From the Boston Globe:
As childhoods go, Ivanka Trump’s was, to say the least, atypical. Sure, she had a lemonade stand like many kids - but the most frequent customers were her bodyguard, chauffeur and housekeeping staff. When she visited dad’s office (Trump Castle Casino), the security guards gave her giant cups full of quarters to use in the arcade.
When the Claw Grabber game eluded her, the guard unlocked the glass case and handed her a prize.
“Sucked being me, huh?” wrote Trump in her new book
“The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life” (Touchstone, $24.99).
Trump accepted the privileges bestowed on her as the daughter of one of the country’s most famous real-estate moguls, but also worked her skinny butt off. After dabbling in the modeling business, she graduated from the Wharton School of Finance and paid her dues at Forest City Enterprises in New York before joining her dad’s firm.
The 27-year-old, now a vice president at her father’s real-estate firm, married 28-year-old newspaper publisher Jared Kushner at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on Sunday. Trump’s tale is more than just a memoir; it’s full of sensible advice for rookies in the real world, especially young women. She chides herself for having been too proud to ask for help and advises newbies to establish themselves as the worker willing to take on the tough tasks.
“Let your boss see that you’re willing to take on the difficult or mundane tasks - and let everyone else see it, too.”
Trump’s overzealous work ethic veers toward the nerdy. She regularly works Sundays and writes:
“A lot of my friends go home after a tough day at work and crash in front of the television. Or they’ll meet for drinks or a late dinner. Why not dedicate one night each week to continuing your education?”
Classes aside, Trump’s best lessons - and most animated anecdotes - came from her parents. She recalled flying coach to France for vacation with her brothers while her mom sat in first class.
“If you want to spend some of your modeling money and upgrade your ticket, that would be great,” her mother told her.
Tales about her father are just as pointed. The ever-punctual elder Trump left an unfashionably late Marla Maples on the tarmac in Palm Beach, Fla.
“I tapped my father on the shoulder and told him to look out his window, but when he saw Marla all he did was throw up his hands. He didn’t tell the pilot to stop, and we took off anyway.”
And then, of course, there are the celebrities. Among her Trump Tower neighbors was Michael Jackson, who invited himself to the then-8-year-old’s performance in “The Nutcracker.”
But Trump inherited her father’s love of spectacle, and can’t resist name-dropping Kanye West into her otherwise on-topic tale.
“My assistant had to get past six or seven layers of agents and public relations people to get his contact information . . . I told him I was a big fan of his music - and of him personally. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Ah, how the other half lives