The Practical Way

“Think Big and Kick Ass! in Business and Life” by Donald Trump and Bill Zanker

Monday, 8th February 2010 | Book Reviews, Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

This is one of the latest books of Donald Trump that he wrote together with Bill Zanker from the Learning Annex. They draw from their experiences in life to provide practical advice on how to think big in your life and achieve what you want. Donald gives many examples from real estate and his experience with dealing with famous people. Bill’s prospective is different. He draws his examples from the struggles that he had in starting the Learning Annex and transforming it into a successful company.

They recommend that is very important to find your passion and follow it. Do not do something for money, but because you are passionate about it. Then the money will follow. You need to go after your passion with 150% focus and to focus on the solutions to the problems that you will encounter and do not be dishearten by the problems.[...]

Be successful like Donald Trump, part 5

Thursday, 14th May 2009 | Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

I finished watching the fifth series of “The Apprentice” recently and it is time to write the usual summary about Donald’s advice to be successful. The people who are regular readers of this blog should know by know the main themes from the previous series. Series five moves on similar lines. The focus of Donald Trump should be clear by now.

Donald’s advice follows again the main lines of the previous four series. I think that he has made his point in the previous episodes and now he just repeats it over and over again. That is good in a way, because you can understand which points he stresses a lot and which ones are not so vital. And as the ancient Greeks used to say “Repetition is the mother of learning”.

His advice on series five is the following:[...]

Be successful like Donald Trump, part 4

Tuesday, 24th February 2009 | Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

The fourth season of “The Apprentice” was one of the best. The candidates were very strong and you are glued to your couch till the last minute. The final 2 are very both great and there is a little twist at the end of the series.

Donald here repeats his valuable advice through the series again. The topics are similar as the previous ones and you start to understand how he thinks. He focuses again on the importance of money, always thinking big and having a winning team around you. You can see that this is how Donald has built his empire. He combined these 3 elements (and a few more) and he built his empire. The tasks that the teams perform follow similar concepts as the previous series. They range from marketing, to selling, to creating ideas and of course teamwork and leading people.

Here is the advice given from Donald Trump in the [...]

Be successful like Donald Trump, part 3

Tuesday, 13th January 2009 | Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

After watching Series 1 & 2 I was really looking forward to watch the third one. I find the advice that Donald gives valuable and I think it can help people become winners.

The third series of “The Apprentice” is full with more advice on the same topics. By now you will start to see certain topics repeating themselves. Donald is big on thinking big and leading with authority. This is where Donald places his focus and what has helped him to build his empire.

It is surprising that Donald refers to the same topics again and again. The candidates in the series keep doing the same mistakes. Please make sure that you do not repeat your mistakes. Learn from them and improve.

Here is the advice from Donald Trump give in the third series:[...]

Be successful like Donald Trump, part 2

Tuesday, 16th December 2008 | Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

Last week I covered the advice that was given by Donald Trump in the first part of the series “The Apprentice”. This advice is covering practical ways that can help people become more successful in business and become better leaders. I think that these are steps that Donald has followed and he lives by. These steps have helped him to build his huge empire and become a billionaire.

The second series continues in a similar style. A new group of people face business challenges every week and hope to work for Donald. The tasks are similar to the first series, but the pressure is more and the deadlines are more aggressive. Donald continues to evaluate the performance of the teams each week and give feedback and advice.

Here are his gems of wisdom from the second series:[...]

Be successful like Donald Trump, part 1

Thursday, 11th December 2008 | Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Property, Wealth Building

I came across the other day a series called “The Apprentice”. I am not a big fun of reality TV, but a friend recommended that I should watch this, because it is different and full of practical advice on how to succeed and run a business. As you know by now, I am very interested in practical advice and I thought of giving it a go and see what Donald Trump has to share.

I was pleasantly surprised by “The Apprentice”. It is all about business and how to be successful. Each week Donald gives the candidates a business task to complete and then at the end he judges them on how they did and gives his advice on what they did wrong. The tasks range from creating products to marketing to creating and running a business. The advice that Donald gives is great.

I was pleasantly surprised by “The Apprentice”. It is all about business and how to be successful. [...]

“Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill

Tuesday, 4th November 2008 | Book Reviews, Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Wealth Building

This book is a classic one about wealth creation and it covers practical and theoretical ways on how to achieve this. It is structured in 13 steps that you can follow to achieve wealth. Most of the focus of the book is on the mindset, as the title implies. Think and grow rich, not work and grow rich.

It guides you to build a goal for your future in step 1 and then in the following steps it talks about how to move towards that goal. Near the end it starts to focus more on traits that you need to have to achieve the goal and also it has some very nice questionnaires for self analysis. These are useful to see where you are aiming at, but it does not provide steps on how to achieve them.[...]

“Breakthrough to success” NLP seminar with Chris Howard

Sunday, 12th October 2008 | Interviews/Presentations, Personal Effectiveness, Personal Finance, Wealth Building

In June, I went to the Breakthrough to Success seminar by Christopher Howard. It was such an awesome event. Chris rocks. He has studied NLP and hypnosis for years and it shows every minute he is on stage. I have studied NLP as well, but I have never seen anyone put it to practice so well. Every move and every word he says are calculated and full of meaning.

In the seminar he covers the areas of wealth, personal growth, career, relationships and family. The best thing is that he shows you the skills to use to achieve what you want in the areas and you practice them with him. So, you gain a lot of insight on the practical application of these tools. [...]

Setting smart goals

Sunday, 28th September 2008 | Personal Effectiveness

Have you ever set a goal that you wanted to achieve, but it seems to take ages to achieve it? Have you set a goal and after a while you are questioning yourself if it is still a valid goal and if you should put more effort to achieve it? I had this happen to me often in the past and I think that I have found the answer.

Before I give you the answer let me ask you a different question. What is your purpose? What is the big goal? Now, if you do not have clear answers to these questions, this will cause you problems in the medium run. Let me explain.

All of us need a big goal, something that we are moving towards to. For example, I want by the age of 40 to sail around the Greek islands for 3 months. Using this goal for example, we can start to build towards it. You can even say that this goal is not big enough and it is merely a step to a bigger goal. That is good, work to find the even bigger one. For now we will use this example. [...]

“The 4-Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss

Tuesday, 23rd September 2008 | Book Reviews, Personal Effectiveness

This is an amazing book and I believe that it is a must read for people who want to get out of the office jobs and experience life to the full. Tim explains how he went from working 80h per week to working 4h per week while at the same time increasing the profits in his company.

In this book he gives the tools and techniques that he used to achieve this and how other people he met during his travel have achieved similar goals. His main process has four steps and he explains them in great depth. At the start, he recommends that you need to define which tasks are important to you and which ones are not. The second step is to eliminate what is not important. Then you automate the ones that are left and then you are ready for the final step, liberation. [...]

Steve Jobs speech at Stanford

Sunday, 14th September 2008 | Interviews/Presentations, Personal Effectiveness

On 12 June 2005, Steve Jobs gave a speech to the graduates of Stanford University. In his speech he narrated three stories from his life to the students and the meaning that each one of them has and how they shaped his life.

His first story is about connecting the dots. Sometimes events in your life look insignificant at present and only in the future you will realise how important they really are. His second story is about love and loss. In this one Steve explains how he left Apple and how through this loss he became stronger and came back. His last story is about death. People need to enjoy life and not let it pass by them. You need to challenge yourself all the time if you compromise or you live the life you dream. [...]

Tony Robbins speaks at TED

Friday, 12th September 2008 | Interviews/Presentations, Personal Effectiveness

Tony Robbins has given an amazing presentation at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference. In this presentation he talks about why people act the way they do and what is driving them. It is a 30 min presentation and it is very insightful. Pay attention to his presentation style and also see how in the end he manages to get extra time with a clever technique. [...]

“A Whole New Mind” by Daniel H. Pink

Friday, 12th September 2008 | Book Reviews, Personal Effectiveness

Have you read the “A whole new mind” from Danieal H. Pink? I just finished it the other week and I think that it is a great book. In his book he explains how we will need to start using our right-brain as much as our left-brain in the years to come. There are three reasons for this: the competition from cheap labour in Asia, the power of computers that replace workers and the abundance of goods.

His opinion is that we need to work on the following six areas to be able to compete effectively in the new market:
[...]