Anonymous ID: 19e89f Jan. 8, 2021, 4:46 a.m. No.12396901   🗄️.is đź”—kun

The Bluff

 

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak." — Sun Tzu

 

In 1997, Trump called me looking for a sit down with Forbes to talk about our upcoming Forbes 400 Richest Americans issue. His big move was to secure a spot on the list. It would silence critics who claimed he didn’t have the financial stake to compete. A few weeks later he was at the Forbes townhouse sitting on the living room couch and starting things off by telling the editors how rich he was. He hit them with his favorite gambit, making a stratospheric claim — that his wealth was north of $3 billion.

 

This was about the time the journalists lost the battle.

 

The editors clearly weren’t biting. They are a skeptical lot by nature, and it was undeniable, how could he have dug himself out of the hole in such a short time since declaring business bankruptcy? But he said it was so and PriceWaterhouseCoopers backed him up. Editors hate to be wrong a lot more than they enjoy being partially right, so they hedged and gave his net worth a huge haircut. That’ll show him.

 

But they put him on the Forbes 400.

 

What they did not know is that Trump cared only that he was on the list. It meant he could parlay that single fact into a sterling balance sheet and he moved swiftly to buy trophy properties in a down market. Soon he was back, larger than life, richer than ever, plotting his next big move. We now know what it was.

 

Bluff with bravado, incredible timing and audacity, and voila, you have the art of the comeback.