“Delay your gratification.”
In short: Jordan Belfort, the former stockbroker whose story inspired The Wolf of Wall Street, joined Brian Rose in 2019 for this London Real Success Secrets clip. He talks about how one wrong choice cost him everything, why selling is a cornerstone skill, what keeps him awake at night, and the advice he would give his 20-year-old self.
Jordan argues that most of what he did was legitimate and that a single bad decision wiped it all out. His lesson is to give value first, learn the rules of business and slow down instead of trying to make everything in one shot.
Brian then asks what keeps him awake. Jordan answers with jet lag, and with his concern about the political climate in the United States, before closing with advice on delayed gratification, ego and who to model.
Key takeaways
- Delay gratification. Jordan says it is the biggest piece of advice for his younger self and for anyone starting out.
- Give value first. He says that if you learn the rules of monetising value you can make a great deal of money without cutting corners.
- Learn to sell. He believes everyone, from a parent to a lawyer to a politician, benefits from communicating a message in a way that connects, which is why he teaches Straight Line selling.
- Don’t believe the hype. When people start calling you a king, he says, do not believe a word of it, and he credits staying the same person for how he handled fame the second time.
- Model traits, not people. He modelled some corrupt people because of their good traits and warns others to copy one quality such as tenacity, not the whole person.
- Share the extreme stuff. He recalls Tommy Chong telling him that people want to hear about your most extreme experiences.
One little thing
Jordan says 98% of what he did was perfectly legitimate and that it was one thing that brought it all down. Brian points out that without it he would still have made a lot of money.
His conclusion is to slow down, give value first and keep ethics in place, because you do not have to make it all in one shot.
Why everyone should learn to sell
Jordan says that you must learn to close a sale, because without that one skill it is hard to make money. He does not mean only traditional salespeople. Parents, lawyers, preachers and politicians all need to communicate their message so that it connects and helps them get what they want.
He mentions his Straight Line Persuasion community, which he describes as a social network where members help each other, and says he teaches live there each day.
What keeps him awake
Jordan jokes that jet lag from California to the UK is the worst, but says his real worry is the state of America. He says he is deeply troubled by what he sees as a lack of dialogue between the political centres, and by a focus on knocking down the president rather than legislating.
He describes himself as having voted for Donald Trump, saying he agrees with him on tax and economics but not on everything he does or says, and that he believes people should accept their president whoever it is. These are his views as stated in the clip.
Advice to a 20-year-old
Asked what he would tell a young Jordan Belfort, he says delay your gratification, and do not believe the hype when people call you a king. He says that when he got famous the second time it did not affect him, because he knew he was the same person.
His second tip is to learn how to close, influence and persuade. His third is to be careful who you model: take a trait like tenacity or resilience, but not the insanity or unethical behaviour.
Who is Jordan Belfort?
Jordan Belfort is a former stockbroker and author whose story was told in The Wolf of Wall Street, and who now teaches sales and persuasion through his Straight Line system. He appeared on London Real in 2019 and talks here about the mistakes that cost him his career.
Frequently asked questions
He says to delay gratification, not to believe the hype when people call you a king, to learn how to close and persuade, and to be careful who you model.
He says 98% of what he did was legitimate and that one wrong thing cost him everything.
He says that to communicate your message in a way that connects with people you must be able to close, and that without it it is hard to make money.
He says to model individual traits such as tenacity and resilience from people you admire, not the whole person, and to avoid copying unethical behaviour.
You can watch the full clip free on this page, with the transcript below the video.
