Available at Amazon.com
Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea thinks you need to get away from the office for a while. As he explains in his new book, Two Billion Dollars in Nickels: Reflections on the Entrepreneurial Life: “During my years at Kinko’s, I worked very long hours, but I also took frequent, long vacations. And when I returned, the first order of business was planning my next vacation. The goal was not to avoid work but to improve my productivity. People do not learn new things and think new thoughts by doing the same things every day for months on end. My vacation schedule also defined firm deadlines for important projects, helping to prioritize my work.”
The idea that we can improve productivity by taking more time off is just one of the counter-intuitive ideas that helped Orfalea grow Kinko’s from a 100 square foot shop to a $2 billion industry leader. Two Billion Dollars in Nickels also explains how generous profit sharing increases the owner’s share of profits, why competition doesn’t matter, and how fortunes are lost in the good times.
It should come as no surprise that Orfalea’s business sense is fueled by his appreciation of paradox. Growing up with dyslexia and ADHD before these conditions were commonly understood, Orfalea seemed uneducable and doomed to failure. Unable to read, he put his restlessness to work absorbing the lessons one cannot find in books: “Dyslexia helped me see with my own eyes, learn to look others in the eye, fuel my imagination with everything I saw, and look beyond the labels others applied to me. What I ultimately saw, and believe you can see as well, was a world of endless opportunity.”
Coauthor and longtime Orfalea associate Dean Zatkowsky believes that an entrepreneurial way of thinking empowers everyone, whether they own a business or not. “I’ve learned a lot from Paul Orfalea over the last twenty-two years, but here is the most important thing he has taught me: Entrepreneurship is not about owning a business; it’s about owning your life. His entrepreneurial philosophy melds business, personal finances, lifelong learning, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a very uplifting and rewarding way of looking at the world.”
Two Billion Dollars in Nickels is available at Amazon.com.
Paul Orfalea’s previous books include Copy This: How I Turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and One Hundred Square Feet into a Company Called Kinko’s (Workman Publishing: 2005), and The Entrepreneurial Investor: The Art, Science, and Business of Value Investing (John Wiley & Sons: 2007)
Dean Zatkowsky, managing partner of Dizzy One Ventures, LLC, is co-author of The Entrepreneurial Investor and Two Billion Dollars in Nickels.
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