E147 | Thinking Films: The Wolf of Wallstreet (2013)

Today Alex discusses the classic 2013 financial crime epic the Wolf of Wallstreet directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Margot Robbie and Jonah Hill. Including themes such as narcissism, behaviour control, addiction and moral disengagement. This episode does not contain financial advice. 

Presented by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

Podcast with Jordan Belfort's ex-wife Nadine Macaluso:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiaVUdXV2UY

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for focused behaviour change coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] The world of investing can be a jungle. Bulls, bears danger at every turn. That's why we at Stratton Oakmont pride ourselves on being the best. My name is Jordan Belfort. I'm a former member of the middle class raised by two accountants in a tiny apartment in Bayside Queens. The year I turned 26 as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million.

Which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week. Today on The Thinking Mind, we're gonna be discussing Martin Scorsese's 2013 crime Epic, the Wolf of Wall Street. This film is a feverish, satirical chronicle of greed, addiction, and excess in the world of finance. Based on the memoir of stockbroker Jordan benefit.

The film dives headfirst into a world of unrestrained hedonism with many [00:01:00] consequences. This movie is three hours long. It's a parade of money, sex, drugs, moral decay. Today we're gonna be discussing what this film is all about. What are the key questions? It's asking what it gets right psychologically, some key psychological takeaways, perhaps a little bit about what's not so accurate about this film, how this film sits within.

Martin Scorsese's catalog and much more. Of course, in discussing this film, there will be spoilers, so if you're still not sure why you should never go back to Benihana, maybe just go watch the Wolf of Wall Street first and then you can dive into this podcast. As I said on our last film analysis episode, which came out last month, which was an analysis of the movie her, I'm aiming to release one of these a month, something like that, and I hope you guys get a lot out of it.

I love watching films and discussing them. If there are any films you guys really want me to analyze, you can send me an email at Thinking Mind [00:02:00] podcast@gmail.com or via our social media. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

With a comment. So why is this film psychologically relevant in a nutshell? Of course, this film is a portrait of many things, narcissism, addiction. I think maybe most crucially moral disengagement, and I think it's worth pointing out that a lot of Martin Scorsese's films are about at bottom morality. If you think about films like Goodfellas Casino, taxi Driver, of course, the Last Temptation of Christ, they're all films which are asking questions about what does it mean to be I moral?

What does it mean to be a good person? Can you get away with being a bad person? For example, the film Goodfellas, ask the question, can you take what you want by force? And gives you quite a clear answer to that And we're we're gonna see what the key questions this film asks. This film is a really good case study [00:03:00] of how power and wealth can kind of become these unabated forces which take over someone's identity and they can interrupt our ability to empathize with others, have healthy relationships.

This film is also saying a lot about the power of charisma, especially charisma when it's not tied to any kind of morality and the dangers of group think. I think this film works so well because ultimately it is a mirror. You watch this film and you can't help but be taken in by its world. You can't help but be seduced by it in some way.

But of course, if you then stick with the film long enough, you see, what are the consequences? What are the downsides of being taken in and trapped by this world? This film came out in 2013. In a way, you can see it as a kind of spiritual successor to films like Goodfellas and Casino. Those are also films about power and excess.

Moral corrosion. Of course, the key difference being this film is set [00:04:00] on Wall Street in legitimate financial institutions rather than in the criminal underworld. I think other films which this film sits nicely alongside include American Psycho starring Christian Bail, which was released in 2000 Wall Street, of course, which starred Charlie Sheen and was directed by Oliver Stone and came out in 1987, and that's all about greed.

Then you've got Margin Call, which came out in 2011 and the big shorts, which came out in 2015, which are films really depicting the aftermath of the financial crisis. And I think it's no coincidence that the Wolf of Wall Street, although not really about the financial crisis, was well suited to come out in 2013.

Similarly in this era where we were dealing with the aftermath of this huge collapse. This film was largely well critically acclaimed. It was hailed as one of Scorsese's Boldest Works, funniest works. It earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, best [00:05:00] director, best actor financially.

It was a huge success, grossing over $400 million worldwide. The main criticism of this film is that was said to be glorifying these immoral behaviors, which we're gonna talk about. I think it's a valid criticism to some degree. I'm not sure. I 100% buy it. I watched this film for the first time when it came out when I was 23 years old, and being a 23-year-old man, I was taken in by it.

It's extremely fun. It's extremely cinematic. It's extremely entertaining, but it's also a very re watchable film. I've watched it a lot over the years, and it's the kind of film that the more you watch it and the more you get to the end. The more you're compelled by the gravity of the consequences of what happens, not just the fun parts, but also the downfall and the tragedy and the kind of decay that you see in a lot of the characters towards the end of the film really stands out more and more the more times you watch this film.[00:06:00] 

So who are the main characters at play? Of course, you've got Jordan Benefits, the protagonist played by Leonardo DiCaprio. He's a young, ambitious stockbroker whose insatiable greed leads him to a lot of success, but then an inevitable downfall. We have Donoff played by Jonah Hill, benefits eccentric right hand man who is extremely loyal, but equally corrupt.

Naomi played by Margot Robbie Jordan's second wife. Who represents the kind of Alere of, of his lifestyle in many ways, but also the collateral damage. She's the main victim of a lot of his behavior. We have agent denim, the FBI agent, who is hunting Jordan and investigating him for his financial crimes.

And of course, we have the extremely memorable Mark Hannah played by Matthew McConaughey. Who was really only present in the beginning of the film, and he's be's mentor and he, his philosophy, his philosophy, which sets the tone for Jordan's moral trajectory [00:07:00] and Hannah's philosophy, is essentially your job as a stockbroker is to, to lie to your clients and to get them addicted to the process of.

Investing and earning money and to ultimately keep, keep them on the hamster wheel of investing so that you as the broker can earn commission. We don't create shit. We don't build anything. No. So if you got a client who bought stock at eight and now sits at 16 and he's all fucking happy, he wants to cash in, liquidate, take his fucking money and run home.

You don't let him do that. Okay. 'cause that would make it real, right? No. What do you do? You get another brilliant idea. A special idea, another situation, another stock to reinvest his earnings and then some. And he will every single time. 'cause they're fucking addicted. And then you just keep doing this again and again and again mean, and this sets Jordan off on his journey.

What's the plot of this movie? Essentially, Jordan begins his career as an eager stockbroker. He joins Mark Hannah's [00:08:00] firm just before the major stock market crash in the early 1980s. After he loses his job, he founds Stratton Oakmont, his own firm, which basically functions by using high pressure sales tactics to sell stocks, which are very low value to upper and middle class investors.

And by selling those lower quality stocks to his investors, he's able to earn vast wealth because on those lower quality stocks, you get huge percentages of commission as he masses. His wealth, him and his colleagues, their lives devolve into a circus essentially of cocaine and quaaludes and orgies and power trips.

Eventually, the FBI gets wind and closes in and despite Jordan's best attempts to evade scrutiny, his empire collapses under its own corruption. He loses his marriage, his friends, his company. He ultimately goes to jail for a period of time. He does kind of remain disturbingly un [00:09:00] unrepentant. And he eventually re-emerges as a motivational speaker who emphasizes the power of selling and the importance of knowing how to sell.

So. A major criticism of this film, as I mentioned, is that it glamorizes this lifestyle fundamentally based on immorality and corruption. But that's the main reason I like this film and why I think this film actually works. It's because as the audience, you don't feel like you're being lectured to or preach to you yourself, are seduced and taken in by the first half or the first three quarters of the film.

You're also subject to the downfall at the end. If you really pay attention to the film and if you're really present with it, you feel the impact of Jordan losing his marriage, of him being abusive to his wife, of him trying to kidnap one of his children at one point in the film of him being kind of hopelessly addicted to drugs, that would all be a lot more impotent if you [00:10:00] weren't there for the joy ride if you didn't believe.

There. There is so much that is glamorous about this kind of behavior, and so this film really serves as a very effective warning against temptation. You could make the argument that maybe the downsides of Jordan's. Behavior were underemphasized in this film. If you look at some of Scorsese's work that he made later, like the Irishman, the Irishman is really heavy on the downside.

So I think the Irishman functions really well as a sequel to Goodfellas, which came out in 1990. And the Irishman, you know, the main theme of the Irishman is regret and decay. And how ultimately, in the big picture, how pointless it is to act in an immoral way that you think you're gonna get what you want.

Ultimately, once the empire collapses, once the criminal empire collapses, you get absolutely nothing. Now the Wolf of Wall Street doesn't show that kind of downfall [00:11:00] with the same kind of unflinching sobriety that the Irishman does, but it still does it if you pay attention, if you watch closely, if you see past the hedonism of the first parts of the film.

So what are some key questions this film is asking? As I mentioned earlier, if you look at a film like Goodfellas. I think that's asking a question that's something like, is it okay to take what you want by force? Can that be okay? Can you build a life on taking what you want by force? And incidentally, Goodfellas is one of my top five films of all time.

So if you haven't watched that, definitely go watch that. I think the Wolf of Wall Street is asking a similar but slightly different question. I think this film is asking, is it okay to take whatever you want by persuasion? Can you build a life on that? I think this film's also asking questions like, what does it mean to have capitalism without morality?

Does money solve all problems? Are there any things money can't buy now? Those questions being [00:12:00] raised and will answer them towards the end of this podcast. What do I think this movie gets right psychologically? Of course, maybe the most obvious thing is this movie is a really interesting portrayal of grandiose narcissism illustrated, primarily by, by Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Beford.

I think the aspect of narcissism, which this movie really gets right, is that narcissists like Jordan really want to make the world in their own image. Obviously, there is a desire for power and dominance. Also building a world that reflects yourself back to you. And that's what exactly what Jordan does.

He doesn't, you know, make a small firm and employ his selling tactics to make some money by himself. He builds a little empire and he has an empire of people doing exactly the same thing that he's doing only on his behalf. Jordan clearly in the film, has a whole [00:13:00] articulated philosophy about what's good in life, and essentially he articulates that.

The world is divided into winners and losers. One of the easiest ways to tell that someone has narciss cystic tendencies in my view, is when they divide the world in a black and white way into winners and losers. Kind of a zero sum game. And so he has this really articulated philosophy about how you can solve all your problems in life by, by getting rich.

And so he keeps his colleagues, his coworkers, his own employees on the hook. Through this philosophy, you need to work for me in order to get rich. And if you get rich, then you'll solve all of your problems. He's not necessarily a hugely aggressive or violent person in the conventional sense. Again, he works by persuasion.

He works by creating objects of glamor that he draws you into even the way he does, the first person narration to the audience is, is really just about trying to suck you [00:14:00] into his world and to make you want. What he wants. No, no, no, no, no. My Ferrari was white like Don Johnson's in Miami. Vice not red.

See that humongous estate down there? That's my house. Billionaires Who shipped? My wife Naomi, the Duchess of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, A former model and Miller alike girl. Yeah. In addition to Naomi and my two perfect kids, I own a Mansion, private jet, six cars, three horses, two vacation homes, and 170 foot yacht.

Uh, and this is, I think, one of the most effective things about the firm when he has conflicts with his enemies, most notably with the FBI agent. Agent denim. His first line of attack again is not. Pure aggression, but it's to try and invite denim into his world. And there's that famous scene where he brings denim into his [00:15:00] yacht with the prostitutes and the food and the money he essentially offers to bribe him subtly.

And he thinks that, oh, well, if I can bring denim into my world, then he won't be a problem. Which is true of course. And when denim resists, and it's clearly like, I'm not about that. I'm not going to into your world. Then Leonardo DiCaprio responds with classic narcissistic rage. Something like, what? He don't want, what I want, look how much I have.

And then he ends up trying to shower money, throw money at denim because he's so. He's not just outraged, he's totally indignant that denim actually might want different things that denim might have. Values that mean he's not necessarily taken in by Jordan's world. That's totally offensive to Jordan.

Sure. Good luck on that subway ride home to you miserable, ugly fucking wives. Hey, you guys wanna take some lobsters for your ride home? Fucking miserable bricks. I know you can't afford them Fucking cheap fucks. I'll talk more about values. [00:16:00] A bit later in this podcast, 'cause I think it's super relevant. I think this film is a really good portrayal of cult-like organizations.

I don't know if you could necessarily call Stratton Oakmont, the company in this, in this film, technically a cult, but it has a lot of cult-like qualities in that it's an organization with a clear hierarchy, with a explicit philosophy. In this case, the philosophy of getting rich and how getting rich will solve all your problems.

There's an element of control over what people do. There's that famous scene where because an employee is caught feeding his goldfish on the day of an IPO, he's ruthlessly humiliated and fired by Jonah Hill's character. There's a sense of needing to control what everyone wears, how people talk. If you read the book, so I've actually read the book that this film is based on, which is worth read.

Jordan Belford, who wrote it. Talks even in more depth about how a culture of aspiration was created in this [00:17:00] company. So Jordan says in the book that it wasn't even just about getting people to aspire to earn a lot of money, but actually what was really encouraging the company and all its employees was flagrant, irresponsible spending.

You didn't just have to get rich, you had to act like a rich person. You had to buy a really nice car, buy a property you didn't afford, spend money on drugs and prostitution and things like that. And the idea being not just that it's controlled for control's sake, but rather that by having all of his employees spend all that money so flagrantly, they remain dependent on Stratton Oak want on the company, and they remain dependent on Jordan.

And again, this is a really cult-like quality that cults often try to get its members as psychologically dependent. On the organization as possible, and besides doing that through financial means, of course you can see in the firm it's really well depicted how everyone in this company seems to [00:18:00] have this sense of belonging, this sense of tribe.

There are numerous scenes where essentially the employees are chanting amongst each other and getting fired up.

I think this. Film is also a really good portrayal of how most people, or a lot of people at least, have a lot of untapped aggression that can easily be harnessed by a charismatic leader. I especially think now in modern society where a lot of people don't really have a healthy outlet for their aggression.

It's very easy for someone, maybe someone you see online or perhaps your boss, as in this case. To say the right combination of words to make you feel like, oh wow, I'm a person of worth, I'm a person of importance, and I have some weight to throw around. And in this case, the employees are encouraged to treat their phones, the devices they use to call their clients [00:19:00] like M sixteens, like lethal weapons, and they're encouraged to go out and sell with a certain level of aggression.

And viciousness film does a really good job of portraying just how enthusiastically aggressive. A lot of the employees in this company are how they have this late aggression that's just ready to be tapped into The film, of course, also alludes to the power of persuasion and the art of selling, and I think this is something to people who aren't unfamiliar with it.

Maybe a lot of people who work in mental health, for example, it can feel very gimmicky and and not real in some sense. Anyone who can tell you that there, there is some sort of art to persuasion and art to selling that you can actually get better at that is probably lying to you. But I don't think that's true.

I think persuasion really is its own art form. Selling is its own art form and you, it really is a set of skills that some people seem to have naturally, some people don't. But it is a set of skills a person [00:20:00] can get a lot better at. And. In my research for this podcast that that's what a lot of people who actually knew Jordan Beford do, say over and over again, whatever flaws he might have, whatever difficulties he had, he was really, really good at selling, and he has, since the events of this firm, actually managed to make a living by teaching people how to sell things.

The problem with just knowing how to sell is you can sell something really well. That's no statement whatsoever on the quality of what you're selling. So what a lot of companies need to focus on is two things, really. One, the quality of your product, and two, the quality of your marketing. So your marketing is like the way you sell the thing, the product or service that you're selling.

But then of course, independently of that, you have the quality of the product or the service you're providing. And those are kind of two separate things. You can have a really poor product. If you know how to market it and sell it, you can still [00:21:00] do really well. Conversely, you can have an amazing product, but if you're not very good at marketing or selling, then you're probably not gonna be very successful at all.

In a weird way, this is kind of what you're doing a lot with psychotherapy, so especially when you're helping people be a bit more successful when it comes to making friends. Or dating or relationships, you're not necessarily helping the person become a better person. In other words, like a better product if you like.

You're helping the sell themselves. You're helping them communicate in a way that's kind of concordant to their value as a person. That's not always the case. Of course, in psychotherapy, you can also do quite deep work into someone's character, but a lot of the time people are really good people and they have a lot to offer.

They just don't know how to communicate with other people in a way that conveys their value to others. So this is something you see quite a lot in the psychotherapy and the coaching world. Of course, just being able to sell yourself if [00:22:00] you're not a person of good character. Just like being able to sell a product if you don't have a really good product is a bad idea, and more often than not, it's gonna lead to a bad outcome.

It's going to lead to people feeling disappointed or deceived or betrayed. But it is really worth noting that selling. Persuasion. These are very, very important skills, and they're skills that if they're untethered from reality, untethered from the quality of what you're selling can lead to a lot of bad consequences.

This film demonstrates in a lot of ways the nature of addiction. So Jordan benefit is kind of addicted to anything and everything. He's addicted to getting more money. He's addicted to sex, and then a variety of drugs. Really, this film is a huge statement on the quality of anticipatory pleasure. What do I mean by that?

Broadly speaking, you could say there's maybe two kinds of pleasure. There's the pleasure of [00:23:00] something that you're really satisfied with, that you have now a kind of present moment satisfaction that might be the satisfaction of being with someone you really love, or the satisfaction of doing something you really love to do.

Then on the other hand, there's kind of an anticipatory pleasure, the pleasure of always wanting more, the pleasure of what's on the horizon. This is the kind of pleasure someone might feel when they get a raise or get a promotion or start a new company or do cocaine. It's a pleasure. That's very much set in the future, things that are gonna happen in the future that I'm excited about.

And so this film. Depicts nicely that a lot of greed comes from this anticipatory pleasure of the future. And the main problem with this anticipatory pleasure is your mind is always being directed not towards the pre the present moment and enjoying what you have now, but what could I get in the future?

Inevitably when people are hooked on this kind of treadmill of anticipatory pleasure, if they don't get [00:24:00] any present moment satisfaction or present moment relaxation. What tends to happen is at some point people burn out or they collapse, or something goes wrong in some meaningful way. I think there's nothing wrong with anticipatory pleasure as such, but if you're just relying on anticipatory pleasure and you're never checking in with the moment, checking with what are the things that make you more replenished now, then that can be a very unstable situation.

I think the deepest statement this movie has to make. Is around moral and ethical disengagement and what you could call moral replacement. What do I mean by this? If you don't have a clear sense of your values, of what's important to you, of your own philosophy of life, of what's good and what's kind of things you should strive for.

And what's bad and what kind of things you should try and stay away from. You're [00:25:00] incredibly vulnerable to a whole bunch of dysfunctional forces coming at you and kind of taking over your life. And those could be forces like hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, cynicism, a kind of mistrust of the status quo or mistrust of even an ideal materialism.

The pursuit of wealth and things nihilism a sense that actually everything is pointless and, and. Nothing is worth striving for. And mainly what you see in this film is that at the beginning, Jordan doesn't have a very well articulated system of values of what's important when he is talking to McConaughey in the beginning, he does kind of briefly allude to the idea that maybe with your clients you should have like a win-win relationship.

You win, they win, which actually a lot of ethical business leaders talk about a lot. You can tell he doesn't have a lot of conviction, and his philosophy is very quickly bulldozed by McConaughey philosophy, which is no, actually, you keep your clients on the hamster wheel. You always keep them wanting more, and that's how they get [00:26:00] addicted, and that's how you get rich.

In other words. McConaughey is articulating a win-lose philosophy, and Jordan just kind of imbibes that hole. And then that's the philosophy that he puts onto his employees, that it's all about getting rich and getting rich is the main thing you should pursue in life. That money will solve all your problems.

Similarly, you would argue maybe for different reasons, his employees don't have their own, their own philosophy. They don't have their own strong sense of values, and so they're easily taken in by Jordan's way of thinking. And then they get taken in by the glamor of it, of course, and then they become hooked.

My highly trained Strat knights, my killers, my killers, who will not take no for an answer. My fucking warriors, who will not hang up the phone until their client either buys or fucking.[00:27:00] 

I feel culturally it's become very passe to talk about morality in 2025 to talk about the value, for example, of honesty, of moral integrity, of having a system of ethics. It's not something I really see discussed in the culture at all. I think partly that. Due to the fact that we're very much on a religious decline in the west, and religion and morality are often tightly associated with each other, there doesn't seem to be any societal force which has sprung up.

In religion's place to to guide people in any sense morally in society. And I do think that leaves a lot of people vulnerable to just chasing hedonistic pleasures to cynicism, materialism, nihilism to political indoctrination and other ideologies. And a film is also talking about how fragile that life built without morality really is that if you just come up with your own impulsive principles about how to live.

The principles that get you [00:28:00] pleasure right now without thinking about the long-term consequences, you're ultimately setting up a life for yourself that's very fragile. A life that's basically one FBI investigation away from you going to prison. A marriage that can collapse at any moment, a career that could evaporate before your very eyes.

And it's also worth noting that really, in many ways, Jordan benefits. Isn't your typical villain. He does a lot of bad things, of course, ultimately went to prison for his crimes. Arguably not long enough, but you do get the sense when watching it that had you been in his position, he might have similarly gone down this misguided path.

And again, I think that's a very useful lesson that's Scorsese is trying to impart that. Most of the time people aren't inherently good or evil, but we have the capacity for both. In the research for doing this podcast, I found that Jordan Befit is far from just being a [00:29:00] villain. I listened to a podcast with his wife where she confirms that much of what happens in the film is true, including some abuse that he committed.

But she also describes that they have an amicable relationship now, that he's actually, in many ways, a really good parent, that he's recovered from a lot of his problems, and that actually when not under the influence of drug addiction is a much better person. So even looking into the hard facts of this case, we're not dealing with someone who's a pure villain, but someone who through four different reasons got lulled.

Into going down a very bad path and doing some very bad things, which I think is much more true to life generally. Interestingly, Jordan's ex-wife has become a psychotherapist later in life. She describes that she and Jordan were in what she calls a kind of toxic relationship. She does feel that he at least had at the time, narcissistic tendencies, and she also described something that wasn't really present in the film, which is that [00:30:00] Jordan had a hyper dominant father, and that may be one reason why he was inclined himself to be kind of hyper dominant in his adult life.

So in terms of practical takeaways you can get from this film that you can actually use in your life? One, yes. Charisma and confidence are not inherently bad things. They, and they can be really powerful tools if you don't have any charisma or any confidence. I would highly recommend gaining some. It's very hard to form your relationships, have a fun or promising career.

Have a good social life. If you don't have charisma, confidence at all. That's kind of the way that you sell yourself and persuade other people to, to be on your side and get other people aligned with your vision. But charisma and confidence, totally untethered from ethics or morality become very dangerous, and they become very easy to misuse.

Charisma without ethics in a way, is kind of like a [00:31:00] loaded gun. And this film also is a really nice depiction of the halo effect. And this is the idea that if someone is outwardly successful, if they're dressed in a really nice suit, if they're evidently making a lot of money and have a lot of nice things, it's very easy to overlook the bad things about them.

Like perhaps that they're, uh, addicted to drugs or that they're corrupt. Or that they're committing adultery. And so I think when people are forming new relationships, perhaps new business relationships, really important to be aware of the halo effect. That there may be aspects of a person that are really good and that might make you overlook some of their darker aspects.

Ignores harm their red flags, and that can lead people into a lot of trouble. The third takeaway is this film is saying that systems that kind of reward profit over and above everything else will tend to breed people like Jordan Buffet's character in this film, there is something about the [00:32:00] incentives of capitalism.

That can encourage people to do away with any kind of morality or integrity. If you're just obsessed with shareholder value, that can lead you to make a lot of morally questionable decisions. And again, as I say this, I'm not saying this from an anti-capitalist perspective exactly, but rather I'm saying very important that capitalism be counterbalanced by a clear, solid morality.

And I think one of the problems we clearly have in the West right now is we have the engine of capitalism that's kind of really disconnected from any sense of overarching ethics. And then I think the fourth takeaway, similar to what I've described earlier, is it's really important to think about what are your principles and values in this life.

If you don't really know what your values are, you don't know what you care about. If you don't have any conviction, if you don't have any sense of what's important for you or what's right or wrong, [00:33:00] you are extremely vulnerable to imbibing, wholesale, the philosophies and the beliefs of other people, and that's not always towards good ends.

Very often people are selling you a kind of philosophy about how to live life. That's often to control you in some way, and that might be in a small way, for example, to get you to buy their product. And that might be in a much larger way, for example, in the form of a cult where you're asked to really devote your life for someone else.

So really important to have your own articulated philosophy about what's important in life. And then I guess the fifth takeaway is that if you build your life on shaky foundations. You're going to be building a life that's very fragile and one that can very, very easily fall into a catastrophic tailspin.

Now, what do I think this movie gets wrong psychologically? I think the portrayal of addiction is very atypical. So normally when someone's addicted to something, they experience what's [00:34:00] called narrowing of repertoire. So someone may use a bunch of substances. Then they may just use alcohol and then they may land on just using vodka for example.

Whereas Jordan, he sees kind of addicted to life in some sense. He's addicted to anything and everything, sex, money, drugs, and that's very, very unusual. And then the second thing is. There doesn't seem to be, there seems to be minimal loss of functionality with his addictions despite using all of these substances.

He seems to continue functioning and, and going about his corrupt business just fine. And that to me seems pretty unusual when someone's using that many. Drugs using that much alcohol, typically I would expect quite a profound loss of functionality that may have happened. Of course, in real life, we don't really know.

It might be something to do with Jordan's unique Constitution, but at least as far as we see it in the film, he seems pretty functional despite all of his addictions, perhaps with [00:35:00] the exception of when he takes too many Quaaludes. And I guess the second thing is that. You see benefits doing all of this narcissistic behavior, but you don't really glimpse his internal world.

His internal world remains relatively opaque. We don't necessarily see the underlying pain or insecurity that that we would expect with narcissism, and it might be, of course, that benefit. The character didn't have a whole lot of pain or insecurity. Again, difficult to know these things from the outside.

And the third thing that the movie gets wrong. It is not actually about psychology, but I guess this film can kind of lead someone to believe that all of investing is bad, or all of financial investing is a scam. And I wouldn't necessarily want people to walk away from this film with that impression because there's a lot.

About financial investing that can be very good for someone at some point in the future. I do want to make an episode on the podcast that's just primarily about the importance of investing. There [00:36:00] are obviously ways of investing that are useful and much lower risk and much more ethically sound. But if you don't know anything about investing, buying assets and you watched this film, you can really walk away with a terrible impression of this whole area.

And I think that's a shame 'cause actually what a lot of financial experts say is. The worst thing you can do with your money is to leave it in a bank account and not do anything with it. And that's for reasons to do with inflation and currency, the basement. And again, if I ever do make a podcast about this, I will discuss this stuff in more depth, but ultimately, there's a lot of ways you can use your money that is very sound and ultimately very good for your financial health.

And there's a lot of ethical people who work in finance. And so you shouldn't let this film make you think anything to do with finance or investing is a bad thing because that's absolutely not true. Who is the psychologically healthiest person in this movie? I think he can make the [00:37:00] argument that Agent Patrick Denim played by Kyle Chandler.

He's calm, he's disciplined, he's not taken in by Jordan's world. He has his flaws like everyone, but he's grounded. He has a clear purpose. He shows that you can live a good life that's not necessarily glamorous. So as I said at the beginning, the key question of this movie is something like, can Money solve all of your problems?

And the answer to that question is, of course, money can only get you so far. Yes, it can solve a lot of problems. It can help you in your career. It can help you buy a house. It can even help you attract a mate and get married. But money on its own is not the answer. In fact. You can think of money as an amplifier.

All the good things about you, money can amplify. If you're a generous person, money can make you much more generous if you are an unethical person, if you're an insecure person, if you're a person prone to addiction, money can make all of [00:38:00] that stuff a hundred times worse. You can argue that. The poor version of Jordan be in this movie can exert a lot less harm than the rich Jordan be at the end of this movie 'cause he has access to all of that money and all of the things that money can so easily manifest in your life.

My favorite quote. From this film is of course, nobody, I don't care if you're Warren Buffet or if you're Jimmy Buffet, nobody knows if the stock is gonna go up, down, sideways, or in fucking circles, least of all stockbrokers. Mm-hmm. It's all a Fugazi. You know what a Fugazi is? No. Fugazi. It's a fake. Yeah.

Fugazi. Fugazi. It's a yazi. It's a woozy. It's a woozy at the fairy dust. It doesn't exist. It's never landed. It is, no matter it's not on the elemental chart. It's not fucking real. Right, right. How would I rate this film overall as a cinematic experience? Of course, it's five stars outta five, despite the film's length, it never [00:39:00] feels boring.

It's inherently re watchable. And as we've hopefully unpacked in this episode, also has a lot of depth to keep you thinking afterwards, how would I rate this film in terms of psychological accuracy? I'll give it a four out of five. It's not perfect. It's kind of portraying an extreme situation, an uncommon situation in a lot of ways.

But having read the book and some interviews with Jordan Bedford's, ex-wife with Jordan Befit, it does seem like most of what happens in the movie actually happens in real life. It's a really nice portrayal of many aspects of addiction. Greed, behavioral control. And what are the consequences of living an amoral life overall?

The Wolf of Wall Street is not just a cautionary tale. It is a mirror. By showing us how easily we can be captivated by this film, we can hopefully become aware that we're all vulnerable to being fascinated by wealth and power [00:40:00] and this myth of limitless freedom. Hopefully after watching this film, we're a little bit better armed against the temptations we're gonna face in the future.

Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and you found this useful. As I said at the beginning, if there's any particular film you want me to take a look at and analyze on the podcast, you can email us at Thinking Mind podcast@gmail.com or reach out to us via social media. In the meantime, thanks for listening.