The Art of Money Getting

P.T. Barnum's Golden Rules for Making Money

Get The Art of Money Getting

P.T. Barnum was 70 years old when he turned his most popular lecture into this book in 1880. By then, he’d already built America’s most famous museum in New York, introduced General Tom Thumb to audiences, served as mayor of Bridgeport, gone broke from a disastrous investment in a Connecticut clock company, and clawed his way back. He was 60 when he co-founded the traveling show that eventually became Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Art of Money Getting compresses a lifetime of hustle into 20 plainspoken rules.

Core Principles

1. Don’t Mistake Your Vocation

Barnum’s first rule: pick the work you’re built for, then aim to be the best at it. Most people get this backward. They take whatever job pays and spend decades fighting upstream. The people who succeed have a knack for what they do. Find your knack first.

2. Avoid Debt Like the Plague

Debt eats self-respect. Barnum says young people, especially, should avoid it. The moment you owe somebody money, you’ve handed them a piece of your freedom. The whole game is keeping income above outgo.

3. Whatever You Do, Do It With All Your Might

Half-doing is expensive. Barnum watched neighbors spend whole lifetimes poor because they only kind of worked, while somebody else got rich doing the same job thoroughly. The people who go all in pull ahead of the ones who don’t.

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