Episode 057: Turney Duff – Wall Street, Addiction, Rehab, Best-Selling Author, TV Show Consultant

This episode different from the normal Learning Leader Show episode… Turney contacted me via my website (the contact form www.LearningLeader.com) after he saw the John LeFevre episode published. He mentioned that he was a fellow Ohio University Bobcat and he had followed my football career. From this common bond, we developed a friendship and I thought it would be a great idea to record an episode together. I’m really glad we did it!

Best-selling author Bethany McLean said it best: “Turney Duff is a natural storyteller, and his tale of how a naive kid from Maine traded in L.L. Bean for Armani and got sucked into the seamy side of Wall Street is almost impossible to put down. The book is by turns hilarious, harrowing, maddening, and illuminating. After this debut, the smart money will be on Duff.”

“The Buy Side” is now on Amazon's 2013 Best Books of the Year: Business & Investing

Episode 057: Turney Duff – Wall Street, Addiction, Rehab, Best-Selling Author, TV Show Consultant

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The Learning Leader Show

“I wanted to put good karma in the universe.” – Turney Duff, describing why he originally reached out to Brian Koppelman.

Some Questions I Ask:

• What one common characteristic do all high achievers leaders share?
• How did you get the job working with Brian Koppelman on the TV show Billions?
• What is a character study and what was it like doing them with Damian Lewis (star of Homeland and now Billions)?
• How have you discussed your past issues with drugs and alcohol with your daughter?
• Do you fear relapsing?
• What is the day to day life of someone on Wall Street?

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• How a Google alert help our paths cross
• The details behind filming a TV show and what goes into it
• How Turney was hired to consult on the TV show Billions
• How Turney wrote his book, “The Buy Side” and what it’s all about
• The phone call that changed his life
• His struggles with addiction to drugs and alcohol
• His journey of sobriety and how great he is doing right now

“Serenity can be sustained, happiness cannot. My goal is serenity.” – Turney Duff

Continue Learning

• Read: The Buy Side
• Go To: TurneyDuff.com
• Follow Turney on Twitter: @turneyduff

You may also like these episodes:

Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks

Episode 044: John LeFevre – @GSElevator: This Episode Might Offend You

Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion

Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts

Did you enjoy the podcast?

This was a jam packed episode full of great content. David Marquet is leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. He also strives to constantly help others. Who do you know that needs to hear this? Send them to The Learning Leader Show!

Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell

Picture from hitc.com

Bio From TurneyDuff.com

The Buy Side, by former Galleon Group trader Turney Duff, portrays an after-hours Wall Street culture where drugs and sex are rampant and billions in trading commissions flow to those who dangle the most enticements. A remarkable writing debut, filled with indelible moments, The Buy Side shows as no book ever has the rewards – and dizzying temptations – of making a living on the Street.

Growing up in the 1980’s Turney Duff was your average kid from Kennebunk, Maine, eager to expand his horizons. After trying – and failing – to land a job as a journalist, he secured a trainee position at Morgan Stanley and got his first feel for the pecking order that exists in the trading pits. Those on the “buy side,” the traders who make large bets on whether a stock will rise or fall, are the “alphas” and those on the “sell side,” the brokers who handle their business, are eager to please.

How eager to please was brought home stunningly to Turney in 1999 when he arrived at the Galleon Group, a colossal hedge-fund management firm run by secretive founder Raj Rajaratnam. Finally in a position to trade on his own, Turney was encouraged to socialize with the sell side and siphon from his new broker friends as much information as possible. Soon he was not just vacuuming up valuable tips but also being lured into a variety of hedonistic pursuits. Naïve enough to believe he could keep up the lifestyle without paying a price, he managed to keep an eye on his buy-and-sell charts and, meanwhile, pondered the strange goings on at Galleon, where tens of millions were being made each week in sometimes mysterious ways.

At his next positions, at Argus Partners and J.L. Berkowitz, Turney climbed to even higher heights – and, as it turned out, plummeted to even lower depths – as, by day, he solidified his reputation as one of the Street’s most powerful healthcare traders, and by night, he blazed a path through the city’s nightclubs, showing off his social genius and voraciously inhaling any drug that would fill the void he felt inside.

A mesmerizingly immersive journey through Wall Street’s first millennial decade, and a poignant self-portrait by a young man who surely would have destroyed himself were it not for his decision to walk away from a seven-figure annual income, The Buy Side is one of the best coming-of-age-on-the-Street books ever written.