Why People Judge & How To Manage Your Reputation

A few years back, I was in a client’s office trying to get him to do more work with me when he said “How can I rely on you when all you do is party?”. I immediately lost my cool, yelled at him, and was about to storm out offended; something I rarely ever do. Why did his words get to me so much?

I told him I was offended at that statement and whatever he heard was way off base. All I did was work. I had lost contact with most of my friends and family due to working all day every day for about a year and a half.

I took a minute to calm down and asked him, “What makes you think all I do is party?”. To which he replied, “I see your Facebook posts, all you do is sit around by the pool and go to the bar.”.

I’d Been Practicing Poor Reputation Management Skills

Bingo, I suddenly realized I had been practicing terrible reputation management by having this client on my friends list on Facebook. No one gets to see me at my desk 90 hours a week because it’s just not fun to talk about or take pictures of. There is nothing exciting about sitting at a computer for 15 hours a day, weekends included, so the fact that I even do that, is unknown to people.

On Friday nights or for lunch on occasion, I would go to the bar to relieve some stress on the punching bag machine and say hello to the only friends I had ‘the people who sing Karaoke with me on occasion on the weekends.

The only thing he knew about me was what he saw as Facebook posts, me by the pool for lunch or for that 3 hour moment of glory on Friday or Saturday nights when I sing and hit the bag in the back of the bar.

People Only Know What They See & Hear About You

I realized everyone probably saw me as this partier and it was the complete opposite of who I am. I worked all day from the office or from home, I gave everything to my employees as far as pay and comfort but I never told anyone. One time I had to take out a loan to pay my employees, making myself late on my own rent and bills.

Keep Everyone In The Loop

I never told anyone about it and later came to know that the employees were pissed that their checks were late, think that combined with my Facebook posts and comments about my short weekend glory stories made me a partying slouch who never did anything else.

People were judging me based on what they saw and heard about me, not about who I really was. And it wasn’t just this client, it was almost everyone and no one told me. I had to find out for myself.

Promote The Real You

It was time I started promoting the real me. The guy who spends 15 hours a day every day working hard to deliver good service at an affordable price to people because he loves to help others, and makes sure that anything said or done in the public eye reflects my whole self and not just some little piece of it.

If people got to see the whole me, and still find a reason to judge me, then I say let them.

Which leads me to write an article on how to manage your reputation.