The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort is an autobiographical peek into a drug addled narcissist who used and abused people while running pump and dump scams at his Stratton Oakmont brokerage house.
This is not a book about having too much money or being too greedy, it’s a book about sociopathy and an excess of drugs and alcohol. Money is good in the hands of a good person and this person is far from good.
I’m sure Wall Street is filled with horrible creatures like Belfort has portrayed himself to be in the Wolf of Wall Street but I don’t think that should be the take away from this book either. It’s not money, greed, excess or Wall Street that makes a man horrible, it’s being a horrible man that makes one horrible. The money and power just gives one more choices and access to whatever a horrible mind can think of.
But enough with the negativity. I told myself that I would be as positive as possible with all the books that I mention. The Wolf of Wall Street is written in a very entertaining way and it’s meant to be a warning of how not to be, so in that sense he succeeds. If he stuck to motivational messages and left his personal life out of it I would have liked this book much more. So more coach and less memoir please Jordan.
Who is the book for?
That’s a very good question. If you need a lesson in bad behavior and excess, I suppose this book is for you. You could also just watch the movie and save a few hours. At least Leonardo DiCaprio puts an entertaining face on the Wolf as everything else about the character in the book is horrible. I hope Jordan has fictionalized and exaggerated much of his story for the sake of entertainment as he doesn’t paint a pretty picture of himself.
I’m giving The Wolf of Wall Street a very ordinary 3 Stars out of 10. One of those stars is just because it was made into a movie. I figured maybe I wasn’t paying attention and missed something good in the book, something good enough to make into a film with a $100 million USD budget.
Book Details
Book Title: The Wolf of Wall Street
Book Author: Jordan Belfort
Book Publisher: Hachette Australia by arrangement with Bantam Books – A Division of Random House, USA
First published in 2007. This edition published in 2009.
Paperback. 517 numbered pages. No index.
Quotes from The Wolf of Wall Street Book
It was the nature of twentieth-century capitalism that everyone should scam everyone, and he who scammed the most ultimately won the game. On that basis, I was the undefeated world champ. Jordan Belfort
If I earn a million dollars a week and the average American earns a thousand dollars a week, then when I spend twenty thousand dollars on something it’s the equivalent of the average American spending twenty dollars on something, right? Jordan Belfort
There’s no nobility in poverty. Jordan Belfort
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 learnt enough. Do it differently each time. One day, you will do it right. Failure is your friend. Jordan Belfort
I’m constantly asking myself questions. And the problem with that is that your brain is like a computer: If you ask a question, it’s programmed to respond, whether there’s an answer or not. I’m constantly weighing everything in my mind and trying to predict how my actions will influence events. Jordan Belfort
Table of Contents: Book Chapters
- Prologue: A Babe in the Woods
- Book 1
- 1. A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
- 2. The Duchess of Bay Ridge
- 3. Candid Camera
- 4. WASP Heaven
- 5. The Most Powerful Drug
- 6. Freezing Regulators
- 7. Sweating the Small Stuff
- 8. The Cobbler
- 9. Plausible Deniability
- 10. The Depraved Chinaman
- Book 2
- 11. The Land of Ratholes
- 12. Dark Premonitions
- 13. Money Laundering 101
- 14. International Obsessions
- 15. The Confessor
- 16. Relapse Behavior
- 17. The Master Forger
- 18. Fu Manchu and the Mule
- 19. The Least Likely Mule
- 20. A Chink in the Armor
- Book 3
- 21. Form Over Substance
- 22. Lunchtime in the Alternative Universe
- 23. Walking a Fine Line
- 24. Passing the Torch
- 25. Real Reals
- 26. Dead Men Tell No Tales
- 27. Only the Good Die Young
- 28. Immortalizing the Dead
- 29. Desperate Measures
- Book 4
- 30. New Additions
- 31. The Joy of Parenthood
- 32. More Joy
- 33. Reprieves
- 34. Traveling Badly
- 35. The Storm Before the Storm
- 36. Jails, Institutions and Death
- 37. Sick and Sicker
- 38. Martians of the Third Reich
- 39. Six Ways to Kill an Interventionist
- Epilogue: The Betrayers
- Acknowledgments
More on Making Money and Author Jordan Belfort
Have you read The Wolf of Wall Street? How has it changed the way you think about making money or those that work with it on Wall Street?
- Jordan Belfort Quotes – Browse our list of famous Jordan Belfort quotes on business, making money, investing and Wall Street.
- Jordan Belfort Biography – Information on the life of Wall Street author and public speaker Jordan Belfort.
Related authors include: Burton G. Malkiel, Michael Lewis and Grant Cardone.
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