AI Summary
5 min readJohn Paul DeJoria built two billion-dollar brands—John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patrón Tequila—starting from a car he lived in with $700. But the episode is not a rags-to-riches biography. It is a concentrated look at how he thinks about time, rejection, product quality, and the nature of success itself. DeJoria frames his life as a series of lessons learned from being fired, going broke, and starting over, and he insists that those setbacks were not obstacles but prerequisites.
The Two Pillars: Expect Rejection and Build for Reorder
DeJoria says entrepreneurs must internalize two things. First, rejection is not an interruption to the plan; it is the plan. "Be prepared in life for rejection," he says. "If you know along the way you're going to get rejection, it's not gonna affect you as much." He learned this selling encyclopedias door-to-door for Collier's, where the average salesman lasted three and a half days. He lasted three and a half years because he believed that if 50 doors closed in his face, door 51 deserved the same enthusiasm as the first. Second, he says, "Make sure the quality of your product is not in the selling business. You want to go into the reorder business." A product so good that people buy it again or tell others removes the need for expensive advertising. Paul Mitchell had no money for promotion, so it had to work on merit alone. The strategy
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:03) **Time Compression as a Competitive Advantage** - DeJoria explains his system of living three days in one by splitting the day into three six-hour blocks, gaining 21 days per week.
- 2 (01:42) **From Homeless to Billionaire: The Core Mindset** - Ed Mylett sets up the conversation by framing DeJoria's journey from living in his car to founding two multi-billion dollar brands, and expresses admiration for his humility and generosity.
- 3 (04:51) **The Reorder Business vs. The Selling Business** - DeJoria explains that product quality must be so exceptional that customers naturally want to buy again or tell others, eliminating the need for aggressive sales tactics.
- 4 (06:01) **Forgiveness and Letting Go of the Past** - DeJoria explains why he would not change a single thing in his life, including the hard times, because every step shaped who he is today.
- 5 (08:10) **Kindness as a Business Strategy** - DeJoria introduces his book *Success Unshared is Failure*, explaining that he wrote it to show people how to build companies with little money and, crucially, with kindness.
- 6 (12:07) **The Tactical Execution of the Reorder Philosophy** - Mylett asks DeJoria to unpack the specific strategies he used to create such a compelling customer experience that people wanted to return.
- 7 (15:41) **The Patron Story: Breaking into a Commodity Market** - DeJoria describes entering the tequila market at $37.95 per bottle when the average was $5, and how no distributor would take them.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
You can't change yesterday's newspaper, so why are you still carrying it around?
I have wanted to sit down with this man for so long. Imagine going from living in your car to building two multibillion dollar brands. It doesn't even sound real when you say it out loud. But that's not what I admire most about him. It's how he carries the success: with humility, generosity and kindness. So today I got out of the way and let him teach.
I've interviewed some of the top entrepreneurs on the planet, and I don't know that I've ever met a better communicator. This conversation is a masterclass, and I'm fired up for you to hear it.
John Paul DeJoria is the co-founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patrón Spirits Company. He started Paul Mitchell with $700 and lived in his car to make it happen. Then he built Patrón into a brand selling millions of cases a year.
Here's what you'll gain from this episode:
- The Two Rules of Success: two rules to live by if you want to see more success in every area of your life.
- You Can't Change Yesterday's Newspaper: Why he wouldn't change a single thing about the hard times, and how to move forward after hardship
- Watch Your Words: Why saying "I'll try" keeps you trying forever, and how to break the pattern.
- The Richest Man's Regret: What John Paul DeJoria said he would give up just to have been happy, and what that says about money.
- Kindness Works, Even for Jerks: How humor and kindness disarms, and why you should never knock your competitor.
Whatever you're still carrying from yesterday, consider this your permission to put it down. I don't want you to just listen to this one. I want you to feel it, then go live it.
If you run a business or handle customer operations across support, sales, or marketing, you can start with a demo at https://elevenlabs.io/mylett
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