Josh Shapiro always knew he wanted to make as much money as possible. Which is why, when other people his age were floundering, he was raking in thousands of dollars every day.

Shapiro idolized scheme masterminds like Jordan Belfort and Danny Porush, who will be played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’.

Shapiro, now 41, eventually became disillusioned with money. He traded in his Porsche for a Buick, and left finance entirely for a life devoted to helping people.

I was 22 and came back to New York in 1993, when my father, who’s a doctor, said, “Danny” — the son of Jerry Porush, a nephrologist my father was partners with — ‘is making a lot of money at this stock-broker place. Maybe you should go and check it out.’

I was a little hesitant at first. I had no interest in stock brokerage. I didn’t know anything about it. So I walked into this office park in Lake Success, and there was no sign that says Stratton Oakmont or anything but there’s a line of cars — Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes.

So then I walked into the board room, a humongous room with 300 people in it. Everyone on the phone, people standing up, people screaming into the phones, and Porush had a big old office in the corner, with golden golf clubs and souvenirs and signed baseballs — just a really lavish office.

He said: ‘Sit down, Josh. Do you want to make a million dollars a year? Do you want to make $100,000 a month? This is how you do it.’

I was blown away by the intensity — you could feel the pulse when you walked into the place. It was like walking into a nightclub without the music.

They’d give meetings in the back to the cold callers where they’d rip up $100 bills, throw them on the floor and tell them, ‘Do you want to be a loser all your life, or do you want to make something out of your life? Do you want to be rich?’

Porush gave meetings where he’d insult people, based on their performance. He would say: ‘Doug, you sold 1,000 shares of stock in the last three weeks. You know, you should have slit your throat when you were shaving this morning.’

For me, it was Van Heusen at first. Worked my tail off. There was a script with all these rebuttals, pages passed around the office constantly, with better rebuttals. If somebody says, “I need to talk to my wife first,” you said, “Does your wife talk to you before she buys a fur coat? No.”

I showed a lot of initiative, and I stayed late. I was now in Armani suits, Ferragamo shoes, Valentino ties. I would stay all night. I would adjust my hours to call potential customers at home. All you had to do was get past the wife. The guys were more relaxed to talk at home. They were willing to listen a little more.

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[Source : NY Post]