Do You Know How to Control Their Reputation?

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                             (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

I've been talking about reputation lately. But what is reputation? Reputation is the shadow that your character casts. This is a big deal. Here's why. Think about a great big oak tree. Then the sun comes up and the oak tree has a shadow. But depending upon where you're standing around that oak tree, that shadow is going to look different. The shadow is the perception of your character. In the middle of it all is this big oak tree. It’s something physical that we can touch. You can sit under it, but ultimately it's your character that creates your reputation.

You have 100% control over your character!

You have one hundred percent control over your character. You have one hundred percent control over what you do. You have one hundred percent control over how you show up. If someone walks by and gets bumped and they are holding a cup of coffee, what do they spill? Somebody would say, “Well, they spill coffee.” I say that's not true. They spilled what was inside the cup. They spilled what was inside the vessel. If that cup had tea in it, they would've spilled tea. If the cup had milk, they would've spilled milk. It wasn't that they spilled coffee, they spilled what was in the cup. This is important.

What are you spilling when life jostles you around a bit?

Do you think life jostles you about every once in a while? Do you think life gives you a little nudge in the ribs or something like that as you're walking by? Absolutely, it does. But let me ask you a question. What are you spilling? What comes out when you get jostled? When you get harried, when you get frazzled, when things don't go the way they were supposed to, or when something happens that you weren't expecting, what comes out? What gets spilled?

When are you in REACT MODE?

What do most people do when they wake up in the morning? They get up and they start reacting. I grab my phone. I'm in react mode. I watch the news. I'm in react mode. I look at my email. I'm in react mode. We all react all the time.

What you need to do is set up a little window of intentionality.

• How do I want to show up today?
• How have I been showing up?
• Because that's going to show you what's in your cup.
• What's inside you right now? Is it love? Is it patience? Is it caring? Or is it frustration and anger and disappointment and bitterness? Is it giving up?

How are you showing up?

You can step up every morning and ask yourself some different questions.

• How have I been showing up?
• How do I want to show up?
• What do I want in my vessel?
• What do I want in my cup?
• What am I going to do to get there?
• What am I going to do to fill my cup with what I want?
• How do I hit the day showing up as the person that I could and should be?

It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it.

That is what you want to be thinking about because that is where your shadow comes from. It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it. And every single time that reputation is destroyed, it is a character flaw. It is a character wobble. It is a character failure. That is when your reputation suffers.

What's in your cup right now? Ask yourself every morning,

• How am I feeling?
• Am I waking up anxious? Am I scared? Am I afraid of something?
• If someone bumped into me, what would come out?

If you don’t define your values, then someone else will do it for you.

Brenda and I just spent a week away planning for next year, and we spent almost a full day talking about what our values are as a company because I guarantee you that every single day your business is being run by values. But if they're not documented, if they're not defined by you, then they're being defined by someone else, and typically they're in react mode. Ask yourself these questions.

• What are my values?
• What's important to me?

The secret word is “INTENTIONAL!”

Be intentional about your values. That is the secret word. Intentional. What's going on inside right now?

I want you to ask three questions.

1. How am I feeling? What's going on inside? Do a temperature check.
2. How do I want to show up? If I get bumped into, what do I want to spill out?
3. What focus do I need to have? What must I focus on to fill me up with the right stuff?

It makes the difference between feeling like a victim and feeling like a victor. Remember, you can only control what's inside of you.

If this was a powerful message for you today, please share the video. Please help us get the word out. So many people need to hear this message.

You can learn more about reputation in our 180BIZ Pocket Business Genius webinar series. I also want to remind you about our Shop Owners Round Table every third Thursday at 7PM Eastern time.

God bless. Stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.

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