The best vision is insight.
—Malcolm Forbes
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Prescience
P
rescienceis a word that defines vision, foresight, creative dis-
cernment, or perception. I have often been called a vision-
ary, but not until 2006 was I noted for having prescience. The
same day as the book launch party in Trump Tower for my book
with Robert Kiyosaki, Why We Want You To Be Rich,which was
October 12, 2006, was also the day the Nobel Committee an-
nounced the 2006 Nobel Prize winner in literature. What does
that have to do with me? Well, I was getting calls and letters of
congratulations for having the “prescience” to recognize the
Nobel winner’s talent before the Nobel Committee did. This
came as a surprise to me—that people would remember my
letter to the New York Timesin 2005 in which I mentioned the
very gifted writer Orhan Pamuk (along with John Updike and
Philip Roth) as being an example of what a great writer should
be. Pamuk won the Nobel Prize that day, and considering he
wasn’t exactly a household name, people were suddenly saying I
had prescience.
Sometimes we just have perceptions about certain people or
things, and this was one of those times. Did I know he was going