Paul Orfalea: The Harsh Reality of Running a Multi-Billion-Dollar Company | Entrepreneurship | E21

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Hello, my name is Tim Story. Welcome to Miracle mentality. It's for the dreamers, the doers, the believers in something greater in each episode, I'll invite you to rise above the mundane to push past the message and learn to live boldly in the Miraculous. Every episode will have practical wisdom, spiritual insight and my guests will explore what it takes to activate your Miracle mindset. Remember to subscribe, follow and like. Welcome to Miracle mentality. This is a podcast and I'm enjoying myself. I get to interview some of the best actors we have in the world, scientists, astronauts, creatives. And today I have Paul Orphala, who has done a lot of amazing things. Paul, good to have you on this show. We call Miracle mentality. Good to see you. Great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So we have two Southern California guys. I was born in Compton, California and then you were residing in what part of California? Downtown LA basically. Oh, a LA high. Paul, let's have a little fun here. When you were, let's say junior year of high school, what were you even considering doing in life? What were you thinking about possibly becoming? I'm Lebanese and I don't know a human being that has a job. I'm just a 500 rolloq. There's a Southern California. You just had your own business. So I always knew I'd do something with my savings account. I have a question about being Lebanese. Is the food as good as people always say that it is better? My mom was the best. They read you. My mom had six sisters and they all claimed that they had the best tabooly, the best hummus. My mother had six sisters and a brother and they all lived within a radius of my parent, my mother and father's house and they were all compete and cooking. So Paul, I just want to say this that annoying that I got the privilege of interviewing you, I like to do deep dives. I was trained by a man that you probably knew named Larry King and Larry and I, I was on his show, but also we used to eat at a place called Nate and Alice. So I lived in Beverly Hills and so did Larry King. We'd see each other for 20 years at Nate Nouse and he would ask me to his table and he'd say Tim, one of the reasons you're going to be good as a talk show host is you're very curious, you're very curious young man. So as I begin to study some of these interviews that you have done in the past, it's easy to go to the success that you've had on the monetary side and we will get into that with the companies in that. But what I find very interesting because I love, I love the comeback person. I love the struggle of the ADHD side of you, ADHD knowing that you had dyslexia. When did you realize that was part of your life? Well, I don't know, when did you realize you were going to be 20 years old? It just sort of happened. It was always there. But when I was a kid, there was no word for ADHD and they didn't have the word dyslexia. But I overhear my mother talking the phone and she would say, I guess you refer to them as a problem child. So that was the only thing they couldn't figure it out. So it wasn't something that you were necessarily tested for and then labeled. But the way it showed in your life was you were just quicker than the average bear or because I find a lot of my friends that have ADHD. There's some of the most brilliant people that I know, whether there be writers or screen writers or producers or directors or how did this start to almost be known. I don't know. I just seems to me sitting still with the people that are weird. You know, you look at how we evolved. You look at a caveman. They were always looking around. Somebody's got to kick their ass all the time and they're fidgety. It's just been the last 100 years you have to sit still to be successful. So maybe I'm more in tune with the primate person. I don't know if I believe in ADHD. I believe the teachers which is boring. Maybe it's their fault. But I mean, if you know my attention, I could sit still. I would agree with that. All right. So Paul's a founder of Kinkos which started in 1970 with this single copy machine near UC Santa Barbara and grew it into the world's largest chain of copy and print shops. Now any of us that have companies, I can remember telling my assistant so many times, just go to Kinkos and do this. Just go to Kinkos. Kinkos was the place to go. Now how does one create Kinkos? You're sitting at home and you think of Kinkos or how does this come out of the mind of Paul? I was in school and I made a deal with this group because I never really wrote much. I can't write. But I made a deal with the group. If they wrote this paper, I'd get them Coca-Cola, I'd get them the pizza, I'd get them, whatever they needed. And they produced a document about this thick and I needed about your copies. And there was a place at USC that had long lines. So I figured if they're in line at USC, why wouldn't they also be in line in Santa Barbara? So it wouldn't really, you didn't have to spoke a lot of pot and ruminate on it, dude. It's not that heavy. They're copying you to their company. Yes. So because one of the things I do that you do not know about, I'm a therapist but I'm also like a life coach to people. And I think many times when people figure out what they want to do, they learn from education, study, they learn from observation, was there somebody in the space that was doing something even similar to you? I'm trying to figure out how this thought even comes to your mind that you say, hey, there's a need here. Let me go jump in there. I'll answer it in a parallel way. When I was in school, I had a roadside vegetable stand and every night vegetables rotted. My father manufactured women's clothes and over time his inventory went bad. I kept looking at that Xerox machine and I kept thinking, I'm not going to fight my inventory. That paper is going to be good a year from now. So I like any business that didn't fight your inventory. So that was one of the attractions to it and it didn't go on a style. That's an interesting thing because it's this idea that some challenge it, but there's some truth to it. The success is finally the need in filling it. So you get this observation of looking at that, right? And then what was the initial step to then start to step into this business? What was the initial step? I needed the money to start the business and I needed the credit to get the Xerox machine. So you're just trying to get resourceful to figure that out. I always find this interesting. The opportunity to talk to Mark Cuban. We do conferences together sometimes, me and him. And I was talking to him just about some of the things that he comes up with. Or just a lot of people that create things or do businesses. And a lot of them say, Tim, I just created something. I didn't know where it was going to go. It was just a decision that I made and then the next thing you know, it took off. So when you started this, did you have a vision for where you wanted it to go? Now my goal in life was to be solid. Never write a balance check. I really trained myself and how to manage my savings account and my money. I didn't have any proclivity for Xerox machines, binding machines, copiers, computers, any of those things. It didn't interest me in the least. I just knew those machines I could figure out a way to make money from them. I have a nice living trouble. My aspiration was to shake someone's hand, honor my commitments, and never out of balance check. That was really my goal in life. So once again, your major at USC was what? Finance. Why finance when you could have done so many things? We've never met, but by watching you speak on some of these things that I'm watching you, I see a lot of creativity in you. Why finance? Oh, it's just so simple. When I was at school, you didn't have algebraic formulas. None of that bullshit. It was just adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing and just trying to figure it out through common sense. Nowadays, any finance has gone to some esoteric Disneyland. I don't understand what they're doing in business. I've never needed that in my entire life, the Pythagorean theorem or something with a square over it. Basically, fifth grade math is what I studied in finance and it seemed to work. So I did this thing that I think you would appreciate. I talked to a lot of people that do well and this is going to be interesting the way I say this. And I would say to them, in the midst of you being you, and we think you're so great, did you ever feel like you kind of sucked in the middle of you being so great? I went from one of the greatest running backs to Smokey Robinson to entrepreneurs. Did you ever feel like, you know what? Always, always will. And I'm always getting my ass kicked and I'm always self-douting and second guessing myself. It's just part of being in business as you're always only as good as yesterday. Your second guessing yourself constantly and reflecting on what you could have done better. That's just the way business is. You talked in an interview that's on YouTube that has over three million views. That's a lot for a YouTube video. So that shows you the interest people have in you. Is it you talked about this time when you were at Kinkos? It's not so much like you were having so much damn fun. It's not like, oh my god, I'm at Disneyland. I'm riding amazing rides because there was so much to do. You're in the trenches. How do you stay alive in your life in the midst of being in a business like that? You're just a paranoid. And I was accused of being a paranoid. And I took comfort back that Andy Grover wrote a book that even paranoid have enemies. Here I am in a business. I knew was going to be obsolete by the laser printer or the impact printer. I was always fighting technology. And I knew technology was going to catch up with me. And my days were numbered. So if you think of you're an owner, you look at the weaknesses. If you're an executive, you see the success and you're happier. But as an owner, you're always paranoid looking around the corner. And one of the travesties of our American corporations is the board of directors represents ownership, management represents management. We've combined management on the board. And the board of directors should make decisions that owner would make. And I always conducted myself as an owner and an owner is paranoid. Let's talk about a subject that you have talked about in other interviews, overcoming challenges. Here's an interesting thing in life is that I find a lot of my friends from age 60 to 80, 80 to 90. They don't like to put up with as much crap as they used to when they were younger. And when you think about overcoming challenges, what is something that you could say to the younger generation about crap happens, find a way to get through it? Well, the biggest problem you have is yourself and your insecurities. I'd say those are the big battles. I'll tell you a funny story. I was taking myself seriously one day and I had to get back to school and money to get me through the summer and I'm driving metal. I'm going, you know, I'm going to take myself serious. I'm going to freely, God, things are going well. I'm doing well. The next day, I tell you the exact next day, the entire publishing industry suit us over copyright law. And I thought, man, next time I take myself seriously, I'm going to get my ass kicked. So I'm always kept that healthy paranoia. Healthy paranoia. Is that possible? Well, I'm a case of it. I kind of like that. It's that feeling where you almost never feel comfortable in what is supposed to feel comfortable, right? Yeah. All right. So I'm going to go to a couple questions that I have written down. When fear creeps in your life, not just you running kinkos, taking it to billions of dollars, but when fear creeps in your life, what is your strength? Is it being stubborn full of faith? What is it? That's a great question. Sometimes you have no choice but to be resilient. I remember one time going to the accountant, the accountant said, what are you doing this for? You'll never make it. And I just didn't have a choice. Failure was not an option. And I saw so many of my relatives that lost their business. And you could see it in their face. You could see it in their face. Their lofts are will to live. So I think your business is almost like a child. And if you lose it, it's so hard. I didn't have a choice to fold the towel. And plus, I'm not a capable person. I'm not a good reader. I'm not mechanical client. I was never blessed with people pleasing skills. So I knew I'd never be able to be successful in a job. So I had no choice but to have my own business. So Paul, that's an interesting thing. Again, I tell you, I feel like I know you a little bit because I've studied you so much. I do look forward to meeting you in person. But there's this thing that a lot of young people are talking about. It's called imposter syndrome. You've heard obviously the phrase imposter syndrome. Okay. In my life, I've had quite a bit of success. I've been to 82 countries of the world. I write best-selling books. I get to do all this fancy crap. And I'm proud of myself, but I'll take myself too, too seriously. Part of it is because I feel like there's a lot of people that work hard. But I think I was fortunate enough to like step into this position. And so I'm thankful. So with you, when we look at you and we see all this stuff and these interviews that I watched talked to you about your billion-dollar status over and over and over, what's that feel like to know that you're a guy that we look up to? I guess it's the yin and the yang. You know, in life, there's the 13-year-old in you. And the 13-year-old is vulnerable, insecure, defines themselves overly about what others think of them. And then there's the adult. And those two people are always in conflict. You're always in conflict with your 13-year-old. So I still have a healthy 13-year-old in me. If I hadn't, I don't think that business would have done well. That paranoia, anxiety. So I think the healthy balance between your 13-year-old and your adult is very important. And I recognize that you do have that 13-year-old in you. You said that so wonderfully because I think that I remember, and what I'm saying this, I'm not name-dropping to a powerful man like you. But I remember talking to Charlton Heston, who was so great to me. He started being around me when I was in my 20s. And he'd say, call me Chuck. I asked him, what is it like being you? He goes, Tim, come on. He goes, I'm a kid, I'm a man. I'm a man, I'm a kid. I got flaws, I don't have flaws. What a great answer. And I think anybody who's healthy, that's kind of like the way you should look at life. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have any quality, I think, that I find repulsive as arrogance. And I used to never believe in arrogance. I used to think that the person had a nice car. They were good looking, had a beautiful girlfriend. But they're a little shy. So I used to ascribe them with the quality of being arrogant. And I really never believed in it. There's more meat projecting to the other person. But then I did do business with the people in New York. And I did discover there are arrogant people. I'm believing that you're enjoying this podcast, The Miracle Mentality. And so the best way to help other people is to share it with a friend, a family member, or even a colleague. We were hard on getting the right types of guests. That will make your life go from the mundane, the messy, the madness, into the miracle mentality. Don't forget, your mindset is yours to set. So make sure and share this with someone else. And then tag me at Tim's Story Official. That's Tim's Story Official. Thank you for making this one of the most listen to and watch the podcast out there in the world. And guess what? Get ready for miracles to come your way. So I have a seminary background. I'm going to throw a Bible verse at you. And I think you can do something with this. So there's a Bible verse, Proverbs 12 11. So the Proverbs are known as part of the wisdom books. It says, when you work your land, your land is what's in front of you. It says, you'll properly work your land. You shall have abundance. But if you chase fantasies, you lack wisdom. I personally believe we're living in a society where people are chasing fantasies. You watch social media, young people want to beat the sun up, they're pounding their chests, they're next. Talk to me about this thing of chasing fantasies, Paul, because this is something that I don't think you did. I think there's something about being with time. Most people have an antagonistic relationship with time. I have never been a busy person. I don't believe in busyness. I think if you're busy not seeing tomorrow, you're not seeing what really is going on. And if I reflect my contribution to our business, is I would go to location, the location, location, and look for what people are doing right. You can make a lot more money from what people are doing right than worrying about what people are doing wrong. Really, when you hire executives, isn't that their job to worry about the bottom 10 percent? But my job at the business was to study why the successful people were successful and learn from them. You have to really learn to be in the moment and say, what is really going on? A lot of people are preoccupied. And I think this preoccupation precludes you from seeing an opportunity. Yeah. So we have a nice following. I don't even know how I got such a big following. Anyway, it happened. But to a lot of people that follow me, I think they think that if they get a lot of money, they're going to get happy. If they get a lot of money, then they got this leverage. If they got a lot of money, they can't be touched. And I got to tell you this story. It'll take me a minute. I was in a mall when I was in my 30s and I was already starting to make good money. And I would never forget, but it happened is the person that handled my money, put money from one account into my debit account. And in my debit account, it said $384,000. And I saw that at 33. And Paul, I just went like this because from a kid from the inner city, that was like yikes. So in studying you, you got into the B word over into the billions. So tell me about what it feels like to have access to a lot of money. Please help us. Does it give you peace? Does it give you confidence? Does it give you what? You know, there's a downside to it. Because you really want to have intimacy with your friends. Wonders sometimes are they nice to because of whatever affectation I have in life? Are they nice to me because of who I really am? So there's always a wonder, is it who I am or what I have or what I've been known for? I think there's a big liability to having it. Because you do get envy from other people. And you sometimes just want to say, I just want to be Joe Blow, John Average, and not have that in the back of your 13-year-old brain. I hear you loud and clear. I really do. I don't believe that's the reason why you give a lot of money, though. I think you give a lot of money because you're good-hearted and you see a need. Yeah, absolutely. There's so many needs in society. I don't think you can be a good business person unless you're empathic. You understand your customers, you understand your workers, you understand the needs in society. Right now, I don't intend to leave my children any money. I'm intending to give it all away. And I'm trying to do a pretty good job, give it all away. When you think of the need in society, we live in a Southern California. 50% of the Latino community don't know how to swim. I'm listening because I'm part Latin. We have such a compelling need. One half the world doesn't know how the other half live. You just had to get rid of yourself. You know, I'm fried. You've got the fancy car and all that BS. But you say to yourself, do I really deserve it? What did I do to deserve all this? Those are the thoughts that their 13-year-old always has inside of. And you can't erase that 13-year-old empathic behavior. Some people run away from it. But some people have to reconcile themselves with it. But you've got to keep that 13-year-old because that's the joy of life. But then it's one age, I'm 77. You might want to start accepting yourself. Yeah, I like your way you're thinking. I don't know your religious bent and we won't get into that. But do you think that maybe you were chosen from something supernatural? It seems to me that a lot of guys that I interview that have done well almost feel like damn, Tim. I'm a regular guy and it's almost like whoever's up there went, ding, you're it. Why do you think you're the guy we look up to? That's a great question. I think that should be an unanswered question for the rest of your life. You know, there was two choices for me. I was either going to be the guy at the homeless shelter or where I am today. There was no police in the middle for a guy like me. This is what's blowing me away. You've got to give me some time. I beg you. You're blowing me away because I think there's a real humility about you to where it was never your quest and your goal. The dammit. This is the guy I'm going to be. And then you stood on top of the mountain and you just pounded your chest to the younger generation. You got to this place where you sold this company for so much dog money over a billion dollars and then FedEx got involved and all that stuff that we all know that's public knowledge. But let me go to you now. I think that there's something in you that you just want to give back. You want to give back. You want to build up. You want to educate. You want to mentor. Where's that coming from? I guess you're so old. I'll tell you a story that's a little tensingial. I went to a hobby shop and bought a million dollars with a Confederate money. So I was, you know, you ever put the game four square in the grade school? Yes. A good enough athlete to be the A and four square. So I said to the kid, I'll give you 20,000 Confederate if you make me the A and four square. I was the A and four square and I had the emptiest feeling being the A and four square. I knew I didn't deserve with my talents to be the A and four square. And I'll never forget that empty empty feeling. And I remember on Walshler Boulevard I saw somebody in a back of a limousine with the driver. He just looked so lonely in the back seat of that car. Those are haunting memories that you can reflect back on. Wow. Wow. Okay. Two more questions. Paul, give me a moment anytime of your life where you felt a lot of peace where you said dog on it. This is a great moment. First I'm going to start, okay. I was in Zurich, Switzerland. I had a layover and I was at this nice hotel. A businessman who was doing very well in life from Switzerland sat next to me at the bar. I'm eating salmon and talking to this man. And he said, you know, Tim, I can tell you got something about you. He went like this. I said, that's nice to you. So I'm going to tell you something. I've done very well in life. If I can give you any advice, he said, learn to be in the moment. Be in the moment. I beg you to be in the moment. Don't chase. Be in the moment. You're always going to think there's something better. He said, be in the moment. Right now we're sitting at a bar having salmon in Switzerland. I beg you to be in the moment. That was one of my favorite times because it was with a man who did very well in life. Really speaking 40 years down to me because he was 40 years older than me. To say, come on, young man, don't be chasing. You don't need to chase. Give me a time in your life where you felt almost that peaceful feeling like, okay, Paul, you're okay. Well, that's a good question. I can answer the other question about being in the moment. I've always been good to be in the moment. That's why I'm very impulsive. We probably have ADD because I get bored very easily. That's just my whole life. I'm there. I'm aware. I'm seeing. I'm observing. I had a Chinese fortune cookie. One said, your eyes believe what they see. Your ears believe others. So if you learn to trust what you're seeing, life's a lot better. And if you trust what you're seeing, you're in the moment. If you trust the ears too much, I don't know. Wouldn't it, I ever feel like I was successful. I think your children get you so much joy. They say when you have children, all you become is memories for your children. And the second action you get for your children, the joy you get from your children, I just think that's when you feel success. I think you're speaking to people, Paul, to be honest with you. Because I think that in my space, there's a lot of thought leaders. They call these people thought leaders. And so many of them are about the chase to get there, to get there, to get there, to get there. The way we look at it, you got there in many businesses that you've done. Because it's not just the famous kinkos. It's many businesses. And you continue to do things. You're still young. You know you're still young, right? Yeah. So it's amazing to me that you have all this wealth. And so many people want wealth. So damn bad. Final question. What does wealth, financial wealth, what does it mean? There's a whole psychology of money. Some people, the fine having money, there's a bunch of bullshit, a bunch of possessions. Some people are miserly stingy. They can never enjoy their money. I think there's a whole area of psychology I've heard about, where they reconcile what money means to you. And it's one of the really causes of divorce. It's a mismatch of spending habits and what money means to you. I think the only thing money gives you is freedom. I think it gives you time for your soul to catch up to your body. So you're always trying to reconcile your soul with yourself. One of the reasons I think we catch the flu or get sick is you've been going too quick and it's time for your soul to catch up to your body. So how many of us allow ourselves the luxury of letting our soul catch up to ourselves? And one of the things I've always noticed, I tend to notice in people, they're not kind to themselves. When was the last time you really could say, you know, I did something really kind to me the other day. I think everybody should try to take it. You know, you want to be nice to everybody, but sometimes it's just nice to be kind to yourself. I like that. Okay, my final question, will you take time to have lunch with me someday? Well, I'd love to. It'd be an honor. I teach school at USC at Loyola. And if you would do I come and guess, speak at our class, I'd love to have you. I'm saying yes, I do teach at the USC classes sometimes. I've not done it Loyola, but I would love to. So I will contact you on that call. I'm loving the way you think. I'm trying to tell you you touched me the last three days because in my opinion, as a person who went to seminary and as a touch of God on them, there's a real humility on you. That doesn't mean that you're overly religious, but you have a real humility on you that the society does not have. They want so bad. They will knock over their neighbor to get somewhere. Okay. I'm not sure about that. I think people have a innate sense of integrity. No, I think people are pretty kind to each other. If anything, I've always been surprised by people's altruism and caring. When I was younger, I had a more suspicious attitude to human nature. But I found that working with all the workers I work with, people are very honorable and trustworthy. And people want to do a good job. I don't think anybody goes to work to say, I want to do a bad job today for the employer. So I think people are altruistic and good. We take for granted that people stop and red lights and go on green lights. We take for granted such a civility in how we do things. Do you ever sit back and go, all those cars? They don't crash in the evening. Okay. That's another reason I love you because you just challenged me and I love that. I got a little bit of inner city on me too. And I think that sometimes that inner city side of me sees things a certain way. And I like the way you just adjusted that conversation. I really do. So my last question to you, you obviously not done. There are seasons of life, birth to 20, one season, 20 to 40, second season. Then you go 40 to 60, next season, 60 to 80, next season, 80 to 100, next season. Now it's not over 100 to 120. We got people who live into 107 and doing well. In this season of your life, this is my last question. What's important to Paul? Okay. I'm going to give you an answer. My mother would say she said, honey, in your 20s, you should try everything in life. In your 30s, figure out you do best and your 40s, make a bunch of money for you. Do best in your 50s. Try not to do too much. Hell, at 77 years old, I should really, I'm doing stuff. But I really want contentment is a cool word. I'm pretty content right now. So if I could, I would like to see every child, I think a goal in my life would be, every child has a pathway to orthodontia. Every child has a pathway to know how to swim. Every child knows how to go out camping and be in nature. I live in Santa Barbara. We have children in Santa Barbara living five blocks in the ocean that have never been to the beach. If I tell you, we live in two polarized world. My theory of the world is the center of the earth is all molten lava. It's hot hot hot hot. There's only a thin layer we can live on. That's five, six, seven miles is the crest. And that's the difference between rich and poor. There is so off the port, come out and beat the shit out of the rich. I think we're exasperating those tensions to the max. And you know what welfare is? It's the mold to all those wealthy people in their home. It's the mold that keeps the people from coming out and invading them. I mean, didn't Christ say he who sees the face of the poor sees me? That's right. Did he say that? I shall be first. The first shall be last. Yeah. When you hear the words of what Christ really said, I think, where did this come from? The mixture will inherit the earth, turn the other cheek. And I hear all this Christ-like people. I don't think they really got the message from them. We're talking to Paul. He's a creator of kinkos, but that's just one thing he's done. He is a humanitarian, a pioneer, a trailblazer, and hopefully a great friend. I appreciate you, Paul. Thank you for sharing space with me on this episode of Miracle mentality with Tim Story. If today sparked your courage or helped you understand why you're created for success, I invite you to carry that Miracle mentality forward. Visit me at TimStory.com, that story with an EY on the end. Until next time, walk by faith, embrace possibility, and create your own comeback story.