At The End Of The Day, You Can Only Be Yourself
What you do speaks for you
As I write this, I am feeling quite stressed out. A little ironic for the guy who writes about happiness, I know.
Let me tell you why.
There is someone who has made up lies about me, and then another who is anonymously using those lies to attack my business.
A tricky situation to navigate. What can you do when someone makes up lies about you, and you have no way to prove they’re lying?
The only thing you can do is be yourself, and hope that speaks for itself.
Your reputation
Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”.
I heard that quote years ago and took it very seriously.
My intention has always been to be as nice as possible and lead with love.
Intentionally hurting someone is never worth it. It makes them feel bad, and you, too.
That sounds very basic, but doing that for years over time can create a reputation of being a decent person. If you’re lucky, a reputation as a good person.
It is a crazy reality that someone can lie and that this lie can damage your reputation.
The thing is, if you have been a good person for some time, when a lie comes up, those who know you will defend you. They will defend your reputation.
People don’t forget when you treated them well.
I’m thankful that for me, that is what happened.
Being yourself
I struggle to believe that anyone is inherently bad. Perhaps it is because of my experience, but I have rarely met anyone who has bad intentions.
If you are one of those people who mean well, being yourself will mean being a good person.
Who you are is really the only thing you can control in your life.
At the end of the day, you have nothing else.
You choose how to act, what to say, and how to move.
Even if you are doing things you don’t enjoy, how you behave while you perform those tasks is completely up to you.
So, as you go on throughout your life, your reputation is automatically built up based on who you are.
Decide who you want to be, and be that person every day.
You won’t be able to fake it.
But you can influence it.
Surround yourself with the right people
You become who you spend your time with the most. You have heard this before, and you know it to be true.
If you are spending your time around people who are not good, and you are good, you will feel how wrong it is. You will notice yourself doing things that don’t feel right.
It only takes a mistake or two before you pull away from those people.
I personally cannot stand those who are too negative, constantly complain about others, or have nothing good to contribute to society. When someone falls in this category, I stop spending time with them.
I’ve been quite lucky to build a couple of circles of friends of absolutely great people. People who are always there to help out and have your back.
Spending time around people like that encourages good behaviours. Good people breed other good people.
The best thing you could ever do is find good people to spend time with.
They won’t change you, but they will bring the goodness out of you.
To end my bickering
The lesson of all my blabbering is this: People can lie, but your reputation cannot.
It doesn’t matter what people make up about you, as long as you have been good, the truth will win.
If you haven’t been a good person, it will catch up with you. Your reputation sticks with you forever.
When people do try to lie about you, it will be stressful, but having the right people around you will help. They will not only remind you who you are, but they will have your back and keep you going.
Thanks for reading