Trump: How to Get Rich

Change Your Altitude

When I sayaltitude, I’m not referring to my jet. It’s my own interpretation of the wordattitude. I like flying because it gets me where I’m going, fast. Likewise, if you have the right attitude, you can get where you’re going, fast.

What’s the altitude of your attitude? Is it high frequency or low frequency? Having a high frequency will attune you to a wavelength that exudes confidence and clear-sighted enthusiasm. I’m a firm believer that this is half the battle of any enterprise.

I’m a tough-minded optimist. I learned a long time ago that my productivity was increased by a large percentage simply by learning to let go of negativity in all forms as quickly as I could. My commitment to excellence is thorough—so thorough that it negates the wavelength of negativity immediately. I used to have to zap negativity mentally. By now, it just bounces off me within a moment of getting near me. As you may have heard, I don’t like germs. I’m still waging a personal crusade to replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese custom of bowing. To me, germs are just another kind of negativity.

Negativity is also a form of fear, and fear can be paralyzing. On the golf course, I’ve heard great athletes tell me that they can’t putt. They can hit a ball three hundred yards right down the middle of the fairway, but they can’t finish the hole by putting the ball three feet into the cup.

Recently, I played with a man who is terrified of putting. He hit a magnificent 235-yard shot and was seven feet from the cup. Then he looked over at me and said, Now the hard part begins.

Another friend, also a great golfer, is paralyzed by his fear of losing his ball. Each time we played a hole near a lake, he would look down and say to his ball, I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.

I have told these two guys that they must start thinking positively or they will sabotage themselves.

Very often, negative thinking stems from low self-esteem. You have to work on this yourself. Maybe you’ve received a lot of hard knocks. I’ve learned to deal with them because I get knocked a lot. Quickly see them for what they are—knocks. But you don’t have to open the door unless you choose to. I’ve gotten to the point where I see knocks as opportunities and as an insight into whoever is doing the knocking.

One way to chase low altitude away is to think about how fortunate you already are and how much you still have to look forward to. You can better your best day at any time. Very surprising things can happen, but you must—and I repeat must— be open to them. How can you fly if you’ve already clipped your own wings?

I don’t have time to encourage as many people as I would like to, but whenever it seems appropriate, I recommend The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, one of my father’s favorite books, and mine, too. Some people may think it’s old-fashioned, but what Peale has written will always be true. He advocates faith over fear. Faith can overcome the paralysis that fear brings with it.

I can remember a time when I had a choice to make, when I was billions of dollars in debt. I had to take one of two courses of action: a fearful, defensive one or a faithful, riskier one. I carefully analyzed the situation, realized what was causing the uneasy feeling of fear, and immediately replaced it with blind faith, simply because I had nothing else to go on at the time. Then I resolved that as long as I remained positive and disciplined, things would work out.

There was not much more I could do. I didn’t know how it was going to go, but I was determined to move forward, even though it wasn’t easy. Within a relatively short amount of time, the situation was settled positively. I learned a lot from that and have since had a better understanding of what courage really is. Without facing my own fear, I would not have known.

When I think of someone who is tough, I also think of someone who has courage. People who persist have courage, because often it’s a lot easier to give up. Some of the bravest people I’ve met are children with handicaps. I’m active with United Cerebral Palsy. What those kids deal with is humbling, but they are enthusiastic and thrilled with every day they’ve been given.

You’ve been given a day, too. When you’re down, look at it that way. Another day can equal another chance. Sometimes, as obvious as it sounds, we really do have to take things one day at a time. Immediately after the events of September 11, we didn’t know what was going to happen, but we all kept going, one day at a time, and we’re still moving forward.

Maybe you’ve gotten to the point where you think you can’t get through another day. That’s shortsighted of you. You’re missing the big picture. You’re on the runway, but your fuel supply is the problem. You won’t get off the ground without it. Feed yourself some positive thoughts and you can take off at any time.

Ever wonder what makes certain people keep going? I do. Abraham Lincoln encountered a steady procession of setbacks, but he just kept at it. Nothing deterred him. He must have had a lot of faith, because he didn’t receive much encouragement along the way. He’s an excellent example of someone who never gave up.

The other extreme is the person who seems to run into obstacles with the unerring aim of a marksman. I knew a guy who was remarkably accident-prone. If there was something to run into, he’d find it. If there was a hole in the ground, he’d break his foot by stumbling into it.

Once, he was in such a slam-bang accident that he was hospitalized for six months before being completely patched up. Finally, the day of his release from the hospital arrived and it was decided that he should get an ambulance ride home, just to be on the safe side. As the ambulance was taking him home, it crashed into a car—another spectacular slam-bang accident. My friend was immediately brought back to the hospital, in a new ambulance dispatched to the scene of the disaster. What can I say? Maybe he’s just a really unlucky guy. Or maybe he’s a loser. I know that sounds harsh, but let’s face it—some people are losers.

The altitude level of losers is so low that they should walk around in scuba gear all day. They are below sea level on the altitude map. We all know people like that, and they might make great comedians because they have so much material—but first they’d have to learn to be funny. Honestly, I’ve known people who are such accomplished losers that I think that’s what they devote their time to:

• How can I be the biggest screwup possible?

• How can I prove the born loser theory to be correct?

• How can I defy the law of probability to make it an absolute disaster every time?

• How can I achieve a perfect record of total wipeouts?

• How far can I get at zero miles per hour?

• How can I reach the lowest frequency possible?

• How can I operate so that radar could never possibly find me even if I get lost, which I probably will?

These people need a new speedometer.

Get going. Move forward. Aim high. Plan for a takeoff. Don’t just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won’t happen.

Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you’ll love it up here.