John Paul DeJoria

My name is John Paul DeJoria and I was born on April 13th, 1944 in Los Angeles, California. My parents divorced when I was only two years old. When I was nine years old, I sold Christmas cards and newspapers with my older brother to support my family. My single mother was unable to support us, so we were sent to a foster home in East Los Angeles. Since I was young, I was a member of a street gang. One day, my math teacher told me that I would never succeed in anything in life. Right then I decided to change my life. I graduated high school in 1962 and joined the United States Navy for two years. After that, I had numerous jobs which included being a janitor and an insurance salesman. I loaned seven hundred dollars and I founded JPM Systems to sell my company's shampoo door-to-door while living out of my car. From that point, my company has expanded and developed. Today, my company has an annual profit of nine hundred million dollars.