Wolf of Wall Street puts on slick show in Sandton
Former rogue trader has found his bearings
JORDAN Belfort speaks at 100km/h. It doesn’t require any stretch to imagine the Wolf of Wall Street as a high-voltage motivating force firing up people around him, though these days he’s more about training rather than trading.
In the “bad old days”, Belfort motivated people to hit the phones to sell penny stocks to investors. People lost millions, while he made tens of millions. It all came tumbling down: he served 22 months in prison and made a deal to pay restitution to those he fleeced. But he also wrote a book, which is now a blockbuster movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
His story had it all: Ferraris, sex, drugs, yachts and oodles of cash. He is the dark side of capitalism, though some say the movie glamorises his experience and doesn’t sufficiently convey the tough times his victims experienced.
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Speaking to the Sunday Times before he came to South Africa to talk at last week’s Success Summit, Belfort says he found the movie entertaining, though parts were disturbing.
“I’m sober for almost 17 years. Seeing myself with drug-fuelled insanity was wildly entertaining, but I had the sweats. It was pretty tough.”
It’s taken away some of his privacy, but it’s been good for business. Actually, it’s been very good for business. When he spoke at the summit last weekend, he was billed second only to Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple, one of Wall Street’s biggest success stories. It’s no small irony that one of Wall Street’s deepest embar- rassments is now sharing a stage with Wozniak.
When Belfort steps onto the stage, he’s given a standing ovation by about half the hall — before he even starts speaking. People are shouting, women in particular are shrieking. Not the greeting most traders get when they have to speak in public.
So what was so enticing about trading? Belfort says he loves the adrenaline rush, the fact that all your instincts and knowledge are “in the moment. And the money was very good.”
The movie depicts debauchery and excess rarely seen in mainstream cinema. What was it like living the life of excess?
“Honestly, when I look back it kinda sucked. I was stoned all the time; it was fun to have a yacht, go out for expensive dinners. I still love money, I think it’s great. Unfortunately I used to live life immorally and was spiritually bankrupt. Lucky I got sober, but to do it over again I would do it differently.”
He’s not flying around in private jets, and has one woman in his life, his fiancée. He gives motivational speeches, training and does charity work.
He says a lot of the movie was fictionalised. “I’m not minimising what I did, but it was heavily exaggerated.”
Belfort says losing his soul to Wall Street was a process of over two years, despite starting with good intentions in 1988.
He admits he did things that were wrong: manipulating stocks and free riding, the practice of buying shares or other securities without having the capital to cover the trade. “But we were not taking crappy companies public. We were taking speculative companies public.
“What I was doing on Wall Street was not much different to what the big banks did in the global financial crisis. The only difference is I wasn’t bankrupting Iceland and Greece.”
Belfort was sentenced to pay $109-million (R1.2-billion) in restitution, and in the deal forfeited $30-million in assets.
For the first three years, while on probation, he had to pay back 50% of his income. He told the Hollywood Reporter he’s made $1.3-million from the sale of the books so far, of which half went to the government.
At the summit, the gift of the gab is in full force. He’s a charismatic speaker, and touches on a technique he uses called the straight-line persuasion system.
He says you’re always selling, whether it’s ideas or concepts.
What holds back the average person from achieving wealth and success is that they can’t close the deal. “They can’t sell their way out of a paper bag.”
You first have to sell yourself.