It takes a certain type of person to own a business. Do you want to own your own business? Are you that type of a person? Are you the type of person that has the motivation and confidence to enter the business world?
Ask yourself the following questions.

Are you a planner? Not only will you have to develop a business plan for this year, but also the year after, and the year after that, five years from now.

Are you organized? Chances are that you will be starting out small. This means that you will be a secretary, CEO, CFO, marketing director, public relations representative, and sales director. The more organizational skills you possess the better.

Are you a people person? You will need to satisfy customers (or clients), investors, employees, vendors, and possibly landlords. Communication skills are a must.

Are you confident? At first we are all quite nervous when beginning something new. But you must be confident in yourself and your business. If you show your own self-assurance, chances are that your employees will as well. A business will be far more successful if all the workers are confident.

Are you flexible? At this point you need to be completely flexible with everything. This includes the flow of your money to the rate your business grows. You must have your plans in place, but be flexible if your plans must change.

Are you able to ask for help? We all need help sometimes, especially when beginning something new on our own.

Are you willing to take risks? If you are serious about developing your own business, the answer must be YES! In order to make your business dreams a reality, you must be willing to take risks.

Are you a strong leader? To avoid issues within your business you want to be a boss that both inspires and leads.

Can you live on a fluctuating income? This means eating, bills, taking care of your family, all while developing a business.

If you answered YES to these questions, “you are the one to run the show.”

If like many Aridni readers, you are saving every extra dollar for your next investment and are striving to make money work for you, there are lots of reasons to vote Democrat the next time you go to the polls. Sure, Republicans swear by lower taxes and fiscal responsibility, but who cares how well they can “eliminate wasteful spending” when our president can’t even balance the budget (which his Democratic predecessor left at a surplus) and average people like you and me are emptying our wallets so that the wealthiest 2% of the population can get tax relief while the middle class pays for it? Unless you are part of that 2%, you won’t save any money by voting Republican except maybe a little bit in income tax if you’re lucky.

Republicans love to say that they will “cut frivilous spending,” but what does that mean for you and me? It means they are going to cut back on essential social programs like Medicare and Medicaid to make their tax cuts possible and create “responsible alternatives” such as tax-free Health Savings Accounts to make those cuts appear fair and reasonable. In reality, only those who are already economically solvent can afford to put this money away and don’t need to save it to begin with. People who are living pay check to pay check cannot take advantage of these policies in a way that improves their standard of living.

Would you rather pay a little more in taxes or be able to afford health insurance As of this writing, approximately 45 million Americans do not have health insurance due to a Darwinistic culture in Washington that lobbies for the survival of the fittest or the wealthiest. The people who are getting these tax cuts don’t need health insurance anyway so why let them save their tax money while you’re struggling to get by?

Even for people who are part of the top 2% of the population, the tradeoff of lower taxes is a breakdown in city services including trash pick-up, snow plowing, and recycling; more crime on the streets due to fewer police officers; less money spent on mental health services for would-be-criminals which means your tax dollars are being used to keep these people alive in jail; bad roads which can result in expensive repairs on your car, and less environmental regulations which translates into an unhealthy, polluted planet for all of us. Irresponsible cuts are no better than irresponsible spending because budget cuts end up hurting all members of our society, especially the most vulnerable citizens. As MA Democratic gubenatorial candidate Deval Patrick describes the damage done by the tax cuts of the Republican Romney-Healey administration, “Our local communities have been left on their own, abandoned to carry most of the burden for the essential services our citizens need and deserve.” *Patrick also recognizes that lowering income taxes will simply result in a rise in property taxes, making it harder for many members of the middle and working classes to afford their homes.

So next time you go to the polls, remember to vote for the party that represents all of us, not just the top 2%. Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish by voting for short term gains at the expense of long term losses in your pocket book and quality of life.

*For more information, please visit: www.DevalPatrick.com

Aridni will introduce you to a different staff writer every Monday. The full staff lineup can be found here.

Michelle, age 20

You may be surprised to see my unfamiliar face on the “Meet the Cast” series on Aridni. I’ll admit I am rather stunned myself. However, when asked to join the team I readily accepted the offer to be a weekly writer.

Currently I am a sophomore at the University of Montana. My life goals seem to change periodically as I am unsure of my major. However at this point I am interested in double majoring in Accounting and Business Education. I would like follow my Mom’s footsteps as a high school business teacher and educate students on the importance of the business world. But if for some reason I am unable to find a job or I simply do not enjoy the career of education, I will pursue a career in accounting.

All of my life I have been inspired to own a business. But no doubt like you, I have a dilemma: I have no idea what I would like this business to be and I haven’t the slightest idea where to start.

To educate both myself and Aridni readers, my first series of articles will be posted on Thursdays with an emphasis on developing a business.

I truly hope that you continue to read Aridni and that my unfamiliar face on Aridni will become in fact recognizable.

The strongest values of a successful person may surprise you—the thing that matters most isn’t the amount of stuff or the abundance of wealth associated to their names. A truly successful person knows what her money can buy, yet she’s capable of passing up on most of the cluttersome stuff.

These people don’t focus their time on having the latest fashion or gizmos. Their focus lies somewhere else. Their greatest values are:
1. personal integrity: successful people believe in themselves, and they don’t surrender to the ideas that others think they should hold. They stand true to themselves. They stand truthful to others.
2. discovery: they’ll keep on learning—not only from texts, but from life. Trying something new seems natural. Attending lectures, cultural events, and fundraisers seem natural and intriguing. They go at it with an open mind.
3. relationships: a successful person isn’t out there on his or her own. These people have a strong support system of friends and family. They encourage successful people to grow, and friends and family make successful people laugh. On the flip, friends and family are also there when her life’s not as rosy.

We write about money, talk about money, and think about money on Aridni. You have to remember your reason for this cash focus—security, pleasure, freedom, opportunity. Yeah, every successful person seeks out more money. But don’t lose everything else in exchange for money. Follow these morals to gain some sense of pride in your achievement. It’s a support system capable of taking you anywhere.

Now despite the negative sounding title, that doesn’t imply that the actual message of this article is going to be so. In fact, it’s simply cut off to abruptly. Instead of using this as a definitive statement or as it’s written above as a pointed question with apparently with some sort of hidden message, instead take it as incomplete.

Right now if I opened up an operating room (all legal issues aside for the purpose of this example =P ) it would only be a matter of time before I realized, “Hey! I don’t know anything about surgery!”

It would be unethical for me to book people in and begin cutting them up without the proper training and a complete understanding of what I am doing. So from this point I have two options to complete my sentence.

Have you ever considered that you are not good enough…

Yet? – Taking this route would mean training, studying, and practice. In the example above we’re going to be doing some serious time to get through med school and becoming certified. Many times it could be something much simpler. Reading some material before a meeting, organizing your thoughts, researching some potential investments, or otherwise teaching yourself something new could be all it takes.

But someone else is? – In the business of operating on people, I am not qualified in any means. I haven’t been trained, certified, or for that matter have the slightest clue what I would be doing with that scalpel. Now what If I went out and found some young doctor who is still trying to pay off his student loans and would love to come operate at my place. I’m sure that he would do a heck of a lot better of a job operating than I would!

Of course most new companies can’t afford to hire specialists and me saying “GO HIRE DOCTORS!” isn’t really helping anybody’s cause. (aside from the doctors that is!) But I’m sure you know of someone who is better at a particular task than you are. Can you ask them for advice? Note that you’re not asking them to complete the project, but simply for their input. Of course this doesn’t always work out so well, as in the case of my operating room example! “Hey Mark, its Todd here. If I was performing an apadextrodomy and I nick the bi-lateral vein and blood is shooting everywhere, what would I do?”

As you can see there it would make sense to not get in over your head, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be ambitious and strive to make you big ideas turn into something real!

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go meet with a programmer who is better at it than I am.

How can we achieve the American Dream if we fall prey to American commercialism which is addictive and consumer-based? Whether it’s junk food, drugs (including cigarettes and alcohol), money, politics, body weight… we are all subject to mass commericalism which convinces us that we simply cannot be happy if we don’t have a particular product that will change our life for the better. Because taxes are so low here compared to our trans-Atlantic counterparts, Americans can afford to buy these products in bulk which means we need to work harder to reduce the impulse to buy. If you are struggling to find a balance between these perpendicular forces in our society, it’s time to take a lesson from the people of Europe and Canada who have much higher taxes than we do and as a result, tend to be more penny wise.

According to a savy friend of mine who has lived in Canada, France, Great Britain, and the U.S.A., people in the first three nations think twice before spending double or triple the amount Americans spend on gasoline, depending on the country. Yes, that is quite expensive, but in exchange for their tax dollars, these countries offer free universal health care and subsidized higher education to all their citizens which gives those governments an incentive to take care of their people- much more so than here. After all, if you are paying for someone’s health care and education, you want to make sure they have a healthy, productive lifestyle so that they can give back to the country in the form of their tax dollars. In Sweeden, there is a 25% sales tax and 50% income tax. Amazing, yes?

People in these countries are more careful about spending money on food and are therefore less obese than Americans and on average have fewer health problems. The tax on cigarettes is much higher than in the U.S. and as a result smokers have a financial as well as a health incentive to quit. In essence, smokers pay for the cost of their chemotherapy through the tax on each pack. European countries make it harder for people to impulsively buy products without thinking twice about the impact on their wallets.

I’m not suggesting that you pack your suitcase and move to France (although that would be nice), but the next time you go shopping, try to put yourself in a European frame of mind. If that product was 25% more expensive would you still buy it? If so, then you probably need it, but if the answer is no, put your credit card back in your wallet where it belongs!