Trump: How to Get Rich

I always made a point of mentioning Survivor when I introduced Mark to people, but later I realized I was getting some confused looks when I did it, particularly from a Chinese poker winner we met at the Taj Majal. It took me a moment to figure out that Survivor probably isn’t on TV in China. The poker winner thought Mark was a cancer survivor and didn’t know what to say.

When the crew of the show first appeared at Trump Tower, they created a bit of a buzz. Our ordinary routine was altered by just their presence. It was unusual to see all of those cameras. But within a couple of weeks, it became part of the routine. Jay Bienstock and Kevin Harris, two of Mark Burnett’s producers, became fixtures of our organization. Then NBC executive Jim Dowd became a regular. If anything, it was when they weren’t around that it seemed like something was amiss. They were never an imposition, and we even missed them when taping was over.

Unlike a scripted movie or TV show,The Apprentice that you have seen on NBC is pretty much the way it was behind the scenes. That’s the idea—behind the scenes is in front of your eyes. Right away, I can hear you saying, But we heard the boardroom was a set, and not your boardroom at all. That’s true, but the only reason we built another boardroom was because my own boardroom at The Trump Organization is in constant use, and having a film crew in it every week for several months would have disrupted my business. So we built a replica on the fourth floor of Trump Tower. The reception area was also built there because the comings and goings of the sixteen apprentices and a TV production crew would have been a disturbance to our employees and our guests, some of whom may not have been expecting a close-up.

The set was built in Trump Tower so I could take an elevator and be there in fewer than two minutes. My regular business schedule is hectic, so traveling to and from an off-site location could have caused problems. Using the space we had on-site proved to be a good decision.

The living quarters for the sixteen applicants were also built on the fourth floor, and the equipment necessary for filming was installed there. It was an amazing setup, with sound rooms, tech rooms, lights, cameras, and what seemed like miles of cables. When I first saw it all, I realized the immensity of the preparations that went into this show, with designers, decorators, technicians, assistants, producers, and directors all working like mad. At any point, there could be twenty-eight cameras going at once. This was a big operation.

One day after seeing this, I paused silently for a moment. What if the show was a flop? All this work, all this energy … well, it just had to work. And I was determined to do my best to make it a hit.

The reassuring thing was that I didn’t have to act. That gave me some comfort. Mark Burnett told me that my value to the show would be in just being myself. Is there such a thing as acting like yourself? I don’t know, but I try not to think about it. I’m just myself.

I didn’t have to read any scripts or learn any lines. Despite having a great memory, I don’t have time for that, anyway. Mark would appriise me of the assignments for the applicants each week and we’d go from there. I enjoyed the spontaneity of the process, because we don’t rehearse episodes in our daily business life. What happens, happens.

What went on in the boardroom or anywhere else was not fabricated in any way. If it seemed dramatic, that’s because business is dramatic. There’s nothing boring about it. There’s nothing passive about it, either—even for viewer.

Seeing the eagerness and anticipation of the sixteen winning applicants was a rush in itself. I never used the word contestants in describing them, because this was not a game. People who think their jobs are a game aren’t people I want to have around. A lot of these people already had lucrative positions or businesses of their own, so they weren’t in it merely for some prize money. We made sure they were all serious about learning something not only after the process but during it. This also ensured that each applicant would be a winner, no matter what the outcome of their quest turned out to be. How many other reality shows have you seen that has only winners? That was another reason The Apprentice was so appealing to me. There would be no losers in this win-win situation. My kind of show.

I know what you’re thinking.But you fired fifteen people! Yeah, but look what they got to do. Look what they got to see. Look what they learned.