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Hey guys, excited to be back for another day in Trump's schedule back in 1987.

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He's going to kick off his day at the War Mirror Inc, then go to Trump Tower and eventually

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speak about them tomorrow.

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Today we're going to explore a few lessons.

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I'm going to mention them first here and then we'll go a bit deeper.

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So when the request is in good faith and reasonable, be accommodating.

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It's a loop.

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Do business with people you appreciate.

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Tell people you appreciate them.

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Set value.

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Know your worth and have a many options attitude.

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Have a long time horizon.

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Don't get too excited by the first offer.

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Think of small tasks you can do today that will save time, money, efforts or energy tomorrow.

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Be persistent, yet adaptable to evolving circumstances.

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Move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

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And trust for gut.

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Trust for gut is going to be a recurring theme throughout most of Trump's professional endeavors.

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So let's go in a bit more detail.

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So Trump starts his day by visiting schools with his wife Ivana for his daughter Ivanka.

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He's looking at private schools and kindergarten for his daughter.

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He then goes to Wollman Rink.

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Wollman Rink is a project, it's an ice rink built at the beginning of Central Park in

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New York.

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The city had a hard time to get the project going.

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It took years to not go very far.

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Trump decided to, he couldn't stand the inefficiency and the bureaucracy and let's say the slowness

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of the enterprise and volunteered to build the project.

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And essentially he came in in record time and under budget.

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So something that took years was he was able to do in a matter of months.

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And this echoes kind of his attitude towards efficiency and his desire to get things done

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quickly and to go straight to the point in terms of actions and outcomes.

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So he didn't understand why it took years for the city of New York.

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He took the initiative, he thinks it's better for the city to have a functional rink and

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that's now still a big attraction in Central Park and in Manhattan.

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So we see the initiative came from him and he had basically at that stage he's invited

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to take pictures for the concrete pouring ceremony.

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He decides to go along and to participate even though he's in a pinstripped suit.

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So the lesson here is that when the request is in good faith and reasonable to be accommodating.

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So we see Trump is willing to go to McDonald's as an employee for a day or to participate

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in WWE events.

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He's close to the people that give him love.

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He wants to, he engages with the public.

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He doesn't disengage from the public.

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He takes questions, he answers questions.

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Actually it's his transparency that can sometimes, it can't be faulted for lack of transparency.

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He's extremely transparent.

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Even his book, you see him giving details not only on his schedule but details on his

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thought process and his intention.

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So that's something he's always had.

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And again this is when the requester is in good faith and reasonable.

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It also has a great sense if the person, the request you see it's not coming from a good

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place then you have zero obligations to be accommodating.

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But if you see that it's from a good place then you can and probably should be accommodating.

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Then he goes on to describe a business deal that he'd like to do.

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So he wrote to an executive on the west coast, I'm going to read right now.

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As you're aware, I wrote, there is no one I would rather do business with than Marty

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Davis.

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In the letter I explained to Marty that I'd recently purchased a fantastic site and was

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in the midst of designing a building with eight motion picture theaters at its base.

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And I wondered if he might be interested in making a deal for them.

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Martin Davis is a truly talented man but there are also a dozen other companies who would

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kill to have eight theaters in a top location.

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In other words, if I can't make a deal I like with Marty I've got a lot of other options.

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So here there's a couple of lessons.

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First is to do business with people you appreciate and to tell people that you appreciate them.

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So it's kind of a loop.

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You appreciate people, you let them know you appreciate them, when there's opportunities

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you bring into them and vice versa.

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You'd rather do business with people you appreciate in general and we see that's what Trump does

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here.

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He's used to provide value.

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Trump knows he has a great asset that can be exploited in different ways that could

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be very lucrative for people interested in having movie theaters in the area.

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And so he knows what he's bringing to the table.

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He's providing value, he knows his worth and he also has a many options attitude.

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So he's not tied down to a single person for a given outcome.

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He prefers to do the deal with Marty but he's open to not doing it with him if Marty doesn't

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want to do it or if the proposal is not going to be to his standard.

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So he comes to the table with a know your worth and a have a many option attitude.

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He has an attitude of plenty.

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He's definitely not coming across as desperate to get the deal or to do it only with that

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person.

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He is polite and he has the intentions to highlight that he prefers doing business with

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Marty Davis.

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Secondly, now he's going to talk about the land that he purchased on the Hudson River.

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The truth is I really don't want to sell the Hudson the yards at any price.

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To me those 100 acres that were looking at the Hudson River are the best underdeveloped

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real estate site in the world.

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On the other hand, I don't want to rule out anything.

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He said they were serious people and they were prepared to make me a very substantial

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offer for the site.

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Far more than the 100 million I paid a year ago.

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I didn't get too excited.

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On the contrary, I said to Arthur, the bid sounds low.

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If you can get them higher, I might be interested.

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Arthur tells me his clients are still very interested and they may come up a little,

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but he does still go much higher.

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Keep pushing, I tell him.

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In this little sequence, we see first of all that Trump has a long time horizon.

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He is not interested in just making a quick buck.

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He sees the potential of the Hudson River, the land he has by the Hudson River.

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He doesn't just want to sell for a profit right now.

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He sees the potential.

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Have a long time horizon.

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There is a lesson here.

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Secondly, don't get excited by the first offer.

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Even though he paid 100 million for it and the offer brought forth is much bigger than

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that, he is not necessarily excited.

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He doesn't show excitement.

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He says the bid sounds low.

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If you can get them higher, I might be interested.

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He knows he may have gotten it for a bargain himself, but he also knows the worth of the

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property.

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In any case, he doesn't show excitement at the first offer.

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Now, another great lesson is to think of small tasks you can do today that will save time,

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money, and effort or energy tomorrow.

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Bob is getting a call from a contractor who is building his pool at Mar-a-Lago.

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He says, I'm busy, but I take the call anyway.

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We're going to great lengths to build a pool in keeping with the original design of the

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house, and I want to make sure every detail is right, all of which is a long way of explaining

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why I take this call from the pool contractor.

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He has a small question about the matching of the Dorian stone we're using for the decking,

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and I care about every detail when it comes to Mar-a-Lago.

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The call takes two minutes, but it will probably save two days of work and ensure that the

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job doesn't have to be ripped out and done over later.

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We see sometimes a small effort today avoids much more work tomorrow or the day after.

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Just answering the phone, giving certain information, being available to attend to a small task

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can prevent a larger task.

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We can apply this to other settings if we want.

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Let's say small savings can't compound, later small improvements in health can't compound,

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et cetera.

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We can apply this to different areas of life here in the business sense, if there's a small

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task that can prevent future hassle, take the time to do it.

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Trump is going to explain the story of how he acquired Mar-a-Lago, and the lesson is

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going to be to be persistent.

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Persistent, yet adaptable to evolving circumstances.

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This is very important.

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I first look at Mar-a-Lago while vacationing in Palm Beach in 1982.

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Almost immediately, I put in a bid of $15 million, and the asking price, by the way,

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was $25 million.

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It was promptly rejected.

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Over the next few years, the foundation signed contracts with several other buyers at higher

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prices than I'd offered, only to have them fall through before closing.

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Each time that happened, I put in another bid, but always at a lower sum than before.

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Finally, in late 1985, I put in a cash offer of $5 million plus another $3 million for

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the furnishings in the house.

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Apparently, the foundation was tired of broken deals.

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They accepted my offer, and we closed one month later.

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The day the deal was announced, the Palm Beach Daily News ran a huge front page story with

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the headline Mar-a-Lago's bargain price rocks community.

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So Trump persevered, was persistent in his bids to acquire Mar-a-Lago, but he also saw

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that with every passing bid, he put his bid lower.

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So he went from $15 million to, at the end, $5 million plus $3 million, so $8 million

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all in.

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Because the owners of the property refuses bids, and he realized the market is not really

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... The other bidders don't have maybe the cash, don't have the financing.

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He's realizing he's in a better position than he thought he was initially, that although

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he refuses offer at $15 million, they don't have much better offers.

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So he was comforted in the direction of his subsequent bids, and he eventually got it.

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So then he continues.

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Soon, several far more modest estates on property at fraction of Mar-a-Lago's size sold for

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price in excess of $18 million.

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I've been told that the furnishings in Mar-a-Lago alone are worth more than I paid for the house.

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This goes to show that it pays to move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

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Upkeep of Mar-a-Lago, of course, isn't cheap, but for what it costs each year, you could

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buy a beautiful home almost anywhere else in America.

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Here the lesson is to move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

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So Trump had cash on hand, and as soon as the property caused his eye, he made a move.

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He was receptive and followed the evolution of the deals that didn't go through for the

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property, kept on bidding, and eventually got it.

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So again, move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

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For that, it could be a good idea to save a certain amount of cash to be able to pounce

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on an opportunity when it occurs.

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In any case, having cash on hand was very helpful for him to secure the purchase of

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the beautiful property of Mar-a-Lago.

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Again, we're going to conclude this one with the main lesson that comes from most of Trump's

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interaction is to trust your gut.

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So a friend of his calls him from Texas with a deal in the oil and gas field.

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He gave me all the details, and it sounded very good.

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I was all set to go forward.

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The papers were being drawn up, and then one morning I woke up, and it just didn't feel

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right.

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I called my friend back, and I said, listen, there's something about this that bothers

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me.

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This bill is underground, and I can't see it.

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Or maybe it's that there's nothing creative about it.

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In any case, I just don't want to go in.

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And he said, okay, Donnie, it's up to you, but you're missing a great opportunity.

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The rest is history, of course.

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Oil went completely to hell several months later.

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The company his group bought went bankrupt, and his investors lost every dime they put

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up.

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So Trump's going to say, that experience taught me a few things.

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One is to listen to your gut.

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No matter how good something sounds on paper.

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The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know.

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And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.

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Because I held back, I saved $50 million, the two of us have remained friends.

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As a result, I don't want to reject him outright on his new deal.

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Instead, I tell him to sign up the papers.

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In reality, I'm not too likely to get involved.

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So Trump shows again how much he relies on his gut.

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Everything was signed.

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It was ready to go.

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But he said, listen, something's about this that bothers me.

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And basically he said, I just don't want to go.

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And he dropped out.

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He listened to his gut, dropped out of the deal that could have been catastrophic, and

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saved $50 million.

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So to wrap up, when the request is in good faith and reasonable, be accommodating.

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It's a loop.

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Focus with people you appreciate and tell people you appreciate them.

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Provide value, know your worth, and have a many options attitude.

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Have a long time horizon.

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Don't get too excited by the first offer.

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Think of small tasks you can do today that will save you time, money, efforts, or energy

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tomorrow or the day after.

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Be persistent, yet adaptable to evolving circumstances.

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As we saw with the different bids, he adapted his approach.

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Move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

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Then trust your gut.

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And I'll repeat his verbatim quote on the oil and gas experience.

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That experience taught me a few things.

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One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper.

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Two, the second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know.

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Three, and the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.

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With that, I hope you enjoyed this Wednesday in Trump's life back in 1987.

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And be sure to tune in for the next episodes.

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I appreciate it.