I am the chairman and president of The Trump Organization. I like saying
that because it means a great deal to me. There are almost twenty
thousand members of this organization at this point. I did a print ad once
in which I declared, “I only work with the best.” That statement still
stands.
More and more, I see that running a business is like being a general.
Calling the shots carries a great deal of responsibility, not only for
yourself, but for your troops. Your employees’ lives, to a large extent, are
dependent on you and your decisions. Bad strategy can end up affecting a
lot of people. This is where being a leader takes on a new dimension.
Every decision you make is an important one, whether there are twenty
thousand people working for you or just one.
If you are careful when finding employees, management becomes a lot
easier. I rely on a few key people to keep me informed. They know I trust
them, and they do their best to keep that trust intact.
For example, when I need to know something about my casinos and
hotels in Atlantic City, I know I can call up Mark Brown, my CEO, and get
a fast and informed answer. If I call Laura Cordovano over at Trump Park
Avenue and ask about sales, she’ll give it to me exactly as it is. If I call
Allen Weisselberg, my CFO, he’ll tell me what I need to know in twenty
words or less. My senior counsel and Apprentice adviser, George Ross, can
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do it in ten words or less. Find people who suit your business style and
you’ll have fewer problems to deal with as time goes on.
Good people equals good management and good management equals
good people. They have to work together or they won’t work together for
very long. I’ve seen good management get by with mediocre people, and
I’ve also seen excellent people get stuck in the mires of bad management.
The good managers will eventually leave, followed by the good workers,
and you will be left with a team that gets along because they’re all
mediocre. Save yourself time by getting the best people you can.
Sometimes this can mean choosing attitude over experience and
credentials. Use your creativity to come up with a good mix.
Creative people rarely need to be motivated—they have their own
inner drive that refuses to be bored. They refuse to be complacent. They
live on the edge, which is precisely what is needed to be successful and
remain successful.
One of my former employees was in charge of a new project. He had
done a thorough and acceptable job, but I felt that something was missing.
It wasn’t fantastic, which, knowing his capabilities, it should have been. I
decided to challenge his creative ego by mentioning that it was fine but
seemed to lack inspiration. I politely asked him whether he was genuinely
interested in the project and suggested that perhaps that might be the
problem.
Well, the guy went ballistic on me. He was deeply insulted.
And, as you can probably guess, the revision he turned in was terrific.
The difference between the first draft and the final version was incredible.
I didn’t slam the guy because he was usually demanding of himself and
had never let me down. But I had to give him a jolt.
Generals motivate their soldiers; they inspire them when it is
necessary. They do the same for their highest-ranking officers. We all need
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a boost now and then. Learn how to tailor your method to the
personalities you are managing.
Keep the big picture in mind while attending to the daily details. This
can seem like a balancing act, but it is absolutely necessary for success in
running a company.
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Stay Focused
In the 1980s, I was riding high. After learning the essentials of real estate
development from my father, Fred, a builder in Queens and Brooklyn, I’d
become a major player in Manhattan, developing Trump Tower, the
Grand Hyatt Hotel, and many other top-tier properties. I had a yacht, a
plane, a bestselling book.
One magazine headline said, EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES TURNS TO
GOLD, and I believed it. I’d never known adversity. I went straight from
Wharton to wealth. Even in down markets, I bought properties
inexpensively and made a lot of money. I began to think it was easy.
In the late eighties, I lost focus. I’d fly off to Europe to attend fashion
shows, and I wasn’t looking at the clothing. My lack of attention was
killing my business.
Then, the real estate market crashed. I owed billions upon billions of
dollars—$9.2 billion, to be exact. That’s nine billion, two hundred million
dollars. I’ve told this story many times before, but it bears repeating: In the
midst of the crash, I passed a beggar on the street and realized he was
worth $9.2 billion more than I was. I saw a lot of my friends go bankrupt,
never to be heard from again.
The media had me for lunch. Forbes, Business Week, Fortune, The Wall
Street Journal, The New York Times—they all published major stories about
my crisis, and a lot of people seemed to be happy about it.
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I’ll never forget the worst moment. It was 3A.M. Citibank phoned me
at my home in Trump Tower. They wanted me to come over to their office
immediately to negotiate new terms with some foreign banks—three of
the ninety-nine banks to whom I owed billions.
It’s tough when you have to tell a banker that you can’t pay interest.
They tend not to like those words. An ally at Citibank suggested that the
best way for me to handle this difficult situation was to call the banks
myself, and that’s exactly what they wanted me to do, at three o’clock on a
cold January morning, in the freezing rain. There were no cabs, so I
walked fifteen blocks to Citibank. By the time I got there, I was drenched.
That was the low point. There were thirty bankers sitting around a big
table. I phoned one Japanese banker, then an Austrian banker, and then a
third banker from a country I can no longer remember.
In The Art of the Deal, I had warned readers never to personally
guarantee anything. Well, I hadn’t followed my own advice. Of the $9.2
billion I owed, I’d personally guaranteed a billion dollars. I was a
schmuck, but I was a lucky schmuck, and I wound up dealing with some
understanding bankers who worked out a fair deal. After being the king of
the eighties, I survived the early nineties, and by the mid-to-late nineties, I
was thriving again.
But I learned my lesson. I work as hard today as I did when I was a
young developer in the 1970s.
Don’t make the mistake I did. Stay focused.
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Maintain Your Momentum
William Levitt, the master builder of Levittown, taught me the true
meaning of “momentum.”
In the 1950s, he was the king. No detail was too small for his attention.
He would personally collect stray nails and extra chips of wood from
building sites to make sure his construction crews used all available
materials.
He sold his company in 1956 to ITT for $100 million, which is
equivalent to billions today. Then he made some terrible mistakes.
He retired.
He married the wrong woman.
He moved to the south of France and lived on the Riviera with his new
boat and his new wife.
One day, ITT called. The executives in charge of the conglomerate had
no aptitude for home building. They had bought huge tracts of land but
didn’t know how to get them zoned. So they sold it back to Levitt, who
thought he’d gotten a great deal
He went back into business. And he proceeded to go bankrupt.
I saw William Levitt at a cocktail party in 1994, two weeks before he
died. He was standing by himself in a corner, looking defeated. I didn’t
know him well, but I approached him, hoping to acquire some wisdom
from the master. “Mr. Levitt,” I said, “how are you doing?”
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“Not good, Donald, not good.” Then he said the words I’ll never
forget. “I lost my momentum. I was out of the world for twenty years, I
came back, and I wasn’t the same.”
No matter how accomplished you are, no matter how well you think
you know your business, you have to remain vigilant about the details of
your field. You can’t get by on experience or smarts. Even the best
surgeons need to be retrained regularly, to stay current on the latest
research and procedures.
No matter what you’re managing, don’t assume you can glide by.
Momentum is something you have to work at to maintain.
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My loyal assistant, Norma Foerderer
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Get a Great Assistant
Surround yourself with people you can trust. I often say it’s good to be
paranoid, but not when it comes to your home team.
Ask God for a great assistant. No joke. A great one can make your life
a whole lot easier—or, in my case, almost manageable. Norma Foerderer
has been with me for twenty-three years. If you want to know what a great
guy I am, just ask her. But not on a Friday.
Handling me, the office, and several hundred calls a week isn’t easy.
She’s as tough and smart as she is gracious. She’s also indefatigable, which
helps a lot if you work for me.
My phones are so busy that I require two executive assistants, and
they never stop. They alone handle, on the average, more than 1,250 calls a
week. They are not only efficient and fast, but also very pleasant and
beautiful young women.
You don’t have to be beautiful to work for me—just be good at your
job. I’ve been accused of admiring beautiful women. I plead guilty. But
when it comes to the workplace, anyone who is beautiful had better have
brains, too. You need competent people with an inherent work ethic. I’m
not a complacent person and I can’t have a complacent staff. I move
forward quickly and so must they.
Once, I wanted to know how fast a new employee could work, so I
told him I was leaving in fifteen minutes and needed something done
within that time. I wasn’t actually going anywhere, but, sure enough, I
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had what I needed in fifteen minutes. Machiavellian? Maybe, but both of
us learned something that day.
One final piece of advice on assistants, which I learned from
experience and which, I admit, may not be as relevant to your career as it’s
been to mine: Find a receptionist who can speak English. We had a
breathtaking European beauty out front who could easily rival Ingrid
Bergman in her heyday, but I discovered that her ability to recognize wellknown
people in the United States was limited to myself and maybe
President Bush. She wasn’t so familiar with the likes of Hugh Grant,
Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Jack Welch, Paul Anka, Mohamed
Al Fayed, Regis Philbin, or Tony Bennett. Their calls never got through to
me and their names were placed on her “psycho list.”
But you should have seen her. What a knockout. She’s since moved on
to better career opportunities, but we’ll never forget her. Neither will
anyone who ever called in. Or tried to.
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Remember: The Buck Starts Here
Set the standard. Don’t expect your employees to work harder than you
do. In my case, I don’t have to worry about that, because I work seven
days a week and love almost every minute of it. But also realize that your
company will sometimes function as an extended and dysfunctional
family. It’s only natural, considering that people often spend more waking
hours with coworkers than they do with their families.
A visitor in my office once mentioned that the goings-on there
reminded him of a family fight in progress. I will admit that the volume
level gets high now and then, and he wasn’t far off in his assessment. But
if you want smooth sailing every day, move to the Mediterranean.
Winners see problems as just another way to prove themselves.
Problems are never truly hardships to them, and if you haven’t got any
problems, then you must not have a business to run.
Regard your company as a living, breathing organism, because that’s
what it is. Those figures you see on your spreadsheets will reflect the
health of that organism. Watch out for bad cells while allowing good cells
to flourish.
Growth is an indication of life, so keep your organization moving
forward at all times. Having a passion for what you do is crucial. If you
can’t get excited about what you are doing, how can you expect anyone
else to? If your employees can see and feel your energy, it is bound to
affect them.
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Don’t intimidate people. If you do, you’ll never get a straight answer
from anyone, and you’ll be defeating your own purpose. I keep my door
open, and my people know I’m available as well as approachable. We
don’t have chat-fests, but whatever needs to be done gets accomplished,
and quickly.
Remember that your organization is your organization. That sounds
simplistic, but, bottom line, it’s your ball game. The strategy is up to you,
and so are the results. Remember Harry Truman’s famous words, which
he kept on his desk in the Oval Office? THE BUCK STOPS HERE. I keep a
similar quote on my desk. It reads: THE BUCK STARTS HERE.
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Don’t Equivocate
If you equivocate, it’s an indication that you’re unsure of yourself and
what you’re doing. It’s also what politicians do all the time, and I find it
inappropriate, insulting, and condescending.
I try not to do it. Fortunately, I don’t have to try too hard at this one,
because I’ve been known to be on the blunt (and fast) side at times, which
is good.
I once asked an executive in my organization to give me a synopsis of
a new development we were considering. He’d been to the city in
question, had spent some time there, and had done some careful
investigating. He went on to describe the merits of the site, the pitfalls, the
good things, the bad things, the pros, the cons—on and on in great detail.
He must’ve talked for ten minutes straight. Judging from what he was
telling me, there were just as many reasons to drop the project as there
were reasons to jump right in and get going. It was like a tied game with
no overtime.
I asked him more questions, and we ended up exactly where we were
before. He was on both sides of the fence at once and didn’t seem to want
to take a stand either way. This guy had a lot of experience and a good
track record, so finally I asked him what he thought of the project in ten
words or less.
“It stinks,” he said.
He had eight words left, but he didn’t need them.
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Ask Yourself Two Questions
1. Is there anyone else who can do this better than I can?
That’s just another way of saying: Know yourself, and know your
competition. If your competition is better than you are, you need to offer
some quality they lack.
2. What am I pretending not to see?
We can all get swept up in the euphoria of a creative moment, or what
former president Richard Nixon’s speechwriters used to call “the lift of a
dream.” Before the dream lifts you into the clouds, make sure you’ve
looked hard at the facts on the ground.
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Bullshit Will Only Get You So Far
I think it’s funny that the phrase most closely associated with me these
days is “You’re fired,” because, the truth is, although I’ve had to fire
people from time to time, it’s not a big part of my job. I much prefer
keeping loyal and hardworking people around for as long as they’d like to
be here. There’s a wonderful lady in her nineties, Amy Luerssen, who
worked for my father and still reports to work every day at our Brooklyn
office. Here at The Trump Organization, Helen Rakotz has worked for me
from the day I moved to Manhattan, and she still puts in long hours every
week. She is eighty-two.
Once I delayed firing someone for two years because this guy always
had such a great line of bullshit every time I came close to the topic. No
matter what was going on, he had some huge deal lined up that was just
about to come through.
He managed to string me along for two solid years, and I believed him
every time—or wanted to. Finally, I was forced to realize that his claims
were bogus, but I gave him every chance before finally axing him.
Unless your boss is a total sadist, he (or she) doesn’t want to fire you
or cause hardship to your family. If you think you’re in danger of being
fired, take control of the situation and ask your boss for a meeting.
Make sure you ask for the meeting at the right time. Tell your boss you
want to make sure you are communicating and doing your job to
everyone’s satisfaction.
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Of course, if your boss is a sadist, or just a lousy communicator,
you’ve still got a problem. In that case, fire your boss and get a better job.
There’s no sense in trying to cope with a bad situation that will never
improve.
I never try to dissuade people from quitting. If they don’t want to be
here, I don’t want them to be here, either. No one has ever come to me
with an ultimatum. People see how it works here, and if it doesn’t suit
them, they move on. Sometimes it happens quickly. A qualified and
experienced receptionist worked here for a grand total of six hours. She
realized right away that the pace just wasn’t suited to her, and she very
politely told us so and left. I appreciated her quick thinking and efficient
decision-making skills. She’ll have a successful career somewhere else.
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Every New Hire Is a Gamble
Some people give such great interviews that you’re ready to make them
vice presidents on the spot, until you realize that their true talent is simply
giving a great interview. That’s why, in a sense, every new hire is a
gamble.
Impressive credentials don’t always add up to a great performance or
a good fit. Nonexistent credentials don’t necessarily mean a no-talent.
Being circumspect helps a lot and keeps you from being surprised. People
can offer an interesting mix of pros and cons. Time will do the weeding
out for you. All you have to do is pay attention.
What I look for in employees is a sense of responsibility that goes
beyond what is merely sufficient. Some people do the bare minimum, and
some people will actually be concerned about the organization as a whole.
They see themselves as having a direct relationship to the success or
failure of the company they work for. They believe they are important,
and their work shows it. If you can instill this sense of worth in your
employees, you will have a tip-top team working for you. People who take
pride in their work are the kind you want to have around—and the kind I
like to keep around.
I especially like employees who spend—and, more important, save—
the company’s money as if it were their own. Companies suffer when
employees don’t make enough of an effort to control costs. The employees
who feel a personal responsibility for their budgets, who view the
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company’s bottom line as an extension of their own personal savings
account, are often the ones who get the best results. If you let your boss
know that you’re watching out for his or her bottom line, you’ll always be
appreciated.
I respect employees who can think on their feet. So does George Ross,
my senior counsel. His assistant, Carole Berkowitz, was helping out at the
front desk one day when she received a call from a stranger who said she
was about to commit suicide. Carole deemed the call credible and took a
few moments to listen to the distressed woman.
Carole asked her where she was from, and the woman replied that she
lived in Southern California, not far from the beach. Carole responded,
“You live in California? Near the beach? Do you know how cold it is in
New York today? It’s eight degrees outside! And that’s without the
windchill. I almost froze just getting to work. If I were you, I’d go out right
now, take a long walk on the beach, and sit in the sun for a while. That’s
what I’d do if I were you.” The woman instantly calmed down and
thanked Carole for being so nice to her.
That’s the kind of person we like to have around.
A certain amount of personal ambition is necessary, but not to the
point where it undermines the common goal of the company. If your
group can’t work together, you won’t accomplish much. I don’t like
backstabbing. It’s not necessary, and it’s insulting to me. I have eyes and
ears and instincts, too. I can assess people and situations for myself. If
people have time to be petty, it’s an indication they’re not busy enough
with their work.
You can’t expect to be a valuable employee if you don’t make yourself
valuable. Think about it: What do you contribute to the welfare of the
organization? Are you instrumental in keeping it humming and moving
forward? Do you work wholeheartedly or halfheartedly? Are you just
going through the motions and hoping no one will notice? The only
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person you ever fool is yourself. You can’t fool others, even though you
might think you can.
A lot of people say they’re going through the motions because their
position isn’t challenging or rewarding and there’s no room to grow. It’s a
dead-end situation. That might very well be. If so, look elsewhere for a
company that could offer you a promotion in your particular area of
interest or expertise. There are times when you should move on, and
situations in which the only way up is out.
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Ideas Are Welcome, but Make Sure You
Have the Right One
If you run a company, make yourself accessible to your employees. If they
feel they can bring ideas to you, they will. If they feel they can’t, they
won’t. You might miss out on a lot of good ideas, and pretty soon you
might be missing a lot of employees. I allow people to run their ideas by
me. I don’t have a lot of time, so they have to be prepared and succinct.
I’m sure that’s the protocol of any busy CEO. So if you’re going to be bold
enough to present your idea, make it as clear as possible, and don’t take it
casually. Think of it as a presentation that could cost you a lot of money if
you were to lose the client. Your boss’s time is important, and you won’t
win any points by wasting it.
Learn to recognize the fine line between being pushy and being
intelligently assertive. It can be an issue of timing—pay attention to what’s
happening around you and pace yourself according to that rhythm. I try
to develop a tempo when I’m working. Someone who interrupts it is not
going to receive a warm welcome.
Also, remember this: The boss has the big picture; you don’t. So if your
idea doesn’t meet with hurrahs, it could very well be that a similar idea is
already in development or that your idea is not in step with plans that
have already been made. This shouldn’t discourage you, because your
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initiative will always be noticed. But recognize when not to press an issue,
and don’t expect a lengthy explanation of why.
I like people who don’t give up, but merely being a pest is detrimental
to everyone. Once again, fine-tune your discernment. Know when to ease
up. Keep your antennae up for another idea and a more appropriate
opportunity. Sometimes we hesitate with good reason.
There was one former employee who I liked a lot, but he reminded me
of a jumping bean. He couldn’t keep still for more than three seconds at a
time. Even riding in the car with him became an ordeal, because being in
an enclosed space seemed to warm him up even more and then he’d really
get going. I finally learned to avoid him as much as possible, and that’s too
bad, because he was a great guy. But enough is enough. Too much will
cause people to tune you out—or wish that you would move to another
state. Last I heard, the jumping bean was living in Montana. I only hope
they have enough space there to contain him, and every time I hear about
UFO sightings in Montana, I have to laugh. I know who it is.
One last thing: If your boss says no to an idea, pay attention. Most
likely, there’s a good reason. No one disregards a terrific idea. It just might
not be the right terrific idea for the company you’re with. Maybe you’re
meant to go off on your own as an entrepreneur. Let that be an indication
to you. It could be the beginning of your career, rather than the end of it.
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Focus on the Talent Instead of the Title
People who work for me know there’s a lot more to me than my public
persona. I’m not one-dimensional, and if you realize that the people
around you aren’t either, you’ll be utilizing the hidden potential that just
about everyone has. Whether they want to use it or not is up to them to a
certain extent, but it’s also up to a leader to recognize it or at least to give it
a chance to unfold. Most people don’t like to stagnate, and if you want to
keep your company moving forward, look around you now and then for
fresh possibilities within your organization. Never let someone’s job title
be the sole indication of their worth.
People at The Trump Organization have transcended their positions
on many occasions. Matthew Calamari, the executive vice president of
operations, started as a security guard. After getting to know Matthew, I
realized he had a lot more to offer than his job title warranted, and he has
proven me right. He’s a dedicated and trustworthy worker, and any CEO
in his right mind would want to have him around. As an executive VP, he
is in charge of building operations and runs my entire security
organization. He is in charge of major building projects, with his brother
Michael and Andy Weiss. Their most notable recent accomplishment is the
new building on the site of the former Delmonico Hotel at Park Avenue
and Fifty-ninth Street. I’m calling it Trump Park Avenue. Catchy, right?
Vinnie Stellio, who was hired by Matthew Calamari, started as my
bodyguard and is now a vice president. He has just what it takes to be an
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effective executive, which was clear to me, if not immediately to him.
Vinnie would often drive executives, architects, and contractors up to
Westchester to look at developments I was building. Now they report to
him. I am perhaps the largest owner of land in Westchester County, and
now it’s Vinnie who keeps his eye on it all.
With Matthew Calamari, an executive vice president at The Trump Organization.
John Tutolo, president of Trump Model Management, our modeling
agency, started as a booker and now has what many guys would consider
a dream job.
Meredith McIver, who made the writing of this book a pleasure
instead of a headache, started out as a media assistant. I recognized that
her talents encompassed much more. Of course, it takes talent to deal with
me and everyone else every day (but especially me). I could have hired an
outside collaborator to help me with this book, but why spend time
looking outside the organization when you have all the people you need
right beside you?
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Very often, your resources are greater than you might think. I don’t
like it when people underestimate me, and I try not to underestimate
anyone else, either. People are multifaceted, and it’s important to let them
function in a way that will allow them to shine. Most people would rather
succeed than fail, but sometimes the leader has to be the catalyst for
putting “success” into their personal vocabulary.
In other words, try to see beyond a person’s title. You can find talent
in unlikely places.
Meredith McIver, Rhona Graff, and Norma Foerderer of The Trump Organization
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Manage the Person, Not the Job
I once heard a story about a guy who owned an advertising agency. There
was one writer who drove the other writers crazy because he would
appear to be doing nothing in his office. He made no attempt to look busy.
Finally, his colleagues complained to his boss about his laziness. The
boss suddenly perked up and asked, “How long has he been this way?”
One of the other writers answered, “For weeks and weeks! He sits
there and does zip. It’s like he’s in a coma.”
The boss said, “I want all of you to be quiet and not to disturb him,
and every now and then ask if you can get him some coffee or some lunch
or run some errands for him.”
Needless to say, the employees were deflated and started grumbling.
Then the boss explained his rationale: “Listen, the last time he was acting
this way, and the time before that, he came up with ideas worth many
millions of dollars. So when I tell you not to disturb him, I have a reason
for it.”
People have different ways of achieving results. I enjoy figuring out
how each of my key employees excels. If people are your resource, you’d
better try to learn something useful about them. Being able to do so is
what makes a good manager a great one.
Some people respond well to the fear factor. Ever hear this exchange?
Question: “How long have you been working here?”
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Answer: “Ever since they threatened to fire me.”
Well, it applies to some employees. Fortunately, I seem to attract
people who enjoy working, but now and then a few slugs will show up,
and the loss of face (or job) can be a good motivator for many.
That said, it will always work against you to demoralize your
employees in any way. I can be tough, but most people will admit I’m fair.
You can crush people if you don’t weigh your words carefully. Your
power as a leader should be used in the most positive way, which
sometimes calls for a great deal of restraint as well as patience. I have to
laugh when I hear people say, “I can’t wait until I’m the big shot so I can
order everyone around.” It doesn’t quite work that way.
Abraham Lincoln made an appropriate remark that is pertinent to
management: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test
a man’s character, give him power.
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Keep Your Door Open
I’m always taken aback when people say, “Oh, he’s got it made,” as if
that’s the end of the conversation about a person. They seem to be saying
that the person can just check out and coast because he’s already arrived.
To me, arriving means something is about to begin. Graduation from
college is a beginning, not an ending. Each success is the beginning of the
next one.
Learning is a new beginning we can give ourselves every day.
A know-it-all is like a closed door. Everyone who knows me knows I
keep the door to my office open. It’s symbolic of the way I choose to think,
and it’s the way I operate. My father was much the same. He once said to
me, “You know, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. I think
that has kept me young at heart more than anything else.” It was an
offhand comment, a quiet realization he mentioned to me one day while
he was reading, but it has stuck with me for decades.
Every day is a reminder to me of how much I don’t know. Everything
I learn leads me to something else I didn’t know. Fortunately, I don’t pride
myself on being a know-it-all, so every day becomes a new challenge.
People ask me what keeps me going, and this is probably the closest
answer to the truth. If I end the day without knowing more than I did
when I woke up, it makes me wonder: What did I miss out on today? Am I
getting lazy? I am a disciplined person, and this thought alone can get me
going.
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Looking for a raise? Come on in.
We’ve all heard the phrase creature of habit. That can be good or bad,
depending on your habits. I’ve cultivated the learning habit over the years,
and it’s one of the most pleasurable aspects of my life. Everyone in my
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family knows I’m big on education—not just Ivy League education, but all
education, and for people of all ages. That also applies to me, and while I
got very good grades at school, I do not have time to be a scholar. Still, it’s
something I aspire to in my quiet time. Possibilities unfold. The world
opens up.
My sister Maryanne introduced me to the writings of Aldous Huxley.
He was such a learner that when he was faced with near-total blindness as
a young man, he learned Braille and continued his studies anyway. His
description of this predicament had not a trace of self-pity. In fact, he
mentioned that it had offered some benefits: He could now read in bed at
night and his hands would never get cold because he could read with his
hands under the covers.
Learning begets learning. I’d rather be stimulated than passive.
You can’t wear a blindfold in business. A regular part of your day
should be devoted to expanding your horizons.
We live in a big world, and it is important for us to be aware of
cultures other than our own. I have always lived in the United States, but I
make an effort to be informed about other cultures. That’s easy to do in
New York City, the most diverse and exciting place on earth.
Someone who had been living abroad for a few years told me, upon
returning home, that a frequent comment about Americans is that you
always know exactly where we’re coming from. The flip side of this is that
we rarely know where anyone else is coming from. We’re very much up to
snuff about our own national events, but we are less aware of what’s
happening in other countries. All of us need to pay more attention to
events outside our own realm. We are connected to each other in so many
ways—politically, commercially, socially. Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve
been able to sell and rent apartments to people of so many foreign
nationalities is that I’ve made an effort to understand where they’re
coming from.
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Learn something new, whether you think you’re interested in it or not.
That’s the opposite of having a closed mind—or a closed door. I can thank
my father for the example he set. It was the key to his remaining young
and dynamic into his nineties. It can do the same for you, if you make the
effort.
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Think Big and Live Large
This is the final rule of the Donald J. Trump School of Business and
Management. Once you have mastered it, you are ready to graduate.
It’s a big world. There’s a lot we don’t know, which means there’s still
a lot to be discovered and a lot to be accomplished.
The possibilities are always there. If you’re thinking too small, you
might miss them.
In some ways, it’s easier to buy a skyscraper than a small house in a
bad section of Brooklyn. Either way, you’ll probably need financing, and
most people would rather invest in a great building than a dilapidated
duplex on a dangerous street. With the skyscraper, if you hit, at least you
hit big. And if you don’t hit, what’s the difference between losing $100,000
or hundreds of millions of dollars? Either way, you’ve lost, so you might
as well have really gone for it.
I’ve read stories in which I’m described as a cartoon, a comic book
version of the big-city business mogul with the gorgeous girlfriend and
the private plane and the personal golf course and the penthouse
apartment with marble floors and gold bathroom fixtures. But my cartoon
is real. I am the creator of my own comic book, and I love living in it. If
you’re going to think, think big. If you’re going to live, live large.
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Take Control of the Job Interview
I’ve had some interesting experiences with job interviews over the years.
Norma Foerderer is a good example. I wasn’t too sure about her after her
first interview. It had nothing to do with her skills. But she seemed a little
too prim, like she belonged on some family sitcom as the ever-so-proper
type. I didn’t think she could handle it here, or that she would fit with my
style.
Norma persisted, seeming to recognize a good match better than I did.
Little did I know how deceptive first impressions could be. Norma was
actually as far from fluff as you could get. So, I thought, Okay, maybe. Her
abilities were superior to those of anyone else I had seen. As it turned out,
I called her back on the same day her mother died, but Norma gave me an
offer I couldn’t refuse: She’d work for me for one month at a low salary
just to see whether we clicked. No strings attached.
I thought, Aha! She’ll never last anyway, and I can decide on someone
else in the meantime. After one month with me, she’d be outta here for
sure. The hoity-toity type just won’t fly, except out the front door.
Needless to say, I underestimated Norma completely. I was duly
humbled and, I must add, grateful for being so. She was persistent and
committed to getting the job, and she did it with elegance.
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Ask for Your Raise at the Right Time
When it comes to your career, certain moves should not be made without
careful consideration of the old and very apt saying “Timing is
everything.”
For example, if you’ve decided to ask for a raise, look around first. So
many times, employees who I like very much do the dumbest things when
it comes to conversations about their salaries.
Jason Greenblatt, a young and brilliant lawyer who works for me, is
terrific at everything he does, but one day, I swear, he must have been
wearing blindfolds—and earplugs.
I was having an especially tough, vicious, terrible, miserable day that
seemed never-ending to me and to everyone else. It was a grand-slam
rotten day. No one could possibly have mistaken it for anything else.
Late in the afternoon, by which time I had had enough, I heard a polite
knock on my door. I yelled out “WHAT?” in my most exasperated tone.
Jason nonchalantly entered my office, completely ignoring my angry
welcome, and proceeded to ask me for a raise.
I could not believe a lawyer as smart as Jason could make such a dumb
move. I use his real name only because Jason knows how much I like and
respect him, despite his incredible faux pas. But I have to tell you that I
was ready to kill him. Was he joking? It’s amazing, but he wasn’t. He was
dead serious. I couldn’t believe it.
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Did he get a raise? Not that day. He almost got fired for stupidity,
except that I told him to get out before I really lost my temper. I also told
him that although he might be brilliant, his timing for certain things
needed work—and that maybe he ought to start paying attention to what
was going on around him. I remember thinking to myself, Did I really hire
such a person? But as I said, it had been a rough day.
Jason is still with me, and he gets lots of raises because he’s great at
what he does. But now he always waits for sunny days, blue skies, and
puffy white clouds on the horizon before approaching me. I told you he
was smart.
The best way to ask for a raise is to wait for the right time. It also
indicates to your boss that you have a certain amount of discernment and
appreciation for what he might be going through himself. I need my
people to be plugged in to what’s going on with me.
What impresses me most about people is their work ethic. A certain
amount of swagger is okay—it’s just another form of enthusiasm—but,
bottom line, I look for results. When I mentioned to a salesperson that I
had to cut her salary because she’d made no sales in nine months, she just
about went nuts. But some things are common sense. What would she do
if she had a nonproductive salesperson on her own roster?
If you knew your company was scheduled to give a major client
presentation at 3P.M., would you approach your boss at 2:45 to ask for a
raise?
Money, like comedy, is all about timing
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Be Tenacious
The Art of the Deal contained a chapter called “West Side Story,” about my
acquisition of the West Side yards, a hundred-acre property fronting the
Hudson River from Fifty-ninth Street to Seventy-second Street. The
chapter title was a deliberate double entrendre, as I knew that the popular
musical West Side Story had taken ten years to put together. Its creative
team had included no less than Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins,
Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents, so whenever I experienced
setbacks or delays on my West Side project, I would remind myself that I
had some very illustrious company.
It’s now seventeen years later and it’s still a work in progress, but the
example set by the architects of West Side Story has served me well. You
don’t create a classic overnight.
I’m calling it Trump Place. It’s a $5-billion project, the biggest
development ever approved by the New York City Planning Commission.
When it’s done, Trump Place will have 5,700 residential units and more
than five million square feet of commercial space. So far, four towers have
been completed and are occupied, and two additional buildings are under
construction. When we’re done, there will be a total of sixteen buildings
on the site.
Trump Place is a good example of why tenacity is crucial in business. I
bought the property in 1974. We’ve hit snags along the way and made
many changes over time, but for more than thirty years, we’ve persisted.
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At times, just about every executive will appear impatient, but to build
something that endures, you have to take the long view.
Recently, an employee told me that the pastor of her church had used
Trump Place as an example of what a firm foundation should be, whether
it be in faith, family, or, as in my case, buildings. The pastor, whose church
was near the construction site, would watch each building go up and
marvel at the immensity of the work. Each building could be a hundred
stories high, he said, considering the meticulous foundation work.
My publisher sent me an inspiring book by Bill Shore called The
Cathedral Within, which celebrates the commitment and hope necessary to
build something that endures. It might be a cathedral like the one in
Milan, which took five hundred years to build, or it might be a community
organization or a business.
Paul Davis, the man developing Trump Place for me and my partners,
is a true cathedral builder. I have rarely seen anyone work so hard or so
diligently—Saturdays, Sundays—he’s there at all hours, paying close
attention to every impeccable detail of the layouts, room sizes, and the
quality of the fixtures. He’s one of the big reasons for our success.
Some things are worth waiting for. For me, Trump Place is one of
those things: Sixteen beautifully designed buildings on the Hudson River.
A twenty-five-acre park. The Upper West Side as a backyard. This could
prove to be my finest contribution to the city of New York. Time will tell,
but I’m in no rush, and I won’t stop until I’m done.
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Golf is a brain game, and practice makes perfect.
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Play Golf
I made a lot of money on the golf course before I ever went into golf as a
business. I found solutions to problems, new ideas for ventures, and even
a new career. Golf has a way of giving you an equilibrium that you can’t
always find in the office.
Doing what you love will always make you a winner, and after
spending many happy hours on golf courses, I decided to build some of
my own. I am now one of the busiest golf course developers in the United
States, with two award-winning, internationally acclaimed courses fully
operational and two more in the works.
My first course, the Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach,
Florida, has been home to the ADP LPGA championships for three years.
When I first decided to develop the most beautiful golf courses possible, I
did some research and got in touch with the most respected designers in
the business—the Fazio family. Just as Michelangelo had an affinity for
sculpting marble, some people have an affinity for sculpting land. In this
case, Jim and Tommy Fazio designed a dream come true for any golfer,
not only visually, but in terms of playability.
The course opened in 1999. With its waterfalls and landscapes unique
to Florida, Trump International Golf Club is already a landmark course in
the state—and the best course in Florida.
My second course was Trump National at Briarcliff Manor in New
York. We moved three million yards of earth, the largest land excavation
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ever in Westchester County, and it was worth it. We were also dealing
with stone, which was used for walls and a spectacular waterfall on the
thirteenth hole—a 101-foot cliff of black granite quarried from the
property—which pumps five thousand gallons a minute. The walls were
built by my very talented stone mason, Frank Sanzo. Membership costs
$300,000. I think it’s a bargain.
My third golf course is Trump National Golf Club, in a sumptuous
area of New Jersey known as Bedminster. It is being designed by the
master golf course architect himself, Tom Fazio. Three times, Golf Digest
has named Fazio the Best Modern Day Golf Course Architect, and when
you see this course, you’ll know why. It will be long, big, and beautiful,
and I am involved daily in the design and construction. Additional plans
for this property, formerly owned by automaker John DeLorean and
located in the heart of New Jersey’s horse country, will include a second
course and a world-class clubhouse designed in the colonial mansion
style.
I don’t want to limit my golfing to the East Coast, so in 2002 I bought a
course along two miles of the Pacific Ocean. What was formerly known as
Ocean Trails in Palos Verdes will now be known as Trump National Golf
Club, Los Angeles. The course had fallen into disrepair under its previous
owners—the eighteenth hole fell into the ocean—so I’m rebuilding it with
legendary golf course architect Pete Dye. We’re also planning to build
luxury estate homes on the property. When completed, this course will be
the best in California.
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Dave Anderson, Joe Kernen, me, and Ron Howard at the opening of Trump National Golf Club
in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
When we announced the deal, the Los Angeles Times reported, “As he has
so many times before, Trump has spotted a trend to tap.” True, but mostly
I was following my instincts and my interests.
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Building golf courses is not a big business for me and it’s unlikely that
I will ever do another one. I want only the best.
Sometimes I will sell memberships while I am hitting balls on the
practice range. People approach me and hand me checks. One recent day
at my Florida course, a group of four wealthy friends came to me with
checks of $300,000 each. I said to myself: Not bad; I’m playing a game I love
and going home with $1,200,000 in my pocket.
I realize that some of you don’t care much about golf. Golf is one of
those things that has aficionados, just as opera has diehard fans who will
fly around the world to catch a certain performance. To people who don’t
know or like opera, that seems absurd.
I can’t make you love golf, but, believe me, once you’ve had the
opportunity to play on a beautiful course, it could turn you into an
enormous fan, or even a passionate player, no matter how poorly you hit
the ball.
If anyone had told me twenty years ago that I’d become a dedicated
golf course developer, I would have sent them out of the room for being
ridiculous. But golf has a transforming power. It’s a brain game. Yes, there
is skill and technique involved, but, just as important, it requires
concentration and assessment.
It’s a great way to improve your business skills, to learn how to
maneuver. It can even be equated with learning how to negotiate, which is
an art in itself.
Golf is also, in essence, a solitary game. Being an entrepreneur, even
within a large company, is a solitary game.
Ultimately, the rule here is not just to visit one of my golf courses
(though you would be wise to do so) but to turn your passion into profit.
The results of that passion will reward you in more ways than you ever
could have expected.
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Passion is enthusiasm on a big scale. It is all-encompassing and
consuming. People with passion never give up because they’ll never have
a reason to give up, no matter what their circumstances may be. It’s an
intangible momentum that can make you indomitable.
Take out the passion and you will have a fizzle or, perhaps, an okay
product at best. Add the passion and you will be in a rarefied realm that
every other “passionista” will recognize—and one that every person
would like to enter.
A friend of mine is a member of what I call “the lucky sperm club”—
born into a wealthy family. He followed his father to Wall Street, but he
was a total failure. He didn’t like it, and he couldn’t do it. Meanwhile, he
became increasingly involved in his Connecticut country club. He was
named the head of the greens committee and took on the lead role in
rebuilding the golf course. He loved it and was great at it. The club held a
dinner for him out of gratitude for his volunteer work. I asked him, “Why
don’t you do this for a living? You’re not for Wall Street. You’re getting
eaten alive there.” He told me his family wouldn’t understand if he quit a
serious job to work on golf courses.
Well, two years later he took my advice, quit the Wall Street job, and is
now working full-time at renovating golf courses. He says he loves getting
up in the morning, and he is doing better than ever.
Of course, you don’t have to learn how to play golf to have a satisfying
career. But no matter what you do, you must be passionate about it.
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There’s no place like home.
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Brand Yourself and Toot Your Horn
I was originally going to call Trump Tower by another name—Tiffany
Tower, for the famous jewelry store next door. I asked a friend, “Do you
think it should be Trump Tower or Tiffany Tower?” He said, “When you
change your name to Tiffany, call it Tiffany Tower.”
We’ve all seen the power of a brand name, especially quality brand
names. Coco Chanel became world-famous eighty years ago by naming
her first perfume Chanel No. 5, and it’s still going strong in a fiercely
competitive market. Her fragrance, as well as her name, has become
timeless. She proved that the right ingredients can create a legend.
Trump has become a great brand name, due to my rigorous standards
of design and quality. We all admire Rolls-Royce cars, and I see every one
of my ventures as being just that elite. Being a stickler has paid off,
because my buildings are considered to be the finest in the world. That
may sound like bragging, but it’s also a fact. I’ve never been one to
confuse facts with fiction. In 2003, Chicago Tribune real estate columnist
Mary Umberger attributed the sales for Trump International Hotel and
Tower in Chicago to “The Trump Factor.” Umberger reported: “The sales
velocity surprises even experienced real-estate players, who told me at the
sales inaugural that they doubted Trump would gain enough momentum
because Chicago’s luxury market was—and is—in a lull.”
Some people have written that I’m boastful, but they’re missing the
point. I believe in what I say, and I deliver the goods. If you’re devoting
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your life to creating a body of work, and you believe in what you do, and
what you do is excellent, you’d better damn well tell people you think so.
Subtlety and modesty are appropriate for nuns and therapists, but if
you’re in business, you’d better learn to speak up and announce your
significant accomplishments to the world—nobody else will.
When I’m setting the price for a luxury apartment, I consider a lot of
factors—the market, the location, and the competition. Then I set my own
standards. Once, when some top-of-the-line apartments weren’t selling, I
upped the prices, way over the competition. They started selling
immediately.
I view my work as an art form and approach it with the same intensity
and ego as any ambitious artist would. I never planned on becoming a
brand name, but the fit of my aesthetic nature with each product I became
involved with has resulted in an expanding network of interests. The
success of the Trump name worldwide has been a surprise.
It’s been a good surprise. For example, using my name on a building
carries with it a promise of the highest quality available and at least a $5-
million price tag. That’s just for the name, because it will be worth it to the
developers, and they know it. That building will be up to my standards.
When I remember the line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—“What’s
in a name?”—I have to laugh. What’s in a name can be far more than
either the Bard or I ever could have imagined.
We’ve all noticed the ascendancy of brand names and the power they
have, from Levi’s to Louis Vuitton. Some people are against this
widespread branding, seeing it as another form of labeling. I see it as a
viable outlet for creativity.
If you’re on the brink of success in your career, some snob might ask
you dismissively, “You don’t want to become a brand name, do you?”
Anyone who asks you that does not have the big picture in focus—and
they are usually just envious.
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I can get a project off the ground in no time now, whereas an
unknown developer would require many months, if not years, to get
something going. The number of people I employ to get a project finished
reaches into the thousands, and those people would not have a building to
work on without a developer to give them a job. Commerce and art cannot
function independently—they must work together. That is the beauty of a
successful brand name.
If there is a downside to being a well-known name, it is that you
become an easy target. The media needs to tear down what it builds up;
that’s just part of journalism—stories are about heroes and villains, or
success and failure. If you’re a brand name, they’re going to take a shot at
you. It comes with the territory, and I’ve learned to live with it. As we say
on The Apprentice: It’s not personal. It’s business.
Fortunately, if you have the critics who matter on your side, reading
the newspaper can be a lot of fun. Herbert Muschamp, the architecture
critic for The New York Times, is a scholar and an authority when it comes
to buildings. To receive a compliment from him has an intrinsic value that
will never diminish. When he wrote an article on Trump World Tower
and described it as “a handsome hunk of a glass tower,” I was very
honored. Here’s more of what he wrote:
Although Donald Trump prefers to publicize the aggressive side of
his nature—it’s the manly thing to do—he is also the only beauty
freak at large in New York City real estate development… It’s not
surprising that unofficial approval of Trump’s building should
come by way of the Museum of Modern Art. The tower embodies
the Miesian aesthetic through which the Modern’s design
department’s taste was initially formulated—I hope Trump sticks
with this material. Trump does better when he ignores his critics
than when he pays attention to them.
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So don’t be afraid to toot your own horn when you’ve done something
worth tooting about.
And don’t believe the critics unless they love your work.
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Go with Your Gut
Being an entrepreneur is not a group effort. You have to trust yourself.
You may have superb academic credentials, but without instincts you’ll
have a hard time getting to—and staying at—the top.
This is one of those gray areas that remain an enigma even to those
who have finely honed business instincts. There are inexplicable signs that
can guide you to or away from certain deals and certain people.
For example, within a few seconds of meeting Mark Burnett, the
creator of The Apprentice, I knew he was one hundred percent solid, both
as a person and as a professional, which is a remarkable accomplishment
in the entertainment industry.
On the other hand, I’ve met people that I have an aversion to for no
particular reason, and while I try not to be judgmental, I have reason by
now to trust my gut. Carl Jung said our conscious minds use only five
percent of our brain power for daily functioning. If we can learn to tap
into that unconscious, subconscious, and dormant ninety-five percent, the
results can be amazing.
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Be Optimistic, but Always Be Prepared
for the Worst
There are a lot of ups and downs, but you can ride them out if you’re
prepared for them.
Learning to expect problems saved me from a lot of wasted energy,
and it will save you from unexpected surprises. It’s like Wall Street; it’s
like life. The ups and downs are inevitable, so simply try to be prepared
for them.
Sometimes I’ll ask myself why I want to take on some new, big
challenge. A substantial loss is always a possibility. Can I handle it if it
doesn’t go well? Will I be asking myself later, Why did I ever do that? What
was I thinking? I’m actually a very cautious person, which is different from
being a pessimistic person. Call it positive thinking with a lot of reality
checks.
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Look Closely Before Changing Careers
In 2000, I thought about running for president of the United States as a
third-party candidate. I proposed some sensible ideas: tax cuts for the
middle class, tougher trade deals, a ban on unregulated soft money in
campaigns, comprehensive health care reform. I formed an exploratory
committee and met with Reform Party leaders, but in the end I realized I
was enjoying my business too much to run for office.
Remember the rule I mentioned earlier about how you shouldn’t
equivocate? That may work for business, but in politics, you usually have
to watch your words. I’m too blunt to be a politician. Then, there’s my
long-held aversion to shaking hands. (More on this in a moment.) Had I
entered the race, I wouldn’t have been very popular. Even during the few
months I was considering candidacy, I noticed that people began to treat
me differently—in a more reserved, less friendly way. Before, I had been
The Donald, someone they would wave and smile at. Suddenly, it was a
different ball game, and it didn’t seem like much fun to me. One guy I had
been friendly with for years saw me at Le Cirque and for the first time in
my life called me “Mr. Trump.” He had always called me “Donald.” That
was a real heads-up.
A lot of successful businesspeople think they can apply their
management skills to politics, but I’ve noticed that only a select few, like
Michael Bloomberg and Jon Corzine, succeed. Most others lack the
temperament for it.
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There’s a larger point here, beyond the obvious ones about not
confusing your talent for office politics with a gift for electoral politics.
Anyone with more than a little curiosity and ambition will at some point
be tempted to try a different challenge on new terrain. Take the risk, but
before you do, do everything you can to learn what you’re getting yourself
into, and be as sure as you can that you’ve got the right mind-set for the
job.
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Avoid the Handshake Whenever Possible
Some business executives believe in a firm handshake. I believe in no
handshake. It is a terrible practice. So often, I see someone who is
obviously sick, with a bad cold or the flu, who approaches me and says,
“Mr. Trump, I would like to shake your hand.” It’s a medical fact that this
is how germs are spread. I wish we could follow the Japanese custom of
bowing instead.
The worst is having to shake hands during a meal. On one occasion, a
man walked out of the restaurant’s bathroom, jiggling his hands as though
they were still wet and he hadn’t used a towel. He spotted me, walked
over to my table, and said, “Mr. Trump, you’re the greatest. Would you
please shake my hand?”
I knew that if I didn’t shake his hand, he’d be saying terrible things
about me for thirty years. I also knew that if I agreed, my own hands
would be loaded with germs or whatever the hell he’d carried out of the
bathroom. I had a choice.
In this case, I decided to shake hands, because I was a little overweight
at the time and knew that if I shook his hand I wouldn’t eat my meal—and
that would be a good thing.
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Pay Attention to the Details
If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paper
clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises.
I once read about an esteemed brain surgeon in San Francisco who
was known for being fanatical about detail and organization. He would go
over the components of an upcoming surgery in his head as he jogged
every morning. He’d visualize every detail, as if to remind himself of
everything he’d learned, every difficulty and complication he might
encounter.
He wasn’t known for his bedside manner, but he was the best. If I had
to have brain surgery, he’s the kind of surgeon I’d choose. But you don’t
have to be a brain surgeon to pay attention to the details.
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Connect with Your Audience (The Art of
Public Speaking, Part I)
One of the problems with my schedule lately is that I am unable to
accommodate most of the requests I receive for public speaking. I happen
to enjoy giving speeches. I know some people dread the thought of having
to give a presentation in a boardroom, let alone appearing before
thousands of people. Not me. I get so much energy from my audiences
that it is always fun.
I’ll bet a lot of you are wondering whether I’m making that up to
sound like I’m not afraid of anything. It’s possible I’m forgetting a few
stressful moments. Years ago I was probably nervous about facing an
audience, but I got over it. Being afraid of speaking in public is something
you can conquer. The following pointers can be applied by people who
find presentations, whatever the size of the audience, to be a roadblock on
their highway to success.
It helps if you are a naturally gregarious person. My driver, Tony,
recalls a time when I was going to deliver a speech. When we were about
five minutes away, I asked Tony what I was supposed to be talking about
that night. Tony couldn’t hide his shock. He said, “Boss, don’t you know?
There are twenty thousand people waiting for you.”
I said, “Yeah, but I’ve been busy. I’m sure it will be okay.” I was trying
to reassure him.
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No go. He said, “Where are your notes? Didn’t you make any notes?”
I said, “I’m making some now.”
Tony was looking at me through the rearview mirror with an
expression of astonishment. I think he was checking to see whether I was
kidding. I wasn’t.
I’d been asked to give the speech by Anthony Robbins, the bestselling
author and self-help guru. I had been paid a great deal of money for the
speech, but I’d never asked how many people I would be speaking in front
of. As I was leaving the office to go to Philadelphia, my secretary told me I
would be speaking at a basketball arena, the Wachovia Center, and that
there would be approximately twenty thousand people there. I said,
“You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve never spoken before twenty thousand
people before!”
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Telling it like it is.
That situation could cause panic in some people. Instead, I thought
about my audience not as a massive group of people just waiting to judge
me, but as individuals who might be there because they’re interested in
something. Then I started thinking about what people are interested in
and the kinds of questions people like to ask me.
I was ready. I suddenly had a gut feeling that we were all in for a great
time.
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Leaving an ashen-faced Tony in the car, I hopped out, ready to
embrace the experience. Somehow the audience picked up on my energy
and got much more than a speech. They got give-and-take that no one
who was there will soon forget. We had a hilarious time, and we walked
away having learned a few things as well.
Tony Robbins turned out to be a terrific guy. Until I met him, I didn’t
believe in him or trust him, but that was only because I was getting my
information secondhand. Having gotten to know him and his wife, I now
wholeheartedly endorse him—he is out to do good and help people. His
seminars are absolutely a happening, and after our successful experience
in Philadelphia, I agreed to make ten more appearances.
All in all, it was a valuable lesson in public speaking: Think about your
audience first. The rest will fall into place.
Granted, having useful information to convey will help, too. But
tuning in to people is the first step. I’m good at that, and I don’t have to try
too hard. Even in my office, with a few people around, the conversation
will never be one-sided. I like to involve everyone and hear what they
have to say.
So: Involve your audience. They will appreciate being included.
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Cover These Eleven Bases (The Art of
Public Speaking, Part II)
When you’re speaking, it helps to be prepared. That may sound funny
after what I’ve just told you, but if you read every day, you will already be
prepared—maybe not for the fine points you are specifically speaking
about, but usually we are asked to speak about something we are experts
at or at least familiar with. Cover your bases mentally. Imagine yourself
being in the audience. What are you looking for? Being able to trade places
with the audience can open you up to a lot of ideas. Have examples and
references in mind to back up your statements, and make them as vivid as
possible for your listeners.
Notes can sometimes function as a useful reference point, especially if
you’re speaking to a large audience. If you’re prepared, no one can tell
that you’re using them. Ideally, you don’t want to read a speech. For some
reason, no matter how good your delivery is when you read a speech, it’s
usually boring. Everyone sees that you’re reading it and it’s never quite
the same as delivering it off the cuff. Notes offer the best of both worlds:
They keep you focused and moving in the right direction without turning
you into a stiff.
Be a good storyteller. People like stories, and they’ll remember them. A
speech shouldn’t become a lecture. Humor goes a long way, and it will
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remind you and everyone else that we’ve all got a lot of things in common.
Storytelling is a skill, so work on it. It’s helpful to listen to comedians. The
good ones can teach you the art of great timing.
Think about the common denominator. How can all of us relate to one
another? How can you enable your audience to relate to you and to what
you’re saying? People see me as a rich and powerful person, but like most
people, I also have a daily routine and a family. I get stuck in traffic jams,
too. I’ve known some real gems and some real wackos. I have cranky
moments and bad days like everyone else. A lot of your experiences can be
understood and appreciated by your audience because they’ve had them,
too. Look for what you have in common and lead with it. You will create
an immediate bond, because they will realize they can relate to you.
When you are on the podium, you are the entertainer. People are there to
learn something, but also to be entertained. One reason Elvis Presley was
such a great entertainer is that he made every effort to tune in to his
audience—it was give-and-take all the way. Wayne Newton does that, too.
Even people who thought they wouldn’t like Liberace became big fans
after experiencing his live shows. And nobody did it better than Sinatra.
Some people call it charisma. I call it tuning in and delivering.
Study Regis Philbin. He is relaxed and funny, and he always relates to his
audiences. They love him. He’s a perfect example of the give-and-take
that’s necessary for successful public speaking. Regis doesn’t just speak—
he shares. He’s as magnanimous a performer as he is a person. Watch him,
pay attention, and you’ll learn a lot.
Be able to poke fun at yourself. This will make you accessible to people
even if you are up on the stage and in the spotlight. We’ve all had
disasters in our lives, major and minor. To be able to laugh at them in
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retrospect is healthy and helpful. Use the blips that we all encounter in our
lives to your advantage. I remember a particular question-and-answer
period that followed one of my speeches, during the time when Ivana and
I were going through our divorce and the tabloids were having a field day.
The first question was from a guy who asked, “You don’t mind if I call
you The Donald, do you?”
So I responded, “Not if you don’t mind if I call you Ivana.”
We all had a good laugh and then proceeded to his real question.
Learn to think on your feet. Memorable public speaking involves a good
deal of spontaneity. It’s a lot like negotiating—you have to focus on your
goals but remain flexible. A lot of people are terrific writers but not so
great at getting their ideas across orally. Writing is a form of thinking, and
so is speaking. The difference is that you don’t have time to go back and
correct yourself when you’re on stage. It’s not a first draft and it’s not a
rehearsal. Be prepared for the performance, because that’s what’s expected
of you.
Listen in your daily life. Every day can be a preparation for a speech or a
presentation. Have you ever said to yourself, “I’ll have to remember that
one” after hearing someone say something particularly clever or unusual?
Even offhand comments that you overhear can be useful. Remember them.
Make notes if you must. Everything and everyone can become material. I
was in the back of an elevator once, behind a group of guys. Their
conversation was so vivid, so real, that I tuned in and tried to figure out
why they’d captured my attention. Aside from the fact that they had a
captive audience for a short amount of time, I realized that their speaking
rhythm was syncopated, quick, and to the point. What they were saying
wasn’t all that fascinating, but their delivery was. They made a normally
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mundane subject—what they were getting for lunch and how they were
getting it—seem interesting.
Have a good time. It’s contagious. If your audience believes you are
enjoying what you are doing, they’ll enjoy being in your company. If it’s
an obvious chore to you, forget it and find someone else to speak for you.
If you’re a busy executive, there’s probably someone within your
organization who can speak effectively in your place. Sometimes when I’m
asked to speak and my schedule won’t allow it, I will ask someone who
works for me if they’d be interested in filling in. Charlie Reiss, executive
VP of development in my organization, was a professor at Columbia
University before he came to work for me. He’s a dynamic speaker, but I
wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t asked him to help out when I was in
a bind. He has a gift for public speaking because he enjoys teaching and is
enthusiastic about what he does. At first I worried he might turn out to be
a bit pedantic, considering his background, but he wasn’t. Everyone had a
good time.
Another important aspect of having a good time: Before you speak,
remind yourself that it doesn’t matter all that much. Don’t feel that the
weight of the world is on you. Most of the people in the room don’t care
how well or poorly you do. It’s just not that important. It’s merely a
speech—not an earthquake or a war. You’ll have a better time and be a
better speaker if you keep it all in perspective.
That said, public speaking and presentations may be a necessary step
on your ladder to success. For quick reference, here’s my procedure for
discovering a talent you thought you didn’t have:
1. Think about your audience first.
2. Get your audience involved.?
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3. Be prepared.
4. Be a good storyteller.
5. Be aware of the common denominator.
6. Be an entertainer.
7. Be able to laugh at yourself.
8. Think on your feet.
9. Listen
10. Have a good time.
And, of course …
11. Study Regis Philbin.
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Change Your Altitude
When I say altitude, I’m not referring to my jet. It’s my own interpretation
of the word attitude. I like flying because it gets me where I’m going, fast.
Likewise, if you have the right attitude, you can get where you’re going,
fast.
What’s the altitude of your attitude? Is it high frequency or low
frequency? Having a high frequency will attune you to a wavelength that
exudes confidence and clear-sighted enthusiasm. I’m a firm believer that
this is half the battle of any enterprise.
I’m a tough-minded optimist. I learned a long time ago that my
productivity was increased by a large percentage simply by learning to let
go of negativity in all forms as quickly as I could. My commitment to
excellence is thorough—so thorough that it negates the wavelength of
negativity immediately. I used to have to zap negativity mentally. By now,
it just bounces off me within a moment of getting near me. As you may
have heard, I don’t like germs. I’m still waging a personal crusade to
replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese
custom of bowing. To me, germs are just another kind of negativity.
Negativity is also a form of fear, and fear can be paralyzing. On the
golf course, I’ve heard great athletes tell me that they can’t putt. They can
hit a ball three hundred yards right down the middle of the fairway, but
they can’t finish the hole by putting the ball three feet into the cup.
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Recently, I played with a man who is terrified of putting. He hit a
magnificent 235-yard shot and was seven feet from the cup. Then he
looked over at me and said, “Now the hard part begins.”
Another friend, also a great golfer, is paralyzed by his fear of losing his
ball. Each time we played a hole near a lake, he would look down and say
to his ball, “I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.”
I have told these two guys that they must start thinking positively or
they will sabotage themselves.
Very often, negative thinking stems from low self-esteem. You have to
work on this yourself. Maybe you’ve received a lot of hard knocks. I’ve
learned to deal with them because I get knocked a lot. Quickly see them
for what they are—knocks. But you don’t have to open the door unless
you choose to. I’ve gotten to the point where I see knocks as opportunities
and as an insight into whoever is doing the knocking.
One way to chase low altitude away is to think about how fortunate
you already are and how much you still have to look forward to. You can
better your best day at any time. Very surprising things can happen, but
you must—and I repeat must—be open to them. How can you fly if you’ve
already clipped your own wings?
I don’t have time to encourage as many people as I would like to, but
whenever it seems appropriate, I recommend The Power of Positive Thinking
by Norman Vincent Peale, one of my father’s favorite books, and mine,
too. Some people may think it’s old-fashioned, but what Peale has written
will always be true. He advocates faith over fear. Faith can overcome the
paralysis that fear brings with it.
I can remember a time when I had a choice to make, when I was
billions of dollars in debt. I had to take one of two courses of action: a
fearful, defensive one or a faithful, riskier one. I carefully analyzed the
situation, realized what was causing the uneasy feeling of fear, and
immediately replaced it with blind faith, simply because I had nothing
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else to go on at the time. Then I resolved that as long as I remained
positive and disciplined, things would work out.
There was not much more I could do. I didn’t know how it was going
to go, but I was determined to move forward, even though it wasn’t easy.
Within a relatively short amount of time, the situation was settled
positively. I learned a lot from that and have since had a better
understanding of what courage really is. Without facing my own fear, I
would not have known.
When I think of someone who is tough, I also think of someone who
has courage. People who persist have courage, because often it’s a lot
easier to give up. Some of the bravest people I’ve met are children with
handicaps. I’m active with United Cerebral Palsy. What those kids deal
with is humbling, but they are enthusiastic and thrilled with every day
they’ve been given.
You’ve been given a day, too. When you’re down, look at it that way.
Another day can equal another chance. Sometimes, as obvious as it
sounds, we really do have to take things one day at a time. Immediately
after the events of September 11, we didn’t know what was going to
happen, but we all kept going, one day at a time, and we’re still moving
forward.
Maybe you’ve gotten to the point where you think you can’t get
through another day. That’s shortsighted of you. You’re missing the big
picture. You’re on the runway, but your fuel supply is the problem. You
won’t get off the ground without it. Feed yourself some positive thoughts
and you can take off at any time.
Ever wonder what makes certain people keep going? I do. Abraham
Lincoln encountered a steady procession of setbacks, but he just kept at it.
Nothing deterred him. He must have had a lot of faith, because he didn’t
receive much encouragement along the way. He’s an excellent example of
someone who never gave up.
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The other extreme is the person who seems to run into obstacles with
the unerring aim of a marksman. I knew a guy who was remarkably
accident-prone. If there was something to run into, he’d find it. If there
was a hole in the ground, he’d break his foot by stumbling into it.
Once, he was in such a slam-bang accident that he was hospitalized for
six months before being completely patched up. Finally, the day of his
release from the hospital arrived and it was decided that he should get an
ambulance ride home, just to be on the safe side. As the ambulance was
taking him home, it crashed into a car—another spectacular slam-bang
accident. My friend was immediately brought back to the hospital, in a
new ambulance dispatched to the scene of the disaster. What can I say?
Maybe he’s just a really unlucky guy. Or maybe he’s a loser. I know that
sounds harsh, but let’s face it—some people are losers.
The altitude level of losers is so low that they should walk around in
scuba gear all day. They are below sea level on the altitude map. We all
know people like that, and they might make great comedians because they
have so much material—but first they’d have to learn to be funny.
Honestly, I’ve known people who are such accomplished losers that I
think that’s what they devote their time to:
How can I be the biggest screwup possible?
How can I prove the born loser theory to be correct?
How can I defy the law of probability to make it an absolute disaster every
time?
How can I achieve a perfect record of total wipeouts?
How far can I get at zero miles per hour?
How can I reach the lowest frequency possible?
How can I operate so that radar could never possibly find me even if I get lost,
which I probably will?
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These people need a new speedometer.
Get going. Move forward. Aim high. Plan for a takeoff. Don’t just sit
on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane.
It simply won’t happen.
Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you’ll love it
up here.
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Start Visualizing Positively
Positive thoughts will create positive visuals. Have you ever heard
someone say “I can just see it!” when they are enthusiastic about
something? I know from experience that if I can see something as a
possibility, it has a much better chance of happening than if I can’t see it
happening.
Give your higher self a chance once in a while by giving your
possibility quota a boost.
Keep a book of inspiring quotes nearby, so you can change a negative
wavelength the moment it descends on you. Here are some of my personal
favorites:
Know everything you can about what you’re doing.
—MY FATHER, FRED TRUMP
I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an
unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.
—FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
A leader has the right to be beaten, but never the right to be
surprised.
—NAPOLEON
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Let’s avoid subtlety on this one.
—CHARLIE REISS, Executive Vice President of Development, The
Trump Organization
He who looks outside his own heart dreams, he who looks inside
his own heart awakens.
—CARL JUNG
Exciting is a dull word for the business we’re in.
—FRED TRUMP
You’re the only guy who can wear a cashmere overcoat to a
baseball game and get away with it.
—REGIS PHILBIN
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to
unlocking our potential.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
I remember when I was the Donald.
—DONALD DUCK
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Cartoon in The New Yorker
(© The New Yorker Collection 1993, Lee Lorenz from www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights
Reserved.)
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Read Carl Jung
I find reading psychology and self-help books useful. Carl Jung’s theories
fascinate me and keep my mind open to my own—and the collective—
unconscious.
Reading his books can also be a good form of self-defense.
There’s a lot we don’t know about ourselves. Likewise, there’s a lot we
may not know about everyone else. Jung used the word psyche to refer to
both the conscious and the unconscious processes. (That’s where the word
psycho comes from, by the way.) I first became aware of Jung through an
acquaintance who had endured some extreme ordeals, yet he remained
calm. I couldn’t fathom where he got this sort of “grace under fire”
demeanor, so I asked him, and he told me that Jung’s ideas kept him
centered.
My friend put it like this: “Donald, I’ve learned from my experiences.
As a safety factor, I very often see other people as a revolver that could be
pointed at me. They are the gun. I, however, am the trigger. So I speak and
tread carefully. It’s an effective visual aid to avoid conflicts, as I was
unwittingly among people who were actually psychos underneath their
dignified personas. We never know what will trigger another person’s
killer instinct. It can be something that happened when they were five
years old. So avoid being the trigger, and the revolver will not be a threat.”
This synopsis of his philosophy made such an impact on me that I
immediately started reading about Carl Jung. I’m glad I did, because it
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helped me in my business as well as in my personal life. We are all
evolving human beings, and being aware of this gave me a big boost
toward maturity. It also made me less inclined to be surprised by so-called
aberrant behavior. I have to stress that I am not cynical, but I am aware. I
hate being in situations where I’m asking myself, How could this have
happened? This reminds me of my favorite quote from Napoleon about
being surprised: A good leader shouldn’t be.
You have to know yourself as well as know other people to be an
effective leader. For me, reading the work of Carl Jung was a step in the
right direction. If someone had told me in business school that studying
psychology would be important for financial success, I would not have
believed it. My friend’s story changed that, and I am grateful to him for
such cogent advice. The relatively small number of hours I’ve spent
reading Jung have been more than worth it. Start with his autobiography,
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and you will be in for a fascinating time
while simultaneously fine-tuning your intuition and instincts. You will
also gain a technique for seeing into—versus reading into—the people
around you. Believe me, this will serve you well on many levels.
The word persona has an interesting root. It comes from the Latin word
meaning “mask.” This, however, is not derogatory. It’s necessary. Each of
us has a persona. We need it for survival. It’s the face we put on for public
use, and it can be intentional or unconscious. For example, a salesman
who has lost his entire family in an accident is, naturally, devastated. But
to work effectively with his customers, he must appear cheerful and
confident. That’s part of his persona. It’s a survival device.
The only danger is when people become their personae. That means
something has been shut off somewhere along the line, and these people
will end up hiding behind the false personality that works professionally.
As I am very much in the public eye, this hit home and I gave it
considerable thought. Fortunately, I am aware of my public side as well as
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my private side, and, while I’m not one for hiding much, I know there are
several dimensions in which I operate. That’s one reason I feel at home at
The Trump Organization. The people I work with day in and day out
know I’m not entirely a glam guy. They see how hard I work. One person
said I am very much like a Mormon, which I took as high praise.
Anyway, reading Jung will give you insights into yourself and the
ways in which you and other people operate.
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Have an Ego
As you know, this rule has been easy for me to follow. But hear me out—
I’ve got a good reason for it.
Having a well-developed ego, contrary to popular opinion, is a
positive attribute. It is the center of our consciousness and serves to give
us a sense of purpose. I remember saying to someone, “Show me someone
with no ego and I’ll show you a big loser.” I was trying to stir things up
and provoke a reaction, but I later realized the basic idea is on target.
The ego works to keep our conscious and unconscious aspects in
balance. Too much either way can be detrimental. No ego means very little
life force, and too much means a dictatorial personality. Keep your ego in
a healthy balance, for your own well-being as well as for those around
you. Strive for wholeness. It’s an intelligent approach to life and business.
Understanding how egos work can be a great tool. Did you ever notice
how you can deflate an opponent by simply saying, “Yeah, whatever you
say…”? By doing this, you are gently assuming a no-ego position, which
disarms the other person while at the same time taking the wind out of
their sails. It gives you the peace of mind necessary to allow you to
concentrate on something more important than dealing with someone
who is playing God.
Sometimes, rather than confronting a tyrant or a psycho directly, it’s
more effective to keep the knowledge to yourself and proceed accordingly,
behind the scenes.
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We’ve all heard the saying that knowledge is power. The intelligent
use of that power is crucial in the business world, and it’s just as
important in your personal life. Your mind can build castles—just make
sure the foundations are in place first. You, and the people around you,
will be grateful for that.
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Keep Critics in Perspective
In any job, you will be criticized at some point. Let’s face it: Nobody but a
total masochist wants to be criticized.
There is constructive criticism, and then there is destructive criticism.
Here’s how to assess both types:
1. First of all, consider the source. Should this person’s opinion
even matter to you?
2. If it does matter to you, take a few minutes to consider whether
anything helpful can result from the criticism. Others can often see things
that we have overlooked. Use their keen eyes to your advantage.
3. Critics serve their purpose. Sometimes they serve a larger
purpose, and sometimes they serve their own purpose. American Idol judge
Simon Cowell can be critical of the performers on the program, but he’s
fair and he’s honest, and I don’t think American Idol would work without
him. Simon was nice enough to compliment The Apprentice in an interview.
“I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” he told the Daily News. “I think [Trump]
is superb on the show. He’s not hamming it up. He’s just playing himself
and that’s very hard to do on television.” As I said, Simon is a fair and
honest critic, and I am a fan of his.
4. Everyone has an opinion. In most cases, it’s not worth the paper
it’s written on.
5. If the opinion is worth the paper it’s written on, and it’s written
in a paper people are buying and reading, then realize that if people didn’t
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find you interesting enough for public consumption, they wouldn’t be
taking the time to criticize you. Think of their criticism as a compliment,
proof of your significance.
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Homework Is Required and There Will
Be a Test
People who think achieving success is a linear A-to-Z process, a straight
shot to the top, simply aren’t in touch with reality. There are very few
bona fide overnight success stories. It just doesn’t work that way.
Success appears to happen overnight because we all see stories in
newspapers and on TV about previously unknown people who suddenly
become famous. But consider a sequoia tree that has been growing for
several hundred years. Just because a television crew one day decides to
do a story about that tree doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before.
In 1955, Glenn Gould, the classical pianist from Toronto, rocketed to
international fame by recording Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He was
young and unusual, but he had already been practicing the piano for close
to twenty years. He may have seemed like an overnight sensation to the
general public, but anyone who’s been working at something for twenty
years isn’t likely to agree with that assessment.
I have to admit that my knowledge of classical music is limited, but
from what little I’ve read on the subject, I know that the process of
becoming a classical musician is a long and demanding one. The amount
of practice hours required to master an instrument is astounding, and also
never ending. How do they do it? I’m not sure, but I would guess that
passion plays a large part.
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Every industry and profession has its bottom line for what is required
to succeed. If you can’t stand to practice every day, being a musician is out
of the question. If you hate to exercise, being an athlete is not for you.
In business—every business—the bottom line is understanding the
process. If you don’t understand the process, you’ll never reap the
rewards of the process. You’ll never last long enough to achieve your
“overnight” success.
Part of the process is doing your homework. You have to know what
you’re getting into first. That was one of my father’s strongest beliefs.
We’ve all heard the phrase “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” It brings
to mind a funny image, but in reality it can be embarrassing. Not doing
your homework can result in something analogous, so do a few things
first to avoid this.
We can learn from our mistakes, but it’s better to learn from our
successes. When I hear people say, “Well, it was an interesting experience,”
I can usually safely assume they are referring to something that didn’t
work out the way they’d planned. I don’t find my goof-ups to be amusing
or interesting.
Can you imagine hearing a surgeon say, “Well, it didn’t go quite right,
but I sure learned a lot”? I wouldn’t want that guy operating on me. The
same applies to anyone in business, because if you’re in business, it’s not
just your money involved, but very often the money and well-being of
others as well. In my business, I can’t take chances. If something is not
quite right with the design or construction of a superstructure, a lot of
people could be injured or killed. I’ve got to know what’s going on. Bottom
line, it will be my responsibility.
People see the finished product. Wow, a skyscraper! What goes into it
is another story. Construction isn’t glamorous. It’s a serious and often
dangerous endeavor. Fortunately, I understood this from my earliest days
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in the business, so there’s a certain gravity in my approach to the
construction of any building.
That’s where having learned to do my homework comes in handy. It’s
a necessary requirement, not an extracurricular course to enhance my
productivity. Not only do I have to know exactly what I’m doing, but I’ve
also got to make sure I find contractors who know exactly what they’re
doing as well. That’s why I’m tough on them, and that’s why I’m equally
tough on myself. A lot of lives are at stake in our work. We don’t want any
“interesting” experiences!
We all know what it’s like to pretend to study. There are some courses
in school that just don’t hold your attention. If you are choosing a career,
keep that in mind. What most holds your attention?
Consider a pyramid. Did you ever notice how large and solid the
foundation is? Did you notice the carefully graduated levels that
eventually lead to the pinnacle? Now turn the pyramid upside down.
That’s a representation of topsy-turvy thinking. You don’t start at the top.
You start with the foundation—the stronger, the better.
The world moves along at such a fast clip that we have little patience
when things are slow, whether it’s the line at a supermarket or Internet
access. We’ve become intolerant of those things that cannot be accelerated
or skipped entirely. I can’t speed up the foundation work for a building,
nor can I expect to play piano like Glenn Gould just because I want to.
Know the limitations as well as the possibilities of everything you do.
Find out as much as you can yourself about what you plan to do, and don’t
expect anyone to act as your favorite grandmother in wanting what’s best
for you. Most people want what’s best for themselves, not for you. If those
people have already spent a great deal of effort on their homework, why
should they share it with you?
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Listen to a Ping-Pong Game
I learned a long time ago to listen, but to listen judiciously. You can learn a
lot from the people around you—you just have to be discerning about the
information that comes your way. A lot of the so-called information I
receive turns out to be someone’s personal opinion. We’re all entitled to
our two cents’ worth, but sometimes that’s all it amounts to.
Be aware of the marketplace. Know what’s going on now. That’s one
reason I devote several hours a day to reading. That’s how long it takes to
both keep up with current events and learn from the greats in history.
How can you expect to be successful if your idea of what’s happening in
the world is vague or nonexistent? That’s like saying, “I know that
September 11 happened, but I choose not to acknowledge it. It gets in the
way of my positive outlook on things.” That approach is fine if you’re a
professional fairy-tale writer.
There’s another side to everything, so develop your ability to see it—
or even hear it. I once met a young woman from Hong Kong who worked
on Wall Street in emerging markets. She had an uncanny ability to predict
certain events in the marketplace—it seemed almost like a psychic gift to
me.
One day, I asked her how she could be so on target in her work and
she likened knowing and predicting the global markets to listening to a
Ping-Pong game.
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At first, I thought she was joking, or perhaps just being evasive, but
she went on to explain her theory.
“I’m not kidding you, Donald. When I was growing up, we had a
Ping-Pong table in the den, and I could hear the games my brothers would
play, sometimes for hours, when I was studying in my room. I discovered
that I could discern the tilt of the paddle, and the outcome of the volley,
just by the sound of the Ping-Pong ball being hit, and the sound of it
landing on the other side of the net. I knew the results, the repercussions,
and the recovery that would be required to successfully handle what had
been dealt.
“Later, I applied this to my work in emerging markets and found I
could often predict what would be happening just by concentrating on
world events and thinking of the sound of Ping-Pong balls being hit
around the globe. Ping-Pong is really the reason behind my success.”
I was astounded. That’s my idea of tuning in.
I must add that this young woman had all the education in finance
that her position required. She was a bright student. What set her apart
from everyone else was the way she applied her knowledge and her keen
analysis of the game of Ping-Pong to her work. She may even have done
this on an unconscious level initially, but tapping into this resource gave
her an uncanny edge. The lesson I learned from her story is never to
underestimate the power of awareness.
Find out what other people have done to succeed, and then be
prepared to do ten times more. There are no guarantees.
Comparing ourselves to others is a waste of time. I’ve heard people
say, “Well, Mr. Lucky had a million dollars before he was thirty and I’ve
worked just as hard as he has.” Well, Mr. Lucky has nothing to do with
you, your possibilities, your success, or your failure. Don’t let anyone else
be your yardstick. That’s taking power away from yourself in a big way.
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You’ve got your own personal blueprint to attend to. We can’t all be
Tiger Woods, J. Lo, Bill Gates, or whoever it is you would like to be, and
sometimes that’s a hard fact to face. You may have already experienced
defeat. That happens. It happens a lot! But the fact that you have
aspirations to begin with is putting you on the road to success right now.
No matter how defeated you may feel, you’ve still got a chance. But it
won’t happen by itself. Get to work!
I’ll sum up with two of my favorite quotes:
There are no short cuts to anywhere worth going.
—BEVERLY SILLS
The harder I work, the luckier I get.
—GARY PLAYER
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Reflect for Three Hours a Day
I read an article recently in which European exchange students living in
the United States all agreed on one aspect of American life: The noise level
here is very high. We seem to avoid quiet moments. Even lapses in
conversation are quickly filled with banter or some kind of interference.
It made me realize how much I need a certain amount of quiet time—
usually about three hours a day—in order to stay balanced. It’s time I use
to read and reflect, and I always feel renewed and refreshed by this. It also
gives me material to feed my extroverted nature.
For me, the early morning hours are best for this kind of reflection. I’m
an early riser, usually up by 5A.M., which gives me a few hours to read
newspapers and magazines of all sorts—local, national, and international.
In the evening, after a black-tie dinner, I’ll unwind by stopping at my
local Korean grocery for snacks—potato chips and pretzels. That will be
my dinner. I rarely get to eat at those black-tie events, and I’d rather have
the junk food, anyway.
Once I’m home, I read books—usually biographies. Now and then I
like to read about philosophers—particularly Socrates, who emphasizes
that you should follow the convictions of your conscience, which basically
means thinking for yourself, a philosophy I tend to agree with. It may not
make you too popular, but it’s essential for lucid thought, and it’s a good
way to avoid being part of a herd mentality of any sort.
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I read as much as I can, but not as much as I’d like, because there are
so many constraints on my time. I am grateful for the contribution Oprah
Winfrey has made to our country in regard to reading. In my book The
America We Deserve, I wrote about the deplorable state of reading in this
country. Since Oprah decided to do something about it, there has been a
noticeable upswing in book sales, and writers are once again considered to
be cool people rather than dinosaurs. I cannot thank Oprah enough for
what she has done, and I hope every person in this country realizes the
positive influence she has had. We all owe Oprah a big thank-you, and I’d
like to lead the crowd in saying so.
I like movies and television as much as anyone else, but reading is a
form of replenishment for me. The potato chips and pretzels help, too.
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Dress for Your Culture
I used to pride myself on buying very inexpensive suits and other
clothing. It just didn’t make sense to pay thousands of dollars for great
clothes when you could buy something for a hundred dollars. Who would
know the difference?
Over the years, I’ve learned that this is wrongheaded. I now buy very
high-quality shoes, and they seem to last forever, whereas the cheapos
used to wear out quickly and always looked as cheap as the price I’d paid
for them. The same is true for suits. These days, I go for Brioni, whose
service and attention to detail is second to none. They supplied most of the
clothing for The Apprentice, so I have tremendous loyalty to them (and I
got a good deal). They also make great overcoats.
The way we dress says a lot about us before we ever say a word. To
me, dressing successfully means understanding your environment:
knowing the culture and making an effort to reflect—and respect—it.
The “look” in Beverly Hills may be attractive, but that same look may
be met with scorn on Wall Street. Success is hard enough to achieve
without showing up on casual Friday in a three-piece suit. Don’t put up
unnecessary hurdles for yourself.
Make it easy for people to take you seriously. I would wonder about
someone who arrived for a meeting or an interview and was dressed
inappropriately for the culture of that particular workplace—for example,
a guy showing up at Trump Tower in a cowboy hat, boots, and a fringed
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cowhide jacket. It’s more about culture than style. Be aware of your
surroundings and dress accordingly.
Some people can get away with anything. Most people can’t. Micha
Koeppel, who works at The Trump Organization, usually looks like a
Canadian Mountie in full regalia. To look at him, you’d think he was
about to lead an expedition through the Rockies. Then again, my buildings
are tall, and he scouts the right locations for them, so maybe there’s a
reason for his getups. It works for him, and he does a good job, so I don’t
mind.
It’s certainly not groundbreaking news that the early victories by the
women on The Apprentice were, to a very large extent, dependent on their
sex appeal. The fact that sex sells is nothing new. However, women are
judged harshly when they go too far, so be careful in how you present
yourself. If you want to be acknowledged for your intelligence as well as
your beauty, don’t stand in your own way. Not everyone can tune out a
knock-em-dead appearance. Think of how you would like to be perceived,
and proceed from there.
I tend to notice what people are wearing only if they look
exceptionally well put together—or exceptionally badly put together. It
has more to do with style than which designer they may or may not be
wearing. As I said, expensive clothing usually looks like it was worth the
price.
Have you ever noticed how we tend to pigeonhole people in certain
professions by their appearance? It’s a form of shorthand to just be able to
say “your basic accountant type” or “a typical advertising type” when
describing someone. Every profession has a certain look or standard. Just
say “banker” and you’ve saved yourself a hundred words. It’s not always
fair, but that’s how it works.
However, you don’t have to be a typical anything.
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For example, Frank McKinney looks like a cross between a rock star
and a surfer dude. You would never guess by looking at him that he’s a
real estate entrepreneur who sells ultra-high-end residential real estate in
Florida. When he speeds by you on his motorcycle in his Versace vest with
his two feet of blond hair blowing in the wind, you can bet he’s on his way
to a business meeting. But that’s Frank’s style, and he’s very successful.
I’m a conservative dresser due to business considerations and to save
time. I enjoy flamboyance in other people—I’m more interested in what a
beautiful woman might wear than in anything I might ever put on.
Be aware that your attire can literally become a costume. I’ve known a
lot of terrific-looking scoundrels and a lot of well-dressed bums.
Being tasteful is being tasteful, no matter what line of work you’re in.
Sure, it helps to have the money to buy great clothes, but a little style can
go a long way.
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Here I am on top of Trump World Tower at the United Nations Plaza. I like to check up on
things, even without my helicopter.
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Be Your Own Best Financial Adviser
Many people go out and hire financial advisers, but I have also seen a lot
of those advisers destroy people.
Athletes, in particular, make a great deal of money at a very young
age. Too often, some manager squanders the athlete’s fortune and they
wind up in their thirties with nothing left but their past glory—and are
forced to get jobs just to survive.
A good friend of mine and truly one of the greatest basketball players
who has ever lived, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was in the NBA for over
twenty years, only to find that some bad advice had destroyed much of his
wealth. I don’t know whether it was theft or stupidity, but it was a shame.
Herschel Walker is an athlete who signed big contracts, with both the
USFL and NFL. One day, he came to me and told me he was going to
invest in a fast-food franchise. I told him, “Herschel, you are a friend of
mine, but if you do that, I will not speak to you again.” Because of the
relationship we had (and continue to have), he decided not to make the
investment. The company went bankrupt two years later. Herschel is now
a wealthy man, and he thanks me every time I see him.
When it comes to picking a financial adviser, rely on your own
judgment based on what you read in reliable publications like The Wall
Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, and Fortune. They are usually terrific,
even though, on occasion, they say some negative things about me. I’m
angry at Fortune at the moment—and for good reason—but even Fortune
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sometimes manages to awake from its stupor to report something
worthwhile. I’m particularly impressed with an editor there named
Geoffrey Colvin, who is also the host of Wall Street Week on PBS and has
written perceptively about corporate restructuring.
The New York Post has developed a truly great business section—and
one that is fun to read. Lately, The New York Times’s coverage of business
has gone right to the top!
If you read these financial publications for a while, you will start to
pick up on the cadence and get a feel for what’s happening in the market,
which funds are the best, and who the best advisers are.
Stay with the winners. Often, you will read about somebody who has
made money quickly and then relies on one of his friends to invest his
fortune. That friend has no track record, and if it weren’t for his
connection to a rich investor, he wouldn’t have any money. Beware of
instant stars in the world of finance. Trust the people who do it again and
again, and who are consistently ranked high by the four best institutional
business media outlets. But trust your own common sense first.
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Invest Simply
There are numerous firms that provide comprehensive charts and other
information on the best returns from certain financial advisers and funds.
Study those charts, not over the short term (maybe they just got lucky) but
over a fifteen- or twenty-year period.
Invest with the help of a major firm like Goldman Sachs, Morgan
Stanley, Bear Stearns, or Merrill Lynch. These are your hard-earned
savings at stake. Don’t take unnecessary risks.
Generally there is a reason for success. When you look at legends like
Alan “Ace” Greenberg and Warren Buffett and marvel at how good they
are, you will likely see that what makes them so successful is the same
quality you should apply to every one of your own investments—common
sense.
I’ve read many of Warren Buffett’s annual reports. In every case, what
fascinates me is that he is able to reduce things to the simplest of terms.
Many accomplished Wall Street gurus can make you dizzy with talk of
intricate financial maneuverings. They might impress you with their
sophisticated computerized trading results, their fifty percent returns from
options on products that may not even exist yet. Fortunes are won and lost
every day in these markets, but as far as I’m concerned, those folks would
be just as successful if they ditched their hedge funds and put all their
money on their favorite roulette number at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in
Atlantic City.
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You paid good money for this book, and I know you’re expecting
sophisticated investment advice. The wisest thing I can tell you is to invest
only in products you understand, with people you know you can trust.
Sometimes the best investments are the ones you don’t make.
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Get a Prenuptial Agreement
I’ve said it before—I even wrote a chapter on the art of the prenup in one
of my other books—but I’ll say it again for anyone about to propose: A
prenuptial agreement doesn’t mean that you won’t always love your
spouse. It doesn’t mean that you have doubts about the person’s integrity
or questions about the relationship. All it means is that you recognize that
life, especially the parts involving love and business, can be complicated.
People have a right to protect their assets. If you own your own business
and you’re facing a difficult divorce without having secured a prenuptial
agreement, your negligence could jeopardize the livelihoods of your
employees. I know plenty of women who are supporting their husbands,
and this advice applies equally to both sexes.
If I hadn’t signed a prenup, I would be writing this book from the
perspective of somebody who lost big. We needed a bus to get Ivana’s
lawyers to court. It was a disaster, but I had a solid prenup, and it held up.
A friend of mine is married to a woman who stands only five-foottwo,
but he’s petrified of what she will do to him in court, all because he
didn’t get a prenup. Before he met this woman, he’d had four unsuccessful
marriages, yet he told me, “Donald, I’m so in love with this woman that I
don’t need a prenuptial agreement.” I didn’t have the courage to tell him
what I was thinking to myself: Loser!
A year later, the marriage was over and he was going through hell.
When I saw him, he looked like a frightened puppy.
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There’s nothing wrong with common sense. Be like Thoreau and
simplify.
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Cut Out the Middleman
Wayne Newton is a great friend of mine, and he made a lot of money over
the years. Unfortunately, given terrible advice, he lost his money and was
forced to declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, his lawyers were eating him
alive.
He called me and said, “Donald, I heard you owed $9.2 billion to a
hundred banks in the early nineties and you never went bankrupt. How
did you do it? Because I just can’t seem to get out of this mess. My lawyers
are making a fortune and the banks are impossible.”
I asked Wayne how many banks were involved. He told me it was
three. “You’re lucky,” I said. “I had ninety-nine banks and I made a point
of becoming best friends with everybody at every bank. You have to do
the same.”
I gave him some more advice, which he has generously acknowledged
in many interviews. I told him, “Wayne, you are a major celebrity. Have
your secretary call the three banks and get the person who is really in
charge, not the figurehead, and personally talk to all three people. Arrange
a meeting with them, ideally a dinner with them and their families. Get to
know them. At the end of this period of time, they’ll like you. They’ll be
impressed by you because you are a celebrity. They may control a lot of
money, but they don’t control fame, and people are impressed by fame.
Forget your lawyers. They are never going to want to settle the case,
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because then their legal fees stop. You must do it yourself. Call the
bankers. Become friendly with the bankers. And make a deal.”
Wayne called me three weeks later. He’d had dinner with all three
bankers and said they were among the nicest people he’d ever met. They
brought their wives and children. Later, he cut deals with every one of
them. The banks were taken care of over a period of time, the lawyers
didn’t get any richer, and today Wayne is doing fantastically well.
You’re probably wondering how this rule applies to your life if you
are not headlining a major Las Vegas show. Here’s how: Wayne took
control of the situation. He appealed to the people in charge. Most of us
need lawyers at some point in our lives, and we all have to deal with large
bureaucracies. But sometimes you need to go right to the top, and you
need to do it yourself. You don’t have to sing “Danke schön” to make a
sincere personal approach.
Of course, there will be times when lawyers are essential. Some people
are scoundrels.1 In those instances, sue the bastards. But whenever
possible, settle. It saves a lot of time for everyone involved.
 1 I have come to hate doctors. I think that, generally, they are a bunch of money-grubbing dogs. I
can tell you about countless instances when doctors have ruined people’s lives. As an example, a
person I am very fond of had a foot injury that I believe should have healed naturally, but instead,
the doctor operated on it, fitting pins and plates into the foot. Now, after over a year of
convalescence, this person is having a hard time walking. I think that suing a doctor like this
would qualify as a worthwhile legal expense. (Recently, the patient saw this doctor walking on
the very expensive and chic Worth Avenue in Palm Beach and spending lots of money.) This is
one of many bad doctors I know of—there are too many others to name. I just can’t stand the
bastards.
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Teach Your Children the Value of a
Dollar
My kids know the value of money from example. They see how hard I
work. I don’t talk about it with them because I don’t have to—they have
eyes.
They see the way I live. I turn off the lights whenever I leave the office.
I’m always happy to get a good deal, whether I’m buying a building or
buying supplies at Duane Reade. (Trust me: You can get a good deal on
shaving cream there.)
I always remember the example my parents set for me. I could see their
determination and discipline. They didn’t have to harp on it. I try to be the
way they were.
My parents were frugal in the sense that they knew it wasn’t easy to
make money, and that it should be treated with respect. They lived well
but simply, and were not flamboyant in their spending.
We rarely went out to eat. We took relatively few elaborate vacations.
They emphasized schooling and education. We had a solid family life,
and I remember feeling very fortunate. Each of us was expected to
contribute something not only to the family as a whole, but to society.
That is a Trump family value that is ingrained in me, and one I’ve tried to
live up to.
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With my mother at New York Military Academy.
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With my father, Fred Trump, in the early days.
My children have benefited from affluence, as I did, but it’s surprising
how unspoiled they are in many ways. They have budgets and live within
them. They have limits on their credit cards, and they have them more for
protection in an emergency than for anything else. When they were
growing up, both of my sons earned extra money during their summer
vacations by mowing lawns, cutting trees, moving stones, and doing
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landscaping work at the Seven Springs estate in Westchester. Ivanka
attended the School of American Ballet, which requires an enormous
amount of discipline and training.
College kids today are more money savvy, perhaps, than kids from
earlier generations. They seem serious about their money. This is a good
sign, because the sooner you understand the value of money, the more
likely you are to possess large amounts of it.
If your children see you being careless with money, they will assume
it’s okay for them to be careless. Children watch. That’s how they learn.
Your priorities will often become their priorities. Any family can have a
wild card or two, but on the whole, it’s been proven that children will
learn from what they see.
If you obviously enjoy going to Las Vegas to gamble, it’s likely they’ll
think this is a good thing and will follow suit. If you like going to Carnegie
Hall and bring the kids along, they’ll think this is an exciting event
because you do. Children inherently like to please, so think about the
values you exhibit. Sooner or later, kids will form their own tastes, but the
initial exposure is important.
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With my three eldest children—Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric—and Barbara Walters for an
appearance on20/20.
(© 2004 Virginia Sherwood/ABC Photo Archives)
I spent a good deal of time with my children—Don Jr., Ivanka, and
Eric—when they were growing up, because we all lived together. We
remain very close. I spend less time with Tiffany, as she lives in California
with her mother. I do try to include them in my travels and activities as
much as possible.
They know they are always welcome to join the family business. Don
Jr. began working full-time at The Trump Organization in September 2001.
“Trumps are builders,” he told Barbara Walters in a recent interview. I
hope Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany might also consider a career with us, but
it’s their decision entirely.
I have very high standards, but so do my kids. They’re all high
achievers who enjoy working and are not goof-offs in any sense of the
word. I wonder why I’m so lucky.
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With my youngest daughter, Tiffany.
Not teaching your kids about money is like not caring whether they
eat. If they enter the world without financial knowledge, they will have a
much harder go of it. Make sure you let them in on your way of thinking
about money—how you manage expenses, how you save, where you
invest.
Let them know that having money isn’t necessarily a sign of greed. It’s
an important element for survival. Just getting a first apartment can be a
lesson for your kids: They suddenly learn about security deposits! Equip
them for life as best you can. Buy them a subscription to Money or some
other personal-finance magazine. Give them incentives for saving their
allowance.
If they don’t learn about money from you, who’s going to teach them?
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Negotiations, anyone? Here I am with George Foreman and Lennox Lewis
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If You Have Them by the Balls, Their
Hearts and Minds Will Follow
In this part of the book, I want to tell you about some of my favorite deals
and the essential rules of negotiation they exemplify.
First, though, here’s my basic philosophy of how deals are done: It’s
all about persuasion, not power.
Power is merely the ability to convince people to accept your ideas.
Just because I am a successful businessman doesn’t mean I always get
my way. It’s true that I don’t have to be as vociferous about things as
before. I don’t have to act like a bulldozer to get attention. But I have to
coax and make my case just like any other negotiator.
An interviewer from Brazil recently asked me what the best parts and
the worst parts of having so much money and success were. I had the
same answer to both questions: the effect it has on people.
Anyone in a position of power will probably agree with me. There are
pluses and minuses.
The plus side is that people will listen to you more readily than if you
aren’t on the map financially. The minus side is that they will reduce you
to one dimension and keep you there.
Power is not just about calling all the shots. It’s about ability. You can
call all the shots, but if they’re bad ones, no one will take much notice after
a while. Know what you’re doing. That’s where the real power comes from.
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Convincing others has a lot to do with understanding negotiation.
Study the art of persuasion. Practice it. Develop an understanding of its
profound value across all aspects of life.
Don’t expect people to believe your blarney simply because you’re
good at delivering it. The boardroom is not the pub down on the corner.
Make it easy on the people you are trying to convince. Give them
readily accessible metaphors and analogies. If you are too far over their
heads, they’ll feel frustrated or, worse, inferior. Let them know you’re all
on the same level in some way. Use humor. It’s a great icebreaker. I
sometimes tell people that I wish our meeting had been yesterday, because
I was having a great hair day and they missed it!
Convincing other people of how wonderful you are and how lofty
your ideas are is a good way to convince them to tune out or, better yet, to
escape from you as soon as possible. We all need to have a healthy dose of
confidence to be convincing, but don’t bulldoze. If you do, you may see a
lot of people in front of you at first, but the room will soon be empty.
As the adage goes, “There’s a fine line between acceptance and
resignation.” You want people to accept your ideas, not merely be resigned
to them because they think they can’t fight back or are just plain exhausted
by you. Don’t browbeat them into believing you. Let them think the
decision is theirs. It will give them a feeling of control.
Here is the golden rule of negotiating:
He who has the gold makes the rules.
If you walk into a negotiation and know nothing about the other party,
let them talk, listen to their tone, observe their body language, and
determine whether they really want to make a deal or just show you how
smart they are.
Most negotiations should proceed calmly, rather than in a hostile
manner. However, sometimes a negotiation works best after a few screams
and some table pounding.