Jordan Belfort speaks

[arnzilla]

excerpted from www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/2662078.htm on August 20, 2009

Monica Attard: Ok, well all of this is soon going to be glorified in the movie. You character, Jordan Belfort to be played by Leonardo Dicaprio. In your reformed state, let's call it. Is there any part of you that thinks that this film is simply going to glorify the way you lived and what you did?

Jordan Belfort: Absolutely not.

Monica Attard: Why are you so convinced of that?

Jordan Belfort: Well because I've read the script and you know the movie is the cautionary tale and I don't think the last thing that anybody wants to do is glamorise anything that would lead to the sort of behaviour that just shocked the world economy to the extent that it did.

I know that when I go out I make it very clear that the path that I took was not the right path. You could look at the path and say yes there are things I did that were great. There was, some really good things there. Some basic laws of success that I did, but I corrupted it.

And that's the key to be able to separate the good from the bad and learn from somebody else's mistakes.

Monica Attard: Ok we'll talk about learning from mistakes for a moment. What's to say that the 'Wall Street wolves' as you call them, won't come up with bigger and better scams next time round, now that it appears that the world is kind of slowly emerging from the crushing effects of this latest financial crisis?

Jordan Belfort: Good question. And it's a scary proposition to think that you might be right, it really is. I think the first step to change in anything whether it's in you personal life or in business or the world economics is to recognise that there is a problem and that's at the stage that the world is at right now.

I think the days of Wall Street firms and firms all around the globe flying under the radar and committing financial hari kari and financial chaos underneath the guise of respectability, those days are over. The jig is up, everybody knows what's going on.

Now if history serves right, people can have short memories, but I think it's a bit different now because we're in the internet age now and the media is all over this. There's much more checks and balances. I don't think that this is going to fade out of the public consciences forever. I really don't believe that, now I think there are some things that need to be done right now when it's so fresh in the public's mind.

[nas78]

Jordan Belfort ‏@wolfofwallst
The Guardian is already putting “The Wolf of Wall Street” on its Oscar list. This entire movie journey has been... fb.me/13lJcbRgf

What is this from Belfort? Yoda-talk?... ;D

[nas78]

Leo and The Wolf of Wall Street are featured on the cover of this week's New York Magazine. This whole journey continues to humble and amaze me!
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151957438333465&l=4d4c1bf582

[nas78]

twitter.com/wolfofwallst
It's time to change from consciously competent to unconsciously competent

The unbeaten wisdom of Jordan Belfort...I`m sorry but i had to post this... ;D

[archer6749]

I heard he's a real jerk in person

[nas78]

Ex 'Wolf of Wall Street' Jordan Belfort hounded for restitution payments
www.news.com.au/business/ex-wolf-of-wall-street-jordan-belfort-hounded-for-restitution-payments/story-e6frfm1i-1226756989349

JORDAN Belfort insists he's a changed man.
The old Belfort was a notorious stock swindler who squandered profits from a boiler-room, "pump and dump" scheme on cocaine, prostitutes and other excesses - a story that became basis for two memoirs and The Wolf of Wall Street, an upcoming movie starring Leonardo DeCaprio.

The new Belfort is a business consultant who claims he would never tell a lie and frets over recent suggestions that he may be avoiding payments on $US110 million ($117.3 million) in restitution by hiding his profits from the book and movie deals.

"It's very strange being accused of something I wouldn't have done in a million years," the 51-year Belfort said. "It's so not where my head is at."

In early October, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Brooklyn to find Belfort in default, saying he paid only $11.6 million of the $110 million he owes as restitution for a securities fraud and money laundering conviction. They have since withdrawn the request to see if a settlement can be worked out - but not before a wave of bad press portraying Belfort as a deadbeat.

"In some weird way, it probably helps the movie," he said in a recent phone interview. "It doesn't help me."

The film - directed by Martin Scorsese and set for release on Christmas Day - chronicles the boyish, fast-talking Belfort's antics as chairman of Stratton Oakmont Inc., the firm he started with a few desks and phones set up in a former Long Island auto shop.

"Leo's amazing, a brilliant actor," Belfort said. "I spent hundreds of hours with him. And Marty's brilliant too."

Stratton Oakmont made a fortune by using deceptive, high-pressure tactics to peddle penny stocks at inflated prices. After artificially pumping the value up, Belfort and others would dump their own shares before prices crashed.

Belfort and his cronies ended up making more cash than they knew what to do with: A movie trailer shows a smirking DiCaprio crumpling up $US100 bills and throwing them in a waste basket. He spent part of his ill-gotten gains on a 166-foot yacht - which sank - and a $US175,000 sports car.

Looking back, he says becoming rich by deceit wasn't worth it.

"Fraud is not something you want to be good at," he said. "I was always taking great efforts to cover my tracks. It was unbelievably exhausting, keeping track of all the lies. ... I think that's why I lived so recklessly. You're doing things that you know can't go on indefinitely. It fuels that insane lifestyle."

Belfort pleaded guilty in 1999 and agreed to become a government witness in a case against an accountant and other stock fraud defendants accused of cooking the firm's books and funneling money into a bogus holding company and overseas bank accounts.

In 2003, after a broken marriage and a bout with drug addiction, Belfort was sentenced to 3½ years behind bars and ordered to chip away at the $US110 million restitution by giving 50 percent of his future earnings to the government. Book sales resulted in payments of about $US700,000 from 2007 to 2009, court papers say.

But after completing probation in 2010, prosecutors claim Belfort's payments have slowed to a trickle - even after he made $US940,500 off the sale of the Wolf movie rights and continued to capitalise on his notoriety as a motivational speaker and business consultant. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising that the government went on the offensive, said Marcos Jimenez, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami.

"I think it's a little bit in-your-face when you write books and help make movies about your crimes, especially when the crimes are why you owe restitution," Mr Jimenez said.

In the interview, Belfort said he now can make tens of thousands of dollars for speaking engagements and other services. His website boasts that he's developed a system to "take virtually any company or individual ... and empower them to create massive wealth, abundance and entrepreneurial success, without sacrificing integrity or ethics," and features testimonials of heads of telecommunications and real estate companies in Australia.

"Jordan is no longer a criminal," his fiance, Anne Koppe, wrote in a recent letter to the judge. "He is an exemplary contributor to the economy. He is a taxpayer and a very hard-working man."

As to his current problems with the law, Belfort's lawyers have argued that his obligation to pay half his earnings ended when he went off probation. Still, he claims he's repeatedly offered to pay 100 percent of his book and movie profits and to negotiate a settlement on restitution, only to be met with silence.

"There's so much distrust," Belfort said of the prosecutors. "Most people lie to them. I don't want to make any money from the books or the movie. I don't think they could fathom that."

Someone like Belfort bemoaning a lack of trust is outrageous, said Dianne Nygaard, a lawyer who once represented some of his victims. She recalled that one of her clients, after being duped by a cold call from Stratton Oakmont, sold the family farm so he could invest.

"No one should consider him trustworthy," Ms Nygaard said of Belfort. "He is the consummate con man, winning the confidence of the naive, the trusting and the greedy by calculatedly selling people what they wanted to believe."

In a letter dated October 25, prosecutors told the judge they're reviewing documents turned over by Belfort before the case returns to court later this month. He's hoping for a quick resolution so he can move on.

"I just want to finally close out that chapter of my life," he said.

Any publicity is a good publicity (?)

[nas78]

Jordan Belfort, the Real Wolf of Wall Street
www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-07/jordan-belfort-the-real-wolf-of-wall-street#p1

“To my shock it got picked up, with this bidding war between Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt,” Belfort says, “and I chose Leo and Martin Scorsese.”

“That was really the mistake that I made. My ability to sell outstripped my ability to manufacture good deals.” He was reluctant to share his technique at first, having learned the hard way how aggressive sales tactics can be misused. But eventually Koppe and others persuaded him to try teaching it to companies. Even DiCaprio weighed in. “Dude, what’s f-‍-‍-ing wrong with you?” Belfort recalls DiCaprio saying. “There’s nothing wrong with selling. It wasn’t the selling that was evil. It’s what you did with it.”

[nas78]

“Act as if! Act as if you’re a wealthy man, rich already, and you’ll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and 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.”

Fake it until i make it...Got it Jordan...Thanks...

[sikri06]

Comedic Actor and former cellmate of Jordan Belfort, Tommy Chong (That 70's show) talks about how he encouraged Belfort to write the book.

www.tmz.com/2013/11/29/tommy-chong-wolf-of-wall-street-jordan-belfort/

[nas78]

Jordan Belfort: ''One of many billboards appearing around town''
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152193109043465&l=a69fd5ddec

[will]

Oh, no, not the shoe one... Thanks, nas

Has anyone read that Belfort is going into reality tv? I saw an article but didn't have the stomach to read it.

[nas78]

Reality TV? Really? What`s going to be called...''Keeping Up With The Wolf?. No wait...''The Real Wolf Of Wall Street''...

More from Jordan...
nypost.com/2013/12/09/wolf-of-wall-street-cant-shake-queens-roots/

Even his Hollywood alter ego — “Hey, being played by Leo is better than being played by Danny DeVito!” — stands 6 feet tall. At 5-foot-7, Jordan would mortgage his soul for that kind of height.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie opens Christmas Day. Jordan is consumed with dread:
“It will forever change the way I’m perceived for the rest of my natural life.”

U think...

[will]

Here is the Hollywood Reporter article:

[arnzilla]

The Real "Wolf of Wall Street" Discusses the Film, Ambition, and Greed - CNN iReport

[kim]

Is it true Belfort plans to pay back all his victims with the money WOWS makes?
dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/investors-story-left-out-of-wall-st-wolf-movie/?_r=0