Paul Orfalea, who founded Kinko's, says his restless nature drives him to constantly improve. After three months, he hired a manager to run daily operations so he could visit stores, spot problems, and make the business more efficient. Entrepreneurs build solutions to their own frustrations and share them.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Make It Better. Over to you, Paul Orfalea. I wake up every morning, espresso give me go.
I'm lucky enough to be very restless. Some people call it ADD. And I was very good at leaving my business. I, from after the first 3 months, we hired a manager because those stores used to drive me nuts. They were very hectic and nerve-wracking. And my job was really, because of my restlessness and I could be in the moment, was going store to store to store looking for what people are doing right and exploiting it. Could I make a lot more money discovering some cool new idea than hovering in that office worrying about stuff? And I was working with very capable people that knew how to run the business very well. I had good financial controls, but my job was always looking for ideas to make it better. And I used to define my job that everything went beautifully without me, but whatever I did every day, I made it better.
I think it's an extremely important message for entrepreneurs. I think that's what we do as entrepreneurs, is we just try to make things better. Paul's talking about making his company better after he's already in the management role and is trying to build up and his biggest role as the entrepreneur, as the CEO, of the owner is to go and keep making every process better. I think it also applies to when you're first starting out, when you are first creating a product or service, you're doing it because you want to make it better than what is currently existing. The reason why I started the top 10 videos that's done so well on the channel is because nobody else was doing it. I wish somebody else did it so I didn't have to spend the insane amount of time to create them and to hire a team to make these things because I just wanted to be a consumer. I started the Enespresso series because I wanted something in the morning to kickstart my day, to surround myself with great ideas every single morning in a quick hit to help me get going. And nobody was doing it, so I wanted to do it. I had to do it. And I think that's what we do as entrepreneurs. And the biggest opportunity that you will find is the one where you are making something better. You have the restlessness, you're upset, you're frustrated with the way some things are done. And the entrepreneurs are the people who don't just complain about it. They aren't the ones who just say, "I wish this thing happened." They go out and they make it happen. They create that for themselves and then they share it with others because they're trying to make the world better. So the question of the day today is, how are you trying to make things better? What's the frustration you're feeling now and what is— how did your product or service solve it? Really curious to find out. Leave in the comments below. I'll join the discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning with espresso, keep me going.
