Jordan Belfort | How to Persist, Be Patient and Succeed

Jordan Belfort – Never Give Up

Noted entrepreneur Jordan Belfort has courted controversy, but is an unparalleled voice on what it takes to reach success. Here he drives home real life lessons with a simple metaphor for persisting at all costs.

Transcript:

This is greatest story for success because what’s the oldest metaphor we have? The guy who digs 85 feet to the goldmine and he drops the shovel, and the next guy walks by, digs one foot, and finds the gold, right? That actually happened in Norway.

Norway is the most amazing country. The people are nice. They’re happy. They’re handsome. They’re like Thor. It’s like Asgard over there. For the last few hundred years, the country was one of the poorest countries in the northern hemisphere. They were a lower, you know, standard of living there.

And then in the ’60s, they realized there might be this massive oil deposit in the North Sea, North Sea Oil. And they spent all this money in combination with Britain and BP and they searched for oil, they searched for oil, and they kept digging and found nothing for like 20 years.

And they were just about to give up, and they had only a month left on the lease and then, “Screw it”, you know? And like on the last day, they were just about to give up, boom, they hit North Sea Oil and literally the biggest oil deposit anywhere, and now Norway is swimming in gold basically.

There, everyone shares the wealth. Everyone has like a pension and they all get free healthcare and it’s really amazing. It’s so funny because the story goes is they were just about to give up, and it was the last hole they sunk and the last 10 feet. They were just about to pack up their stuff and go home, and the gusher hits, and boom, there you go.

And you watch and you see the impact it had, and then take it to a personal level, one individual and your own life, and what about you? What’s your North Sea Oil experience? We all have them. If you look at your life, how many times have you tried something and you just gave up one step too quick?

Now, here’s the deal. The reason I don’t usually like that metaphor is because most of the time, it’s bullshit, because most people, they don’t have the skills to succeed. That formula only works when you have professional oil drillers.

It always comes back. I’m a big believer in the convergence of inside skills up here and real world business skills. You have to have both. You have to have the idea, the passion, the vision, but the real world skills to make it happen, as well.

If you have both of those and then you run that strategy of not giving up until you hit oil, if you keep changing your approach, well, there you go. You’re going to succeed every single time.