Leverage What You've Got
Convert today's skills, relationships, and reputation into the next opportunity
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Treat the current situation as a source of assets rather than merely a stage to escape. Inventory the skills, industry knowledge, relationships, opportunities, and reputation available now. Build those assets by doing the present job exceptionally well and observing how the surrounding business works. Grede's mechanism is cumulative: trusted work creates a reputation, reputation strengthens relationships, and those relationships open projects, clients, advice, or investment. The next move does not require a fully visible career map. It requires matching a real asset you possess today to a credible adjacent opportunity. Each successful move can then become leverage for the next, creating a chain from current performance to a larger goal.
Origin
Extracted from Aspire with Emma Grede, where Grede traced how a seemingly thankless fashion-production job generated industry knowledge, contacts, clients, reputation, and eventually an investor.
Core principles
- 01Current work can create assets for the next move
- 02Excellence makes useful reputation visible
- 03Relationships compound when supported by reliable delivery
- 04A path can emerge without a complete long-term plan
How to run it
- 1
Inventory Current Assets
List your useful skills, access, relationships, reputation, and immediate opportunities. Include assets that seem ordinary because they come from your current role.
- 2
Excel Where You Are
Deliver the current work with enough consistency that others notice your reliability and ability. Grede argues that present excellence is the strongest base for future leverage.
- 3
Read the Environment
Use the role to understand how the wider industry functions and what participants need. Look beyond the formal task to the flows of buyers, publicity, projects, and decisions around it.
- 4
Build Trusted Relationships
Let repeated delivery turn contacts into people who know how you work. Preserve those relationships beyond the immediate project.
- 5
Springboard to the Next Move
Match the next opportunity to one or more assets already built, then make a direct ask or offer. Let the outcome create new leverage for a later move.
In the wild
Grede spent more than five years producing fashion shows, work she found unrewarding. She used it to understand the fashion business and build relationships with attendees and clients. When she left, her contacts and reputation for hard work helped provide the client base for her first agency.
→ An unglamorous role produced industry knowledge, a trusted reputation, and initial customers for a new business.
Years later, Grede needed startup funding but did not know venture capital investors. She approached a client with whom she had a long record of delivering strong work. That existing trust supported both an investment conversation and a continuing advisory relationship.
→ A proven client relationship became access to capital and advice.
Common mistakes
Waiting for a Perfect Map
A complete route is not required when an adjacent move can be supported by assets already in hand.
Ignoring the Present Role
Treating current work as worthless can obscure the knowledge, access, and reputation it is creating.
Extracting From Contacts
Relationships become durable leverage through trust and delivery, not one-sided requests.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for professionals and founders who have useful experience or relationships but cannot yet see a direct path forward.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for exploiting relationships without mutual trust or assuming contacts can compensate for weak current work.
From the transcript
“use it as a springboard to get me to the next place”
“you have to be excellent at what you're doing right now”
“take what you have today and use those things to springboard you to your next move”
From the episode
Emma’s Blueprint: 10 Principles That Can Change Your Life
Emma’s Blueprint