Fame tells people your name. Character tells them whether to trust it.

Recognition and credibility are separate signals, and they move at different speeds. Getting your name known can be done quickly, almost mechanically, while whether people believe you accumulates slowly out of how many times you did what you said. The first gets you into the room, and the second decides what happens once you are in there, with no quantity of the first substituting for it.

Which means the thing to build early is the dull one. Keep your small commitments to people who can do nothing for you. Say plainly when you do not know something. Both are tiny and both are being recorded.