09/02/2026
My coach posted something funny on social media the other day: "What's less manly than va**ng?"
And I had the answer immediately. Whining. Whining is definitely less manly than va**ng. In fact, I'd rather lick the face of someone who'd just vaped a whole bottle of bubblegum flavour than listen to five minutes of whining.
Because let me tell you, I've spent enough time around professional whiners to last a lifetime.
Back in my property development days in the early 2000s, builder's merchants were like the central hub for professional whiners – basically Glastonbury for the chronically miserable, but with cement dust and sk**ky coffee instead of mud and overpriced cider.
This was before Facebook really took off, before online forums gave people places to congregate and have synchronised moaning sessions together. But bloody hell, back then those merchants were like reverse therapy clinics: nobody was getting any better and often left with more things to feel down about.
Their favourite widget had been discontinued. The greasy spoon down the road had taken their preferred breakfast off the menu. Bloody Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were messing up the country. Their wife wasn't giving them enough s*x. There was always someone or something to blame. (Mate, have you considered that your wife might be more interested if you spent less time at the builder's merchant sounding like a cat being reversed over in slow motion?)
Even on our own building sites, we had professional whiners. My husband co-ran a recruitment business bringing Eastern European workers to British building sites – some came to ours, some went elsewhere. And I'd get people coming to moan about the Polish workers joining our team like they'd just discovered a turd in their lunchbox.
I'd ask them: "Are we displacing you? Has anyone on our site actually lost their job to a Polish builder?"
"Well, no..."
"Right. And were you aware my husband was part of an immigrant family himself? His parents came from India when he was three. They were promised streets paved with gold by the British government, then treated like absolute s**te when they got here."
What struck me was how bloody brave and hardworking these Eastern Europeans were. They literally uprooted their entire lives. Some went months without seeing their families just to send money home. They'd come to work in a country where they could barely speak the language – which, let's be honest, takes more balls than most of us will ever need.
One of my favourite guys was Zebi. When he first arrived, his entire English vocabulary consisted of one word: "maybe."
"Would you like a coffee, Zebi?"
"Hmm, maybe."
"Is that a concrete mixer or a spaceship?"
"Maybe."
"Are you secretly the King of Poland?"
"Maybe."
It was bloody hilarious, but I loved him and had massive respect for him. Here was a bloke working his arse off in a place where he didn't speak the language, doing whatever it took to build a better life for his family.
And I'm standing there listening to this British bloke moaning about Polish workers like they'd personally come round and p**sed in his kettle, and I'm thinking: right, bigger picture time. Would I rather my daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters end up with hardworking men who were prepared to completely change their lives for a better future? Or with whiny, entitled, lazy t***s who'd rather swing on their shovels moaning about foreigners than actually doing the job that needed doing?
I know which gene pool I'm backing.
So, that's my definition of whining. People who won't help themselves. People who blame everyone else, even when nothing has actually diminished their own quality of life. Even the threat that something might change sends them into a moaning spiral like a toddler who's just been told they can't have Coco Pops for dinner and is now treating the entire supermarket to an operatic performance of grief.
Here's the thing though – I wasn't immune to whining myself back then. I wasn't happy in my marriage. I'd go to my sister's house and cry on her sofa like a leaky tap that nobody could be arsed to fix, feeling sorry for myself because my husband didn't seem to love me.
One day she'd clearly had enough. "Well just leave then. Just bloody leave."
"I can't! We're married, I've taken vows, we've got children, we've got a business together..."
She probably wanted to slap me. I probably deserved it. I was like a hamster on a wheel, running my little legs off but going absolutely nowhere and wondering why the scenery never changed.
I didn't properly help myself until I did a coaching course and recognised that we've all got to sort our own s**t out to find happiness. Revolutionary concept, I know.
Now, some people say to me: "I bet you just hear people whining all day in your coaching sessions."
Absolutely not. It's the complete opposite. My clients are strong men and women who want to actually solve problems. One of them described our calls as "a weekly slice of sanity," which I bloody love.
Because whining isn't the same as working through problems. You can have a reaction to bad things. You can struggle when you're sorting stuff out. You can have a proper rant when you’re clobbered by a curve ball. That's not whining – that's being human.
Whining is the repetitive, self-indulgent, solution-avoiding bo****ks that achieves absolutely nothing except annoying everyone around you. It's like trying to bail out a sinking boat with a colander – lots of frantic activity, zero results, and everyone watching thinks you're a bit thick.
The actual whiners – the ones who turn up time and again just moaning – they don't last long in my world. They don't get the audience they want. They don't get someone feeling sorry for them or agreeing with them or joining in their pity party like it's a sad karaoke night where everyone only knows the words to "Everybody Hurts." They just get someone saying: "Right, let's get to work on sorting this out"
And that's what makes whiners very uncomfortable. Because doing something requires effort, and effort is much harder than moaning into your pint about how unfair everything is.
Whining is deeply unattractive. In men, in women, in anyone. It's the human equivalent of someone chewing with their mouth open while telling you about the day they had their carbuncle drained.
If you want to be the kind of person who commands respect, who builds something worthwhile, who creates a life and business that actually works – you've got to stop whining and start doing.
That doesn't mean you can't struggle. It doesn't mean you have to have all the answers. It doesn't mean you can't have a proper moan when things are genuinely crap. It just means you're committed to finding solutions rather than wallowing in problems like a depressed hippo in a mud bath that's gone cold and nobody's coming to top up the hot water.
If you're struggling with something in your business or your personal life that's affecting your business, and you're thinking "yeah, I could actually do with some help sorting this out" – get in touch. If you're not the type to go bleating on social media or hanging out with others in a pity party at the metaphorical builder's merchant, you're probably a good fit to work with me. DM me, and we'll talk.
