Goldie Hawn and Jordan Belfort - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

Hey everyone I'm Megan Kelly welcome to the Megan Kelly show and today's double feature bonus episode today

“a Hollywood star and the inspiration for an award winning Hollywood movie we all love Goldie Han.”

She actually is such a dear person and you're going to hear her and see her here like you never have before

this was such a fun one for me and then the inspo for the wolf of Wall Street the wolf himself this guy was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the very famous movie his name is Jordan Belford and he did not hold back when he came on with me enjoy and see him on day. Goldie has been making his laugh and smile for decades with her impeccably timed comedy and sunny disposition beyond that thousand walk grin is a fascinating life full of hard work persistence

and remarkable life lessons that will be sure to brighten your day and her focus now is not just on her own mental health which he's nailed it's on everyone's and most importantly our children's Goldie so good to have you here thanks for coming on. I'm so happy to be here with you this is really fun. I mean it could have been a wonderful restaurant and I do the thing when we do off camera but it's just really great to see you and thanks for having me.

Oh my pleasure you're such a doll it's a privilege to come here. Oh my gosh I can relate to this. I mean another little guy going behind you who's that other little guy trying to get out he's like she didn't mention me and I'm out of here. It's great. Look at him who's the little guy looking at him who's the guy over your right shoulder

where dog but little does a little dog right behind me. This is Benny okay they can't live without each other by the way it's like the you know the mouse and the giant but it's so fun and I hear you've got one too so we you know we both have these wonderful ways in yellow labs. You don't want to get me started. I have my yellow English she's a doll funder she's three

then we thought if one is great two would be even better and we got Stredwick and he is about nine months old and no sooner do I tell the world a Stredwick is getting better because he's been

a menace his first nine months and in the course of 24 hours he ate a box of markers.

He ate he booked this broke this decorative vase we had. He ate a loaf of bread and he took it enormous shit in our family room. Yeah it is so crazy what we're doing with the same thing on this dog. I mean we love the pieces but he ate like the side of the house. We thought we were really like here's an area for him you know

to be in play and whatever and it's can change and nothing. No no he started eating the side of the house so we couldn't put him there right so I mean it's just just like that he's getting a little bit better about you know

“watch him every second. Yes that's how it is.”

Yeah we may have to he just yeah I may have to like move him out of the room. Yeah no worries. You have some universal breaks. Yes no I know our older dog is looking at Stredwick like

they've told you that a million times stop it.

We're going to get rid of you if you keep this up which we aren't but man oh man yeah he's easy there is stupido or just bad. It's too great I swear and I don't have any breaks. What are you drinking there? What's in your cup? I have a coffee so I'm you know I'm drinking my my third cup.

I've been getting up very very early this morning. I mean you know early news it's working and early news is really quite a

“grind it's great you have to have early you know early news shows”

but everybody that I know gets up at three in the morning. I mean it's a really interesting life because you have to take an app. I mean if I was you know on a new show or this day show or you know whatever any of these different shows thoughts you really wake up with before the verse and then you do the show and then you finish for the day which is great

but ultimately you know I walked around like a zombie so I've been doing that talking about what we're going to talk about as well. But I'm just saying you know I'm great it's all good but it's it's really interesting interesting way to spend your life. No I've gotten gone dinner you know with some cows who do the show

and do different shows in the morning and they really have to get to bed early and it's an early dinner and you know waking up at three or four in the morning. So yeah you you get up early and you think because I used to work this schedule for a while

my stuff done and what you realize is you're just garbage for the rest of the day.

Without a massive nap you can't function. You can't function it's really interesting so anyway just show where to say I'm better I'm not having every day grind at the news. Yes I don't blame you because you want to you're promoting your program we've talked about it before and we will talk about it today too. Mind up which I love

“and I think is needed now more than ever for all sorts of reasons.”

This has only gotten more necessary since the last time I interviewed you on camera. But let's start with let's start with you let's start with what's happening in our country. Let's start with COVID because I want to you've been out in LA for a lot of this past two years and you know LA in New York have been to the most locked down

masked up closed up cities and how has that been affecting you guys?

Have you been navigating that? We have navigated it really well but can I show you something before I do this? Don't go. So can you put him on that side and maybe see if he can enjoy the patio? I'm a couple of people he's obviously sweet but a new yeah okay.

Okay we have navigated this I have to say you know we're the lucky ones and I did a lot of I did a lot of things there to talk in the people whether it was schools or principals or school superintendents as well as a lot of people in the UK as well. Using sort of the ways of mine up and how we kind of manage our emotions

and and and breathe and really focus on how to distress ourselves with this sense of the unknown.

Personally we did we did pretty well there so many people that were not so it was always

a kind of an apology which is you know I got it really great. I have a garden outside I have a nice house there's a lot of things that I enjoy to tell you the truth having to stay home. I didn't have to go to a plane. I fly around a lot so I was you know basically somebody put my feet to the ground

and it was this coven but we were all frightened we watched everything that all of our grocery stayed outside for 24 hours. I mean we did all of these very extreme measures because we were afraid that this particular virus was on everything. Absolutely everything anything you touched it did wiping down all of our

ignoring door knobs not knowing who was at the front door.

“On the other hand what that did do for me and I think for quite a few people it”

had a more an effect and a positive way and I think a lot of it is because of the anxiety because of the workload that happens through in your life and something happened to everyone that said I can stay home in. I can be with my family now. I can connect to the things that matter the most and in some ways that's

what happened to me. Is that rat race of running doing having to you know leave go to New York go to London go you know a lot of things that I did because of work and the program and a lot of things I did because I didn't go on a miss out on anything and then other things that had to do with a different sort of work.

So I got to not I put my suitcase away. I went outside of my backyard and I watched everything clear up. I watched the sky get bluer. I didn't hear any knowing that I didn't have traffic. I didn't hear airplanes.

I and then I started looking at all the things that we're clearing up like not just the air but but rivers rivers that have been polluted for years. And I was looking at my my my my my my river rivers in India actually because I spent a lot of time there and they were getting clean again. And I thought how much of us as human beings actually

are creating where we are today. All the things we could not be doing. You know however we've got you know in industry commerce there's all kinds of things that have to run but I realize how much we matter as humans. What we do, how we behave, how we think, how we sleep.

And there was a level of stress on one level. For me that I didn't have. I could more I spent time with my son. It was precious time. I was you know it's one of those things that you think oh my god this is so scary.

“But sometimes when you have to go inside there are some blessings in that.”

Well that I mean you you've been mindful of family and connections your whole life.

you and Kurt together have four kids and three out of four of them are pretty famous and very successful in Hollywood on camera and behind the camera. And they all seem pretty normal.

“I mean that's that's what's so weird about you right?”

It's like well I was going to ask how did you, how did you manage that? But I think I know you you prioritize them. You found a way to actually spend time with your own children. Yeah we do and and one of the reasons is is that you know at number one Kurt like me I mean we just we're just family people and nothing will take take take that away.

Okay so if we have an opportunity to be together we are.

In fact why I'm just finally moved right in the neighborhood.

I mean we're so excited we'll all together. So it's really a special unit that we have. You know we can drop it into the house we can be together. All the children can be together. I mean right now okay I have Oliver and the family they're living with us.

Why? Because they're fixing their floors and they're they're doing stuff. And so they come over here for a few months to live. It's just you know we're just a couple miles away from each other. But I look at it and I'm thinking if we don't value what we got our family is everything.

Then they're not going to flourish. I mean so you say okay these are normal people. But my father was the one that said to me go I want you to look out at that ocean. I want you to stand out there and I want you to know how small you are. I want you to know that you're basically a part of the whole and that's important.

But if you get too big for your pictures just remember who you are.

So there was a reality in my life that was always about what the truth was.

It wasn't what when some high-floor dream was.

“And so I think the basics of being together.”

The sense that we are always focused on each other for the greater good. That to me could bring children in the world and create a better world. Well I mean you've lived it I've watched it. You're one of those people who doesn't have to go to every Hollywood party so that you can see a bunch of famous people and watch them look over shoulders to see who's more famous and more powerful.

You can do that in your living room. I mean it's really true. I mean I don't have that need and I never did. I will say that when I was younger, you know you were you went out more. I mean just being young by the nature being young.

You know you have your group of people and it was a time when it was the one baby and Jack Nicholson and you know all that.

I still always felt like a little bit of an outsider.

And I was an outsider at school. So I was a I never had 18 girlfriends. I never belonged to a sorority.

“You know I had very special girlfriends.”

They were my best girlfriends. I had I met one girl my only girlfriend. I was two years old and I went over to her house. And I asked her she would play with me. She was just a little bit older than me.

And she's still my best friend. And I've lost two of my best friends. True for a pancreatic cancer. And you know when you lose your friends. There's a piece of you that goes away.

Doesn't mean that you don't go on. It doesn't mean that you don't live your life. But when you talk about who matters to you. It isn't the masses. It isn't you know being a star.

It isn't who you hang within the parties that you go to. It doesn't have much meaning. What it has meaning is it's the people in your life. And that's where I was looked at. Yeah.

Otherwise, how can you have time to have intimacy? You know, an intimacy is great. So the people that I die with or I'm hanging out with for any level. It's not because there are anybody special. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that way. Yeah, you're not that person. You don't seem to me like someone who went to Hollywood chasing fame. Like, well, I read about your background and just from our conversations. You wanted to be a dancer.

You loved dancing. Your mom owned a dance studio. And maybe we're going to be a chorus girl or a prima ballerina. But it wasn't like I need to be a star to fill some void inside of me. Which I do think drives a lot of people to get into the entertainment industry.

I think you're right. I mean, there's definitely about wanting to be seen. And, you know, there's a lot of psyche involved. I'll just psychology and thought, you know, as to why you want to be seen.

Although, I'm a performer by nature.

There's no question. I mean, it's really, obviously dancing. Some I'm three years old. I mean, I was a performer, right? And I was happy.

I was a happy kid.

“I didn't, you know, I didn't go out and seek fame and fortune.”

In fact, I'll tell you the story. So I was in New York. I just got to New York. It was in May, remember. And I got to New York because I was dancing at the world's fair.

So I went for an audition in Washington, D.C., which is where I'm from. And I made it. You know, I made the audition. Oh my God. I went home, mom, a daddy.

I, you know, I got the audition. I'm going to be dancing at the world's fair. So all this was like, you know, really, really exciting. And I went to New York.

And in May, it was only there a month.

And I walked across the street. And this guy stopped me. And he said to me, I'm not trying to put the make on you. I'm not trying to do this.

Please believe me. He showed me his watch. It was kind of, I guess, gold. And he said, I go with Tuesday world. And Tuesday world was an actress back in that day in '60s.

And I went, oh, wow. Okay. So I started, you know, to trust him. I didn't look at him as a bad guy or anything. And he said to me, I just, I just got to tell you.

You look just like a character that Al Cap created. And he was a cartoonist. He was also, you know, sort of a, you know, a guy who represented a certain consciousness. And so anyway, I said, oh, well, Al Cap, well, Al Cap, well, Al Cap, well, Al Cap. Oh, I did the lab learn high school.

I mean, we did a lot of shows there. You know, oh, I know about that. And he said, oh, great. He said, well, listen, let me, I'm going to talk to you.

“He said, because I think you'd be really great for the lab.”

And we're doing it on NBC. And you look like a character that he created. And it's a new character. And she's tenderly very accent. Well, there was, you know, I don't know if it was to don't know.

The lab never was. But it was, you know, it was kind of political in a way. But it was, it was a cartoon. And it was a very famous cartoon.

And the show, the lab never had song jump.

I mean, what is it, what is it, something, Jay, trying to think of the name of the song. But little abner anyway was very famous. I was great. So I believed him.

So I got into his car. And we're driving. And he's dropped me off. I had an audition that I was going to. And he dropped me off.

As he was driving, he said, you know what? I think you're going to be a really big star. And I looked at him and I said, why? He said, because you have an unusual face. And I thought, well, he didn't tell me I was beautiful.

He said, I didn't think face. But actually, I think I did, right? To buy either too big. I all kinds of things.

“I was not, you know, but I was pretty scrutinizing about my face.”

Although, my mother didn't like that. I was. She said, don't work. Don't mess with my work. [LAUGHTER]

Come on. But, you know, I got my, you know, nose was everything. I was a thing. So I believed him. But the one thing that scared me, and there's a long story

to get around to my perception, I didn't want to be a star. It actually scared me. I thought, you know, I don't want to be that person. I just want to be normal. I just want to, you know, I was a dancer.

I had a craft. I had something I did well. And I also had a job. So for me, that they were going to make me into a star. And then I eventually, the story goes on, which I won't go into.

But, no, no, I have to talk about that jerk Al Cap. [LAUGHTER] This is the Al Cap as an asshole portion of our interview. [LAUGHTER] Oh, God bless him.

May he rest in peace. Yeah, he was the one that, you know, okay, so we'll go on. So now we get to the time where I'm supposed to meet Al Cap. And I had a script.

And I was reading of this script. And I, you know, and I thought, I read it at home. And I thought, okay, this is cool. It's real, it's a script, you know? Nothing's fake about it.

So I go to a park Avenue on the time that I was supposed to meet with him. And the door opens. Eric the Butler. Almost hung, you know, we're waiting for you.

Oh, that's great. Oh, and I was like, if that didn't know. I mean, I was like, what did I know? I happened to do me. I mean, next thing I know, I'm like, in this rich guy's apartment and his famous and his names out Cap.

And I know him, I did this show. And it was the whole thing. And so he said, so I sit down. And he said, Mr. Cap isn't here right now. But he'll be back in a moment.

He said, but I'm bringing this tea. And he walks in with the tea set. When I tell he was pure silver, and it was so heavy that

He likes all his women to pour his tea.

And now I'm practicing.

“And I picked up the tea pot, and I leaned the tea.”

And I'm like, try to pour it. And it was so heavy. I was sitting too deep in his sofa. The full group point was not acceptable. And so anyway, he walks with his, you know,

I didn't know he had a wooden leg. But I'm glad. Yeah, such a detail. Sorry, sorry. You know, he picks, you know, he really walks like he had a wooden leg.

And then he said to me, oh, he had a slipper. The slipper is a grin. It was really ugly. And he said, I'll be back in a minute.

I'm just going to slip into something.

And he came back in a robe. Oh, God. So now I am like freaking out because, you know, I'm recognizing something's going wrong. So I'm there.

I was 19 or so. And he comes in and he talks to me. And I said, oh, we sat down. We talked.

“Now I'm thinking to myself, I better let him know.”

I'm a good girl. I better let him know. Whatever he's thinking is not going to happen. So I told him that I, my mom and my dad and the fact that, you know, I, they want to meet a married Jewish dentist.

And I wanted to know that I was religious. I wanted to know that I had, you know, scruples and I had, you know, the whole thing. I just wanted him to know, I was a good girl. And so now he said, well, let's do the reading.

So I started to do the reading with him. And I was stood up. And I'm doing the reading off of the script. And he says to me, now you don't have to speak so loud. That's isn't theater.

This is now going to be, you know, it's film. So you need to just speak regularly. And I went, oh, but a good note. So now I got, you know, into the idea that it wasn't staged. Because that's really all I've done.

And then he said, um, now walk away over there in the room. And now when you walk toward me, I want you to just kind of look at me like on the camera. And you know, just kind of look stupid. Look, look, look like an imbecile or, you know,

like that, you know, that look, you know. And I thought, okay, so, you know, I did my dance walk. And I walked there and I remember I tried to look stupid. And I was looking at him and all this stuff. And then he said, well, now this is good.

He said, you know what? He said, I'm going to get you with David Marick's coaches. He's one of the greatest, David Marick's one of the great people you know, and Broadway back then. And I'm like, oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah. He said, I want to have him work with you. You, you, you put something. He said, by the way, could you go walk over there and lift up because your legs, you could be Daisy May. Your legs are good. And I see your legs.

And so I had this, I remember exactly what I was wearing. It was a paint net dress. It wasn't totally mini at that point. How about I picked it up over my knees and I showed him partial. And then he went higher.

“And I, I think I looked it up for just another like inch.”

And he said, no, no, higher. And I went, oh, and I put them down. I put my skirt down. And he said to me, you know, come on over here and give me a kiss. And I was shocked, but I expected something like that.

And so I said, I went over to the couch because I wanted him. I wanted him to know that I wasn't going to run out of the room. I was going to stay calm and whatever any pulled over his, you know, it was like his night, whatever that, you know, that road was. And his, he was his whole apparatus if you know what I'm talking about.

His whole inner was literally like lying there. Oh, and I got it. I looked at it and I said, oh, oh, Mr. Cap,

I'll never get a job like this.

He said, well, I've had him all. And nothing will become of you. And I said, okay, I said, I'm a dancer anyway, but I'll never get a job like this. He said, well, you know, you just just go back and marry a Jewish dentist. Oh, wow.

And I said, oh, I'm fine. So I walked out. And then I realized that I couldn't take the L because I didn't have the time. And I wasn't near it. I had to get to my to the world's fair.

So the world's fair was going on. I said, Mr. Cap, I'm so sorry. It's late. I can't get the L. And I just don't have any money to get a taxi.

So I got in the taxi.

“And I go to the Texas Pavilion, which is where I was dancing.”

And I was so upset.

And I had been seeing this guy that was under the bar.

He was a bartender. And we were dancing about the bar. As Kent Kent girls did. And we danced. And I was so sad. I felt so bad. And that night, I did the show.

It was three shows. And it was heavy duty. Can't can. And also, you go, go and all this stuff. And he said, come on. I'll take you out for a drink.

Okay. So I go out. Get in his car. And we go into the bar at the oundeen, which is just under the 59th street bridge. And I had a scotch.

And then I had another scotch rocks. And his friend was there that we met. And then that was over. So I had two cocktails.

And he backed up, got the car.

My own first avenue. And he starts accelerating. And in the middle, and I know there's no seats. There's no sea bells.

“And I thought, do you have to go so fast,”

you know, in between stop lights? And he said, no, no, no, no. It's okay. Meanwhile, everybody in the car had to have a cocktail or two. I wouldn't say we were drunk and whatever,

but definitely under some level of influence. And then he went down westside highway. And we were on westside highway going much too fast. And it was quite different then. Is it paddles?

And it had windy roads. And it was a single road. And it was really not a great road to speed on. And I looked over my right shoulder, sitting in the middle of an old swamp.

You know, about no bucket seats, right? And I looked over to this cab. And this taxi cab. Either he ran, he fell asleep or he just ran us off the road. But we went into a light pole at about 45 miles an hour.

Hmm. And it was not coming. And I went underneath the dashboard to hide from the crash. And I woke up. But I really was not in my body.

And I looked down. And it was paramedics that were pulling me out from underneath the dashboard and asking if she alive. And they were touching my heart and ripping my clothes. So they could get to me.

But I saw of it. And then I woke up in the hospital. Hmm. And that's when I was there.

And they basically did an X-ray in my head.

I had a concussion. And I had one little neck on my leg. And I know the two guys and one of them, the boyfriend that I'd had, walked into my room. And he had a broken nose and a few little scratches.

“They sent me home, which I don't remember.”

I lived alone in a Russian fest at one room, placed on 70th and between Broadway and Amsterdam. And I didn't have my mom. I didn't have anybody. And I got a phone call.

And he said, you fuck things up, didn't you? You really fucked me up. I told you to be nice to him. I told you to be nice to him. And I said, Peter, please go back to Tuesday,

well, and leave me alone. And I went into the bathroom. I threw up again. I came back and I realized I needed my mother. Hmm.

But for some, how I don't know. I remembered this guy's number. And I called him up and I said, I'm alone in New York. I know, you know, you are not happy with me. But I was in a very bad automobile accident when I snipe.

He hung up. He ran to my apartment. He lived near me. He came to me with roses that he got. And he was crying.

And he said, I'm so sorry. You're such a nice girl. And I, I'm just a pamphlet. That's all I am. Oh, my goodness.

I'm really sorry. And he got the ambulance. He took me back to the hospital. He made sure. I had everything.

I needed a tennis shot. Whatever they didn't give me. And, you know, he took care of me. And, and that was very, very interesting. Michael, but it's like, it's so many things about human nature and that story.

By the way, that will, that will officially conclude our alcap as an asshole chapter. Um, but so many things in there, right?

You know, the old grizzly wooden leged.

“I'll make you a star guy who tries to take advantage of her.”

I mean, that scene that you describe is straight out of the movie bomb shell. Though I know it, I, I mean, I heard it from you long before that. I realized that that's not where I came from. They, they must have stolen it from you. It's almost identical.

And, and learning bit by bit that she's there for very different reasons. Then she thinks she's there, right? And the, then the decision has to be made. Do I do this? I'm a nobody.

Nobody knows who I am. I have no career. Everybody knows this guy. He can open up doors for me. What do I do?

And it's, it's that moment. It's in those, those flashes of, of moments where you. Morality is, you know, it questioned. Your strength is questioned. You know, you know, for an after a moment and, and some women submit even though they don't

want to, it doesn't make them immoral, but they, they lived to regret it. They beat themselves up. It's just, it can be so hard in the fact that you walked. And you stood up for your beliefs. And almost nobody knows who Al Cap is.

And everyone knows who Goldie Han is is the best. And to that story. All right, hold on. Stand by. I've got to pay a bill.

I'm going to get into commercial break. And much, much more with the one and only. Goldie Han after this. [ Music ] I love the story, by the way, of that.

“You won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress like 1970, right?”

It was early in your career. And you, you weren't there. You didn't show. I didn't know why not. [ Laughter ]

I made a movie with Peter Sellers. And that's what I was doing. And so it was my second movie. And I was in London. And in those days, you know, they didn't let you go.

I mean, it was like, I forgot it was on. I forgot it was on. I literally forgot, they Academy Awards are on dollars. Okay. Oh my God. So I went to bed and I woke up by a phone call.

It's like, you, you, you got it. And I said, "We got what?" And they said, "Are you got the Academy Award?" No, it, oh my God. I didn't even know it was on television last night.

I mean, that was my first thing.

That is amazing. That was a 1970, right?

1970, right? 1970, cactus flower, right? That's the one. Mad boys or Matthew, Matthew, Angry Bergman. And you?

That's amazing. What, you know, I was thinking about it this week because, you know, they canceled the Golden Globes and they did it. They basically live tweeted the Golden Globes this year. It's kind of imploded for a whole bunch of reasons.

But what the, but the New York Times podcast, the Daily did an in-depth report on the implosion of the Golden Globes. And one of the things the entertainment reporter was saying is that apparently it's an open secret these days that you basically buy your Golden Globes.

Unlike the Academy Award, it's like the producers of these films are like, "Sure would be nice if," I guess it was back in the '80s too, because they were talking about how Pia Zedora won for some film.

Everybody was like, "Pia Zedora?" I don't know. I don't know.

“Yeah, I don't know. I remember that, exactly.”

And because she had a lot of help. If you know what I mean. With all the feedback, you know, I don't want to be honest.il about anyone. Really unless they're horrible like, "Okay."

But anyways. Yes. So, no, she was definitely what do you call it? Home and manipulate it. I mean, yeah.

So, yeah. So, I didn't realize that. But was that, is that an open secret in Hollywood that, like, you kind of buy your Golden Globes, but you earn your Academy Award or no?

You know, I can't. The Golden Globes are really an interesting group, okay. They're, you know, sort of reporters or people that LA is on with every country.

And they're quite a, quite a group of people, right? And as the time went on, and I'd make these movies. And you see them every year. You know, you get to know them, right?

You get to know, "Oh, hi, how are you?" And whatever. And it's actually, in many ways, it, back in the day, I, you know, I like people, you know,

it's like, "Well, who was that thing that Judy," what I said was, um, and was it the first while I was clever? Well, that was the, I like people and people like me.

She said, "Oh, so, this is, um, basically why I don't look at them with such a scant, okay? I have nice relationships with them.

Meaning that they're always,

these are what to make the decisions. Yeah. And then, how they just come to their decisions, oftentimes, because they just like somebody so much,

or because, you know, but paid off and in such a way, you know, I, that I don't know. I mean, I've got to be honest with you. I, I don't know what you pay the money to do this,

or people take money to, I know they're bright. I mean, I, I, I, I hear that, but you know, a lot of talk is talk.

Um, now the golden globes are, you know, they're not, are they going to become back? I don't even know. I mean, it's unclear.

And I was like, they, they had basically a lot of problems. One of which was,

“they didn't have enough minority players,”

and then they got minority players, and then they didn't have enough minority players. And then, you know, they're sort of trying to fix their diversity equity and inclusion problem,

and until they do, NBC's not going to put them on the, I don't know. I don't follow it that closely. I just didn't.

Yeah, that, that's equity and inclusion.

That was you've never needed,

you've never needed the golden globe to get movie roles here. It's like, you can, I guess you can get ahead in your career by saying,

look, I won this Oscar. I won this Oscar, or you can just be amazing film after film, and you keep getting hired.

That's how you've done it. Yeah, I, I had a weird career. I mean,

it really was. I didn't, you make a lot of movies. Um, and I made movies that really were,

um, I produced. Now, you know, I just made a decision to produce movies.

I thought, you know,

“I'm not going to wait around for the phone ring.”

Uh, I'm an odd character. I'm not like everybody else. I knew that. Um,

Her comedy or my comedy or whatever was very, you know, my own. Uh, and also,

people don't think you can transcend on image. In other words, I had a very strong image. Still do. Um,

and that image was, was part of the movie, but a lot of directors liked to get an actor who didn't have so much baggage. You know,

who didn't, you know, everybody knew them a certain way. A big personality or, or whatever.

In spite of that, I did really well. But I had, um, my own production company.

So, you know, you talk about what leads you, what guides you, what drives you.

Um, what drove me was very practical. And I thought, let me just, make my own movies.

It's make deals at, at Warner Bros. and, you know, in,

in Universal and, and all the places that I was. And make a deal. Make movies, right? So I made movies,

or even were, not with me. They weren't. They were for Julie Roberts, and Steve Martin,

and different movies, right? But I got to do movies that matter to me. Meaning, and I got to do a movie about a girl in the army.

Am I going to make a movie about a woman who is a, a football coach? Am I going to make a movie about protocols?

Someone who basically blows up Washington,

and the lies, and comes up and speaks in front of the Senate. I like to make movies that actually matter. And for me, that was the most exciting part of being in the movie industry.

And so, you know, by the way, there's a whole three great movies. Protocol was hilarious.

Wildcats. I loved it. Of course. That's the, you in the football team. And, uh,

private Benjamin was like, my mother fell in love with you before I fell in love with you. She used to run around that house, quoting you and private Benjamin. I want to go out to lunch.

I want to, and for those of you who don't know private Benjamin, and want to want to be reintroduced to it, or be introduced the first time. Here's just a little clip.

Uh, this is sound by six. I hate to interrupt you. But, um, could I speak to you the same? By Lord Sergeant,

would you look at this? I've seen it, man. What's what your name princess? Judy. Judy.

Judy Benjamin. Um, I think they sent me to the wrong place. Uh-huh. See, uh,

I did join the army, but I joined a different army. Uh-huh. I joined the one with the condos, and the private rooms.

[laughs] No, really not my- [laughs] Wait a minute. I don't want to have to go to your boss or anything, okay?

[laughs] [laughs] You know, you can't do it without great writing. You just can't do it. I mean, the writers are everything.

And, you know,

you basically, the words, you know,

and you can interpret them out. You want, but they're damn funny. And, you know, that's what they did. Nancy Myers and Chuck Sire and Harvey Miller. They, they were amazing.

So, that- Yeah, but that was the one that, like, that you produced that your name was the only name above the title. Not, not no man's name. You know, you proved a woman can carry a film because that film was hugely successful.

And it was yours on a number of levels. Um, let me pay one more bill.

“Sorry, it's annoying, but that's how we stand here.”

And then we'll come back and we'll pick it up with, maybe some of the fallout from private benchman. And it didn't realize that it was a double-edged sword to let study it up for today. Stand by for more of with Goldie Han.

And don't forget, folks, so you can find the Megan Kelly Show live on serious XM Triumph channel 1111 Every Week Day at Nunes.

YouTube.com/megankelly. Or, if you prefer the audio version, just get a podcast and subscribe it.

“Uh, by downloading our show on Apple Spotify,”

Pandora Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast for free. [Music] Uh, I'm going to pick it up with private benchman, Goldie, because that was a huge success for you. You were the producer.

You were the star. Everybody loved it. But I know you, you've said it turned out to be a double-edged sword. You're success on that movie. How so?

Because I, I, I, I don't, I produced it, but I also work as a peat with the writers. And so forth. So, you know, the only reason I produced it was because I,

said, why do we need another producer? I mean, we don't need one. I've been producing before at an Universal. And, you know, you get your producer that works on the show and you're working with, you think.

And it's just fine. You know, why pay someone else, basically, a big producer to take over,

“because, you know, this was a financial,”

practical decision. In the meantime, they can't cover of whatever everything's saying. And then next thing I know, I, it was so such a hit, I guess,

that I had, you know, directors really didn't want to work with me, because they felt that I would only do my own things and that I took over. And then I was, it was sort of,

it had to be my way. There was some fear around a woman being successful and, and being a bitch. And, and I wasn't at all not even close. I mean, there were many of us that made that movie great,

not just me. And I'm just looking at, you know, at that time, you know, there was a serious glass ceiling. And, and when I broke a record or whatever you call it, I mean, I don't know,

I made a movie that made it was successful. And I was, it happened to be a person and it, you know, made it more successful. She was funny. And whatever, but point is, is that I remember even one of my dear friends

who I was at, who was a dancer in front of my mom's or her boss. He heard that I, you know, took over and I wanted to do everything my own way. Thinking, oh my God, who made that up? I mean, you know, trying to save a movie.

Yeah, private Benjamin had like, you know, three laughs in on the first edit. I mean, it was a, we had issues,

but we have the most amazing writers in it.

“I sat down and they did 135, I think notes,”

editing notes, and they were followed because we were producing. And, and they changed the whole movie around to make it. It's funny as it was written. So I think there's a whole view point of women at that point in power.

And it was, you know, extremely mental dominated, extremely. So it's so crazy. So I'm like, you know, who is obviously warm, friendly, kind. And no one would ever look at you in suspect bitch. You know, that if they can do that to you,

they could do it to anybody. Yeah, it wasn't about me, really. It was about the, you know, the culture. And, you know, I was part of the culture. And slowly changed, which it has to a point.

But I remember with my daughter, we went Katie and I, she was just starting. And the two of us were, women's lunchroom, was a women's dome for women for film or something. And it was a thing that they created, you know,

and like the powerful women.

And now we have certain women in positions of power. And, you know, it was great. And it was like the women in film. Women in film. And I got the giggles.

It was just so crazy. Katie and I are, you know, in the podium. I were looking around. And I'm looking around at all these women. And I got the giggles because it didn't matter.

These women were working for men. And there were still women's movies being made. And including First Wise Club, we all took a less money. Certain amount of money because they were scared that women,

a certain age and we weren't even that old then. But a woman of a certain age couldn't bring in, you know, box office dollars. And we went out and made this movie. And it was a huge hit.

Cover a time magazine. Oh, wow. Then you go to make it another one as equal. And they don't want to pay you anymore money. Oh, wow.

Shocking. And that was First Wise Club. Now it was 25 to whatever year's come. 30.

But I mean, the reality is just say,

the fighting of this, you know, idea that a woman cannot really carry a movie. Or that they can't make money, you know, in the industry. Is it because the money that they make are all these other big tent pole movies,

which aren't really about a star. You know, they're about substantial effects. They're about, you know, all these big movies. And they're most to them at least back.

So young boys would go to the theater. They would go to see them. So, you know, but my point is as we're getting to, you know, it's just that women have had an interesting hill to climb sometimes.

Well, I mean, and in a lot of industries, but especially Hollywood, which is one of the crazy pieces of,

“I think it's why it drives people crazy when”

the Hollywood tries to act holier than now and start lecturing middle America about morality and so on.

And, you know, these people sitting in Iowa who have never done anything.

They've never tried to put something out of casting couch or do what, you know, Al did or any of this. They're like, you could save your lectures for somebody else. That's right, exactly. And the idea that, you know, well,

I do have a feeling about keep your, keep up. I've never known, oh, okay, how do I say this? Hollywood and a lot of Hollywood has a lot of mission, right? And, you know, you want to put your name on to something you believe in. But it doesn't make a difference.

And that's the reality. Is that if you are someone in the Indian industry, and you want to go into politics or you want to talk about these things, you know, I stay in my lane. And I think that the idea, if, you know,

maybe segue into what I'm doing now,

but the reality is to say, if we'd want to do anything,

we want to do it for all people. Not just for a group or whatever, what makes polarity even more is creating teams on either side of the, of the eye. And I don't think that's what we do. I think we entertain.

“I think we bring awareness to people just,”

that their ability to laugh, to enjoy, to experience, to cry. We, we are emotional beings and create emotion, and, and in others, and it's in this cave. I think we're in service. I really do.

I think people, yeah, pay really well for the in service. But I don't think we should forget that our first job is to help people laugh, feel something. That's a great note on which to leave it. And when we come back, gold is latest effort to bring that kind of messaging

to your kids, my kids, and the world in a really creative way. Don't go away. So, Goldie, we talked a couple of years ago about your program. The mind-up didn't just launch, but you've just gotten this great big online platform that helps people navigate their way through it.

And can I just set this up with some stats? We talked about one of these earlier this week, but the CDC says suicide attempts during the pandemic have jumped 51% for girls. 51%.

“It's about just under 4% for boys, so less for boys.”

But still up. Israel just did a big study of 200,000 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17. This is again taking a look at during the pandemic. And they report that there's been a 55% rise in eating disorders.

A 38% rise in diagnosis of depression. 33% rise in anxiety disorders. ER visits for mental health issues, for teens, are going through the roof around the world, especially in the United States.

And you actually have a program that can help parents do something about it. They can do it from their living room. They can do it in the classroom. But it provides real tools for schools and families in dealing with some of these issues.

How so? Well, you know, this was something I started like 20 years ago. And I did it because of 9/11. And my issues around the fear that I had at the Adam Bomb. I thought I was going to die before I ever got to kiss a boy.

I mean, I was really scared. I really, really, really thought it that way about my mortality. And it created a lot of anxiety for me. And during 9/11, I realized that children all over were going to be in America in particular.

We're going to be showing symptoms because fear is a dangerous thing. It's quite poisonous. And it turns into anger and all kinds of like side effects. So I started looking them into the problems of suicide and anxiety and all kinds of different issues around children's mental stability.

And I was shocked. And that was in 2003. It was uptick and suicide for children. Young children, 10 years, 15 years.

And then an older kid was a second leading cause of death.

I really was shocked. It knocked me out. It got smack me. I thought, oh my God, something has to happen.

which is psychology, which is meditation,

“which are ways and means to create a sense of happiness”

or more well-being. I learned sort of what the causes of happiness were. And I started applying them in a TV show. I wanted to do a documentary on joy. That's when 9/11 happens.

So my background really went, "How am I going to use what I know?" So I brought in neuroscientists. I brought in psychologists, bosive psychologists, teachers,

and practitioners who were in meditation and also also research scientists. In order to put these things together to create a holistic approach to a classroom program. And I felt that putting it in the classroom

then would begin to mitigate some of the issues around their fear, around anxiety, by knowing their brain. So it's based in neuroscience.

You know, it was never based as a,

basically a program about mindfulness or meditation. I mean, what yes, we do three times a day, we do a brain break. But a brain break is to give a brain a break. These children know that they get anxious,

they get scared, they get angry, there's aggression. They know that maybe they need to take a brain break. That's a three-minute moment of listening to a sound and then breath and using your breath and learning to breathe properly.

And it's been incredibly helpful. So teaching the brain is not just to know about the biology of your brain. It's to know how to use your brain. How do I change the way I'm thinking?

How do I change my environment? And they realize that they're brain that they have there is not like anybody else is it's their brain and they own it. Then they get to know that they can actually

not just shake hands with it as a friend, but they can actually change the way things are happening.

“So that's why they learn to read and they learn to focus.”

That's how they learn and we have the happiness of giving a kindness, you know, and also gratitude journaling. Things where happens in the classroom it sounds like a lightweight thing.

It's not. It changes the neurons and how they fire. And when you start building small children whose brains are actually developing, you're helping them develop brain fitness.

And that's what we want. We want resilience. We want children to be caring of each other. Aware. They want kids to be self-aware.

So they know that if they do something this way it might have a repercussion in another way.

Create critical thinking.

Whether thinking critically about whether to do something or not. Or how to solve the problem. I mean, it's an amazing, simple way of learning how to manage your own brain and your own outcome. Therefore, your own reality.

So this happened how many years ago, right? And I've been putting teachers in classrooms. Putting the program when it's been great. But the scaling of it is hard. Because you can't fly people here and do this there.

Create trainers here. Because you can't really manage the trainers in the same way you need to. It's important on how it's delivered, right? So what we did did was when COVID happened.

Part of what happened to me we talked about earlier. A bit basically sitting down is that I had the dream. And I was able to dream in quiet. I was able to quiet my mind. My stress level, my body, my movement places.

Take my distracting my brain. And I figured out how to redo and reimagine what mind is.

“And so that's what the COVID helped me do.”

So now we have created for various amazing people.

Online accessibility on our learning platform. So any teacher of any school can go ahead and get that program. Just as it's taught, it's beautiful to look at. I didn't want the program to look at like pedagogy or anything a teacher would have to do again.

It's all written. It's there, but it's beautiful. It has sound. It's pretty to look at. It feels good to be in that space.

It's what I wanted it to look like. In the meantime, you can take that program. Become a credited trainer and go in there and teach your children. Schools have already bought the program. Alone along with other teachers similarly.

But then I decided, we've got to put a parent program in here. This isn't just rituals. So now we're building, we built part of it. Are they really in depth parent program? Of learning how their brains work.

And knowing that until they are a little more mindful of themselves, that they will be able to be a better parent. You know, we're hijacked by our anger and our fear and lack of knowledge of what's happening in the future. Our money look or in a, you know, in a basically recession, right?

Help me out. Well, we're in a massive inflationary period. And we've filled a lot of jobs. A lot of people have left the work force altogether. Exactly.

So we, the inflation. So that was the reason.

“So the reality is is that we've got a lot to worry about, right?”

But in what we teach, you won't be helping them with, is to actually stay right here right now.

And understand that this moment right now is the most important moment.

And they understand now about their children, their children's brains, their brains. They have discussions around it. They're able to work with families, they have mind-up families. So what happened is, is Megan, is that I have taken this and now it's grown into a library of people talking about these various things.

And we've got, you know, happiness experts. We've got researchers, we've got narrow scientists talking about what is mindfulness. What happens to the brain? What's going on when you quiet your mind is in powerful. We're going to have doctors who, if food, food, the best food for your mind, the best food for your children.

And we have a cardiologist now speaking about the brain and breath and the heart. And that connection and how it heals your heart physically.

“So we, I've just opened up a world that, literally, I believe that we need to all understand about the potential of who we are and how we can change our mindset.”

How we can be a better partner. How we can literally have more tolerance and more love and more listening capability. I'll just to pick up on what you're saying, there's a line of sweatshirts and t-shirts and so on. And it reads, "Choose happiness."

And to me, that's never spoken to me because if it were that easy, everyone would do it.

It's not that easy. So I like what you said about brain fitness. If you have somebody who's trained their brain to be negative, to see the darkness, to stay mired and anxiety and worries about the future and depression. And they don't know how to sort of reset that. They can't choose anything other.

You're talking about training the brain the same way you train a muscle, to do something different that would be better for it. To understand how to process some of those feelings, get a handle on them, maybe table them, right? So stay in the moment as you're saying, so that happiness is just more frequent in your life. It's not about having to choose it. It's just you've set your brain up to put yourself there.

Perfect. Perfectly put. Because it is you, do we choose happiness? Of course, everyone wants to be happy. What do you want for your children? I want them mostly to be happy, right? We get it. But we have to set our brain up. We have to have foundational material to understand that we can't just be happy because we say we want to be happy. We have to understand how to, we look at the causes of happiness.

One of the causes of happiness is a very together bound together loving family. That is one of the big causes of happiness. That other thing as a cause of happiness is giving, caring about someone else, the idea of doing something which is an acts of kindness. Sounds crazy, but that actually makes you feel better. Hang out with happy people. Why? Because there is a thing called emotional contagion.

An emotional contagion is real. I mean, we're experiencing it today. You know, people are angry. Hang out with them. You're going to be angry. Yes, what happens? We're just humans. Our brain is this mirror neurons and it starts to process in the brain and we get it.

You hang out with happy people you'll be happy. You hang out with people who aren't watching their weight as well and not taking it. Sometimes you'll actually put on a few pounds. It's weird.

“But we actually if you want to be happy, there are actions to take.”

There's things to learn about the causes of happiness. One of them is movement. Movement. Real movement. You know, go out there. Be with a friend. Hike. Take a walk. Breath. Breath is another one. So when we learn all these causes to have a more, I would say, a more generous life.

A feeling that you, there's more abundance in your life than deficit. That's the way to do it. We have a brain that we can train. But just by wanting to be something does not mean you're going to get there.

You've got to work. And I think that's ultimately what you said.

And that's what we train. So in a child's classroom, which we are, we can be preschool through eighth grade right now. And I'm doing it because that's a developing brain. And they learn 85% of our kids said, repeatedly, they now thought they could make themselves feel happier. Well, you know, I have to tell you, that was huge for me.

But I just made it, it really did it made me emotional.

till you're in eighth grade, you'll ride that bike for the rest of your life.

That will never, ever go away.

You'll always be on the website. You have tips for parents that I was like, this is actually quite clever. It seems simple, but it's quite clever. One of them that stood out to me was every night at the dinner table, ask your child, what was something good that happened today?

“As opposed to what most of us do, which is just, you know, what happened today?”

Tell me about your day. Like what was interesting. Usually, I've come at it from sort of a neutral standpoint or just an information seeking standpoint. But the point is, you're helping them train to go to something positive. Something for which they might have gratitude, right?

So it's like a, it's a practice that you can get your child into night after night. Exactly right. You know, my dad used to call me and he'd say, what good happened today? I'm daddy. I called daddy when I was like dancing in New York or whatever.

And he'd say, and then he'd say to me, okay, go. What is the one thing you learned today? Did you just tell me what you learned today? Just one thing. And you know, it slipped with me. I mean, I'm an older person now, but I still live with me.

I mean, I remember, what did I learn new today? And I can, I can remember myself all through the days. I could say, well, I learned something new today. That was great. These are positive experiences.

Here's the deal. The brain is negative bias, no matter what. And it's negative bias because it's, it's there. The brain is there. It's very primitive part of our brain, but it's there to look for trouble.

“You know, that's the, you know, that's the center brain, right?”

That's the area where we are, our smell. Oh, I smell gas. Oh, I do this. Oh, you know, one of the little kids with seven years old, and her knees are, and pulled her away from the, of the curve. And she said, and did you know what, saved your lives?

And she said, no. And she said, the, the amygdala. She said, no, because that saves our life because that was an alert. We knew. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this was a seven year old telling,

okay, this is me hearing this story from, and Vancouver.

So the reality is, is that learning what we naturally go to,

which is the negative story. And you find yourself doing that negative story. You wake up in the morning, you're lying in bed. You're thinking about what happened a year ago or 10 years ago or whatever. Why is that happening?

Pass with the brains doing. It's shifting. It's bringing stuff out. Don't even think about it. Just get out of bed.

You change the subject. You don't have to, you know, sort of go over and over and over and over this thing that your husband did or your boyfriend or back in the day or, you know, your holding grudges, your brain won't let you forget it.

“You have to talk to your brain as I stop it.”

I'm getting out of bed. I am not thinking about this anymore because it's gone. It's over. Today is today. It's now.

And damn it, if we don't live for where we are right now. If this pandemic didn't teach us that we can't depend on a lot of things, including this frigging virus that's running around here. But we can find the things that we depend upon. And we can have a nurtured heart.

We can go in and sit quietly and think of the beautiful things that have happened. And look at your children. Okay. So you can't, so you can't, right? So you can't just say it could be happy, right?

You can't do that. But you can practice mindfulness. You can practice. It's basically cognitive behavioral therapy. You're talking about when you, you got the thing.

The bad thought in your head over and over and over and over and you just choose to just redirect for the moment.

I've always said to this moment, I use my old puppy's face.

A little Bosch's face. It was so sweet. For me, it's just a good, it's just like a rejiggering. You know, like Bosch's face. It'll just stop the thinking of whatever I need to stop.

It works. But I wanted to ask you, this is a, this is a sensitive subject. So forgive me. But I do, I do think it's helpful. Something bad happened to you when you were a child.

With respect to an attempted sexual assault. And you told me this over dinner one time. I've, it's never left me. But the way your mom handled it with you. I thought was brilliant.

And I'm sure some people would find it controversial. I thought it was brilliant. Because in a way, Goldie, she was training you this. You know, from a very early age. Right.

That's exactly right. You're 100% right. Is that I had one of my sister's friends. And they were like 18 in that age. And I went to, it was Christmas time.

And we were having a party. And he came up. Stairs, and I knew him.

And the next thing I know, I wake up and he has his hands on my breasts.

“And then he puts his hand on my vagina area.”

And I said, "Dad, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm trying to push his hands away." And I said, "Stop it."

And then I just stopped. I said, "Call my mom." I called her from, I didn't get up. Because I was in bed even if I wanted to. You know, a little bit.

Because then he left. And my mother ran upstairs. And they, you know, somebody went to get him. They ran out the door. I said, "My, he was what he did.

He touched me here." And he did this. And my mom looked at me and she said, "Okay. Look at me. Are you okay?"

And he said, "I am." And he said, "All right.

So just so you know, I want you to know something."

And he's very sick. It's a very sick boy. Good night. So if you're okay and whatever and you're not hurt, and everything's fine, don't worry.

I'm right here. But I didn't. No, she didn't go, "Oh, what happened? My daughter." What?

You know? How are you? How are you? I mean, no, no, no. She just said, "I don't know.

How are you? How are you?" I mean, no, no, no. She just said, "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

And suddenly again, contagion, okay. Mom didn't, wasn't upset. I wasn't upset. I learned that he wasn't well. I had Owen's Ralph, Wanton, Ralph, Wanton, Wanton.

Chased him out. He left the house. She said, "So he's very sick boy, only."

“But so I didn't have this, like, woman who lost her shit, you know?”

Yeah. She gave you the file to put this in. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

And it's very interesting when you talk about the LCAPS of the world. And by the way, he wasn't the only one. You really, you know, I danced in Vegas, so, you know, so I heard her story. But you know, in a way, I had more empathy for them. I felt like there's a weakness there.

And I felt bad. There's a, you know, whether they're addicted to sex and terrible things to have that warm on running through your body and not being able to handle it, not deal with it, not know what to do. So, you know, I know it sounds crazy, but I forgive them. And, you know, I kind of, I care about them.

I think that that may be a bridge too far for many people. But I think people can get into the habit of not catastrophizing every bad thing that happens. And this was by any measure, a bad thing that happened. And your mother absolutely could have said, "Oh, my God!" And held you and started rocking and saying, "Yeah."

You'll never be the same, your relationship with men will not be the same.

You know, we're going to have to get you into media with therapy. And that could have created further scarring. But I do think the way she chose to handle it. And already the child, she built to 11 years, you know, who she was dealing with, things to all those years of input. She was able to sort of say, "This is the file that goes in.

It's about him, not about you, you're fine." And I know you've said, it did not negatively impact your view of or relationship or sexual relationships with men at any point thereafter. No, not at all. I mean, I would say you're not, whatever, that was an early experience.

“And I remember back when I was also at a bar with my girlfriend.”

And it was over and he locked the door and my girlfriend was in the other place next door. She wasn't there. And this guy, he was a really nice guy. And he threw me down on the bank ad, and this place. And it was, they served food and everything.

So it wasn't. And he started pounding me, not hurt me, but he wanted to, you know, I make sex with me or something. And I was lying there. Now, my, my Jew, I was a ballet dancer.

So I was, I was strong. I had very strong legs. You know, I wasn't whimpy, right? In the meantime, a cop came from Washington DC. I looked at the window.

He looked down because he heard me yelling. And the guy put his hand over my mouth. I scout out from under him. And I ripped out from under him. My leg.

I pushed him. I got out. And I ran into the kitchen. And I, I got a knife. And I, I held it up.

And I said, don't touch me. Well, I started to cry. And he said, I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened to me. I'm so sorry.

Now, I look at that experience. And I still feel bad for you. Wow. Because I, I wasn't hurt.

He, he redeemed himself of these legs.

“So I didn't have one of those horrible experiences.”

Okay. So I'm not saying, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I could, could, it's gone different way for too many people. It's gone a different way for too many people.

You bet. I mean, you know, but I think experience. And I think that it's an element of if we can't have a deeper understanding of human behavior, forget killing, forget full on rape, forget all these things. But with your, your husbands, your children, your loved ones, the people that are in your life. People strangers that aren't nice, things that you can see at it.

“If we don't feel empathy, a sense of empathy, for someone else, I don't know if life is worth living.”

I really don't. I think caring for something, caring about something is really, really what you have in life. And it brings great happiness and great joy. And this thing that I'm doing with mind up, mind up for life brings me so much joy. Because I'm ultimately doing something at this time in my life that I care about, building human capacity, human capital.

To be able to say one day, maybe this will be in every school in the world. Twenty-seven countries have already come to our site. Mainly, we, you said it's around the world, this problem. We've got to build a healthier world. A world where people actually experience what it is, all the joys of being human, not just being angry, not having to win, not be somebody who has to, you know, weigh this again side.

You understand that, try and understand that. And when you do, you realize it's actually more congeniality, or we actually understand, we don't always think the same way.

And we talk about this in the classroom. So, I just think we have to build better capital. We are there. I'm happy to do it. I might sound like a polyanus. We are, I'm very scrutinizing, but I'm resilient. And, you know, people are going to push me over that easily.

“And I think it's a good reminder that there is a soft, safe, loving place that everyone can go to on their own, within their own head.”

You don't need a room called a safe room. You don't need speech labeled safe. You are in charge of the safety of your own body, your own mind, and whether you are okay, whether you can handle the anxiety or the stress brought on by anybody's words or behavior. Whatever it is, you are in charge of how you're going to react to that. And if you don't have the tools, they are getable. They're getable. They're learnable.

They're definitely hard. I love, I love, thank you. No wonder, I don't like, we get together. I just agree with you. We're like, come on, it's not this, it's the tequila, but this is also good. Let's squeeze in a quick break, because I want to talk to you about what else you're doing now. And just a couple of fun moments, because you know I'm not letting you leave without talking about overboard.

One of the greatest films of all time, it's like the godfather overboard. Willy Wonka will be right back with the one and only golden hot. Okay, so not, I mean, like, your list of movies is too, it's crazy. I just went back and it was looking like I've seen all of these. Seems like old times talk about private vengeance, swing shift, I love that's where you incur Russell met. And it goes on and on. Here's just a couple for people who need a refresher like I did.

We'll get to overboard in a second. First wife's club, everyone says I love you.

That was the Woody Allen film, 1996, same we are. Protocol, Wildcats, Bird on a wire, house sitter, death becomes her, the out of towners town and country. I could go on. First wife's club is here possibly making a sequel, so we'll see about that. But let's get to the main event. Okay, let's talk. Let's talk turkey overboard. 1987, I just learned in preparing for this interview, it was based on a real story.

There was actually a woman who fell off a boat or showed up in a floor to shore with amnesia. And in the movie, which was apparently written with you in curtain mind, the premise is that the woman, your character falls off of her yacht after being a real jerk to court Russell's carpenter character. And he decides after she threw all of his carpenter tools in the water that he's going to go claim this woman at the hospital and convince her that they're married and put her to work for him until she works off of all the money she threw into the water.

It's so funny. You can never make this film today, by the way, to get hip hurt. Not appropriate, not PC, whatever.

A lot of them, you know, when you look at some of the films and the way they were and what they, I just, you know, things have changed tremendously. And recently enough, it has affected comedy quite a bit.

This, you know, basically being, you know, basically politically correct and so forth.

“Because there are jokes where oftentimes made, you know, on all these different things that, you know, we're sort of go liabilities, right?”

And, you know, I know with a lot of comics, I mean, it's sort of like, you know, you know, you know, universities, there's a lot of sensitivity to all kinds of stuff. So, it's really interesting to be a stand-up comic or understand what your subject matters could actually be without a fending someone. What's going to be so annoying to you? You spent a whole career trying to make people laugh. Like, having to worry about the third real. You're supposed to step on the third reals. If you're trying to make people laugh.

Uh, you start, you're supposed to start on what? You're supposed to step on the third reals. You're supposed to sort of poke the things that normal people will not poke. No, exactly. I mean, Don Rickles, you know, was the killer on that. No, that sort of, you know, what you do. I mean, it was, it was kind of like that, you know. I mean, I don't know. I remember one line I did on Wildcat, and, you know, I told him off,

and, you know, I was really upset with him, and this was Nipsy Russell. And, and I was like, really this, and I left there, and I caught it up, and I came back,

“and I said, I forgot my purse. So, and she went back, you know.”

Now, today that would be a moment, which is it's was funny, but it's now it's sort of like, oh, you're just, I'm down, down deep. I'm just a crazy female, you know. So, there's a lot of areas that maybe would not have been, not a human. You've been getting gut for doing this kind of thing for a long time. I understand when you, you did laugh in.

That was sort of your first big, big thing. I mean, laughing back in the late '60s was, I mean, everybody watched it.

It was like one in four Americans was watching laugh in, which is on Monday nights, everybody watched it. That's where she, like, became a huge star, and then your movie career launched right after that. But I read that when you were doing that, because you sort of played up sort of the, the dumb blonde character in a funny way, and I read that sort of, the women's lib advocates kind of gave you a hard time saying,

what are you doing? You're setting women back and you were like, well, I don't think we need to burn our bras necessarily to get ahead. I'm kind of living the women's lib thing by paying my bills and working as an actress. I don't, like, does that true?

“What I said to her was this. She said, well, what about women's separation?”

And don't you feel bad because, you know, you're basically showing off as a dumb blonde.

I said, really, I said, you know, I'm already liberated. And she looked at me like, what do you mean? I said, the liberation comes from the inside, and I'm liberating. And she, it was one of those moments really where I didn't even know what I was going to say. You know, sometimes people ask you questions and you're thinking, you know, images comes out.

Yeah. You know, and it just came out, is that, you know, I, why don't know what you're saying, because I'm experiencing liberation right now. Well, and you would go on to live a life that showed it. I mean, I think that some of the stuff we're talking about producing the movie instead of just starring in it at a time when not a lot of women were doing that and standing up for yourself,

and not submitting and so on, taking a lot of bullshit from men. So you navigate yourself to a place where you can do a movie like overboard. You got her one new movie. I mean, really that was a great role, by the way. Looking at wonderful roles. I mean, she was first of all, we did the movie, you know,

where I played Annie first. I did a, we didn't put it in order. Joanna was the rich bitch version of you and Annie was like the one he said, No, Annie's my wife. Do all the cleaning, Annie. Exactly. So she was the one that I had to know who I was.

So I could play who I didn't know I was. So it wasn't, it was quite a challenge to tell you that too. There. One of the things I love the most Goldie is where you're, you've had it. You know, this woman who's really Joanna, who's being told she's Annie and a housewife who does all the chores, knows at some level that this isn't the right fit.

And he dumps you in this like sort of water barrel out in the front of the house. And I, we have a clip in which you channel my every thought when I pick up a mop. Here she goes, listen. Come on, guys. Feel better.

I see it.

Don't you think I see it?

“I can't do any of these vile things that I wouldn't want to.”

That life is like death. My children are the spawn of hell. You're in the devil. Baby, we like you. Oh, my God.

I mean, I haven't seen that in a long time. I mean, that's like good. I can't do these vile things that I wouldn't want to. I'm like children of the spawns of hell. You're the devil.

God, I mean, there are things in that film. There were, it was so funny. And it also was emotional because when she came out and said, I, how could you, you know, how could you do this? And when she learns that he's been duping her because they do fall for each other.

And then she learns he's been lying to her. Exactly. And then my real husband comes back in his limo. And the kids were devastated and I was, I just didn't know what to do.

I remember who I was, finally.

And it was like, oh, my God. Now, in the middle of a movie that is hilarious, right? That was a very dramatic moment. And what she got in the car, the kids running after her, that was so sad. So a movie where you can cry, laugh, you know, just have a lot of emotions to it.

We're really extraordinarily lucky to be able to play. The end of the movie was one of my favorite endings because when we jumped in the water because we were, we were pining for each other. I was looking for him and we dove in the water together in the sea to get together. The end of it after they're all bundled up.

He says, what can I give you that you don't already have because she had the money. And she looked at him and said, a baby girl. Yeah. Kind of like, oh, perfect.

“I'm sorry, but you guys were the key, the writer of the film, is it Leslie Tixon?”

Leslie Dixon. And then there was writing from everybody. Harvey wrote some stuff. And you know, we worked on it together. Well, so she says, she gives you guys all the credit.

She's like, Curt and Goldie are the cutest people on the face of the earth. She goes, I don't say that to be diminishing. She goes, it's just a fact. Everyone loves them. The chemistry was palpable. You guys had met a few years earlier on the set of Swing Shift, which I also really enjoyed. And you could feel it. And then you had a new baby. Why it?

Why it? Of now, like, who's now kept in America? I just learned today. He was running around the set. He was one of the kids and one of the outdoor mini golf scenes. He was nine months old. Oh my gosh. Nine months old. And my nanny was holding him in the scene.

So he was just one of the extras, right? It was meant to be. And he was like, a baby on the movie set and still is one on one. Right. And he took his wrist steps on that movie. Wow.

“I don't know. What do you think that movie has was stood the test of time?”

You know, because not every movie made in 1987.

Like Moonstruck. That was an amazing film. I think it may have come out that year.

People aren't still watching it. It's still not on television all the time. So why is overboard doing that? Well, I think overboard is a general. As the relationship movie. First of all, it's about people falling in love. It's an amazing premise. If you didn't know who you were, who would you be.

It's also about when you, it's also about love. When you think you can't fall in love. It changes you. And it's also good for blended families to see. Is that sometimes when they don't know who their mother is. Or they don't have a mom anymore. A new person coming into the household doesn't mean that it's going to fall apart.

Sometimes it means that they're going to have a great time. A lot of doctors use this movie for blended families to show. And so it has tremendous ability to make people feel.

It's really about humor, but how people get along and how to get along. And you know, it was emotional.

“I mean, when she wakes up, I said, but when she had, you know, all that, you know, she was at, she said,”

I'm so ugly. I mean, this is where she had, you know, it's, she had poison oak. Exactly. You know, that was great when she came out. She was telling all these stories about her past, that she was in the Navy. And that she had, she used to be really fat, which is why she had, he had only these huge house dresses for her that he got from the salvage. And she goes, I was a short fat slut.

She said, right, I mean, really, it's just so funny, you know, and then when we're in bed together, right, and it's sleeping. And he got me a washing machine for my birthday and the kids, it's, she was so happy. You know, at many, totally all about how she, we know, was a employee of the month. And, and she was so happy about it, you know, and so you had this feeling. You, you kind of hated them and you kind of knew he was falling in love with her.

And she was so vulnerable to believe that I was, I was employee of the month, you know, learning about who I was and feeling good about it.

And no information for this character that she might actually be a good person, which Joanna, the other person, not would never have actually heard.

And by the way, I mean, it must be said, your body was so amazing. It was like, your body, like, seems like I didn't have a baby. Well, he was nine months old. How is that possible? What were you doing? Well, you know, I guess being a dancer all your life, your, your body knows the muscles.

No, there's, they don't have information. And so it's like when you go back to work again, or you lose weight again, or you do whatever.

“You, you kind of got to go back. Your body is memory. And I think that's what happened. What did I do? I worked out.”

I did a lot of things, you know, I didn't break my back, but I worked out. I did my sit-ups. I did my stuff. I had someone working with me, you know, I did all my weights. Of course, I did it aerobic. So yeah, I mean, you know, I did what I, what I normally do. Look, amazing. You're both with, you're like, I think it's muscle memory. I swear to God. You still have it. You post these little videos of you and your family during the pandemic.

You got the puppy whenever I'm like, that bitch looks better than I am, and she is 76 now. I don't even know what, it's like, what the hell.

Where's your body is killer? I mean, you will always have that, by the way.

You know, there's nothing to snap back into. No, it's very jiggly. It's not like the Goldie Hawn in overboard trust me. You can't tell me that, not true, but anyway. Yeah, so it's really, it is nice, but you know what's interesting is we get older. And I'm very, very, what is you can tell, you know, I've been a dancer. You cannot let that go. Once you're three and four and five and six and seven and eight.

“That's what you did dance all your life. You cannot let yourself go, right?”

So, you know, I went and I got, I go to places for cleanses and all that. We were just talking about that this morning. And I said, you don't no matter what I do, I go to the cleansing place. It's great. I'm doing all my everything we do, we do. Come on, it's the screws, we do the massage, we don't eat, we have, you know, all the stuff that we do do. You know, my stomach is so flat and I'm so happy.

And it takes about two weeks. So cleanses this. But cleanses back again. I mean, my stomach is flat, it's not huge. It's just all in the wrong place, you know what I mean? I'm like, oh, come on. So, you know, so am I paying attention still? Yes.

We can tell, is you look amazing. And by the way, Abby, could you sign me up for dance classes immediately?

Go, go on, I love you so much. Thank you so much for doing this, for doing mind up. And the next Achilles are on me, sister. Okay, back, you got it. Talk soon. In the 1980s and 90s, Jordan ran one of the most successful brokerage firms in Wall Street, history. Also, one of the craziest. He lived a life of luxury with money, yachts, women, and drugs.

But it could not last forever. Soon, the FBI would catch up and catch on to a multi-million-dollar Pump and dumps document manipulation scheme that would land Jordan in federal prison for 22 months. He would later write a New York Times best-selling book, The Wolf of Wall Street, and soon Hollywood would come knocking. An a-list actors would launch a bidding war for the movie rights. Leonardo DiCaprio would go on to portray Jordan in the now very famous and high-grossing film.

And today, he is my guest and we'll discuss it all. Jordan, thank you so much for being here.

Nice. The pleasure. Okay, so I'm all. I'm I've saw Wolf of Wall Street when it came out in 2013 and now I've read the book and have been following you on Twitter and I love your inspirational messages. You really have taken a lot of these life lessons to heart. And one of the things that attracted me to your messaging was your very anti-victim mentality. I mean, you know, you own everything that you've done and have been through and have been really open about it.

But you also haven't lost touch with the drive that it takes to make all the money that you made, some legally, some not legally. But you haven't lost touch with what it takes to be successful and to get ahead of the other guys.

So I want to get to all of that because that's that's part of who you are as well.

“Let's start at the beginning though. So you're a kid from Bayside Queens. You did not grow up rich or poor, right about middle class, would you say?”

Yeah. And your parents were what? Well, my parents were both CPAs. And you know, it's interesting because that is thing well out both are CPAs professionals. You'd be upper middle class, maybe even, you know, couple low, wealthy, right?

And but my parents really struggled growing up and kind of didn't realize that that was about 10 and I was 10. I remember it was a funny story. I wanted to buy a pair of pooms to these. And it was all the rage back there, right, tomis. And by $19 and like I think it was my birthday was coming up and I asked my mom, you know, I want tomis. She's like, we can't afford it. I'm like, what do you mean you can afford it? You and that professionals, you both, and they both were my mother was like a trailblaze.

Just you know, in the 50s back and mad, man day, she was going into the city and working as a CPA. And you know, at a big eight, it was a big eight back then accounting for her. But she was the oldest woman in New York State to pass the bar and she was 68. So she's a real piece of work. My mom actually was an apple.

“But they had no money. I was like, well, she sat me down. And she showed me, you know, what was going on?”

She showed me, they may ex and get our expenses and, you know, rent and so forth. And at the end of the market, a little bit left over. It's for college fund. And I was appalled because I was like, it didn't add to me. You know, like, it's just, the something seemed like it was all happened to such brilliant people, hotworking people, educated people and dust with these people, have be broke. It didn't make sense. And it wasn't long after I think it started to occur to me that was certain other elements that were necessary to achieve financial success.

And one of them was taking risk. My parents were completely risk-averse depression, mentality, and also they were really against any type of sales or marketing type ideas.

They just suddenly put their evil on the cause of that. They were never able to use their services or market their services,

they're weird, so to speak. So they worked for other people. They worked for a paycheck and they struggled badly. So I think a lot of that went into my makeup of what it really means to succeed financials. It's not just that hard work, hard work of course is required. It's not just that education education is usually important, not always, but, you know, least self education of some sort, but there's other components involved. And one of those is going to certainly be, you know, taking some risks working for yourself,

or at least being an industry like sales where you can almost work for yourself and risk taking. So very important lesson to learn very well. So how did you understand, like, how did you become such a good salesman? Because if you read up on Jordan Belfert, you realize one of the things that made the difference in your life is you will know how to sell. And it's not that easy for the average person. I think a lot of people are more introverted.

They don't want to put themselves out there. They don't want to have to sort of, I don't know, make themselves feel vulnerable by asking somebody to buy something from them. So how did you get so good at that?

“Part of that thing's a God is a God giving you. Seriously, man, I think that we all, all of us, each person possesses certain gifts and certain, you know, you know, deficits, right?”

I think in my personal genetic makeup and the combination of nature and culture, I ended up naturally being very, very talented at sales. But then I trained myself in home that skill over years and years of hard work and selling to a razor's edge. And then I found myself in a position very young when I started my firm where I was teaching a methodology of sales that was intuitive to me. It didn't have a name back then. And it didn't, it was working real well until I tried to go to a much more difficult type of sale.

And when I was faced with this difficult sale, I could do it. Yet the people that work for me couldn't and it forced me to come up with a new way of training salespeople, which is really what allowed me to understand my own sales process much better. So you know, by almost by becoming a teacher, it made me fall better, actual student, maybe I was salesperson myself.

There's a moment in your book, late in the book where your daughter says, you were supposed to take me to the blockbuster. You promised to take me to the blockbuster video and you say, I had promised or nothing of the sort, but I appreciated the negotiating tactic. Start from a position of strength. Assume the sale is already done. I thought I was, no, yeah, she's, and also the tonality. You know, you don't move going a blockbuster, right?

I'm like, what? Like almost, at least she phrases and declarative as a question. It's good. I learned.

“Yeah. I understand. That's how I'm going to pitch my next big guest. You promised me you'd come on.”

What? Who are you? Um, okay. So you, you were a worker when you were a kid. You'd had the paper out and you did all the stuff that, you know, a lot of successful people I know have done. You were, you did not sit on the couch watching read runs of Little House in the Prairie, like somebody else I know when I see in the mirror. Um, then you did not immediately go to Wall Street.

You decided that you were going, you want to make money and you decided to be a dentist and then tell us what happened your first day at dental school.

Yeah, that was really, you know, about, uh, I think it's a reflection of belief systems that, you know, we all have infused in those by parents, society, up here. Ruben, you know, my mother, my parents just very quietly educated people and to them, it was like, you know, there's only no one more way to become wealthy and that is, you know, doctor, dentist and like, you know, at the time, if you ask me at the age of 21, you know, what do you want to be for living, I'd say, I want to be rich for living and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

So when he's playing in my head, like, doctor, dentist, Rachel, now my uncle was a dentist and he was very successful. I was like, well, my uncle's that's four years medical school will be another 10, I'm going to tell myself in 10 years. So I said, I'll go to dental school, like, apply very well in school, is that got in. And the first day of dental school, Dean stands up in front of the order to his Baltimore College of dental surgery in Maryland, and he says, you know, welcome to the Baltimore College of dental surgery.

She proud to be here, dead the streets of one of her profession, and you know, but let me say this, the golden age of dead distress over. If you're here to make money, you're probably in the wrong place, like, what happened?

I'm in the wrong place, and I got up and I literally walked out my first day and I dropped out, yeah.

That too is such a moment. It tells us a lot about you because I would think, I mean, honestly, having been to law school in practice law, you at that point your egos and do it. You've told everybody you're going to dental school, you have some sort of, you know, skin in the game. So the fact that you got up and walked out does say something about you, like, you know, it doesn't take you long to make a decision about your life and your future and where you're going to do what you're going to do next.

“I'm feeling quite important thing that you're hitting on you, because one of the biggest mistakes that I think people make, and if we all made it, I still make it, but I try to stop myself from making it is, is that it's just ego.”

It's it's part ego, it's part, it's just part when you get caught up in something you're in, like, you can't see the forest or the trees, like, you know, anyone on the answer, say, what are you doing? No, it's not working. You know, it's time to make the move, get out, go do something else. So many people will stay with something to a point where it's obvious it's not working for. It's obvious it's not going to get in the outcome they want, but they, they feel like they put time into their invested in it.

They've done things it's told people, they're doing things like field after we can assist them with that yet to their own detriment, they stay in a, that other opportunities pass the bite. And I think it's a very, very powerful thing to, you know, for all entrepreneurs, that just success for individuals is to always be looking at your surroundings and what's going on and just being honest. I mean, you know, is this work, where is this not? I don't believe it's just trying and quitting. I'm not like that at all, but at a certain point it's nothing realistic with yourself and say, you know what?

I should be making a pivot here and trying something else because what I'm doing is simply not working. And you had your eyes on the prize. You knew your overall goal was to get rich. It was not to be a dentist. That was just a means to an end. And when you found out it wasn't the means you were like, peace out. So you, you not knowing exactly what's next, you leave.

And then the way I hear it, you heard about a kid from your neighborhood who was making a million bucks on Wall Street in the light bulb went off and you were like, I too am going to Wall Street.

“But it's not that easy. One step in this one step. What? Oh, the meat, is it the meat salesman?”

Yes, I actually say this is a very important part of the story is that, you know, I let I drop out of dental school. I answered a blind ad in the new space. New space, back there with ads, right? Not the internet. And it was for a sales job, but it said company vehicle without make a thousand week company vehicles. Wow, that sounds pretty good, right? And I went down, I didn't realize that the company vehicle was a meat truck. And it turned out it was selling meat in some food door. It was door to the sales, right? And I was like, alright, well, whatever I'll give it a shot. Now it was the first real sales job that I had.

And the lot of money selling ice is the kid. I was the kid with the paper out. I was the kid with the lemonade sandwich. This is a magic shows even idea when I was younger. But this was the first real, you know, job and sales job was like that influence and persuasion. And my first day on that job, I broke the company record. I just I had a natural ability to sell. And that was really how I got started is like, you know, we know that I could really close at a high level.

And after about two weeks, I'm breaking the records. I said, let me just try to open up a business myself. I always had to add that entrepreneurial edge. And I started my own meat business.

And over the next year, I built it up for 26 trucks. And, you know, all the train and I trained all those employees had a sell door to door. And we selling door to doors. That was really the proving round that everything else that came after. And then, ultimately, I made every mistake that a young entrepreneur can make. I was over expanding. I was under capitalize. I was growing on credit. It was a really poorly run business. Like, and then you could look at that as a textbook about not to run a business, right? And I went bankrupt. And I lost everything. And that was when I heard the same time about this kid I grew up with.

His name was Michael Falk and and and I heard he's making a million dollars a year on Wall Street. Like, I said, back, it's like a six, eighty-seven million dollars a year. It seemed like an impossibly large number. And dollars on my pocket at the time. And I didn't believe it when I heard it. And about a week later, I went to the local park with all the down based on it. And he pulls up at a Ferrari. And I ran that beautiful suit in a beautiful girl. Like, I'm like, when this guy was not just in the city, he was not like this kid that was voted most likely to succeed.

“And high school was kind of the mere kid growing up. So I was like, it's like, what happened? He's like, oh, what stopped?”

Well, his thing is about stock broke his make it out. If I was saying, hey, maybe what you make last day, you'd be like, excuse me? Like, when I heard like, it's a little bit forward of you, right? You would like, you know, ask a doubt day, what you're like, what? But as the stock broke it, like, I made a million dollars just this fall for the information.

Like, so the first stock broke his call and gone, hey, I made a million enthusiasm. What are you doing?

Yeah. So I was like, here's, I made a million too. You know, next year, I'm at two million. I was like, and I said to myself, in that moment, you probably said to yourself, many of your listeners have saying, in this idiot can make a million, I can make ten. That's exactly what I thought, you know? And that was really started my quest to go down to Wall Street. Mm-hmm. What you say is so true, having lived in New York for almost 20 years. People in the same way about rents. What do you pay in rent? How many square feet? Let me see your apartment.

Take me around as soon as they walk in. Like a great new show, everything. Show me your closet, your bathroom. It's just like you put it all out there, though we all live in different terms when you're in New York City. Um, okay. So you get that the first big job you get is at L.S. Roth child. And what was the messaging from your superiors there at this? This is the portion of the movie in which Matthew McConaughey is portrayed as your boss. Great scenes. That character was spectacular.

“So what was the messaging to you then? How did they see you?”

So I was really pretty funny, so I was interviewed by the manager of that office and, you know, me I look for all the child's office. It was a big, well respected firm. And I knew I had to stand out because there was like 50 kids lined up at the interview. It was the bowl more awkward of the A's. And when I went to this interview, I was like pitching him a stop. Like I'm not even really knowing what I was saying.

I knew I was really a sound in a good tone out. So I started saying, hey, I'm going to know this stop. Because I thought I forgot what I said exactly, but the point is I was pitching him a stop and he's like, whoa.

He's like, stop. I'm like, what? He goes, I've never met anyone like him.

Because I'll tell you, because either one of two things that's going to happen to you. He'd be going to become the most famous broker on Wall Street history or you get to end up in jail. Well, the guy was a genius. He was right on both accounts. And he told me, right? And that was how I got my job. And I, my first day of walking into that border, I was like, I heard the mighty roar of Wall Street border. I was blown away by it, fear, the greed, cursing, the screaming.

I mean, it was unbelievable, just that the energy in this room and for six months I watched all these other brokers, sound that wasn't licensed yet, had to go through a life thing process. And the messaging was, you know, it was to say it was very much like Matthew McConaughey said, even at a big firm.

“I think one of the worst kept secrets, I'm probably the dirty little secret of Wall Street.”

Is that most of it's really not in the best interest of the client when it comes to because you know, the fact is, is that most of this whole machine is not necessary of stock brokers. It didn't analyze because you'd better just bind the S&P and holding it. That's separate issue. But, you know, it was churning them and burning. You know, it's churning them and burning them and moving the money around, then, you know, you're closing all costs.

It wasn't lie to the client. It wasn't about lying or, or, or, or, or you know, what, like, you know, it's burning made up. So it was about getting that money churning burn and, and you come first and I was pretty shocked when I heard that, but, you know, that was, that was the theme.

consider drugs, consider hookers, or masturbation several times a day? Like, I mean, is that, did that really happen?

“Yeah, but, like, yes, yes, yes, but more like the more Jeff, in other words, he was just a, he was a very funny guy.”

He was just a, he was that sort of guy that, like, he's, you know, he would do anything for a laugh. He was a, he's a, he's a very clever, funny person. So he was saying, but, you know, one thing that was very prevalent, which I don't know if it's still is today, but cocaine back then was like, wildly prevalence everywhere and, you know, the idea that people doing cocaine during that, I was like, standard operating procedure back at that period of time.

I think it's gotten better, hope it's gotten better, but that was certainly standard operating procedure. And I think also was, you probably all seen from various other movies as well that prostitutes, hookers on walls, she was also very much standard procedure. But the message really rim was just like, you know, smile and dial and have fun, and basically, you know, you, the idea here is like, and I really, you know,

I came from a really honest good family. And I was like, so can we make a climbs, but you're like, no, it's like, it's like not, it was not like the objective. It was like, it was the objective to lose their money.

But you know, you would never want to lose someone money, because it just does,

there's no reason to want to do that, even at strat and one of the biggest misgivings in the movies, thinks that, like, you try to lose people, like, that's just nonsense. We never, you would never try. You make more money when your clients make money. It's just very difficult sometimes when interests are not aligned, you say, oh, you're trying to lose someone money. So that wasn't,

you can say, let's just break the client. It wasn't that.

“It's more just, just, you know, chairman burden, maybe that's what I thought.”

If you have to choose between yourself and the client, you choose yourself. It's basically the approach. So, so Jordan winds up going, and we'll get to this in one second, we're going to take a quick break, but he, L.S. Rothchild collapses when Black Monday hits in 1987. And that career quickly dies. But Jordan, you won't be surprised, would not be stopped in his biggest.

And now, most infamous chapter was yet to come. That's where we're going to pick it up right after this quick break, and we'll play some clips from the award-winning movie as well. Stand by. Jordan, so Black Monday comes, and that's the end of Rothchild.

And I, you must have been thinking at the time, your Wall Street career, too. Yeah, I was pretty shocked, because after six or seven months of being a cold cool, I just, you know, darling a phone, and passing it to someone else.

I didn't have my license yet, but I finally passed my series seven got my license.

My first day, literally, my first day as a broker, and I was on the phone darling for myself, the market crash, 5008 points. Rothchild is, you know, essentially, we had a business by the end of the day, but it took a couple weeks after they shut down. Probably that they worried, like, who's it?

They would've done that first day.

“So it was really, really sad, and I remember the brokers were walking around saying,”

"Ah, stand the games over there." I'm like, what do you mean the games over there? I didn't get to play. I was a slutty, but I'm like, "Oh, not the games over there." And that day and down on the ground floor, the new stand that, you know,

post, like, the death of Wall Street, all brokers will be cave drugs, like, "I'm hot, you're staying dental school." I was really unbelievable. I got to hold my first wife. I've not been great in the wife to talk about it.

I've got a few marriages, but I got it right this time, hopefully. But she didn't know the more I could crash. She'd taken her last dollars. We were really struggling. And she'd bought a bowl of champagne, and, you know,

I walked through, she was like, "I had to break the break." Because I thought I'd do so well with the broker. I was like, "Oh, no." And she said that last, like, "Fuddy on this champagne." I collapsed in a room and started to cry.

I literally, you know, "We all take that punch. I'm sure you've been there. You're a, you're a move for a check. You're still here. You have oxygen.

You have downs. It's like, you know, sometimes when things are going bad, you think the world is just against you. God's against you. You think of the mightest touch in reverse.

But you can touch, turns to shit, basically.

It was like, "Really?" I really was like, "I had this moment." I was like, "I was like, collapse." And I just said, "I can't do this anymore." You know, "I should've just been like the normal route."

You know? That last five minutes, 'cause I didn't have water in that computer. And so after I had a good cry, we sat there. We opened up that one section. And we just started looking for other jobs.

Like outside of Wall Street, like sales. And after about a few minutes, she stumbled on some ad. It was like, "Stop brokers." Like in Lyle and as part-time full-time.

It was so much like it didn't make sense. Like, "Stop brokers on the Lyle." Like this is back in the late '80s when everything was on Wall Street. And then it was part-time at part-time stop brokers. And then when I answered, I called the phone,

and they're like, "That's the scent of like, "Whoa." It was like a gruff voice. I'm like, "What about Morgan Stanley?" I was like, "That's the scent." I didn't even know.

You know, it sounded like, "Hey, man." They asked me to come down and do the next day. I went down and I walked in. And I was like, "Just shocked."

that, you know, read the wealth success

or Wall Street.

“It was just like, it was going back to like the cave band.”

I was like, "No, no, computers on the desk." It was young kids and jeans and sneakers. They were just cursing. Like, but a different type of cursing at the client, like lying through that team.

And I'm like, "What are you guys doing?" Like, "Oh, you know, imagine we still penny stocks." And I'm like, "What's a penny stock?" And guys, legitimately, did not know what a penny stock was. Other than that, it traded in a low price.

I didn't understand the context. You know, what it was really all about. And in that moment, you know, there was a scene in the movie where I said, "You know, was this legal?"

Is that legal? And he's like, "Well, you know, that's not true." You know what he said? Of course it's legal. We haven't done that.

So we actually have this clip teed up from the movie. The fake you portraying this moment Leonardo DiCaprio here it is. Yeah, the penny stocks. You know, companies that can't get listed on the desk.

They don't have enough capital. They're sure it's trade here. Is this stuff regulated? Are you guys, what are you doing here? Yeah.

Sort of. Sort of. Yeah. Jesus Christ, the spread on this huge. Yeah, and that's the point.

What's your name again? My Jordan Belfort. Jordan, what do you get on a blue chip stock? I made one percent. Why did make one percent?

I think she eats it's 50. It's 50 percent? 50 percent commission? Help for what? It's our market for our services.

So good. So you get the dollar signs in your eyes at that point. Like 50's a lot better than one.

You know, the most important thing.

And I do, I mentor a lot of young people. I do a big events around the world. Pull events and there's a lot of people in there. You know, teens and 20's. And one of the things that I would say is, you know,

be really careful. That seems very misleading. And I wish they wouldn't have done that. But that's one of the, I mean, all the systems. It's sort of amazing.

That it's not accurate in the sense that if he would have said that to me, I would have run out the door. Like I was a really good kid that never broken. It wasn't like my nature to go and if they said, I don't know, this is maybe it's legal.

I'd say, oh, bye bye. I'll find someone's legal. But that's not what he said. He said the opposite. He said, of course, you know, we are SEC.

What we report to see any is the member. So good. And the reason that so forth is because right now today in the world, all you people listening, especially young people, you're going to find yourself walking into offices and businesses where they're ripping people off.

And what is a young person like what I was, you'll just assume it's okay because if it wasn't, it wouldn't be happening. They were shutting down. Either some regulator would have made it stop.

But it's not true. These things will often take many years to be shut down. It ever. So, you know, just be careful that there's a long goes off in your stomach. Like it's like not legit.

It's probably not. I don't just assume they say, oh, quote. What's it is? Or they say, you're maybe run the other way. That's mine.

I've had jobs in the past where you see ethics compromised here. And then there.

“And then you detect a pattern and you have to ask yourself,”

do I stay or do I go, right? Like that's a one off can happen anywhere. But when you realize, oh, this is not an ethical place to be. It's a character test. And actually it's one of the questions I have for you.

Because I'll tell you, I know a guy in New York who he was arrested. And he was accused of being kind of a mini made off. And the jury was hung when all was said and done. So that was a good result for him. But it did come out later that he had cheated on his series seven.

He had had another guy go in and take it for him. And I thought to myself, is so like these early ethical compromises. You know, how often did they result in just the loss of ethics, right? That they're gone. Once you cross that line, it's tough to cross back over.

You know, one of the things I always say when I'm out there speaking,

I say, you can't be half pregnant when it comes to ethics. It doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. I tell you why it doesn't. It's because, you know, like in my story illustrates this perfectly.

You know, I was doing everything right. When I started my firm, I was doing everything right. And I had this one moment where like I was faced with making a decision of taking a very large amount of cash from someone. And the person said, everyone's doing it.

I knew it was wrong.

“I was like, well, you know, and I think it was being done.”

I knew what was the only person that done this. But I knew it was wrong. I said, well, you know what? I'll do this once. And then I'll do anything again.

But once you take that first step over the line, what happens is your line moves slightly. To be wrong side is slight bit. So next time, I'll do things right for me. But next time you step over the line, you'll step a bit further.

And then a bit further still and through these tiny, almost imperceptible nudges towards the dark side.

Associated people, you never thought you'd associate with it.

It all seems perfectly okay. You don't think it's wrong. Your line has moved. Your morality, your ethics, your compass. It just no nudges in before you know what you're, it's insanely off.

Like it's like when you dip your toe into a piping hot bath up, right? You're like, oh, I got it so hot. And then five minutes later, you're submerged under the water. It feels perfect, right? When I was a kid, I was like, oh, I guess the water cooled down.

No, the water didn't cooled down. You just got used to it.

“It's like, you know, and that's what happens.”

And you know, it happened to me so profoundly that when I got my first to peanut from the SEC for something, I wasn't really even guilty of it. I was just, like, vomiting. Like I was so, I was like, oh my god, my life is all over. I got a subpoena.

I'm like, I do. It was a simple subpoena. And I was just so nervous. I was devastated my life. It's all about two years later.

I'm like through the paper shred. Like you don't, you become, it's no weird how that happens. You know? Yeah. And it's very, very careful with your ethics.

And I, you know, the, the really sad part is that, you know, you make more money by being ethical. Just takes a little bit longer. But the big money is by being ethical. Yeah.

And picking back up on on your book, that same kid who vomited

when he first got the SEC subpoena, you, you write, you would wind up

bugging the SEC. How, how did you do that? It's really easy. I mean, it was, they went into my office. And they were sitting in my conference room for, for months and months

on and for what reason I know, I know, let's say, it's a different world back then. It didn't have like computers the way that. That's like, it's a shift through bounds of paperwork. Like I said, the site is easier to come to us.

So, you know, you had all these spy shops back then. It sold all these, the true little, a plug that looks like a, that, you know, like a plug. It was actually a listening device. And we put that device in and see what they were saying,

which really wasn't that much. And, uh, yeah. And then we actually got caught doing that, and I was like, "Oh, no." There's a great scene.

So, Bo Deedle would become your, like, chief investigator sort of protector. And a lot of my listeners may know him from my time at Fox. And, and he's on Fox. He was all the time with Sean Hannity. Such a colorful character.

Um, I was just telling my friend, great story about Bo. He's just so funny. And, there's a, he ran for mayor a couple years ago. And he was like, "Oh, my God.

I was just telling my friend." He was like, "Oh, my God. I was just telling my friend." Great story about Bo. He's just so funny.

And there's a, he ran for mayor a couple years ago. And New York.

“And I can't remember the context in which he said it.”

But it was basically, it was in a magazine article. And he was talking about how he's going to clean up New York City. I think. And he's like, "I'm going to clean up this city from Harlem. All the way down to that slut New York Harbour."

I'm like, "Does he mean the Statue of Liberty?" He's talking about that Statue of Liberty. That slut New York Harbour. We were communicating, but with everything has an attation at the end. Yeah.

I want your tation and my mediation. And I love, in you, you'd write about how this I didn't know about Bo.

He's never done it with me.

But he calls the people around him, Bo. I did not know that. Yeah. It calls everyone Bo. So he's like, "He's like the larger than life character."

You know, he's always very good in the mind. And I respect them. You know, he just did a lot of good stuff. He personally had people, you know, like your security guards. And he did a good job for me.

Yeah. So he tried to help you. He was quick to tell you, please do not try to bug the FBI agents. Do not try to tape them. Do not try to bug offices or briefcases or anything like that.

Okay. So you go from the penny stock place. How does Stratton Oakmont? It's got a great name. And that's by design.

But how does Stratton Oakmont, which was officially born in 1989, come about? So Stratton was actually started Stratton Securities. We started in 1979, I think. And it was a trading firm that just you know, did a lot of interbank trading insurance companies, just traders, right?

And then when the crash came, the firm basically lost all its equity and it was teetering, you know, by thread. And right around the time I decided to open up my own brokerage firm. You know, Stratton became available that you could use their licenses with what was called an OSJ, an office of supervised regeristicium.

So I jumped on that damn wagon.

“And that's how it started with Stratton.”

After a short time, another firm, I mean, Oakmont became available. And I wanted to give some things with that that firm. I like that a good clearing arrangement. The trader was more professional than what I had. So I bought Oakmont.

And that's how I can't distracted Oakmont. Okay. So you wind up going around and hired a bunch of guys. And there, these are, I don't know how you want to describe them. But I'll talk to the earth.

They're really focused on a lesson.

And you were their fearless leader who is up there like,

let me show you how it's done.

“There's a famous scene in the movie and what you're talking to them about selling.”

And you know, how they got to get out there and sell. And they did respect you. And they were very loyal to you. And they all looked up to you. Here's this clip of you.

Well, Leonardo DiCaprio as you motivating the team. There is no nobility in poverty. I've been a rich man and I have been a poor man. And I chose rich every fucking time. Yeah.

Because the least is a rich man. When I have to face my problems, I show up in the back of a limo. When a $2,000 suit and a $40,000 go fucking watch. If anyone here thinks I'm superficial, on materialistic, go get a job and fucking McDonald's.

Because that's why you fucking belong. Taps right into Wall Street at the time. And the guys and it was, you know, if everybody and it's us against them and be a killer. And that worked.

It worked very well. And that's, you know, it's a really interesting scene. Because it's true. I mean, that was a comes from a speech that I kind of reconstructed. I wrote my book.

But that came later. That mentality. Like, like, you know, let's just say,

what we were doing at that time was a little different than when the firm first started.

You know, in the firm first thought, we were selling penny stocks to average moms and pops. Like that other company was doing. And then I came with this idea to go to the richest one percent. And just to call, you know, really rich people and sell them five dollar stocks.

So the lead that that really made stradden stradden was we weren't selling penny stocks. We were selling five dollar stocks. And we weren't calling average moms and pops. We were calling rich business owners. And that was also what forced me to come up with a new way of training sales people.

Because what happened was the way I had been training sales people with the first program, calling average moms and pops. It was very easy sales, more of an impulse sale. Like, you know, dollar and a dream like a lot of ticket. And it was very different than what was happening when I actually had to go and call the richest one percent and sell them five dollar stocks.

“And so many of the kids that worked for me, which what?”

Because they were not educated highly. They did not naturally that intelligent. And also another who possessed an ego. Let's say they were no members of the lucky sperm club. No Ivy League diploma.

So they couldn't close the rich people. I had to come up with a new way of training sales people. I'm going to stand you by right there. Because we're just, this is a good time for a quick pause, quick break. And much, much more on the opposite side of this with Jordan Belfort, the wolf of Wall Street.

So the street line. What's the, the other piece of the street line? One is motivation. And the other is actually had a sell to really rich people. And in a nutshell, how is that?

So the motivation is definitely part of the straight line. Like, sort of, you know, there's two, there's two sides to, to succeed in anything. And we live in a world of duality. This up is going to be down. Yes, no start stop.

Even the digital world that allows us to communicate about one year or zero, right? Just two sides to every coin. Same thing goes in success and sales. And we speak of sales. So you know, there's the inner game of sales success and entrepreneurial success.

And the outer game, inner game means your mindset. What's happening up here between your ears before you ever go out and try to close someone or thought of business, whether that might be. Then the outer world, all you're the actual real world skills that allow you to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

So, you know, in mindset, there's things like managing your emotional state. Make sure you're in a positive and power and emotional state that you have belief systems that support you and that propel you to success and don't stop you from succeeding. Or the cause you don't pull back where you shouldn't. Beliefs like my parents have.

They thought that selling was evil. Like marketing was evil. That any kind of risk was a bad thing. Those are limiting beliefs when it comes to making money. So, you know, you could have the best entrepreneurial skill set and education.

Like my parents did like that great education. But if you have that sort of belief system, you're going to stop you from achieving. So, that's inner game as well. Then you're going to think you're just called, you know, your vision focus. You know, what's your vision?

You have a target that you're aiming for. Where do you want to be in five years from now? And why does it matter to you?

“Very important, you know, why you do what you do?”

And most people, they got to make money. That's not a why. You know, why is much more profound than that? As typical to do with someone that you love unconditionally or cause you believe it. It's not about you.

We've got the people that you love with the community. Or something bigger than yourself.

That's a real powerful why.

Then lastly, on the inner game is something called your standards. Your personal standard. What you will not settle for less than. You know, a standard operates like a thermostat. You know, it's like your set point.

Where do you burn? Where do you feel comfortable? If you have a low standards for making money, well, guess what?

If the thermostat set to a low level, the thermostat so pretty quickly. If the thermostat is set to a low level, it keeps going. So that's what your standards operate. Like all that's happening every second of every day in your mind. And it's influencing what decisions you make, what you do has your head goal.

Diversity. And those things when they're wrapping to one in power to, you know, into one in power. Let's say, you know, lump, so to speak with you. Like literally, you know, you have this ability to just be positive and think positively and focus on what you want to go in life.

That sets you up for massive success in the outer world, which is now where your strategies, your real world business and entrepreneurial and sales strategies. For example, is a business owner. You know, there are certain skill sets that an entrepreneur must add. There's knowledge that you need.

It's critical.

Mission critical knowledge.

You know, like, talk about entrepreneurship. Could we divide into, like, just two size? Like, you need to learn how to, believe it or not, fail elegantly. Like, how do you go into business and be wrong? And, and because you're wrong more than you're right when you go into business.

You can, you know, be on the wrong side of the test more open than not. How do you maximize the less is learned in the failure? In the failures. But minimize the amount of money lost time lost so you can learn from it and move on and try again. And then that's failing.

Elements crucial. You've tweeted out and I've heard you say before, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

“I love meeting people who know what to make because that's how you learn, right?”

Yeah, so it's okay. It's okay to fail. It's okay to fail. Do it well.

Do it elegantly and understand.

It's not so bad to be the one learning. Yeah, and I don't also think, what are the, you know, one of the things that I, I think are quite a well known for, and I said to my kids all the time, especially with younger is like, you're not the failure as of that your past. You're the resources and the capabilities you've gleaned from your past failures. You get stronger when you fail, if you learn from those failures, you don't become your failure.

You don't stop thinking you want the failure. Your failure is not you. It's a lesson learning. You grow stronger with each time you fail. And both mentally and you learn from that.

And that's what sets you up to succeed the next time. So I like that. Failure means you're a risk taker. If you've got some failures behind you, it means you're a risk taker. If you haven't failed, then you probably haven't tried.

But it's like, it's like, I don't know many people. And even like someone, like, if you look at someone like Zuckerberg, who, like, you've seen me as his fail. But he did fail. He said all these launches and things he's tried since then that hadn't worked out. You know, it doesn't affect his, his, his, his massive net worth.

It is more probably better. Everyone tries and fails. And it's what you do when you, when you try and fail, that defines where you are.

“You know, how do you process that you learn from it?”

Or do you let it paralyze you? And the worst is that you let it fall limiting beliefs inside of you. Like you have a failure about, you know, in a business, you're like, oh, maybe I'm, I'm just not meant to be an entrepreneur. It's not for what?

And that's a massively problematic limiting belief. So it's an example of how you could fail and let it paralyze you versus, okay, I failed. Let me look soberly at this and say, why? What's it was missing you? What can I learn?

How can I grow? And then you try again, integrate those lessons from your failure into your next pass at success. And if you do that enough time, you surely will succeed. And probably sooner than you think. So it's a crucial part.

And then also the other side of that is what with entrepreneurship. So the family, elegantly and also succeeding wildly. What do you do when when the idea is right when you have an idea you tested and it's actually working better than you thought. How do you take a small idea and scale it? How do you turn a small business into a big business into a international business?

And it's all these rules and strategies that are proven to work.

“And you need to know these as an entrepreneur.”

And they're all learnable. They're out there. I'm just taking it to an open world on the internet. So so you're really, I would say ignore that at your own parals. That's entrepreneurship.

The next skills that's crucial in the outer game is marketing.

How do you go out and identify who your best buyers are, your potential buyers? And how do you reach them in a cost effective way? You know, this is the online marketing which is very popular right now. I'm sure to take it to you to base things like social media, Google ads. You know, all the things that we know and use online to reach people both in our local market and all over the world.

Absolutely crucial. And those skills are learnable. They're out there and you can hire people if you don't have it yourself. And then there's the offline, the traditional TV, radio. You know, knocking on doors calling on the telephone.

So that's marketing and marketing brings people into your so-called sales funnel. Your store, your website, whatever that might be. And then the next step is the one that I'm probably best known for is sales. Persuasion. How do you take those people and close them?

How do you get them to see the value of what you have to offer that you are the best solution for.

That's without that skills very hard to make money. And then the last part of us, you know, I want to call MSI's multiple students.

“If you come in, what do you do with your money once you make it?”

How do you put your money to work to make more money for you? So you can ultimately retire and be wealthy. You know, you don't just run around like a chip with a hedgehog and make the next stock. Because your money is actually earning money for you. Those are just four and one side, four and the other.

So inner-game, outer-game, eight things and all. You know, all eight of those things. You're going to end up being very successful by that promise. You know, it's funny. Back in 2016, I actually wrote a book called "Settle for More."

And the title was from a saying. The only difference between you and someone you envy is you settled for less. And it actually got it from Dr. Phil. But right, it's just to the point you made, right? Like, you got to set the high goals.

And if you set the low goals, then you're sitting there feeling unhappy. That's on you. When you're probably the prominent ghost people in their goals. You know, people don't succeed. The promise that they not really set their goals to high and miss them.

They mostly set their goals to low and hit them. And then, like, because the enemy of great is good. Because when you're feeling good or average, there's no pain or uncomfortability. So you don't have any impetus change.

So it's like, you know, one of the most profound things I ever heard in the interview was from James Cameron. He was being interviewed as after Avatar came out. Now, he had like two out of three multi-billion dollar blockbusters.

“And I think he was thinking Larry James,”

forgot who it was. He arrested a piece. They said, you know, James, how is that you, one person, has, you know, two of the biggest grossing movies of all time. And goes, well, when I go about planning sound,

I'm taking that. I am shooting to, I'm looking to have a three billion dollar. I want to have the biggest multi-billion dollar in my mind. So if I'm only half right, I'm still doing really well. He said, well, so high that even if he misses them,

he's still doing well. And I think it's a real, it's a, wow.

And I always knew that to be true and taught that myself,

but to hear it from James Cameron, like, so he's like a filmmaker. It just showed me how it just translates into all types of businesses in the streets. It's a mindset thing. You know, where do you set your goal?

The aiming for here? Yeah, you're probably hitting it. But then more. Okay. So you'll need to go on your average and average.

Like, you know, average plus average plus average times average. Like equals average.

“So I'd somehow that all collandulates to be great.”

It's like, you know, the mortgage crisis where they said, let's take a bunch of piece of shit deadbeat borrowing. That's where they'd be loans. Okay. And that'd be bars on piece of shit.

Okay. But deadbeat loans, right? And they're all terrible. But we put them all together. They're suddenly good.

No, you're enjoying it. Look terrible. Like, it doesn't change the makeup. Like, I put it a lot of beds together. Something becomes good through diversification.

So the same thing is true of success. And I would add to that success in love and business. And it's, you can apply it across the board. For sure.

And I always say that, you know, like I had incredibly high standards for money and success.

But very low standards. My personal relationships with my wife. Like, you know, what, what you have a high standard. What you focus on. You, you won't settle for less than.

So I learned the hard way. And also for ethics. My ethical standard was very, became very low. It started role-fi, it dropped. And because of that, I paid the price.

So in those standards, we have them for everything. We have them for love. We have them for relationships. We have them for body. And I'm always at a very high standard for keeping in shape.

So yeah. So my body is in point. So I exercise every day. If your body is not one, what do you do? You want exercise.

It's hilarious to hear you say that after all the drugs. I know you've taken. What? I mean, I want you to consider it. I really want to talk about that.

Because I've, I've told my audience this before.

I do drink alcohol, but I, I've literally never tried a drug.

I've never tried an illicit drug of any kind. And I, I don't know if I'm in the minority, the majority. But yeah, living, having lived in New York for almost 20 years, and having practiced law and been in media. I think that's unusual.

But I'm kind of curious about all the drugs you took. And like, how they felt and how you feel about them. Now, I know you're sober now. But it was a lot. And you lived a life of big, big debauchery.

While you were, while you were running that firm. And I, I'm just curious about the whole thing. So, let me start with this. I had you grown up, go to the squeeze in a break in a minute, but had you grown up, doing drugs, drinking alcohol,

like were you that kind of person before all this? I do drugs occasionally in high school in the college. But no, I was not a drug. I was never addicted to drugs. And it was never something that was like an integral part of my life growing up.

But I tried, I tried drugs and I used them. Like, you know, most kids had, you know, I think back then it's no part.

But that wasn't something that was really part of my life.

Mm-hmm.

“And so, when you were at the penny stock firm and Rothschild before that,”

this is prior to, you know, the formation of stradden, had it yet blown up in your life where you were addicted yet. When you started that firm, the big firm. That was another part of the movie that was a bit. I thought was kind of, to me it could have been done a bit more elegantly.

Again, I looked movie, but if it was things that could change, they had me going to the dark side really fast. And like, it almost like, you know, I go day one, I like this really wet behind the ears, honest kid. They kept me make our clients money too.

And he's like, no. And I'm like, okay. And then the next scene, I'm going to strip the club story. Oh, right. That's okay, wait.

That's a great place to leave it. We've got a clip to sort of bring that to life for you right after this quick break. When we have more with Jordan Belfer, the Wolf of Wall Street sex drugs and Leonardo DiCaprio. What more could you ask for?

Stay tuned. So Jordan, so you, how many years were you? I don't know if we can say on the straight narrow, but like, how long did it take before a full debauchery in drug addiction set in?

Um, so I would say to, from the time of, I walked out of Wall Street for two years to start using drugs and maybe two and a half to be really deep into it. And, you know, drug addiction is a very strange thing. It's very insidious.

It starts slowly and it creeps in a little bit at a time and before you know it, you know, one drug makes you want to do another drug to counter balance.

And they get effects of the first one and the third one.

I mean, it happens really slowly. And, um, but I would say by 1991, 1990, I was full in very much into drugs. Okay, and, um, the, you know,

“I think I understand that just because anybody who drinks alcohol”

can understand the alcohol at night and coffee in the morning, this is just a much more extreme version of it. And when you, when the firm was killing it and you were killing it, there's, uh, that's portrayed in the movie and you're pretty open about the drugs and here's a clip of, uh, Leonardo as you,

on the drug cocktail that you'd been using. On a daily basis, I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month. Okay, Mr. Jordan, I take Quayludes 10 to 15 times a day for my back pain, adder all the stay focused.

Zanix, it takes the edge off pot to melomy alcohol, came to wake me back up again and morphing well. Because it's awesome. All the drugs under God's blue heaven. There is one that is my absolute favorite.

That's boom. That's cool. See, enough of this should'll make you invincible. able to conquer the world and to this reach your enemies. Oh, and I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about this.

At the end there for our listeners, he was the character with snorting cocaine. I said, I'm not talking about this. The coke he's talking about this and he holds up a $100 bill. Money. Money was the number one drug. I had to say that, which I could take credit for writing that line.

That was Kevin's winter, who came up with that brilliant statement, which is so true. But yeah, I thought that was so clever of him. Because, you know, the other things I all said, but he sort of pivoted that this ultimate truth

that the money itself was the most powerful drug alone.

I read that like, wow, this guy is good. How much money were you making at your peak? Oh, so a lot of money. Yeah, you know, let's go back to the time walls. This is a time before hedge funds.

Before you heard about people making hundreds of millions of dollars. I was making, you know, a million a week in cash. And the cash side, plus I was taking stakes in all these different companies. So I didn't network much, much higher. I had shares, and you know, there was a time I owned 85% of Steve Madden's shoes

and 20 other companies. And that will all go in public or war public. And then I was making the cash portion as well. So I was making phenomenal amount of money. Wow.

You had a yacht, you had a helicopter, you had a state's mansions, and so on jewels for your wives, and blah, blah, blah. What did it feel like? Did it make you happy? You know, the goal of being rich.

Were you feeling like nailed it?

“I think the thing about money is that, you know,”

and I've said this many times, you know, I've been rich and been really, really, really happy.

I've been poor and really, really, really miserable,

but never once I've been poor happy.

“Like, so like, it's like, I think money doesn't buy happiness.”

But a lack of money can really be a passport to misery and discomfort. And I've seen a lack of money cause so many problems and marriages with families and, and you know, and money is an impotty.

My belief is money is an incredibly important thing. It's a tool. It's certainly at everything. And it will buy happiness, but without it, you can really be making your life much more complicated

and your relationships, much more tenuous without money. So I mean, that's the best definition I give you. Did it feel great to make all that money? Yeah, I mean, it felt great and I just make a lot of money now. And it's, I love making money,

but I don't buy into this idea that it's the money itself that's making me happy because I sometimes now run on happy. And I have times now run as ecstatic. But I will tell you that I was broke right now. I would not be very happy at all ever.

What was your favorite toy, right? Like what? Because a lot of people fantasize about having all that,

“all that dough and they ask what would I buy and what would I love?”

What was your favorite? I might be helicopter, you know? On the yacht and helicopter. And you know, we'd land this helicopter and on the boat and then take it out and fly it around.

My captain was amazing. He was a great pilot. He'd fly 10 feet off the water and, you know, I'm like gunship and Vietnam sort of stuff. And we just, you know, we had that boat in places that, you know, that you would normally not go to.

The Virgin Islands or the Caribbean and then take the helicopter and just see amazing things land in live volcanoes that weren't currently erupting.

So we did always really cool things.

And that was probably the most, my favorite toy even more so than the yacht. Mm-hmm. And is it true that the yacht, the Nadine named after your second wife, was taken down by a rogue wave? Yeah, that's true.

What happened? We were to storm a massive storm that kicked up. It started off as it's like, you know, some chop heavy chop. And the captain was, you know, advising me against making the crossing from Rome to Sardini. But, you know, I was like, can we make it?

He's like, yeah, we'll make it. You know, it's me rock. We'll be uncomfortable. Break a few places like, let's go. That was just an action junction.

Jump in and also a plan. I was doing a lot of drugs, you know? And that sort of got me into this mind that, like, I couldn't sit still. I had to move. That's coldness.

Go. Let's go. You know? And I convinced him to make the crossing. And then in unbeknownst to him, or I at the time, a freak storm was about to kick

up and it did. And those six to eight foot waves became 20 foot waves really fast. And then 50 foot waves. And then we got hit with a rogue wave to the side.

“And that's how the whole thing happened.”

Yeah, it's crazy. Oh, my God. So I mean, did she break apart? It seemed like it was their helicopter rescue? Yeah, 100%.

So it's just so hard to believe. It's so crazy. What? No, Megan, I'll tell you this.

The reality is far more cinematic than the movie.

I think the budgetary reason they didn't recreate what really happened. It was just an 18 hour ordeal where the boat was sinking slowly on its side up to getting hit by this wave and going down. And they tried to first, the Italians first tried to send that a coast called helicopter, which lowered down a basket.

But in 50, 60 miles, I was, you know, it looks easy in the movies. But in reality, the basket swing on 100 feet that way. It couldn't get the basket to the boat. And then they ran out of gas. So they had to go back.

Well, then the counts. All right, we need to abandon shit. I'm like, what? Like into the life frame. I'm like, you're not kidding.

So captain's orders. Like, all right, so you're all going to the back of the boat. And he puts the rubber wrap in a band. Like a one second to wrap and watch the way. Of course.

It took down a yacht. It's going to take down a raft. It's so funny when I watch this in the movie. I was like Leonardo DiCaprio will only be in movies in which big ships go down that he's on. This is big.

Apparently, that is crazy. You've survived so many massive life risks. No, not yes, drugs, of course. And then there was prison. But like, that was so crazy.

I had a hard time believing it, but I believe you now. So you, so the drugs and the whole thing. Can we just talk about the marriages for a minute? Because in the movie, your wife is your second wife, Nadine, who is this incredibly beautiful woman in real life and in the movie. You've fallen love with her while you're still married to your first wife.

And in the movie, they portrayed as Margot Robbie walking in. They're just completely floored by this gorgeous woman.

It's so nice to meet you. We have a ton in common. I hate perpetual victimhood and people who blame others for their problems. I love Brian Friedman, who we both know it's our lawyer. And I also had a movie made about my life in which Margot Robbie started.

So she played your second wife, Nadine.

There's actually, in the movie that was partially about me. Mom's shell, she played a different character and Charlize there and played me. Hold on, we actually had a full screen made showing that the split screen of the two will pop it up there. Look, there's me and me, Charlize and Margot and Leonardo and Margot. So yeah, so Margot Robbie plays your second wife.

And your thoughts now because Nadine is a big star in your life and the movie and the book. You call her the Duchess, because I guess she was British originally. Your thoughts on her, because it's a real love story you do wind up having a terribly tumultuous relationship with her. And I know you're married to somebody else now. But I kind of wanted you to put a period on the end of that relationship for me and how you see it now.

“And I think that was, you know, she was, I think, you know, you have certain people that come into your lives at certain times for a reason.”

And she was the right person for me at that time. I, you know, I really, the sad part, I really loved my first wife.

I really did. She was an amazing lady.

I think she was under betrayed in the book in many ways. In the movie, she was a beautiful woman. The girl played it was beautiful too, but she really was a good woman. And, and, but at that point in time, I don't think anyone could have survived what I was at the time of everything was taking more of so fast. And it was, you know, the drugs involved, it was just like I was looking.

I was in that mindset, just what's next? What's next? What's the success? And it was excess at every turn. Well, more or less, she's weird mindset that you get into sometimes on Wall Street. And all the times as well, the Wall Street seems to bring it out in people.

And, um, and I know her just, it was just like the movie.

Literally, like exactly like that at a party she walked in. I was, but she was gorgeous and then we, you know, I tracked her down and we went out.

“And, and, you know, I looked a very important lesson, you know, from that whole situation about cheating and a marriage.”

Because I don't cheat my marriages after that. I didn't cheat after that marriage. Because, um, you, you, you can't choose who you fall in love with. Like it's, and, you know, you're playing Russian roulette. Like, you know, you thought this kind of, kind of casual affair because you don't know what might happen with that affair. And I, I've done love with her. I didn't really intend to.

But when you do fall in love with someone, um, you know, it's very difficult. Um, to stay with someone that you're not in love with anymore, because I think it's all the little two people at the same time. You know, you, but you have saying you didn't cheat on Nadine, the Margot Robbie character, because that's like half the movie of you with the hookers while you're married to her. Is that you're saying when you're a current marriage, you don't. After her, like, when I look, the whole, when I look back and say when I perspective, but I look back at my life after my marriage to Nadine.

Okay. Okay. Got it. She, when I wrote my book, that was really to, for me, writing the book was incredibly, like, profound experience. It was almost like self analysis and self psychology, my own, you know, strengths, faults and frail things, right? And when I look back then, even when I was with Nadine, I kind of knew that I made this gross error in terms of just like going out and sticking my hand in the cookie jaw. But just to understand, you're doing drugs, like the way I was doing drugs, you know, anything is possible.

There is no, like, oh, I'm going to be a good, you're like a different person. And a certain point, you get caught up in a mindset where everything can be rationalized and everything seems okay.

“The truth is, I had far more, I, I, I, this is going to sound strange to you, okay, but it's not a strange thing.”

But, you know, in my mind, I didn't consider sleeping with hookers cheating in the traditional sense because there was no emotional attachment. No, I, I understand that. My, my husband wrote a book about Wall Street called "Ghost of Manhattan." And he, he did it, it was very well researched. This is one of the points he makes about the guys who, whether it's hookers or what they call for give me a rub and tug from a massage therapist kind of thing. They don't consider cheating. Exactly. So, yeah, I'm glad that you at least, you know, you don't have to agree with it, but you get on the stand.

I'm not the only person that thinks that and I'm not saying it's right, because I don't think it's right. He retrospect, they don't think it, but that's how I was thinking it's fine. And she knew, she knew what was going on. She was aware because it was all, everyone was getting married. It was having batch of bodies and all the stories were certain, but it was kind of harmless, so to speak, right? And then I had some affairs as well as as did she, you know, she was no angel either, right?

It takes to the tango. But yeah, and I think that since that marriage, however, I've been in a relationship I've been faithful since then, so without after that.

And when you first did it for the first time, like, you know, it's not like ordering Domino's pizza.

Like, how does, okay, I mean, I was like, it's like ordering Domino's pizza probably these days. So now I've told on the internet, you know, and you have all these websites and all this sort of stuff that goes on around the world, everywhere. I mean, you can go any, like any city is like a crazy list.

“I think it was really big with it for a while. I'm not really up on the precise these days, but I'm sure if you just,”

Google, call girls in my city, you'll think that was enough. Your public service announcement for the day. Okay. So in the movie, this is portrayed with, like, I mean, it's not just hookers. It's like, orgy's, it's craziness on planes, so many naked girls everywhere, so much drugs, so much alcohol. Is that how it really was?

Yeah, so it was like that in worse. It became, it became some sort of perverted version of can you top of this? You know, it's like, you know, where are these action junkies that we're constantly looking for higher and higher cliffs to dive off of and shower and shower pools to land in, so every time you would do something, it would be extreme and insane. What do you do next to top it? You know, the first time we did something obscene, you would think it sounded obscene,

I mean, some kid that was struggling financially, we'd just say, well, shape is heading in 10,000 dollars, and that was amazing.

We got a barbershop poll we need. Oh, it was like, oh, my God, we're going to shave everyone, I'm crazy. But then three months later, a head shaving is a hundred dollars, so it becomes like the norm.

“So what did you do next? Well, what shape a girl said? Like, you know, let's, you know, it's every time you do something, it's like, what's next? What's next?”

So this sort of evolution of insanity that happens by trying to constantly keep yourself and everyone around you at your 10. That was compared, strang, like, to be on the floor, the brokerage room is like, is like the floor, the call, see him, the sense of the call, see him, where maximum depraved he serves entertaining for the mob, and it was very much like that. Yes, I read in your book that you said that you had to impose a rule in the office between the hours of I think 8 AM and 7 PM. People were not allowed to have sex on the floor.

Most people didn't obey that, though, like that, that started from, you know, you know, it's really dangerous.

In the beginning, I was very, like, very straight like that, like the first time I caught someone was a day, day one.

Some kid was getting a blow job and an elevator, and I was like, and I've heard this, and I'm going to fire this kid. And then, like, like, going, you know, and then, you know, it's not so tough, like whatever, within a week, the girl and given a blow job to everybody. And then it's like, it's so crazy if you're not actively guarding your own ethics, your own integrity, your own moral compass. It is really, really easy making for it to spiral out of control, really easy. I'm telling you, really.

Yeah, this is kind of the theme of the interview, right? Back to our original point, but the guy cheating on the series seven. So, when you look back now, how old do you now? I'm 59. Okay, so when you look back now at that time and the craziness and the excess, you know, from a guy who had to be rescued from the waters after your yacht sunk,

I wonder, what does anything jump out at you as especially crazy? Like, wow, that was the most, that was the most excessive. My bachelor party, we really can't talk about here. It's just too disgusting, but, you know, my bachelor party was like a low, I think. And it was like sort of a culmination, you know, can you top this?

What, you know, what, what can we do? That's just, you know, a depraved and unusual.

“And, you know, it's almost like, you know, you see, it is before, you know, remember the time, this is before the internet, you know?”

And, you know, and now on the internet, you could find every type of perversion and insanity and over the top behavior, whether it's all my platforms with it doing gags and stunts or on porn sites, everything that you want is on the internet, right? Now, good bed, I'll be all the wise. Back then, that didn't exist. And, you know, you imagine things from what you saw in movies and her things that you were like, put together these like scenarios of what you thought was cool. And what you thought was fun, and you're like embedding it as you go along.

And we were doing that at a very high level, because we had a lot of money. So we nothing was really out of reach of what we could do. So, you know, while some of my have a basketball, I have a dancer or a one-crosser, we had 100 of them. And, you know, if there's so many bring some drugs, we had a bubble loads of drugs. It was all like, you know, sort of five times, five times ten times a hundred.

And, and it was insane. It truly wasn't saying. Would you ever have the sick feeling the next day? I don't mean physical illness. Obviously, that must have come with it, but would you ever have the, you know, the moral second guessing the next day?

Or would that just, that would have to wait until sobriety and, you know, prison and all that?

You would, so you were conscious of the wrongness of it.

“Well, I'm always talking about these things.”

Like, I'm almost like watching my own life for, you know, unfold before me. Like, I'm an actor on a stage not to control my own behavior, which is a massive, incredible cop-out. I mean, it's an incredible, like, liberating cop-out. Thought me, it's a mathematical troll, right? Right?

But it's impossible, but you rationalize.

Never underestimate the power of rationalization.

And also, you know, what we do as human beings as we surround ourselves with a peer group that shares our value. So we don't think we're crazy. So, you know, what defines what's normal and not in its societies, what's happening in society every day. So, we almost formed a self-contained society where rules that would by PCM abnormal or complete attic control in the real world seem quite normal in the full walls on the border or when we were partying in a hotel or more casino. Mm-hmm.

That makes us do it. It doesn't make sense, and it's scary. It's, I see it, and I read it.

It's like, you almost have to look at the people around you for the reflection of what you are.

Good or bad, but eventually, it would all come crashing down legally. The marriage, the money, all of it, and that's where we're going to pick it up next with Jordan Belfort. So happy to be speaking with the wolf of Wall Street, and we'll be right back with more. I can't skip by before we get to the downfall about asking you about the animals that were allowed on the floor of your office. Spend a second on that.

Yeah, it was like, it was a zoo, where you think that would be the people there to zoom with the animals. But yeah, but people would be getting pets, like the guanas and dogs and parrots and fish, golf fishes, you know, one of them got eaten.

“So, yeah, there we had the sort of, I think we were ahead of our time in that sense.”

Yeah, the sort of, like, fun loving atmosphere that they grow culture on high tech firms have now. It's like, you know, it's sort of like you go to work and like it's all about being comfortable having fun at work with that, like being big chairs. And that obviously we had to get a twist there, like, you know, because that's it. But I mean, some of the, of the untraditional stuff replacing trails. What you didn't know was that that was the, they're emotional support iguana.

I mean, these guys, they needed, they needed a lifeline. I read that, um, the one that was a bridge too far for you was a chimpanzee coming in and a diaper. You had even you drew the line at that one.

Exactly. It was, you know, there was always like, uh, interesting things trying to be brought into the border.

Um, acts of the, you know, where they were people, animals, things you name it. But it was a freak, you know, it makes sense when you view it from the lens of what happened, you put 3,000 barely post adolescent kids in a room and give them too much money and too much time and some drugs. And what do you think is going to be good. So it's like, I, when I look at this and read about this, all I can think is, can you imagine if today's post me to post like, like, I'm a woke world, woke world, got to look at this in, you know, present day.

Right, and I, you know, it's really interesting that you say that because, you know, I come from a family as I told you a really empowered female. My mother is a really empowered, successful, educated, trailblazing woman. She lives the oldest woman at the past, the bar. She was voted pro bono war, beer in the York and she was like 74. She's still strong, it's not at 89 or 80 or 80, it should tell me 88. But like, you know, there wasn't, it's interesting because the, you know, rules have changed so much over the years.

If you would ask me if we sexually harassed girls back then, I would say, I'm incredibly not. Like, unequivalent, that no girl at, I knew what any girl there that was being harassed, I fired a guy. Like, it just puts, if I found out, then a guy was doing something to a girl the girl did at one, I would have insisted that they be fired immediately. And I, I, I live by the swear by that today, most of the girls there are part of the insanity. Well, that's the thing, it's not harassment if you want it.

You really enjoy now. I'm bet you though, in retrospect, it was happening hidden from me. And also, in this sort of culture, women accepting things they probably won't come to win, but had to smile and shake it off because they thought that was the norm.

“So I think it's very good on some level that that's changed.”

That women speak up for themselves and and don't accept it. And not comfortable because they feel like they have to, so I'm betting that there was women that were very uncomfortable there, and that, but they just felt that they had no choice.

I think also, I agree that it's gone many make way too far, in some cases with the sort of victim mentality that people not taking responsibility for their pot and things as well.

“And I think that, you know, going back 20 years and trying to say something happened without proof is very difficult.”

In some cases, it's very clear like when you're in animals like Harvey Weinstein, it's obviously things happen. And then this proof is corroborating evidence, but it's a lot more subtle than that with many cases, and it's a very difficult thing. So I don't protect that the answer, but but we certainly did not look at it as harassment.

That I tell you, that women stopped in a second.

I'm thinking now, there was a woman who came out in my show at NBC. We were doing a story on harassment, me too, what's happening in the society right in the midst of all of it. And she was complaining, the her complaint, it wasn't like part of a bigger story, her complaint. She's part of a panel, was that her boss told her she looked hot in her dress. Now, okay, it's not ideal because you want to be seen as professional, but like, that's not really what the me too movement.

It was, I, all I can think about is the woman from your firm saying that I had a girl next to me giving blow jobs to have the firm sit down, take a seat. Woman would say, damn, I thought I looked pretty hot that day too, like that mindset back then probably. But like, again, I'm a daughter of my daughter's 27. She's 20, 28. She's a graduate from NYU degree in psychology and grad school. Very empowered woman, very, very liberal in our, in our beliefs and stuff, and then we get a little phenomenal.

We don't agree on a lot of stuff. But one thing I certainly do, is victim, but I think that sometimes this has a way of crossing over into someone becoming a victim. And I don't think that helps any course. I think that I think it's things have to change. It's good that they're changing and we'll continue. But there's, I think what gets lost sometimes in these, in these movements and these paradigm shifts is like, it's like, you can't pay everything in one brush.

“There's like a degrees of things and there's a continuum and you have to look at things.”

Really a long nicotine to decide, you know, what do you do about something that happened a long time ago? I think it's really sad when someone loses that career over something that happened 15 or 20 years ago when the norms were different. That being said, then there's monsters out there that deserve everything that they got. And, and that's a great thing. So, but I think it's more complex than just bad. Good, you know. All right, I still agree with you.

I mean, I was talking with Douglas Murray who is brilliant in a social commentator and author and this British guy and he's great and he and I was talking to him about these college students who are yelling at their school deans saying, these were college students who happen to be black saying, you don't understand anything. We come, you know, we come from slaves that are, you don't have the same ancestors. Our ancestors were slaves and years weren't.

And, you know, you basically can't explain anything to us because of that.

And I said, well, you know, how's the guy supposed to respond to this? And Douglas Murray said, we can all do that. We can all do that, right? Everybody's got some sort of a painful history. It doesn't mean that equal slavery, but bad. You know, it's bad. I mean, listen, my people, the Irish Americans didn't have it so good when we first came over to America and you could go down the list. But you tweeted out something on July 22nd where I was like, well, I haven't seen a shorter, more succinct version of the way I feel, which is sad story.

No one cares where a Carter. It's not to dismiss slavery. It's not about slavery, but it's just about victim mentality. Something bad happened to you. I understand. Oh, it's an, it's, anyway, back to work.

“To try harder. Like, that's the only way forward sitting around and pointing the finger to everybody and lamenting and feeling like you're a bad luck and poor me.”

Not going to get you anywhere. I, you know, I have a, I've said publicly, many times, and very, very prejudice against two types of people, lazy people and stupid people. Everyone else, I'm totally okay with. It's like, I just despise lazy stupid people, right? And, you know, I, I believe in the egalitarian system. I grew up in a household that was like, it was just zero prejudice in my house.

I'm really, like, zero. Okay. Like, I never even considered it.

And when I saw it out in the world so much, it was pretty shocking to me. Um, and, but listen, I am, it's, it's, it's very complicated. You know, this stuff's really, you start getting into, into the race struggle. It's, you know, there's a lot of beds, shit that happened. And like, you know, I watched the movie recently. I was watching crash with my wife, Paul had some great film. And, you know, and you look back. And it's like, it was a pooling, but like, what we have the LAPD treated black with fucking pooling.

Imagine how many Dick can only imagine driving in a car and not look like I never worried that if I got pulled over something would happen. Like, I never even cared, right? So, but again, okay, sucks. We're caught in it. Again, like, okay. But like, you can't use as an excuse not to, you gotta still go phone in your own life. And, and just, you know, do the best with whatever hand was dealt to you. We all have negative stuff that either we was dealt us or for our own mistakes.

But one couldn't burn the other. So, I just did that, that when you take, sometimes things can be true, but okay.

So, what, like, you can't, if you, it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve your cause to live in the problem. Versus, you're actually, you know, living your most empowered version of your own life. And, and being part of a solution, which is work order, make changes, and go phone. But don't blame everyone around you for, you're long, you're still in the house here.

“Honestly, and I understand it, because it's not to say that there are no victims in the world.”

People don't get victimized, but I remember even when I was getting harassed by my boss at Fox. In the moment, talking to my therapist at the time, she was my, like, marital therapist.

Although, I didn't go through marital therapy with my first husband.

I just went to individual. And this woman, I was telling her about it. Like, this is what he's doing, all stuff. And she just kept putting it back on me. And now, today's people would say, oh, she was wrong. She blamed the victim. She didn't blame me.

“She just said, what could you have done differently in the room?”

What can you do differently in the future to make, you know, to try to avoid that situation? And I didn't find it offensive. I found it empowering. Right. Me. I will be the one to change my life and make sure this doesn't happen to me or that I navigate it better,

or that I navigate this definitely in a way that I can preserve my future in an industry in which I'm totally green and new. You know, of course, right? Of course you're right. Exactly.

“I think that most people have to believe field this way.”

The way you feel the way I feel, I think what we have in the Twitter sphere is, like, a relatively small group of very loud vocal people that is found on a view that is really not widely popular or believed. I think on some level, what happens is corporate America embraces that, because it allows, it gives them plausible deniability. So they say their work, they say they're doing all the stuff, so they can keep raping and coaching the village as they've done for the last 100 years. And it's a great way where responsible, see what, but they're actually in reality.

All it is, is smoke and mirage of the key doing the same old, same old thing by embracing causes they really don't believe it. So it's just to be, let me see what's happening, make zero sense unless you look at it in that way that it's like, it's all part of a much broader strategy to say where great, because if we embrace those causes, then we keep doing what we want and keep making as much money as we want as long as we want. Yeah, that's, that's PR. Don't be fooled. And I sadly, I don't know whether people are not, but they, they got to be paying attention.

Okay, so into your life comes someone named Agent Coleman portrayed in the movie by literally the only celebrity I've ever had a crush on Kyle Chandler. I love, I found love with him on Friday night lights, Doug knows. And he does a great job in the movie of sort of quietly stalking you, and you knew about this Agent Coleman who was on to you.

First, the SEC was on to you, and then he was an FBI agent who was on to you. And at first, you know, you, you'd never met him, but then they slap the cups on you one day and you met him.

When you, like, when was it that you realized the house of cards is coming down, I'm likely going to prison. And my sort of fast and loose with people's money's, you know, dodging the ethics laws and so on, what I, in a way that I thought was clever, but maybe not, has caught up with me. So, it's, it's a very, it's a good question, it's, it's an answer, it's probably a bit more lengthy than than you, because it's complex, it's not, it's not any one thing happening at one time, it's like sort of a lot of things happening at once.

The interesting thing, I think is how long it took him to actually find a way to, to get, to get an indictment against, because like, to be clear that what I was doing was not like a birdie made you off like, you know, hey, you know, just take your money, you'd like not, and that's like, I don't legitimate firm that was obeying every single securities law out there, so you could order it my firm. And then you're living maybe, I think it was there for years that couldn't find anything other than garden variety small violations that you would find it every firm.

So it wasn't like, I was breaking the laws, like, I, you know, if you just took the money, didn't mess the money, all they had to do was look, right, like how can they look crazy, right? No, yes, it was like living in my firm and watching every ticket, but I was breaking laws, but they were, they were very, it's very, it's hard to detect. You understand, it was like, so I'm not saying I wasn't right, it was, but if you look at the firm, unless you could speak to people that admit they were doing something you would never know, it would be a possible proof, right?

It was a very small portion of my business was illegal, very small, but that was enough to make it illegal, right?

It was the money laundering to Switzerland.

It was the fact that I moved money to Switzerland to a Swiss banker that, by my own bad luck, gotten died in the United States, not because of me, for other things he was involved with the Benning Hanna and he was wondering money for many different people.

“One of them was this sort of whole, well sure, but I'm never forget looking at the indictment against the sky and it's like, Benning Hanna, all sure about racing.”

I'm like, what is this? Like, not mine, it's indictment, this was banker. I was like, oh my God, could I have worse luck? I get the one banker that gets arrested in the United States for lowering money for the Benning Hanna. Now, what Benning Hanna is doing? I have no idea how what ended up happening with that, but it was in the indictment, right? And then I knew I was screwed because he got picked up and he's in the US and he's cooperate. So of course, he gave my name up and that was what gave Coleman the ability to go back and get the proper paperwork to open up my accounts in Switzerland and that was it.

I had a headshot against me. I was done when I got arrested, I then admitted to breaking these other securities laws like what which is called free-writing, putting new issues in friends accounts and that sort of rattles and stuff. That was not the indictment was secured by the Swiss bagging stuff, right?

And that's ultimately how he brought me down and I had a massive respect for him and I was a friend of mine today, by the way, became friends.

He's been in my podcast. I really liked him. I had nothing but the highest record from, yeah, he's a great guy.

“I think he's exactly like, you just, you know, you should have him on your show, he shares, you know, he's a very, very intelligent guy.”

And I deserved to go to jail. I know I broke the law. I mean, you know, he was like, it was like, I was framed. And I was like, they did stuff about that. I broke the law. I got caught. And I'm listening. I wasn't the first guy, you know, Wall Street to, you know, you could go to any firm and find terrible things happening in any day. So I'm not saying I was, I certainly wasn't any worse, but I broke the law. Doesn't make it right, okay? So like, you know, you could say it was happening everywhere, which it was.

I didn't, I did it with Wolpenash, I guess. But the things I was doing, I happened to all of the walls, you know, still happened today. I got and died for him. He served to get died for me. He earned the indictment, the old factory, knocking on doors and doing the work.

Can I ask you about the, you write about how he came to you and said,

I want to 100 people. You call him Stratonites, guys, who worked for you. It's Straton. And nobody would talk. They were, they were totally loyal. And, and use something like, that's what happens when you're, when you're the cash cow. But so they didn't want to turn you in, the guys who worked for you. But then I know you, you wore a wire for the FBI, you and the guy who also got indicted with you, your partner.

“Did you have to go against those guys, the guys who didn't turn on you or was a different fish?”

So this is really, this is, this is probably the most difficult part of my life. I, I, I, I, and I ended up, I ended up getting in trouble. By the way, I almost, thanks to Coleman. I didn't do 30 years in jail because I refused. So I agreed to cooperate. Um, as did pretty much everybody in my case. So, and, and, and you know what, I was considering whether or not to cooperate. Um, I was like, everyone is going to cooperate.

So you're not going to have to testify against your friends. Then you got to give all the information up. Tell them where your money is, and you're going to be able to testify against someone you don't know. It's not most everyone in the federal system that they're so rare that someone goes to trial in these cases. Because be, be sentenced and go out on just so onerous. And unless you cooperate, it's like, go to trial. You're losing 30 years.

So most people will end up cooperating, right? And then they were threatened to indict my wife, even if she hadn't done anything wrong. Once they threatened to indict my wife, I had no choice, but to, to plead guilty and cooperate. So I started cooperating, giving information on what was going on. And then they asked me to wear a wire and gets a very, very close friend of mine.

And, um, and it was a terrible, terrible thing to do, because it, for me, that was sort of mine more or once. Like, I'm okay, you know, cooperating with a rat out of close friend of mine. It was just, it just seemed like it was just a bridge too far at the time. And so when I went to meet with him, they wired me up. I passed him a note saying, I'm wired, don't incriminate yourself.

And it was just moments like, I'm a good guy, I'm a, I'm a, what a good guy I am. Like, for doing this, I'm a stand up guy, you know? And I passed this note and sure enough, he didn't incriminate himself. And then three months later, he got in trouble and turned me and gave me both. And, and, and, I mean, and that was the point, and I think I was all faith in humanity.

I was like, I can't, like, what do I, do I, any beliefs that are right,

but correct, you know, like, I, I broke the law, I justified that. I justified not cooperating, this is my friend, I shouldn't wrap my friend out. And he turns around and rats me out. Like, it was the ultimate blow to seriously, it was a emotional blow you can imagine. And the government was going to break my agreement and give me the full sentence of like,

twenty eight years. And it was agent Coleman that stopped that from happening. Wow. He stopped. He stood up for me and said, listen, you know, he wasn't even doing it.

He wasn't even doing it to benefit himself. You know, he was a moment of stupidity and also trying to try to be a good person. And like, you know, it wasn't like a selfish, it was like a selfish thing. I did. I was like, I was like, I was benefiting myself.

I just didn't want to hurt someone that I loved or the friend. You know, saying, so Coleman stepped in and saved me. And then I did cooperating. And there was a couple of people that went to trial.

“And, but most people, really, I think 90, it was really close to me.”

They cooperated. Yeah, and they all cut deals in you and your partner went to prison. You for, yeah, it's terrible. So Jordan did plead guilty. He went.

He was sentenced to four years. He served 22 months up next. I'm going to ask him about the very famous guy. He met in prison who encouraged him to write this all down into a book. And about the hundreds of hours.

He spent with Leonardo DiCaprio and what that was like. Our closing chapter with Jordan Bellford right after this quick break. So Jordan, you go to prison. And is it true that you met Tommy Chong there, who had some advice for you? Of Cheech and Chong?

We're not as actually true that when I get to prison, who is my bunkmate? Not just in the same prison. My bunkmate is Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong. And they put us together. I guess they were both high profile.

So they were like, kind of put us together to be a watcher.

“Or just like they thought it was smart thing to do.”

And, you know, he's just the, we are really good guys. They're a very smart guy too. Very, very, very highly educated. For fans speaker and nuggets of wisdom. And he was writing a book.

And it's not a lot to do in jail. So, you know, you sit there like you tell stories to each other. And I was telling him stories about my life. And he's just laughing and rolling on the floor. Because I'm, you know, some really funny stories.

I'm pretty good storyteller. He's doing this thing to me.

And like the third night, he says, you know,

I honestly thought you were full of shit. But my wife Googled you. And like, all of this stuff is online. It's true. You actually did all this.

You have to write a book. And I was like, really? I'm like, you think my life was crazy. I didn't think my life was that crazy. Because it was my life.

It happened to me. And I sort of just whatever you get used to.

“You used to walk to your son. He's like, I'm Tommy Chang and I think your life is crazy.”

So that's right. So you do. You write the book when you leave the Wolf of Wall Street, which was what you were called in a newspaper article. And then everybody's clamoring for the movie, right?

It's Leonardo DiCaprio gets involved. He wants to play you. It seems to be a mission for him. And I read that you spend perhaps as many as hundreds of hours with him. Getting him ready, showing him what it was like to be on that many drugs.

And so on. And so what were your impressions of him in that whole process? I think what people don't realize maybe about Leo, is of course he's naturally talented, but the amount of preparation and the care he put in to the role.

He was like, he was just so determined to make it perfect. And he worked really hard. It wasn't like, and all of them just wouldn't. It's going to come up. He put in mass amount of hours, just, you know,

went to every single line of the script, you know, just again and again, making sure that every word sounds about 10 to get every scene is what 10 to get. He just, you know, he's very talented and a very hard worker. And there's a lot of integrity.

He's a great guy. Wow. You now are doing like entrepreneurship lessons, sort of guidance, mentorship, and it almost in a way it's kind of self-helpy to me in a good way.

So, like, how are you channeling this whole experience into a new version of you professionally? So, it's been many years now that I've been doing this. I started in about 2009 going out there and teaching people first about, you know,

these sort of the mindset of success using the lessons other and then very quickly pivoting to teaching sales, the straight line system, which is really what, you know, made my career take off. Was that the system that I had towards the strategy,

which was very ethical, especially when I reinvented the system and made it, you know, fight better than it was.

It's a very powerful system and that's really what I was

starting to get higher around the world

And then, you know, also teaching general entrepreneurship. So, I do a lot of consulting with companies. And yeah, my message is very, you know, it's very,

“I would say it's very honest that I think there's a lot of people”

that are out there teaching things like sales and aren't really a little the first thing about it. Really, they just... Well, they, what they ready, they're in my stuff or sort of like a Tony Robbins stuff,

like have a great respect for those legitimate, really, you know, broad things that we're new and fresh and then there's just so many just shaltons out there and are agurgitate the same nonsense and just trying to separate people from their mind.

And I really was very, very early on, made this sort of, you know, my internal compass was very, very clear. It was pointing north, meaning towards ethics and integrity. Like, I, you know, I was very careful

that I never took a penny from anyone

without trying to give it, at least, and times more value back. It doesn't mean you always succeeded. Like, you know, you always succeeded that or your mind.

My mindset is always, I'm looking to give more value than I ever would get with every transaction I enter into, every mentorship I do. So I've had tremendous success of people all over the world and it's great because now it's, you know,

the movie became this incredible culture. So people come up to be older every day.

“I get, you know, wherever I go out, you know,”

people just say, you know, you're such an inspiration to me. You're a huge family. You're a life for teachings. You're come back. It's just amazing.

Because you easily could've skulked away. You could've skulked away and said, I've been disgraced and you didn't. You found a new way to reinvent and you came clean with all of it, too, to your credit,

which is how we're all learning now. But I have to ask you about the blowback because I, one of my questions in watching was, how do you have any money? Because they ordered you to pay 110 million

in restitution. So don't, do they garnish your wages? Like, what, because I know some of the victims, the people who got burned. They read, left 1,500 clients with 200 million in losses.

I don't know if those numbers are right. But I know they sort of pop up when you make money and say, this is not right. That's, that's not true. That's not true.

I don't know. You tried to be lying. But it's just not, that's not true. Plains don't pop up, which is odd, by the way, because the number was wildly inflated.

Okay, it was, it was, there was losses no doubt. Okay, but like when Bernie made off, they said, what was it? 50 billion in the turn to be 10 billion. When they're coming up with losses and people,

they double triple count.

And it ended up always being fall less.

That was an estimate. So, no, it finally was fine for 100 million. I'm getting 10. So what, so, and then it was Danny was 200. It was a moving target that no one really knew.

What was actually lost. But it was certainly a loss there. And I just forged a lot of money, I just forged some money. I just forged a lot more.

I continued to pay money. And I paid some money each month. I paid some money. And I paid a percentage of what I make. And I said to myself, what's my solution?

You know what? I'm going to make so much money that I can afford to pay for sandwiches still be rich. And that's what I always aspired to do. And I said, I'm just going to work hard on everybody else.

I'm going to make so much money that I can afford to pay what I got to pay and still live an amazing life with luxury. And that's exactly what I did. And I just wait and be. And it's very advantage to to have you get back

on your feet. You've found some variety. You found love. You found a way of making an honest living. Yeah.

And so I only have about a minute left. But I want to ask you, because I know you've said your life serves as a cautionary tale. But others do find it more than cautionary. They find it downright inspirational.

So what do you want people to know about the wolf of Wall Street and the takeaway on Jordan Belford? The takeaway is that my life represents the best and worst of what human beings can do.

“And I think that the lesson that you can learn from my life is”

if you want to model these, especially young people. You want to look at being inspired and use the techniques and strategies for men. But you don't have to model the whole person. You can model all the best things that I did back when I was younger

and I do today and learn from the mistakes I made. So you could become a better version of me.

I always say, you know, yeah, do all the stuff I did

on the great site have fun. Make tons of money. But you could do better. You don't have to take shortcuts like I did and that cost me everything.

And it started again, I'm lucky that I had to come back and made back all this money. Most people don't. You're right. Most people will win their way and die.

And it's the exceptions to rules. I urge people that you can make a ton of money. We've been an amazing world in an amazing time. There's been very, very careful. But don't take that extra step to make it quick

because it might close to everything. Model the good stuff and do the opposite of the bad stuff. That's my message. Watch that first step across the ethical line. Jordan, what a pleasure.

Thank you so much for coming on and being so open and honest with us. All the best to you.