Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life
Author: Donald J. Trump
ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
This book came out in 2009. It’s a collection of short essays and reflections, not a step by step guide. Trump takes topics like success, learning, fear, teams, and money, and gives his take on them.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump wrote this chapter right after the 2008 election. He got interviewed on New York 1 by a guy named Dominic Carter. They talked about John McCain and Barack Obama.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump starts with a Stephen King essay from the New York Times Book Review. King was talking about short stories. He said a lot of them felt show-offy and written for editors and teachers instead of actual readers.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says most things called innovative are really just old pieces put together in a new way. He points to his own mixed use condo and hotel tower in New York. It got called innovative. Then other people copied it. He says at the time it just felt like common sense to him.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says even though he is an entrepreneur he has always known team work matters. We are all in it together whether we like it or not.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Every year for eighteen years a rabbi in Los Angeles sends Trump a message before Rosh Hashanah. Trump is not Jewish but he knows the holiday because many people who work for him observe it.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump opens with Pythagoras and the idea that learning matters for people and for society. He says whenever he starts something new he knows he has a lot to learn. That does not slow him down. It gives him energy. It feels like a fresh start.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says complacency will kill your chances. Living on the edge is the opposite. When you are in challenging spots your senses get sharper. You move faster.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump starts with the idea of the big picture. A lot of people leave pieces out or pretend the gaps are not there. He compares it to getting a pizza with slices already missing and still acting like it is whole.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says when someone who achieves hits a goal it is not the end. It is the start of the next one. Achievers always have the next thing lined up. They go for the challenge. They have to keep beating their own record.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump starts this one with a book he found in school. It asked all kinds of successful people what wisdom meant to them. The answers kept coming back to three things. Experience. Integrity. Knowledge.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump tells a story about a friend who spent a long time studying World War II. Trump said he must be an expert by now. The friend replied that it only showed him how much he did not know. To understand World War II you have to go back to World War I. Then further back to see why that war started. It became a never ending process for him.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says champions are both born and made. A champion shows clear superiority or wins first place. Think of Olympic athletes. What stands out is the training they put in, the sacrifices, and the courage to keep going.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump brings up Picasso. The artist was not only great at painting. He was good at business too. He knew the value of his work and did not make excuses. Once a visitor asked what a painting represented. Picasso said two hundred thousand dollars. He saw his art as business. Trump flips it. He sees his business as art.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump interviewed a young guy who knew his narrow field really well. But when other topics came up, he had almost nothing. Tunnel vision. Trump admired the depth but saw it as a problem for bigger work. His companies touch lots of areas. Someone with only one lane of knowledge might not fit well.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
An interviewer asked Trump what his greatest fears were. He said he did not have any. The guy seemed surprised. Trump explains it this way. If you call something a fear it creates fear. Sometimes it is just a concern. After the big attack in New York he knew it was a real concern for everyone. It is worldwide now. But if you let it turn into deep fear the bad actors win.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump went to Wharton. He says it is probably the best business school. It gave him a strong base in finance and business ideas. That alone does not guarantee success. But it equipped him.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Lots of people think Trump is a natural at business. He says in some ways they might be right. But it is also a skill you build with discipline and focus. Like sports or music. It takes years.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump opens with a Confucius line. He who will not economize will have to agonize. He relates. He sits through long rambling talks and thinks about how much time is wasted. Business has no room for people who cannot get to the point. Keep it short, fast, and direct. It is also more polite.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says work is mostly problem solving. If you have no problems, you are either not looking or you do not really run anything.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says momentum does not stay on its own. You have to keep working at it. One big win does not mean the next ones will just happen. Even good jazz players work to hit the zone every time. They do not take it for granted.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says how you handle hard times shows who you are. He asks himself one question when trouble hits: is this a blip or a catastrophe? It keeps him from losing his head.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump believes in tooting your own horn. He tells about a very rich friend who is shy about his name. The friend had to call Trump to get a restaurant reservation in New York. No one knew who he was, so the success did not help him in daily life.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Prescience means foresight or good perception. Trump says people called him a visionary at times, but one moment stood out. In 2006 he wrote a letter to the New York Times naming Orhan Pamuk as a great writer. Pamuk won the Nobel Prize that year. People suddenly said Trump had prescience.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
This chapter is about September 15, 2008. Trump calls it one of the worst days on Wall Street since 9/11. Big firms fell fast. He says he had predicted trouble like this a couple years earlier and again on TV eight months before.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says financial literacy is financial intelligence. He points to Robert Kiyosaki and the Rich Dad books. Learn how money actually works. He and Kiyosaki wrote a book together because more independent people make a stronger country.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump got a bunch of letters from middle school kids who watched The Apprentice. They asked how to reach success and how to deal with obstacles.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
The chapter opens with an Emerson line. What is behind and ahead is small compared to what is inside us. Trump uses it to stay hungry. No matter what he has done, he sees it as small next to what he can still do. That keeps him from getting complacent.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says sometimes you have to be patient and sometimes you have to get moving. The key is knowing which time is which. He admits it is easier said than done. We often keep pushing on something long after we have worn ourselves out.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
People spend too much time on problems and not enough on opportunities. Trump says you have to hold the big picture in mind even while handling the small stuff, or you end up micromanaging yourself into a corner. He tries to run two tracks at once. One on the details, one on the larger goal. It keeps him from getting stuck and reminds him he is headed somewhere good.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Watch what people do, not just what they say. Trump says this is one of the biggest lessons. Talk can go one way while actions go another. Getting those two in line saves time and keeps you from getting burned.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Problems are just another form of practice. Trump says the label you put on them changes how you handle them. Some people treat chess like a game they enjoy. It is also strategy, art, and problem solving. Bobby Fischer gave 98 percent of his mental energy to it while most gave 2 percent. That focus explains the results.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
This chapter tells the story of getting a golf course built in Scotland. Trump spent years looking at sites across Europe and passed on more than 200. In 2006 he found land at Menie Estate on the northeast coast. Three miles of oceanfront, huge sand dunes, unspoiled. It felt right. His mother was born in Scotland, and Scotland is where golf started. That made it personal.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump compares running a company to being the conductor of an orchestra. You set the pace. The players and instruments come together only when someone keeps time. He runs fast, what he calls allegro. His team learns to match that speed. He keeps an inner metronome going no matter the mood or outside noise.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Every day counts as an important day for what comes next. Trump says treat it as special just because you have it. Tell yourself it is a great day and watch your energy rise. If you already like the work, momentum comes easier. But even after big wins, you can still push further and do better. That habit keeps complacency away.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
After The Apprentice took off, commercial offers came in. Trump turned down most and did a few. One Visa spot stuck with him. In the ad he stands on top of Trump Tower with his card. Wind takes it and it falls many floors to Fifth Avenue. Next shot shows him digging through a Dumpster to find it. A well dressed woman walks by and says, “and I thought he was doing so well!”
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Business comes down to making money and watching the bottom line. Trump says the sooner you get that, the better. People sometimes walk into meetings with big ideas about helping the world or other side goals that do not belong there. It wastes time.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump reads newspapers every morning. Local, national, international. The Financial Times, New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal. Then morning TV news. By the office he has a sense of what is happening. He says this matters more now than ever.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Original thinking often means going against the tide. It is not the easiest path. The easy path can be the average one. That is fine for some. Not for him.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Books on positive thinking are everywhere. Trump still sees negative thinking hold people back. The missing piece is often persistence. Big results rarely happen overnight. Most overnight stories took twenty or thirty years of work first.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
People work differently. Some think long then act fast. Others decide quick then take time. Results can match either way. No single right method.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Life is a series of discoveries. It starts that way and should keep going. Learning to ride a bike or a child’s first steps carry real excitement. Keep some of that if you can.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
People around Trump know his positive energy is real. He has big ideas and the drive to finish them. The group picks up the pace. Energy helps get things done. He sets the standard.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Everyone has instincts. The key is using them. Good credentials help. Without instincts it is still hard to reach the top.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Winning often means knowing where the other side stands. This helps in deals, talks, or speeches. It helps you connect.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump shares notes from Tom Barrack on the 2008 economy. Real estate faced a liquidity shock. Credit markets closed. Commercial real estate was in meltdown. At other times a few of those events would have been major news.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump starts with a Henry Ford quote. You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
The chapter title comes from a Gary Player line. Trump pairs it with a Ben Franklin quote. Diligence is the mother of good luck.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump wrote a whole book called How to Get Rich back in 2004. He chose the title because it was direct. No fancy words needed. People want to know how to get rich.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump remembers a saying. If you are going to live in the river, better make friends with the crocodiles. He wants to help people avoid the bad version of that.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Trump says business smarts are not enough. Integrity carries you forward. Keep your word. Remember what you said.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
The idea that you can be in charge is empowering, Trump says. If problems keep coming at you, you need a plan. You have to be bigger than the problems.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life Author: Donald J. Trump ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
Synergy means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The word comes from Greek roots for working together.
Book: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life
Author: Donald J. Trump
ISBN: 978-0-78674-757-3
I went through all 52 short chapters. The book is a set of quick hits on how to think and act if you want to win more often.