I’m sure everyone has heard of that writer’s strike that took place and as a result a lot of people in the entertainment industry were left without work. Since there is usually a lot of filming that is done here in Vancouver, I usually meet quite a few people who of course try to work at an unrelated job to generate an income during the downtime.

On the flip side, it’s interesting to see the difference in mentality that others would have where particular working professionals would instead create their own income source such as starting a workshop or offering coaching and consultation to others for a fee.

The most common reason I hear on why people say they wouldn’t be able to do that is that they have no special talent to do things like that. You’d be surprised at how many things you can do with your skills which may seem too natural for yourself to put any notable value on. For example, I would say having a second language is a very valuable asset to sell, which a lot of people think otherwise, as there are a lot of people who do say simple translations to earn money.

I guess another thing that this should make you think about is that if you are in a good situation financially, you should still always prepare too just encase something happens. Can be wise to plan and explore when you have the means and stability to do so.

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This was the final chapter in the book and of course it was titled “Think big and kick ass in business in life”. For the most part it was mostly a re-affirmation of what has been said with different stories.

One thing that I thought was odd was that there were a lot of pages near the beginning of this chapter where Trump talks about how many women he has been with as well as diving into topics such as what attracts women and so fourth. It felt completely off topic especially with lines such as “So guys, be cocky, confident, smart, and humorous and you will be able to get all the women you want”. Felt more like reading a book of “How to be a player 101”.

Although, I believe the intent in writing those parts was to demonstrate how in life attitude plays a large role on how others perceive you. He then talks about how if you are thinking big in life that you should say also own expensive and high end clothing to project to the world that you value quality.

I can easily see people interpreting that in a surface level way though which usually causes people to kill themselves financially. Speaking for myself, everyone who I have personally met who does that usually aren’t too well off financially with the ones who can speak for themselves are usually the ones who are better off financially.

The rest of it talks about having the right will, courage and determination to see things through to the end. At the same time, he emphasizes the importance of how if you want to succeed then you need to surround yourself and make friends with like-minded people as oppose to say people who are always negative and complaining to others about problems. He even says that you should discontinue contact with negative people as they will only drain you.

He then wraps it up by re-emphasizing that in the world there will always be obstacles forced upon you in your journey to success such as greedy professionals who will want to take all of your money or people who are willing to lie, cheat and steal from you. You just have to be prepared to find ways to keep going.

That does it for this book. I’ll be writing my final thoughts on it overall.

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The title of this chapter is “Do You Have What It Takes?”. For the most part, the chapter discussed about how the top 2% of the people in the world all share a similar trait and how you can’t see life in a fairy tale way, so to speak. Trump is pretty blunt on how it’s tough in the real world as people are going to cheat and steal from you and that you have to be prepared to fight back. He then devised this little quiz that you could take to see if you fit the mentality of a person who has the right attitude to succeed in his view.

For the most part, the best answers with his system seemed to be a fairly straight forward way of thinking from a business point of view anyways. There were two questions that caught my attention though. One of them asks “What is your attitude towards people?” with one of the choices being “I believe people are generally good and would never lie, cheat, or steal from me”. That caught my attention because this year there is a situation where I thought there would be an exception to that and so I did put my guard down by a lot more than normal. Sure enough, it did happen eventually in a big way and fortunately I did not get knocked down cold over it while being prepared to fight back.

The other point talked about marriages and the use of a prenuptial agreement. Obviously with Trump’s personal experiences, he would consider that as the right/smart thing to do. I’m guessing this one would probably generate the most controversy as I’m sure there are a lot of people who would say something along the lines of you shouldn’t even get married if you can’t trust the other. Touchy subject for a lot of people though. Afterwards, Zanker throws in his bit about how one needs to be persistent in order to succeed.

Overall, I was surprised at how blunt the message was in this chapter in terms of the possibility of getting hurt is large and how you have to develop the plan/attitude to be able to rise from the occasion. It wasn’t done in a negative way but rather from a realistic point of view which I thought was great.

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I was talking to a person today who mentioned that he didn’t exactly have a lot of money. When it came to his perspective in life though, he felt rich as he began to mention the more important things such as family and the people around them.

He then tried to use an example of a baby and how everything is so cheery for them while being able to crack a smile on virtually everyone. The other comment he posed was how we tend to become too obsessed with money as being the answer to everything. Sometimes it is those simple things in life that you need to do to really feel rich.

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Today I was in Future Shop , a consumer electronics store, and noticed that there was a lady who was trying to return a DVD movie as she wanted a refund. She did not have a receipt and mentioned that it had been over two months since she bought the item. The reason she wanted to return the item was because the DVD was damaged as it was literally broken in half. When the lady was asked on how that had happened she explained that she had accidently stepped on it. Afterwards, it was explained to her that they would be unable to give her a refund because it had been over two months, she did not have a receipt and the DVD was physically damaged.

She then started to go off on how she has bought so much from the company and that it was not only unreasonable but she then threatened to never shop there again if they did not reimburse her for the DVD. In the end, she was not allowed to return the DVD and she marched off with a disgruntled attitude. I wouldn’t be surprised if I see her in the future publishing her comments on some kind of Future Shop sucks type of site(I personally think she was very unreasonable).

Times like this I am just amazed on how some people take absolutely no blame for their life ordeals as if they are a child that doesn’t know any better and require their parents to clean up their mess. Similar to managing your finance, you must be able to take responsibility on things such as your spending habits in order to improve on it. For example, if you are working at a job that pays you a very low wage and every month you are struggling to pay the bills, it is very easy to start blaming all the problems on the fact that your current job doesn’t pay you much. Instead, why not ask yourself “What can I do to fix this?”.

You’d be surprised on how many times where I have tried to offer people advice on ways to save money by first learning about some of their habits and they would respond by saying things such as “I like to go out and drink with my friends a lot”. When I ask whether or not they would be willing to take it easy on how many times a week they would do things like that they would tell me “No Way. I only go a few times a week. It doesn’t cost me that much anyways”. If you are unwilling to recognize that your outcome is the result of what you have done, then you shouldn’t be complaining as that is the type of lifestyle you are choosing to live.

Take responsibility for your own actions and you’d be surprised just how much wiser and independent you can become in managing your lifestyle.

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