Jordan Belfort

So how exactly do you succeed in it as an individual? We thought the man to ask would be the man who's seen both sides of this business. Legitimate and less than Jordan Belfort. The Wolf of Wall Street, with a new book, The Wolf of Investing, and he joins us now to explain You can make a fortune on Wall Street.

It's a random number, right? You say to yourself, If I'm going to really get anywhere as an investor, I need to make a big hit. I get to turn that into like, a million bucks. I've got to find the next Apple computer, the next crazy crypto token, right? Whatever it might. Some wildly successful investment, right? Which leads you to engage in, you know, wild speculation, short term trading, trying to find the market. And the truth is is the opposite. You don't need to start with a lot of money to end up with a lot of money by doing the exact opposite. Which is holding for the long term and all the highest quality stocks, and relying on long term compounding and reinvesting dividends and making small contributions along the way.

But forgetting, like you said, the noise. And people are worried about their equities, this is the problem. Because as soon as you start buying into that, like, you know what? I think the market might be going down, or maybe it's going to go up next year. You should have time that by buying and selling, you create taxable events and also human beings. By our nature, we're kind of crappy stock pickers, and when you try to pick individual stocks, you tend to lose most of it. Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, you're getting.

This.

Go from this sector to that sector. That's a historically, mathematically, scientifically proven to be the worst possible way to invest your money. They've gone back 100 years. The scientific, the academic studies. And the analysts can't pick the right stocks, the hedge fund managers and mutual funds can't beat the S&P 500, which is the overall market. And there's a reason for that, because all the information is out there, so unless you have inside information which is illegal, right? And certainly, the average person is not going to have that or some other way to beat the mark. Whether it's a high frequency trade with computers that are lightning fast or some of the big firms, they'll time the market like a millionth of a second. Better than an average investor, they get an edge, but for everyone else, you can't beat the market.

You just. It doesn't work, especially when you deduct all the fees, the commissions and also the taxes from short term trading. So let's say, let's say a hedge fund returns 15 when you say, well, that's pretty good, right? But after they take their 2 magically 20 performance bonus, right? Suddenly it's not even beaten the S&P 500..

And that's a good year. Most of the time, they don't even beat it without their fees. So why would anyone hand money to a hedge fund? So Warren Buffett asked this exact question. Back in 2007, made a made a big announcement that a million bucks that I don't care what other hedge fund you want, you can't beat the S&p 500 over 10 years. And at first, no one took the bet.

Eventually, someone did with a what's called a fund of funds, and there's a different funds, right? And after year seven, they threw in the towel. They couldn't even come close to the S&p. And that was without all their fees, and just so, you know, the fees they take, so it's 20%.

Typically is a performance bonus right if the fund makes money off the upside, on the upside? But if the fund loses money the following year, they don't get any of the losses. So it's heads they win, tails you lose, right? The mutual fund industry is equally bad. So they're engaging in, you know, basically, asset gathering, because what they do is they try to gather as many assets as possible.

Money, right? Because they get their management fees, but the returns on the average mutual fund are dismal. They don't keep up with the S&P 500, which is America's 500 biggest, baddest, most profitable companies. So and that those 500 companies change. So not this year, it's not the same as it was last year. So what happens when you buy that index as the centerpiece of your investments, right and just hold it? You're always having the 500 top high performing companies in your portfolio is very tax efficient.

Now it's boring. But it compounds at about 11 a year, and guess what if you invest $10,000, right? And just compounds at 11 a year? You put a little extra money in wherever you can, each month, each quarter, right? Over 30 years, 40 years, it turns into millions of dollars, but I'm still caught up.

He's not taking your money. The average is when they really are good, they don't take an average investor's money, they train their own money in a few very, very large institutions. So those funds are not open to the average investor. But then all the other hedge funders kind of suck, right?

They're bathing in the afterglow of the aura of the hedge fund manager we see like, on billions, right? So you this like mystical hedge fund. Well, guess what, most of these guys suck, all right?

They're not beating the S&p, they're just not. It's historically proven they don't beat the S&P and they take these massive fees when they do win one year.

And they always get that 2 magically, so watch what happens. Let's say you're managing $1 billion, so before you even start this 20 million a year, you're getting used to live for fun. Even starts plus 20 of all the profits, and when you take those in, how about this? I'll go one step further.

And also when you have a hedge fund, you have to show activity, because unless you're, you can't just buy the S&p and hold it. Someone will say, Well, why would I give you my money? You're not doing anything. So they almost have to show activity to justify their existence, which makes them engage in short term trading.

And people, human beings are just terrible market timers, they. And this is just over proven over 100 plus years of studies. That you cannot trade in and out of the stock market. Buying, selling, selling, buying sector, this sector one day. So it's just a trap, the way I look at it. So Wall Street creates massive value, they did, Wall Street's necessary. You can hate Wall Street, despise them for what they think they do wrong, but Wall Street is necessary. They create massive value for the economy.

They take companies public, right? They finance the growth of America, it's needed, they maintain the debt markets, the credit markets. That's the useful side of Wall Street, where they create massive value, then there's the not so useful and dark side of Wall Street. Where they create bubble after bubble after bubble. Where they have instruments of financial mass destruction, they create for just gambling purposes, where they churn you, they have excess commissions and fees and rob the public blind. So the question I in the book was, You know, how does the average person get the maximum exposure to the good side of Wall Street? Which is the great companies they take public and finance that become huge multinational? So how do you maximize that? But avoid the corruption or the churning and the burning and the, you know, financial bubbles and so forth? Right and play into what I call the Wall Street theme machine complex, which is this advertising monolith. Where basically they convince you, like people like Kramer, to play the suckers game. But that actively go on CNBC. They're all day long trying to convince people to play the short term trading game, which is indeed a suckers game. So you go into a casino, right? We spoke about about Kerry Packard, right? could gambling, right?

So they own casinos, the Packard family, right? So in a casino, you go in there knowing that the odds are against you by what? 5, depending on what game you play. So the odds are against you in the house will win over time, right? That's a legit casino, the odds are against you.

But what if you go into a corrupt casino where they have loaded dice and a dealing from the bottom of the deck? That's Wall Street. So now not only are the odds against you, because you know it's hard to pick winning stocks. But there's people who have information that's more timely than you. They're trading ahead of you, they are charging excess fees, and also you. All these publications and new chatting in news with CNBC Bloomberg isn't as bad, right? Because they cater most professional. But still trying to convince people that, you know, you could somehow figure out when you should buy oil and then sell your meta, and then somehow go into a steel stock and then go into overseas.

It's insane, it doesn't work and people get financially whipsaw. And I saw myself, my own family member. Very successful guy. I start my book off telling his story about your brother in law. Yeah, he's a very smart guy.

And he's why I watched his portfolio get decimated through short term trading and using margin. All the things that they was he doing himself, he's trying to do it himself, and, you know, following tips he heard on TV or online. And and it's just, it's so simple.

What happened to him? Well, he's thankful he successfully lost a lot of money and then he learned his lesson. I showed him what to do the right way.

And he now is building a proper portfolio for the long term. So I think the distinction is this you can get rich in the stock market, but not overnight. It's just it doesn't work, you can't do that. And if you try to get rich by engaging in short term trading or picking like one stock, you're probably going to end up in the financial poorhouse.

So the solution I put in this book, which is ironic, where I came from, right because I committed fraud 30 years ago, right? So, as you said, I seen both sides, right? So, the solution in the book is is really, very simple to build a world class portfolio and secure your future. Because I don't think you can rely on Social security these days. We'd have to pay for your diapers when you're in a nursing home, right? So this is about, you know, empowering yourself financially, and it's about doing less versus more, not hiring experts, less trading yourself, less trade. It's about investing as opposed to speculating.

Now there's nothing wrong with speculating, it's fun, right? And if you want to take 5 of your capital and speculate and buy and sell it, that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. Now you encourage people to do that because it's good, you can have fun with that, maybe you'll make some money.

But that's not how you secure your retirement. If you want to secure a great retirement, you start off young as possible, right? And it's never too late, by the way. And it doesn't matter how much money you have, you can start with a little bit of money. You don't need a lot. But the key is making little, small, regular contributions and not worry an index fund.

Is that what? The main one is an index fund, you want to have an index on S&P, low cost S&P 500 Index Fund. And you want to have in certain types of accounts that are tax deferred whenever possible, and so forth, right? Then you also want to balance it out with some need to have some bonds in there. A small amount depending on your age, right? And on top of that, some cash for an emergency. And then if you want to speculate, you can add, let's say, 5 for speculation. But the key is this don't hire an expert, for example. We've been conditioned.

This is the trap, right? So you're a homeowner, right? So if your pipes in your house burst, you probably do a lot better off calling a plumber to fix your pipes than trying to fix them yourself. Right, right, fair enough, right? If you have an electric short, I suggest you call an electrician versus trying to go put on rubber gloves and not get electrocuted. You'll get a much better result with the expert in that, too.

If you're sick, let's say your appendix is about to burst, right? Don't do your own surgery, have your wife cut you open, go to a doctor that's an expert at doing surgery. let him do the surgery. Fair, fair enough, right? That's true for almost all things in life except Wall Street. It's the one exception to the otherwise pretty much steadfast rule about seeking out experts to help you get the best result.

On Wall Street, they don't get you a better result than doing it yourself, they get you a worse result. Because of all the fees, the commissions, the performance bonuses, and also they can't outguess the market, the market is too hard to beat. Now again, there's a few people that can do it, they're not taking your money.

There's a few people out there. One of the great studies was from an economist named Paul Samuelson in the 70s. This is really what started the shift into index funds. He did a study that went back 100 years, all the way to the earliest days of record keeping, right? He studied every mutual fund out there since the 1920s, all the stock recommendations since 1890s, right?

He came to the conclusion he goes okay. Maybe there were a few people who can outperform the S&p, but they remain remarkably well-hidden. He couldn't find any. This is like a top if you won a Nobel prize. The guy from this, right? That was really the beginning, that was like the shot across the bow.

Now, Wall Street did everything they could to suppress this. So the first guy to try this was Jack Bogle from Vanguard Vanguard, right, So Vanguard is a great, great place where you could buy the best index funds with virtually no expenses. I strongly recommend Vanguard, right? And there's a few others as well, but Jack Bogle was the first, right?

But when he started Vanguard, Wall Street went out on the ultimate smear campaign for like a decade, suppressing everything about index funds. Saying it's the stupidest thing. Who wants to be average? Dreyfus, which is a huge mutual company, said. No fees, no way, like actually in public. In the Wall Street Journal, full pages, like, if you don't like. That was marketed to the people who were the gatekeepers to investors. So if they're not, cause Vanguard doesn't pay fees, right?

So if they won't pay your fees, don't put your clients in their funds. Instead put them in our high commission funds. we'll pay you a lot of money. So for many, many years, Vanguard languished and was suppressed, right? It finally got traction after the crash in 87 for the first time. All of a sudden, you know, the mirage evaporate. When everyone lost a lot of money and for the first time, Vanguard started to get a fair shake in the market.

And then, slowly but surely, they started to grow and grow. And then, as the internet came about and the high-speed connections and platforms for direct communications with customers, it suddenly became a mass exodus. Out of these, like, you know, sort of high expense mutual funds, right? Which I think that Bogle saved the public probably a few hundred billion by now in fees. Mutual funds were ripping people's eyeballs out forever. Now they still do crappy, their performance is crappy compared to the S&P 500. But for years and years, they're just ripping the public's eyeballs out of the most lucrative industry out there.

And Wall Street just spent, you know, countless, hundreds of millions on advertising campaigns and whatnot, right to make people think this is the way to go. So your Merrill Lynch is bullish on those commercials, bullish on America, right? Although, you know, T. Rowe Price, I don't want to point the finger at any one of them, right?

But now they all offer this ultra low cost index options, which historically has outperformed people trying to pick individual stocks forever. It just outperforms people because people are really crappy at picking stocks. And also, you know, there's another part to it as well, right? Just trying to time the market. It plays into all our worst impulses. So like you said, right now, people are scared, right?

And rightfully so, the world seems to be on fire. And I watch your podcast all the time and it scares me. It's a scary world, right? So you would think that, okay, the U.S. economy is laden with debt, right? which is true, right?

It's got fundamental problems. China is going to take over the world, right? Well, when I was, you know, just getting started with Japan taking over the world, which turned to be a fallacy. And they had their own problems. So I don't know whether China is going to take over the biggest economy, it's going to surpass the United States. I don't know if the stock market is going to go up down sideways or around circles for the next five years.

I mean, how do you don't know anyone tells you they know that is lying to you? So to sit there and try to watch the news and trade against, like, what's happening in the economy and what's happening in the world is a fool's errand. You're not going to succeed like that unless you're one of these rare individuals who's full time as a unique gift. So, but then again, though, look at all these massive companies that have been created in the last 20 years. Like, you know, Google Meta, right?

This is a huge company, not Nvidia with artificial intelligence. So how do you get exposure to all that without having to pick the winners from the losers? The answer is very simple you buy them all in one investment, which is the S&P 500, and then you sit back and let time.

I was like, you know, a guy that injects over the with the virus to see how sick you get, right? I actually opted into Cramer's you know, Little Thing online, and I started receiving a barrage of like 100 emails about join his special club. He'll alert you to what stocks are going up and down in real time. I mean, it's like, this is insanity, but this is a major network, right?

That's, you know, giving investors crappy advice. Now. On the flip side, here's the weird part. They also have good stuff on that network, like there's legitimate news, and that's the problem.

So they mix in legitimate news, great reporting, interviews with great CEOs, and you learn about the economy, what's going on in the world. But they intersperse that with like this market giving advice, and it's not, it's nonsense, you people can't beat the market. And I saw it play out, my brother in law, many of my friends back in when the bubble burst in 2008..

And even worse, by the way, in 2000, with a.

Com bust right? So every time the market busts out, all the bullshit gets exposed.

Of expert market timers, they were like basking in the glove, just an up market. Like I say in the book, a rising tide lifts all ships right, and a foreign tide, well, it lowers all ships right. So you see the truth come out, as Warren Buffett says, you know, until the tide goes out, you don't.

How does that work? So I think there's, there's different.

That happens, for sure, and people do get in trouble from time to time and go to jail, right? But Martha Stewart, not exactly right. But she was like, kind of, you know, a four person? She sure was like, I mean, people did a lot worse than Martha Stewart, right?

I mean, why did they put her away? You know, it's hard to say, but she's, you know, famous and she's a big target. And you know, it kind of sucks when you're famous in a big target. And they want to come get you right, especially if some of your views aren't that popular, they want to come after you, right?

So but that's sort of the cliche type of insider trading, where they're just literally buying and getting moles, and that's highly illegal. Then there's the softer side, which is where these big hedge funds have these like analytical firms that are getting like research, that's inside research. So like, for example, they're like, I had a friend who was a very big short seller, right?

And he actually had, like, people waiting outside of a warehouse, counting the number of trucks that were leaving the warehouse. And tried to, like, you get it. To see how they really shipping the amount of goods to do this deep type of research, which sometimes crosses over into inside information, so what is?

That's much more difficult to prove. So it's a lot of. It is buried under, like, you know, guidance and financial reports. So they'll issue an analyst report, right? And you know, the analyst report will give sort of plausible deniability for why they think a stock is going up or down, right? But even then, I mean, I think that's difficult to prove, which is why you don't hear a lot of those cases.

No, the SEC doesn't seem to bring any. Well, Yes, I have a whole history of the S.C. in the book. The SEC is a ridiculous organization. So it was conceived. Listen, the first chairman was was was Jack Kennedy, you know, or Joe Kennedy, the original wolf of Wall Street? So like the bootlegger.

Yeah, from the beginning it was set up with a two tiered system, with a big. Firms basically were protected, right? And you know, when they got in trouble, they just think so egregious that it was undeniably egregious. They pay a small fine and move on, right? Which is why Goldman Sachs, for example, right now, Goldman Sachs is serves a vital function to the U.S. economy. And they're also behind every great crime or the biggest crimes that are out there. Including my movie that was The Wolf of Wall Street was financed by these Malaysians, right? The one MDB fund, that scandal, that was just coincidentally, and who was the banker that that paved the way for that?

Goldman Sachs Out of there, I think it was in Malaysia or Singapore Office that a banker there that provided the funding. And, you know, got double or triple the normal fees for doing it, and that money got siphoned off. That's classic Wall Street. So, on one hand, they create massive value, on the other hand, they rape and pillage the village.

And it's the average investor and average person that bears the brunt of that bailouts and subpar returns. So just to follow up.

That's not out in the public domain, but it's sort of like an insider's perspective versus information on like, are sales going down? Is there a problem with manufacturing? It's not public, right? So that's when it crosses over the line.

And it's a gray area, right? But it's very common in hedge funds to use these research firms that go out there and get non public information. And there's a very fine line, like a drug trial, that there's a drug trial going on, like, you know how do you know how? The drug trials performing well if you're matching, calling up all the people, interviewing people that are in the drug trial and trying to figure out yourself. Or people are intimately involved with administering the placebo studies or double blind studies, they're all over that stuff.

I mean, look, what's going on right now, like this? Listen, he's a good stock picker. Joe Biden, I think he's great at laundering money, though.

Yeah, honestly, what I've seen right now, I don't get it. Like, just imagine it was Trump who was president. Yeah, well, every single day in the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post and every other publication would be like, $40,000. Check for $20,000 check. From his, his brother, like it'd be game over cries for impeachment.

Oh yeah, it'd be like the world falling down. He's in China's pocket. But it's like we're living in an alternative universe right now, where people in power, especially on the on the left right, can operate almost with impunity. And Pelosi is a perfect example. She's not the only one. But it's inconceivable that someone could have that high return on the market when everyone else can't do it.

So what's the edge? The edge is. She knows that legislation, and also, you know, maybe someone's whispering in her ear, OK, you know, they want to be on our good side, right? So it's it's hard to prove.

It's insane that they're allowed to, and you know, as you said, it's prima facie, right? You know? If it looks like shit, smells like shame, well, guess what? Yeah, it's shit.

And that's, you know, or is bullshit in this case, right? So, listen, she's done incredibly well in an area where, like the most professional investors, struggle to even match the index, so somehow she's doing.

There's a committee that's the Financial Services Committee, right, so that that funds the SEC. But how does it make you feel?

I mean, you got in a.

But.

And no one went to jail. Basically, someone should look in Germany, right? So I was a little. I said, you know what, that's not really fair.

But, you know, I don't think it's, you know, an empowering way to live. To say, just because, you know, I went to jail, other people should go to. I think jail is a terrible place, right? And you know, I did my time and and I made the best that I wrote my first book in jail, right?

Which is going to be a great thing, but, you know, I learned that, but I don't.

Right, I lost everything right, and I go to kids at the time, which was breaking the news to them was the most heartbreaking thing ever.

I mean, like, literally it was like too much crying and I still get emotional about it, right? And I had to tell them like, you know, daddy made mistakes and I was in hysterical.

They were 11 and nine, right? So I go to jail, and it's not the worst jail in the world. Not worried about slipping in the shower?

So it's like a minimum security, but jail socks, right? Who's my bunkmate Tommy Chong from teaching Chong? What was he doing there?

So he's there for selling, not marijuana, but bongs. It was the most ridiculous thing ever. So he's doing a year and a day, a year and a day to selling bonds. I'm like, shit, he's doing a day for bonds. I should probably get 3000 years.

How long are you serving? I'm 22 months, yeah, right, so he's there for a year and a day.

And you know, the first few days, you know, there's not much to see. Just tell each other stories. And I'm telling him stories about my life being sandy. And did you know who he was? Of course, yeah, they put us together.

We shared us, we shared a cell. Yeah, I think we were both high profile, so they just put us together.

Right?

And he was, he was writing a book at the time, and I'm telling him stories, and he's just rolling his, laughing hysterically every night, right?

And the third night, he's like, You know, I'm making this shit up. But my wife googled you and it's like, All true. In fact, your sister knows you from her father, from back in the day. He was a friend of mine.

Right, he's like, This is you actually sank the boat, you crashed these cars, you did all this insane.

You made all this money and all these drugs because you have to write a book. And I'm like, Really, you think my life's exciting? Like, because it's your life, no matter how crazy your life is, it's yours. You don't think you're right.

You think it's just normal. I'm like, he's like, I'm Tommy Chong. I think your life is just insane. Because write a book, so I started trying to write and I was a terrible writer.

I couldn't write anything I never written before like that. Yeah, it's like a month. I'm like, Oh, this is just not working.

I go to the prison library, I stumble upon a book called Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Of course, I pick up this book and I'm like, Oh my God, I want to write like this, so I plowed through the book.

And then I started with the yellow highlight. And I use this book like a textbook. And I taught myself to write by modeling Tom Wolfe, so it's like I had a model now and I spent about three months. Just every, I mean, every metaphor, how he used grammar, how he described locations, how he used complex.

And I really started to see my writing dramatically improve. So I wrote about 100 pages when I was in jail, and then I ripped them up, I didn't think they were good enough. I got out of jail with no pages, but I had a skill now, right?

So when I got out, I was like, you know, I don't know what to do with my life. And I was like, maybe I'll just start trying to write again, right? So I wrote about 12 pages and I'm like, Wow, I think those are really good. I thought they were pretty good.

I hate my own writing. Oh, it's right. It's like when you write, it's very like you always hate what you write, right? So I'm like, I think this is pretty good. I sent to a few friends and they're like laughing, like, Oh my gosh, the funny.

I'm like, really. So I sent it to a book agent I knew very casually, just a casual friend, right? So I call him and say, I want to, you know, write a book. He goes, Oh, great.

Let's get you a ghost writer. So I want to write myself, He goes. Can you write? I'm like, I'll send you the pages. I sent him 12 pages.

Next day, he calls me back, he goes, Did you pay Tom Wolfe to write those pages? It was like that close to Tom Wolfe's voice. My first draft, right? I'm like, No, no, I wrote it myself. He's like, it's really good.

He goes like, write 10 more pages, so I said, Alright, so I took about a week to write 10 more pages. I wrote another 10 pages. I sent him the pages. 15 minutes later, he calls, he goes, Stop everything you're doing.

You have no idea what's about to happen to your life. This book is gonna be a masterhead, I'm gonna get a movie made about this, we're gonna get Leo DiCaprio to play you, right? I mean, right from the start, right?

I was like, I thought he was delusional, right? But I didn't have much going on back then, right? So I was like, screw it, so I hold up. And literally. I had a little tiny apartment and I spent one year just like doing 18 hours a day. Writing the book The Wolf of Wall Street, right about on page 60, he took it down to Random House, who bought the book?

I got it nice, right? And then, when the book was finished, about a year later, it went through seven edits. Because I overwrote it from 1000 pages down to 500 pages. And then, when it was still a manuscript, became a bidding war between Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio. Yeah, it wasn't a book, yes, I know.

It's crazy, right? And then, you know, Leo brought in Scorsese, and I would love Leo, so I sold to Leo and Scorsese after a nice bidding war. And so began, you know, the story of the Wolf of Wall Street? What happened with the movie? And then there was a delay, by the way, for five years because that was 2007. And then the writer's strike hit and it got delayed, which ended up being a great thing.

And this is really empowering for all the listeners. I'll tell you why, because when I when. They wrote the script, when the script was done by a guy named Terry Winter, who adopted the book, he did an incredible job. The first draft of the script was amazing, right? But it ended with me in jail because I went to jail and got out, right.

And that was the ending of the movie, of the script, right? There was this delay then, for four years after the writer's strike. And during those four years, I got very wealthy again. Going out there and speaking and training entrepreneurs and teaching sales, right? So finally, four years later, when Leo Corman goes, we're ready to go. He came back to my new house. I was living in a mansion on the water. He's like, What the hell happened to you?

Like, in four years, I was in a tiny apartment, now into a very nice house again. And like, Oh, I'm do this stuff around the world. I showed him my clips from live on stage. He's like, Wait till Marty sees this, he's gonna go crazy. They rewrote the third act of the movie and made it a comeback story.

So that's it, yes.

Quaaludes and cocaine quaaludes, quaaludes. Yeah, this is the 70s, 70s.

Where'd you get quaaludes? I'll tell you how. So, when I got really wealthy, they made them illegal in the United States. Yeah, it could go a long time, but in Switzerland and Italy and Spain, we were going country to country. And like, buying out the pharmacies of quaaludes from overseas and bringing them back into the United States. Just not to sell them, just to take them, just to eat them all.

We weren't dealing them, just consuming massive quantities of these quaaludes, right? And I got so wildly addicted, I was taking about 10, 12 a day. You get very addicted. Yeah, yeah.

And like one of them would knock out a 200 pound baby seal for eight hours, I would take four and walk around. So what was the appeal of that, you know?

Euphoria, incredibly euphoric. First you get this tingle phase, and then you get the slurs and the happy drool phase. anyway, it's incredibly euphoric. And then I said, Well, what's the drool phase like?

The drool phase is when you're drooling as you're talking, but you're like, Well, drooling's not a big deal. Babies drool, I drool, you know? and when you're slurring, you're like, babies, slur, I slur. There's always a justification, but then the problem is is the fourth phase is unconsciousness.

Babies drool. That's a great. That's the best justification. But phase four, though, is unconsciousness, which is the problem. So what do you do then? Well, a responsible Drug act will then take cocaine to make sure you don't go into a divorce, right?

So I started to balance it out, the yin and the yang come on. Cocaine, which is great, works great. The problem is cocaine makes you anxious, so I needed his Xanax to get rid of the anxiety, right?

So I would take Xanax to quell the anxiety, but then I still needed something to kick me over the edge with sleeping. So I took some Ambien to sleep and then some Morphine for the pain I had. And before I knew it, I was taking 22 drugs at the same time. I was like a human Petri dish, right?

And I was just incredibly high all the time. You're lucky you didn't die, I know, I'm very lucky, I know.

I don't, you know, I always wonder why I didn't have any permanent damage, right? And I think most of it was not a big drinker. I think alcohol is like that wild card.

Went to rehab, I went to rehab, I got sober.

Like, I think, you know, people can get sober in rehab, people can get sober in the rooms of alcoholics. Anonymous, Right? You can get sober anywhere, but you have to be ready to get sober. Yeah, if you're not ready, right? You could be in the world's greatest rehab and you'll just relapse.

You'll run out, you'll climb over the wall as soon as you got, you'll use again. I was done, I was like my life was so out of control.

I had my kids were starting to get older now, they're four and five years old. So I was like, I got to end this. So I know I was very happy to stop using drugs, right?

So that was in 97.

I had a problem in 2009 where I had some terrible run of like five surgeries in this shoulder and five soldiers in this shoulder. I had really bad back the whole thing. So I was taking Vicodin from the doctor, from the doctor, right? And then I got off of that and went on something called Suboxone.

Oh, of course, which is a disaster in its own right, but I could function on it. Then I find it Ibogaine, you know, Ibogaine, yeah.

And I got completely that was.

When they realized that, especially oxycontin and fentanyl was so addictive and people were like dying, they said, we have to have a solution. So they put people on something called Suboxone. Suboxone is what they call a partial opioid agonist, meaning it binds to similar receptors. But it doesn't really get you high, and if you can't really, it's very hard to overdose on.

And it's not the worst thing in the world.

You're taking an opioid, right? Yeah? So I was on that for a long time, at a very low dose, and saying, you know what? I'm just, I want to be up. I don't want anything in my system. So I went and did ibogaine in Mexico, which everyone you know heard of.

Ibogaine Ibogaine is a naturally occurring it's a plant right in Africa.

So when you're done with this 12 hour nasty trip is scary. What happened? It's not fun. I'm like, I'm seeing, what did you do at Hotel River?

I did in a clinic in in Cancun called Beyond, which is a great. I mean, I'd recommend this place to anybody. It's amazing and they really did an amazing job. Very safe.

It's all doctors, supervisors, you know, heart machine, because it can be hard on your heart, right? And and they really like support you emotionally, right? And when I did this.

So you see all these visions and stuff and you hear a lot of noises and like bugs, it's terrible.

All right, I'm telling you, it is not fun at all, right? But I did feel it like burning out my wrist. I can feel it, my brain working.

Like, I knew it, like I knew as was happening, like I'm done with it, like I'm not gonna need this stuff anymore, right? So anyway. So after it was over and I recovered like that, you know, 12 hours I got out, I never did another. You know, any morphine or any narcotics?

Ever again, that was it, it was done amazing. Yeah, it resets your receptor.

When I went in there, I just literally had a physical like a physical addiction. And if I didn't take this stupid drug, I'd get uncomfortable. And I didn't want to have that. Like, I'm traveling all the time, right? So for me, you know, I didn't feel like any profound changes other than that, you know, for the first 45 days, I had to learn to be, like, completely sober again. So it was, even though I know physical withdrawals, I had some post acute like mental, I just didn't feel great.

But then, after like, 45 days, it's only the all the clouds lifted. And I, you know, felt terrific, so it was an amazing gift that I gave myself. And I would strongly recommend this to anybody who's suffering from, you know, opioid addiction right now. It's certainly a better solution than Suboxone.

And and you know, for me, it was, it was life changing, so great.

So I was using it at a dose, was like I was trying to get high. So I guess if someone was like, reluctantly put on Suboxone because they were like a drug act, and it was, you know, they just had to. Was a life was so out of control. I guess they'd have to probably work through some therapy as well afterwards, but, you know, I think it's really helpful for that, too.

In other words, in some people that go through ibogaine when they, when they emerge, they're like, they get this new perspective on their life. And why would I ever want to use opioids again? It's disgusting and terrible, so, but it is incredibly powerful, like it is not, no joke.

It is no joke. Like, I've tried ketamine, you know? like it's a great thing from that. use ketamine to expand your brain. I've tried other hallucinogens, I've tried mushrooms, right?

You know, ibogaine is in a class of itself, it's like, not like no one ever abused ibogaine.

Let's have a fun trip on Ibogaine. It's like, No, it's like, you know, it's like, let's go to the crazy house. And like, you know, hold off and be alive for 12 hours. And and then all your addictions are gone. And really.

You were on.

Yeah, they'll speak to, you know? But a lot of people were like, you know, we employed about 4000 people. It's ratting over the years probably more, like five or 6000 people. And a lot of them, you know, they come and go. I run into him from time to time, but, you know, my new life is very different. So for the last, you know, since 2009, right? I've been out there coaching, and, you know, mentoring entrepreneurs. And on how to build businesses and how to do sales and increase their, you know, marketing capabilities, right?

And I never talked about Wall Street, never like, I never wrote a book, and that was really my core competency, right? And what really made me do is, honestly, was my brother in law. When I when I kind of just saw him, like, just getting whipsawed.

I'm like, you know what if there's two sides to, I think, to retiring and being wealthy, or at least comfortable? One is you want to make money when you're in your working years, right? That's we all have to do that, and you want to make as much money as you can. Hopefully doing something you like. That's part of the equation, right?

The next part is, what do you do with the money that you can save from all the hard work? How do you put that money to work in a very safe, responsible way? That's going to outpace inflation significantly, that's going to compound and allow you, when you're ready to retire, have an amazing life. I believe that people deserve that. So I look at this book.

Is it's a gift? If you read this book? Really, it's it's a it's like a blueprint, and it's really simple.

It's like, not that complicated. But you know, I. I knew that if I wrote the book in a dry way, people would not read it. So I wrote in a very funny and more story. So it'd be really engaging. But as you go through that, you get this what I consider to be a turnkey formula for a portfolio.

Can I ask a dumb question? The S&P?

Correct. So why wouldn't you just take the make your own S&P 15 or 10 or 50? Why would?

At picking the winning stocks, it's too hard, so you're just imagine everybody is trying to do the same thing. What's the next winner? what's the big winner, right?

So all the money is chasing after this is pool of shares, right? So the question is, you know any given moment? You know? The way you know economics is that the market is fairly priced in this moment, based on all the available information that's out there. Yeah, this is what every single individual stock is worth right now, over time, right when you buy the S&P now, remember, the S&P 500 is the 500 biggest, most profitable companies in the U.S. They're in 10 different sectors, but the S&P, the index committee, every quarter will meet and say, Okay. Based on the U.S. economy, is the weighting of each sector correct?

We have nothing, information, stocks, right? do we have enough in industrials? How about healthcare, right? So if you go back 30 years, industrial is one of the biggest sectors out there. But then we exported our manufacturing based China, right?

And so the financials become really big. And also especially computers and information and healthcare, so the biggest ones in our healthcare and computers, information technology, those are your biggest sectors. So what happens is the S&P will reweight itself every quarter to match the U.S. economy. And any of the companies that are either underperforming, right or becoming less relevant to their sector will be replaced by companies that are doing better and are more relevant. So you have, at any given moment, the 500 best companies, all done for you for free by the S&P Index Committee. Who's selling that information? Making money in a different way? They don't make the money. You can't invest in the S&P index because it's an index, you need a fund, right? So there's a very big difference.

When the S&P first came out, you could only watch it, there was no way to invest in it. It was like a benchmark. How am I doing compared to the S&P? You couldn't buy it, you'd have to go out and buy each of the 500 stocks, which is a cost prohibitive. And not, you know, you could, just time prohibitive as well, right? So when the first S&P 500 index fund came along, it allowed people for the first ever to buy all 500 companies in one trade. Right? Which is incredibly tax efficient and time efficient. Now, what else happens? Once a company goes into the S&P? All the institutions have to buy it.

So there's almost a self fulfilling prophecy part of it as well, right? So if you have information like inside information, you're one of those rare people. That can somehow, like 1 in 10 million people, or 100 that can somehow figure out which stocks are going up are going to beat the S&p? God bless you, right? But my chance, the chance to everyone listening is that's not you, right? You're not going to be able to beat the S&p. You don't think it's me?

When you read the book, I go through every study in a very funny way. And then, when you like, the last chapter is called. Meet the Fuckers instead of meet the Fuckers, I call it, meet the fuckers. Who are the fuckers? Well, the fuckers are the Jim Cramers of the world.

These are all the fuckers who are out there, and he's just one of all the online the charlatans on TikTok. These five stocks about the moon. I mean, come on, like, this stuff is littered all over the internet, trying to bait people into making stupid investment decisions that are self-defeating. It's the seminar guy who tells you to buy the magical trading system that's going to beat the market.

You can turn $50,000 to $5,000 in three months in your bathroom from home with my algorithm. Well, if it's so great, how come you're not using it yourself? Why are you fricking? Walking into? It's so ridiculous, but this is what, and people fall for it right all the time, and they end up getting destroyed.

And you know when it really hits them, when they're 55, 60 years old, they don't have the money they should have. If you follow the advice in this book, which is an arguably the best advice, I mean, Warren Buffett would give you this advice seriously, it's an arguably great advice. And that is to play the long-term investing game, relying on compounding, meaning you start off with a small amount as much as you can, right?

And then add to it a little bit each month, whenever you can, as much as you can. And then also reinvest your dividends, so when you get quarterly dividends because the S&P pays a dividend, reinvest those as well. And just forget it, don't worry about what's going on in the world.

Like you say, the U.S. economy is going to go to shit, okay, maybe it will, maybe it won't, who knows, but here's the deal. No matter how shitty the U.S. economy gets. You're still going to have really big companies out there that are raping and pillaging, making a fortune out there. Like even the S&P 500, half the business is overseas.

Yep, they're multinationals, right? So you're getting overseas exposure as well. And you know, listen, I'm also. As much as America is broken, I still am a believer in the American system of capitalism. I've traveled the whole world.

I've never seen a country where they had this, like the drive and the ingenuity that we have. The U.S. is a special place, I don't care what's wrong with it, it's a special place. And also compared to what?

It's the best bad option out there, right? So I really believe. And then also there's a couple other investments you want to make to balance out risk, right? You want to have what's called a bond fund in there. But again, none of this is about trying to pick which bonds are going to pay more than others. You can't do that.

You're trading against bond professionals that are like going to rip your eyeballs out every time you try to beat the market. So you want to be engaging in these in these like index go passive investing, yes, not active passive investing, right?

It's exactly the opposite of.

I think I was asked, but maybe I knew. But what's going to happen with Sam Bankman? I said, But you know, he's probably to get 20 years. Very few people deserve prison, you know?

My pleasure, great to see you.