Orfalea's Aphorisms
From Copy This! Lessons from a hyperactive dyslexic who turned a bright idea into one of America's best companies by Kinko's founder Paul Orfalea and Ann Marsh - Workman Publishing 2005
- Anybody else can do it better.
- Ask yourself if you are "in" or "on" your business and your life.
- Happy fingers, happy registers.
- Manage the environment, not the people.
- Give the glory, take the money.
- The goal of management is to remove obstacles.
- One plus one equals three; we're stronger together.
- If you work for someone else, you're only as good as your last paycheck.
- The biggest reason you fail is your past success.
- Your average street peddler has more business sense than the guy walking past in a suit.
- Try it all. You never know what will stick.
- Kids have to do everything well; adults get to pick one thing.
- Learn to please yourself, not others.
- It;s not how much you make, it's how much you save.
- Success is more about your imagination than anything else.
- Your mistakes cost you nothing.
- Your eyes believe what they see. Your ears believe others.
- If they can't say it in plain English, don't work with them.
- Beware of your own bullshit.
- Running a business is nothing more than learning to go to sleep at night with unresolved issues.
- I always figured I wanted a smaller piece of a bigger pie.
- The biggest challenge we had was going from a culture of things to a culture of people.
- Happy wife, happy life.
- Trust people. If you don't, you have to do everything yourself.
- Why would you want to waste your time going after someone when there is so much gold beneath your feet?
- All we had going for us at Kinko's was the sparkle in our coworkers' eyes.
- The best way to trust people is to leave them alone.
- Are we looking at our customers or as our customers?
- Most fortunes are lost in the good times.
- There is no point in bragging in the good times. Your friends don't need to hear it and your enemies won't believe it anyway.
- You can't make money while you're running scared.
- In business, and in life, you have to come to terms with the fact that life is uncertain.
- Investments are like grandkids. You can love'em and leave'em.
- In life, if you want to succeed, you've got to spend time helping people build themselves up.
- To men: if you stay involved in the world, you'll live as long as women do.
- The best thing in life is making something out of nothing. The imagination is your only limiting factor.
- How do babies learn about gravity? by dropping things.
- You've got no other choice than to accept.
- You can either earn your way into a fortune or save your way into one.
- Don't you think you might get a little farther in life with savings than with grades?
- You want to be bulletproof with interest, dividends, rent, and liquidity.
- Make your customers comfortable and they will give you their lives.
- Everything has a place and everything in its place.
- People rise to the level of trust you give them.
- When business is going poorly, brag. When it's going well, complain.
- Retail is detail.
- Poker teaches you every time there's a new card, it's an entirely new situation and you have to reappraise.
- The art of life is to rediscover who you are every day.
- Keep dreaming, keep playing, and keep asking.
- I never wanted to work with people whom I made money on; I wanted to work with people whom I made money with.
- Accountants are in the past, managers are in the present, and leaders are n the future.
- You can see a lot when you're at the top of the mountain, but you can't see the mountain.
- The mere fact the competition exists means they're doing something right.
- You have to base your whole life on trust. You have no choice but to trust.
- As a leader, all you do is manage trust.
- It's not the things you do, but the things you don't do, that drive you crazy.
- The mundane is like a cancer.
- The democratic system, despite its flaws, is based almost entirely on trust.
- The worker at the counter is the true here of the company.
- I always told people, "YOU will make yourself successful, not me".
- Attack arrogance at its root.
- It didn't matter to me if your skin was green or if you were a zebra. If you could ring a register, you could work with us.
- You are only as good as your dreams.
- If you can't calculate your cash flow on the back of an envelope, you've got problems.
- Goal-setting should be like an impressionistic painting.
- I've always valued thinking hard over working hard.
- In retail there are few secrets. 90% of what we do and who we are is obvious to customers and competitors alike.
- If it's your money on the line, you want to find out all the dirt.
- The only things we took seriously were taking care of our coworkers, paying our bills, and the work we performed for our customers.
- Get out as much work as you possibly can.
- Deal with your dark side.
- You can manage people with the velvet glove or the iron fist. Occasionally, you need both.
- Fight your emotions.
- If you work with me, you're family.
- Integrity is like virginity - you only lose it once.
- If my partners would fight for themselves, I knew they would fight for me, too.
- The only true victories in life are victories over ourselves.
- Who wants to follow a leader who is tired, haggard, and miserable?
- Do you want to do well on multiple choice tests - or do you want to do well in life?
- It's taken me my whole life to figure out that I don't have the answers.
- My rule was that if monthly rent was 1% of the purchase price, then I'd buy the property.
- Don't dwell on people's personality problems. Focus on what they can do.
- In your twenties, try everything. In your thirties, figure out what you're good at. In your forties, make money off what you're good at. And in your fifties, do what you want.
- The only three things you need to do in business: 1. Motivate your workers. 2. Understand your customers. 3. Balance your checkbook.
- Success in business is making money while you sleep.
- What is the most successful book in history? It's not the Bible. It's the Yellow Pages. It's filled with success stories.
- The toughest thing in business is managing ambiguity.
- The only way we will break the chain of poverty is if we educate the children and their parents, especially single moms.
- One of the most important things you carry with you is your frame of reference. Are you in the past, the present, or the future?
- Being too busy is being wedded to the past.
- Sometimes in life, you have to forget who you were and learn to be happy with who you are.
- Your integrity is directly related to your liquidity.
- Keep work, love, and play in balance.
- Be perfect, or excellent, with your follow through.
- Let your soul catch up with your body.
- Success in life is when your kids want to spend time with you when they are adults.
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