My number-one value was how do I make more money?
Your brain like is a computer and if you ask it bad questions it give you some bad answers
I
Was a natural-born salesperson buying and selling and trading the ingenuity of others
The culture was bankrupt at its core everyone was in on it
When you make money so fast on Wall Street, you don't really build anything. How do you put value on what you're doing?
money is the only
Barometer of what you're doing?
So you have to buy something to make it real once I get rich and I get powerful then I'll feel good. And
Then uh-oh. I still feel the same way inside. What do I do now?
I was on 22 different drugs at the end and I thought it was normal your values don't really change that easily
Unless a disaster happens when you go to jail
It's losing the game of life losing my money my freedom my self-respect
In retrospect now
Getting caught in the forces of readings and my values and forcing to combat has allowed me to help people all over the world
It's allowed me to really build a business that I love
Also for my own kids to see that they watch their father lose everything and not give up and come back and do it
Right your April pushing yourself more of showing up when you have feel so much. It's in your head
You can train yourself to be someone I want to be known as the one that always shows up. That's my secret
The world is changing inspiration is everywhere
It has never been so easy to connect share and bring people together
We're learning from others and finding the best in ourselves
Challenging our beliefs
Sharing our vulnerability overcoming our fears
Transforming ourselves so we can transform the world
How far can we go this is London real I am Brian Rose my guest today's
Let me ask you a question
What if you were making fifty million dollars by the time you were 26 with a thousand brokers working for you?
Would you be partying like a rock star with hookers and cocaine and quaaludes and marijuana and morphine?
Well, that's what Jordan Belfort decided to do and he wrote the book the wolf of Wall Street
Which was later made into an oscar-winning film with Leo DiCaprio
Playing him Martin Scorsese directing and it's this crazy life of Jordan on Wall Street the same time I was there
Basically selling penny stocks out in Long Island to anybody who would buy him and it became a pump and dump scam
They ended up being tried for securities fraud and Jordan went away for two years for prison
He had a real change in his life his wife left and he lost all his money and he had to come back and remake
Himself, and now he is back
He's travelling the world teaching everybody his straight lines selling system
Which is very effective and that's how he taught those meatheads
how to sell billions of dollars with the Securities to wealthy people
And now he feels free. He feels like he has a purpose
He has a product he believes in and it was just great spending time with Jordan
This is probably the beginning of a long term relationship. And I know you're going to enjoy his story
This is London real I am Brian Rose
My guest today is Jordan Belfort
The former stockbroker speaker and best-selling author of the wolf of Wall Street at the height of your career
You were earning fifty million dollars a year and pointed over a 1000 stockbrokers and partying like a rock star
later
you pleaded guilty to securities fraud spent time in prison and wrote your book which was made into the
oscar-nominated film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese today
You travelled the world teaching your step by step sales and persuasion method known as straight line selling Jordan. Welcome going real
Thank you very much. How does this city treat you? What's your relationship like with London? Amazing me?
Yeah, London's bright I'd say, uh, you know, I'm not saying this to all over the world. This is probably my favorite
This is my one number one or two favorite things in the world. It is for sure
I've got more great friends in this city. I'd made over the years
But there's something about one. They are great food great hotels
Beautiful women, you know, I'm married in loyal to one moment is still nice to look right?
Very intelligent people and it's just a certain energy. There's only one thing I would change you the weather you guys like it's
Not sunny here. Other than that, you know, it's the best place really is amazing. Yeah weather worst in the East Coast
Oh, yeah, just because it's just it's no I grew up in New York, right and uh it this is cloudy here
Well, I don't know why I gotta I guess I gotta do some media logical studies
But of its this is a lot of rain here and cloudiness and New York. It's sunny a lot more
But I would take the people here any day and I guess it's always about the people and you know
It's also I love that. It's like you got into this is all of us. They say, you know, let's go
This is a really old
Beautiful thing it's been around forever. It's like it's a hundred and ten years old this building. You have to see this ability here
It's like 100 years old. It's like its new ear. The key is like a thousand. You're like you see, right?
It's unbelievable. The average buildings a few hundred years old. So it's pretty incredible too. Rich or culturally
I think it's great. Yeah, I love it as a financial senator
Do you think you could have ever?
Rocked it like you did in New York here or is it kind of different as a culture feel different?
I think the culture is a little bit different here. I think I'm you know, I found could have done
Well, probably it just you know, it's in a different way. You always want to adapt you're doing to fit into the culture
We actually had a lot of clients somebody that we called over to the UK called all over the world. But um
You know, I think more than just here
It's remember that was back like a movie came out only maybe you know seven six seven years ago
But this occurred 30 years ago, it changed me 30 years ago, you know, they didn't have the you know
The big difference is that people didn't have information at their fingertips today?
Every investor has information the same information is out there for everyone
So I think it's I think that nowadays a good investor, you know
It doesn't educate themselves shame on them. If you don't calls you up on the phone said, uh, let me you can find out yourself
Back, then it was not like that. So so I think that's a that's a good thing. They can do that
So I think the the paradigm is shifted now, so not so much. I'm not calling people on the phone
I think more of the information flows now through you know, newsletters, you know emails news group, you know, stuff like that
But I want to figure it out I bet yeah, probably right now, you know
It's interesting
you say that lack of information because you know
We had two different experiences on Wall Street and yet we still had a lot of the culture of how to make money right really
how to withhold information to make money sure that was what if we could contrast him a little bit so I
Started at a place called Bankers Trust in 1993
It was right across from the World Trade Center, Liberty Plaza
And it was I I was hired as a fixed-income derivatives trader
They hired me straight from MIT because they wanted my engineering skills but to get in there and make those models
We sold into institutional investors
But we still tried to rip their throats out right with these rocket science trains you on the other hand
We're completely different set up right you were not hiring guys that were you know, necessarily Ivy League grads
You're doing penny stocks to retail investors and you move your shop out on Long Island
Right for people that don't understand like but we still have the same mission which is to go and make a ton of money
Right, I think that yeah, so what after, you know, it was $5 stocks was it that I started selling penny stocks, huh?
And and and there's an important distinction cuz when I tried to sell pennies I tried that it didn't work
No one would buy penny stocks. Okay at it was to obviously
inexpensive, so at five to ten valves, that was the sweet spot that
Larger investors like it was just too speculum with the penny level, right?
Okay, which is interesting because in other countries like Australia like their pennies actually
They sell their mining stocks and they work but not in the US
I'll tell you what. I think it really is
I think this is this this aspect of Wall Street where you know
It's sort of the interests of the customers are not being aligned with the interests of the business and that's really not a sustainable
Long-term thing and and I'd say that in my book when I wrote it in 2007 and some people said all come on
he's just saying that because he got in trouble and then the GFC came and
We saw things that were brought to light about, you know, sort of the bullshi the big short and we right now
Yeah, it's the way they talk about that
You know, there's it could be pretty raw sometimes right and pretty ugly but on the other side of the equation, you know
Here's what I would say is as much as there's oz the ripich of throats, you know, it's tough
Wall Street does serve a purpose the fish that does serve a purpose without it things would be
Disastrous, okay, and there are a lot of really solid players there, too
You can't paint everyone the problem may be said I made I don't anything wrong with the hard selling
That didn't make money. It's the idea that I didn't spend enough time on the product
I was selling
that was the mistake I made and I was young and I was naive a bit like that and I got caught up in the
Whole world with the making so much money, but that was actually be under life. You're selling someone a great product
I don't think you're wrong with your going at them full-on
If it's a great product, you know, right right, I understood and look I agree
I mean
Wall Street does something they don't get credit for especially when people watch movies like yours is that people just think they don't do something
But look they efficiently move capital around the world
So where everything can can grow without that the world would be a complete awful place of poverty
But yeah that being said, you know
there's people like Warren Buffett that represent like the one side that this is perfectly he's an amazing guy cuz it's just so
ethical long term player and
Value builder and then there's the other side of the equation
You know, I don't you know someone like let's say the worst hedge fund guy, you know
So and they've got in trouble like in the united states like stephen code right here and that he's a terrible guy
But like we're it's just so much about like how much can I make what edge?
Can I get right and I think the truth generally lies in the middle somewhere
There's people all along the spectrum, right?
And I think that without like people look want to vilify goldman sachs and yeah
They get caught up in a lot of scandals and stuff. They serve a purpose
So the idea is that enough regulation that they don't run amok on time
but not too much in stifles the flow of capital and
you know causes economies to
contract and I think the big thing is like I really feel at the heart of the problem is is that if there's ever a
system where the interest of the customer or not aligned with the firm the firm will always win and
when a high Iowa's like the interest weren't aligned you make money by buying and selling you get it and
And then so it even makes sense to hold something
The broker will always sell today the Commission and that's why the hedge fund model was supposed to be better
Okay, so let's say well graybles here
we only make 20% of the profits but the corruption there was the two of the two and twenty because now because you know meaning
So those understand two in twenty minutes, you know
I get twenty percent of the profits by managing money bustles two percent of the overall capital. I control
Problem with that is then that turns into a capital collection business
so the more money I
manage
I get that two percent if I manage a billion dollars and welcomes twenty million and do it at a zero on going up
right
So what happens is it's a lot easier to make a great return on a smaller amount of capital than a larger amount, right?
So if a hedge fund managers in seven, we just collect assets because I make more money
he's not gonna make the same return as
He could if he had a smaller amount you get it and then also he needs to screwy's activity
He's needs to show his own earn you guys to train that creates journey and commissions. Those are the problem
So anytime the interests aren't aligned that's on the problems
Thought has Wall Street become more ethical since you and I were there in the 90s
I think that it reached a crescendo of of of zero ethics back in like in like
2006 seven it was like mass
Craziness, right so it got worse from when you write the worst friend then after that shock to the system
I think things have gotten better
But I think things are starting to drift back again somewhat
like what happens is if you look and remember you remember after the GFC, you know, like
Stated income like crash right after they after the global financial crisis
It was like 708 never, you know mortgages have to be for people are qualified
If you go now, you don't almost back to the same thing. Again people giving out mortgage is you know?
Yeah going back there slowly. It's all a cycle. We say it's unbelievable. They go back memories are short, right so
You know
I think that it's always gonna have that sort of like he goes around and around and at any given time
But even here's one other point that considered even in the worst of times
One thing that that you want to remember is that it's not like everyone on Wall Street's corrupt. It's probably even in the worst
I'm 15% Most people would try to do it, right
Yeah, not you know you and then it's something that little slivers enough to destroy everything, right?
That's the problem, you know, and why do they push it? Why do you you know guys like you want to push it?
Look, I was at Bankers Trust and a couple years later
They got indicted and then they got Rico run against him because they were shown to be doing it to multiple corporates was racketeering
I mean
They threw at them what they threw it out Capone
No, because they were doing these trades into Procter and Gamble and this kind of thing
You know, here's I'll tell you what it's about. It's like
The best lesson for me was coming back from what happened
You know going to jail losing everything coming back and building another business
So what happens very often is is that you know when you make money so fast on Wall Street
You don't really build anything you're buying and selling and trading the ingenuity of others
There's no way to really feel like you know, how do you put value on what you're doing? Is it an empty exists exactly?
So exactly those and that's exactly what so people some people
Tend to philia so what do you do? Well, you you then only have money is the only
Barometer of what you're doing, so and then money won't okay. It's in the bank
So you have to buy something to make it real so you buy a huge house a yacht a jet
So then that feels really great for like a minute and then we go
I gotta buy a bigger house and a bigger yacht and it becomes like so, you know
You don't really your money is always say his money's like alcohol it amplifies
She doesn't change you, you know, if you if someone's an asshole and they drink, you know, they're a giant asshole with a drunk
Right, if someone's an awesome fucking person they drink they're the life of the party right money's very similar. It's not gonna make you
Anything that you're not it'll make you more of what you are
So what happens a lot of people just amplifies the bad and amplifies the good as well, right?
So I think in terms of the GFC what you saw happening was was like is it's like self-feeding
Villas it everyone was in on it from the homeowner who bought a house who knew that he really could
Couldn't other victims and then when any anyone went to the mortgage broke or reset to him?
So what do you want make you a get a 75?
How much do you do you make a make more like 100, right? Because that's what you need to call a hundred
Yeah, and what are you doing? Oh my
Assistant, um assistants don't make one aren't you an executive assistant with like the mortgage broker is teaching the Nicole Moore?
Is gonna lie the underwriters looking the other way because they're both saying just to prove this will sell to Wall Street Wall
She's saying we don't care because the selling Iceland that rating ain't you saying laughing? I don't do it
Then the other one will do it
But everybody was like in on it at the end of the day this really said but countries like Iceland in Greece
they really they were the ones that really
Bore the huge brunt of this it was a gigantic lump of crap, but everybody was sort of complicit in this giant lie
I was in the industry and I'll tell you here's what happened
I was in the mortgage industry and the first time and you know anything about subprime loans
I was always in a bar my in my
adult days and I a friend of mine said hey, let's go into business together with more just like
2001 right when the refi boom started right and the first client I got I mean I they want the refi the house
Credit came back. They were like a 540 credit score. They got it. They didn't get approved through Fannie Mae
So I figure we'll call option 1 I'm like, oh there that subprime. Yeah girl comes in. She looks long. Okay, I think there was
7.5 percent
Loan, you know to 22 years 628 and it very very flavoring at the time that she said 7.5%
The fixed-rate who favors for 7% I'm like
It's only a half a percent difference between someone who's got
Perfect credit and this person is basically a credit criminal and like how could they afford to do something?
but I guess the bank has had it figured out on what like everyone thought someone else had it figured out like I did they
Wouldn't be that stupid as to allowance. And so everybody thought that someone else was watching the shop
I had a great friends a partner goldman sachs
And what were you guys think those we think real estate prices ever go down
Like everyone had their own thing they were looking at about why it wasn't promised
Someone else had it covered, you know, and at the end of the day, you know
It works until it doesn't work
And then it's a disaster, you know, tell me about when you're making all this money out there
And yeah, I know the feeling like you don't actually do anything you don't create anything
Is that why a lot of times the drugs come out on it? It's trying to tell you one thing little bit
Yeah, so there's two parts
That's definitely part because there is a culture on Wall Street in the city in London for that kind of thing
I'ma tell you I think that's one part of it, but there's a bigger part of it, too
the bigger part of it is that most of us and I'll be the first to admit that but I emerged from my
adolescent I wasn't the captain of the football team those popular guy the
Swab with girls like like most of us we struggled with those things. We were teenagers and we lost science key. Me too
I was a science geek I was I was gonna die. I was gonna be a doctor
I can finally buy ya by al-qaeda scored perfect on my MCATs. Like I was I was that guy right and
so I go into my adulthood like these insecurities and saying you know what but once I get rich and I get my
Powerful, then I'll feel good
So while you are out there striving for success and pouring for it, even though you feel
Insecure a lot and you don't feel like you're really comfortable in your own skin
You say I know why it's because I don't have success yet
but then you achieve massive success and
You get everything that you always wanted and then uh-oh. I still feel the same way inside. What do I do now?
And that's what you see happen. Not just on Wall Street, but in Hollywood, yeah with people like that Lindsay Lohan's in the world
They you know, they think they this child they get so famous and they feel like then Walter trying to get famous
They're okay because they don't I don't feel great
But I I know I'll feel great once I get famous because that's what I'm my visions when I achieve my vision
When I get that then I'll feel good then
You dead you're like that's when the real panic sets in so with me
It's like I said if I ever get rich in Powys, you know and every girl that had every girl after me
I'm like, I'm rich by look, you know, and I'm still the same guy
that's when I think a lot of the problems start you wanna
self-medicating and and because you again
You know success doesn't change you it just amplifies you so any insecurities you have become even bigger and so forth
And I think that's a lot as much as it is your true - it's a sum somebody not creating anything. But also
Because it's a very lucrative industry
It is people get make money very fast you end up the things that you thought would make you happy
You check a box a plate a second. I'm still not happy. What do I do now?
And that's when the panic sets in and people start to really implode that's you know, kind of thing
Yeah, because the income so frontloader in the industry, and it used to be even more more the bonuses
I mean now they haven't paid in equity right? I mean back when I was there. It was like a million dollars
Here's your dimmer
Here's your money same with you and now it's like no there's some best thing all the time yet
Unheard of in history people in their twenties making this kind of money, right?
Then you got those insecurities come out and think the drugs are right there right there so they could afford them
most importantly I really believe is that you thought that
Once you arrived in this spot, you'd feel good. And when you don't you're like, that's when you're like
what I do like
How do I make sense of my life now?
and then
Drugs help you make sense of that for a short time and I've met some really big part of it
And that's why people tend to try to like, what's the next stroke? I don't what do I buy more?
You always trying to see if I do this on field if I do this
So finally for me this great journey
I had in my life was you're making all this money a rise in a fall and then
Finally like you laughter the for meeting the right woman
You know very fortunate of a great filing. There's just a perfect woman for me
My partner Mike no soul mate and like, you know
You come to the spot in your life where I just really I'm okay like it's me. I'm good, and then then once you're there
the money becomes
Amazing of the compulsions or lifted to spend it recklessly
Like now like I stopped I swear to god it wasn't a car
I didn't want to buy I
Got every car bought this place very 18 watches at I don't really care anymore as I guess
I love those things. So love to fly private. Why not?
You know
I don't mean but the point is it's not like I
Feel like that
I'm trying to like fill something by doing that I use I use money in the right way now and that took a long time
And I always I wish I can
Go back in time and whisper something in young Jordans. Yeah, that would be yet like you're okay
Yeah
like you're you're okay and no one cares like everyone's got their own shit going on like no one's looking at you and
It's like it's all in your own head if at the end of the life
You have a partner wife or a husband or significant other?
That you real connect with it understand you and you can trust a couple of good friends. You're doing really well in this world
So so the story of your life is kind of the story of your relationship with money to a certain extent
I mean we both grew up in America as teenagers and it was just like, you know
I was selling candy on the buses. You know, you're selling ice cream
You're selling this like we were I mean, I don't know about you
But for me, that was what America was all about
Like if you make money you win were you from a wealthy family or no? No really middle upper middle class
So I was a middle class middle lower but not lower class the middle
So we had enough money to know how little that we had in other words
So and also we were in proximity
to wealth around
So it was always about one day when we get riches kids will move out too long in a big house and really will arrive
And then, you know, maybe half of ours the big houses in the area, right?
Well the base side gave us with a rich people live, right? So that was yes a very very similar upbringing in that sense
So yes, I always I always sort of felt like that was my path though
it's very money centric success oriented way of thinking and
From the time I think you know, I always had a business paper out at a you know
shoveling driveways at the snowstorms at ten
Children's magic shows it at twelve and then the beach selling ice and I really made big money. Not really
Defined who I was by the time I started selling Isis and I mean that first big hit a couple hundred bucks at bay back
In the seventies a lot right twenty thousand dollars and it was massive. It was unbelievable
It was unbelievably your self-esteem pick up a few notches. Yeah, absolutely
it did and not just my self-esteem my beliefs about myself and taking action my beliefs about
about
Self-reliance and resilience. So it really started really forming the adult version of who I was that like to this day
I would never consider like how could I not be successful?
I'll just I'm not gonna stop until I am that sort of believing the harder. I work the more money I make
Versus I wasn't enemas. Oh go work in this caving hole and like, you know sit there wait to get butter. I'll die
I'll kill myself
I'll be the worst busboy in the world because I'll be asleep
Try and I'm not picking up that plate cuz it's not it's not like a sort of profit versus energy out you get it
so I realized who I was I found myself pretty young and
Because those root beliefs I had about myself taking action. It paved the way for all decisions Fouad, right?
And that's what built Stratton Oakmont
that kind of was started on the beaches there to assert on the beach what really what Bahamut Stratton Oakmont and
It was really about this. I had I was a natural-born salesperson and this is incredibly vial of whatever reason
Yeah, we all have gifts. That was a gift. I had in a really high level right and
when I was
trying to get my young guys were basically nincompoops right to clothes rich people they couldn't and and this you know
I originally selling penny stocks to moms and pops. Right and I had a system of training salespeople. That was really good
It was my own didn't have a name and these twelve kids I give meetings every day and they were doing really well
Then when I came up with the idea to go to rich people and I tested it myself and Danny
The Donny character from the movie, right?
Yeah, the results was so profound so mass and I decided to reinvent the firm said wow
This is gonna be simple
all I gotta do is train these twelve kids to close rich people and you'll really appreciate the story to come from the lodge of
Wall Street from it I said
I'll be the richest person in the world right see back in the day and in the 80s when we were going through things
It was the rich people the kids that went to the good schools. We'd go to the big Wall Street firms
Yeah, and the kids that were all really edgy. They'd go to the penny stock firms. It was very elitist
it was totally right and then and then my
Cracking the coach. It was about that. Wait a second I and is why aren't the regular kids allowed to call ritual?
they're too stupid rich people can't uh not to speak to a kid who dropped out of high school and
That turned out to be very very true when I tried to do it all I was able to do it might pop the daddy
Was a very smart guy natural won't close or I trained him, right?
The twelve kids couldn't do it, but I invented the straight-line system
It was this this new way of selling and it allowed this basically twelve-year-old
Eight-year-old nincompoop who just stopped shaving to call
Someone worth 100 million bucks and sound like a professional and close the person that's what paved with his SRAM once that started
It allowed me to take all these kids who are in busy boxed out of real of Wall Street
To come work for me and call
Big investors because the system of influence allowed it to work without the system
I try to first it didn't work, but I cracked the code for that and one night
That's what changed everything and the proud mistake
I made was that it allowed me to sell so much stock so fast
I didn't have enough good product to sell I ran out of good product
So what happens is you know on the split your trade, right?
So what all surrounds supply I keep buying one stock it goes up. I started pumping up the value
I wasn't even making money because I wasn't I wasn't long anymore. I had no inventory
So the stock is going up excited helping me and like shit
You get it. My stocks are going up and I even making money because of it
It was a self an unintended consequence to cracking the code for sales of influence and taking all these kids who were just buy
Massive quantities of any stock I should have slowed down the growth. That was my mistake. Right? Why have a thousand guys?
Because you know, my beliefs was somewhat flawed back then for was there, you know you wanted power
well, yes, but also yes was bought it but I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that
That I had this desire for instant gratification
Just sort of mentality
Let you, you know want everything. Come on now
Looking back as a sober adult now in 50-plus years old, right, you know what is business?
What is the purpose of business the purpose of business is to monetize the delivery of value?
That's the business is still right a business has a product a good service, which is lies the problem of a customer
Yeah, and and you know
It's valuable to someone else
Right and the purpose of a organized business is to deliver the value in a way that actually makes money
Like if you if it cost you more to deliver the value then you can get because well then you lose money
You're not business. So the purpose of the business is to deliver value, right?
Facebook's a great example and it's loose
It's early days was they were just creating some that everyone wanted there was no in a month
I said they will figure out to monetize it later and that was through advertising. Right, right
so the early days was very pure and Google the same thing and a lot of Silicon Valley does work in that not delay the
Gratification well just like but let's build something that everybody wants
We'll figure out how to make money on it later, right? I
Didn't that was a mistake I made it was just was in other words for me
It was about how do you make money just make money make money not let's deliver valuing
I should have done is why the best bankers and analysts out there?
So I get the best products to sell and had this
Unbelievable products to and then use my sales force to distribute those amazing products
Right instead my sales more and ahead of my investment-banking you get eggs, you know, right? Yeah, and I ended up having a complete
topsy-turvy where I had the greatest sales force on Wall Street and a terrible investment banking souls and and then then once I got in
Trouble where I got nothing, but like the SE said, you know sued me similarly, right?
A lot of the better companies got nervous and shied away, right? So then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
Okay, and could you was that sales force even out of your control at some point?
Does it get so big where it's like this hungry machine its yes and no knows it
So it's always was that we had a very well controlled sales force, right they were anyway
Ultra loyal they were trained to a Razors Edge, you know people don't talk about how you're a company culture master
Look you built a pack of wolves
I thought I did and that but I'm fortunately I was a master but the culture was bankrupt at its core
That's the problem
because
There was the product like the other words. Here's the thing right now. I have a business. I'm growing my business, right?
Everyone loves my product my actual sales training
It just warrants I go to a seminar eyes and who everyone will say it's the greatest thing in the world, right?
There was times but it's seven months
If I rolled out this new program on the online training
Platform where sale to come on they get bit and I was wasn't making any money because I wasn't she was just testing it out
And I wasn't sure of oh
I really keep doing this and I looked at the
Comments people they were just saying this is the greatest thing in the world. Like I said if they liked it that much
I'll figure out how to make money one day from it the reverse way in other words
You have something so great. Everyone loves so much
You'll figure how to make money the culture we had was based on just like we are animal sales people were successful
We're gonna work harder. We're gonna be and more Skills more refined
but at the core of it because you're not
Delivering value to people the culture will ultimately collapse it can't be based on
Not a lie, but on the sea and even that's the wrong word
It's really essentially getting away with something everyone in my company
They just like we all we get it feel saying you changed my life you change life
That's a really nice thing to warn it perpetuate
That's your way as opposed to but it's like though, you know customers, you know, you lost be following your brand right your suit
It's like it just does it and then also other mistakes. I allowed some of the language patterns that were used to
Skirt on the side of truth. They would never lie on the phone there, wasn't it? Couldn't, you know Wall Street, it's done
I was in business ten years. We had a business in six months recorded line
That's what so we didn't want but ilma, but it was just sort of
misrepresentations or missions of material fact and
If you don't think that the salesmen know that at the end when they go home and that no lying in bed
They can't feel good about that. Right? So so what happens is it ends up permuting to every other part of the company?
So like I reset my train say um company that's a the seals
You can't if you just if you allow your Salesforce to tell one lie, you know, what don't start lying to you to
If they lie to the cousins the line they'll steal from you they still so it's gotta be so, you know
It's gotta be pure and bile and my dad my selling this great lily-white person
It's just just for even if you're greedy, you make more money by delivering massive value
You'll end up boom better yourself, right? Good ethics is good business. I think selfish hundred percent you make less money upfront for sure
That's nice. I won't deny that very often having really maintaining ethics
It means about not making as much upfront but making a thousand times more long term and feeling great about it
so if you had had those ethics from the beginning
I would be bigger than Goldman Sachs might really you'd still be in business on the stop
It wasn't I would have caught the whole internet craze right in the late nineties
I was alright, I run a business in 97 97 if I had the thousand guys saying every Internet company public I
Could have made god knows what we would have been but I'm glad it happened
You're no one's happy when they get caught
I'm really I'm glad I went to jail not to be stupid in retrospect now the life that that getting caught and
Forcing to reexamine my values and forcing to come back has a allowed me to help people all over the world
It's allowed me to really to build a business that I love
that you know
I can make a difference in people's lives everywhere also for my own kids to see that watch like Al because like
How did your kids at all my kids are great, you know
Why because they watch their father lose everything and not give up and come back and do it
Right, and I would have come out of jail as but a criminal stolen. Let me just system. What's the next scanted?
Yeah, my kids are probably very much damaged, but for them to watch and that's a I made a mistake and and do it
Right, that's a great role model to your kids and you're happy. Now you got a good good energy. People are loving you, right?
Thank God for that, right? Yeah
Gives you bit on the other side of that right? I
Had some very tough years and really I would add some really tough years the toughest years for me
2000 in 1999 you're out of out of jail at this point before jail before jail
Oh, yeah
Of course waiting to get sentenced and just like living in this purgatory and you're losing my money my freedom my self-respect
My wife walked out. I was like she left like the day I got indicted
I'm like, I'm like didn't you read the gold-diggers handbook? I'm like it's like this
Is it a protocol when the husband loses the precious or you don't leave right away you got to stick around?
Yes, the ground for appearance's your months and they'd say oh he changed he's impossible but like, you know
And she was out with a pickaxe and shoveled it for a new gold mine, right?
Anyway, the point is I'm what about the drugs? He's still not sober yet as well
I was already still know so as the movie was so the movies
Well the movies really accurate in some in many respects what they did they fiddled around the timeline. So I had already been sober for
18 months almost two years and never really it was like, let me break out the coke and and that didn't happened
that was from a different scene earlier on right so I can sober I never relapse so um
I it was so worth the time but I lost my my money my freedom my wife everything like children were taken from me
She moved them across the country. Would they talk to you? Did your children do they made? Oh, no, no
No, they talk to me. They hate you. She never turned him against me that look ever that much
She never ever she was good. She was very good. She never tried to turn the kids against me
I mean subtle digs
But you I would give her a she was a ten out of ten on the good side for not throwing the kids. Yes
I know so when you don't are terrible with that, what do you tell your kids when that stuff happens?
It was Louis gym
It was they didn't know he kept it from them and they were very young like daughter was when it first happened
She was like five or six. My son was four. It were oblivious
She met my ex met another man, and she moved to the west coast right? I was in the East Coast
That's why I end up in the West Coast meeting my kids
Right, and we didn't tell the kids then before I had to report to jail fine a few years later
There's always a lot the u.s. Is like takes time to you after you go to jail, right so
We sat my kids down and you know daddy made some mistakes and yesterday my daughter started
Bawling hysterically she was down nine. It was the worst night in my life. Honestly telling my kid
My son was seven there just crying hysterically then we we had that was the night before I went to jail
And then we, you know something went dead together
My my my two kids are on the knife and then I left and that was that and that was in jail
And then when I go to jail, who's my bunkmate Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong?
can you imagine this we ship so we put me in with Tommy Chong and
Not I'm the same feeling the same cell with Shanna cube together, right? We became good friends and um,
It's not much for doing jail, but tell stories so, you know, Tommy's telling me stories
I'm laughing and I'm telling him so he's rolling on the floor the third night
He says, you know, honestly, I thought you were full of shit. I thought you were making this stuff up
The yacht's as my wife googled you it's actually true
You did all this because you have to write a book sounds like really like yes write a book
I'ma go. I don't know how to write heels. Just write the way you speak
It's like okay, so I tried that it didn't work. You don't you can't write the way you speak. It's very different
They don't actually write you wrote like a hundred pages in prison and you threw it away, right?
Well, what happened was I I started writing like ten pages that show them that Tommy. He's like that's really awful like, thanks
Tommy come what you really think right?
so I and first I couldn't write it was just very dry and boring and I
Went into the prison library after a month of trying and failing a very frustrated
I stumbled upon the book bonfire of the vanities by Tom Wolfe
Yeah, sure you've read right now as soon as I started reading like oh my god, I want to write like that
So I finished the book that I took out my yellow highlighter
I was a very good student school there
You know Joey's impose well academically and I used this book like a textbook and I started going through and cracking Tom Wolfe's
strategy for writing
Introduced characters has he described locations?
How does he create cause I'm noticing it was certain the word had h ad
like I said
Oh now I know why my sentences don't make sense does I wanna discuss the past s tell you what I didn't
Realize this stuff. There's a strategy for writing
Okay, I think some of the mistakes that people make in becoming successful. They forget the fact that still be a specialized
Skill set involved you want to succeed something you might to learn the actual skills. So I had this idea
I wanted to write a book. I have a vision if I write this book, it could become a great day
Okay, great. But what specialised skills. Do you need to know? One of them is kind of right I
Didn't know so I used this book. I taught myself to write then my second book was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I was like second textbook, right and my writing improved dramatically because of those books and I wrote about 100 pages
You said then I ripped them up with anything good enough
Got out of jail wrote 10 pages again now and haven't I looked these 10 pages? It's a 2005. I'm like wow
I'm like, I think they're pretty good. Like they to me they seem good
I never liked my writing before and I set into a
couple of friends and they were all come back and oh my god screaming really I
Was like so I knew very casual was an age and I said to the pages and here's the interesting point
Closing back and acts did you who is that a joke?
Can you pay Tom wolf to write those biggest you thought Tom Wolfe wrote the first 10 pages?
Because back then and they've changed the original 10 was thanks so much like Tom Wolfe
It's like if you knew Tamil if you say wow, you wrote them, right?
So just that was a victory for my strategy right anyway
And he goes you have to goes you he goes you got to stop what you're doing
Because you have to write this book. This book is gonna be a huge success
I thought the guy was crazy
But you know, I was just out of jail. I don't know what do so like what were your options in that plan options?
what to build another business I was
Soon they get rich again by building a business and you know what it would be you could now you could personally trade after
Couldn't start a securities firm. That's all out. Exactly. I couldn't own a firm but I could trade for myself
But to me as a person that had already runs Steve Madden shoes, I built that up, right?
I never doubted I'd make money again. That wasn't really my worry. I knew I'd get rich at some point
I kind of was that sort of person I didn't know how
But you know, I just it was tired. I was like one down
Also, I you know the night when I was writing that book even those first hundred pages
It's like almost like a lot of catharsis and there's like it's like therapy and I just you know
You start seeing things about yourself and I just made this decision
I said let me give this a whirl and I literally holed up in this little tiny apartment I had and in
Playa del Rey California, right and it was something about this place
It was overlooking the water was tiny not expensive great energy, though
And I didn't speak to another human being for almost a year only. My kids would come over
There's writing this book, you know, and it's some pretty interesting in terms of success
so but after about 20 pages in and I now had you know, my my um age like, you know,
This is gonna be huge. I didn't think I could finish I never wrote. I was like really nervous
So I went to my daughter it was like like we're like my closest friend back then she was we were really close my door
Right here. My son was still small. I
Said guess my channel is just watching
Daddy's gonna write a best-seller and become famous
Now I did that because I knew that once I told her I would have no choice but to make it happen. I
Embarrassed myself then she goes mommy mom, and then I was screwed
If she told my ex-wife I'm like that I had no choice. He's like, oh, yeah sure and then you know
That's what happened that right
So then so I note so I you'll hold up and I just wrote and wrote and wrote my magic it was 1,100 pages
And then I went through then five out after about about three months
I had fifty pages and my girls I have to send these just to talk to a publisher cuz we'll get it
I'll get you some money and he got into Random House
They bought it on the spot and I got a big check from Random House and I was broke
Right and I got your they bought off like seven hundred thousand dollars right there and it was like wow is a life changer
And then um, what did you learn about yourself?
When you wrote that book when you got to look back on Jordans life, you know, ten years later right eight years later
What did you see patterns things you're talking about today? Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well the biggest
Number of things number one was the the number of voices in my head
I think what people like the book a lot what people really get into it's because I'm like
Talking to myself through the whole book weighing my options and I'm seeing how a my own worst
Enemy, like how I have this like this voice now. I know I shouldn't be doing this Azam's
I know I should be doing some and like you start to see your faults like in high relief and
You know when I was able to look back and see the decision leaving my first life for my second wife, you know
I did my best dating after I was married, you know
I was like all the things that drug addictions and all the things I've done
It's like and when you write it's like you're peeling back the layers
So it's like, you know, it's like the first draft is everything is rich
It's like you write the first revenues they owe you weight and that
It ignites a memory and a deeper memory and deeper. So you you start to really
Dig out the deepest recesses in some level. It's exactly what therapy is about when you go into therapy when you're write a
Memoir like that and if you're if you're really gonna do it, honestly
It's like you're it's like cell therapy. And you start I started to see like the mistakes I made and
The things that did really well and I saw I had all these amazing
Strengths all these great talents and some of these terrible, you know
Frailties and and weaknesses that that I allowed to get the best of me. So I think on many levels and you know, I
Felt different I left jail
Not that I felt like I was a different person. I felt like I was the same person
My parents had sent out into the road when I was 20. I was a good kid, right?
I wasn't like I wasn't run up nothing
Like I loved you know, the old movies like good cause I grew up with a family like that were all like, you know
We were you know, look knock it over, you know cars and I was the most legitimate parents are accountants
So like I felt like I was back to that person
I really that values and stuff and then you know, I got very lucky
I met the right woman also that is a big thing, you know
and whether you're a man or woman and doesn't matter who that person is what the sex is but when you meet someone
They could either make you better or make you worse
I don't mean about someone filling your holes those known to fill your holes
But some people into your life and they just make you better versions for you warrants. My current wife is just like that
She's just like this person that she represented to me everything
I always wanted a woman looks wise and integrity wise and I I felt like I truly had a partner and a friend
that I you know could trust and that and that
She had never sold out
A life that was just you know
And then she had her son who became my son I raised and and he works me. He's amazing kid now
he's like, you know, he's just amazing right know like it's a great and
So he was a big thing. Also, who you
Surround so your mother price with you get laid down with dogs
You're gonna wake up but fleece was a expression when you guy said. Yeah, it's true
How does she bring out the best stuff in you?
Of course she's not
It's harsh Rishi loves nice things. She loves money
Her whole life is based on ethics and integrity
Seriously, she's never said you could agree with our our opinions
She's got strong opinions on certain things
But she's always been very true to who she is and she's not gonna satisfy
Anybody and I think I did a lot of that in my life
I'm just trying to please other I always in fact in the book
I said I feel like I'm almost an actor on the stage of my own life doing what people think I should be doing versus
What I want to be doing, you know, and I just think that you know
Part, it was hard for sure and also part of it was you know
when you go to jail and you lose like it's losing the game of life, you know, they were say
You know your values don't really change that easily unless a disaster happens. I was forced to re-examine my value system
My number one value in my 20s was how do I make more money? I want to make money
I want power money hot women sex money power, right that was and I'm not alone like that in my twenties
But that was my values, right?
Today like that like making money is not even my top five values and I love money more than ever
I just say no. I don't have to worry about that
If I just give value to people I possess the skills to turn it into a profitable business
The more value I give the more people I reach the more money
I make out that putting money
First money is the result of the outcome of giving massive value and applying correct business
Principles versus wait a sec how I make more money. Okay. We should you trip people up
Maybe we should like pump the stock up yet
Your brain like is a computer. If you ask it bad questions, it gives you some bad answers
How do they go might have it only Breslow we could always you know
Collude with that for a moment there and do this again now I'm like I wouldn't do if I won person's little complaint
Here's your money back
I don't like I don't want anyone
To touch my life and not think they got ten times a better deal for me that I got
I don't okay with that. I'd rather someone say Wow, and that's the people on my platform you go on go on
They'll happy you're freaked. Just check it out and just watch the comments that people say this is ridiculous. How does he do this?
How does it give this much value cuz it's like twenty bucks a month and I should charge
200 300 a month right doing because I know I'm playing the long game
You know what? I get a million people on it very different. So and look at Jeff. Jesus was a great example
Yeah, people say how did he do? How was he doing? All this stuff? I wasn't giving away your books
You gotta lose
He was losing money
But he understood that he was providing a valuable service and eventually over time you can make a lot of money like that
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