Jordan Belfort – HuffPost 9.26.14

Mike Ragogna: I always ask entertainers, “What’s your advice for new artists?” In your case, I’m not really sure what that kind of question is.

Jordan Belfort: [laughs] “What advice do you have for success-oriented people?” How about that?

MR: Nailed it, I like that.

JB: Really, honestly, this is my advice. Business and success and moneymaking has rules. There’s strategies. There’s things that you need to know, there’s strategies you need to learn. It’s not just about having an idea and believing in the secret where you can manifest your success. That’s certainly part of it and I believe in manifesting and the laws of attraction, but that’s only part of the equation. There’s things that you need to know and here’s the deal: Nowadays in the internet 2014 world where bandwidth is massive and you can just get videos in real time, all the information, all the learnings, all the lessons, all the strategies, all the tactics, all the models, anything that you would need to become successful at whatever you want to do is all out there for the taking. It’s all there, online, where you can quickly find out where to get it by going online. So if you’re trying to go out there and live a more successful life and make more money, to try to go it alone without educating yourself is absolutely idiotic. It’s like trying to be a doctor without going to medical school. It’s like trying to become a lawyer without going to law school. It’s like success with anything else; there’s certain rules and strategies and they’re out there now. I am really great at teaching and I’m not the only one who can teach people to be successful, there’s many people who are good at it. I have a unique way of doing it that’s very business-centric, very sales-centric, very entrepreneur-centric, people have different approaches, but the information’s out there and my advice to people is that whether it’s me or sommeone else at least go and educate yourself and get the specialized knowledge you need to go out and live your dream. Whatever dream you have, it’s goign to require some specialized knowledge, it’s going to require knowing certain people and having certain relationships, jknowing how to raise some money probably and it’s definitely going to require knowing how to close a deal and be an effective persuader. If you don’t have those skills then you go out and learn those skills. That’s my advice.