This week, I want to discuss with you the most valuable asset you possess. And believe it or not, it's not your home, your business or your 401(k) balance. These assets are merely possessions and as a result, they come and go. For instance, a fire could destroy your home or business or a bad investment could wipe out your 401(k) balance. However, your greatest asset is not a reflection of what you have but rather it is a reflection of who you are. Your greatest asset is your name, or more specifically, your reputation.

Perhaps, the most eloquent explanation of the value of your reputation comes from William Shakespeare in the play Othello when Iago says:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.

Now, you may be thinking that this sentiment may have been true in Elizabethan England but not in 21st century America. However, just the opposite is true. In our modern society, your name is even more important than ever. For most of us, our name is our primary source of spending power. When we want to pay our mortgage or our utility bills, what do we do? We sign our names to a check. When we want to buy a television or pay for our airline tickets, what do we do? We sign our names to a credit card receipt.

And what determines the size or quality of the television or vacation we can purchase? It is our reputation. Someone with a reputation for financial abundance and trustworthiness can acquire more goods and services than someone with a lesser reputation. In fact, a good reputation is worth for more than gold. For instance, let's suppose that you are looking to buy a million dollar home. To qualify for the purchase of the home, you may only have to come up with $100,000 in cash. The bank will lend you the other 90% of the money on the basis of credit report (i.e., your reputation for paying your debts). Just think about that for a moment. All of your hard work and effort to accumulate cash for the down payment is worth only 10% of what your name is worth. And, in fact, if your name is good enough, the bank will lend you the entire purchase price.

As you can see, a good reputation is far more valuable than stocks, bonds and real estate. And just with any other valuable, it must be protected. After all, if you have a nice car, you probably have an alarm system installed. The same is probably true of your home. Therefore, it only makes sense to ADT your reputation as well.

Sadly, this is one of the lessons in life that I had to learn the hard way. In the past, I was very careless with my reputation; much more careless than I would have ever been with, say, my Lamborghini. I would have never left my expensive sports car out all night with the doors unlocked and the windows rolled down. However, there were many times when I left the doors to my reputation wide open. I became involved with people and schemes that not only robbed me of three years of freedom but perhaps more importantly, my good name.

As I've said many times before, my biggest motivation for doing what I do now is to restore a good name for my children. I want my children to be able to proudly say that their name is "Aronson." And I'm sure you want the same thing for your children (except, of course, you want them to use your last name instead). Therefore, here are three ways to keep your reputation under lock and key:

Hide Your Jewels. If you had millions of dollars of jewels lying around inside your home, would you advertise that fact? Of course not. You would not want to make yourself an easy target for thieves to rob you. In the same way, you don't want to make yourself an easy target for people to rob you of your good reputation by trying to dazzle everyone with your brilliance. For this reason, whenever possible, you should under promise and over deliver. People will never trash your reputation for delivering more than you said you would.

Hold the Key. What do you think would happen to your car if you parked it in a parking lot with the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked? Someone would probably hop in and drive it all over town, getting parking tickets, having accidents and generally causing mayhem, right? Well the same thing happens when you let others have the key to your reputation. Therefore, you must be careful to always be in the driver's seat with your reputation. Whenever your reputation is on the line, you must be the one responsible for getting done what you've promised.

For instance, if your department is preparing a big report for the next board meeting, you are going to be the one held responsible if the report is late or filled with errors. The board isn't going to care that your secretary was having a bad day or that the guys in the mailroom mixed up the addresses. The success of the project will affect your reputation and for that reason, you must ultimately be responsible for checking everyone's work or delegating the task to someone whose reputation is as good as you want your reputation to be.

Install a LoJack. The purpose of the LoJack system is to locate your car when it is stolen. Whenever a car is reported stolen, the LoJack system in the car is activated remotely. Small radio frequency transceivers then emit inaudible sounds which can be picked up by devices installed in police cruisers. Well, on many occasions, your reputation will get away from you too. When this happens, people will emit audible sounds expressing their displeasure about your reputation. The key is to have a network of people tuned into this frequency who can pick up the distress signal and relay the message back to you. This will allow you to rectify the problem and salvage your reputation.

The most important thing is to constantly guarding your reputation. As Socrates once said, "Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again."