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The Brian Buffini Show
S2E370 From Broke to Billions: The Mindset Behind Building Iconic Brands with John Paul Dejoria
00:39:32
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- [00:03]
John Paul DeJoria
Welcome to It's a Good Life, the podcast for entrepreneurs where it's all about.
- [00:08]
Brian Buffini
Growing yourself and your business. Here's your host, founder of America's largest.
- [00:12]
John Paul DeJoria
Business coaching company, Brian Buffini.
- [00:17]
Brian Buffini
Well, top of the morning to you and welcome to It's a Good Life. I'm Brian Buffini and I am fired up for all of you. Today. You're going to get exposed to a really brilliant individual who's not only been there and done that and achieved great heights, but has great compassion and empathy. His name is John Paul Dejaria. If you've heard of Paul Mitchell hair products, that's the Man. If you've ever enjoyed Patron Tequila, that's the man and a whole bunch of other things. You know, I have at this stage of the game. I've met an awful lot of billionaires, but I've rarely met a billionaire that at one stage was living in his car. He has the ultimate rags to riches story, phenomenal experience, but he's got a great perspective. His brand new book that's just coming out is called Success Unshared is Failure. And we're going to cover the mindset and motivation and methodologies that have helped John Paul achieve such great success and what message he has for all of us today. John Paul, welcome to the show. It's an honor to have you.
- [01:18]
John Paul DeJoria
Thank you, Brian. My pleasure to be here.
- [01:20]
Brian Buffini
Well, I've been hearing about you. Obviously, I've used your products for a long time. I used them this morning. So, you know, good looking work. We have a mutual friend I mentioned, Jim DeBerry and Jim has been telling me about you for a long, long time. And one of those dynamics that Jim said is I did business with John Paul 30 years ago and all we ever had was a handshake.
- [01:38]
John Paul DeJoria
That's right.
- [01:39]
Brian Buffini
And that's all we needed to have. And he said he believed in me. He gave me a chance and I've watched it. You changed his life and his business. It's a great honor to have you on here today and I'm very, very appreciative of Mr. Debary and Mark Victor Hansen's referral to you. So let's dive in actually, right off the bat here. You've titled your book Success Unshared is Failure. Where did that title come from and what does it mean?
- [02:03]
John Paul DeJoria
Well, I come from absolutely nothing. It was my we had a deadbeat dad. So my mom, my brother and I kind of grew up together under some pretty difficult situations. But I was one of the fortunate ones where I really went for it, and America still works. So I was able to be very successful as a person that was happy and healthy. But more important than the American dream does work for many people. So since it worked for me so well, I feel that success unshared is failure. I've seen so many people when I was down and out that had a lot and they weren't about to share whatsoever. And even today, when things have gotten quite nice financially in my life, I see so many who don't. And there's so much there extra we have that we could share with others. So that's why I felt one day that, hey, success unchared is really failure. I spoke with a fellow named Dick Gutman, who was a PR man, and we were talking about that idea, and he said, what a great idea to pass to the world. And if only 50% of people did it, we'd have no more wars, no nothing. We would take care of one another. Power of love.
- [03:07]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, that's powerful stuff. And you know what happens? What I find is that when successful people are sharing their stories, folks that are struggling or in the middle go, oh, that's great. You know, you're able to talk about peace, love and understanding now, but, you know, what were you doing when you were broke? And the truth is, you know, I know the truth, which is success and fortune makes you more of who you are, not less. Right. It's just you had this spirit all along. So take us back a little bit to your origin story. I believe you grew up in la, is that right?
- [03:36]
John Paul DeJoria
That's correct. In the Echo park area.
- [03:38]
Brian Buffini
And so things were pretty hard Scrabble for you, for real?
- [03:42]
John Paul DeJoria
Yeah, they were. Again, you know, we didn't have a lot in our life, but we didn't know how much we did not have because this is the 1940s, early 50s, and we didn't have a TV set. I think they came out in the late 40s, early 50s. First was just a little black and white, and they didn't have the news like we have it today, so. But we had a great mom. That's the whole thing. We had a wonderful mother. Even though we had nothing, we had a wonderful mom. So she would actually bring home to my brother and I, oh, maybe every now and then, maybe every six months. Okay. A very small piece. For example, a filet mignon steak, very little, maybe 2 ounces. She would cut it in three pieces and say, boys, this is how the wealthy people eat. We eat just like they do. And another time in those Days, caviar was that expensive. She would bring home a little bit of caviar. Boys, this is what the wealthy people eat here. We're just like they are. We didn't know what she was talking about because we didn't know what wealthy people were. They were not around anyways. We thought whatever it was, it's good. So we brought up that way with a really great positive mom. She had to really work her whole life very hard. She got ill at one time. So from five years old till about nine and a half, my brother and I were in foster care because my mom couldn't take care of us. But we were the lucky kids in foster care. We got to come home on the weekends to see mom and then of course go back to foster care and schooling. But she taught us kindness. Always be kind to people and always remember in life that there's somebody that needs something more than you do. And always try and lend a helping hand. That was her attitude.
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Brian Buffini
I have a mom like that who just passed and she was the making of me, you know, that spirit of encouragement. So what was your first go around in work and what was your first break?
- [05:22]
John Paul DeJoria
Good question. First of all, in my day just having a job was a big deal. It's not like today, you gotta get kids out the door to go to work. My kids fortunately like to work, but we just liked it. So my very first time was about 7, 8 years old when I sold Christmas cards door to door. On the back of a comic book was Little Lad. They send you six samples, you know, custom made, and you would have your family name put in and I would sell them and then they would give me half the money which I would send to the company and in return they would send me the cards. And when I delivered them, got the other half the money, got to keep it. So now it was a Christmas. But then around 11 years old, my brother and I got morning paper routes with a Los Angeles Examiner. It was a big newspaper. Were those days that we would just pedal away. But I've worked my whole life. I've always had a part time job before or after school or obviously a full time job as, as we have now. But I don't consider a job anymore. I consider it to be a way of life because I like what I do. When you like what you do, who you do it with and who you do it for, you're not working anymore. Even when I was starting Paul Mitchell back in my car, I love what I did. So I didn't feel that I was down and out.
- [06:29]
Brian Buffini
So how did you get into the hair care business? That's, you know, I've asked Jim debery this question many times. How did you end up with Paul Mitchell?
- [06:36]
John Paul DeJoria
Well, I ended up getting, after high school, went right to the United States Navy and then at a variety of jobs, driving a tow truck, several other things. And then a dear friend of mine got me in the industry. I tried many, many different things. He was an employment consular and he sent me on several different jobs in the business communication networks, whether it's Addictaphone, seven business machines, life insurance, things of that nature. And it didn't really click with me. And then one day he said, Johnny. And that's what they called me those days. They said, johnny, there's a company in the beauty industry. They don't pay a lot of money, but you could go wherever you want because it's like a wide open industry. It's hair care products in the professional beauty industry. I said, great. He says, but they're only going to start you at $650 a month and $125 car lots. And I was making more than that at the time. I said, great, let's give it a shot because it sounds glamorous. A beauty industry working in beauty salons. Anyway, says it turned out he was right because it took a year and a half for me to go from just starting out and learning the industry. And when you learn an industry, learn the vocabulary first so you know what the words mean. Very important, okay? And I gave it my very, very best, no matter what it took. Within a year and a half, I became their national manager of two divisions of the company. So he was right. And that's what got me into the professional beauty industry.
- [07:56]
Brian Buffini
Now explain the explosive growth of that business and how Paul Mitchell took off because it became, you know, you guys changed. Change the whole industry.
- [08:05]
John Paul DeJoria
That we did. That we did. So I'd worked for that company and then I worked for a couple of other companies in sales or sales or management. And then my dear friend Paul, who was a hairdresser, Paul Mitchell, wanted to come on the product line wasn't working too well for him. So he and I decided at the end of the 1980s, I'm sorry, end of the 1970s going to 1980, that we would actually start our own company. We would borrow half a million dollars because I figured with the knowledge I had, I and a half a million dollars and we would give away 40% of the company and we would keep 30 each and we had A backer. We were ready to go. I stopped everything I was doing, you know, left the money with the lady, with the wife because we weren't getting along very well at all. Left her the money, whatever she needed for months. Left her the better car, took the used car down the street and the money never came in. The guy changed his mind, but this is very important for your viewers. Okay, let me tell you why he changed his mind and how today things are and easier. In 1980 and 81, inflation in the United States was 12.5% unemployment, 10.5% interest. If you could get a loan. If you could get a loan. Prime rate was 18% interest, prime rate. And we waited in line for gasoline. Worst time to start a business. We had no money. So my partner came over with his girlfriend from Hawaii. And that was the Paul. Paul Mitchell was a hairdresser. I was a businessman, promoter and helped with the formulation through friends. He came over because he was low on money. He wanted some money too. And here I am with a few hundred bucks in my pocket. Anyways, as it turned out, the guy changed his mind. There was no money. So my mom was living in town. I said, paul, how much money do you, can you spare? He says, JP, all you can spare. About 350 bucks. That's it. Oh my gosh. Okay, so. And I had a few hundred bucks in my pocket I had to live off of. So I immediately went to my mom's house. I was too embarrassed to tell her where I was at. I was too proud. I big mistake in my life. I could have eaten there, could have had a room, everything else. She says, why do you want to borrow $350 from me? You're doing really good, Johnny. I said, yeah, mom, but I'm starting a new business. I'll tell you about it later, give it back to you in a month. Took the money anyways and there I am, right? That's all that we had. Period. That's all that we had. I had a few hundred bucks in my pocket, a car to sleep in, Griffith parked down the way that I could shower at. And I found where to get a 99 cent breakfast if you're there after 9 and before 11. And then we started something at the toritos called happy hour. If you 4:30, but before 6 for 99 cents you got a margarita. Now, it wasn't patron or bandero like we have today, but it was a margarita. But with that margarita you had like salsa, you had little tacos, little enchiladas, little chicken. Wings. Well, 20 of those later, you are full. So I had breakfast set up, you know, I had my kind of dinner. Lunch combined together. And that's, that's how I ate. And so I live in my car for a little while. And then a wonderful lady came, came by named Joanna Pettit knocked on my window. I'd known her from before and said, I heard you were living in your car here off Mulland Drive. But I didn't believe it, you are. And I explained to her what happened. She gave me a room in her house for a couple of months to say it's a nice little gift. So it was nice to have people hand out. But to answer that question, how the hell do you start a business when you're down and out, you have no money, how do you do it? And if you want, I can explain that very, very quickly.
- [11:37]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, I do.
- [11:38]
John Paul DeJoria
Everybody was set up. The bottle maker, the silk screener and the filler on 30 day credit. While I was having this giant company, they knew my reputation. Paul was a great hairstylist. That hairstylist used to love to learn from. So it looked like we had something really good. Well, when the money didn't come through that hundred thousand bottles, 100,000 filling just wasn't feasible. So I immediately picked up the phone and called the bottle maker and said, hey Setco, would you mind only giving me a sample order of 10,000 bot of 100? Oh, sure, no problem. 30 day billing, you're good. Immediately that same hour called up the people at the silk screener and they said oh, of course, no problem, you know, 3,000 shampoo one, 3,000 shampoo two, 4,000 the conditioner. Now the big and the filming facility did the same thing. However, the big stickler was the artwork. He wanted $1,000 for black and white artwork for the three products. We didn't have it. So we were honest. We said, hey, we don't have it. Okay, here's what happened. We explained what happen. But we got $700. How about we give you 300 right now and we owe you the rest? He said nope. He says, I'll take all 700 because I'll never see the remaining three. So there we were anyways. So the ball started rolling. Well, from the time we finally got product in our hands until the first bill was due was two weeks. I'd put a whole company together with no money. So how did I do it? $16 at Universal City. I got a P.O. box. Now I had an address. For $5 I could get typeset we had typesetting in those days, right? Go to the local printer, you set your type. John Paul Mitchell Systems. Our address there in Universal City, California. And so now I had typeset with that, I think it was a nickel each. He would print so many envelopes for me and at 4 cents each, he would photocopy it on letterhead and then I would draw lines in it for an invoice. He'd copy those again. And a good friend of mine let me put my phone in the phone in their house with an answering machine. She was British, so her name was Caroline. So she did my message for me. So we seemed bigger, like, oh, hello, John Paul Mitchell sisters. We're out right now. Maybe JP can call you later. But oh, we're so excited. Call back, leave a message, goodbye. Of course, I always call back. So I just. The only employees of the company were me and my partner Paul, who did hair shows, trying to sell it off the stage, which he did quite well. And then he tried to sell it in Hawaii, where he lived. And I went down the street of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, California, door to door, beauty salon to beauty salon. And I'm pretty good at selling, I think. It took me one week to get a dozen orders. Little one was around $25, the biggest around 130. That was it. But I did not have them sign who it was to because I anticipate I'm going to need that. Okay. Also in my pricing for a distributor, I upped it 5% of what it would normally be because I knew I'd have some kickback on that. So I went to the largest distributor in Los Angeles, Paris Ace Beauty Supply, and said, hey, here's our three great products. There's a fourth one going to come out soon, you know, be our distributor. And how many salespeople do you have?
- [14:52]
Brian Buffini
Me?
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John Paul DeJoria
You know, how many your company? Well, there's maybe three of us, right? He says, do you have any advertising? No. Do you have any promotion? No. And you're not. You have a brand new line. You're asking me, the biggest distributor in la, to carry a line that has no advertising, no promotion, no nothing behind it. I'm going to build your line for you. I'm sorry, I can't do unless you give me another idea as to why I should. So I pulled out of my pocket 12 orders, put them right in front of him and I said, that's because those are your first 12 orders. I've already sold them for you. Those are your checks. I've Already made your delivery and we were really hard up. If you will only buy $2,000 from us. This is 1980, right? Okay, you could have the total exclusive on all of LA and Orange County. He laughed his head off and says, look, okay, we're Paris Ace Beauty Supply, but you're a funn guy. If you'll show up tomorrow, all right, I'll gamble 2000 with you. I said, but there's one more thing. We really need the money. Could you give me the money when the product arrives? He goes, we're parasites Beauty Supply. We pay our bills in 45 days. I said, how about this? How about I give you a 5% discount and continue that 5% discount all year long and I get the check when it's delivered and afterwards, maybe within 10 days, he left and set up says, okay, I'll give you this break, but you better show up. We brought him to our 25th anniversary. Now that's 20 years ago. And Jim Hendrietta told everybody. He walks out and I'm thinking, God, what an enthusiastic guy. I really like him. Right? Within three to five minutes, he says, I got a call from my warehouse man. He says, there's some guy here unloading stuff on our loading dock right now. He's unloading and he wants to check for two grand. He left and said, I came back, gave it to me anyways, I was there the next morning.
- [16:36]
Brian Buffini
He probably loved your audacity.
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John Paul DeJoria
I think so after that. So after the first week, we sold everything out. You know, as little. We sold it with the salesman, but by going with his salesman, I could show them how to sell it the way I would.
- [16:49]
Brian Buffini
So enthusiasm, not taking no for an answer, thinking outside the box. Sometimes, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? And you think about it later on when you have all these resources, you become, you know, so resistant to innovate or take a chance. And, you know, back then you're like, I got nothing to lose. I'm just going to go for it.
- [17:08]
John Paul DeJoria
May I explain to you also how I learned that?
- [17:10]
Brian Buffini
Yeah.
- [17:11]
John Paul DeJoria
One of the first jobs I got after tow truck driving and so forth, was selling encyclopedias door to door for Collier's Encyclopedia Commission. Only when you're in five days of training to memorize your presentation, you don't get paid when you're in the field, only if you make a sale are you paid. The average lifespan of an encyclopedia salesman that worked door to door commission only was three and a half days. And that's it, they're gone. Right. However, they said something too me that I believed. They said, look, most of you are not going to make it. Those that will make good money have to remember this. When you knock on door number 50, if all of them are closed before you, either politely or not politely, okay, you got to be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 as you were on door number one. I believed them. Now for me it was more like Door 100 and something, right? But I kept on going until I finally got and I never forgot that. Be prepared in life for rejection. Just be prepared. I don't care what you do in your personal life or your business life because you're going to get it. But if you're prepared for it and you know it in your head, it's not going to affect you and turn you off so you don't go on any further. One of the biggest lessons in life I learned from selling books door to door is be prepared for a lot of rejection. You'll get it, but don't let that get you down.
- [18:28]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, that's brilliant. Now from what I understand you're a big personal growth and development guy. I believe you're a big fan of Earl Nightingale. If I, I, if I've heard.
- [18:36]
John Paul DeJoria
Oh yes. In fact he was even one of my guest lecturers at one of my Paul Mitchell events. Wonderful manner.
- [18:41]
Brian Buffini
This studio is actually named after him. In our headquarters we have a lot of our buildings named after different people. And this is the Errol Nightingale Studio. I don't think people can underestimate the power of filling your head and your spirit with positive life affirming information, you know, and today it's so easy to fill your head with negative edgy political commentary. It's very life changing to put the good stuff in. Do you agree?
- [19:12]
John Paul DeJoria
Not only do I agree, but that is kind of my philosophy. And I learned some time ago that we all were human beings carry around on our shoulders. Disappointment, regret. I wish I'd done this differently. I hate this person. Everything that's negative and sometimes things have happened in our life that we have to think about. Some of these things personally or business wise. In the past I got fired. I don't have enough money, my wife hates me, my boyfriend ran me over. Whatever you can think about, the first thing you've got to do is get it off your shoulders. Forgive yourself first for anything you did that you regret. You cannot change yesterday's newspapers. So forgive yourself. And if it comes back again, or any hate or anger you have, if it comes back again, just say to yourself hey, that's not me anymore. Go away. Go away, Go away. I am now going forward with positiveness. Consider the old coffee can where you take off the lid, you take out the coffee. Well, that's kind of like your mind when you take off the lid. You could put it in there, anything you want right back in there again. If you fill it full of positive thoughts and look at the positive part of it and then you close the can, that's what you're full of. If you look at negative thoughts and keep bringing it in for at least 18 seconds, a study was done. If you feel negative or if you feel remorse or anything like that, that you're going to be that same way for at least 14 seconds. And the next thing that happens, your life, you're going to be angry at or something's not going to be right. And there's so much negativity in the news. Oh, my God. I wanted to get involved with some guys and buy out one of the news stations and give real news. They're either extremely to the left or they're to the right. Nobody's just news in the middle. And people are hateful on the news. I'm amazed at some of the stations you look for where it's all hate. Even after the last, last presidential election, the people that lost are hateful guys were Americans. When America speaks, let's all join together.
- [21:01]
Brian Buffini
You know, let's go back to Paul Mitchell.
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John Paul DeJoria
Sure.
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Brian Buffini
So you've got your first distributor. You got. You got a little bit of momentum. How do you go from there to where you ended up? I mean, obviously it's a series of major innovations and executions. But just give us the flyover because, you know, everybody wants to get to heaven. No one wants to die to get there. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of sacrifice. You had to keep putting yourself out there there. Talk about how you. How did you build this thing from getting your first order? Okay, I think we're going to stay in business this month. What was the next major progression?
- [21:33]
John Paul DeJoria
So you will know how we got there. It was two years. When people said, when did you become successful? Two years after we started, what was the event? We were able to pay our bills on time and have $2,000 left over. I mean, that was like, we made it finally. Right. So how do we even exist? Obviously we existed on a shoestring I could not hire because we had no money, anyone, till about six months into the business. And I hired Shirley Wong. She took over 10 of my jobs, human beings are capable of doing a heck of a lot more than they're doing right now. She took 10 jobs from me and she was just a superstar, right? So I could get out more in the field. Instead of go in the field, go home, pack the order, go in the field, come home, pack the order again. Where I did the same exact thing, opening up every distributor. I would show up or my friend Paul Mitchell would show up with me, we'd do a little hair show. He would go to the salesman calling on salons, I would go with the salesman calling on salons, and we started educating the salons. That's what we did differently, where we would go back in and teach other hairdressers and pay them a little bit of money how to do it, to go in and show the people how to use our product, how to display it, how to merchandise it. And we were the first to really kick it off with heavy duty education, to teach hairstylists how to retail products in their salons so that in between visits, their hairstyle will look the same. And it worked out very, very well. We just kept on working, working, working, never living beyond our means. And that's another thing I like to tell new entrepreneurs and even people that are not new entrepreneurs, but entertainers, movie stars, I tell all my friends the same thing. When you start making money, do not change your lifestyle, change for one year, do not do that. A lot of people make some money and something goes wrong the second year and they can't keep up with their bills. So I waited to the first year before I changed my lifestyle and I kept it that way for another year until I increased my lifestyle again. This way, no matter what happened, I could handle it along the way. And I think that's a very important thing. So along the way we did the same exact thing. And then we had different breakthroughs along the way where I had the opportunity to talk to larger groups. And we did. And then little by little by little, we grew. Now we thought our goal was to get to $5 million a year. If we could do that, we'd each have a quarter of a million dollar income. We'd be on top of the world. But as we approached that, I realized I can manage this company and get it to 10. And then when I got towards 10, I realized, I think I do a lot better than that. And when my partner passed away, we were doing around 40, 50 million a year, something like that. When he passed away back in 89 and one of his wishes was JP I know I've lived before, I'm going to live again. And my feeling is when I leave this body, I'll float around for a little while. I'd love to see the Paul Mitchell name approaching 100 million a year company. I said, Paul, you're going to see that happen. My buddy here. You will see it happen. And by gosh, of course, not only did we do that with, we far surpassed it some time ago.
- [24:36]
Brian Buffini
What was the peak of the business in regards to product sales?
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John Paul DeJoria
Well, it's not, it's still going. Oh, we've grown.
- [24:41]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, I know.
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John Paul DeJoria
For 45 years now. We're, we're a very big company. If I could, if you want to look at our valuation, you would call us a billion dollar company.
- [24:49]
Brian Buffini
Yeah. Amazing, amazing. And the other dynamic was in growing your business, you also were helping other people make a living too. You were showing the hairstyles, hey, you can actually make more profit. But selling the products. And then you had the distributors themselves. You help them make a good living too.
- [25:05]
John Paul DeJoria
Yes, sir. And by the way, another lesson to be learned right here also one we talked about and I tell all entrepreneurs, this one is be prepared for a lot of rejection. The second one is this, and it's what I did at Paul Mitchell. And the proof is what they call in the pudding. It's this. Make sure your service or your physical product is in the reorder business. Do not go into the selling business. Most people do. How can I package this? How can I come out make. How will it smell so people will buy it? I did it differently. We had no money, it was long term, we had to survive. We could only survive if people loved our product and reordered it. So we made products that people would love so much with a high quality, they'd want to reorder it. Now how does this work in the beauty industry? Every three or four years you switch lines, you switch products all the time, right? My first three products, shampoo one, shampoo two, and the conditioner and later the sculpting lotion. 45 years later, Brian are still top sellers. But I carried that in everything I did. Petrone is a good example. When I started Petrone Tequila, we knew nothing about the tequila industry or anything to dealing with that. We had to learn that industry. And I could give you a very quick story there about listen to your heart and your mind. So we started Petrone and it was very expensive. We were the ones to bring in the first ultra premium tequila to the United States called Patron. The tequilas in Those days were selling for about $5 a bottle. The best one, I think around 14. We had to sell ours at $37.95. Nobody would touch us. We finally found a distributor in Southern California that only sold wine. So we convinced them to take our product if we could give them Spago's. That was the number one restaurant has an account and Baja Cantina. Martin, my partner in Houston went, they already said they would take it. They said, if you give us those products, we'll take it. After one year, they only sold about a thousand cases. That was it. We thought we could do better. So we dropped them and took out a big company like Jim Beam. We would give them a cut of it. They would sell the big distributors who would sell to the on premise and all premise accounts. After being with them about a year and a half, pushing two years, we were doing about 12,000 cases a year. And those are cases of 12. So we went and talked to them and said, hey, we think we can do more like, like 20, 30, 40,000, maybe one day do 50,000 cases a year. They said, guys, we love you, we like you so much. We're going to tell you the truth, okay? You have the best tequila ever. No doubt about that, right? But it's too expensive. You'll never do more than 20,000 cases a year. Well, we thought differently. So we dropped them and took on Seagrams, another big company, right? They took it up to about 50,000 cases a year. Year. We knew we could do better. We bought them out of their agreement with us and we took it over ourselves. That little company that was never supposed to do more than 20,000 cases a year. When I sold it about seven years ago, it was the highest figure ever paid for anyone in the spirits business in the multi billions, right? And we were doing just with the patron part of my portfolio alone, about three and a half million cases a year. The company was never supposed to do more than 20. So it's once again we wanted to reorder business. The quality was so good that once you had a chance to taste it, it was. You compare it to anything you want, there's no comparison. It was that good. So people continue to order. And my new tequila that's out, called Bandera was the same thing. How the world do I beat, you know, or have something after what I've done already? Well, I'd have to have something that was 100% was organic. There were no additives in it and it was recycled. This and it started in such a way and so smooth that people would say, this is smoothest stuff I ever drank in my life. Then we started entering contests. What is the proof of the pudding once again? This Last year of 2024, we won the gold medal in Mexico, where all the tequilas made as one of the best tasting tequilas, period. We're just introducing now we're in about seven states now. We're just introducing Bandero.
- [29:13]
Brian Buffini
That's amazing. Amazing. I may have to try some of that out. So one of the things that's obvious about you, you have this very light spirit, you're very encouraging, you're a good representation of your mom. And yet at the same time, you have this kind of ferocious determination. You're just not taking no for an answer. You seem to let the rejection roll off you like water off a duck's back. And you also seem to be a man of conviction, like, hey, I'm going to make this happen. We're going to do this. This. You don't seem to buy into other people's small beliefs. And so where does that come from? And how can somebody get a little bit more of that in their life?
- [29:47]
John Paul DeJoria
Well, I think one, it comes from starting working so young because even selling newspapers at 11, 12 years old, you got a dollar extra if you could get a new account for the LA Examiner. So my brother and I, when he was doing the same thing with me, went out and knocked on doors, so he made that extra dollar. Now, at first we were embarrassed and we almost had no presentation. Here's a newspaper, would you like to get it? Then pretty soon we got smart and said, here's our newspaper, it's got four different sections to it. You know, we have a daily and we have a Sunday only. Would you like the Sunday only or the daily for whatever reason it happened, and son of a gun, you know, and I just picked it up. But selling encyclopedias door to door, commission only, if you still could do that, every one of my kids would have done it. They came out okay. I was very, very lucky. Lucky. But it's the best training program in the world.
- [30:34]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, that's great. You also have this interesting dynamic where you are like a magnet for famous people. Like you were in la, you were in the beauty industry, you're in the drinks industry. You know, everybody you have, when you throw a party, the who's who shows up. And a lot of people who aspire to work with wealthier clients or famous people or whatever else. I, I think the great mistake is they forget that they're people and you seem to be able to be very real with people who live sometimes in a very unreal world.
- [31:04]
John Paul DeJoria
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, a lot of them too were just my buddies before I ever made it. We were like Roger Daltrey of the who. He was my friend before I ever made it. And there's several other like that. We just get along really, really well. And I know from having nothing, we have absolutely nothing. And if you look up maybe an ants crawling over you or as an example, you really have nothing. Right. And you have something in return, you're just grateful. And people that are celebrities, I know quite a few celebrities in various industries and various things that they do, especially entertainment, they're just good friends. If they're good friends, you like hanging out. If you hang out, like with your buddies, you know, and if you don't, and if you're just there to put on airs or be around them, that's not going to last very long, Right.
- [31:45]
Brian Buffini
Or take from them. Take from.
- [31:47]
John Paul DeJoria
That's right.
- [31:48]
Brian Buffini
As opposed to contributing. So talk to me about success Unshared. What are you hoping to achieve with this book and what do you hope people will glean from this book?
- [31:57]
John Paul DeJoria
This book was written as a teacher, a spiritual book at the same time, a little biography on my life, but lessons along the way on kindness and how you could actually start and all the details. We haven't had a chance to talk about how I actually started. Paul Mitchell with no money, but all the other little things we did, how Patron was started, not knowing anything about the industry and a lot of the ups and downs along the way. But how being kind along the way really, really helped. Not only am I in the book, but certain people are in that book also that wanted to make some quotes on how they reacted to the way I built the business or the way I reacted around them. So it's a learning program for someone that's got a major business and you want to grow it and you don't want to have turnover your business or for someone just starting out, it's not only hope, it's step for step how the heck to do it. And then when you're in trouble, how the heck to get out of that trouble. When you're in that trouble, it's not really trouble, it's a challenge. How to get around that challenge.
- [32:58]
Brian Buffini
What I love is this. What I like bringing to the market is people who've been there and done that. You know, I used to make the joke back in the day when the show the Apprentice was on is that people would be on the Apprentice on Tuesday and they would print their biography on Friday. And so here you have, you have a 45 year career plus of win after win, challenge after challenge, overcoming, keeping that spirit of kindness, keeping that energy and attitude. You know, listening to you today, it'd be impossible for somebody to not feel better. Listening to John Paul dejaria today, just, oh my gosh, your enthusiasm comes through, your fire comes through, your positivity comes through. And so the fact that you've laid that out in this book, I think is brilliant and necessary. And I really believe, like I say, we're drowning information, starving for wisdom, in need of inspiration. I really feel like this book is the right time in the right place and in the environment that we're in, especially in the business world, because there really is a lot of young people who want to get after it and who want to have their own businesses. We have more side hustles and small businesses than ever before. And just the perspective is a little bit of the get rich quick mentality. This is gonna come easy. I'm going to be spending, you know, six days on the beach and one day in the office and just a little bit of that stuff that I think is fantasy land. Not based in certainly my experience, not based in my career interviewing people like you. And so I just think it's time for this kind of wisdom and this kind of positivity. And I just think it's the right book at the right time, you know.
- [34:28]
John Paul DeJoria
And a lot of people think too, that there's many times people can't make it. Let me give an example of homelessness, okay? I do a lot of homelessness things here in Austin where I've lived for the last 25 years. But one of them that I do is like I built with mobile loaves and fish as an entrepreneur center. I build a skill center also I did for another group that's here in Austin of homeless people. And people say, jp why did you build and you spent over a million bucks on entrepreneur center to teach people how to paint pictures, how to do jewelry, and just a variety of things. Some are capable of doing it. Some really wanted to learn. They're homeless people. Why would you do something like that? It's a waste of your money. I said, no, it's not. If you give someone the opportunity to have a variety of things they could do, they'll take advantage. In the first two years, they sold just under $200,000 worth of goods. These are homeless people. They get to keep all the money. We give them a garden to eat out of, a place to live in. We charge them a little bit of rent so they can feel like it's theirs. They could be there, you're paying some rent and if they don't have enough money, well, they can work in the garden, work in our auto shop, work in our. We have all these businesses we put up for them to work in to get the extra money. It's giving someone the opportunity. Many times people just need an opportunity. They just need that little extra to get them going. And that's what we provide for people. Success and shared is failure.
- [35:49]
Brian Buffini
Well, this has been great, J.P. i have five questions I ask every guest. It's a rapid fire type thing. Just like to get your insight on this gives us a little understanding and a little bit of how you think and how you operate. So here's the first one. What's the single best piece of advice you've ever been given?
- [36:04]
John Paul DeJoria
Be kind to one another. Be kind.
- [36:07]
Brian Buffini
Was that from your mom?
- [36:08]
John Paul DeJoria
Yep, that's from my mom. I carried it all along. That was a.
- [36:11]
Brian Buffini
Well, God bless her. She must be proud. Okay, what's the one talent or gift you wish you possess that you currently don't?
- [36:18]
John Paul DeJoria
Oh, boy. I say probably patience because just too often I got such great ideas and want to help these people out and scoot them along and it takes a little bit longer. So I'm learning. I am learning.
- [36:30]
Brian Buffini
I am your brother from a different mother on that one, my friend. That's the one, yes. What book has been most instrumental in your life?
- [36:37]
John Paul DeJoria
Originally it was that good old standby and that was how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. That was the very first one I read. It was very, very influential. Very, very influential.
- [36:47]
Brian Buffini
That's great. You know, years ago I lost my home, and I live in Southern California and I lost my home in 07 to one of the fires. And we had over 5,000 books go up in smoke between my wife and I. And she had a library and I had a library. And so we built this new big home and I had this wall to wall library and no books in it. And I was, rather than lamenting the books, I said, okay, I get to start over. And I'm like, what's the first book I'm gonna read and what's the first book I'm gonna place on these empty shelves? And it was how to Win Friends and Influence People. I got to start over again. And, you know, I'd read that so many times, but it was a joy reading it again after all these years. And it stood on my shelf by itself until I read the next one. So powerful stuff. What's the one movie? I know you're not a big movie watcher, but what's the one movie, whenever it's on, you stop and you watch it over and over again, or you watch a piece of it over and over again. And what's the one that always does it for you?
- [37:43]
John Paul DeJoria
Well, recently it's Sound of Freedom, but I'm the producer, executive producer of Sound. Okay. When there was a little piece on there, Watch out. But if you were to take that out and just say, you know, if there's a movie that keeps on popping up, you know, which one do you just really, really, really like? And it's called A Beautiful Day. Yeah, that's it all with Jimmy Stewart.
- [38:02]
Brian Buffini
Yeah. Yeah, I know that. That's a great one. And you certainly seem to live that out. Last but not least, JP what does the good life mean to you?
- [38:10]
John Paul DeJoria
Good life means to me that, number one, you're healthy. Number two, you're healthy and happy at the same time. Healthy and happy at the same time. But even more important, you're kind to yourself, you're kind to others, and you're kind to the planet. That's a good life.
- [38:24]
Brian Buffini
That's a good life. His name is John Paul DiGiorio. He's made the planet a little bit better. He's made a lot of people more successful. And today he encouraged a lot of people. And this new book, Success Unshared Is Failure, I highly recommend it. I think you'll feel, after reading the book, the way you feel listening to John Paul talk. John, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you. You're a real treat.
- [38:45]
John Paul DeJoria
Thank you.
- [38:45]
Brian Buffini
And thanks for being part of our show today.
- [38:47]
John Paul DeJoria
You're welcome, Brian. Thank you very much, sir.
- [38:49]
Brian Buffini
Well, I'm going to finish up this show the way my mother did for eight years. And in honor of my late mom, I'll give you a little Irish blessing. May the roads rise up to meet you and may the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields and the sunshine warm upon your face. Until we meet again. May God hold you all in the hall of his hand. We'll see you next time.
- [39:24]
John Paul DeJoria
Sa.