In the end, all we have is a reputation（名誉）. We hear that all the time. But do we actually know what our reputation is? The truth（真理） is, we don't think about it all that（那么〔大、多等〕〔尤指通过手势比画来表示大小、数量等〕） much unless（除非） somebody asks us. We just assume（假定） that it's pretty much like we want it to be. But the reality（现实） is how we would describe ourselves and our reputation（名誉） isn't what other people would do.

  So there's a standard（ 标准的） interview question that many of you may be familiar（熟悉的） with. It goes something like this. If I was to ask your friends or colleagues for three questions that would describe you, what would they be? This isn't such an easy question. At least, it isn't for me. And it sets（设置） off an internal（内的） conflict（争论） that goes something like this.

  Just imagine the little speech bubbles（冒泡） here. And it starts with, what would they say? Why do I want them to say? What would I say about myself? And what does the interviewer really want to hear? There's always going to be a gap between our reputation and reality.

  It's just inevitable（必然的）. But to own our reputation, we have to address（写名字地址） it. So that leads me to think about how is our reputation built? Now, there are many ways. The first is word of mouth. These are the stories that are told about us.

  And sometimes they're told by people who actually know us. And then there are those that are told by people who don't know us. I think that's called hearsay or playing telephone. And you know how that changes as you go around. Then there are all the ways that we represent（描绘） ourselves to the world. And these range（范围） from the silly（傻的） to the serious. There's TikTok.

  And then there's Instagram. And then there's Facebook. And then there's LinkedIn. And then there's our resume（摘要）. All familiar. And what you may not realize is that any individual can also put out information about you.

  That comes in the form of endorsements（背书）. For example, on LinkedIn for skills that you may or may not have or may not be qualified（ 合格的） for or even care about. Then we go off to Facebook where we friend people who really aren't our friends. And we like people, we like people on Instagram or Facebook or any social media. And the truth is all those connections（连接） add up to our reputation（名誉）. And it can have a real impact（影响） and effect on us.

  It's why we get emails from LinkedIn, right, that recommend us or tell us about jobs that we're either are not qualified for. I've gotten plenty of those as I've gotten them for jobs that I have absolutely（完全地） no interest in whatsoever（任何）. Our problem is that we're in a world where it's all about the quantity. We were told that we need to have 500 plus connections. Otherwise（另外）, we're not valuable（ 值钱的） and worthwhile（值得花时间的）. And we want to have as many likes（爱好） and followers（追随者） as we can.

  So there's another consequence（结果） to this. Do you remember all these companies that would spend lots of money with influencers, pay them so much because they had a million plus followers and they all thought that they, those influencers would get their followers to buy the company's product only to find（找到） that none of those followers（追随者） bought. So that's social media for us. That brings me now to the third one, which is the dreaded（惧怕） performance（履行） review.