Run a Business Without Ruining Your Life

May 21, 2009 - PRLog -- Whether you call it a recession, a depression, or “our economic unpleasantness,” the current financial downturn is driving many people – willingly or not – into the role of business owner.

Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea views business ownership as the correct path to financial independence and personal happiness. But he concedes that to achieve happiness, an entrepreneur must ask an important question every day: “Do I own the business or does it own me?”

In his new book, Two Billion Dollars in Nickels: Reflections on the Entrepreneurial Life, Orfalea lays out his case that entrepreneurialism is not just about owning a business, but about taking ownership of your life. “It’s a way of thinking about the world in relentlessly optimistic terms. It’s about seeing opportunity everywhere you look.”

The book’s brief essays offer a prescription for building a business without losing yourself. “Running a business well requires good judgment and honest self-knowledge, but these are also the keys to personal integrity and happiness. If you obsess over the business and neglect your personal growth, what’s the point?”

Divided into sections on Ownership, Judgment, and Self-Knowledge, Two Billion Dollars in Nickels shares some of the business and personal lessons Orfalea learned while growing Kinko’s from a single, tiny copy shop to a 1,000-branch industry leader doing $2 billion in annual sales.

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. For more information, contact dean@dizzyone.net.