Closing Thoughts: Success with Significance and You're Hired
Book: How to Get Rich
Author: Donald J. Trump (with Meredith McIver)
e-ISBN: 1-58836-410-0
Previous: Apprentice Season One Lessons
The last pages of How to Get Rich are short. No new deals. No new buildings. Just a closing argument and two words that became a catchphrase: You’re hired.
Success with significance
Trump knows what people ask him first. How do you get rich?
He spent the book answering that. Work hard. Think big. Protect the downside. Hire well. Market hard. Deliver quality. Say no when you must. Have fun or you will burn out.
Then he adds a line that matters more than the money talk.
“My ideal goals are success with significance.”
Being paid is necessary and a good scorecard. Not the only one. He did not do The Apprentice for the paycheck, even though it paid well. He did it to show how business works and to put his company in millions of living rooms.
Significance means making a difference in your immediate world. Use talent for positive change. Whatever your job is, that is your assignment.
Begin now.
You’re hired.
That ending is cheesy on paper. On TV it worked because he meant it in character. In the book it ties the Apprentice chapters back to the advice chapters.
Key takeaways from the full book
If you read this series start to finish, a few themes repeat.
Think big, but protect the downside. Trump says it over and over. Big vision plus worst-case planning. Not gambling. Calculated risk.
Brand is product. He markets hard, but he insists great buildings come first. No amount of hype saves bad work.
Momentum is a resource. The week-in-the-life chapter proves it. He treats time like a traded commodity.
Personality is a business tool. Negotiation, press, reality TV. Connection is not optional.
Family and loyalty matter. Page Six chapter, acknowledgments, and the Palm Beach gossip tale all orbit the same idea. Loyalty expected. Betrayal remembered.
Say no. Walking from CBS on pageants led to a better NBC deal. Stubbornness as strategy shows up late in the book and pays off.
Honest overall impressions
How to Get Rich is not a tight how-to manual. It is a 2004 snapshot of Trump at peak celebrity businessman status. Pre-politics, post-Art of the Deal, mid-Apprentice launch.
What works: Stories. Pace. Specific names, numbers, and scenes. The week diary and Apprentice origin story are the best chapters. You feel the energy.
What does not age well: Boasts that read as facts with no proof. Comments about women and appearance. Doctor bashing in the endnotes. The gossip chapter’s morality is “rich people behave badly and blame friends.”
Who should read it: People curious about Trump before the presidency. Entrepreneurs who like memoir-style business books. Fans of The Apprentice who want the behind-the-scenes setup.
Who can skip it: Anyone wanting a modern startup playbook. This is real estate, casinos, pageants, and TV branding. Not SaaS.
Compared to The Art of the Deal: The first book is tighter and more myth-making. This one is looser, longer, and more celebrity. Still readable. Less essential.
Meredith McIver and the machine behind the book
Trump credits Meredith McIver heavily in acknowledgments. Ballet background, Wall Street, then executive assistant outside his open door. She heard everything and took notes. Norma Foerderer kept the schedule and photo coordination on track. Editor Jonathan Karp asked tough questions, including why Trump had a space heater under his desk in Trump Tower. Cold feet.
The book was rushed for the Apprentice moment. You can tell. That also makes it a time capsule.
Final thought
Trump’s closing pitch is not “get rich at any cost.” It is get rich, then do something with it that counts where you stand.
You can agree or disagree with how he lived that. The book at least states it clearly.
Twenty years later, the money advice is mixed. The significance line sticks anyway. Begin now. You’re hired.
That is how he ends. And that is how this series ends.