Thoughts on <The Art of the Deal>

Opening

Even before the results of this US presidential election came out, I thought it was hard for a Korean to accurately gauge how it would go. Still, I kept an eye on it — and seeing such a stark difference between what traditional media reported and what was being said on social media, I started wondering which sources I could actually trust. When Trump won, I decided that rather than piecing together information fragments released through the media, I needed to understand what kind of person Trump is through a book written long before — and in his own words. So I went to a bookstore and found , which Trump wrote himself in 1987 and which has been well-known for quite a long time — and it seemed like the most fitting choice.

About the Book

The book briefly covers Trump's childhood, then tells the story of how he left his father's housing business in Queens and Brooklyn, New York, and built his own major real estate empire in Manhattan. One distinctive section is a day-by-day account of how he spent his time Monday through Friday while writing the book — and even if you take his claim of making 50 to 100 calls a day as an exaggeration, it's easy to imagine him constantly attached to the phone. The occasional mentions of Mar-a-Lago, Ivana, and family gatherings are also enjoyable.

Despite this being an autobiography, I found myself underlining a remarkable number of passages — to revisit later, either to glimpse Trump's character or because a point struck me as something to keep in mind when making deals. Let me record a few of them here.

• (A few things he learned from experience, said in the context of receiving countless investment proposals) First, no matter how good something looks on paper, trust your own judgment first. Second, it's easier to make money doing something you know than something you don't. Third, sometimes the best investment is no investment at all.
• I think the ability to close a deal is innate. It's in the genes, you might say. You don't have to be brilliant to make great deals. It's mostly instinct — a broker's gut.
• Think big — a casino can make five times the money of a hotel. One of the foundations of thinking big is focus. This capacity is something you commonly find in quite successful entrepreneurs. They are focused, impulsive, single-minded, and at times almost obsessive. But all of these traits are channeled into their business. So even when others are in a state of mental confusion, these successful people are actually helped by their single-mindedness.
• I believe in negative thinking. If you always anticipate the worst, you can weather it when it arrives.
• Even after a deal is made, I push things forward using at least five or six alternative options. No matter how well you plan, there's always the possibility that something unexpected will become a problem.
• I don't trust fancy market research. I always do my own research and draw my own conclusions. I like to ask people for their opinions before I make up my mind.
• The worst attitude in a negotiation is to appear desperate or resigned. If you show that, your opponent's fighting spirit ignites — and you've already lost.
• Deals work best when both sides can benefit.
• The most mistaken assumption in real estate is that location determines success. What matters isn't a great location — it's a great deal.
• No matter how good a voice you have, if you only sing in your own garage, it's worthless. You have to attract attention and stir people up.
• Even when journalists ask tough questions, I try to respond in a way that lets them see things from a positive new angle rather than directly answering.
• I go out of my way for people who are loyal to me, but when someone tries to take advantage of or mistreat me, I fight back hard. Even when I thought there was no chance of winning, I judged it worth the effort regardless of the outcome — and in the end I won.
• My father taught me to watch every penny, because pennies become dollars. Even now (already a billionaire), if I think a contractor has padded the bill, I'll call and complain over $5,000. "If I ever become the kind of person who doesn't make a 25-cent call to save $10,000, that's when I should quit," I say.
• If you don't focus your attention, you can't manage even a small thing properly.
• Money is not much of a motivation for me. It's just a means of keeping score. The real fun is in the game itself.

Closing

From the moment I went looking for this book, my purpose was to find the one that would give me the closest view possible to the essence of who Trump is as a person. This book fulfills that purpose. As a secondary observation: looking at the translator's foreword written for the 2016 revised edition, it was written right in the middle of the election between Trump and Clinton. Alongside Trump's 2024 re-election, it feels like a striking mirror image — as if eight years haven't passed at all. Even then, the translator noted that while the American mainstream supported Clinton, Trump's momentum couldn't be dismissed. Watching these things repeat, I'm once again reminded: the future should never be predicted lightly.

What was valuable about this book is that it reveals Trump purely as a businessman. Since he wrote it himself, there's not a word about the scandals surrounding him. In that sense, reading it was useful for understanding how Trump defines himself. The image I now have in my head is of a man who sees politics as one more big game to play and enjoy — a born competitor who will use any means necessary to achieve his goals, and who knows what the best people want and how to motivate them. Now that I understand more about what he's achieved, I think I'll be better able to imagine — more specifically — how his personality and experience are woven into the background of his future decisions. For anyone who wants to observe the next four years of Trump's leadership with a somewhat deeper understanding of the man himself, I'd recommend this book.