The Top 10 Distinctions Between Winners and Whiners

Chapter 4. Winners brighten a room by entering. Whiners brighten a room by leaving.

Winners energize people. The excitement about who they are becoming and what they are doing in life makes their enthusiasm a tangible force—it feels good just to be in their presence. Whiners, on the other hand, can be emotional vampires, draining the energy from everyone around them.

Have you ever noticed that winners attract other winners, while whiners cluster with whiners? Birds of a feather do, indeed, flock together. If you've made the decision to change from whiner to winner, it's essential to surround yourself with winners as much as possible. A warning, though: Winners will not spend much time with those who continue to complain. To find and keep the company of winners, you will need to eliminate whining from your life.

If God had made 11 commandments, the eleventh might have been Thou Shalt Not Whine. I have a plaque in my home bearing that inscription, and it acts as a constant reminder that although we are all human, and we live in a world that can be more pessimistic than optimistic, we must be vigilant in choosing the words we speak.

Whiners brighten a room by leaving because they take their complaining with them. Have you noticed that whiners will actually get into a competition to see whose life is worse? No wonder winners refuse to spend time with whiners.

It's my opinion that the overwhelming majority of people fit the description of a whiner. Even my 96-year-old great-grandmother thinks ...