A good reputation is critical, maintain and guard your reputation with your life

Now, that you have decided to kill the excuses and to give yourself or your business a powerful new image, remember this: Reputation, especially one of honesty, is the cornerstone of power. So much depends on reputation that you have to maintain it and guard it with your life. Through reputation alone, you can intimidate any enemy or rival and win all of your fights; let it slips, you will find yourself vulnerable, and attacked on all sides.

Make your reputation unassailable

Always be alert to potential attacks on your reputation and prevent them before they happen. Learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then, stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Understand this: Doubt is a powerful weapon. Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your opponents are in a horrible dilemma. They can deny the rumors, even prove that you have slandered them, but a layer of suspicion will always remain: Why are they defending themselves so desperately? Maybe the rumor has some truth to it? If, on the other hand, they take the high road and ignore you, the doubts, unrefuted, will be even stronger.

If done correctly, the sowing of rumors can so infuriate and unsettle your rivals that in defending themselves they will make numerous mistakes. This is the perfect weapon if you have no reputation of your own to work from or if you are just starting to build yourself a new one.

After building and establishing a reputation of your own, if you are still under attack, if your rivals or enemies are still barking, it is now time to use a second, gentler tactic, “the fake hypnotism demonstration”: You ridicule your rivals’ reputation. Once you have acquired a solid base of respect, ridiculing your opponents both puts them on the defensive and draws more attention to you, thereby enhancing your own reputation.

Reputation as a power like magic

In the social realm, appearances are the barometer of almost all of our judgements. and never be misled in believing otherwise.

One false slip, one awkward or sudden change in your appearance, can prove disastrous. This is the reason for the supreme importance of making and maintaining a reputation that is of your own creation. Your reputation will protect you in the dangerous game of appearances, distracting the probing eyes of others from knowing what you are really like, and giving you a degree of control over how the world judges you.

Reputation as a power like magic: with one stroke of its wand, it can double your strength. It can also send people scurrying away from you. Whether the exact same deeds appear brilliant or dreadful and depend entirely of the reputation of the doer.

At first, when reinventing yourself, you must work to establish a reputation for one single outstanding quality, whether generosity, honesty or even cunning. This quality will set you apart and get people to talk about you. Then, make your reputation known to as many people as possible, and watch it spreads like wild fire.

A solid reputation increases your presence and exaggerates your strengths without having you to spend much energy. A solid reputation can also create an aura around you that will install respect, even fear. As they say, your reputation inevitably precedes you, and if it inspires respect, a lot of your work is done for you before you arrive on the scene, or utter a single word. Make your reputation simple and base it on one sterling quality. This single quality, efficiency, say, or seductiveness, becomes a kind of calling card that announces your presence and places others under a spell.

Guard your reputation with your life

When you are first establishing it, a good reputation, especially one of honesty, is a treasure to be carefully collected and hoarded. You must strictly protect it, and anticipating all possible attacks from your rivals and enemies becomes your main priority. Once your reputation is solid, just make sure not let yourself get angry or defensive at any slanderous comments of your rivals or enemies; that would only reveal insecurity, not confidence in your reputation. Instead, take the high road, and whatever you do, always make sure to never appear desperate in your self-defense.

On the other hand, while displaying confidence by taking the high road, an attack on another man’s reputation is a potent weapon, particularly when you have less power than he does. Such a more powerful rival or enemy has much more to lose in a reputation battle. Your own thus-far-small reputation gives your rivals and enemies a very small target when they try to return the fire. But this tactic must be practiced with skill; you must not seem to engage in petty vengeance. If you do not break your enemy’s reputation cleverly, you will inadvertently ruin your own. Never go too far in attacks like these, for that will draw more attention to your own vengefulness than to the person or business you are slandering. When your own reputation is firmly established, use subtler tactics, such as satire and ridicule, to weaken your opponent while making you out as a charming rogue.

Since we must live in society and must depend on the opinions of others, there is nothing to be gained by neglecting your reputation. Today, whatever you do or intend to do, a good reputation is critical. Appearances are critical and by not caring how you are perceived, you let others decide this for you. Maintain and guard your reputation with your life: Be the master of your own fate.

JMD

Owner of Bunkumless.com and King Global Earth and Environmental Sciences Corporation, JMD, a former attorney, is a Columnist for The Futurist Daily News and editor of the Social and Political Blog JMDlive.com  Follow JMD @ jmdlive

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