Law 5: so much depends on reputation, guard it with your life.
This is a law from Robert Greene’s 48 laws of power and it seems fitting to talk about
with all the Youtuber controversies going on.
I will go over the importance of your reputation, 3 good reputations to build for yourself,
and how to recover from a bad reputation.
I will briefly touch on one of the recent Youtuber controversies so watch till the end.
First, we can define reputation as how someone knows you after some time.
In the social world and online world, reputation means so much.
Your reputation will protect you and give you a degree of control on how others view
you.
Your reputation inevitably precedes you, and if it commands respect, a lot of the work
is done for you.
And that is why most people try to do damage control when their reputation is taking a
hit.
For a real world example, take someone searching for a new job after leaving their old one.
If they built up a reputation of being a talented worker that is a team player, they would have
a much easier time getting a new job.
For a Youtube example, take someone in my niche like Improvement Pill.
He established a reputation of being an expert by gaining a lot of views and subs so it is
a lot easier for him to get more views now.
A historical example of the power of reputation is the German general Erwin Rommel in World
War 2.
He had a reputation for being cunning and deceptive which struck fear in enemy forces.
His reputation was as powerful as a weapon as forces would retreat knowing he was approaching.
So how do we build a reputation?
When you start, you want to build a reputation for just one quality at first.
You want that quality to set you apart from others and then start to make it known to
other people subtly.
Let word of mouth and other people spread it for you so it spreads quickly.
After building a reputation based off one quality, you can start incorporating other
traits into it.
The 3 best reputations to build for yourself are honesty, reliability or keeping your word,
and someone who stands up for themselves.
Honesty.
When you are honest, people will consider you as moral and people will tend to believe
you.
There have been careers built from honesty.
Take popular Youtuber Matt D Avella, the minimalist film maker.
His growth on Youtube came from his honesty.
He practices what he teaches so you know he is not giving you misinformation.
He also opens up about his failures in the past and how that got him to where he is today.
Social media often makes us only want to show the best sides of ourselves but by being honest,
you can connect more with people and really make an impact.
Reliability.
Keeping your word a powerful tool to have.
People know they can rely on you which builds trust.
Don’t make promises you cant keep or you will start building an untrustworthy reputation.
In the real world, make sure you meet your deadlines.
The number one excuse for failing to meet a deadline is running out of time.
The real culprit is often poor planning and a lack of integrity.
By being reliable, people will be more willing to do business and work with you.
Standing up for yourself.
You dont want the reputation of being a pushover.
You want to punish wrong behavior directed towards you.
If you are being disrespected, let them know to stop or else they will suffer consequences.
In the real world, if your boss or superior is underpaying you, you better demand a raise
and get what is yours or you will be seen as a pushover and cheap labor.
As for Youtube, I want to talk about the James Charles controversy.
The tldr version is James started promoting another company that is a competitor of his
friend and mentor Tati’s company even though she offered him money to promote her company.
Tati helped James rise to fame and he pretty much bit the hand that fed him.
Tati then stands up for herself by making a video calling James out on that and his
disgusting behavior.
The video made James lose millions of subs and destroyed his reputation.
If you want to learn more about what happened, I suggest watching PewDiePie’s video on
it.
If you dont stand up for yourself, you will be seen as a pushover and someone who is easily
manipulated.
So reputation takes ages to build up and it can be taken down quickly so how does one
recover from a bad reputation?
First, damage control is always a must as you have to owe up to your mistakes and vow
to be better.
You then want to associate with someone whos reputation is opposite from yours.
You ideally use their good name and reputation to fix your stains.
For example, it is hard to erase a reputation of being a liar by yourself because no one
trusts you.
But if you were to befriend someone honest and actually reform, the honest person might
start spreading word about how you reformed and you can slowly change your reputation.
In order for this to work, you have to actually reform and change yourself.
As for an online reputation, if destroyed, you want to do damage control and start doing
positive actions to try and makeup for your mistakes.
Often times when a content creator messes up, they start pushing out positive content
and start donating to charities to fix their reputation.
A bad reputation can be fixed, it just will take time.
Are you working on building your reputation?
Comment below and if you want more videos, check out my other videos.