Being in business. What the heck does that mean? Aren’t we all Commerce Crash Dummies on the grand scheme of enterprise utopia?

We’re all in business just by the nature of who we are and where we live. No not just Americans but all of us. Even the Dani and the Yanamamo, those “primitive” folks in the rain forest. Every one of us is trading, selling (for something), getting, wanting and consuming! We’ve done it. We’re all cosmic entrepreneurs.

So what do we get for being business people? Worry, fun, power, laughs, greed, humility, money, toys, sex, love, hemorrhoids, heart attacks, satisfaction, reinforcement, disappointment, ego boosting, bankruptcy, wealth, clothes, scorn, just about everything! And…that all-important just another typical day at the office (or store or cart or route or whatever). The amazing thing is that we have this tendency to take it so incredibly serious.

I’ve been lecturing, coaching, and consulting to business people, including those in my own companies, now for almost thirty years and one of the most interesting things I’ve noticed is this under laying tendency to want to be content. Of course this really has nothing to do with business at all and everything to do with our inner selves, but yet we filter it through our business lives.

There I stand training people how to sell better, manage more efficiently, present themselves effectively and so on and yet throughout my sessions I find myself constantly reminding everyone, including myself, that this is a game. Indeed, that’s what business is…a game – more succinctly a game within a movie. Like a chess match in a production by Fellini. Ah, the craziness and beauty of it all. It’s a situation that we’ve invented to drive ourselves into so many different realms of existence.

Point: If you really commit yourself to playing the game, play to win.

Along the way take time out to view the wildness of it all. Understand the comedy in it,

even the comedy of the tragedy. It’s ok to laugh at it and your self in fact I think it’s a requirement. Geez, if I couldn’t laugh I would have cried myself into extinction a long time ago.

Think about all the outrageous things this business stuff has taken you through, little things, heavy stuff, life altering and silly situations. Sit back and view it. Now don’t get too hard on yourself. Don’t wallow in regrets and don’t think you know it all. Look at it in perspective. Hey, there are plenty of people who would give their left arm to have gone through the kind of stuff you have, even the losses. So play with it and enjoy it.

Dan Goldberg, MBA, is President of Dan Goldberg Consulting L.L.C. a training, coaching and business development firm located in the Philadelphia, PA area. He is the founder and former owner of "For Eyes" the highly successful international optical company and an internationally recognized keynote speaker. Dan is the author of the book "Stand Back A Second, Just don't fall off the edge," and of "The Six Steps To Solid Sales Success" and "The Seven Elements Of Successful Management" programs. He is Executive-In-Residence at Kutztown University and has been the subject of stories in Newsweek, Business Week, Playboy, Successful Business, Investor’s Business Daily, major newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Miami, San Francisco, Oakland, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and many other national and local publications. In addition, Dan has appeared on Good Morning America and other national and local television and radio programs. You can contact him at dg@dangoldberg.com, visit his website at http://www.dangoldberg.com or reach him at (215) 233-5352