So women should leverage their sexuality to get promotions, make sales, get high-earning husbands—great legs help with all that stuff.
I snagged that quote from Penelope Trunk, my favorite career blogger, author, entrepreneur and all sorts of other stuff. Of course there’s an onslaught of readers who think she’s ridiculous.
Seriously? If you’re skating by on your looks and prostituting your assets to get through life, you probably don’t need to seek out that kind of twisted career advice because it’s already falling into your lap. – One of Penelope Trunk’s readers
People who disagree with Penelope’s statement are usually:
1) Men who are trapped in the 1950’s
2) Women, mostly Feminists, who haven’t spent time thinking about what “leveraging your assets” really means.
I’m pretty sure the first group hates me, and they definitely don’t read my blog, so I’m going to focus on the second group in this post.
MONETARY ASSETS
In the financial world, leveraging your assets means you’re taking something, usually money, and using it make you more money eventually. A simple example could be a mortgage. If the bank tells you that you are a high quality borrower, you can leverage your assets, the 20% you put down, and you can buy your home by borrowing the rest.
NON-MONETARY ASSETS
When it comes to leveraging non-monetary “personal” assets, like your good looks or your intelligence, there’s no bank deciding what’s considered a high quality asset and what’s considered a low quality asset. Society does that job for us.
Society tells us that leveraging physical assets is low quality, and leveraging non-physical assets is high quality. Leveraging your good looks or nice legs is bad, and leveraging your intelligence, wit, or any other non-physical asset is ok.
WE’RE ALL A BUNCH OF PROSTITUTES, KIND OF
The reason why society thinks you’re low quality if you leverage your physical assets is because leveraging physical assets seems more like prostitution.
Even when no sex is involved, good-looking people charm interviewers, get hired faster, are more likely to make more sales and get more raises. You look good and you’re compensated in return. People like to do business with people that they like, and people they like to look at. Being good at your job is a bonus.
So what about people like Chelsea Clinton? Penelope pointed out in the comments section that she’s on the board of IAC, the media company that owns Daily Beast CollegeHumor, and Match.com.
Penelope said that she got the job because she’s Chelsea Clinton. I agree. Chelsea leveraged her parents, which is one of her assets. Her parents aren’t a physical asset so it seems less prostitute-like, but it’s exactly the same.
She uses her non-physical asset, her parents, to help her career or get paid to be on this board.
This is no different than wearing a skirt to an interview if you have nice legs, or smiling a lot if you know that you have one of those perfect smiles. Neither involve sex, both involve leveraging an asset you have to get something in return.
A lot of women take it upon themselves to judge the quality of another woman’s assets. A snark here, a gawk there, and rolling of the eyes when a girl walks in the restaurant looking hotter than you in a mini skirt. If Feminism is all about equality, women should get it that leveraging physical assets and non-physical assets are both non-sex forms of prostitution, so enough with the judging.
It’s not up to us to judge the quality of someones assets. Focus on leveraging your own assets and get on with your life.
Related Post: Check out the king of leveraging his assets – Tucker Max – The Tucker Max School Of Making Money
Heh! Love the title. It’s all about playing up to your strengths. I’ve got a crucial meeting later on today, with some people who are not so nice. So, I’ve got my superior sense of style turned up to the max. Look good, feel good. But I’ve also asked a company power-broker to attend as backup. Amat victoria curam.
Good luck 101!
PS most mean people I know are actually really insecure. You’ll dominate today, especially with your superior sense of style turned up to the max. Let us know how it goes
Went OK – just lots of whining, hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth.
That Chelsea Clinton comparison doesn’t make much sense.
No problem with using your sexuality to get ahead, but having good connections, and ability to influence (real of perceived) high profile, powerful people that can get things done >< wearing a mini-skirt to close a sale.
Not the same impact; like, at all.
And if we are in a non-judging mode, I guess that leveraging your physical assets, by providing "favours" would be ok too. No need to qualify the professionalism of others.
That’s the point. In a lot of cases Chelsea has the “ability to influence” high profile powerful people only because her parents helped to get her in the situation where she can get access to those people.
Chelsea does need to present well and be able to close during game time, as does the woman with nice legs + mini skirt.
I still don’t see any difference in the two situations.
Penelope loves to stir up the pot. On one hand, she is pointing out what is absolutely obvious. Good looking women leverage their looks to get successful husbands? Noooooo. We all know that happens, and that good-looking people have an easier time in life getting others to do all sorts of things for them. We all take advantage of that by getting a new hair cut and wearing a nice suit for interviews and presentations. What riles people up is the idea of going beyond saying it does happen to say it should happen. I think we feel weird about it because you’re often born beautiful or you’re not. In the popular mindset, you can’t work hard and make yourself beautiful in the same way you can work hard to make yourself educated, experienced, even charming. But this isn’t necessarily true. Anyone can work hard to get in shape. People can figure out ways to afford a good hair stylist, nice clothes, etc.
Agreed. And the people who tend to get the most riled up with the concept of “leveraging your assets” are the people who don’t take the time to figure out how to leverage their own.
I often think of Chuy on Chelsea Lately on this topic, great example of leveraging his assets.
PS I tried to find your 168hours spreadsheet on your site but couldn’t find it? Do you mind to send it? That would be handy for me for time management.
It’s still there! If you go to the “books” section of lauravanderkam.com, and choose “168 Hours” on the drop down, it’s there on the right under all the book store icons. It’s not that high tech though. Just an excel spreadsheet with half-hour increments on it!