Reputation Building (And Why Most Women Are Building the Wrong One)

What do people say about you when you're not in the room? Not what your bio says or your latest post, what do they actually say? Because that is your reputation, and it is either working for you right now or it isn't.

In this episode, host Lemon Price breaks down why most women are accidentally building the wrong reputation — and what it actually takes to become someone worth nominating, promoting, and putting in the room.

This conversation was sparked by a real moment: Lemon was nominated for a board seat that didn't even exist yet. No application. No campaign. No posting about it. Just a consistent reputation that did the work while she wasn't watching.

In this episode:

• Why being visible and being credible are not the same thing
• The three reputations women build without realizing it — busyness, visibility without credibility, and being liked over being respected
• Why you don't actually get to decide what your reputation is
• What "defining moments" reveal about who you really are
• The question that matters more than any personal branding strategy

Reputation isn't a strategy. It's something you become — through how you show up in your home, your work, your community, and every moment when something difficult asks you who you're going to be.

Resources Mentioned:

Defining Moments Book: https://amzn.to/4v36u43

Substack Essay: Read It Here

Next week: How to actually get into the rooms where influence lives: city councils, nonprofit boards, and civic spaces most women don't know they can access.

Topics: reputation building for women, women's leadership development, personal credibility, executive presence, intentional living, women's empowerment, civic leadership, personal development podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I really want to ask you something right out of the gate. What do people say about you when you're not in the room? Not what you hope they say, not what your bio says, not what a cute Instagram caption says, but what do they actually say? Because that is your reputation. And it is either working for you right now or it isn't. Welcome back to the Well Lived Society. I am your host, Lemon Price, and today I'm really excited because we're gonna dive into building a reputation. So I want to tell you about something that happened to me very recently because I think it illustrates it better than probably anything I could explain. So, for those of you who don't know, and I think I mentioned this last episode, I'm in graduate school right now, getting a third master's degree, which has been incredible. I am like the old lady in graduate school for sure. However, I got an email about a month ago saying that the college was planning on opening up a new student board for the entire college. And they wanted to do a listening session, and somebody had nominated me. Well, this past week I had that listening session, and turns out it was the dean of the college who had nominated me. And so this board position sort of just opened up, and I say opened up loosely because it literally didn't exist. Like there was no job posting, there was no application, there was no way to campaign for it or, you know, to even know that it was coming. But I did get nominated for it by the department chair without asking, without applying, and without even knowing it was a possibility. And so when I found out, I was like, wow, I worked, you know, like it wasn't like, oh, I worked so hard for this. It was this is what reputation actually looks like. This is what happens when you just consistently show up as someone worth nominating, somebody worth putting in the room. And you can't manufacture that. You cannot post your way into that. That is built over time through how you carry yourself every single day. And I'm gonna tell you at the end something really cool about that board. So here's what I think people get wrong about reputation. I think that people are focused on being known. And it's not just about being known, it's about what you are known for. There is a huge difference between being visible and being credible. And I see women confusing the two constantly, and I think it is costing you. So I want to talk about the reputations I see women building typically without realizing it. So the first one is performing busyness instead of building substance. We live in a culture that rewards the appearance of productivity, a packed calendar. The oh my gosh, I'm so slammed right now. How many times have you said that when somebody's like, How are you doing? And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm so slammed right now. We have so much on my plate right now.

unknown 3:08

Right?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

You're sharing content about how much you're doing. Being busy is not a reputation. Busy is a state. And when that's all people can say about you, oh my gosh, she's always so busy. You have not built anything somebody can point to. Busyness is not a badge of honor. The second one I see people doing is chasing visibility before credibility. And I see this everywhere in the online business space. Women sprinting toward an audience before they've done the work that actually earns one. And the problem isn't that they're putting themselves out there. It's that there's literally nothing solid behind it yet. Visibility without credibility is literally just noise. And you can tell, you can tell when somebody's visibility is built on what ChatGBT told them to say, when they haven't lived it, when they don't have a story to tell with it, when they don't have results that came beforehand, when they when they haven't walked through it themselves, you can tell. People can feel the difference, even if you can't articulate it. You know, when somebody has a full-blown script in front of them, or when ChatGPT wrote their whole post, you know it. You know it, and you're not interested in it. And so do I sit and have notes for sure. Because if I didn't, I would talk for three hours and this would be the longest and most boring podcast ever. Notes are way different than having a gigantic script. And so if you are putting yourself out there, and I think about this all the time too, actually, if you're putting yourself out there, what happens if the visibility does get you an opportunity, but you don't have the credibility behind it? You've sort of just screwed yourself because you don't have the experience to back up the amount of visibility that you're getting. So the third one is being liked over being respected. And I think this is the most damaging because being liked feels good. Who does not want to be liked? It's warm, it's affirming, it's so safe, it feels good. But being liked and being respected are not the same thing. And when you optimize for being liked, you start to soften, right? You don't say the hard thing, you don't have the difficult conversations that need to happen, you don't speak up when you should, you start agreeing when you shouldn't. And when you start doing that, people will stop taking you seriously, even if they enjoy your company. Because if you're not willing to stand on a principle, if you're not willing to stand for what you believe in, if you're not willing to go above and beyond, even if it makes people uncomfy, then people don't trust your opinion because they don't know what your opinions are. Respect is what gets you nominated for a board that doesn't exist yet. Being liked gets you invited to the party. And so here's what I really want you to sit with when this episode is over. Okay. Reputation is not something that you get to build, it's something you become. Here's the thing: you actually don't get to decide what your reputation is. I just wrote about this on Substack. I'll link it below. You guys can go check it out, but it is something that you actually have no control over. You can control the input, but you cannot control the output. Reputation is not some strategy that you put together. It is not a content plan, it is not a personal branding document. You cannot go to ChatGPT and ask it to come up with your reputation. It is the sum total of how you show up in your home, in your work, in your community, in conversation. When something difficult comes up and you have to decide who you're gonna be in that moment. We had this conversation in ethics, I mean, maybe two months ago, where there's something called, I'm gonna say it's in a book by Botaroc. Um, I can link it. And not that anybody, I mean, maybe you want to read it. I'll link it if you really want to read it. But I'd read it for school. And so they talk about these defining moments and how defining moments are when you have to, let's say a group is going forward in one direction, but morally you cannot. Or something is amiss, and morally, like you are struggling with whatever that thing is. A defining moment for you is whether or not you are going to go with a crowd because it is easier, or you're going to go against the grain. And how you handle that. How you handle going against an organization, how you handle going against a group of friends, how you handle going against anything because of your own moral and personal convictions is a defining moment. That is a defining moment, and it sets you apart from everybody else. The women who get nominated for things they didn't apply for, they are not doing anything flashy. They are just deeply consistently themselves. And that consistency leaves an impression that will compound over time. That is how I ended up with a board seat. Let me tell you this, okay? There are plenty of people in my program who have been in the program longer than me. This is my first semester. And I got nominated, and I was asked to join the board for next year when the official board starts, because I have a solid reputation. And let me tell you, the reputation that I built already is based on a few things. I know how I built it, and it wasn't because I woke up and decided to consciously do these things. It's because it's who I am. It's because of my own morals and convictions and how I want to show up in the world. So I will just give you a prime example. In class, I speak probably the most. I am always willing to think through it. I'm always okay with being wrong. I'm okay with asking questions. I'm okay with contribution. There are people in my classes, and some of them will listen to this, I'm sure, who don't say anything. And that's okay because they they've decided, like they're, they're okay. They just want to pass and like continue in the field they're already in. And that's okay. I hold myself to a different standard. It doesn't mean my standard is better or that their standard is wrong. It's just the set of principles that I live by. I want to show up my best. I want to contribute. I want to, I'm here to learn. And you are gonna get out of it what you put in, and so I'm putting a lot in. And then I also was offered, and I know I mentioned this in the last episode, but I was offered a job as a research assistant, and we're doing great. We're doing phenomenal. My professor told me the other day that she was bragging about me and she is like, we have so much going on. She has found funding for me to continue working over the summer for her and on some really cool projects, and I'm getting certified in new things, and it's really amazing. It's amazing. I've already picked up, I think this will be my second certification that I've picked up in school in one semester. On top of my graduate certificate, I'm getting and on top of the masters I'm getting because I keep consistently showing up. That's why I ended up getting nominated for the board, because I have built a reputation where people expect something of me. And they know that I'm gonna show up and they know that I'm gonna deliver and that I'm gonna do it with excellence. Not to brag, but my lowest grade in graduate school right now is a 95 on one paper. And she told me if it bothers me, I can resubmit it. I can resubmit it for 100. I'm like, perfect, I will do that. Uh other than I mean, that's my lowest grade in grad because that's what people expect of me. Because I hold myself to a higher standard, and so therefore, people expect more of me, but then I'm also afforded more opportunity because of it. And so the question isn't how do I build a better reputation? The question is, who are you when nobody's watching? Who are you naturally? Are you the person who doesn't speak up? Do you hide in the corner? Do you are you like a wallflower? Do you keep your opinions to yourself? Are you afraid to look silly? Because the person you are when nobody's watching, the person you are when there is nothing necessarily to gain, that's your reputation. How you steward your home, how you show up in these organizations, in the community with your friends, with your family, all of that matters. All of that matters. Next week, we're gonna get a little practical. I'm gonna talk about how to actually get into the rooms where influence lives, right? City council, nonprofit boards, civic spaces, where a lot of people don't even know you can have access. And I'm gonna walk you through exactly how to do it because I've done it. You know, here's what I want you to know. Before you get into the room, you need to know what you're bringing with you. And that was what today was about. Now, I promised I would tell you something cool with that board. During that conversation, I we were, I was having a conversation with the assistant dean, and we were talking about leadership development and how important leadership development is, especially when colleges are always saying we're, you know, raising or we're educating next generation of leaders and things like that. We're raising the next generation of leaders. What does that mean? And I know the college means educationally, but how do we take people who are your rock stars, who are showing up consistently and cultivate more leadership skills in them, the soft skills. There's no class for soft skills, nobody's signing up to take a class on soft skills necessarily. And so we had a conversation about starting to develop leadership training for students in our college. And so I get to work on that project. So I'm so excited. Show up next week so we can talk about how to actually get into those spaces. I will see you then. If you liked this episode, be sure to share it with your friends, leave a review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening. And really, like, just welcome to the Well Live Society.