Adopt this new phrase: It’s not for you.

Believe it or not, the solution here might lie in a short and sweet book about marketing. Several years back, we read This Is Marketing, one of the many books written by marketing guru Seth Godin.

In this book, Godin shared a small but game-changing phrase that has worked wonders for us personally in situations where we need to acknowledge someone’s negative opinion without letting it derail our own confidence in what we do.

Here’s the phrase: It’s not for you.

Godin writes: “‘It’s not for you’ shows the ability to respect someone enough that you’re not going to waste their time, pander to them, or insist that they change their beliefs. It shows respect for those you seek to serve, to say to them, ‘I made this for you. Not for the other folks, but for you.’ Two sides of the same coin.”

He goes on to say: “…it doesn’t matter what people you’re not seeking to serve think…We know that every best-selling book on Amazon has at least a few one-star reviews. It’s impossible to create work that both matters and pleases everyone.”

That disgruntled guest who left that cutting review? Your Airbnb is not for them. Simple as that. They’re not the latest data point in a string of reviews diagnosing a problematic pattern with your place. (By the way, that’s the feedback to pay the most attention to.)

This guest is just the inevitable outlier, sharing their opinion, which they’ve got every right to do. You didn’t do anything wrong during their stay, and you don’t need to do anything now. Give yourself permission to just say, “It wasn’t for you.”

No Airbnb is ever going to please every guest. That’s impossible. The brilliance you created just wasn’t made for them. You made it for all those folks that left five star reviews.