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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This chapter was focused on the issue of money overall and protecting your assets. It was all based around marriages though and was titled “I love you, sign this”. Trump talked about his marriages in the past and how he had a prenuptial agreement for all of them which protected his assets.

He used statistics such as 58% percent of marriages end up in a divorce and mentions that while it might not be the most romantic thing to do, in the event of a breakup it can save you from the ugly legal battles over money that could arise. There was one example he used which was kind of surreal where a rich and powerful person kept marrying and divorcing women and each time the person had to pay $50 million. The money part didn’t surprise me so much as oppose to one getting married so many times with the same outcome.

While it can go both ways when you think about it where the prenuptial could be used as a way to take advantage of someone or to protect themselves from being taken advantage of, I guess the usual debate is the guilt factor it would play for a lot of people. Example, one of those “If you need that it means you don’t trust me” type of deal.

In many ways I always viewed various types of contracts as a good way to help discourage any rash decisions too. It’s like those times where people throw and break things when there are mad. If they knew for sure it would be costly throwing/breaking a certain item because of some kind of penalty/stipulation, they are more inclined to not do it which can provide the necessary time to really think about what they are about to do.

This is one topic that people can debate about all day depending on one’s philosophy. You either view marriage like a business partnership or a fairy tale I guess you can say.

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With a chapter title of “Revenge” it pretty much told me that this was going to be a fairly aggressive read. Trump essentially expresses that when people “screw you” getting even will make it less likely that others will try to do the same to you again.

He used examples such as helping a lady to become successful and when it came time where he needed help she looked the other way. Evidently, she lost almost everything one day and Trump took pleasure in refusing to give her things such as a good reference.

There was one story that was kind of intriguing where he mentions that he knew a famous basketball player who got robbed blindly by his agent. Afterwards, he discovered a lot of proof of some sort that would convict the person in question and Trump was adamant that he should go after him and even offered to do everything such as giving him a lawyer. However, the person didn’t want to go through with it and Trump labels people like that as a “schmuck”.

That just kind of surprises me on why a person wouldn’t take action in that case. For myself, I recognize that sometimes people do stupid things such as if there is a lot of money involved they get deceitful as they think they can get away with it. It’s like all those times where you see a good person stealing because they were tempted as the opportunity presented itself.

I usually give people the benefit of the doubt personally while throwing small signals about their actions which they know is wrong. If even after that it is clear that they made a conscious decision to not be truthful while attempting to steal from others that’s when I am personally fully willing to expose them as I think they should have to pay back and be held accountable for what they did. From what I learned, you can still be a nice person and succeed, but being naive is usually what ends up costing you at the end as a result of not taking action.

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When I read the title of this chapter “Fear Factor” I thought it was going to deal with the typical you can’t let fear stop you from doing things. Instead, it dealt more with the fact that when you are successful everyone wants to take you down. Trump used some very interesting examples such as another realtor who he was treating very well only to see him turn around to try and take money from him. He also mentioned that he was debating whether or not to fight back as it would be an expensive matter to pursue and eventually he did so as it was the principles of the whole situation.

Trump then talked a lot about managing and hiring employees with an emphasis that loyalty was one of the most important traits that he values in a person not just in business but life in general. I have a very interesting story on how I developed a personality of being loyal which I may write about in a later date.

The rest of it kind of dived into how you have to earn respect from others and forgive people over honest mistakes and used that Tara Conner event as an example. At the same time, you should not forgive a crook. This chapter was a little confusing I thought in terms of the theme. An interesting line was used in this chapter to say how you have to watch your back in life which stated “Lions kill for food, humans kill for sport”.

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This chapter is titled “Basic Instincts” and revolved around how you have to learn to use your intuition when making decisions. Trump used a lot of examples during his real estate career such as buying properties in areas that everyone told him that he would fail in, yet he still did it anyways as he had a gut feeling that it would be big. At the same time, he talks about how your intuition can tell you if someone is say being deceitful or genuine.

He then used an example with how he agreed to create the show The Apprentice with Mark Burnett. Without much fuss, he agreed to do it as he had a gut feeling that Mark Burnett was genuine and they simply shook hands in one day to get the deal going. In turn, that led into the topic on how if you shake someone’s hand, that means you have just made a deal and that dishonoring your word will create distrust to everyone.

He titled that part as “Your Word Is Golden” and talked about how his then agent told him not to do the show as business shows have never done exceedingly well apparently which Trump was oblivious to along with a statistic that 98 percent of the shows that get on TV fail. As a result, the agent was persistent that the deal not go through despite their handshake and even phoned Burnett to tell him that the deal was off. However, he went with his intuition along with the fact that he already agreed to do it and so he did. We all know how that turned out.

I couldn’t help but snicker at the next part where Trump mentioned that his agent then started congratulating Trump and asked for a commission payment. Guess you know what happened there. Overall in the end, he mentions that you have to factor other things as well such as timing your action as well as gathering the facts along with your analytical skills. With that, you then go with your gut.

Overall, I thought it was interesting about how it mentions that you have to train yourself when it comes to trusting your gut. I often do that where if I have a hunch about something, in situations where I can I always do small things to see if the reaction would be what my instincts told me would happen. It’s almost like building an encyclopedia for yourself to reference as every situation usually has some kind of predictable pattern. As mentioned though, you have to use logic and other factors too.

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