If I Asked Your Friend about You

            “Mean. Arrogant. Snobby. Fairly good-looking. Doesn’t really like people, but charming/smooth enough to get away with it. Very talented. Stubborn.”

            “Very sweet. Doesn’t cause trouble. Scratch that, INCAPABLE of causing trouble. Makes friends very easily. Doesn’t really take a stand for anything. Good-looking. Well-liked.”

            I thought of these two lists when I thought of two people I know. What did I just do? I described them in a nutshell. Then I had a thought.

            What do people think of me?

Your Reputation

            Take a moment, like I did, to think about that question. What is your reputation? When people see you, what jumps to their mind? Now, I don’t necessarily only mean externals, because that can sometimes hide what’s on the inside. I mean qualities and attributes and characteristics.

            How do you handle bad moods? How do you handle tough times? How do you handle situations that don’t go your way? That’s your strength of character.

            What’s your base personality that you are like when everything is normal? That is the real you.

            How do you react to others? How genuine are you when in groups? 1-on-1? That describes your level of friendliness and how real you are.

            How are you when no one is looking? That is integrity.

            How are you when you are given tasks? That is your reliability.

            You get the point. Everything you do goes into making your reputation. Everything you say. Maybe you’ve never really thought of this beforehand. If that’s true, it’s never too early to start working on it.

Yeah, and Why Does This Matter?

            So what’s up? I’m young, why can’t I live how I want and think about image later? I’m going to do my own thing and people can deal with it.

            If you have this mindset, odds are your reputation isn’t very good.
            But joking aside, it does matter. Your reputation is a reflection of YOU. While it may not be a perfect representation, it is pretty accurate.
            But what if you've really messed up?

            That's the good thing about reputations. They can be fixed. For instance, take Saul in the New Testament. This dude MURDERED Christians. He locked them up. The early Christians feared him.

            But we don’t think of him that way, do we? No, and that’s because he changed. He evangelized the non-Christian (gentile) world. He is the secondary star of the New Testament. He wrote most of it. Paul has a sterling representation among Christians today.

            If a murderer can end up with the image Paul has, you can change things around, too. 

Tiny Steps

            So what goes into a good reputation? As I’ve thought about it, the first thing that comes to mind is honesty. Realness. Consistency. Just being up-front. Do you act differently for different people? Do people know which you they are going to get on a given day?

            Another thing is caring. People, especially the younger generation, just don’t care about life. “Get to the weekend!” is our culture’s cry. But you can be different. You can show you care about those around you. That you care about those who are hurting. That you care about doing the job right. People will love you for this one.

            A third thing is your word choice. This is huge. Do you think before you speak? When you speak, does something actually intelligent come out? When you have something to say, do people perk up because they know you are the one speaking?

            I could go on and on forever about all the little things that go into building or tearing down how people view you. But I can’t, so I just had to choose a few of the important ones.

Summary

            This post all started with the thought “what do people think of Nathan?” What is my reputation? However, no one cares how people view me, but most people do care how people view them. So I went for that.

            Your reputation is you in a way. While not perfect, it is close. It needs to be maintained and built and repaired, just like you.

            “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” (Proverbs 22:1, ESV)