A reputation is built like a brick wall, one day at a time, and knocked down like one too.

What people think of you is a slow accumulation of ordinary instances rather than a claim you can make about yourself. Each reliable day adds very little, which is why it takes years, and the same structure can lose a great deal at once because one bad instance gets weighted heavily against a quiet background. Both directions run through small acts.

Pay attention to the unremarkable commitments, the ones nobody would notice you keeping. Those are the bricks. When you do get something wrong, repair it quickly and in the open, since that is how the wall gets patched.