The Wolf of Wall Street is appropriately set to be one of the top earning films of 2014. It follows the story of a young Wall Street entrepreneur who is displaced by a market crash and sets up his own business, becoming one of the industry's top earners and filling his home and office with lurid displays of wealth. His insatiable desire for money eventually propels him straight into a jail cell, along with a vast amount of emotional trauma and drug misuse. It, in short, is fantastic. Many have tipped it as DiCaprio's greatest ever performance, and it's a typical example of the inspired directing that we've come to expect from the masterful Scorsese. But it's probably not also an example of the way we should live our lives. We've taken the top five lessons that we can learn from the antics of DiCaprio's character Jordan Belford - the Wolf of Wall Street who had it all, fell from grace and landed on his face. From fashion to finance, this is a film with a serious message - and this is why you should be listening.
5. Never Trust A Stockbroker
The Wolf of Wall Street, in case you haven't seen it and happen to be a moron, is a film about people who play the stock market. More specifically it's about one man, Jordan Belford, who plays it in spectacular style. It follows his incredible fortunes in the penny stocks market, the establishment of his own company and the creation of his millions. Right from the beginning, we can see that the trust that Belford's investors place in him is completely misguided. Acting as a financial con-man, he convinces his clients that the doomed stocks they're ploughing money into are "the next big thing". Cashing in on a 50% commission, Jordan walks away laughing. So the first message we can offer is 'never trust a stockbroker' - the chance that they care about your money is really quite slim.
