Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How John Paul DeJoria Built Billion-Dollar Brands | Founder of Patrón and Paul Mitchell

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

What if one of the unlocks for living “the good life” lies in the simple act of giving, even when you have nothing?  Today's guest is an icon of entrepreneurship, resilience, and generosity - John Paul DeJoria - a cofounder of not one but two billion dollar companies, Patrón Tequila and Paul Mitchell Hair Care Products. What you might not know, though, is that before building billion-dollar brands, JP was homeless, selling products door-to-door just to get by. His journey is a masterclass in grit, optimism, and the power of persistence.In this conversation, JP shares how his toughest moments shaped his mindset, why giving back—no matter how little you have—can transform your life, and why he believes wealth isn’t about money; it’s about gratitude. It’s about impact.Get ready. JP has a deep spark and a heart of gold. Check out this week's conversation with THE legend, John Paul DeJoria._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. What if one of the unlocks for living the good life lies in the simple act of giving? Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And today's guest is a true icon of entrepreneurship, resilience, and generosity. Jean-Paul DiGioria, a co-founder of not one, but two billion dollar brands, Patron Tequila and Paul Mitchell

Hair Care Products. Now, what you might not know is that before building billion dollar companies, JP was homeless, selling products door to door just to get by. His journey, it's a masterclass in grit and optimism and the power of perseverance. In this conversation, JP shares how his toughest moments shaped his mindset and why giving back, no matter how little you have, can transform your life and why he believes wealth isn't about money. It's about gratitude. It's about impact. So get ready.

JP has a deep spark. He's got a heart of gold. And let's jump right into this week's conversation with the legend, John Paul DiGiorgio. I am thrilled and honored to sit down with you. Your testament to what from the outside looks like a great life is something that I've wanted to talk with you for a long time. So let me not make any assumptions though. When you think of living a great life, have you lived a great life? I have lived an unbelievable great life. I've had, as most people know, a lot of adversity in my life, okay? But I want to learn, and I'm learning more as I get older and older and older, that that's a good thing. If I lived a life here in this body on this planet,

okay, with no adversity, I wouldn't be growing at all. So I look at what I went through, and I look at the tough times that I learned from. It was like the greatest education. JP, what's the extent of your education in high school? But the bigger one was after high school, just learning things and reading books about what life is really, really all about. And then, of course, along the way, I happened to be really blessed and graced with a lot of good stuff coming my way. But I lived a blessed life on both sides, even through the adversity and obviously what I have right now. The world works. And if you're a kind person, it works quicker for you. Okay. There's a lot of that. So if you don't mind, let's talk about some of the adversities. And I would love for you to mark the ones that have been most meaningful to you.

You betcha. Well, let me start out at a very young age. We had absolutely nothing. We had a deadbeat dad, and before I was two years old, he was gone. So it was my mother. Now, this is the late 40s. Okay, we're into the 1940s now. There was my mother and my brother and I.

That was it. No other source of income. We lived in a little dinky house, real little house in Echo Park. We didn't have anything, not even a TV set. We thought we were really cool. And, you know, growing up, my mom was really a special lady. She would give my brother and I, for example, once we'd come home, she'd have this little piece. Oh, maybe it was like two, three ounces max of filet mignon. And she'd say, boys, we're all going to have a bite of filet mignon. It's a

certain type of steak that all the rich people eat, right? We eat just like them. Oh, mom, that's great. And in those days, caviar was really inexpensive. She'd buy a little bit of caviar and let us taste it and say, boys, that's for the rich. So we never knew we were without. So when I got into school mainly where I grew up there in grammar school everyone was kind of same the same and then in high school we realized hey things were a bit different so it was really adversity but we never knew it so it never affected us going along the way a little bit further when you run across other points of adversity that really came at you was, for example,

when I was in the United States Navy, I learned quite a bit. When I got out of the United States Navy, I was looking for a job to set the world on fire. And I ended up, after trying several jobs, to work for P.F. Collier Encyclopedia, Collier's Encyclopedia. When we were interviewed, we were told, very few of you are going to make it. Those that are going to make it are those that realize you don't give up. If you knock on 50 doors and they're all politely or unpolitely closed in your face, okay, you have to be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 as you were the first 50, and that's a tough thing to do because every call you made was a cold call. There were no leads. You're in the afternoon pounding on doors, finding where the young couples live or

people with families going back at night and trying to get in there to sell them encyclopedias. Well, the adversity was, oh my God, this is what I'm up against. But I believed what they said. Out of everyone that was interviewed with me was maybe a dozen person. I was the only one left. When I went in the field, it was very difficult, but I believed what they said. Now, it wasn't, it wasn't 50 doors for me. It was more like over a hundred doors that I finally got through a door and was able to give a presentation. But there was a lot of adversity there because you kept on getting rejection.

However, it worked. And that always stayed with me. So later on, when I started Paul Mitchell with No Money, and we'll get into that a little bit later, I had that same philosophy that you can overcome these things. You just got to figure out ways around it and go, go, go. I mean, in my early 20s, I have a two and a half year old son and a wife and a mother that didn't want to be a mother or a wife anymore. Came home one day and there's a two and a half year old kid in our apartment with my clothes scattered around him and a note. Sorry,

you'll be much better off. He'll be much better off with you than he is with me. I can't handle this anymore. Good luck. And she had cleaned out what little money we had out of our bank account. She planned all this weeks before, took the rent money, didn't pay the rent, knowing that we'd be evicted within a matter of days, didn't pay the electric bill, didn't pay anything. Two days after she did, we had nothing.

She even took the one car. After that, it money no house they're kicking us out the power's now being turned off and and i didn't have a job the job i had wasn't paying me for another week what the hell are you gonna do whoa let's pause right here that was adversity well okay and it's not lost on me from my vantage point here is that the condition of being poor at when you were young, when your dad left, has now reared its head again, except the dad didn't leave, the mom did, right? And so there's like a double entendre that's taking place with your two young kids at that age. But so let's work in reverse order across these three because you just shared three adversities, but you dropped deep insights on how you

navigated both. And I want to make sure we highlight those. In reverse order, I'm more interested in what you saw in a woman when you were dating that you missed, that she could be the one, the type of one that leaves two children and a caring man, I'm assuming you're a caring man, you know, with nothing. Like, what did you miss? Beautiful, first of all, question to ask. No one's ever asked me that question, but it's a good one. And the honest truth was I was turning 20 years old and she was drop dead gorgeous. She was beautiful. Nothing else mattered. That's all I saw. She was beautiful.

Didn't think of anything else. She was a beautiful lady. Okay. And so the character of the content was not as you would hope. Nope. And was she a drug user? Was she, did she have, looking back, did she have some sort of psychological disorder or was it just like an impulsive way of living? Like, how do you make sense of what she did? Well, let us say that I think it was a bit of disorder her bringing up, which I didn't know about for some time.

But if she would have told me how she was brought up, I still would have married her. She's the most beautiful girl. Not realizing maybe people don't change that quick and they weren't ready for responsibility. And then the opposite side of the coin about her, what was it about you that she wanted to leave? Well, it wasn't about me. What she said was she couldn't handle being around, being a mom. And when I finally chatted with her years later, she showed up many, many years later. Anyways, when we finally did, she just said, I just couldn't handle it. It was, you know, going into the, it was the end of the 1960s

and I just wanted to be free. I wanted to be free, period. I didn't want the responsibility all day long of a kid, watching a little kid take care of him 24 hours a day because we had no money. So there was no way I could afford help. She just couldn't handle the responsibility of being a mom. Plus, we didn't have any money. Now, she never complained about it. However, I knew inside it really affected her. Maybe she thought I'd be making more money. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, raising children is really hard. And it's the most rewarding, wonderful thing. It can be the most rewarding, wonderful thing, but it's really a rich challenge where as much as I care about psychology

and emotions and living a great life, it's hard for me too. And I've spent my whole life understanding how to help other people become their very best. And there's no roadmap that's clear here. Yeah, there's no roadmap. I know you do that, by the way. And that's why I'm on your podcast because we research.

I thought, sure, he's helping other people out. I'll come on down. I'll fly on down and do it. Oh, wonderful. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of,

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That's linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Fighting Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that

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for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. This is amazing. And you, so there's something about helping other people that resonates deeply with you. And is that something, where did that come from? I think my mom, because even though we grew up with adversity, we never knew it, right? My mom was always kind to everybody. And I think the thing that really switched it also got me into philanthropy when finally I could afford my time and later on money

was when I was about six years old, we lived in Echo Park. My mom would take us to downtown LA on trolley cars. We used to have trolley cars in those days. And she took us down to right around, it would be Spring and 7th Street, Spring and Main, that area there. There was Bullock's. There was May Company. There were all these really great department stores. L.A. was different in those days. And they had all these beautiful window displays, trains going around in circles. And my mother gave my brother, who was about a year and a half older than me, a dime and said,

Boys, I want you to hang on to this dime, half and half with your little fingers. Put it in the bucket there, that red bucket with the guy ringing the bell. And we did. We came back to mom and said, mom, why do we give him a dime? That's two Coca-Colas. That's what it was in the 40s, right? Three candy bars. Why do we give him a dime? And mom said, boys, that's the Salvation Army. We have food and we have a house to live in. There are people who have no food, no house to live in. They take care of them. This is all we could afford this year. But remember, boys, always give a little something. There is always somebody a little worse off than you are. That's what mama said. I was 11, 12 years old and had a morning paper route, so did my brother, with the Los

Angeles Examiner, which was the newspaper of the time. Okay, it's not there anymore. Anyways, it was during that time where it was a weekend. It was a Okay. It's not there anymore. Anyways, it was during that time where it was a weekend. It was a Friday. And my mother said, boys, come here to the kitchen table. We had a little kitchen table. She says, take out any money you have in your pocket or in your piggy banks. Take it all out. Okay. We took all my money, all her money, everything we had together. We counted 27 cents. And I'll never forget the story. She said, boys, we have 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator. We're growing'll never forget the story. She said, boys, we have 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator. We're growing some vegetables in the backyard. Our bills are to be

paid in full. We're all together and we're happy. So we're rich. We're rich. And we said, yeah, mom, we were. Bring me into that moment. What was it like when you put 27 cents on the table and mom made that very clear declaration, this is all the money we have? Yeah. You didn't get scared? No, not at all. Mine was maybe a nickel.

My brother's probably a dime. She came up with the rest. We weren't scared at all because what my mom said hit home. We're like rich. Are you kidding? We're happy. But you weren't rich. No, but we were.

You were rich in other ways. It goes on what someone's definition of rich and wealth is. If you were to ask me what's the definition and put it as priority, I'd say number one priority would be happy in life. Be happy. Number two would be healthy because you got to be happy to be really healthy. And number three comes everything else. So let's do the keys to happiness right now. And this is your take on what makes, what sits underneath your happiness. Because the viewer and the listener wouldn't get what I'm getting right now from you. They'll hear your tone and see your inflection on camera, but you have a vibrance.

You have a zest for life that would be a 10 out of 10 if there's such a scale. And I do want to talk about happiness, but there's something else that you have that is felt by me being six feet away from you. I'm calling it zest right now. There's a spark about you. I do want to hit on both of those. I want to hit about happiness, and I do eventually want to come back to the zest for life. So what's underneath happiness? How do you generate happiness on a consistent basis? I'm very fortunate the way I grew up with the kind

of mom I had. I was happy most all the time. When I got my first job at 10 years old, the first paid job, other than selling Christmas cards, right? I was happy just to have a job. Like, wow, I have a job. Gave the $30 a month to my mother, but I have a job. Later on in life, when more- So you're pointing to gratitude as one of the core foundations for happiness. Gratitude beyond any question of doubt. But as I got older, there was more adversity there. There was more challenges there. And then I kind of lost that total freedom of happiness you had when you were a kid. But then along the way, I learned how to overcome it. And the first thing is, human beings carry around on their shoulders, regret, jealousy,

anger, I don't like you, I hate you, it's carried on their shoulders. And you cannot change yesterday's newspapers. You think about somebody, you don't like them. A conversation comes up, you go towards, oh, I know someone like they're a total ass. You've got to get that off your shoulders. And everybody has it. Or things come up along the way. Now, how do you get off your shoulders? That's the question. How do you get off? Okay, it's quite easy. When you know it shouldn't be there and you use common sense, you can't change it. I don't care what you do, you can't change it. As soon as you start carrying that around, which everybody does, and you add on to it,

all of a sudden, you're not in the future. You're not in present times. Part of you is behind you there. And the spirit picks up all this stuff, right? So the easy way to get it off your shoulders is when it pops up, each time it pops up, just say, a lot of those challenges were my past life. That's not me anymore. And then immediately have anything, I don't care what's happening in your life right now,

one positive thing. It could be, I just had breakfast. I got a full tank of gas. Just to change your mind. It will come back again. When it comes back, I can do the same thing. It could be, I just had breakfast. I got a full tank of gas. Just to change your mind. It'll come back again. When it comes back, I can do the same thing. That's my past life. That's not me anymore.

Go away, go away. One at a time, it'll happen. You'll find in your life something coming up where I really hate that person, and you'll catch yourself saying, I don't like that person. Here's what they did bad. And you'll say, wait, that's the past.

They could be a great person now. I don't know. I forgive them. Forgive everybody for any wrong you did or they did. Either way, you did it, they did. Forgive yourself, forgive them because you can't do anything about it. And you're suffering more than they are or more than you were when you regretted it a long time ago. What happened happened and realize that everything, everything that happens to you, everything that happens to somebody else, okay, everything is a lesson learned. If you were on this planet with nothing happening,

you're not learning lessons. You're gonna come back a lot of times, okay? Come on, let's learn another lesson there. But once you do that, you're relieved. You feel like, oh, I feel great. You know, it's off your shoulders. That is one great thing. The next thing to do is whenever you're in a conversation and people are talking about gossip or negative things, say, excuse me, but I'm on more of a positive trend right now, but thank you.

I appreciate what you're saying. Always acknowledge them. I appreciate what you're saying, but I can't enter this conversation and walk away. Do not hang around negative arguments or negative feelings. It's not you. Someone asked me once, like, what do you do when like a coach or a teammate or like somebody on a staff that you're part of is like super toxic, you know, like they complain a lot. I said, I don't know because I don't hang out with them. I leave. Like that's not, I'm not good enough to be able to try to convince or change. I don't even know how to change anybody from that way. So I basically just say, hey, listen, this is not for me. And I'll exit the conversation. Same type of thing.

It's interesting. We have words. My words are, if I want to be polite and get away, was, you know what, Michael? I could appreciate that. And I wish you good luck with it. I've got a split now. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. I wish you good luck with it, buddy. But you're doing a couple of things here.

You're framing adversity as like a necessary and interesting part of life. And could you have it so that you could learn from it? Don't be afraid. Yeah. So you're, I want to learn it all. I want to grow as opposed to I want the smooth life. But I didn't know it at the time. Okay.

I didn't know it at the time that it was a lesson learned that later, years later, was like, wow, that was so cool. The second piece that I just want to highlight, though, is that if you've gone through pain or somebody's caused you, you know, you're just hurting from an experience you had or from someone, it doesn't sound like you are suggesting, like, make a declaration and forgive them. You're saying, when it comes up, work with it piece by piece. Just eloquently say, when it comes up, say, that's not serving me right now. That's old news. And then come back to now, but don't just come back to now neutral. Come back to now and find something that is net positive. So that's a very simple practice that folks do. And if it still happens at night, for example, when you go to bed, it's going through your head. All this misery is going through your head. You're remembering your problems of the day, whatever. The way to get rid of that is before you go to bed, get a tablet. Write down

everything that goes through your mind because you can't sleep because you're worried about I can't pay this bill. I can't do this. I can't do that. It was there. I know. Believe me, okay? Do you do this? Write it down on a piece of paper.

Do you do this on a regular basis? Not anymore, but I did, especially when I started companies with no money, right? Have it there. And then I would just take it and put it in the bathroom. Then I wouldn't have to think about it anymore because it's on the piece of paper. I could look at it in the bathroom then i wouldn't have to think about it anymore because it's on the piece of paper i could look at it in the morning and when i look at in the morning some of those things i was thinking about maybe it was late at night that's not a problem but cross them off and minimize what you're really thinking about before you go to bed i don't know if you know this but um according to research and psychology that would be considered a best practice um an

evidence-based best practice for working with anxiety. And the shorthand of it is a dump pad. So you have a pad of paper next to you that you write all the things that are kind of ruminating in your mind. You get them out of your mind, put them on something concrete that you can look at, and then entertain them later. And when you come back later, it's like, eh. Or clear your mind. And this leads into what I wanted to start to tell you about, the down and out. A child, no money, no money for a while, okay? No car, no nothing. And there we are. How did I get out of that?

This I really want your audience to know. How old were you at this time? I was 22 and a half years old. I was 23. And you're coming from a place, little resource, but you said, I wrote it down, I want to set the world on fire. So that is like a really important piece of this, is that you're coming from a place that I want to do something with this time I have here.

So, okay, walk us into- But at that time, that wasn't the thought. You didn't have that fire. Oh, no. At that time, it was this. No money, no food, no transportation. And my mind went totally blank because there's nothing there, right? Okay. First thing is, I need to get money and I need to get a car. So my thought was, who's got a car they're not using? And I thought about my actual ex-wife who deserted me, right? Her mother. She had this old Cadillac with a blown

water pump. She never used. It was a 1950 Cadillac. I called her on the phone, made it to a phone, put my diamond, called her on the phone and said, if I could get you, can I borrow this? You could have it. She says, I never use it. Had a blown water pump. So that was transportation. Now I needed money. And as I was driving to get the car, there was all these Coke bottles and 7-Up bottles and lots. I picked up, it was two cents for a little one and five cents for a big bottle. I just gathered them up, got my son, stuck him in the car, and just went around gathering them.

In my day, now this is the 1960s, every drugstore, every liquor store, okay, every supermarket had to cash them in. There was the money. So we were living in the car, very little store, okay, every supermarket had to cash them in. There was the money. So we were living in the car, very little money, but we made it. And then about, oh, maybe two, three weeks later after living in the car, ran across a friend of mine from the Hells Angels, good buddy of mine, and Lee Meyer. He said, JP, I have an extra room, and I could get some of our mamas

to watch your kid while you're working. Come and move in with me. And that was a big help. So I'm pointing to the scrappiness, the resourcefulness that was your part of your origin story and then relationships. Yeah. When you're down and out, you can't think about how down and out you are because you're already down and out. So why are you thinking about how bad things are? You would just be sliding further. Okay. Priority money, priority a car. You got to do that. Yeah. Right. Okay. And then, so now you had an avenue for some money. Then you found a place to live. Right. And then how do you get to JP or Paul Mitchell? That was your first company or Patron?

My first one was Paul Mitchell in 1980. Okay. Right. This leads to fate. So I'd love to tell you this story very quickly. I worked for Redken Laboratories, the professional beauty industry. I'm not a hairdresser. I became their national manager of two divisions of the company by the time I was with them only a year and a half, which was unheard of in that business. I'm with them five years and then they get into animal testing. Maybe a room that's 12 by 12 with all these little marmoset monkeys in there. So I went by one day as a national manager and said, oh, I could take them for a little walk afterwards.

Do you have a leash for them? Cute little guys, these little marmosets. Oh, no, no, they never leave. They never leave? There's a door with a one-foot window that looks into the hall. How do they see the outside? Well, they don't. Why are we testing on them? Well, to see how much shampoo they'll take before their eyes go out.

I said, well, wait a minute. We don't make products for animals. We make it for human beings. They said, JP, we're the scientific approach. Rick and the scientific approach makes us look good. So I went straight to the owners. Paula kept me in with the owner, and I just told her, it's's wrong it's not the thing to do she's listen you're executive manager now be part of the corporation it makes us look i'm getting sick to my stomach yeah but it comes out good yeah we're the scientific approach right we are the scientific approach that's what god i said so i went back two weeks later i did the same thing they said jp you're everything's ahead you wonderful. But you either stay on the bandwagon because you're telling other people about this in

the company, right? Or JP, find another job, OK? We'll give you a nice severance pay. Take two secretaries to find a new job. It's not the job for you, OK? So of course I left. A company called Syntex, big in the pharmaceutical industry, bought a company called Fermadil. They were doing about $8 million a year. They heard I

was available, grabbed me, and they hired me to train their management in sales to the beauty industry because that's the beauty industry I was in. The one year I was with them, they went from $8 million to $12 million. Big jump, 50% jump right away. I got fired after one year. Why did they fire me? The reason they fired me was they wanted me to hang out with them on weekends and go to Canasta, play Canasta with them. And they happen to be Jewish, no disrespect, okay, and go to Temple. Well, I'm not Jewish, how do you go to Temple? So over the weekends, I was at Griffith Park at Love Inns with, you know, groovy bands, man, my little kid with me there, you know, the merry-go-round. That was my life. Anyways, after one year, this one fellow, Neil Wallach, said, you're just not one of us.

I said, but my job, look at me. Everybody said, no, we're doing that, not you. You just happen to be here. I think you should go. I mean, he was really mean. I said, okay, I'm gone. So I'm fired there, right? I immediately went to work for the Institute of Trichology, TRY, and tripled their sales. They weren't big sales, little ones, but I tripled their sales in one year. They came up and said, JP, we have to let you go. We found this fellow named David Chapman that could do your job for one-third the pay you're making. Now, I said, well, wait a minute, guys. I just grew your business tremendously.

You were only paying me $3,000 a month. This is the 1970s, right? Late 70s, $3,000 a month because I agreed on it. But 6% of any new sales that were created. They said, well, that's what got you. You made more money than the owners of the company. I said, yeah, but your company is bigger. How about you give me 10% of the company?

I'll pay you for it over time because I don't have that kind of money, right? JP, you got to go. Now, that's three firings, right? So, I end up starting Paul Mitchell, but I'm going to end this story before I go into the Paul Mitchell story. I started Paul Mitchell two years later. All of a sudden, something, a grand revelation came to my head. Oh my God, this is fate. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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it would have been impossible, Michael. Impossible. Whether it was for millions of dollars or the measly 700 I had to start the company, impossible to start a company. That's fate. I was fired. I did good. That fate had to happen or Paul Mitchell would have never happened. So weird things happen to you, especially in your employment. It's just opening you up for something bigger and better. And I didn't realize that for a couple of years. This is you now looking back with wisdom. Yeah. Okay. But at the time, did you say, did you have a framing of this adversity? Like,

damn it, I'm fired again. Why me? Or was the framing, okay, you know, like things are going to work out. Let's just keep kind of plugging along. How did you frame it at the time? At the time, each time it was the same thing. That's okay. If we're not happy here, I'm not gonna be happy anymore. Okay. I'll find another job really easy. I put the word out and because I did really good what I did, I had a reputation already. So I pick up the phone and I get ahold of this guy. With Syntex, they found out about me not being with Redken and they came to me. What was your craft? My craft was being able to treat people with kindness and show them how to think positively and take the most negative comment you could ever have and turn it around. One little example I'll give you. If I wanted to try and sell you,

let's take sell it, an idea, your wife, husband, business person idea. And for a very good reason, they say, no, I'm overstocked or I don't even want to hear it. How in the world do you turn all that into positive? Sometimes it's just with a few words. One, you're not going to argue with them. You're wrong. I'm right. Because everyone's going to defend themselves. So what do you do? You make them right first. So what I do is, and it's so simple, and it's honest. You could say, you know, I can appreciate that. I could see why you think that way.

I don't blame you. I think the same way. You'll watch them take a big breath, and now it drops, right? Of course you have too many products. You don't want to invest in one more. However, and then I go back into what I wanted to say, would you look at it a little bit differently, right? Of course you have too many products. You don't want to invest in one more. However, and then I go back into what I wanted to say, would you look at it a little bit differently? Okay, but you're right, 100% right. And sometimes they get you over the hump or also teaching people when to keep your mouth shut, especially when the other person's talking, don't say a word.

Many times, let's say it's with your wife or a good friend, your husband, you know, you have a good friend. They just want to be heard. When you're done hearing me go, okay, thank you. And that's the end of it. So I just know there's something better out there. I love this because when I asked about your craft, you didn't say sales. You said helping people work through to get to a yes, is basically what I hear you saying. And not giving up. My craft is not giving up. Well, to me, yeah, that's interesting. And teaching others.

Don't give up on a conversation. Just make it nice. Make it nice. And the way you do that is by seeing the person. Yeah. And at the same time, you're holding your ambition, your goal in a sanctity. Sure. And you're holding them in a sanctity. Sure. And you're holding them in a sanctity and you're navigating between those two eloquently.

Right. Yeah. Okay. So, but the industry is really at this point, sales. Sales, right. Right. And putting together your own marketing and enough people to put your own formulation together.

So you do need some outside help too. Okay. And then how do you bridge your mastery of craft and a sense of mastery of self? How do you square those two ideas? That's the real hard part because the more good books I read on this, the more great things like your podcast that people might listen to, you pick up one more little thing you're not doing right now, and you incorporate into your everyday life. I used to get passages or things I wanted to change. One of the big ones was try and be the observer without judgment. If you could be in every situation the observer, but don't judge it, good or bad, just do that. It just releases just so

much in you. But I highly recommend people read books. You learn so much by reading good books, positive books. Is mindfulness one of your practices? Because I hear you speaking about meditation slash mindfulness, but I don't know if you have a practice of doing it. My meditation takes about five minutes. That's it. I wake up in the morning. I do what most people do, go to the bathroom, maybe try and drink some more water before I wake up in the morning. I do what most people do, go to the bathroom, maybe try and drink some more water before I go right back in bed. And I try and stay there for about five minutes and just clear my mind, just kind of stay like this and clear my mind. And if something comes in my mind, I just say, no, no, no. And I look at a blank piece of white paper

in front of me with my eyes closed or open my eyes and say, okay, I'm in the room. That's the ceiling. That's the door. I try and get to real present time for about five minutes. I don't think about my day or anything. Then I get up and I incorporate my business into my usual day. So it becomes part of my lifestyle, not a job. I stopped working when I started Paul Mitchell living in my car with the 700 bucks. I stopped working. I was happy. When you love what you do, you're not working anymore. So I'm working there in the industry. Now I'm a consultant. I'm fired by three companies. I try to consulting. If you could afford to pay me, and I was reasonable, okay, I told you everything you

needed to know quick. Three months, everything you wanted to know, I would tell you. About what? About anything. Sales, marketing, how to train your people, how to be it. If you didn't have a lot of money, I was kind of running your company for you and two, three weeks behind and even getting paid. So I thought too, with my dear friend, Paul Mitchell, who was a great hairdresser, I thought, let's start a company together. You are a great hairdresser. And he was, he was like one of the top instructing hairdressers in the nation. People would pay money to go to his seminars. He started the crimpers and wash and wear hair in the United States from Vidal Sassoon. Unbelievably good

guys. And I said, I know the business part and I've got the people do formulation. We need, now this is 1979, 1980, okay? We need $500,000. I could start a company that cheap because I knew how to do it, right? I had the money set up through a friend of mine, Mr. David Oldhouse, who is with Citibank. Someone in Europe wanted to donate the money. He said, great. He could have 40% of the business. Paul and I each take 30, right?

We were all set. I quit everything I was doing. So I went down the hill to get the money. Nothing was there at the Bank of America, Universal City. Dick Holthaus found me later on in the day. He said, JP, I've got the worst news for you, okay? But it just happened. He said he changed his mind.

He didn't send it in this morning. And he got me through a friend who found me, right? And I said, why? Inflation in the United States in 1980 and 81 was 12.5%. Way more than it is today. Unemployment was 10.5%. Loans, if you could get a loan, the cheapest rate was 17% interest if you get a loan and we waited in line for gasoline and no money. Now, you talk about a time to start a business, down and out. What was the first thought in mind? Okay, this guy ordered 200,000 bottles from, this guy 100,000 to silkscreen him, and this

guy 100,000 to fill him, right? What the hell am I going to do? I've got to get lower inventories and figure out a way to get it made right away. Called the silk screener and called the bottle guy and said, and they all knew that this is going to be a big business, right? So who are your business partners at this point? Paul Mitchell, period. Just the two of you and there's no money coming in.

No, zero. There's an idea, right? No money, no nothing. Okay, got it. So first thing I did was I had to lower what I had to get. So the first thing I did was call up the bottle man and ask for a trial sample run of only 10,000 bottles. He wouldn't get freaked out. He goes, oh, of course.

I'm amazed you didn't ask for a sample run before. I immediately called the silk screener. A sample run of 10,000, and I called the filler, a sample run. Every one of them had 30-day billing for me before anything went wrong. Hey, we got the money. I came up. Here's my history, right? They all gave us 30-day billing. So, okay. So, net 30. Net 30. They paid you-

For the time I delivered it. Delivered it. They paid you 30 days. Yeah, 30 days, right? Okay. What I owed the money, right? I needed the money then. From the time I pulled the trigger and said, bottles, ship it to the screener, it took two weeks for the first run to be full. Shampoo one, shampoo two, and a leave in the conditioner, right? Two weeks. I had two weeks before the first one was due. I filled my car full of our products and drove right up Ventura Boulevard in Studio City with a full of salons and knocked, like encyclopedias, door to door to door selling my product.

I had challenges. One, no distributor, no advertising money, and nothing to really sell. I knew I'd have a lot of adversity, especially on why should I take on your line as a distributor? You're new, no advertising dollars, no team, whatever. So I went out and it took me a week to get 12 salons to buy my product, anywhere from $27 to $130 per order. But they left it blank on top. And I'm pretty good at selling, but no company, you never heard of us before. I had to really convince these people. So it took me that long and I probably made- What does blank on top mean?

In other words, the check wasn't filled out in my name. They filled out the check and said, please leave it open and just put the amount in. And it wasn't big, heavy dollars. So of course, they did that. I now had 12 checks in my pocket, okay? And 12 orders that were signed. I went to the biggest, and also I knew I needed money now. I could not wait 45 days. 45 days is how the beauty industry professional pays their bills. I needed it now. So I added on to the wholesale price 5%. I went and saw the first distributor and I asked him, I showed him our products. Nice man, Jim Hendrietta. He said, you're a nice man. Pretty products.

He says, but I'm the biggest distributor. I'll be building your brand for you. I have no advertising budget. You're honest. Nobody but you in a hairdress doesn't know anything about business, okay? You know, thank you, but there's not enough reason to take on your line. I said, sir, can I give you one more? He goes, go for it, right?

So I pull out of my pocket 12 checks and put them right in front of him. And I said, there's your first 12 customers. I've already sold them for you. Sign your name to those checks there. They're yours. Here's the orders. And I will show up. We were really hard up. If you only buy $2,000 worth of our products, that's all. Again, we were really hard up, right? I'll give you all of LA County and Orange County exclusively. We just need money. He laughed his head off and said, okay, but you better be here tomorrow and be here every single day working with a salesman of mine. And they know the accounts. Okay. Until it's gone. Okay. What do you do? I said, sure I will. I said, but there's one more thing I'd ask you. I said, when I deliver the products, when they're delivered,

can you please pay me? He laughed and he told it at our 25th anniversary, which was 20 years ago or 45 years now. Anyways, he said, so this JP walks out of my office. I'm laughing. Best presentation I've ever had. Within three minutes, my warehouse guy's calling me for one of my warehouses around back. He says, some guy's loading stuff on our back counter on the shipping dock and wants a check for two thousand he laughed his head off right signed the check he back give it he could barely keep his breath laughing and said you better be here right and that's how i got some money and

how we started the company so you didn't use that as cash flow i thought you were selling to the individuals the 12 salons for cash flow so you could pay for the first 10,000, you were using it as leverage for distribution. To pay the darn bill up that I owed. I lived up $2.50 a day. I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket when I went down the hill, but I need a little more. My partner flew in. He's a little older than me, wanted some cash. No money came in. So I said, Paul, how much can you afford? He says, 350 bucks. I said, Paul, I have about 250, but I needed to live off of. So I went to see my mother. I was too proud. This was a mistake I made in life. I should have said, mom, I'm down and out. I started a new company. Can I have my old bed back? And will you feed me?

She said, of course. I was too proud. I said, mom, can I borrow $350 from you? You're making good money. Why? I said, mom, I'll pay it back. I'm starting another company. Okay, new company. You should be on your own anyways. Go ahead. Never told her. She didn't know until a special was done on me with, oh my God, the guy who did Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Robin Leach, right? Yes, that's right. She didn't know how down and I was, and she cried. She just cried.

Why don't you tell me, son? Too proud, Mom, right? So I figured we're going to make it. And here's what happened. That's $700. Paul had $350. I had $350. Before anything could happen, I had to go to the artist that did the artwork on our three products, turn into the silk screener.

We told him the truth. He says, I'll never get the $1,000 you artist that did the artwork on our three products, turn into the silk screener. We told him the truth. He says, I'll never get the $1,000 you owe me for the artwork. I'll take the $700. But that's all we have. I'm sorry. I'll never get the other $300 anyways. So there we were. Paul had enough money to get back to Hawaii and cut hair over there.

And I had figured out a way to live off $0.99 for breakfast and $1.25 for lunch. You figure out a way when you're down and out. This is awesome. I want to tell a story, give people hope. If you're down and out, there are ways to do something. You just have to use your imagination. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. There's two ways I want to pivot the conversation. One is you are renowned for how long people work in your company. Okay. so i do want to understand what you're doing in the culture as a leader to create a a team that is enduring i also

i also want to ask you a question about you were young and scrappy and full of like i need to make something happen like you were young and scrappy and full of like, I need to make something happen. Like you were, now you're, you're the wise man. I think you're 80, 80, 80,

zero, a couple of months, 81, 81, almost 81. Do you think you could do it again? You know, 45 years later,

like I want to go both of those directions. Maybe you could pick up which direction you want to go. The, how you created the culture and speak right to go both of those directions maybe you could pick up um which direction you want to go the how you created the culture and speak right to the leaders of companies about what you do to keep great talent let me combine kind of the two together okay yeah when i started patrone in 1989 myself and my partner at the time, okay, knew nothing about the alcohol business. Zero. We had to learn an industry. And this is like?

This is 1989. 89. I think people forget that Patron has only been around since 1989. Yeah, exactly. That's it. Yeah, it feels like it was. There forever. We didn't buy it.

We started it. The name and everything we got a hold of. So when we started Patron, and we were lucky to get the name right, when we started Patron with small units, we brought it to the United States and nobody would touch it. We went to every distributor. They said, it's the best tequila in the world, but you want $37.95 a bottle? The average tequila in those days was about $5 a bottle. They said it's the best, guys, but no one's going to pay that kind of money.

So we ended up going with a wine distributor. We talked him into it. I would personally show up and do a sales meeting for him, rah, rah, rah, you know. So we started. After one year, we dropped him. He only sold 1,000 cases. That was it because he said, guys, it's just too expensive. We went with Jim Beam,

giant distributor. He took a piece and then we went to all of his distributors who took a piece, right? After about a year and a half, Jim Beam came to us and said, guys, I know you're disappointed. We're only selling 12,000 bottles a year, but we're going to tell you the truth. This brand will never get bigger than 20,000 cases a year. It never will get bigger, okay? Because it's too expensive. It's the best in the world, but too expensive. Lower the price, it'll happen. We didn't believe when we dropped them and we took on Seagram's. Seagram's took it to 70,000 cases a year. We knew we could do better by that point. We took them to court and bought them with cash out of their agreement with us. We bought them out of their agreement, right? We took over.

For the brand that was never supposed to do more than 20,000 cases a year, when I sold Patron over six years ago, which went for the highest amount ever paid for any spirits company, we were doing, just with Patron Silvers alone, about 3,500,000 cases, all-time record. Just for silver. So how do we treat people? How do I get people to stay a long time? It's just doing what I wish happened to me. I had so much adversity in my life. I could remember the times when I had $1 for lunch and now I'm in my late 20s. I had one buck for lunch, right? You don't get much for a dollar. So my first thought was, I'm going to treat people the way I'm treated, but expect out of people what I

expect out of myself. So I had no money at Paul Mitchell to hire anybody. Six months later, I had just enough to hire for very little Shirley Wong. She now answered the phone, shipped the order. She did 10 different things because I could do 10 different things and I could do what I did best because Shirley was doing the rest. And she did a great job with us. So what I did was as soon as I could afford it was if you were working for me, okay, you got free lunch every day because I know what it's like to have $1 and not have lunch. So I don't care whether you're wealthy, whether you're not wealthy, whether you have a sandwich bag, everyone that works for me is going to have free lunch and eventually you pick off a menu. What do you want? We still have that today and I can remember when people say do it because I said so. I'm the boss. And boy,

that doesn't sound right. So I made sure that when I talk to my people, I talk to them as if they are my partner and I love them and they love me. And I treat people that way. So I would say kindness and thinking of the other person along the way. And sometimes you've got to put good feeling and peace in front of profit. That's amazing. I mean, as I'm listening, it feels like there's such tight alignment between your principles and your words and your actions that wherever you go, you are you. Right? that wherever you go, you are you, right? And kindness, gratitude, building, whether it's building people or building companies is all part of how you've designed your life.

Oh, yeah. And by the way, and I did try to be other people before, and it was terrible. It was a total failure. Total failure. Yeah, it doesn't work. Total failure. What are some important habits that you have

to help you be this zest this spark for life and one of them you did share which is like let's call it five minutes of meditation in bed what are some other important habits that you've developed over time one is drink a lot of water and do it before three in the afternoon or you're up all night going to the bathroom okay a lot of water you of water. Try and reach half your weight in ounces. Like I weigh 170 pounds, that'd be 85 pounds. 85 ounces is a lot for me to drink, but I'll get to 50 or 60 ounces and I start in the morning. So that's one to hydrate yourself. Other things that I will catch myself occasionally judging somebody, but when I catch it, I immediately stop. I just stop, period. But I do catch myself occasionally judging somebody, but when I catch it, I immediately stop. I just stop, period. But I do catch myself. Sometimes I'll catch myself trying to pick up a sentence

because I'm so excited before the other person is done. So I'll catch myself. So these are things along the way that help me be better because even though it's seldom that I catch myself today because I'm really learning a lot and I feel good about I feel good about it. Every time it does, I get an uplift. And being kind to people is the best thing. How do you start being kind to people? The first three living souls you see. Just go three. When you wake up, it could be a dog, a cat, a paracrete, your wife, your friend, the doorman.

First three people. Make it a point just to smile and say, good morning. That's all you got to do. Good morning. You'll find yourself doing to the third, fourth, fifth, and 10th person. Good morning. Just good morning. That's all. Just go for three. Don't go for a million because it'll catch on. You'll go to four next time pretty soon. Whenever you can, you'll say, hi, nice to see you. It just changes your attitude. You feel good. You smile. And then think about why you're happy you're going to work that day. You made somebody else happy. These things work. It's like right now people say, JP, when are you going to retire? You could have retired decades ago. I said, retire? Are you

kidding? I stopped working when I lived in my car. I love what I'm doing. And today it's like, I love what I'm doing here. Coming out here to do a podcast for someone, that's going to affect millions of people. What is one of my goals in life now? To affect multi-millions and over a billion people to have better lives. That's my goal now in life, no matter how long it takes. You have made something that is aspirationally available to people, like these very simple practices.

You've done it so enthusiastically and so clearly in this conversation that it feels like on the other side, I'm going, yeah, of course. Oh, that's so simple. You've built really successful companies and you have such a positive outlook. You are a leader of leaders. What guidance would you give the leader of our free country? I would say, do everything you can with kindness. If you got to put somebody down, do it in a jokingly manner, but throw something kind in there. That's number one. Okay. Number two, in leading our country, give the other guy a chance to talk and do look at both sides of everything. And when you do something, let the world know about it. How do you deal with loss? Probably the first big loss that I really felt was when my brother died at a very young age.

I was 27 years old in Topanga Canyon. He was getting his motorcycle and he extended the front end and went around a corner too fast, went flying off into a wall and unfortunately killed him. And he was just one of the best friends one could ever have. My friend, my brother, when we were in foster care because my mother was sick from age five to nine and a half, my brother was there protecting me, doing whatever he could. And that was just a huge loss. I lost my best friend, not just my brother. That I really felt in my heart for a while. And how do you give guidance to people

that are in the throes of loss or grief right now? Well, as I learned more about we, the people, and I started to learn that we are not the body. We are the entity. We are the life form in that body. That's what we are, okay? And one could believe whatever they want to believe, which is wonderful. It's our own beliefs. But my full belief now with

conviction is we are not the body. We're being in a body. And we learn as time goes on. And we cannot change yesterday's newspaper. When we leave the body, we're at a place that's very, very big and very, very spiritual. My mother died twice, once in her late 90s and told me about the afterlife experience. And my mother was impossible of lying. She just could not lie. My mom could not lie. Okay. She's just one of those people, right? But she died and she saw the whole thing. She saw herself come out of the body, saw the doctor saying, we're losing her, we're losing her. And they had the paddles there, right? We're losing her. And then saw her flatline and she was out of her body on the ceiling watching. And then when they popped her like that, she went right back into the

body. She says, boys, it was a matter of seconds, but I knew everything. It was so peaceful. I don't even know if I want to go back in there again. She says, nothing to be afraid of. She says, but I guess I just didn't have the ticket that I needed on that train. I had to go back again. And of course she came back again and went back to her ballroom dancing well into her 90s. So how do you spend your time now? You've got a castle in Scotland. You've got a place here in LA. You've got a beautiful home in Texas.

Like, how do you spend your time? Well, for one, when I made that, call it a big score, and I sold Patron, I knew now I could do things that could be exciting. So I got in the hospitality business. These places like in Costa Rica, Barbuda, the castle, whatever, are developments, you know, like all-inclusive private club to be just first class all the way where we could hire the local people at the same time and take care of them. I'll give you one

example that motivate me and Barbuda. Barbuda, beautiful island, nine miles of beach, 97% unemployment. They were subsidized and selling their sand to get enough money to be able to exist on and still subsidize them in Antigua, their sister island, right? And so I bought this beautiful beach, gorgeous property there. Right after I buy it, the tornado or the hurricane comes through and wipes the whole island out, people and all. So I was able to send one of the sea shepherd boats down there that I bought the sea shepherds to pick up the people and bring them to Antigua so they have better shelter there. Island was ruined, right? Why did I do this? I'm going to bring back every sand dune I've got the money. I'm going to bring back the coral. The

coral was disappearing. I'm going to bring the people. I'm going to bring the turtles back. And the people are all going to have jobs now. And I'm going to create something like that. And that's exactly what I did. It took care of the ocean. It took care of the environment. And it took care of people. If you go to my development right now, you will find that over 300 of the 600 and some odd people that live there work directly for our project. And anybody else that wants a job with us could get a job with us doing something. We were able to employ them. And then I was able to sell to them why they should be their own entrepreneurs.

I'll give you Abishir. Abishir is taller than I am, and his hair comes right down his ankles. And they're pure dreadlocks. Real love you, bro. Just a cool dude, right? Anyways, and he was in jail for a while for marijuana possession, stupid stuff. He now has his own business with 13 employees

taking care of our golf course and we are his only customers, but he's a boss and now 14 people work. So we encourage that. Well, what's the end result? Everybody's happy there. They love the heck out of you. They want to do everything first class and feel special now.

They have extra money to buy clothes with, telephones, rebuild your house. We also built them a garden, ourselves a garden at the same time with organic food to eat. And we're rebuilding the coral now for the world. And I started with Dr. Deborah Brosnan. We put up a lab together and we are growing coral in the water. We put together a man-made reef and grew coral on that reef and we became, the year before last,

the keynote speakers of the World Ocean Conference. Now they're coming to us learning how to do it. So these things are all carried on. It's pretty exciting. Again, I don't work anymore. I'm just a happy guy, right? I get to do all these really cool things and give. Okay, I got a couple quick hits for you.

Okay. So just kind of like one or two word answers on these. It all comes down to... Being kind to people. Living the good life is marked by... Being happy. Success is... Success unshared is happiness.

Success, all more important, is not where you are now in life. How far did you come to get there? Quick story. You could always count it out, right? Quick story. In high school, I always had a job. I worked for Stewart's Cleaners. One day, I come from high school down to Stewart's to brush the blankets, sweep the floors. Stewart comes up to me. He paid me a dollar and a quarter of an hour because it was the law. He was so tight, this guy, or he would give me 50 cents if he had to, right? Came up to me and said, Johnny, I got to talk to you. They call me Johnny in those days. I said, oh shit, what's going on, right? Anyway, she says, last night after you were gone, I worked late. I went up to my mezzanine and took my watch off to lay on the cot. We had those old time cots up

there. He says, I dropped it on the floor. I picked it up, and the cot was exposed. There was no dust under it. So I moved the cot. There was no dust behind it. And I looked behind a couple of things. There was no dust. You moved everything when you swept. I said, well, yes, Stuart.

I like my job. My mom told me as I was a kid how to clink. We cleaned the house for my mom, right, my brother and I. I just, I'm doing the job you're paying me for. He goes, you're doing the job as if I'm watching you every minute. I've never seen anybody like that. He says, I'm going to give you a raise. He raised me to $1.50 an hour. I was probably the highest paid kid in high school where I went to high school anyways, right? For $1.50 an hour. I was successful. I was the most successful janitor in the world. Success is happiness. And how far you go from where you started and what do you do when no one else is

around? How successful are you being yourself? That's success. There are some of the happiest people in the world and what they're doing and they're happy at it. And they grew in it to do it the very, very best. Money is? Money is a vehicle to do good things with. And if you have financial success, unless you share it, it's failure. And I do that a lot. It's really, really good. If you could sit with one true master, master of craft, master of self, who would it be? And what one question would you want to ask them? Who would love to be with if i could get back to the original creator who did all this you know 5 billion 10 15 billion years ago oh i would just love to be there and say thank you let's just say thank you no question just thank you for the entrepreneur who's listening you are the tall flagpole that people are able to look to to say, okay, he's on it. He really understands

it. What insights would you pass on to them? Are there two bits of advice, three bits of advice, something that is really important that you want to make sure they understand? Yeah. Number one is this, make sure your service or your product, in case it's not a physical product, is the best it could be. Do not go into the selling business. Go into the reorder business. Because if it's as good as it could possibly be and people love it, they're going to want to reorder it or tell their friends if it's a service. Because most people put it into, how do we sell it? Marketing material, this, this, this. And then like take the cosmetic industry. Many things in my industry are good for three to five years.

You got to replace, replace, and replace it, okay? Because of the quality, my first three products 45 years ago, shampoo one, shampoo two, the conditioner, scoping lotion, are still some of our best sellers 45 years later. So your service must be the best. They can tell others about it. The product must be the best so they can reorder. The second thing is be prepared for failure. If you're prepared for rejection is the word, like I was, and they prepared me when I

sold Encyclopedias door to door. Keep on knocking. Be just as enthusiastic on door number 51 as you were on the first door, right? And I did it, door 100, God knows what, right? In other words, if you know you're going to be rejected, you're not going to fall out right away. You're not going to immediately disappear with it, okay? There's one last question I have for you. There's an idea in the business world that to be really successful, you need to be cutthroat.

Is that true? Bullshit. That's not the word it is. I'm kind. I'm not cutthroat. You're not. No, I'm not. If anything, my downfall is sometimes people say, you're just too nice, JP. And I've lost some money I've invested in some investments

or business in the past. JP, you're just so nice. So once I got all this money, I had a home office. Now I have the best attorneys, the best accountants. They do it all, right? But they do it with kindness. I even taught them, like recently, there was someone that did something not so good. So I said, when you write them letters, make it nice. Just, you know, thank you for all the help you've given us. Put something nice, not a, you really screwed up. My God, I think you did this wrong. Always end it nice.

Go in nice and end it nice. So that it's still my same feeling there. But instead of someone saying to me, you're just too nice. Their strongest can't be. But they can be not so strong, but in a very nice way. JP, you're a legend. Thank you so much for today. Michael, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. I'll come on your podcast anytime you want, buddy. I love this. Thank you so much. You're very welcome, sir. That was amazing. I loved that conversation. It was so rich. It was so good.

What did you think, Emma? He is awesome. What a journey he's been on his entire life. What a treat we get to learn from. Literally the best in the world. So who do we have next? Next up, we've got Sasha DeJulian. She was great.

Oh, you like that one too? Yes. She is insanely talented and also just really lovely. For those of you who may not know Sasha, she's one of the most accomplished climbers in the world. She made history as the first American woman to win a World Cup title and was the first woman to climb a 514D, which, trust me, in the climbing speak, I'm not a climber,

but I know these people, it's as hard as it gets. Sasha opens up about pushing through the toughest moments, battling self-doubt, how she found strength after life-changing injuries. From breaking barriers in a male-dominated sport to redefining success on her own terms. Sasha's story is one of resilience, of raw honesty. Tune in for this really powerful conversation. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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