BE POSITIVE & REALISTIC

Be Positive, But Realistic
By Donald Trump

Positive thinking is essential to success, yet so many people just don't have the persistence required to make it work for them. The reality is, most overnight success stories are no such thing. Just because you've heard of someone for the first time doesn't mean they haven't been working for 20 or 30 years or more to get where they are.

For example, The Apprentice became a big hit when it first aired, but I had over 30 years of experience to draw from in those boardroom scenes. It wasn't just a fluke that I came across as someone who knew what he was doing. The fact that I was on television was new, but the rest wasn't particularly new to me. Business is business, whether it's being filmed or not. My business credentials and experience made up the back story to a show based on a high-stakes New York corporation.

How does positive attitude fit into the making of The Apprentice? First of all, I didn't say no when I was asked to do the show. I knew it was a risk, but I was positive about what might happen. If I had chosen to listen solely to the negatives about the endeavor, such as, "most new TV shows fail" or, "reality TV is on the way out" or, "you'll lose your credibility," and about 50 others, I never would have given the show a thought.

But instead, I chose a positive perspective. I asked myself the "what if" questions. What if it were a success? What if I enjoyed it? What if it proved to be enlightening? What if it brought The Trump Organization more of the recognition it deserved? What if the jobs provided to the winners proved to be a valuable stepping-stone to deserving individuals? I had a long list of positives to go along with the negatives.

I see myself as a cautious positive thinker. When I hear people saying that anything you want to do is possible, to me that's being childish or at least uninformed. Some things are not going to happen. For example, if I decided tomorrow that I wanted to win a gold medal at the Olympics as a swimmer, and I was sure I could because I was so positive about it, I'd need a shrink instead of a swim coach.

You need to be positive every day, but you need to be realistic too.