I have spent a pleasant Saturday studying the wealth creating habits of P.T. Barnum. Id like to share them with you here to help you with your prosperity. Here, then, is the strategy of one of Americas rich and famous men, in the days when both were almost impossible, with America mainly a agrarian nation and technological ways and techniques of conducting business today did not exist. One. Dont skip on trifles and spend on luxuries. Two. Dont try to keep up appearances, but instead always have more money coming in than going out, even if it means having to save and do without certain things. Three. Stay in good health. Avoid poisonscigarettes and alcohol that destroy the health. Four. Choose the right vocation. The one that fits your particular temperament and genius. Only then will you have the energy to succeed in it. The wrong vocation will exhaust you. Success in it will always be a struggle against your own interests. Five. Choose the right place. If you are an excellent mathematician, for example, a farming community will not benefit you at all. You need to be in a technological city or a college town. Six. Avoid debt. That means consumer debt. Investment debt, properly managed, is the source of future wealth. Seven. Persevere. Nothing in business is easy. Everything will tax you to the limits of your endurance. Only those who persist through their own doubts, confusion, and inadequate knowledge will be able to move to a better place with more opportunity. Eight. Work with all your might. Ambition, energy, industry. These are your tools to refine your economic power. Nine. Dont wait for something to show up. Act with what you have on hand. Better prospects will come later when you are more able to perceive it and receive it. Ten. Learn the many details of your business. Eleven. You must buy your experience. It is never given free. There is a price that you have to pay to get it. Twelve. Cautiously lay out your plans but boldly carry them out. First, thought. Methodical and exact thinking and planning. Then, decisive and incisive action. Thirteen. Never have anything to do with an unlucky man (or woman) or place. Some people and places will never improve. You have to go where the energy is right for you. Just as a bad location can do you in, so too can the wrong associations. Fourteen. Use the best tools that you can afford. Precise work will be paid for in higher income, and for that you need the right tools to do the job well. Fifteen. Understand the value of a dollar by earning it. Money that is simply given is not respected, but money that is earned comes from effort and ingenuity. Sixteen. Daily add to your stock of knowledge. Learn a little more about your craft each day. Seventeen. Daily expand your experiences. Put into practice what you have learned because there is always a discrepancy between the academic and the experiential. Eighteen. Dont scatter your power. Trying out too many ventures without sufficient skills in any of them will not create the focus and creative expansion that earns you mastery. Nineteen. Be systematic. Break procedures down to replicable tasks to create continuity and momentum. But also dont be rigid, or else it will be stagnant and dysfunctional. Twenty. Advertise your business. If nobody knows about you, how can they buy from you? If your skills are not known, then who will hire you? Twenty-one. Treat customers well, or they will not only not buy from you again, but they will also sow seeds of malice about you that will shrink your clientele. As you can see, the money rules that applied a hundred years ago still apply today. Money, then and now, still likes smart people. P.T. Barnum was more than a gifted showman, remembered for his museums and his circus. He was also a brilliant businessman, with a knack for making money through creative enterprise, in the days when such a feat bordered on the legendary. |
