Archive View (June 2006)

Chairman, Trump UniversityWith most schools out for the summer, many parents are already looking ahead to next school year. When your kids go back to school, will recess be a part of their daily schedule? In some places, recess no longer exists. Due to the fact that schools have to make room for everything from academics to music and art, and they have to spend so much time preparing for national tests, recess is often the first thing to go.That's why the National PTA has kicked off a "rescuing recess" campaign. They believe with all the academic pressures kids face at more...

An article in The New York Times two days ago reports that Warren Buffet, the world's second richest individual, will soon start giving away $37 billion of his personal Berkshire Hathaway stock to five foundations. The biggest recipient will be The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will receive an estimated $30 billion of Buffet's money. That sum will double the Gates Foundation's resources. And what does the Gates Foundation do? It is striving to eliminate the world's most killing diseases, many of which affect the world's poorest people in third-world countries. If AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis no longer exist in 20 more...

What is it about real estate that makes is such a phenomenal way to make money? Perhaps the clearest way to see the advantages is to contrast it to investing in the stock market. For the sake of example, let's say that you have $100,000 to invest. That's the same scenario I use in the real estate segment of Trump University's Wealth Builder's Blueprint program. If we apply that scenario here, the advantages of investing in real estate become very clear. Leverage. Real estate gives you far more leverage than any other investment does. If you invest $100,000 in the stock market, more...

Radical insights from The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program The U.S. Small Business Administration's annual statistics, now available online, report that 671,800 new small businesses were created in 2005. Sounds positive, right? Well it is. But if you read all the statistics, you'll also see that 544,800 small businesses closed. If you run those figures on your calculator, you'll quickly see that 81 percent of small businesses fail. Of course, those statistics don't tell the whole story. They don't tell which new businesses are making their founders fabulously wealthy. They also don't include companies that are still on the books, but essentially dead. If you've more...

Chairman, Trump UniversityI don't like germs. That's why I don't like to shake hands. You just never know what that person did with his or her hand right before it was offered to you to shake.Sometimes in business, however, you can't avoid it. But I'm going to do everything in my power not to shake hands with teachers. According to a new study, teachers have the germiest jobs. They have 17,000 germs per square inch on their desks. That's 10 times the germ rate than any other profession.Bankers and accountants have the second highest number of germs in their offices because more...

The proof is in the pudding. There are many products and programs that deal with wealth creation, but we don't see a lot of people who are able to uptake that knowledge and utilize it in the marketplace. Now, I'm all for people diving in and buying books. But the fact is, the average adult reads only 10 or 11 pages of any success or business book. People buy the books with enthusiasm. They are excited about the end goal they might reach. But when they open the books and realize the actions they will have to take to attain those goals, more...

Creativity, design and innovation are today's real success toolsI am fundamentally, at some level, offended by the notion of "Master of Administration." I guess I shouldn't be offended. It was probably a damn good idea 40 or 50 years ago. I remember reading the story of the "Whiz Kids," who helped win World War II, and then turned around Ford. Robert S. McNamara, Ford President, then Defense Secretary, was the Whiz-iest of the kids. What he discovered was that the U.S. Army Air Force didn't know how many planes they had. And so he counted the planes. And it helped. A more...

I'm having a little trouble believing this story. But if it's even remotely true, we may not have to worry about gas prices for long. A British inventor claims he has invented the world's ultimate fuel-efficient car. The three-wheeled Team Green is allegedly capable of getting 8,000 miles per gallon. Yes, that's right - 8,000 miles per gallon. That means the car can travel 10 miles on just one teaspoonful of unleaded gas. The car's 45-year-old inventor built the budget motor for just $3,700. It took him two years to design and build it. The last fuel-efficient model he built was able to more...

CEO, Trump UniversityIf you believe that global business has made all the people of the world into one big happy family, you haven't turned on your TV to watch any of the FIFA World Cup soccer games. I can't recall any event, ever, where athletes and their fans have demonstrated such fierce national pride. The Paraguayans are wild about being from Paraguay, the Swedes are crazy about their Swedishness – and the list goes on. Despite the fact that some of the players engage in dirty tactics and some of the fans brawl, I find it this display of national pride more...

I've talked so many times about the importance of prenuptial agreements. Now it seems people are finally listening. Just a couple years ago, the Equality in Marriage Institute got about 1,500 inquiries a month about prenups. Now they get 5,000. Still, 43 percent of people who don't want a prenuptial agreement say it's because they never plan on getting divorced. Seriously, who actually plans on getting divorced? If you thought you were going to end up divorced, you probably wouldn't get married in the first place. Five percent of people who don't get a prenup say it's because they feel like they couldn't ask more...

Chairman, Trump UniversityWhen you're at work, how much time do you spend on the Internet? Way too much, if you ask your boss.A new study of Web surfing on the job finds that on any given day, an employee might check out porn, fall for an email scam, or watch a music video on company time. According to the study, half of office workers would rather give up their morning coffee than give up surfing the 'Net at work. Besides the fact that it's wasting valuable company time - time that you're being paid for, Twelve percent of workers admitted visiting more...