John Paul DeJoria - Billionaire Co-Founder of Paul Mitchell & Patrón | He Lived in His Car Then Built Paul Mitchell and Patrón Tequila

What does that mean, the idea of success unshared as failure? Well, the reason for the book being titled Success Unshared as Failure, because it is. There are so many people along the way that become, let's say, financially successful, and they don't share it with people. That's a failure. And when you do something for somebody else and ask absolutely nothing in return, it's the greatest high you'll ever get. Today's guest is John Paul DeGioia, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and billionaire businessman. After overcoming homelessness and building iconic global brands, he's dedicated his life to helping others succeed. In this conversation, he shares why resilience, generosity, and never giving up are the true foundations of lasting success. I see so many entrepreneurs that give up on themselves and don't bet on themselves. What's your advice to them? In the early days, I thought the product is so good. Even though I don't have the money to do it, I'm going to find a way to do it. And if one way didn't work, I'm going to do another way. I'm not because that could not give up. The purpose for us to be on this planet is to help one another to learn. My fitness pal is a success story partner. Now here's something I've noticed after interviewing hundreds of founders, the ones that are performing at the highest level, the ones that are truly winning, they aren't just optimizing their business or their calendar or their team, they're paying attention to what they eat. And the ones who aren't paying attention, they're usually the first ones to burn out. And that pattern is consistent enough that it got me thinking about my own nutrition, Not whether I was eating well, but whether I actually knew what the big picture looked like. That's why I started using the MyFitnessPal app. I wanted to see what I was actually eating, not what I assumed I was eating, but the real numbers, what my protein intake looked like, what my macronutrient breakdown was, where my calories were actually going throughout the day. And the app gives you all of that. Now, what kept me using it is that there's zero friction. If I eat something, I scan the barcode, it pulls everything up. I can also verbally log what I eat. And it remembers my regular meals. So most days I'm logging my food in under a minute. See, food is a foundation for your energy, your sleep, your recovery, and your performance. It's not one of many inputs. It is the one input. So go to podcast.myfitnesspal.com and use code SCOTT. All uppercades for 15% off MyFitnessPal Premium. That's podcast.myfitnesspal.com, code SCOTT. John Paul, your book's out now, Success Unshared is Failure. So what does that mean, the idea of Success Unshared is Failure? Well, the reason for the book being titled Success Unshared is Failure, because it is. There are so many people along the way that become, let's say, financially successful. and they don't share it with people, okay? And that's a failure. Or in your personal life, if it's not financial, just things you've learned in life to make your life better, we're here to share it. It's kind of like doing God's work a little bit. You know, if you get something really good that's really good for somebody, you want to share it, and you feel really good when you do. Hey, I can introduce you maybe to something new and different you didn't know about, but maybe you need it. And it makes you feel just really great. And when you do something for somebody else, and ask absolutely nothing in return, it's the greatest high you'll ever get. And the example I like to give is, I'm a kid of the 60s, right? There wasn't any weed we smoked in the 60s that'll get you as high, especially naturally as you get when you do something for somebody else and ask nothing in return. You know why this idea, it hit home with me because this is why I started the podcast. It's okay. I have this opportunity to chat with all these incredible people that have built these great companies. How do I unpack their wisdom and give that over to somebody who's just starting out, who's struggling? So my whole career and my life right now is based on the idea that success unshared is failure. I've just never been able to articulate it like that, but that's what I do for a living. Were you always in the mindset of give back? Was that like when you built all your companies, were you always focused on trying to teach what you've learned? Is this something that has been like a core piece of who you are as an entrepreneur your whole life? That is correct, but more so when I got in my 30s and 40s. Okay, I would do it automatically, but then I realized how important it was to be able to share with people what's going on and how to do it themselves. Another reason why it came out with the book, people have asked me for many years, JP, my God, 46 years ago, you start Paul Mitchell living in your car, your backer pulled out, you have $700. how the hell did you do it? How did you survive and at the same time even make products if you didn't have any money? How do you get the money immediately when people you sell to don't pay for 45 days? So I kept being asked by people, JP, how do you share this story with people other than the seminars that you'll do for hairdressers or special preachers that you give, little things that you do along the way? And I said, well, I think I'll write a book. They said, but JP, you gotta put in there, how'd you start Patron not knowing a darn thing about the alcohol business? What are you doing today and how do you build a big company and how do you stay happy? How do you make your people happy? How do you reprimand them and they're happy when they do it? JP, you've got to share this stuff. So again, success unshared is failure. Took me two and a half years to write this book. It has some of the greatest writers writing with me, my autobiography, but I wanted to make it in such a way that one could learn. And they say, can you still do today what you did before? And that is a real lesson to be learned, if I may share that with you. Started Paul Mitchell when our backer pulled out. It's why he pulled out and what it has to do today that is really important. So it was all set up. I left what I was doing with my relationship at the time. I left all the money other than a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. The better of the cars and took the older car down. It was a decent car, but took it down the hill. The money was supposed to come in. We had a backer. He pulled out and we didn't even know it. I stopped everything I was doing. I had a couple of bucks in my pocket. So it was a matter of, oh my God, what am I gonna do now? But figured out a way how to take the challenge I had and how to turn it around. Now, why in 1980 was this, which I should have never done, I should have just gone to work for somebody like I could have easily. Why did I do, but what does it mean today? Why did our backer pull out? Inflation in the United States in 1980 and 81 was 12.5%. Unemployment was 10.5%. If you wanted to get a loan, and we never could get a loan, okay, it was 17% prime rate, your lowest interest. Yeah, you were probably born around that time, okay, or after that. But that's what it was. And we waited in line for gasoline. Worst time. That's what the guy said. He pulled out because he said, with all these things going on, you guys are going to go nowhere. I mean, this is like the worst time to ever start something like this. Anyways, we said, what the heck? We're going to do it. So we figured out a way to do it, to get our artwork, get our bottles, get our self-screening, get it made and get it sold and get the money right away from nothing. I figured, you know what? It's easier to do today than it was for me to do it. I'm gonna share the story. You don't have to do what I did. In 1980, we didn't have computers. We didn't have cellular phones. Well, we had great big ones, but we could afford the great big ones, okay? But at that time, you know, how do you do it? You know, with no money, how can that be done? Well, we did it, even with companies and distributors that didn't pay their bills for 45 days. If we waited more than a few days, we'd be out of business. What did I do to change that around to be able to convince the big companies to give me the money right away? You got to teach people a day how to do it. You still could do it. We set type. My first letterhead was you go down for about five bucks and they set type. On your hands, you set type, but lead type, you make a photocopy, you draw lines in it, and that's my invoice, right? And that was our cards. And then I got an address for $16 a year at a P.O. box at Universal City. So now I had John Paul Mitchell Sessions, P.O. box number 10513, Universal City, California. And one of my dearest, because I only had a few hundred bucks, 700 bucks is what my partner and I came up with together. So I lived in my car for a bit, and then I had a few hundred dollars to live off of. Asked my mom to loan me the $350 extra to make it the $700 that my friend had. But I was too proud, too proud to tell my mom I'm down and out. She could have fed me for months. She would have given me my old room back because nobody was in it. I was too proud, too proud to do it, which upset my mom when she found out later that's what I did. But found a way how to do it. And we did it. And then we watched it grow. But it took two years, two years, to be able to pay our bills on time. Not pay them off. But once after two years, we were able to pay them on time. We were the happiest people in the world. And we knew I made it. But then after I started Paul Mitchell, nine years later, I started working. Patron Tequila, the highest end ever the United States ever knew. We started luxury tequila here. Today there's over 200. They say they're like the next Patron or something. But we started it in the beginning. We knew nothing about the alcohol business, not a thing. But yet we started the business, and nobody wanted to take the product because it was $37.95 a bottle. The average tequila in 1989 was around $5 a bottle. But what did we do to be able to finally get it going when people said, no, no, no, no, no. We figured out a way to do it and how to get involved in the industry. And it tells people about that, how we did it and the steps we took to learn about the business. Patron, and a lot of people are not aware of this at all, and I'll share it with you. Patron, when we first started it, nobody would take it on. And we started in California. We had to go to a wine distributor, never sold alcohol in his life, and convince him that just try this out because none of the big ones wanted us because it was too expensive. They said it's the best but too expensive. Convinced him to do it. And after one year, he did 1,000 cases a year, 12,000 bottles. We wanted to get bigger. We thought we could do one day 50,000 a year. We'd all make a little bit of extra money off of that kind of money. So anyways, we dropped him and went with a big distributor like a Jim Beam, a big guy, right? And after about a year and a half, they were doing about 12,000 cases a year. And we had a meeting and said, we think we could do one day closer to 50,000 cases and maybe we should do a little more right now. nicest people in the world. They said, we like you guys a lot, and we love your tequila. It is the best tequila we've ever had in the United States. There's no doubt about it. But guys, let's level with you, okay? It's too expensive. You'll never do more than 20,000 cases a year. They were nice to us. We dropped them. We went with Seagram's. They got us up to 50,000 cases a year, and then we knew we could do better. We took it over ourselves. Now, here's a tequila that was too expensive that they thought will never, ever do more than 20,000 cases a year. When I sold Patron back in 2018, we were doing... About 3,500,000 cases a year. Biggest company anyone ever thought about. When I did sell it, I got the highest amount anyone ever got for any company that looked like her business. And along with it, I got a five-year non-compete. Even though I developed, it's not a Patron product, the Bandero Tequila, right before I sold the company, as long as I didn't sell it or touch it for five years, they let me keep it, which is what I did. But, you know, it's just interesting when people tell you you can't do something or you only can do so good or during the environment, why even do it? If you believe in your own heart that you've gone into the not the selling business, Scott, business. but the reorder business. This is very important. Most people put a product together in a sales campaign to sell it. I put products together like Paul Mitchell or Patron that was so darn good once you used it, the majority of people would wanna use it or try it again and again and again. That is the service you're selling, make it so good other people tell you about the service if it's not a reorder. And that's how you go into business is go into the reorder business, not just the selling business. Were your product or service is that good, they want to redo it. The other thing is be prepared for a lot of rejection. Like people say, you can't do it. It's not going to happen. You're too big. You're too tall. You're too fat. You're too skinny. You have no education. No matter what they tell you, if you believe in yourself, it's going to be so good that you could be in the reorder business. It gives you a giant advantage over everything else. Some of the other things, the how to do it, when to do it, how to do it, and how the hell did you switch industries and become successful, it's in the book also. One of the reasons why I want to do it. Another thing is turnover. At Paul Mitchell, we probably have the lowest turnover in the industry, and we're in 128 countries right now. How to be kind. How to be kind to somebody. How to even reprimand them with kindness, where they love you after you've reprimanded. They're like, this is the greatest guy in the world. Just keep on even doing better and better. When you look back, when you had no connections, no money, no experience, and you said the X factor or the thing that allowed you to keep going is in your heart, you believed it to be true. That is correct, Scott. But so many people, so many people in that same situation quit and they give up and they go back to the job, which is nothing wrong with any of this if you feel like, you know, maybe that's... where you want to spend your time and energy. But I see so many entrepreneurs that give up on themselves and don't bet on themselves. And that's the saddest. That is so correct. What's your advice to them? If you were speaking to that JP who had, actually, well, you wouldn't be talking to yourself because you figured it out. But the version of you that didn't have that self-belief In the early days, it was this. I thought the product is so good. Even though I don't have the money to do it, I'm going to find a way to do it. And if one way didn't work, I'm going to do another way. I'm not because that could not give up. With Patrona, it was the same thing. We learned how to even distribute that industry, right, and how to get money earlier than you normally would be able to get money from somebody. We learned how to do it. because it worked. We learned. So the answer to everybody else is this. You'll find in success and shared is failure. Definitely a lot of those answers. But what I could tell them is this. If you believe what you have is the very best, don't let anybody change your mind. Don't let anybody say, can't do it because the environment isn't right. The financial situation isn't right. You don't know a damn thing about the industry. Because we did it. Because what we did was we believed in ourselves and the product was that good. And if we could tell enough people about it, a good majority would want to reorder it automatically because it was that good. And we believed in ourselves. We believed in our product and kept on tweaking our presentation until we got it done. The reorder piece, that's huge in both of the businesses. Oh, definitely. That's the virality. That's the word of mouth. That's right. How does an entrepreneur know when something they have is so good that they have the reorder component built into it, that people are going to tell their friend? You look at the industry you went into it with and what the industry needs, and then you use the top products of that industry, and you want to top it. I knew enough about the industry to know the top formulators to say, what shampoo, what conditioner, you know, what new inventions can I possibly do to get out there? And I learned from my friends and they told me. And I was in the industry for other companies anyways. So I had that marching ground. But I also knew that I finally had no money because the guy pulled out. It had to be door to door, just like I was selling encyclopedias. So what kept it going, Scott? The encyclopedia example is the best I could ever give. When I sold encyclopedias after I got out of the Navy and had a bunch of other jobs, when I sold them door to door for colliers encyclopedia, no leads, no money. Training was four days learning the pitch and you don't make any money. The only way you make money is if you sell something on commission. There's nothing there. The average lifespan. of an encyclopedia salesman with no leads, no nothing, just banging on doors, door to door, is three and a half days. I lasted three and a half years. But what was the big difference? They told me something I believe that I want to share with you and your audience. And they said this. A lot of you aren't going to make it. But here's the secret. If you knock on 50 doors and they're closed in your face politely or maybe not so politely, right? You must be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 as you were on the first door. That's a secret. For me, it wasn't door 51. It was door 100 and something, right? But I believe what they said and it worked. And every time you learn something a little bit different to make it better. In other words, believe in yourself. And if you're prepared for a lot of rejection, it's not going to hurt you and turn you off like it normally would because you know it's coming. You know, this whole, this whole book is written around making sure that whoever's reading it doesn't have to go through all the hardships. That is correct. That you went through. That is correct. Do you believe that some lessons have to be learned yourself though? Or can somebody reading this pick it up? Do you believe that somebody who's reading this will pick it up and hopefully not making all those same mistakes? Yeah, the purpose for us to be on this planet is to help one another to learn. So obviously, whoever reads the book is going to find their own way in life where you have disappointments and you have great successes, right? But this is going to help you with all your – this will give you the food to get you going. I mean, this is going to be the fertilizer and the tools to get you going, which will answer for you a lot of things before they happen and know how you could actually succeed. Biggest deal is, God, if I have some, I have no money. How do I get distribution? I get the money right away. You know, things of that nature. How to approach a big company and say, I know you pay your bills in 45 days, but if you give me the money right away, I could use it and I need it. What do you do to be able to convince them to do that? These are things that will help them get along. They'll learn enough in life. We all do. We're all here to learn. If we don't have downfalls in life, you know, we're not going to have the up either. We're here to learn. Part of why we're here, if it was all peaches and cream, when we knew everything and we had all the money in the world, would we be happy? Probably not. You've learned nothing. Everything's given to you. But by learning and then succeeding, it's that good feeling. And then by sharing what you know with other people, whether it's financially or just with your knowledge, oh, it's one of the greatest feelings. If there was an epitaph to be written, as people have asked me before, what would it be? It's basically, he came to this planet with absolutely nothing. It was very positive and taught others and left the planet better for millions because he was here. I think that's what everybody's epitaph should be. But a lot of people, Scott, don't think about that. They don't think about that. We're here, but we're here to do something to share with others. When you know you're bringing the rest world with you with things you've learned, oh my gosh, it's so good. I think people are so stressed and so focused on themselves. They don't think about all the things that I've gone through in life could be a huge benefit to others. Oh God, and some of the things we don't want to bring out openly with our spoken word or our thinking word if it's negative. I'd love to give you an example of that. And that's the best example I could give is how often do we hear people say to us that, oh, my goodness, in this next year, 2026, 27, whatever, I'm going to try and lose 10 pounds. I'm going to try and learn how to fly an airplane. And they never do, right? Right. The universe is very unique. It sees in black and white, not with emotion. It does what you want it to do. If you want to do something and you think it, especially if you say it, it happens. So what happens to someone that says, I'm going to try and lose 10 pounds this next year? The universe is going to say, Fine. That's what you want to give it to you. And you will keep on trying to learn that. Opposed to, I am going to lose 10 pounds this year. I could see myself on a scale, and I could see it visually, 10 pounds less than I am right now, and I'm going to do it, right? The I am opposed to I want to. The universe works that way. It's also in reverse. And I saw this six months ago with a dear friend of mine. He kept on saying, and he was a smart guy, I have the worst luck in the world. He thinks it and he says it because some of his big projects were successful and some weren't so successful. I have the worst luck. Said it for years. I sat down with him one day and I said, My friend, I know why you have the worst luck. I found out why. JP, why? I know who's causing it. Really? Who? I said, my friend, it's you. And I told him the story. You've been saying and thinking to yourself and saying for years, I have the worst luck. That's what the universe is giving you. the worst luck, change immediately what you say and what you say to yourself to, I am, I am now going to have nothing but good luck. My luck has changed. It's going to be wonderful. This is a true story, Scott. Okay. Within a matter of the next several months, everything changed in his life. He said immediately to himself, I'm going to have good luck. I'm going to do it right now. I am a lucky guy. Two things he was working on that kept on bugging him all of a sudden became unbelievably successful in those months. His life became happier and people noticed a change in him galore. Whatever you put out, what you think and what you put out is going to happen. if you're into the gossiping mode and you're agreeing with people or you're so polarized that you're either too far to the left or too far to the right and you don't want to change. Well, I can't change because I'm not going to be part of that group anymore. If they say this is real, it must be real. And then you found out that it was bullshit. They lied to you, right? Like this COVID thing, right? And, you know, Dr. Fauci is being exposed right now. But all the things that said, they weren't true. But if you go too far to the left, you're going with them. You're not going with yourself or what you say. You're going with what they say and they put it in your mind. And all of a sudden you're defending it. Even when it's wrong, you go, well, maybe it was partially right. You go along with what you say and what you think and question everything along the way. Because that's going to dictate your future, what's going to happen in your life. And talk to people. I have people that are so far to the left that won't even talk to me. Because I want to give them an opinion of the middle, okay? And maybe to the right too. Because I'm an independent. And some of them won't even say, we want to hear your opinion because their opinion is right. And we're going to go along with everything they said. Well, good luck. You know, whatever that might be. This is politics. This is with your business, with your spouse, with, you know, you want to lose weight. Who you surround yourself with and the words that you speak. Exactly. Create the reality. And I see this all the time. I'll tell a little story because this is very powerful to me. Yeah. In my group of friends, I'm the podcast guy. So everybody comes to me and asks me for advice on how to start a podcast. And I say, okay, well, this is how you start. And I have a playbook that I've used for myself. It's worked quite well. And I give it to them. Say, if you need any help, ask me. This is step one, step two, step three. Maybe about 50, 60 people have asked me for this playbook on how to start a successful podcast. maybe two of them have actually ran with it and done something. But the people that haven't, I asked them, like, what happened? Like, why didn't you start? You said it was so important to you. And it's, you know, well, I didn't think I could do it, so I never recorded the first episode. Or I started, then I got too busy, and it's not. It's like all these reasons why they can't be successful at it, which then actually forms the behavior and creates the reality for them of them not being successful at it. It's so interesting. They self-sabotage. And then the end result is them saying, well, you know, I didn't think I could do it. And I tried one episode, but it was very difficult. And it's not like my main priority. And now I'm definitely not doing it. And then the reality five years later is you still don't have a podcast. Whereas if you shifted your language. You learn it. You shifted your language and you said, I can do it. And you show up every single day. And a thousand episodes later, congratulations, you've had a podcast. But that's it. It's just you shape your own reality. And if you put enough energy and time and attention towards anything, it becomes your. And that's also why you have to be careful about what you put your time and energy and attention towards. Because if you put it towards. I can't do this. I'm not meant to be an entrepreneur. I want to believe this political party, even though. Exactly. They're not serving my best interest. It becomes your reality. You got it. If you repeated that to every single show you do to all of your people and get it in their head, they are very powerful. All of us as humans are very powerful. But sometimes it's those we associate with or those that we think are right or those of the things in our past. And I get asked this a lot, too. JP, what would you change in your past? You can change anything. And my answer was absolutely nothing. I wouldn't be who I am today. Even when I was really down. Now, there's a lot of down and outs and firings in that book. It was like shit. And you didn't give up. Nope, didn't give up. And then you started coming. The money, you didn't give up. Nope, didn't give up. It's just something from within. You got to know you control your future, not your friends, but the group that's around you does influence you. They're gossiping it all the time or telling you, oh, this is very difficult, right? This hard life. It's that person's fault. That person's fault. I wish I would have done something differently. That has no bearing on it. What's bearing on it is how you feel right now, what you want to do right now without that influence. Get input but not influence. It's kind of like being the observer without judgment. HubSpot is a success story partner. Now, customers are using traditional search less and less to find the businesses they want to buy from. Now, when a buyer or a customer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? They're looking for a product, they're looking for a service, and they're going into some AI chat tool and they're saying, hey, help me find the best one. If your company isn't showing up, you're missing out. And most companies have no idea if their business is showing up or even how to show up. And by the time they figure it out, they've already lost a deal to somebody to figure it out. AI. This is what AEO is. Answer Engine Optimization. HubSpot AEO helps you show up in those moments with the right answers that your buyers and your customers are looking for. It could be before the first click, before the first form fill. That's the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. So check out HubSpot.com to learn more about AEO. HubSpot is the agent to customer platform for growing businesses. Huel is a success story partner. Now, I'll be honest with you, I am terrible at eating well when my schedule gets packed. I'll look up, it's 2 in the afternoon, I haven't even had a real meal, and then I'm just useless for the rest of the day because I'm hitting a wall. So I started keeping Huel around. It's been an absolute game changer. They just launched into Target stores nationwide, which is huge. You can walk right into your local Target right now, grab the Black Edition ready to drink and the Daily Greens ready to drink. The Black Edition, this is a full meal, 35 grams of protein, 27 essential vitamins and minerals, no artificial sweeteners, gluten-free, and it's under five bucks. I grab one of these in between recordings, done, I'm good for two hours. And the Daily Greens is more of a health thing. 42 vitamins, minerals, and superfoods in one bottle. It's developed by a registered nutritionist, 25 calories, four grams of fiber, and one gram of sugar. I'll have one first thing in the morning. It's the easiest win of my day. Now, 15% off for new customers. Use my code Scott at Huel.com slash Scott and do the post checkout survey. It helps to show go to Huel.com slash Scott code Scott. Monarch is a success story partner. Now, quick question. Do you know where your money went last month? Not roughly, but exactly. And most people don't. And I didn't for years. And that is most of our money stories, right? When we first start our career, we have one income and one account and you can kind of wing it. But once you're running businesses, once you're investing, Once you're carrying 50 different subscriptions that you stop paying attention to, winging it gets super expensive. Monarch fixed that for me. It is the personal finance app that tracks everything. So that means accounts, investments, savings goals, spending all on one screen. The first week I had it, it fired recurring charges I've been paying for months without realizing. And every single week, the AI recap tells me if spending spiked, if my net worth moved and what bills are coming and I can just ask it, hey, can I afford this trip without touching my savings? And I can get a real answer based on my actual numbers. It is a financial advisor in your pocket. It costs less than an hour with a real one. So write your own money story with Monarch. Use code success at monarch.com and get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code success. When you were writing this book, And you mentioned there's a lot of down and out moments because you had like a true rags to riches American dream story. Not every entrepreneur was as down low as you were. What was the most difficult part to remember and write about? The worst one, I think, was the first time that I was in my early 20s, had a two and a half year old child. OK, I was 23 years old at the time. And he was two and a half years old. And my wife, she was very, we were both young. She was one year younger than I was. Couldn't handle being a mom. And I came home one day from being the announcer at the sports vacation, a recreational vehicle show at the Anaheim Convention Center. Very young guy, but also master of ceremonies because I could talk to great crowds. Came home and... We had one car, parked it. I was starting to go upstairs to our apartment. My wife came down and said, oh, I've got to run into the store right now, the keys. Okay. Jumped in the cart and split. Went upstairs. There's my two-and-a-half-year-old son sitting in the little living room on a pile of clothes with a note. Hey, I can't be a mom anymore. I don't like being a mom. It's not my life. He'll do better off with you. Good luck. Goodbye. What I didn't know was what little money we had in the bank she had cleared out. Any rent that I had paid for three months, she didn't pay the rent or the power bills. She did it to the last minute where now she knew I'm going to find out something, right? And that's where she pulled her move. There I had a kid, no money, no nothing, not even a car. That was down and out. How are we going to make it? But I figured out a way to do it, how to get some money. Soda pop bottles were at the time. Go around and collect them, two cents for a little one, five cents for a big one. Go to gas stations at night and kind of clean, not all of it, but part of the Coke machine out, you know, so they wouldn't have no empty bottles left. And that was just one. And how to get a car, one that had a A broken, a friend of mine had one that had a broken water pump, had to put water in every four hours, but I had a car. And then I figured out where are we going to sleep? And that was, if you sleep in a car, you want to sleep with your head at the steering wheel because your body flips over and you get more room that way and how to live off $2 a day. And then come along a few months, a few weeks later, a dear friend of mine, who was what you would call a biker, Hell's Angels, Satan's Slaves type, you know, anyways, one of the greatest guys. I said, JP, I have an extra room. Come on and visit here, and some of the mamas will take care of your kids so you can still work. So along the way, I mean, that was pretty down. No money, no nothing, and a little child, and I got to raise this kid. It was difficult, but we pulled it off. He's a good boy. He turned out to be a really—he's 61 years old now. He turned out to be a really good guy and entrepreneur himself. What's your message? Because that is rock bottom. You can't get much more. That's pretty low. That's pretty low. When somebody's in those spots where it seems like nothing's going right, what's your message to that person? The message is this. When you're that down and out, okay, it's almost like you're so down and an anchor crawl by you, you can see the enemy, you're really down and out, right? It's this. You've already hit bottom. All you do is go up. Don't think about what got you there or who got you there. All you got to think about is what is the next step? That's what you got to think about. Not all what's going wrong, the excuses. Next step would be got to have food, got to have a place. We ought to have shelter, food, shelter, and care, and get some money. That's your next thought. How do I do that? Opposed to what most people would do. Oh, my God, look what happened. It's their fault, their fault. Complain about it. Talk to people about it. It's not going to change. Not a damn thing you could do about it. You cannot change yesterday's newspapers, but you can start a new life every single day. Take your experiences and look at what's the next thing to do. Food, clothing, shelter, and care. Once you get there, do I get a job? If I do, where do I get that job? Or if I want to start something, how do I start it? You take the next step. But when you're down and out with nothing, the next step should be survival. And how do I do that? The scariest part about that down-and-out, rock-bottom moment is when people make that their identity. Yep. And they're excuses. And they're excuses. But they can live in that moment. It could be a bad event that causes rock bottom. They lost a job. I mean, God forbid. Or several bad events. Yeah, for real. It could be repeat, you know, series of unfortunate events lead to this point. But if you make it your identity, that series of unfortunate events can go from a day or a week or a month to a life if you're not careful. You're right. You're 100% correct. I think that the goal, you know, when I was thinking about all the different wisdom I could pull out of you, we could talk about business, entrepreneur lessons, but the most powerful part of your story is that mental model, that reframe of when you're down and out, the only place you can go is up. That is correct. That's very powerful. Where did that come from? It came from working, I would say, from a... Oh, my goodness. You know, from a very young age, entrepreneur at seven, building little boxes for flowers. My brother and I going out and selling them. OK. And even from the newspaper days at 11 years old, that we would go out there and knock door to door, maybe go up five or six blocks to get someone to take the L.A. Examiner, a morning newspaper. OK. We get an extra dollar. We would call it a start for everything we got. Well, most people are turning something down, okay? But eventually you get one and that inspires you. And then when you're down and out, like even selling newspaper route, okay, is no one said yes. No, no, no, no, no. And finally, somebody blocks later, okay, said, okay, I'll try your Sunday exam route. Not the day they won't put your Sunday one out. It's like, oh, wow. We made it. And it gives you the oomph to go to something else. Or if you're totally down and out, your business is not happening, all of a sudden you get an order where you have a place to eat. All of a sudden, now you've moved up one notch. And it's easy by the inch, hard by the yard. Cinch by the inch, hard by the yard. You're always so positive. You're positive no matter how good things are going. Great. It's easy to be positive when things are going good. But you're positive even when things aren't going good. One of your lines is, in quotes from the book, is we only have 27 cents. We have food in the refrigerator. We have our little garden out back. And we're so happy. So we are rich. Yeah, I remember that. We were at 3109 Garden Avenue, Atwater, California. My brother and I are now 9 and 10 years old, okay? We're finally back with mom out of our foster home because she was very ill. She was in foster care for about five years. And all of a sudden, yeah, we had a little paper route starting. Now, finally, we're 10, 11 years old. We get a little paper route, and then one day mom said, let's see what we all have. It was single mom positive as can be. Okay. Let's see what we all have. So we took out all of our pennies and nickels. We at 27 cents, true story. And this was on a Friday and mom said, boys, we are just wealthy. Look at this. We're happy. We've got some vegetables from our little garden. We have food in the refrigerator and our bills are actually paid. And we have 27 cents left. We don't even need it. We have each other and a lot of love. And that was the kind of mom we had. And that's how we felt at that time. And people should know your family is so important. Spend some time with your kids. You know, growing up, especially as a single parent at 23 years old, that was hard. I maybe wasn't the best parent because I was saying, but how do I go? Who will take care of John Jr. while I work and make money? But spend time with your kids. Teach them what you're doing. Spend time with them when they're growing up, you know, and do stuff. And spend time to teach them what you'd like them to do, what you'd like yourself to do. And they'll help you also. And get rid of those phones for at least a couple hours a day today. Because kids are on those phones all the time. That's your robot for communication. You don't want that. I think that you have to be careful as a parent because kids look at how you're living your life. Exactly. Look at if you're enjoying your life. True. And if you're always, even when you were at the lowest of the low and you're just focusing on how do I get food, get shelter, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, just making sure that all the needs are met. You still want to make sure that the kid doesn't pick up on as much stress as possible. Like you want to make sure the kid is happy, taken care of, content, because they just see how you're living. And if you are, and a more real example for a lot of people that are listening, if they see that you're always busy and always stressed about work and always stressed about money and never paying attention to them, you could be pulling in all the money in the world and all they see is an absent, stressed out parent. And that is now their worldview. That is correct. That is exactly, and that is exactly what happens, opposed to the reverse of it, which would be spend a little bit of time, at least a little bit of time if you're so busy, just you and the kids, like one-on-one or one-on-ten, however many kids, and your wife and your children. If you don't have a wife and you have some children, make sure they're guided along because they're going to go along with whatever surrounds them. If good ideas and good thoughts surround them. So I tell people, When they buy the book, Success and Shared is Failure, after you read it, let your kids read it, oh my God, or read it to your children. It shows you that by being good and being nice, that even for jerks, being nice works even for jerks. Okay, in other words, how nice turns people around and how to have a good life and how to have yourself influencing yourself in the right way opposed to the wrong way. And we're very powerful. It's how to release it. If you're in the wrong way or you're thinking about what you did wrong, I wish I did that differently, it's yesterday's newspaper. You can't change it. But that's where your thinking is. Or this person was responsible for this or that or, oh, my God, their fault, my fault. I mean, who knows what, okay? The thing is that's what's going to guide you and take up your time. If you don't think about that anymore, it lets you have an open mind for the here and now and the future if you don't think about the past anymore. There's no need to. For the entrepreneur that's listening that thinks they have to be harder or more aggressive or cold or a jerk to be successful, what's your message to them? My message to them is if anyone ever tells you that's what you think, it's 100% bullshit and there's no other way to tell you, brothers and sisters, okay? It is 100% wrong because you're doing something that is 100% wrong and you have the choice yourself. You have the choice to do it or to ignore it and leave the past behind you and go straight ahead with what you think is really, really right. But your thinking and your doing has got to be in a positive direction, not in a negative reaction. You've got to be able to cut it loose. In the book, it talks about me being fired in my same industry, the beauty industry, by three different companies for different reasons and weird reasons why I was fired. Each one would have said to me, oh, go to another industry or these people are crazy. But then I noticed about two years after I started Paul Mitchell, this is what's interesting about leaving the past behind you and just being open to the future, right? I didn't quit and I was doing good at all three jobs. I was making them money and growing the business, all three jobs. And for weird reasons, which is the book, I was fired. But I realized two years after starting Paul Mitchell, if it wasn't, For the lessons learned at all three companies, I could not have started John Paul Mitchell Systems with $700, let alone $10 million. It could never start or even happen. It could start the company. I needed all three. So shall we say the universe, destiny pushed me through to be able to learn those three things I needed to learn. So if you ever get fired, don't worry about it. It was something you had to learn that later on is going to show you that. And that's what it showed me. So it's like you don't let those negative past experiences jade you or make you an angry person. It's like these are all positive. That's right. Yeah, taught you a lesson you had to learn. You didn't even know it at the time. But later on, it all came together. And your life is happier and you're living better. And share. By gosh, just share. And look at what's in the future. Why would anybody in their right mind, people have told me, why would you in your right mind, JP, of all the money in the world, and it was the Wall Street Journal, all the information when you sold Patron, why would you go into... Another tequila? Why was it another tequila? But the answer was very simple. I sold Patron, but while I was doing it, I created the next generation of tequilas. Why let that go to waste? Okay. Patron is wonderful. It's the next generation. Why not with this new and different idea, give it a good shot out there and have fun with it? And I did. And I still do have fun with this. And it won, ended up winning. Who would know? Within a couple of years, it won the gold medal in Mexico as one of the best tequilas in the gold. gold medal in Mexico, Bandero. So we thought, whoa, we did this right. In other words, the world needed us to do that. So it was just a stepping stone. I was successful here, and I did it because it was a thing to do. I didn't look at, is this gonna be the next billion dollar business or multi-billion dollar business like Patron was. It was like, it's so darn good, I gotta bring it out. My girls could sit on it. My daughters for the five years to the non-compete was up. They go into it again. And it turned out to be great. We're only in seven states now, but we are in California. We are in seven states now. And those that drink it want to treat themselves. That's what we did. I see this with so many entrepreneurs. I mentioned this before we even started. People exit their company. They never have to work again, obviously. And it doesn't matter. They can't stop. They go on and build the next thing. They keep going on. It's like entrepreneurship. And actually, this is, I guess, an interesting question. Do you feel like entrepreneurship is something that you're born with or something that you learn? You think it's something you're born with. You can never not be an entrepreneur. It is something that you can learn. Ah, okay. It is something you can learn. And that's another purpose of the book, okay? Because the industries I went into, I didn't know anything about. And I went to it like today. I don't have email. I don't even have a computer, okay? I have a telephone. You can text me or, you know, you can WhatsApp me, okay, if you know the number. Most people don't know the number, okay? I don't have it. Why? Because it gives me time to be able to think, okay? I have time to think. I don't have to spend two hours on that computer. Now, in some businesses, it really helps you out, and I know that, okay? But I have some time to think in my life of what's going on and what's really important for me. And a lot of people go along with, well, I'm going to keep my job because it's paying the rent. But are you happy there? No. Well, what would you be happy at? That's what you should strive for. Happiness is the number one thing you could ever want in life. You want to be happy first, healthy second. If you're not happy, you're not going to be as healthy as you can be. Everything else comes third. You know, it's so interesting because another thing that I see a lot of great entrepreneurs do is create space to be creative and to think. And I think that that is the space to think is becoming increasingly more valuable in the world. That's so correct. That is full of noise and distraction. And to be able to sit. is actually very uncomfortable for people with their own thought. Oh, yeah. Because they're not used to it. And I think that, you know, the person who, you know, the description you're giving of somebody who's working a job, and they're not really happy with their job, and they feel they could do more, and they could go build a business, which I agree with you. I think everybody can learn to be an entrepreneur. And I think actually some people, even if they don't want to do it, they should try it just to learn the skills that come along with it. But... They're in their job. They're unhappy. They know they're unhappy, but they never create space in their life to think what if and try something new. And they distract themselves repeatedly. And they don't realize how nefarious this is in the short term, you know, jumping on Netflix or, you know, turning on Netflix that night or whatever the thing is, a distraction. Not the family obligations. Those are required. But the leisure stuff that fills up our time. They do this and they're like, oh, you know, I want to start a business. I'm not happy, but I'm just going to, you know, watch a show tonight. And then tonight turns into tomorrow, turns into next week, turns into next year. And then life passes. It's wasted. And then you never actually do the thing that you're actually meant to do. We have that ability. You understand that's so good, Scott. We have the ability to change your own lives. We just have to know we have that ability. We also have the ability to change in our life something that happened bad to us. That happened yesterday. Yesterday's newspaper, you can't change it. But we have the ability to stop thinking about it. And if it ever comes in our mind again, it's a matter of, wait a minute, that's the old me. You know, hey, Phil Pillsbury, you punched me in the stomach when I was in junior high school by my locker. I forgive you. I forgive you. It's not on my mind anymore. You know, whatever it might be. You know, Nancy, I wanted to take you out. You turned me down. Oh, my God. It made me so afraid of myself. I never asked another girl out again. I forgive you, Nancy. Now I'm going to ask somebody out. I've heard this stat or this data. It's really interesting to me when something bad happens to you. The hormonal negative reaction, like the cortisol, the stress, I think, I can't remember the exact amount, but it's like 30 to 60 seconds where when something bad happens to you, your body has an automatic stress response. That is correct. But then after those, whatever, 30 or 60 seconds, or could it even be like a little bit less than, maybe it's like 20 seconds. After that... It's you reliving the moment that is creating the ongoing stress. Your body is not intuitively reacting negatively for forever. It's not reacting negatively a week later. But it's your brain that is remembering the negative event and causing you to... stress about it a week later, a month later, a year later. To react on it, exactly. It's all you that's creating that negativity around it. That's right, because you still lived in that event. You understand that. You still lived in the event. The more you think about the event or somebody who's cruel to you, the more you think about what they are, you are living in that event. You have a choice that, hey, that happened, big deal. We're earthlings, right? Leave it behind you and move forward. You can't change yesterday's newspaper. But a lot of people are exactly the way you said, exactly that way. But you have the right and you have the power to leave it all behind you and move on. Because you can't change it. No matter what you think is going to direct you in the future, unless it's positive, you've got to let it all go. And the first one you've got to forgive is yourself. The famous thing is, God, I wish I would have done that differently. Things would have turned out. Well, it was done the way it was and things turned out the way they were because you have lessons to learn. But if you're smart and you've learned the lesson, you leave it behind you and move forward with what is next in the future. There's a few parts of this book that I'm really interested in. There's titles that speak about Gaddafi and North Korea. And I know that even, you know, you said that a lot of your really close friends don't know half of your life story. Most people don't know. I kept it to myself. I never announced what happened there, but I can talk about it now, and it's fine with the different agencies. But to make it really clear, okay, even the CIA and the FBI, who I've trained more than once, okay, but I do it in management motivation. I would be a kinder, more loving manager. Even with the CIA and FBI, they want to be a kinder, more loving manager to cut down on turnover, right? However, what I'm going to tell you next has nothing to do with them because I'm not an agent. I want to make that really clear. But I am the guy that went into Libya to convince Gaddafi to release the two suspected terrorists to Pan Am Flight 103 to go on trial in the Hague. The whole thing's in there, even the picture of me and Gaddafi together. And I was one that lent a helping hand and turned over to the State Department. Didn't need any praise for it. Didn't need any praise. I also tried to help convince, and it worked, the North Koreans to go into four-way talks back in 1996. They wanted to go into talks with just North Korea, China, and the United States, saying that South Korea is a puppet of the United States. I went over there, spent over a week with them as a guest of Kim Jong-il with my daughter, Alexis, the race car driver. She's really cool. and helped them through kindness to help get into the four-way talks. And they were starving in those days. It was like a couple million people were dying of starvation. I wanted to help out. But I knew if I gave them money, it would never see the light. They would put it in their pocket, right? So what did I do? I sent them 10,000 pounds of vegetable seeds so they could plant the seeds. And maybe the next year around, they'd have more food. How do you find yourself in these situations? They find me. They just found me. That just found me. I said, yes, there were boots. I just fell. They said, yeah, I'll do it. Sounds like fun. Why not? I'll do it. Any opportunity you see to give back. Oh, yeah. Well, it's not any opportunity because there's millions out there of opportunities. I have so many people hitting me up for money and on my cause or my movie or this or that. And, you know, you can't do it all. So I pick out quite a few more than the normal person would and try and give back and help out a little bit. But I can't do everything. You do. You do a lot. I do a lot. That is correct. If you want to look up some of the things we have, we have some called J.P.'s Peace, Love, and Happiness Foundation. It's J.P.'s and then the Peace, Love, and Happiness Foundation. And we put that together in 2010 to help change the world. You have committed and signed a giving pledge with Buffett and Gates. So first, for people who don't—I know what this is, but for people who don't know, please describe it. And this is—why is this so important? You bet. Giving pledge is something that people pledge to them. They're mostly billionaires or people close to making a billion dollars. And what you're doing is this. You're pledging that the world is so important to me that while I'm alive or after I die— I'm going to take my money and hopefully half of what I have is a pledge, right? Half of what I have and just change the world with it. Well, a lot of them are like me. They're doing it right now as well as after you die. You get to give both things. Like I have a foundation that'll still exist after I'm long gone. Right. to help change the world. Now, some of these people may not do what they pledge to do. It's a pledge, okay? But I think most of them do. And a lot of them are just like me, where you do it now. In fact, when I sold Patron, the first check I ever wrote because it made me feel so good was $50 million to change the world with. Put it to a peace, love, and happiness foundation. Could never take it out just to use to change the world with. And a lot of us are doing that. So we could take whole communities of homeless people and build them little houses, build up an entrepreneur center, which I've done in Austin in two cases, where they can learn how to do things. Homeless people. Now, people said, JP, you're out of your mind. You're giving them a place to live. Organic gardens with others. It's called, by the way, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, the community in Austin, Texas. Our goal is to build 2,000 homes, get them all off the street. Right. We already have about 700 built, and I built an entrepreneur center on top of it all. They say you're out of your mind. You know, like how to do wood, how to do metal, how to do things dealing with, for example, jewelry, how to make things out of clay and sell them, how to be an artist, all these things, right? This JP, you're gonna spend a million and a half dollars building this center. They're homeless people, they're not gonna do it. In the first 18 months, they sold almost $200,000 worth of stuff. Got to keep it all. Does it work? Yes. Well, how about those that are mentally challenged? You got to leave them on the street. There's no place to put them. No, no, no. There's a place in Austin called TOOF, the Other Ones Foundation. We built them their first 50 houses, and I built them a skill center to take people that have mental challenges and show them skills they could do. has electrician, has an automobile, all the skills they could do. And at our center there, now we even have more houses. There's sociologists there, people to help them out. A good percentage of them have jobs now. They have jobs because we have a skill center there to teach them how to do things and people that come and want to lend a helping hand. So there's ways to help people out with what you have and make the world a better place. And that's what we do. And that's just a few of the, oh, my God, the many, many things. We're really into, like, used people that think they've been totally used up. Older people, maybe someone that was abused by her husband or somebody. How to take those people back. How to take the children and give them a new life. Even Eloise, my wife, has something going called... Eloise House in Austin for the abused and neglected children and parents and moms that were there. How to help them out. Some called Connector that she does with a bunch of cool moms. And it's like getting short films from people. They went to 90 some odd countries already. They take pictures and it's been spreading with their phones, make a short three or four minute movie about what their life is, how they became an entrepreneur, maybe selling biscuits and just what they go through in their life. And they show it to one another and they get awards for doing this to make the consciousness of the planet rising. The consciousness is rising right now, the planet. But we need more people to realize you could change your life. It's what you think, what you do, the garbage you don't have to listen to. Share with others. If you change these consciousness, there's about 97, I'm sorry, 37 million people now on the planet whose consciousness has risen to be helpful, be more loving. With us going on, we need at least 100,000 million people. If we could just get 1 billion people to think the same way, that... amount of people, and you get to 100 million people, will automatically change to influence others to 100 million people, then a billion people there, and then all of a sudden we change the whole world. That's going to eliminate wars, that's going to nominate salvation, eliminate all this stuff, because it's people helping people out, changing what they say, changing what they say, changing what they think. If they could go into a negotiation with another country and say, Hey, here's what you want. Here's what we want. Let's just cut out all the baloney. And what can we really do together? Forget about the past. We can't change it and talk honestly to one another. Honestly, not start where even is here and you're starting way over here. Well, and the other guy's doing the same thing to get in the middle and no one's balanced. Here's where we want to get. Yeah. How do we work together to get there and at the same time love one another? If they could just do that and the consciousness of the world, the consciousness, think that way, we're going to change it for everybody else. And that's what God wants us to do. NetSuite Next is a success story partner. So they say that every day your business is late to using AI, you fall two days behind. and the competition is only moving faster. So how do you keep up? Well, fortunately there is NetSuite next. Now you probably already know NetSuite. NetSuite is the AI powered business management suite is trusted by over 43,000 customers. It securely connects all of your data, financials, inventory, commerce, HR, CRM, into one single source of truth. But NetSuite Next is the next huge leap in how businesses get done because AI is built into everything you do. So NetSuite Next automatically shows you all these custom insights for your business throughout your day. 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So start your GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com. That's N-O-O-M.com, Noom. lose for keeps initial one month subscription from $39 plus tax and $99 plus tax per month thereafter costs of medication not included final pricing depends on program selection results based on a January 2026 analysis of 14,203 new GLP one Rx program members who logged weight over a 40 week period higher app engagement was associated with greater weight loss at 16 weeks one of My favorite ideas is this concept of the two mountains. I'll explain it. But what it means is the first mountain is about achievement. This is where people start their career. So they're focused on making more money and, you know, getting the promotion or building the business. That's the first mountain. The second mountain is when people realize that there's a lot more to life than money. They've made some money. But then they focus on where you're at. They focus on giving back. And they focus on elevating people and the consciousness of society. It's shifting from achievement to philanthropy or achievement to giving back. Now, my question is... A lot of people who are very successful, who have made a lot of money, they're still stuck on that first mountain. They make their first million, their first 50 million, their first 100 million, their first billion. More and more and more they want. And they stay stuck on that first mountain, even though they have more money than they'll ever be able to spend. What is your message to that person to hopefully reframe how they look at achievement and move them to the second mountain? The one sentence that's the name of the book. Success unshared is failure. A couple of little stories if I could share with you. I think it'll be good for you and your whole audience. One. One of them is a little story about what are you in our country, in this world? Are you an oyster or are you an eagle? Now, let me rephrase that with a little short story. In the beginning, when there was the creation, the oyster was created. Oyster, you've got the perfect social economic environment. I'm going to put you in a shell to live in. Okay, I'm going to put you at the bottom of the ocean to protect you from your enemies. You have food, clothing, shelter, and care. You want more food, just open your mouth. Food will rush in. Everything you need, I'm going to support you with. Everything you need, right? You're an oyster. Like all those people that want the government to give them everything, don't want the millionaires to have the money they want to give it to the other people, okay? That's the oyster. You're not going to go anywhere, oyster, but you have everything given to you, right? Right. Then God created the species called the eagle and said, eagle, you are going to be a different species. You want to build a house? Go build it. You figure that one out. Try the top of a mountain, the top of a tree. Do it. But then the eagle thought, well, God, how do I eat? Okay. Okay. Go out and find your food. And the eagle flies for miles. Sometimes through rain, sleet, snow, difficult to feed itself. And it's young. It builds it so it does everything, okay? But the eagle is the most powerful bird in the sky, the most powerful. But what people don't realize is that that eagle flies. fails 70% of the time. It's not like a hawk that goes right in and grabs a prey. It's so big and cumbersome that a lot of the wild prey get away 70% of the time. But it keeps going, going, going, going. It doesn't give up. It's the strongest, maybe healthiest bird ever on this planet, right? So strong. And it failed. However, the eagle, unlike the oyster, can't. can go anywhere it wants to go. And the emblem of the United States of America is the eagle, and so is it on the flag of many, many other countries. Does one want to be an eagle, or do they want to be an oyster? In other words, it's your choice. What do you want to be? You want some things in life? You got to be the eagle to go out there and get it. Or you want to just sit by, and the fact a guy named Earl Nightgill told me this when I was quite young, 10 with his lectures. The majority of people tiptoe through life to make it safely to death. Oh, no, I got a good job. I'm just going to stay here, but I hate my job, right, to make it safely to death. The other story I wanted to share with you, which I love to share whenever I can, is the story of the richest man in the world. It's a quick story. In the 1950s, J. Paul Getty Jr. was the richest man in the world. Came from Oklahoma, started Aramco. That's a big Arabian oil company, which we know today now, Saudi Arabia, right? first multi-billionaire. Had a giant place, giant place in England, huge estate, right? Because people were using his phone to make toll calls, he got to bill once for 250 pounds, which in the 50s was like 500 US dollars, because people were making phone calls, but toll calls, call across the city, cost two cents more a minute, whatever. Remember the Or you maybe not. You're too young. Well, before me, but I know it. I know it. He said, let's see. Okay. He put it in a phone booth. Put it in a phone booth. Richest man in the world. First multibillionaire. In one of the rare interviews this man had, didn't like interviews, didn't have them, but one of the rare ones, the lady asked him, interviewing him, J. Paul Getty Jr., you're the richest man the world's ever known. OK, is there anything you would change in life if you could? His answer was, I'm not only the richest man, I'm the most powerful man on the planet. I could change governments and I have with my wealth. But was there something that I would change if I could? Yeah, there is. I would have changed the majority of all of my wealth and all of my power to have been happy in life. I've been married seven times, didn't love any of them, had a grandchild that cut his ear off with the mafia, sent it in for ransom. In fact, DiCaprio, I think it was 10 years ago, made a movie about that, right? He says, I've never been happy in my life. I've been rich, wealth, but never happy. He says, I would change the majority of my wealth and power to have been happy in my life. So she asked him probably the same question you would have said to him. Well, why don't you start now? It's never too late. His answer was, I can't. I'm too old. I'll be gone in a couple years. It's too late for me. But that's what I would have changed. So here's the richest man in the world would have given all that up, the majority of all of his power and wealth to have been happy in life. So how often does someone say, a couple million bucks, I'm set for life. That's not what happy is all about. You got to find your happy. You got to find your purpose. And along the way, even if it's your time, share it with others. Because that sharing with others makes you feel good. If ever you're really just down and out, Go and get on an elevator that goes up several floors that people get on, but don't face the elevator's door. Be at the door, but turn around there when the door closed and face all everybody and go, good morning, everybody. Good morning. First of all, half are going to think you're out of your mind. The other go, well, good morning, Paco. Well, thank you. Or they'll smile. It's a happy day. It's amazing how that catches on and how it makes you feel better. His answer, it's too late to be happy. Do you agree with that? No, absolutely not. J. Paul Getty Jr., no. Another thing also that people have to know, and the power that people have, is no matter what happens in your life or how much goes against you, how much you're rejected, okay, you have the power of your life to change things. If you did that on an elevator, and have people go, are you out of your mind, and only a couple of people smile, You should walk away saying, hey, I made two people happy today. That was your church. Or I had the guts to do that. When people don't communicate with people, like you're a great communicator. You look someone in the eye and you go right into them when you interview you. Your pain goes into them and the pains match in between. That's the life form in us, everybody. Is that being in us, right? But if you're afraid, because a lot of people are to look someone in the eye to communicate, I could overcome that so easy. Look at between the eyes or at the eyebrows. It looks like you're looking them in the eye because too many people, because they're not used to looking all over the place and not listening or directing. If you're one of those looking between the eyes or at their eyebrows, it looks like you're looking them in the eye. I feel like people have to. This is all. Everything you're talking about is about self-belief, is about trusting yourself, is about betting on yourself. Why do you think people have such a hard time with that? Because they don't believe that it's okay and they have permission. It's okay. It's okay to be happy in your life. You got to know it's okay and change anywhere you want to change. One of the last pages in my book is when I give thanks to a bunch of people. I give all these people a thanks. But the last little paragraph, and it's very, very small, talks about this club I'm a member of that's a cowboy club. Basically, we all like to ride horses. There are 600 members. We have horses galore, and we are just guys. It's just guys, okay? And we get together every year for about a week or so. We ride horses together. We tell everything we want because there's no girls there, okay? It's just that, guys, you could be a cowboy. And these are executives of major corporations, politicians, and a lot of them are just regular cowboys. But... What we do is this. It's the joy in us, and we want to be joyful. And here's the example and what it says. And on this trip, there were two of our rancheros that were in the twilight of their life dying. And they did not want to die. They didn't want to choose to die in that hospital or a hospice or anywhere with their family around them. They wanted to die riding their horses with their doctors in tow. They went on a ride with us and their wish came true. They did both die on their horses because that's how they wanted to die. That gave them the joy in their life and they want to end it the same way. We have a choice in life to do what we want. We have the power to do it. It's us, not what everybody else thinks is going to happen or nothing is going to happen. We have that power. And the big influence is to be influenced by people around us that are that same level or want to think that same level or want to be there or realize we are extremely powerful. And now we all have the opportunity to join that consciousness. And as you start thinking that way, others, myself and millions of others, you're going to be connected to along the way. And it works pretty good. And it changes your life. You have the power to do it no matter what anybody tells you. You have the power to do it. You have to be okay with being happy. You have to be okay, and you have to feel like you have permission to be successful, to be happy. I'm giving everyone permission, and God gives you that same permission. God's giving you that permission. It's up to you. As a man thinketh, so shall he do. And that's a man or a woman. It makes no difference. As one thinketh, that's what we shall do. It is incredible to me the hardships that you overcame to build multiple companies— And now fast forward, we have more opportunity than ever. And I want you to highlight some of the opportunities that young entrepreneurs have today that you did not have. And it seems like even though you overcame all these hurdles with no money, no connections, really no resources, no podcast, no YouTube, no anything to learn. Right, exactly. Exactly. You still figured it out. Yet people today, they seem to be more stressed than ever. They give up so easily. They feel like the world and the cards are stacked against them. And they have all these resources. And I don't understand that. And I think that the opportunity people that see through the noise, see the opportunity, realize that all the education that's. you know, that you'll ever need is out there. You listen to podcasts like these, you read books like yours, you have technology, you have whatever the tool is, or the idea is, like, it's all available to you. And you're now you're telling me, and I want you to go into it, there's tools available to you that are even cheaper than when I was trying to be an entrepreneur and start my business, that's making it even easier now. So... Two-part question. First part is, what's your advice to somebody who's young and starting out now and feels like, again, cards are stacked against them and they have no chance? That's the first part. But the second part is then, how do they start? What is a tool? What is a strategy? What are the things that you've seen with even companies you've invested in or young founders you've worked with? Got you. Okay. I will take pieces out of the book because it's in the book. Okay. But let me take pieces out of it. All right. The first thing is you've got to realize and be okay with it that you have the power to make the changes. The difference between successful people and non-successful people are successful people do all the things the non-successful person doesn't want to do. That's what you have to realize. Like you mentioned, you could have that half hour and watch TV, a couple hours be on your texting back and forth. Or you could pick up a book and learn. Or you could start saying, I want to do this. How do I do it? And then start figuring out your little map. And then if you need help with that map, go to somebody to help you with that map. In other words, you've got to start. It's like the first step as a young entrepreneur. You've got to take it. And you've got to choose. You're the one that's going to do it. Do I watch TV for an hour or do I work on what I want to do? You know, it's my choice. Am I an oyster or am I an eagle? It's not. There's more oysters on the planet than there are eagles. OK, they're very more. And all of a sudden groups captivate that we get everything free. These guys don't deserve it. Look at all that they have. There was a time when I was asked to go on one of the major TV networks. OK, this is about 10 years ago. representing the 1% of the United States. Okay? Like you're a billionaire. Actually, it was eight years ago. You're a billionaire. Okay? And JP, you're representing the 1%. We have, you know, down with Wall Street here. Please talk on behalf of, you know, the 1%, what you think of what's going on. And what I said to this very top well-known person who interviewed me on TV and worldwide was this. I am not the 1%. It's we the people of the United States of America. I am the 1% and I'm the 99%. I've had nothing, I have something, I've worked for it, I give back. So that's the first thing, is we got to address it like we the people of the United States, not like those that had the American dream come true. I had nothing, I was homeless twice. In other words, we're not separated, I did the things the unsuccessful people didn't want to do. I was the eagle, not the oyster to get all the hands out. And there but for me go I. I did something different to get there. So you're really interviewing someone that represents 100% of the people, not 1%. Yeah, there are many that were built, let's say, born by very wealthy families. But maybe there were some that did what I did. When I got financial wealth, I never spoiled my kid. And my son showed me how off I was. When John Anthony, my youngest, was 13 years old, even though I had really made big money, right? At that time in life anyways, okay? If you were 12 years old, you got $12 a week allowance. If you were 13, 13. So my son came to me one day, turned 13. And John Anthony said, Dad... You got to give me a raise on my allowance here because the $13 I go to the movie once, one time, that's what it costs to go to the movie and have popcorn and have a soda pop. Dad, it's all gone that one time. I said, you know, son, you're right. Inflation. I didn't think about that for you or the other kids. Yeah. You know what? You're right. So I gave him a race to $20 a week. Okay? In other words, none of my kids were spoiled. All of my kids went out and did something on their own and started giving back when they were young, started caring about others. Michaelene, my daughter, one of the biggest people to, at a very young age, do things. Alexis, my race car driver. One of the top race car drivers in the world. Her car goes 337 miles an hour in 3.8.5 seconds. Unbelievable. But at the racetrack, she helps, she puts things together to help people with manograms or unbelievable stuff. She takes the time to give back. All my kids are that way. John Jr. Who's living now in Oregon gives back and tries to help other people. I mean, these are all entrepreneurs that know you got to do it on your own because no one's going to do it for yourself. And dad's not going to have me all this money. Alexis was asked once, What's it like to have a millionaire dad? My God, you just won the U.S. Nationals in Indy during Labor Day, you know. But you got a millionaire dad. She says, that's not his money. That's mine. He wouldn't even give me a dime until I proved to him how it would help Patron Tequila at that time out, right? How it would help Patron. They invested this money in the race car. There's no free lunch with my dad. We got to work it out, so... You go, oh, yeah, well, that makes sense, okay? So it's not because my dad's not driving the car. I am. His money's not driving the car. I'm driving the car, okay? He'd get killed driving this car. So my kids were lucky enough that they realized from a young age there's no free lunch. And when people give their kids everything, we love our children. We love it. But if you give them everything they ask for, you're going to ruin your children. Don't do that. Have, you know, some stop gaps in that, especially when they say, I got to be on my phone all the time before I go to bed on social media. Take that phone away and hide it somewhere. Give it to them, you know, some other time. Don't let them do it before they go to bed. There's different ways to show love. And part of, I think, like, I don't have kids yet. That's hopefully next for us. But. I think the best way to show love is to teach your kids how to be entrepreneurial, how to give back, how to be functioning, happy, fulfilled adults. Not just give handouts, give money. Because I see it with, you know, I sit across from a lot of different founders and some billionaires like yourself, people that sold companies for over 100 and whatnot, and other people as well. But yeah. I think that the best parenting advice is, like, you don't want to make your kids lazy. You don't want to make your kids complacent. You want to make your kids understand that life is difficult because just giving somebody money without understanding the work that it takes to get it, that ruins a person. Totally. It ruins a person. You see this with lottery winners. You can have a lottery winner and they can blow the money. They can still be depressed. It's because they didn't go on the journey to get it. And I think the journey is where you've evolved as a human. It's not when you got the billion dollar exit. It's the journey. You got it. Everything you said is exactly how it works. Another quick example more recently, I have a place in Scotland that's on the Tainmouth River, one of the best fishing in the world for bass or for trout, unbelievable. I'm sorry, it would be for trout or for salmon, best in the world, right? Cleanest waters. Cleanest. And I had a guest there. My friend Henry came over with his wife and his three children. And the youngest was seven years old. And there we have all this fish. He says, oh, my God, there's fishermen. I've never fished before. Can I see somebody catch a fish? And we say, you've never fished. You think you'd like to learn? God, I don't know. We said, we're going to teach you how to learn, right? So all of a sudden, we taught her how to fish. Put the rod in there, and she caught a fish. My God, her eyes opened up, changed her life. We brought it in. We unhooked it right forward. She held her hand, said, I caught a fish, ran up and down the bank, screaming, I caught a fish, jumping in there. The biggest smiles. I've never seen a kid that happy in my life. Screaming at the top of her mind. Oh, my God, brother, sister, mommy, I caught a fish. And held it and looked at it, you know, changed her whole life. What changed her life? She could have watched somebody catch the fish. What? Or she could go one step further with what's suggested. We'll show you how to fish that and how to catch the fish. Change your life. Happiest girl, all she wants to do is come back now and just change her life. Because she accomplished something because someone gave them the opportunity to do it. And they felt the love because of it and the great happiness. I want to go back to the point where we're speaking about opportunity for entrepreneurs. And we spoke about how to believe in yourself, how to bet on yourself. But then the second part of that is, okay, great. I believe in myself. I have permission to be an entrepreneur. I have permission to be happy, successful, all this. Very important. What are the things that I can do now? What are the opportunities in 2026 and beyond that even you didn't have when you were starting? Well, for starters, we had no way to get a hold of people. You have computers today. Second of all, I had to set type. You could do your own typing. Third of all, I had to go pound on doors to try and sell myself and my product to somebody. Today, you've got social media to do that on. You have something like the Global SKU that'll help you sell your products for you. You have these things. We never had that before, okay? You have them. But also, you have things today that you don't want. You don't want to be open on the internet to gossip and to stuff that isn't positive because that's how your mind's going to think where it's going to end up. So what you want to do is just get things that are a little bit better for you. What opportunities are out there? You have the opportunity with all technology that's out there to do things now no one's ever been able to do before because the technology was not there. You have that opportunity. So if you look at various things you want to do, I'll give you an example. With Sam Altman, I asked Sam Altman kind of, you know, AI guy, Sam Altman, right? Anyways, very smart guy in AI. I said, Sam, let's look at the future for the next 10 to 20 years. With a very small group we were together. Open AI is him, that's Sam Altman, right? Would you be a barber or a hairdresser and what is their life gonna be like in 10 or 20 years? His answer was, I wouldn't mind being a barber hairdresser at all because nobody's gonna want a machine cutting their hair or messing with their looks or styling it. No one's gonna want it. They'll have the best jobs in the world. But if you look out there at the opportunities, look at the opportunities really, really well. Like all the jobs that people need somebody in or how to customize them a little bit. OK, you don't have to be a truck driver. You don't have to be electrician. But how can you support that industry a little bit with a new job you're coming out with? Whether it's a seat that's comfortable for a truck driver. OK, that you still got to have them. But again, on the engineers, and I learned this from AI, we will need more engineers. Yeah. more engineers than we have now in the United States in AI, and people don't even realize that, okay? Okay, today there are thousands, tens of thousands jobs we have to go out of the country to bring somebody in. Electricians, auto mechanics, carpenters. We have to import them because we don't have the skills here. When I was in high school, we have auto shop, wood shop, metal shop, print shop. In fact, at the eighth grade, I welded my own go-kart because I had no money. They let you weld a go-kart. You could leave junior high school and become an apprentice immediately as an electrician, as a welder because we were taught all that stuff. They don't do that in junior high or high school anymore. The mechanics that we need are out there. So you have all these industries. And when you're thinking entrepreneur, not only these industries, but the supports for these industries. It's like when the movie industry goes on strike, all the little restaurants and catering services are hurting all the time. They're on strike. So look at what's available out there, what you have to learn to do and what might interest you. The first thing is, what do I like? Is there some job in there I'd like to do or, or, What might be missing in there? An example, hairstyling. Two shampoos. It says it on the bottle. Shampoo, rinse. Ours doesn't. Ours was you may only need one shampoo. Conditioners, you leave them in the hair, right? You leave them in your hair. For 10 or a minute, you rinse it out. What conditioner can we invent? And we did, called the conditioner, that you put in your hair and you leave it. It's good for your skin and your hair as body and prevents a lot of damage from blow drying. All these in one. What industry are you picking out and how do you make the product better? Or what does that industry need? All it needs is you, your imagination, and to sit down and write it out. And then the next day you may come up with a better idea how to make it better. You keep on changing it. All of a sudden your entertainment is you're involved with what you want to do. And then you start getting books or magazines. about that industry, the first thing you want to learn is the nomenclature, the words of the industry. The alcohol industry use words I never heard before, expressions, because that's how you talk about the industry. And the beauty industry is exactly the same thing. On that industry, you want to learn the words first. What is the vocabulary of that industry? Like what is the cut short? You know, what is just whatever the words are to describe the industry they use all the time. You've got to learn those words and the people and what they do and the words they use. Now, You're in the industry and you know how to talk about the industry, for starters. So you have this unique opportunity. You see a gap and no one else sees. Exactly. You learn the nomenclature. Yes. Or how to make it better. And the nomenclature are very important. And then, but also what you like, what you think is going to make you happy. In life, most everybody, most everybody doesn't really know what they want to do. but you know what you don't want to do. When you're doing what you don't want to do, stop doing it and go someplace else. If you keep on doing the same thing over and over again, you'll never get change. That's so huge. This is this idea of, okay, I can make money doing option A, option B, option C, but option C makes me money and makes me happy. I don't think enough people think about that. That is correct. I don't think anybody thinks about that. They're like, how do I make money? They find a way to make money. Then they realize, again, 30 years later, That they're making money and they hate their life. That's right. I want to be happy. What does your life say about the American dream? Is it still alive and well? It's alive. And for some of the things I just mentioned, even easier today than it was for me, 26, 46 years ago when I started the first one, which was Paul Mitchell. It is still alive and it's alive for the world, not just America. It's out there. We have so many tools we could use and so many things like, which blows me away, I sold encyclopedias door to door. In my day, the big ones were World Book and Britannica and America. Today, there are no door-to-door salesmen. I don't even know if you could buy a set of encyclopedias unless you go on the Internet because the Internet is a set of encyclopedias. Things change. Look at the next step and realize some things are going to disappear only to get better. I love that. If people pick this book up... And it's available now everywhere you can get books, Amazon. I'm going to put all your links in the show notes as well. But they read this book. You want them to take away just one lesson, the most important lesson. And you're like, if they read this book and they take this lesson away and they apply it to their life, you know, JP, job well done. What is that lesson and why? It would be two parts. One is you'll be aware of the power that you have. You'll be aware of that, right? Do it all with kindness. Right. That'd be the biggest lesson, do it all with kindness. And if something happens, maybe there was a reason for it to happen. Like the example I gave, being fired three times, doing really well, and all the details are in there. That was a lesson learned. If it wasn't those three things, and I was fired. I didn't quit. I was fired. That destiny helps you. The thing with Gaddafi, it was brought into my lap, and I'm the other guy going in there to help do it. And it worked. What's the lesson about success that you want everybody to know? Success unshared is failure. That's the biggest thing I can give you guys. And you don't have to have a lot of money to be successful. You have got to be happy in your life to be successful. And do whatever you do as if nobody's watching you or somebody is watching you. We'll do it. automatically as if no one's watching you, but think before you do it that way, that what if somebody was watching me, how would I do it and stay that way? Then you're completely successful at anything you do and love your family. If you screw up with them, if you screw up with them, find a way to make it right and love them. So important. I love how all of your lessons, like you're a billionaire and all of your lessons are about family, happiness, fulfillment, all the things, kindness, kindness, kindness, And I'm going to ask this question, but I already know the answer to it. When you sold Patron and for this multi-billion dollar, it was five points on 5.1, I think. That was the value of the company, 5.1. Value of the company. What changed in your life, if anything? Oh, I could get into other industries and have the money to do it. Like I went into hospitality where I could help build these things and such. You know, that was really, that's what changed. More opportunities to be an entrepreneur. That's true. No one's ever asked me that question. This is the first time it was ever asked to me in the eight years ago that I sold Patron, you know. Well, but that's true. What happened was probably nothing other than I could do more things and obviously even give more. Financially and of whatever I wanted to do, even give more. As I said, financially. First thing I did was write a check for $15 million to make people's lives better and the planet better. Notice that none of the things that changed in your life at that point with a massive amount of wealth was, I felt happier. I felt more fulfilled. I felt like none of that. That was all, that was who you were already. Oh yeah. I'll give you another one too. I can answer real fast. Okay. And that was, yeah, what changed? I said, JP, what was it during Paul Mitchell, your biggest thing you had to do when you first started the company? What was on your mind when you started the company? And my answer to that would have been, uh, Eating? Survival. It was survival, right? Okay. When you got a little bit more money in JP, what was the big thing? What was the biggest thing that ever happened in your life? When all of a sudden you realized, God, life is so great, it's all going to be great. And that was two years after I started the company. When I could pay all my bills on time, it was, yay! That was big! That was a huge moving port in my life. Yeah. It's so funny. That was a big change. I didn't have to think about it anymore. I can actually pay my bills on time. That's what I want people to take home from this. People start a business because maybe they're passionate, but ultimately at some point they care about making money. That's correct. I just don't want you to build a business that you hate or work a job that you hate because there's ways to make money in a variety. There's so many different ways to make money. And most people don't need as much money as they actually think they do. That is correct. I think people need to figure out how much, whatever that amount is. But it doesn't mean you have to be a billionaire or IPO or exit for over $100 million to live a life that you actually want. There's taking care of your basic needs, taking care of your family, for sure. You want to take care of all that stuff. But when you try and build something and you don't enjoy the way you're building it, you don't enjoy your life, you're raising too much money, you've lost control of your – whatever all the things that people – happen to entrepreneurs. Just don't build it just to make money and to achieve this massive exit. Build it to enjoy a great life. That's the whole point of any of this. That is correct. And those of us that can will help you along the way. Amen. If you could go back to that man sleeping in the car, you have your son, what's the one thing you want to tell them? It's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. In the end, everything will be okay. And if it's not okay, it's not the end.