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Being A Silly Billy in Business

Guest post by: Enrico Varella

Article Overview: If you openly act your goofy side, how does this affect you? Will your reputation be tarnished? If you hold back your genuine self (because of business expectations) would that help your business progress?

Being A Silly Billy in Business

I enjoyed the MTV Movie Awards, as it was pure reckless abandonment. They had a non-mainstream Tom Cruise act in a skit where he replayed his role as an entertainment mogul (Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder). Perhaps, art imitates life, especially affirmed after his nefarious and unusual couch-bouncing antics on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005. He walked a tightrope of non-seriousness by seriously playing a character.

If you openly act your goofy side, how does this affect you? Will your reputation be tarnished? If you hold back your genuine self (because of business expectations) would that help your business progress?

Sure, we need to act appropriately in public and even in private, yet is seriousness a quality we need to exaggerate all the time? Boys will be boys, they say; however, men will be boys, sometimes. The film ‘Grown Ups’ highlights the reality that being adult is, hard work. Maybe, there’s always the kid within us that’s bursting to get out, sometimes.

Think of the business of entertainment and education; they draw parallels. Today, the blended version of ‘edutainment’ seems acceptable, as students want to be entertained, as much as they want to be educated. Students enjoy a good laugh to dispel the potential boredom brought on by heavy content and lecturing. Keynote speakers – a very profitable business based on content and style – learn to integrate the total experience of sharing with audio-visuals, comedy and drama. Sustainable and enjoyable comedy is serious business.

Who audits our adult behavior? Who are the ‘behavior police’ that arrest us for juvenile behavior? Do we need to be professional entertainers to have the carte blanche to do silly things onstage, and in public? People are interested in our other side – the alter ego who can be just as fun and human at the same time. It is like Sherlock Holmes cannot exist without his arch-enemy/nemesis, Moriarty.

The Pike Fish Company at the Framers' Market in Seattle demonstrates the notion of play in practice. With play as a central theme and philosophy at work, 14-hour working days become fast and memorable. They throw fish, as a means of transferring the order; they process each order rapidly, so as to ensure more customer traffic. Entertaining the customers and tourists become part of the daily constitution of this fish-mongers extant. Shouting out the order also underscores the sense of excitement built around a marketing experience.

Perhaps, it is all about having fun. Can we have fun at work and at play? Can we have fun and be funny at the same time? Let your hair down. There’s always time for unserious business.

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Article Tags: acting, education, entertainment, goofy, play, reputation



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