Motivating and Baseball

Staying Motivated as a Fearless Success Seeker

The last few weeks we have been talking about finding opportunities for business growth and success. This week, let's examine how to stay motivated to reach success.

I could tell you about Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or Colonel Sanders who all had great successes preceded by lots and lots of trials and failures. Instead, let's jump in and get motivated.

How do you stay motivated? Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich says you have to have a "burning desire" for riches be they wealth, health, fame or time AND that demands you have a vision.

Often, when working with business owners the day-to-day far outweighs the future. This lack of vision is worse than being blind, it is demotivating. If your vision of your business is to pay the bills, so be it - that is what it will be. If your vision of your business is to retire wealthy, then just paying the bills will not do.

Staying motivated means you will need to have a vision that is supported by objectives--actions--projects--tasks all aligned with your vision.

Taking the time this week to create a vision AND the supporting work will give you a motivating path.

Real tasks that are tied to a
Future vision that support your
Burning desire
Posted where you will see it at least
Two times each day, will be motivating - even if it is to change your vision!

Here is a worksheet to get you started: One Page Plan

Copyright 2010 Linda Fayerweather
Changing Lanes LLC
419-897-0528
http://www.changinglanes.biz/


Avoiding taxes is as American as baseball
But you might be surprised just how hard it can be to strike out the IRS!
Later this month, the Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to play three games against the Toronto Blue Jays. The games were originally scheduled to be played in Toronto, but authorities there will be hosting a G-20 Summit meeting. Someone apparently suckered baseball Commissioner Bud Selig into thinking a meeting of the world's 20 largest economies was more important than an international sporting rivalry! So he moved the series to Philadelphia. But that created tax problems for at least one player . . . .

Pitcher Roy "Doc" Halladay played for Toronto from 1998-2009. As an American playing in Canada, he owed federal and provincial taxes of about 40%, plus U.S. taxes of 35%. The IRS let him take a credit for the taxes he paid in Canada. But, because the Canadian tax is higher than ours, he built up a boatload of "excess foreign tax credits" that he can't use except to offset U.S. tax on foreign income. (With me so far?)

In 2009, Toronto traded Halladay to Philadelphia. It was a pretty good trade for Philly, as Halladay pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins less than two weeks ago! It was also a pretty good trade for Halladay. Now he doesn't have to pay the higher Canadian tax - except when he plays in Canada. But, when he does play there, he can use those excess foreign tax credits to cut his U.S. tax. Still with me?

Here's where it gets complicated. Halladay's 2010 salary is $15.75 million. That means his pay for the three Toronto games is about $215,000. If the games were played in Toronto, that $215,000 would have been classified as "foreign source income," and he could have used the excess foreign tax credit against his U.S. income to save about $75,000 in U.S. tax. But, since the games will be here in the U.S., he'll wind up paying the full U.S. tax on that income. Sounds like Halladay just walked in a run - for the IRS!

We've said before that planning is the key to minimizing tax. There's not much that "Doc" Halladay could do to plan for those games being moved. But fortunately, most of us don't have to worry about "excess foreign tax credits" to minimize our tax, and there is something we can do in advance. So don't wait until the bases are loaded to call for your plan!

Tim Pinkelman, CPA
Accounting Center & Tax Services, Inc.
419-882-9255 or 734-847-0400
http://www.accounting-centers.com/