Good morning, Successful People!
Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly hope so. I know that I am!
I recently read Trump: Think Like a Billionaire. As I did, I realized that a billionaire's perspective is so removed from how most people live as to be misleading when advice is offered. Let me quote my initial thoughts as captured in my book review:
Hire Experts. Hang with Celebs. Prepare for Your TV Show., November 22, 2005
There I was stuck with a five hour wait in the Fort Lauderdale airport. I went into the bookstore seven times before succumbing to Trump: Think Like a Billionaire. But nothing else looked any better. I think it was the guarantee that I could bring the book back after I had read it for a 50% refund that hooked me.
I once met Bennett Cerf. He was a great publisher. It's too bad his name is sullied by printing a puff piece of no content self-promotion like this one under the Random House imprint.
Presumably, the reason you buy this book is so that you can think like a billionaire and become one. You can knock me over with a feather if anyone becomes richer because of reading this book.
The book has five parts: Real estate; money; the business of life; slices of a billionaire's life; and Inside the Apprentice.
In real estate, you learn that you need architects, contractors, agents, designers, lawyers, accountants, tax experts and other professionals to develop real estate. Hire good ones and treat them well . . . unless they are contractors. In that case, give them a hard time until they cut their price and deliver sooner. Walk through your properties as often as possible, looking at them like a tenant or a visitor, and fix any flaws. You learn everything you need to know in 44 pages including how to rent an apartment, read a classified ad and buy a home.
In money you find out that you cannot control costs unless you sign all the checks your billion-dollar company writes. You also learn not to trust a great deal. Have someone keep track of your financial situation and share it with you frequently. Don't borrow more than you can afford to lose. Get scholarships and grants for college and get a job for the rest. Everything you need to know comes in 31 pages.
In the business of life, Donald Trump tells you to do something you like, promote yourself by doing good work, be helpful in meetings, dress nicely, work all the time if you can make money at it, use your romantic desires to stimulate your work life, impress others that you are well organized, get a pre-nup so your next spouse won't take you to the cleaners, have a strong marriage if you want to make the most money and demand the best even if you're not paying. This takes 45 pages.
Slices of the Billionaire's Life include some heavy hitting examples and a diary of the work days for The Donald. He alternates between yelling at contractors, working on The Apprentice, chatting with celebrity buddies and sneaking out for a little golf.
In inside The Apprentice, you get a little gander at Apprentice 2 interspaced with crowing about the show's ratings.
Throughout all five sections, you read dozens of examples of people telling The Donald "You're fired" and cartoons developing the same point.
The book also displays many colored photographs of The Donald scowling. He has a few where he's getting TV publicity and he smiles for that. He does seem to like promotion.
You also get lots of photographs of The Donald and his third wife (while they were dating) including some where she is arrayed across the furniture and furnishings (atop a piano with a vertically challenged dress and standing partly in a marble pool in The Donald's living room). My favorite has them both scowling in the classic The Donald pose.
One sour note in the book is that The Donald decides to attack those rare souls who haven't given him publicity that was as positive as he desired.
If you really want to see how shallow someone can be, this is your book. If Trump: Think like a Billionaire didn't have that value, I would have graded the book as a one-star effort.
I recently read a note from a publisher that said that no one can discuss how to live well like The Donald. I'm still looking for that discussion rather than the pretty self-image he studies in the mirror in this book.
I think I'll skip future efforts by The Donald. I hope the book store is open when I go to the airport tomorrow so I can get half my money back on this book.
As you can see the content of the book is mostly about experiences you don't have. Here are a few examples:
-Are you married to your third spouse?
-Do you appear regularly on a television show?
-Do you own real estate worth billions?
-Do you have a helicopter to ferry you around?
When Mr. Trump does try to deal with everyday issues, he doesn't seem to be able to add very much. I suspect that's because Mr. Trump is actually inexperienced in these areas. When was the last time he looked for an apartment to live in on a limited budget? When was the last time he bought an ordinary home to live in? When was the last time he self-financed his own college education?
In the area of marriage, he strongly advises a pre-nuptial agreement. That's a legal contract that splits the assets in the case of divorce. I can see why he likes that idea. It saved him a bundle with his second wife because he divorced her just before the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement started to get expensive. The result was worth millions to him.
Now, how would you feel or would you have felt if before you married the first time, your intended insisted on an agreement for how to handle the divorce? Most people would assume that their intended planned to divorce. Why marry someone with that attitude? So is that advice to always secure a pre-nuptial agreement good for you? I doubt it.
In testing out a billionaire's advice, consider if the billionaire's circumstances and yours represent the same perspective. Then consider if the billionaire's expertise applies to your situation.
One of the reasons that I decided to write this blog and prepare my book by the same title is because I was concerned that there was no intermediary between the very wealthy and those who would like to live like them. Having come from humble roots and having also worked with many of the wealthiest people in the world, I can understand both worlds and try to translate them into the terms of the other experience and perspective.
Could a billionaire do better? I doubt it.
Most billionaires are entertaining themselves more than they are working. If they take the time to write a book, it's because they want to be adored . . . not because they want to help someone else achieve what they have achieved.
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N.B. As you can tell, I'm experimenting with color. Let me know what you like and what I should change about my use of color. Many thanks to Linda Grace for her suggestions which I am following!
Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.
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Remember to also visit
Live Spiritually Better than a Billionaire at http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,
Create Your Own 2,000 Percent Solutions at
http://2000percentsolutions.blogspot.com/, Enjoy Mansions Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoymansionsbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,
Enjoy Football Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoyfootballbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/ and
Be a World Hero Better than a Billionaire at http://beaworldherobetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/.
I offer individual on-line tutorials and in-person seminars on living better than a billionaire on five dollars extra a day, creating 2,000 percent solutions (20 times the results with the same effort), developing more profitable business models and designing strategies that work regardless of the business environment. For information, contact me at ultimatecompetitiveadvantage@yahoo.com.
I am available to you as a speaker on these subjects. You can find my background at http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com/2005_08_30_livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars_archive.html/.
May God bless you.
Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge
Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell
