Genius Network Presents: John Paul DeJoria - Success Unshared is Failure

Today's segment features John Paul DeJoria, interviewed.

By Joe Polish, founder of Genius Network. From the Genius Network annual event, you'll discover how John Paul DeJoria went from homeless to serial entrepreneur and billionaire philanthropist, and how you can apply some of his simple strategies in your business and life. To learn more about Genius network, go to geniusnetworkevents.com.

You've all heard the expression, it's not where you start, it's where you finish. That sure?

True.

For your first speaker this morning, the person I'm going to be interviewing, he's born in Los Angeles, the son of immigrants. Raised by a single mother, having to sell Christmas cards and newspapers at age 9 to help support his family. Joined a street gang as a teenager and was headed in the wrong direction. Then he joined the U.S. navy. After serving his country, he got a job as a janitor, then pumping gas, then selling encyclopedias. Then he became homeless. Okay, let me stop here. If these facts were given to you and you were told to fast forward his life and write an ending, would you ever think you would write this? And Now John Paul DeJoria is listed in Forbes 400 worth $3.1 billion. How can that happen? Well, we'll find out as I interview a very special man. Please welcome to the stage my friend, John Paul DeJoria.

Thank you. S. Thank you.

Well, here we are. Look at all these.

All these geniuses.

Yeah. Shiny, happy people. Well, first off, thank you so much for coming down. You flew down there. Really, really honored. I did an interview with John Paul last year, and I've interviewed over 400 really smart people, from Richard Branson to, you name it, all kinds of people. And Forbes did an article on the 10 most inspirational interviews that I've ever done, and I listed him as one of them because what you had to say when we had that conversation was amazing. So I'm really, really excited you're able to share here. So fill in the gaps. How did you raise yourself from homeless to billionaire? I mean, how the hell does that happen?

Well, I think if I put it in one sentence, which is difficult to do when you're really down and out and you're at the very bottom, all you can do is look up. You know, I think it's kind of in life a lot of times when people are down, they look at how to survive while they're down, but stay at that survival mode long term. Opposed to, I'm gonna learn how to survive right now and make it, but I'm immediately gonna work towards the Next step. The next step. And the next step. Yeah. Great, great.

So what was the most difficult time in your life? I mean, has it been when you've just been under maybe immense pressure from everything you created, or was it when you were really just at.

I think when you're down and out, can't pay the bills the next day, that's the most difficult time. When I was homeless the first time, it was in my early 20s. My wife just couldn't handle being a mother anymore, so left a two and a half year old in my arms and wiped out all the money we had and never paid the rent for three months. So we were actually evicted within three days of the time that happened. And I was in between jobs, but I had money, but she took it all. So my son and I were on the streets with this old car that we were in and we realized that, hey, we're going to make this together, this two and a half year old kid. But where do we get money? We don't have any money. So what we did was even though we weren't really thinking ecology, we were thinking survival is. I went around to vacant lots and picked up Coke bottles, seven up bottles. And in those days you got two cents for a little one, five cents for a big one. So I'd go there and they'd have to give you the money. And that's kind of how we survived. Then a couple several days later, a dear friend of mine who was what you would call a heavy duty biker with a gang, he just found me, old buddy of mine from high school and said, johnny, come on in, your son could come live with me here. And we've got a couple really cool biker mamas here that'll help watch him while you get yourself reorganized. So that was a nice break too.

I mean, so how did you learn, how did you learn how to be a successful entrepreneur?

Well, I don't think it's learning how to be a successful entrepreneur. I think it's just being able to do something and know that you have that ability to do it. You see, the human race has the ability, all of you do, to do 10, 50 times what you're doing right now. Well, if you realize you have that ability, as you go along, you find obstacles, but you overcome them or you go right around them like water might go around them a little bit. And that's really it. You look at what assets you have. It's a little bit like selling. Whether it's a tangible product or a service, it's got to Be the very best. And you put forth its features and then how it benefits the customer. Well, with yourself personally, you put forth the features, you have how these features might benefit. And if you have a product, and I'd love to share this with everybody, don't ever go into the selling business. Whether you have the greatest service in the world or the greatest product, never go in there to sell your product. Go in there to be in the reorder business. That's gotta be your mentality.

That's true.

Yeah. Because if you're gonna sell it, that's where your focus is. If you wanna be in the reorder business, even if it's a one time product, whatever you do is so good that they'll wanna tell somebody else reorder themselves. So that kind of helps along the way if you have that mentality. And I think selling. Oh God. Whether it was flower pots when I was a little kid or newspapers or in my early 20s, encyclopedias, Collier's Encyclopedia, door to door, you knock on 50 doors and they could be closed in your face. You had to learn how to be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 or 105 as you were in the first door. Now that's difficult to do, but you learn how to do that. I believe the average encyclopedia salesman commission only door to door was three days. That's how long they lasted. I lasted about three and a half years. But I learned to kind of overcome rejection and, and be prepared for it. If you're prepared. And we'll cover that a little later too. I saw your questions. If you're prepared for rejection before you start anything, whether it's your personal life, whether it's a business life, when you're prepared for it, it doesn't shock you when you come along and all of a sudden see rejection in your face. You see, Well, I was prepared for that, but I'm going to continue on just as enthusiastic and as confident as I was when I started. And that's not easy.

Absolutely. Do you experience rejection today in the same way you kind of did then and you just keep yourself an enthusiastic state or is it just much bigger levels of rejection?

It's a little different today. In those days, let's say you'd knock on 100 doors to get somebody that's reactive to what you're saying and will listen to you Today it's a little bit easier. I think in life as you build a history that's conducive to a good life, where in business you realize success unsurit is failure. And you try to be honorable with what you say you're gonna do, no matter what it costs you. Well, it gives you that clout to be able to talk to people and they know, here's a sincere guy. You know, this guy's a track record of doing things right and not ripping off anybody. And, you know, by gosh, there are ups and downs. There definitely are. But much more easier to overcome today. Yeah. Awesome.

Thank you. So, yeah, I did prepare some questions that I thought would be the most valuable to have you shared.

Thank you. Thank you.

So what are your core values, personally and professionally?

Core values are. I would say it's the golden rule, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. That's the basis for most religions, but they get sometimes carried away in rites and rituals. But that's the core value. Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. And then it's the feeling of knowing that success unshared is definitely failure. In other words, when you make it, it's not really just about yourself making it. Hey, if you make it, you know you made it. But along the way, one of the great lessons to learn is it's not all about you. It's about your ability to be of service to this planet while you're here. And by saying, me, me, me, me, look what I did. This is me. Hey, here's my building. My name's on it. You know, I did this. You didn't. By doing something like that, it kind of takes away from how genuine you are. And because people don't like to just listen to people talk about themselves, how great they are, they want to know how to incorporate it to make them successful also or do something a little different. And I think that's very, very important.

You know what? I hang out with a lot of quote unquote successful people. Most success in this culture is viewed financially, although I know a lot of extraordinarily wealthy people that are miserable bastards. So there's a difference there. The thing that always annoys me is if there's someone that knows the answer to something, then there's a person who is asking them about how to build a business or how to do something, and they know what to tell the person, but they kind of withhold it. They don't say anything. And I love what your whole notion of success unshared is failure. Because I think that's why. Because so many people that know you have said so many great things about such a nice guy, so caring so generous. And my experience with you has been absolutely. That you just want to be helpful.

You know, Joe, it's also very self rewarding. We look around and I'm a child of the 60s, so I know what we were looking at in the 60s for self rewards. But anyways, the highest high you're going to ever get in your life, the highest high, if you want to be satisfied, the highest high you'll ever get is to do something for somebody else and ask absolutely nothing in return. Boy, do you feel high and are you energized. And that lasts a while. It's very contagious.

Yeah, totally.

Thank you.

So what is your decision making process or thinking when it comes to investing your time, your money, your energy?

Sure. It's very important because time is the most valuable thing you have. Is one make sure where you're putting your time and energy is something you want to do. Not just because you're exploring with people you don't like or a business you don't like or a situation you don't like. Time is so valuable. Try and speak. If you're speaking to people or a situation to people you feel there's hope for, that you could do something with. To do something great, not just make money. Whenever you go into business or in a relationship with someone just to make money, then it means you've already decided to take a portion of your time to make these papers that are backed up by nothing but will buy stuff. Call it a possession. We have all these great possessions. Well, if you have these great possessions, could you give them away? If you had any possession, you could give it away, hey, great, it was a possession and you moved on. If you can't give that possession away to somebody, just give it away, then it possesses you.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. When I look out at a lot of my friends, they don't own the, their houses, their boats, their planes, their stuff. It owns them. So there's. That's very important.

They're very, very important in life. I think you develop a way of, you know, having what you have, have our wonderful things. But understand that you have them and if something happens to them, don't get upset. Something happens, don't get upset. If you lose some money, don't get upset. You know, just be so gracious for what you have already and know that you're going to come back and do something else.

Yeah. You know, I don't know how you would describe this, but my sense of when I think about you without really knowing kind of your MO on how you do it is that you are very skilled at where and who and what gets your attention. Like your attention is such a valuable asset. And when I first met you, I was introduced to you by our friend Dave Kekich. And then you called me because you don't have an email. And I would love to have you share how you manage people reaching out to you, how you manage communications. Because I don't know if you have an email now, but you didn't have an email. And I was like, wow, you know, think about that.

I still don't. And I'll roll over to the last question also that you asked about how do you get into situations? When I started John Paul Mitchell Systems, I had been in the beauty industry. And I knew there was an opening for products that were unique and different, that weren't in salons. Even though I had no money, that's what I went after. When I started patron tequila in 1989, we were doing shots. You'd hold your breath. I knew there had to be a way to get something so smooth and the world was ready no matter what the cost was of a sipping tequila. Hence, Patron came out. Harley distributor says, you'll never make it. It costs too much to make it. You have to sell it for $37. And who cares if you sit around and sip and enjoy that tequila. And even though you don't get a headache the next day with Patron unless you drink the whole bottle, we don't advise that. Okay. That, you know, they said people don't care, see, but they do care. And I believe that there was a better way to do it. When I got involved with John Paul Pett, I knew there was a business I would start where my profits would help out pets throughout the world. With the profits, not with me. I knew it had just a good thing when I got involved with Irwin Jacobs and Marquis yachts. That was something that I did that realizing that during the bad situation of 2008-2011 12, that the boat industry was down. But if you had the highest quality, quality boats, by gosh, this is the time to get in. And that's when he and I got in it together. And I'll tell you a little bit later about Rock Mobile and about Avio. But, you know, just you look for the situation, the quality of the product, what the end result is going to be, and the people you're with are these cool people. Right. Do you all have the same energy together to kind of move forward?

Yeah, I think that's so critical because trying to do business. There's no such thing as a great business with a bad partner.

No. Yeah. For any amount of money whatsoever. Yeah.

So, so you, you obviously like how big is between your companies? How big is your, your team, your staff, your employees?

We're in the thousands. Yeah. We don't tell Forbes everything because I like to be low key. In fact, I wouldn't even be on that list if it wasn't for Bacardi getting involved to get a little piece of patronal minority interest many years ago. I try and stay off that list. Off that list. Okay. But I have darn good people, darn good partners that work with me and they're just the very, very best. And the end result is we have thousands. But I'd like to share with everybody here if I could, how we treat our people and why we, these thousands love us. Let's take John Paul Mitchell Systems. I started the company 35 years ago. We are in 90 countries. Our turnover in 35 years is less than 70 people. But I teach people to do unto others as you do unto you. There were so many times, Joe, when I worked for people at a dollar for lunch. You don't get much for a dollar. So as soon as we could afford some money, first thing I did was give everybody free lunch. Today, even in Mexico, with my staff and my partners down there, 1500 of them that make the patron. If you work during the day, a chef makes you lunch. If you work at night, a chef makes you dinner. You want to pray, I build you a chapel at John Paul Mitchell Systems. No matter where you are, you've got free lunch. If you carpool, we take care of that gasoline for you. So you do things for people. If we have a good profitable year, and every year we have, we share through profit sharing with all of our people, but we treat them the way we want to be treated ourselves. It's not like we're bosses. It's you're my partner, right? Anybody could pick up the phone and call me. I don't have email. And the reason I don't is I'd be inundated with all the stuff I do business wise, philanthropically, not to mention family. I'd be so inundated. I couldn't do all the things that I do and expand upon it. I couldn't have had email. So I'll take a phone call, obviously go through my executive assistant. I'm inundated. And if so, this is important, I think for you guys to know if someone Writes you a letter. People just email back and forth. Try some time. If someone writes you a letter to take their letter and write the answer on it and sign it and mail it back to them or pick up the phone and call it. It means. Means a lot to people to have that personal touch. A whole lot.

Infinitely greater than electronic communication.

Yeah.

I mean, one of the things, like every day trying to send 10 personal postcards, even if it's coming from my team, it makes such a huge impact. I mean, it's the simplest thing. I mean, if someone just hand wrote a note to 10 people a day or figured out how to have with your team, your assistant do it, and you did that for a year straight, your life would transform in terms of the depth of the relationships.

Sure.

And it's such a simple thing to do. So did you come across this method of communication or you just knew intuitively that I'm not going into this world of email? Have you ever had an email and you're like, this is crazy. There's no way this shit works.

Well, when I started looking at it and looked at people around me just being on the computer all the time, even though all my companies, believe me, are state of the art computerization, they're technically anyways, so I get my reports the way I want them. But I saw that it takes so much time and I wouldn't be able to call people as much or write, handwrite people, special people letters or, you know, being able to do or time to think, at least in my case. Not for everybody, but in my case I thought, let me try and stay away from this. And it worked.

Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome.

So what, what does success and happiness look like and mean to you?

You?

I mean, how do you think about that?

Success is not how much money you have, which a lot of people equate to success. Success is how well you do what you do. How well do you do what you do? And do you continue doing it that well? Do you master mastering something is doing it extremely well. But doing it that way every time and then having the ability to grow from there and realizing success and shared is failure. Now, how can a janitor be extremely successful? I'll take a quick minute with a quick story. Worked all my life from 7 years old and then paper routes at 11 years old. Throughout high school, I worked for a while at Stuart's Cleaners. I'm the guy that swept the floors, put the little drape on the hanger and just did all the work after school and on Saturdays. And Stuart Was so tight, this guy squeaked. They paid me a dollar and a quarter an hour because he had to or he. He'd give you 75 cents an hour. Anyways, one day after school, he calls me and says, johnny, come over here. He says, last night I was working late. I went up to my mezzanine to lay on my cot for a few minutes. And I took my watch off, put it on the table, dropped on the floor. So I went down there to pick up my watch and looked under the cot, and there was no dust. Well, the cot's light. I moved it. No dust. Look behind the cabinet. No dust. Pick up a rug. No dust. You clean this as if I'm watching you every single minute. But, Stuart, that's my job. You hired me to it. And my mom, growing up, taught the boys how to clean. I know how to clean. So my job, which I like, my job is to do the best job I can. Whether you tell me or not, that's my job. He was so touched. He said, johnny, I'm giving you a 25 cent an hour raise to $1.50 an hour. Oh, my God. For Stuart to do that, it's like, wow, I won the Academy Award. But the lesson was learned is this. Successful people, whether you're working for somebody else or working for yourself, do whatever you do. As if whoever's really involved is watching you every single minute do it. And that's difficult for people to do. If you can do that, you do your job so well. I had a housekeeper once, 66 years old. Everything was great. I said, deanie, go home. No, mister, I'm going to stay here. Okay? For the next two and a half hours. Watch Mexican television. I know you like to watch it. No, Meester, I'm not going to do it. Why? She says, because I'm 66 years old, you think I'm going to waste my life watching television? I'd be more productive and happier if I found something I missed dusting. I'm going to go through the whole house again. And she was genuine in what she said. She loved what she did and who she did it for. That's success.

That is really awesome. I mean, talk about just having that as an operating system, how that would just pave the path of your future.

And don't be afraid to say you're wrong. Many of my staff will come over and say, jp, that's great, but this way would have been a little bit better. Be open to that. Can't be your ego. Well, yeah, you know what? Your idea is not bad. Mine's not the best one in the world. By being open also, it helps you grow.

So what would you consider yourself just really skilled. Skilled at? And what are you just not skilled at?

Do you think about. Yeah, I would say I don't think about it, but I think what I'm really skilled at is being lucky enough. Lucky enough in life to be able to have the ability to listen to somebody else tentatively. In other words, listen to them everything they're saying and not just think about what you're going to say next. And that took a while. I think I'm pretty good at that. And I think I'm also pretty good at being nice to people. I believe in just being nice in life, just being nice even with people, have just a lousy day and maybe do some really stupid things, try and handle the end result in a nice manner. If we did more of that in the world, we wouldn't have wars and everyone would take care of everybody. I think that's important.

Well, absolutely. I mean, one of the ways that I gauge who I develop deeper relationships with because I interact with a lot of people is how people that are more powerful treat people that are less powerful than them. I mean, it bugs the shit out of me when I see someone kiss ass to someone who they want to, you know, curry favor with because they want something. And then they're, you know, they don't say thank you if someone opens up a door or they're rude to like a wait staff or something.

I see a little bit of that. I see a little bit of that. And when you all see a little bit of that, just learn from it and say, whoa, that's not going to be me. That's not cool.

Yeah, exactly. Everybody has a purpose in life, even if it's to serve as a bad example. So what are you not good at that you have learned to avoid because you know, it's just not your thing. Like Dan Sullivan has a thing called unique ability where you're skilled and then he has.

You know what I'm not good at is taking all the time to do all the little details, fill out expense reports, just all the details. I leave that to accountants or leave that to other people that are much better than that and try and take that segment of my life and think in that segment or do something else. I have a little saying that I picked up selling encyclopedias. And it's pay attention to the vital few. Ignore the trivia. Many too many people get tied up. I know. I was at the CIA on a couple times. I trained them in management motivation and to Buzzy Krongaard, their executive director, I said once, I want to teach all you guys here how to handle a piece of fay for once. He said at the CIA if we could handle a piece of paper 100 times, we'd be doing good. In other words, fewer moving parts. Try and pay attention to the vital few, ignore the trivia many or let somebody else handle that that might be much more capable than you.

That's awesome. So clearly you have really learned how to build teams, encourage teams, grow teams. And so you're obviously very good at having set up management structures which I think first stems from self management. You obviously learned how to manage yourself. If you could speak to that, you know how do you not go off the rails at times? I'm sure you have, but you've learned from this. So what would you say about self management?

Yeah, we all have self management. My God, I could take it back to the US military when I was in the Navy. If you wanted clothes, you folded your own clothes and they had to be exactly perfect and you had to manage your locker and manage your time. A little bit of a start managing yourself and your time. If you cannot manage yourself and your time where you're just at the end of the day totally frustrated or three phones are going at one time and you haven't figured out how to do that one yet, don't think that you're a manager. You got to manage yourself first, your time, how you allocate it, the time you have for your family, the time you have for yourself. Very important the time you have for yourself. Many people, especially entrepreneurs coming up forget that they're busy from morning to night and well, where's your time? It's like money. If you get money, whether you work for somebody or make money, what do you do first? Most people you pay all the bills, whatever's left. Well then I have something opposed to. Another philosophy is pay yourself for what you've done. Pay yourself first. You even 5%, take it off the top and just stick it in a stupid savings account. If you had to just pay yourself something first. If you can't afford 10%, 5%, then believe me, the rest of the money will be allocated out. Take care of yourself first. That's part of your own self management. And then try and find some time. I find love to share this with you about five minutes in the morning. I wake up in the morning, do obviously what you have to do when you Wake up. Then I go right back to bed, and I try and clear my space. Let's say I'm in this room. I will look at the ceiling, look at the walls. I will be in present time, or try to. And then I normally have just one saying, you know, creator of souls, thank you for all that you've blessed me with, and may I go forward to be able to do something that helps make this world a better place and try and be in total present time. Not about what I'm going to do today, not about my next appointment. Just be. And then when you wake up, your head's a little clearer, your mind's a little clearer, and it's not cluttered.

That's great.

It works. Love it. Love it.

Well, you're buddies with Tony Robbins. Yesterday I interviewed Tony and Peter Diamandis over here, founder of the X Prize. And they talked about morning rituals with. And Tony does a thing called priming where he primes himself. And so I love hearing people's rituals because what they do in their habits is what creates their life.

You can do that on the road. You can do it in an airplane. And it's free. Right? Don't have to carry anything. Yeah.

Awesome. So what's the biggest or most important business lesson that you have learned, either on purpose or by accident?

By accident. One of the biggest business things that I ever learned was I started John Paul Mitchell Systems with $700. The business partner I started with was a top hairdresser, but he didn't do business. I didn't do hair. So we had no money. No money. Okay. So I did 10 or 15 things. After six months, we were able to hire our first employee. Shirley Wong was her name. I gave Shirley 10 jobs and said, I hope you could do them, Shirley. Whatever you can to, honey, I'll figure out how to help you. Shirley learned how to do 10 jobs. Not one, but 10. Then I realized, wow, it's not just the person that started the company through necessity, but people do a heck of a lot more than what people say you should be doing. We're all capable of that. So that point forward, I paid people very well, but gave them the opportunity to do more than. This is just your job. This is just your job. Now, that might be anti union. Okay, no disrespect to the unions. Okay, no disrespect, but when one has the ability to do whatever they can do that they want to do, I'll give you the end result. Four months ago, I'm in my office. I Fly from Austin to LA, had do some work. My staff closes up at 4:30. Some come in at different hours in the morning to miss traffic. So by 5:30 I'm there and I hear something in the office. So I go back there and there's a couple girls working, a couple guys who said what are you doing here? Hey, it's an hour, two hours after we close. What are you doing here? They said jp, we love working here and we wanted to finish these little projects. I said how many people are here? They said I don't know. Hey, who's here? JP's here. 12 people came out with the same exact thing. JP, we just want to be here. We know we don't have to be here. We're not paid for this. We want to be here. We love what we're doing jp, we just want to finish this. You know, they didn't want to leave. Well, needless to say we all went out for a really good dinner and a couple great bottles of wine and a little bit of good tequila too. Anyways, we were a team. But when people feel good and respected and you give them the ability to do more than this is just what the job is. You'd be amazed at how they expand their business for our size company. Take John Paul Mitchell Systems. I should be in the thousands with employees. John Paul Mitchell Systems alone now this includes the warehouse has 300 employees. That's it for the world. Now we have about 800 part time but 300 full time employees for the world. Petrona has a lot more because hand bottles blown out of recycled glass. We have a lot of labor intensive there but you can't have fewer moving parts. But my people do. My family, they do more. More than three times that many people because they love what they're doing and who they do it for. Very important.

That's awesome. Well, you know, I mean just as an aside, I got some prepared questions.

Here but I want to do all your questions. They're great questions. Let's do them all.

I'll do these and then I'm gonna.

Put anything inside of here for you.

I'm gonna ask you after this, this thing. I have an interesting question. So what have been one or two of your biggest business or life challenges and how did you get through them?

Well, the first one was obviously starting Paul Mitchell with $700 and living for the second time in my car because our backer pulled out. That was extremely difficult. How do you start a company, balance your bills, not going to be paid, knock door to Door selling your products, extremely difficult. That story would take up too much time to tell you right now. But if you want to see that story, there was a fellow named Donny Deutsch who on cnbc had the big idea. I was on his show four times. He has a half hour special on step for step, how I did it and how you. How the hell do you do it on $700 and no money? Start a company and grow it. So it was along the way that was the biggest challenge. And you want to know the success out of that? This was a success. How do you know you were successful? Two years later, we should have gone bankrupt every single day. Two years later, we were able to pay our bills on time. Not pay them off, but pay them on time. We said, hey, we made it and we got $2,000 left over. We made it, we're successful, we're all happy. And that was a real challenge. Another challenge is on. There's many businesses I started that didn't go so well, but they were good learning experiences where when I had a partner that I really trusted and they were like stealing money or kind of stabbed me in the back, that was very, very disappointing. But on the whole, other partners are really great. So it weighed itself out.

Yeah. Well, I think. How many of you have ever had embezzlement in your company?

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's usually. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.

Try and handle with love. When you do, I mean, it's kind of like you son of a. Anyways, try and handle love. Hey, you screwed up, man. Now what are we going to do to make this right? You know, I mean, you handle these things when they come up and it happens in life, you know, just something that happens and I'm sure it'll happen again somewhere along the way.

Yeah.

Awesome. Handle it with love.

So what's the most useful life and business advice you can give to someone who is a high level of achiever or entrepreneur? Not just startups, but people that are already at a certain level because the vast majority of people here are run very successful companies.

One sentence. Success. Unshared is failure. One sentence with your own people, with your family, with your friends and the world. Success. Unshared is failure. We have 118 Paul Mitchell schools nationwide of cosmetology. They're all taught over several months, a culture of giving back. They all do fundraisers. We pay for the whole fundraiser. Every dime goes into their local community, their state, our country and the World to make it a better place to live. Success unshared is failure. And you don't need money to be sharing. You could do just something nice. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. So when it comes to money, making it, keeping it, giving it away, what should every person in this room know?

Have six months worth of what it costs you to live in the bank in cash. If things went wrong, I mean about movie theater tickets, gasoline, insurance, have that in the bank. No matter what happens, you know you're going to survive the way you survive right now for a period of six months minimum. I would say try and eliminate as much debt as possible. Pay off your house if you can. First, very, very important. And then as you're making money, whenever you make money, don't invest at all. Oh my God, don't invest at all. You're investing on the next thing to come along. That's fine. But take a portion of it in of a secure investment. You're not going to lose. Take a portion of that and be a little conservative on that one. So as you're building your own empire, you're building something for you and your family and your friends in the future that no one could touch. Then, of course, with others, you want to take gambles, you want to invest it in yourself and your own growth. But take a little piece of everything and pay yourself first where it's a stable investment so that you feel really, really good. And the bigger you get, the harder it is to make sure you're investing money. I'm part of a group called the Giving pledge. There's about 103 of us, Warren Buffett, Mike, Bill Gates, and a few of us, and we've already pledged. We were so blessed in life that 50% of our wealth while we're alive or after we die will go to make the world a better place to live. But we found in our seminars that we do. You've got to check who you give the money to. There's certain great charities, but 50% of it goes to fundraising. In one case, 80% went to fundraising, 20% went to actually helping the people out. So when you do that, check it out. But don't just give money. Give something that'll let somebody do something for themselves to continue. It's like you feed somebody, hey, it's good, and you should feed people. But when you teach them how to fish, they could do it themselves. So that should be part of what you're doing. What's the end solution? Long term, not just. What's a band Aid?

Gotcha great. So what are the key characteristics that you think make the best leaders?

One, be empathetic. If somebody comes to you and talks to you and they're just pouring their heart out to you, listen, you may have been there once yourself, once, and nobody ever listened to you. Listen to that. A great leader is someone that could listen. A great leader that doesn't look at, okay, what am I going to get out of this? The great leader looks at, what's the entire team going to get out of this? And how does this benefit the end customer, not just me and my team, how do they benefit more than anybody else? And when you have that mindset, it's easy to move ahead. And. And you're moving ahead with a lot of people that are right on the same, shall we say, thought pattern that you're on? Very important.

Yeah. Awesome. So what are you working on now? Because you're working on a lot of stuff that you're most excited about.

I'll just mention two. And it's ways that, you know, and those that have really made it, you know, big financially or in businesses, think about the next thing you do, how it benefits the world, and don't be too greedy on your profits. One of them is called Rok R O K Rock Mobile. We knew there was a better way. And if I could take someone that is spending $1,000 and immediately have only spent $300, they just made $700. What's your mobile phone cost? You know what your mobile phone costs you. Rock Mobile and my partners are the biggest phone companies in our nation. Some of the biggest phone companies in the nation are my partners. My carriers, all the big record companies are my partners. $49.95 a month. $49.95 a month. Right. All your phone calls, all your texting, all your data with no limitations, and all Your music, over 20 million songs, all straight on down, no limitations whatsoever, flat fee. And in approximately, we think about three or four months, we'll be able to put on international calls for maybe another 15, $20. On top of all that, no roaming. But in the United States, that's it. Well, that's revolutionary because the average phone bill on a cell phone is a heck of a lot more than that.

Can you do this with an iPhone?

Yep. Any phone you have, it's done on any telephone you have. You don't have to, you know, get rid of your phone, take your existing phone. If you need a phone, they'll help sell you a phone. But you know, existing phones, any kind of phone you have, just transfer it on over. You know, it's very, very unique. Now, you'll notice if you go online to rockmobile.com that whatever carrier picked, maybe the carrier you already have, and it's a heck of a lot less what we charge than what that carrier charges. Well, if there's a charge to disconnect from that carrier, that 100 or 200 bucks a month, you know, or just 100 or $200 flat fee, you got to pay it, you know, we can't do that for you. But when you look at what you save, well, maybe you'll make it back in a month or two. The other one is, and it's revolutionary. What? Because I always wanted to affect, which most of us probably do, millions of people everywhere. The next one is Abio Aubio. Au is the chemistry sign for gold Bio, of course, for nature. Nature's gold. Abio. Most of the population of our planet has one form or another of the herpes complex. Now the herpes complex is like a cold sore, a fever blister, a mouth ulcer, as well as, you know, oral or genital congenital herpes. And, and there's other types of herpes in that category.

In this room, it would be probably much higher.

Okay. Anyways, I worked with some genius people. It goes all the way back to the native Americans. And over the last several years, I have funded, put millions of dollars into it, double blind studies and everything else. It's topically applied, you topically apply it, right? And let's say if someone has a cold sore, you feel a tingle when it comes out, you put it on every hour. And more than 90% of everyone that does it, it doesn't come out. But if it comes out, you put it on. And in over 90% of all people, you put on every hour for a day or 2. In about 90% of all people, it disappears In a matter of a couple of days, it's gone. I mean, it's a revolutionary product. Unbelievable. I did it under two conditions. Number one, we'd be able to have some something that was all plants that was topically applied. And it is all grown in the United States of America. Some of them are very hybrid plants. Like we took some carnivorous plants and hybrid them. But number two, and this is an important thing, I wanted to be available to everybody and everybody could afford it. I didn't want it to sell for a thousand dollars, a little tube or 500. I want everyone to afford it. Try a retail of $39, 95 cents. That's it. So now we just launched it right now. Just being launched right now. But throughout the world it's amazing. The majority of the world has one form or another of the syroppy complex that this could address and be extremely beneficial on. And a lot of doctors and other people are very excited that we have something like that. And I know when I looked at your demographics that about 30% of you somehow are in direct marketing. If you want to see what the model is with Abio, you're very welcome to, but I won't take your time right now. Go to abio.com you'll see what the model is there for merchandise and that product and they'll get back to you, Rachel, or someone will get back to you. But that was something where I wanted something that was necessary. There was a need in the marketplace research shown that involving plants on it did such a great result. I mean people were blown away at what this product did. So I knew it was something that was necessary, knew if I priced it properly it was benefiting the world. So by doing that, yeah, maybe I made a little bit less money, but I still made enough money. And what did I do with this extra money? It's going to give me ways to go and help more people on this planet with revenues do more things.

Wow, that's.

And better things.

So do you yourself seek out things like this or are they brought to you on a con? Because I imagine your barrage with bazillion.

People barraged and I would say I probably get hit with a hundred things a week. Maybe my assistants go through everything and I may see one occasionally because I am over inundated. There's no more room for anything in my life, business wise. But along the way, if you leave yourself open, just leave yourself open to the universe and that believe me, it works. Just leave yourself open. Things will come your way and either interest you or it doesn't interest you. So let's see. 10 things came my way that really interest me in a big way. And I got involved with let's say eight of those things. Okay, eight of those things I got involved with. Well, maybe four of them went wrong, but the others went really, really right. Leave yourself open to the universe. Get a feeling. What do you feel in your gut? Not just what does it say on paper and how much you're going to make. What do you feel in your gut? Is this something that will do the greatest good for the greatest number, be beneficial and if it is, you'll still make your profits but you're going to do it with light, with light in your eyes and light in your soul. Very important. The frequency of our planet is changing, Joe. It's rising more and more people. Believe it or not, even if you look at the news, more and more people are doing things for other people than ever before. It is rising. Regardless of how bad it seems in the news. The planet's getting better.

Well, what's perfect is we got the author of the book Abundance, Peter Dion, who, you know, has clearly proven that the world is getting better on all levels. That's great. So what are you most proud of in your life?

Two things. One, and one of my fellow brothers from Horatio Alger is part of your group here. I was able to in the Supreme Court receive the Horatio Alger Award. It's the only award given to the Supreme Court. And it's for Americans that went through a lot of adversity, but shared along the way to help make America a better place to live. And I was very, very proud of that because I know I did a lot and continue to do a lot. And to be able to know that someone that's with a high school education that was able to do this, that America still works. And that was an unbelievable proud moment. Another proud moment was when I started grow Appalachia several years ago. All these people on welfare, on how to get them fed and put them all in businesses in agriculture. We have 3,30,000 people just eating off their own gardens now and going to farmers markets, selling their eggs, selling their products. And it was something I was able to do philanthropically and see an unbelievable result. Very proud. Needless to say, all my kids, my family, wife, everyone is doing great. My loved ones are doing really, really great. And my God. Hello out there. I love you. There's a lot of great people are doing a lot of good things right now. And I'm very proud of my association with them. To give them a helping hand. Do that. Yeah.

You know, when we talked backstage and even when I interviewed you, you know that I'm doing work with addiction. I'm doing a documentary on helping addicts. And you have a. You have a tequila company and you actually gave the land to Arbor. Talk about that. For them to build a recovery center.

You betcha. In Georgetown, Texas, I bought this fabulous ranch, almost 80 acres. We put horses there for equine therapy and I built it out for them so that people would have a place to go. It's quite a program, but get an end result. I saw even within close friends of mine close to me, they would go into rehab, come out of rehab, go right back into rehab like a revolving door. And I knew there had to be a different way. Some wonderful people, Justin, Harvey and Jim and sir, several others found a way because they were addicts how to get out of it but stay out of it and put a whole program together where someone had to go there for three months and live but then for the next 12 months be monitored. I believe they have the lowest return factor anywhere in the nation, maybe even the world because they cared about it cost wise. It was very exciting too. You go to some of these shishi rehab places, they're extremely expensive. 60, 70,000 month their whole year long program. Actually it's more than a year is I believe it's 48, $49, I mean thousand dollars, that's all and which is really cheap. Consider there's room and board involved in this.

Right?

So they did and they have a smaller program but it was able to have good results therapy by you know, communicating with horses, communicating with one another, keeping the guys and girls separated and having a good end result. I believed in that. And, and by the way, I don't own any part of the company. I got the land and basically at cost. I let them just pay me back over a long period of time for the whole infrastructure I put in for them.

That's great.

It's helping people out. Awesome.

So you know, with Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron and Rock Mobile and all the different things that you're doing, you know, I sit and I can't help but think of like a guy like Elon Musk, you know with SpaceX and SolarCity and Tesla. These types of entrepreneurs are so damn unique where they can be in charge or running or owning something like you know, either all of it or parts of that. Who do you call for advice? I mean when you're like I need to figure out what to do, do you employ those people or do you have like a few key relationships that coach you, that help you that when you just don't, you know, have.

How do you. The answer is I don't. If there's something I don't know something about, I'll look within my own groups of families to see if there's someone there that could answer it. Or I look for outside advice from someone that knows a heck of a lot more than me. I go out there and I seek it. I don't have a regular ongoing mentor that I go to. If it's law, I'll go Here. If it's administration, I'll go here. If it's getting rid of AIDS to the world, I'll go here. I look for those people, people that are much more knowledgeable than I, much more. And they're out there, you know. And I think I do this because if you go to one or two people, which is wonderful, if you have good people, as long as those people are smart enough and kind enough to say, I know so much, but, boy, this person can know a hell of a lot more, go to them also.

So I'd like to do some Q and A with the audience. Just a couple questions. Not a lot, is it, before we do that. So if anyone has a question.

We won't.

Let's do questions.

May I add something in here really quick?

Absolutely.

I just came back from the World Knowledge Forum as a keynote speaker in Seoul, Korea, and they asked me one question that I want to share with you all. That question was John Paul. You started Paul Mitchell with $730 five years ago. Can an entrepreneur do it just as easy today? We don't think so as it was back then. We think it's a lot harder today. My answer was, absolutely. Look at today compared to 35 years ago, when I started John Paul Mitchell Systems and lived in my car. Inflation in the United States was 12.5%. Unemployment was 10.5%. Interest rates, if you could get a loan, was 17% prime rate. We waited in line for gasoline and our hostages were still in Iran and we didn't have computers. We had to go typeset stuff at the local printer. Are things easier today to start a business than they were then? Absolutely easier today. You have so many more things you could work with than we did in our days. So much more. You could start one as easy today and be successful. Much more easier than I did 35 years ago. Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome.

Rob. John. Paul, great to hear you talk. I'm Rob Seik from Canada, and at.

That time, the Canadian ambassador was helping.

To get the hostages out of Iran.

He just passed away.

So that's great guy. Great guy. Yeah. Pretty cool.

That's an Argus movie.

The most amazing thing that I heard, and you said a lot of amazing things, but the most amazing thing in my impression that you said today was 70 people in your turnover. That was, to me, phenomenal. What are your criteria or how do you go? You've hired well to do that. I mean, you don't hire duds if your turnover is only 70. So what are your criteria? How do you manage to make that selection, which I think you must be genius at hiring. No, but a great question. Okay, great question. I go a little bit the opposite. I look for people in the position that is going to be filled that have a better skill than I could have in that or have the ability to have that skill better than I could possibly do it, whether it's receptionist or the president of my company. How can they do it? And I would think for business people, whenever you have somebody that you're hiring or putting in a management position, make sure you train them or they have the ability to do what you do better than you. Now you're a leader. I also hire from the heart. Whatever resume you put in front of me with technical positions obviously are important, but I look at the heart. I feel feel the heart. I look at the person. When I hire, my staff does the same thing. Will they fit into our family? Do they have the heart? Do they have the enthusiasm? Are they going to be happy here? If not, obviously we're not doing them justice. And we've made a few mistakes along the way, but very fortunate, very few.

Great announcements.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go to the.

Yes. So, jp, I'm down here.

Where are you?

Oh, there you go. Okay. Oh, hello there. Hello.

My friend, he wrote a book called get off your butt.

I love it, man. Okay. First of all, I just want to thank you for being a kind human being.

I mean, it's.

It's very refreshing to see somebody at the top that you feel like if they lost all their money, everybody would still want to be in their life. That's right. So thank you. I felt what you want. Insecurity drives the majority of entrepreneurs, I found. And the insecurity that my dad said I couldn't do it. So I'm going to show him. You know, my wife left me for some other guy. Very good. And insecurity is a great fuel, but at a great cost. And my line of work is dealing with people with insecurities.

What advice?

Because you are at the top of the mountain for a lot of people. What advice would you tell an entrepreneur who's being driven by their insecurity on.

How they can change the fuel of their car?

Change the fuel of what's driving them. How would we do that? No one's ever asked that question, by the way. I can answer that quite easily. Quite easily. How do you change that? How do you do something different? When I talk to a group of orphans. When I was in South Korea, I spent a few days and talked to different groups. And here's people whose parents. Parents didn't want them. And the answer was this. If you have rejection in your life or insecurity about yourself, someone didn't, like your boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, broke up with you or you lost your job or something, didn't work. If you're prepared for rejection, that helps. But what also helps is if you're feeling lonely or rejected, insecure, do something to help somebody else out. You'll get love and you'll feel so powerful when you do that. When I said that, I saw some little orphans, younger ones, looking at the older ones, they looked back, they were almost crying because you knew they helped that person out and you could tell them this little story. When I was in high school, in the 11th grade, in Mr. Wax's business class, my buddy Michelle Gillian sat behind me, cute, thin little girl. I was pretty thin. So I would write her little notes, pass them back like that. She'd read them. Mr. Wax intercepted the note, read it to the class, something silly like, see it Winchell's after school. Darlene and Ronnie just went study something really stupid. Read it to the whole class. And made Michelle and I stand up and say, Johnny DiGioria and Michelle Gillian. See these two, don't hang around them. They'll never make it in business. They're not going to amount to anything. Look what they're doing during my business hour. Class, sit down. Well, Michelle and I said, what does he know? Right? What does he know? I go in the United States Navy. I get out of the Navy. Mutual friend said, hey, J.P. what do you think about Michelle? I said, michelle who? Michelle Gillian. Oh, how's she doing? I haven't seen her in years. You don't know? Well, I've been in the Navy, J.P. she's now Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas. Then went, that's Michelle, okay? We're still the best of buddies. She found Mr. Wax. On my 50th birthday, she found him. She ran him down and found him and brought him. We said, Mr. Wax, we remind him of the story. So, you know, it's a matter of if you to get confidence in yourself, do something nice for somebody else. That's a big helper right there. And, you know, don't let people get you down. What do they know? My God, what the heck do they know? No, you can never enter beauty industry. Too much competition, no money. Tequila? Are you kidding? A $37 bottle, you can buy tequila for four bucks. Go with your own gut feeling and do something good for someone else and it raises it. I'm sure you found that in your life. You got it. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Rafael Bacek from Germany. Thanks for the inspiration you are giving us.

Two questions. The first one, what drives you in your enterprises?

What motivates you?

And the second one, what is the most dangerous idea you have had in your life?

Oh, very good. There's nothing in particular that I can single out as motivation, but as you're talking, when I see the end result of some of the things I do and how it's beneficial to those that I do it with or do it for, that motivates me to go on. Why do I have so many companies I'm kind of involved in, you know, or I kind of invest in, whatever. It's because I've seen other things happen and I think the end result is going to be a darn good end result. That's kind of a motivational factor. What was the second part of your question? Vasislos vas.

What's the most dangerous idea you have had in your life?

You don't have a whole bunch of time. So I'm gonna make a long story short. I thought it could help change the world and be involved as a citizen of the United States in helping change the world. I went into North Korea many, many years ago with the end result of helping them get into four way talks. As a business person, not a politician. They wanted to talk to China and the United States and not South Korea. I kind of helped. Didn't do the whole thing, but helped out and was very low keyed about it. I'm the guy that went into Libya to convince Gaddafi to release the two suspected terrorists of Pan Am Flight 103 to go on trailing the Hague. Okay, and not me. There's many other people. But it was like the final thing and I took no credit for it. I just stood by. It was crazy. I think thought I could change the world. And then shortly after they went on trial again. It wasn't me. State Department worked at it, but I actually flew into Tunisia and was driven by their agents into Tripoli, then into Surdi. They actually talked with Gaddafi, which is a whole different story there. But I was able to pull it off and it was freaky. It was a little scary. It was me in the middle of the desert. He wasn't friendly, but the end result was we smiled and we took a picture together around him doing a peace sign. You know, that was a little touchy. And there's a whole story of how that happened and from him not liking me, how it turned around that he liked me. So I hope that helped answer your question. As short as I can. They were speaking. Thank you very much. You bet. Awesome.

Last question, please.

You've inspired me to no end today, so thank you. And bringing it a little closer to home, you said your family's doing well, your kids are doing well. What did you do right with your kids? What would you do again? Well, I did a lot of wrong things, too, when I was younger, because I had my little bad boy days there. Okay, but what I did wrong, I think. But I was a kid. I had a kid when I was a kid, you know, I'm 20 years old, you know, I end up being a father and, you know, not a good one. So. But over the years, I learned more and more, and it was, how do you spend some time with your child? More time with them. Best thing you could ever give them, more time. Well, of course, as each child came along and I. I have four biological children, I was able to do more and more with every one of them. And that big lesson was to be able to do something with them. The next thing is, generations change. I sit down and talk to my son today, who's now 18, which was different than Michaeline or Alexis when they were younger because it was a different generation. I had to sit and listen and maybe disagree with them, but then realize on a lot of things they're saying they were right, they were right. So it's kind of like, well, maybe if I listened to the other ones even more closely, it would have even been better. But every child or every year, I do improve considerably. But do know that if your kids do something totally off the wall and their outlook on life or philosophy is different than yours, things have changed. They could be 100% correct. Listen, I listened and I didn't agree. But later on, I found out they're incredibly right. I'm going to give you one quick example real fast. I know you have another gentleman and you're running out of time. Michael Lean, who's 31 years old, is the vice chairman of John Paul Mitchell Systems. Five years ago, she came and said, dad, you're going into magazines and tv, great. You got to get into social media and advertise. I said, honey, people want to see ads in magazines. They want to see us on tv, dad. The future. Social media. I said, okay, Mikey, get us involved in that. Long story short, she was so right. Now, most of our Budget is going to social media because it's so much more bang for the buck. She was 100% correct. She could read it. And also, she's our director of future development. What does the future want with today's generation in hair care or what we should give them or portray to the world that they want to hear, dad, not your generation or five generations ago. Learn that lesson. Well, awesome. Thank you. You betcha.

Kevin, we said four questions. Sorry, you need to leave because it's.

Four and a half. First of all, thank you so much. Fantastic. So moved and inspired about all you've done and what you're doing. I've been in the beauty business since 2006. First retail, now online. All right. What's awesome is I used to partner with the Paul Mitchell School down there in Tysons Cord. Yeah, by the airport. And just so. I mean, just because I didn't know your story, didn't know much about you, but your energy shines through that location. We would partner with them on quarterly for charity events. They would do fashion shows for breast cancer, like, every quarter. And so they would partner on ours as well. So it was really awesome. My question to you now is, how could I or anyone here partner with you on some of the projects you're doing now that are changing the world? Because it sounds like you're doing some amazing things. What are some of your top projects that we might be able to help with? I would say if you go to the Peace Link Love and Happiness Foundation. Peace, Love and Happiness Foundation. That's my family foundation. And it's anything from. Well, right now, between our schools, raising money, and, of course, my own money that I put in. We feed about 8,000 orphans in Africa that nobody wanted. All their parents died of HIV. We give them a plate from age 1 day old to age 12 years old. We give them a place to live, safety and education and honorable food in the United States. I took on all of Appalachia to take 150,000 people that are unemployed, concentrate on 75,000 of them, you know, a thousand at a time, and buy them everything they needed. Their food to exist with, if necessary, their seeds, their fertilizer, irrigation, their tools to raise their own gardens with people teaching them how to do it. Phase one, feed yourself. And here's how you can for the winter so you could have vegetables all year long. And it's going to be healthier for you. You'll lose weight. Phase two, the next year, grow a little more than before and sell the excess to farmers markets and to local grocery stores as organically owned produce. Now have yourself an income. Then we gave them bees so they could have honey and we gave them 12 chickens and a rooster. Now you have all your protein to let people become self sufficient. But also, with all due respect, and this went over better here than did in Japan. I mean, I should say in Korea. I'm a big supporter of the Sea Shepherd. I ride the Sea shepherd boat out there to protect baby harp seals from being clubbed to death and whales from being killed on the open seas. I mean, I get involved. But if you take a look there or go to Paul Mitchell, John PaulMitchell says to PaulMitchell.com philanthropy, you'll see some of the things that we do. But yeah, take a look. There's two movies that I produce, one with Richard Branson. They're out right now. I didn't want a diamond return. We just wanted the world to see them. One is called Racing to Extinction. The United nations showed it at the debut on the side of the United nations building all about how we are causing the extinction. Another one is a must for everybody. It's called Chloe. Like C H O L E and Theo. T H E O Chloe and Theo. Richard Branson and I were the main executive producers. It talks about how we have to change now and somebody that came down from the north to try and find our elders, what he went through just to let our people know from the Alaskan natives how we have to change the world now. It's almost too late. These are two beautiful movies. I'm sure you'll find information online. But I mean, we're involved in so many things. In Los Angeles, we have chrysalis, how to take homeless and put them to work. In 2010, almost the height of our unemployment period of time here we had 300. I'm sorry, 3,000 homeless come there. All homeless. We give them a place to live, clothes to wear. They're all, you know, donated, where to eat. And we teach them how to do a resume and how to interview back and forth. Okay. You couldn't get jobs in those days. Tokens to take a bus for an interview. School them on how to interview when they come back, school them on how what went wrong. Out of those 30001600 got a job and they were homeless to start with. So there's just so many things that help people. I'll take a look at it.

We do a lot.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

You're welcome. Thank you, sir. Good question. Or go to our school. Our Schools will tell you.

Also, is there anything that I could or should have asked you that I did not?

I think you did one heck of a good job. And, of course, I wanted to get in there. That the world, I think, is getting a better place to live. And in life, you will run across disappointments. You sure will. You'll run across things that happen in your life that are so wrong. But I have a little saying, and it could be a good one to kind of end my segment with for me. Unless you have another question. In the end, everything will be okay. Pause. And if it's not okay, it's not the end. In the end, everything will be okay. If it's not okay, it's not the end.

Awesome.

Thank you. That was great. My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

You got Jeff.

My pleasure. Exactly. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm here for you, by the way. And this is still on. Thank you. I am here for you. When they told me about the this, I came from Korea to New Hampshire and unexpected death happened there. And I turned around and came here. I came here. I flew my own jet. They were kind enough to give me a nice room here. But I came here because I was told and knew from talking to Joe before, that this is a group that could help change the world and do nice things along the way. And when you're kind, especially with your influence, it helps others become kind, too. Thank you. The access that you hear about, dream about, you can actually get it right here, right now. The passion of the people that want to give back to the world, and it's just incredible.

Here, you're really.

You're at the top. You know, it's like you're with the best of the best. It's the chemistry as much as the wisdom that makes the learning fun and.

Exciting and very, very impactful.

Being an ingenious network, you're only one connection away from anyone in the world. Well, I think it's a good group.

Of people who are all dedicated to making a difference.

I know that every person that Joe's connected with is a good person. And so that just makes me so excited to meet and connect with everyone.

Just from a few minutes of attending one of these events, the value is huge.

It feels like a family, feels like home. Somehow.

For me, that was the biggest breakthrough for me. Right.

Because I've been looking for people like.

That for half my life. I think in one word, it's transformational. I mean, I think really, the secret sauce of Genius Network.

I mean, in the end, it's obviously.

Joe thought just streams through him. He just knows exactly what to say and to who. The Genius Network experience is like no other experience I've had. It's like, you know, just throwing a ton of amazing game changing people in this cauldron and, you know, letting the magic happen.

I have never seen so many amazing people gathered in one location. That in and of itself makes it unique.

I love the focus, the one on one focus, the help that it gives my business. And I love Joe.

This event more than any of the others is the Kings really interact well.

With the peons in a very non pretentious way. The level of information that I got.

That I can implement is amazing. I don't think you can get this level of people all in one place anywhere else.