This_person
Well-Known Member
What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.
- Donald Trump
- Donald Trump
Winners and losers
- Thread starter This_person
- Start date
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
Is that a real quote? I'm sure I could be a winner if only fate would twist me a couple million dollars to start off.
Probably not.....look what happens to the majority of Lotto winners.......
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Look at what happens to the vast majority of us. If Trump is the definition of winning, Almost all of us are losers. Life, any endeavor, is a sort of triangle where the top is very narrow, where the winners elevate to, and then there is everyone else. You can find your own personal triangle and be a winner there but it probably doesn't include billions of dollars, private planes, penthouses and becoming the most powerful person on the planet.
Look at what happens to the vast majority of us. If Trump is the definition of winning, Almost all of us are losers. Life, any endeavor, is a sort of triangle where the top is very narrow, where the winners elevate to, and then there is everyone else. You can find your own personal triangle and be a winner there but it probably doesn't include billions of dollars, private planes, penthouses and becoming the most powerful person on the planet.
See, that's what is happening. Everyone driving class warfare. I fortunately did quite well during my business career. No Billions, no private planes or penthouses, but I live happy and comfortable. I am not jealous of billionaires who have the aforementioned. How could i be jealous of Tom Brady and all his millions? I couldn't throw a football ten feet accurately. How could I be jealous of Donald Trump, he grew a real estate company into a multi-billion dollar business, i didn't do that. I probably could of grown my business a lot bigger, but kids, fishing and hunting always seem to get in the way. I had some competitors do better than I, but their work led to divorces and dysfunctional kids and I was never jealous of them, but I have had many persons jealous of my success. The saddest part is the delusion that to become rich, you have to be a crook. Of all the wealthy persons I know, I know of none that have used any kind of illegal means to get there, just total hard work and commitment,
You could put the entire wealth of the world into a pot and divided it equally to the entire planet and 10 years later, the poor will still be poor and the rich will still be rich.
The lotto example would prevail and there would be politicians pushing class warfare all over again.
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
I'm willing to give it a shot though.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
That's not my point, class warfare. And I said nothing about being a crook. I will thank you for making my point, though as we agree the rich will still be rich and the poor will still be poor. And the poor will FAR outweigh the rich in terms of numbers.
I don't know why people are so afraid of this simple concept. :shrug.
Consider, if everyone worked as hard as you, made the same good decisions, was as smart as you, where does that leave you? If we're all winners, no one is. Back to your term, class warfare. Think of it instead of competition. Does not matter the field, the business or what have you. The cream rises to the top, again, to my triangle, and most everyone else is under that in varying degrees. That's not a judgement. It is an observation.
As for the winners, they do what's necessary to win, they find a way. They're tougher or smarter or stronger or more determined or, yes, sometimes meaner, more ruthless. Again, an observation. They are the 1 out of 10 or the 1 out of 1,000 or 1 of 10 or 100,000 or million. It should not be controversial to state a simple fact; most of us, if Trump or any other billionaire or multi millionaire is the definition of winner, most of us, by definition, are then losers.
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
I think the issue with the lottery is more to do with the types of people that think it's a wise investment to buy tickets in the first place. Not the most financially prudent lot.
But in all honesty, if I had a significant windfall like that (say $2 million) I would probably place half of it into a managed premium dividend fund (like PDT) and take the 7-8% as direct income, then use the other half to jump start a stable business like being landlord for a small condominium complex that I could have a management company take care of for me. Kind of a half-retired limbo where the most work I do is occasionally okay a work order for repairs to the property.
Depends on what you consider "winning".
What Trump is getting at is that life will hand you speed bumps and adversity. How you react to them is what will determine your success. From my own perspective, the most traumatic events of my life have turned out to be blessings and catalysts for what I'm doing right now, which is being homeless and living in a trailer that we move from place to place. That does not sound like "winning" to many people, but it was a goal and this has been the best year of my life. And when you state it as a positive - "my partner and I are full time travelers who are living our dream of seeing the country and experiencing other environments" - it sounds wonderful, and it is.
Attitude determines altitude.
What Trump is getting at is that life will hand you speed bumps and adversity. How you react to them is what will determine your success. From my own perspective, the most traumatic events of my life have turned out to be blessings and catalysts for what I'm doing right now, which is being homeless and living in a trailer that we move from place to place. That does not sound like "winning" to many people, but it was a goal and this has been the best year of my life. And when you state it as a positive - "my partner and I are full time travelers who are living our dream of seeing the country and experiencing other environments" - it sounds wonderful, and it is.
Attitude determines altitude.
Christy
b*tch rocket
Amen sister!
And Larry, stop it with the rich get richer and the poor stay poor stuff. I'm fairly confident that if I chose to be a billionaire, I could make it happen. Although I would love to have billions, the effort involved is not for me. I actually just recently took a huge decrease in salary to pursue a life that makes me happier. This makes me a winner. :hooray:
Larry Gude
Strung Out
So, stop being defensive and recognize you're a winner IN YOUR own triangle. There are all sorts of billionaires who are freaking miserable or certainly don't have a life I, or most of us, would actually want.
I said a specific thing; if Trump, the topic of the OP, is the gauge, nearly ALL of us are losers. If money is the gauge, most of us are losers. Same with power.
^This right here^
There is a good bit of effort required to amass a fortune and most people (myself included) don't want to devote their lives to that. Hell, many of them don't even want to go to work at their part time job, let alone put in the hours needed to make serious money. Even if you inherit money from your rich mommy and dad, there is still a price to paid for that - look at all the heirs and heiresses strung out on drugs and getting in trouble all the time. It's rare that wealthy people really enjoy their money and the lifestyle it affords them. Trump is one, and I know one other wealthy person who is doing it right.
He didn't say money is the gauge, though. I consider myself just as successful and big a winner as Trump - more so, because he has enormous responsibilities that I don't have and don't want. Money doesn't make you a winner.
Christy
b*tch rocket
Who's defensive? Not me!
The topic was regarding a quote that may (or may not be) from Trump
It says nothing about money. :shrug:
I have been dealt some pretty crappy hands in my life, but the way I reacted to those crappy twists of fate, makes me a WINNER! (at least in my own mind
)
The original post did not mention money....it mention how you handle a twist of fate.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
You're correct. I have NO idea why on earth I thought of money when I thought of Donald trump and his view of winning and losing.
My bad.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
I have been dealt some pretty crappy hands in my life, but the way I reacted to those crappy twists of fate, makes me a WINNER! (at least in my own mind
Absolutely.
Me either. You could have thought of model wife, or successful happy healthy kids, or great golf game, or Super Bowl pick winner, or even, you know, President of the United States. Wealth is merely a byproduct of who he is and how he has conducted his life. At one point he lost big (at a couple of points, actually)....then, like Tom Brady, came back for the win. (Which is probably why so many people hate him.)
THAT is what his quote is about: responding to the lemons you get handed in life.
This_person
Well-Known Member
Yes, it is a real quote. As I recall, he was given a loan of around $1,000,000, and turned it into multiple billions (more than a factor of 1,000). Presumably you could get a signature loan for $1,000 and turn it into $1,000,000 pretty quickly, then use that to turn it into the billions.
YWIA
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
Well I wasn't actually comparing my success to Trump's, just putting it out there that an equivalent windfall (whether it be $1M in 1970s money equivalent in todays dollars) would probably be enough for me to make myself a winner (which in my mind means retired young but still active).
But your post prompted me to look a into Trump's loan, and regardless of size (1M up to as much as 14M depending on who you ask), it was provided AFTER trump had already been handed the reigns to the "Elizabeth Trump & Son" corporation, which was worth only a few hundred million at the time).
So I revise my statement, give me a small loan of a couple million dollars, and give me the primary interest in and executive control over a several hundred million dollar corporation and I might be able to make a an even greater success of myself than my previous active retirement goal.