Google Yourself Like a Stranger

The version of you online is shaping your reputation whether you built it on purpose or not. Here’s how to read it and take the pen back.

Last week we talked about the version of you that works while you’re not in the room. The one awake at two in the morning, deciding for strangers whether you’re worth a reply.

Here’s the part almost nobody acts on. That version is already live. It’s saying something about you right now, today, and if you’ve never fed it on purpose, it’s running on whatever got left behind by chance.

Go Read It, Then Feed It

So before you make anything new this week, go meet what already exists. Search your own name the way a stranger would. Read through the search results like a stranger might, and notice what it’s quietly deciding on your behalf. Then do one thing to make it less accidental.

Think about the last time you explained something to a colleague, talked a client off a ledge, or answered the same question you always get asked. You said something true and useful, off the cuff, and then it evaporated the second the call ended. Take that. The exact thing you already said out loud this week, and …