Joe Polish Interviews John Paul Dejoria Joe: You've all heard the expression, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish." That's sure true for your first speaker this morning, the person I'm going to be interviewing. He's born in Los Angeles, the son of immigrants, raised by a single mother, having to sell Christmas cards and newspapers at age nine to help support his family. Joined a street gang as a teenager and was headed in the wrong direction. Then he joined the US Navy. After serving his country, he got a job as a janitor, then pumping gas, then selling encyclopedias. Then he became homeless. Let me stop here. If these facts were given to you and you were told to fast forward his life and write an ending, would you ever think you write this? Now, John Paul DeJoria is listed in Forbes 400 worth $3.1 billion. How can that happen? Well, we'll find out as I interview a very special man. Please welcome to the stage, my friend, John Paul DeJoria. John Paul: Thanks Joe. Joe: Thank you sir. Thank you. Here we are. Look at all these ... John Paul: All these geniuses? Joe: Yeah, shiny, happy people. First off, thank you so much for coming down. You flew down here. Really, really honored. I did a interview with John Paul last year and I've interviewed over 400 really smart people from Richard Brands and [inaudible 00:01:25] all kinds of people. Forbes did an article on the ten most inspirational interviews that I've ever done, and I listed him as one of them because what you had to say when we had that conversation was amazing. I'm really, really excited you're able to share here. Fill in the gaps. How did you raise yourself from homeless to billionaire? I mean, how the hell does that happen? John Paul: I think if I put it in one sentence, which is difficult to do, when you're really down and out, and you're at the very bottom, all you can do it look up. I think it's kind of in life ... a lot of times when people are down, they look at [00:02:00] how to survive while they're down, but stay at that survival mode long term. Apposed to, "I'm going to learn how to survive right now and make it, but I'm immediately going to work towards the next step, the next step and the next step." Joe: Right. Great. What was the most difficult time in your life? Has it been when you've just been under maybe immense pressure from everything you created or was it really when you were just at­ John Paul: I think when you're down and out, can't pay the bills the next day, that's the most difficult time. When I was homeless the first time, I was in my early 20s, my wife just couldn't handle being a mother anymore, so left a two and a half year old in my arms and wiped out all the money we had and never paid the rent for three months. We were actually evicted within three days of time that happened. I was in between jobs, but I had money, but she took it all. My son and I were on the streets. We had this old car that we were in and we realized that, "Hey, we're going to make this together." This two and a half year old kid. Where do we get money? We don't have any money. What we did was, even though we weren't really thinking ecology, we were thinking survival, is I went around to vacant lots and picked up Coke bottles, 7­Up bottles. In those days, you got two cents for a little one, five cents for a big one. I'd go there and they'd have to give me the money and that's how we survived. Then several days later, a dear friend of mine who was what you would call a heavy duty biker with a gang, found me. He just found me, old buddy of mine from high school, and said, "Johnny, come on in. Your son can come live with me here and we've got a couple really cool biker mamas here that'll help watch him while you get yourself reorganized." That was a nice [inaudible 00:03:39] too. Joe: So how did you learn? How did you learn how to be a successful entrepreneur? John Paul: I don't think it's learning how to be a successful entrepreneur. I think it's just being able to do something and know you have that ability to do it. You see, the human race has the ability, all of you do, to do ten, fifty times what you're doing right now. If you [00:04:00] realize you have the ability, as you go along, you find obstacles, but you overcome them or you go right around them, like water might go around them a little bit. You look at what assets you have. It's a little bit like selling. Whether it's a tangible product or a service. It's got to be the very best and you put forth its features and then how it benefits the customer. With yourself personally, you put forth the features you have, how these features might benefit. If you have a product ... I'd love to share this with everybody, don't ever go into the selling business. Whether you have the greatest service in the world or the greatest product, never go in there to sell your product. Go in there to be in the reorder business. That's your mentality. Joe: That's true. John Paul: Because if you go to sell it, that's where your focus is. If you want to be in the reorder business, even if it's a one time product, whatever you do is so good, that they'll want to tell somebody else or reorder themselves. That kind of helps along the way if you have that mentality. I think selling, oh god, whether it was flower pots when I was a little kid or whether it was newspapers, or in my early 20s encyclopedias, Collier's Encyclopedia door­to­door. You knock on 50 doors and they could be closed in your face. You have to learn how to be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 or 105 as you were on the first door. That's difficult to do, but you learn how to do that. John Paul Dejoria_audio Page 2 of 24 I believe the average encyclopedia salesman, commission only, door­to­door was three days. That's how long they lasted. I lasted about three and a half years, but I learned to overcome rejection and be prepared for it. If you're prepared, and we'll cover that a little later too, I saw your questions, if you're prepared for rejection before you start anything, whether it's your personal life, whether it's a business life. When you're prepared for it, it doesn't shock you when you come along and all of a sudden see rejection in your face. You say, "I was prepared for that, but I'm going to continue on just as enthusiastic and as [00:06:00] confident as I was when I started." That's not easy. Joe: Absolutely. Do you experience rejection today in the same way you did then? You just keep yourself in an enthusiastic state or is just much bigger levels of rejection? John Paul: It's a little different today. In those days, let's say you'd knock on 100 doors to get somebody that's reactive to what you're saying, will listen to you. Today it's a little bit easier. I think in life as you build a history, that's conducive to a good life. Where in business you realize success unshared is failure and you try to be honorable with what you say you're going to do, no matter what it costs you. It gives you that clout to be able to talk to people and they know, "Here's a sincere guy. This guy has a track record of doing things right and not ripping off anybody." By gosh, there are ups and downs, there definitely are, but much more easier to overcome today. Joe: Awesome, thank you. I did prepare some questions that I thought would be the most valuable to have you share­ John Paul: Good questions. I saw them. Joe: Thank you. Thank you. What are your core values personally and professionally? John Paul: Core values are ... I would say it's the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. That's the basis for most religions, but they get sometimes carried away in rights and rituals. That's the core value, do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. Then it's the feeling of knowing that success unshared is definitely failure. In other words, when you make it, it's not really just about yourself making it. Hey, if you make it, you know you made it. Along the way one of the great lessons to learn is it's not all about you. It's about your ability to be of service to this planet while you're here.