04/10/2026
Be Kind.
It’s a simple phrase.
A request. An instruction. An ideology.
Be kind.
We see it written on T-shirts, mugs, signs and social media posts. It is one of those phrases that is so familiar that it can sometimes lose its meaning.
But recently, I’ve found myself thinking about what those two words actually mean to me.
What does "be kind" mean to a 40-year-old business owner, husband and father of two small children?
What does it mean for my family? My friends? My team? Our customers? And, perhaps more importantly, how do I make sure that kindness is not just something I say, but something I actually live?
I recently heard someone I admire talk about eulogies. He said that, when somebody dies, people tend to talk about one of two things. They either talk about what that person did, or they talk about who that person was.
I think many of us carry around a certain amount of guilt about the things we don’t do. We don’t visit family enough. We don’t check in with friends as often as we should. We work too much. We get distracted. We aren’t always as present as we would like to be. We convince ourselves that we should be doing more, achieving more, helping more and somehow finding more hours in a day that already feels full.
I certainly feel that way. But when I strip everything else away and ask myself who I am at my very core, I know this much:
I care. I give a s**t. I try. I live with purpose, and I know what my intentions are.
I won’t always get everything right. None of us will.
But I try to be kind. I honestly do.
For me, kindness in business starts with caring about the people who trust us. When somebody becomes a WLV Plumbing & Heating customer, I want them to feel that they no longer need to worry about their heating and hot water.
If something goes wrong, they have somebody to call. They don’t need to understand how their boiler works. They don’t need to know why a radiator isn’t heating up or why their hot water has stopped working.
That’s our job. We take that worry away. We use our experience, knowledge and expertise to solve the problem, but just as importantly, we try to make the person experiencing that problem feel looked after.
Sometimes the technical part of the job is the easy bit. The person standing in front of you might be worried about the cost. They might have young children in a cold house. They might be elderly. They might be dealing with something else entirely that you know nothing about. You never really know what somebody is carrying when you walk through their front door. Kindness means remembering that.
Being kind does not mean having no boundaries. It doesn’t mean working for free. In fact, I think there are times when constantly saying yes to everybody else stops being kindness and starts becoming unkindness towards yourself.
We will always go the extra mile where we can. Whether that means checking every single radiator over or or just offering some advice. We’ll answer questions. We’ll listen to somebody explain a problem, even if it takes a little longer than expected.
Sometimes we will do small things that never appear on an invoice because helping somebody feels like the right thing to do. But additional work has a value, and when additional work is required, it needs to be charged accordingly.
That isn’t greed. That isn’t a lack of kindness. It is about being fair, consistent and responsible.
We need WLV Plumbing & Heating to remain a healthy, sustainable business. A business that will still be here for our customers in years to come. A business that employs people. A business that supports families. A business that allows people to build careers, pay mortgages, raise children and create lives of their own.
Looking after the business is part of looking after the people who depend on it. That is kindness too.
The same applies to our staff. We have high standards. We have high expectations. There are rules and boundaries, and those boundaries matter. Being kind to somebody does not mean allowing them to do whatever they want. It does not mean accepting private work being carried out in company vehicles or allowing company vehicles to be used however somebody chooses.
It does not mean avoiding difficult conversations or pretending that standards do not matter. Accountability and kindness can exist in the same room. Sometimes kindness means being understanding when somebody is struggling. Sometimes it means compassionate leave. Sometimes it means recognising that somebody has something happening at home that deserves their attention more than work does at that moment.
Sometimes it means listening. Sometimes it means giving somebody another opportunity. And sometimes it means having a difficult conversation because avoiding it would ultimately help nobody. I don’t believe kindness means removing every consequence or never saying no.
Real kindness can have boundaries. It can be compassionate and firm. Understanding and fair. Human, while still holding people accountable.
Kindness is something I want woven into everything we do. Not because it sounds good on a website or looks good underneath a company logo. Because it is who we are trying to be.
It isn’t only about what we are trying to achieve as a business. It is about how we achieve it.
I want the company we build to align with our values and represent who we are as people. Because we care. We give a s**t.
When I first became self employed, I thought it was important that my logo represented me. Some of you might even remember my old Black Flame skull logo. I loved that logo. I still do! But at the time, I thought it said something about who I was.
Looking back, I don’t think it did. A logo isn’t your character. A colour scheme isn’t your reputation. A brand isn’t really what you tell people you are. Your brand is what somebody says about you after you have left the room.
And if people are going to remember something about me, or about WLV Plumbing & Heating, I would rather they remember how we treated them. I want kindness to be part of our reputation. I want somebody to say, "They cared."
That matters more to me now than any logo ever could.
Of course, being kind doesn’t mean that every conversation is going to be easy. Sometimes we have to tell somebody something they really don’t want to hear. Your boiler may need replacing. A repair might be expensive. Parts cost money. Skilled labour costs money. Sometimes the best advice we can give somebody is not the cheapest answer.
We cannot always give people good news. But we can deliver bad news well. We can explain things properly. We can give people options where options exist. We can avoid pressure. We can answer questions. We can recognise that what is an everyday conversation to us might be a huge financial decision for the person standing in front of us.
We can treat people with respect and genuine empathy. We can be kind.
I’m writing this after what has been a difficult period for us. We’ve had some challenging situations. Some difficult conversations. Some days where running a business has felt heavier than others. And I know there will be more of them. There will always be difficult customers. There will always be mistakes. There will be disagreements. There will be problems we didn’t anticipate and situations we wish had gone differently.
That is business. That is life.
But values don’t mean very much if you only follow them when everything is going well.
The difficult days are when they matter most. It is easy to be kind when somebody is being kind to you. It is harder when you feel frustrated, disappointed, angry or under pressure.
That is when you find out whether something is genuinely one of your values or simply something you like the sound of. We will not always get it right. But we remain committed to providing fantastic service, maintaining our integrity and treating people properly.
Even when the conversation is difficult. Even when we have to say no. Even when the answer isn’t the one somebody wanted.
So the next time you see the words Be Kind printed on a T-shirt, a mug, a poster or a social media post, perhaps stop for a second and think about what they actually mean to you.
Not as a slogan. As a value.
What does kindness look like in your marriage? Your friendships? Your workplace? Your business? How do you treat somebody when there is nothing to gain from being nice to them? How do you behave when things aren’t going your way? How do you make people feel?
And I hope that the next time you speak to somebody from WLV Plumbing & Heating, or one of our engineers walks through your front door, you experience some of what those two words mean to us.
Maybe it will be through the service you receive. Maybe it will be through the knowledge and expertise needed to repair your boiler. Maybe it will simply be through the conversation afterwards.
We’re not perfect. We’re human. We will make mistakes.
But if our customers know how much they mean to us, if our team know that we care about them and if the people we encounter feel that we treated them properly, that is about as much as I can ask for.
One day, when people talk about us, I hope they don’t only talk about what we did. I hope they talk about who we were. That we cared. That we tried. That we gave a s**t. That we were kind.
Because, to me, that is what Be Kind really means.
David.
