in your account. It is kind of like the wild, wild west still. Because, because of the regulations are very limited and it allows you with any amount of money to trade with up to almost any amount of leverage. Like there's 500x leverage available. But, but so there's scalping, there's swing trading, there's long term positions, hold long term hold positions. And to know which one is best for you, you just have to start, you have to do it. Scalping is a little bit more intense.

[Scott Clary]

It's also like you're, you're also, only, you're only risking the money if you ever do any kind of trading, leverage, not leverage, any of these, any of these types of trading, you just risk the money you're willing to lose and then all of a sudden it's not so stressful.

[Nico Mercuris]

That's correct. So you can put $1,000 in your account or a hundred thousand. That money's not at risk risk. The only money that you have at risk is what you're going to use as a margin on that trade. So if I have $10,000, but I want to risk a thousand, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go along with a thousand dollars. That's my margin, that's what I'm risking. I'm gonna put a 10 stop loss under that. So I'm really only risking 10% of that thousand dollars now. And then I'm going to use 10x leverage, which now I'm playing with 10 grand. But I'm only risking 1000. But I'm really only risking 100. So when you really, I know it's confusing at first when you first hear this concept, but when you really get, it's like, holy cow.

[Scott Clary]

I think the most important thing is that people just know again. Like that's why I bring it, I bring it back to the principles, right? Like, principles are the discipline, the leverage. But once you understand the principles and you understand risk management, then all of a sudden you can dabble with all this other. Just know, like, I mean the easiest idea to walk away from this podcast with is you just, you can't lose more than you're comfortable losing than you're comfortable.

[Nico Mercuris]

And, and now there are people that risk more than they want to lose. And that's something we definitely don't teach. We teach you to only use risk. You know, money that you're willing to lose and that you're okay losing. It's not going to change your life at all. Like if you lose this thousand dollars, are you going to have to get evicted from Your apartment?

[Scott Clary]

Hopefully not.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah, right. Are you going to lose your car? No. So if you're in that kind of financial struggle and that kind of situation where you're barely making ends meet, then this is not for you right now. And so we don't try to just take anybody's money. Wants to learn from us. We evaluate your situation, too, sometimes. Except for the guy, you know, who, Who's a top income earner in our group, who made millions and didn't. Couldn't really afford to do it. But he, He. He was an admitted gambler. He lives in Vegas. But. But it's funny because he never told us, you know, that he was having problems. He just knew he wanted to do this. And so that's the thing. You're gonna. People are gonna take a risk. They're gonna try what they want to try, but always just use proper risk management, and you will live to trade another day, and you will get better and better and better. And this isn't a matter, by the way. This isn't a matter of adding more tech screens or more, you know, indicators or more, you know, software or whatever. This is a matter of deducing, deducting out of your life things that aren't working. So it's kind of in, like, enlightenment.

[Scott Clary]

Like, it's like addition through subtraction almost.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yes. People think that, like, I use this example a lot. It's enlightenment. People want to be, you know, oh, he's very enlightened. Or she's enlightened. Her. I'd like to be enlightened. Enlightened. You know, they're on that enlightenment craze, right. And they think they need stuff to get enlightenment, like, oh, I need to get this new water bottle, this new yoga mat, or I need to go to this yogi over here. What you need to do to be enlightened is get rid of all the things that you thought were true that you just discovered are not true in your life. Really. You're basically peeling away the onion, you're peeling away the layers until you get to the truth of something. And so enlightenment isn't about more our stuff. It's about less and less and less until. Until you've peeled away all the things you used to think were true that are.

[Scott Clary]

You don't actually care. Yeah. You don't need.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah. And so same with trading. A lot of people come in, they get the nice monitors, the computers. They don't need all that stuff. I, I can trade on an iPhone or iPad. It doesn't matter. But I did do that. I had 16 monitors at one time. I had all the, all the gadgets and gadgets. And then once you realize what it really takes, you know, you just have to know where support and resistance is. You have to understand where to draw your trend lines and where the liquidity, liquidity pools are. And then you can just wait for the breakout and that's it. And you scalp it. Close the trade out, wait for the next trade set up.

[Scott Clary]

Indeed is a success story, partner. Now if you're hiring Indeed is all you need. Let me give you an example. If I needed to hire a new editor for this show, I'd go to Indeed and be super specific. Not just can you edit audio. I'd say I need someone who's edited a conversational podcast for at least three years, gets our style and knows our software. Someone who's done this before. And here's the thing. With Indeed sponsored jobs, I'd get people who fit that description. I'm not digging through resumes from people who've edited one YouTube video. I'm getting actual podcast editors who know what they're doing, doing people who've worked on shows like ours and can prove it. That's what makes a difference. You get people who actually are what you're looking for. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 90% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs. And people are finding quality hires right now. In the minute that I've been speaking to you, companies like yours have made 27 hires on Indeed. According to Indeed data Worldwide. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all the boxes. Less stress, less less time and more results. Now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs and listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit to help you get your job the premium status it deserves. @ Indeed.com Clary just go to Indeed.com Clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the right way with Indeed. HubSpot is a success story partner. Now look, if you're in in marketing right now, or if you're an entrepreneur who's hired marketers, or if you're a founder who leads a whole marketing team, you know the drill. You are creating content for 12 different channels. You're launching campaigns, you're scoring leads, you're analyzing all the data and somewhere in there you're actually supposed to do great marketing. And it's exhausting and you're spread too thin. But this is what actually Works for marketers to give you your life and your time back. HubSpot's marketing hub, HubSpot Content Hub combined with their new AI called Breeze. Now what this actually does is basically everything that you shouldn't have to do yourself. It remixes your content instantly so you're not starting from scratch every single time. It handles lead scoring so you know exactly who to focus on, which customers will probably convert. And it pulls all your analytics and your data and KPIs into one place instead of having them scattered across 15 different tabs and tools. Plus plus the AI agents that HubSpot builds for you can automate the repetitive stuff that's eating away your day. Bottom line, you get better results faster without burning out. See, with HubSpot, everything's connected in one platform instead of duct taped together. So if you're tired of being spread too thin, check out HubSpot.com marketers to see how this actually works. What's the most common psychological, psychological mistake that you see traders.

[Nico Mercuris]

Make? Well, I mean, being overconfident or in a direction of the market. One thing I do when I first show somebody how to do this is I zoom in really, really far on the screen so that they just see the current local direction and I say, so if you were to guess right now, which way is the market heading up or down? And they would look in the screen and you see the candlesticks going up and they're like, oh, it's going up, it's going up. And then I would just zoom out a little bit and then the overall trend is down. Yeah, and then, oh no, down. And then I would zoom out a little further and the real overall trend, trend is up. But there was a downtrend with a little uptrend on it. So I'm like. So the difference is, is like you got the lower time frames which is like being on the sidewalk watching the ants walk around your feet. And then the higher time frames is like getting in a hot air balloon and going up a couple hundred yards and you're able to now see above the trees and the city and the surrounding distance and you can see the big picture of what's going on. And so we look at the 10 minute time frame is what we scalp on. But before I ever take a trade, I'm going to zoom out to the one hour, to the daily, to the weekly, to even the monthly. I'm, it's like what's the real, what's really going on here? And a lot of people do just what you the psychological thing that people do is they'll open up their trading platform, they'll look and they say, oh, it's going up. And they go long. Instead of zooming out and seeing it's, it's going up, it is, but there's a resistance right here. And as soon as it hits that, it's bouncing, coming back down further and they didn't see that. So as soon as they go long, it starts to go against them and they're like, what am I doing wrong? It's like you just, you just, just zoom out. You just gotta zoom.

[Scott Clary]

Out. So when people are looking at these signals and I'm curious what you look for too. Are you looking at things that impact the price of something in the day or are you starting to look at like macro trends, like who's in office, what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in the news cycles, like what makes the most.

[Nico Mercuris]

Impact? Yeah, that's a great question. There is something called fundamentals. Obviously there's the news, you know, and there's old, there's a lot of things said in the stock world. It's like, you know, know, buy the news, you know, sell the, oh.

[Scott Clary]

Wait, sell the news or whatever. Yeah, I know. That's, that's, that, that's a Warren Buffett.

[Nico Mercuris]

Quote. Buffet quote, right. And the problem is, is when you hear about it, you know, when you're, when you're Uber driver and your grandmother's telling you to buy bitcoin, it's probably at the peak of the market. And so when there's a feverish pitch, when, when there's a ton of euphoria in the market, when we're hitting all time highs at 126k. Ironically that is when the majority of people come in and say, okay, I better, I better to start taking this seriously. It's actually going to the moon. And that is the time we're getting out where, that's the time we're selling to you, the newbie that doesn't understand what's happening because we've already, we started at 15,5 in 2023, which was the bear market bottom from the last bull market. And we went up to 126k. That's 8 an 8x climb in Bitcoin. So we've already did the bull market here. Now we're coming into the end of the year. We know fundamentally and historically that that crypto has four year market cycles. So we have three years up, one year down. Bear market, three years up, one Year down, three years up. We are now going into December, November, December of the third year of a bull market cycle. That's all you need to know to know that the bull market's probably over soon, probably by the end of this year. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get into crypto or you should, you know, because we're going to make just as much money on the way down in the next bear market. You can short it by shorting the market. Right. And so, so a lot of people think, a lot of people only get excited when things are pumping and.

[Scott Clary]

Everybody'S excited when the news talks about.

[Nico Mercuris]

It. That's why the news talks about it. And that is the time that smart investors are exiting their positions or at least converting over to maybe different coins that are now going into what we call altcoin season. But Donald Trump talking about tariffing China 115% caused a huge drop in the market. And those are the things that are unexpected that we can't.

[Scott Clary]

Control. That doesn't matter if you, if the majority of your, you know, your bets, your bet or not even bets. If, if you look at the data, you look at historical, what happens if the majority of those positions you take win? Then the few outliers, when Trump goes off on Twitter, it doesn't make a.

[Nico Mercuris]

Difference. Yeah, not only that, but if you were long when that happened, meaning you were expecting the price to go up and it dropped that far down, which it did, it dropped 15% in like a couple hours. But if you would add a stop loss in place, you would have been taken out very quickly with no problems. And so it wouldn't have been again. Yeah, then you're. Then what? Then you look at and say, oh, now this is the bottom. Okay, now I'm going to get in. And you ride that back up. And then that's a killer trade. I think there's something called trying to catch a falling knife. And this is where people, they see something dropping like that and they try to jump in on that short. They're like, oh, it's going down, I'm going to jump in. And they go short. And as soon as they go short, it bounces and bounces all the way back up and they get cut. That's why they called, don't try to catch a falling knife. And the same thing in the opposite direction. So when people are eager, too eager, they want to trade so much, they want to make so much money that they just want to trade all there. They just want to constantly trade, trade that's when they get hurt. You really just need to calm down, calm your mind, focus, sit on your hands most of the time, wait for the right setup. Because I can trade three or four times in a year and make more money than someone trading every day. Because I'm waiting for the exact right setups where there's going to be a big pivot or a big move in a.

[Scott Clary]

Direction. One of the things you speak about is relationship with money. So I think that probably when people first start trading, they. They have a very unhealthy relationship with money in general. How do you heal that relationship? And even, like, from your own experience, like, how did your relationship with money change over time? How did you stop thinking about it? Sounds silly, but like money and more just like numbers on a.

[Nico Mercuris]

Screen. That's exactly what I did. I stopped. So it kind of went back to the comment we talked about earlier about not chasing money, is that you have to detach yourself emotionally from money. And the problem with money is that it's very emotional. Money is something that from the time we're very young, we are told that it's hard to get and you have to work very hard for it and you have to pay your dues. And, you know, money doesn't grow on trees. All the things that we've been told from childhood. And so whenever we get some, we're closed, gripped on it. We don't want to give it up. Most people, a lot of people are spent thrift. They just throw it around like it's nothing. And they wonder why they don't have any. But. But money is emotional. So when we. When we're broke or when we lose it, we're very upset. When we make a lot, we're very excited. If I tell people, a lot of people are just miserable, too. They don't realize how their mind and the way they treat themselves and the way they act in everyday life is going to determine whether money is going to come to them or not. But I would tell people this. If I guaranteed you $10.

[Scott Clary]

Million.

[Nico Mercuris]

Today, by the end of today, you'll have $10 million in your bank account. Would you be happy? And most people are gonna be like, hell, yeah, Are you kidding me? $10 million, that would change my life. I would be able to buy everything I ever wanted. I would be able to take care of my mother, my. My family, whatever. But what if I told you there's a stipulation? You know, you get that 10 million, but, you know, you only get to live another 48 hours after you get that 10 million, that's so great, not so great. You're gonna be like, hell no, I'm not doing that. Why not? Well, what you're basically saying by saying no to that is that just waking up one more day is worth more than $10 million. Because you wouldn't trade $10 million for just one more day. And so what that means to me is that instead of waking up miserable and saying, oh, I gotta work today, oh, I gotta pick up the kids today. Oh, I gotta do this instead saying, I get to do this. You have another day, you have another chance. I get to go pick up my kids today, I get to go to work today and be excited about it. And if you lived your life that way, with excitement, even though the task is hard, even though what you're trying to learn is difficult, even though you know it's a drudgery and you used to think it's a drudgery, but you have the opportunity to do it, which you may not have had if you didn't wake up today. If you just change your perspective and think that way that you get to do it instead of you have to do it, then your relationship with all the tasks, all the things, the hard things that people have to do to make money changes. And you're no longer chasing money, but you're doing it for the joy, you're doing it for the, for the.

[Scott Clary]

Process, doing it because you have the ability to do it, the ability to do.

[Nico Mercuris]

It. It's that simple sometimes. But it's so overstepped, simplified that people, they don't. It goes beyond some people. But I would say that detach yourself and if you can detach yourself emotionally from money, in other words, you don't, you're not going to cry if you lose a little. Some question I ask people is like if you're driving in a convertible car 80 miles an hour on the interstate and your top's down and you pull your wallet out, bill flies out, Are you the kind of person that is going to get off at the next exit, drive back 10 miles, get on the freeway today, try to find that hundred dollar bill? Or are you just going to chalk it up as a loss and keep going and laugh about it? And there's, there's, it's profound, the answers that. Because when you really think about what kind of person you are, a lot of people are like that, where they would literally go and try to find that 100 bill. I mean, it's a hundred bucks. I had to Work hard for that. My mother, another example, she would call me up, hey, hey, honey, how. What's the price of gas down there in Florida? I'm like, I don't care. I don't know. I don't know. I don't.

[Scott Clary]

Know. It's like, it's a bad relationship with money. It's, it's. People are more concerned, concerned with, with preserving it than trying to, like, spend the time and energy to learn a skill, to make more. And it's not about, like, not respecting it. It's never about not respecting it. It's about respect it. But then you should take the money you do make and find a way to use it to compound.

[Nico Mercuris]

That. Yeah, money, I always tell people, money is like, is like children. Money is like little soldiers, okay? When you have $10, $100, a thousand dollars, $10,000, and you deploy it, invest it into something, you're putting those people to work for you. You, you're putting those dollars to work for you, right? And then they're going to multiply and grow into a bigger and bigger army. But you're going to have to go, you're going to have to go with missing that. Those people for a while. They're going to, they're going to leave you for a little while. You're not going to have them to play with and hold or to see in your bank account. You might even be broke for a little.

[Scott Clary]

While. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because they're going to work for.

[Nico Mercuris]

You. That's right. I see some of the, the richest real estate investors I know are cash poor. They don't have any cash, but they're worth 20 million on paper because they're building assets that are going to go up in value over time, which will retire them and create passive income for themselves. But every time they have a 50 grand or an extra 100 grand from their business, they dump it into another.

[Scott Clary]

Investment. Of course, I think, I mean, like, not a real estate investor, but I'm the exact same way. It's like whether or not it's going back into this business, going back into my investment. Like, I hate sitting on cash. I cannot stand sitting on cash right now. If I make money, it's going, I'm finding a place to invest it.

[Nico Mercuris]

Immediately. And you should. And that's a great point. Because money people are so emotionally attached to it. People are so scared to, to lose it or to make it, but.

[Scott Clary]

They hold on so tight that it actually ruins their.

[Nico Mercuris]

Life.

[Scott Clary]

Yes. What's Your advice for somebody, how do they, you know, make, make enough money to start investing and when should they start.

[Nico Mercuris]

Investing? Well, I think the sooner the better. But in order to invest, you do need some investment capital. You do need some resources. Right. So, you know, if I had to start over myself, I would probably get a sales job and I would or two and I would work as much as possible and try to save up 5, $10,000. That's not a lot of money. And that can happen pretty quickly if you're living a little bit below your means and you're not out blowing money on stupid stuff. Don't worry about dating. Like if you're young, you know, women, if you're a young man, just speaking from experience, that's very expensive, first of all, and they expect a lot more from you than maybe you can afford. So I would get your financial act in order, get your house in order to get your own finances or build something first. Become, become what it is you want. Don't, don't get sidetracked with all the distractions. It's easy for me to say it was very hard for me to.

[Scott Clary]

Do myself, but I think it's good. I think it's very wise advice. I think that if you are, I mean, I, I actually, I, I think I've tweeted this out before and like people gave me a lot of for it. It's like, make money before you.

[Nico Mercuris]

Date in a perfect.

[Scott Clary]

World.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yeah. Because dating's not cheap and relationships are not cheap. And it's not, it doesn't have anything to do with gold diggers or anything like.

[Scott Clary]

That. No, but you can't be, you can't even take care of.

[Nico Mercuris]

Yourself. That's.

[Scott Clary]

Right. It's not fair to the person that you're dating because then you're going to expect them to take care of you too. If you fall on hard times or if something comes up, I think that you should focus on being competent, being some level of successful, finding a way to make some money, figuring out who you are and, and the value you contribute to the world. And when you do that properly, money will come back to you. And then on that journey, you will become a better.

[Nico Mercuris]

Partner. Better partner. You will be much more.

[Scott Clary]

Attractive. I.

[Nico Mercuris]

Agree. When you're not struggling yourself and you've got your act together and you've built something, you become very attractive to, to everybody. Not just the opposite sex or whoever you're looking for, but you also attract the type of person that, that vibes and matches with your level at that Time. A lot of this is why people who win the lottery and up broke within a couple years because they didn't become the person necessary to handle that amount of money. You hear these stories all the time. You win 20, 30 million, 50 million and within a short period of time they're broke. They've given money to their friends, their relatives, they bought all the luxuries, paid cash for everything because they didn't understand money. And then they end up with nothing. And they don't understand, well, money is evil. No, money's not evil. You just did the wrong thing with it. You know if, and here's some advice to anybody who might win the lottery or come into money very quickly because if you didn't earn it and you didn't build something to actually. Because when you do arrive at a level of millionaire status, you had to become the person that was able to handle that during that whole process. And this is what most people don't get. It's a, it's a process of getting you to that point. So when I, when I first realized I was a millionaire, I wasn't even excited. I wasn't even jumping up and.

[Scott Clary]

Down. There's so much to get.

[Nico Mercuris]

There. Yeah, I guess I am. But then it was like, holy cow, if I, I should be from what I went through. But if you won $50 million in the lottery or just came into it, it, and I know this doesn't appeal, doesn't matter to most people, but it is something you should, should think about rather than just buy what you want because you can afford everything. You should, you should really, you know, set yourself up and trust and, and have the right holding companies and things like that and you can have everything you ever wanted without spending one dime of your money. And people don't understand this well.

[Scott Clary]

Because they didn't make it. They didn't become the person that actually would in most circumstances deserve and get $50.

[Nico Mercuris]

Million. That's right, because if you earn $50 million, you would have all the structures, the trust, the, the, the limited liability companies, the, the, the structures in place. You would have all the finance come, you would have learned something by then. But if you just come with $50 million, all of a sudden it's handed to you. My advice would you would be that if you want the nice house, get a mortgage. If you want the cars, lease them, if you want the boat, finance them and put that 50 million into a high yield earnings, maybe very low risk T bonds or whatever, some, some kind of mutual fund where you're getting 5, 6, 7% per year because that's, you know, two and a half to $5 million a year and passive incoming for the rest of your life. And that's enough to pay for all the, the mortgages and the car payments and the lease payments on all the stuff you want forever without ever spending your $50.

[Scott Clary]

Million. Where can people connect with you and where can people sort of learn more? Obviously you have a great YouTube channel, but where do you want to send.

[Nico Mercuris]

People? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'd definitely like to offer something of value to any viewer out there that, that resonates with what I'm saying or wants to lear. Crypto renegades. You can send me a DM on Instagram. It's at Nico Merus. I think the link will probably.

[Scott Clary]

Be around here somewhere in the show.

[Nico Mercuris]

Notes. Yeah, my YouTube channel is @ Nico. Everything is under my name, Nico Mercurus. But if you just comment on any of my videos either on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, wherever you find me, or send me a DM preferably and mention this podcast, what I will do is we do have a five day training, a workshop that we did. We charged $1,000 for it at one point and, and it's basically a step by step five day workshop that we did. We will unlock that. I will send your, anybody who sends me a DM a link to where they can get that unlocked, that'll be free for them. And I'll also send you a link to my next upcoming live webinar workshop that we. I usually spend two to three hours on this, sharing my screens, trading live, showing people how it's done. You can watch me do it right in front of your eyes. Probably watch me make hundreds, if not thousands right in front of your eyes. And, and you will, you will know right then if this is for you, if you can do this or not. And I think most people when they see it, they're like, oh, I thought it was gonna be harder or not. Oh, I thought it is. So it is something that, that it's learnable for sure. It's teachable. We, we're good at teaching it. We have a, we have a over 3, 000 students now in our mastermind. And yeah, I'd be happy to, to show anybody who sends me a message how to do it. By the way, if you do reach out to me on Instagram, look for the little blue check next to my name. We are meta verified. There are some imposters. I do have some imposters, unfortunately they're pretending to.

[Scott Clary]

Be me. Last thing I want to ask, you know, you've given over a lot of wisdom, you gone through a lot of ups and downs to get to where you are today. If you were going to pass over just one piece of advice to your 20 year old self, like the one thing that has made the biggest impact in your life, what would that piece of advice be.

[Nico Mercuris]

And why? Get rid of shiny object syndrome. And this is something I think we all have put the blinders on. Focus on that one thing. If it's real estate, if it's trading, if it's crypto. So I do, I do all three. I do real estate and crypto because crypto is the future, digital currency is the future and real estate's not going anywhere. Everybody needs a place to live. I love both. I love the short term and the long term. I love the fast paced make money right now. And I like to put it in something that I know is going up over time. Steady and like rock solid focus. That's, that's, that's the hardest thing in this day.

[Scott Clary]

And age. Start there though. That's.

[Nico Mercuris]

The point. Yeah, it's, well, that's true. I learned that from being distracted and trying to, trying, trying to spin ten plates at once. And if I would have, if I would have just focused, if I would have just picked real estate for instance, or picked trading for instance, early on, I would have probably been much wealthier 20 years sooner. And it's like that's, that's the hard nut to swallow sometimes because you're like, yeah, okay, well it's too late. I can't go back and change that. I can only go from this point forward. So I don't care if you're 20 or 60. We got people in our group all ages and you can be 60 and still become a multimillionaire in the next couple years if you just learn the simple strategies. But you just gotta put the distractions down. We live in the tick tock age, scrolling. Everybody's scrolling day or night. We're all guilty of it. You got porn, you got YouTube, you got all these things. And I say that jokingly, some, some of my webinars, but there's so much distraction, of course. And the people who really get ahead in life are the ones who can just put that stuff aside, focus on something. Give yourself a, get one of those egg timers or something and give yourself an hour to really focus on something. And when it goes off, okay, take a break, but then set it again and focus for an hour. And if you can do that, you're gonna. You're gonna be way ahead of.