How I Turned $300 Into $5.1 Billion

how did that feel for you when you sold for billions of dollars oh it felt great my son came home one day and he said are we rich they valued the company in over 5.1 billion this is John Paul De jorya the founder of billion dollar hair care company John Paul Mitchell Systems and billion dollar tequila brand Patron today I'm at his house to learn how he went from being homeless living out of his car I learned how to live off of two dollars and fifty cents a day to building two of the biggest Global business empires in totally separate Industries I think a lot of people are curious okay you get billions of dollars what do you do with it well the first thing that I did was very first thing I wrote a check for 50 billion dollars that went directly that is awesome let's find out what it takes to go from homeless to a billion dollars you were actually homeless during the stand and did it twice what happened how did you be homeless I needed half a million dollars to start a hair care company so my partner and I made a deal you take 30 I'll take 30 we have control that's 60 of the company and we'll give the 40 to anyone that'll give us and invest uh you know five hundred thousand dollars for those half a million bucks and we had somebody set up a fellow named dick holthaus from uh a corporation called citicorp he was overworking in Europe as a friend of mine he had an investor out of the island of Jersey which is between uh England and and France a little bit you know there anyways it's a business Island yeah so he got to invest the money so my relationship at the time was not going well at all so I left whatever money I had said a pretty good job I quit everything I was doing left foot uh right before I started this company I was a consultant to companies if you wanted to enter the beauty industry okay and uh you know that's what I was doing but I quit everything everything I had I just quit because half a million dollars is coming you know isn't it that's this 1980 so anyways I left the the newer card I took the older card and uh left the house and a bunch of money from my wife and my daughter so you'd be fine for a few months right went down the hill to get the money never arrived a friend of mine ran me down dick Holt house got a hold of him who got a hold of me and said JP called dick collect pick up the phone call collect and I did uh and he said we're snooze the guy changed his mind and I said why did he change his mind this is the last minute he goes well inflation of the United States 12 and a half percent unemployment ten and a half percent uh interest rate 17 percent and your hostages are still in Iran and haven't been released we don't you're waiting in line for gas we don't know about the future of oil and gas and that has a lot to do with petrochemicals and Plastics and everything else he said I'm sorry just changed his mind so we had zero and I just had a few bucks in my pocket a few hundred bucks that was it uh my mom lived in LA but I was too proud too proud to say Mom I'm broke can I have my bed back my room is still available feed me I was too proud so I just went over her house and said Mom can I borrow about 300 from you and she says why you make good money I said Mom I'm starting a new business I'll give it back to you in a month okay here you go hey you want to stay for a list yeah I do out anyways and I just stayed in my car it was just too proud to tell my mom that everything went wrong that's how we started then I learned I learned how to live off of two dollars and fifty cents a day 99 Cents went to the freeway Cafe for what they called the biker or I'm sorry the trucker special if you went there after nine o'clock where nobody went after nine o'clock it was right by the freeway and before 11 o'clock the lunch crowd for 99 cents it was called the freeway Cafe you got one egg your choice of one piece of bacon or one sausage I took the sausage it was bigger one piece of toast and then your choice of orange juice or a coffee and that was my breakfast and then I learned how to and those 99 Cents right and then I learned to and it's one of these places you walk up they give it to you walk outside and you eat it and then I found a way to be able to eat off of a dinner for like a dollar a dollar and a quarter and what I did was somebody called El Torito big restaurant chain yeah anyways started something called happy hour virtually no business from four to five thirty in the afternoon so they started this thing where 99 cent margarita wasn't Patron but it wasn't it was a big Margarita for 99 cents and uh because with an invented Patron yet anyway so 99 Cents for the margarita and uh it was okay but was great was they gave you all these little chicken wings or the salsa and they would switch up well you know you get about two or three bowls of salsa and 20 chicken wings and you are just full as can be and my kid or a friend of mine was helping me watch her come down with me you know and eat at the same time and uh it went really well then after three or four days they kind of caught on and the waitress came over and said you guys are doubting out our show we said yeah and I told her this story pretty soon an enchilada would arrivals up with our Margarita but I remembered them and I came when we started making some money several years later I was able to afford it I came back and I tipped everyone in that restaurant the biggest tips they've ever had in their life for helping me out when I needed a helping hand what were you telling yourself during that time when you you have no money you're living in your car like what would you telling something how'd you get out of the situation well when you're really doubting out the next thing you should think about is not why you're down and out and how bad things are because that's yesterday's newspaper if you do that you're stuck in the past you can't change yesterday's newspaper so what I just did was I just thought ahead of what's the next thing to do tomorrow what's the next thing after this who do I call next how do I make another sale that's that was all my mind and I would say the same thing to anyone that's down and out or homeless you can't change yesterday's newspaper and what slows most people down is they're stuck in the past something happened to them they got fired they got a divorce somebody said something to them that hurt them you know or today over the Internet they just destroy people unfortunately but uh all of a sudden stuck in the past it's on their mind before they go to sleep it's on their mind all the time well now your thinking power is behind you you can't change it you got to think ahead what is next and forgive everyone that's done you wrong forget every jealousy that's ever in your mind for every regret that I wish I would have done that differently you can't change it forget it all when it comes in your mind just forgive it forgive yourself forgive Joe Blow forgive everybody to your mind you don't have to tell them personally if you don't want to just forgive them you're a jerk that was a past I'm not going to carry you out anymore and if it comes to your mind again you'll say nope that's my past life get out of here let's move on how did you go from zero to annoying knocking on doors and then after uh six months I was out of hire we had just enough to hire a secretary really cheap Shirley Wong she was wonderful didn't mind helping us out and she did 10 jobs my first field guy was a year and a half later so we just kept on building the business and reinvesting everything everything we had we reinvested never changed my lifestyle I had an apartment been living after that but never changed my lifestyle until I had enough money to be able to survive on what I have my bills paid in full and no bills for me personally and enough money to put down on something do you remember any specific knocking on door experiences or stories that stick out during that early days oh yeah lots of it oh of course yeah but anyway they were nice some of them were like no you know talk to my salesman not to me well I am your salesman we don't have a Salesman Ryan anyway so but it was good people were usually pretty friendly hairdressers are very friendly people you know there weren't that many that were there were rude very very few if any you know just the experience were just really really nice people and many of them became some of my best friends and some of our best Educators for the company what's also interesting I like the guarantee I like the the classes one thing to come back on it a lot of people starting out businesses are talking they think they do or they don't know if they want to partner or not so how did that partnership come about and how do you think people should look for partners in business well with me Paul Mitchell I were Pals for nine years in the beauty industry we were very very good friends in fact a young lady our mutual friend receive a Praying introduced us to one another just thought we I was starting in the industry and Paul was really hot and heavy as a top educator in the industry and had a name point for himself we became friends and after nine years we decide hey let's do our own business here together uh and it was a perfect relationship with Paul and I I didn't do hair and he didn't do any business he was a businessman but a top hairdresser top educator so we never argued about anything when it came to with Herod how to do things with hair or the classes Paul yep yep you're right 100 business I was right on that one in most cases so you guys had your separate lanes that use your space exactly yeah of course we crossed over if he did a hair show I'd be on stage with them promoting our products and trying to give people ideas how to be successful in salons and things like that and we worked in it same thing Paul and I did hair shows where he would be hired for a air show and maybe get a room right he'd always ask for two beds we'd get the 99 special to fly there at night so I could be there he was already there because he was already paid to show up I would come take one bet he'd take the other bed so there was no cost involved with us other than to get me there period we do a show we'd sell it right off the the floor and then we'd stay there for a couple of days with whatever distributor we had and go knocking on their customer stores with the salesman they got us in a lot easier and start presenting product there's a lot a lot there which is amazing what a super cool one thing I don't know if it's it's talked about is your sales this the the sales your positivity and your persistence I guess I'm trying to think for the for the you know other entrepreneurs and people on their business Journeys like what would you recommend for them and and this you're like hey I got a discount you don't like this I'll do this and that's the perfect question to ask me and it's the perfect thing that I'd like to contribute to everybody number one understand that we made a hell of a good product we made the best product we possibly can so your product or service has got to be the best that's number one okay you don't want to be in the selling business you want to be in the reorder business most people put something together the package can I sell it can I sell it mine was all about I want them to reorder it so the product has got to be so good and the person that's using it the hairdresser has got to really know it's good hairdressers know they are the best people in the world to get advice for hair period they're just none better so they would know how good it is so we knew that the product we had this second thing is and probably is equally as important is be prepared for a lot of rejection because you're going to get it if you're prepared for it it's not going to affect you it's like when I sold encyclopedias the average age or time of an encyclopedia salesman after they were trained for no money training is free right you don't get paid a dime was three days it's door-to-door commission only but they told me something that made me successful in three and a half years and I believe what they said they said a lot of you aren't going to make it some of you will those that will will overcome rejection a lot of doors will be close in your face but on door number 50 you have to be just as enthusiastic as door number one to have that same motivation those are the guys who'll make it well for me baby was to order 101 okay but I did I kept up the same enthusiasm as you do that you learn more how to do things better how to say things differently and you get better and better and better and the enthusiasm just never left and that's how I started Paul Mitchell the same way during the door with salons and that's what I would say to all entrepreneurs the two biggest things you'll ever need is that a quality service or a quality product a quality service if it's a one-time sale or a product if it's a one-time self for whatever reason if it's really good they'll tell others if it's something they could repeat you've already put that into it it's so good they'll want to repeat the order now you're in business and I think one of the things that uh definitely sticks with me that I think other people can definitely benefit and learn from you is just like one facing rejection but also finding a product you believe in and putting yourself out there to educate I think you say sales and you're an excellent sales person it's interesting even how you walk through selling Paul Mitchell but it was educating people it's like let me teach your class let me guarantee that you're gonna do exactly that's being part of the reorder business because I can't be in there selling it for it's something on the Shelf nobody knows I needed the hairdresser to use it and know how to show it to their customer so for example when I went and gave a presentation they didn't know what I was showing them I show them shampoo one shampoo two let them smelled a little bit right and then when I got to the conditioner uh wow the conditioner okay this is my first product right this is 43 years old right now what I would do was this I would take and I'd say let me show you something amazing watch this I put it in my hand right may I have your hand please yeah figure out to watch now don't have a clue what to do with that say now let me tell you about this condition right now I've got your attention right and I would always hold it like a gym because it was a gem product I'd say let me tell you about the conditioner and then I would hold it here and like this and they don't know what the heck to do with this right but I got their attention okay I'd say the conditioner is a moisture treatment a protein treatment a nucleic acid treatment lets you cut the hair easier and slip and then it's instant you put it in your hair it's incredible for your skin by the way unbelievable for your skin especially as a hairdresser with all the chemical things you may be using you're by the way rub it in your hands very good for your skin rub it on in there very very good for your skin no really you know it's just nice yeah there you go you know all of a sudden they're part of my presentation so when I would go in there and hold the glass I would explain to the hairdresser when they're at the back base and say on your hair because it's fine hair we're going to use shampoo one that's what we're going to use on your hair is shampoo one because it's a special shampoo for you so now the customer thinks the hairdresser really thinks they're special and then when they're sitting in the chair get your customers here put a little bit in there and tell them what this does and at home they can do the same exact thing and it's good for your skin yeah I'm Incorporated them into it it uh reminds me a story about the guy selling glass here so there's a guy trying to sell glass or Hammers and he goes to them and he's like all right let me show you this hammer and he breaks the glass with it and then everyone copies him because that's the best way you can sell the hammer and then he then gives the person the hammer the next sale and says you break the glass so actually giving them the product to experience it uh powerful way of getting them involved who cleaned up the mess but it's interesting to involve your customers there but one thing you know the jumps are still pretty insane going zero to million how did you go from a million to eight I think you guys do a billion dollars a year now selling product like how did you guys to go from a million to a billion a year reinvest all the money they came along we reinvested and did good things for the hair stylist and then started schools we have over a hundred schools uh Paul Mitchell Schools so you tune the new hairdresser how to be a great hairdresser and be successful well of course we're doing with Paul Mitchell products and our knowledge and we also went into education besides the education of how to use our products we went nationwide at one time time we had I think 850 what we call Associates that worked for his part-time top hairdressers that we taught to be stylist they would hold classes for everybody on the latest hairstyle the latest techniques the latest business ideas so we kept ourselves involved in the company to help our customer become more prosperous because we're there be better hairdressers Better Business people and that certainly contributed to our growth tremendously interesting because you guys are The Underdogs I mean you guys were like there was all these major companies out there I think today Paul Mitchell as air care company again we just don't give out our information it's private but we happen to know that we believe it is the uh the largest privately owned salon hair care company in the world so a lot of us through hard work believing in yourself but taking care of the customer not just say well hell let's just make a lot of money keep on selling let's not renew it it's like people that have research and development of course you want research and development you want to always improve we always try and help out as much as we can and the company grew quite rapidly you're feeling inspired by this video to create your own business but you are not sure where to start maybe you're a little bit afraid or you lack the right business idea I have a little present for you I put together a free guide on how to start your own business while working a day job this is what I did to get appsumo.com into an eight figure company while having a day job as a marketing consultant to download a copy for free go to okdork.com day job that's okdork.com day job it's also linked Below in the description all right back to the interview so how did the idea for Patron come about I heard there's like a pre-order story in Mexico oh it's just sitting around this was uh oh the late 80s uh uh 1989 just sitting around with a friend of mine Martin Crowley and I'd put him in the architectural business he was an architect and it just went bankrupt a friend of mine turned me on to him he's just a nice guy turn went bankrupt and Hospitality business JP's a great architect he's got a good idea for a business go to Mexico buy pavers and Furniture come back and sell it to restaurants or uh Architects for their Model Homes a little niche business right we were doing okay on it and I was starting to build a house for my whole family in California in Malibu a big one uh because we start we were making some good money at that time so I said Martin when you go down you got to buy some papers for me so about some stone for this house uh while you're down there Martin find out because we're drinking a little bit of tequila at the time right but it wasn't patrolled tequila where you know we take a shot you know where's the library where's the salt it wasn't quite as tasty shall we say or beneficial to the throat as the keyless are today the newer ones anyway so Martin came back with this long bottle uh you know nondescript had a horseshoe on it and uh he said this is what they're a lot of them are drinking down there and I thought wow that's the smoothest tequila I've ever had you could actually sip this a bit he goes yeah but it ran across this guy named uh Francisco alcarez he's a chef of Tequilas he could make it smoother I said well let's check it out he went back down probably some back it was live man this is smoother right so I said okay I'm gonna bankroll this Martin let's order a thousand cases that's 12 000 bottles and let's see what we could do with it right and then Martin found this bottle which is still at the Patron bottle of today found it out of recycled glass it was a gift bottle right and I said if we made these in quantity Where we have recycled glass and it's in recycled cardboard boxes you know so we're really into it it goes yeah we could probably arrange that and we did we were able to pull it off anyways but the interesting thing was nobody would take us nobody wanted the product everyone we ran across said I've never tasted anything like this but it's way too expensive the average tequila in 1989 was around five dollars a bottle the I think the best one was 14 if you could find it we had to sell ours for 39 37.95 way more than anybody else they said no I walked into spago's restaurant Wolfgang Puck was a friend of mine and spagas was the restaurant in Beverly Hills to go to and I gave him so JP this is good stuff I said would you serve it to your celebrity friends I said of course it's the best because they were known as the best of the best so Wolfgang Puck gave me a great break he brought it in served it to all the celebrity guests pretty soon I knew Bruce Springsteen is on the road and with his uh the main uh saxophone player they're bringing the case of Patron with them on the road on every concert they want to do well that was pretty cool and then Martin knew the guys to Bob Cantina Marina Del Rey he got them so we finally went to a wine company this so why company all they saw was why do we said would you take on our spirit and they said we don't sell spirits well they sell why we say well the other guys don't really want to get into because it's really an unknown name they don't want to get a tequila we said but uh we'll work with you to sell it JP will come in you know I will come in I'll hold your sales meeting and by the way if you will take it on we'll give you spagos and Bob Cantina you're kidding you can get us into smogos yup we already did right so we didn't want to tell them that you know yeah Cantina so they said okay but you got to show up the next day after a little over a year uh we dropped them all they sold was just a little over a thousand cases that was it that's for the whole year a little over a year so we dropped him and we took out a big company a great big company like Jim Beam they were big where we would sell the Jim Beam and they would sell through their Distributors whoever they sold Jim Beam alcohol to and they were really great guys so we thought boy would get really big with them well after another year or two with them uh they had sold about 12 000 cases a year so we met with them nice people and we said guys we think we should do 40 or 50 000 cases a year you're big you got the distribution and they were very kind they said guys let's tell you the truth okay no one's ever come out with a tequila like this before right guys are just too expensive you have the best tequila ever there's no doubt that's what we think but it's 30 by that time it goes up to 38.95 no one's going to buy a JP very few people buy it the most you will ever sell the most you'll ever sell is 20 000 cases a year we didn't believe it we dropped them and went on with Seagram's kept secrets for a few years and they got it up to about 70 000 cases a year and we thought we could do a heck of a lot different so by that time we were making pretty good money we went to court and bought them out of their contract with us just bought them out it was millions of dollars but we had and we gave it to a bar what we didn't have and we took it over ourselves and then all of a sudden just took off so a lesson of people will learn this one product that was too expensive that nobody wanted or a big person thought and they were they had right that all the statistical datas no one could ever approach that right but all of a sudden it took out and people wanted to treat themselves to the very very best when I sold Patron about five years ago we were approaching 4 million cases a year I think just our tequila low was about three and a half million cases of that and obviously as you probably know it's public record it went for the largest amount ever within a Spirits company but you know so you don't believe what people tell you you believe yourself if someone tells you something that's real there's no reason not to believe them but if they tell you something negative question it what do you feel in your own heart what do you feel can be done and just go for it look at how many times Sylvester Stallone pitched Rocky and nobody wanted it he didn't give up he kept on going and going he looked some of these guys in the internet industry how they just pushed and pushed and pushed didn't give up and all of a sudden they made it so a good portion is no matter what the rejection is keep your eye on the Target ignore the trivia many and just pay attention to the vital for you and get rid of all the baggage off your shoulders how did that how did that feel for you when you sold for billions of dollars the highest ever oh it felt great I felt wonderful I would not even give out the information but was public knowledge that's the only reason I'm talking about yeah we saw it was like over 5 billion is what it sold the value of the company in over 5.1 billion but it's that's public knowledge I think a lot of people are curious okay you get billions of dollars what do you do with it oh happy doubts well the first thing that I did was very first thing I wrote a check for 50 million dollars that went directly to start the peace love and happiness Foundation helped change Austin as well as the rest of the world that's the first check I wrote gave back and uh I feel great because America still works and I'm a big average you guys know that's that's public knowledge too that uh I participate not just financially where you know and then it's millions of dollars in some places you know to in this city even more to just change things for people to make them better off and I figured that if uh let's say the good Lord the the creator of all of everything that we have here whatever you want to call them you call God you call them Force whatever you want to call that creator of everything gave me that opportunity and I think part of it was my destiny was to give back along the way and find new experiences and help others along the way things were so good for me why not help others so I'm very generous in that area that is awesome the the other thing one I think what the the two things with the parallels I'm hearing is that you have to have something that you believe in and is great like if you had an okay tequila and you're trying to knock on doors it's probably no matter what you believe it's not going to do that well that's right that's correct we do we have the best just a matter of enough people knowing it I mean an example is some great people like Clint Eastwood did me one hell of a favor he's a nice man as a friend of mine right and I think this is like 1992 we were maybe business two three years he does a movie he calls me on the phone and says JP are you still going out with that Eloise I go yeah I sure am that's my wife by the way okay I said yeah I'll probably marry her she's incredible he goes well I'm going to help you get her right he says I want you to come down to the premiere of a new movie I have and uh I want you to come as my guest I said oh that's great and bring her with you I said oh boy go to premiere of a movie because I hadn't done those things in my life so I take her down the premiere of the movie Clint is nowhere around he's elsewhere doing a promotion in New York or something right but the producer about me said oh we've been expecting you and he gave me seats right next to him right in the middle of the theater next to the producer free popcorn I'll never forget and free Pepsi usually find Coca-Cola right at the theater that Pepsi and I thought boy this is cool I'm next to the producer got free popcorn free Pepsi what I'm the man right that wasn't it we watched the movie he never said a word to me we watched the movie The only thing he drank in the movie was patrolled tequila and the most hottest scene in the movie is he the tear first on the phone he was a secret service agent right he the terrorists on the phone and uh he's sipping patrolling while he's trying to talk the guy out of killing the president United States that was in the line of fire in this movie I mean just some really cool people jumped up and people that I knew and all of a sudden just somehow just got it out there for it they helped us out and another big help was hairdressers we would have a seminar every year and about 3 000 top hairdressers would come to it and we would serve all Patron free they would go home and ask for it and at first they didn't have the the it out there but then when the salesman finally got around and we finally got a sales distributor that area and they finally got around to liquor stores or clubs go yeah people are asking about that is that what it is and it took off so hairdressers helped out a lot too was the motivation the money because it doesn't sound like it for you with these different projects what was the dream it was just I thought it was the best like Paul Mitchell the best in Air Care betrayed the very best in Tequila at the time I like to have something that is really the highest equality one thing I want to understand though is that it doesn't seem like you've hired like 10 000 people directly in terms of who you were those you're like what is your sweet spot and like how do you organize these billion dollar businesses you have two of them or it doesn't seem like you've actually I don't know overseen so many people I was trying to well it's very easy when you start out we couldn't afford anybody but I couldn't do everything so finally Shirley Wong would do 10 jobs a year and a half later from the time I started the business we had enough to hire one salesperson so we did it as we could afford it without hurting the growth of the business but we'd have the money to grow fast so that's how the whole business grew little by little by little by little by little and we just learned how to move off fewer moving parts that's my way of doing business fewer moving Parts whole antelope piece of paper once have one person do what they should be doing but don't hire three people to do the job of one person and I knew that because I did everything when we started everything but doing the actual hair and hair shows I did so I know what it was like so I could get somebody again two or three things to do knowing it's really easy because I did 10 or 15.

I'd show my example yeah I love I also just want to highlight for the audience out there just like I love it there's something just so much about your teaching making your customers successful educating and the more you help them educate the more they're like well oh I need to have these products to then help me be successful and I like these guys they're behind me not just selling me there's a lot of good products out there a lot of good products out there but but we're different one we're all for the hairdresser all about the hairdresser's future business-wise and as a top stylist and that's what we support which the others don't do it as much as we do it they do very very little compared to us if someone's looking to Aspire to make millions even just like their first million so they can do stuff like this and live their own dream lives like what advice do you have for someone who's just getting started in there well realize number one that what does rich mean my son came home one day from Trinity the local school he went to here this is still almost 20 years ago when he was in grade school here uh and he said the kids in school said dad that we're rich are we rich you know like you know what does that mean Dad and uh he was in kindergarten uh I explained to him son some people think Richmond Chef lots of money okay but you could have lots of money but be a poor health and not happy and that's not rich rich is are we happy as a family oh yeah Dad we are are we healthy yep we're healthy Dad we're rich you go back and tell the kids that yeah we made it American dream happen for us but rich is really are you happy and healthy and if you and your family are happy and healthy you're just as rich as we are and people have to understand rich or successful isn't to become a millionaire did you become a billionaire is that success no success means how far have you gotten gone in whatever you're doing I was a janitor one time in high school a very successful janitor Stewart and Stewart's cleaner gave me a 25 cent a hour raise when I was making a dollar and a quarter I was not making a dollar fifty for me in high school I was one of the highest paid kids in the high school I went to and anyways because there weren't any jobs for kids then you know when I was in high school so I was successful Jenner because I cleaned it better than anybody else and Stewart was a tightwad he wouldn't give you anything but he saw it without me even telling him so success is how well do you do what you do especially when nobody is looking do you wake up an extra half hour early because you find yourself working through midnight do you go to bed watching TV for the last two hours to get your mind things off off of things which is going to stop you from going to sleep that TV has got to be off an hour before you go to sleep or would you read a book about success and go over what you could do the next day a little bit better than what you did before or how to knock on two more doors will you do it yeah end of the day no sales what am I going to do knock on two more doors keep on going that's success successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do yeah do you have suggestions or how do you think people can find the things they want to work on or how do they get their customers like maybe some of the first steps because I think there's a lot of people and maybe for you it's intrinsic you're like well yeah you find a great product I guess I'm curious for that early stage well if people yeah if you find a great product first thing is who's going to use it so you got to carry product here right that you invented but now the next thing is who is your end user okay who's that going to be now all you got to do is connect the two is there a distributor out there that I could sell to that will sell directly to the end user or what do I have to do to get on the internet to be able to sell to the end user so you find the product who the end user is and try and customize it more for that that end user and then in between figure out how the heck you're gonna get to them another thing is to money the big deal is money I had no money when I started I needed money I worked into my price a five percent discount already I already had in mind right because someone's going to say no we're not going to give you money up front you're working in the price and this way people give you money on the spot now you have money to operate off of you think the American dream is alive just as much now as it was back then American dream is very very alive today there's more of an opportunity for example for me to get stationary uh I would go to a print shop where they would type set for three dollars and fifty cents name our P.O box that cost me sixteen dollars at Universal City right so we'd have that typeset for us and three dollars and fifty cents and then they'd make a copy and then for other copies for stationery it was four cents a copy in those days off of xerox machine uh and then envelope same thing you bought the envelope and they would run them for you and you'll charge you just just a few cents each just to run them there for you today you have computers there we had nothing we didn't have cell phones in those days they were just being invented they were gigantic things so what do we have an answering machine so I had like a regular asking machine I bought and they used a friend's phone uh and that was her office and brought this English lady who was a dear friend of my beautiful lady Caroline and uh she was so kind and wonderful she put her voice on her machine so we looked bigger wasn't just a hairdresser limited Hawaii and his girlfriend in JP in La you know uh we had an actual with an English accent where she would go hello John Paul [ __ ] oh thank you for calling we're all out now these are so busy but I'll try to see if I can JP to call you back later you know goodbye thank you so much well of course I'm gonna call back later there was nobody to call about me so that's a very very excuse me so today that's how we started but we had the passion to work and I see today many young people don't have that passion to work uh I've been working since well part-time at seven years old more full-time part-time job from 11 till today I sold newspapers in the morning or delivered them for the LA Examiner and they would go to school and then when I was old enough to get a job after school I had a job after school we've been working since but I'd like to work and in those days you got a job because it was cool to have a job yeah I gave the money to my mom instead of my brother because we want to have a little better way of life but the fact we had a job made us so happy we care less we made money we had a job in 1980 and 81 inflation in the United States was 12 and a half percent unemployment it was ten and a half percent if you could get a loan if you could get a loan prime rate was 17 interest if you could get a loan okay and we waited in line for gasoline around the block okay and we had no money and we had major cosmetic companies out there obviously that had money advertising we had nothing other than door-to-door sales and the belief that what we had was really really good it was difficult and uh people asked when did you know you made it because you started out in your car and all that and I tell them all I knew it after two years and what was the big hurray the big herrawas we could pay our bills on time we were always late you know I was like we thought we haven't made now we compare bills on time uh Paul Mitchell it was my hairdressing partner at the time uh and his girlfriend who was just wonderful she had a lot of our hair shows for us great lady chain bra uh we all had two thousand dollars each to split up it was very exciting you know plus our bills were paid on time then we knew we made it what regrets do you have difficult to working too much do you have any regrets around your career zero regrets there's a lot of things in life I would have done differently we all would have done different things in life differently but you can't change yesterday's newspaper and that's something you gotta get off your shoulder all those regrets God I wish I didn't say so and so to so and so or I wish I would have done this differently and everything would be changed you can't change it and that's why you got to get off your off your back and I didn't know that at the time when I started the business because I was so focused on how am I going to eat how am I going to get money to pay this bill and I'm four days late you know that's my focus but later on I learned that you gotta get all this stuff off your shoulder all this stuff's got to get off your shoulder then you go forward with no past thoughts at all we wouldn't be who we are today if it wasn't for the past you want to be somebody different you can't change the past but you can change the future we had a saying in the 60s and that was this today is the first day of the rest of your life those are saying and it is today's the first day the rest of your life what changes do you want to make what when you were starting out even today what books or resources or people did you turn to I wish I had a mentor and I didn't I wish I had Ventures I did it okay and I wish I did my mom was the closest thing to a mentor always encouraging us but when I sold encyclopedia Store to Door it was the best treaty I ever had because it's hard it's hard if you don't do it you don't make any money but there was a book there that I think is one of the greatest books everybody should read everybody should read this book and it's probably 90 hundred years old this book it's called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie I give that book to anyone that I see really needs a helping hand dealing with people and then I tell people also and I tell your audience when you talk to people look them right in the eye and if you feel uncomfortable looking him in the eye look at him between the eyes or at their eyebrows it looks like you're looking them in the eye don't ever give a presentation look everywhere else you'll lose everyone's attention just little things and smile be happy kind if I ever had a secret to a lot of My Success and relationships with people it's kindness I'm a kind person and I've learned that throughout the years after my wild biker days in my 20s but that was a different time writing different story I learned how just a wonderful kindness is I was always kind of kind all my life but even became Kinder kindness is wonderful you feel good they feel good when you talk to somebody you talk to them with kindness you don't talk down to them when you want to help somebody out you do because of kindness what's a great life to you a great life is being happy and healthy that's a great life to be happy and healthy I've got a some people that I know whether it's a Native American nations or just weird people that have absolutely nothing but they're healthy and they're happy and to me that is just one really good life I've seen just too many people that were extremely wealthy but they were really healthy or happy great example this is a give Italy audience you guys can look this guy up he was probably the first billionaire that I know of anyways and that was J Paul Getty Jr uh he started something called uh I think it was Occidental Petroleum or all kinds of things wealth is in oil and gas came from Oklahoma had a big castle in England right big castle there and the famous story of him was he picked I was the richest man in the world he picks up his telephone bill once and Caesar's a bunch of toll calls we used to have toe calls you guys don't have any more or if you called across the city you paid a few more cents you crawled International you paid more if you went from London to East London you paid a few more pennies more so those the Chargers he thought well they can't do this on my phone he put a pay phone in his house so somebody wanted to make a telephone call me on the phone anyways he had an interview one of the few interviews he ever had in his life and the lady asked him the question you've got to be the happiest person in the world would you have changed anything now he's up in years at this time right would you have changed anything in your life he says yes I would have changed and given the majority the majority of my wealth away he says I'm the most powerful man in the world right now I could change governments I have so much money I could change things and I do he says but I haven't been happy I've been married seven times even had a grandchild that set in his ear with some guys from the mafia for uh you know for ransom right he says I I've been married seven times didn't love any of them he says I've been unhappy it's too late for me now I would have given the majority of my my fortune away just to have been happy in my life I was never really happy then happiness very very important and be kind be kind to others also is part of you being happy if you're not kind you're not going to be happy if you like this video you are going to love this video right up here where you talk to another billionaire founder the founder of Kinkos and now he turned five thousand dollars into 2.6 billion and if you're not subscribed to the channel already we want to make sure you get every single one of our videos so go and subscribe Uncle Noah loves you and I'll see you out there

As found on YouTube

Get Your Resources Here:

You May Also Like