A Good Brand is that of a “Solid Citizen”

Having upright character is entirely self-serving: You feel good about yourself and you sleep soundly. You don’t fear how your actions will look in the newspaper or in the blogosphere. You need not agonize over how your kids, partner, parents, friends, classmates, neighbors, and co-workers will view you. Being a solid citizen is the ultimate de-stressor. Consider these three truths:

· Fame, popularity, riches go away; only character endures.

· Ethos is established at the top and you’re the top in your world.

· People want to trust you so make it easy for them.

As for me, I have plenty of faults but I try to do the right thing.

Picture of Debra Benton

Debra Benton

D.A. (Debra) Benton has been helping great individuals and organizations get even better for over 20 years. Just as exceptional athletes rely on excellent coaching to hone their skills, Debra's clients rely on her advice to advance their careers. She focuses on what is truly important to convert what you and your organization want to be from a vision into a reality. TopCEOCoaches.com ranks her in the World's Top 10 CEO Coaches noting she is the top female. And as conference keynote speaker she is routinely rated in the top 2%. Her client list reads like a “Who's Who” of executives in companies ranging from Microsoft, McDonald's, Kraft, American Express, Merrill Lynch, United Airlines, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to the Washington Beltway and U.S.Border Patrol. *She is the author of ten award-winning and best-selling business books including The Virtual Executive and CEO Material. She has written for the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fast Company. She has been featured in USA Today, Fortune, The New York Times, and Time; she has appeared on Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and CBS with Diane Sawyer. To learn more Debra advising leaders, coaching, facilitating a workshop, or speaking: www.debrabenton.com

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

A song engineered with a sound therapist to slow your heart rate has been available since 2011 — and almost nobody who talks about anxiety has mentioned it to you

A song engineered with a sound therapist to slow your heart rate has been available since 2011 — and almost nobody who talks about anxiety has mentioned it to you

The Vessel

A Pew Research survey found 64% of American adults still choose print over e-books — and the reason has less to do with nostalgia than attention span

A Pew Research survey found 64% of American adults still choose print over e-books — and the reason has less to do with nostalgia than attention span

Global English Editing

For a while we assumed the slow cooling of a long marriage was just the price of time — until researchers found that couples who spent about seven minutes, three times a year, describing their worst fight the way a neutral outsider might see it simply stopped sliding apart

For a while we assumed the slow cooling of a long marriage was just the price of time — until researchers found that couples who spent about seven minutes, three times a year, describing their worst fight the way a neutral outsider might see it simply stopped sliding apart

The Vessel

When researchers had people confide something painful to a friend sitting right beside them, the ones whose blood pressure climbed the highest weren’t leaning on someone difficult — they were turning to a friend they genuinely love and still, just slightly, hold their breath around

When researchers had people confide something painful to a friend sitting right beside them, the ones whose blood pressure climbed the highest weren’t leaning on someone difficult — they were turning to a friend they genuinely love and still, just slightly, hold their breath around

The Vessel

The writers whose work reads as unmistakably human aren’t the ones avoiding AI on principle — they’re the ones who never stopped writing like themselves in the first place

The writers whose work reads as unmistakably human aren’t the ones avoiding AI on principle — they’re the ones who never stopped writing like themselves in the first place

Global English Editing

Some of the loneliest people you’ll meet are the ones everyone describes as easygoing, agreeable, and low-maintenance, they learned long ago that having needs was the fastest way to be left out

Some of the loneliest people you’ll meet are the ones everyone describes as easygoing, agreeable, and low-maintenance, they learned long ago that having needs was the fastest way to be left out

Global English Editing