The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling
yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.
– Jordan Belfort
If you want to be rich, never give up. People tend to give up. If you have persistence, you
will come out ahead of most people. More importantly, you will learn. When you do something,
you might fail. But that’s not because you’re a failure. It’s because you have not learned
enough. Do it differently each time. One day, you will do it right. Failure is your friend.
– Jordan Belfort
One of the things I really believe in is that all change happens in an instant. That’s it. Change
doesn’t take a long time. It’s a misconception. “It’s got to be painful and costly and drag on
forever.” What takes a long time is feeling enough pain in your life, like I did, until you get
ready to change.
– Jordan Belfort
It’s a fucked-up racket, being a stockbroker. I mean, don’t get me wrong: The money’s great
and everything, but you’re not creating anything, you’re not building anything. So after a
while it gets kinda monotonous… The truth is we’re nothing more than sleazoid salesmen.
None of us has any idea what stocks are going up! We’re all just throwing darts at a board
and, you know, churning and burning.
– Jordan Belfort
I have no problem living with risk in my life. It’s what separates the men from the boys.
– Jordan Belfort
No matter what happened to you in your past, you are not your past, you are the resources
and the capabilities you glean from it. And that is the basis for all change.
– Jordan Belfort
The most destructive belief that was ever installed in my mind – greed is good. Greed cuts
through! I’m like, “Ah, greed is good.” Bullshit! Greed is not good. Greed is fucking destructive.
Greed is literally about wanting as much as you can, as fast as you can and you don’t care
who gets hurt along the way! The first thing that happens when greed takes hold, is all
ethics go flying out the window… Greed is not good. It’s ambition that’s good. Passion that’s
good.
– Jordan Belfort
The easiest way to develop a strategy for success is to model somebody else that’s already
successful. By modeling someone that was successful you turn decades into days. Strategy
is everything when it comes to success.
– Jordan Belfort
If you give people a good enough “why,” they will always figure out the “how.”
– Jordan Belfort
Things had gotten so out of hand that young Strattonites were rutting away under desks, in
bathroom stalls, in coat closets, in the underground parking garage, and of course, the
building’s glass elevator. Eventually, to maintain some semblance of order, we passed out a
memorandum declaring the building a Fuck Free Zone between the hours of eight a.m. and
seven p.m.
– Jordan Belfort
High pressure’s a must in this business. People don’t buy stocks; it gets sold to them.
– Jordan Belfort
Who has read the book The Secret? This is the biggest fucking junk ever! Here is what The
Secret says: go to your couch and sit down and imagine a big, fat check with your name on
it and $25,000 and then imagine the check showing up in your mailbox. And just put the
energy out in the ether and sure enough, a check will show up in your mailbox! Bullshit! If
that’s your strategy for achieving… the only thing showing up in your mailbox is a freaking
eviction notice! They’ll be towing your car away and you’ll be looking at your garden and
saying, “There’s no weeds, there’s no weeds, there’s no…” Bullshit! There’s weeds in your
garden and you gotta pull them out… So my sense is – be realistic, be intelligent, and don’t
see things worse than they are.
– Jordan Belfort
I was back inside my jail, sitting on the floor, when the policeman said, “Well, Mr. Belfort, in
case you’re wondering, you tested positive for cocaine, methaqualone, benzodiazepines,
amphetamines, MDMA, opiates, and marijuana. In fact, the only thing you’re not showing is
hallucinogens. What’s wrong, you don’t like those?”
– Jordan Belfort
When you live your life by poor standards, you inflict damage on everyone who crosses your
path, especially those you love.
– Jordan Belfort
The press onslaught has started in 1991, when an insolent reporter from Forbes magazine,
Roula Khalaf, coined me as a twisted version of Robin Hood, who robs from the rich and
gives to himself and his merry band of brokers. She deserved an A for cleverness, of course.
And, of course, I was take a bit aback by it, at least at first, until I came to the conclusion
that the article was actually a compliment. After all, how many twenty-eight-year-olds got
their own personal expose in Forbes magazine? After the article hit, I had a fresh wave of
recruits lining up at the door.
– Jordan Belfort
Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions.
– Jordan Belfort
Act as if! Act as if you’re a wealthy man, rich already, and then you’ll surely become rich. Act
as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act
as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if
you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today – you will become
successful.
– Jordan Belfort
There’s no nobility in poverty.
– Jordan Belfort
I wanted a gay butler, just like the one I’d seen on the show Dynasty – or was it Dallas? So
Janet went on a quest to find me a gay butler, which, of course, she quickly did. His name
was Patrick the Butler, and he was so gay that he had flames shooting out of his asshole.
– Jordan Belfort
“Give us two Absolut martinis, Luis, straight up. And then bring us two more in” – he looked at
his thick gold Rolex watch – “exactly seven and a half minutes until one of us passes out.”
– Jordan Belfort
You don’t choose who you fall in love with, do you? And once you do fall in love – that
obsessive sort of love, that all-consuming love, where two people can’t stand to be apart
from each other for even a moment – how are you supposed to let a love like that pass you
by?
– Jordan Belfort
Who could argue with such success? The amount of money being made was staggering. A
rookie stockbroker was expected to make $250,000 his first year. Anything less and he was
suspect. By year two you were making $500,000 or you were considered weak and worthless.
And by year three you’d better be making a million or more or you were a complete laughing
stock. And those were only the minimums; big producers made triple than that.
– Jordan Belfort
Winners use words that say “must” and “will.”
– Jordan Belfort
I believe in total immersion, if you want to be rich, you have to program your mind to be rich.
You have to unlearn all the thoughts that were making you poor and replace them with new
thoughts – rich thoughts.
– Jordan Belfort
Such undeniable beauty! Not only her great mane of golden blond hair but those blazing blue
eyes, those glorious cheekbones, her tiny nose, that perfectly smooth jawline, her chin with
its tiny cleft, those creamy young breasts – a bit worse for the wear after breast-feeding
Chandler, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with $10,000 and a sharp scalpel. And those
legs… God almighty, those long bare legs of hers were off the charts! So perfect they were,
the way they tapered so nicely at the ankle yet stayed so luscious above the knee. They
were definitely her best asset, along with her ass.
– Jordan Belfort
The easiest way to make money is – create something of such value that everybody wants
and go out and give and create value – the money comes automatically.
– Jordan Belfort
Successful people are 100% convinced that they are masters of their own destiny; they’re
not creatures of circumstance, they create circumstance, if the circumstances around them
suck they change them.
– Jordan Belfort
Hookers were so much a part of the Stratton subculture that we classified them like publicly
traded stocks: Blue Chips were considered the top-of-the-line hooker, zee creme de la
creme. They were usually struggling young models or exceptionally beautiful college girls in
desperate need of intuition or designer clothing, and for a few thousand dollars they would do
almost anything imaginable, either to you or to each other. Next came the NASDAQs, who
were one step down from the Blue Chips. They were priced between three and five hundred
dollars and made you were a condom unless you gave them a hefty tip, which I always did.
Then came the Pink Sheet hookers, who were the lowest form of all, usually a streetwalker or
the sort of low-class hooker who showed up in response to a desperate late-night phone call
to a number in Screw magazine or the yellow pages. They usually cost a hundred dollars or
less, and if you didn’t wear a condom, you’d get a penicillin shot the next day and then pray
that your dick didn’t fall off.
– Jordan Belfort
Empowering beliefs lead to a lifetime of joy and happiness and disempowering beliefs lead to a
life of quiet desperation . That’s the way it is. You cannot rise above the level of your limiting
beliefs. Crack those limiting beliefs!
– Jordan Belfort
We are not our past experiences. We are the capabilities and the resources that we’ve
gleaned from them. Shit happens to people! You make huge mistakes. But you’re not those
mistakes, you’re not your bankruptcy, you’re not your failure – what you are is the lessons
what you’ve learned from that and you can use now.
– Jordan Belfort
It was a mystery to me why I felt compelled to always book the presidential Suite, no matter
how ludicrous the price. I was certain that it had something to do with watching Richard Gere
do it in the movie Pretty Woman, which was one of my all-time favorites.
– Jordan Belfort
My philosophy is this, it always was – see things as they are, but not worse than they are.
And that’s what a lot of people do – they see things worse than they are. And they tell that
story, “Ah, it’s so terrible… only a madman would possibly take action!” So that’s their excuse
for not doing anything about their problems. So – see things as they are, not worse than
they are. Then see them better than they are, and make them that way.
– Jordan Belfort
If I earn a million dollars a week and the average American earns a thousand dollars a week,
then when I spend twenty thousand dollars on something it’s the equivalent of the average
American spending twenty dollars on something, right?
– Jordan Belfort
“Everybody knows Scott blew Irv, and you didn’t see Scott losing his job over it, did you?” …
“Anyway,” continued Stratton’s new CEO, “that heinous act had more to do with power than
sex. And Irv has now proved to us that he’s a true man of power – getting one of the junior
brokers to blow him. So the whole act is exempt, and Scott is forgiven.”
– Jordan Belfort
It’s the emotions that we feel that dictate the quality of our life.
– Jordan Belfort
Hi, my name is Jordan, and I’m alcoholic, a Quaalude addict, and a cocaine addict. I’m also
addicted to Xanax and Valium and morphine and Klonopin and GHB and marijuana and
Percocet and mescaline and just about everything else, including high-priced hookers,
medium-priced hookers, and an occasional streetwalker, but only when I feel like punishing
myself. Sometimes I take an afternoon massage at one of those Korean joints, and I have a
young Korean girl jerk me off with baby oil. I always offer her a couple of hundred extra if
she’ll stick her tongue up my ass, but it’s sort of hit or miss, because of the language barrier.
Anyway, I never wear a condom, just on general principles. I’ve been sober for five whole
days now, and I’m walking around with a constant erection. I miss my wife terribly, and if you
really want to resent me I’ll show you a picture of her.
– Jordan Belfort
It was all about excess: about crossing over forbidden lines, about doing things you thought
you’d never do and associating with people who were even wilder than yourself, so you’d feel
that much more normal about your own life.
– Jordan Belfort