After the huge success of the film adaptation of his autobiography, Jordan Belfort has become a man in high demand. I went along to his recent event at the ExCeL Centre in London, which was full with entrepreneurs keen to learn from his methods. Belfort brought every ounce of the USA with him, we were frequently encouraged to stand up, fist pump and repeat ‘yes’. His charisma was infectious and his passion spread like wildfire – it’s easy to see why people trusted him and bought from him.
Belfort first went into business at 21 but he crashed and burned, he said one of the most important lessons to learn is that you have to learn from your failures. When you do fail it is essential to do so elegantly in order to move on with your head held high. There are two types of people he identifies: reason people and results people. Reason people are those who will always have a reason why they can’t progress their business (he also referred to these as ‘ducks’) and results people being those who will take action (or in Belfort’s case ‘eagles’). He explains that if you keep coming up with reasons why you can’t progress, you will never move forward – something that I see frequently with people that are looking to get involved in the forex market.
The system that he associates his success with and has gone onto market is the straight-line system that he says he has been using his entire life. This system focuses on sales and your ability to stay focused during conversation, being the expert and building a rapport. This is noticeable in the film when you see his ability to close sales with ease, which he taught to hundreds of his staff.
We all spent a fair proportion of the evening analysing our own abilities and seeing how we could move forward. He got us to evaluate how much money we thought we were worth as an investment and the skills we are able to offer. We were asked to rate ourselves on our emotional states, beliefs, vision focus and standards – as Belfort called our ‘Inner World of Success’. He was highlighting how essential it is to have a positive attitude and to analyse the way that we see ourselves. One thing that came across during this talk was having a clear vision of where you want to be and why you want to be there and achieve that goal.
I found the evening a huge inspiration; it was definitely worth the time and the money. Jordan Belfort offers courses all over the world and for anyone needing a push to get their business in the right direction I would definitely recommend him.