Friday, July 29, 2011

The Wolf of Wall Street: Back to his old ways?

If you have not yet heard of the Wolf of Wall Street, you have been living in mainstream and social media isolation for the last few months. Why? The ‘Wolf’, aka Jordan Belfort, has systematically exhausted (for the most part) all marketing channels (both online and offline) to promote his current speaking tour. Skeptical? Good. It’s a healthy place to begin.

So how can I capture the Wolf in a sentence of less? Let’s give it a shot. Arguably a born entrepreneur, Jordan followed the non-traditional path of dropping out of dentistry school to enter into the world of sales; eventually rising to the top of stock broking and fundraising (venture capital), before succumbing to the lure of ‘the green’ (money) which saw him spend some time in jail- where he inevitably learned another skill (writing) and sought to publish two best-selling books, start a ‘redemption’ speaking tour and climb back up the business ladder. Okay, take a breath.

That was a lengthy sentence, and those grammatically-inclined will be shaking their heads… Get a life! But do you have the picture? Jordan is a man of immense talent, charisma, salesmanship and speaking ability. For a more detailed bio, feel free to have a chat to my friends ‘Google’ and ‘Wikipedia’: they both are more than willing to elaborate.

Naturally, such a controversial character will breed immense skepticism and even blatant disregard. I ask you to lend me your ears for one moment. Having listened to Belfort speak in Sydney for two consecutive years I am more than convinced that although he is far from a perfect- better described as ‘hilariously human’- and yes, I just quoted myself- he is a source of unrivalled inspiration.

His work ethic and charm are something to behold. To give you a specific example, within minutes of sitting down to listen to his presentation he says frankly, ‘if you are afraid of hard work, you are in the wrong place… you can leave now and have your ticket refunded’. This is a concept that was re-enforced many times. He even acknowledged that many would already be working their knuckles to the bone. Befort says, ‘work harder, and smarter’. Sure, this can become somewhat of a cliché. Yet Belfort sets out a simple and profound approach to tackle this labor.

He divides this into ‘Inner’ and “Outer’ game strategies, which I’ll get to in the next post. Until this, if you’re interested you can read more on Jordan’s website, jordanbelfort.com.

Finally, I must offer an answer to my original question: is the Wolf back to his old ways? Well if those old ways were captivating audiences and taking giant steps in the world of business, then the answer is a resounding 'yes!'

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