1036 A Billionaire’s Keys to Success and Building an Empire w/John Paul DeJoria

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Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiration, inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. This is episode number 1036 with John Paul DeJoria. Winston Churchill said success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. It is. And Theodore Roosevelt said, it is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. My friends, welcome to this episode. I'm very excited that you're here today. I hope you learn a lot from this valuable interview. My guest is serial entrepreneur, billionaire and philanthropist John Paul DeGioia, who is best known as co founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products and the Patron Spirits company. And in 2011, John signed the Giving Pledge created by Bill and Melinda Gates and and Warren Buffett. Today the commitment includes more than 200 of the world's wealthiest individuals who will give the majority of their wealth to address some of society's most pressing problems. We had an incredible conversation about how John came from nothing and how he is able to create multiple globally successful businesses by facing rejection head on. I love his stories about rejection and how he overcame this to build a multi billion dollar brand. And in this episode we discuss the difference between a billionaire mindset and a millionaire mindset. How John has grown his company Paul Mitchell for over 40 years after starting with only $700. Such an inspiring story. Why entrepreneurs should be in the reorder business, not in any other type of business. What investments we should be making in our lives right now. How we can overcome the fear of rejection that keeps coming up for us on different levels of life. What you need to know before starting business. Why you should pay off your house as soon as possible. How to negotiate the right way in business and in your life. And why we should forgive everyone in our lives all the time. Some powerful lessons from John. I really, really love this. If you're enjoying this at any moment, make sure to share this with a friend who needs to hear it. Sharing is caring and we're here to support people improving their lives with incredible stories and lessons from some great minds. And a quick reminder to click on that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts right now for the School of Greatness as well as give us a rating and review while you're listening. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only John Paul DeJoria.

Welcome back everyone to School the Greatest podcast. Very excited about our guest, John Paul DeJoria is in the house. Sir, thank you for being here. We're neighbors.

Yes, we are. My pleasure. And I happen to be here in LA for a couple of days so I come over and do your interview.

It's wonderful, Exciting, exciting. You got a fascinating story. The more I'm doing research on you. You have an incred incredible story. You actually grew up here in la. Echo Park, I think, nearby. And you were actually in foster care for a little bit, is that right?

Yep. In East LA for a little bit. That's correct. For several years.

Several years. How many years in foster care?

Actually four and a half years. Yeah. My mom was very, very ill and we were very young, my brother and I, so about five years old to nine and a half Years old in foster care. We see our mom on the weekends, but during the week, it wasn't like it is today. She had to work to support us, and there was no one to take care of us, really. So Monday through Friday, we were in foster care, foster care, and then on the weekends, we with our mom.

Do you think being in foster care gave you the tools to be a successful entrepreneur?

I don't think being in foster care gave me the tools. Being entrepreneur, a successful one. I think what it gave me was an understanding about other people's lives and understanding where they're coming from, especially the other kids who are in foster care with us didn't really have a loving mom like we did.

They didn't get to see her on the weekends.

No, because you had the weekends either. And a lot of them, when they got out of foster care, had no place to go. You know, they stopped, you know, supporting them when they turned 18 or graduated from high school, they had no place to go. So I learned to be very empathetic about others on this planet that need, that helping hand. And I think that was very beneficial when I finally made it financially to be able to look at the right things, to invest money into to help others out, whether it's the homeless or whether it's job programs. In la, in Texas, we overcame a home, a homeless problem there that the world's going to learn from. Wow. We got a piece of land. We all contribute. This is we the people, not the city. Okay? We all Contributed. We built 240 little houses, all for homeless people. Now, who gets a priority going in? If you're without a shelter for a year or disabled, you're our first priority. Coming in, you have a home. We have organic gardens there. We have metal shop, wood shop, craft shop, theater. We have everything you could ever imagine there, right? So they could get. They could work, they could make money while they're there and have a safe place, place of life to clean their lives up. It's worked out so well that many of our volunteers there are very successful financial people, but moved there for one year in a trailer on our properties, little houses to let their kids grow up, showing how to help out one another. It's amazing. So we have another 400 homes next door. Someone donated the land and we're going to build another 400 homes there. So here we not only get the homeless off the streets, but get them back to civilization. They get jobs on their own. We tutor them, we take care of them, we give them dignity. I know Rocket My phone company wi fi'd the whole village called Community First. It's Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Community first in Austin, Texas. We wi fied it all and gave everybody a telephone so that they could call anywhere in the world. Free enough for communications. It's helping people, helping other people out. So going back to it, I've learned so much in foster care about those that are really in need. And boy, if I ever made it, I'm going to help out. But even if I did make it, like in my early 20s when call it my biker days, okay, sure, I would still at Christmas time and at Thanksgiving go up to Griffith park and I didn't have any money, but I volunteered to stand in line and feed the homeless Journey wanted to be feed. It's called Feed ins there in the 1960s. Really? Oh yeah.

When you were 20.

Oh yeah, early 20 to 25 years old. It was there, the love ins. We had feed ins.

And did I read that you lived in a old Rolls Royce for a little?

Yeah, I did, yeah. It's funny, when I started John Paul Mitchell Systems, everything was set up, money was coming in, not a dime ever came in. And I wasn't really good in my relationship, so I was departing with my wife. So I left her the newer car and we had a 20, 21 year old Rolls Royce, right? It was an old one, but still it was a old funky Rolls, right. It would break down occasionally, so I went down the hill in the older cars. It turned out the money never came in and I left all the money with her and to take care of her and my daughter for many, many months and a few hundred bucks in my pocket. That's a true story. And yes, I lived in my car. It was a Rolls, but it still had windows that late. It was rainy season. So I would learn how to have a towel next to me. When you sleep, by the way, in the front seat, which is more room, you have more leg room in front. Even in Rolls, you put your head where the steering wheel is because the rest of your body is bigger and it flips over and then have a rack right next to you. You can just reach down and take the water off the window on the inside. It was fun. It was different. I would have rather had a place to stay in, but for a few weeks.

I did it before you launched John Paul Mitchell, you weren't really making a lot of money, were you? Making money?

I was doing well, but not making a lot of money. I was doing well. I had my own consulting business. For a few years to a couple different companies. But if you really needed me and were fully staffed, I taught you everything you needed within three months. And you didn't mean anymore, so that wasn't good. But if you did not have a whole staff, I worked for you for a whole year as a vice president of sales or marketing to help you expand your business out. And then a lot of those companies, I wasn't paid for two, three weeks in the rears. So that's when I said, oh, you know, let's start something with my buddy Paul Mitchell and raise the money. We raised the money, but the guy pulled out at the last minute. We never received a dime. But it shows you that America still works. And I'd like to share this with your audience. They say, well, can you do today, JP what you did 40 years ago in 1980 when you started this company? Even easier. Why didn't we get the money? Why would it be easier today? In 1980, in 81. I'll go over two years. Inflation was 12.5% in the United States. Unreal. Okay. Unemployment was 10.5%. We waited in line to get gasoline. We waited in line for gasoline forever, just to get as much as you can. And our hostages were not only still in Iran and hadn't been released yet in the early part of 1980. But if you wanted a loan, if you want a loan, everybody. In 1980, interest rates, prime rate was 17%. Most loans were 25 or 30% if you could qualify for it. And if we wanted business cards or something made, we had to go to a print shop to set the type. Today you could do all this on a computer. We wanted to call somebody. We need to get an international card, a calling card to bill to. You know, even for the United States, it was very, very. And our whole office was an answering machine because that's all we could do afford in a friend's house. So today, yeah, it'd be a lot easier. You have all these ways to communicate with people, and America still works. And if there's any interest out there, it's extremely low compared to where we did it. But no one will give us a loan. Even at 17, we would have paid 30% for a loan. No one gave us anything.

Why wouldn't they give it to you?

Well, because we had no assets. We were out of jobs. We were starting a new company with no history behind it and no money.

In the bank and no cash coming in.

Oh, none. Zero. Yeah. So we just. We did it from the bootstraps up and just learned a whole lot. So it was an education.

How did you sell the first product door to door?

I would put it in my car and drive down Ventura Boulevard in Studio City all the way up to Reseda, stopping at beauty salons. We picked beauty salons because one, I was in industry prior with other companies, so I knew the industry. My partner was a hairdresser in a darn good and one of the best in the world, innovator. So that was the industry we were going for, and we were going to always stay in that industry. So we knew the industry. So we put our three different types of products in the car, drove salon to salon, selling them. And then if they say, well, yeah, we'll give it a try. Our first orders the first week were anywhere from $27. I think the top one was maybe $135, something like that, right? And they'd write a check, but they would leave the top link. I would deliver the orders on the spot. And after I got a dozen, which took me a week to get, we were an unknown, right? Again, anywhere from a $27 order, if you can imagine. $235, Matthew. It was the max order. And that's when I did this, because I wanted distribution. So I went to the biggest bee supply house called Paris Ace in Los Angeles in 1980, biggest there was. And I presented to Jim Hendrietta, who was the president at the time, our three. At that time, I think we had three and a half working on the fourth product. Okay. I said, here it is. It's wonderful. It's Paul Mitchell. And I've been with this company, and Paul's a great hairstylist. He looked me right in the eye, said, your presentation is great. You're so darn positive. J.P. he says, but I'm Paris Ace Beauty Supply. We have all the big lines. Why would I want to spend time. You have no advertising, no promotion, no nothing out there trying to establish your brand. It makes no sense. I paused. I looked him in the eye. I said, I have a good reason. He said, well, what is it? I pulled out of my pocket 12 checks, put them all in front of him. I said, there's your first 12 orders, if you'll order. Remember, we're really hard up, right? If you'll earn only $2,000, we'll give you all of LA and Orange County. And I will work with you and your salespeople till it's gone. He looked at the 12 orders with Blake. I said, it's your first 12 customers, they're yours. He laughed and sat up and said, okay, we'll give you a shot, but you better be here all the time. I said, sure. There's one more thing I want to ask you, and this is something good for your audience to know. If you have no money and you can't wait 45 days to have your bills paid, how the world do you exist? You got to turn something over. Knowing this in advance, I worked into my profit margins an extra 5%. It was for the next thing. I said, jim, I appreciate the opportunity. I'll be here and I'll help your people become really good consultants. Because Paul Mitchell products are so good. That's why we picked the hair industry. A hairdresser knows a damn good product when they know one and how it works on the hair. Well, we knew with no advertising, if they fell in love with it, they would use it in the salons and recommend it for home use in between visits because they're the ones that really knew about hair. Not the drugstore, not the supermarket, not the advertiser. So we knew we had that there. Well, now it was money. How are we able to pay our bills? We got bills due in two weeks here, and we have no money. I built it in. So I said, I'd like to ask from you in Paris HP Supply, when I deliver the products, could I please have the check? He laughed. He said this at our 25th year anniversary. We brought him and he said he laughed his head off and looked me in the eye and said, jp, we're Parsley Speedy Supply. We don't pay our bills for 45 days. I'm sorry. No, you didn't have to wait. We're giving you a break to start with. I said, how about if I give you an extra 5% to pay the bill and I'm going to be here every day. He goes, okay, we'll do it for you to get you going, JP and as he told the story says, within five minutes, my warehouse man called me on the phone and said, there's some guy back here loading products out of an old car. Looks like a good one. He wants a check for 2000. He says, I laughed my head off, wrote the check, went back and handed it to him. And that's how he got Paris HP Supply going. Amazing.

You really created this perception that you had all these orders already coming in from the door to door sales.

Oh, yeah, I created them for you. It's going to help you with your salespeople creating more.

Wow.

It's amazing. Do you think you would have got the deal if you didn't have those orders?

Nope. No, he liked me, but it wasn't about. There was no advertising. No. For me. Why? He was right. Why, why do it?

Was that a strategy you had in mind? Said I'm going to go here, but let me first go door to door and get some orders. Or did you get the orders and say ah, okay, let me take this now to a bigger distributor.

It was along the way, as I would remember. Everything was from the back of our pocket. Yeah. Well, listen. Well, no, don't put the name in. What if I could go to a distributor with these? Right.

You talk a lot about the we should be in the reorder business.

Yes. Oh, big time. I say that to every person. Whether you have a service or whether you have a physical product. Don't go into selling business. Most people do their service. Here's why it's great, we want you to buy it. Okay, here's my physical product. Why it's great. Wanted to buy it. Here is me applying for it goes to applying for a job with a company. Okay. Hey, here. I'm going to do great in your sales, great in your marketing, great in your engineering. I'm going to do great. Right. You're selling yourself. The existing service, however that is a one time sale. If in your mind it is. I'm not going to the selling business. I'm going into the reorder business. Whether it's my product, my service or myself to an individual, I want to work for them. It's here's how it's going to affect me and you, but long term. So all the products were developed to be so damn good and so easy to use that people want to reorder them if it was a service and even a one time service. They'll want to reuse it if it isn't or tell other people about it because it was so good. If a human being is applying for a job, look at telling that other person not just what you offer now but what you could offer them for the future. Sell the reorder, not just the order.

How does that apply to intimate relationships? The reorder business.

Oh boy, that's a big yes. I've had my ups and downs in life. Oh my goodness. In business, a personal relationship, if you all I could say is good luck. And the reason it's good luck is we all get infatuated with people. You know, no matter what our preferences in life, we get infatuated but sometimes it changes over a period of time. So the best suggestion I could ever give you is take a piece of paper and write down one to 10 things you would like in your ideal mate, no matter who it may be or what it may be, your ideal mate, and just put it in your pocket. If you run across a person that has all those, you know, that's probably a good start. It doesn't mean all 10 are correct. You could change those along the way and add to it. I think the main thing people should look at in relationships is how do you feel about the individual's being their entity, not just about their appearance. And I know that because at a very young age, you know, my era, who's the prettiest girl or who's even a girl in my era, you know, my girl is a girl, she likes me, I'm a kid in school, I kissed a girl at 14 years old, you know, things were different. But it's still. If you look at someone's beingness, their heart, their beingness, their beingness, in other words, them, the energy that comes out of them, what do they talk about, what do they say, how do you feel about their company, not just looking at them or what they have, either physically or monetarily or connection wise, how does that beingness feel? Because it's the beingness, no matter how we change physically, that's going to be around and hopefully for all of us improve as time goes on. Right?

What was a big lesson your mom taught you when you were in foster care and then out of foster care.

Great. Six years old, my brother and I in foster care. One give you two examples. One is on giving, okay? We had nothing. Deadbeat dad gone at two years old, no money, you know, and my mom had to work. So six years old, downtown LA. We had streetcars in those days. This is the 1940s, 51, right? You know, late 40s, early 50s streetcars. We would take the little streetcar from Echo park for a nickel to downtown la. It's only a few miles, right? And at Christmas time we would go to the Bullocks, the Broadway, all these great makeup department stores that were in downtown la. And the windows were full of puppets and little trains going around in circles. How wonderful. We thought we were the coolest kids to see this. We didn't know, we thought, God, this is great. We're lucky. Santa Claus.

Yay.

And that one year my mom gave my brother and I a dime and said, boys, with your little fingers, hold these each. And the two of you Take this dime together and put it in that bucket over there with the man ringing the bell. And we did. Now this is 19. It'll be 51. 50, 51. We went to mom and my brother and I almost said at the same time, why are we giving them, these people a dime? In those days, it was two large soda pops or three candy bars for a dime. And mom said, boys, that's the Salvation Army. There are people that have no food or no place to live. They help them out. Remember this, in life, we can only afford a dime. You know, that's all we can afford this year. But we're giving something in your lives, boy. Remember, there's always someone that's worse off than you are. I had one of the most positive moms in the world. And then even while we were in foster care growing up, coming home on the weekends, never forget this one weekend, we each had a little piece, maybe the size of an ounce of filet mignon steak. My mom went out and bought 3 ounces, a very small piece, that's all she could afford. But a filet mignon, right? For the boys on the weekend. And she cooked it, cut it in three. So we had a little piece. For us, it was maybe three bites. We were little kids and she said, boys, that's filet mignon. That's what the rich people eat. We just like the rich people. Oh, mom, how cool, you know? So we had the greatest. She was full of love, just full of love.

Did that teach you more about the mindset of creating abundance financially in your life? Or when did you really learn about financial abundance and attracting wealth?

I think when I first realized that was at seven years old when I had in the back of a comic book, a thing you tear out, you fill it out, send it in, and they send you four samples of Christmas cards. And you go around and try and sell and collect half the money. You send half the money with the order. When the order comes in to you and you deliver it, you get the other half of the money.

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Maybe I made $20 at 7 years old. It was working is really cool. So that at that 7, 8, 9 years old, I did that, then come 11 years old is when I had a job. And I haven't stopped. I've had a job since I was 11 years old. In those days it was the LA examiner was the number one newspaper in la. My brother and I would get up at four in the morning, drive to Glendale on our bicycles, full newspapers, deliver them, go back home, get dressed and go to school. And with the LA examiner they had big Sunday papers all week long. And we made about $32 a month and we gave it all to our mom, other than maybe a dollar we'd spend on ourselves to live a little better. And now, you know, we're 11 12. And I did that until I wasn't doing anymore. Then I did everything from sweeping floors at Thurston Laboratories to brushing blankets at stewards, cleaners and all those things just to make money for the joy it was for the joy of working. I had a job and made money. There was nothing in my mind at that time about creating any wealth. It was, I'm lucky I had a job. I get to help mom out here. It was wonderful. But there came across one of the first real lessons of success and what success really means I'd like to share with you and your audience. I'm working at Stuart's Cleaners. I come there one day after John Marshall High School. That was my job after high school. I swept the floors, I brushed the blankets, I put the little drapes on the hangers and all that good stuff. So I came there and Stuart, who was tight, this guy was so tight he squeaked when he walks. Really a tight one. He had to pay me a dollar and a quarter an hour because it was required for young people. You could not pay him less than that. Okay. Or he'd pay me 50 cents an hour.

So I go to the late 50s now.

This is now going into the late 50s. Yeah, it would be the late 50s, early 70s, 60s, late 50s. Anyways, Stuart said to me, I want to talk to you, Johnny. That's what they called me in those days. Okay? I said, oh my God, what did I do wrong? You know? He says, last night I was working late and that little mezzanine where we have the cot upstairs, I wanted to rest a bit, so I went up there, took my wash off, put on the little table and it dropped on the floor. Now this is a cot with those old spring cots that are open on the bottom, a little mattress on top. He says, I reached down to get it and I noticed under the cottage there wasn't any dust. He said, I just moved it. So he said, move this thing and the filing cabinets behind. There was no dust. He says, you move everything when you clean it. As if I'm washing you all the time. I said, stuart, I like my job. My mom growing up had my brother and I clean the house. We would do dishes, everything. We were part of it. You hired me for a job, I'm going to do it whether you're lucky or not. He says, I've never ever had anyone work for me that does that. Well, I'm going to give you a raise. You're now making $1.50 an hour. Now, where I went to high school for those kids that even were lucky enough to have a job. I probably was the highest paid kid at the time. But it showed me this. What is success? Success is not how much money or how much power you have. Success is how well do you do what you do when no one else is looking and keep on doing it. Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do. And my two biggest suggestions to people that are entrepreneurs, working for someone or working for yourself as an entrepreneur is two things. One, be prepared for a lot of rejection. You're going to get it selling encyclopedias. The average lifespan is three days. It's door to door commission only. I'll work. No leads.

And everyone says no, oh, no.

They say, no, oh God. But they told me and I believed them, that when you do it, if you knock on 50 or 100 doors and they slam it in your face, it's the guys that have that energetic attitude to keep on going and don't let it get you. Knock on door number 100 just as enthusiastic as door number one and you'll succeed. And he was right. I don't know if it was 100 doors, 150 doors, nobody would let me in. Finally let me in. Did I make the first sale? No. But I eventually, after a week, made a sale. And I believe what they said. So one of the great things is if you're ready for rejection, whether it's your parents, your friends that say you don't have enough money, you don't look like this, you're not, that no one's gonna like you, we hate your idea. No matter what it is, you're gonna get rejection. When people say, no, no, no, no, no, you know you're gonna get it. Be prepared for rejection. If you're prepared, it's not gonna hurt you as much. The second thing we already covered, go into the reorder business. Have the quality of your product or service so darn good, people are gonna reorder, use it again.

Yeah. Why do you think now, especially so many people are afraid of rejection. I feel like people don't want to launch something, their business idea, their book, a podcast, whatever it is, because they're so afraid of what might happen wrong.

Why is that an unbelievably perfect question? What world are we looking in today? Okay, an example politically, no disrespect, so you know where I stand politically. I am an independent. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. I actually give to both parties, but only individuals that I like or think are gonna do something. So I'm in the middle, right? But what do I see around me? This is not America. If you're, for example, God forbid, someone that puts up a trump sign. Not that I agree with them, okay. But someone puts up a soft sign, it's, oh, you're a racist. Oh, my God. You don't believe in freedom and you don't believe in ecology. Well, no, wait, wait, hold on. You don't have to say that to people. They may be wrong. You may believe differently or vice versa. You know, we should be socialistic. Everybody should have everything free. It's like, well, wait a minute. Why are you segregating America? Is we the people of the United States of America? I don't care if you're to the left, to the right. Express your opinion and don't put somebody down for their opinion. But whether someone is right or somebody is wrong, we've got to stick together. We can't have a split nation. And I think if we go forth with love and realize that it's going to be good in everything we do.

Sure, yeah. Is that why you think people are afraid to say something? To put. To launch a business, to create something in the world because they're going to get so much hate or backlash or reject?

That is correct.

Because they're just afraid of the world.

A lot of people are afraid because they look at both sides, how everyone is putting everybody down. As this one is saying, if you vote for them, you're going to start losing jobs, the economy is going down. Now, whether that's right or wrong, who knows? Right the other side, if you vote for this guy, again, whatever. Look at all the misery that's going to happen. Wars, everyone hates us. I mean, it's one against the other. Well, of course you'd be afraid. And then we're through a time in our lives where a lot of people aren't working. A lot of people are. Are saying a lot of things about other people. One of the great rules of life, and this guy wrote this great book. Was it the four and five agreements?

The four agreements.

Four agreements and they would know. Five agreements. One of them in there is the most important agreement of it all. And it is this. Do not spread gossip or put anybody down. You start spreading the wrong information to people, and all of a sudden you find out you were wrong. They told someone. They told someone else. They told somebody else. You're destroyed. Now you find, oh, no, it wasn't true. One of them is, don't be around people that gossip. Stay away from that. If there's bad news, don't give it out. Look at the higher side, the positive side, because you tell one person, and if they're low on the tone scale, they're going to tell another. And if someone's really down, they're low or angry or upset, they're going to say, oh, yeah, this is the truth, and tell others to kind of agree with how they're down, how everyone should be down, because look how bad things are opposed to. No, no, no, no. Things aren't that bad. That's why I'd love to share the story with you and your podcast. You let people see the truth by people knowing. I started Paul Mitchell with $700. My partner threw in 350. My mom put in some money, not even knowing that's what she was doing. And I put a little bit. America still works. It's we the people. All this negativity, don't pay attention to it. Look at the higher side. Yes, there's things wrong. There have been things wrong with our lives for millenniums, My God, maybe for lifetimes, okay? But each time, we're getting better. Each time, whether you like that president or not, that's in there. There's something good you could find out that's been done to please all of us. Look at the upper side. Look at the past, people. There's something good that's being done. And when you move forward, if you move forward with a positive attitude, no matter who becomes president, you help our country become better. Instead of stalling and say, well, I'm not going to do anything because I don't like that president. It's we the people of the United States of America. And it's we the people in business. Don't be afraid. Put your message out there. Put it out there. It's okay. So many people are afraid to put their message out because, well, that might be too much this way, too much that way. Ooh. People may consider that instead of solar energy, it's a new form of energy. I could only talk about solar energy. Otherwise I'm going to be big in trouble, you know, be free. God wants you to be free. He created you in his image. He wants you to be free to speak your word. If someone doesn't agree, that's their problem. But don't put anybody down for saying their word or their products or their slew. And don't be afraid to start something, people. We started Paul Mitchell when it was the worst scenario ever. With no money. We weren't afraid. We believed in ourselves. With all the doors closed, we kept on going forward. When the going's tough, the tough get going.

That's true.

Yeah.

It seems like people are more afraid of the fear of rejection than actually being rejected. It's like they've never even been rejected, but they're just afraid that it might happen in the future. How does someone learn to overcome the fear of potentially being rejected?

Great question. Okay, first of all, what is fear? Fear is the unknown. It's the only reason people are afraid. They're afraid because they don't know what's going to happen. They don't know what this person's going to do. They're afraid. They don't know the outcome. So if you're fearful, find the problem or find the unknown. Even in a problem, there's an unknown. When the unknown is exposed, there's no longer a problem. Find the unknown and go forward. And don't create things because they don't exist.

Were you ever afraid of rejection personally or since you were just doing door to door for so long and tried so many different things that you would experience so much rejection that you embraced it? Is that how you got overcame?

I can tell you the one that is the funniest of them all. I'm 11 years old. I'm in Atwater California. Walking up Boise Street, I think it was with my friend Michael Vucic, who sold papers with me. And we came up with the greatest idea. Let's make a song. We'll go together with our newspaper in hand. We'll go door to door. We'll split the orders. We got a dollar for every new order, by the way. That was a lot of money when we were kids, right? We'll split it, you know, and. And together we'll present it. And we came up with a song. And the song was. Good evening. Good evening. We're the examiner boys. If you'll subscribe to the examiner, we'll sing a song for you. Ooh, like that, right? So Michael and I never did this before. We went to our first door, knocked, had our papers. The minute he opened doors, we started singing. The minute we were done, we looked at each other and just ran away. This guy thought we were nuts. We just ran away. That was the only time after that we could do anything. Yes, you get a lot of rejection. But when I actually got out there and door to door sales, cycling encyclopedias, it struck it with me. You must knock on all the doors, overcome that rejection. I would say I learned more about overcoming rejection for the four years I sold encyclopedias door to door, commission only, than we could ever imagine. Yep, four years. Average guy lasts three years. So. Yeah. And when I got in the Navy in 64 to 65, 66, 67. Three years, three years or so.

Books you owned after the Navy?

Yeah.

What was the big lesson you learned while being in the Navy?

Greatest lesson I learned is when I was in Washington State a couple years ago and I received the Lone Sailor Award. I gave the lesson out. Being in the Navy, I was a normal, everyday human being. Okay. And I became an officer many years after I got in the Navy and an admiral, but that's a whole different story. But being in the United States Navy as an enlisted man, what I learned was I graduated from high school, I was a common person. How a bunch of common people could get together and be trained properly, but as a team, they achieve extraordinary results. Boy, did I learn that lesson. Mean that you can't do it alone. I'm a common person. But let's get us ordinary people together, be taught properly, and as a team, we achieve extraordinary results that I learned out of the Navy. And I thought it was a great thing to do. And, of course, how to really be neat with my clothes, you know, really need and package them. And how to listen to people when you may not agree with them, but there you have no choice. When they say do something, you just do it. But I learned how to do that easily. So it was an easy segue for me to go along with other people I didn't agree with, but I would listen to them. And I learned the famous word selling encyclopedias. When someone said no, or even not selling. Somebody had we were talking about something and someone has a different viewpoint than mine. I learned the magical words. I could appreciate that, however, so you could tell me that, oh, this is white. I say, well, no, no, it's black. We're not going to go back and forth. I'm going to say, you know, I can appreciate that. I can say, however, from my viewpoint with my lens, it turns out to be black, you know, but we all see things a little differently and here's why. Through my lens is doing it. I'm agreeing with you. I'm not saying you're wrong. It's like even in selling, would you like this? No, sorry, we have too many lines. Well, you know, I could appreciate that. I really can. However, if you would just take half of this order, I will not only guarantee it'll be one of the greatest things you'll ever have, but within one month, anything you haven't sold out the door or used, we'll take back and give you your money back. Now. That's fair enough, isn't it? No. I'm sorry, no. Why should I push your line? You're an unknown line and I have all these other lines, the big ones. I could appreciate that. However, I know you're going to succeed with this. There's no way you can lose money. I'll come back, hold the class with you. I would do that three times and in most cases, by the third time, they at least bought one or two bottles from me. Sometimes they bought nothing from me. Okay. Like for a whole week. I made 12 sales. And I think I'm pretty good at presenting something. It was tough, but I stuck with it. And then I made more and more as time went on.

I'm curious about what you learned in the Navy and how you applied it to business from this teamwork mentality. Was there something you learned in the Navy that actually you saw within the first year, five years of Paul Mitchell that you were able to apply that accelerated the growth?

Oh, definitely. Is give normal people that are ordinary people an opportunity to achieve on their own. Jp, I lean you so much. So to go to the next step, I needed a Luke Jacobe Ellis. I needed Jim. I need Henrietta I need more people to know what the heck they're doing. Okay? Because I don't. But I know if we get together as a team, we'll be able to succeed. And that's where I learned. And it was the hardest lesson to learn because I wanted to do everything, be in charge of this and that and that and the late 80s, I couldn't do that anymore. So getting into 1989, 1990, it was, let's bring the others in and work together as a team. Well, along the way, I was lucky. Some really brilliant people that had already done something great already got involved with us. But that's where I learned it. You know, you can't do it all. You need a team to work with.

When did you realize that the company started to really take off? When was that year that it doubled? It quadrupled.

We started in 80, right? Throughout 80, we barely made it. Throughout 81, we barely made it. After we were in business two years. The big point of, ah, thank you, God. The big point, right, was my partner and I, he came over with his girlfriend from Hawaii. We were in LA together and we were able to pay our bills on time. Not pay them off, but pay them on time and have $4,000 left over $2,000 each. We said, my God, we made it. We are paying our bills on time and we have extra money. Yay, we made it. Then we knew, great, we made it, right? For us, that was huge. Because it was really week to week that we even lived. If you went to college, I think, and got a big degree, they said, get out. Don't even start that business. Just get out. Because every week there's no way the hell you're gonna make. But that was the aha moment. It wasn't maybe in anyone else's eyes, but in our eyes, it was gigantic. What a win. We paid our bills on time, on time.

And when was the moment or the year that you realized, wow, like, I don't need to worry about money anymore with this business? When was it like, okay, there's an abundance coming in. I, you know, I don't have to stress about this anymore. Paying my bills, having enough money to.

Pay five years in business, 1985, really, it was enough where enough money started coming in, where there was a little extra, not just to start to pay off the little house payment, but also put some money aside. Yeah, that's when it started in 1985. Five years in business, where you would call money, it was building up to that point where at that point it was, yeah, you know, this is enough. I'm going to be okay for the rest of my life. And the first thing I want to do, I would suggest to everybody, if you run into a lot of money, first thing you ever do, pay off your house. Pay your house off, okay? Even if it's a 1% interest rate, pay it off.

Why is that?

Because if everything goes wrong, you have a place to live. Okay. When you pay on your way to paying your house off, have enough money in a bank, which is the worst place to put your money, because you make no money in your bank. You go negative today, right in your bank. Have enough, though, in their cash on hand for six months of living. What's your mortgage payment, what's your insurance? Going to the movie theater, food. So if everything went wrong, like what happened these last several months with this pandemic going on, you know you're going to survive if you didn't have a job for six months. So you have that in the bank while you're doing that, pay it off. Now, once you have a home, you have that in the bank. Now your next thing to do is to put enough money aside. Don't raise your standard of living much at all. Raise it very little. Okay? That extra money invested somehow where, if everything went wrong, you have that six months now for the rest of your life, and it doesn't take that much money to do it right. You have that once you have that, never touch that. That is secure, never mortgage it, keep it all safe, and then go on with whatever else you want to build. At least you and your family can live okay in a house and support yourself for the rest of your life.

Sure. In your opinion, what do you think is the best investment an entrepreneur should make? Say they're at year three to five like you were at. They started to make some money. Finally, they've got an extra hundred grand, five hundred grand, maybe even a million dollars in the bank that they brought in pretty quickly. That this money that they've never had before, it's there. What would you say they should do with their money? Should they put it back into their business, all of it? Should they diversify in real estate, start another business? What would you suggest?

We put everything in because we had nothing. That's why I took two, because we had nothing. So it took two years. You would have a couple thousand dollars if your bills are paid already and you have this extra abundance of money if you're fortunate enough to have that. And in America, you can even homeless people like me Made it okay, you know, you have it is six months. Is that in the bank? How do we pay this mortgage off? So I have a home. Okay. And then from there you want is very, very important. There's so many great opportunities out there. I've lost money in new business, everything. Invest in your business before you invest in anyone else's business. I've lost money investing in other people's businesses. And if you're not going to invest other people, your own business, if you have more than enough before you start investing in someone else's business is remember this. If that year, and I tell a lot of friends in my entertainment, the same thing at Big Ears Entertainment, right? This year that you're working, you made this money, that's it, you'll never make another dime. So if this is what you made that year, where would you put it? And do that every single year till you have such an abundance that when you start investing in other people, it's not going to hurt you or your family as time goes on. But invest in your business before anyone else's business because you have control of it and you know what of kind comes out of it.

That's true. Did you ever start investing in real estate or stock market? Eventually. And was that something that you would recommend for people or just stay focused.

On your business when you get in the stock market, you know you can make and you can lose a lot in the stock market quickly. Yeah. My suggestion, don't hit the stock market, you know, wait a little while. And if you do invest in the stock market, man, look at companies been around for decades that have growth through the 80s 90s and do that have growth every single year. Even though they go up and down, their growth is every single year. Okay? Look at those companies or some that may pay a dividend out. They've been around for a long time. Don't gamble that money. Real estate is good, but a lot of people over mortgage, they'll get into real estate for 20% or less and buy at a high market. All of a sudden the market drops and they still owe that to the bank and it dropped below the 20% profit. And the sale of that with the commission for the person who sells it, well, now they're upside down. I remember in the 80s when I didn't have any money, okay. In the early days I had a friend of mine that was a multimillionaire, right? 23 million on paper, okay. Real estate mainly.

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Going into the 90s, the real estate market dropped flat on its heels, right? He over mortgaged himself. He would buy this, he'd over mortgage, buy this, buy this. All of a sudden he couldn't sell anything because it was worth less than what he owed on it and he went bankrupt. Never mortgage your future. Don't worry. Credit cards, pay them off in full. Don't keep charging your credit card. Pay it off in full every month. Pay it off, pay it off in full every. And if you can't pay it off in full, don't charge anything to it. People got credit cards, 3, 4, we'll charge this one. All of a sudden they're upside down.

I'm 37 right now. Can you remember where you were at 37?

Yeah, I can remember exactly where I was at. 37 years old. Paul Mitchell is now three years old, maybe four years old. I'm here in Los Angeles, living here and building a company and just starting to make some money that year. Just starting to make some because we already made our 2000 each after.

So as I get closer to 40, what advice would you have to your 40 year old self that you wish you would have done then to help you where you're at now? Is there anything that you, whether it be in personal relationships, whether it be in business, your physical health, what advice would you say? Ah, JP, you really need to focus on this at 40 because for the next decade, here's why it's going to be important.

I would say if I could change that and go back, it would be to spend some time just being a Bing, not a doing.

No, no, just being a Bing, not a doing but a being.

In other words, spend some time, whether it's meditating, whether it's the middle day, just stopping for 10 minutes and just try and clear your Mind, look around you. Maybe go outside the trees, the sky. Just be. If one could just be and look at something where you're just being. All of a sudden you see you're not just being through your eyes. There's something more around you that's seeing through these eyes. Just be calm yourself and think. Many decisions I made in those days that were very quick, without even thinking they were emotional decisions. Had I thought about them overnight, it would have been a little different. And don't always believe what the other person tells you. Sometimes they lead you the wrong way. These are the advice I would give. And just give love. And if someone is in your life, big lesson to be learned. If someone that's in your life that's very negative, always gossiping about somebody else, always doing stuff that doesn't make any sense, detach from them. Don't be around downtown people is what I call it. Someone that's negative and just complains all the time, whether it's physically or just whatever. They complain all the time. Get away from those people. You could love them, but love them from afar. Like, oh, I love you, but stay over there. You don't have to say those words, but just stay away from them. I've had experience in my own life, whether it's for families, just other people I thought were the greatest. But all they do is blame everything else on everybody else. It's their fault, their fault, their fault. Well, yeah, maybe it was a little my fault, but they're really the person. No, it's you and what you did to get you there. If something went wrong, why don't you get away from that, Divorce yourself from it and do what's right. Or if you did something wrong and it happened to me when I was in my late 30s, early 40s, I would do something wrong. I would justify it. Oh, no, it's that person's fault. No, I didn't do this. No, no, no. Stubbornly. But it was my fault. I justified it. Just realize there's something called justification where human beings are implanted, I think with the idea of it's not my fault, I want to be right, not wrong. It's okay to be wrong. That's how you learn. Because when you start justifying, you're lying to yourself and lying to others. Right? Yeah, okay, I screwed up. Or I don't want to talk about it because there's nothing I really want to go into. Don't lie, don't justify it. Just take it. Honest yourself and be you. Be in your own universe. Not the effect of everyone else's universe.

Sure. And how long have you been married for?

27 years. Eloise? I married in 93, 27 years.

What's the greatest lesson your wife taught you that you started to apply to your business, that supported your business? Being with her, actually.

Wonderful lady. Not only beautiful in appearance, she's probably the most beautiful woman in the world, but also beautiful with her heart. She's a very, very good person. And from her I learned, I don't know about that person. Feel them out a little bit. Okay, I feel something wrong here. And she would say that, you know, I feel something wrong there. And I would go, okay, But I don't see that. But I didn't look at what she was feeling. I looked at the entity and what's coming out of it. Opposed to feeling the being in the individual where she would feel it more than I would. And on several people she talked about, she was 100% correct. Why don't they turn to be rip offs later on? 100% correct. But one of the greatest lessons I learned was from my friend John Capra, my buddy of over 50, 50 years, and he said, you know the best way to get along with your wife, Especially if she says, look what you did, right? He says, I want to teach you some magic words, okay? She says, why did you do this? All the wives or your husbands, whatever significant others say, well, why did you do that? Right? He taught me the most magical words. He says, just look her in the eye and say, it's the truth. I don't know, I just did it. She'll immediately come back. Yeah, because you're a guy, you have no feelings. You gotta have feelings, right? The most magical words, I don't know, it's the truth. We many times don't know why we did things until we find out in life why we do things right and we correct them. But if you don't know why, you just, I don't know. All of a sudden there's no argument, there's no hidden thing. It's all done, you know, well, it's just because you don't have feelings, whatever, it's over. Don't say, well, this is wrong. You go head to head. Right. Great lesson.

Yeah. What do you think is the greatest negotiation you've ever made in your life? Whether it be personal negotiation with yourself, with a spouse, family member, business deal. What's the greatest negotiation you've made?

I think the greatest negotiation I've ever did was a no negotiation where I had every Right. To negotiate. Just. You're right. And I want the world to know this. Okay? And that was when I was a guest, a guest appearance three and a half, four years ago on Shark Tank. A guy came out there, overvalued his tree teepee, something you would put around a tree so it grows better. You use less water, less fertilizer. It was incredible. The farmer guy. Yeah, Johnny Georges. And it was like all the other sharks.

You invested in him, right?

Oh, everything. There was everything. And they were right. He was overpriced. Everyone wanted to make more money. You can't sell them for $6. You got to sell them for $12. We need our profit. But I sat back and listened to it. Them. I could have negotiated them down 25%, still got it like that. But in my mind it was, the negotiation is, you are a farmer. America needs farmers. I'm giving you everything you need because we're going to show people we need farmers. They replayed that show, I believe, over 200 times in the last three and a half years. People have seen it weeks or months ago and said, I just saw you in Shark Tank. I shot that and filmed that three and a half, four years ago. That negotiation was. He was so right. There's no need for negotiation. He was so right. But if ever you're going to negotiate for somebody, just think about this. They may start over here, you may start over there. But what's fair where everybody wins, where everybody only loses a little bit, but everybody wins in the end because it's fair? If you go just for you and all of a sudden you topple the other side, they'll regret it. Okay. And there'll be covert hostility. So when you negotiate, well, yes, we want something fair, but fair for both. Not just more fair for me and less fair for you or vice versa. Let's just sit where we both benefit. We go on as friends. Big lesson to be learned.

Wow.

And I've been there before where I want it more tipped towards me in my younger days, but that's so many decades ago, you know? And knowing this has been one of the greatest helps in the last 30 years with me. Wow.

What's the strategy you go into when you're making a business deal, a partnership, a negotiation of any kind of. What's the mindset you go into thinking about? Is it the outcome you want? Is it how do I connect with this person in a certain way? Where do you go there?

Well, in many cases, is what I'm looking at something I want and is it going to do the greatest good for the greatest number. Today I look at who I'm with. I'll give you a couple of examples. Okay? I did something in North Africa, oil and gas, right? Put a lot of money in there. It didn't happen. I was sued by people in the country that were very, very powerful. Not one attorney would represent me. Of course, they found us guilty, made it 10 times, whatever, what they should have even asked for in the first place. Took years for them. I couldn't even get an attorney. Right. When we came to the United States, that's the next thing I'm going to give you. We came to the United States, I lost to one judicial system, but they brought it back and I won. I won in a federal court, I won in the appellate court. And the Supreme Court refused to say, no, this is fine, we're not going to review this, period. Right? But I stuck by it all the time. I stuck by it. And that lesson to be learned there is be careful who you do business with, okay? Because those that you think you could trust can turn on you for financial reasons, Period. I've had people sue me saying that, oh, you fired this person and it was your fault and you did it, so it saved you millions of dollars. Biggest bunch of I've heard in my life. That's the story they came up with. It was amazing. So when you're there, a lot of people come after you and you figure how injustice. This, this is totally unjust. How dare can you. So here's the next phrase I want to give everybody. Put it on your mirror. Especially if you're down and you're going through troubled times and you can't sleep at night. And the quote is this. In the end, everything will be okay. And if it's not okay, it's not the end. The is pause. In the end, everything will be okay. And if it's not okay, it's not the end. I look back at some of my big situations where people falsely have accused me of stuff. I didn't do it. Which really pissed me off, right? I'm on some lady's website for 10 years I've never met in my life. And she says me and her husband were in cahoots against her. I've never met this lady in my life. She doesn't. She doesn't know me. But every bit of she can bring up or lies or extra. She brings up. She takes a little thing. I mean, just why would you do this to me? But I learned in the end, everything's going to be okay as long as you know yourself. So if someone has this, no matter what you're in and think about it in your own life, whether it was financial or with an affair you had with somebody in your life or with your mom or dad, just something went wrong. In the end, it came out okay. But during that time, you worried, you were fearful, you didn't know the outcome. There was an unknown. It usually turns out in the end everything's be okay. And fear is your biggest obstacle. And it usually turns out to be okay.

Yeah. You talked about trust for a moment there. I'm curious. How do you know when you can fully trust someone you're going into a business deal with or partnership with? How do you know you can trust that person is not going to screw you?

Yeah. You don't know that. Okay. Going in, looking at is what the entity is and you're looking at, is it a good business is a good return for me. That's what you normally look at if you're together in life as well, how to affect other people in a good way. And how many jobs can I create? Right. That's normally the majority of people's focus. Okay. My wife did this early on. I did this more in the last 10 years, where if I'm sitting talking to someone about business, I look for how I feel the entity. And I could be fooled. I was fooled by one guy. When I realized where he was coming from, I went in there, took it away from him because he was cheating and stealing from everybody. Right. Or stealing from me and divorced myself from this individual and went on forward. And the entity became bigger because of that. So even I got fooled. So you can be fooled. But I would definitely check people out, their references and, you know, it costs very little to check people out these days what their history is, people around them, what's been their history. And you could still be fooled.

Do you think it's harder to become successful as an entrepreneur and make, you know, a million dollars in sales or $10 million in sales or whatever it is when you launch, or is it harder to sustain success year after year and continue to make that?

Very good question. It's both. It's hard getting something off the ground if it's brand new. That's very, very hard. But then. And so, so many people get it off the ground. A restaurant went off the ground. But the big thing is, how do you keep that success going? How do you keep your wealth? It's like people that absorb and get a lot of wealth, they won the lottery, they inherited money from a relative. They didn't work, they just got free money. Right. Thank God they gamble on the lottery, got free money. I believe the statistics are 90 some odd percent of it. Lose it all within five years. Lose all in five years. So be very careful along the way. Careful the people you're around and be conservative. This is the last money I'll ever make. Do I want to trust with that investment or that person or put in someplace safer for right now?

Yeah, or put it back into my own business.

Oh, your own business, Your own business. The best place to put it.

What do you think are the, the three things that every wannabe entrepreneur should think about before they start their own business?

Be ready for rejection. Make sure your service, your product is the best they is. So people want to reorder and be prepared to do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do.

What?

Work as many hours as you have to, as many doors as you're approached to. And they say no, as many people are no. And then once you have a product, once you have a product, how do you make it better all the time? And Paul Mitchell, all year long we have many people working on the next generation of products or how to make our existing products better. We never let that go. Paul Mitchell's been in business 40 years and I think with the exception of one, maybe two years, we've grown every year. Those other years, those other couple years, something went on like what was going on right here with this pandemic in our country and throughout the world where maybe we went down, but only a little bit, a little teeny bit. So we've been on strict high growth for 40 years. But we also look at what can we do to help salons, how can we help beauty salons? And now Paul Mitchell schools. How can we hairdressers become more successful? We started Paul Mitchell Schools 20 years ago where a hairdresser not just got a license, but they learned in cosmetology school. The Paul Mitchell schools. How to be a better person. How to love yourself. How to love others. How to get along with people.

Personal growth.

Oh, personal growth. Oh yeah, it's taught. And how to be a successful hairdresser dresser. In her Paul Mitchell schools, which people come out loving one another. It's fabulous of people to come out of our schools. And I think we have about 16, 15, 16,000 students now graduating. We're coast to coast. We have over 100 schools coast to coast and people just shine. But we take a Different attitude, one of love how to love yourself and love this one that's around you.

Not many businesses can say they've been growing year after year for 40 years, except for a couple, maybe smaller years. What do you think has been the reason that you've been able to do that and you haven't made mistakes where it's gone down in a big way or gone bankrupt? Why have you been able to sustain that for 40 years?

And we make boo boos along the way, but we correct and we believe, we learn. I think the main thing is people, because we love our people. Our people love who they're doing business with, who they're doing business for and who their business around. Salons know that these guys kept their word. Oh my God. In 1980 when they started up to present day. They say, we're never going to desert you. This will always stay in the professional beauty industry. So no matter where Paul Mitchell is sold, somehow it goes back to the salon. So they receive something whether it's in the salon or else. It's always in this industry. No other one. Yeah, yeah, everyone says that. Well, what happened since that time? A lot of the big businesses at that time went out of business. A lot of my competitors, big, good competitors, sold to big conglomerates. Right. And they did whatever they did. But that's their world, not my world. We kept on saying, we're only staying in the professional beauty industry. And people want to glue on that. How committed is this, people? In 2004, a hairdresser raised her hand at one of the lectures I was giving at a hair show and said, Mr. JP, you're the only one that hasn't sold out. All your competitors sold another company. You're still here. And you say you want always support this industry. What if you die again? We're going for longevity, right? I said, good point. So I had my attorneys and my accountants search everywhere in the United States. Where could I park my controlling interest? I own more than 50% of Paul Mitchell. Where could I park it? So even if something happens to me, it stays in professional beauty industry. They found a 360 year US trust I could put it in. So even if something happened to me, it stays intact. Now I could have 50 beneficiaries, their percentage goes to it, but it stays intact in the professional beauty industry. And you know, like Michael Lean, my daughter's a genius. Okay, Mikey, you oversee it for now. And along the way we find other people overseeing Alexis, John Anthony, you find people that are responsible. Worst thing you can do is turn over to your business, to your family and there's people in your family that are not responsible. Well, you're gonna go downhill. Okay. If there's turning it over, they are in there helping people out. Okay. Not saying I'm in full control, like an ego thing at all. So I set it up or was set up. No matter what happens, it stays in professional beauty industry. My family could help pick certain people out. Okay. And direct it. But it's got to stay professional. And there was a law you had to put in there where you got to have something if it goes down right then they can't sell. Well, the down in there, our worst year is so little. I mean that's almost like a startup year for sure. I mean it's never going to hit that. Right. So it made it all legal now and in the years to come. And we have about 340 some odd years left on it. So when I'm long gone and others are long, long gone and the profession, they had a guy that made a promise that had nothing along with my partner Paul Mitchell at the time. Right. We made a promises industry and we kept our promise that even though we're gone, it's going to stay in the professional, be the industry industry.

That's cool.

That's commitment.

That's great longevity. How many people do that?

Nope, no one did it. I think we're the only industry that I know right now that's ever done something like that. Because why, what if we sold out and made all this money? That's what the others did. Yeah.

I read somewhere, I don't know if this stat is correct or not, but I read that you're the third richest shark that's been on Shark Tank with your net worth. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not, but you've got billions in net worth. And I'm curious your point of view. What's the difference between someone who's worth a million dollars and someone who's worth a billion dollars? What's the mindset that separates a millionaire and a billionaire?

I would say the mindset I could give you my case was how to keep what I have and what I give away. I'm part of the giving pledge. Okay. Goes to a good result because we're all of my companies give. We give personally. And I have a foundation. JP's Peace, Love and Happiness foundation helps also. So it's what are those dollars do that do the greatest good for the greatest numbers that help them reach the next step where can we put money not to give away, but invest money not ever wanting in return as a charity that'll help somebody reach the next stage? The next stage? The next stage. I'm a firm believer that on this planet we come with absolutely nothing. Okay. And whatever we get, we're blessed with. It's like paying a rent a little bit for our time on earth and if we're lucky enough to have that abundance, share it with others. So the big thing is in my case, where does it go? It has nothing to do with do I have power, do I have this, do I have that, where can I go with it? And of course, you can pay your bills on time or pay them off on time. Right. But after you get into the millions, where can I secure my family for the future? But after I secure my family, when I do these other investments, how can I affect hundreds of thousands of people, hopefully millions in my life so they have a good life long after I'm here and a good life while I'm here? The animals, Sea shepherd included, the animals, world wildlife. I mean the animals as well as the humans. Anything with a soul in it. The trees that have living souls in them. You know, what can I do to keep this whole thing going on if I was lucky enough to enjoy it at this time?

So would you say for you personally it's more of a giving mindset that separates the millionaire and the billionaire?

I would say you got to have it in there, the giving mindset. And not just give me, give me, give me greed, greed, greed, greed, greed. How can it at one time relates I have what I have and let's just make sure it's shared with others and businesses I have. We have bonuses. We have a fact at Paul Mitchell. First thing I did was remembering how I didn't have free lunch is when we could afford to give everybody free lunch. We still do.

Wow.

We still give them free.

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Because I can remember when I had $1 and you couldn't get a lot for a dollar.

I'm sure you've got a lot of wealthy friends. Is that a similar theme that you see with your billionaire friends of they now think, how can I contribute? Make impact, give back? Or is this something just you and a few people do that?

You know, mostly it's with my friends that are part of the Giving Pledge, and some that aren't part of the Giving Pledge are very, very big givers, you know, but the Giving Pledge is. I think there's about 170, 180 of us that are US citizens. Warren Buffett is one of them. And, you know, Gates, I go on and on. It's good people that say, we've done so well. We appreciate this goodness that while we're alive or after we die, or a combination of the two, we're going to give half our wealth to making the world a better place to live.

Why did you decide to be a part of that, that pledge? Why was that important for you?

We were invited to join Warren and Bill for a very small dinner in Dallas, Texas. We live in Austin. We went to Dallas. And first time I met the two of them, very gracious people. They talked about not what they should do with their money, but here's the Giving Pledge, here's what we're doing. And we'd like to invite you to join us if you want to. What is the advantage, like, minds are all together. We never solicit business off one another. We don't do that. It's. We have our seminars that the Gates foundation puts on. And regardless of whether you agree with what they do with their money or not, that's up to an individual. But they put on a seminar, and during those couple of days, we see the various ways people have contributed. Like, okay, in education, how do we do it better? What are the pitfalls? What should we look for in human welfare? In water? What are the different things? So we learn from one another how to really get the most out of what we're giving and the most joy out of it. And of course we have a camaraderie. We get together and appreciate one another.

I love this idea of this collective mind. I call it a mastermind in my industry. It's where other great minds get together in our space and we try to collaborate and share ideas. How important is that for an individual who is working at a job to have their own personal advisory board or mastermind group of other smart people or for entrepreneurs to have a mastermind of people in the industry they connect with? How powerful is that?

If you can, it's great. I was asked once a question when I was one of the two finalists for Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, right? And I remember in the final interview with everyone in the audience, they said, well, how about consultants? What do you feel about consultants? And this, the company was just starting, but doing pretty good. Yeah, we're five years, six years in business. And my answer was the dumbest one in the world. We don't need consultants. We're doing it on our own. We'll probably do it a different way anyways. Worst answer I could ever give. And I thought about it afterwards. Are you kidding? I just never had anybody consult with me other than my friend John McCormack who gave me some advice. That was it. Are you kidding? I would have loved to have a consultant or someone around me that really knew what was going on. So if in your business you could find people like that, even one or two that have done it before or even a segment, it could be in a different industry. God, go to them for advice. It's priceless. They know even if they failed at that business, they know some of the shortfalls.

Yeah. What are some non negotiables you do for yourself every day? Whether it be a personal practice, a meditation, seeing your family in a certain way, you know, sleeping a certain amount. Is there certain rituals or non negotiables you have?

Well, I'm a pretty positive guy. So I normally just wake up happy. When I first get up, I kind of just stay a few minutes still in bed to be in present time. And if my mind's going a million miles an hour, I'll look at different parts of the room or the bed and just be. Whether it's closing my eyes and if 100 things enter my mind, I. I just. In the middle, just look straight ahead and I think of just one thing. I am, I am here. And it's me, it's my entity. And I focus in the words I Am. I am a being. I'm on this planet. It'll be a good day. And I usually say every morning, creator of souls. So no matter what religion you're in, something created this. Creator of souls, thank you for all the goodness that you have given me. I so appreciate it. That's usually a ritual for me in the morning and then I go about my day.

How important is gratitude for you as an individual?

Huge. And for me to even say it, you know, thank you. I'm so in gratitude for this wonderful life I have. And I tell people all along to do something good. And I also thank my body at times legs. Thank you for at 76 years old, even livers, I mean, incredible thing, you know, mind. Thank you for still thinking and soul and heart. Thank you for being open and to learn things I wish I would have learned 25, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but I'm learning them now. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you, stomach for digesting the food. You know, I'm so appreciative. Thank you. Those that gave me. Hey, eat some veggies along the way. You know, maybe meat's not the best thing for you. You know, maybe domesticated animals with all these things in them aren't good for you. Maybe you should do a little something else, you know. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the mind and still feeling good doing this. Wow.

And what do you think are two or three non negotiables that every entrepreneur should have on a daily basis to help them thrive in their business?

Yeah. Don't let anybody take you away from you is number one, still remain yourself. No matter what you do, be yourself.

What does that mean? Don't let anybody.

That means that don't let anybody change you unless it's for the better. Okay. If somebody wants you to do something you're not happy doing and it's not something that's the greatest good for the greatest number, say no. For any amount of money in the world, say no. You can say no, it's okay. All right. Or you can say, I can appreciate it. However, I don't think it's a thing for me. No, that's got to be part of what you're doing. Next thing is don't let anybody take you away from your own decision making. And if you want to know at anything is this the right thing to do, and you even question it, don't do it. Then say, let me sleep on it like most people. I'll get back to you tomorrow and then have a Moment. Just to be. Don't think about it. Just to be. Just be with yourself and your own spirit. Once you have that five or ten minutes, you can do that with just yourself or your own spirit. Then when you think about it, things come to your mind immediately that are usually the answer. Go with the feeling, not just the analytical reason. Do a combination of the two.

That's good. Now, your dad was gone at what, two years old?

Yeah, before I was two, he was a deadbeat dad.

Did you ever reconnect?

Yep, still a deadbeat. We couldn't act to him. We were teenagers, 12 and 13 for a week. And that didn't work out really good. He just wasn't a dad dad. But we still appreciate him as our father. And then we reconnected once again when we were in our 20s. And I reconnected very briefly when I had Paul Mitchell going, maybe around the age of 40 or so, just for a brief moment because I was in an area and I found him and let's say his life because of his actions and always blaming everybody else for something or hitting the bottle or the smoking. He was an habitual smoker, habitual drinker. I just got the best of him. And he never went out of where he was at. If you do things the same way every time, you got to expect the same results. So if things aren't good for you, well, what is it that I could change? And maybe if I do something a little differently, it'll be okay. It'll be hard to go through this chain. But I want to go up here, not stay down here. And then you do what successful people do. You do all the things others don't want you to get out of it. Yes, it's hard to stop drinking, stop drinking, hard to stop sleeping. But just do it. You're going to die. And then have a more cheerful attitude. Don't be around negative people, you know, be around people that are more up.

What was the lesson he taught you in his absence of not being there for you?

My mom was the greatest. I never thought of him not being there for me. And I say it in good fortune. The documentary was made on me. There was only one time it ever met in my mind, and that was at junior high school, Washington Junior High. They had a father son evening for the guys, right in the gym. It's the only time I said, I can't go because I don't have a father to bring. That was the only time I really even thought about it. Other than that my mom did such A good job with love. She overshadowed with love. And I had an older brother that was almost two years older than me, and that was great. But my mom was solid. She was so loving. I didn't miss the other half. It was never there. I was two years old, you know, never there.

How did you learn to kind of father yourself or did your mom do a great job of both.

Mom did a great job. And my brother and I were together at the foster house. We kind of together pulled our way through it. Even though sometimes they may not have been the best people towards us, we found a way to get through, to help others in the foster home that their parents never came around.

Did you ever have any male mentors to kind of support you when you had tough questions or challenging moments?

Nope. Wasn't lucky enough. If I had a question, I would ask my mom or try and solve it all on my own or in most cases, not solve it because I never asked anybody.

Wow, you've had such a fascinating life. You've done so many different things. From door to door sales, to the Navy, to launching businesses, multiple business, to being part of the Giving Pledge and giving back a ton of your money, starting all these charities, building cities for the homeless. You've done a lot of fascinating things. Is there anything missing for you in your life at this moment?

Yeah, I'm just starting to do these things. One of the things my purpose here is to do things that are created that benefit millions of people on our planet and hopefully going towards a billion people. And I've already started doing that in many continents where it's benefiting now hundreds of thousands of people. Things that I've done or things that I've influenced, and it makes me feel good. Whether it's in Africa, whether it's in South America, no matter where in the world we're doing this, whether it's for people in Taiwan or just all over the place, we do things to benefit them all.

What's the thing you're most proud of that maybe no one knows about?

Probably? Well, a couple things. One, Food for Africa. With our Paul Mitchell schools and obviously a lot of money coming from me and others, we have something called Food for Africa. We personally, our little group takes care of about 7,000 little kids a day. They're all one day to early teens in age. They're all orphans of parents that died of AIDS or have hiv and they're dying right now. We clothe them, shelter them, educate them, protect them, and give them a chance in life.

What's one Question you wish more people would ask you.

You know, I've never thought of that before, but while you're talking, the first thing that came into my mind is, how do you get settled in life? And what is happiness? Happiness is you feel good and you remove the burden off your shoulder. I'll give you one burden right now to remove. Okay. And a lot of people have come at me for no reason whatsoever. Just they see money, money, money. They lie. Okay, I forgive them. Is learn to forgive in your life, everyone you hate, you're unhappy with, you want revenge with, you don't like, you're jealous of anything other than pause. But anyone that's hurt you or screwed you over in your life, or you just hate them, okay, forgive them. You don't have to tell them. You could say to yourself, I forgive you. Jerry, I forgive you for this. Mike, I forgive you for this. Henry. Madam Isabel, I forgive you for this. I'm just going to forgive you. You're not going to be on my shoulders any longer. Anybody you're jealous of, anything you hate, just forgive them, period, and move on. Because what happens is we build on our shoulders and in our minds, hate, hate, resentment, resentment. If you ever find yourself at night going to bed and your mind's going a million miles an hour, somehow in there is something you want to change, and you don't like someone because they did something right. If you forgive everyone, if it pops your head, oh, my God, I hate this person. Oh, my God, what am I doing? I forgive this person. I don't care how bad they are. Because you suffer more than they will ever suffer. And by the way, you don't have to believe this. You can go with your own beliefs. But if you think you've been only in this body one time, right? Okay, and this is it. And you want to go for the religious route, which is great, okay? Just know this. When you leave and go to heaven or you go to another body you've had on your shoulders, hate and resentment going, if you're religious, every religion says, forgive one another, and people don't. The minute you do that and test yourself, test it, sit in a room all alone and just forgive people. And you'll see, all of a sudden, the room, your space is here, your space isn't right here. All of a sudden, you become enlightened. And whenever it enters your mind, you hate somebody, you don't like this, someone's gossiping, forgive them, keep them away from you. And every time you do this, all of a sudden there's an awareness about you and get around positive people. If you're around 10,000 people on this planet that are evolved humans, okay, we could change the whole planet. There's not 10,000 of us yet, okay? Around 10,000 people evolve and they all think in different parts of the world. This type of a thought, right, takes 10,000. Now why do I say 10,000? Because I asked someone really smart about this once. They said, it takes 10,000 and said, by the way, other religions agree with that. Even the Maharishis in India and their faith. Someone asked the big Maharishi during the time of the Beatles, how do you clear this planet? Song is great. All this other stuff. And they had said it takes about 10,000 enlightened people that meditate. And they all meditate together at the same time for unity and happiness and forgiveness in the whole planet and love for one another. So it's interesting. It's all love. The hate you carry around is hate we should not have. Okay? The Bible talks about. If you believe in the Bible, the Quran talks about all these things. Talk about it, okay? The Eastern religions, the Buddhists talk about it. The Hindus talk about it. Forgive one another, succeed with love.

Was there a lesson you had to learn this the hard way? Did you used to hold on to resentment and anger?

Oh, yeah. Oh, God, yes, I learned. Then I let go of it, you know, because in many cases, I was the cause of some of it. And even though I was justified in saying, well, it's his fault, screw him, right? When I really became more aware, I was part of that. And here I'm hating him all along and keeping everything. This person, I hate her all along. And hey, I was part of the cause of that. Now sometimes they were the cause, but hey, just let it go.

Yeah. When did you learn to finally master the art of letting go and forgiveness? How old were you?

I still work on it now. Most of it is gone, right? But I'll go along. All of a sudden, a thought will come in my mind, a political thought about how could you say something like that, okay? Or something. Or a negative thought, I immediately correct it. Okay? Like I think I was saying yesterday, God, what was it that I had said there? It was something that was not having full confidence what I could do. For example, something like, you know, I may not be perfect at that. Well, wait a minute. We're all perfect. Every one of us is perfect. We're all brought in this world perfect. It's just that how we've changed that perfection and taken away from it. If we remember we're perfect. And part of being perfect is don't go on someone else's baloney and hate somebody else or hate a situation or go with what somebody said and have an adverse reaction to that. Why they're welcome to their opinion. They're working their opinion. Let it go and don't think badly about it. If you can't think positively about it, don't do it.

What started to happen in your life when you started to master the art of that? Obviously you're still practicing and doing it.

Oh, you get higher and higher. I catch myself at times, but once you catch yourself, your mind isn't making you doing that. A lot of things happen because what happened in this life or other things, right? And all of a sudden, like someone got burnt, right? And all of a sudden, oh, my hand burnt really bad. And they're in a fire. The lights are on, the music's flashing now they're all healed. But they get around some other place where the lights are all and the music is flashing, they double it. They could feel a pain here. It's because they didn't release it. You got to release is the best way to release anything that bugs you. Think about it, forgive it, and release it.

Wow. Do you think you can become more financially abundant when you learn to release anger and resentment?

Never thought of it that way, but you definitely can. I never thought of that at all. I just thought as an individual, as an entity, it makes me in a position to be the greatest good for the greatest number and walk into a room and give off the energy so strong that maybe some of it stays behind.

Yeah. And you'll attract more positive people to you when you do that. A couple final questions for you. This has been amazing, jp. I really appreciate you sharing and opening up. This question is called the Three Truths and it's a hypothetical question, so I'd like you to imagine for a moment this is your last day on earth many, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live. But one day you got to turn the lights off and you go wherever you go next. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your written words, all of your audio, video content that you've had out into the world. It's got to go with you to the next place. So no one has access to this information anymore or anything you've said before. But you get to write down three things you know to be true about your life and the lessons you've learned that you'd want to leave behind.

Right.

I call it the three truths. But what would you say are yours?

In my case, it's a little different. Okay. Because when I leave this body, my entire memory and entity of this life is going to be with me anyway. So I have it all.

Sure.

And so does everybody else. Whether you believe you go to heaven or you're reincarnated, it goes for that period of time with you. What would you share?

What would be three lessons you'd share to people? What was three important lessons you would share?

It would be be your own entity and remove off your shoulder any hate, any resentment. Forgive everybody for everything. Unquestionable. Just forgive everybody for everything. And whatever you'll do in life, look at what is the greatest good for the greatest number. And when things enter your mind that are not positive or that aren't exceptional, or you say, I can't do something, you can. You can do everything. Right. Don't let those words I can't or they can't or anything negative enter your mind. Stay positive in your thought. And by staying positive in your thought, be around positive people. You can't do anything for the others. Those are the three things. Stay with those people. Because together, as ordinary people, together, we accomplish extraordinary results. If together I have two or three bad apples in there, it's going to spoil the whole barrel.

That's true. Well, how can we support you moving forward? You've got so many different things going on, so many businesses, so many causes. How can we support you by following you online? Is there somewhere we can go right now?

I don't do email. I don't turn on a computer. What they could say, one spot they could go to is JP's Peace, Love and Happiness Foundation. You can see what some of that foundation is doing. But you also say, go to Paul Mitchell on our website. Right. Paul Mitchell schools. Look at all the charities we're doing. Our Paul Mitchell schools alone, until this came along, raised over $2 million a year for charities. 2 million a year from students. You're doing car washes, haircuts, whatever to give. In our schools, our Paul Mitchell schools, we teach how to love yourself, but love the world. Many charities in the United States, some are overseas. Okay, but how to love the world, they're taught this in school. How to love one another and give at an early age.

Wow, that's beautiful. So they can check out your websites. They can go there.

Go to Paul Mitchell websites, Paul Mitchell, the school websites, JP's Peace, Love and Happiness foundation, and just be open to the universe. And the biggest thing I could ever ask anybody to do, when people say to me, jp, what can I do for you for whatever you're doing? And I ask them the same question to everybody, are you happy right now? They say, oh, yeah, I'm very happy. I only want more of that. They say, well, kind of. I say, well, then what I want from you is just get happy within yourself and feel really, really good about yourself and others. Like an example, while you and I are talking, your. Let's call it your aura, for lack of a better word, was here. Now your aura's out right here. So you're very happy to what we're talking about right now. And it's coming off your body too now, by the way. You're very, very happy about what you're doing. When people are happy about what they're doing and happy in life, they influence those around them to be happy. At Paul Mitchell, In 40 years, our turnover is only a couple hundred people. We're in 105 countries. We've been around for 40 years. That's unheard of. But we take very good care of our people. If for some reason we have to let somebody go, we make sure they win when they go and are okay. But our turnover is maybe the small, not only smallest in the industry, maybe the smallest in the world. Considering how big we are and where we are, sure.

It's amazing.

We love people.

Jp, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for your consistent ability to show up for yourself in the world. You've been showing up from a young age for your mom, for your older brother, for the different communities you're in, and you're constantly giving back. And obviously you said you've not been perfect over the years, but you're constantly showing up, giving back and the ability to just think the way you think of, just joy, happiness, forgiveness. Simple principles that a lot of us forget. I acknowledge you for showing up with all you've created, all your success, and constantly wanting to give back. I think it's amazing.

I so much appreciate what you're saying. I want to change one thing during those days where I say I wasn't perfect, I said the wrong thing. I was perfect. I was just led the wrong way by my mind and what some of my beliefs were. Okay, which strayed me from being perfect. We're all perfect. We're just straight because of events, timing, or whatever might be in our mind this time around, or maybe from before. Who knows for sure, for sure.

Well, I appreciate everything you're up to. And my final question is what is your definition of greatness?

Greatness is when you do something for somebody else and ask absolutely nothing in return. Not even a thank or acknowledgement. Man, not only do you get high as a kite, but you are great with. You don't even have to tell people. You're just great within yourself. Wow. I did that. You feel good about yourself and your presence. Do not tell people about it. You just feel good. You need nothing in return.

There you go. Jp, thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening my friend. I appreciate you for taking the time to improve your mind and become better as a human being with this episode on the School of Greatness with John Paul DeJoria. If you enjoyed it, make sure to give a shout out over to John Paul DeJoria over on social media and let him know that you're enjoying this. Share this with a friend. You can copy and paste the link lewishouse.com 1036 and share that with a friend. Just text someone today, right now and let them know that you're thinking about them. They might be inspired by this episode. Post this on social media. Tag mewishouse. Put it in a WhatsApp group message. Put it all over the place. Wherever you think people would be inspired, feel free to share it. Let me know that you're listening listening over on social media so we can stay connected over there as well. And make sure to click that subscribe button right now. If you want to impact more people in the world and inspire greatness in others. Then click on the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts right now and leave a rating and review. The reason I ask that is because when you do that, it helps spread the message of the podcast to more people in that ecosystem and really help others improve their lives as well. So just clicking that subscribe button, leaving giving a rating and review will help you impact more people in this world. And if you want weekly inspirational messages from me, I send these text messages out every week. Quotes, audio messages, videos to your phone. Direct people. Love them. Can't get enough of them. Text the Word Podcast right now the word podcast to 614-350-3960 and get on my weekly text subscriber list. It's free, so do it right now. And I want to leave you with this quote from Cher who said, until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great. I am so grateful that you decided to improve your life today and stick around to this episode to the very end, because you get a reminder. A reminder that we all need every single day. And that is that you are loved.

You.

You are worthy, and you matter. I need you to allow those words to sink into your heart right now. You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm telling you that you are. I'm very grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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