The Joker. The Grinch. Darth Vader. A business person. All super villains portrayed on the big screen, on television and in books. Wait! A business person? Yes. Think back to just a few famous movies or TV shows and you’ll find them. From Gordon Gekko in Wall Street to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol to Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada to Syndrome in Disney’s The Incredibles, business villains come in all shapes and sizes. How then did the business professional get such a bad rap?

It used to be that business people were regarded with high esteem. Unless you worked in farming or for the government, it was probably that you worked for a business. In the book Thou Shall Prosper, Rabbi Daniel Lapin offers a commandment of sorts – business is good. For millennia, millions of people have engaged in business to provide for their families and to provide for others. Business should be thought of as honorable and dignified because it is.

Unfortunately, we’ve allowed our entertainment and news outlets to define acceptable levels of success. High-profit margins are dismissed as the product of malevolence and malfeasance. Companies and executives are shamed into donations. Perhaps we forget that their business efforts positively contribute to society by providing a wanted good or service and by providing jobs, both directly and indirectly. Our judgment on business people is misdirected.

We’ve bought into a scarcity mentality. We begin to think that when someone else succeeds our own chances to achieve have been diminished. There may be no greater fallacy. There is no limit to success – no limit to your success, to my success or to anyone else’s success. Businesses, business people and business owners aren’t evil. They don’t cheat, lie and steal to get ahead. They work hard, very hard, to drive their organizations forward.

Business is good. People who conduct business are honorable and decent. If not, the market will shut them down in due time. Refuse to buy into the myth that making money is evil. Accept that the rare time you see or hear of business wrongdoing on the news, it’s the exception and not the rule. And separate the fantasy from reality when you watch nefarious executives in movies. If you’re not working for a business, you’re buying from a business. Business is good.

Here's to looking at the bright side.

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