John Paul DeJoria: Homelessness, Building Paul Mitchell, and the Billion-Dollar Power of Persistence

24:36I go there for a photo shoot. My wife and my son are with me for the photo shoot. I land in Johannesburg and I have a meeting with Nelson Mandela. We're involved together in one of our programs that we're eliminating landmines and getting rid of AIDS in Africa. I worked with him very closely. He was a friend of mine. My son was there. My wife was there. We went right into the bush and did a photo shoot in the bush with photographers. We brought in the orphans for my food for Africa, some of the 8 ,000 we feed every single day, all ages 1 to 12 years old. They became part of the photo shoot. So I got to see some of my kids there.

25:12Went and did a beauty show with Paul Mitchell in Johannesburg afterwards. Then from Johannesburg, I went out to Durban, and I did a Patron show there and another beauty show. And at that time, my son was just turning, I believe, eight years old, maybe nine. We went south of Durban and had a birthday party for him at a friend's house in Africa. Half the kids didn't speak a word of English. They were all tribal children, right? Didn't speak any English whatsoever, but they all got along with slingshots and BB guns. So it was great. So we kind of incorporated everything into one. Get it all done at the same time.

25:45Family, friends, business, and philanthropy. What was the culture you were trying to create with your business? And how difficult is it to maintain that as you have less of a presence at the actual office these days? I started a culture of fewer moving parts, mainly because I didn't have any choice. We didn't have any money. So at Paul Mitchell for the first six months, it was me doing everything and my partner Paul doing hair shows. because he wasn't a businessman. After six months, I hired Shirley Wong. Shirley, we could afford to hire a person. It's you. You're not going to get a lot of money, but you're going to have 10 jobs because that's all we could do.

26:29So Shirley did all 10 jobs. Great. She was wonderful. So every time - Wait, so how's the sales pitch on that? You aren't going to get a lot of money and you're going to be overwhelmed with work. That's all the truth, right? And Shirley's wonderful. She's just great. Sign me up. Yeah, so every time, you know, I hired someone. My next one was a year and a half in business, and I hired Bob. Bob was our outside salesperson with us. And it was the same thing, you know, Bob, you're going to do three or four jobs, you know. And that's just how we did it. So I learned that people are capable, not just me personally, but others.

27:01Everyone's capable of doing a lot more than they are doing, a heck of a lot more than what they're doing. You just have to give them the opportunity. Then they don't have to waste their time. How do I get to the end of the day here? How would you go about identifying the successful multitaskers in interviews? You never know in an interview what the end result is. My suggestion to people, whether it's in sports or business, is you could never, ever be faulted for who you hire. You could only be faulted for who you don't fire. So what I do when I interview people, and of course my staff does it now, is of course we'll look at a resume.

27:38but you can make up a resume in many areas. We look at how we feel about the energy of the person. We look at the person, we look them in the eye. We get a feeling for what they're really all about. And as they're talking to you, you try and look between the lines. You're like, what is this person really all about? We look for enthusiastic people, people we think have a heart, and people that we think would want to be part of our culture. Our culture is giving. We do a lot of giving. We let our people participate in the giving. It's not mandatory. They can participate if they want. And most of them do because they want to.

28:09Some take their vacations and go to Africa just to volunteer for Food for Africa. I know a Patron and a Paul Mitchell. A lot of our people are still going down to New Orleans, rebuilding houses. And Katrina happened years ago. They're still building houses down there because they want to in their own time. They have that feeling of giving because it makes you feel good. How do you attract the best talent? Well, it's hard to attract the best talent for us at Paul Mitchell and Patron. mainly because nobody wants to leave. In the last 30, almost 38 years with Paul Mitchell, we're in over 100 countries.

28:49Our turnover has been less than 100 people. No one wants to leave. Why do you think that is? We take good care of our people. I don't have what you call middle management. I don't have supervisors watching people watching people. People have a responsibility and they own it. That's yours. You own it. This is your responsibility. The end result is up to you. Now, not everybody is ideal for a position. Sometimes we move them from one position to another to see if it works out. And if it works out, it works out. Occasionally, it doesn't work out. And we have to let somebody go. How do you go about managing people?

29:20For me, it's quite easy to manage people because I have the best managers in the world. And the ones that are there managing people are people that know that we like to manage people with love and happiness and give them the opportunity. We don't want to bring someone in to reprimand them and make them feel bad. We want to bring somebody in behind closed doors. Tell them what they did wrong, how to do it right. Sometimes they don't know how to do it right. And then before they leave, tell them something they do already really, really good that we appreciate. So by the time they leave, they know we really know what they do really well.

29:52This, yeah, maybe they could do a little bit better here. And it makes people feel good and part of the whole group. And we give them free lunch. There you go. Everybody gets free lunch. So you met Paul Mitchell in 1971 at a Miami hair show. What was it about that interaction that made you guys just click? We had a friend, a mutual friend named Eva Prang, who I really respected a lot. And she would say, you got to meet Paul Mitchell. I heard of him before. He's a great hairdresser. And we just met. And for some reason, we just hit it off. We had lunch together in the years to come. If he was doing a beauty show and I was somewhere around, we'd say hello.

30:29about every other year I go visit him in Hawaii. He had just moved to Hawaii at a home in Hawaii. I'll go there and visit him in Hawaii. Actually it was 1975 when he moved to Hawaii. So when I was in New York I'd visit with him, hang out with him. When he moved to Hawaii I would go there and every other year so I'd be his guest, his little teeny guest house over there on the back of his Volkswagen van. We just became really good pals and our girlfriends got along really really well and it was just fabulous. And it was years after that first meeting that you guys decided to go into business together.

31:01How did that conversation take place, come about when you were in Hawaii together? Again, nine years after I first met Paul, he was trying to come out with a product line called PM where it was a couple of shampoos and a conditioning treatment and it just didn't go anywhere. He bought very little of it because he had any money and he overpaid for it and the product didn't repeat on its own. When he got up there on stage to try and sell it, it would sell. He was really, really good on stage, but there was no repeat business. I said, Paul, one, the product could be a lot better. And number two, you have no business, no infrastructure, no nothing.

31:38All you've done is lost a lot of money. I said, Paul, let's do this. I know the business, the sales, the marketing, and a little bit about formulation, but I have pals that'll help us formulate. How about we do this? Let's start a company. You own 30%. I own 30 % and we give 40 % to somebody they'll invest a half a million dollars in us. We need a half a million bucks to start this company. Great idea, JP. Let's do it. So we started designing the packaging and everything. I got my friends to work on formulations for me. And of course, the money never came in. So we started with$700. dollars. So when all of a sudden the investor who you were planning on putting in a half a million dollars at the last minute backs out, how do you handle that?

32:26Oh, first of all, total disappointment. Paul was on an airplane over from Hawaii because he was out of money. He wanted some money too. And I just left my relationship and I had a car. I had the older car, but I had a car and went down the street there, you know, to get some money, had a few hundred bucks in my pocket, left all the money, because I was making really good money at the time, with my ex-wife, because we had a daughter together, left her the house and everything to live in at that time. So they're okay for months, right? Hey, there's half a million bucks down the street. There was nothing.

32:56So I was like, oh no, and then Paul arrived. Paul, the money hasn't come in yet. Well, maybe it's a day late. And I was run down by a friend of mine who told me that the backer pulled out. And he said, JP, I know it's last minute. He never invested a dime in it. last minute change. But now this is January, February 1980. Inflation in the United States, 12 and a half percent. Unemployment, 10 and a half percent in 80 and 81. Interest rates, if you could get a loan, prime rate was 17 percent. And our hostages were still in Iran. Can you imagine? So the guy says, you can't really, you know, invest in the United States now it's just not right and we wait in lines for gasoline.

33:39What was your lowest point after that? My lowest point after that? You're starting a company with$700 when you're expecting to have half a million. You have this famous hairstylist as a partner that was counting on you to deliver this investor and you know the the pressure's on obviously but what was the lowest point? You asked me a question no one's ever asked me yet. Very good okay. The lowest point was telling Paul when he came over and when I found out Paul there's no money. How much money do you have in your pocket? He says well I could afford an extra 350 bucks JP. That's it. They were starting to come have I left everything I did no money and then light came on.

34:28Wait a minute I've been here before, but I've got a couple hundred dollars in my pocket. I've got a car. Remember, I didn't even have a car, right? And I know the industry a little bit. I'm going to make this happen. I'm going to make it happen. But once again, I was too proud to tell my mom. So, you know, I didn't want to tell my mom or any friends whatsoever. I just figured I'm going to do it. I've got a car this time and a few hundred bucks. And I knew about the Freeway Cafe, 99 cents for breakfast. And El Torino just started happy hour with free foods. I got food. I can stay in my car for now a park on Mulholland Drive.

35:02And I went to my mom and I said, Mom, can I borrow$350? Her reaction was, why? You make big money. I said, Mom, I'm doing something new. I'll pay you about it later. I'll give it to you in the month. Okay, she gave it to me. Well, little did she know at the time that I started the company. And then I would call the guy who had the bottles. And I'd say, instead of 100 ,000 bottles, can I have 10 ,000 bottles of the sample run? Oh, sure, JP, no problem. Everybody thought we had the backer and everything. Because we told him about it. And all our bills were to be paid in 30 days. So we scrambled out there to get it going.

35:35It was low, but I bounced right out of it. What was the closest you ever came to giving up? Every week for probably two years, we should have given up. Because we had little to no money and could never pay our bills on time. But didn't. But was that ever actually going through your head? Like, is this worth it? Should I keep going? or even though it was tough, you were kind of unrelenting in your commitment to driving forward? The only thought in my head, even though we couldn't pay our bills on time for almost two years, was our product is so darn good. Hairdressers love it. They know a good product.

36:19We have no money for advertising promotion, but if we could get in enough hairdressers' hands, and it was one hairdressing salon at a time. They realize how good it is, want to use it, and recommend it to their family for in-between visit use. We thought, oh my God, is that fabulous. Let's get the hairdresser's hands as much as possible. And we told hairdressers, by gosh, we'll always stay in the professional hair care industry. So even today, if you ever find a Paul Mitchell product on a grocery store shelf or drugstore shelf, all of it is either counterfeit or from what they call the gray black market or diversion.

36:54We don't put it there. We stay only by hairdressers. They supported us when no one believed in us. How long were you having to repeatedly tell people the checks in the mail? Oh my gosh, for two whole years. And then we got really good at it. They wouldn't believe the checks in the mail anymore because it never was in the mail, right? They wouldn't get it for days. They checked the postmark. It was like, hey, you know, I've been late before, but I'm coming. It's another day and a half, but you know, I'll be there. And I would personally deliver it to them, you know, and a lot of my time was spent just delivering checks, but most of the vendors were in LA and that's where I was at the time in Los Angeles.

37:29Why'd you go about putting on these expensive shows at the time that, as I understand it, were kind of all smoke and mirrors? Well, we had to make a statement, especially for those that started to buy our product. So I realized that through working through other shows, I could get for very little down a nice, beautiful room in a hotel, like a ballroom, on the days it wasn't being used really cheap, which was usually at noon and on a Sunday nobody was booking it. So I went to the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA, very nice hotel, and got the big room really inexpensively and Paul and I and friends of ours went to every salon imaginable and gave all invitations to go to our show.

38:10And we had a stack of books and products there to sell. I had a friend of mine that was wonderful, Marianne, and she gave us some flowers so it looked really, really neat. Right? Just call on friends to help out there. And I rented a tuxedo. I think in those days it cost like$15 to rent one for one day. And we looked like a million dollars, right? And Paul and I were all dressed up there. We just looked like we were just on top of the world. However, and what little catering we had was another friend of mine that pitched it in. But we had to sell product. And what books we had at that show in order to get out of the show to finish paying the bill.

38:45And that's how we pulled that one off. So that was one good one. After that, our distributors would help us out. They'd find a little showroom. Sometimes the showroom was no bigger than this room, but we would still do it. We'd show up at major shows and take a 10 by 10 booth. But the way we designed it looking out, it looked like the 100 ,000 people that were there were our audience. So we improvised. But starting out, we did that one major show and it was kind of smoke and mirrors, but it looked really good. So explain why the now famous black and white packaging? Well, we're black and white bottles now because we had all of our artwork done.

39:20We had it done in black and white and then a little extra add color to it. However, the silk screener to silk screen color on wanted seven cents. Black and white was only two cents a run. We were very limited. Even though the bill would be due within 30 days, we were very limited. So we just went for what's the cheapest. Well, as it turned out, black and white became unisex. So that was a good decision, even though we did it because we were desperate. How key do you think was promising that unsold products could be returned for a complete refund? We felt that our product was so good that if you used it, you would want it.

40:01And you'd want to continue using it. We were that confident. So we told all the hairdressers that we sold our product to. This product is so good that if you use it within 30 days, if you're not completely satisfied, happy as can be, and your customers too, we will refund your money. In the first five years, and this is what I kept track of it, to the best of my knowledge, only two bottles were ever returned. That was it. Really? That was it. Wow. Why would you educate hairdressers through demonstrations and then on how to teach their clients? Well, hairdressers know about hair. In fact, if everyone just have a good look, by God, go to a hairdresser.

40:43Don't do it yourself. They know what makes you look good. But we had to teach them how to hold a product and merchandise. Like how do you may call it retailing? Because they were used to using products and selling very little. So we said if you do a nice display, have our product at eye level, and you hold it like a gem, and you explain to people while you're doing their hair hair, what Paul Mitchell product you're using on their hair, and how do you use the same sculpting lotion or sprays at home to maintain your same hairstyle in between visit, that would be a real plus, and it turned out to be a real plus for a hairstylist.

41:16How much do you think John Paul Mitchell's success was because of the quality and innovation, and how much do you think was because of just the salesmanship? When you look at the success of John Paul Mitchell Systems, there is no doubt that the majority of our success had to do with the quality of my products. Because we did not want to be in the selling business. We wanted to be in the reorder business one day where people loved it so much they used it again. Hence, hairstylists. They know something that's good. If the hairdresser loves your product, they know it's good. They know they get it to your customer.

41:57They're going to repeat buying it. Yeah, but I mean, also, especially as time passes, there are other quality products on the market. So, I mean, to what extent do you think you almost aren't giving yourself enough credit as a salesman and the ability to get out there and develop the relationships and get the traction and all that? The other half, I say the majority is quality. or maybe let's say the other 40 % that's left is how we love our hairdressers. You may call it salesmanship. You may call it education. We still do this, David. We have more educators out there, I think, than anybody, okay?

42:36We have a lot of people out there in the field. By giving them the proper education, which they deserve, it means that we're in their salons with them. We're at their shows with them. We're calling on them on a regular basis. I hold a seminar every year for 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 students that we pay for, that we give them love. When I'm on TV, I do ads for hairdressers. In other words, we have that love, and that's our sales and marketing, is that our education and our love for hairdressers. By the way, on those two products that were returned, only two in my first five years, one of them was counterfeit.

43:09They said, well, my God, it's sticky and gooey. What is this stuff? It turned out to be counterfeit. Why would you go on sales calls with some of the new salespeople that you would hire? As we started out, the only way we could sell was to go with a potential distributor in the field with their salesmen. And they would watch me give a presentation, how to hold the bottle, how to talk to people, how to sell the product. And I would in the afternoon have them give half the presentation. By the end of the day, they knew the presentation. It was our way of teaching salesmen what to do when you're gone.

43:42Because in those days, with exception of maybe five distributors, they sold 20, 30, 40 different lines. We wanted them to sell our line, our few products. The only way to do is get in the field with them and show them how to do it. What was your pitch? Can you put that on hold for one second? I'm going to grab a bottle. Okay.

44:03You asked. By the way, the whole presentation is two minutes long. A million dollar presentation. Okay. Now in the early days, we only had three products our first two months. two shampoos in one conditioner. So I'd like to tell you about something brand new. One, I'd hold it like a gym, not like this, okay? I'd hold it like a gym. This is Shampoo One that we've developed. Shampoo One is for normal to color, treated, or fine hair. What's unique about this shampoo, you only need one shampoo, not two. That saves you time and money. We test all these products on ourselves, not on animals. This is Shampoo Two.

44:46Shampoo 2 is for normal to greasy hair, oily hair, or really, really thick hair. Once again, you only need one shampoo, not two. Saves you time and money. This is the most unique thing we have. It's called the conditioner. Let me show you how it works. Then I would put a size of a dime on my hand. I'd say, can I have your hand, please? I'd put a size of a dime in their hand. Now, you've got the size of a dime in your hand, right? But you don't know what to do with it. Watch, okay. Here, I want you to tell you about the conditioner. This is very unique. Now, I've got your attention because it's in your hand.

45:17You know what to do with it. This product is a moisture treatment, a protein treatment, nucleic acid treatment. When you cut someone's hair, you put it on first, right? So you don't have to be in the back basin for 10 minutes waiting for the conditioner to take effect. It's a leave-in conditioner. But when you put on the customer's hair, you cut it easier and more even because it moisturizes it. If you blow dry the hair, it helps prevent heat damage. And it makes the hair shine. It's a combination of many, many things. This product, by the way, depending on the length of the hair, there's anywhere from 150 to 200 treatments in this bottle.

45:50Oh, by the way, and I set it down, right? By the way, rub it in your hands. Now they know what to do. It also helps neutralize all the chemicals when you put it in your hands. It smells pretty good, right? You put it in your face. In other words, it's left on. It saves you time, money, and energy. These products are so unique and save you time and money that here's what I'd like to offer you. If you would agree to buy two dozen of Shampoo One. If you agree to buy two dozen of shampoo too, third one, if you'll agree to buy two dozen of the conditioner, two dozen of each, what we will do in return is we will come in your salon.

46:26We will put a bottle at every station. We'll put a couple of 32 ounces at the back basin. We'll display it at eye level so people can see it. I'll show your people how to introduce to their customers as a benefit of being in your salon. And I'll teach them how to use it. But I'll give you this guarantee. If in 30 days it's not the best product you've ever used and you don't love it, I will come back and take every bottle off the shelf you haven't used or sold out the door and give you your money back. Now that's fair enough, isn't it? Say no. That's fair enough. Runners, get ready to turn up your miles in the Brooks Ghost Amp.

47:06Dial up every push-off with propulsive spring ramp tech while DNA hype cushioning helps amplify your energy so you can push the pace. Run louder, feel faster, have fun. Are you down to turn it up? Shop the Go Sam today at brooksrunning.com. Does it? No, I just, I got too much stuff here. Which is what most people told us, okay? We would say, I could appreciate that. You're right. You do have a lot of stuff here. You have every good reason. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do. If you will let me come in and hold a class for your people, all right? play it at eye level, show everyone how to use it, maybe put a quart each at the back basin, here's what I'll do.

47:45I will place in your salon only one dozen shampoo one, one dozen shampoo two, one dozen shampoo three, just a couple quarts of the conditioner and the shampoo, that's all. And if the end of the month it's not the hottest thing you've ever seen, I'll give you your money back for every bottle you haven't used or sold out the door. Now that's fair enough, isn't it? I look at them down my head. Say no again. Remember, successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do. Say no again. Sounds fair. I just don't want to do it. Okay, well, you know, I can appreciate it. We're something new.

48:20Who knows, right? But I'll tell you what I'll do. Because I know it's going to be so good for you, there's no doubt. If you'll agree to only take six of these each and just one quarter of your back base and a shampoo, one shampoo, two in the conditioner, and just, since you have three operators, just put three on the shelf of each. I'll hold a class. If in one month, those few products they gave you are the hottest things you want. I'll take every bottle back you haven't used or sold out the door and give your money back. And by the way, this is only going to stay in the beauty industry. Is that fair enough?

48:51That's fair enough. I got down to once one bottle of each before someone said no. A lot of people say no, right? Right. But I give them three chances to say no. So how did you walk the balance between I mean, how did you balance being persistent with not wanting to come off as annoying in your pitch when, you know, somebody is repeatedly telling you no, but you're wanting to get the sale? Another very good question. It's because if I say, well, you're wrong, or I debate them, all of a sudden, they want to keep me on the salon. But if I say, I can appreciate that, I mean, I agree that you're right.

49:29So I did it in such a nice way with happiness. Now, if I could see them being irritated, I'd say, you know what? At least you know what our line is. It's really my pleasure. Thank you for giving me a few minutes. You'll hear more from us in the future. And I'm just kind to them. But I know that from selling encyclopedias door to door. I mean, first of all, it's hard to get through a door. They're not expecting you. They don't know what the world you're doing. You're trying to get through the door to show them books, right? You get a lot of people turning you down. But you learn how to be kind to people and that their objection is probably to them very, very real.

49:59Well, many times the objection means, well, you haven't really convinced me, or well, I have a real objection, and they do. So you try and take their suggestion, whatever it might be, along with their rejection, the suggestion that they have too many products, I can't take yours. Okay, so you've been rejected. However, the new suggestion is, yes, but I'll give you half that amount, and here's what I'll do. And I had a couple of just break out total laughter when I got down to six and down to two bottles, and they just break it, I'll take a dozen each, you know, but you better come back. And we did.

50:28Being only in salons has been one thing that's been consistent from day one with John Paul Mitchell's systems. Why have you continued to maintain that? Well, as most people know, most companies that go in the beauty industry, professional beauty industry, say, I'm going to stay only in salons, not go anywhere else, okay? That's where I'm going to stay. And all of a sudden, you see them in department stores, grocery stores, every place else. It's because that's what they said to get in the industry. But afterwards, well, they wanted the money and then they blamed on somebody else. Mine was when I had absolutely nothing.

51:02You guys believe me that I was saying in the industry, I will never let you down. I'd probably be four times my size now if I went to the full general market. But worldwide, worldwide, all of our distributors are contracted only to sell to BD Celence. Four times your size, meaning four times more financially successful? Financially, I'd be four times my size, maybe more, who knows. And that's why you see Paul Mitchell sometimes in drugstores and supermarkets. They buy it when it's counterfeit. They say, well, we didn't know it was counterfeit. Maybe they didn't. When it's black market, diverted, gray market, they buy it because the demand is there.

51:36If they have Paul Mitchell on the shelf, even if they charge$2 more, people buy because they don't know what Paul Mitchell sells for. They just know it's a high-end product. Oh, my God, if I open up the floodgates, we'd be four times our size overnight. But I would have broken my promise when I had absolutely nothing and people believed in me. So ethically I stuck by him. By the way, I put Paul Mitchell into a 360 year trust. I own the majority of the company. So even if I die, no one could take it out of the professional beauty industry for 360 years. And why was it important to you to do that?

52:08It was important to me to do something like this because back in 2004, a young hairdresser in the audience raised her hand and said, JP, everyone sold out or went to other departments of distribution other than you. What happens if you die? I thought, ooh, good question. So I went looking around for a trust, and I found one that would last 360 years. So I now have 340 some odd years left on it. So that means it can't get sold to a big conglomerate. If I die, nobody could sell Paul Mitchell. They couldn't sell the, I own the majority of the company. They couldn't sell it. It must stay in the professional beauty industry.

52:48And a major conglomerate that wanted to buy Paul Mitchell. Sure as all heck would not buy it with the condition and the contract. You can never take it out of the professional beauty industry. They wouldn't do it because they buy because they know they would mass retail. They get all their money back probably in a year or two. What's the earliest job you ever remember having? I remember every job I've ever had. First job I had where I got paid for was seven years old. And I were at the Variety Boys Club. My brother and I made a flower box. We went around selling it, made it for a quarter, sold it for 50 cents.

53:19The first month after month paycheck I ever got was at 11 years old for the L.A. Examiner. It was a big morning newspaper at the time. We deliver newspapers and we made anywhere from 30 to 33 dollars a month. And not only deliver newspapers, you had the opportunity to pitch people for subscriptions. New subscriptions, you got a dollar each. I got a new subscriber, I got a dollar each. What do you remember from the pitch that you would give? I remember every one of my presentations beautifully. late when it was newspapers. We would go around when we weren't delivering newspapers, obviously, in the evening or on Saturday.

53:53Some people were there and we'd have the Sunday issue of the L.A. Examiner with us and I'd hold it there. And I would say in here we have the living section and here's our cartoons and here's our business section. Something for everybody. And of course, the finest headlines. And when you're done with it, feel the weight of this. That's a lot of paper to light your fireplace with help with your cats, with your dogs. but it's a wealth of information. And we can deliver this every single Sunday for only$2.50 a month. How did selling encyclopedias teach you about rejection? Well, there we got some rejection.

54:31Can I finish on that one? Oh, sure. Because I remember clear as can be, I had another friend of mine, Michael Vusage, that would sell papers with me. We made up a song thinking our song would sell everybody. We would knock on a door, and Mike and I, I know how we had the guts to do this, would sing our song. Good evening, good evening. We're the Examiner boys. If you'll subscribe to the Examiner, we'll sing a song for you. Ooh, right? And Mike and I did it. We actually did it. And the people looked at us like, what? And then Mike and I looked at each other and we just walked away because we didn't know what to do.

55:04And the people said, boys, is this a joke? We went to the next one and did it again. And then we were so embarrassed, we just ran off, but we tried. So it didn't get. Selling encyclopedias, you learn a lot. I think the average encyclopedia salesman lasted two or three days. But I believed what they told me. And they said, you have to knock on a lot of doors. If you knock on a lot of doors, you're going to make a lot of money. And a lot of doors will be closed in your face. But you have to be just as enthusiastic on the next door. Especially with this presentation we gave you. You know it by heart now.

55:39You've been studying for one week. You've made no money. Commission's out there. Go get them, boys. And I believed him. So day after day, I'd knock on doors. Nobody would buy anything from me. Eventually, he made a sale. What was it about that skill, though, that has made you say before, if that job existed, you'd want to have had your kids do it? I'd make all my kids do it for at least three months if it existed. It teaches you how to talk to people, how to overcome rejection, and still be positive with the next door. And that's a good lesson for all people to learn. Why did you once get fired for making more money than your boss?

56:14Well, that was at Tri. The Institute of Tri College is a product company. And Ken Snow, one of the owners, came to me one day and said, JP, we have to let you go. We have this guy named David Chapman that could do your job for one-third the money. And I said, but why? You know, we've tripled our sales this last year. And you're only paying me$3 ,000 a month. And this was back in, oh, God, around 1977, I believe, 78, right around that time. So he said, well, JP, you only made$3 ,000 a month, but you had a percentage of all that new business. I said, yeah, but it's new business for you forever. He goes, yeah.

56:51Well, that's what got you. That new business, your check was so big. I said, but guys, your business is three times the size, and I don't own any part of it. You do. How about you guys reduce the pay a little bit, but not a lot because I've got to live, and maybe I could pay you over a period of time and own 10 % of your business. Nope, we can never do that. David's going to do a good job and they let me go. Well, just to give you a little follow-up, several years later I got a call from the owner of the company, Joe. He said, JP, how about I give you half the company and come and run it like you're doing Paul Mitchell?

57:24I said, no. I'm with Paul Mitchell now. It's my company with Paul. We own 50-50. At that time we were 50-50 partners. And no, but thanks anyways. How many times have you been fired from jobs before? Well, those three with Redken Laboratories. And I think what pissed them off there too was I complained to them and management hated that, that they shouldn't be testing on animals as Lamar Mesets. That really pissed them off. They said I wasn't corporate and I care about my people in the field. With Tri, I just told you the story. With Ferbidillo firing me, I was with them one year and they were stagnant.

58:01I took them from 8 to 12 million dollars. My job was to train their entire sales and marketing and management sales team. I did a good job. But with all due respect, the people that ran the company were all of one ethnic group. And I wasn't one of them, nor did I worship the way they worshiped, right? Or hang out with them on weekends. But I wasn't them. I was down at Griffith Park with Hell's Angels and other cool guys just hanging out, right? Loving. I was a young guy. Anyways, that didn't go over very well with them. They said, you just aren't one of us, so we're firing you. Today, I could sue him.

58:35I got to be wealthy off that suit. But in those days, well, if you don't want me, you don't want me, you know? And I left him and then went to work for the Institute of Trichology. How did you go about finding Patron? Patron started back in the end of 1988, beginning of 1989. I had this fellow who was a friend of mine named Martin Crowley, go down to Mexico. Martin had gone bankrupt. He was in the hospitality business. So I staked him. And we went to the architectural business, furniture architectural business together. I said, Martin, why don't you go down on your next trip to Mexico? Because we were drinking some tequila at that time.

59:10But you had to hold your breath, that type of tequila. I said, why don't you go to Mexico, see what the aristocrats drink, bring back a couple bottles. He went down there shopping for stuff and then came back with a couple of these just trim, you know, ordinary bottles. But it was pretty smooth tequila, smooth than anything I ever had. And Martin said, JP, I met a guy down there named Francisco Alcares. He's like the chef of all chefs of tequila. He said he can make this smoother. I said, really? He goes, yeah. I said, if he can make it smoother, let's try going into the business. I'll order 1 ,000 cases, which is 12 ,000 bottles.

59:44And we found this beautiful bottle that we would make out of recycled glass, which is a Patron bottle today. And we'd make it out of recycled glass. And, hey, it was expensive. If it didn't sell, well, for the next 10 years, everybody and you, we'd have gifts for it because it's the best there is with great pride. Okay, JP, let's try it. Nobody would take us on it first. No one would distribute it because it was$37 a bottle where the normal tequila then was$4 or$5 a bottle, most expensive,$14 or$15. So we finally talked a wine company that only sold wine into taking it. And they did a couple thousand cases a year, and that didn't do too good.

1:00:21So we took on another distributor, Jim Beam, a big one. And they would distribute for us to everybody. Jim Beam came to us one day when we said, guys, we got to sell 30, 40, 50 ,000 cases. They said, boys, let's tell you like it is. You have the best tequila in the world, but it's too expensive. That's why we only have 12 ,000 in sales in cases nationwide. Guys, you'll never do more than 20 ,000 cases. We dropped them, took on Seagram's. Seagram's took us to 70 ,000 cases and did a good job, I must say. We got into a lawsuit with them, and we had to pay them some money, but we got our distribution back.

1:00:55And the company that was never supposed to do more than 20 ,000 cases a year, this year I think we do about 3 ,300 ,000 cases with all the brands of Patron that we have. Okay, here's what I don't get, though. So you try this tequila that, you know, your buddy brings back. You like it. He knows somebody else who could make it smoother. Met this guy, yeah. And so off of that, you decide, let's make a business. I tasted it was great. I figured this is going to take off like wildfire because the world is ready for high-end tequila. We didn't have them at that time. No premium tequilas. And I was just setting the world on fire.

1:01:33Plus, when I would go out and pitch it, I would make sales. For example, Wolfgang Puck, friend of mine. Wolf, JP, this is really good. Will you carry it? Of course, JP, I'll carry it. And here's some extra cases to give to your celebrity friends. Martin went to the bar cantina. I went going bar to bar. And for$2,$3, I'd buy someone a shot of tequila. You could do that in California at the time, right? And then I'd break out Patron, give them a little bit of it. They'd go, what is this? That's the future of tequila. So a lot of it was done door-to-door sales that we started. And then I did a big Paul Mitchell event once, brought everybody to it, gave them all free Patron.

1:02:07They loved it, went home and asked for it. I mean even though you you'd already built one successful business what was why did you immediately go to the place of let's let's try and create another well because at that point I'd gotten pretty good at fewer moving parts where I had a little extra time and I thought how exciting now to have two brands and it was the same thing I could handle it I could do more than one and then with John Paul Pat JP Pat same exact thing with rock mobile the investments I made there where I could look at more than just one thing and I knew was capable of doing it and I knew it was something good that's going back to quality if it's the best quality there is you're going to be in the repeat business Patron there was nothing that touched it oh my we started all the premium tequila in the United States nothing that would touch and the same with the other companies it was that quality How did Clint Eastwood impact Patron?

1:03:06Well, Clint was a friend of mine, and I would give him Patron to kill. He really liked it. This is pretty good stuff. And I remember one time when I flew into Weed, California, and Clint was a helicopter pilot. He came in his helicopter and picked me up from Weed and took me to the Hearst retreat up there in Mount Shasta. And we got a chance to chat a little, but he tasted Patron. And he really liked it a lot. So I sent him a bunch of it. And then one day he calls me up, and this is 1991, maybe 92. It's after I'd started Patron. He says, JP, come to the premiere of my new movie. Then I went down.

1:03:40He said, I was surprised for you. And he didn't tell me what it was. But when I watched the movie, I saw the surprise. All he did was drink Patron tequila in there. That was the only thing he drank. And it was obvious as can be. It was just a surprise. He's just a real good guy. Wanted to do something nice for a friend. And then shortly after, he wrote this major article where he was asked, You know, what do you drink? And he said, fine red wine and a little Patron tequila. He's a good guy. I still say, Clint, every year Patron tequila, all of our new ones. I take care of him with the quili. He's a good guy.

1:04:12He's a good man. So the price point was$37 when it first came out. Next highest was$14. Average was$4 or$5, as you said, for tequila then. So what's the reaction of people that you're pitching to buy Patron? at the time given the price. Once they tasted it they didn't have to hold their breath, they could sip it, they didn't have to make it disappear in a margarita even though it's a very good margarita okay. They knew this was high end. If they put some Patron with ice drinking it neat it's like any experience and it's not like any experience they've had it's like wow this is really good stuff.

1:04:48It's more of a connoisseur and then they if unless they drank you know way too much they didn't get the same hangover the next day they were normally used to and it was like wow, this is pretty cool stuff. What quality we are ready to treat ourselves. And people started treating themselves, which meant that they got whatever nice little buzz they wanted, maybe drink a little less and we're more conscientious. Instead of putting the shots away, they were more conscientious and delicate on the way they drink. I was talking to one of your friends who told me you spend probably 90 % of your time that's devoted towards business on Paul Mitchell.

1:05:24But how does the financial success that you've had with that compared to that of Patron? Well, my success with Patron is quite obvious. You know, it's of course, it far exceeds Paul Mitchell or anything else that I have. But when you say that, the majority of time I spend, you know, with them, it's actually a little less than that. But But we have to realize the majority of my time is spent in philanthropy. And then when I spend time with Paul Mitchell or with Patron or even John Paul Pett, it's usually dealing with a management seminar that I might hold, kind of overseeing something because I am the chairman of the board of both companies at that capacity or incorporating good people benefits with philanthropy all at one time.

1:06:06You've said in the past that you have regrets as a father, as a husband. Like what? Well, one regret is, but I didn't know any better. I was a kid. I had a child when I was a child. So I didn't spend that much time with my first child because I was working all the time. And do you realize that extra importance? We spent time together. You know, we'd go fishing up at Tritesdale or something, right, bringing the lovins with me. But it would have been nice if I would have segregated a little bit more time to have a little more family time when I started Paul Mitchell I was all over the place all the time I spent still spent some time with my daughter and then daughters But I was still on the road a whole lot, but I spent more time with them them I think I'd go back I would have spent a little more time with my oldest son now in those days and somehow found a way to do it Had I had realized that because time goes by very very fast.

1:06:57Do you think it's possible though to have the level of professional success you've had and be as present a parent as you might like to be in a perfect world when you're, you know, really in it, grinding away at the business? You know, when I first started at a very young age, not realizing I could do that, it was harder, I think, on my oldest son, John Jr., okay, because I wasn't around a lot. However, However, I changed quite a bit. When Alexis came around, my race car driver, okay? When Michaelin, one of the world's greatest chief executives in the world, okay, I was able to work it out where I spent more time with the kids.

1:07:40When I was home, I could hang out with the kids more when I was home, and they would come and live with me when I lived in California, for example. They would live with me for a week, live with their mom for a week. So I was able to handle that a little better, plus I had enough money to be able to hire a part-time nanny to help me. Do you think you were able to make it work better then because you'd already had success? Or was it just something you, or was it something else? I think I was able to make it work out better because I realized at that time to pay attention more to the vital few and ignore the trivia many.

1:08:15Got it. And don't have to have so much time for your kids. You could work it into your whole schedule. Like, kids, I'm going here. Come with me. so you've been married to the the same beautiful lady Eloise for a long time but before that you were married three times for all the wrong reasons I was gonna say what like when you've been divorced already three times why try again well it was for all the wrong reasons when I was young. She was just the prettiest girl in the world, right? You know, and 19 years old, 20 years old, you just go for the hottest looking girl. That's what I was brought up.

1:08:55I didn't look for anything else. And she was, but nothing else worked. I didn't know any better. You know, I would have been a better husband as I looked for the right thing in life, but I didn't know any better. My second white, very lovely lady at the time. But, you know, there were things that we didn't match up. I didn't know any better. I just didn't know any better. The third one, very, very nice lady, but we weren't compatible in all the ways we should be compatible. It was very, very short term. But in those days, if I went out with you, in many cases, I ended up marrying you. It was just one of those things.

1:09:27I didn't take my time. Had I taken my time, I think, and probably whether I'd made the same decision or with somebody else, it probably would have been a better one. Sometimes you just don't know. But as time goes on, you know. As time goes on. Why do you think that was? Like if you went out with somebody, you typically ended up marrying them? Well, like like Bella, my first wife, you know, she was the hottest chick in town. And you know, the lady and, you know, gorgeous babe. And we were going out with each other for six months, a year or so. And it just the thing to do it to know anybody, you know, kid, you know, second time around is just I was in the middle of doing all kinds.

1:09:59Just the thing to do. And third time around for was for another reason. Yeah. Outside of looking for something different. Come the fourth time. Was there anything you did differently? Yeah, I was a lot more mature. By next time around, a lot more mature, where I was looking for, you know, what am I looking for in a relationship? And I was a little more defined at that time. And I actually even wrote out a list of, you know, what I'd want in somebody. And Eloise is just a gem. She's a wonderful, wonderful lady. And the list, you're in your Porsche driving with Eloise, and you end up showing her the Well, it wasn't quite.

1:10:39She says it wasn't the Porsche. It wasn't. It was. She tells me this is a romantic story. I'm like, is it romantic? It was no more. I think I showed it at my house at the time. She said, no, it's in your car. I said, well, okay. I kind of remembered my car. The house I sat down and I said, here's a lot of things looking for a lady. And by the way, I don't know everything in life, but there's a couple of things you have that aren't even on my list. And I let her know that. She was a good lady. Tell about the blind date. She was a blind date. No, I'd been single for quite a while at that time, and all my friends, and I'd started making some money, so I had a nice car and nice house, and all my friends hooked me up with everyone you can imagine.

1:11:16Many of them were actresses, and with all the respect and kindness, and they were very well-known actresses and wonderful, but we just didn't jive. And a few of the top models. Anyway, so after a while, I was just really picky. If I went out with somebody for the first time, I'd have breakfast with them, because that was safe. You didn't have to kiss them goodnight, you know, it was safe. Who knew? Anyways, this lady who wrote children's books called me one day. I met her one time. And she called me after that and said, I met this young lady named Eloise that I think you'll really, really, really get along with.

1:11:46You guys are really, hit it off well. I said, okay. I said, what does she do for a living? Well, she's a model actress. Nope, nope, nope. Had enough of those. Just call her. And Eloise had met her one time. So we talked over the phone. And she's like a wonderful person. And I didn't know what she looked like or anything. And I picked her up for brunch. It was safe brunch, right? Never saw her. Pulled up and all of a sudden, whoa, she's a beautiful girl, right? I didn't know that. She was just a nice person. So we got in the car to go to brunch, and she started to tell me how six months prior, this mutual friend of ours, Ron Sembler and his wife, wanted to introduce us, but told her, no, he's gone.

1:12:22There's no way you're going to get this guy. He's gone, right? So we said, forget brunch. Let's go up and see Ron. And I had a bottle of Patron in the back seat, and she didn't know, because she didn't know me at the time, or at least I don't think she did, right? She said she did it right. But I believe her. But I know she thought I was an alcoholic. I was carrying this bottle of Patrona, went to Ron's house with her and brought the bottle of Patrona. And then of course, she realized on the company. How did you propose? I proposed to her by sending her just a load of flowers and asking her. And then some.

1:12:51Oh, yeah. Well, a whole bunch of flowers. She lived in an apartment at that time, and I just I filled her apartment with roses and asked her if she married me. And literally filled the apartment with roses, right? You remember how many roses you got? No, I think there was 1 ,300. She was born on the 13th and we're 13 years apart. So it was very easy. Tell about who sang at and who catered your wedding. Well, the wedding was when I had nothing. And I've got to take my hats off to a lot of great people out there. When I had absolutely nothing, some superstars were my pals because we just liked each other.

1:13:27One was Roger Daltrey as in the who. So when I got married, Roger Daltrey's gift was he flew from England with the band, and they played our wedding. They brought along Extreme, which was a really hot group at the time, Gary. He came and played, and a dear friend of ours brought Cher with her, and Cher got so excited. She got on stage and sang, and the great Millie Kieserman got on stage and sang, and before you knew it, you had all these superstars at our wedding with 500 people on stage, saying it was very, very nice. It was quite an event. And Cher, The Who, and then Wolfgang Puck catered. Oh, Wolfgang Puck and John Settler catered the whole thing for us.

1:14:05I mean, see, in those days also, this is 1993, you could buy a bottle of Cristal for$90. You could buy a kilo of Beluga caviar for$600 wholesale. Well, you can't even buy an ounce of it today for that much. And so we had tons of Cristal champagne, tons of caviar. Wolfgang and John Settler serving to everyone. It was like, wow, it's magical. And these guys gave their time as a gift. I paid for the food, but as a gift, they gave their time, which is very nice. I want to take you back to when you were growing up. Describe the actual home in which you grew up in. Where I grew up at 1522 and a half Scott Avenue, Los Angeles, California, in that old park, was up a hill, little driveway.

1:14:49It was a court with three houses in front, three houses in back. It was very, very small. You could fit the whole house into this room, just this room we're in, and have more room. It was one bedroom, very small, one little kitchen, one little living room. And we had a little lawn. It's not there anymore. They're cemented over. It was a very simple way of life, but we didn't know any better. We thought we had everything. It was very simple, but we enjoyed it. We had a lot of love for my mom. How painful was it for your mom, realizing that she needed to put you and your brother in a foster home during the week.

1:15:24Yeah, very painful, but she got so sick and was unable to take care of us. We had a deadbeat dad who took off, so she had no choice. Her Greek club, the Daughters of Philanthropy, tried to help out as much as they can, but four and a half years old, someone's got to take care of us in it. So from five to nine and a half, we were in a foster home during the week while my mom worked. She worked. That's how she supported us. She worked. There was no income coming in. And then we'd be with her on the weekends. Oh, it killed her. She tried to do it. She would save up so we'd have a little teeny weeny piece of steak for example We'd all have a bite of it so we could know what a steak was like She was the most wonderful mom on the planet and then when I was nine and a half my brother was 11 said boys You're old enough now.

1:16:05You can take care of yourselves. You're coming home And we did how did you find out? Initially that you were going to need to go to a foster home during the week my mom told us okay Says boys there's gonna be some people some other kids are gonna take care of you because she explained to us I have to work so we could eat. Oh, mom, we don't want to leave. We go to work with you. Boys, you can't. You're too young. You got to go to school. You know, we were upset, obviously. We cried, she cried. We all cried together. It was a very sad moment. What do you remember from the actual experience of being in a foster home during the week?

1:16:35I remember everything. I can remember even when we left the house. The lady put us in the car, went back, gave us something to my mom. My brother and I jumped out of the car, ran back to the house. We got back in the car. We arrived at the back driveway. this Hispanic people, a couple met us, and they were nice to us. And I remember everything. I mean, I could tell you what we have for breakfast every morning, oatmeal, and it was watered down, by the way. Our salad at night was a piece of lettuce with a little bit of mayonnaise that we were good on. It was very, very humble. They didn't go overboard for us at all.

1:17:03They gave us a minimal amount of things. And I remember all that. My brother and I shared a bed together, and, you know, we went to the local church and the local community because we were forced to every morning, every Sunday morning, but we had a good time because there were other kids there we could talk to and hang out with. You were apparently in a gang. Yeah, we had a little street gang called the Pink Rats. What type of trouble would you get into? Well, not too bad. And what's not too bad? We all had in those days because they would sell them up to two inches, pushbutton knives, two-inch plates that big.

1:17:36So we're seven years old, we all had pushbutton knives. Some of us stole them from the local store. Others saved their money and for$2 bought a little push button knives. So we're a little gang, the Pink Rats, had push button knives and we'd have jackets and we would paint on a little pink rat. Didn't look that cool, but we thought we were badass, right? And we'd go around showing our push button knives. We never stabbed anybody, we never got in a fight with anybody with those knives. We were getting some fights with kids, but they're just fist fights. We weren't what they do today, we go out shooting and stabbing people, not at all.

1:18:06We were a different type of gang. And they would take us, because we were underprivileged kids, to Angeles National Forest, to camps every year where you'd be in the mountains around trees. You'd know how to braid pine needles. They taught us about nature. So we had a tree that we hung out with after school, and no one could carve their initials in that tree because we treasured the tree was our tree. We learned about that by going in the mountains. Why did your father leave? My father was a deadbeat dad. He just happened to end up with a deadbeat dad. That happens in life. And your dad was a mechanic, I believe.

1:18:37He was a mechanic. I believe there were at least three occasions you saw him, once when you were 12, another time when you were 20, another time shortly before he passed away. But those first two experiences when you were 12 and 20, what did those entail? Went up to visit him in San Rafael, California, where he lived on a ranch up there. He was still a mechanic, and his wife at the time was working at some glass factory. And it was okay for the first week, and then my dad just basically became a real ass, just a real ass, yelling at my brother and I for nothing. He was an alcoholic too, though, unfortunately.

1:19:12And we were out of there. We just left, went back home. What were the circumstances that led you guys to going in the first place? Well, we wanted to see our dad again. My mom thought, it's time. Let's find him. You should at least meet your dad. My mom had the biggest heart in the world, no matter what an ass he was. She had the biggest heart in the world. Guys, you should at least meet your father. And that didn't go over well at all. And so that was 12, when you saw him again. 12, 13 years old, exactly. When you saw him again at 20? Yeah, I was in my early 20s. And my brother and I just went to San Francisco together, let's see if we could look up the dad.

1:19:41And we did, looked him up and sat and chatted with him a little bit and that was the extent of it. How did it go? It went okay. How you doing? Everything's great. We both have good jobs. He called us about a month later and wanted to borrow$2 ,000 from us. And he had told us how he had this trust, why he never gave my mother money, because he put all this money in this trust for us and we were 35 years old, we all got the trust. So when he called us, my brother and I were pretty smart. when he called us a short time later. I was with my brother at the time at his house for 2 ,000 bucks, and we were pretty sharp kids.

1:20:14So I looked at my brother, and I said, trust? He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, Dad, we're going to give you 10 ,000. Oh, boys, I love you. I said, if you need two, Dad, we're going to give you 10. And you're going to get to keep it. Oh, we love you. You're the best boys in the world. Oh, great. We said, yeah, take it out of our trust. We're going to okay it. Phone went silent, never heard from him again. Then I looked him up again, you know, many, many years ago. And of course, he was in his 70s and dying. He was an alcoholic and had cancer. What do you remember from that experience? Sorry experience.

1:20:45I went up there to see him. He lived in this little shed with his wife and about 50 cats in a little space. I couldn't believe how many cats and doo-doo was there. And he was sitting there, looked terrible, drinking wine and water mixed together. And I asked him, I said, you know, you're my father. You look terrible. I said, you know, even though I have no emotional feelings for you, because you've never been there, you know, there's no emotion, but you're bylawshing my dad. I'm doing pretty good in life now. Can I send you to a hospital, or what can we do? He says, nope, it's too late. It's like a movie.

1:21:18I said, well, my mother is still ballroom dancing, and you are dying. Why? He says, two packs of cigarettes and a pint of cheap whiskey every day. Throat cancer. And that was it. You know, no emotion, no nothing, and I left. And then I got a call from Myrtle sometime later saying, your dad died. How did you take it? Fine. He died, he died. You know, there was no emotion there. People die, especially if you're an alcoholist and smokers. I mean, I know it's tough for people to break the smoking habit, but you've got to know you're going to die early if you're going to smoke. But, yeah, you just smoked and drank and never broke the habits.

1:21:54Any resentment? None. None whatsoever. My mom was a great mom. She kind of took the place of both. I have no resentment whatsoever. To what extent do you wonder how your life might have turned out differently if you had a present, really quality dad in your life? Never thought about it. But I'd like to share an experience with you if I could. It's something called fate. I got fired from Redken because I complained about the animals and other things. Got fired from Tri, got fired from Fermadel, got fired from all these companies. Started Paul Mitchell, right? A year or so after I started Paul Mitchell, I had a reflection, and it was this.

1:22:33Had I not found out through Redken about distributors of the beauty industry, from Firmadel about how to do various things with shows and marketing and packaging, from the Institute of Trichology, how to get all this other stuff done, had I not had all three jobs and been fired from every one of them, it would have been impossible for me to start Paul Mitchell with$700 or even$500 ,000. Fate made that happen. I was doing a good job at each and every one, so I'm a believer in fate. So I don't question it. Things happen in one's life that, well, I wish it was different, but you learn a lesson from it or it leads you on to something bigger.

1:23:16One of your friends told me that even though you were only separated by a couple years with your brother Bobby, that in a way your friend thought that he filled some sort of void that was left by your father. What do you think? Oh, no doubt. Because, you know, Bob was always there. He was an older brother. I could go to him for advice. I never thought of it as going to him as a father for advice. He's my older brother. And he was always there. school. How do you think he influenced you? Oh, he definitely influenced me. My God, he's the first one getting the motorcycles and, uh, he would be one that, you know, kind of stray me in the right direction.

1:23:55I remember once, uh, our little teeny gang was going to get into a gang fight with another little teeny gang and my brother showed up. He was much taller than all of us. And when he showed up was the end of the fight. The other guys ran away. So that was pretty good. No one got hit. How did you find out about the accident? I got a phone call. They ran me down and said, you know, are you John DeGioia? I said, yes, okay, we have Robert Anthony DeGioia here. And he's in critical shape. We're down here at this hospital in Santa Monica. You better get down here. So I immediately went down there to see what was happening immediately.

1:24:31And his wife had found out about it at the time and she had joined me down there and he was in critical care. He got in a very bad motorcycle accident and they didn't have helmets in those days and he flew off and just freak accident hit his head against a wall and ended up killing him. It was unfortunate. You were the most positive person ever. Everybody that knows you always says that. How do you recover from that? You never recover from something like that. If you lost a child or a brother or a sister or someone you're very close to, you don't really recover. I mean, you go on with your life.

1:25:06You don't recover from not remembering. You always remember them and some of the good things you had together. Did it affect me at all? Yeah, losing my brother when you lose somebody. There's something that just sticks with you in your heart like a little piece of you goes. And I still think about him on different occasions when I'm doing something. What makes you think about him? Oh, I could be riding my motorcycle, for example. Boy, would Bobby really like doing this with me. That would be really cool. And he was already a huge success. I mean, I think he was really doing well in printing. He started photocopy machines for four cents a copy.

1:25:41He's the one that started. He rented a Xerox machine. They wouldn't let you buy it. He would rent it, and then I think he would pay a half a cent a copy, and for four cents a copy, right in the middle of Beverly Hills, got a little store, he would do it for all these attorneys, make all their copies. In those days, you'd have to lease this giant machine, but he leased it, but for many people, so it made sense. Why do you think two kids that grew up poor as could be became so successful? I would say, first of all, define success. To me, success is not how much money you have or how powerful your success is.

1:26:15How well do you do what you do? Growing up, my mom would make sure one week I'd sweep the floors. The other week, my brother would do the dishes and we'd switch. And she'd go checking things out. You didn't move this. You didn't clean this right. We learned how to do a job really, really well. So automatically we had a job. We did the best we could even when nobody else was looking. It was just how my mom brought us up and she was positive guys You can do anything you want to do just do it do it do it. Why were you so bothered? When you found that Forbes was adding you to the list of billionaires?

1:26:44Well a lot of people associate success With how much money you have or if you're like a billionaire over here, okay Then maybe you're something different than everybody else Well, once I started making money, I saw people around me that made a lot of money, and their life was all about it. There's one gentleman, and I won't mention his name to respect him, okay? We'll call him Peter, all right? That all he wanted to do was say, well, I sold this for$350 million. He said it to me so many times, I have$350 million, I could not believe it. I mean, yeah, well, good for you. Because we don't, you want to brag to everybody how much money you have?

1:27:22It really turned me off in a big way. so when I started making money it was like well you know what uh how about we don't talk about what I have what I do with what I have and you'll sometimes realize I got a whole bunch of money you know but I do good things with it I didn't mind that at all so when people call me for example and you've earned it oh I've earned it and I and I help others too along the way but then so if you take a look Bloomberg I think has me at 5.2 billion I think uh Forbes has me at 3.2 or 3.4 billion. Someone else has me six and a half billion. Okay. And main reason is I won't tell anybody anything.

1:27:57And I went to Steve Forbes one day because I know Steve. What is this team? Get me off the list. I can't do it. JP. He says, Can you just tell people what we have? At least we'll we'll get you up there. So I don't want to get up there. I want to get off your list. You can't do it. How much do you like entertaining? I like entertaining. But more and more in the last 10 years. I like entertaining good people or people I'm associated with in business. Then I have fun talking to every one of them. Hairdressers are a great example of this. Oh, I love those people. Have you gone about deciding where you wanna have homes?

1:28:33Well, the home thing came about where I bought a house that was great and then I moved someplace else and I bought a place there. But each time I bought a place, the people that would take care of it were so nice that I didn't wanna get rid of them. and I was doing really well. So I thought, well, in my own mind was I would just keep the money in real estate and it would grow and it'd be like a future profit thing for me. And if I get something else, I'd like the people again. I didn't want to get rid of them. And then once I, or twice I bought a house because it was such a good deal. But then the people take care of it was so nice.

1:29:05And then you would only grow. It drove me nuts, okay? Like right now. Oh, really? I was like, what am I doing this? I mean, that's where, am I out of my mind? But I realized, no, I love these people. I could afford it. and the land appreciates any ways the house appreciates. So I'm just going to do this longer. All right, so how many homes? More than one. More than one. How about your favorite destinations where you have homes? Some of my favorite are Hawaii. I have a home that I built in Bali in Hawaii, and I love that very, very, very much. Obviously, here in Austin, I'm right here on the Kalo River.

1:29:40I love this place. I like my Malibu house a whole lot. So explain the design intricacies and the extent of your involvement in designing some of your homes. Sure. My house in Hawaii is a Balinese house. I was in Bali with my friend Paul Mitchell many, many years back, about a year before he died, two years before he died, we were there together. And I met this fellow there who worked with people in the interior of Bali, way back in the jungles, that built these temples and houses. They lived on dirt floors. They were really nice people. And I thought, you know, there's this little piece in Hawaii that I'm buying this land that was up for sale.

1:30:16And I started making some money right on the water. And it was just a couple lots down from where my friend Paul had bought a piece of land there in a little house. And I said, you know what, I have this little house. I'd love a Balinese house. So I said, guys, so we got pencils out. We kind of designed a little bit there. And then they took over. What do you want? And so forth. And they would mail to me at the time back and forth pictures of how it came along. They take snapshots of it. So they were 90 % of how the house came out, 10 % me. But it's a Balinese house and it's so cool. It's like to me, it's one of the coolest house on the planet.

1:30:50Haven't been there in two years, but I plan to go this year back there after Christmas. OK, wait. How do you build the house in Bali and get it to Hawaii? Very simple. We built it in Bali. They are. They erected it with wooden pegs, numbered every single piece, took it down, wrapped it, put on a barge to Jakarta, by ship to Hilo, by truck to the Kona side. I brought over 30 Balinese carpenters. I got permits for every one of them, paid them the same as American carpenters were paid. I want everyone to get paid equal. They went back the equivalent of a millionaire, even though it wasn't a million dollars.

1:31:27They and 50 American carpenters, it took them two years to put this house back up again. They'd all did it by numbers, like the bridge has so many numbers under B bridge bridge one bridge to right. It was all put up by numbers. They put it up by each piece was numbered. Plus the Balinese who built it. 30 of them were over there. 280 built it by the way to an 80 Balinese. But 30 came over to resurrected again. How about your favorite feature of any of the homes that you have? My favorite what? Feature. Feature design feature. I would say on a design feature like I know you love the floor at your Malibu house a lot.

1:32:02The Balinese house is the most unique in design. Malibu, the motivation there was, you know, how much will I live on the west coast, how much will I live in Europe, how much will I live who knows where, right? And I started building that I believe in 1989 is kind of when it started. The idea was no matter where I'm going to live, whether it's here or someplace else, I'm going to build a nice big house that my whole family could be in for every holiday or any event that we have. And if something will be here forever, like a legacy, you know, when I'm long gone, they could still use it. And that was that motivation.

1:32:33And I wanted to acknowledge my heritage of my Greek and Italian heritage. So it's a Mediterranean house built with a lot of things that came in from Europe, especially around the Mediterranean. That was my motivation. My motivation for my main home here happened around the year 2000. I bought a little piece of property here in a little house. This house was much smaller for my wife Eloise to be close to her mom back in 1997. Because her mom's from Houston, right? Well, she was from Houston originally, lived here in Austin for a while, and her mom is only an hour away from here, up by Temple, Texas.

1:33:05So I thought, you know, why not? And then in 2000, we were looking around for, where do we want to raise our son? He's three years old. We want to raise him with good family values and not where there's drugs. And, you know, as much money as you have means that's how popular you are. We didn't want that kind of a scene. So we looked at Austin. We thought, great. I bought the property, bought the property right next door, tore their house down, rebuilt it all over again. So we thought, this is where we're going to be. and it turned out really good. John Anthony went to preschool here. He went to grade school here, middle school, high school here.

1:33:35One of the best. Very, very smart kid. He's 20 years old now. He's working here in Austin in aerospace, by the way, working on the new designs for new planes that are coming out four years from now that are jet-powered, that go Mach speeds. So he's happy. We're happy. For me, traveling was perfect. It's in the middle of everywhere. And look at this. I'm on the Colorado River. No one's in front of me. I'm totally isolated. I have the best security in the world here. Everyone's happy and everybody's healthy. My dogs could run everywhere. Speaking of planes and travel, how key, I think you have three planes of your own.

1:34:12How key is private travel to your life now? I couldn't travel the way I do, whether it's for business or philanthropy, if I didn't have a private jet. There's no way I could do it. And the only reason I have three private jets right now is one is more of a long range jet, which I haven't used that much. So we leased out during the year. The other one they use all the time is one I use all the time. My third jet, which is a smaller jet, one of the first ones I got, the market right now sucks. It's at a bottom. So if I sold it, I'd lose too much money. So my partner are just sitting on it. We've been sitting on it for a few years, hoping it's going to come around and we can at least break even on it.

1:34:51But we may have to sell it a loss. I want you to take us back to a moment when you and your brother are just boys and you're in front of the Salvation Army and your mom hands you a dime. My mom said, guys, here's a dime, boys. We had little fingers, hold this dime, go over and put that bucket with the man ringing the bell. And we did. Came back and asked her why. She said, boys, that's the Salvation Army. This is the early 50s at the time. And at that time, a dime was like two big soda pops or three candy bars. And we told her that. I said, boys, it's Salvation Army. They take care of people that don't have any food or places to live.

1:35:27And, you know, there's always going to be someone that has less than you. And we can't afford any more. But what we could afford to do is give them a dime this year. We try and do something. That's all we could afford, but we gave. If everybody gave a little something, it could change the world. And obviously that stuck with me. Very giving, loving mom. Success unshared is failure. That's right. And that came out of my mom before I even knew those words. And I'm still involved. In fact, I am a large contributor and helped build a few kitchens and other rooms here for the local Salvation Army. And just a short time ago, I flew back to Los Angeles, where it was the place where I put the first diamond downtown.

1:36:03I flew to Skid Row down there with the Salvation Army and held a little show for everybody down there on you can succeed and you come from homeless to doing something in life. And I acted with them. And needless to say, when I was with the Salvation Army, I just I gave him a hell of a lot more than a dime. When you came tens of thousands of dollars. When you speak to the homeless, though, what is important to you to pass along in terms of message? That they can overcome rejection. They can be bottom out and have absolutely nothing and make it more than once. They can be rejected and told you'll never do amount to anything and still make it.

1:36:43And all that is in good fortune. I also like it for business people because they realize you could build a business and still help people along the way. If you do that, you're going to be happy as well as prosperous. Grow Appalachia. How did it start? I was looking for ways to help my people in my country, help people all over the world. But I want to do something big for the United States. Tommy Callahan is a man that worked for me. He's from the Hullers of Appalachia. He said, JP, the people in Appalachia, there's about 150 ,000 of them all through the seven states where Appalachia is. And they're homeless.

1:37:18I know this through Brea College that I work with. And JP, if you want to do anything, let's help these people feed themselves. Great idea. So I went and met with a lot of groups, and I like the people at Brea College. So I said, guys, I'll do this. I'll provide the seeds, the equipment, the fertilizer, and the irrigation. And let's go out there to communities and show them how to garden for themselves. Number one was you feed yourself and you put everything away in jars for the winter. So year round, you have vegetables to eat. And then later we'll get you chickens and eggs. You got eggs. So now you could eat good food.

1:37:55Second year, you grow more. You sell the excess to local grocery stores for organically owned produce and organically grown produce or to farmers markets. Now you have an income. When you make enough money to be able to feed yourself, have some extra, take those food stamps, send it back to the federal government with a note. And that note should say on it, do not put this back in the Treasury. I want you to deduct my food stamps and I'm not going to take it anymore from the national deficit. In fact, I met with, unfortunately, people with the Obama administration before his second re-election.

1:38:28Because I was on TV talking about the government's not doing enough. And back in Washington, D.C., I met at the executive office with two people that he brought to meet with me. all about JP. We're going to work with you on this one. Don't you worry about it. Michelle's in the gardening. We're going to get everybody together. JP, I saw you on TV. We have an election coming up. Next time you go on TV, the Obama administration is working with you. We're all going to get together. This is a group. Yay. I was so excited. My God, this is going. It's working great. Never heard from them again. It was an election tactic.

1:39:00And I called them after the election. No one ever called me back. And you know, so that's why people realize, and I'm not disrespecting any president. I'm sure each president has their own not so good things that we don't like. Some things we like, they're people, they're humans, okay? But I realized more and more that government helps out a bit, okay? But the private sector are the people that make the giant moves, whether it's for animals like what the Sea Shepherd does or for people like me and others do. It's that private sector that makes the biggest change. How did that impact your view of Obama?

1:39:35Well, I am a person that doesn't like to put anybody down. So let me tell you my reaction, better yet opposed to my view on him. Everyone deserves to have their point of view. Yours and mine might be different on the subject. I could have someone I truly love and they have one point of view and I love them very much, but my point of view is different. And instead of arguing with you, look at my point of view. So let me react in a different way because I've done it for all through his administration going on TV. The worst thing you could ever do is separate Americans, the 99 % versus the 1%, and that was during the Obama administration.

1:40:10And I told everybody that's wrong. That's separating people, the rich against the poor. Isn't it the American dream for everybody to own a house? Isn't the American dream for everyone to have a chance of being a millionaire? It's the American dream. You separate the 99 % from the 1%, they're bad guys, we're good guys, you're destroying America and the American dream. People don't listen, it's not right. Look at what we the people do. Look what we do at the giving pledge. Most of us are billionaires. Some are on their way to billionaires, but not quite billionaires. We all gave the pledge. 50 % of our wealth, either while we're alive or after we die, is going to change the planet for everybody.

1:40:45The people, the planet, the plants, the animals in the sea for everybody. And we're some of the wealthiest people on the planet. And when you get an administration that separates us, it's bad. On the other side, no disrespect, billionaires, most of them, are not like our president. They don't show off how much I have, I'm going to sue you, I'm doing this, I'm that, okay? No disrespect, we elected him. Meaning President Trump. Donald Trump's our president. We elected him, he's our president, right? So no disrespect. But everybody isn't like everybody else, and everybody is somebody, as one of my most favorite people, Patricia said once, everybody is somebody, and they are.

1:41:21So even though there's people in office we don't agree with, there's got to be some good things about them. What do you think of President Trump? I think that he should stop tweeting. He should get a little bit more down to earth. And I just think he has some things he should change. I like some of the things he stands for, but a lot of the things that he says does or stand for, I don't like at all. And I have the right to say that because I am an American. If you want to know my political affiliation, which you happen to ask me about, I'm going to tell you anyways, I'm an independent. I have given money and supported Democrats and Republicans both.

1:42:01Here in Austin, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Democrat, great guy. I supported him, even offered to do a fundraiser for him and gave him money. Ted Cruz, nice guy, great attorney. I knew him and his wife. I gave him some money. Corny gave him some money. I give Democrats and Republicans both money. If I like them, I think they're going to do good, and I want no political favors. How did casino mogul billionaire Steve Wynn get you involved with the Sea Shepherd? Steve Wynn is one of the greatest human beings, and people don't know it. He called me one day, maybe 30 years ago. We were friends and said, John Paul, you're going to meet this guy, Paul Watts.

1:42:44I'm going to introduce you. He's the greatest guy. I have a show here where I have animals on it, and he brought me in and showed me about dolphins and how to protect them. JP, you're into this stuff. You've got to get together with them. And I did, and he was right. Paul and I became the best of friends, and we've supported the Sea Shepherd ever since. But he's a guy, and people don't even know this about this man. He's one of the most caring human beings about animals and people one could ever manage. He's a pretty good businessman on top of all that. But he's really what you would call a good guy.

1:43:13There's a lot like Gates, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, billionaires. How many know all the great things they do with their billions of dollars that the press never talks about? Why did you decide to make a last minute commercial change on Larry King Live? This was going back during the Obama administration. I had learned through Pierce Brosnan and Keely, his wife, that Obama's administration had representatives going to a conference in North Africa to drop the moratorium they had on killing so many whales, period. We were going to pull out because Japan was very pissed off at the Sea Shepherd. I happened to have a commercial running for Paul Mitchell that night on that program.

1:44:03And it was already set up to run. I talked to Pierce and Keeley. They made a public service announcement saying, Mr. President Obama, you promised you would help the whales. You would help out. Keep your promise, Mr. Obama. Your administration is going in to lift this moratorium so the Japanese can kill more whales, which is illegal anyways. You're going to make it more legal for political reasons. Don't do it. Beautiful PSA they did, right? Some of the local stations showed that that was it. I saw it. I said, uh-uh, this is going on TV. I got it. Put it in the hands of my public relations department and waited until two hours before everything closed in New York where the headquarters was.

1:44:41We immediately switched commercials out. Took my Paul Mitchell commercial out and put it in. It was a PSA. They didn't mind. Nobody checked it out, right? It was shown in Washington, D.C., But that night, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was a person being interviewed. Everybody in Washington, D.C. saw that. And we got back the next day through Paul Watson and Pierce and Keeley. JP, we got this information back to the NRDC and all these other good groups that you support. It was the talk of Washington. End result was they were very embarrassed. They delayed another year of the talks. The giving pledge.

1:45:21Why decide to commit? A couple years ago, maybe four years ago, I got a call from Warren Buffett's office saying, JP, you live in Austin. Are you there? I said, yeah. He said, well, the night after next, we're going to be in Dallas, and Bill Gates and I want to invite you to a dinner with 15 people. We're not going to hit you up or anything. We just want to let you know what we're doing, and who knows, one day you may want to be part of it, you may not want to be part of it. So I flew up there with my wife, and we had dinner with them. Wonderful people. They told us about the giving pledge. I thought, my God, I'm doing that already.

1:45:51I thought, I want to be part of what you guys are doing. They say, JP, we'd love you to be part of what we're doing. And the giving pledge is basically that you pledge that you will do things in your life while you're alive and after you die, where half of your wealth goes to making the planet a better place to live. And it could be for anything because we realize, at least I realize, and I think Paul Watson said this the best, we're on a spaceship that's gone through the universe. As we use it up, the spaceship is smaller and more decayed for our children in the future. Well, shouldn't those on the spaceship right now living halfway decent life bring the ship back to life again?

1:46:32That's what we do at the Giving Pledge. We're all thankful in such a big way for how blessed we are with what we have financially, that it's our obligation. In fact, I think it's the obligation of every person, every city, every state, every corporation to do something to make someone else's life better with your own time. If you could do it financially on top of it, better yet, especially if you're not wasting the money. And most of the people with the Giving Pledge, we go to courses, classes they hold when we meet every year a couple of times, to make sure the money's going to the people or to the environment or to the animals or the cause.

1:47:08And not all go into fundraisers. And unfortunately, a lot of charities, a lot of money goes to the fundraising and very little to charity. Even though you knew you were already in and you were already doing a lot of this work or all the work anyways, what's it like sitting at the table with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett when they're pitching you? They weren't pitching me. They just told me what they did. Say, JP, we just wanted to let you know what we did. And we'd love for you to be one of us if you wanted to be. That's all. No, call us in a week or two and tell us. If not, it's fine. We know you're a giver anyways.

1:47:41You may not want to be part of our organization. No. I like you guys. And talking to one of them is like talking to you. They're really cool people. Very down to earth, cool people. Set the scene and tell a little bit about what it entails when all members of the giving pledge get together. Very powerful. When you walk in a room with a giving pledge, people, first thing you feel is a lot of love. There's a lot of harmony and love because every one of them is doing something to do something for somebody or something else that doesn't benefit them one bit other than they know they're doing it and it makes them feel good.

1:48:17So they're all feeling good. And there are great, all interesting stories, how they got involved in giving. Very few of them have been born into wealth, okay? Most of them kind of created on their own. How often do you meet? Minimum once a year. Everyone minimum once a year. There's a couple of opportunities. We do it very sensitively because we don't want all the press around there and everybody there. So we're kind of confidential in some of the stuff we do. Explain your connection to North Korea and how its then leader ended up tracking you down in Vienna. In 1994, towards the latter part of the year, I had just finished up doing a one-month interview with Beverly Shook of CNN on Pinnacle.

1:48:58I was in Vienna, Austria at the time. It was shown around the world. While I was there, I got a phone call. And I'll tell you how it all came to be. George Lee, who's my distributor for South Korea for Paul Mitchell, was in Peking, which now is Beijing, on his own, doing business, and was drinking at a bar. Next to him was a table of Koreans drinking and talking in Korean and laughing, and these guys could drink. He would enjoy them and drank with them. Turned out to be North Korean intelligence. And they asked George, he said, you know what, we're looking for an American to help us develop industrially.

1:49:38Do you know anybody? George said, oh my God, John Paul. is the nicest guy. The reason why is to help the world out. Oh, he'd probably want to help your old country out. I'll ask him, yeah, send us a letter. So he got a hold of me and I had contacted our state department and I, you know, asked if I could write a letter and they left and they said, JP, we did a little research on this. There's a hundred people they're trying to get, you know, they're never going to pick you. Number two, you can't do any trade with them because of the trade embargoes we have with them, but you could write the letter.

1:50:08No big deal. They're never going to pick you. Okay. So I write him a letter. Dear Kim Jong-il, okay. I'd be very happy to come and visit your country and help you industrialize with the environment in mind and ecology in mind. And they have to drop the trade barriers. Okay. But if they'll let us do that, I'll help you develop your whole country as long as we do the ecology in mind. You know, peace, love, and happiness. John Paul DeGioia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sent the letter. Never heard a word from them. Now I believe it's getting into 1995. All of a sudden this call comes through. Proyang called Beijing, who got a hold of the United States, who got a hold of George Lee, who found me.

1:50:44Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And we were watching it on TV there, right? It was one of the other world. They said, you're not going to believe this. Kim Jong-il was watching CNN International, probably the only guy that got to see it in North Korea, Close Society, right? And said, that's the guy. That's one of the guys that sent the letter. You know, the next thing I knew, bingo, I had an invitation to go into North Korea and bring anybody with me. So I brought my daughter with me. Thought it'd be a good time. My wife at the time thought my daughter and I need some body. Let's go over together.

1:51:13And we did. And we were the guest of Kim Jong-il there. Of course, we were escorted everywhere. Turned out the guy who escorted us would have intelligence for North Korea. They treated us really good. Let me ask any questions I wanted to ask, which I did. Some of the answers were unbelievable, but they still answered them for me. and they treated us properly. I didn't like what I saw there. Very controlled country. Every intersection in the country had someone with a rifle on it. You could talk to the local people. They'd tell you that the last leader built the entire dam there, which you know that engineers have got to do it.

1:51:51So they're very dedicated people to their philosophy and God. They don't believe in God as we do. God is their government. God is their leader. So Kim Il-jong to Kim Jong-il to now the gentleman that's there, kind of strange, okay? But they're fully controlled, a fully controlled environment, so controlled, it's sad. Well, after I left in 1996, I wanted to get them into four-way talks. They only wanted talks with the United States, China, and North Korea. They said South Korea was a puppet. They didn't want to get into those talks. So I befriended them. I sent over they were having a famine. Two million of the 23 million North Koreans died that year of starvation.

1:52:41I heard that South Korea sent a boat of rice in there. But because South Korea was on there they refused it. They didn't want anyone to know in North Korea they were getting food from South Korea. They let two million people die sick. So I sent over and I worked with people in Michigan. I sent over 10 ,000 pounds of vegetable seeds. You can't sell them, you can't steal, you gotta give them to the people to help out. Well, we got into a dialogue. Very long story short, and I won't go into the details right now, I helped them get into four-way talks. We're now South Korea, North Korea, the United States, and China got in those talks.

1:53:15I worked with the State Department a little bit in Washington, D.C. I kept a very, very low key on this whole thing. Very, very low key. Never mentioned it. Never said a word about it until in these last couple of years, I could talk about it now because enough time has lapsed so I can talk about it. But I give a helping hand. What interaction did you have with Kim Jong Il? I think right now the best thing to do is just to let it go at that. Okay? You got a story, no one else got this story here. The next time we talk we'll talk about Libby and how we released the two suspected terrorists of Pan Am Flight 103 when the government couldn't do it but a businessman could.

1:53:50We'll talk about that next time, your next show. So business people can do more for this planet, in my opinion, that have a good heart and want nothing in return. Like I turned down$50 million, want nothing in return to make the world a better place. So I think the government, no disrespect, should sometimes use business people who have the right motivation and want nothing in return but help the planet out. Thank you very much. My pleasure. And that was my chat with John Paul DeGioia. to see video clips of our day together, including a tour of John Paul's estate and my motorcycle ride with the billionaire.

1:54:26Go to youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger. And if you made it all the way to the end here, hopefully you enjoyed the podcast. Give us a rating and review. Share your thoughts as well if you get a chance. Thanks again for listening.