Lessons From The Apprentice (6.14 – Los Angeles — Live Finale)

Introduced as the Live Season Finale, I suspect this is the Series Finale. With The Apprentice’s declining ratings and a very poor sixth season, I don’t see NBC giving the show a green light for another season.

I’m happy to note as I type this in the opening moments of the show that this is only an hour-long finale. The two- and three-hour finales of past seasons were pretty unbearable.

What’s interesting about this finale over past seasons is that there are four candidates for Trump to choose from. It’s usually just two, but I suspect NBC pulled the plug on the show cutting its episodes down by approximately four episodes.

So while Trump recaps the season’s prior episodes live (and yes, it is live. Even though I am on the West Coast I get the New York Feed for a few networks, including NBC.) I’ll share my own thoughts about the season.

Of the four remaining candidates none are Apprentice material. None of these candidates can even stand in the same company as past winners. In fact, these four can’t stand in the same company as many of the past losers. I can think of many who deserved to lose their respective seasons, but would outshine anybody from this season’s lot. And that’s the shame of this sixth (and last?) season of The Apprentice.

The Candidates

Kinetic: Muna, Kristine, Derek, Marisa, Angela, Jenn, Heidi, Aimee

Arrow: Nicole, Frank, Michelle, James, Carey, Tim, Martin, Aaron, Stefanie, Surya

The four candidates have just been introduced. Who should win of these? My guess is James. Does he deserve it? Eh. Not really. But he’s got the most going for him out of the four. I personally have a bent for Stephanie, but I don’t think she ever really got a chance to shine. For that matter, we don’t even know if she would, given the chance. But she does seem smart enough.

I do believe that it will ultimately come down to Frank and Stefanie. Primarily because they produced the better of the two videos on the last task. A far superior video than the other team’s video.

Stephanie keeps looking up at the big screen. She needs to keep her eyes on Trump in front of her. I’m not sure if she’s distracted by the big screen or just likes seeing herself on the big screen! James seems similarly distracted by the big pretty lights.

The best answer award goes to Stefanie. Trump says that he should hire James and she retorts, actually, you should hire me and let me hire James to work for me!

Trump likes the drive James brings, but thinks he made some bad decisions. Hiring Surya for the final project was a bad move. James gets fired and Nicole is right behind him. This leave um… hmm… let’s see… oh, yeah, the two I predicted, Stefanie and James for the final two. I’m still rooting for Stefanie, but still predict James… though I think Stefanie’s chances are increasing as the hour drives by.

Stefanie is accused of never stepping up and flying under the radar. This is in part due to the way the season ran. Winning project managers stayed on as PM until they failed. This small change really prevented many people, in this case Stefanie, from moving to the forefront. Stefanie finds backing from Heidi and Kristine.

James is questioned on his ability to see the big picture. Asked of his former team mates he only finds lukewarm backing.

Stefanie has a great defense for herself, she did step up as PM and the reason why she was silent is because she was never asked to come back into the boardroom (to possibly be fired) and none of her teammates have ever had anything negative to say about her.

Lessons Learned:

• Fight to the end. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve done in the past, sometimes it’s that last blown project that can ruin it for you. Don’t give up the fight and act as if each new task is more important that the previous.
• Turn your negatives into positives. If someone sees something about you that they look at as a negative, find the way to spin that into a strong positive. Do that and you soon have no negatives left.

The Apprentice: Stefanie

I truly believe that Stefanie came in as the underdog and she pulled out a victory. Maybe she can stand in the same room as previous winners!