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Practice making decisions that disappoint people.

George Kao
4 min readDec 17, 2019
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

As a kind-hearted person, you love helping others. You never want to disappoint people. As a result, you’re probably exhausted, or in danger of burnout.

I used to be so scared of people’s disapproval. This is in part from my Asian heritage, in part being an immigrant and trying to fit into the mainstream culture, and in part being predisposed towards kindness, as you are.

A trait that I’ve had to develop, in order to operate a joyfully productive and personally sustainable business, is to be kind yet firm. There’s a good chance you need to work on this, too, if you want a thriving business.

One example is when you need to raise your rates. As a kind person, you’re afraid to disappoint clients with higher rates. Yet if you don’t raise rates, you probably won’t reach financial viability or have a healthier and more sustainable schedule.

It is a personal development practice to be OK with making an empowering decision that disappoints people. As long as you try to be kind in how you go about things, you can do anything you want, that’s aligned with your purpose.

It’s not natural. It takes practice.

Truth: the bad feelings of other people, even if it appears to be caused by your actions, are mostly not your…

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George Kao
George Kao

Written by George Kao

Authentic Business Coach & Author of 4 Books including "Authentic Content Marketing" and "Joyful Productivity" https://www.GeorgeKao.com

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