Past Trump Tower's bow-tied doorman, through a shiny revolving door, toward the 60-foot waterfall, up a dim elevator, after glass doors and smiling assistants, Donald J. Trump, chairman of the Trump Organization, sits with pictures of himself to his left, to his right, in front of, and behind him. A gun he got at an awards dinner this year in Charleston, S.C., is mounted above his desk.

Trump is three days away from his first debate with the nine other Republican presidential candidates who made the cut, the ones he's pulverizing in polls. He's taking a break from a campaign that, though he has no experience in government, has him zooming toward the White House. We're talking business rather than politics—after all, that's his central qualification for the job he's seeking.

When Trump is asked to name a leader he looks to for advice on managing his company, his mouth, just as acrobatic as his more famous hair, pulls tight, snaps open, and lets out its most important syllable.

"Me," Trump says.

"Mirror," says one of the two deputies in the room. "The mirror."

"I look at me," says Trump.

Does he admire any other business leaders?

"I," Trump says, "don't like the word admire."

"I don't like the word admire"

Trump isn't exactly self-made—he inherited substantial wealth from his father—but he is definitely self-invented. There's no model in the political world for how he transformed himself into a campaign megastar without preparation, politeness, policy, or public service. To wander around inside Trump's kingdom with his deputies, children, lenders, and former executives is to find a New York real estate mogul who stopped building Manhattan real estate and a global hotelier who doesn't own most of his foreign hotels. Long before he was ignoring basic political rules, he was sailing far beyond the limits of his industry, steering an empire that's as similar to most corporations as his run is to most presidential campaigns. In the same way that his campaign is post-politics, his company is post-business.

Trump is selling himself to America as the king of builders, a flawless dealmaker, and masterful manager. But he isn't really any of those things. Trump has built few skyscrapers this century, stumbling twice when he's tried, and struggled with an array of other projects. Meanwhile, his corporate leadership is a kind of teenager's fantasy of adult office power. From his Trump Tower desk in Midtown Manhattan he controls the teensiest details, rejects hierarchy, and picks top deputies by following his own recipe for promotion.

None of those things means he's a sham. The story of how he came to be what he is now—above all else a landlord and a golf bigwig—is even weirder than his charge to the White House. Trump rose in the glitzy 1980s on borrowed money, survived early 1990s disasters that nearly brought him down, then transformed himself and his business. His organization is still successful, just not in the way he's claimed.

"We evolve very much in this company," Trump says. "See that? I'm just looking while I'm talking to you. See that record?" There's a plaque across from his desk. "That's a platinum, that was sent. Mac Miller, did you ever hear of Mac Miller? He's a rapper. He did a song called Donald Trump—100 million hits!" He takes a breath and goes back to his company. "I tell you what," he says a few minutes later. "Someday before I kick the bucket, somebody is going to get what a great business I built. People don't know."

Four days later, the morning after the debate, Matthew Calamari's eyes are misting. Trump's chief operating officer has the mustache and bulk of a late-1970s linebacker because he was one in college. That was before he tackled hecklers at a 1981 US Open women's semifinal, won the attention of a young real estate star who happened to be there, got hired as his bodyguard, and rose to become one of his top executives.

"I love the guy," Calamari says. "My thing is, I've always promised I would, knock on wood, never let anything happen to him." His voice wobbles. Lately, if you catch the right Trump speech and look carefully, you see Calamari. He likes to watch over his boss on the trail. "I just enjoy it. It's not the money. I enjoy working for the man."