(May 7, 2018 01:10 AM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]I was puzzled by SS's reference to self promotion until I remembered your POTUS is (by his own account) the fittest and best qualified president in the history of the United States. In the UK anyone over the age of five making such claims would be laughed out of court on the grounds of being an arrogant twat. My claim (elsewhere) to nascent expertise in the field of sociology failed as parody because that is exactly what you guys in the US would do.
Trump is a mild aberration in terms of his "winner" fixation being quite overt and sustained rather than strategically subdued.
He's tried to contend at times that his public narcissism is part facetious and part tactical (promotional theatrics, a business schtick, the showmanship of selling himself, etc), along with the mean-spirited ploys. But like so many verbal abusers it's a package of stylistic habits that have grown to control him more than he controls it, creating continual problems for him now that's he's switched to being an officeholder. His still relying on the unrelenting magic belief he had in business -- that "things usually work out for the best in the end" (good results outweighing the bad) -- to pull him out of trouble, is more applicable to autocrats like Kim Jong-un who literally do have a knife to every one of their domestic enemies' throats.
There are plenty of successful people in America who -- even if they privately think similarly to Trump -- cultivate a humbler and less controversial image (sometimes downright reclusive) to dodge those problems while simultaneously enhancing their game subterfuge. Trump's problem is that he actually has had failed ventures in the past; and thereby is heavily dependent on the exaggerated "star image" that he's created to pull him back to into the headlines and spotlight of being a promotional magnate which various projects desire to associate with. Others of his financial stratosphere, OTOH, don't need the desperation of such controversial publicity because they really are more knowledgeable and skilled with their undertakings.
Applicable Trump quotes
“Every successful person has a very large ego.” (Playboy, 1990)
"Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser — having a healthy ego, or high opinion of yourself, is a real positive in life!” (Facebook, 2013)
“If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
“I do whine because I want to win, and I’m not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.” (CNN, 2015)
From Art of the Deal (1987):
"The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”
“good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.”
"I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.”
“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.”
"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."
"[W]hen people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is you'll make a bad situation worse, and I certainly don't recommend this approach to everyone. But my experience is that if you're fighting for something you believe in — even if it means alienating some people along the way — things usually work out for the best in the end."
“One of the keys to thinking big is total focus. I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis, which is a quality I’ve noticed in many highly successful entrepreneurs. They’re obsessive, they’re driven, they’re single-minded and sometimes they’re almost maniacal, but it’s all channeled into their work. Where other people are paralyzed by neurosis, the people I’m talking about are actually helped by it.”
~
