《The 48 Laws of Power in Practice》Law 5: So much depends on your reputation, guard it with your life.

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A steady reputation will prime you for power, guard against attacks, and work against your enemies.

The book suggests finding your best quality and building a solid reputation over time. For example, pay up your intellect, kindness, or humor. We tend to like people and feel like we know them this way. If you have no reputation or a poor reputation, you can bolster yours by associating with people that have good reputations. We see this work on Instagram and when up-and-coming celebrities collaborate with more known ones.

Nowadays, you should probably Google yourself to see what others can find. Our internet reputation will catch up with us more and more. Based on our trend towards social proof, I predict there will be more ways to rate and review people in the future.

I'm writing about two painful experiences to hopefully learn from them. So if you think it's okay to admit your mistakes, please give the story a vote.

On my first day working at a boutique in San Francisco, everyone seemed to be laid back and chatting all day. So when I came back from my 10-minute break, I was shocked that the assistant store manager tore into me. He timed me on his phone and showed me that I took a 13-minute break which was "like 30% too long" he said. He came back with a letter and made me sign it; a write-up on my first day. After that, he had it out for me and micromanaged how I did everything. Ironically, he was the one that got fired a few months later. He partied too hard one night and showed up for work over an hour late the next day. My reputation was slowly able to recover after that, but I had to walk on eggshells for months.

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Another time was in high school when someone had spread hurtful rumors about me. I trusted the wrong person. It took over a year before I no longer heard the hushed whispers and saw people turn to look at me when I would walk into a room. And it wasn't just talk either because some kids loved to bully at the first sign of weakness. I would fight the harassment every week, but would invariably break down in tears. I hated that random people thought they knew something about me.

They were hard lessons to learn that I don't wish upon anyone. Before spreading gossip online or IRL, please think about how you could be ruining someone's reputation and affecting their life for real.

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