The Megyn Kelly Show - Goldie Hawn and Jordan Belfort - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

Megyn Kelly brings you two of the most fascinating interviews from the Megyn Kelly Show archives in this Sunday "Double Feature" episode, with acting legend Goldie Hawn, and  "The Wolf of Wall Street" inspiration Jordan Belfort.     Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show in today's double feature bonus episode. Today, a Hollywood star and the inspiration for an award-winning Hollywood movie. We all love Goldie Hawn. She actually is such a dear person and you're going to hear her and see her here like you never have before. This was such a fun one for me. And then the inspo for the wolf of Wall Street, the wolf himself.

This guy was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the very famous movie. His name is Jordan Belfort. And he did not hold back when he came on with me. Enjoy and see you Monday. Goldie has been making us laugh and smile for decades with her impeccably timed comedy and sunny disposition. Beyond that thousand-watt grin is a fast. fascinating life, full of hard work, persistence, and remarkable life lessons that will be sure to brighten your day. And her focus now is not just on her own mental health, which she's nailed.

It's on everyone's and most importantly, our children's. Goldie, so good to have you here. Thanks for coming on. I'm so happy to be here with you. This is really fun. I mean, it could have been at a wonderful restaurant and do the things that we do off camera, but it's just really great to see you. And thanks for having me.

Oh, my pleasure. You're such a doll. It's a privilege to call you a friend. I have a yellow lab, an English puppy yellow lab. English. This guy is eating my feet right now. Oh, my gosh. I can relate to this. Now, I mean, you've got another little guy going behind you. Who's that other little guy trying to get out? He's like, she didn't mention me and I'm out of here. It's great. Look at him. Who's the little guy? Look at him. Is the guy over your right shoulder? Where? There's a little dog right behind him. I mean, there's a little dog. I mean, there's a little dog. This is Benny. Okay, they can't live without each other, by the way. It's like the, you know, the mouse and the giant. But it's so fun. And I hear you've got one too. So we, you know, we both have these wonderful, amazing yellow labs. English. You don't want to get me started. I have my yellow English. She's a doll, thunder. She's three. Then we thought, if one is great, two, it would be even better. And we got Stredwick. And he is about nine months old. And no sooner do I tell the world that Stredwick is getting better because he's been a menace. first nine months. Then in the course of 24 hours, he ate a box of markers. He ate, he broke this

decade of vase we had. He ate a loaf of bread and he took an enormous shit in our family room. It is so crazy. We're doing the same thing with this dog. I mean, we love him to pieces, but he ate like the side of the house. I mean, we thought we were really, like here's an area for him, you know, to be in play and whatever. And it's kind of. contained another no no he started eating the side of the house so we couldn't put him there right so i mean it's just just like that he's getting a little bit better about you know watch him every second yes that's how it is yeah we may have to he just yeah i may have to like move him out of the room yeah no worries it's great we have some we have some commercial breaks um yes no i know our

older dog is looking at stradwick like they've told you not to do that a million times stop it They're going to get rid of you if you keep this up, which we aren't. But man, oh, man. He's either as stubido or just bad. I don't know. It's too great. I swear. And we're having a great time.

What are you drinking there? What's in your cup? I have a coffee. So I'm, you know, I'm drinking my third cup. I've been getting up very, very early this morning. I mean, you know, early news, working in early news is really quite a grind. It's great. we have to have early, you know, early news shows.

But everybody that I know gets up at 3 in the morning. I mean, it's a really interesting life because you have to take a nap. I mean, if I was, you know, on a new show or today's show or, you know, whatever, any of these different shows, thoughts, you really wake up with the, you know, before the birds. And then you do the show and then you finish for the day, which is great. But ultimately, you know, you walked around like a zombie. So I've been doing that, talking about what we're going to talk about as well. But I'm just saying, you know, I'm great. It's all good.

But it's a really interesting way to spend your life. You know, I've gotten to dinner with some gals who do the show and do different shows in the morning. And they really have to get to bed early. And it's an early dinner. And, you know, waking up at three or four in the morning. So it's, you get up early and you think, because I used to work this schedule for a while. and you think, okay, great, I'm going to have the rest of my day to be with my kids, to get my stuff done. And what you realize is you're just garbage for the rest of the day.

You, without a massive nap, you can't function. You can't function. It's really interesting. So anyway, I'm a short way of saying, I'm glad I'm not having an everyday grind at the news. Yes, I don't blame you. Yeah, because you want it. You're promoting your program. We've talked about it before.

And we will talk about it today too, mind up, which I love and I think is needed now more than ever for all sorts of reasons. It's only gotten more necessary since the last time I interviewed you on camera. But let's start with, let's start broader. Let's start with you. Let's start with you. Let's start with what's happening in our country. Let's start with COVID because I wonder you've been out in L.A. for a lot of this, you know, past two years. And L.A. and New York have been two of the most locked down, masked up, closed up cities. And how has that been affecting you guys? How have you been navigating that? We have navigated it really well. But can I tell you some before. do this, dog's got to go.

So can you put him on that side and maybe see if he can enjoy the patio? I mean, it's unbelievable. He's awfully sweet, but I mean, yeah. Okay. Okay. We have navigated this.

I have to say, you know, we're the lucky ones. And I did a lot of, I did a lot of things there to talking to people, whether it was schools or principals or school superintendents, as well as, a lot of people in the UK as well using sort of the ways of mind up and how we kind of manage our emotions and breathe and really focus on how to distress ourselves

with this sense of the unknown. Personally, we did pretty well. There are so many people that were not. So it was always a kind of an apology, which is, you know, I've got it really great. I have a garden outside. I have a nice house. There's a lot of things that I enjoyed to tell you the truth, having to stay home.

I didn't have to get on a plane. I fly around a lot. So I was basically somebody put my feet to the ground. And it was this COVID. We were all frightened. We washed everything that all of our groceries stayed outside for 24 hours. I mean, we did all of these very extreme measures because we were afraid that this particular virus was on everything, absolutely everything. Anything you touched, it did, wiping down all of our

door knobs, not knowing who was at the front door. On the other hand, what that did do for me, and I think for quite a few people, it had a more an effect on a positive way. And I think a lot of it is because of the anxiety, because of the workload that happens through in your life. And something happened to everyone that said, I can stay home now. I can be with my family now. I can connect to the things that matter the most. And in some ways, that's what happened to me is that rat race of running, doing, having to, you know, leave, go to New York, go to Europe, go to Europe, go to London, go. You know, a lot of things that I did because of work and the program, and a lot of things I did because I didn't want to miss out on anything.

and then other things that had to do with a different sort of work. So I got to, I put my suitcase away. I went outside of my backyard and I watched everything clear up. I watched the sky get bluer. I didn't hear any noise. I didn't have traffic. I didn't hear airplanes. And then I started looking at all the things that were clearing up,

like not just the air, but rivers, rivers that had been polluted for years. And I was looking at my rivers in India, actually, because I spent a lot of time there. And they were getting clean again. And I thought, how much of us as human beings actually are creating where we are today? All the things we could not be doing. However, we've got, you know, industry, commerce, there's all kinds of things that have to run. But I realize how much we matter. humans. What we do, how we behave, how we think, how we sleep. So there was a level of stress on

one level for me that I didn't have. I cooked more. I spent time with my son. It was precious time. I was, you know, it's one of those things that you think, oh my God, this is so scary. But sometimes when you have to go inside, there are some blessings in that. Well, I mean, you've been mindful of family and connections your whole life. I mean, one of the things that's extraordinary about you is you and Kurt together have four kids. And three out of four of them are pretty famous and very successful in Hollywood on camera and behind the camera. and they all seem pretty normal. I mean, that's what's so weird about you, right?

It's like, I was going to ask, how did you manage that? But I think I know you prioritized them. You found a way to actually spend time with your own children. Yeah, we do. And one of the reasons is that, you know, at number one, occurred like me. I mean, we're just family and people. And nothing will take that away.

Okay. So if we have an opportunity to be together, we are. In fact, Wyatt just finally moved right in the neighborhood. I mean, we're so excited. We're all together. So it's really a special unit that we have. You know, we can drop everybody's house. We can be together.

All the children can be together. I mean, right now, okay, I have Oliver and the family. They're living with us. Why? Because they're fixing their flow. and they're doing stuff. And so they've come over here for a few months to live. It's just, you know, we're just a couple miles away from each other.

But I look at it and I'm thinking, if we don't value what we've got, our family is everything, then they're not going to flourish. I mean, so you say, okay, these are normal people. But my father was the one that said to me, go, I want you to look out at that ocean. I want you to stand out there. And I want you to know how small you are. I want you to know that you're basically a part of the whole. And that's important.

But if you get too big for your britches, just remember who you are. So there was a reality in my life that was always about what the truth was. It wasn't what one some highfalutin dream was. And so I think the basics of being together, the sense that we are always focused on each other for the greater good, that to me could bring children in the world and create a better world. I mean, you've lived it. I've watched it. You're one of those people who doesn't have to go to every Hollywood party so that you can see a bunch of famous people and watch them look over shoulders to see who's more famous and more powerful.

You can do that in your living room. Yeah. I mean, it's really true. I mean, I don't have that need. And I never did. I will say that when I was younger, you know, you went out more, you know, I mean, just being young by it, but by the nature of being young, you know, you have your group of people. And it was a time when it was the Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson and, you know, all that. I still always felt like a little bit of an outsider. And, and I was an outsider at school. So I wasn't, I never had 18. girlfriends. I never belonged to a sorority. You know, I had very special girlfriends. They were my best girlfriends. I had, I met one girl, my only girlfriend. I was two years old and I went over to her

house and I asked her if she would play with me. She was just a little bit older than me. That's and she's still my best friend. And I've lost two of my best friends for pancreatic cancer. and you know when you lose your friends there's a piece of you that goes away doesn't mean that you don't go on it doesn't mean that you don't live your life but when you talk about who matters to you it isn't the masses

it isn't you know being a start isn't who you hang with or the parties that you go to it doesn't have much meaning what has meaning is is the people in your life and that's the way I've always looked at it Otherwise, how can you have time to have intimacy? You know, and intimacy is great.

So the people that I dine with or am hanging out with for any level, it's not because they're anybody special or that way. Yeah, you're not that person. You don't seem to me like someone who went to Hollywood chasing fame. Like, well, I read about your background and just from our conversations, you wanted to be a dancer. You love dancing. Your mom owned a dance studio.

and you maybe were going to be a chorus girl or a prima ballerina, but it wasn't like I need to be a star to fill some void inside of me, which I do think drives a lot of people to get into the entertainment industry. I think you're right. I mean, there's something about wanting to be seen. And, you know, there's a lot of psyche involved, all the psychology involved, you know, as to why you want to be seen, you know. I didn't quite grow up that way, although I'm a performance.

by nature. There's no question. I mean, it's really obviously dancing. I'm three years old. I mean, I was a performer, right? And I was happy. I was a happy kid. I didn't, you know, I didn't go out and seek fame and fortune. In fact, I'll tell you the story. So I was in New York. I just got to New York. It was in May, I remember, and I got to New York because I was dancing at the World's Fair. So I went for an audition in Washington, D.C., which is where I'm from, and I made it. I made the audition. I went, oh, my God. I went home, mom, daddy.

I got the audition. I'm going to be dancing at the World's Fair. So all this was like, you know, really, really exciting. And I went to New York and in May. I was only there a month. And I walked across the street. And this guy stopped me. And he said to me, I'm not trying to put the make on you.

I'm not trying to do this. Please believe me. He showed me his watch. It was kind of, I guess, gold. And he said, I go with Tuesday Weld. And Tuesday Weld was an actress back in that day in the 60s. And I went, oh, wow, okay. So I started, you know, to trust him.

I didn't look at him as a bad guy or anything. And he said to me, I just got to tell you, you look just like a character that Alcap created. and he was a cartoonist. He was also, you know, sort of a, you know, a guy who represented a certain consciousness. And so anyway, I said, oh, wow, Alcat, Lil Labner. Oh, I did Little Abner in high school.

I mean, we did a lot of shows there. And, you know, oh, I know all about that. And he said, oh, great. He said, well, listen, let me, I'm going to talk to you. He said, because I think you'd be really great for Little Lavner. We're doing it on NBC. And you look like a character that he created. And it's a new character.

And she's tenderly Farrexen. Well, there was, you know, I don't know for those to don't know what Little Abner was, but it was, you know, it was kind of political in a way. But it was a cartoon and it was a very famous cartoon. And the show, Little Abner had songs, you know, what is it? Something, Jake, trying to think of the name of the song, but Little Abner anyway, was very famous. I said, great.

So I believed him. So I got into his car and we're driving and he's dropped me off at an audition. that I was going to. And he dropped me off. As he was driving, he said, you know what? I think you're going to be a really big star. And I looked at him and I said, why?

He said, because you have an unusual face. And I thought, hmm, well, he didn't tell me I was creepy and he didn't tell me I was beautiful. He said I had an interesting face, which actually, I mean, I think I did, right? My eyes are too big. All kinds of things. I was not, you know, but I was pretty scrutinizing about my, my face. although my mother didn't like that I was. She said, don't mess with my work.

My mom, but, you know, I got my, you know, nose was everything. I was a thing. So I believed him. But the one thing that scared me, and it's a long story to get around to my perception, I didn't want to be a star. It actually scared me. I thought, you know, I don't want to be that person. I just want to be normal.

I was a dancer. I had a craft. I had something I did well. And I also had a job. So for me, that they were going to make me into a star. And then I eventually, the story goes on, which I won't go into. But no, no, we have to talk about that jerk Al Cap. This is the Al Cap is an asshole portion of our interview. Oh, God bless him. May he rest in peace. Yeah, he was the one that, you know, okay, so we'll go on. So now we get to the time where I'm supposed to meet our cap. And I had a script and I was reading of this script. And I, you know, and I thought, I read it at home. And I thought, okay, this is cool. It's real. It's a script. You know, nothing's fake about it. So I go to Park Avenue on the time I was supposed to do. meet with him. And the door opens. Eric the Butler. Oh, Miss Hahn, you know, we're waiting for you. I went, oh, that's great. Oh, and I was like on Fifth Avenue. And I mean, it's like, what the hell happening to me? I mean, next thing I know, I'm like in this, like, rich guy's apartment and he's famous and his name's out cap. And I know him and I did this show. I mean, it was the whole thing. And so he said, so I sit down and he said, Mr. Cap isn't here right now. But he'll be.

back in a moment. He said, but I'm bringing this tea and he walks in with the tea set. When I tell you it was pure silver and it was so heavy that it was kind of like weird when he said to me, you need to pour his tea. He likes all his women to pour his tea. And now I'm practicing and I picked up the tea button and I'm looking at the tea and I'm like trying to pour it. And it was so heavy. I was sitting too deep in his sofa. It was too, the fulcour point was not acceptable. And so anyway, and he walks

with his, you know, I didn't know he had a wooden leg. But he did. Yeah. Such a detail. Start dry. Yeah, he picks, well, he walked like he had a wooden leg. And then he said to me, oh, and he had to like

slivis, like, grinned, a kind of him is really ugly. And he said, I'll be back in a minute. I'm just going to slip into something. And he came back in a robe. So now I am like freaking out because, you know, I'm recognizing something's going wrong. So I'm there.

I was 19 years old. And he comes and he talks to me. And I said, oh, he sat down and we talked. Now I'm thinking to myself, I better let him know I'm a good girl. I better let him know whatever he's thinking is not, it's not going to happen. So I told him that I, my mom and my dad and the fact that, you know, they wanted me to marry a Jewish dentist and I wanted him to know that I was religious. I wanted to know that I had, you know, scruples and I had, you know, the whole thing. I just wanted him to know I was a good girl.

And so now he said, well, let's do the reading. So I started to do the reading with him. And I was stood up and I'm doing the reading off of the script. And he says to me, now you don't have to speak so loud. This isn't theater. This is now going to be, you know, it's film. So you need to just speak regularly. And I went, oh, what a good note.

So now I got, you know, into the idea that it wasn't staged because that's really all I've done. And then he said, now walk away over there in the room. And now when you walk toward me, I want you to just kind of look at me like on the camera. camera and and you know just kind of look stupid looked look looked like an imbecile or you know like that you know that look you know and I thought okay so you know I did my dance walk and I walked there and I remember I tried to look stupid and I was looking at him and all this stuff and then he said well now this is good he said he said you know what he said I'm going to get you with David Merrick's coaches He's one of the greatest, David Merrick's one of the great people, you know, on Broadway back then.

And I went, oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. He said, I'm going to have him work with you. You got something. He said, by the way, could you walk over there and lift up? Because your legs, you could be Daisy May. Your legs are good.

Can I see your legs? And so I had this, I remember exactly what I was wearing. It was a pink knit dress. It wasn't totally mini at that point. But I picked it up over my knees and I should. showed him partial. And then he went higher. And I think I lived it up for just another like inch. And he said, no, no, higher. And I went, oh, and I put them down. I put my, my skirt down. And he said to me, now come on over here and give me a kiss. And I was, I was shocked, but I expected something like that. And so I said, like, when

over to the couch because I wanted him, I wanted him to know that I wasn't going to run out of the room. I was going to stay calm and whatever. And he pulled over his, you know, it was like his night, whatever that, you know, that robe was. And he was, his whole apparatus, if you know what I'm talking about. His whole wiener was literally like lying there. And I looked at it. I looked at it. And I said, oh, oh, Mr. Cap, I'll never get a job like this. He said, well, I've had them all. And nothing will become of you. And I said, that's okay.

I said, I'm a dancer anyway. But I'll never get a job like this. He said, well, you know, you just go back and marry a Jewish dentist. Oh, wow. And I said, oh, I might. So I walked out and then I realized that I couldn't take the L because I didn't have the time and I wasn't near it and I had to get to the World's Fair. So the World's Fair was going on. I said, Mr. Kat, I'm so sorry, it's late.

I can't get the L and I just don't have any money to get a taxi. And he threw $20 at me. So I got in the taxi and I go to the Texas Pavilion, which is where I was dancing. And I was so upset. And I had been seeing this guy that was under the bar. He was a bartender. And we were dancing above the bar as Ken Ken Girls did. And we danced.

And I was so sad. I felt so bad. And that night, I did the show. It was three shows. And it was heavy duty can can and also go-go and all this stuff. And he said, come on. I'll take you out for a drink. I went, okay.

So I go out, get in his car, and we go into the bar at the Andean, which is just under the 59th Street Bridge. And I had a scotch. And then I had another scotch rocks. And his friend was there that we met. And then that was over. So I had two cocktails. And he backed up, got the car, around first. First Avenue and he starts accelerating.

And I'm in the middle and there's no seats. There's no seat bills. And I thought, do you have to go so fast, you know, in between stoplights? And he said, no, no, no, no, no, it's okay. Meanwhile, everybody in the car had we had a cocktail or two. I wouldn't say we were drunk and whatever, but definitely, you know, under some level of influence. And then he went down West Side Highway. And we were on West Side Highway going much too fast.

And it was quite different then. He had potholes and it had windy roads and it was a single road. And it was really not a great road to speed on. And I looked over my right shoulder sitting in the middle of an Oldsmobile with, you know, no bucket seats, right? And I looked over to this cab and this taxi cab. either he ran, he fell asleep or he just ran us off the road, but we went into a light pole at about 45 miles an hour.

My goodness. And I stopped coming and I went underneath the dashboard to hide from the crash. And I woke up, but I really was not in my body. And I looked down and it was paramagnet. that were pulling me out from underneath the dashboard and asking, is she alive? And they were touching my heart and ripping my clothes so they could get to me. But I saw all of it. And then I woke up in the hospital.

And that's when I was there and they basically did an x-ray in my head. I had a concussion and I had one little Nick on my leg. And I now, two guys and one of them, the boyfriend that I'd had, walked into my room. And he had a broken nose and a few little scratches. They sent me home, which I don't remember. I lived alone in a roach infested one room place in 70th and between Broadway and Amsterdam. And I didn't have my mom. I didn't have anybody.

And I got a phone call. And he said, you fucked things up, didn't you? You really fucked me up. I told you to be nice to him. I told you to be nice to him. And I said, Peter, please go back to Tuesday well and leave me alone. And I went into the bathroom. I threw up again.

I came back and I realized I needed my mother. But for some, how I don't know, I remembered. this guy's number. And I called him up and I said, I'm alone in New York. I know, you know, you're not happy with me. But I was in a very bad automobile accident last night. He hung up. He ran to my apartment.

He lived near me. He came to me with roses that he got and he was crying. And he said, I'm so sorry. You're such a nice girl. And I'm just a pimp for how cat. That's all I am. Oh, my goodness. I'm really sorry.

And he got an ambulance. He took me back to the hospital. He made sure I had everything I needed, a tennis shot, whatever they didn't give me. And, you know, he took care of me. And that was very, very interesting. Mike, because I get so many things about human nature in that story. By the way, that will officially conclude our Al Cap as an asshole chapter. but so many things in there, right?

Like the young trusting ingenue, given opportunity or the shot at it, you know, the old grizzly wooden-legged, I'll make you a star guy who tries to take advantage of her. I mean, that scene that you describe is straight out of the movie bombshell, though I know, I mean, I heard it from you long before that. I realize that's not where it came from. They must have stolen it from you.

It's almost identical. and learning bit by bit that she's there for very different reasons than she thinks she's there, right? And then the decision has to be made. Do I do this? I'm a nobody. Nobody knows who I am. I have no career. Everybody knows this guy. He can open up doors for me. What do I do? And it's that moment. It's in those flashes of moments where you, morality is, you know, questioned. Your strength is questioned. It's a before and after a moment. And, and some, Some women submit, even though they don't want to. It doesn't make them immoral, but they live to regret it. They beat themselves up. It's just it can be so hard in the fact that you walked and you stood up for your beliefs. And almost nobody knows who Al Cap is.

And everyone knows who Goldie Haan is, is the best end to that story. All right, hold on. Stand by. I've got to pay a bill. I'm going to get into commercial break. And much, much more with the one and only Goldie Haap. After this. I love the story, by the way, of that.

you won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, like 1970, right? It was early in your career. And you weren't there. You didn't show. Why not? I made a movie with Peter Sellers and that's what I was doing. And so it was my second movie. And I was in London.

And in those days, you know, they didn't let you go. I mean, it was like, you know, I forgot it was on. I literally forgot the Academy Awards were on television. Okay. Oh, my gosh. So I went to bed. And I woke up by a phone call. It's like, you, you got it.

And I said, you got what? And they said, you got the Academy Award. And I went, oh, my God. I didn't even know it was on television last night. I mean, that was my first thing. That is amazing. It was 1970, right? 1970, cactus flower, right?

That's the one. Matt, Walter, Mathieu, Motho, Ingrid Bergman. And you? Yeah. That's amazing. You know, I was thinking about it this week because, you know, they canceled the Golden Globes and they did it. They basically live tweeted the Golden Globes this year. It's kind of imploded for a whole bunch of reasons. But what the, but the New York Times podcast, the Daily did an in-depth report on the implosion of the Golden Globes. And one of the things the entertainment reporter was saying is that apparently it's an open secret these days that you basically buy your Golden Globe. Unlike the Academy Award, it's like the producers of these films are like, sure would be. nice if i guess it was back in the 80s too because they were talking about how pia zadora won for some film everybody was like pia zadora i don't know yeah i know i remember that exactly you know because she had a lot of help if you know what i mean with all respect you know it's ill about anyone

really unless they're horrible like al cap but anyway um yes so no she was uh definitely um what do you call but honed and manipulated. Yeah. So, yeah. So I didn't realize that. I mean, is that an open secret in Hollywood that, like, you kind of buy your Golden Globe, but you earn your Academy Award or no? You know, I can't.

The Golden Globes are really an interesting group. Okay. They're, you know, sort of reporters or people that allay is on with every country. And they're, they're quite a group of people, right? And as the time went on and I make these movies and you see them every year, you know, you get to know them, right? You get to know, oh, hi, how are you? And whatever. And it's actually, in many ways, back in the day, I, you know, I like people.

You know, it's like, well, who was that thing that Judy, what said was, was it in First Wives Club or? Oh, that was the other. I like people and people like me. She said, so this is basically. why I don't look at them with such as scants, okay? I have nice relationships with them, meaning that they were always happy. These are the ones who make the decisions.

Yeah. And then how they just come to their decisions oftentimes because they just like somebody so much or because, you know, but paid off and in such a way, you know, I, that I don't know. I mean, I've got to be honest with you. I don't know what you paid them money to do this. or people take money to, I know they're bribed. I mean, I, I hear that, but, you know, a lot of talk is talk.

I don't put a lot into it. Now the Golden Globes are, you know, they're not, are they going to come back? I don't even know. I mean, it's unclear. It's like they, they had basically a lot of problems, one of which was they didn't have enough minority players and then they got minority players and then they didn't have enough minority players and then, you know, they're sort of trying to fix their diversity, equity and inclusion problem. And until they do, NBC's not going to put them on the, I don't know, I don't

follow it that closely. I just didn't. Yeah, that's equity and inclusion. That was, you've never needed, you've never needed the Golden Globe to get movie roles. It's like you can, I guess you can get ahead in your career by saying, look, I won this Oscar. I won this Oscar. Or you can just be amazing film after film and you keep getting hired. That's how you've done it. Yeah, I had a weird career. I mean, it really was. I didn't make a lot of movies. And I made movies that really were, I produced. Now, you know, I just made a decision to produce movies.

I thought, you know, I'm not going to wait around for the phone to ring. I'm an odd character. I'm not like everybody else. I knew that. Her comedy or my comedy or whatever was very, you know, my own. And also, people don't think you can transcend an image. In other words, I had a very, strong image, still do. And that image was part of the movie, but a lot of directors like to get

an actor who didn't have so much baggage, you know, who didn't, you know, everybody knew them a certain way, a big personality or whatever. In spite of that, I did really well, but I had my own production company. So, you know, you talk about what leads you, what guides you, what drives you, what drove me was very practical. And I thought, let me just make my own movies. It's make deals at Warner Brothers and, you know, and Universal and all the places that I was. And make a deal to make movies, right?

So I made movies that even were not with me. They weren't, they were for Julie Roberts and Steve Martin and different movies, right? But I got to do movies that matter to me, meaning, am I going to do a movie about a girl in the army? am I going to make a movie about a woman who is a football coach? Am I going to make a movie about Protocol, someone who basically blows up Washington and the lies and comes up and speaks in front of the Senate?

I like to make movies that actually mattered. And for me, that was the most exciting part of being in the movie industry. And so, you know... By the way, those are all three great movies. Protocol was hilarious. wildcats. Loved it, of course.

That's you and the football team. And Private Benjamin was like, my mother fell in love with you before I fell in love with you. She used to run around the house quoting you in Private Benjamin. I want to go out to lunch. I want to... And for those of you who don't know Private Benjamin and want to be reintroduced to it or be introduced the first time, here's just a little clip.

This is Soundbite 6. I hate to interrupt you, but could I speak here a sec? My lord, sergeant, would you look at this? I've seen it, ma'am. What's your name, princess? Huh? Judy. Judy?

Judy Benjamin. Judy Benjamin. Um, I think they sent me to the wrong place. Uh-huh. See, I did join the Army, but I joined a different army. Uh-huh. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms. What?

No, really? My recruiter, Jim Ballard. I don't care. I don't care. What your lousy recruiter told you, Benjamin. I'm telling you there is no other army. Wait a minute. I don't want to have to go to your boss or anything, okay?

It's amazing. You know, you can't do it without great writing. You just can't do it. I mean, the writers are everything. And, you know, they give you basically, The words, you know, and you can interpret them how you want, but they're damn funny. And, you know, that's what, you know, they did, Nancy Myers and Chuck Schauer and Harvey Miller. They, they were amazing.

So that, yeah. But that was the one that, like that you produced that. Your name was the only name above the title. Not, no man's name. You know, you proved a woman can carry a film because that film was hugely successful, and it was yours on a number of levels. Let me pay one more bill. Sorry, it's annoying, but that's how we stay on the air. and then we'll come back and we'll pick it up with

maybe some of the fallout from Private Benjamin and didn't realize that it was a double-edged sword until I studied up for today. Stand by for more of with Goldie Hawn. And don't forget, folks, you can find the Megan Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 11 every weekday at noon east. The full video show and clips by subscribing to my YouTube channel,

YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly. Or if you prefer the audio version, just get a podcast and subscribe it by downloading our show on Apple, Spotify, Pendee. Dora Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast for free. I'm going to pick it up with Private Benjamin Golly because that was a huge success for you. You were the producer. You were the star.

Everybody loved it. But I know you've said it turned out to be a double-edged sword, your success on that movie. How so? Because I, I know, I produced it, but I also worked with the people with the writers and so forth. So, you know, the only reason I produced it was because I said, why do we need another producer? I mean, we don't need one. I've been producing before at Universal. And, you know, you get your producer that works on the show and you're working with your thing. And it's just fine.

You know, why pay someone else, basically, a big producer to take over? Because, you know, this was a financial, practical decision. In the meantime, big hit, cover of whatever, everything's saying. And then next thing I know, it was so, such a hit, I guess, that I had, you know, you know, directors really didn't want to work with me because they felt that I would only do my own things and that I took over and that I was it was sort of had to be my way there was some fear around a woman being successful and and being a bitch and and I wasn't at all not even close I mean there were many of us that made that movie great not just me and I'm just looking at you know at that

time, you know, there was a serious glass ceiling. And when I broke a record or whatever you call it, I mean, I don't know, I made a movie that was successful. And I happened to be a person in it that, you know, made it more successful, like she was funny. And whatever. But point is, is that I remember even one of my dear friends who I was a dancer, a friend of my mom's, her braw. he heard that I, you know, took over and I wanted to do everything in my own way, thinking, oh my God, who made that up? I mean, you know, trying to save a movie. Yeah, Private Benjamin had like, you know, three laughs in on the first edit. I mean, it was, we had issues, but we have the most amazing writers.

And they sat down and they did 135, I think, notes, editing notes. And they were followed because we were producing. And they changed the whole movie around to make it. as funny as it was written. So I think there's a whole viewpoint of women at that point in power. And it was, you know, extremely male-dominated, extremely. It's so crazy. There's somebody like you who is obviously warm, friendly, kind.

No one would ever look at you and suspect, bitch, you know, that if they can do that to you, they could do it to anybody. Yeah. It wasn't about me, really. It was about the, you know, the culture. And, you know, I was part of that culture. And slowly it changed, which it has to a point. But I remember with my daughter, we went Katie and I, she was just starting.

And the two of us were at women's lunch. What was it women's film, women for film or something? And it was a thing that they created, you know, and like the powerful women. And now we had certain women in positions of power. And, you know, it was great. And it was like women in film, women in film. And I got the giggles. It was just so crazy.

Katie and I are, you know, in the podium and we're looking around. And I'm looking around at all these women. And I got the giggles because it didn't matter. These women were working for men. And there were still no women's movies being made, including First Wives Club. We all took a less money, certain amount of money because they were scared that women a certain age, and we weren't even that old then, but a woman of a certain age

couldn't bring in, you know, box office dollars. And we went out and made this movie, and it was a huge hit. Cover of Time magazine. Oh, wow. Then you go to make it another one a sequel, and they don't want to pay you any more money. Oh, wow. Shocking.

And that was first wife's come. Now it was 25, whatever years ago, 30. But, I mean, the reality is, is that, The fighting of this, you know, idea that a woman cannot really carry a movie or that they can't make money, you know, in the industry is sort of because the money that they make are all these other big tentpole movies, which aren't really about a star. You know, they're about subsexual effects. They're about, you know, all these big movies. And most of them, at least back and then, were very male oriented. So young boys would go to the theater.

They would go to see them. But my point is, as we're getting to, is that women have had an interesting hill to climb. Well, I mean, and in a lot of industries, but especially Hollywood, which is one of the crazy pieces of, I think it's why it drives people crazy when Hollywood tries to act holier than now and start lecturing Middle America about morality and so on. and these people sitting in Iowa who have never done any, they've never tried to put something at a casting couch or do what Al did or any of this. They're like, you could save your lectures for somebody else. That's right, exactly.

The idea that, you know, well, I do have a feeling about keep your, keep, I've never known, okay, how do I say this? Hollywood and a lot of Hollywood has a lot of mission, right? and you know you want to put your name on to something you believe in but it doesn't make a difference and that's the one the reality is that if you are someone in the industry and you want to go into politics or you want to talk about these things you know i stay in my lane and and i think that the idea if you know maybe segueing into what i'm doing now but the reality is is that if we'd want to do anything We want to do it for all people, not just for a group or whatever.

What makes polarity even more is creating teams on either side of the eye. And I don't think that's what we do. I think we entertain. I think we bring awareness to people just of their ability to laugh, to have joy, to experience it, to cry. We are emotional beings and create emotion and in others. and it's an escape. I think we're in service. I really do.

I think people get paid really well to be in service. But I don't think that we should forget that our first job is to help people laugh, feel something. Escape middle of it. Amen. All right. Now, that's a great note on which to leave it. And when we come back, Goldie's latest effort to bring that kind of messaging to your kids, my kids, and the world in a really creative way. Don't go away.

So, Goldie, we talked a couple of years ago about your program. The Mind Up didn't just launch, but you've just gotten this great, big, online platform that helps people navigate their way through it. And can I just set this up with some stats? We talked about one of these earlier this week, but the CDC says suicide attempts during the pandemic have jumped 51% for girls. 51%. It's about just under 4% for boys, so less for boys. but still up. Israel just did a big study of 200,000 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17. This is again taking a look at during the pandemic. And they report that there's been a 55% rise in

eating disorders, a 38% rise in diagnosis of depression, 33% rise in anxiety disorders. ER visits for mental health issues for teens are going through the roof around the world, and especially in the United States. And you actually have a program that can help parents do something about it. They can do it from their living room. They can do it in the classroom. But it provides real tools for schools and families in dealing with some of these issues. How so?

Well, you know, this was something I started like 20 years ago. And I did it because of 9-11 and my issues around the fear that I had of the Adam bomb. I thought I was going to die before I ever got to kiss a boy. I mean, I was really scared. I really thought at that point about my mortality. And it created a lot of anxiety for me. During 9-11, I realized that children all over were going to be, in America in particular, we're going to be showing symptoms because fear is a dangerous thing. It's quite poisonous.

And it turns into anger and all kinds of side effects. So I started looking them into the problems of suicide and anxiety and all kinds of. kinds of different, you know, issues around children's mental stability. And I was shocked. And that was in, you know, 2003. It was an uptick in suicide for children, young children, 10 years to 15 years. And then older kids was a second leading cause of death. I really was shocked. It knocked me out. It got me out. It got, oh, my God, something has to happen. So after all the world that I have done, over the years, which is psychology, which is meditation, which are ways and means to create a sense of happiness or more well-being. I learned sort of what the causes of happiness were. And I started

applying them in a TV show. I wanted to do a documentary on joy. That's when 9-11 happened. So my background really went, how am I going to use what I know? So I brought in neuroscientists. I brought in psychologists, positive psychologists, teachers and practitioners, right, who met, and meditation and also research scientists in order to put these things together to create a holistic approach to a classroom program. And I felt that putting it in the classroom then would begin to mitigate some of the issues around their fear, around anxiety by knowing their brain. So it's based in neuroscience. You know, it was never based as a, basically, a program about mindfulness or meditation. I mean, yes, we do three times a day, we do a brain break, but a brain break is to give a brain a break.

These children know that they get anxious, they get scared, they get angry, there's aggression. They know that maybe they need to take a brain break. That's a three-minute moment of listening to a sound and then breath and using your breath and learning to breathe properly. And it's been incredibly helpful. So teaching the brain is not just to know about the biology of your brain. is to know how to use your brain. How do I change the way I'm thinking?

How do I change my environment? When they realize that their brain that they have there is not like anybody else's, it's their brain, and they own it. Then they get to know that they can actually not just shake hands with it as a friend, but they can actually change the way things are happening. So that's why they learn to breathe and they learn to focus. That's how they learn when we have the happiness of giving of kindness, and also gratitude journaling.

Things where happens in the classroom sounds like a lightweight thing. It's not. It changes the neurons and how they fire. And when you start building small children whose brains are actually developing, you're helping them develop brain fitness. And that's what we want.

We want resilience. We want children to be caring of each other, aware. They want kids to be self-aware so they know that if they do something this way, it might have a repercussion in another way, create critical thinking, where they're thinking critically about whether to do something or not, or how to solve a problem. I mean, it's an amazing, simple way of learning how to manage your own brain

and your own outcome, therefore, your own reality. So this happened how many years ago, right? And I've been putting teachers in classrooms and putting the program, whatever, and it's been great. But the scaling of it. is hard because you can't fly people here and do this there or create trainers here because you can't really manage the trainers in the same way you need to. It's important on how it's delivered, right? So what we did was when COVID happened, part of what happened to me, we talked about earlier,

of basically sitting down, is that I had the dream and I was able to dream in quiet. I was able to quiet my mind, my stress level, my body, my movement places, take my distracting my brain. And I figured out how to redo and reimagine what mind up is. And so that's what COVID helped me do. So now we have created various amazing people online accessibility on our learning platform. So any teacher of any school can go ahead and get that program just as it's taught. It's beautiful to look at.

I didn't want the program to look at like pedagogy or anything a teacher would have to do again. It's all written. It's there, but it's beautiful. It has sound. It's pretty to look at it. It feels good to be in that space is what I wanted it to look like. In the meantime, you can take that program, become accredited training. and go in there and teach your children.

Schools have already bought the program along with other teachers similarly. But then I decided we've got to put a parent program in here. This isn't just for children. So now we're building, we've built part of it of a really in-depth parent program, of learning how their brains work and knowing that until they are a little more mindful than the saddles, that they will be able to be a better parent. You know, we're hijacked by our anger and our fear and lack of knowledge of what's happening in the future. Our money, look, we're in a basically recession, right, or in a, not recession, in a, help me out.

Well, we're in a massive inflationary period. And while we filled a lot of jobs, a lot of people have left the workforce altogether. Exactly. So we, the inflation. So that was the president. So the reality is that we've got a lot to worry about, right? But in what we teach and what we're helping them with is to actually stay right here right now and understand that this moment right now is the most important moment. And they understand now about their children, their children's brains, their brains, they have discussions around it.

They're able to work with families. We have mind-up family. So what happened is, Megan, is that I have taken this and now it's grown into a library of people talking about these various things. We've got, you know, happiness experts. We've got researchers. We've got neuroscientists talking about what is mindfulness. What happens to the brain? What's going on when you quiet your mind?

It's powerful. We're going to have doctors food, food, food for your mind, the best food for your mind. The best food for your children. And we have a cardiologist now speaking about the brain and breath and the heart and that connection and how it heals your heart physically. So I've just opened up a world that literally I believe that we need to all understand about the potential of who we are and how we can change our mindset, how we can be a better partner, how we can literally have more tolerance and more love and more listening capability. Can I tell you that just to pick up on what you're saying, there's a line of sweatshirts and T-shirts and so on and it reads choose happiness. And to me, that's never spoken to me because if it were that easy, everyone would do it.

It's not that easy. So I like what you said about brain fitness. If you have somebody who's trained their brain to be negative, to see the darkness, to stay mired in anxiety and worries about the future and depression, and they don't know how to sort of reset that. They can't choose anything other. You're talking about training the brain the same way you train a muscle to do something different that would be better for it to understand how to process some of those feelings, get a handle on them, maybe table them, right?

So stay in the moment, as you're saying. So that happiness is just more frequent in your life. It's not about having to choose it. It's just you've set your brain up to put yourself there. Perfect. Perfectly put because it is, do we choose happiness? Of course, everyone wants to be happy. What do you want for your children?

I want them mostly to be happy, right? We get it. But we have to set our brain up. We have to have foundational material to understand that we can't just be happy because we say we want to be happy. We have to understand how to. We look at the causes of happiness. One of the causes of happiness is a very together, bound together loving family. That is one of the big causes of happiness.

That other thing is a cause of happiness is giving, caring about someone else, the idea of doing something which is acts of kindness. Sounds crazy, but that actually makes you feel better. Hang out with happy people. Why? Because there is a thing called emotional contagion. And emotional contagion is real. I mean, we're experiencing it today.

You know, people are angry. Hang out with them. You're going to be angry. It's what happens. We're just humans. Our brain is this mirror neurons and it starts to process in the brain and we get it. You hang out with happy people you'll be happier. You hang out with people who aren't watching their weight as well and not taking it.

Sometimes you'll actually put on a few pounds. It's weird. But we actually, if you want to be happy, there are actions to take. There's things to learn about the causes of happiness. One of them is movement, movement, real movement. You know, go out there, be with a friend, hike, take a walk. Breath. Breath is another one.

So when we learn. all these causes to have a more, I would say, a more generous life, a feeling that there's more abundance in your life than deficit. That's the way to do it. We have a brain that we can train, but just by wanting to be something does not mean you're going to get there. You've got to work. And I think that's ultimately what you said, and that's what we train. So in a child's classroom, which we are, we're preschool through eighth grade right now. And I'm doing it because that's a developing brain. And they learn. 85% of our kids said reportedly they now felt they could make themselves feel happier. Well, you know, I have to tell you that was huge for me. It really did.

It made me emotional because if those kids today could figure out that if you could do this in every grade till you're in eighth grade, you'll ride that bike for the rest of your life. That will never, ever go away. You will always on the website you have tips for parents that I was like, this is actually quite clever. It seems simple, but it's quite clever. One of them that stood out to me was every night at the dinner table, ask

your child, what was something good that happened today? As opposed to what most of us do, which is just, you know, what happened today? Tell me about your day. Like what was interesting? Usually I've come at it from sort of a neutral standpoint or just an information seeking standpoint.

But the point is, you're helping them train to go to something positive, something for which they might have gratitude, right? So it's like it's a practice that you can get your child into night after night. Exactly right. You know, my dad used to call me and he'd say, what good happened today? And daddy, I'd call daddy when I was like dancing in New York or whatever. And he'd say, and then he'd say to me, okay, go. What is the one thing you learned today?

Did you just tell me what you learned today? It's one thing. And, you know, it's lived with me. I mean, I'm an older person now, but it still lives with me. I mean, I remember, what did I learn new today? And I can, I can remember myself all through the days. I can say, well, I learned something new today. That was great. These are positive experiences. Here's the deal. The brain is negative bias, no matter what. And it's negative bias because it's there, the brain is there. It's a very primitive part of our brain, but it's there to look for trouble. You know, that's the imageo.

That's the center of brain, right? That's the area where we are, our smell. Oh, I smell gas. Oh, I do this. Oh, you know, one of the little kids was seven years old and her niece, her aunt pulled her away from the curve. And she said, aunt did you know what saved our lives? And she said, no.

And she said, the amygdala. Seven. Her aunt said, what? But she said, no, because that saves our life because that was an alert. We knew. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this was a seven-year-old telling, okay, this is me hearing this story from in Vancouver. So the reality is that learning what we naturally go to, which is the negative story. And you find yourself doing that negative story.

You wake up in the morning. You're lying in bed. You're thinking about what happened a year ago or 10. years ago or whatever. Why is that happening? That's what the brain's doing. It's shifting. It's bringing stuff up. Don't even think about it. Just get out of bed. You change the subject. You don't have to, you know, sort of go over and over and over this thing that your husband did or your boyfriend or back in the day or, you know, you're holding grudges. Your brain won't let you forget it. You have to talk to your brain and say, stop it. I'm getting out of bed. I am not thinking

about this anymore because it's gone, it's over. Today is today. It's now. And damn it, if we don't live for where we are right now, if this pandemic didn't teach us that we can't depend on a lot of things, including this frigging virus that's running around here. But we can find the things that we depend upon. And we can have a nurtured heart. We can go in and sit quietly and think of the beautiful things that have happened to you. And look at your children every day. So you can't, so you can't, right, so you can't just say, okay, be happy, right? You can't do that. But you can practice mindfulness. You can practice. It's basically cognitive behavioral therapy you're talking about when you got the thing, the bad thought in your head over and over and over and you just choose to just redirect

for the moment. I've always said I used to this moment. I use my my old puppy's face, a little Bosch's face. It was so sweet. For me, it's just a good, it's like a rejiggering, you know, like Bosch's face. It'll just. stop the thinking of whatever I need to stop. It works. But I wanted to ask you, this is a, this is a sensitive subject, so forgive me, but I do, I do think it's helpful. Something bad happened to you when you were a child with respect to an attempted sexual assault. And you told me this over dinner one time. It's never left me, but the way your mom handled it with you, I thought was brilliant. And I'm sure.

some people would find it controversial. I thought it was brilliant because in a way, Goldie, she was training you this, you know, from a very early age. Right. That's exactly right. You're 100% right is that I had one of my sister's friends and they were like 18 in that age. And I went to, it was Christmas time and we were having a party. And he came up stairs and I knew him, you know, I was 11. And the next thing I know I wake up and he has his hands on my breast. And then he puts his hand on my vagina area. And I said, Ted, what are you doing? What are you doing?

What are you doing? What are you doing trying to push his hands away? And I said, stop it. And then I just stopped. I said, called my mom. I called mommy. And I called her from, I didn't get up because I was in bed. And he was holding me down a little bit because then he left.

And my mother ran upstairs. And they, you know, somebody went to get him. they ran out the door. I said, here's what he did. And he touched me here and he did this. And my mom looked at me and she said, okay, look at me. Are you okay? Are you okay? And I said, I am. She's, well, all right, so just so you know, I want you to know something. All right, he's very sick. He's a very sick boy. So if you're okay and whatever and you're not hurt and everything's fine, don't, don't worry. I'm right here. But I didn't know. No, she didn't. go, oh, what happened?

My daughter. What, you know, how are you? How are you? I mean, no, no. She just said, you know, how are you doing? Are you okay? And suddenly, again, contagion, okay? Mom didn't, wasn't upset.

I wasn't upset. I learned that he wasn't well. I had Owens, Ralph went and Ralph went and chased him out. He left the house. She said, so he's a very sick boy, honey. So, you know, so I didn't have this like woman who lost her shit, you know. Yeah, she gave you the file to put this in. Yeah, exactly.

You know, and it's very interesting when you talk about the outcaps of the world. And by the way, he wasn't the only one. You really, you know, I danced in Vegas. So, you know, it's a whole other story. But, you know, at a way, I had more empathy for them. I felt like there's a weakness there. And I felt bad. There's a, you know, whether they're addicted to sex, terrible thing to have that hormone running through your body and not being able to handle it, not deal with it, not know what to do.

So, you know, I know it sounds crazy, but I forgive them. And, you know, I kind of, I care about them. That may be a bridge too far for many people, but I think people can get into the habit of not catastrophizing every bad thing that happens. And this was by any measure a bad thing that happened. And your mother absolutely could have said, oh, my God, and held you and started rocking and saying, you'll never be the same. Your relationship with men will not be the same. you know, we're going to have to get you in a media with therapy. And that could have created further scarring. I do think the way she chose to handle it. And already the child she built

till 11 years, you know, who she was dealing with, thanks to all those years of input, she was able to sort of say, this is the file it goes in. It's about him, not about you, you're fine. And I know you've said it did not negatively impact your view of or relationship or sexual relationships with men at any point thereafter? No, not at all. I mean, I would, but as you say, you're not, whatever, that was an early experience. And I remember back when I was also at a bar with my girlfriend and it was over and he locked the door and my girlfriend was in the other place next door.

She wasn't there. And this guy who was a really nice guy and he threw me down on the banquet and this place. and it was they served food and everything so it wasn't and and he started to you know pound on me not hurt me but he wanted to you know make sense with me or something and and and I was lying there now mind you I was a ballet dancer so I was I was strong I had very strong legs I you know I wasn't wimpy right in the meantime a cop came from Washington DC I looked at the window he looked down because he heard me yelling and he and the guy put his hand over my mouth I got out from under him and I ripped out from under him.

My leg. I pushed him. I got out. And I ran into the kitchen and I got a knife. And I held it up and I said, don't touch me. Wow. And he started to cry. And he said, I'm so sorry.

I don't know what happened to me. I'm so sorry. Now, I look at that experience and I still feel bad for you. Wow. Because I wasn't hurt. I knew it was wrong with him. He redeemed himself, obviously. So I didn't have one of those horrible experiences.

Okay. So I'm not saying, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. It's gone a different way for too many people. It's gone a different way for too many people. You bet. I mean, but it's an experience. And I think that it's an element of,

if we can't have a deeper understanding of human behavior, forget killing, forget full on rape, forget all these things. But with your husbands, your children, your loved ones, the people that are in your life, people, strangers that aren't nice, things that you can see. If we don't feel empathy, a sense of empathy for someone else, I don't know if life is worth living. I really don't. I think caring for something, caring about something

is really, really what you have in life. And it brings great happiness and great joy. And this thing that I'm doing with Mind Up, mind up for life, brings me so much joy because I'm ultimately doing something

at this time in my life that I care about, building human capacity, human capital, to be able to be able say one day, maybe this will be in every school in the world. 27 countries have already come to our site. You said it.

It's around the world this problem. We've got to build a healthier world, a world where people actually experience what it is. All the joys are being human, not just being angry, not having to win, not be somebody who has to, you know, weigh this against that. understand that. Try and understand that. And when you do, you realize it's actually more congeniality where we actually understand. We don't always think the same way. And we talk about this in the classroom. So I just think we have to build better capital. We are there. I'm savvy to do it. I may sound like a Pollyanna, sweetheart. I'm very scrutinizing. But I'm resilient. And, you know,

people aren't going to push me over that easily. I think it's a good reminder that there is a soft, safe, loving place that everyone can go to on their own, within their own head. You don't need a room called a safe room. You don't need speech labeled safe. You are in charge of the safety of your own body, your own mind, and whether you are okay, whether you can handle the anxiety or the stress brought on by anybody's words or behavior, whatever it is.

you are in charge of how you're going to react to that. And if you don't have the tools, they are getable. They're getable. They're learnable. They definitely are. I love, thank you. No wonder we have dinner when we get together. I just, what are you?

It's like, come on. You get you. It's not this. It's the tequila, but this is also good. All right, wait, let's squeeze in a quick break because I want to talk to you about what else you're doing now. And just a couple of fun moments because you know I'm not letting you leave without talking about overboard. One of the greatest films of all time.

It's like The Godfather, Overboard, Willy Wonka. We'll be right back with the one and only Goldie Haunt. Okay. So not, I mean, like your list of movies is too, it's crazy. I just went back and was looking like, I've seen all of these. Seems like Old Times. Talk about private vengeance. Swing shift, I love.

That's where you and Kurt Russell met. And it goes on and on. Here's just a couple for people who need a refresher like I did. We'll get to overboard in a second. First Wives Club. Everyone says, I love you. That was the Woody Allen film, 1996, same year. Protocol, wildcats, bird on a wire, house sitter, death becomes her, the out-of-towners, town and country.

I could go on. First Wives Club is, I hear, possibly, making a sequel, so we'll see about that. But let's get to the main event, okay? Let's talk Turkey. Overboard. 1987, I just learned in preparing for this interview, it was based on a real story. There was an actual woman who fell off a boat or showed up on a Florida shore with amnesia. And in the movie, which was apparently written with you and Kurt in mind, the promise is that the woman, your character, falls off of her yacht after being a real jerk to Kurt Russell's carpenter character.

And he decides after she threw all of his carpentry tools in the water that he's going to go claim this woman at the hospital and convince her that they're married and put her to work for him until she's going to go. she works off all the money she threw into the water. It's so funny. You could never make this film today, by the way, to get hip, her not appropriate, not PC, whatever. So, you couldn't make one of the things today. You couldn't make any of them? A lot of them, you know. Yeah.

I mean, when you look at some of the films in the way they were and what they, it's just, you know, things have changed tremendously. Interestingly enough, it has affected comedy quite a bit. this, you know, basically being, you know, basically politically correct and so forth. Because there's jokes were oftentimes made, you know, on all these different things that, you know, were sort of liabilities, right?

Yeah. And, you know, I know there's a lot of comics. I mean, it's sort of like they, you know, even when they go into universities, there's a lot of sensitivity to all kinds of stuff. So it's really interesting to be a stand-up comic or understand what your subject matters could actually be without offending someone.

That's got to be so annoying to you. You spent a whole career trying to make people laugh. Like having to worry about the third rails, you're supposed to step on the third rails if you're trying to make people laugh. You're supposed to start on what? You're supposed to step on the third rails. You're supposed to sort of poke the things that normal people wouldn't poke. No, exactly.

I mean, Don Rickles, you know, was the killer on that. No, that's sort of, you know, what you do. I mean, it was kind of like. like that, you know. I mean, I don't know. I remember one line I did on wildcats and, you know, I told him, I told him off and, you know, I was really upset with him and this was Nipsey Russell. And I was like, really this. And I left there and I hot it out. And I came back and I said, I forgot my purse. So, and she went back, you know. Now today that would be a moment, which is it was funny, but it's now it's sort of like, oh, you're just, I'm up, down.

Down deep, I'm just a crazy female, you know. So there's a lot of areas that maybe would not have been not. You've been getting guff for doing this kind of thing for a long time. I understand when you did laugh-in, that was sort of your first big, big thing. I mean, laughing back in the late 60s was, I mean, everybody watched it. It was like one in four Americans was watching Laugh in, which was on Monday nights, everybody watched it. That's where she, like, became a huge star. and then your movie career launch right after that.

But I read that when you were doing that, because you sort of played up sort of the dumb blonde character in a funny way. And I read that sort of the women's lib advocates kind of gave you a hard time saying, what are you doing? You're setting women back and you were like, well, I don't think we need to burn our bras necessarily to get ahead.

Like I'm kind of living the women's lib thing by paying my bills and working as an actress. I don't, like, is that true? What I said to her was this. She said, well, what about women's liberation? And don't you feel bad because, you know, you're basically showing off as a dumb blonde. I said, really? I said, you know, I'm already liberated.

And she looked at me like, what do you mean? I said, well, liberation comes from the inside. And I'm liberated. And she, it was one of those moments really, where I didn't even know what I was going to say. You know, sometimes when people ask you questions and you're thinking, you know, and it just comes out. Yeah. You know, and it just came out is that, you know, I don't know what you're saying because I'm experiencing liberation right now.

Well, and you would go on to live a life that showed it. I mean, I think some of the stuff we're talking about producing the movie instead of just starring in a time when not a lot of women were doing that and standing up for yourself and not submitting and so on, taking a lot of bullshit from men. so you navigate yourself to a place where you can do a movie like Overbord. You know her or newie. I mean, really, that was a great role, by the way. And I was also looking at wonderful roles. I mean, she was, first of all, we did the movie, you know, where I played Annie first. I didn't, we didn't put in order.

Joanna was the rich bitch version of you. And Annie was like the one he said, no, Annie. my wife, do all the cleaning, Annie. Exactly. So she was the one that I had to know who I was so I could play who I didn't know I was. Does that make sense? So it was quite a challenge to tell you that truth. One of the scenes I love the most, Goldie, is where you've had it. You know, this woman who's really Joanna, who's being told she's Annie and a housewife who does all the chores, knows at some level that this isn't the right fit.

And he dumps you in this like sort of water barrel out in the front of the house. And we have a clip in which you channel my every thought when I pick up a mop. Here she goes. Listen. Come on, guys. Feel better? I don't belong here. I feel it.

Don't you think I feel it? I can't do any of these vile things and I wouldn't want to. My life is like death. My children are the spawn of hell and you're the devil. Baby, we like you. I haven't seen that in a long time. I mean, that's like that. I can't do any of these vile things that I wouldn't want to.

My children are the spons of hell. You're the devil. Oh, my God. I mean, there are things in that film. There were, it was so funny. And it also was emotional because when she came out and said, how could you? You know, how could you do this?

When she learns that he's been duping her because they do fall for each other and then she learns he's been lying to her. Exactly. And then my real husband. comes back in his limo. And the kids were devastated. And I just didn't know what to do. I remembered who I was finally.

And it was like, oh, my God. Now, in the middle of a movie that is hilarious, right? That was a very dramatic moment. And when she got in the car, the kids running after her, that was so sad. So a movie where you can cry, laugh, you know, just have a lot of emotions to it. We're really extraordinarily lucky to be able to play. The end of the movie was one of my favorite endings.

Because when we jumped in the water, because we were pining for each other, I was looking for him. And we dove in the water together in the sea to get together. the end of it, after they're all bundled up, he says, what can I give you that you don't already have? Because she had the money. And she looked at him and said a baby girl. Kind of like, oh, perfect line.

Perfect line for an end of a movie. I mean, it's like, oh, I loved it. But you guys were the key, the writer of the film. Is it Leslie Dixon? Leslie Dixon. And then there was writing from everybody. Harvey wrote some stuff. And, you know, we, we worked on it together. Well, so she says, she gives you guys all the credit. She's like, Kurt and Goldie are the cutest

people on the face of the earth. She goes, I don't say that to be diminishing. She goes, it's just a fact. Everyone loves them. The chemistry was palpable. You guys had met a few years earlier on the set of swing shift, which I also really enjoyed. And you could feel it. And then you had a new baby, Wyatt, Wyatt of now, like, who's now like, Captain America. I just learned today. He was running around the set. He was one of the kids and one of the outdoor mini golf scenes. He was nine months old. Oh my gosh. And it was nine months old. And my nanny was holding him in the scene. So he was just one of the extras, right? It was meant to me. He was like a baby on the movie set and still is on one. Right. And he took his three steps on that

movie. Wow. I don't know. Why do you think that movie has stood the test of time? You know, because not every movie made in 1987. Like Moonstruck, that was an amazing film. I think it may have come out that year. People aren't still watching it. It's still not on television all the time. So why is overboard doing that? Well, I think overboard is a general, it's a relationship movie, first of all. It's about people falling in love. It's an amazing premise. If you didn't know who you were, who would you be. It's also about when you, it's also about love. When you think you can't fall in love,

it changes you. And it's also good for blended families to see is that sometimes when they don't know who their mother is or they don't have a mom anymore, a new person coming into the household doesn't mean that it's going to fall apart. Sometimes it means that they're going to have a great time. A lot of doctors use this movie for blended families to show them. And so it has tremendous ability to make people feel. And it has nothing to do with time. That's why it's so timeless. It's that it's really about humor, but how people get along and how to get along.

And, you know, it was emotional. I mean, when she wakes up and says, but when she had, you know, all that, you know, she was had, I'm so ugly. I mean, this is where she had, you know, it's she had poison oak. Exactly. Yeah. That was great when she came out.

He was telling all these stories about her past that she was in the Navy and that she had, she used to be really fat, which is why she had, he had only these huge house dresses for her that he got from the Salvation Army. And she goes, I was a short, fat, slut. That's right. I mean, really, it's just so funny, you know. And then when we're in bed together, right? And it's sleeping.

and he got me a washing machine for my birthday. And the kids, she was so happy, you know, and then he told her all about how she, you know, was an employee of the month. And she was so happy about it, you know. And so you had this feeling. You kind of hated him and you kind of knew he was falling in love with her. And she was so vulnerable to believe that I was employee of the month,

you know, learning about who I was and feeling good about it. And no information for this character that she might actually be a good person, which Joanna, the other person, would never have actually heard. And by the way, I mean, it must be said, your body was so amazing. It was like, your body looks like. See, by the way, I've had a baby. Well, he was nine months old. How is that possible?

What were you doing? Well, you know, I guess being a dancer all your life, your body knows. The muscles, no. They have information. And so it's like when you go back to work again or you lose weight again or you do whatever, you kind of got to go back. Your body has memory.

And I think that's what happened. What did I do? I worked out. I did a lot of things, you know. I didn't break my back, but I worked out. I did my sit-ups. I did my stuff. I had someone working with me.

You know, I did all my weights. of course I did aerobic. So yeah, I mean, you know, I did what I normally do. You looked amazing. You both did. I think it's a Muslim memory. I swear to God. You still have it.

You post these little videos of you and your family during the pandemic and you got the puppy, whenever I'm like, that bitch looks better than I am and she is 76. I don't even know what you. It's like, what the hell? First of all, your body is killer. I mean, you will always have that, by the way. There's nothing to snap back into.

No, it's very jiggly. It's not like the Goldie Hawn in overboard. Trust me, it never has been. You can't tell me that. It's not true. But anyway, yeah, so it's really, it is nice. But you know what's interesting is we get older. And I'm very, very what is you can tell.

You know, I've been a dancer. You cannot let that go. Once you're three and four and five and six and seven and eight, and that's what you did dance all your life. You cannot let yourself go, right? So, you know, I went and I go to places for cleanses and all that. We were just talking about that this morning. And I said, no matter what I do, I go to the cleansing place.

It's great. I'm doing all my, everything we do. We do, come on, we do the scrubs. We do the massage. We don't eat. We have, you know, all the stuff that we do do. You know, my stomach is so flat and I'm so happy. And it takes about two weeks.

What the hell cleanses this? What cleanses this? The next thing goes back again. I mean, my stomach is not huge. It's just all in the wrong place. You know what I mean? And I'm like, oh, come on. So, you know, so am I paying attention still?

Yes. We can tell. Is you look amazing. And by the way, Abby, could you sign me up for dance classes immediately? Goldie Hawn. I love you so much. Thank you so much for doing this, for doing mind up. And the next tequila is on me, sister.

Okay, babe. You got it. Talk soon. In the 1980s and 90s, Jordan ran one of the most successful brokerage firms in Wall Street history, also one of the craziest. He lived a life of luxury with money, yachts, women, and drugs. But it could not last forever. Soon the FBI would catch up and catch on to a multi-million dollar pump and dump stock manipulation scheme that would land Jordan in federal prison for 22 months. He would later write a New York Times bestselling book,

The Wolf of Wall Street, and soon Hollywood would come knocking, and A-list actors would launch a bidding war for the movie rights. Leonardo DiCaprio would go on to portray Jordan in the now very famous and high-grossing film. It's incredible life and incredible life lessons that Jordan has gotten along the way, and today he is my guest and we'll discuss it all. Jordan, thank you so much for being here. Thanks. It's a pleasure. Okay, so I'm all, I saw Wolf of Wall Street when it came out in 2013, and now I've read the book, and have been following you on Twitter, and I love your inspirational messages.

You really have taken a lot of these life lessons to heart. And one of the things that attracted me to your messaging was your very anti-victim mentality. I mean, you know, you own everything that you've done and have been through and have been really open about it. But you also haven't lost touch with the drive that it takes to make. make all the money that you made, some legally, some not legally. But you haven't lost touch with what it takes to be successful and to get ahead of the other guy. And so I want to get to all of that because that's part of who you are as well. Let's start at the beginning, though. So you're a kid from Bayside Queens. You did not grow up rich or poor, right? About middle class, would you say?

Yeah. And your parents were what? Well, my parents were both CPAs. And it's interesting because You think, well, wow, both are CPAs, professionals. You'd probably be upper middle class, maybe even, you know, lower wealthy, right? And but my parents really struggled growing up and kind of didn't realize that tell us about 10. And when I was 10, I remember, it's a funny story. I wanted to buy a pair of Puma's because they were, you know, all their age back then, right? Pumas. And I think my birthday was coming up and I asked my mom, you know, I want Pumas.

She's like, we can't afford it. I'm like, what do you mean you can't afford it? Like, you're dad at professionals. You both, and they both, my mother was like a trailblazer, just so you know, like in the 50s, back in Med, and then, day, she was going into the city and working as a CPA. And, you know, it was a big eight back then accounting firm. And she was the oldest woman in New York State that passed the bar when she was 68. So she's not a real piece of work, my mom.

She's awesome. But they had no money. I was like, well, and she sat me down and she showed me, you know, what was going on. She showed me they made X and there are expenses and, you know, our rent and so forth. And at the end of the month, we're about a little bit left over. It's for a college fund. And I was appalled because I was like, it didn't add to me. You know, like something seemed like it was off.

How could two such brilliant people, hardworking people, educated people, industrial people have be broke. It didn't make sense. And it wasn't long after I think it started to occur to me to a certain other elements that were necessary to which, achieve financial success. And one of them was taking risk. My parents were completely risk-averse, depression mentality. And also, they were really against any type of sales or marketing type ideas. They just shunned them and thought they were evil. And because of that, they were never able to

use their services or market their services, their wares, so to speak. So they worked for other people. They worked for a paycheck. And they struggled badly. So I think a lot of that went into my makeup of but what it really means to to succeed financially. It's not just about hard work. Hard work, of course, is required. It's not just about education. Education is usually important, not always, but at least self-education of some sort.

But there's other components involved. And one of those is going to certainly be, you know, taking some risks, working for yourself, or at least being in an industry like sales where you can almost work for yourself and risk-taking. So a very important lesson I learned very young. So how did you understand, like how did you become such a good salesman?

Because if you read up on Jordan Belfort, you realize one of the things that made the difference in your life is you know how to sell. And it's not that easy for the average person. I think a lot of people are more introverted. They don't want to put themselves out there. They don't want to have to sort of, I don't know, make themselves feel vulnerable by asking somebody to buy something from them. So how did you get so good at that? Part of that is a God-given gift. Seriously, I mean, I think that we all, all of us, each person possesses certain gifts and certain, you know, deficit.

I think in my personal genetic makeup and a combination of nature and nurture, I ended up naturally being very, very talented at sales. But then I trained myself and honed that skill over years and years of hard work and selling to a razor's edge. And then I found myself in a position very young when I started my firm where I was teaching a methodology of sales that was intuitive to me. It didn't have a name back then. And it was working real well until I tried to go to a much more difficult type of sale. And when I was faced with this difficult sale, I could do it, yet the people that worked for me couldn't. And it forced me to come up with a new way of training salespeople, which is really what allowed

me to understand my own sales process much better. So by almost by becoming a teacher, it made me a far better actual student. I mean, I was a salesperson myself. You have to think about it. There's a moment in your book, late in the book, where your daughter says, you were supposed to take me to the blockbuster. You promised to take me to the blockbuster video and you say, I had promised her nothing of the sort, but I appreciated the negotiating tactic. Start from a position of strength. Assume the sale is already done. I thought it was, oh yeah. And also the tonality.

Like, yeah, you know, you told me going to blockbuster, right? Like, I'm like, what? Like, almost what she phrases a declarative as a question. It's good. I learned. I understand. That's how I'm going to pitch my next big guest. You promised me you'd come on. What? Who the hell are you? Okay, so you were a worker when you were a kid. You'd had the paper out and you did all the stuff that, you know, a lot of successful people, I know, have done. You did not sit on the couch watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie like somebody else I know when I see in the mirror. Then you did not immediately go to Wall Street. You decided that you were going, you wanted to make money, and you decided to be a dentist.

And then tell us what happened your first day at dental school. Yeah, that was really, you know, about. I think it's a reflection of belief systems that, you know, we all have infused into us by our parents, society, our peer group. And, you know, my mother, my parents, just very highly educated people. And to them, it was like, you know, there's only no one noble way to become wealthy. And that is, you know, doctor, dentist. And like, you know, at the time, if you ask me at the age of 21, you know, what do you want to be for a living? I'd say, I want to be rich for a living. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. So. boys playing in my head like doctor, dentist, Rachel. Now, my uncle was a dentist, and he was very successful. I was like, well, my uncle's a dentist's four years. Medical school will be another 10.

I'm going to kill myself in 10 years. So I said, I'll go to dental school. I applied very well in school as I got in. And the first day of dental school, Dean stands up in front of the audience who is Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in Maryland. And he says, you know, welcome to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. She's proud to be here. Dentistry's a wonderful profession.

And he goes, but let me say this, the golden age of dentistry is over. If you're here to make money, you're probably in the wrong place. Like, what the hell? I'm on the wrong place and I got up and I literally walked out my first day and I dropped out. That too is such a moment. It tells us a lot about you because I would think, I mean, honestly, having been to law school and practice law, you at that point, your egos into it. You've told everybody you're going to dental school. You have some sort of, you know, skin in the game.

So the fact that you got up and walked out does say something about you. Like, you know, it doesn't take you long to make a decision about your life and your future and where are you going to do? What are you going to do next? That's an important thing that you're hitting on yet because one of the biggest mistakes that I think people make. And we all make, even though I still make it, but I try to stop myself or make me is, is that it's not just ego. It's part of ego. It's part. It's just part when you get caught up in something.

You're in, like you can't see the forest or the trees. Like, you know, anyone on the outside would say, what are you doing? No, it's not working. You know, it's time to make the move, get out, go do something else. So many people will stay with something to a point where it's obvious it's not working for them. It's obvious it's not going to get them the outcome they want. But they feel like they put time in so they're invested in it. They've done things.

They've told people. They're doing things. So they feel they have to be consistent with that. Yet to their own detriment, they stay and they, that other opportunities pass them by. And I think that's a very, very powerful thing that, you know, for all entrepreneurs, actually success-oriented people is to always be looking at your surroundings and what's going on and just being honest. You know, is this work or is this not? I don't believe you just keep trying and quitting.

I'm not like that at all. But at a certain point, it's you have to get realistic with yourself and say, you know what? I should be making a pivot here and trying something else. What I'm doing is simply not work. Mm-hmm. And you had your eyes on the prize. You knew your overall goal was to get rich. it was not to be a dentist.

That was just a means to an end. And when you found out it wasn't the means, you were like, peace out. So you, you not knowing exactly what's next, you leave. And then the way I hear it, you heard about a kid from your neighborhood who was making a million bucks on Wall Street. And the light bulb went off. And you were like, I too am going to Wall Street. But it's not that easy. One step.

And this one step. What? Oh, the meat? Is it the meat salesman? Yes. Yes, I actually said this is a very important part of the story is that, you know, when I dropped out of dental school, I answered a blind ad in the newspapers, newspapers back with ads, right, not the internet.

And it was for a sales job and it said company vehicle, a thousand week company vehicle. It's like, wow, that sounds pretty good, right? And I went down, I didn't realize that the company vehicle was a meat truck, and it turned out it was selling meat and see who door to door to doors, right? And I was like, all right, well, whatever, I'll give it a shot. And that was the first real sales job that I had. I'd always been selling stuff, you know, hard work, going blanket to blanket on Jones Beach,

making a lot of money selling ICE as a kid. I was the kid with the paper out. I was a kid with the lemonade stamp. This was a magic show, even I did when I was younger. But this was the first real, you know, job and sales job was like that influence and persuasion. And my first day on that job, I broke the company record.

I had a natural ability to sell. And that was really how it got started. It's like, you know, me knowing that I could really close at a high level. And after about two weeks of breaking the records, I said, let me just try to open up a business myself. I always had to have that entrepreneurial edge. And I started my own meat business. And over the next year, I built it up with 26 trucks.

And, you know, I'll train all those employees had to sell door to door. And we're selling door to doors. That was really the proving ground for everything else that came after. And then ultimately, I made every mistake that a young entrepreneur could make. I was over-expanding. I was undercapitalized. I was growing on credit. It was a really poorly run business.

You could look at that as a textbook for how not to run a business, right? And I went bankrupt. And I lost everything. And that was when I heard at the same time about this kid I grew up with, his name was Michael Falk. And I heard he's making a million dollars a year on Wall Street.

Like, you think back, it's 1986, like a million dollars a year. It seemed like an impossibly large number. I'd $10 on my pocket at the time. and I didn't believe it when I heard it. And about a week later, I went to the local park. We all hung out in Bayside. And he pulls up at a Ferrari, you know,

and a beautiful suit and a beautiful girl. I'm like, and this guy was not just to understand. He was not like this kid that was voted most likely to succeed in high school. It was kind of the weird kid growing up. So I was like, Michael, what happened? He's like, oh, I'm a stop. Here's the things about stockbrokers, Megan. I know, if I was saying, hey, Megan, what did you make last day?

You'd be like, excuse me? Like, what did I earn less? a little bit forward of you, right? You would like, you know, ask a doctor, hey, what you're earning? What? But ask the stock program. Like, I made a million. They just offered the information.

Like the first stockbrook was calling on, hey, I made a million to you. What are you doing? You know? So I was like, I made a million too. He goes, next year I'll make two million. I was like, and I said to myself in that moment what you probably said to yourself, many of your listeners have saying, if this idiot can make a million, I can make 10. That was exactly what I thought, you know?

And that was really started my question. to go down to Wall Street. What you say is so true, having lived in New York for almost 20 years, people are the same way about rents. What are you paying rent? How many square feet? Let me see your apartment. Take me around.

As soon as they walk in. Like, great, you show them everything. You show them your closet, your bathroom. It's just like you put it all out there that we all live in different terms when you're in New York City. Okay, so you get the first big job you get is an L.S. Rothschild. And what was the messaging from your superiors there? This is the portion of the movie in which Matthew McConaughey is

portrayed as your boss? Great scenes. That character was spectacular. It was amazing, yeah. So that was, so what was the messaging to you then? How did they see you? So I was really pretty funny.

So I was interviewed by the manager of that office and, you know, the L'A Rothschild office. It's a big, well-respected firm. And I knew I had to stand out because there was like 50 kids lined up with the interview. It was the bull market of the 80s. And when I went to this interview,

I started pitching him to stop. Like I'm not even really knowing what I was saying, but I knew I was really a sound good, a good tone out. So I started saying, hey, I'm going to, you know, this stock is, I forgot what I said exactly. But the point is I was pitching him a stock. And he's like, whoa, whoa, he's like, stop. I'm like what? He goes, I've never met anyone like him.

He goes, I'll tell you, it goes, either one of two things are going to happen to you. Either you're going to become the most famous broker in Wall for history, or you're going to end up in jail. Well, the guy was a genius. He was right on both accounts. And he hired me, right? And that was how I got my job. And my first day of walking into that boardroom was like I heard the mighty roar of the Wall Street

boardroom. I was blown away by it, the fear, the greed, the cursing, the screaming. I mean, it was unbelievable, just the energy in this room. And for six months, I watched all these other brokers selling. I wasn't licensed yet. I had to go through a licensing process. And the messaging was, you know, let's just say it was very much like Matthew McConaughey said, even in a big firm.

I think one of the worst, probably one of the worst, secrets and probably the dirty little secret of Wall Street is that most of it's really not in the best interest of the client when it comes to because the fact is that most of this whole machine is not necessary of stockbrokers. It an analyst because you better of just buying the S&P

and holding it. That's a separate issue. But it was churn and burn him. Let's turn them and burn them and move the money around and you know close at all course. It wasn't lie to the client. It wasn't about lying or or you know

or like you know, some burning made off stuff, but it was about getting their money churning burn and, and you come first. And I was pretty shocked when I heard that, but that was, that was the theme. Was it, is it true that the, the, the, the, the, the, the boss at the time took you out and flat out encouraged you to drink more, consider drugs, consider hookers or masturbation several times a day? Like, I mean, is that, did that really happen? Yeah, but like, yes. The answer is yes, but more like, in other words, he was just he was a very funny guy. You just, he was that sort of guy that like, like, you. He would do anything for a laugh.

He was a very clever, funny person. So he was saying, but, you know, one thing that was very prevalent, which I don't know if it still is today, but cocaine back then was like wildly prevalent was everywhere. And, you know, the idea that people were doing cocaine during that, that was like standard operating procedure back at that period of time. I think it's gotten better. I hope it's gotten better.

But that was certainly standard operating procedure. And I think also was, you were probably all seen from very, is other movies as well that prostitutes hookers on wall. She was also very much standard procedure. But the message really grim was just like, you know, smile and dial and have fun and basically, you know, the idea here is like, and I really, you know, I came from a really honest, good family.

And I was like, no, it's like not. It's like not was not like the objective. It wasn't the objective to lose their money. But you would never want to lose someone money because it just doesn't, there's no reason to want to do that. David, at Stratton, one of the biggest misgivings in the movie, he thinks that, like, we tried to lose money. That's just nonsense.

We never would. You would never try. You make more money when your clients make money. It's just very difficult sometimes when interests are not aligned. Yeah. It's like you're trying to lose someone money. So that wasn't, he didn't say, let's just rip the client. He wasn't that.

It's more like just, you know, turn them and burning, baby, that sort of stuff. If you have to choose between yourself and the client, you choose yourself is basically the approach. So Jordan winds up going. and we'll get to this in one second. I'm going to take a quick break. But L.S. Rothschild collapses when Black Monday hits in 1987, and that career quickly dies. But Jordan, you won't be surprised, would not be stopped.

And his biggest and now most infamous chapter was yet to come. That's where we're going to pick it up right after this quick break. And we'll play some clips from the award-winning movie as well. Stand by. Jordan, so Black Monday comes, and that's the end of Rothschild. and you must have been thinking at the time your Wall Street career too. Yeah, I was pretty shocking because after six or seven months of being a cold call, like just, you know, darling the phone and passing it to someone else because they didn't have my license.

Yeah, when I finally passed my Series 7 got my license, my first day, literally, my first day as a broker that I was on the phone, darling for myself, the market crashed 508 points. Rothschild is, you know, essentially out of business. by the end of the day, but it took a couple of weeks after they shut down. They were already like, that was it. They were done that first day. So it was really, really sad. And I remember the brokers were walking around saying, oh, damn, the game is over.

I'm like, what do you mean the game is over? I didn't get to play. I was a slave. Like, they're like, ah, no, the game's over. Then on that day, and down on the ground floor was the newsstand, the New York Post, like the death of Wall Street, all brokers will be cab drugs. I'm like, I'm, oh, I should have stayed in dental school, right? It was really unbelievable.

But I got home, I was not the first. wife. I've not done great in the wife department. I've got a few marriages, but I got it right this time, hopefully. And, but she unfortunately didn't know the market crash. She'd taken her last dollars. We were really struggling, and she bought a bottle of champagne. And, you know,

I walked her door. She's like, how did you break the rate? Because everyone thought I'd do so well. It was broke. I was like, I'd give it up. And she said that last, like, buddy on the champagne. I collapsed in her arms and started to cry. I literally, you know, we all take that punch. I'm sure you've been there. You're a, you're a, you're a, you're a

move from shaking yourself. You have ups and you have downs. And like sometimes when things are going there, you think the world is just against you, gods against you. You think you have the mightest touch in reverse. Everything you touch turns to shit basically. It was like,

I really was like, I had this moment like I was like collapsed and I just said I can't, I can't do this anymore. You know, I should have just been like the normal route, you know? And that lasted about five minutes because I didn't have longer than that. I couldn't pay the rent. So after I had a good cry,

we sat there. He opened up the hell want, section and we just started looking for other jobs like outside of Wall Street like sales. And after about a few minutes, she stumbled on some ad. It was like stockbrokers like in Long Island and it was part time, full time. There was so much that didn't make sense. But like stockbrokers on the land like this is back in the late 80s where there was, you know, everything was on Wall Street.

And it was part time. I part time stockbrokers like, you know. And then when I answered, I called the phone, they're like, that's dissent. I'm like, whoa. It was like a gruff voice. I'm like, what about Morgan Stanley? you'll go. It's like Investor Center. I never even heard. You know, it sounded like your name.

And they asked me to come down and do the next day. I went down and I walked in. I was like, just shocked. It was like nothing in the office that, you know, wreaked of wealth success or Wall Street. It was just like it was going back to like the cave band days. It was like no, no computers on the desk. It was young kids in jeans and sneakers. They were just, you know, cursing like, but a different type of cursing at the clients. And like, and like lying through that teeth.

And I'm like, what do you guys do? doing it. Like, oh, you know, imagine we sell penny stocks. And I'm like, what's a penny stock? I legitimately did not know what a penny stock was other than that it traded in a lower price. I didn't understand the context, you know, you know, what it was really all about. And in that moment, you know, there was a scene in the movie where I say, you know, was this legal? Is that legal? And he's like, well, you know, that's not true. You know what he said? Of course it's legal. So we actually have this clip teed up from the movie. The fake you, portraying this moment, Leonardo DiCaprio, here it is.

Yeah, they're penny stocks. You know, companies that can't get listed on NASDAQ, they don't have enough capital. Their shares trade here. Is this stuff regulated, or are you guys, what are you doing here? Sort of. Sort of? Jesus Christ, the spread on these is huge. Yeah, and that's the point.

What's your name again? Jordan Bellford. Jordan, what do you get on a blue chip stock? I make 1% I did make 1%. Pink sheets, it's 50. It's 50%. 50%? 50% commission?

For what? It's our markup for our services. So good. So you get the dollar signs in your eyes at that point. Like 50's a lot better than one. You know, the most important thing, and I mentor a lot of young people. I do big events around the world,

small events, and there's a lot of people in their teams and 20s. And one of the things I always say to them is, you know, be really careful. That seems very misleading. And I wish they wouldn't have done that. But that's one of the, you know, it's an amazing move. But it just like that it's not accurate in the sense that if he would have said that to me, I would have run out the door. Like I was a really good kid that never broke.

And it wasn't like my nature to go and face it. I don't know, maybe it's legal. I would say, oh, bye, bye, I'll find some that's legal. But that's not what he said. He said the opposite. He said, of course, what do you mean? We are SEC. We report to the NASD member.

So the reason that's so important is because right now, today in the world, for all you people listening, especially young people, you're going to find yourself walking into offices and businesses where they're ripping people off. And as a young person like what I was, you'll just, you assume it's okay. Because if it wasn't, it wouldn't be happening. They would have shut it down. Some regulator would have made it stop, but it's not true. These things often take many years to be shut.

shut down if ever. So, you know, just be careful that if your alarm goes off in your stomach and like it's like not legit, it's probably not. Like don't just assume they say, oh, of course it is. Or if they say, you maybe run the other way. That's my advice. I've had, I've had jobs in the past where you see ethics compromised here and then there and then you detect a pattern and you have to ask yourself, do I stay or do I go, right? Like that's a one-off can happen anywhere. But once you realize, oh, this is not an ethical place to be. It's a character test. And actually, it's one of the questions I have for you, because I'll tell you, I know a guy in New York who he was arrested and he was accused of being kind of a mini made-off. And the jury was hung when all was said and done. So that was a

good result for him. But it did come out later that he had cheated on his series seven. He had had another guy go in and take it for him. And I thought to myself, so like these early ethical compromises, know, how often do they result in just the loss of ethics, right? They're gone. Once you cross that line, it's tough to cross back over. You know, one of the things I always say when I'm out there speaking, I say you can't be half pregnant when it comes to ethics. It doesn't work that way.

It will be nice if it did, but it doesn't. I'll tell you why it doesn't. It's because, you know, like, and my story illustrates this perfectly. You know, I was doing everything right. When I started my firm, I was doing everything right. And I had this one moment where, like, I was faced with making a decision of taking a very large amount of cash from someone. And the person said, everyone's doing it. I knew it was wrong.

I was like, well, you know, and I figured it was being done. I knew it was the only person had done this. But I knew it was wrong. I said, well, you know what? I'll do this once. And then I won't do anything again. But once you take that first step over the line, what happens is your line moves slightly to be wrong side. this slight bit.

So next time, and you do things right for all, but next time you step over the line, you'll step a bit further. And then a bit further still through these tiny, almost imperceptible nudges towards the dark side,

you can very quickly find yourself doing things you thought you would never do, associating people you never thought you'd associate with that it all seems perfectly okay. You don't think it's wrong. Your line has moved. Your morality, your ethics, your compass,

it's just little nudges. And before you know it, it's insanely off. Like, it's like when you dip your toe into a piping hot bathtub, right? You're like, oh, my God, it's so hot. And then five minutes later, you're submerged under the water and it feels perfect. Right? When I was a kid, I was like, oh, I guess the water cooled down. No, the water didn't cool down.

You just got used to it. It's like, you know, and that's what happens. And, you know, it happened to me so profoundly that when I got my first subpoena from the SEC for like something I wasn't really even guilty of, It was just, like, vomiting. Like I was so, oh my God, my life is over. I got a subpoena. I'm going to do. It was a civil subpoena.

And I was just so nervous. I was devastating. My life is over. Two years later, I'm like, through the paper shred. Like, you don't, you become, it's weird how that happens, you know? Yeah. And very, very careful with your ethics. And I, and the really sad part is that, you know, you make more money by being ethical.

It just takes a little bit longer. But the big money is by being ethical. And picking back up on your book, that same kid who vomited when he first got the SEC subpoena, you would wind up bugging the SEC. How did you do that? It's really easy. I mean, they came to my office and they were sitting in my conference room for months and months and months on end. For what reason I have no level. Let's say it was a different world back there.

They didn't have like computers the way they had. I guess they had to shift through mounds of paperwork. I guess it decided it was easier to come to us. So, you know, we had all these spy shops back then that sold all these little plug that looked like a plug. It was actually a listening device. And we put that device in and see what they were saying, which really wasn't that much.

And yeah, and then we actually got caught doing that, believe it or not because my apartment was one day he was incredibly high. He liked, they said something bad about him. I remember you see it. Oh, no. There's a great scene. So Bo Dietl would become your, like, chief investigator, sort of protector. And a lot of my listeners may know him from my time at Fox, and he's on Fox. He was all the time with Sean Hannity, such a colorful character. I was just telling my friend, great story about Bo. He's just so funny. And there's a, he ran for mayor a couple years ago in New York. And I can't remember the context in which he said it, but it was basically, it was in a magazine article. And he was talking about how he's going to clean up New York City, I think. And he's like, I'm going to clean up this city from Harlem. all the way down to that slut New York Harbor.

I'm like, does he mean the statue of liberty? He's talking about that statue of that slut in New York Harbor. Way of communicating, Bo, with everything, it has an annotation at the end. You know, my budgetation and my meditations. And I love, and you write about how this I didn't know about Bo. He's never done it with me. But he calls the people around him, Bo. I did not know that.

Yeah, it calls everyone both. So it's like, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, He's not the larger than life character. You know, he's always a very good friend of mine, and I respect him. And, you know, he just did a lot of good stuff. He personally had people, you know, like, you know, security guards. And he did he did a good job from me. Yeah.

So he tried to help you. But he was quick to tell you, please do not try to bug the FBI agents. Do not try to tape them. Do not try to bug offices or briefcases or anything like that. Okay. So you go from the penny stock place. How to Stratton Oakmont. It's got a great name, and that's by design.

But how to Stratton. Appent Oakmont, which was officially born in 1989, come about. So Stratton was actually started. Stratten Securities were started in 1979, I think. And it was a trading firm that just, you know, did a lot of interbank trading, insurance companies, pet, just traders, right? And then when the crash came, the firm basically lost all its equity and it was teetering, you know, by thread.

and right around the time I decided to open up my own brokerage firm, you know, Stratton became available that you could use their licenses was what was called an OSJ, an office of supervisory jurisdiction. So I jumped on that bandwagon and that's how it started with Stratton. After a short time, another firm named Oakmont became available. And I wanted to give some things about that firm. I like had a good clearing arrangement. the trader was more professional than what I had.

So I bought Oakmont, and that's how I can't distract on Oakmont. Okay. So you wind up going around and hiring a bunch of guys, and these are, I don't know how you want to describe them, but salt to the earth. I barely post-adolescent income boots, but in a loving, fun way, you know? And you were their fearless leader who is up there like,

let me show you how it's done. There's a famous scene in the movie in which you're talking to them about selling and, you know, how they got to get out there and sell. And they did respect you and they were very loyal to you and they all looked up to you. Here's just a clip of you, well, Leonardo DiCaprio, as you motivating the team. There is no nobility in poverty. I've been a rich man and I have been a poor man and I choose rich every fucking time. Because at least as a rich man, when I have to face my problems, I show up in the back of a limo.

wearing a $2,000 suit and a $40,000 gold fucking watch. If anyone here thinks I'm superficial or materialistic, go get a job at fucking McDonald's, because that's where you fucking belong. It taps right into Wall Street at the time and the guys, and it was, you know, F everybody, and it's us against them and be a killer. And that worked.

It worked very well. That's a really interesting scene, because it's true. I mean, it comes from a speech that I kind of reconstructed when I wrote my book. But that came later. That mentality, like, you know, let's just say what we were doing at that time was a little different than when the firm first started. You know, in the firm first started, we were selling penny stocks to average moms and pops like that other company was doing. And then I came with this idea to go to the richest 1% and just to call, you know, really rich people.

and sell them $5 stocks. So the leap that really made Stratton, Straton, was we weren't selling penny stocks, we were selling $5 stocks, and we weren't calling average moms and pops. We were calling rich business owners. And that was also what forced me to come up with a new way of training salespeople. Because what happened was the way I had been training salespeople with the first program, which was calling average moms and pops. It was very easy sales, more of an impulse sale, like, you know, a dollar and a dream,

like a lot of a ticket. And it was very different than what was happening when I actually had to go and call the richest 1% and sell them $5 stocks. And suddenly the kids that work for me, which were kids that were not educated highly, did not naturally that intelligent. And also none of them possessed any, you know, let's say, you were no members of the lucky sperm club and no Ivy League diploma. So they couldn't close the rich people.

And I had to come up with a new way of training sales people. I'm going to stand you by right there because this is a good time for a quick pause, quick break and much, much more on the opposite side of this with Jordan Belfort, the wolf of Wall Street. So the straight line, what's the other piece of the straight line? One is motivation and the other is actually how do you sell to really rich people? And in a nutshell, how is that? So the motivation is definitely part of the straight line.

Like sort of, you know, there's two sides to succeeding in anything. And we live in a world of duality. It's up, there's going to be down. Yes, no, start, stop, even the digital world that are, allows us to communicate, you have a one year of zero, right? There's two sides to every coin. Same thing goes in success and sales. And we speak of sales and there's the inner game of sales, success, and entrepreneurial success in the outer game. Inner game means your mindset. What's happening up here between your ears before you ever go out and try to close someone

or start a business, whether that might be. Then the outer world, all you, the actual real world skills that allow you to accomplish what you want to accomplish. So, you know, in mindset, there's things like managing your emotional state. Make sure that you're in a positive and powered emotional state, that you have belief systems that support you and that propel you to success and don't stop you from succeeding or cause you to pull back where you shouldn't. Beliefs like my parents had where they thought that selling was evil, that marketing was evil, that any type of risk was a bad thing.

Those are limiting beliefs when it comes to making money. So, you know, you could have the best entrepreneurial skill set and education like my parents did. like they had great education, but if you have that sort of belief system, it's going to stop you from achieving. So that's inner game as well. Then you have another thing which is called, you know, your vision focus. You know, what's your vision? Do you have a target that you're aiming for? Where do you want to be in five years from now? And why does it matter to you? Very important, you know, why you're, you know, why you do what you do? And most people, they got to want to make money. It's not a why. You know, why is much more profound than that as typically to do with someone

that you love unconditionally or cause you believe it. It's not about you. It'll be about the people that you love with a community or something bigger than yourself. That's a real powerful why. And then lastly, on the inner game is something called your standards, you know, your personal standard, what you will not settle for less than, you know, a standard operates like a thermostat. You know, it's like your set point. Where do you burn?

Where do you feel comfortable? If you have low standards for making money, well, guess what? You know, it's like the furnace. If the thermostat set to a low level, the thermos shuts off pretty quickly. If thermostat is at the high level, it keeps going. So that's what your stands operate. Like all that's happening every second of every day in your mind

and it's influencing what decisions you make, what you do, how you handle adversity. And those things, when they're wrapped into one empowered, you know, into one empowered, let's say, you know, lump, so to speak, where you're like literally, you know, you have this ability to just be positive and think positively and focus on where you want to go in life. that sets you up for massive success in the outer world, which is now where your strategies,

your real world business and entrepreneurial and sales strategy, state goal. For example, as a business owner, you know, there are certain skill sets that an entrepreneur must have this knowledge that you need. It's critical,

mission critical knowledge. You know, and when I talk about entrepreneurship, I typically divide into like these two size, like you need to learn how to believe it or not, fail elegantly. Like, how do you go into business and be wrong? And because you're wrong,

more than you're right when you go into business. You're going to be on the wrong side of the test more open than not. How do you maximize the lessons learned in the failures, but minimize the amount of money loss, time loss, so you can learn from it and move on and try again. And then that's failing out anyway. It's crucial. You've tweeted out and I've heard you say before, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I love meeting people who know more than me because that's how you learn, right? Yeah. So it's okay. It's okay to fail. It's okay to fail, do it well, do it elegantly, and understand it's not so bad to be the one learning. Yeah. And also, I think one of the things I think a quote I'm well known for,

and something I say to my kids all the time, especially when younger, is like, you're not the failures of your past. You're the resources and the capabilities you glean from your past failures. You know, you get stronger when you fail. If you learn from those failures, you don't become your failure. You don't start thinking you're the failure. Your failure is not you. It's a lesson learned and you grow stronger with each time you fail and both mentally and you learn from that. And that's what sets you up to succeed the next time. So I like that. Failure means you're a risk taker. If you've got some failures behind you, it means you're a risk taker. If you haven't failed, then you probably haven't tried. It's like, it's like, I don't

know many people. Even like someone like, if you look at someone like Zuckerberg, who like you seemingly hasn't failed, but he did. He's had all these launches and things he's tried. He's had all these launches and things he's tried since then that haven't worked out. It doesn't affect his massive net worth and his core coverage. But everyone tries and fails. And it's what you do when you try and fail. That defines who you are. You know, how do you process that? Do you learn from it or do you let it paralyze you? And the worst is that you let it form limiting beliefs inside of you. Like you have a failure about, you know, in a business, and you're like, oh, maybe I'm just not meant to be an entrepreneur. It's not who I am.

And that's a massively problematic limiting belief. So it's an example of how you could fail and let it paralyze you versus, okay, I failed. Let me look soberly at this and say, why? What that was missing here? What can I learn? How can I grow? And then when you try again, integrate those lessons from your failure into your next past at success.

And if you do that enough times, you surely will succeed and probably sooner than you think. So it's a crucial part. And then also on the other side of that is what with entrepreneurs. So there's failing elegantly and also succeeding wildly. What are you doing when the idea is right? When you have an idea, you test it and it's actually working better than you thought. How do you take a small idea and scale it? How do you turn a small business into a big business into a international business?

And there's all these rules and strategies that are proven to work. And you need to know these. There's an entrepreneur and they're all learnable. They're out there. The knowledge is for the taking. It's an open world on the internet. So you're really, I would say, ignore that at your own peril. That's entrepreneurship.

The next skills that's crucial in the outer game is marketing. How do you go out and identify who your best buyers are, your potential buyers, and how do you reach them in a cost-effective way? You know, there's the online marketing, which is very popular right now, and I'm sure it will continue to be things like social media, Google ads, just, you know, all the things that we know and use online to reach people both in our local market and all over the world. Absolutely crucial. And those skills are learnable. They're out there and you can hire people if you don't have them yourself. And then there's the offline, the traditional TV,

radio, you know, knocking on doors, calling on the telephone. So that's marketing. And marketing brings people into your so-called sales funnel, your store, your website, whatever that might be. And then the next step is the one that I'm probably best known for is sales, persuasion. How do you take those people and close them? How do you get them to see them? value of what you have to offer, that yours is the best solution for them. How do you convince them to part with their ardent money now? Without that skills, it's very hard to make money. And then the last part of that, you know, what I call MSIs, multiple streams of income? And what do you do with your money once you make it? How do you put your money to work to make

more money for you? So you can ultimately retire and be wealthy, meaning, you know, you don't have to just run around like a chick with a head on trying to make the next dollar because your money's actually earning money for you. Those, those are the same. four on one side, four on the other. So inner game, outer game, eight things in all. If you know all eight of those things, you're going to end up being very successful, like I promise you. You know, it's funny. Back in 2016, I actually wrote a book called Settle for more. And the title was from a saying, the only difference between you and someone you envy is you settled for less. And I actually got it from Dr. Phil, but right, to your, to the

one of the points you made, right? Like, you got to set the high goals. And if you set the low goals, and you're sitting there feeling unhappy, that's on you. Well, you're probably, the problem of most people in their goals is not, you know, people that don't succeed, the problem is that they, not when they set their goals too high and miss them, they mostly set their goals too low and hit them. And then, like, because the enemy of great is good. Because when you're feeling good or average, there's no pain, no uncomfortability, so you don't have any impetus change.

So it's like, you know, one of the most profound things I ever heard in the interview was from James Cameron. He was being interviewed after Avatar came out. And now he had like two out of three multi-billion dollar blockbusters. And I think he was the name Larry King was. I forgot who it was. They rest in peace. They said, you know, James, how is it?

You know, one person has, you know, two of the biggest grossing movies of all time. He goes, well, when I go about planning this out, I'm thinking about it, I am shooting to, I'm looking to have a $3 billion. I want to have the biggest multi-billion dollar hit in my mind. So if I'm only half right, I'm still doing really well. He said people so high that even if he misses them, he's still doing well. And I was like, wow. And I always knew that to be true and taught that myself.

But to hear it from James Cameron, like, so he's like a filmmaker. It just showed me how it just translates into all types of businesses in the industries. It's a mindset thing of, you know, where do you set your goal? If you're aiming for here, yeah, you'll probably hit it. But then what? Okay? So you'll need your goal and your average.

And average, you know, average plus average plus average times average equals average. It's like somehow that all coagulates to be great. It's like, you know,

the mortgage crisis where they said, let's take a bunch of piece of shit deadbeat borrowing. I'd say, dead beat loans, okay, and the beat bars on a piece of shit.

Okay, but dead beat loans, right? And they're all terrible, but we put them all together, they're suddenly good. No, you have a giant lump terrible.

Like, it doesn't change the makeup like by putting a lot of bad together. suddenly becomes good through diversification. So the same thing is true of success. And I would add to that success in love and business. I mean, you can apply it across the board.

For sure. And I always say that, you know, like I had incredibly high standards for money and success, but very low standards, my personal relationships with my wives. Like, you know, what do you have a high standard for you focus on? You won't settle for less than. So I learned the hard. way and also for ethics. My ethical standard was very, became very low. It started off. It dropped. And because of that, I paid the price. So in those standards, we have them for everything.

We had them for love. We had them for relations. We had them for our body. I've always had a very high standard for keeping in shape. So yeah. So my body is important to me. So I exercise every day. If your body's not important, what do you do? You won't exercise. It's hilarious to hear you say that after all the drugs I know you've taken. What? It's amazing. I look pretty good. consider it like that. I really want to talk about that because I've told my audience this before. I do drink alcohol, but I've literally never tried a drug. I've never tried an illicit drug of any kind. And I don't know if I'm in the minority, the majority, but having lived in New York for almost 20 years and having practiced law and been in media, I think that's unusual.

But I'm kind of curious about all the drugs you took and like how they felt and how you feel about them now. I know you're sober now. But it was a lot. and you lived a life of big, big debauchery while you were running that firm. And I'm just curious about the whole thing. So let me start with this. Had you grown up, we'll squeeze it in a break in a minute, but had you grown up doing drugs, drinking alcohol, like, were you that kind of person before all this? I used drugs occasionally at high school and the college, but not, I was not a drug. I was never addicted to drugs.

and it was never something that was like an integral part of my life growing up. But I tried drugs and I used them. Like most kids, you know, I think back then it smoked pot. And I tried cocaine once or twice. But that wasn't something that was really part of my life. And so when you were at the penny stock firm and Rothschild before that, this is prior to, you know, the formation of Stratton, had it yet blown up in your life or you were like addicted yet when you started that firm,

the big firm? That was another part of the movie that was. was a bit, I thought it was kind of, you know, to me it could have been done a bit more elegantly. Again, I loved the movie, but if there were things that could change, they had me going to the dark side really fast. And like, it almost like, you know, I go day one. I'm like this really wet behind the ears, honest kid. They can't we make our client's money too? And he's like, no. And I'm like, okay. And then the next scene, I'm in a strip club storing Coke, right? Okay, wait, that's a great place to leave it. We've got a clip to sort of bring that to

life for you right after this quick break when we have more with Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street, sex, drugs, and Leonardo DiCaprio. What more could you ask for? Stay tuned. So Jordan, so you, how many years were you, I don't know if we can say on the straight and narrow, but like, how long did it take before full debauchery and drug addiction set in? So I would say it took from the time of I walked to Delaf Ranch, I probably two years to start using drugs and maybe two and a half to be really deep into it. And, you know, drug addiction is a very strange thing. It's very insidious. It starts slowly and it creeps in a little bit at a time.

And before you know it, you know, one drug makes you. want to do another drug to counterbalance the negative effects of the first one, then the third one. I mean, it happens really slowly. And, but I would say by 1991, 1999, I was full in very much into drugs. Okay. And the, you know, I think I understand that just because anybody who drinks alcohol can understand the alcohol at night and coffee in the morning.

This is just a much more extreme version of it. And when the firm was killing it and you were killing it, that's portrayed in the movie and you're pretty open about the drugs. And here's a clip of Leonardo as you on the drug cocktail that you'd been using. On a daily basis, I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island and Queens for a month. Okay, Mr. Jordan. I take quailudes 10 to 15 times a day for my back pain, Adderall to stay focused. Xanax to take the edge off, pot to me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine well, because it's awesome. All the drugs under God's Blue Heaven, there is one that is my absolute favorite.

See, enough of this shit will make you invincible. Able to conquer the world and eviscerate your enemies. And I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about this. At the end there for our listeners, the character was snorting cocaine and said, I'm not talking about this. The Coke, he's talking about this,

and he holds up a $100 bill. Money, money was the number one drug. I have to say that. I wish I could take credit for writing that line. That was Terrence Winter, who came up with that brilliant statement, which is so true. But, yeah, I thought that was so clever of him.

Because, you know, all the other things I all say, but he sort of pivoted back to this ultimate truth that the money itself was the most powerful drug of all. And I read that, like, wow, this guy is good. He's got it. How much money were you making at your peak? Oh, so a lot of money making.

You know, let's go back to the time walls. This is a time before hedge funds, before you heard about people making hundreds of millions of dollars. I was making, you know, a million a week in the cash side. Plus, I was taking stakes in all these different companies. So I had a net worth much, much higher. I had shares. And there was a time I owned 85% of Steve Madden's shoes and 20 other companies that were all going public or more public. And then I was making the cash portion as well.

So I was making a phenomenal amount of money. Wow. You had a yacht, you had a helicopter, you had estates, mansions, and so on, jewels for your wives and blah, blah, blah, blah, what did it feel like? Did it make you happy? You know, the goal of being rich, were you feeling like, nailed it? I think the thing about money is that, you know, and I've said this many times, you know, I've been rich and been really, really, really, really happy. I've also been rich and really, really, really miserable. I've been poor and really, really, really, really miserable, but never once I've been poor happy.

Like, so like, I think money doesn't buy happiness, but a lack of money can really be a passport to misery and discomfort. And I've seen a lack of money cause so many problems in marriages with families. And money is, I believe, my belief is money is an incredibly important thing. It's a tool. It's certainly not everything and it won't buy happiness. But without it, you could really be made. making your life much more complicated and your relationships much more tenuous without money.

So I think that's the best definition I give you. Did it feel great to make all that money? Yeah. I mean, it felt great. And I make a lot of money now. And it's, I love making money. But I don't buy into this idea that it's the money itself that's making me happy. Because I have times now where I'm unhappy.

And I have times now where I'm ecstatic. But I will tell you that I was broke right now. I would not be very happy at all. Ever. What was your favorite toy, right? Like what? Because a lot of people fantasize about having all that dough and they ask, what would I buy and what would I love? What was your favorite?

Probably like the helicopter, you know. On the yacht at a helicopter. And, you know, we'd land this helicopter and on the boat and then take it out and fly it around. My captain was amazing. He was a great pilot. And he'd fly 10 feet off the water and, you know, like gunship and Vietnam sort of stuff. And we just, you know, have that boat in places that, you know, that you would normally not go to, like, you know, the Virgin Islands or the Caribbean. And then take the helicopter and just see amazing things land in live volcanoes that weren't currently erupting.

So we did all these really cool things. I think that was probably the most, my main most favorite toy, even more so than the yacht. And is it true that the yacht, the Nadine, named after your second wife, was taken down by a rogue wave? Yeah, that's true. What happened? Weird a storm, a massive storm that kicked up. It started off as just like, you know, some chop, heavy chop. And the captain was, you know, advising me against making the crossing from Rome to Sardinia.

But, you know, I was like, can we make it? He's like, yeah, we'll make it. And, you know, so me rough, it'll be uncomfortable, we'll break a few places. I'm like, let's go. Like, I was just an action junction, junkie. And also at the time, I was doing a lot of drugs, you know. And that sort of got me into this mindset. Like I couldn't sit still.

I had to move. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. And I convinced him to make the crossing. And then unbeknownst to him or I at the time, a freak storm was about to kick up. And it did. And those six to eight foot waves became 20 foot waves really fast.

And then 50 foot waves. And then we got hit with a road wave to the side. And that's how the whole thing happened. Yeah, it was crazy. Oh my God. So, I mean, did she break apart at sea? Like, was there a helicopter rescue? Yeah, yeah, 100%.

It's just so hard to believe. It's so crazy. What? No, Megan, I'll tell you this. The reality is far more cinematic than the movie. I think the budgetary reasons they didn't recreate what really happened. It was an 18-hour ordeal where the boat was sinking slowly on its side after getting hit by this wave and going down.

And they tried to first, the Italians first tried to send out a coast on helicopter, which lowered down a basket. But in 50, 60 mile hours, it looks easy in the movies. But in reality, the basket swinging 100 feet that way. They couldn't get the basket to the boat. And then they ran out of gas. So they had to go back. Then the captain's like, all right, we need to abandon ship.

I'm like, what? Like into the life rack. Rubble, I'm like, you're not kidding. So captain's orders. I was like, all right, so you all go to the back of the boat. And he puts the rubble raft in and bam, like in one second, the raft walks away. Of course. It took down a yacht.

It's going to take down a raft. It's so funny when I watched this in the movie, I was like, Leonardo DiCaprio will only be in movies in which big ships go down that he's on. This is his thing, apparently. That is crazy. You've survived so many massive life risks, you know, not, yes, drugs, of course. And then there was prison. But, like, that was so crazy.

I had a hard time believing it, but I believe you now. So the drugs and the whole thing, can we just talk about the marriages for a minute? Because in the movie, your wife is, your second wife, Nadine, who is this incredibly beautiful woman in real life and in the movie. You fall in love with her while you're still married to your first wife. And in the movie, they portray there's Margot Robbie walking in, and you're just completely floored by this gorgeous woman.

And just as a funny aside, I'll tell the audience that when I, texted you first. This is, I pulled it up because it was a funny sort of introduction from me to you. I said, so nice to meet you. We have a ton in common. I hate perpetual victimhood and people who blame others for their problems. I love Brian Friedman, who we both know, it's our lawyer. And I also had a movie made about my life in which Margot Robbie starred.

So she played your second wife, Nadine. There's actually, in the movie that was partially about me, bombshell, she played a different character and Charlize Theron played me. Hold on. We actually had a full screen made showing the split screen of the two. We'll pop it up there. Look, there's, there's me and me, Charlize and Margot and Leonardo and Margo. So, yeah, so Margot, so Margot, you plays your second wife. And your thoughts now, because Nadine is a big star in your life, in the movie, in the book. You call her the Duchess, because I guess she was British originally. Your thoughts on her, because it's a real love story, you do wind up having a terribly tumultuous relationship with her. And I know you're married

to somebody else now. But I kind of wanted you to put a period on the end of that relationship for me and how you see it now. I think that, listen, you know, she was, I think, you know, you have certain people that come into your lives at certain times for a reason. And she was the right person for me at that time. I, you know, I really, you know, the sad part, but I really loved my first wife. I really did. She was an amazing lady. And I think she was under portrayed in the book in many ways. Like in the movie, she was a beautiful woman. The girl played her was beautiful, too.

But she really was a good woman. And but at that point in time, I don't think anyone could have survived what I was. At the time, everything was taking off so fast. And it was, you know, with the drugs involved, it was just like I was looking. I was in that mindset of just what's next, what's next, what's next? Excess. And it was excess. at every turn.

More. It's just a weird mindset that you get into sometimes on Wall Street and other times as well, but Wall Street seems to bring it out in people. And I met her just, it was just like the movie, literally, like exactly like that at a party. She walked in. I thought she was gorgeous and then we, you know, I tracked her down and we went out. And, you know, I learned a very important lesson, you know, from that whole situation about

cheating in a marriage, because I don't cheat my marriages after that. I didn't cheat after that marriage because you can't choose who you fall in love with. And you know, you're playing Russian roulette. Like, you know, you're hard to just kind of have a casual affair because you don't know what might happen with that affair. And I fell in love with her. I didn't really intend to. But when you do fall in love with someone, you know, it's very difficult to stay with

someone that you're not in love with anymore because I think it's hard to love to two people at the same time. Wait, but you're not saying you didn't cheat on Nadine, the Margot Robbie character, because that's like half the movie of you with the hookers while you're married to her. Is that you're saying when your current marriage, you don't. After her. Like the whole, when I look back and saying when I, when I, perspective, when I look back at my life, after my marriage to Nadine.

Yes, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. When I wrote my book, that was really, for me, writing the book was an incredibly, like, profound experience. It was almost like self-analysis and self-analysis. psychology, my own, you know, strengths, faults, and frailties, right? And when I look back then, even when I was with, baby, and I kind of knew that I made this gross error in terms of just like

going out and sticking my head in the cookie jaw, but just so you understand, when you're doing drugs, like the way I was doing drugs, you know, anything is possible. There is no, like, oh, I'm going to be a good, you're like a different person. In a certain point, you get caught up in a mindset where everything can be rationalized and everything seems okay. The truth is I had far more, or I, this is going to sound strange to you, okay, but it's not as strange as you think. But, you know, in my mind, I didn't consider sleeping with hookers cheating in the traditional sense because there was no emotional attachment in the body. No, I understand that.

My husband wrote a book about Wall Street called Ghost of Manhattan, and he did it. It was very well researched. This is one of the points he makes about the guys who, whether it's hookers or what they call, forgive me, a rub and tug from a massage therapist kind of thing. They don't consider it cheating. Exactly. So yeah, I'm glad that you at least, you know, you don't have to agree with it, but you can understand. I'm not the only person that thinks that. And I'm not saying it's right because I don't think it's right. In retrospect, they don't think it. But that's how I was thinking at the time. And she knew. She knew what was going on. She was aware because it was all, everyone was getting married. Everyone was having bachelor parties and all the stories were certain. But it was kind of harmless, so to speak, right? And then I had some affairs as well, as did she. You know, she was no angel either, right? It takes to the tango. But yeah, and I think that since that matters, though, whenever I've been in the relationship, I have been faithful since then.

So that, after that, I ask you a dumb question. This is a dumb, like, I really feel like a goody two shoes at the moment. But how does one order a hooker? Like, when you first did it for the first time, like, you know, it's not like ordering Domino's pizza. Like, how does... Hey, you know, it's like ordering Domino's pizza probably even easier. So now I've all done on the internet, you know, and you have all these websites and

all this sort of stuff that goes on around the world. everywhere. I mean, you can go any, like any city. There's like a craigslist. I think was really big with it for a while. I'm not really up on the other sites these days. But I'm sure if you just Google call girls in my city, you'll like, that was in a couple. Your public service announcement for the day. Okay. So in the movie, it's portrayed with like, I mean, it's not just hookers. It's like orgies. It's craziness on planes. So many naked girls everywhere. So much drugs, so much alcohol. Is that how it really was? Yes, it was like that and worse. It was, uh, it became, it became, um, some sort of perverted version of can you top this? You know, it's like, you know,

we're these action junkies that were constantly looking for higher and higher cliffs to dive off of and shallower and chowler pools to land in. So every time you would do something, it would be extreme and insane. What do you do next to top it? You know, the first time we did something obscene, you would think it sounded obscene time. Some kid that was struggling financially, we said, well, shave his head and give him $10,000. And that was amazing.

We got a barbershop, Paul, we made. It was like, oh, my God, we're going to shave everyone. I went crazy. But then three months later, a head shaving is $100. So it becomes like the norm. So what do you do next? Well, let's shave a girl's head. Like, you know, let's, you know, every time you do something,

it's like, what's next? What's next? So this sort of evolution of insanity. that happens by trying to constantly keep yourself and everyone around you entertain. That was compared to Strat, like the floor of the brokerage room is like the floor of the Coliseum, the sands of the Coliseum, where acts of depravedity serves entertainment for the mob. And it was very much like that. Yes, I read in your book that you said that you had to impose a rule in the office between

the hours of, I think, 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., people were not allowed to have sex on the floor. most people didn't obey that though like that started from right you know you know it's really funny in the beginning i was very like very straight like that like the first time i caught someone was like they they won some kid was getting a blowjob in an elevator in the building and i was like and i heard this i'm like i'm going to fire this kid and then like well you know and then you know it's not so tell like whatever and within a week the girl had given a blow job to everybody and they made it's like it's so crazy if you're not actively guarding your your own ethics you own integrity, your own moral compass.

It is really easy, Megan, for it to spiral out of control. Really easy. I'm telling you. Yeah, this is kind of the theme of the interview, right? Back to our original point about the guy cheating on the series seven. So when you look back now, how old are you now? I'm 59. Okay.

So when you look back now at that time and the crazy. and the excess, you know, from a guy who had to be rescued from the waters after your yacht sunk, I wonder, what is, does anything jump out at you as especially crazy? Like, wow, that was the most. That was the most excessive. My bachelor party, which we really can't talk about here, it was just too disgusting. But, you know, my bachelor party was like a low, I think. And it was like sort of a culmination of can you top this, of what, you know, what can we do that's just, you know, depraved and unusual and, you know, it's almost like, you know, you see, remember the time. This is before the internet, you know, and now on the internet, you could find every type of

perversion and insanity and over the top behavior, whether it's on like platforms where they're doing gags and stunts or on porn sites. It's everything that you want is on the internet right now, good, bad, ugly, or otherwise. Back then, that didn't exist. And, you know, you imagine things from what you saw in movies. movies and heard things that you put together these scenarios of what you thought was cool and what you thought was fun and you're like inventing it as you go along and we were doing that at a very high level because we had a lot of money so we nothing was really out of reach of

what we could do so you know while someone might have a bash supply have a banser or a one prosto we had a hundred of them and you know if someone brings some drugs we had a boatloads of drugs who was all like you know sort of five times five times ten times a hundred and And it was insane. It truly was insane. Would you ever have the sick feeling the next day? I don't mean physical illness, obviously. That must have come with it.

But would you ever have the moral second guessing the next day? Or would that just, that would have to wait until sobriety and, you know, prison and all that? I would have it every hour of every day. You would. So you were conscious of the wrongness of it. In the book, I'm always talking about these things. I'm almost like watching my own life unfold before me. I'm an actor on a stage not in control of my own behavior, which is a massive, incredible

cop out, by the way. It's an incredible, like, liberating copouts. It's not me. I'm out of control, right? Right. But it's in control, but you rationalize, never underestimate the power of rationalization. And also, you know, what we do as human beings is we surround ourselves with a peer group that shares our values.

So we don't think we're crazy. So, you know, what defines what's normal and not in a society? is what's happening in society every day. So we almost form the self-contained society where rules that would might be seem abnormal or completely out of control in the real world seemed quite normal in the four walls of the border room or when we were partying in a hotel or more casino.

That makes sense. It does. It makes sense. And it's scary. I see it and I read it. It's like you almost have to look at the people around you for the reflection of what you are, good or bad.

But eventually, it would all come crashing down legally, the marriage, the money, all of it. And that's where we're going to pick it up next with Jordan Belfort. So happy to be speaking with The Wolf of Wall Street. And we'll be right back with more. I can't skip by before we get to the downfall before asking you about the animals that were allowed on the floor of your office. Can you spend a second on that? Yeah, it wasn't like it was a zoo Like that I think the people

They did a zoo more than the animals But yeah But people would bring in pets Like iguanas and dogs and parrots And fish, goldfish As you know, one of them got eaten So yeah We had the sort of

I think we were ahead of our time in that sense Like we had the sort of like Fun-loving atmosphere That they'd be bro culture on and the high tech firms have now. And like, you know, it's sort of like you go to work and like it's all about being comfortable having fun at work with that, like the beanbag chairs and that. Obviously, we had a bit of a twist there.

But I mean, some of the untraditional stuff were blazing trails. What you didn't know was that that was their emotional support iguana. I mean, these guys, they needed, they needed a lifeline. I read that the one that was a bridge too far for you was a chimpanzee coming in and a diaper. And you had, even you drew the line at that one. Exactly. There was, you know, there was always like, uh, interesting things trying to be brought into the boardroom acts of the, you know, where they were.

People, animals, things, you name it. It was a, it was a freak. You know, it makes sense when you view it from the lens of what happened when you put 3,000 barely post-adolescent kids in a room and give them too much money and too much time and some drugs and out. What do you think is going to happen? Nothing good. So it's like I, when I look at this and read about this, all I can think is, can you imagine if today's post Me Too post like woke world, woke world got to look at this in, you know, present day?

Megan, I, you know, it's really interesting that you say about because, you know, I come from a family, as I told you a really empowered female. My mother is a really empowered, successful, educated, trailblazing woman. She literally is the oldest woman to pass the bar. She was voted pro bono lawyer of the year in the York. And she was like 74. She's still short an attack at 89 or 80. She'll kill me 88. But like, you know, it's interesting because, you know, rules of change so much over the years.

If you would ask me. if we sexually harassed girls back then I would say unequivocally not like unequivocally like no girl if I knew of any girl there that was being harassed I fired the guy like in a split if I found out that a guy was doing something to a girl the girl didn't want I would have insisted that they'd be fired immediately and I I live by that I swear by that today most of the girls there were part of the insanity well that's the thing it's not harassment if you want it they really enjoy now I bet you, though, in retrospect it was happening, hidden from me, and also in this sort of culture of women accepting things they probably weren't comfortable with, but had to smile and shake it

off because they thought that was the norm. So I think it's very good on some level that that's changed, that women speak up for themselves and don't accept that they're not comfortable because they feel like they have to. So I'm betting that there was that women that were very uncomfortable there and that, but they just felt like they had no choice. So if you go with the flow where you're out, right? So I think that that's some positive changes. I think also I agree that it's gone many, way too far in some cases with the sort of victim mentality

and people not taking responsibility for their part and things as well. And I think that, you know, going back 20 years and trying to say something happened without proof is very difficult. In some cases, it's very clear, like animals like Harvey Weinstein. So obviously things happen and there's proof in his corroborating evidence, but it's a lot more subtle than that with many cases. And it's a very difficult thing. So I don't pretend that the answer, but we certainly did not look at it as harassment.

That I tell you, that would have been stopped in a second. I'm thinking now there was a woman who came on my show at NBC. We were doing a story on harassment, me too, what's happening in the society right in the midst of all of it. And she was complaining her complaint. It wasn't like part of a bigger story. Her complaint, she's part of a panel, was that her boss. told her she looked hot in her dress. Now, okay, it's not ideal because you want to be seen as

professional, but like, that's not really what the Me Too movement. It was, I, all I can think about is a woman from your firm saying that I had a girl next to me giving blow jobs to half the firm. Sit down. Take a seat. Woman would say, damn, I thought I looked pretty hot that day too. Like that mindset back then, probably. But like, again, I'm a daughter. My daughter's 27. She's, you know, 28. She's a graduate from NYU, the degree in psychology in grad school. Very empowered woman, very, very liberal in our beliefs and stuff. And we get along phenomenal.

We don't agree on a lot of stuff. But one thing I certainly agree with you is victimhood. I think that sometimes this has a way of crossing over into someone becoming a victim. And I don't think that helps any cause. I think that, I think things have to change. It's good that they're changing and will continue. But I think what gets lost sometimes in these movements, and these paradigm shifts is like,

it's like you can't paint everything with one brush. There's like a degrees of things and there's a continuum. And you have to look at things really along that can team to decide, you know, what do you do about something that happened a long time ago? I think it's really sad when someone loses their career or something happened 15 or 20 years ago when the norms were different. that being said, and then there's monsters out there that deserve everything that they got, and that's a great thing.

So, but I think it's more complex than just bad, good, you know, harassed and not. I totally agree with you. I mean, I was talking with Douglas Murray, who is brilliant in a social commentator, an author and this British guy, and he's great. And I was talking to him about these college students who were yelling at their school dean saying these were college students who happened to be black saying, you don't understand anything. We come, you know, we come from slaves that are, you don't have the same ancestors.

Our ancestors were slaves and yours weren't. And, you know, you basically can't explain anything to us because of that. And I said, well, you know, how's this guy supposed to respond to this? And Douglas Murray said, we can all do that. We can all do that, right? Everybody's got some sort of a painful history. It may not equal slavery, but bad. You know, it's bad.

Listen, my people, the Irish Americans didn't have it so good when we first came over to America. And you could go down the list. But you tweeted out something on July 22nd where I was like, well, I haven't seen a a shorter, more succinct version of the way I feel, which is sad story, no one cares, work harder. It's not to dismiss slavery. It's not about slavery, but it's just about victim mentality. Something bad happening to you. I understand.

Oh, it's anyway, back to work. Try harder. Like, that's the only way forward sitting around and pointing the finger at everybody and lamenting and feeling like you have bad luck and poor me. Not going to get you anywhere. I, you know, I have, I've said publicly many times that I am very, very prejudiced against two types of people, lazy people and stupid people. Everyone else I'm totally okay with.

It's like I just discused lazy stupid people, right? And, you know, I believe in the egalitarian system. I grew up in a household that like it was just zero prejudice in my household. Really like zero, okay? Like I never even considered it. And when I saw it out in the world's much, it was pretty shocking to me. And but listen, I understand. It's very complicated, you know, this stuff, when you start getting into it.

into the race struggle. It's, you know, there's a lot of bad shit that happened. And, like, you know, I watched the movie recently. I was watching Crash with my wife, Paul Havisville. Great film. And, you know, and you look back and it's like, it was appalling, like, what, how the LAPD treated black. Fucking appalling.

Imagine how many, I can only imagine driving in a car and not, like, I never worried that if I got pulled over something would happen. Like, I never even cared, right? So, but again, okay, sucks. Work on it. I get it. Like, okay, but like, you can't use that as an excuse not to, you got to still go forward in your own life and, and just, you know, to do the best with whatever hand was dealt to you.

We all have negative stuff that either we was dealt us or for our own mistakes. We put ourselves in positions that compromise us, that, you know, caused us problems. And we have to overcome that and put one foot in front of the other. So I just think that when you take, sometimes things can be true, but okay, so what? Like, you can't, if you use, it doesn't. you. It doesn't serve your cause to live in the problem versus you actually, you know, living your most empowered version of your own life and, and being part of a solution, which is work harder, make changes and go forward, but don't blame everyone around you for what you're

a lot. I just thing that helps you. Honestly, and I understand it because I, it's not to say that there are no victims in the world, people don't get victimized, but I remember, even when I was getting harassed by my boss at Fox in the moment talking to my therapist at the time, She was my like marital therapist, although I didn't go through marital therapy with my first husband. I just went to individual. And this woman, I was telling her about it. Like, this is what he's doing, all the stuff.

And she just kept putting it back on me. And now today's people would say, oh, she was wrong. She blamed the victim. She didn't blame me. She just said, what could you have done differently in the room? What can you do differently in the future to make, you know, to try to avoid that situation? And I didn't find it offensive. I found it empowering.

Right. me, I will be the one to change my life and make sure this doesn't happen to me or that I navigate it better or that I navigate this deftly in a way that I can preserve my future in an industry in which I'm totally green and new. You know, of course, right? Of course you're right. Exactly. I think that most people have to believe, feel this way, the way you feel the way I feel. I think what we have in the Twitter sphere is like a relatively small group of very loud vocal people that astound on a view that is really not widely popular or believed,

but I think on some level, what happens is corporate America embraces that because it allows, it gives them plausible deniability. So they say they're woke, they say they're doing all this stuff, so they can keep raping and pillaging the village as they've done for the last 100 years. It's their great way.

We're responsible. See, but they're actually in reality. All it is is smoke and mirrors to keep doing the same old, same old thing by embracing causes they really don't believe in. So true. I'm seeing happening. It makes zero sense, unless you look at it

in that way, that it's like it's all part of a much broader strategy to say we're great because if we embrace those causes, then we keep doing what we want and keep making as much money as we want as long as we want. Yeah, that's PR. Don't be fooled. And I sadly, I don't know whether people are or not, but they got to be paying

attention. Okay. So into your life comes someone named Agent Coleman, portrayed in the movie by literally the only celebrity I've ever had a crush on, Kyle Chandler. I fell in love with him on Friday Night Lights, Doug knows. And he does a great job in the movie of sort of quietly stalking you. And you knew about this Agent Coleman who was on to you. First, the SEC was on to you, and then he was an FBI agent who was on to you. And at first, you know, you'd never met him, but then they slapped the cups on you one day and you met him.

When you real, like, when was it that you realized the House of Cards is coming down? I'm likely going to prison. And my sort of fast and loose with people's monies, you know, dodging the ethics laws and so on in a way that I thought was clever, but maybe not, has caught up with me. So it's a very, it's a good question.

It's the answer is probably a bit more lengthy than, because it's complex. It's not, it's not any one thing happening at one time. There's like sort of a lot of things happening at once. The interesting thing, I think, is how long it took him to actually find a way to to get, to get an indictment against because, like, to be clear that what I was doing was not, like, a Bernie made off like, you know, hey, you know, we should take your money and like not invest. Like, I had a legitimate firm that was obeying every single securities law out there.

So you could order it my firm and living. The S.E. was there for years. They couldn't find anything other than garden variety, small violations that you would find in every firm. So it wasn't like I was breaking the laws. Like, oh, like, made off. He just took the money, didn't invest money. All they had to do was look, right? Like, how come they didn't look crazy, right?

No, the Scy was like living in my firm. and watching every ticket. But I was breaking laws, but they were very essential and hard to detect. You understand? It was like, so I'm not saying I wasn't breaking the laws, but if you looked at the firm,

unless you could speak to people, and they admit they were doing something, you would never know. It would be impossible to prove, right? It was a very small portion of my business was illegal, very small, but that was enough to make it illegal, right? And the difference with Coleman is he was just doggedly determined

for years and years. And ultimately, it wasn't even the stocks that he, that got him in to my firm and was able to get an indict. It was the money laundering to Switzerland. It was the fact that I moved money to Switzerland to a Swiss banker that by my own bad luck got indicted in the United States, not because of me for some other thing he was involved with, the Benihana. Benihana. Benny Hanna. And he was wandering money for many different people. one of them was this sort of false whole offshore.

I'll never forget looking at the indictment against this guy. It was like, Benny Hana, offshore boat racing. I'm like, what? Like, what is this? Like, not my, his indictment, the Swiss banker. I was like, oh, my God, could I have worse luck? I picked the one banker that gets arrested in the United States for wandering money for like a Benny Hana.

Now, what Benny Hana was, I have no idea what ended up happening with that, but it was in the indictment, right? And then I knew I was screwed because he got picked up and he's in the U.S. and he's cooperating. So, of course, he gave my name up, and that was what gave Coleman the ability to go back and get the proper paperwork to open up my accounts in Switzerland. And that was it. I had a headshot against me. I was done.

When I got arrested, I then admitted to breaking these other securities laws, like what, which is called free writing, putting new issues in friends' accounts and that sort of rat holes and stuff. That was not, the indictment was secured by the Swiss bagging stuff, right? And that's ultimately how he brought me down. And I had a massive respect for him. And he's a friend of mine today, by the way. We became friends. He's been on my podcast. I really like him.

I have just nothing but the highest regard for him. Yeah. He's a great guy. He thinks exactly like you, just, you know, you should have him on your show. He shares, you know, he's a very, very intelligent guy. And I deserve to go to jail. I mean, I broke the law. I mean, like, you know, he was like, it was like I was framed.

They made this stuff up. No, I mean, I broke the law and I got caught. Listen, I wasn't the first guy. You know, Wall Street, you know, you can go to any firm and find terrible things happening in any day. So I'm not saying I was, I certainly wasn't any worse, but I broke the law. Doesn't make it right. Okay. So like, you know, you could say it was happening everywhere, which it was.

I didn't invent, I did it with more Panache, I guess. But the things I was doing were happening all over Wall Street, they're still happening today. I got indicted for it. I deserve to get indicted for it. And he earned the indictment, the old factory, knocking on doors and doing the work. Can I ask you about the, you write about how he came to you and said, I went to 100 people. You call him Stratonites, guys who worked for you at Straton, and nobody would talk. They were totally loyal. And you said something like, that's what happens when you're the cash cow.

But so they didn't want to turn you in, the guys who worked for you. But then I know you wore a wire for the FBI, you and the guy who also got indicted with you, your partner. Did you have to go against those guys, the guys who didn't turn on you, or was it different fish? So this is really, this is probably the most difficult part of my life, I would think. And I ended up getting in trouble, by the way. I almost, thanks to Coleman, I didn't do 30 years in jail because I refused. so I agreed to cooperate, as did pretty much everybody in my case. And when I was considering whether or not to cooperate,

my love was like, everyone is going to cooperate. So you're not going to have to testify against your friends. You have to give all the information up, tell them where your money is, and maybe you'll testify against someone you don't know, but it's not most, everyone in the federal system, it's so rare that someone goes to trial in these cases because the sentencing garland is so onerous.

And unless you cooperate, It's like, it's like, go to trial, you lose it's 30 years. So most people will end up cooperating, right? And then they were threatened to indict my wife, even though she hadn't done anything wrong. Once they threatened to indict my wife, I had no choice but to plead guilty and cooperate. So I started cooperating, giving information on what was going on. And then they asked me to wear a wire against a very, very close friend of mine. And it was a terrible, terrible thing to do because for me, that was sort of my.

moral one. I was like, I'm okay, you know, cooperating with a rat out, a close friend of mine. It just, it just seemed like it was just a bridge too far at the time. And so when I went to meet with him, they wired me up. I passed him a note saying, I'm wired, don't incriminate yourself. And it was this moment. I was like, I'm a good guy. I'm a, what a good guy I am. Like for doing, I'm a stand up guy, you know, and I passed in this note and sure enough, he didn't incriminate himself. And then three months later, he got in trouble and turned me in and gave No. And I mean, and that was the point when I think I lost all faith in humanity. Because like that was my ultimate low point where I was like, I can't, what do I do I have any

beliefs that are right, a correct deal? Like, you know, like I broke the law. I justified that. I justified not cooperating because it's my friend. I shouldn't wrap my friend out. And he turns around and rats me out. Like it was the ultimate blow to seriously. It was an emotional blow you can't imagine. And the government was going to break my agreement and give me the full sentence, it was like 28 years, and it was Agent Coleman that stopped that from happening. Wow. He stopped. He stood up for me and said, listen, you know, he wasn't even doing it to benefit himself.

You know, he was a moment of stupidity and also trying to be a good person. And like, you know, it was like a selfless thing I did. It was like I was benefiting myself. I just didn't want to hurt someone that I love, the friend, you know what I'm saying? So Coleman stepped in and saved me. And then I did cooperate. And there was a couple of people that went to trial. and but most people

really, I think 90, anyone was really close to me, they cooperated. Yeah, and they all cut deals. And you and your partner went to prison. You for, or, yeah. It's terrible. You're really terrible at all. So Jordan did plead guilty.

He went, he was sentenced to four years. He served 22 months. Up next, I'm going to ask him about the very famous guy he met in prison who encouraged him to write this all down into a book. And about the hundreds of hours, he spent with Leonardo DiCaprio and what that was like, our closing chapter with Jordan Belford right after this quick break. So, Jordan, you go to prison. And is it true that you met Tommy Chong there who had some advice for you of Cheech and Chong?

We are not. It's actually true that when I get to prison, who is my bunkmate, not just in the same prison. My bunkmate is Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong. And they put us together. They were both high profiles. They wanted to like kind of put us together until we'll watch us or just like they thought it was a smart thing to do. And, you know, he's just the, we're a really good guy.

They're a very smart guy too. Very, very highly educated, profound speaker and nuggets of wisdom. And he was writing a book. And there's not a lot to do in jail. So, you know, you sit there at night and you tell stories to each other. And I was telling him stories about my life. and he's just laughing and rolling on the floor because I'm, you know, some really funny stories

and I'm a pretty good storyteller. He's doing the same to me. And like the third night, he says, you know, I honestly thought you were full of shit. But my wife Googled you and like, all of this stuff is online. It's true. You actually did all this.

It goes, you have to write a book. And I was like, really? I was like, you think my life was crazy? I didn't think my life was that crazy because it was my life. It happened to me and I sort of just, whatever, you get used to all the same. He's like, I'm Tommy Chong,

and I think. your life is crazy. So that's got it. Right. So you do. You write, you write the book when you leave the Wolf of Wall Street, which is what you were called in a newspaper article. And then everybody's clamoring for the movie, right? It's Leonardo DiCaprio gets involved. He wants to play you. This seemed to be a mission for him. And I read that you spent perhaps as many as hundreds of hours with him, getting him ready, showing him what it was like to be on that many drugs and so on. So what were your impressions of him in that whole process? I think what people don't, realize maybe about Leo is he's of course he's naturally talented but the like the amount of preparation

and the care he put in to the role like he really like he was just so determined to make it perfect and and he he worked really hard it wasn't like an oh let me just wing it and it's going to come out but he really put in mass amount of hours just you know we went to every single line of the script you know, just again and again, making sure every word sounds authentic and every scene is authentic. And he just, you know, he's very talented and a very hard worker and there's a lot of integrity. He was a great guy. Wow.

You now are doing like entrepreneurship lessons, sort of guidance, mentorship, mentorship. And it almost in a way, it's kind of self-helpy to me in a good way. So, like, how are you channeling this whole experience? into a new version of you professionally? So it's, you know, it's been many years now that I've been doing this. I started in about 2009 and going out there and teaching people first about, you know, the sort of the mindset of success using the lessons I learned, and then very quickly pivoting to teaching sales, the straight line system,

which is really what, you know, made my career take off, is that the system that I had taught the strategy was very, it's very ethical, you know, especially, when I reinvented the system and made it, you know, probably even better than it was. It's a very powerful system. And that's really what I was starting to get hired around the world to teach this to sales forces and by individuals all over. And then, you know, also teaching general, you know,

entrepreneurship. So I do a lot of consulting with companies. And, yeah, my message is very, you know, it's very, I would say it's very honest. I think there's a lot of people that are out there teaching things like, sales and entrepreneurs, they don't know the first thing

about it, really. They just, they, would they ready for my stuff or someone like a Tony Robbins stuff who I have a great respect

for, was a legitimate, really, you know, brought things that were new and fresh. And then there are just so many just Charlton's out there that are

regurgitating the same nonsense and just trying to separate people from their money. And I really was very, very early on made this sort of, you know, my internal compass was very, very clear.

north meaning towards ethics and integrity. Like I, you know, I was very careful that I never took a penny from anyone without trying to give at least 10 times more value back. It doesn't mean you always succeeded life. You know, you always succeeded that. My mindset is always I'm looking to give more value than I ever would get with every transaction I enter into, every mentorship I do. So I've had tremendous success with people all over the world, and it's great because now it's,

you know, the movie became this incredible cult. So people come up to me all, every day. I get, you know, whenever I go out, you know, people just say, you know, you're such an inspiration to me. You're inspiring to your life, your teachings, your comeback. It's just amazing. Yeah, because you easily could have skulked away. You could have sculpted away and said, I've been disgraced. And you didn't.

You found a new way to reinvent. And you came clean with all of it, too, to your credit, which is how we're all learning now. But I have to ask you about the blowback because I, one of my questions in watching was, how do you have any money? Because they ordered you to pay $110 million in restitution. So do they garnish your wages? Because I know some of the victims, some of the people who got burned, this is what I read, left 1,500 clients with $200 million in losses. I don't know if those numbers are right. But I know they sort of pop up when you make money and say, this is not right. That's not true. That's not right.

You're trying to be lying, but it's just not, that's not true. Plants don't pop up, which is odd, by the way, because the number was wildly inflated. Okay, it was, there was losses, no doubt. Okay, but like when Bernie Madoff, they said, what was it, 50 billion, the turn to be 10 billion. When they're coming up with losses and people, they double, triple count, and it ends up always being fall less. That was an estimate. So, you know, I only was fine for $100 million, 110. So what so and then it was Danny was 200 was a moving target that no one really knew what was actual.

But there was certainly a loss there. And I discouraged a lot of money. Danny discouraged some money had discouraged a lot more. I continue to pay money. And I pay some money each month. I pay some money and I pay a percentage of when I make. And I said to myself, what's my solution? You know what?

I'm going to make so much money that I can afford to pay a percentage and still be rich. And that's what I always aspire to do. And I said, I'm just going to work harder than everybody else. I'm going to make so much money. that I can afford to pay what I got to pay and still live an amazing life with luxuries and that's exactly what I did. And I just went and make money.

And it's to their advantage too to have you get back on your feet. You've found sobriety. You found love. You found a way of making an honest living. And so I only have about a minute left, but I want to ask you, because I know you've said your life serves as a cautionary tale,

but others do find it more than cautionary. They find it downright inspirational. So what do you want people to know about the wolf of Wall Street and the takeaway on Jordan Belfort? The takeaway is that I think my life represents the best and worst of what human beings can do. And I think that the lesson that you can learn from my life is if you want to model me, especially young people, you want to look at me and be inspired and use the techniques and strategies.

Remember, you don't have to model the whole person. You can model all the best things that I did back when I was younger and I do today and learn from the mistakes I made. So you could become a better version of me. I always say, you know, yeah, do all the stuff I did on the great side. Have fun. Make tons of money. But you could do better. You don't have to take shortcuts like I did.

And that cost me everything. And it started again. I'm lucky that I had to come back and made back all this money. Most people don't. You're right. Most people will wither away and die. And it's the exceptions to the rules. I urge people that you can make a ton of money.

We've been an amazing world in an amazing time. Just be very, very careful. But don't take that extra step to make it quicker because it might cost you. everything, model the good stuff and do the opposite of the bad stuff. That's my message. Watch that first step across the ethical line. Jordan, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on and being so open and honest with us. All the best to you.