10 Life Lessons From the Book “Trump Your Life”

1. Refuse to let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough to work toward any goal you’ve identified for yourself, your family, your business, or your community. But do the work.
2. You are an original. Be courageous enough to be your authentic self.
3. Do what you love. It’s very hard to compete with someone who truly loves his or her work. You might have more intelligence or more drive, but harnessing those qualities when you’re really not committed to your craft or business will always be cumbersome instead of natural—a chore, rather than a pleasure.
4. Let NO ONE take you for a weakling, a fool, or a fraud.
5. Assume you will encounter increasing resistance as you pursue bigger goals.
• Now, we want to caution you not to believe that resistance lessens as you achieve more or say more of what you think or institute a change in your family, company, or country that matters. Resistance often increases as you move forward.
• Small minds, intent on stalling or frustrating real change or creativity, become increasingly obstructive in the face of bold momentum. Unfortunately, people who don’t know how to achieve great things often derive feelings of power by standing in the way of them.
6. Don’t be afraid to speak frankly and openly about things like friendship and love. Among strong people, connections of the heart are very powerful.
7. After hard-fought battles, whether you win or lose, don’t assume your competitors can’t become your partners.
8. Don’t be afraid to let your position on an issue evolve with more data. President Trump isn’t afraid to negotiate by first stating the facts, as they exist, and putting forth a clear and strong position based on those facts, but then continuing to pay close attention to the way circumstances change while he negotiates.
9. Making a deal doesn’t mean the deal-making is over forever.
• Donald Trump knows deals are living documents. That doesn’t mean they’re not to be honored; of course, they are. It means that deals can be revisited and perfected over time.
• That’s why Trump sometimes makes the best possible deal he can make (whether for a business or for America), knowing there will likely be another opportunity to sit down and achieve even better terms. Like Voltaire, Trump would likely say the perfect is the enemy of good. You can ask for perfect terms. You can argue for perfect terms. But if you insist on them, you might never get to “yes.”
10. Remember that you’re the real masterpiece; the universe has a plan for you.
• God or the universe will see to it that you walk through a very complex labyrinth of events in your life—including victories and defeats and lots of soul-searching—before your purpose is made clear.
• Walking the labyrinth makes you a kind of living canvas (see Lesson #9) onto which layers of paint are being applied, again and again. Sometimes, paint has to be scraped away, too. And that can be painful. You should never forget there’s a reason behind all of it.

Good lessons to learn.

Source: Trump Your Life: 25 Life Lessons From the Ups and Downs of the 45th President of the United States (2020) by Keith Ablow, M. D.