The Art of Money Getting. P. T. Barnum. 1880.
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Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum (1810-1891) is best known for forming the circus that came to be known as The Greatest Show on Earth. A brash, larger-than-life entrepreneur, he transformed the nature of commercial entertainment in the nineteenth century, from his private museum of curiosities to his big-top extravaganzas. Towards the end of his illustrious career, the renowned showman shared the secrets to his success in The Art of Money Getting.
As relevant today as it was upon its 1880 publication, this guide to prosperity offers practical advice rather than get-rich-quick schemes. Barnum asserts that there are no shortcuts to affluence; instead, he stresses the importance of virtue as a foundation for wealth. His suggestions for the development of character and for cultivating habits that will insure financial security range from choosing the right vocation and avoiding debt to preserving integrity and maintaining courtesy. This book of timeless counsel from a legendary impresario will prove a helpful companion to readers wishing to make the most of their talents and opportunities.
- The Art of Money Getting is a practical guide on achieving financial success.
- Barnum emphasizes the importance of hard work, frugality, and ethical behavior, advising readers to take calculated risks, avoid debt, and be persistent in their pursuits.
- He also highlights the significance of personal reputation and integrity in building lasting wealth.
❌ People who want to become entrepeneurs and obtain financial independence.
✅ People interested in financial wisdom.
ART OF MONEY GETTING.
It is not at all difficult for persons in good health to make money, but the most difficult thing in the world is to keep it. Expend less than you earn. "Penny wise and pound foolish." True economy consists in making the income exceed the out-go. A penny here, and a dollar there, placed at interest, goes on accumulating. Take a few sheets of paper and form them into a book and mark down every item of expenditure. Post it every day or week in two columns, one headed "necessaries" and the other headed "luxuries," and you will find that the latter column will be double, treble, and frequently ten times greater than the former. Prosperity is a more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity. "Easy come, easy go". ¡That sofa cost me thirty thousand dollars! Thousands of men are kept poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying their plans of living on too broad a platform. The foundation of success in life is good health; that is the substratum of fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. When you love that which is unnatural, a stronger appetite is created for the hurtful thing than the natural desire for what is harmless. There is an old proverb which says that "habit is second nature".
DON'T MISTAKE YOUR VOCATION
The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes. Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.
SELECT THE RIGHT LOCATION
After securing the right vocation, you must be careful to select the proper location. Three removes are as bad as a fire.
AVOID DEBT
There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get in. Debt robs a man of his self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself. Credit as investment, not for consume. There is no class of people in the world, who have such good memories as creditors. The creditor goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning better off than when he retired to bed, because his interest has increased during the night, but you grow poorer while you are sleeping, for the interest is accumulating against you. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world. There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when placed at interest, well secured. The philosopher's stone: pay as you go.
PERSEVERE
Go-aheaditiveness: determination not to let the "horrors" or the "blues" take possession of you, so as to make you relax your energies in the struggle for independence. If you hesitate, some bolder hand will stretch out before you and get the prize. He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself. Not only trust in Providence, but keep the powder dry.
DEPEND UPON YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXERTIONS
An agent cannot be so faithful to his employer as to himself. All right, there's a little information to be gained every day; I will never be cheated in that way again. The possession of a perfect knowledge of your business is an absolute necessity in order to insure success. Be cautions and bold (Rothschild). Never have anything to do with an unlucky man or place. Like causes produce like effects.
USE THE BEST TOOLS
Men in engaging employees should be careful to get the best. If you get a good one, it is better to keep him, than keep changing. He learns something every day, and you are benefited by the experience he acquires. Those men who have brains and experience are therefore the most valuable and not to be readily parted with; it is better for them, as well as yourself, to keep them, at reasonable advances in their salaries from time to time.
DON'T GET ABOVE YOUR BUSINESS
There is no greater mistake than when a young man believes he will succeed with borrowed money. Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience. Nothing is worth anything, unless it costs effort. Without self-denial and economy, patience and perseverance, and commencing with capital which you have not earned, you are not sure to succeed in accumulating. There is no royal road to wealth. Go on in confidence, study the rules, and above all things, study human nature. The great ambition should be to excel all others engaged in the same occupation. The basement is much crowded, but there is plenty of room up-stairs. No profession, trade, or calling, is overcrowded in the upper story. Let your motto then always be Excelsior, for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.
LEARN SOMETHING USEFUL
Every man should learn some trade or profession, so that in these days of changing fortunes -of being rich today and poor tomorrow- they may have something tangible to fall back upon.
LET HOPE PREDOMINATE BUT BE NOT TOO VISIONARY
Counting the chickens before they are hatched is an error of ancient date.
DO NOT SCATTER YOUR POWERS
Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time. There is good sense in the old caution against having too many irons in the fire at once.
BE SYSTEMATIC
A person who does business by rule, having a time and place for everything, doing his work promptly, will accomplish twice as much and with half the trouble of him who does it carelessly and slipshod.
READ THE NEWSPAPERS
Keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world.
BEWARE OF "OUTSIDE OPERATIONS"
Avoid especulation (and gambling). Invest something in everything that appears to promise success, and that will probably benefit mankind; but let the sums thus invested be moderate in amount, and never let a man foolishly jeopardize a fortune that he has earned in a legitimate way, by investing it in things in which he has had no experience.
DON'T INDORSE WITHOUT SECURITY
No man ought ever to indorse a note or become security for any man, be it his father or brother, to a greater extent than he can afford to lose and care nothing about, without taking good security. Men who get money with too great facility, cannot usually succeed. You must get the first dollars by hard knocks, and at some sacrifice, in order to appreciate the value of them.
ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS
Be careful to advertise it in some shape or other. You all need to have your customers return and purchase again. A man who advertises must keep it up until the public know who and what he is, and what his business is, or else the money invested in advertising is lost. Be known.
BE POLITE AND KIND TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them. People don't like to pay and get kicked also.
BE CHARITABLE
The liberal man will command patronage. The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves. Promiscuous almsgiving, without inquiring into the worthiness of the applicant, is bad in every sense.
DON'T BLAB
Say nothing about your profits, your hopes, your expectations, your intentions.
PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY
Strict honesty, not only lies at the foundation of all success in life (financially), but in every other respect. Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.
