El arte de hacer dinero [The Art of Making Money]

I’ll admit, I approached this expecting a quaint historical curiosity—maybe some amusingly outdated tips about top hats and railroad stocks. Instead, I got *slapped* by how modern Barnum’s mindset feels. His chapter on ‘Don’t Mistake Your Vocation’ should be required listening for every college grad drowning in student loans. And when he argues that ‘politeness and good humor’ are your best sales tools? That’s the kind of timeless advice that makes you pause mid-commute and text a coworker, ‘We’ve been doing this wrong.’ Geraldo Medina’s performance is a highlight: he doesn’t *perform* so much as *channel* Barnum, with a dry, knowing tone that makes even the most cynical advice feel like insider secrets. The pacing is brisk—almost too brisk at times. Some chapters (like ‘Beware of ‘Outside Operations’’) could’ve used an extra minute to let the warnings sink in, especially for listeners new to Barnum’s brand of tough love. And while the production is clean, the lack of musical transitions between sections makes the shorter chapters blur together if you’re not paying close attention. My biggest critique? The audiobook’s brevity is both its strength and weakness. Barnum’s principles are so rich they beg for modern case studies or counterpoints—imagine a 2024 annotation track explaining how his ‘bait the hook to suit the fish’ rule applies to TikTok algorithms. Still, as a pure, unfiltered dose of 19th-century hustle, it’s intoxicating. Just don’t listen while driving; you *will* pull over to take notes.