Book Review: "How to Get Rich" by Donald Trump

I’ve previously picked up books by Trump twice, both times briefly in airport bookstores, and I’ve learned something each time. I find him a fascinating character, but I have to admit I actually knew very little about him, and it was time to read one of his books.

This is a well written quick read with lots of very short chapters offering advice from Trump. I’m guessing it’s probably ghost written (nothing wrong with that). I enjoyed reading it and it presented a much different view of Trump as well as his management and business style than I expected. It could be subtitled “Business Advice and odd personal details from The Donald” :)

His business emphasis is far more people-centric than I expected. Even his first chapter, “Be a General,” stresses how important the decisions of a business leader are because each can possibly affect the lives of all their employees, and that’s a big responsibility. In other parts of the book he emphasizes hiring creating people you can trust, the importance of setting a good example, and never expecting employees to work harder than you do. He talks about how great ideas can come from anyone, how people’s titles are unimportant, and gives several examples of people who started with extremely low level stereotypically dead end jobs at TrumpCo who have ended up with high level jobs at TrmpCo, for example vice presidents, because they were smart, trustworthy, and had good ideas.

A few things that resonated with me include:

The importance of momentum in business. I moved to Hong Kong from 95-97 and managed, with extreme effort, to keep my consulting business’ momentum going in the US. But afterwards when I took a well deserved 6 month sabbatical and then started messing with (sometimes less than half-assed) startups, my momentum crashed. Despite keeping up with networking and technology, when I decided to concentrate on consulting again I did not have lots of extremely interesting and high paying work, and needed to build things up again.

I loved his comments on public speaking. I think they’re right on the mark, although his remarks that all speakers should study Regis Philbin surprised me (note to self: who is Regis Philbin?? I know the name, but . . .)

Being stubborn. I wrote “nutcase plan” in the margins next to his plan for converting the old Commodore Hotel in New York City. It’s the Grand Hyatt now, but when he started planning he didn’t own it and even buying it, never mind getting any financing, seemed improbable. I periodically have my own nutcase plans – they work out often enough . . .

Donald Trump is obviously an interesting guy, and this book reveals some interesting details: he hates handshakes (a health thing), usually he doesn’t eat at his frequent black tie dinners and grabs junk food at a local Korean grocery store afterwards, he likes McDonalds, and he likes to read psychology and self help books especially anything written by Carl Jung. He was once compared to a Mormon, and he took that “as high praise.”

The book has a section of pictures in the middle of Trump, friends, and family, a reprinted chapter (“by popular demand”) on a typical week in Trump’s life, and ends with a chapter on “The Apprentice.” The “typical week” chapter was interesting, but two days would have been enough. I skimmed the end of that chapter. Although I’ve never seen “The Apprentice,” I enjoyed that part of the book.

The book is probably a must for Donald Trump fans, and a good short read for anyone involved in business.