Donald Trump is no doubt a great man. You can probably call him the most loved billionaire in the world. It’s really impressive to see young business owners worth hundreds of millions take 14 weeks off their business to participate on his reality TV show ‘the Apprentice’, while others who are top executives on their jobs have to turn in their resignation to compete for a chance to be apprenticed to Mr. Trump for one year.
 
Mr. Trump is loved because of his story. Here is a man who created a successful real estate business at a rather young age, but then due to a crisis in the economy he lost his fortune and came crumbling down with a debt of over a billion dollars. But rather than weep and moan, Mr. Trump sat down and worked himself out of debt and right back to the top. He paid his billion dollar debt and became a billionaire once again. What a great man indeed.
 
The Secret
 
In ‘The Art Of The Deal’ in which he wrote of his experience, Trump stated the secret to his great comeback story was his ability to negotiate and that is what he calls the ‘art of the deal’. But then he dropped the bombshell when he said: ‘you are either born a negotiator or you are not one’. Meaning that the ability to be a great negotiator is something you are born with and not something that anyone can acquire. Well, that is according to Mr. Trump. And this is the point where Mr. Trump and I start to diverge. Mr. Trump, no offence but I beg to disagree. 
 
The Truth 
 
Here is what I believe to be the truth: some people might be born with a personality and disposition that makes it easy for them to be great negotiators but it doesn’t mean that anybody cannot become a great negotiator if they so desire. And that is because we all have a special ability called learning.
 
The Greatest Ability 
 
The ability to learn is the greatest ability we possess. We can become anything we desire to be if we will choose to learn it and put in the required effort, in spite of the odds that may come. You can have any talent you desire because you have the greatest talent. God have it to all freely!
 
Truth be told, we were not born with anything, we were not born knowing anything, nor were we born doing anything. But we become who we are now through the things that we learnt as we grew. There is nothing that you know or do today that was not learned. The ability to walk, eat, talk, read … even the art of learning itself, was all acquired through the process of learning. 
 
This truth is liberating. If a woman without hands can learn to paint with her mouth, then what is stopping me from learning to paint with my hands? I can be anything and do anything if I am willing to LEARN it! 
 
The Doing
 
Learning is in doing. It is an action word. You can read all you want about driving but you don’t learn to drive till you drive. You can give a child a one hundred hour lecture on the importance of walking and how to walk, but until that child gets up and starts attempting to walk, he will never learn to walk. So by all means get into action. Don’t fear failure, its part of the process.
Get active, but bear in mind that your activity must result in learning. Set your mind free, you have a blank check. You can be anything you want to be because you have the greatest ability in the world – Learning-ability.
 
 
The question: “You are either born a negotiator or you are not one” Do you agree with Mr. Trump? Share your thought in the comment box below.

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