It's Never Too Late | Rags to Riches Stories

First time I was homeless, I was 22 and a half years old, and I had a 2 and a half year old son.

I was born in a very normal family and poor family.

There were times when it was hard to imagine that my life would be what it is today, especially the time when my son and I were living in that bathroom.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see exploded onto the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're we're gonna look at 7 inspirational rags-to-riches stories. Enjoy. Coming up first is John Paul DeJoria, whose advice is to take control.

First time I was homeless, I was 22 and a half years old, and I had a 2 and a half year old son. I was working as the master of ceremonies at the 2nd Annual Sports Vacation Recreational Vehicle Show, and I had a check coming in at the end of the week. Well, I came home and I drove our one car up to where we lived. And as I was getting out of the car and going up towards our apartment door, my wife— we were very young, by the way, we got married at 20 and 19 years old. My wife was coming down the stairs and she said, "I'm going to the store." She took the keys. By the time I got through the door, I saw my little boy, 2 and a half years old, kind of just sitting there on top of a pile of clothes with a note that basically said, "I can't handle being a mom anymore. He'll be much better off with you. Good luck." Now, what I didn't know also was that she had planned this for a few months. She had not paid the rent for a few months and kept the money, and I didn't know that. She wiped out what little we had in the savings account in the bank and took the only car we had. So unbeknownst to me, 2 days later, I was evicted, completely evicted. Power shut off. The landlord, she just really timed this one. And I had this little kid with me, 2 and a half years old, and now I had to be mom and dad. And that was really a bummer. I had no car. So I ended up borrowing a 1951 Cadillac with a broken water pump from someone that was very, very dear. Had put water in it every 4 hours. And that's kind of how we got going. Second time I was homeless is when I started John Paul Mitchell Systems. I knew I needed half a million dollars to start John Paul Mitchell Systems. Had to have that. So we had the backer lined up. I had a good job at the time, lived in a nice house, and I left everything I had because half a million dollars was coming in down the street. I was going to start a company. So I left it all behind. I left what money I had with my wife. We weren't getting along well at all. And the best car. And I took the older car. It was a good one, but an older car. It ran good. Down the hill to get my money. I would check into an efficiency hotel and then, because I'd be traveling a lot, and eventually get an apartment. When I went down the hill, the backer pulled out. No money. There I was, a few hundred dollars in my pocket, Too proud to ask my mother if I could have my old room back for my home and she could feed me for a couple of months. I get back on my feet and I just left my living situation. I was too proud. Stupid, but very, very proud. So I went by and saw my mom and, you know, I borrowed a couple hundred dollars from her. I said, Mom, I'll give it back to you. She said, Son, you're doing really well in life. Why do you need a few hundred dollars? I said, Mom, I'll give it back to you. I'm starting something new. And that's when I decided I'm going to make it on my own. I'm not going to tell her. Lived in my car, showered down at Griffith Park because they had tennis courts there with showers in it, and learned how to live off very little and go and sell products door to door.

Story number 2 is Jack Ma, whose advice is to be resourceful.

I was born in a very normal family and poor family. 6 people share $7 a month. We can only eat 1 chicken a year.

Was terrible.

Nixon visited my city. 1972, China, USA signed— Mao Zedong, Nixon signed the agreement. So China become open door. My city, Hangzhou, was one of the first cities that opened to the West. We got a lot of American tourists to visit my city.

What he would do is he would befriend foreign visitors who came to Hangzhou to walk around the West Lake there.

And I learned English by being the free guide for tour guide.

You know, more than the language, Jack was learning about the culture.

The things I learned from books from China are so different from the things I learned from the American visitors, so I start to think differently.

Story number 3 is Oprah Winfrey, whose advice is to envision a greater future.

I was raised on a farm with my grandmother for the first 6 years of my life. I knew somehow that my life would be different and it would be better. I never had a clear cut vision of what it was I would be doing. I just always felt somehow— I remember absolutely physically feeling it at around 4 years old. I remember standing on the back porch. It was a screened-in porch, and my grandmother was boiling clothes because, you know, during the— at that time, we didn't have washing machines, and so people would, you know, physically boil clothes in a great big iron pot. And she was boiling clothes and poking them out, and I was watching her from the back porch, and I was 4 years old, and I remember thinking, my life won't be like this. My life won't be like this. It will be better. And it wasn't from a place of arrogance. It was just a place of knowing that things could be different for me somehow. I don't know what made me think that.

Story number 4 is Chris Gardner, whose advice is to own your life.

As jarring and strange as change can be, there were times when it was hard to imagine that my life would be what it is today. Especially the time when my son and I were living in that bathroom. Maybe you remember that scene in the movie. There was a highly polished sheet metal piece over a sink. It wasn't a mirror, but it served as a mirror. And I had to wash myself and that baby every day, wash my baby in that sink, and I had to ask myself some very predictable questions. What happened? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? But the most difficult question I had to get through was, how did I get here? And the answer was even more brutal. The answer was, I drove here. I had something to do with it. You can't change something until you own it. So if you're 50-plus and you're sitting out there and pointing fingers at other people, you can do that for a long time. But it's hard to look in the mirror and say, "How did I get here?" and have the answer be, "I drove here. I had something to do with it." It's uncomfortable to admit that, "Well, I made some bad decisions. I made some investments I shouldn't have made. I had something to do with it." When that man sold me that house with no money down, I should have told him what he could do with that house. Huh? When I signed that adjustable rate mortgage, we all know these things only adjust upwards. No one's ever going to call you and say, guess what, you're going to pay less for your money, your house next year. Ain't going to happen. So the idea of I drove here is empowering because the other side of it is, if I drove here, that means I can drive out of here. I have to own it. In that bathroom, I finally had to understand what my momma used to say to me, where she would say, "Boy, the cavalry is not coming. Ain't no backup." I was 28 years old when that part of my life happened. Change was coming fast. And you know what? Change is everywhere, all the time. Social change, technological change, and the most potent of all, personal change. The most urgent question today is not so much as what are my values and who are we. The urgent question in these times of constant change is how exactly are you going to navigate these new realities? Put another way, what are you going to do?

Story number 5 is Howard Schultz, whose advice is your station in life does not define you.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in public housing, the projects, as it was called back then. My parents were both high school dropouts, and they could barely afford $96 a month rent in our 2-bedroom apartment for my brother, my sister, and my parents. However, from my earliest of memories, my mother instilled in me her belief in the American dream and the promise of America, that a good education and hard work will open the doors to a better life. And that provides me with an important lesson to share with you all today, that your station in life does not define you, and the promise of America, that is for all of us.

Story number 6 is Sam and Bud Walton.

Both of us didn't have any money. I borrowed most of mine and finally got it. Some of it paid out when we left Newport. So it's quite a story, but we relied on each other. You always, to me, seemed like a balance wheel. I wanted to gamble to a greater degree always than maybe you were ready to do. And I would listen to you. We'd argue a little bit, maybe. But once we decided we were going to do, go or not go, why, we were both together. And I think that was, that was something that we can be awfully proud of. We were mavericks even then, and we started doing strange things like cranking up ice cream machines on the sidewalk on Saturday night, popcorn machines on the other end of the sidewalk, hawking anything we could hawk that looked like it might have a chance to sell wherever. It made an easy life, actually. We worked hard.

That's right.

But it gave us a vehicle to ride on.

And story number 7, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is Conor McGregor, whose advice is to make it happen.

When I was a kid, I used to always visualize stadiums. And like, even when I was playing football, I'd kick the ball against the wall and pretend I scored a goal and I'd run off and I'd be raising my hand. And visualizing an arena full of fans. And that was something I'd done as a kid out on my own. I like just run around kicking the ball. So I always had these visions of something, but I just didn't know what it was. And then I suppose when I came to these events and started training and then came to an event, I was like, okay, this is it. This is what I'm gonna do. And then now I'm doing it.

But did you ever have, let's call it a normal job, Connor, a 9-to-5? Yeah, because the Irish thing is to get into a trade straight away. I was no different. As soon as I finished school, I was always getting pestered, what are you doing with your life? You know, this, doing that. And they didn't know what it was. They didn't know what MMA was. They didn't know what none of this— they didn't know I could make a career out of it. As far as they were concerned, my mom and dad I'm talking about, as far as they were concerned, I was just getting into a cage and fighting with some other guy. They didn't know nothing about it. No one did, really. But I knew, you know what I mean? I knew. And then I ended up getting a trade just to keep them quiet. Because I used to have a lot of fights with me dad. What trade did you get? I ended up getting a trade as a plumber. How bad was that?

The plumbing?

Yeah.

Horrendous.

Were you actually in the trenches?

I mean, it was in industrial.

So it'd be like building this.

It'd be like the plumbing that would be needed in a place like this. 6 o'clock in the morning and the motorway. And I used to have to walk for about an hour to get to the motorway. And then I'd stand on the edge of the motorway and wait for a bloke to drive by. So he'd give me a lift and then the motorway was like getting renovation at the time, so it'd take me 2 hours, 2 and a half hours to get to the place, it was out in the country. Then I'd be there for 10 hours walking and I was a first year, so I was the worst of the worst, you know what I mean? I was only beginning. Then 2 hours to get back in the traffic again. It was just a horrible, horrible time and I was like, you know what? I don't want to deal with this and then I just left.

I lasted 18 months doing it. But it was tough, you know what I mean? Just like it wasn't the life for me, you know what I mean? And then John said, because I was training with John as well at the time, and then John got on Twitter and says, I have a show, I'm running a show, I'd like to fight on it. And then that was it. I just packed it in, didn't show up. Me dad used to come in and punch the head out me and like try and drag me out of bed and I just wouldn't go, you know what I mean? Had an uproar for a good few years with him over it. And that was it. I just packed it in, quit, and then focused on training. And that's— I knew what was going to happen. I knew I was going to get here. They didn't. There's a lot of stressful years, you know what I mean? A lot of tough times. But I proved them wrong. I proved myself right. But everything I do in my life is related to this. I don't do nothing else if it's not got to do with fighting. You know what I mean? And that is why, you know what I mean? To be truthful, that's nearly all you've got to do is show up. Is that not unhealthy? I don't know. Do I look unhealthy? Take a look at this physique. I'm in phenomenal shape in body and mind. To me, what's unhealthy is living an unhealthy life. To me, what's unhealthy is getting up and going through the same day every day of life, 9 to 5 in an office or in a— that's unhealthy. That beats your mind. I don't work. I love what I do, and that's why I'm doing what I love. You know what I mean? That's why it's become a career for me, because I love it. I love what I do.

Now I've got a very special bonus clip from John Paul DeJoria around helping others that I think you're really going to enjoy. But before that, my question of the day is I wanna know what is the most inspirational rags-to-riches story that you have ever heard. Either one that you watched in this video or another story that just really inspires you. Please leave it down in the comments below. I really wanna hear from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. And enjoy the bonus clip.

At 6 years old, we didn't have any money. There was my mother, my brother, and I. We had a deadbeat dad, left us before we were 2. But she took us at Christmas time to downtown Los Angeles. We had little cars going around in circles. It was pretty cool. Anyways, and decorations in the window. She gave my brother and I a dime and told us, boys, hold half of it each. Give it to the man ringing the bell in the bucket. We put it in this bucket. We said, Mom, why do we give that man a dime? That's like 2 soda pops. This is 1951. 2 soda pops, 3 candy bars. And Mom said, "Boys, that's the Salvation Army. Now they take care of people that have no place to live and no food. And we don't have a lot of money, but we can afford a dime this year. Boys, always remember in life, give a little something to those in need. There'll always be somebody that's not as well off as you are, no matter where you are, how far down you are. Try and help someone along the way." It stuck with me.

Raise your standard.

Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.

I don't ever give up.

I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.