Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life (17 page)

My thanks to Tom Barrack for his consistently great insights. Let’s all remember to be champions in every situation and in all conditions—starting right now.

—HENRY FORD

I
’ve been building the Trump brand for several decades, and my three eldest children are now with The Trump Organization, helping to expand our brand. Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric are all here now. They are my real Apprentices, and they’re doing a great job. They know that I’m demanding, but they are disciplined and very hard workers, so they are a good fit with The Trump Organization.

Having a quality brand is very much like having a good reputation. It’s important to consider that fact, even when you are just starting out. Remember that everything you say and do is important. Actions matter.You are, literally, your own brand, whether you have a business yet or not. If you are serious about what you’re doing, taking responsibility for yourself starts now.

The Trump brand has to represent the highest quality available, no matter what the enterprise might be. If I build a golf course, it has to the best. If I build a skyscraper, it has to be the best. If I have a line of suits, they’d better be terrific. I am very
thorough when it comes to certain things. Namely,
everything.
You’d better be, too, if you hope to get somewhere worth going.

I remember when someone mentioned how impressed they were that I would be so interested in trees when I was building a golf course. I had made an effort to find the leading expert of this particular type of tree and spent a lot of time researching them on my own. But I was surprised they were impressed—to me it made sense. You have to know the details yourself! Secondhand information will always be secondhand. Don’t be a secondhand person. Go to the source yourself. That’s a start on the road to a great brand, a great reputation, or both. No detail is too small, whether it’s a tree or a faucet. One assistant remembers that I kept three bathroom sinks on a couch in the office for months, asking everyone who came in which sink they liked best. To me, that kind of attention is a component of a comprehensive level of excellence.

Some of my buildings have sold out before they are built. Why? People recognize the brand name and know what they will be getting—the best for their money. It’s not a risk on their part. That’s the great thing about building a business based on quality and integrity. It will sell itself. It doesn’t happen overnight—you may have to work awhile to establish your reputation and brand—but the consistency will be the standard to beat in your chosen industry. I can tell you, it’s worth it. Whatever your interests are, get started. As Henry Ford said, you can’t build a reputation (or a brand) on what you are
going
to do. You have to put some action into your plans, ideas, and dreams.

Most of us need letters of recommendation now and then. I write them as well as receive them, and I always look for the words “responsible, professional, and loyal.” If you can build your reputation on three words, those would be three at the top to choose from. I also think of those words when it comes to the Trump brand—to be authentic when it comes to responsibility, professionalism,
and loyalty—to my buyers, clients, students, readers, audiences, and so forth. I’ll be the first to admit it’s not always easy. I am responsible for a lot of people. But high standards are high standards, and that’s what I stand for. I will not accept less from myself.

To build the reputation you want to have, you will have to be the same way. Being stubborn has its rewards. Getting to the top and staying there is one of them. Start now, start today, start this very minute. There’s a lot of competition out there, and they won’t be waiting around for you.

Build your reputation on intelligence, responsibility, and results. That’s building the right way.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

I
’ve always been big on quotes, whether they’re mine or someone else’s, because very often they distill ideas down to their essence. What Ben Franklin said many years ago could have been said today, because it’s relevant and right on. We’ve all heard about doing our “due diligence,” which is another way of being thorough. It’s also the first step to bringing yourself some good luck. What Gary Player, the great golfer, said—quoted above as the title of this essay—remains solid nutshell advice that can apply to everyone.

The mixed-use concept of hotel and condominiums has been a huge success, starting with the first one I did in New York City in the late 1990s, Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Central Park West. Since then I’ve built hotel towers in Chicago and Las Vegas, with many more in the works around the world. Our tower in Waikiki was sold out in five hours, which is a record. People ask me, “How can you do so much?” and I have to say it really isn’t luck, but doing due diligence and applying common sense.
This mixed-use concept was obviously a winner, so I developed the idea further and then took it worldwide. The strategy has worked, and we now have a Trump Hotel Collection that encompasses the world. I had always known the Trump brand would go global—at the right time.

You can apply that to your own life, career, and business as well. Look into the future a bit. Take the time to move yourself forward. If the indications are there, put in the extra effort to make something good even better, or bigger, or both.That’s thinking big, and I’m no stranger to that concept and you shouldn’t be either. I’ve had enough success to know that it works.

The past few years of my life have been busier than they’ve ever been. Everything has escalated, and it’s been demanding—but exciting. But I’ve also been preparing for it for a long time. I’m used to working hard, and therefore I’m used to expecting results. Some people call it luck, but like Ben Franklin said, diligence has something to do with it, too.

For example, if you’ve been working toward something for five years, I’d say you have a goal in mind.You’ve probably focused on that goal. Hopefully, you’ve been diligent in pursuing it. If your work pays off, which it most likely will, people might say you’re just lucky. Maybe so, because you’re lucky enough to have the brains to work hard!

When I’m writing a book, which seems to be most of the time these days, I will spend up to seven or eight months putting together notes, collecting articles, dictating stories and ideas before I even begin to actually put it all together. It’s a long process, and it requires patience and perseverance to see it through to the finished product. I will admit that sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, because it’s not an easy endeavor. But when the book is done, it’s a great feeling. It’s an accomplishment that has taken painstaking time. People won’t see the work that goes into a book, but anyone
who has written one will tell you that diligence is a must.They don’t just materialize out of nowhere.

Recently, while working on one of my books, I spent some time thinking about the “entitlement mentality” that seems to have afflicted this country. I think we can take it back a few decades to the emergence of what was called “instant gratification” as personified by the superstars and rock stars who emerged and made tremendous amounts of money, which very much impressed young people. Suddenly, everyone thought they should have what those very few people had or that those people were “overnight” stars and it should happen that way to them, too. In reality, it happens to very few people and rarely does it happen “overnight” to anybody. Those are the exceptions to the rule, not the norm. But they received so much media attention that people who had to struggle a bit or work for long years at something had the feeling they were being left out or that they were being treated unequally. They began to feel that the world owed them something.

Not everything works out as we might hope it will, and certain fields require a bigger dose of luck to succeed in than others, but a very good way to pave your own way to success is simply to work hard, to be diligent, and to look at what you have going for you versus what you
don’t
have going for you—the old cup half full versus half empty test. Here’s where I bring back my tried and true theory that you have to think big—because if you’re diminishing your own prospects, then it’s not likely you will run into a lot of luck. And part of doing your due diligence is to know what
you
want for yourself, not what other people want for you—which in many cases turns out to be not much! Take the time to move
yourself
forward. In other words, think, work—and be lucky.

—NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

I
wrote a book that came out in 2004 called
How to Get Rich.
I can remember when I was discussing appropriate titles with the editor, and we had a list of them. We kept going back and forth with different ideas, with clever and catchy titles. I finally said, “What everyone wants to know is how to get rich. Why don’t we just call the book
How to Get Rich
?” To me, that was getting to the point. I’d appreciate that as a reader, so that’s the title we chose.

Getting rich isn’t always simple. I have and will always continue to emphasize the importance of loving what you do first. If your goal is just to make money, you are shortchanging yourself. You might also run out of energy while you’re trying to make that money. Passion is an incredible source of fuel that can get you through the tough spells that are bound to come up. So the first step in preparing to becoming rich is to find something that you absolutely love doing.