This Issue: Success Starts Today!

What lies behind us
and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared
to what lies within us.

-- Emerson

That thought by Ralph Waldo Emerson has always been an inspiration to me. It gives me energy to keep going full force because I know I still have a lot to accomplish. No matter what I may have achieved, or plan to achieve, I know it’s ‘a tiny matter’ compared to what I am capable of doing. Think about it. How can we be complacent with that kind of thought pattern going on? It would be impossible!

When I hear people say things like “It’s impossible to do more!” I always smile to myself and think, “I’ve just started!” It’s just a great way to feel. I’d like you to have that feeling, too, because it’s like having stepping stones in all the right places just waiting for you to see them.

Sometimes it helps to minimize your achievements to yourself so that you will be eager to do more. You might say, “Yeah, that was good, but I’m just getting warmed up” as a way to keep yourself challenged. The best achievers are those who are self-motivated and naturally curious, people who don’t need to be told what to do next. Strive to be that kind of person. Entrepreneurs are driven by inner forces. That’s a great way to live as well as a great approach to life.

What lies within us? Hopefully, there are a lot of great ideas and plans for the future coupled with confidence in our ability to achieve them. I think Emerson was alluding to this idea of hope in his statement. It’s important for survival, and it’s important for success. Sometimes it is what keeps us going when the odds may not be on our side. Don’t underestimate the power of some of the unseen or intangible forces in your life. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. The first person to give you a chance should be yourself.

So give yourself a chance every single day! Some people really are their own worst enemies. Don’t fall into that abyss, because that’s really what it is. Have you ever watched children when they are trying something new? They are excited, they are eager, and they welcome the challenge. That’s an attitude to recapture or to emulate. The enthusiasm that discovery provides is a reliable way to make sure that everything you are doing is paving the way towards your current as well as future successes. I recently received a letter from my kindergarten teacher. She wrote that what she remembered most clearly about me was that I never stopped asking questions. I wrote back to tell her that some things never change--that I still ask a lot of questions. I said that it had obviously served me well, and I thanked her, belatedly, for her patience many years ago. Every one of my questions was the beginning of the next one.

So here’s one question for you. If you had nothing at all to do, what would you do? And after you did that, what would you do? And after you did that, what would be next on your list? I call that multi-thinking versus multi-tasking. Most people have at least a few things they want to do. Sometimes one thing leads to another--that’s a form of discovery. Discovery breeds discovery, as in success breeds success. Questions are thoughts with a quest.

Can you guess what the quest is? Knowledge. Knowledge is power. That’s one reason you’re reading this essay. No one is born a know-it-all. Wouldn’t that be a little boring? I think it might be. Fortunately, at this time in history, things are moving so quickly that no one has the right to boredom. Just keeping up is the challenge we all have today. I like that challenge because a challenge equals a success just waiting to happen.

Let’s end this with a few good questions.

• What lies behind you? What are your life experiences and education up to this point?
• What lies before you? What are your goals, your plans, your aspirations?
• What lies within you? Do you have what it takes to succeed? Do you know the full extent of your abilities yet? Do you know what the future holds for you? Do you know how your dreams will evolve?

All of life is full of mystery, including your life, which is no tiny matter. So don’t sell yourself short on something that important. Today is just the beginning.

Have you noticed that people who were great students in school often find it difficult to get started in the world of business? They usually get off to a very sluggish start.

I think there is a logical explanation for that. It is simply that the skills people learn to succeed in school don’t work too well in the business world.

Stop to think about your own years in the classroom . . .

• In school, you earned top grades by looking smarter than everybody else. To succeed in business today, you need to make everyone on your team look as good as you do.

• In school, you took a test every few weeks. In between, you coasted. In business, everything you do every day is a test - your punctuality, image, and relationships with colleagues. You can never let down.

• In school, you got ahead by repeating what your teachers wanted you to learn. In business, you get ahead by discovering problems and solutions that your supervisors haven’t discovered yet. Then you teach them.

• In school, you respected authority. In business, you must become the authority.

I think that those realities explain why Trump University is different from the schools you and I attended. Of course, Trump University teaches specific skills. But they are focused on helping you get ahead immediately in the business world.

Trump University is something special, a place where you can unlearn your past so you can start your future. Here are two great courses that build that success mindset from day one:

• Start Right! How to Launch a Great Career by Andrew Hewitt and Luc D’Abadie, with an introduction by Donald J. Trump. A multimedia training program that will get you off on the right start to beginning an entrepreneurial career.

• Kick Start Your Success: An Intensive Personal Development Coaching Program from Trump University. A year of this coaching will put you ahead of the curve when it comes to real estate investing.

The bottom line is, most of us need to get our heads out of the past and into the future. I personally know how tough that adjustment can be, so I wish you Godspeed as you get your career humming in high gear.

One day, when I was about 12, I went down to my carpenter grandfather’s basement workshop.

“You should start earning your own money,” he said. “If you clean up this workshop, I will pay you what it’s worth.”

So I spent the next three hours making that place shine. I swept up all the wood shavings. I wiped down every piece of equipment and made them all gleam. I stacked all the wood neatly.

Then I found my grandfather. We went back to the shop. He looked around for what seemed a very long time, and then he nodded slowly and said, “Fantastic!”

You can imagine how proud I felt. Still nodding his approval, he reached into his pocket and handed me my wages. A quarter. Twenty-five cents!

A quarter! I couldn’t believe it. Even in 1960, a quarter for three hours of work was nothing for an American kid.

He said, “I want you to learn something about the world. In the real world, cleaning up is useful, but it’s not worth much. Anyone can do it. It’s worth maybe a quarter. Now, if you had built something useful with these tools, a bookcase maybe, something that was functional, that would have been worth a bit more.

“But if you had envisioned something new, something that no one had ever thought of before, if you had built that, pouring your heart and your soul into it? Well, that would have been worth a lot of money. Remember that.”

I have. To this day, I carry that quarter. It reminds me of the importance of envisioning and building something excellent, something that will last long after I have gone.

That kind of vision and love of craft is not something you can get from most businesses. You certainly don’t get it from a business plan or a five-year projection. You get it from your heart. It’s got to be something you feel in your heart. That’s where it all begins.

This article is adapted from “Build Something of Lasting Value,” one of the great pieces of business advice you can listen to now through Trump Audio. Listen to all of Trump University’s free audio selections now at http://www.trumpuniversity.com/podcast/index.cfm.