Sĩ diện (bragging without action and courage to improve) & tự tin (confidence): A THIN LINE

Why do you care?

I found out that changing people must come from inside, not from outside. It is very difficult to talk to people into something, a lot of people need to be burnt by themselves to start to see, then understand and eventually accept the truth... it does not mean they will change.

Leave them with reality check. Life is much more cruel with people who are arrogant or dont want to see their real value. Sooner or later they over expose themselves doing things that they don't really master (just because they know everything), then they end up alone. It just happened to my friend a "falsely modest" guy who would say you are great and your advice is nice, but end up just believing in himself and his own solutions... always.
He is now bankrupt, his wife left taking children with him, almost 1,000,000$ in debts to suppliers and friends, many friends stopped talking to him because he would only trust his own idea to overcome problems, just not listening believing he holds the truth...

My advice is to let the reality try to bend the arrogance. If you really want to speed up the process just cite some examples: Steve Jobs age 25 millionaire, Google Brin and Page age 31=17Billion USD each, Mark Zuckerberg facebook age 24, company valued at 40Billions... all started from University dormitory! Those examples tend to put arrogant people in their own place.

I have had the same question in mind as you do for a period of time, Ms. Chi. That is the matter of ARROGANT vs CONFIDENT.:) As you just said, there is only a thin line between these two. For me, I think confident is just so obvious that it takes place in the inside world of us. Some people show their confidences outside and it's easy for us to regconize but it doesn't mean the others are not confident. They are, but they do not show it. And an arrogant person does show off, talking too much about himself and his own achievements without caring what people think on that. So, your question is how we can help them realize their problem without losing their faces.. Um, if you do not want them to be embarrassed, you should talk directly to them in confidence, I mean a private conversation without everybody in surroundings. To be able to do that, you have to prepare some of the mistakes that they ever made and tell them that no one is always right or wrong, neither no one knows everything so do not always "laugh" at everybody when people say something wrong, etc. Have you got any other solutions for this?:) Cos there is a number of arrogant people out there.

Very interesting question Chi Pham :)
Confidence and arrogance are 2 very different things; the line between them isn’t as fine as people seem to think. The gap between true confidence and arrogance is a wide one, and when people do stray into arrogance (we all know someone, right?) it’s normally down to ignorance rather being than a conscious choice. Someone who’s trying hard to come across as confident, for example, can mistakenly behave arrogantly simply because they haven’t figured out what real confidence is or what it means to them.

People who are arrogant usually believe they are better than others. You can take it as a sign of insecurity. They speak out of turn, thier problems are worse than your's. They have a need for attention. They need to brag, show off. You can be arrogant and not even realize it or know it. it can put people off. Arrogant people are usualy doing a lot of talking and not a lot of doing.

Dealing with them is a whole complex subject to me.

@Rosie: Thanks for your valuable comment. As a matter of arrogance and confidence, I have no concerns. I agree with yourdefinition about arrogance. However, a person being arrogant may have ability as well, but they seem to over-rate their ability. At least they have something
My concern about "si dien" is the type who doesn't have the ability and pretends to have one. They have a low self-esteem and try to show off something they can't do just to make them look good.
I tried talking to them about actions and outcomes, like " there are no failures, just outcome, if they don't like the result, just change the action"- things like that.
But it's hard for them to realize even though we talk to them in private coz they are very insecure. They don't want people to find out that they are incapable of something. They always say things like "That's easy, I can do it.",.. But never take action, just talk.
A solution I am thinking is to introduce them to a less critical circle and talk to them whenever people criticize them?? Don't know yet ...

Hi Ms Hoa and Mr Hien Duy

Thanks for Ms Hoa's tips. Anh Hien Duy can try to see if it helps?? :)

I may try the "not giving attention" strategy. But to customize it a little, like to confront them nicely about the outcome they get- If they are that good, perhaps I need a convincing proof. And if they feel insecure, I may encourage to feel ok with failures,....

The strategy is like "good cop, bad cop" :))), being both soft and hard to get them out of the situation