Jordan Belfort is a former stockbroker, author and motivational speaker. He gained notoriety in the 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The Martin Scorcese-directed film was based on Belfort’s memoir, which detailed his life. In this talk he gave some years ago Belfort uncovers his 3 secrets to success.
In terms of monetary success I think there are three steps to it or three requirements.
Number 1 is - you have to know where you really want to go in life. To have a vision for your future. Most people don't have that. Most people move through life either without a clear vision and without any goals. They don't even have goals or at the most they'll set goals. And in the United States and many parts of the world I go to, you hear so much about goals and how I should be a goal-driven person. And while goals are important and I believe in setting goals, I do set goals for myself, I always have a vision above my goals. My goals are sort of steps to my vision. And that vision means where do I see myself in five years from now and why. And so it's a very visceral thing. It's not just about I want to make X amount of money or have my business in X pot, it's about how do I see my life, how does that impact the people around me, who else am i serving and how do I affect not just my friend, but everybody. How do I see myself moving, acting, living through my own life in five years from now. And then as far as my WHY goes, it's WHY does it matter to me. I think a lot of people don't ever focus on the fact that WHY you want to succeed is just as important is any process you have to succeed. People say I want to be rich, but no money really equals freedom. Money into itself is not enough to motivate someone to get rich. We think, yeah, we want to be rich and that's enough. But it's not. When we really break it down and get to that next level up, it's usually about someone that we love - our children, our family, our parents, or our spouse, even our community, it could be a religious belief. Human beings, the way we're built, will always do more, for someone that we love and care about, than we'll do for ourselves. In my lowest points for instance, when I was in jail and trying to write the book, the first book, and I had these really dark moments, what I did is, I closed my eyes and I see the faces of my children, and imagined myself coming back from this disaster and earning back their respect. I always had their love, but I want to have their respect so that I could one day be a force in their life. And that powerful WHY was enough to get me through anything. So that's the first step.
The second step is having the ability to share that vision, to communicate through the power of persuasion and influence, to have other people get involved with you, to want to sign on to help you achieve your vision. You could have the greatest idea in the world, the greatest business plan, but it's gonna require the work and support of others. And you might have a great vision, but if you can't share it, verbalize that vision in a way that inspires other people to want to become part of it, then you're a one-person army and it's very difficult to succeed. A great example that's I use - Nelson Mandela - not even on the business, just in life. Nelson Mandela had this great vision for South Africa - yet it's powerful and as grand as that vision was, he also had the ability to to move others, to verbalize that. That's a really powerful combination. So that's the second step - the ability to influence, persuade and feel the share of the vision in a way that empowers people, that moves them to take action. But also gets you what you want to. That's what ethical persuasion is all about.
And the third step, which is on some level is the most important step of all, is having the actual strategies to make it real. In other words - business has rules, entrepreneurship has rules, and if you don't follow those rules, if you don't know those rules, you end up feeling a lot of pain. I learned the hard way when I transition at the age of 21- It's my first real business, that there's certain rules of the game. And if you don't know those rules, you end up feeling massive pain, you make mistakes, you grow too fast, you build up your overhead, you are under-capitalized, you don't know how to raise money. So what happens is this - if you have the vision for your future, its compelling and it drive you, that's it of your mindset, then you have this ability to share that to mobilize others, to buy into your vision, and the third step is understanding the real world business strategies. One example is how do you fail elegantly, how do you go into business and be wrong. Most people, they don't ever consider, that most of the time as entrepreneurs we're wrong, our plans are not exactly right and we try something, and it doesn't work. We are forced to change our approach. That's a healthy part of being an entrepreneur, in starting a business. So you need to learn how to do - what I call, fail elegantly, be wrong, maximise on the lessons, minimize on the financial payment, and on the flip side of that is called succeeding wildly. What do you do when you start a business and it's small? How do you turn it into a big business and there's rule for that as well.
So those three steps really are the core of, in my opinion, of what allows any human being to take a thought, a constant idea that have, and turn it into reality.
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