I got a bad Airbnb Review 👎
We’ve been running our rental property as an Airbnb for the past 4 months. I know I know, rental crisis but I have valid reasons 🙂 I promise.
The most enjoyable part is the pet pics 🐕 🐈 . Being pet friendly we just have one major house rule. You need to send us a cute picture. It’s priceless.
The most interesting aspect is seeing what things leave behind and what we have to post back to people. The weirdest-looking cat food bowl I’ve ever seen, kids’ toys, phone chargers, and even underwear.
It’s been widely successful to the point where it’s just too much work now.
We easily hit Superhost status and our current rating is 4.96 🔥
I like to think it’s because of my obsession with Customer Success 😉
But last week, I got a bad review!
😲
I think within 24 hours, I mentioned it to three different people and had a bitch about some of their ‘complaints’.
I fixated on this even though it really didn’t bother me.
The fact they mentioned there were leftover beers and food in the fridge. Even though our guidebook tells them we use this place and it’s our food!
Or that there wasn’t free-to-air TV. Who the fuck watches free to air 🤣 ??
Or that the outside bins were full. I’m sorry we have to wait for the weekly garbage trucks.
It’s enlightening that I’ve been raising my consciousness around stoic ideas and attempting to ignore things out of my control.
But I let the little things annoy me.
Now, I’m not one to shy away from having an opinion. It’s a daily practice of mine to change this behavior. Years ago (feel free to verify by looking at my Twitter or FB feed 😂 ) I wouldn’t shy away from a debate or two online.
It’s very rare I do that now. But…
This review obviously did bother me because I didn’t stop stewing about it.
The funny thing was, it wasn’t even negative
It was still, on average, a 4!
Jeez Colin, let it go!
The ironic thing is, not only is it not really a bad review, we have 47 5-star ⭐ reviews.
What it is, is a wonderful example of Confirmation Bias and our ability to remember the hits and forget the misses. Or in this case, remember the miss, forget the hits.
Fantastic place to stay! Beautiful, relaxing and nice and clean. All instructions nice and clear and everything worked well. I ended up having to work last minute so appreciated the desk area! Thanks for everything!
We had the most lovely stay. The house was so homey, and the bed was super comfortable. Such a nice ambience. The owners turned the air con on for us prior to arrival which was helpful on a hot day, we appreciated that SO much! Would 100% stay again.
Such a nice peaceful stay. House looked exactly like the photos and has been well taken care of. Colin was great, very informative and friendly.
Isn’t it funny how our human brain works?
I was talking about this to one of my mentors and we were chatting about how a person I am working with doesn’t like him.
The first thing I thought of was Gregory House’s quote “If nobody hates you, you’re doing something wrong!’.
It made us laugh that I was so letting this review get to me and not applying it to myself.
The great thing about self-reflection is you get to observe and shift the emotion into finding new interpretations.
The stoics had similar ideas about starting again each day and behaving like a human.
Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. .. get back up when you fail … celebrate behaving like a human — however imperfectly
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations — 5.9
So, let this be the last time I give a shit about a 4-star review. 💪🏻
In fact, bring more on. Because it made me address a few minor gripes for the better ✨
So I know I am overdue this week for posting a personal article. So this was mine this week. A little shorter, hopefully approaching more personal. No idea if interesting.
Thanks for reading 🙏
