During his commencement speech to West Point graduates on Saturday, President Trump discussed maintaining momentum.
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00:00It's weird though, you've got to do this, great ballad you have to have, potential you have to have, but to be real successful you're always going to have to work hard.
00:12An example is a great athlete, a very player, a great golfer.
00:17He wasn't as big as the other men that were playing against him, great big strong guys, a smaller guy.
00:24I don't want to be taking sure that everybody isn't that he ran for people, because he hit the ball just as far, he said, I hit the ball further than them, why am I small?
00:36But he worked very, very hard, he was always doing exercise, he was always doing well ahead of his time.
00:42He never stopped, he won $116, he won 18 majors, 9 regular and 9 in the senior, who were 18 with $168.
00:53That's the most firm that's introduced, the most firm that's anybody's ever won.
00:58But he made a statement years ago and I heard it.
01:01I heard it, he was the first one, I think I've heard it a couple of times since, but he was the first, he said, it's funny, the harder I work, the luckier I can.
01:12And think of that, the harder I work, the luckier I can.
01:15You worked hard, you worked hard, the harder you work, the luckier you can get.
01:20And fourth is, don't lose your momentum.
01:25Momentum's an amazing thing, keep it going.
01:28I tell a story sometimes about a man who's a great, great real estate man.
01:34It was a man who was admired for real estate all over the world, actually, but all over the country.
01:42He built lemon towns, he started as a man who built one house.
01:49Then he built two, then he built five, then he built 20, then he built a thousand, then he built 2,000, 3,000 a year.
01:59And it got very big, very big, it was great when it did.
02:03You see, from all other countries, it's still lemon towns.
02:05It's been a long time ago, but he was the first of the really, really big home building.
02:12And he became very rich, he was a very rich man.
02:16And then he decided to sell.
02:20He was offered a lot of money by a big conglomerate, Gulf of the West, a big conglomerate.
02:26They didn't do real estate, they didn't know anything about it, but they saw the money they were making.
02:30They wanted to take the public company, and they gave him a lot of money, tremendous amount of money, more money than he ever thought he'd get.
02:38And he sold this company, and he had nothing to do.
02:42He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife.
02:47Would you say a trophy wife?
02:48I guess we could say a trophy wife.
02:51It didn't work out too well.
02:53But it doesn't work out too well, I must say a lot of trophy wives, as it would be him.
02:58But they made him happy for the new one, at least.
03:01But he found a new wife.
03:04He sold his little boat, he got a big yacht, he had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world.
03:10He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and led the good life.
03:14And time went by, he got bored.
03:17And 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him, and they said, the housing business is not for us.
03:30You have to understand, when no one was hot, when he had momentum, he'd go to the job sites every night, he'd pick up every loose nail, he'd pick up every scrap of wood.
03:41If there was a bolt or a screw laying in the ground, he'd pick it up, and they'd use it the next day, and put it in the other half.
03:49But now he was spoiled, and he was rich, and he was really rich.
03:53And they called him, and they said, this is the first of the business, the other thing.
03:58And would you like to buy it back, or sell it back to the cheap?
04:01And they did, he bought it, he bought it, he thought it made a great deal, and it was all exciting.
04:08But it was 15 years later, he'd lost a lot of momentum, and remember the word momentum.
04:14And he lost everything.
04:17It just didn't work, he lost everything.
04:19And I was sitting at a party with a family one night, long time ago.
04:25And yet the biggest people in New York, the biggest people in the country, were all in that party, and they were also looking at each other how great they were, and they were all telling each other, I'm greater than you.
04:36It gets to be really, gives you hand it sometimes.
04:40But they had all these people that were telling their own stories about how fantastic a cocktail party happened over.
04:47And I was doing well, I was a runner-up, I was invited to the party, so I was doing well.
04:52I was very, very young, but I made it in, I looked over, and I had the party sitting in the corner all by myself, nobody was talking to him, it was Mr. Eleven.
05:03He had just gotten angry, he lost everything, he lost everything, he was home, everything.
05:10And, and when I were talking to him, he was in the middle of the state of this aisle, I said, hello Mr. Eleven, how are you?
05:18He said, hello Donald, nice to meet you, he knew me from being in the business.
05:24I said, so how's it going, it was not well, really not going well, you probably read, but very, very tough mirror for me, you son.
05:34I said, so what happened, this is anything you can do, there's none of this, none of the thing I can do.
05:40He said, I'll never forget, he said, I've lost my momentum, I just didn't have it.
05:47I used to have it, but I lost my momentum.
05:50So, it's a story I tell, and you have to know when you have the momentum, but sometimes you have to also know when you've lost the momentum.
06:00And leaving a field, sometimes leaving, what you're doing sometimes is okay, but you've got to have momentum, but you have to know that momentum is gone, you have to know when to say, it's time to get out.
06:15And as a very same story, I remember that story so well, like it was yesterday.
06:19If you have to take risks and do things differently, Eisenhower again was threatened with court-martials as a young officer for advocating a new doctor of tank warfare, Billy Mitchell was thrown out of the Army for binary use of air power, that's what he did now, I don't really do this.
06:41People willing to try and do things differently, it's never going to be easy to them, but they're the ones who are going to really do the important things, they're the ones who are going to make history, so don't be ashamed and don't be afraid, this is a time of incredible...