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John Paul Mitchell (born March 3, 1979 in Orange, California) is an American businessman, politician, the youngest American-born Swami, and the youngest Mahamandaleshwar in the world. He is also the Independent party candidate for the Arizona gubernatorial election, 2010.

Personal life
John Paul is the son of Jane Marie Wolf and Stephen Eugene Hopkins. Jane briefly attended Friends University before dropping out, later going on to marry Stephen. After a 10 year marriage peppered with abuse, Jane made the decision that she had had enough and left Stephen. Fleeing from her Hollywood apartment in the middle of the night, she headed south to San Diego. Within a few months time she met Gerald Wayne Mitchell, moved in with him and months later, moved to Tempe, Arizona in 1980.

Jane soon married Gerald (whom Jane and John Paul referred to as "Jerry"), but it was not until Gerald adopted John Paul that John Paul took on his surname. However, during the middle John Paul's high school years Jane and Gerald divorced. Jane married a third time to Jacob Wolf. Although John Paul believed him to be "by far ... the best husband," Jacob played virtually no role as father to John Paul, for they married when he was in his early-20s.

Education
John Paul first attended Copperwood Elementary School in Glendale, Arizona before transferring to Oakwood Elementary School in Peoria, Arizona after Jane and Gerald purchased a new home about a mile away from Copperwood. Graduating from Oakwood in 1993, John Paul then went on to attend Centennial High School from 1993 to 1997. While attending Centennial, John Paul excelled at baseball. During his junior year, John Paul was a starting pitcher and considered one of the top 10 pitchers for 4A baseball in the State of Arizona. During this time, John Paul was scouted by the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Houston Astros, and other small colleges. However, John Paul did not play baseball his senior year due to a falling out between himself and his coach, Victor DiBella.

After graduating from Centennial, John Paul attended Glendale Community College from 1998 to 2004. Initially working towards an Associates in the Arts, he later pursued an Associates in Business and Management. However, he did not complete an Associates degree at GCC. After years of meditation, yoga, and helping people naturally, John Paul switched his focus to counseling. He attended the University of Sedona, a non-secular secondary school, which focuses on counseling and spirituality from a non-religious, non-denominational perspective. He earned his Bachelor's there, as well as his Master's. He completed his Master's thesis in late 2007 and was awarded his Master's in early 2008. He is currently enrolled as a Doctorate student working on his Doctoral Dissertation.

Work experience
John Paul's first job was helping at a pizza place called Roy's Pizza, the cousins of Ray's Pizza, a very popular restaurant in the Phoenix Valley. He would help the owners of Roy's Pizza by taking in-person and phone orders, handling the cash register, answering phone calls, wiping down tables, cooking non-pizza items like wings, and making sub sandwiches, among other things. I started that job in high school around the age of 16. As his second job, John Paul worked for the City of Glendale as an umpire. This position segued into further employment with the City of Glendale doing administrative and data entry work. Following this, John Paul worked for MacFrugal's (now Big Lots) as the Customer Service Manager where he had the responsibility of managing the front end of the store, all the cash registers, counting and depositing the money at night, and reporting daily sales to the corporate office.

John Paul quit MacFrugal's to work at Borders Books & Music, because it paid more and he had always wanted to work there. He "loved working at Borders" because "it afforded hour lunches, one hour of cashiering," and enabled him "to work in the music section." While employed by Borders, he also did a few months of backing up the store's cafe. For a few months, John Paul worked UPS as a seasonal employee, but later quit because he was not getting enough hours.

He later found a job at Harkins Theatres, where he worked his way up very quickly, although only working there for 6 months. He was the Lead Night Supervisor, and had to ensure all the ushers were cleaning theaters when they were suppose to, and also keep an eye on the concession stands.

He eventually moved onto a position in the Glendale Community College Bookstore (owned by the Follett Corporation). The Follett Corporation owns over 700 plus bookstores on college and university campuses nationwide. He started there as part-time help, was kept on for his hard work and dedication, and promoted to a stockroom position. Within a few months, he was the Shipping and Receiving Manager handling millions of dollars worth of books on a monthly basis. He had to work closely with the Textbook Manager and ensure the correct textbooks were ordered at the right time and for the right classes. He also managed the entire online ordering process that Follett Stores offered to college students. As the Shipping & Receiving Manager he had anywhere from 2 to 5 employees under him. As a result of his work ethic, he was later promoted to Assistant Store Manager and was in charge of hiring, scheduling, and merchandising the store.

When he discovered that Discover Card was paying more money for a less stressful job, he decided to apply. He knew someone who worked there, so he was easily referred and hired on. He started out like everyone else: on the phones, taking the usual bunch of calls. However, before his training period was over, he was promoted to Discover Card's Web Support team. John Paul claims that "the technical side of computers always fascinated [him] and [he] quickly excelled in this area." Within 6 months, he was the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Web Support, handling all the difficult technical issues, reporting problems directly to Headquarters, and conducting a weekly conference call with Headquarter contacts.

When there was an opening for a non-phone position in the regular SME (Subject Matter Expert) group, he applied and was accepted. This job had very minimal phone work, allowed him to respond to fielded inquiries via email, and solve a lot of problems. Later on, this group merged into the Call Escalation Group and he was promoted to Customer Relationship Manager. His responsibilities involved handling very difficult escalated calls and responding to unusual account-based circumstances. It also involved fielding questions and answering them for employees via email. For both groups, the SME and Call Escalation Group, he was in charge of reporting. He would have to acquire all sorts of data and put them in reports for high-level managers above me.

He has excelled more at Discover Card than any company. He was awarded the Pinnacle of Excellence Award. The Pinnacle of Excellence Award is only given to 3 employees in each department in each center, which equates to the top 1/2 percent of the company. They send you to Chicago and you get to meet the Executives, eat lunch with them. John Paul reminisces that he "even put [his] feet on David Nelms' desk." David Nelms is the CEO of Discover.

Spirituality, psychology, yoga
In 2001 Mitchell began an intensive study of Santana Dharma, Hinduism. Ordained as a Swami at the age of 23, it made him the youngest American-born Swami and he soon became the youngest Mahamandaleshwar in the world. This is title is second only to the four designated pontiffs and is held in the highest esteem. Mitchell also became a student and later a teacher of Brahman-Atman Yoga and soon became recognized as an authority in the Kriva Yoga community. Being one of a few people in the world who knows all the Kriya Yoga techniques, accompanied by his ability to administer hands-on healing modalities, Mitchell has personally counseled hundreds of people worldwide, initiating dozens into advanced meditation and yoga techniques.

Politics
Having "always been on a spiritual journey throughout [his] years," John Paul naturally felt more inclined to focus "on improving [him]self and helping others." Intially though, John Paul use to be adverse to all things politics. He never wanted to talk about it, thought politicians were thieves and deceptive human beings, and that it was a waste of his time. It wasn't until recently that John Paul changed course. He started to feel passionately about government sanctioned taxation. As a result, he sought to research this subject more and decided to write a book, titled "No More Taxes." After many months of research, he wrote the entire book in 3 weeks, had it shipped off to his editor on 3 occasions, and had it officially self-published in April 2008.

Adding to his political retinue, John Paul attended the Freedom Rally in Washington D.C. on April 15th, 2008, where he was a scheduled speaker and listed as such on the Freedom Rally fliers and brochures. However, there were a lot of politicians and candidates for public office which took precedent over him. Subsequently, he was moved to the end of the line and was never afforded a chance to speak in Washington DC due to all the speakers before him speaking over there allotted time. However, John Paul believed it to be "an interesting experience," which was partially due to having been able to briefly meet Ron Paul.

It was during his employment at the Glendale Community College Bookstore that John Paul first decided he wanted to run for governor and manage the State of Arizona. It was in the GCC bookstore that he would have small debates with one of the Hispanic female students that worked at the store. John Paul states that these debates were "all playful and dealt mainly with immigration issues." He told her in 2010 he will run for governor and as a man of his word, John Paul is currently the Independent party candidate for the Arizona gubernatorial election, 2010.