Let me tell you something. There's no nobility in poverty. I've been a rich man and I've been a poor man. And I choose rich every time.
Oprah Winfrey once said that money didn't buy happiness but it made being miserable easier. Jordan Belfort would be inclined to agree with her. From Jordan's perspective, poverty did not make him a better person, or build his character; in fact, if anything, it was to his character's detriment. He speaks as an expert on the subject having enjoyed riches and suffered through poverty. There is nothing good about being poor; being rich makes life easier, even if it doesn't change the personality or the day to day actions of the person enjoying it.
OK, first rule of Wall Street. Nobody - and I don't care if you're Warren Buffet or Jimmy Buffet - nobody knows if a stock's going up, down or f****ng sideways, least of all stockbrokers, but we have to pretend we know.
Hanna is Jordan's mentor, and the man who is more honest about the realities of being a stockbroker than anyone else has ever been before. He is explaining that the real art in being a successful broker is pretending to know what one is talking about. The entire trade is basically smoke and mirrors. The most successful stockbrokers are the ones who are best at keeping up the facade of expertise that gives their clients confidence and makes them want to invest in stocks that their brokers are recommending. It is less about what they can do, and more about what they appear to be able to do.
I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?
Death, to a man like Jordan Belfort, comes equivalent to a life of mediocrity and poverty. Jordan believes that it wouldn't take much to live an idle life and that doing so is easy, as easy as death. The real testament to greatness comes in the form of reaching for new limits. He knows that his stock-market scheme is illegal, but to him, that life is anything but ordinary. It's a life worth living, but it takes a brave soul to live such a life.
