Jordan Belfort Introduction

Jordan Joss Belfort is a notorious American author and motivational speaker hailing from Queens, New York. His net worth is roughly – $100 million as of 2020. He is well known for The Wolf of Wall Street, an autobiography. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges which spanned from manipulation of the stock market to penny-stock scam. Currently, he is traveling the world and is also working as a motivational speaker. His negative net worth is due to a criminal penalty that also landed him in prison for two years and made him payback around $110 million in legal restitution.

Net Worth             :       – $100 million
Real Name             :       Jordan Ross Belfort
Gender                   :       Male
Date of Birth         :       July 9, 1962
Place of Birth        :       New York, United States
Height                    :       1.7 meters
Weight                   :       67 kg
Sexual Orientation       :       Straight
Marital Status        :       Divorced
Spouse                     :    Nadine Caridi (from 1991 to 2005) & Denise Lombardo (from 1985 to 1991)
Source of wealth    :       Motivational speaker, American author, and former stockbroker

Source of Jordan’s wealth

Apart from the fact that he is going through some troubling times, Jordan once was a successful entrepreneur who made a name over years. He used to sell meat from door to door and ended up owning a 50% stake of a multi-million-dollar brokerage. He traded penny stocks and dealt with inexperienced investors. His source of wealth was his writing, entrepreneurship and his motivational speeches.

Jordan Belfort Early Life

Jordan Belfort was born on July 9, 1962, in The Bronx, New York. He was raised by Jewish parents in Bayside, Queens. In the summer season between college and high school, Belfort teamed up with a close friend and made $20,000 by selling Italian ice to people who used to visit the beach. He went to American University and graduated with a major in biology. At first, he planned to become a dentist and enrolled at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. Once the dean of the school said that the golden age of dentistry was over and that there was no enough money in the field now. He left the college the same day. This shows how crazy he was for earning money.

Business Career

Jordan built his meat selling business from scratch and employed lots of people, selling 5,000 pounds of fish and beef per week. When he turned 25, he had already filed for bankruptcy. A family friend helped him land a job as a stockbroker trainee, but he was laid off after L.F. Rothschild, the firm that employed him, started experiencing financial troubles due to the Black Monday crash of 1987. From this exposure, his journey in the securities business kicked off. After he saw the enormous amount of money his fellow brokers were making, he decided to shift the direction of his career. He spent the next couple of years working as an employee for many firms. He increased his learning base as much as he could in a short time and boosted his skills at attempting sales pitches. When he had learned enough or at least he had the satisfaction that he had, he made a bold decision to branch out by building his own company.

It was the early 90s when Jordan founded Stratton Oakmont. The company at first marketed penny stocks. Jordan defrauded investors by a pump and dump scheme. A time came when Jordan employed around 1,000 stockbrokers and had accumulated around $1 billion to manage. The money included the IPO of Steven Madden Ltd. Since the day he started his company, the National Association of Securities Dealers started scrutinizing his business deals. Finally, in 1996, they stripped him of membership and drove him out of business. Jordan’s fall from glory was remarkable in itself and caught the attention of filmmakers as well, prompting the making of Boiler Room, the 2000 film.

Legal Troubles

Jordan was indicted for money laundering and fraud in 1999. He got to serve a 22 months jail term from a four-year sentence in exchange for a plea deal with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for pump and dump scams.

A tale of shame

Once, living a lavish lifestyle, Jordan’s journey from riches to rags became a notorious tale of shame. The story of fraud and money laundering became popular. He had to pay back $110 in restitution out of the $200 million he stole from around 1500 clients. He has only been able to pay back $11.6 million in restitution. The majority of the money he paid back came from the sale of different properties he once bought during the time he ruled over Wall Street.

A career as a motivational speaker

Once he got back from prison, he reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. Golden Motivation, Inc handles his speaking engagements. Jordan spent around three weeks traveling due to his speaking engagements. He speaks about business ethics and how he learned from his mistakes during the 1990s. He charges between $30,000 and $75,000 per speaking engagement and around $80,000 as a single seminar fee. The main topic of his seminars is sales advice. Some reviewers react negatively to the content he feeds to his audience, especially the part he recounts from the 1990s.

Writing career

Tommy Chong, an accomplice of Jordan in prison, asked him to write down his experiences. He agreed and wrote Catching the Wolf of Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street, his two autobiographies, which have been published in around 40 countries and have been translated in 18 languages. The Wolf of Wall Street was turned into a movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio starred along with Margo Robbie and Jonah Hill. The movie was directed by Martin Scorsese.

Lavish lifestyle

Jordan lived a lavish lifestyle, throwing parties and enjoying with friends. He used on recreational drugs as well. He owned a luxury yacht named Nadine which was built for Coco Chanel. It sank near the coast of Sardinia in 1996 while braving a storm.

Real estate

He owned a New York mansion named Long Island which the federal government seized in 2001. They sold it to pay back the victims of Jordan’s fraud. In 2017, it once again hit the market with a price tag of $3.4 million.

Famous quotations

“If you want to be rich, never give up. People tend to give up. If you have persistence, you will come out ahead of most people. More importantly, you will learn. When you do something, you might fail. But that’s not because you’re a failure. It’s because you have not learned enough. Do it differently each time. One day, you will do it right. Failure is your friend,”  Jordan Belfort