I Have A Reputation Here

Transcript

It comes from an audiobook by Zig Ziegler, I can’t tell you which audiobook it was but Zig always had some amazing things to say about positivity, about beaming out that positivity, setting an example for others.

If he saw someone being down, like a steward or something in the airport a security guard or whatever, he would say some words and try to give them an opportunity to see what was wonderful about that moment.

So I haven’t read any of his books for many years, it still kind of sticks in my head as a bit of a role model because he aspired so much alighned his actions to try to be a pillar of the community.

In that audiobook where he is somewhere, in a kitchen or something or some restaurant and he sees someone looking a bit down and maybe he doesn’t feel 100 percent like going to talk to them but he says to himself “hey I have a reputation here, people know me”

He says to himself like this positive self talk “its so important to him that he is a good person and people see him as being a good person and as being positive and upbeat.

Of course I know a lot of you are thinking there is a risk there about spiritual bypassing or tucking away your negative experiences under the carpet so you don’t handle it. That’s the risk.

But there’s also the reward here. We can have this identity, we leverage our identity. If we’re going to have something that looks like an ego lets use it for good.

Some day we might give up our egos and our bodily identification and we won’t need tricks like this but in the time that we do have these things its wonderful we can use them like Zig did to say to themselves “This is the kind of man or woman I am going to be. This is something important to me, I identify with this, I aspire to this and so I am going to bring it into action.”

I also think sometimes about a friend of mine, my friends grandfather. I never knew him that well in his hometown, Ken Clements was his name.

And sometimes when my friend Dan would go around trying to promote his business and get it off the ground in my hometown, he would go around to different businesses to get them as clients and many times people would say to him “You are Ken’s grandson aren’t you?”

And he would say “Yes absolutely I am”

And they would say “If you ever need something, like if you ever need some kind of help, just let me know because Ken Clements has been such a grand help to me in my life. Shown me so many things, given me advice or whatever it is”

I still think about that, I still ponder that. I don’t know exactly what he used to do to help people but its so powerful that they admired him that much that they would do anything to try to help pay forward the favor because Ken set such a good example.

That’s something I aspire to be. Try to help people so much that it can be seen as a pillar of the community. So much that our reputation precedes us, that we have a reputation here.