Hate him or love him, he does some things that you would be happy to do as well as he does. Put your emotion aside and listen.
Look, I'm not a big fan of the guy either. He's stuck his foot in his mouth numerous times recently, completely alienated entire races of people with blanket statements of ignorance, and some of you may just not like him for myriad other reasons. I'm sure there are other writers out there who can supply you plenty of ammo for that.
Donald Trump knows how to make money. Yeah, I know -- money isn't everything. But it's right up there next to oxygen. You and I spend a third of our lives doing something with the end goal of having it. Donald Trump knows how to make it. He got rich in real estate in one of the toughest real estate markets known to man (New York City) by shrewd negotiations, recognizing opportunities where others were scared off, and branding himself when that wasn't a normal thing to do. Then he lost it all, came back and did it all over again.
That's hustle. That's business acumen. That's admirable. Which brings us to....
Donald Trump knows how to make a comeback. Imagine you were a billionaire who lost it all -- and lost it all quite publicly at that. There were hordes of people, most of whom you have never even met or directly affected in any way, who openly celebrated your demise or "failure".
Could you come back from that? Most of the people I see these days are hyper-adverse to adversity. They fall apart when they get a trolling @reply on Twitter, negative review on their online store or someone close to you bad-mouths their business idea.
Donald took all the negativity and bounced back even higher than he was before -- which was already higher than most people will ever experience in a lifetime. This is a skill. And there's one more thing, actually it's the reason I'm writing this post...
Donald Trump knows how to get attention. There's a good chance you've never read my writing before and you're only reading this because his name is in the title of this post. Donald Trump pretty much invented personal branding. And I'm guessing you have a personal brand now, right?
When Donald Trump says something crazy you comment on it, right? You're thinking of a contrarian comment to leave on this post, right? We all want attention -- for the good job we did, the product or service we're selling, the cause we support. If Donald was offering a $500 class on getting attention, on a purely business level you would sign up. Or your emotional feeling about Trump might keep you out of that class, hurting your business since you don't know how to get attention like Trump does. True or not true?
Every human being has both positive and negative qualities. We could all help our businesses with the leadership skills of Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden (minus the evil intentions). Martin Luther King was a womanizer. Jay-Z sold drugs.
No one is perfectly good or bad -- not you, not me, not Donald Trump. The guy knows business in three areas we all would benefit from: Making money, bouncing back, and getting attention.
Imagine if your current business had Donald's skills in all three.
Exactly.
#WorkOnYourGame