Reputation - It decides our value and worth.

                          👉👉👉   REPUTATION  👩👨

           Don’t we live in a world where we need to build, maintain and protect our reputation? Good reputation opens wider doors for us. It is the sad truth that status and reputation is highly recognized in today's world. It is especially important to build a trustworthy and reliable professional reputation as that very much adds to the success in our career. It takes quite some time and lot of efforts to build our positive reputation in the market. Our reputation decides our value and our worth at our work place. We would be lying when we, common working people say, “I don’t care what anyone says or thinks about me”. We may say this many times but do we really mean it? We are tied up with the professional pressures and are forced to abide the rules. Most of us resist change and don’t have the courage to put our earned reputation at risk. For most of us, our overall work image and reputation at the time of retirement… the goodwill earned is like the most valuable and precious asset that we hold. I have seen that some people who with their stubbornness and no care attitude, have ended up becoming victims of judgement, conspiracies, back stabbing, and gossips thereby damaging their reputation and also affecting their career big time. There are also some people who don’t think too much and can't put the right efforts or hard work in building their “name”. They don't realize this and eventually end up cribbing, cursing, blaming luck and destiny and wondering why people don’t take them seriously. What we give is what we earn, it is as simple as that!!

       📌   Skills and Talent with a positive workplace reputation gives us a higher professional value and thus worthy and valuable we are.

      🔖   Our reputation is our value and worth tag that we keep on carrying all the time.

             People who run their own businesses or are at the peak of their professional career have impressive success stories backing them up. Standing tall and all alone, facing the limelight, enjoying their powerful success, they need to be firm and adamant and at times could even sound rude and arrogant. They take the risk of standing all alone on that peak defending and explaining their actions. Such are the few strong leaders who are born to lead and their impression and reputation speaks on their behalf. But, even they should deliver, live up to their reputation. One seriously wrong decision could tarnish the entire image in just minutes. I would not quote names, but, we have seen such blunders do happen. Over promising and under delivering poses a serious threat and needs to be dealt with extra caution. It has also become the need of the hour to especially guard our reputation on the social networking sites these days which could go viral following the trolling and bullying. 

       🔖  Building an impression takes time – Maintaining it is an ongoing endless task.           

            The first time that we get introduced to an unknown surrounding brings with it a mixed feeling of… anxiety, excitement, anxiousness, tension and impatience all at the same time. It is very common to feel the butterflies in our tummies. New place- new faces- new expectations- new changes- new adjustments- new adaptations…. all of this can be overwhelming!! Along with this bundle of emotions we seek to leave a best, reliable and lasting impression.

       🔖   FIRST IMPRESSION IS THE LASTING IMPRESSION.

           The first date, the first day at college/University, the first job interview, the first meeting with our spouse, the first meeting with each other’s families or any such first encounters are very crucial as they could form the base of many more related professional/personal relationships. After a decent first impression, we can then gradually keep building thick walls of trust around it. Personal reputations also need to be worked upon. Our personal relationships could get highly emotional at times and need to be dealt with extreme care. 

              🔖    Long-term impression builds and nurtures our reputation.

            I like to observe different types of people in public places… the way they dress up, carry/portray themselves, their body language, the vibes they throw, the way they walk and talk etc. This same habit continues for me when I meet someone for the first time as well. It gives me a brief idea of the person sitting /standing in front of me. So, I do agree that the first impression is important. Having said so, I also believe that we must not go on just the face value. First impressions could be deceiving and fake too sometimes. Impostors and sweet talkers are plenty out there… We need to be careful… we need to wait and watch.

      🔖   THE FIRST MEETING GIVES A BRIEF IMPRESSION.

       Don’t you agree that we wear our impression mask when we step out of our comfy home into the world? We can be our “true self”, behave and act any which way we want at our home but not in public. In public, we are bound to follow the manners and etiquette and behave accordingly. Professional and personal reputation both go hand in hand.

  📌📌📌     Would you agree if I say that our right dressing sense, some communication skills, punctuality, dependability, honesty, hard work and optimistic attitude would be more than enough to have a good reputation both professional as well as personal? Think about it!

       Let me end by noting some interesting quotes I picked up online;

A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.  – Joseph Hall.

It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. – Warren Buffett.

     Do leave your valuable comments below. They are much appreciated. Take care and be happy.