Episode 391: The Greatest Showman’s Guide to Success: P.T. Barnum’s Book of Business Wisdom
Who would’ve thought that P.T. Barnum can provide invaluable guidance for today’s entrepreneurs. Known as ‘The Greatest Showman’, Barnum’s principles are as relevant today as they were in his time, blending the art of self-promotion with practical wisdom.
Join Adam where he unveils “The Greatest Showman’s Guide to Success,” drawing wisdom from P.T. Barnum’s timeless business principles. From choosing the right business stream to steadfast adherence to promises, Adam presents us a powerful toolkit to elevate our business game.
Show Highlights:
- P.T. Barnum’s principle of selecting a business that aligns with your natural inclinations to improve your chance of success.
- Develop unwavering trust in yourself by keeping promises and making decisions decisively to avoid stagnation.
- Focus on continuous, incremental improvement to achieve significant growth over time, rather than scattering efforts.
- Engage and build a competent team to amplify your success potential and ensure sustainable progress.
- Harness the power of marketing and advertising to extend your business reach and brand awareness, crucial for scaling in modern markets.
Links Mentioned:
Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172
Adam’s website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
Connect with Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamstottcoach/?el=Pod
Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
Coaches, consultants, and business owners – lower your marketing costs, increase ticket prices, and get more high-ticket clients: https://3daybrandbuilderworkshop.com/start-here?el=Pod
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
[00:00:00] Adam Stott: This is something very close to my heart. If I agree that I’m going to do something, it is very, very, very rare that I do not do it because I see my word as a bond to myself, as a promise to myself. And one of the first things that you’ve got to do when you’re building a business is you’ve got to trust in yourself.
[00:00:23] If you say you’re going to do something, keeping your word to do that, What it does is it allows you to follow through and your confidence builds because you’re like, you know what, I made a decision. I’m following through on that decision.
[00:00:39] Million dollar business lessons from the greatest showman, P. T. Barnum. That is what today is all about. And the reason that I’m making this particular video is I recently did video on seven best business books. And I talked about the little book of business wisdom and people asked a lot of questions.
[00:00:59] There was a lot of comments on that aspect of, you know, how do these lessons from this book apply? And I wanted to take a couple of these starting with P. T. Barnum and really talk to you about what his rules for success were in business because success leaves clues you can learn from the millionaires, billionaires and leaders of the past and P.
[00:01:23] T. Barnum is a great one. Now, Some of you might be saying, Pizzi Bonham, where do I know this name from? Well, of course, he was the greatest showman. They did a whole movie with Hugh Jackman played him about his life, the business that he had, the things that he accomplished. And he was known for being a great showman and amazing marketer and promoter, as well as being someone that was outstanding at branding And innovation so he knew how to market concepts he knew how to leverage the media and build a brand and so much more and there’s a lot that you can learn and it just so happens that in this little book that I mentioned before he gave his 10 rules for success so I’m going to break these 10 rules down we’re going to talk about them now and then I’m going to give you.
[00:02:11] My interpretation of how you can use them in your business. So get ready strapping. This is going to be a big content field that you can use to grow your business. Hey everyone. Hope you’re enjoying the podcast. We’ve got a free training that I’m doing right now online from the comfort of your own home called stand out brand.
[00:02:33] What this does is it shows business owners how to get noticed on social media, stand out, Get more leads and get more sales. So if you want to make more money in your business, head over to adamstop. com forward slash SOB. That’s adamstop. com forward slash SOB and join us on the free three day workshop, stand out brand.
[00:02:57] So rule number one in Barnum’s 10 rules for success in business is select the kind of business that suits your natural inclinations and goals. How do I interpret this? Because again, P. T. Barnum, it’s an old lesson, the language is slightly different. Let’s give it to you in a different way and make it simpler and easier to understand.
[00:03:18] What I see this as meaning is, look, if you are really good at a certain thing, lean into that. Many times that I meet business owners that have this, uh, mentality that they’ve seen somebody else do something and they get what we call shiny penny syndrome. So they see someone over here and what they do is they’ve got a recruitment business, never done recruitment in their life, don’t understand recruitment, but I see Dave is doing recruitment and making money.
[00:03:46] All of a sudden they want to go and do recruitment. And now what’s happened is they’ve gone into a business that they don’t understand. They have not experienced before. They’re not necessarily understanding or passionate about that business, which means that the failure rate is much, much higher. So when it says, Your natural inclinations.
[00:04:03] What do you know if you want to be successful at business? First question is, what do you know? And if you lean into what you know, your learning curve is less. It’s not a steep. If you don’t know the type of business that you’re going into, your learning curve is going to be very steep. You’ve got to go and get into that business.
[00:04:21] You’ve got to learn it. You’re going to learn the game, but you’ve probably been doing something prior that you already know. So if you’ve trained as an accountant and don’t go and set up a marketing business, go and see how you can make money in an accountancy business because it suits your temperament and it suits your natural inclinations.
[00:04:40] This is a very, very good lesson for people that are looking to start and looking to grow their businesses. Because if you don’t do that, you can end up going through that long arduous, Do I like this type of business? Is this type of business for me? And it’s going against the grain instead, go with the tide rather than against it.
[00:04:58] And that’s rule number one. Rule number two, let your pledged word ever be sacred. Nothing is more valuable to a man in business than the name of always doing as he agrees. Now, what does this mean? Again, some old English in there. What it really means is if you say you’re going to do something, make sure you do it.
[00:05:21] Now, I’m going to give a bit of a frame on this. This is something very close to my heart. If I agree that I’m going to do something, it is very, very, very rare. I do not do it because I see my word as a bond to myself as a promise to myself and one of the first things that you’ve got to do when you’re building a business is you’ve got to trust in yourself if you say you’re going to do something keeping your word to do that what it does.
[00:05:52] Is it allows you to follow through and your confidence builds because you’re like, you know what? I made a decision. I’m following through on that decision. It is very, very, very unusual for me. Once I’ve made a decision to change my mind, it’s like literally, if I’ve made that decision, it’s it, it’s done.
[00:06:09] And I keep that word to myself. And I would encourage you to do it. The same thing as well, what this allows you to do is it allows you to escape indecision. And I think PT Barnum really, he is talking about that. A lot of people go, should I, should I, or maybe I will do this. Maybe I won’t do this. And if you are not certain in your word and your actions, often you can get to a place where you do nothing because you’re living in indecision.
[00:06:39] Now, the only guarantee in business is this. If you do nothing, you will surely get nothing. So make sure when you make a decision, you follow through on it and you keep your word to yourself. Very important on rule number two, and that can help you a lot in your business. So rule number three, whatever you do, Do it with all your might.
[00:07:01] The old proverb is full of truth. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. I love this. I really love this. I’ve now trained thousands of business owners to build their businesses. Since 2016 I’ve seen super successful people that flew and, you know, rocket shipped all the way to the top. I’ve seen people struggle.
[00:07:25] I’ve seen people that have, you know, Uh, issues that dart around that change their mind and really the way that I’m interpreting this and I want to give you this lesson is it’s all about focus and follow through. Many people get to a place where they decide to do something and they do a little bit. But I can’t seem to push through, they can’t seem to keep going and I do it to, they want to make it okay, but they don’t want to go all the way in and there’s a big difference between being good and being a great and the people that are great are not going to be great day one.
[00:08:05] They’re going to be great by doing little things every single day and just keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. And having that focus to follow through. I actually call this and teach this in a slightly different way to our clients, our clients of our masterminds and our coaching programs.
[00:08:25] And one of the things that I talk about is something called the philosophy. Percentage gains if you just improve by 1 percent per day in certain skill sets 1 percent a day At the end of the year, you’re gonna be 365 percent better and that’s how you keep leveling up You said well, I don’t know if I can improve by 1 percent a day Well, you pick a topic imagine you want to become better at marketing and you just spent one hour a day trying to get a 1 percent Incremental improvement at the end of the year.
[00:08:55] You’re 365 percent better So you pick a skill set You go deep and you keep going, keep going, keep going. That’s the philosophy of percentage gains. P. T. Barnum knew it. And as he says, whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. Now rule number four, and I would love to hear in the comments your perception of rule number four, but it’s something that I definitely would agree with.
[00:09:22] And it is sobriety. Use no description of intoxicating drinks, Don’t drink now. This is gonna be tough. A lot of people are gonna go. Well, you know, I like a drink Uh, I don’t know if I wanna I wanna follow that particular rule But the reason that I say that I like it so much is because when you do have a drink and let’s face it You know, most of us, 99 percent of the world has gone out, had a night out, had some drinks.
[00:09:52] Well, what happens the next day, you expend all your energy on the night out. You’re like, you’re giving all the energy. So next day, you’re tired. You’re not thinking straight. Your brain is cloudy. You’re not able to operate at your optimum levels, which means you break the previous rule. Whatever you’re then going to do when you’re in that state, you’re not going to do well.
[00:10:19] So it’s something that P. T. Barnum obviously Is that distractions are the enemy of success. So we want to get to the place where we start to say no to certain things. And we have to ask ourselves the question is the thing that you want to do in powering you or disempowering you is the thing that you want to do, i.
[00:10:39] e. go out and have lots of dreams. Is that going to make next week better or worse for you? And when you start to look ahead in this way, you can start to make better decisions. And you can start to create your greatness. Now, of course, you know, you can, you can have those little moments, but really try to separate your work and things like this, because essentially the way that I interpret this role and the way that I want you to see it is our habits are things that we do every single day that take us towards where we want to be, or our habits are things that we do every single day, which take us away from where we want to be.
[00:11:18] Ask yourself the question, are your habits empowering you or disempowering you? And that was P. T. Barnum’s rule of sobriety. Okay, so the next rule, let hope predominate, but be not too visionary. Many people are kept poor because they are too visionary. The plan of counting the chickens before they hatched.
[00:11:40] Well, this is a, a nice one to decipher in the language it’s So let’s break it down. Let hope predominate. Not too visionary. What that means is always have the hope in your mind for the future. And the frame that I’ll give you is one that I give to my clients is this. You’ve got to truly believe that your future is better than your past.
[00:12:04] That will be something that empowers you and that is really tapping into that hope. You may have had a few things go wrong in your life, your business, and different experiences, and sometimes that can bring. People down, but whatever’s happened in the past, we’ve got to say to ourselves, I truly believe that my future is better than my past.
[00:12:23] And that is how you can tap into the hope. Now he mentions being not too visionary. Many people are always kept poor because they are too visionary. And let me explain to you what this really means and how you can apply it. Many people that I meet, they might have a business that’s doing a hundred thousand pounds a year and they say, you know what?
[00:12:46] I want to get to 10 million pounds a year and they got this massive, massive vision in their mind or they want to get to a hundred million. I want to be the biggest, I want to be the best. And they’ve got this huge, huge vision. And because the vision is so big, They don’t take the actions they need to take on a daily basis to start moving towards the vision.
[00:13:06] And I see that all the time. And in fact, if you take it as another example, someone’s starting a business, let’s just say they’re starting a, a clinic or a salon or whatever it might be. They’re like, I want to have the best salon in the world. My salon’s going to be incredible. It’s going to be the best there’s ever been.
[00:13:26] And this is the vision. It’s going to be like this. And they’re like, okay, Well, yeah, you know, I’m going to do that eventually and they do nothing because the vision is too big and it’s too far away to take the first step. And he’s saying that the people kept poor by the vision being too big. So the way that you do this is you put the vision in your mind.
[00:13:47] And then you break it down to years. You say over the next 12 months, I want to accomplish this. You know, I want to get the salon started or the clinic started over the next 12 months that I want to do this. I want to upgrade it. I want to make this happen over the next 12 months. I want to do this. And you build towards the overall vision, but you do it in a step by step way, not letting the vision not allow you to start.
[00:14:09] I’ve seen it so many times. Another one that I see all the time is like, I want to build an app and this app is going to be the app. And I’m going to do a billion pounds in revenue with this app. Well, how are you getting on with the app? Well, I never started it, but it was a billion pound idea. If you don’t take the steps and you don’t take the action, you will be kept poor.
[00:14:30] In the words of P. T. Barnum. Now the next one. Do not scatter your powers. Engage in one kind of business and stick to it faithfully until you succeed or until you conclude to abandon it. A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last. Beautiful. This is like music to my ears. It’s something that I say again and again and again to my clients.
[00:14:59] Just picture the metaphor of the piece of wood with the nail sticking out of the piece of wood. You give it one tap is not going in. And then what a lot of people do is they go, let’s tap that nail in and then let’s put one in here. Let’s put one in here. Let’s put one in up here. Now you’ve got a lot of nails sticking out of the wood.
[00:15:17] Well, what we need to do, if we’re trying to get this wood to fix to this wood, what do we need to do? Put one nail in, keep hammering away until the pieces of wood stick together. Are there together and that’s the metaphor that you just have to keep driving home the one thing out of all of the success that we’ve created.
[00:15:37] We have had our clients have done hundreds of millions of pounds. I’ve done three eight figure businesses myself and literally all of the success comes through focus. And this is why most people are not successful. Most people are not successful because they don’t focus. Most people are successful because they get distracted.
[00:15:55] So keep that focus, drive it home, focus on that one thing, get it to greatness. And that will be the difference that makes the difference to you. Okay. So the next one is engage. Proper employees. So this is like a very short rule that he’s got, but I, I think it is a very, very important one. You are the sum of your team is what this really means.
[00:16:24] And the people that you have around you, if you want to go fast, go on your own. If you want to go far, Go together. That is you will be as successful as the team that you create. So when you’re building your team, find the best people so you can go far together. Number eight, advertise your business. Do not hide your light under a bushel.
[00:16:50] So I’m not quite sure what a bushel is PT, but I definitely get the principle of advertise your business. And this is, um, super important. And there’s a quote here that Barnum has. So with advertising, while you are sleeping or eating or conversing with one set of customers, your advertisement is being read by hundreds of thousands of persons who never saw you nor heard of your business and never would had it not been for your advertising appearing in the newspapers.
[00:17:20] I love this. I think this is so important. Many businesses stay stuck. Many businesses stay small because they never understand how to utilize and advertise in the right way. And once you start utilizing, advertising and marketing, everything changes for you. Everything changes for your business. So if you’re a business owner watching this or listening to this, you’ve got to ask yourself, how are you reaching hundreds and thousands of business owners to bring them into your world?
[00:17:48] And if you’re not, That’s probably why the business is staying small. So start leveraging advertising, start leveraging marketing and watch the changes happen in your business. Okay. So this next one is really great and is definitely going to be some people that need to hear this one, which is avoid extravagance.
[00:18:10] Now, when you go to the comments, you can tell me in the comments what rules have really Resonated with you, but I would be willing to bet that this one would be a big one. Why? Because in today’s instagrammable world, everyone wants to be a millionaire and drive a lamborghini with 30 minutes work going in.
[00:18:30] And the reality is, is that that’s just not what real life looked like back then. It’s actually not what real. Life looks like today. Let’s unpack this a little bit more because the full rule is this avoid extravagance and always live within your income. This is the important bit team pride is the great underlying canker worm, which gnaws at the very vital of a man’s worldly possessions.
[00:18:59] Talking about pride here, pride comes before the full. I’ve seen it so many times that people make bad business decisions based on their own personal pride. If I’m being frank with you in my early parts of running businesses, pride definitely played a part in my decisions as well. But pride really has no part in.
[00:19:27] sensible business decisions because it just means that your ego is driving your emotions, which means that you are going to make mistakes, which is what is really put here. Instead, avoid the extravagances. The reality is the rewards will come if you work hard, you work diligently, and you follow the other rules.
[00:19:49] Don’t worry about what your best mate’s driving. Don’t worry about what your enemy’s driving your friend or anyone else. Don’t worry about what people are doing on Instagram. Look after your own business and avoid comparison. And if you look after your own business and you avoid comparison, you will be the one that actually moves forwards and gets the end results that you wish to get.
[00:20:13] So that’s a super important role. And tell me your thoughts. In the comments on that one. Now the final one for today, which is another one that I love. I, you know, I really feel that there’s a ton of value here, uh, for business owners. Tell me what your favorite ones are, but do not depend on others. Your success must depend on your individual exertions.
[00:20:36] Every man must be the architect of his own fortune. This is something that I would say is very, very close to my heart. I have a saying that if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me and you should adopt that into your own mind. There’s another rule and principle that I’ve always lived by when I’ve been helping business owners and helping business owners to understand growth.
[00:21:04] I’ll meet someone that’s a business owner and they’ll be like, Business is hard. The economy’s not going well right now. Inflation’s going up. Four years, five years, whatever it is, six years, in ten years, they’ll be saying the same thing. We had COVID and, uh, you know, we had Brexit and we had this and we had these different things.
[00:21:27] And they’ll be looking to blame. outside sources for where they are and what’s happening in their life. And actually the way that I would extend this role is personal responsibility. Everything you have in your life, everything you have in your business is by your own creation. The business owner that says, Oh my God, my staff, they don’t do what I tell them to do.
[00:21:57] Well, you hired them, you trained them. So you got to take that responsibility and if you start to bring personal responsibility into everything that you do and you look inwardly rather than outwardly and you accept that everything is your responsibility, you will create so much more success in your life.
[00:22:21] Just want to say a big thank you for listening in and watching. I appreciate your support of the channel and the podcast, and I really look forward to hearing about your results. Remain consistent, keep pushing through. You can build the business of your dreams. You just have to keep going and remember to subscribe to get the help and support you need to build your business for the future.
[00:22:49] Hey everybody, Adam here, and I hope you loved today’s episode. I hope you thought it was fabulous. And if you did, I’d like to ask you a small favor. Could you jump over and go and give the podcast a review? Of course, I’ll be super grateful if that is a five star review. We’re putting our all into this podcast for you.
[00:23:07] Delivering you the content, giving you the secrets. And if you’ve enjoyed it, please go and give us a new review and talk about what your favorite episode is. Perhaps every single month I select someone from that review list to come to one of my exclusive Academy days and have lunch with me on the day, meeting hundreds of my clients.
[00:23:26] So if you want that to be you, then you’re going to be in with a shout. If you go and give us a review on iTunes, please, of course, do remember to subscribe so you can get all the up to date episodes. Peace and love and I’ll see you very very soon. Thank you.