The Wolf of Wall Street is a movie that features Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort. It is based on a true story of how a young adult started at the very bottom of the Wall Street corporate ladder and then in just a few short years, he was a billionaire. The movie depicts the life that he lived while being a very young billionaire and it briefly shows what he did to get to his billions.
Now let me preface this by saying that if you want a beautiful money relationship, the one that Jordan has in this movie, is NOT one for you. Jordan made his billions by lying, cheating, stealing and just being purely greedy. Plus a lot of what he did is illegal. To really have a healthy and beautiful money relationship, you need to let go of those things and focus on building the healthy relationship that you really crave. And I am in no way telling you to go out and build a money relationship like Jordan's either.
I am a forensic accountant (in other words I love finding fraud), so I actually watched this movie because I love finding the fraud in things. As a forensic accountant, so many things stick out for me that would make me want to audit Jordan much earlier than the when the SEC and IRS agents actually showed up. But that is a story for another day.
Today we are focusing on the money relationship lessons from the movie - The Wolf of Wall Street.
Lesson 1: Enjoy your money now and what it can do for you today, not just save everything for the future.
In the movie, Jordan spent hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars in a month. He knew he needed to enjoy his money right now, that is how it would make the biggest difference in his life.
Yes you want to save money for your future so that you can retire later in life. But you also need to enjoy it now. Travel the world, if you want to. Buy the house you dream of buying. Spoil your family, if you want to.
When you do retire later in life, many of the things that you want to do today, you may not be able to do. So why wait to enjoy those parts of life today? Heck, why wait to actually enjoy life today at all?
Life isn't going to wait for you to know exactly where you are going or what you want to do. Get the clarity today on what you want and then go for it.
I'm not saying to not save money for the future here. I'm simply saying to enjoy your life now while also saving. Your life is meant to be lived today, not 40-50 yeas in the future when you retire. And there are ways to be able to enjoy your life today without having to spend extravagantly. You can travel on a budget, you can enjoy just a weekend away, you can splurge and buy that one thing you've been eyeing on the shelf recently.
Lesson 2: When you know what you really want, find a way to get it in your life now.
In the movie, Jordan saw how his mentor at his first job on Wall Street had more money than either of them knew what to do with. And Jordan made the decision that that was what he going to get in life. He learned all of the methods of his mentor and became the best that he possibly could. Then he left this company and took the methods that he had learned and started his own company, so he had underlings under him making him money like he used to do for his mentor. He knew what he wanted and he went out and achieved his goal.
So how can you go after what you really want right now? But before you go after it, do you really know what you want? And more money, isn't the answer here. What is this money going to do for you? How is going to change your life?
If you all of sudden woke up to being a millionaire tomorrow morning, how would you feel? How would you react? What would you do? How long would it take you to spend all of your money?
Now that you are clear on this, make of list of all of the things you need to do right now to make this a reality in your life. And then take action on getting this list done.
No one else can make this happen for you. You have to do it yourself. Go back up and reread the paragraph where I explained how Jordan become a billionaire himself. He watched his mentor, then copied what his mentor did to create the same results (even better) for himself.
You can do this too! There are mentors out there in the world that show you exactly what to do and you can learn exactly what they are doing and turn that into a method for yourself - IF YOU ARE WILLING TO DO THE WORK! It's not always going to be easy, but in the end it will be worth it.
Lesson 3: The more you take care of your money, the more it will take care of you.
In the movie, Jordan learned that more he trained his team and kept building it, the more his money would multiply and keep working for him. He was spending money on drugs and sex and alcohol and physical belongings every single day. But his money kept multiplying.
Having a healthy money relationship means that your money will work for you. Money has a masculine energy to it and it wants to take care of you. But it can't take care of you, if you won't allow it to.
Money is a renewable resource that you can always make more of, as shown by Jordan in this movie. But are you going to continue to limit yourself and not let money be a renewable resource? Or are you going to let it work for you?
Take action on your dreams. Build your savings. Buy the that you want. Create a discipline in your life until you get to where you want to be, both physically and financially. The most important thing is that you have to take action on your dreams.
Like I said at the beginning, there are some general money lessons in this movie, but otherwise you want to take nothing else from this. It's a movie that depicts the kind of fraud that does go on in companies all over the world. And it's showing how one man was caught. But there are still things you can learn from this movie.
Have you watched The Wolf of Wall Street yet? What money lessons did you pick up from it?
