Your Reputation Will Take Care of You
By Alexander Bo Miller
Reputation can be measured in many ways: “Honorable or Outlaw” is the mechanism the popular video game Red Dead Redemption uses to measure a player’s actions as they progress through the game; grade cards at the end of a semester measure a student’s performance in the classroom; and references for a job application give your potential employer an unbiased insight into your character. All of these systems review one’s actions during a period of time or set of challenges and serve as an important metric for how we review our character. As the great American Evangelist Dwight L. Moody said, “If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.”
My name is Alexander Bo Miller. I am 25 years old and currently reside in Nashville, Tennessee. From April 2024 to April 2025, I will have produced, directed, and/or managed over 100 concerts across the country. I graduated from Belmont University in the spring of 2023, double majoring in Entertainment and Music Business with a Legal emphasis and Business Management. I was the team captain of the Belmont Track and Field program and the Student Athlete Advisory Representative. I took home two gold medals in the Conference Championships in javelin, and silver and bronze medals that I’m not nearly as happy about …
Anyways, I have had the pleasure of meeting many incredible people not only through sport, but also in the music business here in Nashville. I meet many young aspiring industry professionals that seem to bounce around between being the most intimidatingly, hard working person to being one who is lost in the clouds. I try to offer my best 25-year-old advice, but, in a moment's notice, I, too, can find myself in the clouds without any clear direction. That is, until you get a phone call on a busy Saturday morning during the brunch shift at work and you're sweating in the kitchen translating Spanish back to English so that the kitchen staff is on track and understood by the servers whose heart rates regularly exceed 120 beats per minute (bpm). A mentor of mine was on the phone, and he had an idea for me, “Hey dude, would you be able to go on tour next week? Like you’ll be leaving on Tuesday.” So, with three days’ notice, I committed and left on the first leg of what turned out to be a year of touring with three different bands. All this to say, now is when the game starts. Because, as far as I was concerned, the clock hadn’t yet begun, and this was my first chance to really get on the field. This is when I began to realize how important your reputation is.
To me, reputation can be described in many ways, but the way that I like to think of it is, “Is your name the first name that comes to someone’s mind when they need or want _____?” This could be anything, literally anything. Is it a service or product that you offer better, cheaper, or faster than anyone else? The ability to be the first name that pops into someone’s head is immeasurably valuable.
The reason I believe this to be so important in how quickly you can grow in your industry is because if I hadn’t stayed just relevant enough, the man who called me that day could have just as easily recommended someone else for the job. He could have called someone else who reached out more, set up more meetings, asked for more work, produced more, or was just around more. Now, this can become increasingly difficult as you develop because your reputation for your work intrinsically becomes more competitive and standards increase. Simply, outside expectations of you are now higher. The way to stay ahead of this curve is to expect more out of yourself and do the work nobody wants to do when no one is looking. This can sometimes feel like a spiraling staircase that you're sprinting up to nowhere; but rest assured, as your reputation and the demand for your work increases, you will reap the rewards many times over.
The first tour I was a part of allowed me to meet the artist that invited me on his tour later that fall. My work with the first band was strong enough for them to offer me an open invite to tour with them for as long as I wish. The folks who hired me for those tours were both referenced by the manager of the band that I will be touring with this spring. This isn’t rocket science. Sure, I was tested day in and day out, and some problems were much more fun to solve than others; but as long as you show up with a smile and do just a bit more than you think you need to do, your reputation continues to improve. I am blessed to say that my network in Nashville continues to grow all because I do the required work and am confident enough to step out of my comfort zone and take care of the little things and practices that aren’t a part of the job, even if it means doing the job at a 110% and sticking around, shaking hands, and picking up trash.
Image Credit: Alyssa Rasp
Photo is from “502s Day” on May 2, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. That’s me pictured with The 502s, whom I toured mostly with this past year.
It is also important to shed light on the select group of individuals whose work can be so exceptional that it supersedes their poor reputation. I doubt many people fall in this category—most people are good people who do good work. However, the individuals with poor reputations that continue to get jobs, awards, and recognition exist too; but that should never deter you from your purpose. I don’t believe it is all that necessary to give examples of those characters, as I’m sure you could think of a few, but, nonetheless, it is important to treat those people with kindness because you may be working for or alongside them someday. I look at it like this, “Would I rather be alone and considered ‘the best’ for a period of time, or would I rather be a part of a village of people who depend on each other and do it all together forever?”
There are many factors and variables that can affect your performance throughout a given mission or challenge. Ultimately, this is when faith in your abilities should be strongest. The more practice you can get working through tough challenges with many distractions, the more you will be able to maintain your composure in high-stress situations. At the end of the day, the judgment of your work and how you do it is not up to you. If you are truly doing your best day in and day out and acting in good faith, you are effectively bulletproofing your reputation.
In an increasingly sensitive and reference-based industry, I have learned that your reputation is your strongest form of currency. If you continue to build your character through persistence and authenticity, you will become more comfortable addressing challenges. Being comfortable in uncomfortable situations is an advantage that allows you to pick up on the details that you otherwise may have missed if you weren’t cool, calm, and collected.
Heraclitus said it best: “Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior and he will bring the others back.” Be courageous, trust the character you have so carefully developed, and your reputation will take care of you.
Alexander Bo Miller is a producer, writer, designer, and manager working out of Nashville, Tennessee. He is pursuing world changing intelligence and a pure heart, all the while, challenging peers to push the envelope and produce more than we consume.