How Do You Get People To Respect and Admire You?

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How do you earn respect and admiration? Is it by your achievements? Personality?

Humor, and knowledge.

I'm willing to teach people what I know, I have a huge amount of knowledge garnered from over 20 years in my line of business, I constantly work to learn new things and when there's something valuable I share it with my co-workers.

I use humor a lot. Puns, impressions, some sarcasm. I figured out in grade school if someone was laughing they weren't hitting you... Being bigger than most, I could have just fought back, but I (usually anyway) really didn't want to hurt anybody.

It still surprises me that people I work with seem to care about me on a personal level. I try to be pleasant to them, but I really don't care for 99+% of them. If they were gone tomorrow I wouldn't shed a tear. Maybe that's the difference between me and them. I can separate personal and professional, and they don't seem to be able to. I'm sometimes shocked when someone will say (and ASSUME) that we're "friends". We're friendly co-workers. They aren't invited to my home, and if I were invited to theirs I would decline.

By being rich or an influential position (no matter how you got there and what an ignorant you are).

Hard work, good problem-solving skills, and the ability to make people laugh (impersonations, etc.)

My general feeling is that you get back what you put out there, so if you want respect and admiration, be a respectful and admiring person.

I have no idea how to "get" someone to respect and admire me. Some do, and I don't know why. If I am treated with disrespect, the person who did it either hears what I think about it or they never see me again. I try to treat everyone with respect, but being socially clueless I can't guarantee I do.
Once someone told me they were astonished when they watched me with my children and others because I talked to the children like they were adults. Maybe that's a clue?

Human kindness.

you teach everyone in your life how to treat you. If you act all arrogant and rude, people will treat you accordingly, if you act like a doormat, people will treat you like one.

I find that if you treat other with respect (but not with submission and subordination) people will respect you.

Just do your thing, follow your goals, and act in a way that you won't regret.

People admire me because of my vast amounts of wealth <just kidding>. Actually, I think that most people admire folks who treat others well.

I've had people lavish praise upon me that left me bewildered, because I didn't know what the hell they were going on about. Or assigning me attributes that I didn't agree with. I have gotten to the place where I don't care as much as I used to, about what people think. So when they start marveling at how "Gifted," or "Talented," I am, I just say thank you, while shrugging inwardly. Because people have also attributed me with things that weren't so nice, like being manipulative, or dishonest, or deceitful, when such was not my intent.

A lot of it boils down to how you treat other people;

It's ok to make mistakes but you have to be humble enough to apologise and sincere enough to mean it.

I also try to avoid conflict - If someone has an idea that I disagree with but can't change/influence, then there's no point in discussing it - we're all entitled to our opinions and if a given opinion keeps bringing conflict then ... move on.

by showing up early, leaving late, and working my a** off..
being 'pre-emptively nice' to people and caring about what happens to them
stuff like that.

I think these beliefs mirror what the posters themselves see as virtues? So this thread basically shows you how caring many of these ppl are. It's been a nice read, very comforting, thank you.

I firmly believe that you should get respect by being yourself and sticking to your principles and values. That's why I don't respect people who hate me for that, and never will.

For admiration - that's something I don't really aim for to be honest. If I get it I consider it a bonus - and I have got it as well. Mostly for my efforts with football and with my efforts re Aspergers (I have a feeling 08 is going to be a big year for that). Recently I was getting some overdue admiration for my efforts with pro wrestling locally (Australia) although not for on show efforts. But given where I was in early 06 what's achieved is a great improvement!

The only way I've managed to get respect from people was from being fair, and the fact i'm just a goofball at places like work.