Many people are saying it - I didn't say it. But let me tell you, many people are saying this book is one of the greatest books in the entire history of literature. Maybe even the greatest book ever written. - 'an anonymous source' probably

I will state at the start, that I am not a fan of the author and horrified and dismayed that he was elected, and concerned at the anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant policies that are likely to result as a result of his rule. I read this book as a free pdf, rather than give him any money. However, as someone who has never lived in the USA, I wanted to understand what was going on in America. I wanted to read his words for myself, rather than just listen to others' opinions. So with that in mind, I'm not going to give a review of what I think of the author, but talk about the book itself. I was probably nowhere near as negative as I should have been, but I was trying not to let my opinion of Trump influence my review.

If any aspect of this book is true (I know that much of it was ghostwritten) then it explains a lot - and honestly I think, reading this, I have a better understanding of someone who goes to his rallies. The entire book felt like what I imagined a Trump rally to be, but without the politics.

The start of the book gives an overview of a week in Trump's life. If you are looking for a book of business advice (and I understand that many people like Trump because of his reputation in business) you may be a disappointed because this is first and foremost about Trump himself, rather than any other subject. Business advice is a very minor part of the book.

There are some bizarre anecdotes in it. Early on in the book Trump describes being friends with a guy who is a famous painter. The guy asks Trump if he wants to see how he can make $25000 before lunch and then proceeds to throw several buckets of paint onto a canvas. According to Trump nobody can tell the difference between this and his 'serious' work. Trump himself even says that the best way to get ahead is just to massively exaggerate how amazing and incredible everything is.

In another story he gives a hagiography for some guy working with him in the rent collection aspect of the business, who he compares to a lion tamer lol, but this time the lion is some guy who accused him of coming onto his wife and 'the whip is his mouth'. I was completely taken aback by this story.

Throughout the book, Trump keeps repeating this kind of story, about people who completely bullshit (his words) about everything, and makes it quite clear that he looks up to and sees this as something to emulate. It is true that in the book Trump comes across as someone who loves himself, to put it mildly. But who knows if it's true, but there are quite a few times in the book where he says that he was taught some 'tough lessons' - for example there's a bit about his 'dingy' apartment and one of these rich guys in New York telling him he has too much furniture and throwing it out of his house. There are quite a few bits where he admits to being wrong about something - usually something that involved millions and millions of dollars.

It was interesting to have the scenes in the movie, 'The Apprentice' which I watched recently, told from his point of view. I was surprised to see that he described the same incidents.

I do think that it was more entertaining and less arrogant, in parts, than I expected. Reading this there were some quite funny moments, although probably not funny for the reasons he thinks. Trump talks about times when he has got something wrong and that some 'incredible guy' has taught him a 'tough lesson'. More often than not, the lesson he took from it is completely bananas.

It's clear that he really loves making deals and lots of the book is dedicated to this. In fact he talks on and on about it in extremely intricate detail giving an exhaustive account of which absurdly corrupt businessman said what to who. I find it quite funny that he keeps saying so and so was a very nice guy and then go on to casually insult them by saying they wore the wrong clothes or had no clue about business or were too enthusiastic or not enthusiastic enough. His grudge against Ed Koch was pretty entertaining to read about.

I'm afraid that his snobbish streak really comes across in parts of his book. For example his extended rants about street vendors etc. But the themes that have come to preoccupy him, most obviously the racism and sexism in many of his comments, aren't really there yet to the full extent. Interestingly, he says plenty of nice things about various Democrats, at least the ones he deems as 'winners'. Also, he does seem to want to present himself as some sort of Robin Hood type figure, doing all his deals for the benefit of the poor people of New York, although this is less than convincing given some of the other legal battles he describes here with his tenants.

Some of this book was really laugh out loud funny, but mostly not for the reasons he would want and I'm afraid it doesn't change my view about his political career. Everything is either 'spectacular' or 'tremendous' or it's 'a total disaster' which seems to be his favourite word. Likewise some of his opinions about business are possibly worth reading, especially if you have impostor syndrome - the guy describing himself in these pages is now the most powerful person in the world.

There were a couple of bits I thought were good business advice. I did like his point that you can have the right instincts and talents but if you don't act on them you won't get anywhere. It was interesting to hear about his perseverance in getting deals as well (although I'm well aware it could be made up). The bit about persevering in something and not being afraid to do something seemingly strange or ridiculous is something we could all probably learn from - such as the bit where he describes ordering people to look busy at a construction site including getting someone to fill a hole they'd just dug, in hopes of seeming hard working and getting the contract. However, I'm guessing he wasn't the first person to think of most of this...

Sorry Americans, but I do have to wonder about his alleged 'Hotel and Real Estate Visionary of the Century' award hahaha, and im also not convinced his building of a casino on time and within budget was 'a near miracle in this day and age'. The book has some fairly batshit quotes, such as:

Ultimately, we got a fabulous man whom I’ll call Irving.
Irving was sixty-five years old and a real character. He was
one of the greatest bullshit artists I’ve ever met, but in addition
to being a very sharp talker and a very slick salesman, he was
also an amazing manager. Irving was the kind of guy who
worked perhaps an hour a day and accomplished more in that
hour than most managers did in twelve hours. I learned
something from that: it’s not how many hours you put in, it’s
what you get done while you’re working.

After we ate, I took Der and another friend back to my
apartment, the tiny studio I was still living in on Third
Avenue, and I asked him what he thought about my furniture.
Some people would just have said,
“Fantastic, great,” but Der didn’t do that. “There’s too much of it,” he said, and he started moving furniture around, and even pushed several pieces out
into the hallway. When he finished, he’d managed to make the
apartment look much bigger, which I liked.

All you had to do was look at Irving to know those hands were hardly registered weapons. But Irving was very much
like a lion tamer. You’ve seen these guys, maybe 150 pounds,
who walk blithely into a cage where there’s a magnificent
800-pound lion pacing around. If that animal sensed any
weakness or any fear, he’d destroy the trainer in a second. But
instead the trainer cracks his whip, walks with authority, and,
amazingly, the lion listens. Which is exactly what Irving did with this huge guy, except his whip was his mouth.

And finally...

Nowadays, if your name is Donald Trump, everyone in the world seems to want to sue you.

I could go on, lmao.

In short, don't read this book as a 'business book', but do if you want an insight into Trump and his appeal, or maybe a (very one sided) history of real estate deals in New York in the 80s. Although it doesn't change my opinion of Trump, I am glad I read it for the educational and entertainment value - although in some ways I'm even more baffled by Trump and the phenomenon around him than I was before. But definitely don't take it all at face value. I won't be rating it for now - when I do, it will probably be a 2 or a 3.

Wow. Much better than I expected. In light of recent events this book is intriguing, Trump knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way. The man is a success not because his father was wealthy, but because he himself is a visionary. He's always been the same, can't tolerate incompetence, cares about others and wants to change this country. In a way it's a shame he started with a million dollar loan because he undoubtedly could have reached the same level of success starting out with one $100K house like most anyone else. The difference between him and others is his determination, vision, patience and sheer energy. I was already a Trump supporter but learning more about his journey gave me an even greater respect for the man. I have no doubt he will make this country greater than it has ever been before. The only bit that didn't interest me much was the football league story. I just don't care about football. I wish all the uninformed Trump haters would read this book although you have to be pretty closed-minded to believe someone who waltzed into the office of President of the United States without spending hardly any money is nothing more than a blowhard or a fool. With so many supposedly educated people criticizing Trump I really wonder what they're teaching in colleges. This book is about true success, applied knowledge and how to create things of real substance. Trump is a national treasure.

This is how Donald Trump made it into the business world. I always find it interesting to find out how successful people made their breakthrough.

Some snippets of wisdom I got from the book:

-"I always go into the deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst-if you can live with the worst-the good will always take care of itself"

-"I also protect myself be being flexible. I never get too attached to one deal or one approach. I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work, because anything can happen, even to the best-laid plans."

-"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead"



Overall an interesting read and insight into the making of "The Donald".

Reads just like Trump. He could have written it yesterday. No change. Same philosophy of business and politics.

The Art of The Deal by Donald Trump is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Unlike many of the nonfiction books I’ve read, I wasn’t able to put this book down. The book recounts Donald’s life from early childhood until the book was published in 1984. Specifically, giving details of the deals he made and the ways in which he became so wealthy. “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war. What you need, generally is enough time and a little luck” (249). This quote embodies Donald’s mindset in life and in business. One question that connects to the book and this quote is what happens when belief systems of societies and individuals come into conflict. This quote goes against the status quo of ‘I didn’t succeed the first time so why try again’. He is telling you that, from his experience, if he didn’t succeed the first time he kept pushing to get what he wanted and it has worked for him countless times. This quote refers to the part of the book where Trump purchases two apartment buildings next to Central Park. The buildings are older and his plan is to demolish them and build new updated buildings. The tenants currently living in the apartments are paying extremely cheap rent because of the age of the buildings. So they appeal the demolishing of the buildings and the appeal lasts a few years. By this time the new fad in architecture is older historic buildings with character. Donald ends up keeping all the tenants and just restores the current buildings and made a tremendous profit. He didn’t give up when they all appealed his plan. He stuck with it and fought and eventually the situation ended in his favor. I’d recommend this book to people who want to know more about Donald Trump and his style of conducting business. This might also be a hot topic book because of Trump’s current pursuit of the presidency. Readers who don’t know him well could read this and gain a little insight. Overall, I think this is best suited for businessmen and women because it is almost like a guidebook to making successful deals.

Here is an actual, complete, real life, top 5 (as of this writing) Goodreads review of this book that I tried to have removed (to no avail):

I have not read the book.

But then hey, Trump did not write it.

DONALD TRUMP’S GHOSTWRITER TELLS ALL

27/03/2017

Well, I guess he's not such a great deal-maker after all. The first chance he had to make one in the White House, he failed miserably.

Or maybe he's just a dealer?

04/08/2017

I am interested in what kind of "deal" he's going to make with North Korea.

25/01/2019

Opposing bills to end US shutdown fail in Senate, with no clear path forward

I would like to call your attention to line 1 of this review: "I have not read the book."

When I was growing up, George W Bush was president

I saw religious dogma take Howard Stern off the radio.

I saw my favorite cartoons and Detroit rappers fighting legal battles with the freakin' FCC about what they were and weren't allowed to say.

And I watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert say out loud what everyone was thinking and challenge Fox News and the government to tell the truth.

All of this led me to believe that liberals were interested in freedom of speech, freedom to have different ideas, and critical thinking whereas conservatives (Fox News + the Government at the time) wanted nothing to do with it - instead holding on to ideas of the past.

My belief held through 2016. Much to my embarrassment now, I remember weeks before the 2016 election telling my dad over the phone that "Republicans will never win re-election". And I remember being afraid the night that Trump won the election, because I thought pro-censorship, anti-critical thinking, racists had taken over America.

Coming back to the Goodreads review, someone (likely) of the critical thinking pro-science school of thought reviewing a book on a book reviewing site without having read the book and adding it to the "never-ever" shelf - AND THE REVIEW HAS A TON OF LIKES!!!

I don't think many in the mainstream media have read the book either because I haven't heard anyone refer to the president as "Donny" a name he says he hates in one of the first few chapters.

I don't know how we got here, but it's made me realize that critical thinking, irrationality, and dogmatism is not unique to one political ideology.

As for the book....it's really not great. You'll learn a little about some high profile deals Trump made, but I think where it shines is hearing some of the things he said in the 1980's that don't fit the media narrative we're led to believe about him now.

If you go in with an open mind you might learn something and get to wrestle with some cognitive dissonance about very concrete opinions you hold about a man you've probably never met.

If you don't go in at all, you might be able to get some Goodreads clout if you're biting, self righteous, and sarcastic enough.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to fish for political commentary. This is a book review of a book I read to completion. If you've read this book or have questions about it or this review, please feel free to comment. Otherwise, if this emboldens you to bash or praise Trump unrelated to this book, create your own Facebook post.

I finished Trump's first book "The Art of the Deal". For completeness, I am well aware that the ghost writer of the book, Tony Schwartz is a vocal critic/hater of Trump, and has been since he came out in 2016 during the primaries. Just as recent as yesterday, Schwartz said Trump is "incapable of reading a book, much less writing one." Just search Tony Schwartz on Google and you can revel in all that hatred if that makes you feel better. It doesn't change my book review. In fact, it complements it.

My book review is as follows: This is Trump's first book and it was published 31 years ago in 1987. This was when he was 41 years old and was merely Trump the real estate developer / businessman. I encourage both lovers and haters of Trump the President to give "The Art of the Deal" a read. I really enjoyed it. In some ways it read like my own fathers's autobiography and had a down to earth style to it, but in a billionaire sort of way. I'm sure there's a level of exaggeration and rose colored glasses used to retell the numerous deals the book covers, as you would find in most any "How I got Successful" business book.

The reason I encourage lovers and haters to read this is that there is something for everyone. For the lovers, he talks about the many successes he's had and how he's navigated complex deals involving unions, government, land owners, hotel owners, banks, architects, lawyers, etc. It's unbelievably complex - and interesting - especially in cities like NYC and Atlantic City. Somehow he had managed to pull several pretty big and interesting deals together and had accomplished a lot only 20 years into his career. There's also the story of how he rebuilt the ice rink at Central Park on time after the city failed for 6+ years to do so while wasting millions of dollars. The guy gets things done. There's no other way to explain his variety of significant accomplishments.

For haters, you will certainly find glimpses of the impulsive, direct, hardball playing capitalist you've come to despise. He also writes about some of his failures such as the USFL and the world's tallest building at Television City, though both projects still had life when the book published.

The reader will also learn a few things about his family. For example, I did not know Trump's uncle was an MIT PhD physicist who worked with Robert Van de Graaff and developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. I also didn't know Trump went to Wharton Business School. Last I heard, that was a pretty significant accomplishment. I didn't know his (now) ex-wife Ivana helped run his casino in Atlantic City.

The thing I like about the book and Trump at this age is that is gives a clue as to how he thinks. I know some people think he's so stupid he can't possibly be able to construct an actual thought. But if you read the book, I think you will believe otherwise. So whether Trump was the source of this book, or Tony Schwartz wrote it all himself, or whether the book is 50% true and 50% exaggeration, I think the excerpts I highlighted below will give you a taste of what's inside "The Art of the Deal".

After reading this, I am inclined to give a fair turn to "first books" of future politicians, even ones I may disagree with, provided they are writing pre-politics before they are trying to win votes. I think it would be very eye opening, if there ever exists such another candidate.

Here are some direct excerpts from the book. See how crazy and incompetent you think this guy is:


I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what I should have done differently, or what’s going to happen next. If you ask me exactly what the deals I’m about to describe all add up to in the end, I’m not sure I have a very good answer. Except that I’ve had a very good time making them.

From as early as I can remember, my father would say to me, “The most important thing in life is to love what you’re doing, because that’s the only way you’ll ever be really good at it.”

Much the way it is today, people either liked me a lot, or they didn’t like me at all.

What I did, basically, was to convey that I respected his authority, but that he didn’t intimidate me. It was a delicate balance. Like so many strong guys, Dobias had a tendency to go for the jugular if he smelled weakness. On the other hand, if he sensed strength but you didn’t try to undermine him, he treated you like a man. From the time I figured that out—and it was more an instinct than a conscious thought—we got along great.

They were total opposites in that sense. My mother loves splendor and magnificence, while my father, who is very down-to-earth, gets excited only by competence and efficiency.

I learned something from that: it’s not how many hours you put in, it’s what you get done while you’re working.

The third thing I did, and probably the most important, was to sell myself to Victor and his people. I couldn’t sell him on my experience or my accomplishment, so instead I sold him on my energy and my enthusiasm.

I discovered, for the first time but not the last, that politicians don’t care too much what things cost. It’s not their money.

In the end, we won by wearing everyone else down. We never gave up, and the opposition slowly began to melt away.

I wasn’t naïve. I saw potential, but I also recognized a downside. I could envision a huge home run, but I also knew that failing could bury me. From the very first day I went to work on the deal, I tried to keep my risk to an absolute minimum, and financially, I succeeded. But as the months went by, the deal became more and more complicated and difficult. I kept investing more time and more energy, and the stakes rose for reasons unrelated to money. I could talk big for only so long. Eventually I had to prove—to the real estate community, to the press, to my father—that I could deliver the goods.

More time passed, and I wrote another letter, suggesting a whole new way to make the deal. I was relentless, even in the face of the total lack of encouragement, because much more often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

It was not the sort of publicity you like to get. Looking back, I regret that I had the sculptures destroyed. I’m not convinced they were truly valuable, and I still think that a lot of my critics were phonies and hypocrites, but I understand now that certain events can take on a symbolic importance. Frankly, I was too young, and perhaps in too much of a hurry, to take that into account. The point is that despite what some people may think, I’m not looking to be a bad guy when it isn’t absolutely necessary.

But I’m a businessman, and I learned a lesson from that experience: good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

What’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.

In my view, however, that translated into an opportunity. The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.

When you’re negotiating with people who’ve been promised the world a half dozen times and gotten nothing, credibility is critical.

What I needed was someone totally competent, totally honest, and totally loyal to oversee the project. There is nothing to compare with family if they happen to be competent, because you can trust family in a way you can never trust anyone else.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to management: hire the best people from your competitors, pay them more than they were earning, and give them bonuses and incentives based on their performance. That’s how you build a first-class operation.

I recognize that lawsuits are sometimes inevitable, and I accept that as a reality of business. But when a person tells me he’s going to sit down with me, I expect him to honor that commitment. If we still can’t resolve the situation, that’s another story. From that day on I stopped defending Barron Hilton to anyone.

It pays to trust your instincts.

It was not one of my best experiences with the media, but it taught me something. You don’t act on an impulse—even a charitable one—unless you’ve considered the downside.

I also liked the idea of taking on the NFL, a smug, self-satisfied monopoly that I believed was highly vulnerable to an aggressive competitor.
To me, committees are what insecure people create in order to put off making hard decisions.

I was part of the problem. As a witness, I was well spoken and professional, I think—very much a contrast to Pete Rozelle. But that probably played into the NFL’s hands. From day one, the NFL painted me as a vicious, greedy, Machiavellian billionaire, intent only on serving my selfish ends at everyone else’s expense. “The USFL,” attorney Frank Rothman told the jury in his opening remarks, “is controlled and dominated by Donald Trump, who can buy and sell many of the owners in the NFL.”

I NEVER had a master plan. I just got fed up one day and decided to do something about it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with politicians over the years, it’s that the only thing guaranteed to force them into action is the press—or, more specifically, fear of the press.

It irritates me that critics, who’ve neither designed nor built anything themselves, are given carte blanche to express their views in the pages of major publications, whereas the targets of their criticism are almost never offered space to respond. Of course, I can be irritated all I want and it won’t do any good. So long as a critic writes for a newspaper like the New York Times, his opinion will continue to carry great weight—whether I like it or not.

Koch has achieved something quite miraculous. He’s presided over an administration that is both pervasively corrupt and totally incompetent. Richard Daley, the former mayor of Chicago, managed to survive corruption scandals because at least he seemed able to operate his city efficiently.

As for the Koch appointees who managed to avoid criminal indictment, the scandal is their sheer incompetence. Many just lack talent. Others seem to have concluded that the safest approach to protecting their jobs is to stop making decisions of any kind; at least then they can’t be accused of breaking the law. The problem is that when officials in a huge city government stop making decisions, you get the bureaucratic equivalent of gridlock. Dishonesty is intolerable, but inaction and incompetence can be every bit as bad.

Providing jobs, in my view, is a far more constructive solution to unemployment than creating welfare programs.

I SAID AT THE START that I do it to do it. But in the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.

I’ve spent the first twenty years of my working life building, accumulating, and accomplishing things that many said could not be done. The biggest challenge I see over the next twenty years is to figure out some creative ways to give back some of what I’ve gotten. I don’t just mean money, although that’s part of it. It’s easy to be generous when you’ve got a lot, and anyone who does, should be. But what I admire most are people who put themselves directly on the line. I’ve never been terribly interested in why people give, because their motivation is rarely what it seems to be, and it’s almost never pure altruism. To me, what matters is the doing, and giving time is far more valuable than just giving money.

In my life, there are two things I’ve found I’m very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work. One of the challenges ahead is how to use those skills as successfully in the service of others as I’ve done, up to now, on my own behalf.

I don't know what I was expecting in reading this. Insight? Illumination? Some answers to the "how and why did this happen to America?" I'm not sure that I gained any from reading this self-aggrandizing and ghost written "memoir." check out Tony Schwartz's account:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

If I took away anything, I guess it is that Trump has always been Trump. The narcissistic, manipulative, avaricious, shameless, deceptive figure we know today was on full display the whole time.

This is the strangest book. I would have been more than happy to have gone throughout my life without ever knowing who Trump was. I don’t watch TV and had never seen his show, which I believe truly was one of the greatest shows of all time, but I still don’t watch television, so I guess I’ll just have to take his word for that. And I’ve never been all that interested in business, and although he is the hotel and real estate visionary of the century (at least, according to the blurb at the back of this book) I would have remained unlikely to have read a book with this title. And even though he is clearly a fabulous deal maker, deal making has never really struck me as something I would particularly like to spend time reading about. So, if it wasn’t for his political career – one, I can only assume this book helped along, I would never have read this book at all.

This book is a hagiography, rather than an autobiography – the fact Trump himself didn’t write this book (the journalist and publisher say he played no part at all in writing it), he merely paid for it to be written, shifts it from one category into the other. Even with this being a hagiography, he doesn’t come out of it terribly well. He is singularly unlikeable, which is clearly his tragic flaw, since he is obviously dying to be loved. The problem is that he seems unable to quite understand that other people have feelings too.

This book is a series of triumphs that are almost invariably due to Trump’s very own ‘instinct’ for a ‘deal’. He doesn’t seem to notice that withholding information from people you are dealing with is effectively lying. That getting people to come see a building site where worker are being paid to ‘look busy’ is also lying. He presents himself as a constant winner, and this image is, unfortunately, undermined by our being told very early in this book that he believes he must think big and bullshit big to present an image – because exaggeration and excess play well in people’s dreams and that the only real promotion is self-promotion – again, even when based on lies. And so, given all that, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that just about everything we are going to be told in this book is, well, a lie. Even if it is called ‘marketing’ or ‘advertising’ or whatever else.

And so, there are things that are said repeatedly throughout this book, but I’ve no way to know if they are true. For instance, he invariably says that he finishes his projects on time and on budget, or ahead of time and under budget and so on, while everyone else finishes them over time and over budget. And perhaps this was always true, but I don’t know and I don’t feel I can trust this book to have not been anything other than a series of cherrypicked best examples.

He also comes across as a remarkable hater. I mean, this guy knows how to hold a grudge and it is clear that one of the reasons he had this book written was to put some of his enemies in their place. The Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, gets an extended hatchet job done on him, for instance. The thing is that even people he says nice things about are presented mostly by their flaws. For example, lawyers are often described as brilliant, but that they put off the jury by their excessively showy clothes. Or someone rich doesn’t have showy enough clothes. Or someone he doesn’t like is criticised for being overweight. He is a man who sees the fault in others and this could well be his defining characteristic – it is a repeated theme throughout this book, and like I said, true for friend and enemy alike.

I want to focus on his instincts. This is another repeated theme. Often, when he is about to make a deal, everyone on his side is telling him not to do it, but he just has a feeling about the deal that means he has to ignore everyone else’s ‘head’ and go with his ‘gut’. Naturally, this inevitably and invariably pays off. This works both ways, of course, so when he pulls out of deals too, it is because of his gut. As he says at one point when he missed a bullet, “That experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make”. Now, what is particularly odd about him saying stuff like this is that other than the gut lesson, he doesn’t particularly seem to follow any of the other bits of this advice. I mean, he is a real estate agent and building developer who gets into hotels, television shows, casinos, and American rules football.

So much of this book is based on his ‘instincts’ or ‘gut’, and that makes this book almost entirely useless for what I’d just assumed it was intended for. I sort of thought this was a kind of ‘I got rich – you can get rich too – let me show you how’ book. But repeatedly we are shown how other people stuff up because their instincts are just not up to the task of divining the right path in the same way Trump’s gut proves to be.

Trump has a clear and ongoing problem with democracy throughout this book too, something the US is learning nearly daily now. For instance, ‘committees are what insecure people create in order to put off making hard decisions’. Or later, ‘I like consultants even less that I like committees. When it comes to making a smart decision, the most distinguished planning committee working with the highest-priced consultants doesn’t hold a candle to a group of guys with a reasonable amount of common sense and their own money on the line.’ Repeatedly throughout this book Trump makes clear his disgust at the regulations that stop him from doing whatever it is he wants to do. Invariably, these regulations are presented as counter-productive, in that he is able to ‘prove’ they achieve the exact opposite of what they sought to achieve – but given he is clearly the one who was going to benefit from these regulations not existing, he can hardly be considered the most objective judge of that. This book is an exercise in explaining why he is a great man of history – and to do that everyone else is presented either as fools, flawed, obstacles or there to be manipulated so as to achieve the great man’s vision.

There is a long discussion here on the building of an ice-skating park. The short version is that the city had been trying to build this, and they constantly stuffed up. It was years behind schedule and massively over budget, and so Trump offered to build it on time and on budget basically as a gift to the city. Anyway, after a lot of toing and froing eventually he did build it. Not that the city was particularly grateful, still, he did. He then explains that this story is basically proof that a single capitalist working alone and with his own money on the line is much better at getting stuff done that horrible public servants who don’t understand the value of money because it isn’t theirs’ in the first place. You know the song well enough to hum along, I’m sure. But almost immediately after telling this story he then talks about some other businessman who stuffs up a project and causes, it seems, just as much trouble. Trump comes to the rescue, but, naturally enough, this time the other businessman’s mistakes aren’t presented as proof that individual capitalists can be just as stupid as evil bureaucracies. The question of why everyone should just have to live with the preferences of rich guys – even when they occasionally destroy art works (as he admits to doing himself on one of his buildings – it was ugly anyway) or build ugly buildings (as just about every developer other than Trump is accused of doing in this book) is something everyone else in the city has to put up with, because, well, capitalism…

This book is a bit like the Bible. It is clearly written for you to come away liking God (or Trump in this case) but somehow you never quite can. There is just something fundamentally unlikeable about them both. All the same, this was a best-selling book and was presented, in part at least, as a business advice book. As I’ve already said, this has virtually no advice anyone could actually use in running their own business – other than somehow acquiring Trump’s gut. You might think that would have been a problem in an advice book, but it seems not.

I have read this book twice. I read it for the second time because I had decided that I would read all books by Donald Trump again. I would say that it was not a waste time. This is definitely one of the best books written on business, negotiating & deal making. I think that Donald Trump has been very candid & sometimes even blunt in expressing his views. But this is the thing most popular about him. He is the kind of guy who does not beat around the bush. He stands for his ideas & beliefs, even fights for them.
Trump initially was only in the real estate business. Like all great businessmen & entrepreneurs he initially only focused on one business & built it into something of great value & prestige. The Trump name is synonymous with high standards & perfection.
In the start Trump sheds light on his parents especially his father who was one of his greatest influences in life. He then writes about his family life & how he was brought up. The Trump children were always taught to follow the conventional & everlasting principles of ethics & morality. He was always taught to be a man of solid character & this thing even transcends into his business. That is why he is so candid & sometimes even very blunt because he has so much confidence.
Trump also writes in details about the huge deals that he undertook in the start of his career. These were very big deals & could bury him if he failed. But Trump persisted & came out successful. He also writes about his day to day life & how he deals with people. There are many useful insights regarding dealing with people especially in the business of real estate development. He gives tips & suggestions which can be implemented for a successful deal.
Overall this is a very informative & even a very interesting book for all those working in the real estate or any other business.

I read it and it was not my cup of tea. I couldn't get into it. I realized I had no interest in this book about halfway through and finished it as quickly as possible. There was nothing I liked or disliked. I've never felt this way about a book...

I'm going to stick to other figures like Napoleon, Marcus Aurelius, Joseph Stalin, etc.

Sorry President Trump, I'll still vote for you.

You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.