He Lived Out of His Car and Started a Business With Just $700. Now He’s a Billionaire. Here’s His Best Advice About the Power of Grit.

John Paul DeJoria has lived one hell of a life. The billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems with just $700 and later helped build Patrón into a category-defining brand. His memoir, Success Unshared is Failure, comes out June 30 and traces a life that spans homelessness to mindblowing success, digging deep into his philosophy of social responsibility and relentless drive. He joined me on How Success Happens to tell his remarkable story, and I’ve broken down his insights to help inspire your next big swing three, two, one!

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Three Key Insights

1. Rejection Is a Toll Booth, Not a Dead End  

DeJoria says entrepreneurs have to stop treating “no” like a verdict. “Be prepared for rejection,” he advises, and recalled the importance of staying just as enthusiastic on the next try, even after getting dozens of nos while selling encyclopedias door-to-door. That try, try, try mindset helped him keep going when he was broke and living in his car. It kept him going as he launched Paul Mitchell and was trying to get people to try a product he knew in his heart was excellent. His larger point is simple: persistence is not motivational poster b.s. — it has to be a part of your operating system.

Takeaway: Treat every no as part of the price of admission to be in this game, then show up to your next at-bat ready to swing.

2. Build for the Reorder, Not the First Sale  

DeJoria said something every founder should tape to a wall: “Make sure that you don’t go into the selling business. Go into the reorder business.” He believed Paul Mitchell would survive hardship because “if I had enough people trying my product out, it was so darn good they would reorder,” and he carried that same logic into Patrón, even when people said a $37.95 bottle of tequila was too expensive. The experts told him the brand would never top 20,000 cases a year. By the time he sold it, they were selling 3.5 million a year. 

Takeaway: Make your product or service so good that customers will enthusiastically come back without being pushed. That’s how scale happens.

3. Success Means More When It’s Shared  

The title of DeJoria’s memoir is also his personal philosophy: Success unshared is failure. He traced that belief back to his childhood, when his mother, despite being poor, had him donate a dime to the Salvation Army. She told him there would always be people more in need than you. Today, that lesson shows up in his Peace, Love & Happiness Foundation, which supports human and animal needs, and in the broader giving work he described around homelessness, hunger, and environmental causes. 

Takeaway: Decide now how your success will help other people, even before the big payday arrives.

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Two Free Resources to Learn More

1. Buy or pre-order Success Unshared is Failure to get his remarkable full life story.
2. Learn how giving back can become the biggest driver of your company’s success. 

One Question to Ponder

What is a hardship that, later in life, you realize was an invaluable training moment for you?

Send your answer to howsuccesshappens@entrepreneur.com, and we’ll read selected responses on a future episode.

About How Success Happens  

Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way.