There

will be extreme cases of loss of reputation that will need you to make a drastic step. This drastic step will cost you quite a bit in terms of either time, money, relationships or geography, or even all of these things.

This is the last article in the series on recovering a lost reputation. In the previous six articles, we have discussed several mechanisms that you can use to recover a lost reputation. Much as there is no saying that each tool builds on another, there is a close correlation between each tool you use to recover your reputation.

This last one though is something totally different but still connected to the previous six.

A Recap

In order to recover a spoilt or blighted reputation:

1. Acknowledge Your Mess:

This is where you start. There is no great progress in reputation recovery if there is no owning up your part in bringing about the mess. Your owning up charts a path sets an agenda and provides the focus for your reputation recovery.

2. Go to Ground Zero:

This means that you ought to put in perspective what you have lost in relation to how you were esteemed previously. You need to gain as much information as possible regarding how things used to be and how you want them to turn out when the curtains close. IN other words, what do you want your reputation to be like in the future?

3. Build it Right Up

This is self-explanatory. However, you notice that you cannot rebuild a reputation if you do not have the necessary information that is needed. This “rebuilding” though is not just to go back to how things used to be. It is building something new altogether

4. Use Your Past

Instead of sweeping your mess under the carpet, you choose to be as authentic as possible. This means that you are unashamed of your past and you can easily quote it. Christians use a formula called “Testimony”. It involves talking about your bad reputation but it doesn’t just stop there. You also talk about your moment of change and how beautiful things are at the moment.

5. OK Plus One

This means that you go an extra mile. It was alluded to in point 3 above. Reputation recovery is not about going back to how things were, it’s about going the extra mile so that you are now known for something new. This could pretty much help the Kenyan media personality in a massive way.

6.  Manage Your Reputation

Chances are that you lost your reputation in the first place because you did not have a system to manage it. Therefore, part of reputation recovery should involve setting up a system that you will use from now henceforth to govern issues relating to it.

In conclusion to this series, there is one more way you can rebuild a broken reputation, and this is an extreme case.

7. Move Away

At times your reputation is so soiled that no matter what you do in the above six steps, it still will not suffice to rectify the situation. I cannot think of any such case off hand but I can try. Let’s say you are a sex offender who has just been released from jail. What do you do?

How do you rebuild your reputation in the same vicinity where it is known about your vices? To be honest with you, at times it can be a very tall order. That is why I am recommending that the most plausible thing that you can do is to move away from that place.

There are two things that are in play here:

1. The internal

It makes no sense for you to move away if you are taking the same bad reputation elsewhere. In fact, if you are taking the same bad reputation with you, you had better stay where you are. Why? Because if you spoil it where you are going, where you came from will catch up with you.

God, Yourself and The Devil

In turn, the whole thing compounds itself and even becomes worse than you expected. If there is no genuineness of heart to reform, rebrand and be redeemed from the hearts of hearts, then let’s forget about the recovering or the reputation business altogether.

There are three people that you cannot lie to. God, yourself and the devil. If these three people are aware that you have your heart set on being a good person, then you can transport yourself to another location and start rebuilding. Otherwise, forget it.

2. The external

These are the actions that you take in order to recover your reputation away from your traditional location.

The first thing that you will have to do is to move away. Every New Year is a psychological new start. The same applies to every new house or environment. Believe me, it is much easier for you to start rebuilding where people are not as judgemental and do not give you a chance.

Stay humble

The second thing though that you still need to do is to make sure that you are not hiding anything from the people in the new location. Let them know that you are on the path of reforming. Do not shy away from your past when it is put to question.

One of the craziest things that you can do is to find a man or woman of influence in the new vicinity and tell them what you are facing. This could be a man or a woman in authority or for the most part, a counsellor or the best bet is a religious leader.

In so doing, you will be coming out clean, being accountable and committing to a better future all at once. Chances are that you will have it much easier at this new place with this new strategy than going back to the same old place where you lost your reputation in the first place.

Well, it has been a marathon of articles on the mini-series. I hope you picked up one or two things from it. Over to you.