Tag: Life

Confidence, we all want it but not everyone gets it. Where does confidence come from after all? What makes one more confident than the other? Does confidence mean you need to be a loud and bossy type or appear superior in front of other people? Do you have to be a certain breed to exude a high level of confidence? If you haven’t got it, can you just fake it to make it? So many questions here but the answer might be just one only. Mel Robbins says: Confidence is a skill, not a personality trait. It is the willingness to try. Do you agree? Read the following story, it may change the way you believe what confidence is.

So, I was on the train one Friday night after work. As usual, I proceeded to the middle carriage and stood in a quiet spot. There was nothing else to do except starring at my phone and scrolling through pages and pages of Facebook feeds. This commute was no difference from any other days. But it all started to change when this 30-year-old-ish lady got on the train. She came sitting down next to two female passengers – Presumably a mother and a daughter. They had two big suitcases standing side by side against their knees. With check-in bag tags still hanging, it looked like they’d just got out of the airport or something. Right there and then, this young lady just burst out and started to ask them a few questions like where they’d traveled from etc. Up to that point, I was reading some stuff on my phone, but my attention started to drift a bit. I was drawn by the energy she brought into this confined space. It was delightful to watch her personality shine through like a social butterfly. A great deal of charisma, confidence and a good sense of humour came right out of her – she even joked about her grey hair. Surly she didn’t mind people around having a laugh about it. Soon I found myself smiling and I noticed other passengers were smiling, too. It was infectious. What can I say? She added much fun to this tedious train ride. When we got off at the next station, everyone still carried the side-effect and wore a little grin on the face. I wondered what the incoming passengers might’ve thought. Well, she made our night that’s why. What was so special about this young lady you might ask? Well, do I have to mention that she appeared to be someone who had Down syndrome? I was glad that we had someone like her in our society!

If you are a quiet person, you can be confident in a quiet way. You don’t have to change yourself to be a mouthy human being. If you are an introvert, you can be confident in an introverted way. You don’t have to change yourself to look like an extrovert or act in such a way that’s totally opposite to your true character. To me, when it comes to confidence, it’s all about confide in your identity. How so? Let’s look at the word “confident” and unpack it piece by piece. You’ll see what I mean. I’m not a linguistic expert but I love exploring words in my unique way and make it my own.

All in all, if you buy what I’m selling here which is the notion of personal experiences, then you’ll know that at the end of the day, it’s our personal experiences that form part of our identities, something that no one can ever take away from us. Knowing that it’s already within us, we can work on bringing out the best in us and the rest? Just smile or have a laugh. That comes with confidence…

Are you someone who does almost everything by the book? Is there a rulebook in your life that you’ve been following but never questioned if it’s still serving you? Is that rulebook written by yourself or someone else? Do you believe in rules are to be followed or broken? 

The world-famous Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming once said in one of rare TV interviews a few years back: If you look around nature, things come in all shapes and sizes, but nothing in perfectly square. It was such a profound statement. I literally sat in front of my laptop re-playing it in my head and trying to digest every word that came out of it. So powerful that it’s stuck with me ever since. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I guess I can call it a light bulb moment. In case you don’t know who Ju Ming is, of course you can Google him and find more information about his life on Wikipedia or his website. The reason why I reference him here is because it gives me a good starting point to argue that rules aren’t born out of nature, they are predominately man-made, crafted and created by individuals for specific purposes – like law and order.

Of course in our society, there’re regulations to be obeyed to, protocol to be followed though. No exceptions. All people are expected to be law-abiding citizens in all circumstances or they’ll face the consequences. Anything that is still unfair, unjust, unequal, it takes laws to change laws. We know the process can take years and in many cases, failures, setbacks, frustrations are not uncommon. It can be a whole new set of topic to discuss but for now, to a much smaller scale, I want to talk about what do we do about those rules in our personal lives. Are they helpful? Are they stretching you or limiting you? Ju Ming said, as a beginner you can acquire as many skills as you like when you’re learning. But in a creation process, you need to unlearn, stop thinking, throw away all the things you’ve been taught by others, do nothing but simply executing the work.

Researching on the topic has been a rewarding experience for me. I’m absolutely captivated by Jun Ming’s artworks and his philosophy of life. Even though you don’t consider yourself as an arty type of person, will find his artworks full of life and engaging to watch. I first heard of him when I was only a child but who would’ve thought two to three decades later I’d write a post inspired by him. So, back to the question of: Are rules to be followed or broken? Before I started to write this post, I thought I had a “right” answer based on my own presumption but after I’ve done more study of this subject, I’m going to surprise myself and say: I think it’s both.

If you’re an artist or someone who wants to pursue a mastery in your field, rules are to be followed when you first learn the basic techniques. Over time they will help you lay a solid foundation before you take your skillset to the next level. As you progress, rules are to be bent so they adapt to your unique personal style unlike and unmatched by others. Finally, when you execute your work, rules are to be broken or let go, so you aren’t bound by any preset concepts, thoughts or ideas, that’s when you produce something, a masterpiece truly your own. Sounds like an art? I think it is…

Intentionally or not, we all sell ourselves at some point in our lives. Whether it’s in a boardroom presenting our ideas to a group of executives or sitting in a meeting room being interviewed by a panel of hiring managers for a new job you really want or having an annual performance appraisal or bonus review with your boss, it’s inevitable we need to take the role of the salesperson and showcase what we’re good at. Ultimately, the goal is to persuade a decision maker to buy what we’re selling – ourselves.

Where do we begin? A good place to start is to ask ourselves this question: Are we visible enough to be counted for? I guess not everyone is comfortable with self-promoting or putting themselves forward but when the stakes are high, no one can afford to take a back seat or hide in a corner waiting to be discovered. The good news is: The world seems to have its own rewarding system. The bad news is: It rightfully operates outside our comfort zone.

Here’s an interesting example. The other day I was chatting with a café owner downstairs from the same building where I work, I noticed he had a box of friands (small almond cakes), uncovered, sitting on top of a food display cabinet instead of inside like the rest of patisseries. Not that he ran out of space. I was very curious so I went to ask him what it was all about. Wouldn’t they go stale very soon? I asked. He was very quick to respond: because they sell fast this way. I immediately got it. Yes, he had his point. Those friands looked fabulously delicious and mouth-watering. They were right in a prime position beside a cash register counter, perfectly on the eye level for any discerning customers. Who wouldn’t be tempted to grab a piece or two while there? Understanding the psychology behind it and marketing it in such a fashion, the café owner was indeed very clever at playing with visual effects which can work wonderfully like a hook that captures the consumer mind. It’s a lure that attracts buyers attention. The rest? It is a matter of letting the product speaking for itself: Hey! Look at me, I’m hot, I’m the best seller, buy me and eat me, now.

Although visibility doesn’t guarantee success, essentially, it’s a key ingredient to getting your foot in the door. Next time when you have an opportunity to sell yourself, how would you like to position yourself to increase your visibility? Think of those yummy friands. FYI, they were sold out…

Gone are the days when burglars would smash a window or break a door to get into a house and take away people’s precious belongings. Nowadays, crimes in this nature are committed in cyberspace without even leaving a trace in the physical world. Cybercrime has become so sophisticated that cybercriminals like hackers can literally steal your hard-earned money or valuable personal data without showing up on your doorstep. They can just sit quietly behind a desk, tap away at a computer and watch your every move in secret. One click is all it takes for them to gain access to your network. The next thing you know, your security is in tatters and your privacy is in the hands of the wrong people.

The truth is no one is 100% immune from being a target for cybercriminals. As a blogger or a social media account user like Facebook, when you put yourself out there, the information posted online or shared in public can be collected and studied by cybercriminals. Their premeditated attacks are aimed at stealing your money and/or identity. The stakes are so high that we cannot afford to take chances and only deal with it when it happens.

The reason for writing this post is to educate and remind readers about the dangers of hacking and serious damage hackers can do to you once they gain an unlawful entry to your computer devices. Why do I care so much about this issue? Because it happened to me a couple of years ago. Knowing how bad it was, I don’t wish anyone to go through a similar experience like mine. So, how it started is one day I received an unsolicited email that looked seemingly legitimate. Although I remained a bit guarded and skeptical about it at first, I was fooled to click the malicious link that gave a hacker an indefinite remote access to the computer I was using. The following few days I began to notice something fishy was going on particularly when I was doing some online transactions. For example, my mouse wasn’t moving as freely as usual. By the time I reported this incident, damage had already been done. The length I had to go through to clean up the computer and repair the disease infected by hacking was astonishing. Because it was so badly damaged, at the end I had no choice but to give up the computer altogether.

What I learnt from this experience is:

1. Hackers don’t just contact you out of blue, they do their homework and study your online behavioral patterns way before they send you an invitation.
2. Hackers will lure you with a bait and ask you to click a link to view more details. That’s a red flag.

We live in the digital age that there’s a tone of information coming to us from all different corners of the world at any give time. It’s natural that we don’t want to miss out on anything important or valuable. But not everything is as pure and innocent as they claim themselves to be. As we conduct more and more businesses on line and share our personal lives unreservedly in cyberspace, cybercriminals will always look for opportunities to launch their attacks. Make sure we exercise caution and stay vigilant. If need be, press “Delete” button first before hackers have a chance to press your buttons…