Introduction
But there was a major obstacle: J.P. only had $700 to his name. Everyone told him he couldn’t start his company because he needed more money, more schooling, more experience, more smarts, a different economy, and countless other things that he lacked. Sound familiar? Well, after listening to all that advice, he did what most successful people do: He listened first and fore- most to himself and started the company anyway. J.P. developed a success habit of believing in himself and ignoring the naysay- ers. “That was extremely difficult for me. I mean, how do you start a company, balance your bills, not get paid, and still go out door-to-door selling your products every day? It was extremely difficult. We should have gone bankrupt every single day for the first two years of the company, but two years later, we were finally able to pay our bills on time. Not only pay them, but pay them off. I remember saying, ‘Hey, we made it. We’ve got $2,000 left over! We made it. We’re successful!’” Eventually J.P. was able to use his persuasion and communi- cation skills to grow his company by leaps and bounds. J.P. even improved his listening skills and developed a key habit of being able to read his customers on the deepest level. “I think what I’m really skilled at is having the ability to listen. And not just listen, but to listen to everything people are saying instead of thinking about what I’m going to say next. That took a while, but I think I eventually got pretty good at that.” Through persistence and developing positive success hab- its—listening to understand, having vision, always doing his best no matter what, ignoring the naysayers, and staying pos- itive in the face of rejection—J.P. built his company into an in- ternational success. Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, “It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.” J.P. is living proof of this adage. He started with nothing and rose to become one of the wealthi- est people in the world. In 2015, Forbes magazine listed him as number 234 on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans (with a net worth of $2.8 billion). J.P.’s full name is John Paul DeJo- ria. He’s the founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products, Patr ó n tequila, and a dozen other successful businesses.
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