Harvard women who spend hours agonizing over the perfect fellowship application or LSAT score, take heart: a Harvard Business School graduate has written a book to help you ace your social life, as well.
In her new book, Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School, Rachel Greenwald encourages women to use business marketing strategies to land the man of their dreams.
Although Greenwald wrote the book for women over 35, she says undergraduates could benefit from her dating advice so that they do not wind up needing her help later in life.
Greenwald cautions women against spending their twenties with men that are not “The One,” focusing too much on a career and not maximizing their opportunities to meet the man of their dreams.
“[Undergraduates] wake up, go to the dining hall, go to class, go to The Coop, then to a party. They may cross paths with 500 to 1,000 men,” she says. “When you are 35, you may wake up, sit alone in your home office, work all day, go to a meeting, then perhaps coffee with a friend—and only five men cross your path.”
According to Greenwald, this sad potential fate is what makes proactive and assertive dating strategies crucial.
Greenwald travels the country giving talks—which she calls “Prevention 101”—to women in their twenties who do not want to become the cautionary tale she outlines in her book: the woman who spends too long with the wrong guy.
“All of the planning may seem cold, but the other option is loneliness,” Greenwald says matter-of-factly. “All of a sudden, fabulous women wake up, and they’re 35, and they realize that their options are limited.”
But Greenwald does not see this looming loneliness as unavoidable, but simply as a marketing challenge.
“Nothing is wrong with these women, they probably just wasted time with the wrong boyfriend, and need to increase the volume of men that cross their path,” she says.
Despite her focus on finding “The One,” Greenwald does not think undergraduates should only look for “husband potential.”
She also advises college-age women to date for the experience, helping them to narrow down the qualities they are looking for in a man.
She says that women over 35 who attend her seminars often lament having had a dating experience of “depth rather than breadth.”
“I am not saying only have first dates with 100 men, but you probably want to limit your long-term relationships,” she says.
Greenwald says the most important marketing advice she has to give in her 15-step program is “step five: creating a personal brand.”
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