Most stock traders on Wall Street are pretty wealthy dudes, right? Like, their first year starting, they’re making six figures plus, and they work and work and it pays off. Most people have this idea of what Wall Street business people are like from movies.
One of the biggest movies out there is Wolf of Wall Street, with Leonardo Dicaprio, it’s a great movie. I love it. They do all sorts of crazy things, a lot of drugs, a lot of women, and the most F-Bombs I’ve ever heard in one movie.
The other day I happened to watch a video of my online mentor Tai Lopez taking a ride with the real Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, in his car. Tai was a little hesitant to let Jordan drive haha..... after he remembered the scene where he’s high on Quaaludes and he crashes his Lamborghini into a bunch of cars and is all messed up, but they went out for a drive, and talked about Jordan's wild life, his keys to success, and his top sales tactics.
I felt the need to share this information because what they talked about was some powerful stuff that can impact your life for good. Jordan has lived a crazy life, and has been through it all. He now is a business coach helping others build and grow sales, so hopefully you get a lot out of this talk.
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Tai: So, first question for you. While they were filming the movie, were you on the set? Did you like help out at all?
Jordan: Just the end, cause y'know, listen, watching them make the movie feels kind of boring actually, it's very slow. It's like watching paint dry, but at the end I was there, I worked really closely with Leo on the script.
Tai: Right, cause you wrote the book.
Jordan: Yeah, I wrote the book and Terry Winter, a great writer, wrote the script. Terry was amazing. Great, great job.
Tai: So now where do you live? You're here in L.A. right?
Jordan: Yeah, I'm back!
Tai: Nice. You been all over, I was reading, you lived in Australia for a while, obviously you're from New York.
Jordan: I just went in Iran for four days, I did speeches in Iran. I used to say that my movie was a hit everywhere but Iran and North Korea, now I guess it's just North Korea I was wrong.
Tai: Nice. So what, at this point in your life, is it all excitement? Is it travel, adventure? Are you back in business? I know you've got your sales.
Jordan: A lot of consulting, y'know. Consulting and programs. I'm fortunate that I made business, I'm good with speaking and consulting. The whole craziness part, that is a good memory, but y'know, I look back at those days and say, Yeah, okay, I did it. But now I'm married, I got a great woman in my life. So, very happy, y'know? But I'm always working on something, I always have a project I'm working on.
Tai: That’s awesome, you have to do what makes you happy you know? So at one point, you made 22 million dollars in three hours on this IPO of Steve Madden, and then you need to open up a Swiss Bank account to put all the money in. So you put it in an Aunt's name, but your aunt didn't know about it right?
Jordan: No she knew about it. The real version is much better. So now in the movie I'm on the yacht and I get news that my aunt died and I have to go back, I have to leave and I end up getting into this storm. That's not what happened. What happened was, I had my yacht in Rome, for a vacation, I wanted to go to Sardinia and I was addicted to Quaalude in a big way, right? Cocaine, you name it. Every drug under the sun, right? And I got into this frame of mind that you sometime get into when you take Ludes, short for Quaalude. I call it the movement phase.
Tai: Ok.
Jordan: Like this tingle phase where you first take a Quaalude your fingertips tingling, you feel your body go, then there's the slur phase where you slur your words, right? Then you get to the drool phase, where you're drooling, but you're okay and the drooling is good too! And, phase four is unconsciousness, right?However, there is a fifth phase, which happened once in awhile called the movement phase. That means you get like the drug induces equivalent to ants in your pants. You can't sit still. It just so happened that as I was heading down the hill to port where the yacht was, I found myself in the movement phase, and there were white caps in the harbor, and when we got to the boat, the captain says we can't make the crossing cause there's a storm. And I said I have to cross or I will die. Because I could not sit still, and I convinced the captain, unfortunately using my powers of persuasion.
Tai: So the persuasion did you wrong?
Jordan: Correct, and I convinced the captain to take the boat cause I said, Captain Mark if we sit here I will die. He says, "alright, we'll break some plates, we'll make it. We'll make it, but it's gonna be really bad, so let's do it". And it feels like a great adventure right? So I went up to the top deck, took four more ludes, fell asleep, woke up, and I was in fifty foot waves and the rest is history.
Tai: Fifty foot waves?
Jordan: Unbelievable. It was just a freak storm kicked up in the Adriatic and we ended up getting rescued by the Italian Navy Seals, which was amazing. So seven days later we had all had to buy everyone new clothes, it was all clothes went down with the ship, the only thing we rescued was the Quaaludes, thank god, when the boat was going down.
Tai: Just the Ludes?
Jordan: I sent my friend down for those, they were in the downstairs cabin! I said to my friend, you have the ludes? He goes, no, they're downstairs. I said, "Rob, you get the fucking ludes y'know?" So Rob runs down, he comes back and goes, "the cabin's flooded," so I say “Go put a fucking snorkel on, go down there, right?”
Tai: “Sacrifice your life, I need my ludes!”
Jordan: They're in like, a medically sealed bag! He goes, you're right, you're right. He goes down there, nothing. And goes downstairs, I see him standing at the top of the stairs, with his pants and he's pissing on the carpet. I'm like, Rob, what're you doing? He goes, I always wanted to do something like this! I'm like, Rob go get the Ludes, right? He goes downstairs, he comes back up a minute later and says “I couldn't do it I got shocked, the water's electrified”
Tai: Did he get shocked while he was…peeing?
__Jordan: No, while he was down there! I said, you go down there. He goes, “You're right, I'll do it.
But if I die, get my wife a breast job, just promise me that and I'll do it.” I said,“Alright I'll do it.”
Tai: Why did he want her to have a breast job?
Jordan: She was bugging him for a breast job and he didn't want to, he was cheap. So he said, “if you pay for that my death will be meaningful, okay?” So he goes downstairs, comes back up with a bag of Ludes and third degree burns and his hair up in the air, right? So, we make it to Sardinia and we had to buy all new clothes, but it was only like Gianni, Versace, peacock, you look all purple and pink the whole thing right? So finally the last of the trip, right? I had this great idea. Y'know what, if we bring all this shit back through customs, we're gonna go be hassled, my name was on a watch list already, I'm like, let's just ship it all back DHL, we'll only bring a toothbrush and underwear cause we're going on a private jet home. Great idea, right? So we box up our shit, we send it off back to the United States, next when I wake up and go to the airport, no plane. I'm like, what the fuck? No plane. Now this is back before cell phones. No one spoke any english and after about an hour I was going crazy, I was out of ludes now, no reason to be away from home anymore without the ludes, right? All of a sudden some little Sardinian midget comes scampering up to me…
Tai: Like a little person?
Jordan: Yeah, literally a midget. And he says, “there’s a plane crash.” I'm like, what? My plane crashed ten days after the yacht sank, okay? And it took off from the airport in France, seagull in the engine, gone.
Tai: We gotta say this, a sea, your plane, your yacht sunk, then your plane got engine got hit by a seagull. This is crazy!
Jordan: Yeah, so then the pilots lived, thank god, right? I did make some great analyzations that day, so after that happened and we got stuck again with no clothes in Italy and I had to get out of Italy at this point. So we took a plane to London, a commercial plane, we ended up at the wrong airport. But here's the irony, you know, here's how crazy addiction is, is that at that time you'd think I'd say okay, obviously God is telling me something, my life's out of control. I'm doing, there's something not right here. Right, everything is, let's say, I'm doing drugs all the time, things are happening. No, I went even crazier the next time. It was a year later that I got sober finally. So that's the true story about the yacht.
Tai: The true story of Wolf of Wall Street, you heard it here. And, by the way, I heard Chance The Rapper said today he wants to hang out with Drake because Drake has an exciting life. Chance, you probably wanted be with Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street.
Jordan: So anyway, here's the thing now, I'm sober for over 20 years. And that was a miracle by the way, and it was something that changed my life, but when you're in that head space you can rationalize anything.
Tai: That's awesome, yeah
Jordan: Like you could just like I said oh it's you know, no it's no problem, I'm going to the bathroom, I'm shitting, it's green, you know my nose is bleeding, it's a disaster. But you say oh it's not, it's my allergies, it's my, like you can just, you know?
Tai: In addition to having this amazing life you also are a master at sales, so keep in mind that pretty much everything is about persuasion.
Jordan: At the end of the day I mean you're always selling yourself, but I mean I think that there's so many people out there that have great ideas, great concepts in their mind, but if you don't know how to verbalize that or express it to someone else it gets locked inside of you, you know you can't express that value, that greatness, and done with music on your lips, it's a really frustrating thing to go through life that way so.
Tai: Now this is something pretty rare, I rarely do interviews with a ton of notes, but I found your book and story so interesting that I was like I'm gonna do extra details.
Jordan: You did your homework.
Tai: I did homework, well I read the book, I try to read a book a day and this was my book of the day. So you're a best selling author, and the movie was adapted from your book, Leonardo DiCaprio plays you. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, it's an amazing story. It also has the most uses of the F word in any movie, 569, is that right? Was that because you are from New York and people in New York just swear a lot?
Jordan: A combination of New York and Wall Street together is a deadly combination. It's like the most common word is the F bomb.
Tai: I think almost everybody seen this movie but you worked at first for this L.F. Rothschild working for a guy, Mark Hanna. And you got into the whole sex, rug, sex, drugs, and rock and roll world of Wall Street. Why did you leave?
Jordan: Well see, the movie is a bit inaccurate in that sense that when I was at L.F. Rothschild it was a training, right?
Tai: Ok, sure.
Jordan: And in the movie it depicts me you know, being this sort of bright eyed bushy tailed ethical guy saying can't we make our clients money too? The first day, and then the next scene I'm in a strip club snorting coke, right? That's not quite how it happened.
Tai: That sounds like my friend Zach.
Jordan: You know, that de-evolution of the human spirit took about probably two and a half, three years. So at the time I was you know, a young idealistic kid, I wanted to make a lot of money, I was married to my first wife, she was a great lady. But then my first day as an actual stockbroker was October 19th, 1987, the day the market crashed, Black Monday. And I watched in shock and awe as the market went down 509 points in a single day, and Rothschild went under.
Tai: Were people committing suicide back then? Any brokers jumping off?
Jordan: Yeah I think one or two jumped out, they probably would've jumped anyway, there's always a jumper here and there around the world, Right? But the point is that Wall Street basically shut down for a time, and if you're, you know you're probably a bit younger than me, I think you're definitely younger than me, it was perceived back then that this would be the beginning of the next great depression, that it wouldn't just stop there, it would cascade into the whole economy, and it didn't. So but imagine back how that day I was scared and it was just the fear was incredible that day.
Tai: So baptism by fire?
Jordan: Yeah definitely.
Tai: So then you go and you ended up at this firm, right?
Jordan: Well, I started at Investor's Center, which is a penny stock firm, right? That was where I sold my first ever stock and I became the top broker the first day, I just broke all the records.
Tai: Really, on the first day you broke all the records?
Jordan: My first day, first day, yeah.
Tai: Do you think you're a born salesman?
Jordan: Yeah, for sure I am, and there are people out there who are, you know, born closers, born salesmen, far and few in between, there are some. What that really means though what does it mean to be a born salesman? What it means is that you're actually running a strategy automatically inside.
Tai: You're still following a script but it comes natural.
Jordan: Automatically, so you don't realize it, but you are following a certain protocol that gets you to the same outcome every time. So that's really what a born closer is.
Tai: What did you do in that first day that you basically became a top salesman? Like was there,we're gonna talk more about your wholesales Straight Line formula but first day you didn't have time to implement a whole script, what did you do that most people don't do? Is it your tonality, or your body language.
Jordan: On day one I came in with a script. I took three hours to write one. See, this is something interesting to have many years later, I was tested by some psychologists about my ability to close, they put me through a whole barrier of these weird tests, and one of them was a mock sale where I had to close someone in an investment type of situation, and it was being filmed. it had to be like some information on the dairy industry and I had to then convince someone to open up an account at a firm to manage the money for the dairy industry, right?
Tai: Ok right.
Jordan: So they handed me about 12 pages of information, right, and they said take as much time as you want and you know, to study this and let's see you close this guy. So I started reading it and I'm reading it and I'm reading, right, and I start writing down my thoughts. About 30 minutes later they knock on the door. They said do you need more time? I said yeah, just give me another 30 minutes. They said, okay, no problem. 30 minutes goes by, they come back. I said just give me another 20 minutes. They said, no problem. I take 20 more minutes. I said give me 15 more minutes, right? Anyway after about two hours I said I'm ready, and I had wrote myself a lose but really killer script with how I would actually engineer the sale from start to finish.
Tai: Ok so like a guideline.
Jordan: Right, and they called in some guy who was in actor and he was supposed to be the CEO of a dairy company and I was supposed to close him. So we go through this whole thing and I introduce myself and we go through this back and forth, and they're filming the whole thing. And after about 15 minutes the guy just he's like, okay fine, I'll open up an account, and he starts laughing his ass off. So I'm like what's so funny? Psychologists come in and they say, that they told him under no circumstances should he say yes. Yet within 15 minutes he said yes. When I got the guy into a situation, it didn't make sense for him to say no. He said well here's the weird thing, we've tested 100 people in sales and no one ever spent more than five minutes reading the material, I spent 2 hours.
Tai: So preparation, it's a simple fundamental.
Jordan: The strategical part of The Straight Line System is about strategic preparation,because you know what my overriding concept is? Every sale is the same, right? And that would seem to be counter intuitive because everyone has different needs different belief systems, right, different outcomes, yeah. But the truth is that every sale is the same. It starts with your ability to essentially make an airtight case to someone on both a logical and an emotional level about you know, essentially why you're right to want them to do whatever you want them to do, why does it make sense, right? And it's gotta be an airtight case and then you have to be able to also accomplish other things as well, so there's two ways to go about that. One is to wing it, which you might be able to do if you're really, really great, or you can write it down, plan it out, I mean the second one is where you really start to bring your averages up tremendously, so I'm a big believer in strategic preparation.
Tai: So you say basically there is the three 10s, people need to be a 10 in three areas, on your product, on trusting you, and on trusting the company as a whole. And you talk about how most salespeople don't understand you gotta bring people to a 10 certainty that it's the best product for them, that it's the best company and you're the best person to sell it.
Jordan: Well again, imagine a continuum of certainty, like a one on this side and a 10 on this side, right, and 10 means absolute certainty, the best product since sliced bread. A one means they think it's the biggest piece of crap ever, right?Well again, imagine a continuum of certainty, like a one on this side and a 10 on this side, right, and 10 means absolute certainty, the best product since sliced bread. A one means they think it's the biggest piece of crap ever, right? So obviously you want your prospect to be at a 10 or as close to a 10 as possible when you ask for the order, right?
Tai: Right.
Jordan: So most salesmen, even rookies will you know, intuitively know that, they'll say that makes sense, right? But what they don't realize it's not enough, you also have to get them trusting and connecting with you at that same high level of certainty, right, as close to a 10 as possible, right? Versus a one meaning they think that you're a thief.
Tai: So sometimes they think it's a good product but they don't like you so they don't buy.
Jordan: People don't buy if they don't like or trust or connect with, right? And the third element is the company that stands behind the product. So those three elements have to line up in every sale no matter what you're selling, it doesn't matter, tangible products.
Tai: So the famous line in the movie at the end, they actually bring you in with DiCaprio, he's like sell me this pen. Now I'm gonna get to that later what the interesting answer your business partner gave you when you did it, but the idea is this pen, they have to think is a 10, they have to like you as a sales guy, and in this case they need to think Bic, the company, is a great company. That's your ideal kind of framework.
Jordan: Basically it is, but again, this particular exercise is really not about so much the three 10s, it's really about what does a salesperson do when you say sell that, sell this, right? Well the rookie salesman will say this is the greatest pen in the world, this pen, they'll start trying to do some version of the three 10s, like this is the best pen in the world, it writes upside down, it never runs out of ink, best job, blah, blah, blah, see I'm talking a mile a minute, right? But the fact is that the only logical thing you could really say to someone before you sell 'em the pen is first of all are you in the market for a pen? What type of pens have you used in the past? You have to start asking questions. And this is the big mistake that salespeople make because by gathering intelligence in the beginning it allows you to identify their needs, their value systems, any pain they might be feeling about you know, a lack of not having something, right? And just as important is that it's through asking questions and using certain tonalities, and you mentioned tonality and body language, and just as important or even more important, how will you listen to the answers. If you listen like a robot without making a sound or moving a muscle, or when someone answers you do you say uh-huh, yep, mm-hmm, got ya. Essentially active listening, this is how we really get into a tight rapport when it comes to sales.
Tai: Ok so building a dialogue, right?
Jordan: Exactly, so by asking these smart questions and again, strategic preparation, you wanna plan that out before and I wanna write down what are the questions I need to ask here, right? What's the best order to ask them in cause there's certain rules for that, right? And what tonalities do I wanna use when I ask those questions. I could say, so what's your biggest problem right now and they will be okay. Or what's your biggest problem? You'll hate me. So there's a tonality.
Tai: Yeah you talk about that later in the book, the charisma comes from a tonality that says
one, I care about you, and two, I understand you, and three, I feel your pain.
Jordan: Look at it this way, you know, there is certain commonalities to all human beings, right? When it comes to rapport, getting into rapport, both in a business setting and in a personal setting, but it really boils down to two things. Number one, that you care. In business, you're not just there to make a sale or to earn a commission, you actually care about that person and you want them to get the outcome they're looking for. That's number one. And number two is that I'm just like you, and not “everything you like I like” that's disingenuous bullshit, right?
Tai: Right, so you have to find talking points that you actually connect on.
Jordan: Imagine you just meet a salesman, you're a prospect, right? And the salesman looks at you and says, “I really care about you.” And you'll say, bullshit you care, you wanna make a sale. See in the beginning, no words you can use to say I care about you will stick. Over time of course you give great service, you have a relationship, yes, you can tell us well I care and I've proved that, but in the initial contact that's so disingenuous. So how do you get that across, through tonality and body language, that's how you do it.
Tai: Yep, so why do you think, well what it is about us humans that for the most part sadly we only learn through massive pain?
Jordan: Well this is, this is a truism for sure because I think when it comes to values, right, value changing, I've done a lot of studying, various types of psychology and on pain and stuff and one of the things that they say is that, you know, that you're either, there's only one of two ways that someone really changes their values. One of them is through massive work and introspection through year of therapy, right, that's one way. The other way is with massive, a painful event, something that happens to you and causes you to essentially reorder all the meanings that you've had from past experiences, how you apply meanings, and in that moment you can make these dramatic shifts. That did happen to me, it happened to me when I went to jail and when I wrote my first book. And you know, I had this moment where it just like, it just sort of you know, I was able to really, really sort of become the person I was before it all happened. Like the kid that my parents had set out into the world, I was a good kid, I was a great student, never got in trouble. When I went down to Wall Street I was idealistic.
Tai: So do you think it was, do you think it was the environment, you're idealistic, you get dropped in Wall Street, there's money flowing around, there's sex, drugs, rock and roll, it's just because I do believe, one of my mentors, Joel Salatin, told me that the system trumps individual's self-control
Jordan: The problem with that is that makes me victim and I don't believe in being a victim. Here's the thing so there's no doubt that the environment can be toxic to certain people, But to many people it's not toxic. So obviously I think with myself at least there was some things inside of me despite my parents being good parents and despite me not getting in trouble before I had certain insecurities, we all enter adulthood with certain insecurities, and you know, sort of not feeling that we're as great as we like all the people might think we are. So here's what happens. When you know, we see in Hollywood a lot and in the music industry where you have these young stars, they go like, when Britney Spears went bananas for a while, now she's normal again, great, right? So you know, what happens is that you know, when you're growing up and when you're in your early 20s and you don't have everything you want, you say you know what, I don't have everything I want 'cause I'm not successful yet, my life isn't the way I think it should be so I understand that there's still pain and you could justify it, it makes sense. But then what happens is when you all of a sudden become filthy rich and famous and successful you still have all the pains and insecurities. You're like “oh my God, wait a second, I have this success, I'm picturing it like the way I want it but I still don't feel good”, and that's when the panic sets in.
Tai: So you got all that but you didn't feel it?
Jordan: Well what happened was is when I discovered The Straight Line System, right, which is really the topic of the interview is when I cracked the code for teaching people how to close that was the game changer, I started with a niche in the market, right, which was selling five dollar stocks to the richest one percent of Americans. And no one had ever done it before and that was a really lucrative pitch, but what had abled me to build Stratton was I came up with a new way of training people how to close and that system, The Straight Line, was so powerful and effective than within days of inventing it allowed me to take any human being, any old, young, regardless of their race, their age, their creed, their color, their socioeconomic background, their educational status, it didn't matter where they came from, it could've been Calgary to Hell's Kitchen, I could take them in a couple of days.
Tai: Even if they weren't natural salesman?
Jordan: Absolutely. That was the point.
Tai: You took people in weeks and made them Into world class closers, right?
Jordan: Right, and to bring up that whole idea of a natural salesperson, what I essentially did is I was able to take the strategy that I was using automatically, slow it down, and put it into a step by step formula that could be essentially transplanted and inserted into anybody else with just a little bit of work. And to this very day I still teach it around the world and it's, what it does for people, it changes people's lives because there are so many people out there that are brilliant, talented, hard working. Yeah, yeah, but they just don't have that ability to get their point across, and what happens is look at it this way, every idea has a certain intrinsic value, right? But how someone else perceives that value is either multiplied or divided by the person who is explaining it. So if I explain the idea they can think it's great, someone who's terrible at selling will think it's a shitty idea. So imagine I said this in a minute all the people out there who are these brilliant, hard working, smart people, they wanna make money, they wanna provide for their families, they wanna help their parents, their communities, right? Great intentions, and they're great ideas, but they lack this one skill and they struggle. And to me it's the craziest thing because it's learnable, it's a learnable skill.
Tai: It's one of those things they should've taught us in high school, they should've in junior high. I always say if it's important they forgot to teach it to us.
Jordan: Warren Buffett was doing a speech with Bill Gates, about 10 years ago, and he was asked by a college student what can we do as students to make ourselves more valuable in the workplace? So you think Warren Buffet would say something like learn how to pick stocks, learn how to invest, you know, whatever he would say, right? That's not what he says. He says go out and take a course in sales and communication.
Tai: Yeah he said Dale Carnegie changed his life.
Jordan: you know what he said he'd be without that course? He said he'd be the richest money manager in Omaha, Nebraska, that no one ever heard of. So without the ability to influence and persuade you can't put yourself out there into the world and we know for what you really are.
Tai: Right. I like this thing that you say, like human communication is 45% tone of voice, 45% body language, and only 10% words, and what you said is, you know people are kind of logical, but very emotional. The tone of voice and the way that you look in terms of body language, that's 90% that appeals to the emotional side of the brain, and then you need to have good words that are logical. What's a practical body, because people love body language conversations.
Jordan: There’s this idea of 45, 45, 10, right, that's been around for many, many, many years, many different studies about that. But here's the thing that you need to really understand, it's important, is that I'm not saying that the words don't matter, they only matter 10 percent. In fact, the words matter 100% when you're speaking, but the thing is you're communicating often without speaking, that's the point. So it's not like words don't really matter, the words matter, 'cause you know, you say the wrong words then you're perceived as an asshole, it's done, right? So the idea that body language is so powerful, what happens is body language has a way of essentially slipping through the radar of the conscious mind and going right to the unconscious mind and creating a gut reaction that you know, something just must be there, it must be good, that person must be an expert, I wanna speak to that person.
Tai: Or the opposite. Or I don't trust. You were talking about how keeping hurts sales.
Jordan: Or it can just be cold, right, so seriously 'cause you don't know, so the point is that.
Tai: You said in Japan you should stand closer, you said 75%.
Jordan: Right, and also eye contact. That’s such a huge body language feature that people are never good at it. There's a power in your voice and excitement and people just he must be good, right And the third element, which is the most important of all, is be an expert in your field. If you make a bad first impression it takes you seven subsequent meetings to change someone's impression. Now I don't know about you, but I never get seven shots. If you don't make a good first impression you're done so you gotta really focus on that.
Tai: So those first four or five seconds you basically gotta come off as enthusiastic, you gotta come off as an expert.
Jordan: So how do you do that? Think about it, well is it the words that you say? I mean the words don't exist. What would you say? Listen, hey, hey listen, guy, I'm sharp as a tack, I'm an expert! And you say what the fuck is wrong with you? You can't, the words don't exist for that, right? So how do you get it across? Through your tonality and your body language. There are certain ways that experts sound, not the words, they sound, they dress a certain way, they carry themselves a certain way, and we know that as humans because we've been conditioned since we were kids to recognize 'cause we were told respect your elders. Look, you know, when you went to the doctors he was an expert, he had a stethoscope, he had diplomas on the wall, he wore a white, we've been conditioned to this. So what now, think about logic, what happens when you're in the presence of an expert? What do you do? You defer, you let them control the flow of the conversation. They will ask you questions and you will give them forthright answers, they've technically have earned the right. So if you're perceived as an expert it gives you the opportunity, it opens up the possibility for you to control the flow of the conversation. And once you've done that now you can go about making every sale the same, 'cause you're guiding the process. So the only way every sale can be the same is if you are perceived as an expert, and then you use that perception as an expert not to talk, talk, talk, but then you start to ask questions, smart questions, using the intelligence gathering tools, right? And then by doing that you also ask them in a certain tone of voice and with your active listening to get you into ultra tight rapport. So by the time you're done asking your questions now, you know everything you need to know, you're in ultra tight rapport, you know where pain lies, their needs, right? Now you can present your solution, so you have this trans, see, what I'm saying is this step, step, step. So it all starts to go into this sort of straight line, we do this first, this second, and this third. And guess what? This is really easy to learn.
Tai: You said it took you three days to take a beginner and teach him The Straight Line?
Jordan: Right, so listen, I took these kids who couldn't close a fucking door, literally. They were so bad, I mean their average IQ was Forrest Gump on three hits of acid. This is not the sharp and deep end, it wasn't the deep end of the gene pool, they weren't rich kids, they weren't kids who went to Ivy League schools, there wasn't an Ivy League diploma among them. These were kids, they were lower middle class kids from New York and around, they were kids that weren't told by their parents they were capable of greatness. And any greatness they naturally had in them they've been basically beat down, conditioned out of them since they were born, first by their parents, then by their teachers, by their own friends, by their experiences from not feeling special, not acting special. By the time they entered my boardroom at 19 years old, 20, they've been conditioned to survive, not thrive. Once you're in that spot what happens is then you have these beliefs that are supported by it, we end up, start off as this perfect individual, day one, maybe 20 years old you're like already crammed down, like you have all these limiting beliefs. So they came to my boardroom and by teaching them The Straight Line it reordered all their beliefs 'cause I gave them a skill set that changed who they were 'cause it made them more effective.
Tai: Ok so you were teaching them how to be more effective?
Jordan: Right, it can't just be I'm gonna act effective, no, you have to actually be effective. So the beauty of The Straight Line System is that it's a skill set, it does change how you can communicate, it makes you a very powerful communicator, it allows you to get the result that you want, so when you start getting the results you want what happens, it starts to reinforce better.
Tai: Where do you, where does confidence fit in? You talk about being sharp and enthusiastic and perceived as an expert, is confidence kind of part of, would you consider that part of the enthusiasm and the sharp you?
Jordan: No, no, confidence is entirely different, so confidence has, there's two phases of confidence, right? It starts off with acting as if, no one starts off confident, I don't care who you are. Okay, the first day when you trust me, you're not gonna be confident, you're not gonna be an expert really right, but you need to act as if. I would tell my guys, my kids back then, act if you're wealthy man rich or ready and you'll become rich. Act as if you have the answers and the answers will come to you. Act as if you have confidence and people will have confidence in you.
Tai: Do you think people can become delusional about it?
Jordan: It can be, and you see it as delusion when someone doesn't do the work to become the expert. So there has to be coupled with the fact that I'm actually working and I'm on the hyper fast track to become an expert, to learn special skills, and then you're actually walking your talk and then it works. So you have to act as if until it becomes the truth and then you're just acting as things really are. But you have to always act that way.
Tai: So you think, so basically some people don't do the first part, which is get that initial catalyst, that initial boost to say you know what, I'm not rich yet but I'm gonna dress like I'm rich, I'm gonna talk like I'm rich, I'm gonna get up and work like I'm rich.
Jordan: Well, Tai let me ask you an honest question. You're an online personality and you have a huge business, huge following, let me ask you this, truthfully. Let's say that I stripped every dollar you had and changed your face, no one knew your name, and you had to start right now. Could you build it all back up again?
Tai: Yeah I think so.
Jordan: Of course you could, you know why you could? Because you're still you, you have the skill sets, the talent, okay? So when you take away everything from somebody they're still that same person. Now that's why when a rich person takes a tumble they'll typically come back, right? Unless they hit the lottery, right, or they were a member of the lucky sperm club, right, and they just inherited from their parents, right? But for the people that worked their way up and made their money they'll earn it back. When you have special skills, and you have the vision for the future, you wanna take action, right? That's what it takes, it's about special skills. People don't realize how much of success is not an accident, it's like it's about people having these skills and they take action. So I'm a big believer in learning skills. Like you've read my first book, right?
Tai: Yeah, Wolf of Wall Streetwas your first book, right?
Jordan: Yes, but I never really wrote before, my first try I was a terrible writer. So how did I write Wolf of Wall Street myself without a ghostwriter? I picked up a book called The Bonfire of the Vanities and started reading it, Tom Wolfe, I'm sure you've read it, right?
Tai: Right, ya I have.
Jordan: And as soon as I started reading it I'm like oh my god, this guy's the best writer in the world, I wanna write like that. And I used his book like a textbook, I took out my highlighter and I broke down his strategy for writing and I practiced before I wrote the book, I said let me first teach myself the skill to write like Tom Wolfe. And that's what I did, I spent about six or seven months with 18 hours a day studying. To the point where I could recite the whole book verbatim, okay, seriously. So the point is that I learned how to introduce characters.
Tai: So the book was your mentor?
Jordan: I had my model. And then I wrapped it up with Hunter S. Thompson. I was thinking it made sense because of the drug use, right? So I used those pieces, then when I read my review in New York Times, they said the book sounds like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, so it was amazing, right? I accomplished my mission and turned myself into a writer.
Tai: So you basically reverse engineered. You see, I interviewed Kobe Bryant, did a little interview, and he said you gotta go to where great people who have created greatness before and reverse engineer it.
Jordan: I couldn't have done it without that skill. If you wanna go out there and succeed in the online world you need to have certain knowledge and skills, one of them is gonna be the power of persuasion. That's uniforms go with everything that you do, whether you are Bill Gates who convinced IBM to give you the rights to supply before you even owned it and convinced someone to sell it, right? Whether you're Steve Jobs, goes without saying, right? It's this ability to could be just to sell your vision for the future, to sell to people, employees to come work for you, to sell venture capitalists on giving you money, to sell your friend's dad something like regular entrepreneurs do it, get someone to invest in you, that's persuasion. It's a linchpin skilled success and that's why Warren Buffett said if you wanna succeed you better learn how to persuade and communicate.
Tai: 80 Percent of Billionaires is a great book that just did research on billionaires, and it basically says that 80 percent of billionaires, before they got to their final company they were learning sales first. They were selling, Ray Croc started McDonald's, he was a traveling milkshake salesman.
Jordan: It just goes to show the commonalities. They are a great salesperson, vision for the future, and the ability to move through the setbacks. In other words, to not take no, to not get demoralized when things don't go your way. As an entrepreneurial quality you need that resilience, right? Well a lot of it has to do with the fundamental belief that I, myself, am capable of achieving success. If I believe in myself, I become resilient. I said I know I can do it. What happens in most people is they, when they really are dead honest with their heart of hearts, they say you know, I don't really think I got what it take to be successful. I don't really feel like I'm that sort of person, I can't see myself being rich. And because of that, they never become.
Tai: Then what's your answer to them?
Jordan: You know what, study The Straight Line System, okay, become an expert closer and watch how it changes, because here's what happens. When all these kids that worked with me, the reason they all became rich, filthy rich was because once you learned how to communicate, the power of persuasion, it changes who you are, it fundamentally reorders you. So you know what, I can move mountains, I'm not the guy who failed before, I'm not the girl who was, you know, sort of wanted to play a backseat not putting myself out there, I feel comfortable putting myself there. It just, it changes everything. And without the skill what happens, people end up living a smaller life, and they don't ever get to that level where they're really firing at all cylinders and getting to enjoy the beauty of what life can be.
Tai: What percentage of potential do you think most people live up to? That are trained, that don't build skills, they go through the conventional school system, they have a job that they don't really like.
Jordan: Like three percent, maybe two percent of people live up to their potential, more or less.
Tai: And those, the other 95, let's say 95 percent, they're here, how much if you were able to train them and they were able to get the right mentors, how high do you think this thing could go?
Jordan: Now remember this so we don't, how you define success is very different for every person, you know Mother Teresa was probably one of the most successful people in the world and had no money, so let's talk about success in terms of money, this is a business, separate, right we're in business.
Tai: Right, from a business perspective.
Jordan: Now assuming you have all your intellectual faculties, it would be impossible for someone who's really committed to becoming wealthy and was willing to do the work to learn the skills it's almost impossible not to succeed. How big is a question, how long it takes, another question, cause some of its luck, meaning it might happen in six months or it might take three or four years. When I got out of jail everyone was saying, “Jordan, you're gonna be rich again.” And I was like, “yes that's true, but it might take me five years.” Because I'm not cutting any corners, this time I'm not gonna sacrifice my ethics. I'm gonna do it right, I'm gonna do it every step by step
Tai: How did that feel? You step out of jail, you had seen it all, you had had yachts, you had had private jets. You had so much money you didn't care if the yacht went down, and then you have to start over. So you walk out of jail, what's the feeling emotionally? Are you a little scared, completely confident, where are you, what's the state of mind?
Jordan: And one of the things she said to me when we first met, she was like “I can't believe it. you're like fearless.” And I said “No, I'm scared shitless, I'm just not letting it stop me.” So there's a big difference, I think smart people are scared. Everyone has fear that's what courage is all about when we just act, without fear there's no courage. In other words, of course I was scared, of course I felt terrible.
Tai: What was your biggest fear?
Jordan: My biggest fear is not being able to provide for my family, my children and my wife, I love my children and my wife. In other words, I wanna be able to provide for who I love, that's my big, to not provide for the people I love and not be able to take care of them is the worst thing that could ever happen to me in my life. And everyone's different, see that's my thing, and knowing that is powerful 'cause once you know that that is part of your why, and once you have your why you can do a lot.
Tai: Yeah I always say most people don't know what motivates them. So you were coming out of the darkest time you said.
Jordan: So my darkest time was when I was in jail at night in my bunk alone with my thoughts, no money, broke, discredited, embarrassed, and lost everything. When I closed my eyes at night I'd see the faces of my two children and I said I have to make it right to them, I have to come back from this. And there was no way I would give up for them, we'll always do more for someone we love unconditionally than we'll do for ourselves and that's where you draw your power from, your self-motivation from the why, why do I wanna succeed, why do I wanna be rich?
Tai: Right.
Jordan: It's why people will do insane things for religion, because if you believe in something else, it’s gotta be not yourself, you can only go so far for yourself, but you'll run through a wall of fire for your child or your loved one, right? Very big difference there. So that was what propelled me and also the fact that I got honest with myself, I was saying that I knew a lot of people they conspired against me, I'm innocent, blah blah blah. I was fucking guilty. I took a great thing, forget the idea about selling five dollar stocks, that was a great idea.
Tai: That wasn't illegal in it of itself, right?
Jordan: No it was legal, totally legal. I took The Straight Line System, which was the most powerful system for persuasion ever created and it is by far, nothing even compares to it, right? It really doesn't. And I took that system and I bested it and I taught it to people so they go out and commit mayhem. Now there's nothing wrong with the system, it's how I applied the system. It's like an M16, is it good or bad? It depends who's holding.
Tai: Ya.
Jordan: So I said to myself I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna prove to myself and my family, everyone I love, I'm gonna do this the right way and I'm gonna go out there, I didn't know how I would do it, I never thought in a million years that I'd write a book and the book would become a movie. Who could think that? The chances of that happening are one in 10 billion. I mean come on.
Tai: So I wanted to talk about those challenges real quick. Like the objections that come up along the way.
Jordan: That's by the way one of the best aspects of The Straight Line.
Tai: Yes, how to overcome, because that's, you go to sell something and somebody goes “ah I'll buy it later” or “I don't have enough money” you know?
Jordan: Well let me think about it, let me call you back, bad time of year, it's Groundhog's Day, it's Christmas. Fucking you know, leap year, whatever, right? There's always a reason why, and the thing that trips up most salespeople is that they don't really understand what objections are. People will say they're stalls, okay fair enough, right? Or they're smoke screens, well for what? What is it a really, a stall? Here's the truth what objections really are, objections are smoke screens for uncertainty.
Tai: Ok for sure.
Jordan: Remember those three 10s? They must love the product, they must trust and connect with you, and they must trust and connect with the company. Well guess what? When you ask for the order for the first time, let's say they don't really trust you. What do they say? They'll say that sounds good Tai, let me think about it.
Tai: Right.
Jordan: It would be a great world if your prospect said “Listen, Tai, I don't trust you, I don't distrust you, I'm like in the middle of you. Your product seems good but I'm like a seven on the certainty scale, and the company, I'm at a four. So make me more certain."
Tai: Right, people aren't even that logical, they're just going from their gut.
Jordan: They don't realize it, they don't realize it. It's all bubbling below the surface and they wanna be, so it's a circuit breaker to say you know what.
Tai: Sure.
Jordan: They'll say, “It sounds good Tai, let me think about it.” Now the salesman, the novice will think, “Oh I better be nice now because this way I can get a call back and hopefully close them later on” when the fact is they're just not certain.
Tai: Well, you’ve had a crazy life. You’ve been through it all.
Jordan: I don’t know about it all, but a lot for sure.
Tai: This was great.
Jordan: It was awesome, this is an awesome car.
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It’s crazy how someone can comeback from such a low point in their life, come out of it and go and help people become successful and teach people life skills to make the most of themselves. The power of persuasion is so important to success, and it can take you to some insane places. Jordan is larger than life, and has been through some crazy experiences. Have you seen The Wolf of Wall Street? Definitely not a movie you’d watch with your grandparents.
Jordan went from being one of the wealthiest stock brokers on Wall Street, then was arrested and went to prison, now he travels the world changing people's lives.
Success is a mindset, so once you get into that mindset, you’re impossible to stop. Successful people don’t give up, and they realize success is repeatable, so they win again and again. And if they fall, they just get back up, and succeed again. Once you get in this mindset, you get to see money come in, and you can start living the lifestyle that you want. Whatever that is. If you want a bigger house, or to travel more, or to get a better car, you have to build the mindset and the skills to succeeding over and over. Anyway, remember that if you don’t give up, and you put in the time to learn the skills, eventually you’re gonna hit your goals.
