This Issue: Invest in Yourself

What's the most profitable investment you can make?

Some people would tell you it's the stock market. Other people would point to mutual funds, precious metals or municipal bonds.

Make no mistake, all those investments can offer you a great payback. But there is another investment that promises far greater rewards. I am talking about investing in yourself. Dollar for dollar, investing in your own education promises vastly greater wealth creation compared to any other investment you can name:

• Appreciation that outpaces any stock. Education unlocks your wealth creation potential. It lets you earn bigger paychecks, negotiate more lucrative deals, acquire more valuable properties and open successful new companies. It helps you take your life wherever you want it to go. I can't think of another investment that can promise anything comparable.
• Greater income and dividends. An investment in the right course can quickly add tens of thousands of dollars, or more, to your annual earning potential. If you invest $100 in a mutual fund or some municipal bonds, the most you will have after a few years is $200 - and even that is pretty optimistic. Again, education outperforms all other investments.
• Diversification. With a sound education, you can reinvent yourself in countless new ways. As your knowledge grows, you can start new businesses, buy a business or real estate investing. People buy mutual funds to diversify their investments, but even they can't take you all the places that a good education can.
• Long-term security. A stock can lose half its value tomorrow. That can't happen to you, because your education gives you lasting value. And the more you know, the more you are worth in the world.

Ultimately, your real wealth is not in your bank account, but in the value of what you know. That's true of Warren Buffet and the other ultra-rich people you have read about in this blog. And it is true of you too.

Negotiating wisdom from Negotiate to Win, Trump University's new bootcamp course on negotiating

While you were growing up, you probably negotiated with your parents about your chores, your allowance and your curfew. If you were like me in school, you negotiated for homework extensions with your teachers. In your family today, you negotiate about vacations, budget and other issues. And I'd be willing to bet that that you negotiate pretty hard when you're buying a car or a house.

You and I are already seasoned negotiators. In one way or another, we have been negotiating every day of our lives and we have gotten pretty good at it. Or so we believe.

The problem is, the tactics that have worked so well for us in our personal negotiations can turn out to be disastrous in business. And few people realize that. Consider scenes like these:

• To get a car salesman to accept your offer, you stood up and headed for the exit door. It worked beautifully. But if you try the same tactic when you are buying a business, you will probably kill the deal. It is wiser to wait out the other side by keeping the conversation going, even when it seems to be headed nowhere.
• When you were selling your house, you sealed the deal by offering to pay for a new roof or a new furnace. But if you are selling a business, making concessions like those too early can undercut the value of what you have to sell. You are literally giving away your money. If you bite you lip and wait for the other side to offer the first bargaining chip, you will do better.

Becoming a great negotiator means understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator. That is the reason we have a lot of self-analysis into our newest bootcamp course, Negotiate to Win.

Yes, there is an experienced negotiator inside you. The question is, is he or she the right one for the negotiations you will enter into tomorrow or next week? Ultimately, your success depends on having a large repertoire of tactics you can call upon as the situation requires.

"Success is good. Success with significance is even better."

- Donald J. Trump

Sometimes we are so zealous to become successful that we forget about what is significant. The background for success should include some intrinsic values as well as monetary values. We should be aware of our culture and other cultures, our history and their history, and not live in what has been termed "a cultural vacuum." Someone once said that not knowing history was like being a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree. That's an interesting visual and it applies to many people. We are individually responsible for our education, and that means whether you're in school or not.

If I sound tough on this subject, I am. I see no value whatsoever in believing ignorance to be an attribute. It isn't. It's good to start each day by saying to yourself, "What can I learn today that I didn't know before?" It opens you up to more information and net worth as an individual. Why live restricted lives due to lack of knowledge when there are so many resources available to us today?

Another interesting aspect of history is that it will lead us to seeing that we are all a part of it. History isn't just in the past, it's happening now. How can you know what you're a part of if you don't know what it is to begin with? As Pearl Buck said,

"If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday."

The world didn't start with your birth and it won't end with your death either. That doesn't mean you're not a part of the scheme of things. To the contrary, it means that you are.

Back to the leaf image. What if you know you are a leaf, but you're not sure what a tree is? I'd say the best thing to do is to find out what a tree is. It's pretty simple. It reminds me of an Apprentice task that's enough of a challenge to set the apprenti out to discover and research some things before they jump in to the task at hand.

I was listening to some Europeans once and they seemed to agree that Americans didn't seem to know their roots. Of course, their roots go back for many more centuries than ours, and may be easier to decipher, as many of us have ancestors from different countries. But it gave me reason to think about what they said and I realized in many cases they were right. I recently went to Scotland, as my mother's side of the family is of Scottish ancestry, and I've spent time studying that country and therefore my heritage. It could even explain why I love golf so much - it originated in Scotland.

I found that I enjoyed learning about Scotland and it has broadened my horizons, as well as my interests as a businessman. I am building a golf course in Scotland in Aberdeen that will be spectacular, and I very much enjoyed my visit and meeting the people from that culture and country. I also realized I still have a lot to learn, which will no doubt lead me into more interesting ventures as well as adventures.

Take my advice and never be a know-it-all. First of all, it's impossible to know everything, and second of all, it's just no fun, for you or anyone else. And third, you will be missing out on some great adventures. So remember to think big by expanding your horizons at the same time you're expanding your net worth. That's what significant success is about.