John Paul DeJoria: The Business Mindset That Turns Setbacks Into Billion-Dollar Success | Entrepreneurship | Lost Files

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all of our incredible deals in the show notes, or at youngimpropheting.com/deals. What's up young and profitors! Today's episode is a special audio exclusive bonus just for you guys. So here's the backstory. I had the absolute honor of sitting down with John Paul DeJoria. He's the incredible self-made billionaire behind Paul Mitchell and Patron Tequila. Unfortunately, the video files got corrupted. I was so bummed we had to re-record the interview,

but the first conversation was just so magical, and we're finally going to release it to you because I feel like it's something I want you guys to hear. You're going to hear him open up about his journey from sleeping as car to becoming a billion dollar brand, and why he believes success means nothing

unless you share it with others. So stick around because there's a lot of wisdom packed in this

conversation. Now here's my original sit down with John Paul DeJoria. Enjoy! John Paul, welcome to young and profiting podcast. Well, thank you all. It's really a pleasure being here. I like the focus of your podcast helping others out. Thank you. Well, we are so honored to have such a successful entrepreneur on the show, like yourself, and you have an epic rags to ridges story. And so when I was learning about you, I found out that you grew up in

Echo Park, Los Angeles, which is now like gentrified, but back then it wasn't such a nice town to live in. You grew up in poverty with a single mom. So let's start there. Take us back to your times

“in Echo Park. If we walked into your home, what would we see? What would we feel?”

Well, the first thing we feel, if you walked in my house, says, "Wow, this is a little box. The house I grew up at is just a little bigger than your studio room here. It was a little one better house. My father was a deadbeat dad, so by two years old we really didn't have a dad, my brother and I, but my mom did a good job racing us. So you would find a very small place to it with a very humble means. For example, we did not have a refrigerator. We had an ice box.

Ice boxes were real, where the ice map would come around for 25 cents a week. I remember, I put a big giant block of ice in there. It would last the entire week. We had the vegetable man blowing a horn. As this truck went up and down, Scott Avenue or Furbank Avenue there,

I mean, it was just really unusual times. We never had a television. So this is 1949,

1955, 1952. We didn't have a TV. So we didn't know what it was like. And so we say the outside world. But our community was made up in those days of a lot of Europeans and Hispanic people, most of Europeans. And everyone just got along with everybody. It's just an interesting thing. Everyone from every race, color, creed, whatever kind of lived in the neighborhood. And my mother gave us love, nothing but love. So we grew up with a lot of love. That's one thing my mother gave us.

And we thought we had everything in the world. We didn't know any better. And then along the way, we had many great experiences. So you could have grown up with this victim mindset because you didn't have a lot of money. Your dad had left when you were two years old. But your mother really instilled confidence in you. And she taught you so many lessons about generosity and positivity and the meaning of wealth. Can you share some of your favorite stories with us? And then around five

years old, my mother became very, very ill. So my brother and I went into foster cares. We were fostered children until the time was about nine and a half years old. But we were the lucky ones because we got to come home almost every weekend and see our mom. Or many other just kids. Good. So we kind of experienced that. But my mom did something different. She made sure that we had to experience a lot of things, a lot of people experienced that we considered to be wealthy. They

“have a much more money. One great example of it was this. My mom, I can remember brought home once,”

a little small piece of filet mignon steak. And she got it in three pieces. There's just about little just square and chunks or something. There's three little pieces that said, boys, this is something called filet mignon. And it's what of the rich people eat. We just like the rich people. We thought great. Whoever they are, this is wonderful. At another time, but in those days, it was a lot less expensive. She brought a little bit of caviar. And said,

boys, this is caviar. She was European when she came over. She says, that's what these rich people

We were finally home there at 10, 11 years old. And we had paper routes in the morning.

“And one day, I'll never forget to say, we were home. It was on a Friday. And my mom said,”

get whatever money you had. We said, we have a few pennies. Anyways, we raised between us 20, 7 cents. And mom said, we have life made. Boy, we are so rich because one, we have vegetables that we were growing our little teeny garden there. We're happy. Our bills are paid. And we still have 27 cents left over. Aren't we wonderful with that? Yeah, that was the kind of mom that we had. I know it's seven years old when I was out there selling Christmas cards off the back of a

comic book. They would send you in some six samples or so. And you would sell them. And then someone would put their private name or message on there. And then they would get it back. So the way it worked was I'd go to my neighbors. I'd say, here's six Christmas cards you could pick from. And we put your name on. And I give an example. And then they would give me a 50% deposit, which was something like maybe $2. I would send it into the company. They would print them up

because everyone trusts to be those days. Amazing. Those things went on. Anyway, so they come back.

I would deliver to them and get the other $2 and got to keep it. So I thought, boy, this is cool. Only a Christmas time. But my mother encouraged us to look at people and smile and just come from your heart when you tell people things. So we grew up with little to nothing. But we had everything. So we had a lot of love and a very caring mom. It's interesting when that happens in life. When you are really, really loving people care about it. There was a place there in East LA. We go to

when I was in foster care called the variety voice club. When we would hang out and make flower boxes that we would go out and sell to somebody else. So it was a unique way of living up. Even though we had very, very little. We lived on an upper scale because we had the love. We were excited. We were happy. And my mother was incapable of lying and was the one the most positive people on the planet. We had so little. But she just so much for us. That's so wonderful. Like what

it would a great story about your mother. And it's so awesome that she was able to instill that generosity and confidence and positivity in you. And look where it took you because you had that

“really strong mindset since you were growing up. So where did this passion for generosity come from?”

Good question. That's going back to mom too. As six years old in Echo Park, at Christmas time, my mother took my brother and I, we had trolley cars in those days. They actually had real trolley cars right. Anyways, we took downtown LA, maybe a five-minute ride by trolley car because the Christmas time and downtown LA was a bit different than today. They had the Bullocks and May Company sex for them. You know, all the big department stores by 7th and Spring,

that general vicinity. Anyways, we would go down there and there would be like pop a chose going on on the windows, little trolley cars going around. I should say a little train. So we got to ride. We thought we were the luckiest kids in the world to seal this stuff, right? Anyways, so mom gave us a dime and said boys. I want you to hold the dime together. Walk over and give it to that man with the red bucket ring in the bell. So we did. And we said,

mom, this is now 1950. Okay. Mom, that's two soda pops and three candy bars. Why do we give that guy with a bell and the red bucket are dime? And she said, boys, that's self-self-ation army. There are people that have no food and no place to live and they help those people out. We could only afford a dime this year and I'm going to volunteer a little bit of time with them

and what little time I have to volunteer. But boys always remember this is when you grow up and

as you grow up, they'll always be somebody that needs something more than you do. Lend to helping hand, that if you don't have a dime to put her in a money, volunteer a little bit of time. And that's stuck with me. I love that. And you have a new book called Success Unshared Is Failure. So talk to us about why that is such an important mantra for you and also failure is a pretty strong word. So why is it actually failure? Well, when you grow up, the way I grow up with a lot of

challenges throughout my whole life, even when I started my first company Paul Mitchell, I was homeless. I was homeless, right? I lived in my car because of circumstances. But so I went through it all. I'd 22 years old. I was married very, very young, had a two and a half year old son. And my wife could not handle being a mom anymore. She just split, took with little money we had the car,

“left me with a kid sitting there and, you know, here I am. In my early 20s, what are you going to do?”

So I've been through a whole lot. I've been in places, for example, where I was down and out with a little child, one of my dear buddies who, so we say traveled a lot with the hell's angels. He would have the hell's angels come over and give us a helping hand. Some of the moms would help take care of my kid. Well, I went to work and I would ride motorcycles with the

hell's angels. Never had to really join the club because they knew I was working all the time.

wrote together a bit out of Griffith Park in other areas. But growing up, I ran across so many things, not having any money, having to live in a car, just a lot of different things and a variety of jobs that I experience. To all of a sudden, finally making it on my own through great difficulty. Well, with all this information, all of a sudden, coming from nothing, like with Paul Mitchell and later on, patron, all the sudden, I had money where I could pay my bills on time. And then I realized

so many people weren't quite as lucky or so positive. So I started volunteering when I had no money at Griffith Park at Levin's, where you would fee people at, or you would be in line helping feed people at Thanksgiving and Christmas, even brought my little boy with me when I had custody of him.

He was living with me and kind of just grew up helping and it made me always feel good, not just

because Mom said don't forget, but always made me feel good. So it's time went along and I was able to afford it. I'd not only gave some of my time, but I started giving money. Today, it's millions of dollars a year. But we don't consider charity. What I consider with my family is we're investing in the future of our nation and the planet Earth and the future for others to treat

“our great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, even better and have more opportunities. That's how”

we figure. So when I say success and shared his failure, I do know quite a few people that are also billionaires and other very wealthy people that are so stingy with their money. They don't really want to help anybody out. They talk about it, but they don't. Or when they do, they want

credit for it, whatever. And that's not really where it's at. So I say in the book, success and

shared his failure because throughout the book, it points out how we started with Levin and Mines and then by being nice to people and being kind to people, how we could achieve something, but give a little back. Let's put it this way. If there was an effort to add which people asked me and I had to think about this one. If you did have a tombstone and effort that was on that tombstone, what would you say? And I said, you know what I would say I think? And I thought about this a little bit.

Is this? He came to this planet with nothing, like most everybody does, nothing, but just a body and a being in the body. But he left and when he left, he made the planet a better place to live for millions of other people. He was one of the good guys here. So put it a good star,

“see that was here to help this planet evolve. That's what he was here for. That was his purpose.”

And he went through a lot of bullshit and a lot of problems along the way. But he came out okay, but he understands for other people were at what they're trying to fight and could do it a bit easier. Yeah, fam, I know we've all called customer support before where we're on hold forever. We're getting past from personal person. We're repeating ourselves over and over. And then somehow after all that time, we get nothing done. That is not a way to run a business. 11

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That's amazing. You're such an incredible human being and I'm just so thankful that you're here

and able to share your stories with us and so much that you've done for humanity so far and we'll unpack all of that. But first I want to get into your background in sales because I found out that you were working since seven or eight years old, going door to door, was that normal back then or was that something unique to you? No, it was normal. I'm sorry, the newspaper route was, excuse me, if you could get a newspaper route. But the first one I was saying selling would have

been the Christmas cards. And that was followed up by the planter boxes that we made at the variety voice club. They were about maybe two feet wide and flat on the bottom of kind of curve with an opening and two little loop holes that you could actually hang it up if you wanted to. So it was 25 cents worth the one. But the variety voice club would give you credit. I learned about credit, right? So I'm gonna hit your credit. Wow, 25 cents. So my brother and I built one. Take us a couple

Went back, gave them their 25 cents. And the other 25 cents, we bought another one. And the other

“one, we made it. You know, we bought the one and we made a standard and she'll add to it everything”

that we made went on sold it. We had 50 cents. Now, 50 cents in the early 50's is a lot of money. It's like a kid having five or ten dollars today. We thought, wow, this is really, really cool. And then later on, around 10 or 11 years old at a paper route. So to my brother, with the morning LA examiner. And we made only about $30 a month, each approximately, get up early in the morning, pedal our bicycles, fold the papers, go on deliver them. On Sundays, it was full these giant

papers, shove them in your bags, and have somebody stronger than you help you on your bicycle. And it fell down your trouble. It took forever to get a back up again. And we would deliver it. But you would get an extra dollar if you could go out there and get new subscriptions. And that's exactly what we did. We went out there. We got new subscriptions. You know, maybe worked half of a Saturday. Maybe got one or two. We mean extra couple of dollars. And that was really

cool. And we learned how to look people right in the eye. Because when you're looking around and they're telling you, well, I'm over here, you know, you're a little kid. You're kind of, you know, oh, anyway, it's the look of the eye and give your presentation. We even had a song. A kid up the street this name was Michael Vusage. And I would go out together without less team up and get, you know, these little dollars each, right? We just split it all. We even made

up a little song. Now we're kids for 11, 12 years old. We made it. But forget it was good evening, good evening, where the examiner boys, if you'll subscribe the bit examiner,

we'll sing a song for you right now. We do one of this. First time we did it, we were so embarrassed.

When we were done, we lit each other and ran away. And we got the door to show up there because the soul of that. So you tried different things. I love that. But in sec, the piece was the big one. Yes, that was their first like real sales job. Most reps quit. First couple of days. But you actually lasted like three and a half years and became a top seller. Yeah, that is if they still had door to door sales, I would insist that every one of my children do it for at least a minimum

three months. Because it was an usual days. And I just got out of the United States Navy, looking for something to get into. And I was interviewed and very impressed by it. The way it works is this. For five days, you're in a training class to learn a word for word presentation. Then you got in the field. It's all commission only. You don't get paid

mindless. You sell something. But they set something to me. I never forgot. And they said this.

Some of you are not going to make it. In fact, they didn't tell us this. But I found out later, the average lifespan of an encyclopedia salesman on commission only. No leads. It wasn't Britannica World Book. It was callier, encyclopedia. It was three and a half days. Because once you get out there with your training and people are closing doors to your faces, it's, I don't want this. I'm out of here. So money. But he told me something. I believe.

And it's got to pass on to all your entrepreneurs. I don't care what HDR. And it's this. Be prepared for rejection. The way they explained it was said, you may call on $50. And they're

“either politely saying no, or maybe not so politely close to your face. You have to be just as”

enthusiastic on door number 51 as you were on the first 50. Well, I believe what they said.

It wasn't or 51 for me. It was a hundred and something. But I believe I was just as enthusiastic and it worked. And then, oh, let's say, maybe I have to do 10 presentations to make one sale. Maybe. Finally, as I learn more and more, I do it better and better. If I gave three presentations, I did at least one sale. And this commission only. And that last about three and a half years. And it worked out well until I finally got burnt out on knocking on doors, even as a sales

manager with them, you were still required to go out there and every week at at least one order. And it's not going to go into something else. So I went into a variety of things. But I learned so much overcoming rejection, believing your product is of high quality. Everybody needed it. And I would say to all entrepreneurs, I learned this when I started my first company, Paul Mitchell, is another big secret to really making it in life. It's not only be prepared for a lot of

rejection in business or even in your personal life, because people are going to tell you things you don't want to hear. If you're prepared for it, it goes off one shoulder and into the air. Be prepared for it. You're going to get it anyways, right? The other part was,

“make sure you'd never go into the selling business. Now, let me explain what I mean there, okay?”

Most people are companies create something in a presentation to sell to somebody else. Yep. Okay. There's a need in your marketplace. This is it. I don't. With Paul Mitchell and Patron, especially, we went into the reorder business. Paul Mitchell had no money, no nothing. You know, it just door to door and three products to start with. But they were so darn good that we knew. If we put him in the hands of hairstyles,

in-between visits to look the same. And it works. We were in the reorder business. Now,

“if you have a service that's not a physical product, you still want to go on the reorder business.”

Meaning this, what you're given them is so good. Not only will they want to use you again, but there's nothing they have. It's the one time sale. They'll tell people about it. So let's look at the two big things. Be ready for a rejection and know it's coming. And when it comes, don't let it bug you. The second thing is, whatever your product or service is is so good, people will be around order it. They want to reorder. Yeah. I feel like that's such a great advice.

Because you don't want to be in the business of just having to spend endless amounts of money on marketing and branding and trying to push out your products and services. You want it to be so good that people just order it on their own, spread it by word of mouth. We had to. We had no money to advertise for market or anything. And also we had to start a company with Paul Mitchell

or the backer pulled out. Yep. And that was a big deal. Because we could do it for half a million

dollars today. They'd be two or three million in 1980. Pulled out. So as a matter of, I left everything I was doing, everything I was doing. And said, what the heck left everything behind? The better car, the house, everything else went down the hill with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and son of a gun. Okay. The guy didn't come through. Nothing less than for everyone to learn here.

“People are asking especially the youth of America or even people that are older. Can you do today?”

What you did in 1980? You know, you started a difficult times. How the world did you get an office? How did you get people to pay you immediately? How did you do all this stuff? That's almost impossible. Well, it's all in the book step for step. How we got an office for $16. And how we got somebody that was used to paying in 45 days to pay us immediately. How we did it? There's ways to do these things. But it's a process of learning along the way as you do these things. So there was nothing

there. We had to create all this on our own. And it's interesting when you've got to create something on your own. The entity in us, that God formed that is in us, is very smart. Just leave yourself open to the universe. It's going to guide you. Prior to that, I was fired from three companies. Yeah. All in the beauty industry. One, because I complained all the time about them testing on animals. They were hair care products. You know, not skin care putting a

rabbits eye still they die or injected in them. But they wanted to look at it to be the scientific approach. Well, they got tired of me in upper management complaining. They said, JP, we love you. But you got to go because you're now telling everybody the same thing. It that's not how you run a major corporation, whether we're right or wrong. You stick by it. I didn't want to stick by something that was wrong and not a good job.

One to work for another company, syntax, it's just by firm Adele. And they needed someone to train their people in sales and marketing it, which is what I did. After one year, I wasn't one of them. In other words, you're not one of us. Okay. You're not with this playing canastas on the weekends. You're a loving and griff of the park, right? And other things, too, that it's no need to mention right now. But they were really mean. It's one of those times. So they fired me. I said,

great. No problem. I believe. Then I went to work for another company that was a little thinking company. And they didn't meet to almost run their company for them, which I did. I quadruple the triple their sales in one year. By the way, with firm Adele's syntax, I increase their business by 50% in one year. And then with the other company, I triple their sales or double. No, actually, I triple them. But they fired me after a year. Now, the way they

fired me, this is interesting. But what came out of it is a more important part about living yourself open to the universe. Okay. They fired me because they said, JP, you made more and money than the owner of the company. I said, what are you talking about? You know, this is in the mid 70s, right? I said, I agreed to work for you for only $3,000 a month and 6% of new sales.

“They said, that's what got you. The new sales you created so many new sales should be more than”

the owner of the company. I said, but your company is bigger now. It's worth more. And how would I get 10% of your company? I'll buy it from you. But give me a couple of years to pay for it, right? And maybe take a little less that you're paying me and put it towards that purchase. They said,

absolutely not. We have a fellow name. I'll never forget this David Chapman that I'll do it at one

third the price. I said, you know, well, and he saw I went on long story short. I consulted a little bit after that. Then I started John Paul Mitchell says something. It took us two years as people said, when did you become successful? Yeah. It took us two years. And the reason when you were successful was because we could pay our bills on time. We didn't pay them off, but we paid them on time. But all of a sudden around that time, something hit me just out of the blue. I said, oh my God,

there is a God. There is something real called fate. Had I not worked for all three companies, learned something different from all three in the professional beauty industry, I would have never been able to start Paul Mitchell. Whether it was with $700 or whether it was

job in each company, but it wasn't my destiny. It wasn't my purpose. I couldn't help enough people

out. I couldn't make enough money to do some of things that wanted to help the plant. I couldn't. So the universe said, okay, you're not doing it. We're going to do it for you. This is not right.

“But you got to learn. You got to learn. You got to learn. So when people are down and out, just remember”

that, don't think about how bad things are because you can't change yesterday's newspaper. You can't. It's already happened. Leave it behind you. Leave it behind you and just go forward and leave yourself open to the universe. It works and it works really well. Yeah. We're here to learn lessons. And some of the bad stuff are good lessons for us to learn to be better. Yeah, fam. I know we've all called customer support before where we're on hold forever. We're

getting past from personal person. We're repeating ourselves over and over. And then somehow, after all that time, we get nothing done. That is not a way to run a business. 11 agents by 11 labs is a voice AI agent that can actually listen, understand what your customer needs, look up information, process requests, and escalates issues when necessary. It works 24/7, response quickly, and supports more than 30 languages. What I love about 11 agents by 11 labs is that it goes beyond

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“Guided rollout capacity is limited each quarter. So if you want to be one of the first companies”

with a customer experience that people actually talk about in a good way, now is the time. Try 11 agents by 11 labs at 11 labs.io/profit. That's ELEV-E-N-L-A-B-S.io/profit. 11 labs.io/profit. It's so true. It's hindsight is 2020, right? A lot of times you get fired or something bad goes on and you think like, "Oh, what was me?" But in reality, the universe is actually just preparing you to do what you're really meant to do. That is correct. In a lot of 20 and 30

year olds, especially if they feel like they need to do everything right now, they need to start companies and college. But in reality, you started a Palm Mitchell holiday 36 years old or something

like that, and it turned into a billion dollar company. Yeah, I believe it was 34 or so, yeah.

Well, we're global. We're the largest privately-owned slon haircut coming in the world, but we give a lot, but also I might want to say we may have the smallest turnover of any company beauty industry because we take care of our people and we love them. Yeah, okay. There's so much that I want to unpack in your story. So first of all, you mentioned that you started Palm Mitchell systems with $700. You had an investor who was going to invest half a million dollars or something

and he pulled out. That's correct. But you decided to continue on anyway. Why did you believe in the idea so much? What gap did you see? Why did you decide like, you know what? I'm just going to do this anyway, even though my investor pulled out. Yeah, that's a very good quote by the way. No one ever asked me that particular question. Let's go on. Well, for me, it was very, very simple. I left everything behind. The work I was doing, the better car took the older car was a cool car,

but down the hill, right? And I just left everything with a few hundred bucks. And I just realized that I left everything because that's not my destiny. This must be my destiny. I knew our products were great because I'd good friends of mine helped me formulate him properly. And I knew that if I could only talk to enough people, just put in their hands, just let me put this in your hands. Okay, that the majority will reorder because it's that high of a quality product.

And I wait for me believed in it. So I went through all the difficulties and eating, sleeping, and paying bills late all the time. Everything could ever imagine. But we made it. And that was another recent me coming out of the book to show others how to do it. So people say today, JP, can you do it today? Like you did in 1980. No, you could do it easier today. Why? In 1980, inflation was 12 and a half percent in the United States. Unemployment was 10 and a half percent.

If you could get a loan, which we never could, if you could, the lowest interest rate was 12 percent.

And we waited in line to get gasoline. And we had the biggest competitors in the world going after.

“Today, life is different. One, you have computers. So you could communicate. You could write your”

own stationary own business cards, your own everything on your computer. We didn't have that in those days. Okay? And that could be your business office. But another thing, too, that I'd love to share with your entire audience is, okay, you have a little business, you have a product going. But you don't have the money to market it, sell it, or you've got a bunch of, let's say you don't have a lot of money. You want to raise money up all clothes that old bicycle, or you just have stuff you want to

one five, that's all a cost you, right? And it's called global SKU. You take your camera. And you could take a picture of anything. Something that's old and used, something new. I could take your purse. I could take anything, right? You take a picture of it. AI is involved in this by the way. And I invest in this company because it's so cool. Anyways, you take a picture.

“Instantly, I'm talking about it in a second. It shows you the picture you took, what it is, right?”

And it tells you what is sold for brand new. The last time it was sold and how much it's sold for used. And you push this other button, okay? And all the sudden, it gets you on something like eBay. So, like a lot of our students, for example, have old clothes, old things they want to raise the money. Just go take pictures of you all closed. Now, does this work? Recently, I wanted to see it work. Two guys went into a thrift store for $2 bought two t-shirts, right? And once an Illinois

on it, the other had some kind of scribbling on it, whatever. They bought them when paid for them. But when they bought them, they took a picture, knowing they're going to pay the two bucks for each one right took a picture. When they left the store, one of all of these sold for almost $100, the other one out, $20, $30, whatever, that's something like this really works. It's a way for someone to have something. All of a sudden, you now have an audience and you're going to

millions of people, millions. And then they said you're the money right away. It's really

interesting. That's amazing. It's cool. It's cool. Yeah, yeah, global SKU.com.

And it's an app that you have, it's 15 bucks a month. Now, if you've got a giant business, we have some people that have such huge businesses, they got so much stuff to put it. It could cost you up to something like that, maybe 500 bucks a month, maybe a giant thing. But, you know, if you have like 20, 25 things, whatever you want to sell, 15 bucks, that's it. I love that. I have so much things to get rid of. I definitely want to check it out.

Yeah, I love people trying to throw them in the trash to get room. Here, you could recycle, reuse, and get money. If you had a wheel off a bicycle, well, friend, it's amazing what people buy. All of the stuff you want to get it rid of, do it. Global SKU.com. I love that. I know you don't want to give every in the bucks, but let's unpack some lessons for the entrepreneurs tuning in. Sure. You grew Palm Mitchell's super popular, but you had no money.

So, how did you actually start to manufacture products and convince suppliers and manufacturers to actually support your business? Great crowd, gladly share that with you. We didn't know the money was not coming in. So, while I was putting the company together, the couple months before,

“I would go to like, said, go for my balls and say, hey, and they knew me from the industry, right?”

I did it. I made an industry, right? It's a nice good guy. And I said, we're doing this here,

and my first order will be for 100,000 bottles. I'll mix them up with three different products.

It'll be that. And I like to have 30 day terms. There's what we're doing. And I really made an impression. Go, oh, we'd love to have your business. I said, great. Then I went to the silk screener to exactly the same thing. Everybody down the line in the filler, the place that filled it all up. Well, when no money came in, what do you do? Now, that's one. If you leave yourself open to the universe, things come to you. So, I said, this not going to stop is right. We're

going to get this done because it was all set up. So, I came up with the idea of, let me call each one and say this, we are so excited. And I wasn't excited, right? We're getting going, right? But I need a sample order. How about only 10,000 bottles? 3,000 shampoo, 1, 3000 shampoo, 2, 3000, I mean, 4,000 that conditioner. Oh, sure, JP, we're wondering why you didn't want a smaller

“order to start with? You got the same terms. Immediately, same day silk screener, okay?”

Hey, we only want 10. Can we do all of course? God, of course we'll do a sample run for you, still 30 day terms. Went to the filler. Oh, of course we'll do a sample run for you, right? It was wow, great. But then our money disappeared. We went to the artwork where they did our black and white artwork of our Paul Mitchell product. It was going to be $1,000. And we told them the truth, we only have 700. Can we give you a few hundred more and pay you the rest? You know,

is that okay? And he said, no, he says, I want all 700 because I'll probably never see the other

few hundred dollars at all. That's it. We gave them all the money. We got the artwork. Now, I'm out of money, right? So I went on my mom's house. And I had luck to my mom. She didn't know what we were all bad things were. She didn't know I left everything behind. She had no idea. It's all happening. But like a day or two, right? I'll happen like real fast. And as I said, I had lunch with her and boy, I ate everything on that plate. Boy, son, you were hungry. How

some more? Anyways, I said, Mom, I want to borrow $300 for me if I can. And she said, well, son, you have a good job. You make good money. I said, Mom, I'm starting a new business. I'll pay you back at a month. Okay, here's gave me $300, right? That had the last be a long time. And that's when I learned not only had a sleep in my car, because I did it once before, when I was in my 20s, the my son. But how to eat up $2.50 a day? It was like the freeway cafe

and one either piece of bacon or one piece of sausage. And your choice of either orange

“juice or coffee. Well, of course, I took the orange juice. The sausage it was bigger. I just took”

whatever I could. And then I discovered this company, a restaurant chain. It was called El Torrito, that started something called happy hour. Nobody came in. Let's say between 4 and 6 o'clock. Happy hour, 99 cents. Whoa, great. But now only did you get a margarita, and it wasn't put round. Okay, but it isn't real inexpensive margarita. But they gave you little chicken wings, salsa, and all that. So after you're about 10 or 15 chicken wings, you're full. The salsa is

your vegetable, and I had a margarita, and I had a quarter I could leave her as a tip. Well after about four or five days, people kind of caught on a little bit. You know, let's go and I'm with these guys. And I told them exactly. They were so kind, occasionally they'd bring me an enchilada or they'd bring me a car. I mean, it was just unbelievably, it's just beautiful people. What I made money, I went back and I found them, and they were still there. And I gave them

the biggest tips they've ever had in their life. This is kind of a thank you. We learn and manage things. So it's like, I'll share this one with you. Okay, because it's also in the book, how do you get money right away? When you have no money, because I had the property to deliver.

Well, first of all, how do you even get business going? I went knocking door to door just like I

would do selling in Saclipides. Got 12 different salons to buy anywhere from $2,5 to $130, or approximately in product. And they would give me a check, and it took me over a week to do this. And I'm a pretty good salesman, but unknown product, unknown name, why should we get this? Or, you know, anyways. So I got them. And then I went to a distributor, but they did not fill off the top who was made out to. And I delivered on the spot. I went to a distributor. I'll just

give you one part of it. And I made my presentation. He was a nice man. He said, great presentation, but we're a pair of say speedy supply. The biggest distributors in Southern California. Number one, we have all the big brands. You have no money, no advertising, no promotion, no people, just you, and you're hairdressing friend, Paul Mitchell. That's it. I can't invest in our building your brand. I just can't do that. He says, unless you give me another reason, I want to wish you well,

and hope you get some money. I said, I have another reason and he goes, what is it? So out of my

“pocket, I pulled out 12 checks. I put them all in front of them. I said, that's why that's your”

first 12 customers. I've already sold it. You're paid for it. I already made your first delivery.

If you'll only order $2,000 for the Paul Mitchell, we will really hard out, right? You can have all of LA and Orange County. That's like Southern California, right? And he laughed at set off and said, okay, but you better be here and help my people sell it. Okay, and under those circumstances, I'll do it. I said, okay, I said, one more thing I'd ask you. I said, we're kind of new. And can you give me a check when this delivered? He laughed at set off. Came toward 25th anniversary,

by the way, we've been in business 45 years and told it to all my distributors. He says, and then JP leaves my office and I finally agree, said, okay, I'll do it, but you better be here, okay, tomorrow morning. He says in five minutes or less, my warehouse is calling, I mean, saying, there's some guy here unloading these boxes on our warehouse, you know, entrance here, wanting a check for $2,000. He laughed at set off, went back, gave me the checks

that I'll see in the morning. So he gave us a break. And that's, and from there, then I decided, well, if that's the case, and I want to go forward, I need that extra money. So I built into the pricing. I raised all the wholesale prices by 5%, and told everybody, if you pay your build in 10 days, it's a 5% discount. Well, everybody wanted that. That's one of the things we did in a couple of the things to get our money right away. Yeah, that's really great. So you did that,

so you could get more cash flow and get more cash flow and get more cash flow. We had a money. Yeah, our bills were due from the time we had product to the time set, co, the bottlers first bills were due was 15 days. We had 15 days, and then everyone else was to write the same week. We had that time to have to raise that money. So it was very, very difficult doing it. And we had to have money right away. Or we're out of business our first takes. We had no money. Yeah, there's a couple

things that I want to talk through here. One of the things that you keep saying is that you've got to be open to what the universe is going to provide for you. You've got to be open. So how do you

“suggest that people stay open like what is the type of mindset you need to have or what do you do”

to be more lucky? Well, and look, comes along with the combination of things. One, the biggest

thing is your thought pattern. Our thoughts are so powerful. I can give you an example of that,

and you can see how it changes for other people. A good friend of mine, and one of my business associates for several years just kept on saying, I have the worst luck. I have this new promotional thing going on. It's just not working this new product. I had the worst luck. I have the worst luck.

why you have all the worst luck and who's responsible. He goes with JP. Who? Who? I said, you, because whatever you say or thinking you put out to the universe, the universe wants to help you. If you're saying, I have the worst luck, well, it'll help you. It's black and white. It doesn't know reason. It's black and white. Well, then you'll continue to have bad luck. How about people? They're New Year's resolution. Next year, I'm going to try and lose 10

pounds or 20 pounds. Unifers says great. We'll let you keep on trying to lose that. The power of thought and the power of the word you speak are so powerful. If they're positive and they're going in a good direction, the universe is going to give you that open up to it. And don't have all the

baggage of, oh my God, I wish I would have done that differently. It would have never happened like this.

“That person was main to me. You got to get all that garbage off your shoulders. You have to”

where you're not going to go forward. So when times are really bad, realize this and this will keep you going. That was one of the many lessons the universe gave me to learn. I am here to learn lessons on this planet in this body. It's one of the many lessons it'll learn to something that's even better and better and better in the future. Leave yourself open, leave everything in the past and open eyes. It's amazing what comes to you. I didn't plan on calling

everybody up and say, hey, can I have a sampler of all the demons and bottles at all? But it just came to me. I said, whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And all of a sudden these ideas these swatches started coming in my mind. But I always thought positive. I would say 99% of the time most of positive thinker. There was a time maybe during my show we call it Biker years, Marley, 20s, and maybe it wasn't the best human being on the planet. Okay, and there's a lot of things

I did that I would regret. But it was a lesson learned to never do that again or treat people a bit

differently than you did then. Leave yourself to the universe and openly and not the negative thoughts before you go to bed. If you have all these thoughts, I can't pay my bills. She left me, he left me no matter what it is. And you can't sleep and go through your head all over and over again, get a piece of paper, write it down, put that pen and pad either by your bed or by your sink in the bathroom when you go to the bathroom the morning you could read it. Then if it goes to your head,

hey, I don't have to have to have to have to have to have my any more. It's all you're written down. These are little things that help out. So no matter what the problem is, it's behind you, you cannot change yesterday's newspaper, leave yourself open to new thinking and new thoughts. Mm-hmm. The other thing I hear from you is that you asked for help. You asked for things that were really uncommon and you got lucky because you were able to actually ask for those things.

And you didn't just ask and not give any effort. For example, you got 12 customers before you went to your first distributor and showed them proof like here, I've got your first customers for you. So talk to us about the importance of asking for help and not being shy to ask for help. Oh, you bet you. A lot of people are shy to ask for help. One time someone said,

hey, is it good to have consultants when you started a business? I said, I never had one. I don't

think so just do it yourself. Well, that was wrong because when you asked people that have done it before, they could give you some great advice because they've already been through the mistakes

“and overcame in most situations, you're challenged. Very, very important, okay, or people call”

me occasionally. I don't know. I can't answer them all and say, well, JP, here's my challenge. It's not a problem. I call it a challenge, right? What can I do to overcome it? Or just go to some go to a mentor, go to the local boys or girls club and the rotary society, all the lion's club, all these great groups, many for women. And ask, what do you think? I need a little bit of advice. People love tell by the people out. Yeah. So let's talk about how you built trust with the

salon owners. You were able to give money back guarantees, so it's not that we're really interesting. And then you also did things to connect with them on a community level, to make them feel more connected to your brand. Can you tell us about those things? A couple of things we did. One, let me say to people, one of my closest, I want to myself, presentations is this. I would say, if you would be in a position and agree, to let me come in here, hold a little class for your

stylist, when they're off, after worker before work, and display my products at eye level, because they look really good at eye level, like a tuxedo on it, right? Makes everything around a look good. Let me hold a little class and let me show your staff how to use a product, which I could do in five minutes. I'll make this agreement with you that in 30 days, if it's not the best product you've ever used and you really want to keep it, I will come back and take every

bottle. I would take the bottles I present. I would take every bottle that I have sold, that you haven't used, or sold already, and give you your money back. Now that's fair enough,

“isn't it? I would lick them in the eye and not, they had no best fair enough, isn't it?”

If they would say, no, which quite a few of them would? You know, why have I bought these other products you're not known? I'd say, you know, I agree. Instead of taking a dozen each,

it's not the best thing you've ever used. As long as you let me come in and hold a class, help you display it, right? I'll take everything back and it's so little by six of each. We only have three products. Is that fair enough? And if they said no again, and they would give you a reason why, too many overloaded don't have time, I said I could appreciate that if I was in your shoes,

“I think the same way, but I'm so convinced you're in love with it. If you only take three of”

each, okay? And a lot of was no, no, no, no, no, no. But then little by little, I learned to give a better presentation. But that's like out my first 12 orders. And I, but I knew an advanced set. I had to have something because the distribuer's not going to want to talk to me. And when I'd have to really try and sell them to take something that is unadvertised unknown, everything else. So I thought, and no one's going to buy my product. So I'd have to go knocking door to door

like I did when I sold books. Good experience, right? And keep on going. And it took me again over a week, maybe a week and a half, which today would probably take me a day, right? To get them. And then in my mind was leave it open, leave it open, you might need that for someone else. And then I went straight to the biggest distributor, not a little distributor of the biggest one, with everything I could put in a presentation. And after he said no, I gave him the extra

reason to do it. Yeah, that's incredible. And so, didn't you do like charity work or things with the

salon orders and hairstylists to make them feel more connected with the rent? After we got going, oh, definitely. Yeah, so later on. Oh, yeah. Once we got going, we were able to do that and get involved in sports marketing, local philanthropic events, which we still do, by the way, at Paul Mitchell. And it's just my whole life where we come in involved. And I make sure that we're doing that. All of a sudden, they feel like they're part of it. An example is I was on the West Coast once in

the office. And the office is almost totally empty. And this was on a Friday. I said, oh, I came and laid on the day. We're doing pretty good. Oh, they said, JP, we gave them the other half of the day off because they're down at Santa Monica Beach, picking up trash. They want to add to the beach and the environment. So, you know, we kind of embedded in ourselves that we want to help out and makes us feel really, really good. And you had multiple opportunities to take Paul Mitchell to retail,

but you always refused to do that. Why was that so important for you and what were you actually

protecting without decision? Actually, it was when the best things we ever did. And the way we did we say this, because I worked for other companies the beauty industry. And we would see, for example, a company's like, oh, my god, my dean, Jeremiah, okay, just I'll be so many I go on and on. All of a sudden, say, we're here in the beauty industry just for you. And the next thing you know, it's on drugstore shelves everywhere. And they're selling you just openly. Okay, so my promise

was this, we're going to be the first to support salons all the way. And if distribution changes, you're still going to be involved. Period, okay, you will. Because trust us will be the first doctor let you down. Well, in 2004, a young lady a student raised her hand and said in an audience that we were talking to and said, JP, every company has sold in this industry and we understand

that it reckons sold. They all sold, okay, we understand JP that you have not only have you never

sold anybody because you don't want anyone if you were to sell to all of a sudden, take it retail. First thing they'll do is go full-blown retail, right? And already there's black market stuff

“going in and people sell in Paul Mitchell out the back door. But what if you die, then what happens?”

It's a whoa, never thought of that one. One found a 360 year trust in the United States. I own more than 51% of the company I put it in there. So for 360 year starting 2004, nobody could take the company and sell it to anybody or take it to the major market they can't do it. But then some challenges came up. COVID. Oh my god, here's COVID, right? Solons were close for months at a time in many states. They were going out of business. Our customers wanted to prod it.

So we made a deal with Amazon. That number one they had about 2,000 places on there. They were selling either counterfeit or black market Paul Mitchell. So the deal was this. Take them all off. Take Paul Mitchell on. But what we need to do is this is what we make the sales. We need to know everything you're doing that money that we're getting. And we're going to give the Solons that carry Paul Mitchell. We'll divide it among them, right? We're going to give them a big percentage of all the

money we make of Amazon. So the customer still has the customer. And then when we went back to where they were starting to open up, they were broke. They wrote a business for months that a time. So we took our customers that took Paul Mitchell, put another $4 million in to it and gave them all free product, gave them product for the backbar, hair color, shampoo, conditioners, to get them

“back in business again, asking nothing to return because that's what they deserved. So we feel that”

you know, giving back all along the way is definitely the way to do it. And more recently, when the big chains that was black marketing Paul Mitchell from all over the United States,

quick 20% as much as they could possibly order, right? Or they would be going out there and people would have old licenses, but walk into a distributor and they could bite off the shelf, right? Tons of it, legally, and then sell it to these big chains, right? One chain, came to us and said, how can we change this to benefit Solons? We're going to get it one way or

“another. So we made it deal with them. If they'll put up a sign and their big stores, right?”

That says, here's a few products for take home use in between visits. See your professional beauty salon for professional products and do it right? If you will do that then, all of a sudden, what you're getting to the black market, you won't get anymore, right? We'll get it to you. And we did get it to them. All of a sudden, we realized what Solons were getting any product anymore and even a couple distributors who sales went straight down. They may have

been black marketing it. We don't know. But it's things like this where you kept the promise. So for as long as John Paul Mitchell systems isn't business, which is another 350 so odd years, or almost as long as it's in business, whenever the distribution change or anything,

Solons must be involved either for a kickback on the money or something. We will always

support them. When we had nothing, they believed us and supported us. So even when all of them are dead, I owe it to the industry. I love that. Integrity and loyalty is so important to you from you leaving a really cushy job because you didn't believe in animal testing. That's right. To then not going into retail, even though you probably would have made money faster, had you gone that route? Oh, a bunch. Why is integrity so important to you and how do you think about integrity

as a leader? Well, for one, when you are true to yourself, you are easily a showy say have the truth for everyone else. Being true to yourself is when no one has something and you're telling you something that I'm going to stay by you and you have nothing and they help build you up that really build us a major company worldwide. You owe them. And the other company is just like you're cheating the people that you promised. You're not including them and what you're doing.

Now you say, well, thank you for doing this. Now we're going to move on and I know a lot of the big retail companies do that still. They'll sell something to salons and then they'll change it a little bit and sell to the retail industry to say, well, we're also in the beauty industry. And this is not right because when eventually you told them that you're going to give them all the support and all the sudden you give to somebody else, it's just not right. And it's going

to be some back as you're in a carry on your shoulder and you're being nose inside that you screwed up, you screwed somebody over. And that's not being open to the universe. It's okay, you want to do that. You continue to do that and people continue to screw you over. You want to

“make promise you won't keep. Hey, no problem. That's what you want the universe. That's what you're”

really getting back. And that's how it happens. My goodness. That's just low. Yeah, that's so good. So I know one of your core principles as an entrepreneur is to have like really quality product. That's right. So talk just about how you knew that Paul Mitchell was like incredible product and the things that you did to ensure that you have the highest quality products possible. Certainly working for three other companies of professional beauty industry, I knew quite well

what was in those products. And when the top formulator, Dr. Rhonda Salva was the dear friend of mine. And as the favor, I said, Rhonda, we need a couple of these things newer and Paul Mitchell

my partner, try to come out of the product line, but it never did do well because it wasn't

their quality and Paul didn't have a marketing or any business sense. So we took some products and my friend pitched in and helped us make it the best formula, no matter what it cost. It's just got to be the best product, right? We're of a hairdresser used and that's why with hairdressers,

“they wouldn't know the difference. And so that's how we got our quality in there. That was a quality”

patrol was a little different story with quality, which we'll get to individual patrol. But that was all about it. How we can make it that good. And then we will continuously, if we made something new, make it the best. But here's something to learn about making some of high quality, okay? We started with actually three products and we invented a sculpting lotion for the wet look or die look and freeze and shine hairs free in the 80s for the big hair. But it didn't

build up on you. Those five products, 45 years later, are still top sellers for us, top sellers

for it still today because of the quality. That's amazing. And so you were talking about how

reordering is so important. How do you know if a product is reordered or worthy? Well, if you know if it's being reordered, it's because you're getting in order for it. Yeah, you're getting in order of order. If you're not getting in order for, it's like, oh my gosh, there was a time oh maybe 15 years ago where Mr. Jacob Ellis and I sat down, this is my CEO at the time. And we were looking at some of our products, there were five products and we're very big company,

five products that collectively, they did less than $2 million. So we thought, well, maybe we should make room for some that you make several million per product, whatever. But then we realized, well, wait a minute, if we started the company and we made almost $2 million in annual sales of five products, we'd have been the happiest guys in the world. The first big year was $400 and

in heaven at the time. So we really had to think that one out. Yeah, like which ones do you

discontinue? Exactly. Yeah. So you actually had black and white bottles. Yeah. And probably at the time, you were thinking like, that's not great. Everybody else has colored bottles, but it turned out to be an advantage. Yeah. Well, we're also an necessity. Black and white, what you bought the white bottle and for two cents, you got a silk strained. If you had color on it, it was six cents or seven cents. We couldn't afford it. Well, little did we know that that black and white would all

of a sudden make us unisex. Now, today, many of our products have color on it. Some color on it. We still have the basic black and white there other than maybe an emblem of the color. We're lucky on that one. Yeah. It's great because it's like everybody knows what it looks like because it stands out so much because all the other bottles are all different colors. So do you think

with all social media and hype cycles and influencers that if somebody had what is $700 back

then is $3,000 now that somebody could start Paul Mitchell today. Oh, easy, easier than we did it. If you did the same thing, we did which had $3,000. I mean, because today you have social media, you got advertising and you have computers. You could type up your own stationary, your own bills, or so many things you could do today with technology. We couldn't do in those days. We could not do it. You know, we could not follow through unless we went there personally or call them on a phone

“house and going, you know, and that's what we do a lot. We follow through with people and we have”

seminars every year where 3,000 hairdressers come, you know, and we teach them a new techniques, new ideas how to improve their business. We continuously do something to upgrade our industry continuously. But I do say to people, when you see Paul Mitchell, get it from a hairdressing

salon because not only do you know for shirts or real Paul Mitchell and not counter for anything else,

but they'll show you how to use it with your type of hair at no cost. Last question on Paul Mitchell is about your employees. So you've been in situations over the years where you could have laid off your employees because it was maybe the right thing to do for the business, but you decided not to. What was your reasoning behind that and how did you come up with other creative solutions to not have to let go? Interesting. I don't know how you found out about

all these things, but our own place, your 100% correct, during COVID, people are laying off left and right or asking for subsidies from the government. We said, we did so well and we were so happy we were making such good money. We didn't lay off one person. We kept them on full hay. And those that could go into the office would go in, which was kind of rare. If you say at home all this time, you got your full pay because we love you and you're not going to suffer just because of

the stupid stuff that's going on with the COVID and the shots that, you know, anyways, that's the whole stuff. That was wrong. The administration screwed up big time on that one, just heard people bad. But anyways, but we have a new administration. So things change all the time, but we took care of them. And then right afterwards, when salons came back, we gave them free product. So we take care of our people now. During that time, it cost us so much money. Remember sales were down, salons were closed,

right? And you were giving back to the salons. So for a couple of years, my partner of the time and I, okay, my minority part of myself did not take any dividends out of the company. We couldn't because we did a tell-prone staff thought it helps a lot in south. So it was a couple of years. We didn't take any dividends out of the company. We just left it in just to try and make up for, you know, what we lost during that time. You're such a good man, such a good boss.

Well, happy. We have the smallest turnover of, it may be any industry. I don't know, but the professional beauty industry. We have the fewest turnover. If I would say,

“we're in about a hundred and twenty eight countries. And I think with Paul Mitchell's south alone,”

got him last forty six years, let us just say, her turnover is much less, less, less than 500 people. I've heard of a corporation this big that's spended out. Yeah. That's people say, if at one of our awesome employees, Bill Peplo Peppy, worked with us until he was 86 years old. Wow. And he was just a great guy, but he couldn't get around, but he could answer the phone, and we made a little job for him so he can make some money plus his own security.

We would call up our accounts. How's it going? This is Peppy. Is everything going, okay? That's so cute. We love to take care of people. So let's move on to Petron. So you started Petron in your 40 years. Yep. What translated from shampoo to tequila? It was just a freak thing that the universe just let it happen. I was building a major house. And I was living at that time in California. I've only been in Texas 26 years now,

but in California, I was living there. And I was building a big house in Malibu because I was making pretty good money. And my builder came in and said, this friend of mine Martin Crowley, he's a great designer. He was in the hospitality business. Just went bankrupt. JP,

“would you go into business with him kind of be the bank and, you know, in our contextual business?”

I said, sure, why not? Wasn't that much? So he would go to Mexico by furniture and payvers

for architectural model homes. I was building that house there. He was going down on a delivery.

We were drinking regular tequila of the day, right? Salt, shoot it, lime, okay? And, you know, you get a little burn there and, you know, anyways, are you mixed the margarine? Don't get that. And I said, Martin, when you go down in Mexico to buy some payvers, when you come back, bring us the couple bottles of what the aristocrats straight down there. It's got to be something smooth and where we're drinking, right? And then the average

“bottle of tequila was about, I think, $5. The best one ever made was $14. Okay, and though,”

this is in 1989, right? Anyway, so he comes back and he brings these two long bottles and it was smoother than the thing we had. Much smoother than anything we had. He said, "But JP, I met this guy, Francisco Alcarrest. He can make a smoother." I said, "Really, go back down." So Martin went back down again and he brought back it and he found these bottles down there with Elon, who helped him start the company, right? These beautiful bottles of blown glass, same bottle

we used today at Petron. He said, "JP, we could put it in this bottle. It was the smoothest we ever had." And even smoother, I said, "Oh, my God, Martin, let's do this. I'll order a thousand cases of 12, that's 12,000 bottles. We'll bring it back." Now, it was expensive to make. I said, "I know it's expensive to make, but let's say nobody bought it." For the next 10 years, every birthday he would have wanted to have a bottle of bread to kill a Christmas. Whatever you celebrate here,

you know, you got this right period. That was the worst of what happened. Because we had to sell it

“for $37.95, nobody wanted to take us on. "Oh, my God, other than my buddy, Wolfgang Puckett,”

Spuggles wanted to buy it. He was a friend. He said, "This is smooth. My client tell me this." And Bob Cantino, who Martin, you Marina Delreys said, "This is really good stuff."

We finally found a wine dealer that only distributed wine and nothing else. And we talked

him into doing it if we could give him Spuggles and Bob Cantino, which we already landed anyways, he goes, "Yeah, are you kidding?" So we did. And we tried to teach him how to sell it, didn't work too good. After a year, they sold only about a thousand cases, so we dropped them. Went with a big major distributor, a big brand like Jim Beam, right? Well, no way to put another level. So now we, they got a piece of it, the distributor got a piece of it,

the wholesale we got a piece of it, and then the public bought it. So our margins went down. After about a year and a half, maybe two years, we went to Jim Beam and said, "Guys, you're only doing about 12,000 cases a year." We think we could do one day, 50,000 cases. They were so sweet. They said, "Guys, you're really nice people, or ready to take the truth. You have the best to kill in the world." But it's too expensive. You're selling for $37.95.

Others are flying there for $56. Because we brought ultra-prayment to heal. We're the ones that have been all-prayment to heal him. And marketed it. So we said, "Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate it, but we're going to change the strippers. We're nice to one another." Then we took on cigarettes, even a bigger distributor, right? "Yeah, let's go together, right?" So we still had the other layer in there. But after a couple of years,

they got it up to between 60 and 70,000 cases. And we thought that was good, but we knew we could do better than that. We really did. So we went to court and bought them out of their agreement. We bought them out of, we paid the money for it, and we took over distribution. Now, here's the less such a learn. When you go to big companies that tell you, you're not going to do so well, it's got to be cheaper in price. Anything other than, let's really give it a good shock at

behind it, right? Anything other than that, don't agree with them. We went with the biggest people. They only got it so high. When I sold the throne, almost eight years ago, we were doing

three million 500,000 cases just in our tequila. It was the biggest sale ever in the

professional alcohol business. No one ever sold a company for that much money. And it was the biggest success in the world. And we were around the world in 135 countries. So you got to believe in yourself and what you have is really, really good. And how do you do it when you have no money in

“alcohol? You know, nothing about alcohol. It's in the book too. How do we get the darn thing out there?”

You know, I get a distributed. Petron became part of the culture. Like Petron was mentioned in so many different movies. And it became very luxurious. And everybody wanted Petron in the club. If you were wealthy, was that by design or... I'm going to tell you about two of them. Okay, two of them. It was just like, wow, that was so cool. It was like a little show. He said just a universal force coming and giving himself a hand. Clint Eastwood was a friend of mine.

We started in 1989. Come 1991, or was either 1991, I believe. Clint came out with a movie called in the line of fire. He was a secret service agent all that. He calls me one day and says, "JP, I have this premiere of a new movie and you're dating this girl Eloise. You could really impress her. Kind of the premiere of my new movie. You know, we were living in Southern California at the time. And it was at the theater in Westwood there.

You know, we married. So maybe it worked. I don't know. But we went there and son of a gun Clint was in there. He was at a some other opening somewhere else. But his producer

met us gave us a seat right next to the producers and free popcorn and free Pepsi. I'll never

forget that because most of these are South Coca-Cola." So I said next to the producer, the best seats of the house, free popcorn, free Pepsi. I was really impressed. I didn't know. Pretty cool. That was in the surprise. And he didn't even tell me. The only thinking he drank in the movie was Patron Tequila. And the most intense movement he's there on the telephone with the terrorist killing the president, trying to talk him out of it, sipping Patron with a ball of

a childhood front of him. And then that same year when playboy interviewed him, that's when playboy was a really great one to get on for interview. They asked him, "What do you drink?" He said, "Only good red wine and put Frone Tequila." So that was kind of nice. So people along the way, all the sudden years go by, right? As the years are going by people were saying, "Wow, that 50 cents is really cool with your Patron." I said, "Who's 50 cents?" He said, "JP's one of the new riffs and you're

just out here." And he talks about Patron. Things about Patron even has a ball of Patron with dimens on it. And then all of a sudden the country in western field they made a song which was a big hit.

“I think it was Tequila makes my girls' pants fall down or something like that, right? All about”

Patron. And it's been a time they just didn't say loved it. We had rap singers left and right drinking Patron singing about the country in western industry and it just took off like a call. Wow. But during that time I was working on what's the next generation of Tequila. We created the generation of ultra-pray-mimp Tequila especially in the United States. Can we create it all that, right? What's the next generation? I had not sold Patron yet. So what do they want? They want

something that has no additives, smoother than even anything you could ever imagine. And you they would like this, this, and this. So I started working on a formula to do it. But hadn't bottled it yet or sold it yet. I just worked on the formula and the idea of this thing. And we will call it bandero. And they said, "JP, they were really kind to me when they bought the company. You haven't bottled it. You haven't sold it yet. We're going to let you keep it. But you'll have

a five-year non-compete for anything they all call business. It's a deal. Because even if you asked me to and not in writing, because he gave me so much money, I would have done it anyway.

“He gave me a lot of money. Okay. I would have done it anyways. So that's what happened.”

So I had it. I sat on it and then when the non-compete was up a couple of years ago, I gave it to my daughters who just kind of sat on it, sent me very much. And my partner at the time but couldn't do very much. Anyways, the non-compete's up went right back at it again a year and a half ago. And now we're in seven states in the United States. And we won a little over a year ago. The gold medal in the Latin American awards. That means everything south of order has the best

to Kila. We won the gold medal for that. That's incredible. So whenever we do taste test with

people like go, "Wow, that's great." But sometimes people say, "JP, what's better, petrone, or your bandero to Kila?" Especially your bandero coffee. What's better? My answer is very easy. Even though I've already been paid by petrone, I don't have to owe them anything like this. In my own heart, I know this and I tell them. They're both to the greatest Kila you'll ever have. Why don't you yourself taste them both out as see what's when you would like. You're

talking about two great ones just a little bit different each. The new bandero is not part of a petrone. It's a whole different thing, right? And petrone is the same different thing. Taste to both see what you like the most. And we're doing extremely well. It's a tough market now because the market is down for all for every alcohol, right? But we're making enros and we think 70% of all people may be able to taste it. We'll get it again. We'll be in the

reorder business. We made it so that it'll approach those kind of people. And this is just kind of rounding out everything that we were just talking about in terms of, you know, you didn't spend a lot of marketing dollars on Patron. It just got spread by word of mouth because it was such a premier product. It was a category of one and it was super well made that people just liked it. Now, it was $37, which was really high priced. And those days it was $37.95, but

call it $40 a bottle of very high priced. But do you think that actually helped it become like a luxurious alcohol brand? Maybe possibly we never looked at it. We looked at it at the quality of the product no matter what it costs. For example, Bandero. Bandero is wow. Okay. It's like a wow. It should be about $125 a bottle. But nope, I introduced a suggestor retail price of $49.95. Is this a suggestor price? In fact, one of the big groups now in southern California

is promote the heck out of it for quite a bit less. They just want to get it out there for us. We thought, well, that's nice. Very, very good. With a big sign saying, it's $49.95. But here, here's our price to just to get it out, right? And they're they're doing pretty good with that.

“So you've made billions of dollars at this point. I think you sold for”

Toronto for $5.1 billion. That was a value. Oh, that was a value of $70.70. That's amazing.

I'm a serial entrepreneur. For me to sit back and do nothing but spend money makes no sense.

“But for me to be back in business, and now I have more money. I think we're into about”

167. I think it is charities that we're into. I mean, I could change people's lives here in Austin, Texas. One of my big charities mobile-loves and fishes. We have now we're working on our second 500 people to have homes of their own. And I built entrepreneurs to learn trades. And we have 2,000 altogether were committed to. The other 1,000 will be built. And I'd say within two years, all 2,000 are occupied by homeless people. Our centers for skill centers, we did another one

with tooth. The other ones foundation that are mentally challenged. Let's say they're mental challenges. Okay. So we built them homes also. And a skill center to learn how to be a plumber, like Trisha, an automatic mechanic. And quite a few of them are working now where you would think

they would never have a job sociologist that are there. Employment people. Food to eat.

Gardens I built from. They could have their own food and eat fresh vegetables. It changes people's lives. At mobile-loves and fishes, they said JP spent way over a million dollars for an entrepreneurs center for mobile-loves and fish. Oh homeless people. They don't want to work. I said no, you give them a chance. So there they could go and learn pottery, jewelry, art, just a so many often cause. So many different things. In the first 18 months, those so-called homeless people don't

want to work, sold almost $200,000 worth of product. They get to keep all the money themselves. But even at mobile-loves and fishes, we have auto shop, auto mechanics. We have metal shop. We have wood shop. We have all these things they can learn there, plus their entrepreneur center on top of it. It's helping people help one another. Why do I give? I give because I've been so fortunate with such an abundance that I can help so many people out. It's kind of like, if you could take

your viewing your grandkids and grandkids, grandkids, and you have all that money, why not share

“some and bring some other people along the way, and that's how we live our life. Yeah, and that”

goes back to your new book. Oh yeah. Which is incredible. And I think one of the big lessons in the

book is you explaining why it's important for entrepreneurs to actually embed generosity within their business. So what's your advice in terms of like entrepreneurs out there that are listening in that have small businesses? Why is it so important to actually align to a charity and what's the right way to go about it? If you align with a charity and you don't have the extra money to give, which is so often the fact it was with me for quite a while there, is align with the charity,

a one that you like, one that touches your heart that makes you feel good, not someone else feel good, okay? Get aligned with them because if you're involuntary, you're to meet people that you'll run across your life that may interfere your customers or those that give you advice on something because they've been extremely successful. Most charities have a few people like that somehow attached to them. And when you're working there at the charity, like some of the mobile-of-synthetious

people have come to me, I even have gone out the whole little seminars for groups on how to

“start businesses with little to no money. That's why you get involved. And you feel good. That's”

another thing, if you don't mind me just saying this, why do we do these things? What is it all about, okay? When you do something for somebody else and ask absolutely nothing in return, you get the greatest high you'll ever get in your life. And I'm a child that went through the sixties. There's nothing we smoked in the sixties. I'll get you that high. The fact that you did something for somebody else that asked nothing in return, it's the greatest high you'll ever get.

And it's a natural high and that exceeds other highs. I know one of the things that you recommend is that we actually formalize our relationship with charities or like have it be more formal or structured. Why is that? Well, it's because a lot of people that have charities don't know what they're doing or how to put it together and how to have a system that's out there like,

okay, here's what we have money coming in. Here's how it's best spent. Here's how we help other people

help themselves. And that's what we do with most all of our charities. The role geared towards we'll put the money in. We'll try new for this. But now from this point, can you please help yourself or jump in the charity and help us in that way? Something that's unique to you is that you often like roll up your sleeves like you've been in some like really crazy situations where you've And started yourself into political situations,

talk to us about some of the war stories that you have, rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in philanthropy. - Well, the worst stories? - The worst stories. - A war story, the worst stories.

- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Okay, well, I would say, you know, some of them that are just like unusual, but the end result was really good, okay, really good. Well, let me start with a real biggie that's in the book. I call it giving back for the planet, all right?

It's in the book. They allowed me to put it in the book yet. I've already cleared it through the CIA, FBI. Everybody has it. J.P. happened, you know, more than 20 years ago it's okay to put in the book.

a parent flight 103. I'm the guy that went into the mid 90s into North Korea, Kim Jong-il's dad.

It just started. He took over, tell convinced them to get out of the four-way talks instead of the three-way talks. And a few of the things like that, which are an extension of the things I was already doing with people, rolling up your sleeves, mobile, when I started to grow up in Asia, all the people there that run employed from the coal mines and everything else that I had started there. I went out there to teach them, and I spayed the money. I worked with Brea College.

I'll buy the seeds. I'll buy the fertilizer. I'll buy the equipment. I'm going to pay for people to teach out to do your own farming. At least you could have your own food. I would go out there, and I'd buy a tractor for them, for example.

“A good use tractor for there's 50 of you in one garden, 50 families, right?”

I would jump in. I would drive that tractor. I would help dig stuff. I do all that stuff. I get out there and help them out. And mobile-loads and fishes. I go out there and visit them. I buy stuff from them. I give a little classes that help people out like you know how to start business with no money. And we're just getting involved. There were a couple of Christmas's and thanksgivings.

Where my family, my wife, my son and I, we went out there and helped serve the food. There was one year, and this is really getting it done. They were supposed to have turkeys donate. They did it. And I found out about it. When are you going to serve them? They said, "Freedom pie." You can't serve freedom pie.

So we bought them all the turkeys. And we went out there and helped serve them all and carve them all. So we get into the trenches. We want to be part of it. In Africa, for example, we have a program going called Keep Africa Fed. In fact, the thing is actually food for the number four Africa. Where we feed right now, when our schools, all of our Paul Mitchell schools over 100 of them right,

have a give back program too. We take care of about 17,000 orphans every day. Most of their parents have died in days of birth to let's say they're early teens. We give a place to live, good food, tea, nutritious, everything to give them a chance in life. We go over there and work with them. In fact, I took my wife and son over once for a photo shoot, it's in the book.

Where you have all these kids there, these little kids in Africa, we did a photo shoot, but we brought them into it. In that photo shoot, there's one kid in my wife's left hand. And the picture is there of the whole all those little kids with us. He's not smiling. And we asked, well, why is he so unhappy? They said, we just took him out of a trash can on our way here. We went through a city on the way here to drive the kids here.

And they said, oh, wait, you're food for Africa here. You take care of these orphans. This kid just came out of a tree. We just, he was crying and we brought him out. There's nobody around. They took him with them. Well, after a couple of Coca-Cola set a candy bar, that kid was happy with him. Which we brought for the little kids out there, you know, but it makes you feel good.

Things I'd do with Nelson Mandela. He was a good friend of mine. He would help change the world down there, prostitution, human trafficking in Thailand. My head of, actually, my executive director, the Peace Love and Happiness Foundation,

her first shot was going to go with their Thailand live over there for a while,

which she wanted to do, and get those girls save them, get new passports for them, and get them back home again. So we get in the trenches. We feel that you could give by volunteering. And if you give money, and that's good too, but to be able to give money and do what they're doing or helping out, makes you feel twice as good.

So we get the bigger high, and we get the better satisfaction. Okay, so another question that I have for you, as I've been talking to you,

“getting to know you better, is, like, why aren't you getting involved in politics?”

Like, as a younger person, we're in like a bad situation with our leaders. And like, it feels like our leaders don't care about us, don't care about people. There's so much bad stuff going on that everyone's starting to find out about. Yeah. And you or somebody who has a lot of money, a lot of power, like, you could run for president.

You know, so why not take that angle? That's another very, very good question. So I could answer that politically. Okay, I am an independent. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican.

And I notice so often, promises are kept that are never delivered.

You know, so how could I best work? I was offered, and I don't want to go into detail, but I was offered a vice president and see a short time ago at the United States of America. And I turned it down because I knew I could not do what I wanted to do. What I'd want to do because you got constraints.

The people that don't need the money, great example is, we saw no disrespect, okay, but a horrible last four years where people came across, I mean, I don't want to put anybody down. It was really, really bad.

“Well, all the world can we humans help out with that, okay?”

I mean, and I could help out more by not being on one side or the other. And today, it got so polarized. And some of our media has a lot to do with this, okay? Where they're kind of pitting these guys against these guys. And the best example I could give you is this.

I was asked to go on one of the major television shows, which I did, by the way, okay?

And this was in the last administration, okay?

But a major TV show. And they said, "JP, because they thought I would be representing the one percent," or say, "JP, you're going to represent the one percent." They got me on this, "Well, JP, what's it like being a one percent or right?" You know, and these troubled times that we have now,

with everyone coming across the board, in place, everything's just going crazy here. And I said, "You got it wrong. I'm not part of the one percentors. I'm part of the hundred percentors." It just said, "I made a little more money than somebody else's like, I got lucky." It's we, the people of the United States of America,

not go to the left, go to the right, have all this happening. It's we, the people, what's better for we, the people? And with all the respect, no, it's not your pitching people, one against the other. That's not it, it's we, the people.

Well, they did not ask me any questions. That interview went very, very short, and they got me off the, out there as quick as I can, but it was live. They couldn't stop that part there.

“But that's what it, it's we, the people.”

So I try and help out as best we can.

There were times where administrations, a couple of administrations ago called me and said, "Well, JP, you got this grow-up, a lasco where we're helping people. We like it, we're trying to do that ourselves. We want to, and this is right before the reelection, okay?

We want to join you now, and doing this. It's not great. They say, "Yeah, we're just set you up." And the president of that day, okay, will come over and work with you and everything else on this, because he's going to help everybody else.

That's in great. They dropped the ball totally. It was only so that on TV, I wouldn't say it again. They're not doing anything for really with the people. Just one of those things.

So, but people have to realize it's with the people. Stop not liking somebody because they believe differently. I have friends of mine that because I'm the middle of the way, and not the other way, and not for, I'll give you one, so far the left you got to be to the left.

They won't even talk to me anymore, because I say, "I will hear out everything you happen. Let me tell you what the other guys are doing." And vice versa, right? I mean, America has got so polarized.

It's like, what does a matter with you, people? Don't listen to your party when they say, "Hey, the other guy."

“Don't listen when they say, "Go out there and march and you have to have violence."”

It's okay. Don't listen to that. It's wrong. It's weird that people were brothers and sisters. If your brother did something wrong, would you talk to him?

If your sister did not agree with you, would you at least hear her out? Of course you would. They're polarizing us. We shouldn't be polarized.

We should be with the people of the United States of America. We are the greatest nation the world has ever known, and we don't deserve to be in a situation like that. And has things are being exposed more and more? I think it's a good thing.

When you get the F-C-List, look what they did. Bad, bad, bad, don't do it. Look at what these people lied about. Even during election, well, this guy, for example, was involved with the Russians.

And you find a later was a lie. Or this person did this or that person did that, okay? It's crazy. This person is too far to the left. Yeah, but they did do some good things.

It's we the people. We the people in the United States of America. And if everybody thought that way, we wouldn't have this fighting, this terrorizing, and this, well, we got to be with this group.

We got to be with that group. No, it's we the people of the United States of America. Let's do some to keep our country. Yeah. And during the Olympics, look at the team that just won.

Our girls won the goal medal in playing hockey. The guys won the goal medal, right? And all of a sudden, some people with one part of their political thinking, didn't think it was a good deal. They didn't want to praise the United States because of it.

And they came back to know we're Americans. We represented American, came back in. You know, anyways, it's just, it's we the people in the United States of America. It's we the people. Let's be one family and not let anybody split us apart.

Like, they've been doing it. Yeah. I love that message. And I feel like it really relates to your new book. Yeah.

Talk to us about why you wrote this book in the first place. Oh, you bet you. The reason I wrote it was people asked me for years. JP, you've got to share your information. How you did all these things.

How you did things politically without a party behind you to solve international problems. Like, you know, coffee, what I do with them. And other things, too, that maybe a book of like a lot of little bit of chaos. So they said it's so much that I tried to write a book. And I was a failure at it.

Okay, I've never written a book before.

So about two and a half years ago, I said, I'm going to do it. And I got a whole of a wonderful gentleman, Mark Victor Hanson. And he wrote chicken soup for the soul. It's a really good man with a big heart. I asked him if he would help me with my book.

And he knows me from a heracial algebra ward where I'm a heracial algebra awardee in Washington. He only only award ever given the Supreme Court of the United States for people that really show the American way and made it the American way. He was one of us, right? He says, JP, I'm only helping.

I'll get you two of my best writers. It's your autobiography, but we'll help you write it. It took two and a half years to finally get it.

“You know, it's like, I think about 280 pages.”

And I thought, you know what?

And maybe no dad, like a lot of kids have today, no dad.

But how you could make it and how is a mom and a family? You could influence your kids when they're young to come out good, even though you have little to nothing and not play it on society. You know, how you can do this and how it overcome all these problems of being fired from jobs and not no place to live in just all these problems

you ran across, right? But still came out okay. How did you do it? And you can only do that in a book JP unless someone's going to interview you for several days and you're there talking over several days.

“So that's what we did, that's how we did it.”

Now this book right now is quite a book, okay? I must say, it's only about $20 in hard copy, right? Amazon likes it so much that we're on Amazon right now for pre-orders. The actual delivery, I had 150 made right away. So this is what I'm going to give to you obviously.

But the first addition is only 10,000 copies. And that'll go straight to probably Amazon. So I say to people pre-order now success and share this failure because if you pre-ord right now when the book comes out, then you'll get one of the first printed copies.

There's only 10,000 of them being on the first printing. The rest will be maybe 100,000 who knows what at a time. So it's like kind of a collector's item and for sure you've got it. And I guarantee you, when someone reads that you'll want to read it to all of your children, let all of your friends read it.

It shows not only does America work from no political view, just a straight-off view on how to be better in life. And all the steps we went through and all the problems that we went through, how we overcome them and put it behind us to have success. But also how to change the world is in our,

how we're changing the world for thousands and millions of people because of our philosophy and what we do.

“So you know, take the time, go out there pre-ordered on Amazon pre-order,”

success, unsheritous failure, you'll never regret it.

When the first copies come in, you'll be in the first printing that comes in. You will get it. When you read it, you'll know what I mean. Now only will you want to read it. And you may want to read it a second time.

But you'll wanted to give it to everybody, you know, a special your children to see. This is real and just be kind to one another. The big secret is being kind. Yeah, I feel like this is such a great book,

especially for young entrepreneurs, business owners, who are trying to make it. It gives like a different lens of how you can go about business. And it's usually it's like just so tactical. But this is more about like business with heart.

That's real. And so it's just a really different perspective that I enjoyed reading. Oh yeah. And I've started, by the way, several, another couple of big companies going on right now.

What an AI and one another. I have some big things going on right now too. And the reason why is because I'm so excited about doing things right. And doing it with kindness and helping others along the way. I'm never retired.

This is my lifestyle. It's not work. I stop working when I start a living in my cars and start a Paul Mitchell. And I stop working. I was just fun.

It's what I love to do. And I hire thousands of people. And an example is like when draw a relationship. God, I don't know how many thousands of families we have now. Growing their own gardens.

And how many tons of food that is produced by some of these people. In the words, I see the world around me. And my purpose is to make life better because I'm here. And I do it. The reward that I want is I just feel great.

But along the way, all these wonderful things happen for me. Like the Paul Mitchell experience. So the patron experience has been narrow now. All the rocket companies that I'm involved with. And other medical breakthroughs right now that I got pieces of their company.

And doctors I'm working with right now that are changing medicine as we know it today. And coming up with curious were things that you only get little things to keep you going. But never to cure it. It's amazing what's going out there right now. And just in wonderful with good people that don't rip people off.

“What's your advice to the young people out there who are struggling to get jobs?”

And worried about AI and not able to really get experience. The way that you got experience working door to door. And before you actually started Paul Mitchell. What's your advice to those people? To them is don't give up and leave everything that is a no behind you.

Okay? You'll see that in the book. I leave it all behind you. The nose behind you. And I'm here right now.

Here's what I have.

Here's what I think I want to have.

Now a lot of people don't know what they want to do in life. Okay? But they know what they don't want to do. Don't do anything for money. You don't want to do unless it's very short-term potential.

Have your goal set up. There no matter what it is. You could do it easier today than before. Like with this global SKU. You could actually go to business and have your distribution from sitting at home with your ID.

Or your things. Things in your closet taking pictures of your new invention. Your new anchored ship. Your new tire. You could do things like that right now.

Easier. There's tools out there for you that we've never had before.

When we talk about AI XI of an AI company.

“When we talk about AI, I give everyone the same message today.”

Today there are tens of thousands of jobs out there. No one could feel. We need 10,000 more right now. 10,000 more would have a job instantly if they actually were hairdressers or barbers. Okay?

That haven't right away. Automatic. Thousands that don't qualify. One of the things we teach people at tooth. The other people's foundation that have challenges mentally.

It's how to pay an automatic. You could do that. No problem. So many jobs. And I ask everybody in every office I talk to.

Raise your hand. Who out there knows the plumber? Or electrician? Or a wood carving man handled wood things in your house. That will charge less than a hundred and fifty dollars an hour.

Raise your hand.

Nobody has ever raised their hand.

And every conference I've ever given or talked to. Because these are jobs that are out there that still need people with a electric background. Backgrounds. Whether it's in the sciences and something needed or those.

How about tow trucks? Who's going to drive the tow truck? Do you know how much money those guys make a lot? Love driving. So you find something you like to do.

And then you could also make money to survive on. But don't get a job just because you're going to make more money. Get the job because you like it. Then you're not working. You have a beautiful career where you are happy in life.

Very important. Don't all of a sudden become 65, 70 years old and say, Boy, I wish I would have changed that years ago. Or being a relationship. That sucks.

And you've done everything to improve it. It just doesn't go anywhere. Leave. Hmm. You don't want to be 60, 70 years old and say,

God, I wish I would have changed when I was 20, 30, 40, even 50 or 60 years old my life's been miserable. Do it now. Hmm. There's a lot out there for you.

There's a whole world of love in such a big way. Caught there and see it from a positive point of view. Don't bring along with you negativity. Don't bring gossip along. Bring just good energy because it's going to show.

And people that are aware of seeing things will start to see and say, Well, wait a minute. There seems to be a round you some kind of a glow. What is that? Well, it's kind of your aura also, but it's also your frequency as a human on this planet in a human body.

I'm going to close out the show with three questions that I ask all of my guests.

The first one is what is one truth about entrepreneurship that you feel like you learned too late?

Well, I learned it pretty young, but not knowing it was on to premiere, okay? Okay.

“I said, I learned later on that we're very, very important that I wish you were learning even younger, okay?”

And the thing is this, be prepared for a lot of rejection you're going to get it. And when it comes, just let it go the other way. That was a big one. You know, and that happened learning secular media sales. That was a big one.

I wish you if I learned that younger, it wouldn't have even better. And a lot of times, teachers will tell me, no, you're not good enough for that. So don't do it. You should be doing something else, right? That I would know that.

No, that's rejection, but I'm going to overcome it. I'm going to just do it, prove myself, not necessarily a teacher. If you could give one actionable thing, our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow. What would it be? Oh, we immediately go on that global, okay, do things right away.

And know that there's hope for you out there. Believe in what you want to do. And once again, you're going to get a rejection. I keep repeating this. It's the biggest thing that stops people.

You're going to get it. No, it's going to happen. Let it go the other way and learn a lesson from it and move on in life. And the next thing is, whatever you're working on to a premier, whatever idea, whatever it might be, make sure you go into the reorder business with it. Those are the two biggest things I can do it.

And don't give up. You have a whole life ahead of you. If you're older in life, you're 56. You still have a life ahead of you. My God, you can start a business.

You can do so many wonderful things. Meaning many, many, many try that global SKD, you'll get it. Okay, last question for you. What is your secret to profiting in life? Kindness.

Hmm. One word kindness, be kind. Be kind. There was a time my life in my early 20s. But I wasn't the kindest person.

I didn't even know I was doing wrong. But I did it wrong. It wasn't kind. Be kind. The world works for you much better.

I love that.

“And where can everybody learn more about you and everything you do?”

And grab your new book? You got it, success and shared his failure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Great job.

My pleasure. Peace. Love and happiness. Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. What an extraordinary conversation with John Paul.

For being homeless and living out of his car to building Paul Mitchell and Petron. His story is proof that resilience, integrity, and generosity are not soft values. They are competitive advantages. JP made one thing clear, rejection is not a stop sign. It's training.

He got turned down over and over again. And instead of shrinking, he sharpened his pitch and kept on knocking. He didn't obsess over closing one big deal. He focused on building a product so good that customers reordered.

Stop chasing one time wins.

Build something people come back for.

“Second, he boosts drops with creativity, not capital.”

When suppliers said the minimum order was too high, he negotiated smaller runs with the same terms. He offered incentives for early payment to manage cash flow. He proved demand before scaling.

“That's scrappy entrepreneurship, shrink the risk, secure the terms, deliver excellence, then expand.”

And finally, his philosophy says it all.

Success and shared his failure. He stood by his partners. He guaranteed quality. He built community around his brands.

“For JP, wealth without contribution is empty.”

Real success multiplies when it improves other people's lives. So take this with you, YAP fam. Outlast rejection, engineer reorders, negotiate boldly. Protect your reputation like it's your greatest asset. And when you win, share it.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Young Improving Podcast.

If you listen, learn and profit it from this conversation with the incredible John Paul the joyer.

Share this episode with a friend or a fellow entrepreneur. To see your host, Hawataha aka the podcast Princess signing off.