Lesson #1

When it comes down to it, your character is who you are, your reputation is who people think you are. I've heard it said before and I used to believe it too, that your character matters more than your reputation. To an extent, I still believe it, that who you really are matters more than who people think you are and how you're perceived. How people see you isn't always the accurate, sometimes they base how they see you off a small instance or on what someone else has told them. As I've grown and matured, I've come to realize that how people see you does matter. You have to have a good reputation or else people won't believe your character. If you have good character, your reputation should be good as well, but there's always going to be people that like to spread rumors or just don't like you. If they take the time to get to know you, they can see that your character isn't what people made your reputation out to be, but that's assuming that even with your reputation preceding you, they still took the time to get to know you.

While I cared more about my character than my reputation, there's someone that means a great deal to me, that I'm grateful and thankful for every day, that they were able to see my character and not judge me off of my reputation. Since then, I've cared more about my reputation, because had they not taken that chance, I wouldn't have my best friend.

In my line of work, integrity is important. We have to be able to trust what each other says and what gets reported. The same should be true in our every day lives. We should be able to trust those in our lives and be able to depend on them. The last couple years I've held this position, that trust is the most important aspect of any relationship, whether its familial, social, professional, or romantic. If you can't trust the other person, nothing else matters. As I mentioned earlier, my reputation hasn't always been stellar, I've been told that I'm heartless, emotionless, and robotic. I know that my reputation has been as such, but for the people that have taken the time to get to know me, they know that I'm a caring person, for those that I'm close with. However, my reputation has also held that I'm honest. It's part of my reputation that I have spent a lot of time developing and proving. There's been times when even I was concerned about things getting said about me would be believed by others, I was told that nobody will believe it because people know my character and they know the character of those spreading what was said.

Your character and reputation might not always get you into elite positions or locations, but there has been several times where people knowing my character has gotten me jobs, trust, and other benefits. As men, people should be able to take what we say at face value. I don't know how many times someone has told me that they have a reputation for not meaning what they say. How sad is that. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. When it comes down to it, what your character and reputation is worth, is how much you are worth. It will open opportunities for you, but you have to spend the time cultivating those relationships and proving your character over and over again. Even when the other option is to do something easy that you know is wrong.