A reason I wrote the Trump book is that it fits my mission to demystify success. Truth is, losers lose for good reason, and winners win because they develop masterful strategy and skills.
On Squawk Box this week, we discussed some of Trump’s winning skills, but we had no time to cover something more important: How do YOU build winning skills?
How Do You Win?
A problem for most of us is that neither in school, nor in our workplaces, are we taught the skills we need to win, and unfortunately, most people lose.
Most will succeed enough to hold onto their jobs, but leaders are readers, and those with the best skills will keep ascending.
A challenge for all of us is, even if we can make the time to learn skills, how do you quickly, efficiently, and deeply do it?
Consider if you decided to improve your skills of influence, how do you go about it?
As a start, you might pick up Robert Cialdini’s ground-breaking book, Influence, but how do you go beyond capturing a few notes or dog-earing a few pages, to actually, building skills that you can use to win?
The Process of Learning
My solution is “The Process of Learning,” which happens in three steps:
1. Accumulate Knowledge: The first step to all learning is you must harness knowledge, which you might do through classes, books, teachers, or otherwise. Now, here’s the trick to this: It’s not about quantity but quality.
You don’t need to read hundreds of books on influence, but instead, find 1-3 books that you dedicate yourself to mastering, just like you did with a textbook in school.
2. Review: We all know that the secret to learning is repetition. People often say to me, “I read that book,” and I ask them, “How are you every day using what you learned?” To convert knowledge into skills, like you did by creating study notes for exams in school, you want a methodical way to review your learning.
I suggest my clients use Mind Maps, and Daily Exercises, which might be as simple as a few reminders in Evernote, or a handful of organized pages in Word.
3. Practice, Practice, Practice: Aristotle said, “What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing,” and we all know that practice builds skills. As I say on Squawk Box, a reason Trump is an unstoppable influencer, is that, for some 40+ years, he has been practicing and mastering these skills.
You can do the same. The wonderful thing about training your skills of influence is that, you are, literally, always influencing. At home with your spouse and kids, at work, and everywhere you interact with people, you can be practicing mastering influence.
And, every skill of personal development is the same!