Today’s guest post is a repost from a personal blogger that you may enjoy. Financial Samurai can be found at Financial Samurai where he’s busy slicing through money’s mysteries.  He believes in achieving financial independence sooner rather than later.  You can find him on Twitter @FinancialSamura and subscribe to his RSS feed.

There is current controversy stirring because a British Conservationist believes we should let pandas go extinct and “put them out of their misery” because they are “stupid” and possess poor survival skills.  My question is, if the Panda looked like Golem from Lord of The Rings, would there still be an uproar?  The Black Rhino and Beluga Sturgeon are equally as endangered but you never hear about them.

I was at an MBA recruiting fair the other day and I noticed several of my fellow corporate representatives spend a disproportionately longer time with one particular candidate.  Where average conversations last 3 minutes, conversations with this one candidate would last 10+ minutes.  Coincidence this candidate was probably the most physically attractive person there?  I don’t think so.

STUDIES SAY

According to a study released in 2005 by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “beautiful” people tend to earn 5 percent more an hour than people who look like me.  Economists also found that women considered obese in terms of their body mass index (BMI) in both 1981 and 1988 earned 17 percent less than women within their recommended BMI range.  Short men also are disadvantaged by 3% vs. their taller counter parts as well.

Whether we like it or not, better looking people have an advantage over normal looking people with all things being equal.  If you had a 5% advantage over the house, you could literally bankrupt any major Vegas casino. In fact, as one who’s studied publicly traded gambling companies such as Wynn and Las Vegas Sands, any customer win percentage greater than 3% leads to massive losses for the quarter.

WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?

We shouldn’t hate good looking people for being beautiful.  After all, looks are an exogenous variable that nobody can control.  Instead, we need to accept our attributes and improve on what we have, the endogenous variables if you will.

1) Work out. If you wanted to lose the spare tire, you know you can.  Just look at all the contestants on “The Biggest Loser.”  They all lost at least 30% of their body weight after 3 months!

2) Eat right. Donut, latte, ice cream, pizza say goodbye.  More than working out, eating right is the most effective way to lose weight.  See “Losing Your Way To More Money.”

3) Groom. Wash your face, pop your zits, smell nice, get a tight haircut or professional style, and make sure there is no broccoli in your teeth.  Ask one of your closest friends or family members to give you an honest opinion of how you look.

4) Invest in a modern wardrobe. You need an outfit that blends in with your manager or potential employer. Wear nice shoes too. There’s something about a beautiful pair of shoes for both men and women, that just stands out and says success.  Women love to check out guys shoes, as well as other women’s shoes.  Feet are our foundation, strap some nice leather on them.  Looking the part lets you earn the part!

5) Keep your hands dry. Sweaty palms really leave an impression; a bad, sickly, clammy impression!  Hence keep a small towel in your pocket to dry off your hands right before you’re about to shake.  Some talcum or baby powder in the other pocket works well too!

CONCLUSION

Life isn’t fair, but unattractive people have a tremendous advantage over beautiful people. Attractive people can’t get that much better looking, but we can!  Why do you think the “ugly duckling formula” in movies always works so well?  Let’s use our comeliness to our advantage and wow our colleagues.  From every line of work, you will find very successful not so attractive people.  Perez Hilton, celebrity Blogger is a great example and blogging phenom.  Not that attractive,  he decided to do something about it and lost 40 pounds.  We’ve been so used to his sloppiness, he now looks relatively handsome with his new weight and threads!

Since the original thesis is that better looking people earn more, we rationally should want to look better, and we can!  Let’s not let the beautiful people beat us out on things we equally deserve!  Unattractive people of the world unite!

Laura Martinez

Laura Martinez