Post As Though Your Mother Will See It
What you publish is public, permanent, and part of your reputation whether you meant it to be or not. When in doubt, don't.
You know the moment. A post or a comment has gotten under your skin, you've got a sharp reply half-typed, and your thumb is hovering over the button. Everything in you wants to hit it. This is exactly the moment the old wisdom was made for: post as though your mother will see it. Because she probably will — and so, eventually, will a prospect, a client, or a future employer. That little test has aged remarkably well, precisely because the thing it protects — your reputation — has only become more exposed.
Here's the reality we all tend to forget in the heat of the moment. What feels like a throwaway remark is, in fact, public and effectively permanent. Employers and clients research people now; your feed is often the very first place they look, sometimes before they'll even take a meeting. And yes, the platforms give you privacy controls, and you should use them — but do not lean on them as a safety net. Screenshots exist. Settings change. Things get forwarded, resurfaced, and dug up. The only truly reliable filter is the one between your ears. If you would not want your mother, or a potential client, or a future employer to see it, do yourself a favor and click cancel.
I'll offer you a rule I only half-joke about: every device connected to a social media account ought to come with a breathalyzer you have to pass before you're allowed to tap “post.” Because most of the things we publish and later regret were written in a hot flash of feeling. And feelings, as I've said throughout this program, are a terrible foundation for a decision — you want to act on what you know, not what you feel in the moment. When something has you fired up, that's precisely the wrong time to post. Walk away. Sleep on it. The take that felt so urgent at 11 p.m. almost always looks different, and smaller, in the morning.
Speak kindly and sincerely — or don't speak
The second half of this is even simpler, and just as old: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. It turns out our grandmothers were running a sound reputation-management strategy. The world already has more than enough critics — and let's be precise about what a critic actually is. A critic is someone who makes negative remarks without offering anything better in their place. When you tear another person down in public, you don't diminish them nearly as much as you reveal something about yourself. You hurt yourself, professionally and even spiritually, far more than you hurt your target.
Stephen Covey had a principle he called “loyalty to the absent” — the idea that you should speak of people who aren't present as though they were standing right there. Online, that's not even a hypothetical: the person is always present, and so is everyone else, indefinitely. So speak accordingly. Now, none of this means you can never disagree — that would be a boring and dishonest world. Constructive criticism is a genuinely good thing, and it's completely different from being a critic. The difference is whether you're adding something.
Picture someone who thinks a piece I wrote is dead wrong. One response is: “This is misleading nonsense; anyone who follows this advice is a fool.” That's a critic — all heat, no light, and it makes the writer look better than it makes the commenter look. The other response shares the same disagreement by speaking from real experience: “I see it differently, and here's what my own years in this have taught me…” That one changes minds. It opens a real conversation, it adds value for everyone reading, and — funny thing — it usually earns the respect of the very person it disagrees with. Same disagreement. Completely different character.
This is really about congruence
Underneath both halves is a single idea: be the same person online that you are in person. The decent, respectful, sincere version of you — the one your friends and family know — should be the one who shows up in the feed, especially on the days you're irritated. That's just congruence, the same character in every room. A person who is warm face-to-face and vicious behind a keyboard isn't being “authentic” in either place; they're just letting the medium excuse the meanness. Don't let it. The screen is not a license to be someone you'd be ashamed to be at the dinner table.
How Prospect & Flourish approaches this
Your reputation precedes you now, and online most of all — it's doing its quiet work long before you ever get in the room. So we treat every post as a small deposit into, or withdrawal from, how people regard you, and we extend to people online the same respect we'd want to show anyone in our network. What this means to you is a five-second habit worth building: before anything goes out, run the test. Would my mother wince? Would a client I respect think less of me? Would a future employer hesitate? If any of them would, don't post it. It really is that simple — and it will save you more grief than almost any other discipline in this program.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't this just telling me to be bland and inoffensive?
Not at all. Congruence isn't cowardice, and being kind isn't being bland. You can hold strong convictions and express them plainly — I certainly do. The test was never “is this inoffensive?” It's “is this kind and sincere?” Those aren't the same thing. You're allowed to challenge ideas, take firm positions, and even be provocative, as long as you're doing it with respect and adding something real. What you're avoiding is cheap negativity and cruelty — the stuff that costs you nothing to type and costs your reputation plenty. Decent and interesting are not opposites.
So I can never disagree or criticize anyone publicly?
Of course you can — there's a world of difference between constructive criticism and being a critic. A critic tears down and offers nothing better; that's the thing to avoid. But disagreeing thoughtfully, from your own experience, in a way that adds value for everyone reading, is not just allowed — it's genuinely good. Speak to what you actually know, keep it respectful, and write as though the person were standing right there, because online they effectively are. Done that way, disagreement builds your reputation instead of spending it, and often earns the respect of the very person you're disagreeing with.
Don't privacy settings let me keep my personal posts private?
They help, and you should absolutely use them — but never treat them as a guarantee. A private post is one screenshot, one changed setting, or one forwarded message away from being very public. People have been surprised, sometimes at real professional cost, by things they were sure were locked down. So use the controls for what they're worth, but post as if the wall could come down at any moment, because sometimes it does. The only filter you can fully trust is the decision not to post something in the first place.
Everyone who's provocative and negative seems to get more attention. Doesn't outrage work?
Outrage does get clicks — I won't pretend negativity doesn't travel fast online, because it does. But look at the whole bill, not just the attention. That approach builds a reputation you'll eventually have to live with, attracts exactly the wrong audience, and spreads the kind of bad feeling that has a way of circling back to you. You might win a burst of engagement and lose the trust that actually leads to business and referrals. I'd rather be respected by the right people over a lifetime than briefly loud in front of the wrong ones. Attention is cheap. Trust is not.
Photo by cottonbro studio via Pexels
