This was technically the second book by Trump that I have read. Based on what I heard beforehand, people either liked it a lot or said that it just showed Trump as a bragging ego maniac.

The book definitely has a blunt direction for the most part. Although I guess you can say a lot of the advice can be considered as common sense, the blunt direction made the information more interesting to read I thought.

It’s not everyday that someone is open to giving advice this way as I suppose most people would consider it politically incorrect. While I personally didn’t really learn too much in the sense of how I would change my way of thinking as I believe if you don’t already think in a similar approach you are in trouble, the stories that were used as examples were insightful. As they say too, you absorb information and then take what works for you.

We all need a reminder every once in awhile on the harsh realities of the world when you are trying to achieve financial success. I think overall the book does a very good job in telling you the things that you don’t want to necessarily hear but need to in life.

It’s only in the last few chapters where I felt the book began to lose its charm. I could easily see how some of the content in those chapters alone painted the picture of an ego maniac for a lot of people. I also thought Bill Zanker’s contribution at the end of each chapter felt more like an advertisement for his company and it would have been better if he referenced examples that were not specifically tied to his business.

You do have to be in the right state of mind to read things like this too. Overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others.

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I managed to read another chapter earlier before I start doing all the new years eve stuff today. This chapter was titled “Passion, Passion, Passion!” As the title implies, it was mostly about doing the things that you love to do in life first and foremost as the money will come afterwards. There was also a lengthy part about being able to handle pressure where Trump talks about how he owed banks billions of dollars in debt during the real estate crash in the 90’s which was one of his ways to prove that he could perform under pressure.

He then dived a bit into relationship building and how even though he owed the banks a lot of money, he treated them well before and as a result they weren’t as hard on him as they were to others. He used an example of a person who was the opposite and had a very pompous attitude towards others including the banks. When the person was in trouble and needed a favor from the bank, they were more than motivated to not help him.

Trump used an interesting quote that I haven’t heard of before stating “Be careful who you step on going up because you meet the same people coming down”. How true is that I thought as even from my experiences it’s just funny how the people you have met in your past often play a role in your future as well. Trump also talks about learning from other people’s mistakes as it is a lot faster than going through it yourself as well as having that never giving up mentality.

It was interesting afterwards as he talked about that Apprentice candidate Michelle who decided to quit the show as it was evident that she performed poorly on a task and was more than likely to be the one who was going to get fired. This made him talk about quitters and if young people today have what it takes. He references a psychologists study on how young people nowadays are more narcissistic and self-centered as a result of being fed with too many compliments and in his view this is a big reason why many people grow up with an entitlement mentality and that they always quit when they don’t get something right away.

The whole message in the chapter I thought was basically do what you love to do and learn to respect and appreciate things in life.

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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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So I decided that I am going to start reading the book “Think Big and Kick Ass In Business and Life” that I received back when I attended that learning annex event as you all may recall. It’s been awhile since I blogged about a book too, so I figured the timing is appropriate.

The authors of the book are Donald Trump and Bill Zanker who is the founder of The Learning Annex. Not really sure what to expect personally, but as usual learning from other people’s experiences can be a great way to help you achieve more.

The Introduction mostly focused on Zanker and how he built the Learning Annex from a measly $5000 in funds. After meeting and acquiring Donald Trump’s services while incorporating his way of thinking, he mentions that his business has been booming ever since.

The interesting detail for me was how Zanker mentioned that at first he couldn’t get through Trump’s secretary as his pitch to get Trump to speak at his event for one day was $10,000 which was immediately disregarded. He then mentioned how he remembered a saying from Tony Robbins on how if one wants to make it big in life that you have to push yourself beyond your limitations to a point of extreme adrenaline. As a result, he went crazy and told Trump’s secretary that he would offer Trump one million dollars to speak at an event for a day. Evidently, Trump responded to him personally in regards to that afterwards and the rest is history.

I guess that answers one of my questions before where I was wondering how much Trump got paid to speak at those events. That’s definitely a very interesting example of risk taking in life too.

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