Habits and Hustle - Episode 512: The Best of Habits&Hustle: Jordan Belfort (Wolf Of Wall Street)

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

How do you rebuild your life when everyone thinks they already know your story? How do you stay sharp and influential when every move you make is judged and dissected? In this episode of Habits & Hustle, I sit down with Jordan Belfort, the real-life inspiration behind Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film The Wolf of Wall Street based on his bestselling autobiography. We get into the mindset behind high-stakes decisions, the psychology of influence, and how he built a system that turns underdogs into top performers. Jordan talks about rebuilding credibility, the habits that keep him steady now, and what extreme pressure taught him about discipline. He breaks down what persuasive leaders actually do differently and why charisma alone never gets you there. If you want a sharper understanding of communication, conviction, and reinvention, this one will land. Jordan Belfort is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, global sales trainer, and creator of the Straight Line System. After rising fast, falling hard, and rebuilding his life from the ground up, he has become one of the most recognizable thinkers in sales psychology, persuasion, and personal reinvention today. What We Discuss: (00:28) Why influence is something you can actually learn (05:12) The mindset Jordan used to handle high-stakes decisions (13:40) How the Straight Line System brings clarity to any conversation (18:55) What rebuilding credibility really looked like after his public fall (26:14) The habits that keep him steady and focused now (34:02) What extreme pressure taught him about discipline (41:33) The mechanics of persuasion and why charisma alone never works (55:10) What separates average closers from top performers (01:12:20) How he coaches leaders to communicate under pressure (01:28:46) The psychology behind reinvention and starting fresh Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE40 for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers.Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout.Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order Prolon: Get 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift.Amp fit is the perfect balance of tech and training, designed for people who do it all and still want to feel strong doing it. Check it out at joinamp.com/jen  Find more from Jen: Website: www.jennifercohen.comInstagram: @therealjencohenBooks: www.jennifercohen.com/booksSpeaking: www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Jordan Belfort:Website: www.jordanbelfort.comYoutube: @wolfofwallstInstagram: @wolfofwallstX: @wolfofwallstTikTok: @wolfofwallstreetFacebook: @jordanbelfort

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. I'm just going to go right into it. I don't have to do a whole. I'm going to put your name up. They're going to see who you are. I don't have to do a whole like I have the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, Google him. By the way, I am like, this is one of the podcasts I've been like very excited for. And I said it off the camera. No, you didn't even know who I was. You probably didn't care. No, you're amazing podcast. I'm excited. Well, I'm just saying that you're so fascinating. to me. I swear, like, everything about you, you also look, you guys, the guy looks like, he's Benjamin Button. He's, like, aging backwards. How old are you? Sixty-one. Okay, and no surgery, no plastic surgery, no nothing. No, no, air dye. I have a few gray hairs here and there, but I've had them, you know, for a few years. Like, it doesn't really get worse, you know? Well, that's not bad for a gray hair, but I don't have really gray hair. And I'm just, listen, I have my issues

are more inside. Like, I look good at the outside of riding away in the inside. No, I got muscle, played a lot of sports. I wrestled when I was in college, and I did a lot of weightlifting. So I have my shoulder, I have an artificial replacement here. And I told my cuff recently, so I have to get more surgery. And then this has got arthritis. I got problems with my hands from golf and tennis. I mean, so, but listen, but I'm...

That's more wear and tear. That's wear and tear. Yeah. I've done some, like, I overdid it, especially my 50s. I was playing tennis for two hours a day with, like, one of the top players in the world. And I just destroyed my shoulders. So, but it was worth it. I think in the end, it was so much fun.

kept me fit and um but yeah you know but listen you look amazing too and and uh about 60 though i'm just looking for the founds in the middle age at this point i mean i'm telling you it's beyond with you like whatever you're doing i want to actually start doing oh i mean i've done stem cells that's the only thing i've done but stem cell yeah but that's more for an injury no i've done my face too oh you've done it for your face yeah what did it do i've never oh it's subtle it's not like plastic it's very different than plastic so tell me what they just like they do like this microneedling and they put the stem cells in it's supposed to enrich to collagen, but I mean, I think it works. I mean, I don't know. It's not like where you're like, you're like, oh my God, the next side doesn't work.

Maybe in six months it's subtle, but I think it's refreshing. And, you know, I love to, I do anything I count my own blood. I love that using my own. Oh, you mean PRP you did? No, stem cells. I go to Costa Rica. I don't do it in here. I go to Costa Rica to do it. Really? Yeah, and I have stem cells in my neck and my hands and my, I do it, stem cells. That's great, stem cells. So did it hurt to get in your face? Like, it was just little needle. I was asleep. Yeah. And they gave me, and that's, you know, listen, I was a drug. You know, I was a drug addict. Yeah, I know. So I got sober 97, but it's a long time ago. And I was really before that I was like just unbelievably like, you know, in every, and then I never met a drug I didn't like, basically, right?

So now my only high is I get to go to the doctor, I have to get surgery. Give me the anesthesia really slow. I want that valium in the arm. Give it to me a little, I want to remember. I don't want to forget, you know. I got anesthesia, so it didn't hurt at all. But yeah, you get a couple, like, a little bumps for a day, and it goes away. And then you don't see results right away. But then over, like, three to six months, it builds more collagen and, yeah. It works. I think it works.

I want to see, like, a before and after just to see if there's any, like, it's probably so, like, you said, subtle. It's subtle. Yeah, it's not like. It's not like, it's not necessarily, rip, yeah, pull your face up. Yeah. By the way, you just said something that's so crazy because you've been, that movie, even though it came out in 2013. First of a cult favorite, my favorite movie of

seriously all time, The Wolf of Wall Street. I am obsessed with it. I think I've seen it like 25 times. I'm not joking. A lot of people love them. I mean, I love it. And I love the first half a lot better than, I love everything up to the end. I was going to say until the end, right? No, but it ends on an up note, which is really interesting because when I first, when they first were going to do the movie, it was 2007, and it ended with me going to jail. Yeah. Because that was my life. And then it got delayed. because of the writer strike, and over that six-year period, I rebuilt my life. I had a comeback story.

So Marty and Leah, like, we've got to change the movie. They made it a comeback story to reflect my new life, which was going around the world, teaching people about entrepreneurship and sales. I think it made it a much better movie because suddenly it's like, oh, my God, the guy came back from the whole thing, versus being like a downer and was like, oh, my God, and he came back from it. So, yeah. Well, it was interesting, though, because it came out, what you said, 2000, I thought

2013, it came out. Christmas, 2013. But that movie, like that was your life so many years before, like 30 years ago. I was just telling this to someone. So people like say, wow, you like just did Stratton like a, what, 10 years ago? No, it was like literally 30 something years ago. That is what's so crazy. Because if you're like, okay, so you're 35 years ago.

Right. So that's like you were like, that was, you're a whole different person. Yeah, it's crazy. Like you've had like five different lives since then. I have, sure. I've definitely had at least three lives, you know. Because it was a life up to Stratton. Then Stratton started and my life was literally insane balls for 10 years. Then I had this like, you know, five-year period where I was, you know, indicted, waiting to go to jail, worst five years in my, like you're dying in slow motion. Literally, jail wasn't even the bad part, by the way. But it's when you're waiting to go to jail and your life is slowly, it's like the Roman Empire is falling and burning and burning and you're like sitting there watching yourself die in slow motion. And I still was living in a giant house. It's like your possessions being stripped away one by. It's.

a fucking worst, right? When I finally went to jail and I lost everything, it was liberating. I hit bottom. I mean, bottom, no more money left, right? Separated from everything. My kids was the saddest part of all, right? They were nine and 11 at the time, right? But once I got to jail, so who's my bunkmate? Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong were sharing a cell together. They put us in the same cell. Are you serious? And that's how I began writing. So he was my cellmate and we were like, you know, he was a great guy's amazing. And, you know, I would tell him stories in night. And he was rolling on the floor. Second night, he's rolling on the floor. Third night, he's rolling on the floor. The fourth. And he goes, you know, I thought you were making all this shit up.

But my wife Googled you. And it's all true. He goes, you have to write a book about this. So I'm like, really? You think my life is crazy? Like, I didn't think my life was crazy because it was mine. Right. You know, your life happens to you. And you're like, I guess shit just happens. I didn't look at it that way, right? I mean, I knew my life was a bit absurd. But I didn't think it was like, write a book. He's like, just do it. So I started writing. I'm very difficult at first. My writing was terrible. And then I taught myself to write in jail. I spent about a year teaching myself how to write by reading another book I love called Bonfire of the Vanities.

I remember that book, yeah. Classic, but one of the best authors in the world. And I used a book like a textbook. I was a yellow underlay. I kind of cracked Tom Wolfe's strategy for writing. And that's how I learned to write in jail. And then I came, I wrote maybe 50 to 100 pages in jail, but I ripped them up because I didn't think they were good enough.

Came out of jail. And that's when I started, really, I took out the laptop and started writing. and, you know, very quickly, long story short, I, you know, an agent read it and he was like, holy crap and sold it to a random house. And that was that. That's how it started. So you actually wrote that book yourself? I mean, every word of every book I write. I just wrote that book. I read every word. And I hate writing. And by the way, I know you talk about biohead. When you also talk about success and empowerment, right? And succeed, just feeling, not just monetary success,

but succeeding in life. And I think one of the things, there's one piece of advice that I could give to anyone. And I think what a lot of people miss is that, that there's typically a specialized skill required to do what you need to do. If you want to do something and you really want something, you have the desire for it, you want to achieve it, right? It's like, people are often going to do the hard work, but not so much the preparation. Like, I did what I did. Like, I wanted to write a book, but I didn't know how to write. I spent a year learning how to write. Like, without that skill, I could have wanted to, you know, tell my story, but I didn't own the skill. And I think with a lot of businesses that people go into and a lot of things they want

accomplished. They have a great idea, and they would work really hard at making you work, but they didn't do the, there's a skill they need to do. The process. There's a hot, there's hard. And people are very good at doing the things they like doing, but so much of success is getting yourself to do the shit you don't like doing every single day, even when you don't feel like doing it most, right? Right. Consistently, if you can train yourself to do this stuff you don't like doing, that's what I think I'm really good at. Like, I hate writing, but I spent one year, 17 hours a day, myself writing this book. And I wrote this book, it's on how to make money in the stock book, but the right way. And it, you know, it's good information, actually.

And it's for everybody, it's like the layman's version, too, for any average person who, you know, could you get screwed so often? Because you don't know what you don't know. But we'll get into that after. No, the advice in there, it's amazing. But the point, the point is I was able to make it accessible and funny because, you know, the information's out there, right? But if it's boring and try, people don't read it. So I think whatever you want to do in like, You know, there's going to be a set of specialized skills and probably one skill that's most important of all in what you want to do. And if you want to do the hard work in that, even though it doesn't feel going to doing it, it opens up everything else. Absolutely.

So how do you even get yourself disciplined enough to even go through that year of the process of even learning to write or like you said with anything, right? Like if someone doesn't like to do something, there's resistance. They don't want to do it. They procrastinate. So for me, I think there's an overarching strategy with this whole thing, right? about the inner game, the mindset of success, right? Now, it has to do with your belief systems and things that happen when you're very, usually when you're younger, right? So for me, the linchpin moment in my life of success was at the age of 16, I had this big hit financially. I went down,

were you from the East Coast or West Coast? Yeah, I'm from Canada. Okay. So there's a beach in New York called Jones Beach. Yeah, okay. On a hot summer Sunday, it is a million people on Jones Beach. And it's a very wide beach, long walk to the concession stand. I'm 16-year-old kid. minimum wage back then is $1.35 an hour. It's 1978, right? And I notice everyone's bitching and moaning walking up to the concession stand. It's like 90 degrees, right? So I'm saying, hmm, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a cooler, white styrofoam cooler. I'm going to load it up with ice cream and ice is going to get some dry ice and walk down to the beach and sell for a buck apiece. That was my idea, right? Went down to it next morning to a distribute that's old good humor ice cream. I load up my cooler. The full cost of the cooler is $20, right? I go out and sell it out in one hour, made $120. in an hour in 1978, right? It was more than my parents were making my fault.

Anyone, my parents, my neighbor were making, right? And what happened is that the next day I went back and made $500. In the first summer, I made $26,000. Second sum of $50,000.

So I made big money. And what I realized, so what happened, in this moment, I linked up in my brain that if I worked my freaking ass off, I can get the,

I wanted money. I didn't grow up wealthy. I grew up lower middle class. All right? We had everything we needed, but not what I wanted, right? And I had this burning desire for whatever reason, right? But I realized in that moment that if I worked harder than everybody else

and I'm willing to do what everyone else was not willing to do, I could make just like, you know, so, and it became a very, it became a cornerstone belief in my mind, A, that I'm the hardest worker, B, that I'll do whatever it takes, C, I'm an entrepreneur. You get it? So I had these beliefs that was so strong that I did this job for five years, right? And then I put myself through college and sold ICE's all through college and drove a nice car, had money in my pocket, right?

So that was the start of it, okay, is these beliefs. Then let's miss the middle of my life for a second. Let's go to jail now. So I already have this rise and fall, right? But I'm that guy, I'm still that kid that did that at 16. I never got in trouble in my life before, Spratton or after Scratten. There's one thing I did. I was like, I came from the best family ever, no one ever got in trouble, right?

So I had this beliefs about money and success and hard work, right? And that if I do the right thing, I make money, right? or I have success, right? So now I'm in jail. I'm in the worst moment of my life, right? Everything is stripped away. You're with the so-called losers of society because everyone is lost at the game of life. You're locked up with no money, no power. You're just like the lowest piece of pond scum on the tunnel pole, right? Right. And I get this idea from Tommy Chong, who I love and credit for starting this whole thing of writing this book, right? And I'm trying to write and I suck at it. I can't write. And I'm reading this Tom Wolfe book and I'm trying to improve

my thing, and I'm, I paid one kid four cans of two, and I said, go through this book, and every time he compares a person to something else, like a metaphor, or simile, write it down with me. So that's how granular I was getting and trying to crack Tom Wolfe's coat, right? Wow. And it was months in the beginning. I say by month three, four, five of trying to write where, like, I honestly felt I just can't go on doing this. Like, it's not working.

My life's disaster. I know I'll make money again as a salesmanist. I'm not going to end up poor because I know how to make money, but like, just the idea of trying to be empowered while locked up. Right? It was just too much. And in those moments, and the worst moments were at night, you know, when you're alone with your thoughts, you're in your bed, right? And you're lying there, like all the mistakes you made, the people that you hurt, right? All the stuff you did wrong, it's terrible, right? And in those moments when I felt like I couldn't go on, couldn't keep writing,

I closed my eyes and I'd imagine the faces of my two children. That's, and that was for me. That was my why. Like, why do I want to come back from failure? Why don't want to write a book? There's many ways to go out and succeed again after you get, locked up for a couple of years. You can make money. But I wanted to do something, you know, I guess that was about, like, I didn't want to hide from my mistakes. And I had this idea that I was going to, like, tell this story that I thought could be pretty amazing once I started writing it, but I just couldn't write it. So anytime I felt like I couldn't go on, I said, you know, my children, like just I let them down. I'd hurt them. I'd embarrass them. And I, you know,

not that they didn't love me anymore, right? I'm super close with my kids. I saw my son. I was going to say. I saw my son this morning for breakfast. He's like, we're like this. My daughter and I speak every day, you know, so I'm very close to my children. That's amazing. Did they see you while you're in jail? Yeah, they visited me in jail. Joint visit with Tommy Chong was hysterical, yeah, yeah. So you guys, like, you never missed a beat, really, with the kids.

I mean, they're very fortunate that, and I moved out to California for that reason. They were in California at the time, right? But anyway, so that for me, like, I think that what people often miss is when you're trying to find your so-called why. It's a self-developmental shame. No, you're why, no, you're right? But the truth is, if you really know your why, at the deepest level, it is freaking powerful. And here's the secret.

It's not going to be about you. It's not about what you can get to yourself. It's about someone that you love unconditionally or a cause that you truly believe in. Like, you have kids, right? Yeah. Okay. So let's say there's a fire in the house here, right? And you're alone in the house.

You're going to run through the flames. You're like, oh, shit, that's hot. You're like, fuck, that's hot. Is there any, one of your kids were on the other side of the fire yet? Would you even think for a second to rescue your kids? No. Not even for a second. You'd run through the fire, burn yourself, hug them so they ain't burn it and run through.

And if you died to save your kids, you wouldn't think twice, right? You love them more than yourself. It's a type of unconditional love or even a cause you believe in. And people do awful things. Look what happened in October 7. Yes. What people will do for a cause, they will do disgusting, horrible, terrible things in the name of God. Or they'll do amazingly wonderful things.

Mother Teresa. Exactly. It's always about, so it's not. A higher purpose. Exactly. And people miss with this is when they try to say, I want to get rich. Like, you know, what's my why? I want a beautiful house on the hill. I want to retire young. It's not about you. That this power is something. That's more a goal oriented as part of your vision statement. Yeah. But the real power of your why is going to be much deeper and more profound than that. And once you tap into that power, you become unstoppable. I believe that if you're willing to do the hard work.

It can't just be that's. So there's always like this is the inner game, which is mindset. And then there's the outer game, which is. strategy. So you have to be willing to do the hard work and learn the specialized strategies to execute. So, but those two, if you reconcile those two worlds, you become unstoppable. But like you're also, first of all, I have so many questions for you. I'm going to be going all over the place there. But like, you're considered to be like the best salesman in the world, right? Like, best sales trainer in the world. What would you say, people who don't have kids or a big purpose? Like, what would be the number one sales strategy or how to get people to be a better salesperson? Like, what would you say, would you teach people? Well, I wrote a book.

My last book was called Way of the Wolf, right? Which was a massive bestseller. You've three books now. Four. Four? You're four? The wolf of Wall she was in. It was Catching.

Oh, yeah. The Catcher, yeah, yeah, yeah. And catching was the late lowest performing one because it got released like the day after Lehman Brothers wasn't bankrupt. And like there was like no. No one was buying anything. Oh, yeah. You couldn't get any talk shows. There was no podcast back then, right?

Yeah. So that one, it's so later later on, but like it was like disaster. Yeah. Well, it's not your fault though. Even this book by the guy hit the beginning. It came out, like, right after October 7th. So all the big, yeah, like, so I was on talk about it. It had to be, like, 60 days later because he couldn't talk about this.

No one was talking about, every single major news. So, you know, so it's time. But, you know, listen, you don't release a book. I don't care of it. It was a bestseller, but, you know, it's not why you do it, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not for money because it's so hard to write a book. Oh, trust me.

It's like, and I write it myself, and I hate writing. How long does it take you to write this one? More than a year. And then, of course, it takes another year to come out and all the other stuff. For me, it's a grueling experience, but I do it because I think it's important. I think this book was on some level most important things. It answers the question, what do you do with the money that you have saved? And people just get taken advantage of it by Wall Street and stupid investments in short-term

training. And this is really the truth about how you put your real. And also, you talk about also all the fees and how do you know when your financial planner is taking advantage of you? I think these are all like so important. It's like financial health, right? It is. It is.

financial health. It is. And I think that now people get very overwhelmed because there's so much information. They don't know. They listen to this person. They listen to that person. They watch Jim Kramer and get this financially. I know. We have to talk about that. You hate Jim Kramer. Not as a human being. Not as a human. But I call him a carnival barking ass clown because he basically is and everyone knows it. Like everyone, anyone in finance laughs at the fucking guy. I mean, he's funny as shit, by the way. But I mean, like, that's your, if that blowviating sense of humor is your cup of tea, not mine, but he's funny, and he's smart. He knows his shit, Jim Craber, like, for him, but, like, the advice he gives is the most toxic financial advice, like, to think that you can actually

make money by trading out of this, going into this, timing the market, sell this, buy this, oh, this is going to, who the fuck? What does he know? Human beings are the worst stock pickers ever. There's, like, five people in the world that actually can beat the S&B 500, and guess what? What? They're not taking your money. They have their hedge funds that are closed. They trade for themselves and the largest institutions. Like Ray Dalio. Those people like that, right? Okay, so, and, you know, historically, he's an amazing, brilliant guy.

But those are what happens with the hedge fund and the mutual fund industry, but especially hedge funds, is that they're all like the Ray Dalios or Warren Buffett or, you know, a temper, right? Yeah. Unbelievable, brilliant people that can beat the market. And then you have, like, there's five those and six thousand people that will be all so rise that bathe in the afterglow of these people. And when you look at their returns, after you subtract their fees and performance, they don't beat the index, not they, they're underperforming the index. And the mutual

for industry is even worse. So it's so simple to build yourself a massive retirement nest egg by investing the way I explain here, which is, you know, low cost index fund, some money in a certain type of bond fund, some cash, and saving some for speculation a little bit, because you want to have fun speculating. The speculating is fun. And if you don't set aside a defined amount of money, you probably will speculate with too much money. So better. to say, I'm going to speculate with 5% or 10% of my capital, but the 90% is going to be in investments that I know, and unless the world blows up, then who gives a fuck anyway? But as long as the world keeps trucking along, the S&P has been compounding the 10%, 10.5%, including

dividends over the last, like, 90 years. And it's like, it's not always up. It goes down. Last year was a great year. So I look at the genius. It was up 25% last year. But that's irrelevant luck that it was, I could have been down 25%. It doesn't matter.

But on average, it always trends upward over the long term. And then you engage in what's called long term compounding. And there's certain things you want to do. And I go through it step by step in the book. It's so simple. And you don't need Wall Street. Like, Wall Street is there. It's like this fee machine complex to, like, basically rob you blind.

But Wall Street does create value. So you need Wall Street. Wall Street's necessary. But you don't have to play in their corrupt casino. You can extract all the value they create by buying into these certain types of funds that have no expenses, no fees, right? So you get all the value. they create. And none of the bullshit.

But if you're someone who doesn't understand any of this at all, you could you say basically you don't believe in even having a financial planner. A financial planet can be good for things like tax planning. Okay. All right. Setting up certain type of retirement accounts, education accounts, right? Nothing wrong with that. But as soon as they start trying to direct you into certain investments, unless they're saying to you, you should buy this S&P 500 index fund. There's some very ethical ones that will do that and guide you into. the right type of investment in vehicles. When they start going to complex annuities and all this shit,

you don't need it historically. And this is not even, this is not my information. All I did was I gathered all the information, what everyone knows to be true on Wall Street. And no one will argue that I'm right in this book. I'm right. It's the truth. So I didn't invent these strategies.

A guy named Jack Bogle is really responsible for creating the index fund. But in terms of like, you know, how do you really build a portfolio? It's known. Everyone knows how to do it. But Wall Street advertises it their way into the hearts and minds of people and gets people convinced that they should be engaged in short-term trading, trying to time the market, that, you know, you could actually have a stockbroker who's in a beat the S. It's ludicrous. It doesn't work. And every academic study going back since the 1920s has proved it. So all I did was wrote it in a very funny. So the book is funny. Because I said, if I don't make the book funny, no one's going to read it. So the idea was to make it really funny and accessible, but teach you a step-by-step strategy. of how you do that and secure your retirement. And trust me, you read the book, you'll be happy. You'll be thanking me 30 years later. I'll still be alive probably because I'm aging very strong. Yeah, exactly. You really are. You're going to be a life chair at 270.

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it's designed to do. Repair, renew, and optimize. And right now, Prolon is offering 30% off site-wide, plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program. Go to prolonlife.com and use Jennifer Cohen to claim your discount and bonus. That's Prolon Life.com. dot com slash Jennifer Cohen and use code Jennifer Cohen. We'll get to the sales, actually. Well, let me just, I wanted to go back because you were talking about the movie. And of course, I'm like obsessed with that movie. Was it how accurate was it of your real life?

Very accurate. It was? How much? 90%, 80%. Well, so I was much worse than that. You were? Oh, yeah. Like with the drugs and then the, uh,

and hookers, I'll admit it. You know, it's not my life today, right? But we were, I was insane and we were, and then the thing was, best for was the Jonah Hill character, right? Oh my God, the best. And the best thing about, I love Danny, right? And the best thing, everyone needs a Danny in their life. Oh, my gosh.

You know why you need a Danny? Because as bad as I was, I look at Danny and say, when I'm as bad as this fucking guy, then I know I got a problem. Exactly. He was doing more drugs. Like, I don't know, he's got a problem, right? Exactly. He's a great guy.

Are you friends still? Yeah, yeah. I don't see him that much because we don't live in the same area, but nothing but praises for him. What is he doing now? He's wealthy. I'm sure he's a great salesman, smart guy. He came from a very successful family. The father was a famous doctor.

His mother was an educator, very well-respected educator. But they were like upper class. They were like rich, rich. Exactly. Yeah, they're upper class. Correct, yeah. And so he was able, like what, like does he have money, money or just like? He does. He does have money, money. Like, what did he do after? What did he, like, I don't know

much about him. He was a medical, medical supply business or something. I don't know exactly what he did, but he's in medical supplies, maybe some pharmacies. I don't know exactly what he did. But he made some good money. He's not poor. He's not, he's very wealthy. He's not just trucking along. No, he's doing well. So you'd say the movie was actually underplayed your life? Underplayed to the insanity. Like, you know, there were some scenes that had to be cut out because the movie would have been X-rated. Really? Right. Oh, my God. Like what? Tell me. The Bachelor Party scene.

Okay, tell me. Don't feel like you can say because I'm a girl. I want to know. No, no, I know. There's some things I can say because they just, they just too depraved. I'll tell you how funny story. So when I was writing the book. Okay. Right. And my editor from Random House was a female. Okay. Great, very smart lady, right? And I'm sending, if I send her the first chapter and it was like really, you know, raunchy, right? And I'm like, wonder what she's going to think, you know?

And she sends me back the note, like back then it was by, before everything was digital. I sent her a chap that she fedex it back. He'd be like, no, it's check. Oh, my God, it's so great. You're such a bad boy. Keep going, right? I'm like, wow, okay. I'm like, I'm emboldened by that, right?

So next chapter I send her, is like, something else, you know, crazy happened, like, you know, four hookers and this. And I'm like, what she's going to think of that one, you know? So I sent it that. She's like, oh, my God, this is amazing. I showed it to Erwin Appound, and he was rolling on the floor. I'm like, all right, here we go, right? Next chapter was even worse in Switzerland, just pure and say, right? So I'm like, I just keep getting worse and on and on.

Finally, I get to the chapter where I have my bachelor party, right? And we flew a hundred stratonites, they were called them, right, out there. What do you call them? Stratinites. They were called stratonites, right? And, you know, equal number of hookers of all shapes and sizes. And we, like the movie, it's true, we rated them like stocks. We had blue chip hookers, the best.

We had, you know, massac hookers. And then we had the paint sheets with the bottom of the barrel. We took those two because we wanted to punish ourselves, right? But we did, and we flew out. Then we hooked up with counterparts in Vegas. We know the 50 to 100 hookers from Vegas, right? Anyway, the bachelor party is just spiraling out of control upstairs on the, there's like the 22nd floor of the Mirage.

And it's like Sodominee Gomorra on the 22nd floor of Mirage. And that was the hotel back then, right? And it's just absolutely raging away. There's animals. There's cocaine out on bowls, quailudes everywhere. everyone's high, and there's hookers, sex going on out in the open, the whole nine yards, right? You know, just complete insanity. Anyway, I was downstairs with this guy named Elliot Levine, who was the CEO of Perry Ellis.

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. And this guy was the biggest degenerate of us. He was the guy that was the king of, and he was brilliant, like, this guy was a brilliant businessman, as smart as they got during the day, and wild gambler drugs, I mean, just, we were all crazy, but he was like, literally, I was like, he was like, wow, he's amazing. because he's like the best of the bad. He was just unbelievable, right? Wow. So I'm with him with gambling and he's all coked out of our minds and quail him out of our minds, like just on massive quantities, right?

And he's up like $2.5 million. I'm up like a million dollars for $700,000 playing blackjack, right? So we decided let's go upstairs to the bachelor party, right? So I cash not get my chips. He leaves his there, right? Because he wants to keep gambling. We go upstairs, right? We walk in the door.

And as we got that down, you know, turn the corner to the hallway, There's like two police walking the bachelor party, right? And as we walk down, they're like, Mr. Belville, you don't want to go in there. It's like, you really, I'm like, I have to, I have no choice. I must, you know, it's beyond my control. And we go in there and it hits you, like, the whole thing is just complete insanity, music blasting, you know, hookers dancing this way and that way. People just engaged in sex. And we get to the back of the room, and there's this, you see the scene in the movie, by the way, where he was a snapshot of one team with this pink sheet hooker.

And there's like a line of guys. and one guy is having sex with, right? And we're watching this, like, disgustingly vile act. Anyway, long story short, is something happens. I can't say, it's just too disgusting. But something happens, like, after the guy pulls out and, you know, you can't imagine what the woman looks like after that. And it's like this really the most disgusting vagina in,

it's like the world's most polluted vagina, basically, ever to exist on planet Earth, right? It's not there, okay, right? And we're all looking at, like, and you have to look, There's a morbid curiosity takes over. You're like, you just want to take a leg. You're like, oh, my fucking God. And this guy was like number eight on the line of 20, right? Right, right?

Right. Oh, my God. I'm not this guy anymore. I'm like married. I'm happily married. I wouldn't have to clip that because people are good. This is what people like to hear them. They like the morbidate.

They like this stuff. You know, what can I say? It's so interesting and fascinating. And it's like people, that's why people like to look at like a bad accident. Or like, or they don't have a life like that. Well, this was a fucking 10-year train wreck. But by the, in so much. The fact that you're not dead is unbelievable.

I know. And I look pretty good considering. That's what I'm saying. The drugs, nothing even like aged you. It's a testament to the human liver, right? So the liver stays in, I didn't drink a lot. I think that was the big thing. I didn't drink much.

A little bit not much. That wasn't the big thing. It was mostly just drugs. Drugs. Like quit, you love the Kuiluz and cocaine. Yeah, were the big ones, right? And a lot of Xonets and Clonopin and morphine because it was cool and awesome. And I just did massive.

of quines of drugs, right? I never met a drug I didn't like, right? And the old LSD, not much, right? But anyway, this story, the bachelor party, yeah. Anyway, so we were all looking, and Elliot is next to me, the most, the brands of us all, and he goes and grabs a bottle of champagne, shakes it up, and then something happens, right? Something so disgustingly vile that it tore through the fabric of space slime. Like, all of a sudden, everyone just stopped, like, in hot, like, everyone just froze,

and you're looking at this thing, you're like, I can't believe it, right? And then he's like, it's like he's, it's like he's gargling anyway, but then like, I'm like, I have to go. I can't watch this. It's just too disgusting. What was it? I can't say it. But it had to do with like a champagne bottle and drinking it, you know, and the whole thing, you know, vagina.

Yes, I understand. I get it. I get it. I don't want to say it, okay, because it's just too gross, right? And he drinks and goggles. And everyone's like frozen in horror, like frozen in horror, right? And then I'm like, fuck, I got a belt. And I walk out and I leave.

the party and I go downstairs, take like four or five Xanax and go to sleep because I'm just disgusted by the whole thing, right? Next morning, I wake up and I put my, I had like two million dollars, a million, eight, and the money I brought down, like a million seven, a million plus I one seven to put it in the safe, right? I wake up next morning, Elliot's shaking me awake, right, and he's like, we got to get out of here. This place is too depraved. I'm like, you're telling millions to get, he's like, let's go, let's go, we got to go. He's like, all right, let's go. We got to go. I go to the safe. My money's gone. He took my, he's not only he'd lose his 2.5, he took by 1.7, he ended up losing like $40 million gambling this guy.

It was like unbelievable inside a day. So anyway, I write this- 40 million that. He lost that and that, like, probably 4 million. But over the next six months, everything, he was like just, and then lost his job. And I, he came back to again and became rich again with Jordan-ass jeans. Brilliant Garmento, this guy. Like, no one, he was brilliant, but so self-destructive, really, but unbelievably smart and talented, charismatic, right? But anyway, so this scene that starts when we fly there with all the hookers, right? And someone gets shot in the knee along the way, no big deal. New York cops are with us, protecting us.

The whole thing's just like, and I write the whole thing. It's like 22 pages, an excruciating detail of everything that happened, all right? Down to Ellie to take my money and then imploding and then he drowns in my pool and I save him. It's a whole thing, right? And I send the pages to my publisher, to Diane Perez. and I'm waiting for one that she to say about that, you know, right? And then maybe like five days later, I get back and I'm back with that ex. And I open up, she's on the front page.

I just don't think other human beings will understand. And then I don't think I look at it is an X here and X there and the whole thing. So in my first book, The Wolf of Wall Street, right? Yeah. There's like this part where I describe the back. In detail, I describe this whole story, will up the money because it's a true story. Yeah. It's vetted truth.

And nothing's fabricated. No, there's 300 witnesses. No, nothing is exaggerated. 300 witnesses, right? So the whole thing, we won all this money. He took everything. But in the middle, I say, we walked to the back of the room, okay? And it says, I open the door, and there's the bachelor party.

And it was so depraved they had to walk out. Like, there's the whole thing cut out of the thing. You get it? I went downstairs to, like, she's like, and if you read it fast, like, oh, it was depraved, but the whole thing was described, you know? Wow. And no, and it wasn't in there. It wasn't in the book. So then when Marty, the movie, I'm like, Marty, you want me to, he goes, yeah, I want to see this pages. So you saw the pages. I think the first version of that was, they had to cut because it would have gotten NC17.

Get out. So they said for that little still shot, you know, that kind of said something happened with a guy screwing a book. Right, right, right. It was still pretty like, raunchy for like a movie, but it was still, it could have been, that was like, it was like watch. It's like the smirfs compared to what really happened. You know, the problem with the whole, why these things happen, you know, like these insane things, right? Is that we were like action junkies, you know? Yeah. You know, and it's like almost like what's next. It's like you keep looking for a higher and higher cliff to dive off of it, a shallow and shallow pool to land in because what was, like, the first thing we did that was, we thought was insane.

We shaved someone's head to $10,000. And we're like, oh, my God, it was great. But then, you know, three months later, head shaving is $50. Like, it doesn't have the same impact. So let's shave a girl's end this time. Right, because you could always up the ante, right? And it never gets to that place. But then, okay, how did you even get Leonardo DiCaprio?

Were you able to pick him? I picked him. Yeah, I picked him in Scorsese. How did you get that chance? Tell me, like, how it worked. What was the process? And this is where I would say, like, the hard work of writing. So I spent a year teaching myself to write.

What really happened is this is I came up with a style of writing where I took what was nonfiction and wrote it like fiction. And my book reads like a novel, but it's true. Okay, it's true, but it reads like a novel, which is different from almost every memoir that you would read because usually the person has a ghost writer. Yeah. Okay, or if they write themselves, they didn't spend the amount of time.

I taught myself to write as if I was a novelist, like Tom, because Tom works a novelist. He started off as nonfiction. And by the way, that's the beauty of bonfire. is he wrote, you know, nonfiction, but it was almost like it was, he wrote fiction, it was fiction bonfire, but he wrote it like nonfiction.

Like he did so much research into stuff, right? So it was so believable. I did the opposite, using his style. I wrote what was nonfiction, and it read like fiction. So, and I spent so much time, and I did do a very good job writing that book. Everyone loves that book.

And so when Leo read the book, he was like, holy shit. Was it a massive seller before you, the movie deal before you even got the movie deal. Yeah. Well, no, it wasn't out before the movie. That's what I said. I thought you got the book after the, yeah.

So Leo, Leo read the book before it was even a, it was a manuscript. It was just a manuscript. It was it edited. So the editing was done. Okay. It was the original version was 1500 pages and my editor and I would have down to like 538, it's like that, right? So a lot of stuff got cut, right?

Wow. I overwrote the book, right? So when that was a manuscript, My producer, a woman named Alexandra Milchon, one of the sharpest ladies I know, brilliant producer in Hollywood, right? She slipped that manuscript to Leo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Mark Wahlberg, right? Ultimately, and Walberg loved it too. He wasn't quite as big a star yet.

Now it was massive, right? And he was done great too. I love Mark Wahlberg. But at the time, it came down to, George Clooney was too old. He would have played the FBI agent, right? So it came down to Leo and Brad Pitt both wanted the book. was a bidding war between the two of them. So, like, over a weekend that was, when bidding went up and up and up, each side said, whatever they pay you, we'll pay you 10% more. So the book, the price of the sale kept

going up and up. And finally, Leo calls and goes like, I have Martin Scorsese attached. He's going to direct. Marty read the book. He loves it to. He'll direct. And I, and by that, the truth is, I always loved Leo. Like, I thought Leo was the perfect person. You know, I love Brad Pitt, too, but Leo was no. You did it perfect. Right. And so I sold it to Warner Brothers with Leo on behalf of Leo. party, right? And then a man named Terrence Winter, a brilliant screenwriter, adapted the book. We spent a lot of time together. And he took my book and put it into a format that became the movie. There's many changes after. But it was the movie, that first script. And everyone loved this first script so much. It was in 2000. And the book hadn't even come out yet. The book was because it was late

to come out in September. And now we're like in June. And everyone loves the script. I get a call from Leo's manager, Rick Yon, saying, dude, we're green light in the movie. We're going to we're going to go. We're looking at the South State. I'm like, what? Like, it never had, like, when someone options a movie, it's a very slim chance it ever gets made. It usually doesn't get made.

Right? People, it goes on for, right, right? But Leo loved the role in why I loved it. They, the whole thing worked out. And then the writer strike hits, the 2007 writer strike. And the movie, and it's not, the script is not ready. And they all will put their pen down. Leo and Marty go off and do Shutter Island because it was ready.

Yeah. And the window closed. And one thing about Marty, who is the most talented directors in the world amazing, but he moved slowly. When he's with a picture, he's with it for years. It's very slow. So now it became the brutal wait for Marty to be ready again. And like Leo's easy because he does a movie. He's next, next. And so we're trying to get it done. And we just, the stars could not get a line. And on and on it goes. And then 2008, the financial crisis hits, right? And I can't sell another book because no one's buying anything. I'm completely broke again.

I'm freaking out. And with my then wife, I was, you know, my partner. I'm kind of love, but she's like, my wife, and I'm like, I hate writing, and I hate writing so much. And I can't even sell anything right now. I was working on another book, but no one would buy it because no one had money, right? And I'm like, she's like, what do you want to do? I said, like, you know, maybe I should go and try to be a speaker, you know? And I'm like, let's do that. And I remember this moment, I called my book agent, it was Joel. And I said, Joel, listen, you know, I really want to go and try to do some speaking events. He's like, oh my god you're a great speaker it's great just you gotta wait till the movie gets made then they'll

come for you and i'm like what did you say he's like you wait for the movie i'm like are you i'm not fucking wait i got so and i like the guy but i was like i was like that is how you go out and become successful wait for the movie i can be waiting the rest of my fucking life for the movie to get made and i slammed the phone that i said i don't give a fuck i'm gonna do this right and i went out and i started with giving free speeches of colleges at the first speech was free some girl you know a big fan i want to bring you to my college i went for free did a few free speeches and when i did the first free speech the kids weren't wild and i was like holy christ it's like something that comes naturally to me right they went crazy right and then the

first person that booked me was like a five thousand dollar event for some entrepreneurs thing never even fucking paid me and i flew new york they put me in a tiny little room the size of a fucking railroad car right i mean i went through shit and it was just getting started right and then i was just talking about the inner game of success i wasn't even teaching sales yet because, you know, I had created so much mayhem with my last time I taught sales. I was like, I don't want to talk about it anymore, right? Because I had my own negative actors about, right? But then something happened and I was at some event in Australia. So I had already a big following from the book around the world. So I did a tour in Australia and I met a guy

that he goes, I want to take you to England. It was only the inner game of success. No sales or business, right? Just, you know, mindset, right? But it was really compelling. And I goes, dude, I got to bring you people going to love this stuff in England, right? And I went to his company. I flew me to England. I went to his company, England. And he had a phone room, like, like 20 people on the phone because he was doing some stuff with trading, right? And he had they were selling trading programs, right? And I listened to his sales, but my, dude, people suck. I'm like, he goes, I know they're the fucking worst, right? He goes, that closing rate is just like horrific. I said, if you want, I'm happy to train him for. I'll teach him the straight

line. He goes, what's that? I'll show you a straight line. So he calls all his people into a room, all right? The name of the company was called knowledge. The video is still around. Knowledge to action, right? Now, at the time, I had my first shoulder surgery already. I already had, so I was actually in a, I think for the second one, I was actually in a sling from him. I rotate a couple of bit, right? But anyway, so I calls people, he calls people in, all right? And they had this big, they had this script that sales manager wrote this fucking script that was like a big piece of oak egg in a circle. It was the most toxic piece of shit, right? It was like the opposite of the straight line. It was the circular bullshit, right? And I took a blowtorch and lit it on fire in front

like 20 people, all right? I say, guys, this is the biggest salesman, just like, you're going to see, right? And I start teaching the straight line system, which is what I invented to teach all these, and the guy who was a seminar promoter's like, holy, when I was done, he's like, why the fuck are you talking about the inner game of success? Because this is the most, I never heard. This is, there's nothing fresh in the world of seven. Everyone's saying the same shit again. No one's ever said this before. This is like, where this? I said, well, this is what I taught. He goes, dude, you're going to make. billion dollars on this thing.

Yeah. This is, you're like, don't fuck that, right? So I was like, really? And still I was like, I don't know if I want to teach sales. He's like, buddy. And I went back three days and what happened is he was closing about 20 sales a month

from his room. The next month they close like 328 sales. Really? Oh yeah, yeah. A massive fucking success blew up his biz, right? And what happened was I still didn't want to teach it. Because I was like, oh, last time I taught it, you know, people lost money.

It was terrible. I just, I was, I really wanted to just, give value. And I didn't want to teach something I thought would hurt people because I made some huge mistakes. There's no doubt. Like now in hindsight, I can feel great. I've redeemed my life and, you know, and the whole thing I've been, but I still at the time was very new. And I felt terrible. People lost money. I was happy about that. And I wanted to come back and rebuild my reputation. I said, I'm never going to do anything again. If people don't get a, if I charge a thousand dollars, I want to think they got 10,000 in value. That was on my mind. And I didn't want to teach things that

might hurt people, right? So I wasn't in the straight lines really freaking powerful. What is it? What is this straight line system. It's an incredibly powerful system of sales and persuasion. And you can, I sell courses now, but like you can get enough, I give enough stuff away for free. You don't need to buy my courses. If you want to buy my courses, you can buy them. And it's very organized, but you don't, it's not how I make my money. And I, but I, and I love teaching it. And there's so many videos on you can't suppress stuff that you, he's always on YouTube if you want. Yeah, I want to watch it. People don't want to pay, we'll pay. And they can go buy it. It's amazing. The course, it would give me like the basics of it, of how it would work.

What it is, really, is that, like, if you ask the average person, like, you know, a salesman, that's not trained, but they might be a decent salesperson, right? Like, you know, what do you do when you sell? Like, what's actually happening? If I ask you, you're probably a very good salesperson, you're a good communicative. And I ask you, what do you do when you sell? Like, you know, what would you say? Oh, you're asking me?

Yeah, what would you do? What is selling to you? What do you do? What makes you a good salesperson? I don't know if I am. I mean, I think, you are, but what do you do? What would I do? I would tell you all the benefits of what it is.

and how it would help you. Okay. I would be focused on you. Right. Not about, is that not right? Well, it's right, but there's a bigger answer. Like, it's not incorrect. Yeah, of course you do that.

You're also very good at building rapport, right? Yeah, very good at that. Right. Your energy, you can match energy really well, right? Yeah. You come off as a figure of authority, right? So people will listen to you because you're in authority. All these things you do, right?

Right. But what's really, what really happens, what sales really is at the highest level, it's the transference of emotion. And the emotion you're transferring is certainty. Now, if I'm going to buy, like, for example, if you're going to be selling me, whatever it is, this is Slate. Slate.

Which is, by the way, amazing. Slate, right? So, it's Slate, right? So, okay, how sure are you? How sure are you this is amazing? Well, I love the taste. I'm very sure. Incredibly sure.

So I want to 10, where are you? One to 10. 10. Okay, right. Where am I? You're at zero right now. Really? No.

One, two, three. Who fucking knows? Right. How could you know? I don't know. But the moment I looked at this can, I landed at a seven and a half. Why? Yeah.

Okay, the packaging looked good. I trust, I don't trust you. So immediately, everything I know about, any of you drinks, coffee, whatever, French, Fonella. Immediately my brain will take all my experiences and put me somewhere, because I'm from Earth. Whether you're selling cars, homes, slate, books, the person that you're trying to sell to, the moment they know what the product is, their brain will take every. everything they've heard, seen, experience, their prejudices, good bed, and land somewhere on this scale of certainty, right? But where are you? You're at 10. Why? Because you know, you know how awesome it is. So what's your job now? If you want to get me to that level of absolute certainty,

because, listen, where do you want me on the scale? If I'm in a three or four, am I buying this stuff? No. If I'm at a nine or 10, good chance, right? So what I would do is, and what I would naturally do is because it's the truth. That's why I can only really sell things I like. And it tastes right, by the way. It tastes amazing. There's 20 grams of protein, zero sugar. It's 110 calories. It's way better than all the other junk out there. And if you're into health or fitness or wellness, you would rather have this than like a bunch of junk. Totally. Right. So, okay, so those are all, those are all features, right? And then the benefits are to be how it made me feel. But the point is, is that if you're a salesperson, whatever you're saying,

the salesperson needs to enter at this level of absolute certainty, right? And then their job is they want to transfer that certainty to the person they're trying to sell to, right? To make them hopefully as or close to as certain as they are, right? So let's say you do that. Okay. Right? Let's say you do that, right?

And when you're done, give me the features and benefits and you know a great job. And I'm like, wow, this shit's really good. I'm like, wow, this stuff is really good. It's a 10, right? Question, will I buy? Well, like, bye, yeah, yeah, the answer is not yes and the answer is not no. The answer is maybe. Right. I said, yeah, yeah, like I want to hear what you're going to say. Maybe, yeah, well, right, why is it maybe? Because what if in the process of you making me certain you did it in a way that maybe not trust you or not like you? What if the way you talked to me? It offended me. So, yeah, you convinced me it's great. I'm like, but I don't trust this person. Am I going to buy from you? No. Right. So it's not enough that.

they love the product, they also have to trust the salesperson or the person who's presenting them with the product, right? So let's just say those, let's say you did that well, right? Would I buy now? The answer still is maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I wouldn't. Why? Because what if I don't trust the company that manufactures the product? There's something about this. It's an unknown company. I don't know how they are. I don't really know how the, and sometimes that can be very profound in certain industries. Sometimes it's less important. But the bottom line is this. It's not enough for any one of those things. What you're doing is a salesperson. is you aligning all three of those elements.

You're trying to increase someone's certainty for all three of these things. They want the product, yourself, the company that stands behind the product, right? And then the goal is to get them to that 10, 10, 10 in a single moment in time. And then you ask them to purchase, right? Now, there's more to it than that because there are all these rules of persuasion, for example.

So let's say you know you have to line those three elements up. Well, the million dollar question is, how? How do you go about doing that? Right. Well, there's another side to this that has to do with how you're initially perceived. And then we get back to how I invented the straight line, which was back at Stratton when I had this situation where I was closing in a very high level and so was Danny. We were killing it, right? I invented a new, I found a niche in the stock market, right? And untapped Mitch, right? And what happened was I was closing at 50%. Danny was in the 40s, 40%, right? And my 12 kids who

had the average IQ of Forrest Gump on three hits of acid, right? Not the sharpest tools of the shed. No Ivy League diplomas, they were like the, you know, basically no members of the lucky sperm club. Right. They were 18 to 20 year old kids that barely clawed the way in a high school. Kids that were never told by their parents, they were capable of greatness, in any greatness they had in them. Naturally was beaten out of them since the day they were basically born, right? Right. So those are my people, right? Right. And I already taught them a system of how to close average moms and pops on penny stocks. Right. $500 trades. Easy to do. And my system worked. But when I found this new system,

which was selling five to $10 stocks to the richest 1%. We didn't call people that we were all multi-millionaires, we called, right? So I was able to do it. Danny was able to do it. And these 12 kids a month later hadn't closed a single account. I was making millions of dollars. Danny was making millions. The kids were making zero after a month, right?

So I'm like, how is this possible? We're calling the same people using the same script, right? Same stock, same everything, same leads. I'm at 50% closing rate. Dennis is in the 40s. They're at zero, right? And for a month, I couldn't figure it out. And I was already considered to be like an amazing sales trainer at this point.

But something was missing. Anyway, long story short, I stumbled on it. After a month of just like banging the head against all, reading every book about sales. I tried everything, nothing work, nothing to get these kids to close. And finally, one night was like this, I was giving one, a marathon, like five-hour training session at night to my 12 guys, right? And I looked at them, guys, I don't get it. You know, I'm doing it.

Danny's doing it. I know you can do it too, right? And like, what's the problem? They stood yelling, there's too many objections. One guy goes, there's a thousand objections. So I was, yeah, there's a thousand objections. Another guy goes, we can't even get our pitches off. They keep cutting us off.

The rich people are assholes. So someone says, there's a thousand objections. Great, tell you what, and that whiteboarder, let's write all thousand objections down, right? I said, come on, let's call them out, right? And so it's a long, so I'm going to keep going here. No, this is fascinating. So, like, is it like the takeaway clothes you do? No, nothing about that.

Nothing about that. Nothing about that. Okay, so what do you guys? Go on? Completely different, right? So, so I said, guys, write them, what are that? Call out. Someone goes, they want to call back.

I said, great, what else? They want to think about it. I wrote that down. What else? They want to call their wife. They paused. I'm like, what else? Silence.

My guys, that's four objections. There's 996 to go. Let's fucking go, right? And on and on, they went, on and they're calling out every conceivable objection they could think of. And at the end of the day, the ball was filled with objections. You know how many? 14 fucking objections.

Not 1,000, 14. And half of those were repeats of two. It was like, I want to speak to my wife, my partner, my business, my lawyer. Or it's a bad time. It's Christmas time. It's back to school time. It's fucking leafy, ground arms day. Bullshit.

I don't speak to Santa's the fucking tooth fairy, right? And in that moment, I got so pissed off, right? And I looked at them and I'm like, you guys are unbelievable. You're whining about these thousand objections. There's 14, and even half of them are repeats as too. But you know what? Even those don't matter. I'm like, don't you guys get it?

And suddenly this thought pops in my head. I'm like, every sale's the same. And they're like, what? Like, I mean every sales the same? You know, see, by their expressions, every sale's different. People have different needs, different values, different pain points, different experiences. They say different things, right? They're like, every sales different.

Like, guys, every sale's the same. Watch. And this idea pops in my head. And I'm like, it's a straight line. I draw a straight line across the board for the very first time. I put a big fixed X on either end. I say, this is your open where the sale begins. This is the close.

And then I start teaching this system with a straight line. And then I said, I'll leave it out. And you go and see this on videos on you. It's all over YouTube, right? And then I said, now, guys, when you were selling penny stocks and it was easier, every once in all, you get an easy laydown sale, right? That doesn't happen anymore. What's happening is this.

And I realized something. It hit me. They were saying they kept getting. cut off. People were, the rich people were assholes. They couldn't even get their pitches off, right? Now, guess what? I was not getting cut off. People never cut me off. I was getting the same objections they were getting, right? But I was getting at the end after I asked for them to buy. That's what I asked for the order. They were getting cut off in the beginning. And I'm like, it just hit me. It was so profound. I'm like, wait a second, I'm not having trouble getting my

pitch off. People listen to me. And I'm like, and then it hit. me. I said, guys, when you're speaking to smart people, when you're speaking to be, everyone's smart. Now, we all got smart girls, right? When you're speaking to people are smart and educated, you have four seconds to establish three crucial things. I'll tell you what they are. Number one, you must be perceived as being sharp as attack. Number two, enthusiastic as hell, and number three, most important of all, an expert in your field. You got four seconds to do it because people judge books by that covers. We seize people, we size them up, we make a snap judgment, and here's what happens. If you're perceived the right way, sharp, on the ball, enthusiastic, and most

deploy an expert, what do you do in the presence of an expert? You defer. You let the expert control the conversation. We've been conditioned since we're yay big. When we're little kids, you're sick, where do you go? Parents take you to the doctor. The doctor dresses a certain way, even your own parents defer to the doctor, right? When the doctor says to you, so how long it's been, you don't say, well, how long has heard of your time? You answer their questions honestly and forthrightedly, right? So we have been conditioned with coaches, two years. If there's adults you need advice on taxes, you hire an accountant. You want to trouble, you hire a lawyer, right? We seek out experts to help us solve our problems. And when we're in the presence of an expert,

what do we do? We defer. We let them control the flow of the encounter. Right. But when you're in the presence of someone you believe is a novice, what do you do? You try to take control. Right. What was happening is I was a natural born close. as was Danny, right? And I taught Danny something about sales, but he took to it like a fish to water, right? So when people would hear my voice from the second I opened up my mouth in the first few seconds, they're like, fuck, this guy's sharp. This guy's an ex. I sat, I was coming off a certain way. Yeah. And they weren't. I was using certain, and a million dollars, so how do you do that? Is it the words you say? Well, it really can't be, right? What could you say to

someone in four seconds? Right. I'm sure. I'm an expert. I'm an expert. I'm an expert. So you sound like an asshole, right? So you do it through unconscious communication. Tonality, body language. Certain tonalities you use in person, body language. And what happens is people, you fall into this, you hit this box in their mind, they're unclassed, that this is an expert. So what do they do? They defer to you. In that moment, when they defer, it opens up the possibility to make every sale the same. See, if you're in control of the sale, you can now run a strategy. Let's say, I'd say intuitively I knew these three things. See, I knew these three things had a line up.

I never thought about it before. I did it automatically because it was natural born closer. Right. I was doing all of these things that were like perfection in sales. I closed it outclosed anyone I ever went up against when I was very young even. Naturally, I just knew what to say. And there are other people around the world that are natural born closes, but most people aren't. Right.

So how do you teach it? Well, what happens is, but what the straight line does is this visual and you see it play, you're like, oh my God. and I break it down into each of its components and I give you a step-by-step formula and it always starts with this. You must learn how to take control of the sale to be perceived the right way as an expert.

Once you learn how to be perceived as an expert and sharp on the board, it opens up a universe because now you can actually say, all right, I'm going to do this first, you have a logical progression. And if you know what things have to line up, you can then line them up the same way

and that's what I was doing. And when I taught this, and there's much more, this is a very, I've gone for three hours with this, right? I teach this around the world. I'm like three days in a time, right? But the point is that when someone that is, and in which most people, there's a spectrum, some people are just awful.

Many people are decent. Some people are talented. They don't understand strategy. But there's a spectrum. When they learn the straight line, it's like a monitor from heaven. So you could take someone that's terrible at sales and make them good.

Not like me. You make them good. It's not going back, right? You take someone who's good and make them amazing. Take someone who's amazing. They'll be one of the top closes in the world. So it works for everybody in every industry, and it's easy to learn.

Easy to learn. So I think what really... Did the 12 men learn, the 12 people learn that? They didn't... So they hadn't closed a sale in 30 days. That next morning we came back and they went on an account opening spree of such biblical proportions.

They were all millionaires in 90 days, and Stratton became the largest firm in the country selling 5. I thought we had 3,000 people. That was, the success of Stratton was based on the straight line. It was the straight line that fueled Stratton, not the stocks. Right, right, right. And the problem was, is that the mistake I made was I didn't understand enough about creating

the better, better company. So, like, my ability to sell out view my ability to create the right stocks. Right. And that was a problem. And then, of course, you know, it doesn't help when you're doing six quailards a day and snorting cocaine and, you know, partying six nights a week in the city. And it became like, you know, it was like, it was like, it was like the most fun place It was before, like, you know, people had smartphones.

Yeah, of course. You know, now you're being deep shit, right? Of course. But it was different time, different social rules, you know, and we had our own set, even within those, you see how things are now. So things were different there, but even then, we had our own alternative universe inside the four walls of the boardroom, like all things. You know, people would walk in there, when they walk in the board, and what the fuck?

It's like animals running around, hook, well, not hooks, but, you know, girls and minisk. I can't even imagine. And okay, so by the way, we got kind of off of, although that was very fascinating, and I actually want to know how you would, how you would sell that. I'm curious. How would you get someone to attend? What? If you were selling Slate or, you know, Ferrisage or whatever, what would like, this is. What I would do, I'll tell you, because there's a great, is it, if you only wants to watch a video, yeah, or be selling, there's a great video, you're doing just this thing. It was in Australia, and it was selling a financial services package to some guy, right?

A CEO, right? It was actually staged, though. It was staged by a psychology company that was trying to understand the straight line and break into psychological components, right? They spent a lot of money, paid me a lot of money to do this. It was like in 2010. And what they did is they gave me what are called critical incident scenarios, right? And it's where they hand you like a dossier, right?

And they say, okay, here's a fur coat company. And they give you like this big, all things. And these are your customers, go prepare. and then we're going to film you, how would you sell it, right? I did it for a few things, for a co-company, automobile, and then they did this thing with this financial services package, right? Right. And they gave me this big dossier.

It was about a milk company, dairy company, right? That was big in Australia, and they wanted to expand into China, and they were looking for better banking relationships and so forth, blah, blah, blah. And they said, okay, you got 15 minutes to prepare, right? And then we're going to call them this as an actor, who's a CEO, and we want you to close from the cameras, everywhere, just like this, lights, cameras, right? want to tape it and see how you go about doing it. I'm like, all right, great. So they hand me the dossier and start reading through it, I'm writing some shit down and looking

the whole thing to find facts about the company, right? They're coming in like 20 minutes later and they're like, are you ready? I'm like, can I have more time? They're like, yeah, sure, take as much time as you want. I said, great, thanks. I kept writing, looking at my stuff, planning it out, right? 30 weeks like, are you ready? I'm like, just give me a little more time. All right, no problem. 30 minutes more. Like, ready? No, just give me 15 minutes. Well, finally, after an hour and 45 minutes, right? I said, okay, I'm coming in, right? Yeah. The psychologist sit down in the corners.

The cameras are rolling. The guy comes in. He's the guy. He's really talented. I mean, he was fucking really good. He acted like the CEO and knew everything about the company. And we start getting into this sales, right, on camera. And I'm using the straight line at a very high level, right?

And I'm using all the things I know how to do. And I'm, you know, moving him down the straight line, so to speak, right? And then it's really going well. I asked him to buy and he wants to think about it. And I do what's called looping. And I loop back. I do another thing, blah, blah, blah, all these things that you would learn with a straight line.

And I asked for the order again, and he's close, and he's like, nah, no, I just, let me just speak to my part in the first, and then I do another loop again, and I pull out one of my most powerful language patterns, right? And I guide him into this perfect close. Like, it's almost, it's impossible him to say no, right? And he's like, nah, I just, I can't do it. So I'm like, all right, double secret probation. I do one loop back again.

I raise his, it's called his pain threshold, another impeccable rap I give him, right? And I asked for the order again, just believe me, you will not be sorry. Does that sound fair enough? He's like,

fine, I'll do it. And he puts his head and he starts cracking up. And the psychologist pop up. Everyone's like, what the hell just happened? I'm like, what,

what happened? They're like, we paid him to say no. He wasn't allowed to say yes. Are you serious? Yeah, he goes, we told him you cannot say yes under any the guys like you were too compelling i couldn't say i felt like an idiot and he couldn't okay now so

and then they go but that's not even the craziest part i'm like what's the craziest part he goes we tested 50 other people on the same scenario no one closed the guy i'm like okay well that doesn't surprise he goes no one spent more than five minutes looking at the material wow i'm like what they're like no one spent more they just skimmed it and the guy came in you studied for an hour. I'm like, of course I did. I couldn't sell this to you. You say, you know what I would do? I'd say, give me all the fucking, and I would come up with the most perfect way. Why? Because I know I have to line three tents. I have to sell, I need three or four ways to sell you on this product. Logically and emotionally, I'm certain, I want no features. I want to, I could wing it and do a decent job because I'm good at this stuff.

But to really do it, I would sit there and prepare myself for a couple of hours and write it all out. So I had it basically sort of met. I wouldn't have a script for me. I want to know, and in my own mind, I know exactly where the sale was going to go before. I would take immediate control by coming on like an expert. Because you were an expert by that point. And also, I just make my ability to use tone. But here's the thing. I can sound like an expert even if I'm a novice with something.

I've trained myself and you can. Now, I don't suggest this. But one of the biggest problems with salespeople is they feel like they're just getting started in a certain career with a certain product. And they don't feel like they have the confidence and they don't want to sound like an expert. You can't do that. You have to, future pace, you have to act as if. So you can sound like an expert even when you're not. There's many people out there who are fucking experts, and they sound like novices.

So it's not really what you are. It's what you sound like. Now, that might sound ethical. No, it's so true. But here's what I don't. I'm not saying you should pretend to be an expert and just do that. No, while you're closing the knowledge gap, you should be studying your ass off every day, becoming an expert.

But there's no reason you can't sound like one day one. they won. You get it? So the first thing I'm selling, I think, I sound like I know more about it. And I'm very good at putting words together. This is natural town. So some people will struggle a bit more. Maybe they'll close a bit lower. But anybody with practice and hard work can become an expert and you can learn to sound along by using certain tonalities. That's great, though. I mean, that's true. I agree with that. Because if you do, the more information you have, obviously you're going to be able to be better. How are they going to close this guy? I was able to, I was saying to this thing to this guy about his business. He didn't know. He didn't

read the thing. I read the fucking statistic. I read every fucking statistic. I had things about like the difference in the current space of China to the wand and fucking swaps. He was like, he was rolling around. He didn't know what to do. And he just, I mean, it was so much that he felt like if he said, no, he'd be an idiot. And that's what he said. He was like, I felt an idiot. I said no. And is this in this straight line? It's on YouTube. I'm going to watch it now. Jordan Belfort's selling live. And at the end, you just everyone, you just didn't get cut off and they all stood up at the end. But that they were like laughing. And that's, I know why they were laughing. Right? Because the guy was

pay him to say no. Wow. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their trilight panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammation. and places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps,

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even out. Yes, so this is the best part of all. And you were getting better at it. So I built this huge business. How much were they, how much was your fee to even go speak? By the time before the movie today, I was getting over $100,000. So you were like a super successful speaker. Yes. The same people who were promoting Tony who were promoting me around the world, right? Wow. Yeah. So it wasn't, listen, it wasn't nearly like it is today. No. Obviously. Right. But, But like, but back then I was doing really, really well. So what happened was there was this four-year gap. Okay, wait, the movie came on in 2013, but, and I, I bought it in 2007.

Yeah. So when the first script was written, it ended with me going to jail. Yeah. That was the end of the movie. There was no, sell me this end. And there was no commercials with the straight line. Remember this in the straight line? That didn't exist because I didn't teach the straight line on TV before, but they, but what happened was when, when four years passed,

Leo comes to my house. Now, when he came to my house, the first time, I was living in a tiny little house, okay? Like a little tiny house. I had an apartment, like it was by 2000 a month, right? And four years later, he goes, I'm coming over. Let's celebrate. He comes over, and I'm living in a beautiful mansion

in Manhattan Beach on the water, like a 15 million. He was like, what the fuck happened to your life? That's hilarious. I'm like, oh, no, I rebuilt my business in four years. He's like, what do you do? I do these seminars. I teach skills, show me. So I put the video up of, you know, Frank Kern,

of that name you exactly? He was an old internet market. in the back. It was very popular many years ago, right? I had this Frank current that I did. Everyone loved this tape. It was me on stage teaching the straight line. And I show Leo, he's like, oh my God, wait till Marty sees this. He goes, we're going to change the whole movie. He goes, it's going to be a comeback story. I can't. Oh, you just gave me the gift. You gave me the biggest gift. This is going to be 10 times better movie now because it's going to be like up. And then Marty saw this and was like, he became obsessed. I sent

Marty 50 videos on the straight line. There was a four hour cut of the movie before the final cut. was shown to some people probably that had like 10 times as much as well I loved the sales stuff because it was so they said so much about what really happened right and had a cut up because it was just too long but what happened was it created a those scenes where I come back with the right where I'm giving seminars I love that which is funny right they get arrested right and that was fictionalized like I wasn't teaching the straight line but they loved it so much they put it in there my new life

and the old and then they end the movie where I go to jail and ends up with me selling selling the pen, which is this iconic scene at the end. So I, you know, really, I rewrote my own life story while it was being made into a movie. I changed my own ending through hard work, perseverance, and some luck too, but mostly hard work and perseverance. You know what I'm saying? That is so amazing. So when did they actually start filming the movie? 2012. Oh, and they turned it around that fast. Very fast. So then, okay, then how much did you sell the script for? Complex. So I sold it originally for an option. So I got back a total in the beginning. beginning, I got, before it was bought, I got about $700,000 for just an option money.

Oh, just option, okay. And then when the script was bought, I bet a million one more. And then did you get any back end of the movie? No, no. Are you serious? No, but there's something, I mean, I'm in litigation. I can't talk about it right now, but there's some things happening right now. Because that's like, no one thought probably how, that movie was, is, like literally

one the most popular movies of all time. Yeah, it's amazing. And, you know, it's funny. And girls and boys. I'll tell you the interesting thing, which is really what it's been so amazing for me in terms of my business, because when the movie came out, it was 2013, right? Kids are in, you know, high school. And I have fans of all ages up to like your mother would love the movie.

I mean, everyone, that's the thing. Women love it, men love it, kids love it. My sister was telling me her little nephew. It's insane, I know. Right? So, but like, here's the interesting thing, though. So in 2010, is a kid, let's say he's 16 years old, right? He's in high school and he's probably a junior or something, right?

Maybe he's a freshman or a sophomore. He watches the movie. He loves it. He sees it three times. He sees it five more times in college. He gets out. He goes into the workplace. He sees it ten more times.

He strikes it rich as a businessman. What does he do? He hires me to come speak and consult this company. So all these kids ate that will watch them. They were nice. They're all harting me now. I was going to just, you know what I was thinking. They age up.

And to teach them the straight line. and I teach this very ethical version that really empowers people makes sure they self ethically so I teach this ethical version and my business gets bigger every year because kids aging up. No, I swear, I was just thinking

like I want my son Dylan who's 11 to take a picture with you because he doesn't know you now. Right. But in a year, he's going to watch your movie in a couple of years, maybe now. I got to tell you, I have no idea like sometimes I'm shocked.

Like I was on the, I used to live in the Strand at Miami now, but I used to live in the Strand in Manhattan Beach. And one July 4th, I'm with my memory wife and we're playing back at him and like our house is right we're on the strand so people walking by and we're playing back at him and you know we're just like maybe five five feet off the strand in our little just one's chairs and i'm excuse me and i look and it's a kid like this big he's like seven years old he goes are you the wolf wall street i'm like yeah he goes i'm your

biggest fan i'm like where's your mother that's hilarious i was like you're he's like yeah i read the book i'm like yeah and movie too i'm like what the fuck i'm like what the fuck See? Do you get recognized all the time? Everywhere. Yeah, you should. Like, no, like, I can't, like, but TSA. Like, it's funny, right? I can't go through, if I go up in airport, I can't, like, TSA, every, you know, customs.

Do people go crazy for you? Yeah, people are very, they're always, the people could not be nice. And I've never refused a picture with one person that's ever asked me in. Do people freak out? Because, like, people are like, why are you here? I'm like, I have to be somewhere. That's 100%. Like, like, last night I went out with a friend of mine to a club here and it was, it was a floor or something.

And I don't go to close, but he enjoys me, we went there late, right? And there's one girl, she's like, oh, my God, oh, my. I'm like, well, I'm here. I have to be somebody. I'm here. You have to be somewhere. Why are you? What are you doing here?

Oh, my God. I just told them to that. I could, I would think even more than like a celebrity because it's like, they saw that your life story. It's like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you're, like, they saw your life story and it was so compelling. And like, it's just, I think it, that's why I was like so how I am so excited. But, but then okay.

Okay. So then like a movie gets made. So they. And you said that you have, you can't talk about all of it, but you sell it, you've made a million one from it. No, I could tell about that, but like I ended up just having to sue them late because the people that made the movie. I was going to say the Malaysian people,

the Goldman Sachs, exactly, where you were the finance shares. That's why I was, for the last four years, I've been in litigation with them to get some rights back, but we're going to settle. But that's the part that I need to ask you about.

So basically, who found them as the financiers for the movie. So to tell them who they are, the guy, they're in the news right now. Jolo. This guy, Raisa Aziz, right? There's a major Netflix movie on them right now.

Yes, it called Man on the Run, right? Yeah, Matt on the Run. Billion Dollar Whale was them too, right? So it was the Prime Minister of Malaysia's Stepson. Right. He was the founder of Rigman, right? And they came in with gang, like, money, like, and it was a poll. They were telling everyone was oil.

It was like Saudi oil money and they were, right? So no one knew, right? And at the time, I didn't know. No one really knew, you know? Right. And so, you know, I met with the CEO. I met with the production people. You did or did did Marty do it?

No, we did. I did, Leo did. We had a big lunch, right? So you were involved with the production of the movie? No, no, no, just to buy the movie. No, that's what I mean. You were involved. Like, after you sold it to Warner Brothers as an option and all the other stuff.

It just, no, it just sat there for like. Right, forever. When they finally got, when they finally, when I had this meeting with the Malaysians, right? Right. But wait, hold on. Let's go back a second. So then you stole the option. Then you get the million once the movie is now greenlit being made.

That's from the Malaysians. Oh, so, okay, go ahead. I thought what happened is Warder Brothers then gave you some money and they would take care of it. Option expired. I got the movie back. So I got two, twice, they paid me option money twice, but they never exercised the option. I got the property back. Then Leo and his manager found these Malaysians.

And at the time, no one knew they were crooks. No. Right? You know, they were just super rich. And then they spent money. I'd never seen people spend money. So I thought they were, at the time, I was like, this is just like, like the old scam of raising money and spending it.

Like, you know, it happens on venture capital. Like, you know, you raise a billion, because they were spending money like crazy. Crazy. But you didn't know it was stolen money. You thought it was just like, were milking the Irish. It was insane.

Right. And they had so much money. Right. Yeah. So I sold them the script thinking was legit. Everyone thought they were legit. Yeah, everyone did. And then right around the time the movie came out,

rumbling started happening. And like the money may have been diverted from like, at first I was like, I had whatever. It was upsetting. But, you know, and over time it built and built. Eventually, you know, they had to pay $60 million, right?

They disappeared. You know, one of them got indicted in the CEO of Red Gras. Got indicted in Malaysia. Jolo went on the run, the whole thing, right? Did he get a facelift to change his face? That's what I heard. You got to change. You could be Jolo, by the way.

Yeah, I could be. But I'm not that I know. Maybe you're never your Jolla. Yeah. You're not Jolo, are you? Uh-oh. We caught you. Yeah.

No, no. So anyway, I think he's in China, but that's the word. But. Oh, really? Yeah. So what happened was the rights, so the rights guys, sort of frozen and that's what it was we should have made a TV series and done all the stuff and and that's why I got into litigation with them to try to get the rights back and yeah so I don't

talk about any more about that I understand but but so yeah and those guys are you know one guy the CEO of Red Granite is like I think he's he didn't go to jail but like whatever you know he paid some money and that's that right and then but his father the premise is still in jail he got says the 12 years I think yesterday they reduced it to six and he's getting out soon in a year Jolo never found He's still away with the money in China somewhere. Wow. That is so crazy.

Who distributed the movie, though, wasn't it? Domestically was paramount, and then different companies all over the world. I can't even believe that. By the way, do you still talk to Leo, or do you still talk to... I do I speak to Leo? Yeah. He's amazing. He's the best.

I mean, you picked the best. I mean, he crushed that movie. He's the best. That movie is, like... He should have gotten the Academy Award. I cannot believe he did not get that. I mean... He got it the next year, the revenue.

He was, I had the free. to death and fucking got it or the guy that cat me it was. I should have got it for the Wolf of Walls for you. 100%. So how did it, like, so when that movie came out, how did it really change your life, though,

in a real way? Well, in stages. So what happened was, here's the interesting thing. So the movie comes out. Yeah. It's a huge shit. Right off the back.

Right. It's huge it, right? Did anyone expect it to be even close to that? They did. People who saw it. We knew it. When I saw the movie the first time, I was like, I mean,

everyone that saw it was like, what the fuck? No, it was, oh, Marga Robbie. Who picked her? Marty. Marty. I only picked Leo and I picked Leo and Marty. And then everything else was Marty after that.

So who was it between? Was it anyone between her? Margo, it was a few other actresses up for the role back then, but she was just head and shoulders the best. Beyond. She's so talented. And she's the beautiful human being in the world. She's the nicest person.

Everyone says that. Everyone says that. Ever fucking me. Like, seriously. Like, can you believe that you had like the, like the biggest of the biggest in like, you had, like, you had, Martin Scorsese do your movie, Leo DeCaprio. You didn't have like B-listers on this thing.

You know, but I go back to one thing about that. So, yeah, I mean, some, of course, it's lucky and some of it. But it goes back to, it was the hard work. Yeah. It was writing, it was the skill, the time I put in to learn how to write, which made, allow me to tell a story in a very compelling way that I wouldn't have able to do otherwise. Matter how good the story was, if I didn't have how to tell it the right way,

structure it, and put together the words in a way that people would laugh, and turned the page, it didn't matter how great this source. I served up to Leo on a silver platter. Totally. And then he saw it. And then he, of course, he's, and there was Leo's. And Leo was the one that drove it forward. It was Leo.

He's such a. It was his passion project and he knew. And it was, Leo believed in this so much, you know. So he really gets the credit for one. Scorsese came in at the, he was there in the beginning. And then he was like, he was less, you know, involved or interested. Well, yeah, he just didn't, he always liked it. But it was like he had other, he had his passion project, which was, I think,

what was that movie? made without the priest's going in whatever. It was a silence. He was desperate to make this movie silence. That was his passion project. So he didn't, nothing even like it. It just wasn't his passion. But then once he started, here's what Leo said. I ran, it was like maybe six months ago, Leo and I were in, um, Confield Festival, right? We were on a boat together. And we're having dinner, like when he's sitting next to me a dinner, right? And he goes, you know what? I'm going to tell you this. He goes, I have never seen Marty Scorsese as happy and carefree is when he was making the wolf of Wall Street.

Really? He was smiling every single day. Like, you never... And that made me happy to hear that. And I think also it reflects in the movie. Like, how happy he was and he was like this light... You know, he just had this, like,

this poem to it was light and... It was fun. Like, so many of his movies, I know he's phenomenal and a great... They had a darker, right? Yeah, not even not. Like, they drag a little bit, you know?

Like, this one, like, it hooks you the second it starts and it doesn't... You don't let go until the... Like, it is so... Watch a good movie, like, in terms of, like, from the beginning to the end, you know, like, the whole thing. He's a so, I mean, listen, you know, the script was amazing, but a lot can go wrong. A lot can go wrong.

And, like, he just took that script and we polished it. I mean, I polished every word that. Terry wrote an amazing script, but I worked myself at least 50 hours on that script also after Terry wrote it. I wrote the book, and I didn't write this. He wrote the script to gets credit, but, you know, I was, I made sure every word was authentic. and Leo did too. Like Leo painstaking of every fucking word.

Really? It was, oh my God. So like Leo, I spent a year with him. Like he was so intense from getting this right. Like, so he's talented, of course. Yeah. But he works his ass off. That's what I was going to say.

It sounds like it. No, he's like, he's like preparing for this thing like, you know, it was unbelievable. How come they always work together those two? I feel like they're like a pair. Well, for example, I think it's, there's others pairs, but they're one of the top De Niro and Scorsesey as well. But what is for an actor like Leo is a bad director could fuck up a movie. I mean, you could be the greatest actor in the world.

If it's a bad director, so for Leo, it's almost an insurance policy. So Leo will only work with really like Tarantino. He's very careful, Leo, with who he works with, right? Because, you know, he is talented as he is. The wrong director could fuck up the movie, right? And I think the same thing goes for a director is like, you know, they're great, but if the actors can't bring it to the table, able. Yeah. So there's a comfort. So I think that's why. Has any of this like, you know, it's funny,

like I feel like what happened with the, with jail and everything else, it doesn't seem like it affected you and it would most of other, like it didn't. You bounce back, I think, incredibly well and fast beyond anybody else. Again, how, why? How did that happen? It affected me, but in a positive way. So I think what happens, it was so important for me to go to jail. It was so important because so here's people say you know how did you turn your life around yeah and also nobody even i feel like we not that we forget but it doesn't affect your reputation like people don't that's not the first thing that i think of right well listen there's always some people who want to be assholes and let them have their good good for them they're entitled to feel what they want to feel

but 95% of the world feels the opposite and that's fine with me right exactly but here's here's the truth so like i didn't like have to change into becoming a good person from becoming a bad person if you believe in good and bad people or bad people doing good things. But what happened was I had to change back into the person I was originally. I was originally a really good kid. I had never gotten trouble. That wasn't in my life. My parents never.

I was raised by the most legitimate family. Everyone went to college. My brother's the top lawyer. My two first cousins are doctors from Harvard and famous surgeons. Everyone, no one got in trouble in my family. Also, you were just ambitious. Like, I feel like you didn't want to give you a trouble. went off the walls, right?

Right, but that can happen. In addition, it turned into greed, okay? And with massive drug abuse attached to it, right? But I don't blame the drugs. All the drugs did was help me quiet the critics. So, like, after I was doing shit that I should have been doing, because drugs make you feel better about it, right? But it wasn't the drugs.

It was really greed. And also, I have this thing I want to be the best at anything. So if I'm doing something bad, I've got to be the best. Exactly. Terrible, right? But what jail did is it, like, it was a recent, I need to become, what happened to me? What did I do?

What were my values that, like, so example, if you would have asked me at the age of 26, you know, what's the purpose of a business? I say the purpose of a business is to make money as much as you can. But in reality, that's not the purpose or the function of a business. The function of a business is to monetize value. So you have something of value and you build a business that allows you to deliver that value to a lot of people

in a cost-effective way. So you make a profit. The more people you help, the more money you make. But it's not you go into business. You don't go into business. I'm going to make money. is to monetize something of value, right? So today, like when I go out, from the moment I left jail,

I haven't engaged in one transaction, done one deal or brought something to the market that I didn't think I was giving a lot more value than what I was charging for it. Wait, are you allowed to do any financial stuff? Well, I do, yeah. So you weren't, like, you weren't bad for doing? I wasn't banned from trading or anything like that.

You weren't? No. So you can still do any of that stuff? I do it. I trade all the time. I don't trade. I invest. I don't believe in short-term trading, but I invest in the stock market.

I have some Bitcoin. I do a lot of venture capital. Are you allowed to have like your own private equity firm if you wanted to? I wouldn't want to. No, but are you allowed? Up to a certain amount of investors. Oh, okay. But I could not have anything that was regulated. But what I can't do is own a brokerage firm.

You cannot. I cannot. I'm a brokerage. But you don't know what I want to. Nor would you want to. But you didn't even go to jail for anything that actually people are not doing right now. Which is the irony. I think what happened was is like, I think people's view would be changed after 2008 when they're like, wait a second.

Like what they did on Wall, she was so much worse than what. I ever, I mean, listen, what I did was wrong. I never want to minimize that, right? Yeah, no, I understand. But I didn't bankrupt fucking Iceland. No. Or Greece. Like, no, in Wall Street, like, I mean, wow.

When that came out, like the, you know, there was blooped the world economy through complete fraud and greed and insane, selling shit products to institutions and pension funds and everyone's 401, right? It almost destroyed the world. Oh, did you know who Michael Milken is? Yeah, he's great. He's amazing. Okay, right.

And he got, he went to jail for. Oh, bullshit. No, he was, he did nothing, this guy. I was supposed to say, like, what I'm saying is, like, it was like something so, like, minimal and nominal. Yeah. In the, in the grand scope of what happens. And he's a legend. I mean, he's a legend, right?

He's amazing. Isn't what you did, though? Like, it was pretty nominal compared in the grand scheme. It's nominal in the grand scheme, but still, I never want to say that what I did wasn't wrong. Because it was wrong. But, yes, the amount, listen, you know, listen, I wish no one would have ever lost money from actions I took. But when you compare it to what happens, it's nominal. So the amounts are tiny compared to what happens every day.

It's insane. And that's kind of what the book, I wrote this book about, like, you have to avoid that. Right. I wanted to ask you a couple questions about that. Well, you have to avoid that whole. This book shows you like what to do to avoid all that shit. I was going to ask you a question, though. What do you think of crypto, Bitcoin, all of those?

I love Bitcoin. But isn't that considered to be like, we don't know what's going to happen? Well, come of your opinion first and then off. So I love Bitcoin, right, as a very long-term investment. Not to try to trade Bitcoin to make. money, all right? Bitcoin is 100% legitimate right now. It's all the biggest institutions on it. You have big ETFs, okay? Yeah. So it's like it's legitimate now. It's decentralized, okay? You know, maybe it's still manipulate it a little bit here, but not like in an organized way.

It's legit. I didn't think that many. I was a very, very bearish on Bitcoin for me. I thought it was the biggest scam ever. Yeah. I thought so, right? But I, but I just was my gut reaction. It was back then. It was being in the beginning. In the beginning it was. But the, but the, but the, but the idea, the coding was so brilliant that some people who were more insightful and sort of the knee, obviously, that, you know, got involved. And ultimately, it was like the lie became the truth. Yeah. Okay. So now there's enough large players and it's, I believe it's totally legitimate. I own a lot of it. And I think that over the next five to 10 years, it seemed to go much, much higher. Now, I don't think you, and I feel very differently about crypto, the rest of the

rest of the crypto. Okay, I was going to say, so that part you're okay with. But the rest of it, I really, I'm not saying they're all bad, but most of those coins or tokens, they have no function other than speculation. So if you want to speculate, that's fine and have fun and buy Dogecoin if you want to do this. But just know you probably get to lose all your money, but that's okay. If you have fun, maybe you'll make money, but you'll probably get to lose a lot of money, right? Right. So, but I think people should speculate because it's fun to speculate, but 95% of your capital should be the type of investments I talk about in the book, which are these sort of these index funds, which are the safest and the most,

they outperform everything else, okay? And there's a lot, and there's reasons why. And also, you don't need a lot to start. You can start, even if you're not rich, you can become rich over many years if you're smart and you just stay the course and not listen to the Jim Kramers of the world and all these people who are convince you to buy this, sell this shit, you know? You're never going to go on that on CNBC or whatever.

They did not invite me on CNBC. They used to invite me. I knew this book by time on CNBC, but I've, I've been on other stage among going on Fox a bunch of times. Yeah. I'll be on guttfeld soon next week, two weeks from now. He's great. So I go on, I love going on TV.

I love doing podcasts. But people, because you're such a great entertainer. Like when you speak, like you, like you're so enthusiastic. I am. It's like a pleasure talking to you. I love making people laugh because I think it's great. And I love educating people, but I think people learn more when they're laughing and they're engaged.

Yeah. So when I'm doing my events, so I try to mix, you know, humor and stories. with actual learnings. And at the end of the day, that's been a very, you know, a very profitable formula for me and incredibly even more valuable for people who learn these things.

I can't tell you how many people walk up like, you changed my life, you change, all, everywhere I go, you change, no one of it says, you fuck me, everyone's like, you changed my life. So it's like, that's, and they go through life like that,

what a great way to go through the rest of my life. Well, yeah, because you're actually giving people like actionable things that they can, like, they can do. It's not just you yamering on and on, but there's like things that they're like, It's compelling, and it's things that people can take away.

Exactly. Is that how you spend your, like, how do you spend your time? You're doing mostly speaking, speaking gigs? Mostly consulting for companies. Oh, you do that still? And some companies I own myself. What do you won't? Tell me what you want.

Different companies in the, um, different spaces. I don't want to get into pick the particulars, right? Because a lot of stuff I do is behind the scenes. Okay. Because when you're a celebrity, it almost takes away from stuff. I don't want to, like, some stuff is good. Okay. It's like, it's just, like, it's about the product, not about me.

Okay. But I do consulting for all different types of company. You name it. I've consulted in the industry. That's probably 60 to 7% of my business. Touring is probably 20% and products or maybe 10%, like the online products. I would imagine that you would be called from every major Fortune 100, 200 companies to go in and just train their sales teams. I've gotten, so that's interesting.

So I've gotten about, I would say, 30% of them. But the 70 percent, they're like, use the word fuck too much, you know? Really? Even though you'd be effective for them? Yeah, they use the word, fuck too much. So what they do is they buy my courses, I'm sure all the salespeople do. Like, for example, where was I in an event in New York? And I would say every major salesman everywhere.

Not all of them have hired me, but their salesmen, they say, yeah, go use the stuff. But like, I am, I admit that. You know, I am not for everyone. I think there's a lot of companies whose values, like I just, you know, I'm much more out there with the cursing and the, Yeah, but it's entertaining. I know. So the people love it, but sometimes it doesn't get by the eight.

A lot of times, like, I get hired and the HR kills it happens sometimes. And I get that, you know, and that's fine. Well, you know what it is. We're living in a very woke, liberal world, right? Which is not my cup of tea. Don't even get me. Don't even get me. I can talk about, we can do a whole podcast about this.

Don't get me fucking started, okay? Because I'm like the anti-woke bully. I fucking hate it. You and I both, okay? And so I think because of that, companies have to shy away from, anything that would be controversial or non-PC, which is a bunch of nonsense. Yeah. You know, like, I'm not a fan of what's going on in the world right now.

Me neither. Yeah. It's like a whole. It's the opposite of empowered thinking and living. It's the opposite. It's the, it's the antidote of that. Mentality. I know.

Like, exactly. Like, why this is not happening. I am enough culture. Like, God forbid that you, like, it's, it's, I know, we're going to wrap it up. Can we do this? I know he has to go. Will you come back on the? This podcast.

Any time you want. No, I'm serious. We can do like another one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we can do like part two and part 10. Yeah. I'm probably back to March. You are?

100% for sure, for over a week. Because this is like, I'm like just love. This is like my, my cup of tea. Like everything about you and that sales piece, I think I'm going to have to like clip that in some way because I think a lot of people will find that so. It's great. This is actionable stuff that people can act really. If you're an entrepreneur, I'm like talking to people.

If you're an entrepreneur or someone who's like, starting a business like this is 101 what you need to do because if you're not a good salesperson good luck. It makes it really hard to do anything else. That's like that's like the foundation of the lynch fin skill of starting businesses

and that's the person at a company that is the most valuable. If you don't know how to sell you're fucked. Period. Right? So okay so Jordan where do people find you? The new book it's called The Wolf of Investing. I highly recommend it. It's like all his other books.

It's so easy to digest, understand. This information is really important, too. So you can go Jordan Belfort.com, Wolf of Wall Street on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, and you'll find me. You'll find me. I'm everywhere. He's everywhere. And if you don't know who this guy is, you're living under a rock.

You don't go out. Yeah, you don't go out. And go watch the movie if you haven't, please. I mean, you never know. People can be very young watching. So anyway, thank you so much. My pleasure. This is awesome.

Okay. Bye.