John Paul DeJoria was 82 when he sat down to write 'Success Unshared is Failure,' but the book’s most striking confession isn’t about his net worth. It’s about the two times he slept in his car. The first happened at 22, when his wife emptied their bank account, left their two-year-old son with a note, and fled. DeJoria and his son lived in a 1951 Cadillac that needed water every few hours, scavenging soda bottles for cents to make rent. A biker friend named Lee Meyers eventually offered them a spare room, saving them from the street.
The second spell hit in 1980, just as he was launching his hair-care company. A European investor pulled out, leaving DeJoria and hairdresser Paul Mitchell with only $350 each. They pooled that $700 to start John Paul Mitchell Systems while DeJoria continued living out of his vehicle. That gamble eventually led to the co-founding of Patrón Spirits in 1989, a brand acquired in 2018 for $5.1 billion.
DeJoria traces his current philanthropy directly to that poverty. His mother raised him in a poor immigrant community in downtown Los Angeles, where they had no TV but 'felt we had enough.' One Christmas, she handed him and his brother a dime to drop into a Salvation Army bucket. 'No matter how much you have, there is always someone who is more in need than you,' she told him. He took that lesson seriously. In 2011, he signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away at least half his wealth.
His foundation, JP’s Peace, Love & Happiness Foundation, focuses on food security and vulnerable populations. A key initiative is Grow Appalachia, a Berea College program in Kentucky that teaches families to grow their own produce. DeJoria initially donated $150,000 in 2009; the program has since helped more than 13,000 families grow almost 8 million pounds of food. He also mandates 2,664 hours of paid volunteer time for his employees, embedding his 'give even if it is just a little' mantra into corporate policy.