Rule #5 So Much Depends on Reputation - Guard it With Your Life

 Law 5

So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life

"Reputation is the cornerstone of power.  Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides.  Make your reputation unassailable.  Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen.  Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations.  Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them."

There is nothing more important than building and protecting your reputation.  Some people spend their whole lives carefully crafting their reputation piece by piece only to see it crumble before their eyes.  Nowadays it is even more important to carefully guard your reputation from potential attacks simply because there are so many more opportunities for your enemies to ambush you from all sides, due to the prevalence of social networking technologies, blackberry messenger, and more.  At the same time though, those who can leverage and utilize these new gadgets that have defined the information age are likely to build a powerful network that will help at building a solid reputation.



R E P U T A T I O N   I S   E V E R Y T H I N G  -  G U A R D   I T   W I T H   Y O U R   L I F E

"For as Cicero says, even those who argue against fame still want the books they write against it to bear their name in the title and hope to become famous for despising.  Everything else is subject to barter: we will let our friends have our goods and our lives if need be; but a case of sharing our fame and making someone else the gift of our reputation is hardly to be found."

Montaigne, 1553-1592     

To a degree, everyone around us is like a mystery that can never be solved or understood fully.  No matter what sort of appearances someone presents, there is always a part of it that is simply an act, and it is nearly impossible to penetrate and probe the hidden layers of the mind.  That is why most people choose to rely on appearances to make their judgement on an individual instead of carefully investigating their actions and true motives.

The reason why reputation is so crucial to building and maintaining a power base is because "it gives you a degree of control over how the world judges you," meaning that you essentially have a force field that can repel attacks for you without even having to do anything.  Beware though, kinks in this protection generated from your reputation can be pierced and shattered if pressed against a weakness that you have left unguarded.

For example, professional athletes are always under pressure to perform to bring victory to their team, even after wining a championship, there are doubts raised about using performance increasing drugs, the whole reputation and victory can turn into disaster.


The key to building power is to focus on one particular aspect of your reputation that is your greatest strength,  whether it be in charm, grace, civility, leadership, seductiveness, or more.  Continue to focus on this one aspect and once it grows larger, and begins to become better known, watch as it spreads like wildfire.

Never take your reputation for granted, there is no reversal to this law, and ruining your reputation is very likely to deal blows to you to the point where recovery will be a long and painful process.  If this does happen though, and your reputation takes a nasty hit from an enemy attack, you could try joining forces with someone with a greater image, if they will allow you to recover from beneath the shadowy protection of their own reputation.

Thanks for all the great comments on the last few posts, i'm going to put up a poll pretty soon to gauge what you guys are liking about these posts, and how they can be improved.  I'm still fairly busy with school, but i'll try to find the time to update this blog as often as I can, as I know there are some readers out there who really enjoy reading these posts.  Make sure to check out my other blogs, their are links above.