Today I was reading a post about "Being Right at Someone Else's Expense" by Bob Burg (recommended blogger).
I decided to comment on his post. Rather than take my normally more serious approach (in business anyways), I decided to post a fun comment where I started out in a negative over the top tone and then switched tone midway through. In fact, one commenter (Amy Wells) replied "Doug, LOL. I was gonna offer you a Jack Ass to carry all that rightness of yours…" which shows how over the top my intro was. See the post and the comments in detail for yourself. I had fun doing it and it obviously caused a reaction before people realized I was joking.
When I am at work there is a lot of work to get done and often things get fairly serious. Planning strategy, working on the business, developing new products, working hard to deliver excellence to customers, etc. all take their toll on your humour. There is also a tendency to portray a businesslike and therefore competent, persona; to be taken seriously.
But deep down, we are not always like the persona we portray. When I am relaxed I like to joke around a lot; often a dry humour that might be an acquired taste for some. I am not so serious as I have sometimes been lately.
Don't get me wrong, not being serious doesn't mean "don't care" or "doesn't like to succeed".
So why do we let our work persona drift from who we really are at times? Why do we talk about work and personal life being different.
I wrote the blog comment in a moment of spontaneity. It was fun. We need to do more of this.
In my case I am lucky. I am in business with two other great partners and we have a really good team here.
We can have our business be anything we want it to be. It can support who we are and serve us. It can be fun.
Who are you and your business? It really is your choice.