IS MONEY-MAKING A GIFT?

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 12

IS MONEY-MAKING A GIFT?

I F there is a quality, of mind which we, call a gift for; mathematics, or music, or painting, or poetry, is there a similar gift for money-making, asks a. psychologist in the “Daily Mail.” Psychologists have numerous and almost petulant disagreements on what an ability it; and inasmuch as thought itself is an insoluble enigma (nobody being able to tell us how the brain, secretes it—if it does) we have to be content ’with a vJescrijy-ioiii cjp the qualities, involved in the expression of any mental power, whether it concerns the arts, finance or commerce. "What qualities go to the making of the money-mind? Among them, and. occupying first place,. I would put the financial urge." Emerson remarks in. his essay on “ Wealths” : “There is , always a Teason in the "man for his good or bad fortune, and so in making money.” . . Yes, the nrge is* in him or it is not. If "it' is there, he goes forward in ..search of profits.; if it is absent, he is moved hv other motives —scientific, educational, religijous, artistic—each! of which has its. own urge, small or gre»it. The second quality is an ability to analyse facts and to discover tie ir meaning, singly and in combination. The money-maker is an expert errogsexaminer. He puts his facts into tke witness-box and compels them to con - fess, with the result that he often knows what other people do not know, and he profits accordingly. The third equality is either keen judgment or foresight; it may he a. union of the two. However much or. a realist the -money-maker may he, he iis possessed of imagination; and as| Bihot’s classic work on that subject gives the commercial imagination aj place algonside the poetic imagination. I the brain activities of the financial j

Psychologist Describes Qualities Involved

magnate, and of the man of business, have taken on a new dignity. As for judgment-, it is paramount.t There is a time for everything under the sam, and the super delicate work of deciding when is an ability which, althoupgti dependent on experience, calls for a gift to interpret that experience and act upon it at the right moment- The money-brain reads the commercial sigsn of the times. It sees what is wanted before other peoples see it.

Aboveu beneath and around the mental qualities just enumerated another factor is a;t work; that of the subconscious. Take an illustration. The value of a security . is not fully told by the story of its highest and lowest in some financial handbooks, however authoritative; it is told by the figures plus the intangible constituents as seen in what it is- in itself, and what the world thinks of it. " These elements’, are judged;" for the most part subconsciously. Beasomng consciously from .figures alone is a dangerous occupation. The money-maker, as often as not, is a sort of diviner. He will get an idea from nowhere—a hunch—and is often prepared to act upon it. He savs “I feel in my hones that such and ’ such a thing is- going to happen.” „ . ~ That is his way of referring to the " ’tuitrve judgments of the subconsci-

ous. , And, if genius in those spheres witn which the word is most frequently associated " emanates from the abilities below consciousness, then, m my opinion, the money-brain cannot he denied its-'right to rank with the brain for mathematics, music, and the arts in general.