Looking at the Inner You!

What can you tell yourself that you don’t already know?  Well, there is quite a lot.

In the privacy of your mind you constantly talk to yourself.  Your inner monologue might seem pointless at times, but the truth is the act of talking to yourself can help you learn and maintain a positive lifelong trajectory.  Therefore, collected below are six effective topics for self-talk, so the next time you talk to yourself you will know exactly what to say.

1.  What you love.

When it comes to lifelong labors and dreams, lukewarm is no good.  Hot is no good either.  White hot and passionate is the only way to work and live.

Invest your thoughts and time in the things you love.  Don’t wait around for too long to get involved in something that moves you.  Realize how important it is to be an enthusiast in life.  If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, explore it.  Get up and go after it.  Embrace it, hug it, love it, and above all, let your passion flow freely.

The most important decision you will ever make is what you do with the limited time that has been given to you.  Before you know it you’ll be asking, “How did it get so late so soon?”  So put your thoughts and time to good use, and let yourself be drawn to the strange pull of what you love – doing so will not lead you astray.  Live your life so that when you’re old, you never have to let the person you became fantasize about the person you were capable of being.

2.  Your own inner truth.

Why worry about what others think of you?  Should you have more confidence in their opinions than you do your own?

Truth be told, how others see you is not nearly as important as how you see yourself.  To be happy means to live confidently in your own skin – to be faithful to that which exists within you.  What you’re doing by being yourself is keeping it real, and you are being really brave.

When you choose to stay true to YOU, some people might refuse to accept you for who you are.  Forget them.  Rather than being false and incurring the pain and confusion of trying to be someone you’re not, choose to stand strong, even at the risk of incurring ridicule, when you are comfortable in your skin, not everyone in this world will like you, and that is perfectly OK.  You could be the ripest, juiciest apple in the world, and there’s going to be at least a few people out there who hate apples. 

3.  What you are willing to sacrifice for your goals?

When it comes to goal setting, you must be specific.  If you find yourself talking to yourself about wanting everything, it means you are treacherously close to achieving nothing.  It means you are avoiding the effort required to get anywhere at all.

Usually, it’s not too difficult to decide what you want your life to look like in a year from now.  What is difficult is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things that must be done to get to where you want to go.

This takes serious commitment, and it requires momentary discomfort.  When you decide to aim for something higher, you must be willing to suffer a bit of unsteadiness – the fear of falling.  And you must be willing to fight against that voice of emptiness below you which tempts and lures you to believe that you don’t have enough strength to ascend any higher.

4.  The little victories of each day.

Sometimes the human mind operates in mysterious ways when it comes to achievements and happiness.  We dream of something and we wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to arrive.  Then it does and it’s over, and all we really want is to curl back up in that moment before things change again.

Although there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a fulfilled dream, you must realize that it is just one small moment of your life.  Like every other moment, this one instance of victory is fleeting.  Lifelong happiness is not found in any one particular moment, it is found in all the moments and memories leading up to our inevitable sunset – all the small victories of each day that fall between the big events.

Ultimately you will realize that your highest aspirations should just be a target – a point on the horizon to step towards.  You may not ever reach it, but you can always look up after every small step and see beauty of where that step has taken you.

5.  How to help others.

Talk yourself into helping someone today.

No exercise is better for your heart and mind than reaching down and helping others up.  Happiness and success in life doesn’t come through selfishness, but through selflessness.  Everything you do comes back around to you.

The best way to feel alive is to get up and do something positive for someone else.  Don’t wait around for good things to happen in this world.  If you go out and make good things happen, you will fill the world with happiness and you will make yourself smile in the process.

Greet people with positivity.  Encourage them.  Compliment them.  Lend them a helping hand.  Notice their progress, cheer them on and make them smile, or even make them laugh.  Love and kindness is contagious.  The more happiness and success you help others find, the more happiness and success you will find every single day of your life. 

6.  The immediate reality of your own happiness.

Right now, you have more than enough to be happy.

Right now, you have the full capacity to find something small to celebrate.

Right now, you have a choice to make.

Don’t make the mistake of waiting on someone or something to come along and make you happy.   True happiness comes from within. When you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions, and when you choose to focus on what you have, not what you have not.

One of the great secrets to happiness is to pay more attention to the beginnings than the endings.  So many people say they want a new life, but then they take the new one they get every morning for granted.  Don’t do this.  Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how great it has been.  A great life begins right now, when you stop wanting a better one.

My mother-in-law passed away last week.  As we gathered as a family, we remembered all the great joy she brought to us.  She sacrificed for all of us with a pleasant smile and filled with joy upon any of our achievements.  Our memories of her brought joy to our hearts and comfort to our souls. “Life is good!”

The floor is yours…

What have you been talking to yourself about lately?  Is it positive or negative self-talk?  What kind of positive self-talk do you use to motivate yourself?  What kind of negative self-talk do you need to stop?

Honing In On Your Listening Skills

Many people in the business world take classes in the art of verbal communication: how to give a speech, make a presentation, chair a meeting, but the other half of the equation -- listening -- gets scant attention, at least until now.

1. Focus closely on the person speaking. Don't half-listen while you check your messages and schedule conferences. At any meeting -- a conference or a departmental review -- be there in full. Otherwise, you are likely to miss something.

2. Listen carefully for things you don't know. Our brains home in on what's familiar because it's easy and comfortable, and it reassures us of our intelligence. But that's no way to learn anything. Listen for new information, discontinuities, things you didn't know but could learn from. If there's nothing to be gained from this strategy, you may be in the wrong meeting.

3. Challenge yourself and what you hear. Don't just nod and accept it as a given. Ask yourself: What do I know that confirms this? What do I know that contradicts it? Let your head play an active role.

4. Be prepared to change your mind. I used to think everything about computers was wonderful; now I am not so sure. If we listen hard and ask ourselves good questions, we may take our thoughts to places we didn't expect.

5. If you find sitting still difficult, then either take notes or doodle or both. My wife is a fantastic artist and has painted some amazing works.  In particular painting the canvas of the great artist Edward Hopper. She has volumes of works done for family and friends. Some of us aren't so gifted -- but we can doodle. All the evidence shows that both help you focus. And if you aren't focused -- why are you there?

The skills of listening are really life skills: treasuring the precious and always limited time that you have. Why waste it?

The Optimistic Point of View

When looking at the half glass of water, the optimist would say it is half filled.  The pessimist says that it is half empty.  The idealist would say that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

People who carry an optimistic outlook are typically healthier and more productive than their pessimistic peers.  They catch fewer colds, cope better with life’s daily struggles, and may even live longer due to reduced levels of stress.

So what about you?  Can you become an optimist?

The answer is: YES!  Optimism is not an inborn trait bestowed on a lucky few.  It’s a skill that can be learned.  Here are six things optimists do and some ideas on how to follow in their footsteps:

1.  They make optimal use of all available options.

The reality is those who seem “too optimistic irritate most people” but this is usually an unfortunate misinterpretation of the difference between and optimist and an idealist.

An optimist is neither naive, nor in denial, nor blind to the realities of life.  An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all the available options, no matter how narrow the supply.  As a result, optimistic people are able to better see the “big picture”. They can more accurately visualize and mange the present possibilities.  In other words, an optimist is simply a positive realist.

For comparison’s sake:  An idealist focuses only on the absolute best aspects of situations and ignores the negatives in total detriment to reality, a pessimist sees no possibilities at all, and an optimist strives to see all the possibilities so they can find the best possible option among them.

So, when picking lemons off a lemon tree, an idealist endlessly reaches for the ripest looking lemon, a pessimist settles for whichever one is closest, while an optimist picks all the lemons in sight and makes lemonade.

2.  They respect themselves for who they are.

As a child, you impressed and inspired yourself on a daily basis.  You ran, jumped, swung, sang and danced openly without a care in the world, and without worrying about what everyone else thought of you.  You didn’t need anyone else’s constant approval, because deep down you knew you were amazing.

As you grew into adulthood, the pressure from peers, popular media and society as a whole began to wear on you.  You started comparing yourself to everyone around you.  You judged and measured your body, your lifestyle, your career, and your relationships against other people’s lives.  And when you realized that many of these people have things that you do not, bitterness set in and you gradually stopped appreciating all the great things you do have in your life.

Optimists defend themselves against this self-dislike in two primary ways.  First, they get back to trusting their own intuition when it comes to their daily activities.  They stop asking for everyone else’s approval and simply do what they know in their heart feels right.  Second, optimists don’t judge themselves against a set of unrealistic, third party ideals.  They let go of the ideals and instead hold on to the belief that they are always good enough just the way they are, even as they grow into a stronger, wiser version of themselves.

3.  They disconnect happiness from achievement.

In order to be optimistic, you have to be generally content with your life.  In order to find this contentment, you have to look within yourself.  Happiness, after all, is an inside job.

If you look for happiness outside yourself, by tying it to a specific achievement you much reach, you have two big problems:

You may never succeed. – If you feel like something is wrong with you and needs to be fixed, but you continuously fall short of fixing it, you will start yourself on a downward spiral where every time you fail to fix it you feel even worse.  Eventually you will be unable to succeed simply because you no longer believe in your ability to do so.

You may succeed and decide you want even more. – If you feel like something is wrong with you and needs to be fixed, and you succeed at fixing it, you will likely find something new about yourself that needs fixing too.  Maybe you’ve lost 20 pounds, but now you want tighter abs.  Maybe you’ve paid down your debt, but now you want a bank account with a million dollars in it.  You get the idea.  It’s a never-ending cycle for your entire life.  You never reach it, because you’re always looking for happiness from external achievements.  You don’t find the happiness from within so you look to other sources.

Optimists disconnect achievement from happiness and give themselves permission to be happy in each moment, without the need for anything more.  This isn’t to say that they are complacent.  They still set goals, work hard, help others, and grow, but they learn to indulge joyously in the journey, not the destination. 

4.  They avoid negative people and create positivity.

You are only as good as the company you keep, and misery loves company.  If you spend too much time around negative people, there’s a strong chance you won’t find much to be happy about.  Do yourself a favor and dodge other people’s negativity.  Surround yourself with positive, emotionally supportive friends and spend time together doing things that make you smile.

Optimism is a learned habit, and it is positively contagious.  So surround yourself with people who could infect you with positivity, and then pass your new good mood on to a friend or stranger via kind words and deeds – tell a friend how good they look today, let somebody have that parking space, let that person with only a few items cut in front of you at the market.  The simple act of doing something nice for those around you will help create more positive people to interact with.

The bottom line is that life is way too amazing and short to waste time with people who don’t treat you right.  Surround yourself with people who lift you up when you’re down, and then return the favor when you’re able.

5.  They expect life to be a series of ups and downs.

Just because you’re an optimist doesn’t mean you’re not going to have bad days.  You will – that’s reality.  Life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies.  A foundation of realism keeps things in perspective and helps prevent things from being blown out of proportion.

Expecting life to be wonderful all the time is wanting to swim in an ocean in which waves only rise up and never come crashing down.  However, when you recognize that the rising and crashing waves are part of the exact same ocean, you are able to let go and be at peace with reality of these ups and downs.  It becomes clear that life’s ups require life’s downs.

Bottom line:  Prepare for the downs but capitalize on the ups – the former makes you sensible and the latter makes you an optimist. 

6.  They use positive language and gestures.

It’s not always what happens that determines your mood, but how you verbalize and express what happens that counts.

For instance, when an optimist experiences a bout of success she might say, “That’s just as I had anticipated; I studied hard and my diligence paid off,” while a pessimist might say, “Goodness, was I lucky to get a good grade on that test,” not giving herself any credit and literally snatching her own defeat from the hands of victory.

If an optimist encounters a do-it-yourself project she can’t figure out, she’s likely to say something like, “Either the instructions I’m following are unclear, or this project is going to require a bit more effort than I thought, or maybe I’m just having a rough day.”  In other words, an optimist uses positive self-talk to keep the struggle outside herself (”the instructions”), specific (”more effort”), and temporary (”a rough day”), while the pessimist would likely get down on herself and interpret the same struggle as internal, widespread, and everlasting.

Go ahead and follow in the optimist’s footsteps by speaking to yourself in a more positive way regardless of whether you succeed or fail, and you’ll gradually become more optimistic.

Physical body language is also important.  Your smile actually influences your mood in a positive way.  When you feel down, your brain tells your face that you’re sad, and your facial muscles respond by putting on a frown, which in turn conveys a message back to your brain that says, “Yep, we’re feeling unhappy.”  You can flip the switch on this internal reaction by adjusting your facial muscles into a smile so they don’t correspond to what you’re feeling.  This is a clever way of sending a different message back to your brain: “Hey, life is still pretty good and I’m doing OK.”  Your brain will respond by gradually changing your mood accordingly.

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; 


An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty
”.

―Winston Churchill―

Understanding When You Are The Problem

You have bad luck.  You keep getting fired, you never get the good projects, or you have really warped coworkers; or maybe, just maybe; (it’s not them, it’s you)? Here are 5 ways to tell if you’re the problem.

You have had multiple micro-managing bosses.

We all know that micro-managing bosses exist.  But, if you’ve had two or three in a row, there’s a real possibility that they aren’t so much micro-managers as they are managers who recognize that you need to be micro-managed.  Some employees don’t know how to get from step A to Step E without a manager spelling how exactly how to do B, C, and D.

Some employees are sloppy with their work.  Formatting is unprofessional.  Typos.  Important questions are left unanswered.

Take a close look at what kind of things your manager is saying to you.  Instead of bristling under the “micro-managing” make an effort to fix those problems before your manager appears.  You may find that as you are more careful and thorough in your work, your manager backs off.

You Get Punished For Behavior Your Coworkers Get Away With

If you show up for work 15 minutes late, the boss reams you out, but if your coworker gets in 20 minutes later than you do, no one says anything to her.  Sometimes that’s an example of managers playing favorites, but sometimes it’s an example that the employee is clueless as to the effects of her actions.

If your job is to answer phones, or you play a critical role in a group project, it matters when you show up at the office.  If, on the other hand, you work independently, have few meetings, and consistently get your work done before the deadline, your manager is less likely to care when you show up.

If your manager is punishing you for behavior that your coworkers do as well, it’s highly likely that he’s attacking this behavior because you’re doing something else wrong, like missing deadlines, holding up other people’s work, or ignoring customers.  Check and see what problems are caused by your mistakes.

Your Coworkers Never Want to Eat Lunch with You

Yes, the office can sometimes have “mean girls” who will pick on people and purposely exclude them.  But, if it’s not just the “cool” people that are not inviting you, but that no one is, and furthermore, when you invite people to go with you, there is hesitance or the just flat out no, then you might be the problem.

Do you have a bad sense of timing?  When everyone else is heads down on a major project, are you the “hey let’s go to lunch”? Person.

Are you a restaurant complainer? If you’re the type that sends your meal back three times because something is wrong with it, other people don’t want to go out with you.

Do you “order expensive” and then split the check evenly? Do you order steak, wine and dessert while your coworkers order sandwiches and soda and then you say, “Hey, let’s just divide the bill evenly.  It’s easier.” Yes, it’s easier to exclude you for your tacky behavior.

Are you a whiner? Yes, misery loves company and coworkers frequently complain to each other at work, but the topics are generally limited to topics of shared misery–the bad boss, the crazy deadlines, etc.  If you’re talking about your loser boyfriend/girlfriend (dump him/her, or get over it, sweetheart), your crushing debt in the same breath as you brag about your new motorcycle, or tell your gruesome childbirth stories to your not similarly enthralled coworkers, then you’re the problem here.

Are you a bit gross? Do you chew with your mouth open?  Forget to use your napkin?  Pack lunches that are excessively smelly?

You Had Multiple Run Ins With Different Racists/Sexists/Ageists

We all know that these people exist, but it’s not ever-present.  If you’re constantly encountering people who are treating you poorly because of your race, gender, age, or other characteristic, it may well be that you’re perceiving something that isn’t there.

Sometimes people are jerks.  Sometimes you’re getting “picked on” because you’re a low performer.  Sometimes people mean no offense when they say things.

It’s a better idea to assume that people aren’t being racist/sexist/whatever, but are rather acting in good faith.  Try to assume this going into your relationships with other people.  If your manager corrects you, honestly evaluate if you need correcting before jumping to the conclusion that you’re being singled out because you’re not 24 and beautiful.

If someone says something that you find offensive, gently correct him or her.  Don’t assume that because you think the statement is racist that the speaker thinks it’s racist.

If your boss or coworker truly is an “…” giving them the benefit of the doubt won’t cause you any harm and it will become obvious later on that they are the true problem.

Everyone You Work With Is Really Stupid

Your boss is an idiot.  His boss is an idiot.  Your coworkers are dumb as rocks.  And, we won’t even talk about the completely incompetent HR department.

Now, there’s a really good chance that you’ll work with one or two people who are dumber than a box of hair.  But, if everyone is, you may need to rethink your definition of stupid.  Are you defining these people as incompetent because they disagree with you?  It may well be that they just disagree with you.

Are you defining them as not so bright because they don’t understand what you are saying?  Is it possible that you are not a good communicator?  Is it possible that you don’t understand what they are saying, and not the other way around?

Whenever there is a problem at work, you need to look at the possibility that the world isn’t out to get you–that you just may be the person who needs to change!

The Right Marketing Plan

A marketing plan should be a written document, not scratching on a cocktail napkin or recalled from memory. To take your business to the next level requires preparing a written marketing action plan every quarter.

Without a 90-day marketing GPS to guide you to your destination, treacherous roadblocks and time-consuming detours can keep you from reaching your goals. Even if you are a one-person sales department, you should know where your leads are coming from.

Try not to look at planning as an obligatory to-do, but as a way to solve tangible problems like generating awareness and improving credibility. Think of it as a way to solve lead generation problems before they arise. Here are some checklist steps to guide you:

1. Attack strategy quarterly. Begin developing a strategy-driven marketing action plan every 90 days. Marketing plays a vital role in successful business ventures, yet many sales people often overlook its systematic implementation. Put down on paper how you are going to do three things:

-- Generate leads for the sales team

-- Build awareness of what your company sells

-- Enhance the credibility of the organization

2. Think strategic first. Too many individuals believe that the tactical plan -- the newsletters, press kits, trade shows, banners, 800-numbers, display advertisements, logos and giveaways -- comes before the strategic plan. Those promotional, publicity and advertising tactics (and there are hundreds to choose from) should be contained within a well-orchestrated marketing action plan. But first create your strategic messages that will generate leads, build awareness and enhance credibility.

3. Update what's happening now. The situation analysis introduces the company and includes:

-- A brief overview of the product or service

-- A brief overview of the personnel involved

-- A past history of the company

-- Its present performance

-- Financial information, if appropriate

4. Profile away. Profiling is a bad word these days, but it works here. The product or service profile provides information regarding the specific items you intend to market. By addressing the following categories, a profile emerges. They include:

-- Position Statement: The niche the product or service is intended to occupy

-- Description: The product or service described in detail

-- Pricing: The methods used to establish pricing. Questions such as, "Will discounts be offered?" are asked

-- Market maturity: The overall market maturity is addressed

-- Quality/Reliability: What level of quality is being portrayed? What's the relation to price?

-- New market potential: The potential size of the market is assessed

-- Delivery of service: An explanation of the service delivery mechanism is given

-- Packaging: Includes overall presentation of the product or service and its delivery

-- Image: The impression customers receive from employees, facility, furnishings, stationary, etc.

5. Make the first the last. The executive summary consists of a one-page, top-level summary of the entire plan. It's placed at the front of the document, but it's the last thing you'll write. Its purpose is to convey the gist of the plan to stakeholders, investors and anyone else who needs to know these facts in a hurry:

-- The scope of the plan in an outlined paragraph

-- The product or service being marketed

-- For whom the plan is being prepared

-- The time period the plan covers

-- The geographic area where the implementation occurs

-- The strategic messages and the tactics to get them to the target markets

If you manage to write two or three paragraphs for each of the topics, you'll end up with plenty. But no more than 10 pages, please. From there, you can refine your tactics. More important, you've taken a big step forward because you've written your strategy down on paper.

Exposing the Reality in Business

I never cease to be amazed at our penchant for self-deception–especially when it clouds our view of reality in regards to our leadership. A leader I once worked for often told me. “Don’t ever believe your own press–good or bad. When you accomplish a few things a crowd may gather & start patting you on the back. If we’re not careful you can soon lose focus and start believing that you are indispensable or entitled to special favors–don’t ever believe it! It’s never really about you; it’s usually about them.

Leaders today, if they are to be truly trustworthy, should be both honest and accountable. The successful leader often is able to surround with persons who learn to help accomplish his/her mission and insulate the leader from distractions. Sometimes the leader loses touch with reality or for various reasons may begin to lose his/her way. He needs those around him to help him stay on course and not lose his bearings. He desperately needs someone to give him honest and accurate feedback in regards to his actions and their impact upon his team and those he would try to lead. The problem is that few people save perhaps those who have a negative motive, would be honest or courageous enough to overcome the discomfort and even danger that could be needed to confront the leader…especially if the leader was in their direct chain of command. In some organizations to tell the leader the truth could be misunderstood.  Unfortunately, the higher a leader raises in an organization the more he is in need of someone to ‘speak the truth in respect’ and the less likely someone will give him honest and immediate feedback regarding his words and his actions. This kind of open two-way communication is desperately needed in order to ensure the leader gets honest feedback and does not yield to the temptation to become careless with the truth.

So who will be the leaders accountability team? How can we, if the need arises’ tell the emperor he has no clothes.  How should a leader recognize this pitfall and break the yoke of insulation surrounding him or her?

The stock price was falling; the business environment was turbulent. Analysts were critical. Yesterday's rising star had become today's football. If you've ever worked in a company going through a rocky time, you will know that the first thing to vanish is trust. The workforce no longer believes that management knows what it is doing, that the business plan still makes sense, that their investment of time will be rewarded. And as trust disintegrates, the company becomes dysfunctional and failure accelerates.

If you are a manger under these circumstances, what should you do?

Doug McCallum led eBay's European business in 2008 after the stock price fell from a high of $56 to around $10, analysts claimed the company had lost its ability to innovate and CEO Meg Whitman had stepped down. Earlier this month speaking to a leadership forum sponsored by Purple Beach, McCallum talked about how the management team got through the crisis.

It wasn't, he said, rocket science, but simple things worked. What he and his team did was this:

-- Weekly videoconference with every employee across the business. It was important that they had to come together physically for this event. Just being in the same room helped to build a sense of solidarity.

-- Reiterating the plan and progress. That this was often repetitive was fine: it signaled that things weren't changing, which also implied they weren't getting worse.

-- Unscripted Q&A. This was the most important thing the leadership team. By being willing to take and address unscripted questions while everyone was watching, the leaders signaled that they were open; that they were hiding nothing and that they were confident enough to be challenged. Devoid of script, props, rules, they stood exposed before their employees and rebuilt their trust.

I was struck that what McCallum said was pretty obvious and straightforward -- but needed to be said. That it was not rocket science, of course, why it worked.

I wonder how many leaders dare emulate their example?

All too often leadership becomes insulated to what is most important.  They become trapped in a bubble, surrounded by a few that manage what they “should know” and what filter the input of what is actually going on.  Being informed is critical.  You are in control of the information you consume.  When you pass that onto others, you eventually lose!

It is true, the larger the organization the more difficult it is to be honestly informed.  You must be subjected to focus with a critical eye.  To solve any problem, or stand up to any challenge, honest information is critical to making the next decision.

The question to you, how honestly informed are you?  And; How honest are you in your information?

Starting Your Own Business?

With U.S. employers still reluctant to hire, more folks are considering starting a small business. But what's better, forming a corporation or a trust? Neither actually. For individuals looking to start small and grow big, I typically suggest forming a limited liability company, or LLC.

Every state allows single-member LLCs. To create one, you will need to file the proper documents with the appropriate state agency and pay filing fees. For example, in New York you will need to file so-called articles of organization and obtain a "department of state filing receipt." You'll also need to advertise the existence of the LLC in a few local business journals and obtain an affidavit of publication.

But before you make a decision on a corporate structure, you first need to understand the legal and tax implications. LLCs shield your personal assets from the liabilities of the business. This means that if your company sinks into debt, banks and other lenders cannot seize your personal property. The only exception is if you signed a personal guarantee on a loan to your business. So a LLC provides legal protection of your assets in much the same way as a corporation. But a LLC has more flexibility when it comes to management and taxes.

When it comes to taxes and tax reporting, LLCs are simpler than corporations. LLCs are "conduit entities," which means that they pass through the taxable income to the owner or members (the individuals who own the LLC). This means that the LLC itself does not pay taxes. Income from the business is instead passed down to the company's members. The members report the profits or losses from the LLC on their personal income tax returns.

For purposes of tax reporting, a single-member LLC is considered a sole proprietorship. The tax reporting for individuals who own a single-member LLC is straightforward. They report the income, expenses and net profit from the LLC on Schedule C of the Form1040 that they file with the Internal Revenue Service.

When there is more than one member of a LLC, it is referred to as a partnership LLC. These businesses must file partnership tax returns using Form 1065, U.S. Return of Partnership Income. Since a LLC does not pay income taxes on its own, it avoids the double taxation that is a problem with corporations. Corporations pay taxes on their income, and shareholders also pay taxes when the company's profits are distributed to them in the form of dividends.

Most states have a registry where you can search to see if the business name you are considering is available and not in use by another registered company. One piece of advice: Do not use your surname as a part of the company's name. If something goes wrong down the road or you want to discontinue the business, you'll be glad your name isn't on the front door. 

Entrepreneur? (How to gain support for your idea.)

Words used in different ways seem to have a different response, though they have the same definition.  Here is the published definition:

Entrepreneur: a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

It is interesting to mention that the synonym for entrepreneur is capitalist.  But, that is for another discussion.

Whether you are a start-up entrepreneur launching a new company or a corporate entrepreneur tasked with creating a new business unit, you can use these practical tips to obtain greater support and resources. These ideas capture the best practices that have helped entrepreneurs for start-ups and corporate ventures around the world, including most high tech innovators since the mid-‘80s, convince resource providers such as investors, board members, customers and suppliers.

1. Don’t just talk about your exciting business idea – explain why you’re launching it.

It’s normal: you want resource providers to support you, so you are eager to tell them what a great business opportunity you’re working on. But remember: they are actually evaluating whether to support YOU, not just the new business. Tell them honestly about the real reasons that lead you to take this potentially risky path in your career.

2. Highlight the commitment and sacrifices you’re making for the new business

A major red flag, especially for investors in new start-up ventures, is to find out that the entrepreneur is not risking any personal wealth to launch the business. In the corporate venturing context, a similar concern arises when the “Intrapreneur” (the leader of a new business unit) demands a generous salary increase and corporate perks before obtaining any results. These situations reflect unrealistic expectations regarding an entrepreneur’s commitment and willingness to take professional and personal risks.

3. Create a “virtuous cycle” of supporters.

When outsiders evaluate your new business proposal, they are eager to see that others have decided to support you, even if it’s just your family and friends. For example, if a friend has decided to invest in your new venture, be proud and feel free to mention it to others (with the friend’s permission, of course). It’s easier to convince people when they see that you’re not lonely in trying to get a new business started.

4. Prepare your venture pitch in two versions: one for industry experts, another for everyone else.

You must have heard about the importance of crafting a good venture pitch (or an “elevator pitch”) that will help to rapidly generate excitement about your venture proposal (typically, in 2 minutes). One of the difficulties in creating a good pitch is that industry experts expect to hear very specific aspects that differentiate your business from others in the same field, while others may not be aware of some basic facts related to the industry (especially if you’re in a specific technical field). Create different versions of your venture pitch for each of these audiences in order to maintain their interest throughout your conversation.

5. Before doing a formal presentation figure out how to neutralize the skeptics in the audience.

After pitching your venture several times, it’s likely that a resource provider will invite you to make a formal presentation about your new business. This is a good sign, and you must prepare carefully. Many entrepreneurs forget to prepare for a crucial aspect of the presentation, which is: who in your audience will be likely to raise many concerns about your project? In some situations, this is relatively easy to identify in advance. For example, when presenting a new corporate venture in industrial companies, the financial officers need a lot of convincing before they’ll authorize any funding. In banks, the risk departments tend to be the skeptic ones. When presenting a new start-up, investors with the greatest industry-specific expertise in your field require special attention. Know your audience and prepare for ways to address their concerns.