Hello everyone from Lisbon, Portugal! 👋🏻

As we are currently staying in an AirBnB apartment I was led to wonder about the advertisements of these homes and are they just cocky and arrogant, or are the owners just confident with the level of their apartments – just like we humans tend to be in our daily lives.

It all starts with dirty coffee cups and glasses, really; if you advertise a clean and beautiful apartment, and charge a cleaning fee – I don’t fancy starting my morning coffee moment by washing your dirty cups to make a cup of coffee for myself – and I believe that we all coffee drinkers agree on that. But if you make sure that the cups are as clean as you advertise, then I can have my coffee in peace and, actually, wouldn’t have written this blog.

The same applies to our own lives – we can, and should, be sure about our own skills and knowledge, but at the same time be humble enough to understand that there is always room for improvement and learning new things and new ways to do things until the day we die. Sadly though, I have met many people over the years who have knowledge and skills and they are arrogant know-it-alls, who believe that they are superior to everyone else and are not afraid to show it.

I have always thought that by sharing my knowledge, and experiences, I am teaching and educating others thus creating more value to others as well as myself. But if I share a review of an apartment saying that “coffee cups were dirty, so prepare to wash them yourself before having coffee”, will it be beneficial or just vindictive? Should I instead send a private message to the owner and say that “hey, we noticed that the cups were dirty, just make sure that it doesn’t happen again”.

Public review can make or break someone’s reputation, but it can also ground someone enough that they are no longer arrogant, but confident that next time they will do better. A private message only works if the person is confident enough to admit that they made a mistake and they will rectify it. If, instead, they are arrogant, they will not do anything and the coffee cup -gate will continue. So, after two cups of coffee, I can’t help but wonder if I should act as a whistleblower?

The modern world is littered with situations where we could be critical but I think we shouldn’t be. There are situations where people try their best, which should always be applauded, and then there are the situations where people are just slacking and not pulling their weight, and those are the moments when we should take action. But is this coffee cup situation an example new cleaner running out of time whilst cleaning and just making sure that cups are rinsed, or is it arrogance of the owner thinking that all the good reviews make up for bad cleaning?

Simple answer, we don’t. And that’s when our own confidence comes into play – we have to use our own knowledge to decide which way we give the feedback – which is something I will do as soon as I have a bit of extra time from sightseeing. Enjoy the coffee and the weekend!