Beauty and the brain

I’ll admit it. I love Jamie Durie.

Here’s a man who was famous for his glistening pecks, and his ability to flip over his head while simultaneously writhing semi-naked, and yet today, nannas all over Australia queue up to get his latest garden design book and my husband ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ over (no, not his pecks) but his outdoor wall gardens. He’s moved from beauty and brawn to brains and business savvy.

Another beauty to brains example is Tyra Banks. Obviously beautiful she was making astute moves even when she was still marketing with just her beauty.

When her body started to change and become fuller than the rake thin models of the day, instead of starving herself to remain on catwalks, she shifted her career over to a market that appreciated her increasing… er assets, the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated and Victoria’s Secret.

Since retiring from modelling full-time she’s shown the brain that’s also a sizeable asset in starting up Bankable Productions under which she helped create America’s Next Top Model that is now a worldwide franchise.

I guess you can simply use your beauty to get what you want a’la Anna Nicole Smith or more impressively you can leverage the connections and experience you get from your beauty and parlay that into further dealings where your brain also gets to shine.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is ‘Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can’) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Propertywww.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania’s only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty’s other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.

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