Hala Taha: [00:00:00] JP, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

John Paul Dejoria: Well, Hala, thank you. It's a pleasure being with you. I've heard a lot about you and how you help people out in such a great way and disseminate just great positive words that make the planet a better place to live. Good for you. I'm happy to be here with you.

Hala Taha: You're, you're so sweet. You're known to be such a kind, generous man. Mm-hmm. Uh, but something that people may not know is that you actually grew up- Very poor. That's correct. And you've got this, like, incredible rags to riches story. Now you're a billionaire. You've sold two billion-dollar companies. But you actually grew up really poor in Echo Park.

Yeah. And your mother taught you a lot about money and what it really means- Exactly ... to be wealthy.

John Paul Dejoria: And I wouldn't say we grew up poor, because we had so many riches from my mother. Mm. And, and we didn't know we didn't have a... I would say we grew up without any money In, in a very poor part of town there.

But no, you are right. My mother was wonderful. Uh, we had a dad, deadbeat dad. So at two years old he kind of left the family, you know, and no money, no nothing. And my mom had it really, really [00:01:00] difficult. In fact, even for about four years, uh, when she had some medical problems, my brother and I were in foster care.

But we were the lucky kids, because every weekend or every other weekend, we'd be able to come home with mom, and a lot of the kids we were with, no one ever visited them, you know- Mm ... other than maybe at Christmastime. Uh, so we grew up with riches, so my mom was really a kind person. We never, she never told us that, you know, we were doing without.

And we didn't have a TV, so we didn't know. But remember, this is the '40s- ... and early '50s, so. You didn't

Hala Taha: know what you were missing. Exactly. We didn't know what we were missing,

John Paul Dejoria: exa- so we didn't know. Yes. So it was okay.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And, uh, you've got this great story about 27 cents- Yeah ... and how your mom really taught you about abundance.

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah. Tell us about that. It's amazing. Uh, at that time, uh, I was nine and a half, 10 years old, actually, and we were finally home together with my mom, my brother, and I, a little area called Atwater in Los Angeles. We lived in a little dinky house there. But, uh, one day my mom said, "Okay, boys. Come here. Let's see how much money we have."

So we went into everything we had, piggy banks, whatever. Anyways, we ended up with [00:02:00] 27 cents, period. But we had a little garden around back. And my mom said, "You know, kids, we have 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator. Our bills are paid on time. We have a little garden around back, and we have love with one another.

We're rich. Isn't this wonderful?" And that's where I learned the meaning of rich. Are you happy? Are you healthy? You're definitely rich.

Hala Taha: Mm. And you also learned a lot about generosity from- Oh, boy ... your mother.

John Paul Dejoria: Sure did. Yeah, there was a time, uh, in fact, I was six years old. This would be 1950, that year, '49, '50.

And she took my brother and I to downtown LA at Christmastime. We had trolley cars at that time. They took them away, I think, uh, you know, in the late '50s, whatever. They took them all away, but they were there. So we were taken downtown LA, and all these big beautiful department stores, the Bogus, the Bullocks, May, uh, May Company, uh, just, just Saks Fifth Avenue.

Big stores were down there, and they'd have all kinds of entertainment in the big windows, puppet shows for Christmas, outside maybe a little train going around to take kids on, those little toy trains. And, uh, we [00:03:00] thought we were the luckiest kids in the world. And then my mom gave my brother and I a dime and said, "Boys, hold half of it each.

Walk over and put it in that red bucket with the man ringing the bell." And we did. Then we went back and said to Mom, you know, it's one of my favorite stories, "Mom, why did we give a dime?" Because in those days, that's two big soda pops or three big candy bars. Mm-hmm. She said, "Boys- That's the Salvation Army.

There are people that have no food and no place to live. They help them out. And that's... We could donate something. We could only donate because we only have it, an extra dime. That's it. But we're donating something. And always remember, boys, that as long as you live, there's always somebody that needs it more than you do, no matter where you're at, and try to lend a helping hand.

Mm. If we didn't have a dime, we would also be contributing our help to them.

Hala Taha: Yeah. How do you think that gave you more power later on as an entrepreneur? Like- Oh,

John Paul Dejoria: never forgot it. Never forgot. In fact, even during the days when I had no money to contribute financially to some really good causes out there, I would [00:04:00] volunteer.

Mm. Like in my late teens, early 20s, after I got out of the Navy in my 20s, I would go at, uh, Thanksgiving and Christmastime and help serve food in Griffith Park for homeless people. Anybody that wanted to have a free meal, they were, they were there. And I was a server there. That's, that's how I could contribute.

Mm.

Hala Taha: I love that. It

John Paul Dejoria: was a big deal.

Hala Taha: So- In your early 20s you had another really big hardship. Your first wife left you-

John Paul Dejoria: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: with a two-and-a-half year old.

John Paul Dejoria: Yep.

Hala Taha: And, uh, you were evicted from your house, you're broke, I think living in your car.

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Talk to us about what you learned about community and resourcefulness at this time.

It

John Paul Dejoria: is amazing that when you have experiences, and we're all here on this planet Earth for experiences. We enter this body, we learn. We either learn and hold the bad things with us by remembering them all, or learn and make sure it doesn't happen again- Mm ... but learn a lesson so we don't carry it with us anymore.

And that's very, very important for someone to do. So here we were, the money was supposed to come through, for [00:05:00] example, in one company. In the other case, uh, whatever little money we had, uh, for example, the first time I was homeless-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

John Paul Dejoria: uh, was we had a little bit of money in the bank, not a lot. I was, at that time, 22, 23 years old.

At that time he was two and a half years old. And, uh, we had a little s- little money in the bank. We had a nice little apartment we lived in at the time with my wife and, uh, but a little one. So I came home, and I drove up in the car, uh, and she came down the steps and said, "Oh, I've gotta run to the store."

Okay. So she took the one car we had to the store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: When I got upstairs, there's my little two-and-a-half-year-old kid sitting in the middle of the living room on a pile of clothes with a note. And it says- Oh, my God ... "I cannot handle being a mom anymore. I, it, he's gonna be better off with you. I wish you good luck, and I know you're not in the best standings."

That's when I found out the next day, because she never told me, she did not pay the rent for three months. Wow. She kept all the money. The little money we had in the bank, this was like a couple hundred bucks, she took that, and the utilities were being shut off the next [00:06:00] day. She just kept it going and going and going until she could go no further, and then split.

Mm. So there we were, and it was the time... When you're down and out, and people say, "Well, when you're down and out what happens?" Well, when you're down and out you think about, at least most people do, "Oh, my God, it's terrible. So and so's fault." I mean, all this other stuff on your shoulders. Yeah. My only thought, it was a good lesson to learn, but it was the only thought I had was, "Uh-oh, I gotta get a hold of a car.

I've gotta eat." I have nothing, and I'm too proud to tell my mother- Mm ... who lived in the same town, "Mom, I'm down and out. Look what happened." I didn't want her to know.

Hala Taha: Oh.

John Paul Dejoria: So I got- became resourceful. One, I found someone that was a wonderful lady that had a car with a busted water pump. You had to put water in the car every four hours.

But it was a car- ... and it ran, okay? And then, uh, we wanted money. And again, I was too proud to even tell my mom about it. So in those days, uh, if you had a soda pop bottle, a little one, the normal-sized one, it's two cents- Mm ... you would get. A big one, five cents, okay? But every grocery [00:07:00] store and every liquor store in the 19, uh, 50s and in, going into the 1960s had to give you the money for those.

Mm. So we would go around to vacant lots, my little boy and I, and collect them all, or at night go to gas stations when they close and just take them right off the Coke machine, cash them in, and that's how we kind of survived. Mm. So a good lesson was that when you are down and out, your next thought should be, "Okay, I'm down here.

I'm not going any further down." I mean, you can't get any further down than that, right? Yeah. "Okay, what do I have to do to get to the next step?" That should be your only thought, because you cannot change yesterday's newspapers. And how of- how often do people go through life- Thinking about only if I did that differently.

Yeah, they're always like looking at the past. If I did this differently, it wouldn't be the same way. Mm-hmm. Okay, I wish I would've done that differently, or look how mean so- me was to me. You know, all, all this what if. They carry it on their shoulders. They think about it. I still hate Mary because she broke up with me.

I don't like Phil because he punched me in the tummy in junior high school. You can't change yesterday's newspapers. You gotta get it off your shoulders. What you must look at is [00:08:00] the future. Now you're a whole changed human being, 'cause now you're looking at where I'm at now and where I get to go. Mm-hmm.

Uh, just too many people, too many people, Hala, uh, don't realize the power of words and the power of thought.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: May I give you an example of that, please?

Hala Taha: Yeah, of course. Of

John Paul Dejoria: course. Okay. Too often in life, and we hear this all the time, uh, let's say a lady or a gentleman says in December, "My New Year's resolution is gonna be I'm gonna try and lose 10 pounds."

Okay? Mm-hmm. So many people, yeah. And they never do. Okay. Okay, or, "My New Year's resolution's gonna be I'm gonna try and learn a language." Okay? And it just never happens, okay? Well, why doesn't it happen? We are in a universe where the universe listens to you and wants to please you. Uh, but if the universe sees in black and white, Hala, not without any emotion.

Mm-hmm. So if people are saying, "I wanna try and lose 10 pounds this next year," the universe is basically saying to them, "Fine, that's what you wish. You will try, and you'll keep on trying and trying and trying," okay? Mm-hmm. Big [00:09:00] difference. Until you, uh, unless you were to say, "I am gonna lose 10 pounds this next year, and I can visually see one year from now the scales with me stepping on them, and I'm 10 pounds less than I weigh right now."

Mm-hmm. Now, that's conviction. Now your, your mind is set that way. That's all you're gonna think about, and that's all you're gonna do. So if you think about it and you see the end result, it's amazing how this will happen. I'm gonna give you an example how powerful this is.

Hala Taha: Sure.

John Paul Dejoria: I told a friend of mine last November, which is, you know, a little over six months ago, last November that, "Hey, you have a lot of bad luck because you've been telling me for three years you have the worst luck."

He goes, "Yep, JP, and I do." Mm-hmm. "I think about it all the time. How could this happen to me? And I tell you, I have the worst luck. We're doing good, but we could do a hell of a lot better, right? I just have bad luck." Mm-hmm. "It just happens to me in life." And I said I found out why you have all the bad luck. He goes, he believes it, right?

He says, "Really?" I said, "Yeah." He s- I said, "I know who's responsible." "JP, who?" I said, "You, because you're putting [00:10:00] out to the universe, to me, and to yourself, you think about, I just have the bas- worst luck. The universe is giving you that."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. "

John Paul Dejoria: You caused it."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And he says, "Really?" I said, "Yes. I want you to try something.

Just try this for a w- a month. Whenever that even comes into your mind, just say, 'I'm having the best luck now.'" Mm. "Now I'm having the best luck." Don't you dare say you've had bad luck, okay? "I'm now having the bas- best luck there is. I am gonna have one of the luckiest years ever." That's all I want you to say.

This is no kidding, okay? So that's November. December, January, February, March, April, May, right? Going to June, whatever. Uh, anyways, everything changed. Three of the main product lines that he worked on, all of a sudden, on one of them, you can't even fill the orders. That's how many orders are coming in. The other two are doing great now, all because of his change of attitude.

He goes, "God, JP, that works." I said, "It sure does."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: Those that think that, oh, my God, I'm too short, too fat, too ugly, don't have any money, I don't have an education. Oh, my God, uh, Jack broke [00:11:00] up with me, or Mary broke up with me, or, you know, I sprained my ankle, or I have half of a foot, whatever. Every reason in the world other than, no, I am gonna do it, and here's how I'm gonna do it, and I can see myself at the end of this having it done.

Mm-hmm. Huge change in life. Yeah. If people change this, we could change the whole world. The power of words.

Hala Taha: Power of words and your thought is so important. I'm a believer of this, and I always try to stop myself if I'm ever having any sort of negative thinking. Sure. I love to think positively. And a really great example that I have in my own life of how your words can, like, just come into existence-

John Paul Dejoria: Sure

Hala Taha: when I first started my podcast, started my podcast eight years ago, and all my friends kind of were, like, against or, like, just thought it was weird that I was starting a podcast. And they'd always be like, "Well, what do you want in five years? Like, what do you expect to happen in five years?" And I was like, "I wanna have the biggest podcast network in the world."

And I had no idea what that meant. Mm. I, I didn't know the mechanics behind it. And I remember, [00:12:00] five years later, I literally had a top self-improvement network. We're now, like, number 17 in the world of podcasters. Wow, congratulations. I've got 45 shows that I grow and monetize. And it all happened so organically, where it was just, like, one step after the other, and before I knew it, I was, knew how to do a network, underst- like, you know, was able to just have it happen- Sure

and it happened so, like, seamlessly. And I really think it's because I wa- I believed it, I said it, I'd always say it, and one day it just came true.

John Paul Dejoria: Very- You know? So you know, or you see it working.

Hala Taha: Yeah,

John Paul Dejoria: yeah. It's like if one got up every morning and said, "I am..." The words I am are very powerful. "I am healthy."

Hala Taha: Yep.

John Paul Dejoria: You are gonna be healthier.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: I am healthy. Today my day's gonna be happy. Today I'm gonna start being the observer without judgment. Yeah

Hala Taha: But you still gotta work hard

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, you have to work at it. You gotta work hard. Oh, it's not e- oh, I catch myself all is still doing that. But for a little- then I'll catch myself and stop immediately and go back to, you know, making it a normal [00:13:00] thing not to do that.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Totally. So speaking of working hard, you had lots of sales jobs before you actually started your own company.

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Um, talk to us about what you learned with door-to-door sales.

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, that was one of the best educations. I was in my 20s, and it was selling Colliers Encyclopedia door-to-door. Hmm. Best lessons still learned, so we'll talk about that, okay?

In selling encyclopedias, Colliers, because you, nobody knew about it. You know? It's, y- and you're knocking physically door to door. We had no leads, no people saying, "Please come and see me." No, "Well, this guy could be a young couple. Why don't you see him?" It was door-to-door cold sales. Hmm. And it was four days of training.

Uh, you're not paid for it. You're just trained in a pitch to sell your books, and given a little briefcase to go out there. You make no money till you make a sale. Now, they told us something that I believed. First of all, the average lifespan, and they didn't tell me this, I found out later, of an encyclopedia salesman door-to-door commission only, is three and a half days.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: I mean, after [00:14:00] three and a half days of nobody, just close the door on you. But they said something to me, and I believed them, so I lasted, like, you know, uh, my God, three and a half years. I did very well with them. They said, "Some of you are gonna make it. A lot of you won't. Those that make it will be just as enthusiastic on door number 51- Hmm

if the first 50 doors were closed on you, whether it's politely or not so politely. You gotta be just enthusiastic." I believed them. It wasn't door number 51 for me. It was door 100 and something before- ... I even got to go through. But it was true. The big difference is successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do, especially on door number 100.

Be just as enthusiastic as you were on the first door. But these things do work, and there are a lot of things that contributed to what I was doing. Another thing was that if it's 8:00 at night and you haven't made a sale yet, there's still a light on, by gosh, at least knock on a few more doors. Say, "I happened to be here.

The light was on. I'm doing a market research on education. [00:15:00] Could I ask you a few questions?" Because when the going's tough, the tough get going. Mm-hmm. That's another thing I learned there. You know, just, it's amazing how you pick up these little tidbits along the way. Best education in the world in selling.

Another thing, if you don't mind, I'd like to share- Yeah ... with all of your people, and I learned this over time, too, starting with encyclopedia sales, okay? Don't, don't go into selling business- go in the reorder business. Mm. I thought that, for example, it's a one-time sale with Collier's Encyclopedia, but it was so good, I never had an encyclopedia, that if I had one of those at home, I'd actually probably do all my homework, right?

Mm-hmm. That I believed everybody needed one. And I thought Collier's was a great one. It was written on a high school level, high school language. I thought everybody really needed one. It was the best program in the world. If you got it, you would remember for years to come that you bought it. That, you know- Yeah

it would be long-term. You're in the reorder business. Or when I started Paul Mitchell, if I had the best shampoo they've ever used, the best conditioner, they'll wanna reorder. That's so when people put a product [00:16:00] together, many times they'll do it to sell Do it so it's so darn good, or your service is so darn good that they'll tell other people about it- Mm

or they'll appreciate it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I- Reorder

John Paul Dejoria: business.

Hala Taha: Reorder business is, is so important, and a lot of people really focus on marketing. Influencer marketing is so popular now. Paid ads are so popular. What is the danger behind a product where you've gotta put so much marketing dollars behind it in order to get sales?

Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Well, there is danger because many times, uh, I could give you an example. Somebody entered the professional beauty industry and spent, oh, this is, my God, 25, 30 years ago, and spent immediately $3 or $4 million on ads-

Hala Taha: Wow ...

John Paul Dejoria: and hardly had the distribution at all. Within six months, they went out of business.

Mm. So it's not just the ads and marketing. It's, a lot has to go behind it. But today you have things I don't have. Like for me, when I started Paul Mitchell and, uh, our money never came through- Mm-hmm ... so we started with $700. And it's, it's in the book that [00:17:00] I wrote, uh, S- Success Unshared Is Failure. Mm-hmm. But, uh, uh, we had no money, but how in the world do you get a product out?

Well, we had to go door to door like I sold encyclopedias to try and get salons to get the product from us- Mm ... door to door to door to door. We picked salons because I was in the industry previously. Uh, and, and, and I had been fired from three different companies, but I learned something different from each company that allowed me to go forward, and I did good with every company, but unusual reasons why.

One was, "Hey, you're, uh, you're complaining about us testing on animals, and that's what the corporation's doing. But even though it doesn't make sense, it makes us look good with a scientific approach." Yeah. "But you're telling other executive managers like you, 'JP, you gotta stop doing that.'" I said, "But I can't because what you're doing is wrong."

Mm. Well, they fired me, and my divisions were up. Second company, I increased their sales by 50%. Fermadal had bought, I mean, Centex had bought a company called Fermadal, and I was hired to train their sales force and their [00:18:00] educational force, which I did, and 50% the first year they went up in sales. They fired me 'cause I wasn't one of them, the inner clique with them- Yeah

to take it when it, whatever. I got fired. And then with the Institute of Trichology, I tripled their sales, but I was mainly on a commission basis, made more than the owner of the company. They said, "Ah, this'll never stop. We'll get somebody else to do your job for one-third the amount of money." If it wasn't- For all three of those companies and the experience I had, I could have never started John Paul Mitchell Systems with $10 million, let alone $700.

Hala Taha: Yeah, the experience was so important.

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, yeah. So we're learning. Whenever something happens that isn't good, maybe it's destiny or the planet saying, "You don't belong here. You're gonna get fired because your destiny, your purpose in life, is yet to come." Mm-hmm. "You're not leaving, we're making you move."

'Cause I did good with every company, but I wasn't right for that company. It wasn't right for me. I moved on. John Paul Mitchell Systems was a great start and, uh, today obviously it's the world's [00:19:00] largest privately owned salon haircare company that puts everything back into the salon and makes sure they always benefit no matter how you distribute.

Hmm.

Hala Taha: So I recently was having a conversation with Naveen Jain, and he was actually talking about how it's such an advantage to be an outsider of an industry before you join it. But you had the advantage of being an insider of an industry.

John Paul Dejoria: Exactly. So

Hala Taha: what was it that you wanted to change when you started Paul Mitchell?

John Paul Dejoria: Well, I wanted the products to be so incredible that people, when they use it, wanna reuse it again, right? Not that there's not other products like that, there are. But I wanna make sure the hairdresser knew what we had was so good, and if they used it, we know they would recommend it. But we also thought that, "What is missing?

I know what's missing. The salons aren't really in the- Take home business in the retail business. And I said, "Well, wait a minute. If I could show them how this shampoo you only use one time, this conditioner you leave in your hair, this sculpting lotion adds all this body, and teach the [00:20:00] hairdresser how to explain it to their customer while they're using it, like I'm using this much conditioner, I'm putting it in your hair, I'm gonna leave it in your hair, because it'll eliminate a lot of the damage the blow-dryer is doing, okay?"

Mm-hmm. Or, uh, I just neutralized the chemicals in my hands when I did, then it's a leave-in conditioner. It's like a pomade. You can use it, too.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Or, you know, I mean, all the reasons why they're... Like, show it to the customer while you're doing it, and when they go home, you can say, "Here's the same products I used on you.

They are available, by the way, you know, at the front desk, but I would recommend out of these five, for sure you should get these two, okay? Because you're gonna need these particular two- Mm ... but if you get all five, get all five, or come back, get the rest." We started salon retailing.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: And all of a sudden it helped salons take off and became more successful.

Hala Taha: Well, that's so smart, because your hairdresser actually became your salesperson. Exactly. So you were selling to the hairdresser, and then the hairdresser was selling to their customers. Yep.

John Paul Dejoria: And that was before we could ever afford ads. We had no ads. All we had was the product's quality, that they would like it so much they'd wanna reorder.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, so let's, let's talk about the origin story [00:21:00] of Paul Mitchell. You team up with, like, a, a very... He was... Was he already famous, like a famous hairstylist, Paul Mitchell?

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah, my, my partner Paul was a famous hair- Paul wasn't his name, by the way. It wasn't? It was Cer- Cyril T. Mitchell. But for a hairdressing name, he called himself Paul Mitchell.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: To the day he died, his passport was Cyril Thomas Mitchell, a hairdresser, right? And we would switch off. You're chairman of the board one day, I'm president. You know, next day I'm president, you're chairman of the board. We just had a bla- 'cause we had no employees.

Yeah.

So we wanted to s- and so Paul was very, very well known as a, about 5% of the hairdressers knew him as being very, very avant-garde.

Mm. But because we had a product line, and we went around doing a lot of shows, quite a few more were. He was just a, one of the greatest guys. But we had a great relationship. We were pals for nine years before we started. I didn't do hair. He didn't do business. We never argued about anything. And it was just so wonderful.

Perfect match. And we wanted to have the very, very best, and it turned out that way. Today we are 46 years old. In this industry, you change your products [00:22:00] about every three years, right? Mm-hmm. My first original four products are still good sellers. Wow. That's the quality of the products that Paul Mitchell made.

Mm. And that's the quality of the products that hairdressers use and recommend to their customers, and they wanted to reuse again because of the quality of the product. Mm. It worked, and it worked well.

Hala Taha: So when you guys started, um, you originally had an investor, and I think he was supposed to give you, like, $500,000, but he pulled out last minute- Yep

and you guys were left with $700. That's correct. So my question to you is Why did you keep going? Like, why did you, like, why did you just start, like decide, "All right. Well, we only have 700 bucks- Yeah. "But we're just gonna move forward"?

John Paul Dejoria: Great question. Okay. He didn't give it to us, by the way. The way it worked out was, uh, the money was coming in down the hill, okay?

And my relationship was going good, so I was out of my relationship. I took this used car, the more used car down the hill, left the better one with my wife and daughter, left them all the money, went down the hill there. The money never came in. I mean, that's what [00:23:00] the story is. And the, an interesting story.

It never came in. So when I finally found out about it, I found out why it didn't come in. That night someone got ahold of me. They found me and said, "JP, we, we know where to find you, okay?" It wasn't at my house. And they said, "JP, Dick Holthaus from Citicorp is trying to get ahold of you. Please call him collect, okay?

For him it'll be the middle of the morning. He's gonna pick up." And he said, "JP, the guy changed his mind at the last minute." It was $500,000. He changed his mind at the last minute. He says, "The reason he changed his mind..." This is 1980. In 1980 and '81, inflation in the United States was 12 and a half percent.

Mm. Bad time to start a business. And unemployment in the United States was 10 and a half percent. You had to wait in line for gasoline, and if you wanted a loan, if you could get one, we never could, interest rates, prime rate- Was 17% interest Wow Worst time for us to start any kind... So he pulled out. I want- I found this out, I said...

And Paul had [00:24:00] flown over, he was in Hawaii at the time. And he's- I said, "Well, Paul, listen, I've already got the product set up. We've already made the, the, the for products. I have the silk- I have everybody set up, right? Paul, how much money do you have that you can spare?" He says, "JP, I'm on my last dollars. I could spare maybe $350, that's it."

I said, "I, I have a couple hundred bucks, but I'm gonna go borrow that 350 bucks from my mom." "And with the $700 we are gonna start a company, and it's gonna happen." He goes, "God, JP, I hope so." Now my mom, once again, I was too proud to tell her, "Mom, for the second time, I'm down and out. I don't even have a place to live.

Can I have my room back?" I was too proud to tell her that, so I didn't. So I lived in my car once again, okay, for a few weeks. It was... Anyways, and we started the company. So now how in the world do you start a company like that? Yeah. It's in the book also. How do you start a company like that with no money and get money?

And I'll gladly share that with you. Number one is from the time I said, "Go," we were ordering or- initially 100,000 bottles. And they [00:25:00] knew who I was from my, uh, my experience with all these other companies. I had a great experience in the industry. Yeah. So I said, "Guys, we're gonna do it." I set up 30-day billing.

Well, when the money didn't come through, I had to be creative. So I called up the bottle man and said, "Look, can I get a sample order of only 100, um, only 10,000 bottles, not 100,000? 3,000 shampoo one, 3,000 shampoo two, and 4,000 of the conditioner." He goes, "Of course. I'm w- I was wondering why you never got a sample order before."

I said, "Great." I said, "Ship it as f- quick as you can, the empty bottles to the silk screener." I called the silk screener up. "Hey, we're having a, a s- a run of only 10,000 bottles. Can you do this?" Right? All we needed now was the artwork. And I did the same thing with the filler who filled our products for us.

We had everything ready to go. Only 10,000, right? Mm-hmm. So I had 30-day credit with each one that was arranged. If they knew what we were out of that time, we wouldn't have any credit, right? So I called the silk screener and I called the, the filler. He sent it over immediately. From [00:26:00] the time it went from the bottle company, which was Senco, to the silk screener, to the actual filler along the way, right, that was two weeks.

I had two weeks to fir- pay the first bill. Now let me back up. What did I do with the $700, right? Mm-hmm. And how did I start a darn company with that? We went to the person that did the artwork. You cannot get a silk screen unless you have the artwork, right? Mm-hmm. It was $1,000. We didn't have it. So I borrowed from my mother a few dollars, obviously, to get it to 700.

I have a few dollars in my pocket, a few hundred bucks left in my pocket, which I came down the hill with. That was it. So I s- I told the guy the truth. He goes, "Well, if you only have 700 bucks, I'll never get my other 300. You want the artwork? It's $700." He took it all. What little money I had left, I got us an address, a PO box in Universal City, $16 for a little PO box-

you know, the little teeny one, 'cause this is 1980, right? Yeah. So I had an address, and then in those days, we didn't [00:27:00] have computers, we didn't have cell phones. We had tap setters. So I went to a printing store and had them type up for me, for I think it was about $5, John Paul Mitchell Systems, PO Box 10597, whatever, Universal City, California.

He set the type for me and made me one copy of a photocopy. Then I drew lines on it, like for an invoice, and I had him make me, for 4 cents a copy, Xerox copies of it. That was my invoice, stationary, and at the top of those pieces- ... of paper, we had our John Paul Mitchell Systems universal box. At a friend's house, I used their telephone with a $49 answering machine on it.

Mm. And the girl that answered the machine was a friend of mine named Kathleen. My friend of mine, Kathleen, was a lady that was from England and very strong English accent, right?

Hala Taha: Does sound very luxurious.

John Paul Dejoria: So when, yeah, when you called- ... they would say, "Oh, hello. John Paul Mitchell Systems. This is Caroline."

It was Caroline was her name. "Oh, how can we help you? I'm out right now. We're all out, and we're having such an [00:28:00] exciting time. I'll call you back later today. In fact, I'll try and get John Paul to personally call you back. Hey, have a nice day. We are so happy." And that was it. Well, she did it one time as a favor.

I would be always the one that called back. But what, what happened? We had an office, we had stationary- Yeah ... we had a way to bill them, and we had an answering machine. That's how we started, and there's other things we did for no money to create a business. Once you're created and you have no money, how do you get your money immediately?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: The professional beauty industry, and their distributors, and their warehouse-ers. Pay their bills in 45 days. I needed the money immediately, so I came up with a way with the orders, the few orders that I'd gotten, to get the money from him immediately, and he gave it to us, and that's how we started, and that's how we started a trend of within 10 days getting your money from distributors who used to paying for 45 days.

And not to take up all of your time here- Yeah ... it's in the book how we did it. So in other words, you become resourceful, and you find ways to do things. Even [00:29:00] when... And we kept to our promise we'll stay in the beauty industry. So let's say distribution changed, and it did during COVID especially, right?

Mm-hmm. Everyone said, "Oh, you can't get outside." And a lot of people closed their shops and everything, right? They were out of business for months at a time. They had nothing left, nothing left. A lot of them couldn't go back to business again. If they did, they had no products. So what happened was at the end of COVID, towards the end when salons opened up, we took several million dollars of our own money from Paul Mitchell and bought all these products, and those salons that were really into Paul Mitchell, we gave it to them to start their business again.

Mm. Free, no charge. That's

Hala Taha: so nice.

John Paul Dejoria: Talked to our distributors into giving them some timing for reorders and things of that nature. So if you use what you have to help your customers out, it helps you even grow. And after that, we just continued to grow and grow and grow.

Hala Taha: I have so many questions on this. I think the first question I have to ask is about the salons and the hairdressers and your loyalty to them.

Mm. Because you never went commercial. You always- No ... stayed in the salons, and you didn't want your [00:30:00] product to be sold elsewhere. Why was it so important for you to be loyal to the salons?

John Paul Dejoria: Right. And, and then let me tell you what we did, especially during COVID, okay? When we started, we told the salons, "No matter what happens in distribution, if it changes, we will always be in the professional salon business and include you."

So COVID comes along, right? Salons are closed. What are you gonna do? So we worked with Amazon to go on Amazon with our products, one, to get rid of all the black market products that were on Amazon. There were a lot of ones on there, a lot of them counterfeit, right? And they did remove them. But also, we knew what our sales were in different parts of the country, 'cause you're on Amazon, they tell you.

We took a percentage of our money that we got back from this and gave it right back to salons. Mm. Salons that were using Paul Mitchell, we gave it right back to them. Many of them were in what you would call credit slips, where, hey, you could buy all these products at wholesale, right, from Paul Mitchell, and maybe you could use your whole back bar just off of what we are sending you from what [00:31:00] we're getting from Amazon, your portion, so no matter what happens.

Uh, another one was- Uh, that came along, uh, was, oh, a big, I won't even mention her name. A big, a big store throughout the United States that- Mm-hmm ... was black marketing Paul Mitchell. And a lot of people black marketed in old products. Salons would buy extra, sell it to them under the table. Yeah. So w- and they had a lot of it, so we said, "Look, how about this?

How about we cut a deal with you, okay? That we will help provide you, not with all of our products, but just some that support take-home use at home for your products, right?" Mm-hmm. "Period. But you will put a big sign up in your stores that says that, you know, 'These are for take home to assist, but to go see your professional beauty salon to see how do you use them, and they're the ones that'll do the professional products for you.'"

In other words, they had to promote with a big sign that. Mm-hmm. So what happened? Way to win, yeah. We took it out of the black market, so they didn't have to be black marketing anymore. They could have the real stuff, but there was a big sign in there, and we gave part of all those profits back to the salons again.

Mm. So we kept our promise. Why did we do this? Because when you had companies like [00:32:00] Vidal Sassoon, Jeremac, and I could go on and on, okay? They said, "Oh, we'll always stay in the beauty industry. We'll include you." They got big enough, they went full-blown retail and kind of forgot about the science a little bit, okay?

And, uh, forgot what we said, and no, uh, yeah. And then they sold their company to someone else and made a lot of money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: But we said we had no money when we started. Nothing. You believed we would do something and somehow get money back to you forever, and that's what we're gonna do. And I'm not g- I'm not gonna get away from that.

Hala Taha: Was your objective with Paul Mitchell to make the most money possible, or did you have another goal?

John Paul Dejoria: Our goal with Paul Mitchell originally was if we could only do $5 million a year in business- Paul, you can make 250,000. I can make 250,000. We'd be set for life and give hairdressers the best products ever.

We had no idea we'd get as big as we are and go to 100 million, 200, 300. We had no idea that we could be, uh, be able to achieve this unbelievable sales, but learned as we went along how, how we [00:33:00] did it, and we just learned as we went along. Had no idea. But the initial motivation was to give them the best products ever so we could be proud, and we each make a quarter of a million dollars.

Hmm. You know, that was our potential. I had no idea of all the rest, and it blossomed. Well,

Hala Taha: I guess I wanna dig deeper on, like, why you decided to stay loyal to the salons where y- when your m- your business could have made more money.

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, exact- it's very easy to tell you. We were also offered more money for Paul Mitchell than any company has ever been offered or received in the professional beauty industry.

It's all no, no, no, no. Why is this? Why did we turn down our word for money? Because we had absolutely nothing. And because we had absolutely nothing and they believed us, we got a whole bunch of something.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: We owe you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And my feeling is be respectful. You owe them. We owe you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No mat- and I told them, "No matter how distribution changes, I will always keep it in the professional beauty industry with money somehow."

And that's what we did through these other examples I gave you. Yeah. Because in our heart, [00:34:00] success unshared is failure. Yeah. Part of it is your word. If you tell somebody to do something and you became really famous or really, really good, right, and it's going great, and then all of a sudden you jump to get greedy and more money- Mm-hmm

well, wait a minute. I had nothing. They helped me get some money because I didn't have any money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul Dejoria: I owe them. And I think ethics in business is extremely important.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And we just gave it up for money. We had enough. We were growing. And you know, obviously when I finally started Patrón nine years later, the money was really flowing in.

Yeah. But it was mainly because of our word. And I think a lot of hairdressers used our product before, during, and even these days because they see we kept our word.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm And you even put it in, in a trust for like 360 years. Three,

John Paul Dejoria: that's right. It's in a trust so no one can change it because many times someone will die and say, "Okay, well, that was h- what he said.

We want the money. Let's cash it." Yeah. No. I put it into a trust where nobody runs it other than my children and their grandchildren can observe it and help direct it as an [00:35:00] executive in it. But all the money goes into one pile, no one controls it, and it goes out to all my siblings- Mm ... and all my children and great, great, great, great grandchildren.

So let's see, in one or 200 years from now, they'll always get some. There'll always be something left there, and my kids cannot, no one can rate it, and they must keep it somehow in the professional beauty industry where even if distribution changes like it does today, some money goes back to those hairdressers.

Hala Taha: I love that. Let's talk about Paul Mitchell product and marketing. Sure. So one of your constraints actually turned out to be something that was really great for the company, which was you could only afford black and white. Black and white. Yeah, black and white are- Yes, you know

John Paul Dejoria: that story. That is- Yeah ... we, it was two cents, two cents for a gl- for a, take a white bottle and put black writing on it.

We didn't know we would've created unisex packaging. It appealed to both. We didn't know that. Yeah. Today we add some color to them. In those days, the difference was seven cents for color, two cents. Way to go for two cents.

Hala Taha: It's all I built. And it was so iconic, it stood out. [00:36:00] Like to this day, I remember Paul Mitchell packaging- Yeah

because it stands out because it's black and white.

John Paul Dejoria: That's right, and the w- le- letters went sideways at that time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Uh, reordering, I think, is one of the best principles of your book. As an entrepreneur, there are so many entrepreneurs tuning in, and we really wanna be in the reorder business. Mm. We don't wanna be in the selling business.

That is correct. And part of that is having a product so good that doesn't require marketing or as much marketing.

John Paul Dejoria: Uh, exactly, yeah. But you wanna have some marketing, but if, if you could get it requires it. Let me give you an example of that, in fact. Mm-hmm. This is good for, for your, your audience to know.

Mm-hmm. There is a, uh, a site you go to, okay? Called Global, like G-O-B-A-L, S like in Sam, K like in Kentucky, U like universe. Globalsku.com. Now, why is this great? We didn't have that in my day. I wish we did. I'll give you an example how this works. You could take your camera, take a picture, let's say, of an old T-shirt- Mm-hmm

in your closet, half a bicycle in your garage, [00:37:00] whatever, and then you take it with your camera. In a matter of seconds, it's like AI, right? A matter of seconds, the picture comes up of what you had and what it looked like, you know, new, and- Underneath it, what it sold for used last.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay, all pops up like that, right, in seconds.

Then you can push the button, do I want it on, uh, you know, uh, on, uh, on this place to be sold? Do I want it over here to be sold? For example, if you wanted to go online and sell something, in your mind, what's the first place you would go to to sell it if you were gonna go online?

Hala Taha: eBay or-

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah, okay, okay

yeah ... eBay, okay. So what happens is now you have this, all in seconds, now you have a choice. You push a button. Do you want that to be sold? 'Cause now you know what the price was, what price do you want or do you want it auctioned off, okay? Mm-hmm. Do you wanna go on eBay or do you wanna go on three or four of these other sources you could go on, or on both of them to sell what you have?

All instantly. What does something like this cost? $15 a month. Mm. Up to I think a [00:38:00] maximum of $400 a month. I believe for $15 you get about 20, 25 sales.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Now, I wanted to see this work, so they sent two guys into a thrift store to buy T-shirts. One had Illinois, I believe, across it, but all embossed, so it must've been a special T-shirt, for $2.

The other one, some artwork on it for $2. They paid it. By the time they left the store, the guy that got the one with the Illinois or the state on it sold it for almost $100. There was something special about that T-shirt somebody realized, 'cause it went out to millions of people- Mm ... right? The other guy, took him several months, but he sold his also for 20 some odd dollars.

I thought, "Whoa, that is really cool."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: You know, so, so it gives somebody a way to sell something now without having a bunch of money to be able to get all these distributors. Mm-hmm. Now you have millions of people or multi. Why is this so powerful? It goes to all these different sites, or you wanna go just to one eBay, you just push eBay, it's on.

You want these other sites, you push it, you're on.

Hala Taha: Mm. Very cool. Changes

John Paul Dejoria: distri- And no money. You can, from your home, have a [00:39:00] business. Now you have distribution. Didn't cost you anything- It's- ... other than whatever it costs for the transfer of the

Hala Taha: money ... it's easier than ever to be an entrepreneur. Oh, boy, yes.

You used to have to go door-to-door to the distributors- Exactly ... and we get to use- Bangin' door-to-door ... sites like Global SKU and- That's it ... even our social media sites are free marketing distribution, and so we've got a lot of distribution online that- Oh, yeah ... you didn't have when you were starting your companies.

Amazing, isn't

it, yeah?

Uh, let's talk about Patrón- Sure ... and how you ended up, you know, going into the beverage industry. So give us the origin story of Patrón. How did you come up with the idea and, um, tell us the importance of storytelling when it came to- Oh, certainly ... the marketing of Patrón ... you betcha.

John Paul Dejoria: Storytelling is so good. Mm-hmm. 'Cause then you can tell somebody what your feature is and how it benefits you. So Patrón, uh, we're in business now at Paul Mitchell, and this is, uh, 1988 going into 1989, and I'm, I'm building a house on the West Coast for my whole family, like a vacation house. And we're getting stones and a lot of our stone [00:40:00] work and pavers from Mexico, and a friend of mine- Introduced me to this fellow named Martin who just went bankrupt in the hospitality business.

Mm-hmm.

He says, "JP, give him a helping hand if you could." I said, "Okay." So I was the bank. He would go to Mexico, buy pavers, furniture, come back and sell it to architects for model homes or restaurants. Buy it in Mexico really cheap, back in the United States here. And one time he was going down there while I'm building this place to get me some stone.

I said, "Martin," and we were drinking tequila. But it was the type, though, where you, you would lick the salt- Mm-hmm ... shoot the tequila, and squeeze the lime in so you don't get that burning taste in your throat- Yeah ... or making it a margarita. Mm-hmm. So I said, "Martin, when you go down there to buy this stuff, why don't you find out what the aristocrats drink and bring a bottle back- Mm

so we can drink something good." We knew nothing about the business. He came back with these two long bottles, like just normal bottles of tequila, but it was really smooth. Mm. He says, "But JP, I met a guy named Francisco Alcaraz who knows how to [00:41:00] get this stuff made in this plant, and more important, can make it even smoother."

I said, "Really?" I said, "Martin, go back down. Here's the money." "Get a ticket, right? Bring back a few bottles of the new stuff," and he did. The, he made the new stuff for us, brought it back. We found these incredible recycled bottles to put it in. I said, "Okay, we're going in the business. I'll order 1,000 cases," which is 12,000 bottles, 12 to a case.

Let's see what we could do with it. My mon- mind, uh, was working well. Let's see. I know it's expensive. We'd have to sell it for $37.95 when the average tequila was $5 a bottle in those days. Mm-hmm. Okay? Uh, I knew that, but... And if nobody bought it, I was doing good with Paul Mitchell. For 10 years, every holiday you had, you had a new baby, here's a bottle of Patrón.

You got married to me, there'd be gifts. Christmas time, anything, it'd be gifts to everybody, okay? That'd be the worst scenario 'cause it was so good. I'd be so proud. So we came back. We wanted distribution, right? Nobody would take us. Mm-hmm. Nobody. They said, "It's great. I've never tasted [00:42:00] tequila like this, but- It's too expensive.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Now, just to get into bars, Martin and I would go around and we'd go... And you could do this in 1989. It was in LA where we started it. We would go in there and say to the bartender, "I'd like to buy you a shot of tequila. Here's $3." That's what it was. Said, "Oh, thank you." He takes a shot, and then we pull out of our briefcase the Patrón.

"Can I have an empty glass?" Say, "Would you taste that?" "Whoa, that is smooth. What is it?" "That's the new world of tequila. It's called Patrón, and it's, it is the smoothest tequila."

Hala Taha: It's the hairdresser model, but for bars.

John Paul Dejoria: Exactly. Exactly. And then we went door to door. I knew someone at Spago's. I knew Wolfgang Puck.

He took it. Martin did also, but we went door to door with that little taster to do it, to get it going. No one would take us. We finally convinced a wine company that only sold wine to be our distributor.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: If we get them Spago's and Bar Cantina. We knew we would, so he said yes. [00:43:00] After one year, they were only selling about 1,000 cases.

That was it. So we dropped them and took on a big company, Jim Beam. That's a big one. We had it one more layer in. We had to give them money, and of course, they would make money, then their distributors are all the big distributors. They would make money. Then it goes to the wholesalers and the retailers.

There's too many cuts.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: We'd make less money, but at least they would take it on. After about a year and a half approximately, they called us on in and we sat down with them. We said, "We were really thinking that by now we'd do 20,000, 30,000 cases and one day- Yeah ... we could do 50,000 cases." They were so nice to us.

They said, "Guys, you have the best tequila in the world, but it's too expensive. You know, you're competing at somebody at seven, eight times the cost of their tequila. $37.95, guys, the most you'll ever do. You'll do good, because it is the best. There's nothing like it. But you'll never do more than 20,000 cases a year."

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: And they were nice about it. We dropped them. We went to Seagram's. They took it up to about 50, okay? [00:44:00] We dropped them and took it on ourselves and changed everything. Mm. We changed the market and we changed instead of having beautiful girls promoting stuff, right? We'd have the bottle eventually as the star of the ad.

Mm. Did everything. I'm gonna make a real long story short, okay? Yeah. We continued what I learned selling encyclopedias bar to bar, door to door, liquor store to liquor store, until we got the salesmen to do the same. All right? So that's what we did. It was exactly the same thing over and over and over and over again.

So from all these past experiences, we learned, but what was the end result? I sold Patrón about eight years ago. When I sold Patrón... Maybe nine years ago. When I sold Patrón- We were doing about 3,500,000- Wow ... cases a year. We sold the company for more than 200% more than any company in the liquor industry has ever sold for.

Mm. Now, another thing that for your, uh, people to really know, if somebody that's the smartest people in the world tell you you'll only do [00:45:00] so good but you know you can do better, don't believe them. Mm. Don't let somebody that's an expert saying, "You'll only do 20," when we thought we could do more. "You'll only do 50."

Now we got you to 50 with another company. We knew we could do better. We believed it. So when we sold it, three and a half million cases, okay, because we believed it- Mm ... that we could do better, and that's something people have to realize. Yeah. We believed we could do it.

Hala Taha: Well, I wanna unpack also the branding and storytelling around, uh, Patron, because it was really marketed as this premium- Oh

luxurious product from the price point to, like, the way that it was crafted- Sure ... and the storytelling that you told around that. Let me tell- It was really like the, the Chanel of-

John Paul Dejoria: Let me tell- ...

Hala Taha: tequila, right?

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah. You wanna know the magic? I'll tell you the magic. Very easy. Okay, so we get this thing rolling, and what was the magic behind it, especially for a high price?

The magic was when we start promoting it, not just as the best tequila ever here, you taste it, and we told [00:46:00] bars to promote it the same way, and it would be this. How would you like to treat yourself today? Someone goes to a restaurant, for example, "Can I have a margarita?" "Yeah, sure. We make a good margarita, but how would you like to treat yourself today?

For $2 more, you could have the finest tequila in the world, Patron, for only $2 more to treat yourself."

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, everyone wants to treat themselves. Those are the words we use. Okay? We would tell people in liquor stores, tell them if they come up with something, "Hey, you wanna treat yourself? We have that new Patron tequila in here that's the best ever made.

You could treat yourself. We have it here." Mm-hmm. We started converting it to it's Simply Perfect and treat yourself, treat yourself, treat yourself. Now, when we started Patron, we knew nothing about the alcohol business. So I tell people, "If you start a business you're going into you know nothing about it, learn the vocabulary first."

Now, I used the same techniques I did at Paul Mitchell, the same things I did selling encyclopedias to get it out there, and new marketing ideas, new everything [00:47:00] ideas, right? And it worked really, really well, but I used what I learned along the way to be able to do it. Mm. And new vocabulary, using their vocabulary in the industry and what it meant, and that's how you learn industry really quick.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's really interesting. And then where did you come up with the name Patron?

John Paul Dejoria: By accident. Martin and I were sitting around saying, "What are we gonna name this new tequila? The best," right? Mm-hmm. Or super cool, super mellow, whatever. And we said, "Yeah, you know, and, uh, we'll be just really good patrons."

Patrons? Patron means, like, the good boss, right? Mm. Yeah. Can we get that name, Martin? I don't know. So Martin went after it, right? Nobody ever applied for it. We applied for Patron, and we got it. We were almost in shock. And then when we started making a little bit of money off Patron, we found some other company in Mexico called, uh, Reserva Del La Patron.

We bought that name from them immediately- Mm ... so it can never come up in the future.

Hala Taha: Really cool. And I know Patrón, like, really took off in the hip hop world, [00:48:00] right?

John Paul Dejoria: That was by accident.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Like, I got a call one day. They said, "JP," you know, this is while we're in business for a while and hip hop started, rap.

"There's some guy named 50- 50 Cents," I think that- Yeah, 50 Cent, yeah. 50, yeah, it's 50 Cents, but it's like 50 cents, right? Uh-huh. He's walking around with a bottle of Patrón, an empty bottle, with diamonds all over it. I said, "God, that's nice." I, I, I said, "Send him a case of it and tell him thank you." My God. All of a sudden, organically, it took off.

Over 200 songs were written with Patrón in it. I think there were three or maybe four country and western songs. One of them was the biggest song of the time. It was called, uh, something about Tequila Makes My Wife's Pants Fall Down or something like that- ... right? But it was all about Patrón. I gave her Patrón, right?

So all of a sudden... And that cost us nothing. People just loved it and wanted to show off that, hey, Patrón is cool. We drink it. It's kind of like many years ago, well, we drink Courvoisier, okay, as a cognac, right? Yeah. They'll... We drink Patrón. That was it. [00:49:00] That was the, the me- because they loved it, and they could afford to give themselves the best, and it just took off like the world never knew.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Did you end up leaning into that demographic and marketing to that demographic? Yeah. Or you just let it take off organically?

John Paul Dejoria: It took off organically. In, in that, in, in that area, all of a sudden, all areas, it just took off organically. Mm. And

in the hip hop area, it just took off organically. Mm. It just exploded, because they wanted to treat themselves, and they did, even before we told them to treat themselves. They realized they were treating themselves.

Hala Taha: Go deeper on how you made Patrón a luxury brand.

John Paul Dejoria: Certainly. First thing is you have to...

Let's take a tequila. It's got to be different than other tequilas. Ours was the mellowest gourmet, and we did not have that in the United States at all. So that was number one. Second thing was when they tasted it, they saw the difference, or when they put your shirt on and they saw the quality of whatever you had, it was different.

So one, it's got to be different and better. Where it supports treat [00:50:00] yourself. That's number one. Mm. And then number two is you've gotta teach that to the salesmen that sell it, so we will go in the field with the salesmen, hold sales meetings for them, and keep on reminding them so they could use that same thing when they called on an on-premise or off-premise, which means in a bar or restaurant or in a liquor store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Same philosophy, but you have it all the way down so they knew something to say that was simple. Had to be one or two simple things they could say. One or two simple things, right? Or they're not gonna remember it.

Hala Taha: Mm. And you well on- you went on to sell Patron for how many billions of dollars? $5 billion?

John Paul Dejoria: Okay. Well, since I normally don't talk about it, it was public information, made the Wall Street Journal, everything. I didn't wanna sell it, and that was in their all... I did not wanna sell it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: So they came to me and said, "JP, we wanna be your partner. We wanna buy the whole company. Well, how much do you want for it?"

I said, "I don't wanna sell it." And I said, "Well, but, but just give me a..." I said, "Nope, I don't wanna sell it." "I'm having a blast with it. We're making lots of money." So they asked me the question, very good question they asked They said, [00:51:00] "JP, if you did sell it, only if, how much would you want for it?" Now I had no idea what these things sold for, so I thought, "I'll just throw a crazy figure out."

And I did. I said, "It'd have to be more than $5 billion." They laughed and said, "JP, the biggest brand in the industry sold for 2.2 billion. That was Gray Goose. You want more than twice that. Never gonna happen." I said, "I don't wanna sell it."

Hala Taha: You're like, "Duh, that's

John Paul Dejoria: why." "You asked me. I don't wanna sell. That's it."

Anyways, time went by, okay. Others approached. I'm not interested. Then they came back to me, Bacardi, and said, "Would you take 5 billion 100 million as the valuation?" And I said, "Yes" immediately. "Yes, yes, I'll do it. I'll do it immediately." I would never do that with Paul Mitchell. With Patron, yes, I did it immediately, and, uh, I had the majority obviously of the company and got the majority of all the money there.

And, uh, I also shared it with my staff. Yeah. Uh, w- I made people that worked with me, helped me get there, millionaires and, uh, a few of them multi-millionaires, so everybody walked away really happy.

Hala Taha: That's incredible, [00:52:00] and that is why your book is titled Success-

John Paul Dejoria: Success Unshared- ... Unshared is Failure ... is Failure.

It's on Amazon now, by the way. They start delivering this next week. They've been taking pre-orders on it. Hundreds of people have been pre-ordering it, so I would suggest, guys, get it as quick as you can because the first edition is what they're selling. Mm. And they think they're gonna sell out of it within the first month.

Get it while you can. I can just guarantee you that if you read it, it's not only an autobiography, but it's how to do all these things, how we did it, how we got money earlier, how America still works, and other things you could do, other things you could do in your life that you'll find in that book that I'm allowed to talk about now.

And I'll give you one quick example, okay? Mm-hmm. I am not and never have been an agent of the CIA. I am not and never have been an agent of the FBI. But I trained and have trained more than once both of them. I trained them how to be a more loving, caring manager, 'cause they have turnover like everybody else.

You like- Mm-hmm ... in fact, it made the front page of The Wall Street Journal. [00:53:00] Uh, this was I think 19, uh, 1998, 1999, whatever. Front page, Wall Street Journal, "Have a good hair day at the CIA", okay? "JP Hair Care boss to go teach them about how to be more of a loving manager." But anyways, but that's the pre-setup for this, and all is in the book.

I'm the guy who in 2000, 2001, I'm the guy that went into Libya and convinced- Mm-hmm ... Colonel Gaddafi to release the two suspected terrorists of Pan Am Flight 103, release them to go on trial in The Hague. I'm the one that helped do that. I'm the guy that went in and out and was able to talk to- he wanted to kill me.

Okay? After I started talking with him, oh, the guy that was with me was, I mean, I would think, peeing in his pants. He said he spilled tea on his pants. The whole story's in there. But, uh, with him almost wanting to kill me, I had him within two minutes laughing with me, and that's when I said I took my $8, uh, throwaway camera, that's where you had 35 pictures, you took it down, they developed it, to his chief of staff, Omar Montaser.

I said, "Could you take a picture with us?" He said, "Sure." So [00:54:00] I ran over, I hug Gaddafi, he smiled, and I smiled, and we got the picture. It's in the book of Gaddafi and I like that. Oh

Hala Taha: my gosh.

John Paul Dejoria: So in other words, once you're into it and you have confidence within yourself, you know you can do amazing things. And I have a saying that's this: being nice, being nice, okay, even works, and being real even works on jerks.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: Like, even works on jerks. Okay, so, you know, being good to everybody works. It really works, even on jerks.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Even on jerks. So I was nice to Gaddafi, and I made him laugh, even though he was ready to kill me for something I'd said just minutes before.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: So i- these are some lessons we learn along the way, and we apply them to people.

We apply them.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. I've read the book twice now, and there's so many incredible war stories. There's so much inspiration in it. There's, especially for young entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping their companies and, and having- Oh, yeah ... to be scrappy and resourceful. So I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend that people go- Sure.

John Paul Dejoria: Thank you ...

Hala Taha: grab it. Uh, I wanna play a [00:55:00] game before we go.

John Paul Dejoria: Sure.

Hala Taha: Uh, where's my water real quick. I'll do that part over 'cause I wanna-

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, there's one right there. There we go.

Hala Taha: We'll play a game, and then we'll talk more about success-

John Paul Dejoria: Sure ...

Hala Taha: and fear of failure. How you feeling? Good?

John Paul Dejoria: Excellent.

Hala Taha: I'll get my notes

Okay, cool

All right, so this we'll use mostly for social, but we'll use it in the intro too

John Paul Dejoria: And see, so now you'll have a book for your home and a book for your office.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Or your car, depending what your office is for the day.

Hala Taha: I have a, I'm building a studio in my apartment, so I'll put it on my back wall

John Paul Dejoria: There you go.

Hala Taha: Okay. So JP, I wanna play a game.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: It's called would you rather.

John Paul Dejoria: Would you rather, okay.

Hala Taha: And I'm gonna give you a bunch of questions. [00:56:00] Would you rather do X or Y, and you tell me what you'd rather do- Okay ... and why.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay? Would you rather have a great product with no marketing or great marketing with an average product?

John Paul Dejoria: I would want a great product with very little marketing.

Hala Taha: Why?

John Paul Dejoria: Because it'll be in the reorder business, not the sell it one time business.

Hala Taha: Mm. I'm gonna ask you that again, and you can talk to that camera, that way you'll be-

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, sure.

Okay ...

Hala Taha: front-facing-

John Paul Dejoria: Yep ...

Hala Taha: for social.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay?

John Paul Dejoria: Ask me again. So

Hala Taha: JP, I wanna play a game called would you rather. Okay. I'm gonna ask you a question. Sure. Tell me which one you'd rather do and why.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay, number one, would you rather have a great product with no marketing- Mm-hmm ... or great marketing with an average product?

John Paul Dejoria: I would want a great product with little marketing, because then I'm in the reorder business. You can do all the marketing in the world and sell a product, but it's not the best product, you're not getting any reorders.

Hala Taha: Would you rather start a new business with $700 or... [00:57:00] Let me do that again. Would you rather start a new business with $700 and full control, or would you rather start a business with $7 million and get an investor and no longer have full control?

John Paul Dejoria: I would rather start with $700 and have full control, since I know that $700, especially now, is gonna turn into something really, really big. But it's your baby and you go with it. If that's possible, that's the way to do it. If not, well obviously you could get investors.

Hala Taha: Would you rather be first to market or the first to truly get the product right?

John Paul Dejoria: I would like to be first to truly get the product right, because that's what you want. Mm. Quality.

Hala Taha: Would you rather have 1,000 loyal customers or one million followers on social media?

John Paul Dejoria: I'd rather have 100 loyal customers than one million regular followers, because they're loyal customers.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: They're the real thing.

They're the end result. You build from there.

Hala Taha: Would you rather build another Paul Mitchell, where customers reorder for [00:58:00] decades, or another Patron, where you create a premium category and cultural status?

John Paul Dejoria: Both.

Hala Taha: No, pick one.

John Paul Dejoria: Both. Oh, no. Holy cow. Boy, that's a tough one, 'cause you're talking about two unbelievably successful products that are really, really good.

Hala Taha: If you had to just choose one that would've been your legacy, which one would it be?

John Paul Dejoria: God, that's a, that's- Boy, well, I would say Paul Mitchell 'cause it was the first

Hala Taha: Yeah. You, you couldn't have done Patron without Paul

John Paul Dejoria: Mitchell. No, that's correct.

Hala Taha: Would you g- would you rather grow up rich or poor?

John Paul Dejoria: Well, it depends on what your, uh, what your definition of rich is.

If your definition of rich is you have all the money you need in the world and everything you want you get, opposed to being poor and you have to get it yourself, I'd be poor. Because if you're rich, you have everything you want, there's no lessons to learn in this lifetime around, 'cause everything is given to you, and you haven't learned the lesson of building or being yourself and making it [00:59:00] happen.

Hmm. So I would take the poor.

Hala Taha: I love that. Okay. Well, to close out this interview, I wanna talk about the main motto of your book, "Success Unshared is Failure."

John Paul Dejoria: True.

Hala Taha: W- why do you take it so far? Why is it not just, like, incomplete or bad? Why is it failure to not share your success?

John Paul Dejoria: Will you allow me two minutes to tell a story- Of course

to you and your audience? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. In the 1950s, J. Paul Getty Jr. was the richest man in the world. He was a multi-billionaire. He was an oil man from Oklahoma that ended up starting Aramco, the big oil company in Saudi Arabia. He's one of the guys that helped it going. And he lived in a huge, huge place in London, England, and he noticed once, this is back in the '50s, we had what's called toll calls.

We had them in the United States. If you call across town, it's an extra two cents a minute. You call across states, maybe it's an extra nickel a minute, whatever. Anyways, he looked at his bill in London, and it was, like, 250 pounds, which was equivalent of [01:00:00] about 500 US dollars in the 1950s. And he said, "My God, t- they're taking advantage of me, my guests."

This is the richest man in the world. "They're taking advantage of me." So he put a payphone in his house. If somebody wanted to make a telephone call, they make it off a payphone. I mean, that guy was really cheap. Hmm. Anyways, but here's the lesson to learn, and to answer the question really, really well from the richest man in the world.

In one of the very few interviews he ever did, the lady interviewing him said, "J. Paul Getty, you are the richest man in the world. Is there anything in your life that you would do differently?" And he looked at her and said, "Ma'am," uh, in one of these rare interviews that he had, "You're wrong. I... Or, you're only half right.

I'm not only the richest man in the world, I'm the most powerful man in the world. I could change governments. I could change governments with my money and my wealth, and I have, by the way." He said, "But would I change something? Yes, I would." He says, "I would change the majority of my wealth and [01:01:00] my power to have been happy in life."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

John Paul Dejoria: I've been married seven times, didn't love any of them. One of my grandkids cut off his ear and sent it in for ransom." In fact, they made a movie with DiCaprio about that 10 years ago, okay? He says, "And I've been married seven times, never loved one of them whatsoever. I have not been happy in my whole life.

I've just been unhappy, but wealthy and strong and powerful, and a lot of people didn't like me." So she said to him, "Well, why don't you start doing it now, J. Paul Getty Jr."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And his answer was Can't. It's too late for me. I've only got a couple years left. It's just too late for me. I wish I would've learned that lesson early, and if I could train, go back and change it now, I would.

It's too late for me.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul Dejoria: So what is really, what is happiness? If you have all the money in the world and you're not happy, is that worth it? Would you rather have a hell of a lot less, you're just getting by, but you're happy in life?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Big lesson to learn.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And, uh, I know that you wanna be remembered not for your companies, but for your kindness.

John Paul Dejoria: Mm.

Hala Taha: And you've got so many examples. I [01:02:00] think, like, even with, uh, Paul Mitchell, like, your first $2,000 of profit that you ever made, you, like, bought out the restaurant and, like, paid for everyone's dinner. Let's say I

John Paul Dejoria: helped a bunch of kids who were inner city children- Yeah ... that, you know, couldn't order a whole lot

Hala Taha: That's so sweet.

Um, talk to us about the way that you've shared your wealth over the years, and how you're, like, willing to be hands-on and, and why even being hands-on is important for you. Of

John Paul Dejoria: course. Well, let's go to the sharing the wealth part here, the first part of your question. It says, if you're like J. Paul Getty Jr.,

you became the richest of all rich, and you haven't shared it any at all and you're unhappy, well, that's not very good. But if you're blessed enough and God gave you the ability and these bodies and helped you out a little bit, okay, getting what you have, well, isn't it only proper to share it? Uh, I know in the past, there was one fellow named, uh, Huey, uh, Long in New Orleans back in the 1930s that was running, and he was a really a weird guy, right?

He wasn't the most honest guy, but was running for, I think it was senator of the [01:03:00] great state of Louisiana, and said something one time that made all the sense in the world, even though he did not practice it. And what he said then was this on the radio. He said, "Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller out there in New York City, okay, that have all the money, I want you to have a big banquet and have so much food that your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandkids have all they can possibly eat and leave some for them, okay?

But there's gonna be a lot left on the table. Would you send those extra down to the poor people in Louisiana so they could eat, too?" In other words, when you have something and you don't give, you're not happy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: In life, when you give something to somebody else and you ask nothing in return, you are high as a kite.

Mm-hmm. I mean, you are... There's no weed you're gonna smoke that's gonna get you that high. Mm-hmm. You are so high and your feelings are so great. It changes your life. Are you a true success if you made millions or billions? No. If you made millions or billions and did something to help change the world with some of it or your time or energy, now you're sharing.

I was asked many times, "JP, what [01:04:00] would you have on your epitaph? Let's say you were buried and not cremated. Let's say you were buried or just you had a stone that was your epitaph. What would you have on there?" And I said, "Oh, this is so easy. 'He came to this world with absolutely nothing, John Paul DeJoria, but made a change to make millions of lives better because he was here.'"

Period. That's it.

Hala Taha: I love it.

John Paul Dejoria: That says it all. And it makes you feel better. That's why you should share. You're a failure if you don't. Mm-hmm. And I know quite a few people that are extremely wealthy, but they don't share. They're, they don't share, which is wrong. You gotta, it's gotta make you unhappy inside.

Hala Taha: Do you feel like because you share your wealth, the universe continues to reward you?

John Paul Dejoria: Definitely. When you're good and you share, you are rewarded. Whether it's immediately or whether it's 10 years later, or it could be your next life around, somehow it's gonna come back to you. It does. Mm. That's why success unshared is failure.

Because if you don't share what you hoarded, something not so good is gonna happen to you eventually, because that's what you told the world you wanna do. "I wanna have money, money, money, money. I don't [01:05:00] wanna share, don't wanna share." Okay, fine. You'll have this money you're not gonna share, but at the same time, you're not get the benefits of sharing.

What's one of the benefits? You're happy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: You did something for somebody else, didn't want anything. That makes you happy. Mm-hmm. Success unshared is failure. And if you don't have any money, you don't have to have money to be successful and share. Share of your time, very valuable. Volunteer to do something, give somebody a helping hand.

Smile at people every morning. If you get on an elevator, get on the elevator and say, "Good morning, everybody." Just little things like that is sharing goodness with the world.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And you've got so many stories in the book of how you've, like, supported different communities- That's correct ... and, and really went and helped.

And used- Answers for homelessness ... not only your money, but your status, your connections- That's right ... to, to help people.

John Paul Dejoria: That is correct. And it works and it makes me very, very happy. I'm a happy man. You are. So I'm very wealthy. I'm happy. I'm very, very wealthy. I'm happy.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: The first one is, what is one actionable thing our Young and Profiters can [01:06:00] do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

John Paul Dejoria: Okay. Part of what you earn is yours to keep. And I read this in a book when I was selling encyclopedias. The, uh... I think it was called The Richest Man in Babylon, where he was a poor guy, but he would get a little rug, enough to buy a rug, 'cause he was selling rugs for somebody else, then sell it.

But he says, "I gotta keep some of this for me." So people get a check, especially if you're starting to have very little money. Immediately, with every dollar you see, start out taking 5% of... If you found $10 on the f- on the, on the, on the street, take 50 cents of it, okay? Mm-hmm. Put it in the bank. Take something, 'cause whenever we get checks or money, first thing we do is pay all our bills.

Whatever's left is discretionary. Do the reverse. Take fi- Eventually, take 10%, but take- Mm ... 5% of whatever you earn or whatever you find and put it in a savings account, even though you make nothing off a bank in a savings account, right? Mm-hmm. But you're not gonna touch, it's a savings account. Yeah. You'll be blown away how that attracts other money.

Pretty soon you'll be making enough where [01:07:00] 10% you'll put in there. It's starting building your wealth when you have none-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

John Paul Dejoria: by getting to that little habit. The next thing is, believe in yourself more than anybody else, and learn the lesson. There's some of these lessons in the book, but the big lesson is knock on door number 51 or door number 101 as enthusiastic as you will be.

Then you're not gonna be in business for three days. You're gonna be in business hopefully for the rest of your life, or in a good business, or you switch businesses. Those are the biggest things. And the two things I will say, always to remember is, number one- Don't go into the selling business. Go into the reorder business we talked about.

And the second thing is that you're gonna get, uh, rejections in life. Mm. As long as you know you're gonna get rejections, don't let it affect you. Like the 50 doors, whether they're closed professionally- Mm-hmm ... nicely or rudely, number door 51, number 110, whatever, be as just as enthusiastic and happy.

You're finally gonna break through. 'Cause you'll learn on all the other ones how to do a [01:08:00] little bit better.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You got fired from three jobs- Oh, yeah ... and then started Paul Mitchell.

John Paul Dejoria: Exactly.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So your experiences are- That's correct ... really what leads you to be able to create- That's correct ... something amazing later on.

And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is?

John Paul Dejoria: Is being a happy person Because that's gonna be one of your biggest profits in life, is being a happy person in life. And not cheating anybody. You know, give them something, a dollar's value, and don't cheat them along the way. Hmm. And you're a very, very happy person in business.

Hala Taha: And where can everybody go to learn more about you and your new book?

John Paul Dejoria: Well, they would go on Amazon. That's one example. Amazon, you can buy it right now. They ship it out next week and, uh... But, but I would say this to all your listening audience. If you're an adult, when you read the book, read it with your children, or let your children read it next.

Mm-hmm. And if you have grandchildren, let them read it also. It shows America works, and how you can start in a variety of businesses with no money, become successful with the same exact principles. Hmm. And many things we've talked about now.

Hala Taha: I [01:09:00] love it. JP, thank you so much for you listening

John Paul Dejoria: today. It's a pleasure.

You're a, you're a superstar getting these good messages out. Thank you very much.

Hala Taha: Thank you. Do you have time to do stuff for social? Do you have, like, 20 minutes or f- or 10 minutes?

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah, sure.

Hala Taha: Okay, cool. Um, let's do the, the would you rather again. The Paul Mitchell versus Patron was, like, awesome, 'cause it was, like, a super authentic- Hmm

reaction from you. Um, the other ones, pretend like we didn't talk about it because it's gonna be social clips- Okay, sure. I'm sure ... and a lot of these people, like, won't even go listen to the interview. Gotcha. Okay. So, like, I'll say something and then tell me the why, but as if, like, nobody heard anything else we ever-

John Paul Dejoria: Got it

talked about.

Hala Taha: Understood. You got it.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay? Y- sure.

Hala Taha: Okay.

John Paul Dejoria: And you want me to talk to the camera again or just you? Yeah, camera.

Hala Taha: Okay.

John Paul Dejoria: Should I look at you for the question, then the camera for the answer?

Hala Taha: You can do, like, both, yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: I'll do both, back and forth. Okay.

Hala Taha: Yeah, back and forth.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay. So I'm just gonna go into it 'cause we already had- Sure

the intro a bunch of times. Okay, number one. Would you rather have a great product with no [01:10:00] marketing or great marketing with an average product?

John Paul Dejoria: I would rather have the best product there is with little marketing, uh, because I know I'm gonna get reorders. If I have a so-so product, I can spend all the money doing it, but I'll get a one-time sale.

I wanna be in the reorder business.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Would you rather start a new business with $700 and full control or start a business with $7 million from investors but lose control?

John Paul Dejoria: I would rather have $700 and have full control if I could build a business and have it myself and control it the way I'd like to do it, the way I envisioned it, if that's possible.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Would you rather be first to market or be the first to truly get the product right?

John Paul Dejoria: I would like to be the first that gets their product really, really right and the very, very best. Then ag- once again, you're in the reorder business.

Hala Taha: Mm. Would you rather have 1,000 loyal customers or one million followers on social media?

John Paul Dejoria: I'd rather have 1,000 loyal customers than one million on social media because they're loyal [01:11:00] customers, and they'll help me get the other customers. They're not listening, uh, to it. They are actually using the product, and they're loyal, and they can talk about its use, not just advertising that's thrown out at somebody.

Hala Taha: Mm. Would you rather build another Paul Mitchell where you get customer reorders for decades or another Patrón where you create a premium category and cultural status?

John Paul Dejoria: Oh boy, is that a tough one. It's both. But I guess I have to pick one. I'd s- well, Paul Mitchell's my very first one, but it's kinda both for me.

Hala Taha: Would you rather grow up rich or grow up poor?

John Paul Dejoria: In my case, and knowing what I know, I'd rather grow up poor than rich. Now, why would I do this? You say, "Are you out of your mind? You're, you're putting us on. You, nobody wants to do that." If I grew up rich with all the money in the world, I would have never learned the lessons I have learned in this life, in this body, this time around.

Mm. I would have never learned them and also the humility on what people go through in life and how to give them a helping hand to [01:12:00] raise them up which makes me even happier.

Hala Taha: I love that answer. Cool. Great job. All right. Uh, and we'll g- team, we'll use the original Patrón versus, uh, Paul Mitchell one for that one.

Okay.

John Paul Dejoria: But that's a good one too.

Hala Taha: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was good. That was good. Uh, yeah, I feel like we're good.

John Paul Dejoria: Good.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: I think we're great.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Thank you so much.

John Paul Dejoria: It's a pl- I enjoyed you so much that I didn't mind coming back at all.

Hala Taha: Oh, thank you.

John Paul Dejoria: You've got that- I appreciate it ... glow about you, and you're right there, and you really wanna do some good for people, not just create a business, and I wish you all the luck in the world.

Thank you. And if you ever want me on your podcast, I'll be available for you.

Hala Taha: Thank

John Paul Dejoria: you. It's just something pop up that... 'Cause I've got three other billion-dollar businesses going right now. Some are in the health industry. Others are in AI and so forth. If there's something that I can release to the public that is beyond belief, I'll remember you, okay?

Yeah, I would- I'll remember

Hala Taha: you ... I'm, I'm in Austin, so we're in the same

John Paul Dejoria: town. Yeah, 'cause there's some things that are mind-boggling.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And we've got mutual friends. I, uh, so [01:13:00] Tim Storey is my client. Oh,

John Paul Dejoria: Tim! I love

Hala Taha: Tim. Yeah. So I do, so I have a social media agency where I run people's LinkedIn and Instagram.

And Tim's

John Paul Dejoria: on it?

Hala Taha: And I produce their podcast. Yeah, so I run all of Tim's podcast and LinkedIn, and now I'm monetizing it for him 'cause I have a network. So yeah, Tim's, uh, they've, in passing were saying that you guys are doing some event together or something in a month or-

John Paul Dejoria: Oh, yeah ...

Hala Taha: yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And you know, something else I'll turn you on to.

Her name is Mara, M-A-R-A, Gordine. Okay. G-O-R-D-I-N-E. Mara Gordine, okay? I turned her on to Tim. Tim knew about her, right? Mm-hmm. Tim is gonna do, in Austin, Texas here, I think it's in two months or something, one of his own little sessions with Mara. Mm. Mara is one of the most giving human beings on the planet. Oh, I

Hala Taha: gotta meet

John Paul Dejoria: her.

Her presentations are about kindness. In fact, at Paul Mitchell, she does this twice a year for us, uh, where she goes in and she, it calls it Core, brings staff members in and teaches them in their own personal life-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

John Paul Dejoria: how to be happier, how to share with one another, how to overcome problems in life.[01:14:00]

Unreal. In fact- Oh, cool ... yeah, in fact, Tim is so excited about her that he's gonna do the seminar with her, and you've gotta somehow meet her in life. Yeah,

Hala Taha: maybe I'll have her on the podcast-

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah, she lives in- ... to talk about kindness ... in Southern California in LA. Oh, okay. But it's just one. You got... Tim will tell you all about her.

She is just magnificent. She wants to build her career, call it Mara Rising, okay? Mm-hmm. About helping other people rise out of any state they're in to be happy in life and be happy- Good ... in the work they're doing, how to be happier in whatever you're doing. I mean, she is just one of the best there are, Mara Gordine.

Hala Taha: Cool. Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: And somehow we'll put... If you're ever in LA, you can meet her. Maybe when she comes out here, you can meet her, maybe go to whatever I'm doing with Tim Storey. Yeah, or we can

Hala Taha: coordinate when she's here for it-

John Paul Dejoria: That would be good ... 'cause, uh, you're coming for the event ... yeah, 'cause she is just- Yeah

super cool. She could be, uh, one of your customers for, let's say if somebody wants to hire someone to do a hell of a good seminar-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

John Paul Dejoria: she's priceless. Cool. She's one of the best present- presenters I've ever been around.

Hala Taha: Cool. Can't wait to meet

John Paul Dejoria: her. And Tim is so cool 'cause I love Tim. Yeah, he's so nice.

He's so cool. Yeah,

Hala Taha: he's a good guy.

John Paul Dejoria: Tim is the ni- thank you for helping Tim out. Of course. That

Hala Taha: is so great. Of course.

John Paul Dejoria: Wow.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yeah. Let's, wanna take a [01:15:00] picture?

John Paul Dejoria: Sure. Love to.

Hala Taha: Okay, cool. Let's see if they can help us take a picture. Sure. I think that that turned out great.

John Paul Dejoria: Okay.

Hala Taha: Just as good as the original.

John Paul Dejoria: All right. And we'll do it in here?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul Dejoria: Sure. We'll do it with the sign. Okay, yeah, we'll get our photographer.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and I love that we made time for the social stuff. Yeah. That's great.

John Paul Dejoria: Yeah. Okay.

Hala Taha: Thank you, Dave Peper, sticking around for the social.

John Paul Dejoria: Of course

Do you want to use your camera or- Yeah. No, I'll use yours and then- Okay. You wanna sit or do you want-

Hala Taha: Uh, maybe