‘Wolf of Wall Street’ on the prowl in Dublin

"Getting rich is f***ing easy. Eight years ago I had zero; this year I'm going to make $100 million gross," former stockbroker Jordan Belfort said to rapturous applause in Dublin last night.

At the age of 26, the college dropout made $49 million in a single year. As the multimillionaire owner of notorious stockbroking firm Stratton Oakmont, he employed 1,000 people and handled about $1 billion in assets.

Then everything came tumbling down. The US Securities and Exchange Commission shut down his firm, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to jail.

Last night, the real-life Wolf of Wall Street took to the stage at the RDS, saying, "I'll earn more money this year than I ever have." With a glass of Guinness in his hand, Mr Belfort told the 2,500 in attendance: "I'm sober for 17 years, but I can take a sip of this."

He said 100 per cent of profits from his speaking engagements will go towards the $110 million he was ordered to repay to the investors he defrauded. And that doesn’t seem too big a task, considering he’s already on target to make $100 million from his motivational speaking tour.

“Some people have a fear of public speaking – I have a fear of not public speaking,” he told the crowd.

He also offers private coaching to entrepreneur: “I charge a million dollars a year for private coaching, and I can’t take on any more clients. I’m all backed up.”

He advised the mostly sales personnel and entrepreneurs in attendance to take action. "Successful people take action: they are not held back by their fears. They move into situations that stretch them." The event, organised by the College Times, also heard that entrepreneurs often give up when they are close to success because that success is not yet visible.

Mr Belfort's memoir, charting his overnight fall from jetsetting playboy to prison inmate, was turned into a film last year by Martin Scorsese.

“If I had not sacrificed my ethics, I’d probably have made $5-6 billion by now,” he said.