Our story starts this past Thursday night. After two months of saying I need to see The Wolf of Wall Street, I finally decided to give the movie a watch. This is not a review of the movie however. This is more a story of how my experiences affected the way I view the movie. Also, while it’s not necessary, this will all probably make a lot more sense to someone who has seen The Wolf of Wall Street. Having seen Boiler Room is an added bonus.
For those of you who don’t know me, I worked as a stock broker for a brief period of my life. In the summer of 2007, I decided I should try to start a career at some point and began searching for potential jobs. While contemplating my future, the thought of being a stock broker finally manifested itself on a Sunday night. At 3 A.M. So I did what anyone else would do at 3 A.M. on a Sunday night, I began scouring Craigslist.
I was relieved to find three firms that posted "no experience necessary" and gladly emailed a copy of my resume to each and went to bed feeling better about myself. Then, much to my surprise, two of the offices called and left voice messages while I was sleeping to the butt-crack of noon.
I called and set up an interview with one of these two firms for the following day, which was Tuesday for those keeping track. This is still the most bizarre interview I’ve ever been on.
In general, every interview is a variation of the same story. The interviewer asks a series of questions to qualify you as a candidate. Why did you leave your last job? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Tell me about your responsibilities at your last job? You get the idea. You’re there to sell yourself. Here’s why you should choose me.
This interview was different however. The managing partner gave me a hard sell on why I should work there and why their firm is a better option than other firms on "The Street". I was told the background of the managing partners and how "what they learned at Lehman Brothers" would enable me to be successful at their firm. He follows that up with, “If you become an employee at this firm you will make your first million within three years.” What?!
For those who haven't seen Boiler Room it's basically The Wolf of Wall Street except told through the eyes of a low level employee at the firm who is played by Giovanni Ribisi. Definitely worth the watch and while we're on the subject of Boiler Room, I obviously took the job after the interview but that was not the only aspect of this job that echoed the movie. This office loved to refer to anyone possible as a "piker." For those unfamiliar with the term piker, a piker is a stingy or cautious person. So, the guy on the phone won't buy shares? He's a piker. You don't want to get drinks after work? You're a piker. Alex Rodriguez went 0-4 last night? He's a fucking piker. You get the idea. This office also had one rule. If you have seen Boiler Room I'm sure you've already guessed it, "Don't pitch the bitch."
Back to the interview. After 15 minutes of what, in hindsight, appears to have been a cocaine fueled sermon he finally asked his one and only question.
Can you sell me this pen?
Flash forward to Thursday night. I'm watching Leo work his magic and he says, "Sell me this pen."
Fuck me. I've spent the last seven years thinking, "What's the best way to sell a pen?" I've even prepped an answer in the event that I'm ever asked again. I've told the selling the pen story countless times and never once encountered anyone who had been asked to "sell the pen" at any point and now it's a major part of an Academy Award nominated picture. (I've since Google searched it and found that it is a common question during interviews for sales positions.) While I was enjoying the movie, I was also someone bitter.
As I said, I was offered the job and took it. Everyday I'd commute the two hours, door to door, into work. I'd spend 12 hours per day on the phone being berated by secretaries all while making $300 every two weeks. But the money was coming so I stuck it out.
Flash forward to Friday morning. Having watched the movie the previous night, my experience working on Wall Street was just as fresh to me in my mind as the movie and so I found myself doing something I haven't done in years. I went online to read the "What's New" section of the Wall Street Journal.
Back when I was working on Wall Street, one of the first lessons I received was that if I looked over and read the "What's New" section I would learn all I needed for the day. For those unfamiliar with "What's New", it is basically a summary of the big news both in finance and worldwide for the day.
So this is where things got weird for me. Back to Friday morning. The first bullet I read is about how Herbalife is being investigated by the FBI for fraud. So why is that weird? Well it's not on its own, so let us go back to 2007 to make it weird.
But first, some background. The firm I worked for was modeled after these firms that were shut down for illegal trading but weren't exactly performing illegal trades themselves. The model at the firm I worked for was to target stocks that were hopefully going to see a significant jump in price in a 2 to 4 month period and then they would sell all holdings for a profit. So where most large firms look to grow wealth over time and hold positions on certain stocks for years at a time, we were essential Churning accounts to generate commissions. For those unfamiliar Churning is the practice of executing a trade strictly to generate commission and it's against security law. By churning the account my firm would be able to charge their 4% commission 3 to 6 times a year as opposed to the one time at most large firms. But by being very particular about what type of investors they dealt with, they avoided accusations of account churning and having to forfeit commissions. Quiet clever actually.
So. 2007. These 3 to 6 positions I mentioned were accompanied by an elaborate and comprehensive story written by the firms' analyst to sell investors on the stock. Now picture Leo on the phone in the movie talking up his tech company that was actually a garage. While these were well known companies we were selling the model was exactly the same. Give the customer thorough details about the company, ask for them to join you on a small purchase and then wait. Silence is awkward. When the excuse came, we had a Rolodex of rebuttals waiting to hit them with before getting back to the script. Repeat until they buy. You get the idea.
So the first of these scripts I got my hands on focused on a guy named Bill Ackman. Here's a synopsis of that script. Ackman was and is the CEO of a hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management. In 2005, Ackman and Pershing Square Capital acquired a large stake in Wendy's International (burger joint) and sold off their Tim Horton's doughnut chain thus giving the company an influx of cash and driving the stock price up, creating great profits for his hedge fund. Now he was targeting none other than the Target Corporation.
The script went on to explain that the Target Corporation had its own in house credit card for customers and all the land that Target stores were built on. So we would tell potential clients that Ackman was likely to spin those off much like he did with Tim Horton's to generate profit for his hedge fund. Ackman's going to make a ton of money on this deal, why shouldn't you?
So we're essentially dealing the definition of a corporate raider there and for those curious at home, Ackman didn't end up doing either of the two things we told clients he was likely to do.
So, since leaving Wall Street I've found myself still paying attention to the people and companies in these scripts such as Ackman.
Which brings us back to Friday. A refresher, Herbalife was now being investigated by the FBI for possible fraud. The reason why this is significant to my story is that Bill Ackman and Pershing Square Capital Management were selling short a position on Herbalife and very publically claimed that Herbalife is a Ponzi scheme. A short position or selling short is when someone sells stocks on the open market without actually owning the stock. Idea being that they believe the prize will drop drastically and they will be able to buy the stock at a lower price to fulfill the sale and make a profit.
So here I was several years later and those events were still impacting my life. Watching The Wolf of Wall Street brought me back to a time in my life that I had looked at as an epic failure. My own experiences forbade me from even enjoying a simple movie of similar subject matter. I was bitter. Bitter that my becoming a stock broker coincided with the 2007 stock market crash and that my life seemed to mirror and crash in similar fashion.
But in the subsequent days I've taken time to look back on how those experiences, that I've looked at as this monumental defeat, have influenced the decisions and choices I've made in life for the better.
The point being that with time and reflection even the lowest of moments will yield positive results from a certain point of view.
Turns out I was selling myself short because somehow through the experience I learned how to sell a pen.
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