21 June 2019

Confidence or Cockiness?


What is the difference between confidence and cockiness?

Confidence emerges from in-depth observation, wealth of knowledge and real-life experience. One can be humble yet confident of what they are doing. A confident person is humble to listen, adjust and learn from  situations.

Cockiness or arrogance boils from an ultra-inflated ego. Arrogant people insists they are right without the details of knowledge to back them up. However they do not make the effort to discover the truth for themselves. They insist they are right based on pride. They just want to prove they are better from the people they rebel towards (higher authorities) or the people they compete with (peers). Making decisions based on arrogant mindset can cause huge mistakes.

It takes wisdom to be confident and identify people who are confident.

For employers, choose staffs who are confident in their knowledge, professionalism and commitment level. They are confident as they are aware of their worth and ability to contribute to the company.

For experienced employees, please chose bosses who are confident to discuss knowledge and experience with you. Arrogant insecure managers will not appreciate your knowledge or experience. In fact, they are most likely to feel threatened by you.



6 June 2019

Treating others


The golden principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated.


1 June 2019

7 Types of Clients to Avoid




My stints as designer and event planner provided opportunities to work with various people. I have the pleasure to work with excellent clients who are timely paymaster, organized, reasonable, give clear instructions and appreciative. I have also seen clueless, inconsiderate clients who would delay the confirmation of project till last minute. Last minute work might lead to additional cost, unnecessary stress and errors due to lack of time for preparation. Thus, I came up with this list of red flags which we should be aware of.


1. Clients who has no respect to timeline. They do not consider the time people need to get work done. They expect things to be done immediately for them but they procrastinate when the ball is on their court. Almost all of their deadlines are "yesterday".

2. Clients who refuse to commit. They do not pay deposit and/or sign contract. They delay payment for months or refuse to pay at all.

3. Clients who will cause you to make losses. They only pay for 1 thing but expect 2 other items to be given free to them.

4. Clients who will burn your relationship with your good staffs and vendors. Some clients are bullies or liars who cause your valuable people to quit.

5. Clients who has no integrity, they flip words and do not honor what they promise.

6. Clients who are fickle-minded; they keep adjusting the project requirements, but refuse to pay for time and effort for the changes made.

7. Clients who have very tough projects but refuse to pay higher for the risks involved, they just want to push their own accountabilities away and point the blames to vendors.

While it is hard to find perfect customers, we have to safeguard our interest.  Consider the costs, risks and frustrations of dealing with potential bad clients seriously before we agree to work with them.