Have you noticed that people who were great students in school often find it difficult to get started in the world of business? They usually get off to a very sluggish start.

I think there is a logical explanation for that. It is simply that the skills people learn to succeed in school don’t work too well in the business world.

Stop to think about your own years in the classroom . . .

• In school, you earned top grades by looking smarter than everybody else. To succeed in business today, you need to make everyone on your team look as good as you do.

• In school, you took a test every few weeks. In between, you coasted. In business, everything you do every day is a test – your punctuality, image, and relationships with colleagues. You can never let down.

• In school, you got ahead by repeating what your teachers wanted you to learn. In business, you get ahead by discovering problems and solutions that your supervisors haven’t discovered yet. Then you teach them.

• In school, you respected authority. In business, you must become the authority.

Build Something of Value Every Day
by Steven Florio
Vice Chairman, Condé Nast Publications

One day, when I was about 12, I went down to my carpenter grandfather’s basement workshop.

“You should start earning your own money,” he said. “If you clean up this workshop, I will pay you what it’s worth.”

So I spent the next three hours making that place shine. I swept up all the wood shavings. I wiped down every piece of equipment and made them all gleam. I stacked all the wood neatly.

Then I found my grandfather. We went back to the shop. He looked around for what seemed a very long time, and then he nodded slowly and said, “Fantastic!”

You can imagine how proud I felt. Still nodding his approval, he reached into his pocket and handed me my wages. A quarter. Twenty-five cents!

A quarter! I couldn’t believe it. Even in 1960, a quarter for three hours of work was nothing for an American kid.

He said, “I want you to learn something about the world. In the real world, cleaning up is useful, but it’s not worth much. Anyone can do it. It’s worth maybe a quarter. Now, if you had built something useful with these tools, a bookcase maybe, something that was functional, that would have been worth a bit more.

“But if you had envisioned something new, something that no one had ever thought of before, if you had built that, pouring your heart and your soul into it? Well, that would have been worth a lot of money. Remember that.”

I have. To this day, I carry that quarter. It reminds me of the importance of envisioning and building something excellent, something that will last long after I have gone.

That kind of vision and love of craft is not something you can get from most businesses. You certainly don’t get it from a business plan or a five-year projection. You get it from your heart. It’s got to be something you feel in your heart. That’s where it all begins.

This article is adapted from “Build Something of Lasting Value,” one of the great pieces of business advice you can listen to now through Trump Audio. Listen to all of Trump University’s free audio selections now at http://www.trumpuniversity.com/learn/trumpaudio.cfm.