The Megyn Kelly Show - 20211015_jordan-belfort-on-his-incredible-life-victimhood-m
Aired: 2021-10-15
Duration: 01:36:56


=== From Dentist to Wall Street (14:12) ===

[00:00:00]  Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
[00:00:12]  Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
[00:00:14]  Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
[00:00:15]  Joining me today, the one and only wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort.
[00:00:20]  In the 1980s and 90s, Jordan ran one of the most successful brokerage firms in Wall Street history, also one of the craziest.
[00:00:30]  He lived a life of luxury with money, yachts, women.
[00:00:34]  And drugs, but it could not last forever.
[00:00:37]  Soon the FBI would catch up and catch on to a multi million dollar pump and dump stock manipulation scheme that would land Jordan in federal prison for 22 months.
[00:00:50]  He would later write a New York Times best selling book, The Wolf of Wall Street, and soon Hollywood would come knocking and A list actors would launch a bidding war for the movie rights.
[00:01:01]  Leonardo DiCaprio would go on to portray Jordan in the now very famous and high grossing film.
[00:01:07]  It's incredible life and incredible life lessons that Jordan has gotten along the way.
[00:01:12]  And today he is my guest and we'll discuss it all.
[00:01:15]  Jordan, thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:17]  Thanks.
[00:01:18]  It's a pleasure.
[00:01:19]  Okay.
[00:01:19]  So I'm all I've saw Wolf of Wall Street when it came out in 2013.
[00:01:24]  And now I've read the book and have been following you on Twitter.
[00:01:28]  And I love your inspirational messages.
[00:01:29]  You really have taken a lot of these life lessons to heart.
[00:01:33]  And one of the things that attracted me to your messaging was your very anti victim mentality.
[00:01:38]  I mean, you know, you own everything that you've done and have been through and have been really open about it.
[00:01:43]  But you also haven't lost touch with the drive that it takes to make all the money that you made, some legally, some not legally.
[00:01:52]  But you haven't lost touch with what it takes to be successful and to get ahead of the other guy.
[00:01:58]  And so I want to get to all of that because that's part of who you are as well.
[00:02:01]  Let's start at the beginning, though.
[00:02:02]  So you're a kid from Bayside, Queens.
[00:02:05]  You did not grow up rich or poor, right?
[00:02:07]  About middle class, would you say?
[00:02:09]  Yeah.
[00:02:09]  And your parents were what?
[00:02:10]  Well, my parents were both CPAs.
[00:02:14]  And, you know, it's interesting because that you think, well, wow, both are CPAs, professionals.
[00:02:19]  You'd probably be upper middle class, maybe even, you know, lower wealthy, right?
[00:02:24]  And, but my parents really struggled growing up and kind of didn't realize that until I was about 10.
[00:02:30]  And when I was 10, I remember it's a funny story.
[00:02:32]  I wanted to buy a pair of Pumas because they were, you know, all their age back then, right?
[00:02:36]  Pumas.
[00:02:36]  And they were like $19.
[00:02:38]  And, like, I think it was my birthday was coming up.
[00:02:40]  And I asked my mom, you know, I want Pumas.
[00:02:42]  She's like, we can't afford it.
[00:02:44]  I'm like, What do you mean you can't afford it?
[00:02:46]  Like, you and dad are professionals.
[00:02:47]  You both, when they both were, my mother was like a trailblazer, just so you know.
[00:02:51]  Like, in the 50s, back in Mad Men days, she was going into the city and working as a CPA.
[00:02:58]  And, you know, in a big eight, it was a big eight back then, accounting firm.
[00:03:01]  And then she was the oldest woman in New York State to pass the bar when she was 68.
[00:03:05]  So she's a real piece of work, my mom, right?
[00:03:07]  She's awesome.
[00:03:09]  But they had no money.
[00:03:10]  I was like, well, and she sat me down and she showed me, you know, what was going on.
[00:03:15]  She showed me they made X and there are expenses and, You know, our rent and so forth.
[00:03:19]  And at the end of the month, we have a little bit left over.
[00:03:22]  It's for a college fund.
[00:03:24]  And I was appalled because I was like, it didn't add to me.
[00:03:27]  You know, like, it just was something seemed like it was off.
[00:03:30]  How could two such brilliant people, hardworking people, educated people, industrious people have been broke?
[00:03:38]  It didn't make sense.
[00:03:39]  And it wasn't long after I think it started to occur to me there were certain other elements that were necessary to achieve financial success.
[00:03:46]  And one of them was taking risk.
[00:03:48]  My parents were completely risk averse, depression.
[00:03:51]  Mentality.
[00:03:52]  And also, they were really against any type of sales or marketing type ideas.
[00:03:58]  They just And thought they were evil.
[00:04:01]  And because of that, they were never able to use their services or market their services, their wares, so to speak.
[00:04:07]  So they worked for other people, they worked for a paycheck, and they struggled badly.
[00:04:11]  So I think a lot of that went into my makeup of what it really means to succeed financially.
[00:04:17]  It's not just about hard work.
[00:04:18]  Hard work, of course, is required.
[00:04:20]  It's not just about education.
[00:04:21]  Education is usually important, not always, but at least self education of some sort.
[00:04:26]  But there's other components involved.
[00:04:28]  And one of those is going to certainly be, you know, Taking some risks, working for yourself, or at least being in an industry like sales where you can almost work for yourself and risk taking.
[00:04:39]  So, very important lesson I learned very young.
[00:04:41]  So, how did you understand?
[00:04:42]  Like, how did you become such a good salesman?
[00:04:44]  Because if you read up on Jordan Belfort, you realize one of the things that made the difference in your life is you know how to sell.
[00:04:51]  And it's not that easy for the average person.
[00:04:53]  I think a lot of people are more introverted.
[00:04:55]  They don't want to put themselves out there.
[00:04:56]  They don't want to have to sort of, I don't know, make themselves feel vulnerable by asking somebody to buy something from them.
[00:05:03]  So, how did you get so good at that?
[00:05:04]  Part of it is a God given gift.
[00:05:07]  Seriously, I think that we all, all of us, each person possesses certain gifts and certain deficits, right?
[00:05:14]  I think in my personal genetic makeup and the combination of nature and nurture, I ended up naturally being very, very talented at sales.
[00:05:22]  But then I trained myself and honed that skill over years and years of hard work and selling to a razor's edge.
[00:05:29]  And then I found myself in a position very young when I started my firm where I was teaching a methodology of sales that was intuitive to me.
[00:05:37]  It didn't have a name back then, and it didn't, it was working real well until I tried to go to a much more difficult type of sale.
[00:05:43]  And when I was faced with this difficult sale, I could do it, yet the people that were with me couldn't.
[00:05:49]  And it forced me to come up with a new way of training salespeople, which is really what allowed me to understand my own sales process much better.
[00:05:57]  So, it you know, by almost by becoming a teacher, it made me a far better actual student, you know, a salesperson myself.
[00:06:05]  So, think about it, it would happen.
[00:06:08]  There's a moment in your book, late in the book, where your daughter says, You were supposed to take me to the blockbuster.
[00:06:13]  You promised to take me to the blockbuster video.
[00:06:15]  And you say, I had promised her nothing of the sort, but I appreciated the negotiating tactic.
[00:06:21]  Start from a position of strength, assume the sale is already done.
[00:06:25]  I thought it was, oh, yeah.
[00:06:27]  And also the tonality.
[00:06:28]  Like, Dad, you told me we're going to blockbuster, right?
[00:06:30]  Like, I'm like, what?
[00:06:31]  Like, almost like she phrases it declarative as a question.
[00:06:35]  It's good.
[00:06:35]  I learned.
[00:06:37]  I understand.
[00:06:37]  That's how I'm going to pitch my next big guest.
[00:06:39]  You promised me you'd come on.
[00:06:41]  What?
[00:06:41]  Who the hell are you?
[00:06:43]  Okay, so you were a worker when you were a kid.
[00:06:45]  You'd had the paper route and you did all the stuff that a lot of successful people I know have done.
[00:06:51]  You did not sit on the couch watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie like somebody else I know when I see in the mirror.
[00:06:57]  Then you did not immediately go to Wall Street.
[00:07:00]  You decided that you were going, you wanted to make money and you decided to be a dentist.
[00:07:06]  And then tell us what happened your first day at dental school.
[00:07:09]  Yeah, that was really about.
[00:07:12]  I think it's a reflection of belief systems that we all have infused into us by our parents, society, our peer group.
[00:07:21]  And my mother, my parents, just very highly educated people.
[00:07:25]  And to them, it was like, there's only one noble way to become wealthy, and that is a doctor, a dentist.
[00:07:32]  And at the time, if you asked me at the age of 21, what do you want to be for a living?
[00:07:38]  I'd say, I want to be rich for a living.
[00:07:40]  And I didn't know what I wanted to do.
[00:07:42]  Always playing in my head like doctor, dentist, Rick.
[00:07:45]  Now, my uncle was a dentist and he was very successful.
[00:07:48]  I was like, Well, my uncle's dead for four years.
[00:07:51]  Medical school will be another 10.
[00:07:52]  I'm going to kill myself in 10 years.
[00:07:54]  So I said, I'll go to dental school.
[00:07:56]  So I applied very well in school.
[00:07:58]  As I got in, and the first day of dental school, Dean stands up in front of the Audience was Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in Maryland.
[00:08:05]  And he says, You know, welcome to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.
[00:08:08]  She's proud to be here.
[00:08:09]  Dentistry is a wonderful profession.
[00:08:11]  And he goes, But let me say this the golden age of dentistry is over.
[00:08:16]  If you're here to make money, you're probably in the wrong place.
[00:08:19]  Like, what the hell?
[00:08:20]  I'm in the wrong place.
[00:08:21]  And I got up and I literally walked out my first day and I dropped out.
[00:08:25]  Yeah.
[00:08:25]  That, that too is such a moment.
[00:08:27]  It tells us a lot about you because I would think, I mean, honestly, having been to law school and practiced law, You at that point, your ego's into it.
[00:08:34]  You've told everybody you're going to dental school, you have some sort of you know skin in the game.
[00:08:38]  So, the fact that you got up and walked out does say something about you like you know, it doesn't take you long to make a decision about your life and your future and where you're going to do what you're going to do next.
[00:08:48]  That's an important thing that you're hitting on here because one of the biggest mistakes that I think people make, and we all make, even though I still make it, but I try to stop myself from making it, is that it's not just ego, it's part ego, it's just part when you get.
[00:09:04]  Caught up in something you're in, like you can't see the forest or the trees.
[00:09:07]  Like, you know, anyone on the outside say, What are you doing?
[00:09:10]  No, it's not working.
[00:09:11]  You know, it's time to make a move, get out, go do something else.
[00:09:14]  So many people will stay with something to a point where it's obvious it's not working for them.
[00:09:19]  It's obvious it's not going to get them the outcome they want, but they feel like they've put time into it, they're invested in it.
[00:09:25]  They've done things, they've told people they're doing things, so they feel they have to be consistent with that.
[00:09:30]  Yet, to their own detriment, they stay and they, that other opportunities pass them by.
[00:09:35]  And I think that's a very, very powerful thing to, you know, for all.
[00:09:39]  Entrepreneurs, actually, success oriented people is to always be looking at your surroundings and what's going on and just being honest.
[00:09:46]  You know, is this work or is this not?
[00:09:47]  I don't believe you just keep trying and quitting.
[00:09:49]  I'm not like that at all.
[00:09:50]  But at a certain point, you have to get realistic with yourself and say, you know what?
[00:09:54]  I should be making a pivot here and trying something else.
[00:09:57]  What I'm doing is simply not working.
[00:10:00]  And you had your eyes on the prize.
[00:10:01]  You knew your overall goal was to get rich, it was not to be a dentist.
[00:10:06]  That was just a means to an end.
[00:10:07]  And when you found out it wasn't the means, you were like, peace out.
[00:10:10]  So you, you, Not knowing exactly what's next, you leave.
[00:10:15]  And then, the way I hear it, you heard about a kid from your neighborhood who was making a million bucks on Wall Street, and the light bulb went off, and you were like, I too am going to Wall Street.
[00:10:27]  But it's not that easy.
[00:10:29]  One step, you missed one step.
[00:10:30]  What?
[00:10:30]  Oh, the meat?
[00:10:31]  Is it the meat salesman?
[00:10:33]  Yes, I actually said this is a very important part of the story is that when I dropped out of dental school, I answered a blind ad in the newspapers.
[00:10:42]  Newspapers back then were the ads, right?
[00:10:44]  Not the internet.
[00:10:45]  And it was for a sales job, and it said company vehicle, make a thousand week company vehicle.
[00:10:50]  I was like, wow, that sounds pretty good, right?
[00:10:52]  And I went down, I didn't realize that the company vehicle was a meat truck, and it turned out it was selling meat and seafood door to door.
[00:10:58]  It was door to door sales, right?
[00:10:59]  And I was like, all right, well, whatever, I'll give it a shot.
[00:11:02]  And that was the first real sales job that I had.
[00:11:06]  I had always been selling stuff, hard work, going blanket to blanket on Jones Beach, making a lot of money selling ices as a kid.
[00:11:12]  I was the kid with the paper out, I was the kid with the lemonade stamp.
[00:11:16]  This was a magic show, even I did when I was younger.
[00:11:19]  This was the first real job and sales job, where it was about influence and persuasion.
[00:11:24]  And my first day on that job, I broke the company record.
[00:11:28]  I had a natural ability to sell.
[00:11:29]  And that was really how it got started, is like me knowing that I could really close at a high level.
[00:11:36]  And after about two weeks of breaking the records, I said, let me just try to open up a business myself.
[00:11:40]  I always had that entrepreneurial edge.
[00:11:43]  And I started my own meat business.
[00:11:44]  And over the next year, I built it up with 26 trucks.
[00:11:49]  And I trained all those employees how to sell door to door.
[00:11:52]  And was selling door to door.
[00:11:54]  So that was really the proving ground for everything else that came after.
[00:11:58]  And then ultimately, I made every mistake that a young entrepreneur could make.
[00:12:01]  I was over expanding.
[00:12:03]  Capitalized, I was growing on credit.
[00:12:05]  It was a really poorly run business.
[00:12:07]  Like, you could look at that as a textbook for how not to run a business, right?
[00:12:10]  And I went bankrupt and I lost everything.
[00:12:12]  And that was when I heard at the same time about this kid I grew up with.
[00:12:16]  His name was Michael Falk.
[00:12:18]  And I heard he's making a million dollars a year on Wall Street.
[00:12:22]  Like, just think back, it's 1986, 87, like a million dollars a year.
[00:12:26]  It seemed like an impossibly large number.
[00:12:29]  I had $10 in my pocket at the time.
[00:12:31]  And I didn't believe it when I heard it.
[00:12:33]  And about a week later, I went to the local park.
[00:12:36]  We all hung out in Bayside, and um, he pulls up in a Ferrari, you know, and a beautiful suit and a beautiful girl.
[00:12:43]  Like, I'm like, I'm like, and this guy was not just you understand, he was not like this kid that was voted most likely to succeed in high school.
[00:12:48]  It's kind of the weird kid growing up.
[00:12:50]  So, I was like, Michael, what happened?
[00:12:52]  He's like, Oh, I'm a stockbroker.
[00:12:54]  Here's the things about stockbrokers, Megan.
[00:12:56]  You know, if I was saying, Hey, Megan, what'd you make last day?
[00:12:58]  You'd be like, Excuse me, like, what did I earn last night?
[00:13:01]  It's a little bit forward of you, right?
[00:13:02]  You would like, you know, ask a doctor, Hey, what's your only what?
[00:13:05]  But ask the stockbroker, like, I made a million.
[00:13:08]  They just offer the information.
[00:13:09]  Like, the first stockbroker is calling, hey, I made a million for this year.
[00:13:14]  What are you doing?
[00:13:15]  So I was like, I made a million too.
[00:13:17]  He goes, next year I'll make 2 million.
[00:13:18]  I was like, and I said to myself in that moment, what you've probably said to yourself, many of your listeners have said, if this idiot can make a million, I can make 10.
[00:13:27]  That was exactly what I thought.
[00:13:29]  And that was really started my quest to go down to Wall Street.
[00:13:33]  What you say is so true.
[00:13:34]  Having lived in New York for almost 20 years, people are the same way about rents.
[00:13:37]  What are you paying in rent?
[00:13:38]  How many square feet?
[00:13:39]  Let me see your apartment.
[00:13:40]  Take me around.
[00:13:41]  As soon as they walk in, like, oh, great.
[00:13:42]  You show them everything.
[00:13:43]  You show them your closet, your bathroom.
[00:13:44]  It's just like you put it all out there that we all live in different terms when you're in New York City.
[00:13:49]  Okay, so you get the first big job you get as an L.S. Rothschild.
[00:13:54]  And what was the messaging from your superiors there?
[00:13:58]  This is the portion of the movie in which Matthew McConaughey is portrayed as your boss.
[00:14:03]  Great scenes.
[00:14:04]  That character was spectacular.
[00:14:06]  It was amazing, yeah.
[00:14:08]  So, what was the messaging to you then?
[00:14:10]  How did they see you?

=== The Ethics of Selling Stocks (13:14) ===

[00:14:12]  So, I was really pretty funny.
[00:14:15]  So, I was interviewed by the manager of that office and, you know, the Ellen Rothschild office, a big, well respected firm.
[00:14:22]  And I knew I had to stand out because there were like 50 kids lined up for the interview and it's the bull market of the 80s.
[00:14:29]  And when I went to this interview, I started pitching him a stock.
[00:14:32]  Like, I'm not even really knowing what I was saying, but I was, I knew I was really, I sounded good, a good tonality.
[00:14:36]  So, I started saying, hey, I'm going to, you know, this stock is, I forgot what I said exactly, but the point is I was pitching him a stock and he's like, whoa, whoa, he's like, stop.
[00:14:44]  I'm like, what?
[00:14:44]  He goes, I've never met anyone like him.
[00:14:46]  He goes, I'll tell you, he goes, either one of two things are going to happen to you.
[00:14:49]  Either you're going to become the most famous broker in Wall Street history, or you're going to end up in jail.
[00:14:53]  Well, the guy was a genius.
[00:14:54]  He was right on both accounts and he hired me, right?
[00:14:57]  And that was how I got my job.
[00:14:58]  And my first day of walking into that boardroom, I was like, I heard the mighty roar of the Wall Street boardroom.
[00:15:04]  I was blown away by it the fear, the greed, the cursing, the screaming.
[00:15:08]  I mean, it was unbelievable.
[00:15:10]  Just the energy in this room.
[00:15:12]  And for six months, I, Watched all these other brokers selling.
[00:15:17]  I wasn't licensed yet.
[00:15:18]  I had to go through a licensing process.
[00:15:21]  And the messaging was, you know, let's just say it was very much like Matthew McConaughey said, even at a big firm.
[00:15:26]  I think one of the worst, probably one of the worst kept secrets and probably the dirty little secret of Wall Street is that most of it's really not in the best interest of the client when it comes to because, you know, the fact is, is that most of this whole machine is not necessarily of stockbrokers and analysts because you better just buying the SP and holding it.
[00:15:43]  That's a separate issue.
[00:15:44]  But, you know, it was turn them and burn them.
[00:15:46]  You know, let's turn them and burn them and move the money around and.
[00:15:49]  You know, you know, closing all costs.
[00:15:51]  It wasn't a lie to the client, it wasn't about lying or, or, or, you know, or like Bernie Madoff stuff, but it was about getting their money, churn and burn and.
[00:16:01]  And you come first.
[00:16:03]  And I was pretty shocked when I heard that, but that was the theme.
[00:16:08]  Was it true that your boss at the time took you out and flat out encouraged you to drink more, consider drugs, consider hookers or masturbation several times a day?
[00:16:18]  Like, I mean, did that really happen?
[00:16:20]  Yeah, but like, yes, the answer is yes, but more like, in other words, he was just a very funny guy.
[00:16:27]  He was that sort of guy that, like, he would do anything for a laugh.
[00:16:31]  He was a very clever, funny person.
[00:16:33]  So he was saying, but you know, One thing that was very prevalent, which I don't know if it still is today, but cocaine back then was like wildly prevalent everywhere.
[00:16:43]  And, you know, the idea that people were doing cocaine during that was like standard operating procedure back at that period of time.
[00:16:50]  I think it's gotten better.
[00:16:51]  I hope it's gotten better.
[00:16:53]  But that was certainly standard operating procedure.
[00:16:56]  And I think also was, you probably all have seen from various other movies as well, that prostitutes, hookers on Wall Street was also very much standard procedure.
[00:17:04]  But the message really, Grim was just like, you know, Smile and dial and have fun.
[00:17:08]  And basically, you know, the idea here is like, and I really, you know, I came from a really honest, good family.
[00:17:14]  And I was like, so can't we make our clients money?
[00:17:17]  They're like, nah, it's like, it was not like the objective.
[00:17:20]  It wasn't the objective to lose their money.
[00:17:23]  You would never want to lose someone money because it just doesn't, there's no reason to want to do that.
[00:17:27]  Even at Stratton, one of the biggest misgivings in the movie states that like we tried to lose the money.
[00:17:32]  That's just nonsense.
[00:17:33]  You never would, you would never try.
[00:17:34]  You make more money when your clients make money.
[00:17:36]  It's just very difficult sometimes when interests are not aligned, which they often.
[00:17:42]  It's like you're trying to lose someone's money.
[00:17:44]  So that wasn't, he didn't say, let's just rip the client.
[00:17:46]  He wasn't that.
[00:17:46]  It's more like just, you know, churn them and burn them, baby, that sort of stuff.
[00:17:50]  If you have to choose between yourself and the client, you choose yourself, is basically the approach.
[00:17:55]  So Jordan winds up going, and we'll get to this in one second.
[00:17:58]  We're going to take a quick break.
[00:17:59]  But L.S. Rothschild collapses when Black Monday hits in 1987, and that career quickly dies.
[00:18:07]  But Jordan, you won't be surprised, would not be stopped, and his biggest and now most infamous chapter was yet to come.
[00:18:14]  That's where we're going to pick it up.
[00:18:16]  Right after this quick break, and we'll play some clips from the award winning movie as well.
[00:18:22]  That was English?
[00:18:49]  Pretty shocking because after six or seven months of being a cold caller, like just, you know, dialing the phone and passing it to someone else, they didn't have my license yet.
[00:18:59]  When I finally passed my Series 7, got my license, my first day, literally my first day as a broker that was on the phone dialing for myself, the market crashed 508 points.
[00:19:11]  Rothschild is, you know, essentially out of business by the end of the day, but it took a couple of weeks after they shut down permanently, but they were already like, that was it.
[00:19:20]  They were done that first day.
[00:19:21]  So it was really, really sad.
[00:19:23]  I remember the brokers were walking around saying, Oh, damn, the game is over.
[00:19:26]  I'm like, What do you mean the game is over?
[00:19:28]  I didn't get to play.
[00:19:29]  I was a slave.
[00:19:29]  I'd be like, Oh, no, the game's over.
[00:19:31]  Then on that day, down on the ground floor, there's the newsstand, the New York Post, like the death of Wall Street.
[00:19:37]  All brokers will be cab drivers.
[00:19:39]  I'm like, I should have stayed in dental school, right?
[00:19:41]  It was really unbelievable.
[00:19:42]  I got home.
[00:19:43]  My first wife, I've not done great in the wife department.
[00:19:47]  I've got a few marriages, but I think I got it right this time, hopefully.
[00:19:50]  But she unfortunately didn't know the market crash.
[00:19:53]  She'd taken our last dollars.
[00:19:55]  We were really struggling, and she'd bought a bottle of champagne.
[00:19:58]  And I walked through the door, she's like, how did you break the rate?
[00:20:00]  Because everyone thought I'd do so well.
[00:20:02]  Broke, I was like, and she said that last like funny on the champagne.
[00:20:07]  I collapsed in her arms and started to cry.
[00:20:09]  I literally, you know, we all take that punch.
[00:20:11]  I'm sure you've been there, you know, you're a mover, shaking yourself.
[00:20:15]  You have ups and you have downs.
[00:20:17]  And like, sometimes when things are going bad, you think the world is just against you, God's against you.
[00:20:21]  You think you have the Midas touching reverse, completely, you touch, turns to shit, basically.
[00:20:25]  It was like, really, I really was like, I had this moment, but like, I was just like, was I collapsed, and I just said, I can't, I can't do this anymore.
[00:20:33]  You know, I should have just been like, The normal route, you know, and uh, that lasted about five minutes because I didn't have a woman that couldn't pay the rent.
[00:20:40]  So, I after I had a big cry, we sat there, we opened up the help want section, and we just started looking for other jobs like outside of Wall Street, like sales.
[00:20:49]  And after about a few minutes, she stumbled on some ad.
[00:20:52]  It was like stockbrokers like in Long Island, and it was part time, full time.
[00:20:57]  There was so much that didn't make sense, but like stockbrokers on the line, like this is back in the late 80s where there was you know everything was on Wall Street, and it was part time, like part time stockbrokers, like you know.
[00:21:07]  And then when I answered, I called the phone, they're like.
[00:21:09]  Investor center, like, whoa, like, there's like a gruff voice.
[00:21:11]  I'm like, what about Morgan Stanley or going, it's like investor center?
[00:21:15]  I never even, you know, it sounded like a good name.
[00:21:17]  And they asked me to come down and do the next day.
[00:21:19]  I went down and I walked in.
[00:21:21]  I was like, just shocked.
[00:21:23]  It was like nothing in the office that, you know, reeked of wealth, success, or Wall Street.
[00:21:27]  It was just like, it was going back to like the caveman days.
[00:21:31]  It was like, no, no computers on the desks.
[00:21:33]  Uh, there was young kids in jeans and sneakers.
[00:21:35]  They were, they were just, you know, cursing, like, but a different type of cursing at the clients, like, and like lying through their teeth.
[00:21:41]  And I'm like, what do you guys?
[00:21:43]  Doing it like, oh, you know, imagine we sell penny stocks, and I'm like, what's a penny stock?
[00:21:47]  I legitimately did not know what a penny stock was, other than that it traded at a lower price.
[00:21:53]  I didn't understand the context, you know, what it was really all about.
[00:21:57]  And in that moment, you know, there was a scene in the movie where I say, you know, is this legal?
[00:22:03]  Is that legal?
[00:22:04]  And he's like, well, you know, that's not true.
[00:22:06]  You know what he said?
[00:22:07]  Of course it's legal.
[00:22:09]  We have so we actually have this clip teed up from the movie, um, the fake you portraying this moment, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio.
[00:22:17]  Here it is.
[00:22:18]  Yeah, they're penny stocks.
[00:22:20]  Companies that can't get listed on NASDAQ, they don't have enough capital.
[00:22:23]  Their shares trade here.
[00:22:25]  Is this stuff regulated, or are you guys, what are you doing here?
[00:22:32]  Sort of.
[00:22:33]  Sort of?
[00:22:36]  Jesus Christ, the spread on these is huge.
[00:22:38]  Yeah, and that's the point.
[00:22:39]  What's your name again?
[00:22:41]  Jordan Belfort.
[00:22:42]  Jordan, what do you get on a blue chip stock?
[00:22:44]  I make 1%.
[00:22:46]  I did make 1%.
[00:22:47]  Pink sheets, it's 50.
[00:22:52]  It's 50%?
[00:22:55]  50% commission?
[00:22:56]  For what?
[00:22:57]  It's our markup for our services.
[00:23:01]  So good.
[00:23:01]  So you get the dollar signs in your eyes at that point.
[00:23:04]  Like, 50 is a lot better than one.
[00:23:07]  You know, the most important thing, and I mentor a lot of young people, I do big events around the world, small events, and there's a lot of people in their teens and 20s.
[00:23:16]  And one of the things I always say to them is be really careful.
[00:23:19]  That seems very misleading.
[00:23:20]  And I wish they wouldn't have done that.
[00:23:21]  But that's one of the, you know, it's an amazing move.
[00:23:24]  But I just think that it's not accurate in the sense that if he would have said that to me, I would have run out the door.
[00:23:31]  Like I was a really good kid that never broke.
[00:23:34]  It wasn't like my nature to go in and say, I don't know if this is maybe it's legal.
[00:23:38]  I'd say, bye bye.
[00:23:39]  I'll find something that's legal.
[00:23:41]  But that's not what he said.
[00:23:42]  He said the opposite.
[00:23:43]  He said, Of course.
[00:23:44]  What do you mean?
[00:23:45]  We are SEC, we report to SEC, NASD member.
[00:23:49]  So, and the reason that's so important is because right now, today in the world, for all you people listening, especially young people, You're going to find yourself walking into offices and businesses where they're ripping people off.
[00:24:01]  And as a young person, like what I was, you'll just assume it's okay because if it wasn't, it wouldn't be happening.
[00:24:09]  They would have shut it down.
[00:24:10]  Some regulator would have made it stop, but it's not true.
[00:24:13]  These things often take many years to be shut down, if ever.
[00:24:17]  So just be careful that if your alarm goes off in your stomach and it's not legit, it's probably not.
[00:24:23]  Don't just assume they say, oh, of course it is.
[00:24:26]  Or if they say, maybe, run the other way.
[00:24:28]  That's my advice.
[00:24:30]  I've had jobs in the past where you see ethics compromised here and then.
[00:24:35]  There.
[00:24:36]  And then you detect a pattern and you have to ask yourself, do I stay or do I go?
[00:24:41]  Right.
[00:24:41]  Like that's a one off can happen anywhere.
[00:24:43]  But when you realize, oh, this is not an ethical place to be, it's a character test.
[00:24:48]  And actually, it's one of the questions I have for you because I'll tell you, I know a guy in New York who he was arrested and he was accused of being kind of a mini Madoff.
[00:24:58]  And the jury was hung when all was said and done.
[00:25:01]  So that was a good result for him.
[00:25:03]  But it did come out later that he had cheated on his Series 7.
[00:25:06]  He had had another guy go in and take it for him.
[00:25:09]  And I thought to myself, is so like these early ethical compromises, you know, how often do they result in just the loss of ethics, right?
[00:25:18]  That's they're gone.
[00:25:19]  Once you cross that line, it's tough to cross back over.
[00:25:21]  You're, you know, one of the things I always say when I'm out there speaking, I say, you can't be half pregnant when it comes to ethics.
[00:25:29]  It doesn't work that way.
[00:25:30]  It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't.
[00:25:33]  I'll tell you why it doesn't.
[00:25:34]  It's because, you know, like, and my story illustrates this perfectly.
[00:25:38]  You know, I was doing everything right when I started my firm, I was doing everything right.
[00:25:42]  And I had this one moment where, like, I, I was faced with making a decision of taking a very large amount of cash from someone.
[00:25:50]  And the person said, Everyone's doing it.
[00:25:52]  I knew it was wrong.
[00:25:53]  I was like, Well, you know, and I figured it was being done.
[00:25:56]  I knew I wasn't the only person that had done this, but I knew it was wrong.
[00:25:59]  I said, Well, you know what?
[00:26:00]  I'll do this once and then I won't do anything again.
[00:26:04]  But once you take that first step over the line, what happens is your line moves slightly to the wrong side, a slight bit.
[00:26:13]  So next time, and you do things right for all, but next time you step over the line, you'll step a bit further.
[00:26:19]  And then a bit further still, and through these tiny, almost imperceptible nudges towards the dark side, you can very quickly find yourself doing things you thought you would never do, associating with people you never thought you'd associate with.
[00:26:34]  Then it all seems perfectly okay.
[00:26:36]  You don't think it's wrong because your line has moved.
[00:26:39]  Your morality, your ethics, your compass, it's these little nudges.
[00:26:43]  And before you know it, it's insanely off.
[00:26:45]  Like it's like when you dip your toe into a piping hot bathtub, right?
[00:26:49]  And you're like, oh my God, it's so hot.
[00:26:51]  Five minutes later, you're submerged under the water and it feels perfect, right?
[00:26:54]  When I was a kid, I was like, Oh, I guess the water cooled down.
[00:26:56]  No, the water didn't cool down, you just got used to it.
[00:26:59]  It's like, you know, and that's what happens.
[00:27:01]  And you know, it happened to me so profoundly that when I got my first subpoena from the SEC for like something I wasn't really even guilty of, it's just I like vomited, like I was so, I was like, Oh my god, my life is over.
[00:27:14]  I got a subpoena, what am I gonna do?
[00:27:16]  It was a civil subpoena, and I was just so nervous, I was devastated.
[00:27:19]  My life is over.
[00:27:20]  Two years later, I'm like.
[00:27:22]  Through the papers.
[00:27:22]  Like, you don't, you become, it's really weird how that happens, you know?

=== Embracing Failure as a Risk Taker (14:45) ===

[00:27:27]  Yeah.
[00:27:28]  And very, very careful with your ethics.
[00:27:31]  And the really sad part is that, you know, you make more money by being ethical, it just takes a little bit longer.
[00:27:38]  But the big money is by being ethical.
[00:27:40]  That's sad.
[00:27:41]  And picking back up on your book, that same kid who vomited when he first got the SEC subpoena, you write, would wind up bugging the SEC.
[00:27:52]  How did you do that?
[00:27:53]  It's real easy.
[00:27:54]  I mean, they came to my office and they went.
[00:27:58]  Sitting in my conference room for months and months and months on end, for what reason I have no other.
[00:28:04]  Let's say it was a different world back then.
[00:28:05]  They didn't have computers the way they had now.
[00:28:08]  So I guess they had to sift through mounds of paperwork.
[00:28:10]  So I guess they decided it was easier to come to us.
[00:28:12]  So, you know, we had all these spy shops back then that sold all these cool little plugs that looked like a plug and it was actually a listening device.
[00:28:22]  And we put that device in to see what they were saying, which really wasn't that much.
[00:28:25]  And yeah, and then we actually got caught doing that, believe it or not, because my talk one day when he was incredibly high.
[00:28:33]  He likes, they said something bad about him.
[00:28:34]  I heard what you said.
[00:28:36]  Oh, no.
[00:28:37]  There's a great scene.
[00:28:39]  So, Bo Deedle would become your chief investigator, sort of protector.
[00:28:43]  And a lot of my listeners may know him from my time at Fox, and he's on Fox.
[00:28:48]  He was all the time with Sean Hannity, such a colorful character.
[00:28:52]  I was just telling my friend a great story about Bo.
[00:28:54]  He's just so funny.
[00:28:55]  And there's a, he ran for mayor a couple of years ago in New York.
[00:28:59]  And I can't remember the context in which he said it, but it was basically, it was in a magazine article, and he was talking about how he's going to clean up New York City, I think.
[00:29:05]  And he's like, I'm going to clean up this city from Harlem all the way down to that slut in New York Harbor.
[00:29:10]  I'm like, does he mean the Statue of Liberty?
[00:29:13]  He's talking about the Statue of Liberty, that slut in New York Harbor.
[00:29:17]  Way of communicating, Bo, with everything has annotation at the end.
[00:29:21]  You know, I'm going to have my lunchitation and my meditation.
[00:29:25]  And I love, and you write about how this I didn't know about Bo.
[00:29:29]  He's never done it with me, but he calls the people around him Bo.
[00:29:32]  I did not know that.
[00:29:33]  Yeah, he calls everyone Bo.
[00:29:35]  So it's like, he's a.
[00:29:36]  He's like a larger than life character.
[00:29:39]  You know, he's always a very good friend of mine and I respect him.
[00:29:42]  And, you know, he just did a lot of good stuff.
[00:29:44]  He personally had people, you know, like, you know, security guards.
[00:29:48]  And he said he did a good job for me.
[00:29:50]  Yeah.
[00:29:50]  So he tried to help you, but he was quick to tell you please do not try to bug the FBI agents.
[00:29:56]  Do not try to tape them.
[00:29:57]  Do not try to bug offices or briefcases or anything like that.
[00:30:00]  Okay.
[00:30:00]  So you go from the penny stock place.
[00:30:02]  How does Stratton Oakmont, it's got a great name and that's by design, but how does Stratton Oakmont, which was officially born in 1989, come about?
[00:30:11]  So, Stratton was actually started.
[00:30:14]  Stratton Securities was started in 1979, I think.
[00:30:18]  And it was a trading firm that just, you know, did a lot of interbank trading, insurance companies, pensioners, traders, right?
[00:30:27]  And then when the crash came, the firm basically lost all its equity and it was teetering, you know, by thread.
[00:30:35]  And right around the time I decided to open up my own brokerage firm, you know, Stratton became available that you could, like, use their licenses.
[00:30:44]  Was what was called an OSJ, an Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction.
[00:30:48]  So I jumped on that bandwagon, and that's how it started with Stratton.
[00:30:54]  After a short time, another firm named Oakmont became available.
[00:30:59]  And I wanted to, there were some things about that firm.
[00:31:02]  I like that a good clearing arrangement.
[00:31:04]  The trader was more professional than what I had.
[00:31:07]  So I bought Oakmont, and that's how I came to Stratton Oakmont.
[00:31:11]  Okay.
[00:31:12]  So you wind up going around and hiring a bunch of guys, and these are.
[00:31:17]  I don't know how you want to describe them, but salt of the earth.
[00:31:21]  They barely poked adolescent newcomers, but in a loving, fun way, you know?
[00:31:26]  And you were their fearless leader who was up there, like, let me show you how it's done.
[00:31:30]  There's a famous scene in the movie in which you're talking to them about selling and, you know, how they got to get out there and sell.
[00:31:37]  And they did respect you and they were very loyal to you and they all looked up to you.
[00:31:40]  Here's just a clip of you, well, Leonardo DiCaprio, as you motivating the team.
[00:31:47]  There is no nobility in poverty.
[00:31:51]  I have been a rich man and I have been a poor man.
[00:31:54]  And I choose rich every fucking time.
[00:31:57]  Because at least as a rich man, when I have to face my problems, I show up in the back of a limo wearing a $2,000 suit and a $40,000 gold fucking watch.
[00:32:07]  If anyone here thinks I'm superficial or materialistic, go get a job at fucking McDonald's, because that's where you fucking belong.
[00:32:18]  It taps right into Wall Street at the time and the guys, and it was, you know, F everybody and it's us against them and be a killer.
[00:32:27]  And that worked.
[00:32:28]  It worked very well.
[00:32:31]  That's a really interesting scene because it's true.
[00:32:35]  I mean, that comes from a speech that I kind of reconstructed when I wrote my book.
[00:32:40]  But that came later, that mentality.
[00:32:44]  Let's just say what we were doing at that time was a little different than when the firm first started.
[00:32:49]  When the firm first started, we were selling penny stocks to average moms and pops, like that other company was doing.
[00:32:57]  And then I came up with this idea to go to the richest 1% and just to call.
[00:33:01]  You know, really rich people and sell them $5 stocks.
[00:33:05]  So the leap that really made Stratton Stratton was we weren't selling penny stocks, we were selling $5 stocks, and we weren't calling average moms and pops, we were calling rich business owners.
[00:33:16]  And that was also what forced me to come up with a new way of training salespeople.
[00:33:20]  Because what happened was the way I had been training salespeople with the first program, which was called Average Moms and Pops, it was very easy sales, more of an impulse sale, like a dollar and a dream, like a lot of tickets.
[00:33:33]  And it was very different than what was happening when I actually had to go and call the richest 1% and sell them $5 stocks.
[00:33:41]  And suddenly, the kids that worked for me, which were kids that were not educated highly, did not naturally that intelligent.
[00:33:47]  And also, none of them possessed any, you know, let's say they were no members of the Lucky Sperm Club and no Ivy League diploma.
[00:33:53]  So they couldn't close the rich people.
[00:33:55]  And I had to come up with a new way of training salespeople.
[00:33:58]  That was what really forced me to invent this new system that came to be known as the straight line.
[00:34:03]  And it was the straight line system, this new way of training that allowed me.
[00:34:07]  To get these kids to close these wealthy 1%ers.
[00:34:11]  And also, what you heard there was motivation.
[00:34:13]  So, you know, there's always two sides to training there's, you know, there's motivation and there's actual skills.
[00:34:17]  So the secret was a combination of motivation and skills.
[00:34:21]  I'm going to stand you by right there because this is a good time for a quick pause, quick break, and much, much more on the opposite side of this with Jordan Belfort, the wolf of Wall Street.
[00:34:34]  So, the straight line, what's the other piece of the straight line?
[00:34:37]  One is motivation, and the other is actually how do you sell to really rich people?
[00:34:40]  And in a nutshell, how is that?
[00:34:42]  So, the motivation is definitely part of the straight line.
[00:34:46]  Like, sort of, you know, there's two sides to succeeding in anything.
[00:34:50]  And we live in a world of duality.
[00:34:52]  There's up, there's going to be down.
[00:34:53]  Yes, no, start, stop.
[00:34:55]  Even the digital world that allows us to communicate, you have a one, you have a zero, right?
[00:34:59]  There's two sides to every coin.
[00:35:00]  Same thing goes in success and sales.
[00:35:03]  And we speak of sales as, you know, there's the inner game of sales success and entrepreneurial success, and the outer game.
[00:35:11]  Inner game means your mindset, what's happening up here between your ears.
[00:35:15]  Before you ever go out and try to close someone or start a business, whatever that might be, then the outer world are the actual real world skills that allow you to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
[00:35:27]  So, you know, in mindset, there's things like managing your emotional state.
[00:35:31]  Make sure you're in a positive, empowered emotional state, that you have belief systems that support you and that propel you to success and don't stop you from succeeding or cause you to pull back where you shouldn't.
[00:35:42]  Beliefs like my parents had, where they thought that selling was evil, that marketing was evil, that Any type of risk was a bad thing.
[00:35:48]  Those are limiting beliefs when it comes to making money.
[00:35:51]  So, you know, you could have the best entrepreneurial skill set.
[00:35:55]  And education, like my parents did, like they had great education.
[00:35:57]  But if you have that sort of belief system, it's going to stop you from achieving.
[00:36:01]  So that's the inner game as well.
[00:36:03]  Then you have another thing, which is called your vision focus.
[00:36:06]  What's your vision?
[00:36:06]  Do you have a target that you're aiming for?
[00:36:09]  Where do you want to be in five years from now?
[00:36:11]  And why does it matter to you?
[00:36:13]  Very important, you know, why you do what you do.
[00:36:15]  And most people think, I want to make money.
[00:36:18]  And it's not a why.
[00:36:19]  You know, why is much more profound than that.
[00:36:21]  It's typically to do with someone that you love unconditionally or a cause you believe in.
[00:36:25]  It's not about you, it'll be about the people that you love or the community.
[00:36:28]  Or something bigger than yourself.
[00:36:29]  That's a real powerful why.
[00:36:31]  And then, lastly, on the inner game is something called your standards, your personal standard, what you will not settle for less than.
[00:36:39]  A standard operates like a thermostat.
[00:36:42]  It's like your set point.
[00:36:43]  Where do you burn?
[00:36:44]  Where do you feel comfortable?
[00:36:46]  If you have low standards for making money, well, guess what?
[00:36:49]  It's like the furnace.
[00:36:50]  If the thermostat is set to a low level, the thermostat shuts off pretty quickly.
[00:36:54]  If the thermostat is set to a high level, it keeps going.
[00:36:56]  So, that's what your stands operate like.
[00:36:59]  All that's happening every second of every day.
[00:37:01]  In your mind, and it's influencing what decisions you make, what you do, how you handle adversity, and those things when they're wrapped into one empowered, you know, into one empowered, let's say, you know, lump, so to speak, where you're like literally, you know, you have this ability to just be positive and think positively and focus on where you want to go in life that sets you up for massive success in the outer world, which is now where your strategies, your real world business,
[00:37:29]  and entrepreneurial and sales strategies take hold.
[00:37:32]  For example, as a business owner.
[00:37:34]  Um, you know, there are certain skill sets that an entrepreneur must have.
[00:37:38]  There's knowledge that you need, it's critical mission critical knowledge.
[00:37:41]  You know, and when I talk about entrepreneurship, I typically divide into like these two sides like, you need to learn how to, believe it or not, fail elegantly.
[00:37:48]  Like, how do you go into business and be wrong?
[00:37:50]  And because you're wrong more than you're right when you go into business, you're going to, you know, be on the wrong side of the test more often than not.
[00:37:57]  How do you maximize the lessons learned in the failures, but minimize the amount of money loss, time loss, so you can learn from it and move on and try again?
[00:38:06]  And then that's failing elegantly, it's crucial.
[00:38:10]  You've tweeted out, and I've heard you say before if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
[00:38:15]  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I love meeting people who know more than me because that's how you learn, right?
[00:38:19]  Yes, it's okay to fail.
[00:38:21]  It's okay to fail.
[00:38:22]  Do it well, do it elegantly, and understand it's not so bad to be the one learning.
[00:38:27]  Yeah, and also, I think one of the things I think a quote I'm well known for, and something I say to my kids all the time, especially when they were younger, is like, you're not the failures of your past.
[00:38:37]  You're the resources and the capabilities you glean from your past failures.
[00:38:41]  You know, you get stronger.
[00:38:42]  When you fail, if you learn from those failures, you don't become your failure.
[00:38:47]  You don't start thinking you're the failure.
[00:38:49]  Your failure is not you.
[00:38:50]  It's a lesson learned, and you grow stronger with each time you fail, both mentally and mentally, and you learn from that.
[00:38:57]  And that's what sets you up to succeed the next time.
[00:38:59]  I like that.
[00:39:00]  Failure means you're a risk taker.
[00:39:02]  If you've got some failures behind you, it means you're a risk taker.
[00:39:04]  If you haven't failed, then you probably haven't tried.
[00:39:08]  It's like, I don't know many people, even like someone like, if you look at someone like, Zuckerberg, who seemingly hasn't failed, but he did fail.
[00:39:17]  He's had all these launches and things he's tried since then that haven't worked out.
[00:39:21]  It doesn't affect his massive net worth and his core company, but everyone tries and fails.
[00:39:26]  And it's what you do when you try and fail that defines who you are.
[00:39:31]  How do you process that?
[00:39:32]  Do you learn from it or do you let it paralyze you?
[00:39:35]  And the worst is that you let it form limiting beliefs inside of you.
[00:39:43]  I'm just not meant to be an entrepreneur.
[00:39:46]  It's not who I am.
[00:39:47]  And that's a massively problematic limiting belief.
[00:39:50]  So it's an example of how you could fail and let it paralyze you versus, okay, I failed.
[00:39:55]  Let me look soberly at this and say, why?
[00:39:57]  What was missing here?
[00:39:59]  What can I learn?
[00:39:59]  How can I grow?
[00:40:00]  And then when you try again, integrate those lessons from your failure into your next pass at success.
[00:40:06]  And if you do that enough times, you surely will succeed and probably sooner than you think.
[00:40:11]  So it's a crucial part.
[00:40:13]  And then also, the other side of that is with entrepreneurship.
[00:40:16]  So this failing elegantly and also succeeding wildly.
[00:40:19]  What do you do when the idea is right?
[00:40:21]  When you have an idea, you test it and it's actually working better.
[00:40:25]  Than you thought.
[00:40:26]  How do you take a small idea and scale it?
[00:40:28]  How do you turn a small business into a big business, a big business into an international business?
[00:40:33]  And there are all these rules and strategies that are proven to work.
[00:40:37]  And you need to know these.
[00:40:38]  As an entrepreneur, they're all learnable, they're out there.
[00:40:41]  The knowledge is for the taking, it's an open world on the internet.
[00:40:45]  So you're really, I would say, ignore that at your own peril.
[00:40:48]  That's entrepreneurship.
[00:40:49]  The next skill set that's crucial in the outer game is marketing.
[00:40:53]  How do you go out and identify who your best buyers are, your potential buyers, and how do you reach them?
[00:40:59]  In a cost effective way.
[00:41:01]  You know, there's the online marketing, which is very popular right now, and I'm sure it will continue to be.
[00:41:06]  Things like social media, Google Ads, just, you know, all the things that we know and use online to reach people, both in our local market and all over the world.
[00:41:15]  Absolutely crucial.
[00:41:16]  And those skills are learnable, they're out there, and you can hire people if you don't have them yourself.
[00:41:21]  And then there's the offline, the traditional TV, radio, you know, knocking on doors, calling on the telephone.
[00:41:27]  So that's marketing, and marketing brings people.
[00:41:30]  Into your so called sales funnel, your store, your website, whatever that might be.
[00:41:35]  And then the next step is the one that I'm probably best known for: sales, persuasion.
[00:41:40]  How do you take those people and close them?
[00:41:43]  How do you get them to see the value of what you have to offer, that yours is the best solution for them?
[00:41:49]  How do you convince them to part with their hard-earned money now?
[00:41:53]  Without that skill, it's very hard to make money.
[00:41:56]  And then the last part of that is what I call MSIs: multiple streams of income.
[00:42:00]  What do you do with your money once you make it?
[00:42:02]  How do you put your money to work to make more money for you so you can ultimately retire and be wealthy?
[00:42:07]  Meaning, you know, you don't have to just run around like a chicken with a head on trying to make the next dollar because your money's actually earning money for you.

=== Setting High Sales Goals (02:54) ===

[00:42:13]  Those, those like this form one side, form the other.
[00:42:16]  So, inner game, outer game, eight things in all.
[00:42:19]  If you know all eight of those things, you're going to end up being very successful, Mike.
[00:42:22]  I promise you.
[00:42:23]  You know, it's funny.
[00:42:24]  Back in 2016, I actually wrote a book called Settle for More.
[00:42:27]  And the title was from a saying the only difference between you and someone you envy is you settled for less.
[00:42:35]  And I actually got it from Dr. Phil.
[00:42:38]  But right, which is to one of the points you made, right?
[00:42:41]  Like you got to set the high goals.
[00:42:42]  And if you set the low goals, then you're sitting there feeling unhappy.
[00:42:46]  That's on you.
[00:42:47]  Well, you're probably the problem with most people and their goals.
[00:42:50]  People that don't succeed, the problem is that they not that they set their goals too high and miss them, they mostly set their goals too low and hit them.
[00:42:57]  And then, like, because the enemy of great is good.
[00:43:01]  Because when you're feeling good or average, there's no pain or uncomfortability.
[00:43:05]  So you don't have any.
[00:43:06]  Impetus to change.
[00:43:07]  So it's like, you know, one of the most profound things I ever heard in the interview was from James Cameron.
[00:43:13]  He was being interviewed after Avatar came out, and now he had like two out of the three multi billion dollar blockbusters.
[00:43:20]  And I think he was thinking of Larry King, forgot who it was.
[00:43:23]  They rest in peace.
[00:43:24]  They said, you know, James, how is that you, one person, has, you know, two of the biggest grossing movies of all time?
[00:43:30]  He goes, well, when I go about planning this out, I'm thinking about it, I am shooting to, I'm looking to have a $3 billion.
[00:43:38]  I want to have the biggest multi billion dollar hit in my mind.
[00:43:42]  So if I'm only half right, I'm still doing really well.
[00:43:46]  He said goals so high that even if he misses them, he's still doing well.
[00:43:51]  And I think that's a real, I was like, wow.
[00:43:53]  And I always knew that to be true and taught that myself.
[00:43:56]  But to hear it from James Cameron, like, so he's like a filmmaker, it just showed me how it just translates into all types of businesses and industries.
[00:44:04]  It's a mindset thing of, you know, where do you set your goal?
[00:44:08]  You're aiming for here.
[00:44:09]  Yeah, you'll probably hit it, but then what?
[00:44:11]  Okay.
[00:44:12]  So you're going your average and average, like, you know, average plus average plus average times average equals average.
[00:44:18]  It's not like somehow that all coagulates to be great.
[00:44:20]  It's like, you know, the mortgage crisis where they said, let's take a bunch of.
[00:44:24]  Piece of deadbeat borrowers, deadbeat loans, okay, and I'd be borrowers aren't pieces of shit, okay, but deadbeat loans, right?
[00:44:32]  And they're all terrible, but we put them all together, they're suddenly good.
[00:44:35]  No, you have a giant lump of terrible.
[00:44:37]  Like it doesn't change the makeup, like by putting a lot of bad together, suddenly becomes good through diversification.
[00:44:43]  So the same thing is true of success.
[00:44:45]  And I would add to that success in love and business.
[00:44:49]  I mean, it's, you can apply it across the board.
[00:44:52]  For sure.
[00:44:53]  And I always say that, you know, like I had, Incredibly high standards for money and success, but very low standards for my personal relationships with my wives.
[00:45:03]  Like, you know, what you have a high standard for, you focus on.

=== Life in the Midst of Addiction (05:24) ===

[00:45:08]  You won't settle for less than.
[00:45:09]  So I learned the hard way.
[00:45:11]  And also for ethics, my ethical standard became very low.
[00:45:15]  It started off high, it dropped.
[00:45:17]  And because of that, I paid the price.
[00:45:18]  And those standards, we have them for everything we have them for love, we have them for relationships, we have them for our body.
[00:45:24]  I've always had a very high standard for keeping in shape.
[00:45:26]  So, yeah.
[00:45:27]  So, my body is important to me, so I exercise every day.
[00:45:30]  If your body's not important, what do you do?
[00:45:32]  You won't exercise.
[00:45:33]  It's hilarious to hear you say that after all the drugs I know you've taken.
[00:45:38]  What?
[00:45:39]  I look pretty good considering that, right?
[00:45:42]  I really want to talk about that because I've told my audience this before.
[00:45:46]  I do drink alcohol, but I've literally never tried a drug.
[00:45:49]  I've never tried an illicit drug of any kind.
[00:45:52]  And I don't know if I'm in the minority or the majority, but having lived in New York for, Almost 20 years and having practiced law and been in media, I think that's unusual.
[00:46:01]  But I'm kind of curious about all the drugs you took and like how they felt and how you feel about them now.
[00:46:08]  I know you're sober now, but it was a lot and you lived a life of big, big debauchery while you were running that firm.
[00:46:16]  And I'm just curious about the whole thing.
[00:46:19]  So let me start with this.
[00:46:21]  Had you grown up, we'll squeeze in a break in a minute, but had you grown up doing drugs, drinking alcohol?
[00:46:27]  Like were you that kind of person before all this?
[00:46:30]  I used drugs occasionally in high school and the college, but no, I was not a drug.
[00:46:36]  I was never addicted to drugs.
[00:46:39]  And it was never something that was like an integral part of my life growing up.
[00:46:43]  But I tried drugs and I used them.
[00:46:45]  Like most kids, I think back then, had smoked pot.
[00:46:48]  And I tried cocaine once or twice, but that wasn't something that was really part of my life.
[00:46:54]  And so when you were at the Penny Stock Firm and Rothschild before that, this is prior to the formation of Stratton.
[00:47:01]  Had it yet blown up in your life, or you were like addicted yet when you started that firm, the big firm?
[00:47:06]  That was another part of the movie that was a bit, I thought was kind of, to me, it could have been done a bit more elegantly.
[00:47:13]  Again, I love the movie, but if there were things that could change, they had me going to the dark side really fast.
[00:47:20]  And like, it almost like, you know, I go day one, I'm like this really wet behind the ears, honest kid.
[00:47:25]  Can't we make our clients money too?
[00:47:27]  And he's like, no.
[00:47:28]  And I'm like, okay.
[00:47:29]  And then the next scene, I'm in a strip club, starting Coke, right?
[00:47:31]  That's not okay.
[00:47:32]  Wait, that's a great place to leave it.
[00:47:34]  We've got a clip to sort of bring that to life for you right after this quick break when we have more with Jordan Belfort, the wolf of Wall Street, sex, drugs, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
[00:47:47]  What more could you ask for?
[00:47:48]  Stay tuned.
[00:47:55]  How many years were you?
[00:47:56]  I don't know if we can say on the straight and narrow, but like how long did it take before full debauchery and drug addiction set in?
[00:48:05]  So I would say it took from the time I walked into Ella Broadchart probably two years to start using drugs and maybe two and a half to be really deep into it.
[00:48:18]  And, you know, drug addiction is a very strange thing, it's very insidious.
[00:48:23]  It starts.
[00:48:24]  Slowly, and it creeps in a little bit at a time.
[00:48:27]  And before you know it, you know, one drug makes you want to do another drug to counterbalance the negative effects of the first one, then the third one.
[00:48:36]  I mean, it happens really slowly.
[00:48:39]  And, but I would say by 1991, 1991, I was full in very much into drugs.
[00:48:48]  Okay.
[00:48:49]  And the, you know, I think I understand that just because anybody who drinks alcohol can understand the alcohol at night and coffee in the morning.
[00:48:57]  This is just a much more extreme version of it.
[00:48:59]  And when the firm was killing it and you were killing it, that's portrayed in the movie, and you're pretty open about the drugs.
[00:49:06]  And here's a clip of Leonardo as you on the drug cocktail that you'd been using.
[00:49:12]  On a daily basis, I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month.
[00:49:20]  Okay, Mr. Jordan.
[00:49:21]  I take Qualudes 10 to 15 times a day for my back pain, Adderall to stay focused.
[00:49:29]  The edge off, pot to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine well, because it's awesome.
[00:49:35]  Of all the drugs under God's blue heaven, there is one that is my absolute favorite.
[00:49:41]  See, enough of this shit will make you invincible, able to conquer the world and eviscerate your enemies.
[00:49:53]  And I'm not talking about this, I'm talking about this.
[00:49:58]  At the end, there for our listeners, he was.
[00:50:00]  The character was snorting cocaine and said, I'm not talking about this, the coke, he's talking about this.
[00:50:04]  And he holds up a hundred dollar bill.
[00:50:06]  Money, money was the number one drug.
[00:50:09]  I have to say that.
[00:50:10]  I wish I could take credit for writing that line.
[00:50:12]  That was Terrence Winter who came up with that brilliant statement, which is so true.
[00:50:17]  But yeah, I thought that was so clever of him because, you know, the other things I all said, but he sort of pivoted back to this ultimate truth that the money itself was the most powerful drug of all.
[00:50:30]  And I read that, like, wow, this guy is good.

=== The Illusion of Wealth and Happiness (02:23) ===

[00:50:33]  He's like, How much money were you making at your peak?
[00:50:36]  Oh, it's a lot of money, Mick.
[00:50:40]  Let's go back to the time also.
[00:50:42]  This is a time before hedge funds, before you heard about people making hundreds of millions of dollars.
[00:50:49]  I was making a million a week in the cash side, plus, I was taking stakes in all these different companies.
[00:50:59]  So I had a net worth much, much higher.
[00:51:02]  I had shares, and there was a time I owned 85% of Steve Madden's shoes.
[00:51:07]  20 other companies that were all going public or more public.
[00:51:11]  And then I was making the cash portion as well.
[00:51:14]  So I was making a phenomenal amount of money.
[00:51:16]  Wow.
[00:51:17]  You had a yacht, you had a helicopter, you had estates, mansions, and so on, jewels for your wives, and blah, What did it feel like?
[00:51:24]  Did it make you happy?
[00:51:25]  You know, the goal of being rich, were you feeling like nailed it?
[00:51:30]  I think the thing about money is that, you know, and I've said this many times, you know, I have been rich and been really, really, really happy.
[00:51:39]  I've also been rich and really, really, really miserable.
[00:51:44]  I've been poor and really, really, really miserable, but never.
[00:51:48]  Once I've been poor, happy.
[00:51:50]  Like, so, like, it's like, I think money doesn't buy happiness, but a lack of money can really be a passport to misery and discomfort.
[00:51:58]  And I've seen a lack of money cause so many problems in marriages with families.
[00:52:05]  And, you know, money isn't, I believe, my belief is money is an incredibly important thing.
[00:52:10]  It's a tool.
[00:52:11]  It's certainly not everything and it won't buy happiness, but without it, you could really be making your life much more complicated and your relationships much more tenuous without money.
[00:52:21]  So, I mean, that's the best definition I can give you.
[00:52:24]  Did it feel great to make all that money?
[00:52:26]  Yeah, I mean, it felt great.
[00:52:27]  And I make a lot of money now.
[00:52:28]  And I love making money, but I don't buy into this idea that it's the money itself that's making me happy.
[00:52:36]  Because I have times now where I'm unhappy.
[00:52:38]  And I have times now where I'm ecstatic.
[00:52:41]  But I will tell you that I was broke right now.
[00:52:43]  I would not be very happy at all, ever.
[00:52:45]  What was your favorite toy, right?
[00:52:47]  Like what?
[00:52:48]  Because a lot of people fantasize about having all that dough and they ask, what would I buy and what would I love?
[00:52:54]  What was your favorite?

=== Betrayal and Extreme Behavior (14:26) ===

[00:52:56]  Probably like the helicopter, you know, on the yacht at a helicopter.
[00:53:02]  And, you know, we'd land this helicopter and on the boat and then take it out and fly it around.
[00:53:07]  My captain was amazing.
[00:53:09]  He was a great pilot and he'd fly 10 feet off the water and, you know, like a gunship in Vietnam sort of stuff.
[00:53:15]  And we just, you know, have that boat in places that, you know, that you would normally not go to, like, you know, the Virgin Islands or the Caribbean, and then take the helicopter and just see amazing things land in live volcanoes that weren't currently erupting.
[00:53:28]  So, we did all these really cool things.
[00:53:30]  I think that was probably my most favorite toy, even more so than the yacht.
[00:53:36]  And is it true that the yacht, the Nadine, named after your second wife, was taken down by a rogue wave?
[00:53:43]  Yeah, that's true.
[00:53:46]  Weird storm, a massive storm that kicked up.
[00:53:51]  It started off as just like, you know, some chop, heavy chop.
[00:53:54]  And the captain was, you know, advising me against making the crossing from Rome to Sardinia.
[00:54:01]  You know, I was like, Can we make it?
[00:54:02]  He's like, Yeah, we'll make it.
[00:54:04]  You know, it's gonna be rough, it'll be uncomfortable, we'll break a few places.
[00:54:07]  I'm like, Let's go!
[00:54:07]  Like, I was just an action junction, jumping, and um, also at the time, I was doing a lot of drugs, you know, and that sort of got me into this mindset.
[00:54:17]  Like, I couldn't sit still, I had to move.
[00:54:19]  I had to go, let's go, let's go, you know, and I convinced him to make the crossing.
[00:54:24]  And then, unbeknownst to him or I at the time, a freak storm was about to kick up, and it did.
[00:54:32]  Six to eight foot waves became 20 foot waves really fast, and then 50 foot waves.
[00:54:37]  And then we got hit with a rogue wave to the side, and that's how the whole thing happened.
[00:54:42]  Yeah, it was crazy.
[00:54:43]  Oh my God.
[00:54:44]  So, I mean, did she break apart at sea?
[00:54:47]  Like, was there a helicopter rescue?
[00:54:50]  Yeah, yeah, 100%.
[00:54:51]  It's just so hard to believe.
[00:54:53]  It's so crazy.
[00:54:54]  What?
[00:54:55]  No, Megan, I'll tell you this.
[00:54:58]  The reality is far more cinematic than the movie.
[00:55:01]  I think for budgetary reasons, they didn't.
[00:55:03]  Recreate what really happened.
[00:55:05]  It was just an 18 hour ordeal where the boat was sinking slowly on its side after getting hit by this wave and going down.
[00:55:13]  And they tried to first, the Italians first tried to send out a Coast Guard helicopter, which lowered down a basket.
[00:55:20]  But in 50, 60 mile an hour, it looks easy in the movies.
[00:55:25]  But in reality, the basket swinging 100 feet that way, they couldn't get the basket to the boat.
[00:55:30]  And then they ran out of gas.
[00:55:32]  So they had to go back.
[00:55:34]  Well, then the captain's like, all right, we need to abandon ship.
[00:55:37]  I'm like, what?
[00:55:38]  Like, into the life raft.
[00:55:40]  I'm like, you're not kidding.
[00:55:41]  So, captain's orders.
[00:55:42]  Like, all right, so we all go to the back of the boat and he puts the rubber raft in, and bam, like in one second, the raft washes away.
[00:55:49]  Of course.
[00:55:50]  It took down a yacht.
[00:55:51]  It's going to take down a raft.
[00:55:53]  It's so funny.
[00:55:53]  When I watched this in the movie, I was like, Leonardo DiCaprio will only be in movies in which big ships go down that he's on.
[00:56:01]  This is his thing, apparently.
[00:56:02]  That is crazy.
[00:56:03]  You've survived so many massive life risks, you know, not, yes, drugs, of course.
[00:56:09]  And then there was prison.
[00:56:10]  But like that, that was so crazy.
[00:56:12]  I had a hard time believing it, but I believe you now.
[00:56:15]  So, you, so the drugs and the whole thing, can we just talk about the marriages for a minute?
[00:56:19]  Because in the movie, Your wife is your second wife, Nadine, who is this incredibly beautiful woman in real life and in the movie.
[00:56:28]  You fall in love with her while you're still married to your first wife.
[00:56:31]  And in the movie, they portray it as Margot Robbie walking in, and you're just completely floored by this gorgeous woman.
[00:56:37]  And just as a funny aside, I'll tell the audience that when I texted you first, I pulled it up because it was a funny sort of introduction from me to you.
[00:56:48]  I said, So nice to meet you.
[00:56:50]  We have a ton in common.
[00:56:52]  I hate perpetual victimhood and people who blame others for their problems.
[00:56:56]  I love Brian Friedman, who we both know, it's our lawyer.
[00:56:59]  And I also had a movie made about my life in which Margot Robbie starred.
[00:57:04]  So she played your second wife, Nadine.
[00:57:07]  There's actually, in the movie that was partially about me, Bombshell, she played a different character and Charlize Theron played me.
[00:57:14]  Hold on.
[00:57:15]  We actually had a full screen made showing the split screen of the two.
[00:57:18]  We'll pop it up there.
[00:57:19]  Look, there's me and me, Charlize and Margot and Leonardo and Margot.
[00:57:26]  So, Yeah.
[00:57:27]  So Margaret Robbie plays your second wife.
[00:57:29]  And your thoughts now, because Nadine is a big star in your life, in the movie, in the book.
[00:57:34]  You call her the Duchess, because I guess she was British originally.
[00:57:39]  Your thoughts on her?
[00:57:40]  Because it's a real love story.
[00:57:41]  You do wind up having a terribly tumultuous relationship with her.
[00:57:45]  And I know you're married to somebody else now.
[00:57:47]  But I kind of wanted you to put a period on the end of that relationship for me and how you see it now.
[00:57:52]  Yeah.
[00:57:52]  I think that, listen, you know, I think, you know, you have certain people that come into your lives at certain times for a reason.
[00:58:02]  And she was the right person for me at that time.
[00:58:05]  I, you know, I really, you know, the sad part was I really loved my first wife.
[00:58:09]  I really did.
[00:58:09]  She was an amazing lady.
[00:58:11]  And I think she was under portrayed in the book in many ways, like in the movie.
[00:58:16]  She was a beautiful woman.
[00:58:17]  The girl who played it was beautiful too, but she really was a good woman.
[00:58:20]  And, but at that point in time, I don't think anyone could have survived what I was at the time.
[00:58:28]  Everything was taking off so fast.
[00:58:30]  And it was, You know, with the drugs involved, it was just like I was looking.
[00:58:35]  I was in that mindset of just what's next, what's next, what's next.
[00:58:38]  Excess.
[00:58:39]  And it was excess at every turn.
[00:58:41]  More, more, right?
[00:58:42]  It's a weird mindset that you get into sometimes on Wall Street and other times as well, but Wall Street seems to bring it out in people.
[00:58:51]  And I met her just, it was just like the movie, literally, like exactly like that at a party.
[00:58:57]  She walked in.
[00:58:57]  I thought she was gorgeous.
[00:58:59]  And then we, you know, I tracked her down and we went out.
[00:59:02]  And, you know, I learned a very important lesson.
[00:59:05]  You know, from that whole situation, that about cheating in a marriage.
[00:59:09]  Because I don't cheat my marriages after that.
[00:59:11]  I didn't cheat after that marriage because you can't choose who you fall in love with.
[00:59:17]  Like it's, and you know, you're playing Russian roulette.
[00:59:20]  Like, you know, it's hard to just kind of have a casual affair because you don't know what might happen with that affair.
[00:59:24]  And I fell in love with her.
[00:59:26]  I didn't really intend to.
[00:59:27]  But when you do fall in love with someone, you know, it's very difficult to stay with someone that you're not in love with anymore because I think it's hard to love two people.
[00:59:36]  At the same time, you know, we say, Wait, but you're not saying you didn't cheat on Nadine, the Margot Robbie character, because that's like half the movie of you with the hookers while you're married to her.
[00:59:44]  Is that you're saying when your current marriage, you don't?
[00:59:47]  After her, like when I look back and say, When I perspective, when I look back at my life.
[00:59:53]  After my marriage to Nadine.
[00:59:55]  Okay.
[00:59:56]  Got it.
[00:59:57]  Especially when I wrote my book.
[00:59:58]  That was really true.
[01:00:00]  For me, writing the book was an incredibly like profound experience.
[01:00:05]  It was almost like self analysis and self psychology, my own, you know, strengths, faults, and frailties.
[01:00:11]  Right.
[01:00:11]  And when I look back then, even when I was with Nadine, I kind of knew that I made this gross error in terms of just like going out and sticking my head in the cookie jar.
[01:00:20]  But just so you understand, when you're doing drugs, like the way I was doing drugs, you know, anything is possible.
[01:00:26]  There is no like, oh, I'm going to be a good, you're like a different person.
[01:00:29]  At a certain point, you get caught up in a mindset where everything can be rationalized and everything seems okay.
[01:00:35]  The truth is, I had far more.
[01:00:39]  This is going to sound strange to you, okay, but it's not as strange as you think.
[01:00:43]  But, you know, in my mind, I didn't consider sleeping with hookers cheating in the traditional sense because there was no emotional attachment.
[01:00:51]  No, I understand that.
[01:00:52]  My husband wrote a book about Wall Street called Ghost of Manhattan, and he, He did it.
[01:00:57]  It was very well researched.
[01:00:58]  This is one of the points he makes about the guys who, whether it's hookers or what they call, forgive me, a rub and tug from a massage therapist kind of thing, they don't consider it cheating.
[01:01:08]  Exactly.
[01:01:08]  So, yeah, I'm glad that you at least, you know, you don't have to agree with it, but you can understand I'm not the only person that thinks that.
[01:01:13]  And I'm not saying it's right because I don't think it's right in retrospect.
[01:01:16]  They don't think it, but that's how I was thinking at the time.
[01:01:19]  And she knew, she knew what was going on.
[01:01:21]  She was aware because it was all, everyone was getting married, everyone was having bachelor parties, and all the stories were certain, but it was kind of harmless, so to speak, right?
[01:01:30]  And then I had some affairs as well, as did she.
[01:01:33]  You know, she was no angel either, right?
[01:01:35]  It takes two to tango.
[01:01:37]  But yeah, and I think that since that marriage, though, whenever I've been in a relationship, I have been faithful since then.
[01:01:42]  So after that marriage.
[01:01:43]  Can I ask you a dumb question?
[01:01:44]  This is a dumb, like, I really feel like a goody two shoes at the moment, but how does one order a hooker?
[01:01:50]  Like, when you first did it for the first time, like, you know, it's not like ordering Domino's pizza.
[01:01:55]  Like, how does.
[01:01:56]  Gabe, now it's like ordering Domino's pizza, probably even easier.
[01:02:00]  So now it's all done on the internet, you know, and you have all these websites and all this sort of stuff that goes on around the world everywhere.
[01:02:07]  I mean, you can go any city.
[01:02:10]  There's like a Craigslist, I think was really big with it for a while.
[01:02:13]  I'm not really up on the hooker sites these days, but I'm sure if you just Google call girls in my city, you'll have 8,000 of them.
[01:02:21]  Your public service announcement for the day.
[01:02:25]  Okay.
[01:02:25]  So, and in the movie, it's portrayed with like, I mean, it's not just hookers, it's like orgies, it's craziness on Planes, so many naked girls everywhere, so much drugs, so much alcohol.
[01:02:36]  Is that how it really was?
[01:02:38]  Yes, it was like that and worse.
[01:02:42]  It became some sort of perverted version of can you top this?
[01:02:47]  You know, it's like, you know, we were these action junkies that were constantly looking for higher and higher cliffs to dive off of and shallower and shallower pools to land in.
[01:02:58]  So every time you would do something, it would be extreme and insane.
[01:03:03]  What do you do next?
[01:03:04]  The topic.
[01:03:04]  You know, the first time we did something obscene, you would think it sounded obscene.
[01:03:08]  Some kid that was struggling financially, we'd say, well, shave his head and give him $10,000.
[01:03:13]  And that was amazing.
[01:03:14]  We got a barbershop poll we made.
[01:03:16]  It was like, oh my God, we're going to shave everyone like crazy.
[01:03:20]  But then three months later, a head shaving is $100.
[01:03:23]  So it becomes like the norm.
[01:03:25]  So what do you do next?
[01:03:26]  Well, let's shave a girl's head.
[01:03:28]  Like, you know, every time you do something, it's like, what's next?
[01:03:31]  What's next?
[01:03:32]  What's next?
[01:03:32]  So this sort of evolution of insanity that happens by trying to Constantly keep yourself and everyone around you entertained.
[01:03:40]  I always compared Stratton, like the floor of the brokerage room is like the floor of the Coliseum, the sands of the Coliseum, where acts of depravity serve as entertainment for the mob.
[01:03:50]  And it was very much like that.
[01:03:51]  Yes, I read in your book that you said that you had to impose a rule in the office between the hours of, I think, 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., people were not allowed to have sex on the floor.
[01:04:02]  Most people didn't obey that, though.
[01:04:04]  Like, that started from like right, you know, it's really funny.
[01:04:10]  In the beginning, I was very, like, very straight like that.
[01:04:13]  Like, the first time I caught someone was day one.
[01:04:16]  Some kid was getting a blowjob in an elevator in the building.
[01:04:19]  And I was like, and I heard this.
[01:04:21]  I'm like, I'm going to fire this kid.
[01:04:22]  And then, like, well, you know, and then, you know, it's not so terrible, like, whatever.
[01:04:26]  Within a week, the girl had given a blowjob to everybody and then me.
[01:04:33]  It's so crazy if you're not actively guarding your own ethics, your own integrity, your own moral compass.
[01:04:41]  It is really easy, Megan, for it to spiral out of control.
[01:04:45]  Really easy.
[01:04:45]  I'm telling you, it really is.
[01:04:47]  This is kind of the theme of the interview, right?
[01:04:49]  Back to our original point about the guy cheating on the series seven.
[01:04:52]  So when you look back now, how old are you now?
[01:04:55]  I'm 59.
[01:04:57]  Okay, so when you look back now at that time and the craziness and the excess, you know, from a guy who had to be rescued from the waters after your yacht sunk, I wonder what is, does anything jump out at you as especially crazy?
[01:05:11]  Like, wow, that was the most, that was the most excessive.
[01:05:15]  My bachelor party, which we really can't talk about here, it was too disgusting.
[01:05:18]  But, you know, my bachelor party was like a low, I think.
[01:05:22]  And it was like sort of a culmination of can you top this?
[01:05:25]  What, you know, what can we do that's just, you know, Depraved and unusual, and you know, it's almost like you know, you see, this is before you know, remember the time this is before the internet, you know, and now on the internet, you could find every type of perversion and insanity and over the top behavior, whether it's like platforms where they're doing gags and stunts or on porn sites, it's everything that you want is on the internet right now good, bad, ugly, or otherwise.
[01:05:53]  Back then, that didn't exist, and you know, you imagine things from what you saw in movies and heard things, so you like put together these like scenarios of what you.
[01:06:01]  Thought was cool and what you thought was fun, and you're like inventing it as you go along.
[01:06:06]  And we were doing that at a very high level because we had a lot of money, so nothing was really out of reach of what we could do.
[01:06:13]  So, you know, while someone might have a bachelor fly and have a dancer or one proster, we had a hundred of them.
[01:06:19]  And you know, if there's someone bring some drugs, we had a boatload of drugs.
[01:06:23]  It was all with like, you know, sort of five times, five times, ten times a hundred, and it was insane.
[01:06:28]  It truly was insane.
[01:06:30]  Would you ever have the six?
[01:06:31]  Feeling the next day.
[01:06:32]  I don't mean physical illness, obviously, that must have come with it.
[01:06:34]  But would you ever have the, you know, the moral second guessing the next day, or would that just have to wait until sobriety and, you know, prison and all that?
[01:06:43]  I would have it every hour of every day.
[01:06:46]  You would.
[01:06:46]  So you were conscious of the wrongness of it.
[01:06:49]  In the book, I'm always talking about these things.
[01:06:51]  Like I'm almost like watching my own life unfold before me, like I'm an actor on a stage, not in control of my own behavior, which is a massive, incredible cop out, by the way.
[01:07:03]  It's an incredible liberating cop out.
[01:07:05]  It's not me.
[01:07:06]  I'm out of control, right?
[01:07:07]  But I'm in control, but you rationalize, never underestimate the power of rationalization.
[01:07:12]  And also, what we do as human beings is we surround ourselves with a peer group that shares our values so we don't think we're crazy.

=== Confronting Societal Hypocrisy (12:03) ===

[01:07:22]  So what defines what's normal and not in a society is what's happening in the society every day.
[01:07:28]  So we almost form this self contained society where rules that might seem abnormal or completely out of control in the real world seem Quite normal in the four walls of the boardroom, or when we were partying in a hotel room or a casino.
[01:07:42]  That makes sense too.
[01:07:44]  It does.
[01:07:44]  It makes sense.
[01:07:45]  And it's scary.
[01:07:47]  It's, I see it and I read it.
[01:07:49]  And it's like, You almost have to look at the people around you for the reflection of what you are, good or bad.
[01:07:57]  But eventually, it would all come crashing down legally, the marriage, the money, all of it.
[01:08:05]  And that's where we're going to pick it up next with Jordan Belfort.
[01:08:09]  So happy to be speaking with the Wolf of Wall Street.
[01:08:12]  And we'll be right back with more.
[01:08:18]  I can't skip by before we get to the downfall, before asking you about the animals that were allowed.
[01:08:24]  On the floor of your office.
[01:08:25]  Can you spend a second on that?
[01:08:27]  Yeah, it wasn't like it was a zoo or anything like that.
[01:08:30]  I think the people made it a zoo more than the animals.
[01:08:34]  But yeah, the people were bringing pets like iguanas and dogs and parrots and fish, goldfish, as you know, one of them got eaten.
[01:08:46]  So yeah, we had the sort of, I think we were ahead of our time in that sense.
[01:08:51]  Like we had the sort of fun loving atmosphere that the bro culture on.
[01:08:55]  And the high tech firms have now.
[01:08:57]  And, like, you know, it's sort of like you go to work and, like, it's all about being comfortable, having fun at work with that, like the beanbag chairs and that.
[01:09:03]  Obviously, we had a bit of a twist there, like with the sex and everything.
[01:09:08]  But I mean, some of the untraditional stuff replacing trails.
[01:09:12]  What you didn't know was that that was their emotional support iguana.
[01:09:16]  I mean, these guys, they needed a lifeline.
[01:09:20]  I read that the one that was a bridge too far for you was a chimpanzee coming in in a diaper.
[01:09:25]  And you had, even you drew the line at that one.
[01:09:28]  Exactly.
[01:09:29]  There was always interesting things trying to be brought into the boardroom, acts of where they were, people, animals, things, you name it.
[01:09:40]  It was a freak.
[01:09:41]  It makes sense when you view it from the lens of what happens when you put 3,000 barely post adolescent kids in a room and give them too much money and too much time and some drugs and alcohol.
[01:09:52]  What do you think is going to happen?
[01:09:53]  I think good.
[01:09:54]  So when I look at this and read about this, all I can think is can you imagine?
[01:10:00]  If today's post Me Too, post like woke world, woke world got a look at this in present day?
[01:10:09]  Megan, it's really interesting that you say that because I come from a family, as I told you, a really empowered female.
[01:10:17]  My mother is a really empowered, successful, educated, trailblazing woman.
[01:10:23]  She lives the oldest woman to pass the bar.
[01:10:25]  She was voted pro bono lawyer of the year in New York when she was like 74.
[01:10:30]  She's still short.
[01:10:31]  Attack at 89 or 80, I don't know if she's 88, she'll kill me.
[01:10:34]  88.
[01:10:34]  But, like, you know, there wasn't, it's interesting because the rules have changed so much over the years.
[01:10:45]  If you would ask me if we sexually harassed girls back then, I would say unequivocally not.
[01:10:50]  Like, unequivocally, like, no girl, if I knew of any girl there that was being harassed, I'd fire the guy.
[01:10:57]  Like, in a split, if I found out that a guy was doing something to a girl, the girl didn't want, I would have insisted that they be fired immediately.
[01:11:06]  And I live by that.
[01:11:08]  I swear by that today.
[01:11:09]  Most of the girls there are part of the insanity.
[01:11:12]  Well, that's the thing.
[01:11:13]  It's not harassment if you want it.
[01:11:15]  They really enjoy it.
[01:11:16]  Now, I bet you, though, in retrospect, it was happening, hidden from me and also in this sort of culture of women accepting things they probably weren't comfortable with, but had to smile and shake it off because they thought that was the norm.
[01:11:30]  So I think it's very good on some level that that's changed, that women's.
[01:11:34]  Speak up for themselves and don't accept what they're not comfortable because they feel like they have to.
[01:11:39]  So I'm betting that there were women that were very uncomfortable there, but they just felt like they had no choice.
[01:11:45]  So either you go with the flow or you're out, right?
[01:11:48]  So I think that that's some positive changes.
[01:11:50]  I think also.
[01:11:51]  I agree that it's gone way too far in some cases with the sort of victim mentality, people not taking responsibility for their part in things as well.
[01:12:00]  And I think that going back 20 years and trying to say something happened without proof is very difficult.
[01:12:07]  In some cases, it's very clear, like with animals like Harvey Weinstein.
[01:12:10]  Obviously, things happen and there's proof and there's corroborating evidence, but it's a lot more subtle than that in many cases.
[01:12:17]  And it's a very difficult thing.
[01:12:18]  So I don't pretend to have the answer, but But we certainly did not look at it as harassment.
[01:12:24]  That, I tell you, that would have been stopped in a second.
[01:12:27]  I'm thinking now, there was a woman who came on my show at NBC.
[01:12:30]  We were doing a story on harassment, Me Too, what's happening in the society right in the midst of all of it.
[01:12:35]  And she was complaining that her complaint, it wasn't like part of a bigger story.
[01:12:39]  Her complaint, she was part of a panel, was that her boss told her she looked hot in her dress.
[01:12:44]  Now, okay, it's not ideal because you want to be seen as a professional, but like that's not really what the Me Too movement was.
[01:12:51]  All I can think about is a woman from your firm saying, But I had a girl next to me giving blowjobs to half the firm.
[01:12:58]  Sit down, take a seat.
[01:13:00]  Woman would say, damn, I thought I looked pretty hot that day too.
[01:13:03]  That mindset back then, probably.
[01:13:06]  But again, I have a daughter.
[01:13:08]  My daughter's 27.
[01:13:09]  She's 28.
[01:13:11]  She's impressed.
[01:13:12]  She graduated from NYU with a degree in psychology, grad school.
[01:13:18]  Very empowered woman, very liberal in her beliefs and stuff.
[01:13:23]  And we get along phenomenal.
[01:13:25]  We don't agree on a lot of stuff.
[01:13:27]  But one thing I certainly agree with you is victimhood.
[01:13:30]  I think that sometimes this has a way of crossing over into someone becoming a victim.
[01:13:35]  And I don't think that helps any cause.
[01:13:39]  I think that things had to change.
[01:13:40]  It's good that they're changing and will continue.
[01:13:42]  But I think what gets lost sometimes in these movements and these paradigm shifts is like you can't paint everything with one brush.
[01:13:50]  There's like degrees of things and there's a continuum.
[01:13:54]  And you have to look at things really along that continuum to decide what do you do about something that happened a long time ago.
[01:14:00]  I think it's really sad when someone.
[01:14:01]  Loses their career over something that happened 15 or 20 years ago when the norms were different.
[01:14:07]  That being said, then there's monsters out there that deserve everything that they got.
[01:14:12]  And that's a great thing.
[01:14:13]  But I think it's more complex than just bad, good, harassment.
[01:14:17]  I totally agree with you.
[01:14:18]  I mean, I was talking with Douglas Murray, who is brilliant and a social commentator and author, and this British guy, and he's great.
[01:14:24]  And I was talking to him about these college students who were yelling at their school dean saying, these were college students who happened to be black saying, You don't understand anything.
[01:14:33]  We come from slaves that you don't have the same ancestors.
[01:14:36]  Our ancestors were slaves and yours weren't.
[01:14:39]  And you basically can't explain anything to us because of that.
[01:14:43]  And I said, Well, how's this guy supposed to respond to this?
[01:14:45]  And Douglas Murray said, We can all do that.
[01:14:49]  We can all do that, right?
[01:14:50]  Everybody's got some sort of a painful history.
[01:14:53]  This may not equal slavery, but bad.
[01:14:55]  It's bad.
[01:14:56]  Listen, my people, the Irish Americans, didn't have it so good when we first came over to America.
[01:15:00]  And you could go down the list.
[01:15:02]  You tweeted out something on July 22nd where I was like, Well, I haven't seen a shorter, more succinct version of the way I feel, which is sad story, no one cares, work harder.
[01:15:13]  It's not to dismiss slavery, it's not about slavery, but it's just about victim mentality.
[01:15:16]  Something bad happened to you, I understand.
[01:15:17]  Oh, it's an anyway, back to work.
[01:15:20]  Try harder.
[01:15:20]  Like, that's the only way forward, sitting around and pointing the finger at everybody and lamenting and feeling like you have bad luck and poor me, not going to get you anywhere.
[01:15:28]  I, you know, I have said publicly many times that I am very, very prejudiced.
[01:15:33]  Against two types of people, lazy people and stupid people.
[01:15:36]  Everyone else I'm totally okay with.
[01:15:38]  It's like I just discuss lazy, stupid people, right?
[01:15:42]  And I believe in the egalitarian system.
[01:15:45]  I grew up in a household that was just zero prejudice in my household, really.
[01:15:51]  Like zero, okay?
[01:15:52]  Like, I never even considered it.
[01:15:54]  And when I saw it out in the world so much, it was pretty shocking to me.
[01:15:59]  But listen, it's very complicated.
[01:16:02]  You know, this stuff, when you start getting into the race struggle, it's, you know, there's a lot of bad shit that happened.
[01:16:08]  And like, you know, I watched a movie recently.
[01:16:10]  I was watching Crash with my wife, Paul Haggis, a great film.
[01:16:14]  And, you know, and you look back and it's like, it was appalling, like how the LAPD treated black people.
[01:16:21]  Fucking appalling.
[01:16:22]  Imagine having to, I can only imagine driving in a car and not like I never worried that if I got pulled over, something would happen.
[01:16:28]  Like, I never even cared, right?
[01:16:29]  So, but again, okay, sucks.
[01:16:32]  Work harder.
[01:16:33]  I get it.
[01:16:34]  Like, okay, but like you can't use that as an excuse not to, you got to still go forward in your own life and, and just, you know, do the best with whatever hand was dealt to you.
[01:16:43]  We all have negative stuff that either we was dealt us or through our own mistakes, we put ourselves in positions that compromised us, that, you know, caused us problems.
[01:16:53]  And we have to overcome that and put one foot in front of the other.
[01:16:55]  So, I just think that when you, Take sometimes things can be true, but okay, so what?
[01:17:01]  Like, you can't if you use it, it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve your cause to live in the problem versus you actually, you know, living your most empowered version of your own life and being part of the solution, which is work harder, make changes, and go forward.
[01:17:15]  But don't blame everyone around you for your life.
[01:17:18]  I just think that helps you, honestly.
[01:17:20]  And I understand it because I it's not to say that there are no victims in the world who people don't get victimized, but I remember even when I was getting harassed by my boss at Fox in the moment, talking to my therapist at the time, she was my.
[01:17:32]  Like a marital therapist, although I didn't go through marital therapy with my first husband.
[01:17:35]  I just went to individual.
[01:17:37]  And this woman, I was telling her about it, like, this is what he's doing, all the stuff.
[01:17:40]  And she just kept putting it back on me.
[01:17:42]  And now today's people would say, oh, she was wrong.
[01:17:45]  She blamed the victim.
[01:17:46]  She didn't blame me.
[01:17:47]  She just said, what could you have done differently in the room?
[01:17:50]  What can you do differently in the future to make, you know, to try to avoid that situation?
[01:17:55]  And I didn't find it offensive.
[01:17:57]  I found it empowering.
[01:17:59]  Right.
[01:18:00]  Me, I will be the one to change my life and make sure this doesn't happen to me or that I navigate it better.
[01:18:05]  Or that I navigate this deftly in a way that I can preserve my future in an industry in which I'm totally green and new.
[01:18:13]  You know, of course, right?
[01:18:14]  Of course, you're right.
[01:18:16]  Exactly.
[01:18:17]  I think that most people have to believe and feel this way, the way you feel, the way I feel.
[01:18:23]  I think what we have in the Twitter sphere is like a relatively small group of very loud vocal people that espouse on a view that is really not widely popular or believed, but I think on some level, what happens is corporate America embraces that because it allows, it gives them plausible deniability.
[01:18:47]  So they say they're woke.
[01:18:49]  They say they're doing all this stuff so they can keep raping and pillaging the village as they've done for the last hundred years.
[01:18:55]  Like it's their great way.
[01:18:56]  We're responsible.
[01:18:57]  See, but they're actually, in reality, all it is is smoke and mirrors for them to keep doing the same old, same old thing by embracing causes they really don't believe in.
[01:19:06]  Because to me, what I'm seeing happening makes zero sense unless you look at it.
[01:19:11]  In that way, that it's like it's all part of a much broader strategy to say we're great because if we embrace those causes, then we keep doing what we want and keep making as much money as we want as long as we want.
[01:19:23]  Yeah, that's that's PR, don't be fooled.

=== The Cost of Cooperation (10:10) ===

[01:19:25]  And I sadly, I don't know whether people are or not, but they should they got to be paying attention.
[01:19:29]  Um, okay, so into your life comes someone named Agent Coleman, portrayed in the movie by literally the only celebrity I've ever had a crush on, uh, Kyle Chandler.
[01:19:40]  I love I fell in love with him on Friday Night Lights, Doug knows.
[01:19:43]  Um, And he does a great job in the movie of sort of quietly stalking you.
[01:19:49]  And you knew about this agent Coleman who was onto you.
[01:19:52]  First, the SEC was onto you, and then he was an FBI agent who was onto you.
[01:19:56]  And at first, you know, you'd never met him, but then they slapped the cups on you one day and you met him.
[01:20:05]  When was it that you realized the House of Cards is coming down?
[01:20:09]  I'm likely going to prison.
[01:20:11]  And my sort of fast and loose with people's monies, you know, dodging the ethics laws and so on, in a way that I thought was clever, but maybe not.
[01:20:22]  Has caught up with me?
[01:20:23]  So it's a very good question.
[01:20:26]  The answer is probably a bit more lengthy than she's like, because it's complex.
[01:20:32]  It's not any one thing happening at one time.
[01:20:35]  There's like sort of a lot of things happening at once.
[01:20:39]  The interesting thing, I think, is how long it took him to actually find a way to get an indictment against.
[01:20:47]  Because, like, to be clear, like, what I was doing was not like a Bernie made off, like, you know, hey, you know, we should take your money and, like, not invest.
[01:20:55]  I had a legitimate firm that was obeying every single securities law out there.
[01:20:59]  So you could order my firm and literally living like the SC was there for years.
[01:21:04]  They couldn't find anything other than garden variety, small violations that you would find at every firm.
[01:21:09]  So it wasn't like I was breaking the laws.
[01:21:12]  Like they were out of Madoff.
[01:21:13]  He just took the money, didn't invest the money.
[01:21:15]  All they had to do was look, right?
[01:21:16]  Like how come they didn't look?
[01:21:17]  Crazy, right?
[01:21:19]  No, the SC was like living in my firm and watching every ticket.
[01:21:22]  But I was breaking laws, but they were very.
[01:21:26]  And hard to detect.
[01:21:27]  You understand?
[01:21:28]  It wasn't like, so I'm not saying I wasn't breaking laws, but if you looked at the firm, unless you could speak to people and they'd admit they were doing something, you would never know.
[01:21:35]  It would be impossible to prove, right?
[01:21:37]  It was a very small portion of my business was illegal, very small, but that was enough to make it illegal, right?
[01:21:44]  And the difference with Coleman is he was just doggedly determined for years and years.
[01:21:50]  And ultimately, it wasn't even the stocks that got him in to my firm and was able to get an indictment.
[01:21:57]  It was the money laundering to Switzerland.
[01:22:00]  It was the fact that I moved money to Switzerland to a Swiss banker that, by my own bad luck, got indicted in the United States, not because of me, for some other thing he was involved with, Benny Hanna.
[01:22:12]  Benny Hanna.
[01:22:14]  Benny Frickin' Hanna, right?
[01:22:16]  And he was laundering money for many different people.
[01:22:19]  One of them was this sort of sole offshore.
[01:22:23]  I'll never forget looking at the indictment against this guy.
[01:22:25]  It was like Benny Hanna, offshore boat racing.
[01:22:28]  I'm like, what?
[01:22:28]  Like, what is this?
[01:22:29]  Like, not my indictment, the Swiss banker.
[01:22:31]  I was like, oh my God, could I have worse luck?
[01:22:34]  I picked the one banker that gets arrested in the United States for laundering money for like a Benny Hanna.
[01:22:39]  Now, what Benny Hanna was doing, I have no idea what ended up happening with that, but it was in the indictment, right?
[01:22:45]  And then I knew I was screwed because he got picked up and he's in the US and he's cooperating.
[01:22:49]  So, of course, he gave my name up.
[01:22:51]  And that was what gave Coleman the ability to go back and get the proper paperwork to open up my accounts in Switzerland.
[01:23:02]  And that was it.
[01:23:03]  I had a headshot against me.
[01:23:05]  I was done.
[01:23:06]  When I got arrested, I then admitted to breaking these other securities laws, like what is called free running, putting new issues in friends' accounts and that sort of rat holes and stuff.
[01:23:16]  That was not the indictment was secured by the Swiss banking stuff, right?
[01:23:20]  And that's ultimately how he brought me down.
[01:23:23]  And I had a massive respect for him.
[01:23:25]  And he's a friend of mine today, by the way.
[01:23:27]  We became friends.
[01:23:28]  He's been on my podcast.
[01:23:30]  I really liked him.
[01:23:30]  I have just nothing but the highest regard for him.
[01:23:32]  Yeah.
[01:23:33]  He's a great guy.
[01:23:34]  He thinks exactly like you, just so you know, you should have him on your show.
[01:23:38]  He shares, you know, he's a very, very intelligent guy.
[01:23:43]  And I deserve to go to jail.
[01:23:44]  I mean, I broke the law.
[01:23:45]  I mean, like, you know, he was like, It wasn't like I was framed.
[01:23:49]  I wasn't like they made this stuff up.
[01:23:51]  No, I broke the law and I got caught.
[01:23:53]  Listen, I wasn't the first guy.
[01:23:54]  You know, Wall Street, you know, you can go to any firm and find terrible things happening in any day.
[01:23:59]  So I'm not saying I was, I certainly wasn't any worse, but I broke the law.
[01:24:03]  Doesn't make it right.
[01:24:04]  Okay.
[01:24:04]  So, like, you know, you could say it was happening everywhere, which it was.
[01:24:07]  I didn't, I did it with more panache, I guess.
[01:24:11]  But the things I was doing were happening all over Wall Street.
[01:24:13]  They still happen today.
[01:24:14]  I got indicted for it.
[01:24:15]  I deserve to get indicted for it.
[01:24:16]  And he earned the indictment the old February, knocking on doors and doing the work.
[01:24:21]  Can I ask you about the?
[01:24:23]  You write about how he came to you and said, I went to 100 people.
[01:24:28]  You call them Strattonites, guys who worked for you at Stratton, and nobody would talk.
[01:24:32]  They were totally loyal.
[01:24:34]  And you said something like, that's what happens when you're near the cash cow.
[01:24:39]  But so they didn't want to turn you in, the guys who worked for you.
[01:24:42]  But then I know you wore a wire for the FBI, you and the guy who also got indicted with you, your partner.
[01:24:51]  Against those guys, the guys who didn't turn on you, or was it different fish?
[01:24:55]  So, this is really, this is probably the most difficult part of my life, I would think.
[01:25:01]  And I ended up getting in trouble, by the way.
[01:25:03]  I almost, thanks to Coleman, I didn't do 30 years in jail because I refused.
[01:25:10]  So, I agreed to cooperate, as did pretty much everybody in my case.
[01:25:15]  So, and, you know, when I was considering whether or not to cooperate, I was like, everyone is going to cooperate.
[01:25:21]  So, you're not going to have to testify against your friends.
[01:25:24]  You're going to have to give all the information up.
[01:25:26]  Tell them where your money is, and maybe you'll testify against someone you don't know.
[01:25:29]  But it's not most everyone in the federal system that it's so rare that someone goes to trial in these cases because the sentencing garlands are so onerous.
[01:25:38]  And unless you cooperate, it's like, go to trial, you lose 30 years.
[01:25:42]  So most people will end up cooperating, right?
[01:25:46]  And then they were threatened to indict my wife, even though she hadn't done anything wrong.
[01:25:50]  Once they threatened to indict my wife, I had no choice but to plead guilty and cooperate.
[01:25:55]  So I started cooperating, giving information on what was going on.
[01:25:58]  And then They asked me to wear a wire against a very, very close friend of mine.
[01:26:04]  And it was a terrible, terrible thing to do because it, for me, that was sort of my moral line.
[01:26:10]  I was like, I'm okay, you know, cooperating with a rat out a close friend of mine.
[01:26:14]  It just seemed like it was just a bridge too far at the time.
[01:26:17]  And so when I went to meet with him, they wired me up.
[01:26:20]  I passed him a note saying, I'm wired, don't incriminate yourself.
[01:26:25]  And it was this moment I was like, I'm a good guy.
[01:26:28]  I'm a, what a good guy I am.
[01:26:29]  Like for doing, I'm a stand up guy, you know?
[01:26:32]  And I, Passing this note, and sure enough, he didn't incriminate himself.
[01:26:36]  And then three months later, he got in trouble and turned me in and gave me a vote.
[01:26:42]  And that was the point when I think I lost all faith in humanity.
[01:26:45]  That was my ultimate low point where I was like, I can't, do I have any beliefs that are right or correct here?
[01:26:53]  I broke the law.
[01:26:54]  I justified that.
[01:26:55]  I justified not cooperating because it's my friend.
[01:26:57]  I shouldn't rat my friend out.
[01:26:58]  And he turns around and rats me out.
[01:27:00]  It was the ultimate blow, too.
[01:27:02]  Seriously, it was an emotional blow you can't imagine.
[01:27:05]  The government was going to break my agreement and give me the full sentence of like 28 years.
[01:27:12]  And it was Agent Coleman that stopped that from happening.
[01:27:16]  He stopped.
[01:27:17]  He stood up for me and said, listen, you know, he wasn't even doing it to benefit himself.
[01:27:21]  You know, it was a moment of stupidity.
[01:27:23]  And also, he thought he was trying to be a good person.
[01:27:26]  And like, you know, it was like a selfless thing I did.
[01:27:29]  It was like I was benefiting myself.
[01:27:31]  I just didn't want to hurt someone that I loved, a friend.
[01:27:33]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:27:33]  So Coleman stepped in and saved me.
[01:27:35]  And then I did cooperate.
[01:27:37]  And there was a couple of people that went to trial.
[01:27:40]  And, but most people, really, I think 90, anyone who's really close to me, they cooperated.
[01:27:46]  Yeah, and they all cut deals.
[01:27:48]  And you and your partner went to prison.
[01:27:50]  You for.
[01:27:52]  Yeah, it's terrible.
[01:27:53]  You're really terrible at one.
[01:27:55]  So Jordan did plead guilty.
[01:27:56]  He was sentenced to four years.
[01:27:58]  He served 22 months.
[01:27:59]  Up next, I'm going to ask him about the very famous guy he met in prison who encouraged him to write this all down into a book and about the hundreds of hours he spent with Leonardo DiCaprio and what that was like.
[01:28:13]  Our closing chapter with Jordan Belfort right after this quick break.
[01:28:20]  So, Jordan, you go to prison, and is it true that you met Tommy Chong there, who had some advice for you of Cheech and Chong?
[01:28:30]  Believe it or not, it's actually true that when I get to prison, who is my bunk mate, not just in the same prison, my bunk mate is Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong.
[01:28:39]  And they put us together in the same cube, I guess, thinking we're both high profile.
[01:28:44]  So they wanted to kind of put us together and told me to watch us, or just like they thought it was smart thing to do.
[01:28:49]  And, and, um, You know, he's just a really good guy, he's a very smart guy, too.
[01:28:55]  Very, very, uh, very highly educated, profound speaker, and a lot of nuggets of wisdom.
[01:29:01]  And he was writing a book, and there's not a lot to do in jail, so you know, you sit there at night and you tell stories to each other.
[01:29:07]  I was telling him stories about my life, and he's just laughing and rolling on the floor because I'm, you know, some really funny stories, and I'm pretty good storyteller.
[01:29:14]  He's doing the same to me in like the third 90s.
[01:29:16]  Is you know, I honestly thought you were full of, but my wife googled you, and like.
[01:29:21]  All of this stuff is online.
[01:29:22]  It's true.
[01:29:23]  You actually did all this.
[01:29:24]  He goes, You have to write a book.
[01:29:26]  And I was like, Really?
[01:29:28]  I was like, You think my life was crazy?
[01:29:30]  I didn't think my life was that crazy because it was my life.
[01:29:33]  It happened to me and I sort of just, whatever.

=== Lessons from a Crazy Life (07:20) ===

[01:29:35]  You get used to Wally and Sam.
[01:29:37]  He's like, I'm Tommy Chong and I think your life is crazy.
[01:29:40]  So that's right.
[01:29:42]  So you do.
[01:29:43]  You write the book when you leave with The Wolf of Wall Street, which is what you were called in a newspaper article.
[01:29:48]  And then everybody's clamoring for the movie rights.
[01:29:50]  Leonardo DiCaprio gets involved.
[01:29:52]  He wants to play you.
[01:29:53]  This seemed to be a mission for him.
[01:29:55]  And I read that you spent perhaps as many as hundreds of hours with him, getting him ready, showing him what it was like to be on that many drugs and so on.
[01:30:03]  So, what were your impressions of him in that whole process?
[01:30:07]  I think what people don't realize, maybe about Leo, is he's, of course, he's naturally talented, but like the amount of preparation and the care he put into the role, like he really was just so determined to make it perfect.
[01:30:24]  And he worked really hard.
[01:30:26]  It wasn't like an, He says, Oh, let me just wing it and it's going to come out.
[01:30:29]  But he really put in a mass amount of hours, just, you know, went through every single line of the script, you know, just again and again, making sure every word sounded authentic and every scene was authentic.
[01:30:40]  And he just, you know, he's very talented and a very hard worker and there's a lot of integrity.
[01:30:46]  I think he's a great guy.
[01:30:47]  Wow.
[01:30:49]  You now are doing like entrepreneurship lessons, sort of guidance, mentorship.
[01:30:57]  And it almost, in a way, it's kind of self-helpy to me in a good way.
[01:31:01]  So, Like, how are you channeling this whole experience into a new version of you professionally?
[01:31:08]  So, it's been many years now that I've been doing this.
[01:31:12]  I started in about 2009 going out there and teaching people first about the sort of the mindset of success using the lessons I've learned, then very quickly pivoting to teaching sales, the straight line system, which is really what made my career take off.
[01:31:29]  Is that the system that I had taught the stranded?
[01:31:32]  It's very ethical, especially when I reinvented the system and made it.
[01:31:36]  You know, five and better than it was.
[01:31:38]  It's a very powerful system.
[01:31:40]  And that's really what I was starting to get hired around the world to teach this to sales forces and by individuals all over.
[01:31:47]  And then, you know, also teaching general, you know, entrepreneurship.
[01:31:51]  So I do a lot of consulting with companies.
[01:31:53]  And yeah, my message is very, you know, it's very, I would say, it's very honest.
[01:32:00]  I think there's a lot of people that are out there teaching things like sales and entrepreneurship.
[01:32:05]  They're not the first thing about it, really.
[01:32:07]  They just, what they're ready for my stuff or someone like a Tony Robbins stuff, who I have great respect for, is a legitimate, really, you know, brought things that were new and fresh.
[01:32:18]  And then, There are just so many charlatans out there that are regurgitating the same nonsense and just trying to separate people from their money.
[01:32:25]  And I really was very, very early on made this sort of my internal compass very, very clear.
[01:32:32]  It was pointing north, meaning towards ethics and integrity.
[01:32:37]  I was very careful that I never took a penny from anyone without trying to give at least 10 times more value back.
[01:32:42]  It doesn't mean you always succeeded.
[01:32:44]  You always succeeded that way.
[01:32:46]  My mindset is always I'm looking to give more value than I ever would get.
[01:32:50]  With every transaction I enter into, every Mentorship I do.
[01:32:54]  So I've had tremendous success with people all over the world.
[01:32:57]  And it's great because now it's, you know, the movie became this incredible cult.
[01:33:00]  And so people come up to me all day, every day.
[01:33:03]  I get, you know, whenever I go out, you know, people just say, you know, you're such an inspiration to me.
[01:33:07]  You inspire me, your life, your teachings, your comeback.
[01:33:10]  It's just amazing.
[01:33:11]  Yeah, because you easily could have skulked away.
[01:33:14]  You could have skulked away and said, I've been disgraced.
[01:33:17]  And you didn't.
[01:33:18]  You found a new way to reinvent and you came clean with all of it too, to your credit, which is how we're all learning now.
[01:33:24]  But I have to ask you about.
[01:33:27]  The blowback because I, one of my questions in watching was, how do you have any money?
[01:33:31]  Because they ordered you to pay 110 million in restitution.
[01:33:35]  So don't, do they garnish your wages?
[01:33:37]  Like what?
[01:33:38]  Because I know some of the victims, some of the people who got burned, this is what I read, left 1,500 clients with 200 million in losses.
[01:33:45]  I don't know if those numbers are right, but I know they sort of pop up when you make money and say, this is not right.
[01:33:52]  That's not true.
[01:33:53]  That's not true.
[01:33:54]  I don't think you're trying to be lying or anything, but it's just not, that's not true.
[01:33:58]  Okay.
[01:33:59]  Clients don't pop up, which is odd, by the way, because the number was wildly inflated.
[01:34:04]  Okay.
[01:34:04]  It was, it was, there were losses, no doubt.
[01:34:06]  Okay.
[01:34:07]  But like when Bernie Madoff, they said, what was it, 50 billion, the turn to be 10 billion.
[01:34:12]  When they're coming up with losses and people, they double or triple count and it ends up always being far less.
[01:34:19]  That was an estimate.
[01:34:19]  So I only was fined for 100 million, 110.
[01:34:23]  So what?
[01:34:23]  So, and then it was Danny was 200.
[01:34:25]  It was a moving target that no one really knew what was actually lost, but it was certainly a loss there.
[01:34:30]  And I disgorged a lot of money.
[01:34:31]  Danny disgorged some money.
[01:34:32]  I disgorged a lot more.
[01:34:34]  I continue to pay money.
[01:34:35]  And I pay some money each month.
[01:34:37]  I pay some money and I pay a percentage of what I make.
[01:34:39]  And I said to myself, what's my solution?
[01:34:42]  You know what?
[01:34:42]  I'm going to make so much money that I can afford to pay a percentage and still be rich.
[01:34:47]  And that's what I always aspired to do.
[01:34:49]  And I said, I'm just going to work harder than everybody else.
[01:34:51]  I'm going to make so much money that I can afford to pay what I got to pay and still live an amazing life with luxuries.
[01:34:58]  And that's exactly what I did.
[01:34:59]  And I just went and made.
[01:35:01]  And it's to their advantage too to have you get back on your feet.
[01:35:04]  You found sobriety.
[01:35:05]  You found love.
[01:35:07]  You found a way of making an honest living.
[01:35:09]  And so I only have about a minute left, but I want to ask you because I know you've said your life serves as a cautionary tale, but others do find it more than cautionary.
[01:35:18]  They find it downright inspirational.
[01:35:20]  So, what do you want people to know about The Wolf of Wall Street and the takeaway on Jordan Belfort?
[01:35:26]  The takeaway is that I think my life represents the best and worst of what human beings can do.
[01:35:32]  And I think that the lesson that you can learn from my life.
[01:35:35]  If you want to model me, especially young people, you want to look at me and be inspired and use the techniques and strategies.
[01:35:41]  Remember, you don't have to model the whole person, you can model all the best things that I did back when I was younger and I do today.
[01:35:48]  And learn from the mistakes I made so you could become a better version of me.
[01:35:53]  I always say, you know, yeah, do all the stuff I did on the great side.
[01:35:56]  Have fun, make tons of money, but you could do better.
[01:35:59]  You don't have to take shortcuts like I did.
[01:36:02]  And that cost me everything.
[01:36:03]  I had to start again.
[01:36:04]  I'm lucky that I had to come back and make back all this money.
[01:36:07]  Most people don't.
[01:36:07]  You're right.
[01:36:08]  Most people will wither away and die.
[01:36:09]  And it's the exception to the rules.
[01:36:11]  I urge people that you can make a ton of money.
[01:36:14]  We live in an amazing world and an amazing time.
[01:36:16]  Just be very, very careful, but don't take that extra step to make it quick because it might cost you everything.
[01:36:21]  Model the good stuff and do the opposite of the bad stuff.
[01:36:24]  That's my message.
[01:36:25]  Watch that first step across the ethical line.
[01:36:28]  Jordan, what a pleasure.
[01:36:30]  Thank you so much for coming on and being so open and honest with us.
[01:36:33]  All the best to you.
[01:36:34]  I want to tell our viewers that we have Steven Crowder on Monday, recently banned from YouTube.
[01:36:39]  Don't forget that and check us out on youtube.comslash Megan Kelly.
[01:36:43]  Thank you.