I met a billionaire (and almost killed him)

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Music by Jordan Wood

Hosted by Jenna Harding (Warriner), Creator of Magic Marketing Machine

Transcript

Jenna Harding (00:00)
Not only did I meet a billionaire, but I almost gave him a heart attack.

Listen, man, people are just people. If you walk into a room and you feel like everyone around you is better than you, let's talk about that for a second. I don't know where that came up in your life. I don't know why you feel that way, but it's not true. People are just people.

I admire people. There's lots of people I admire. But I am done with you thinking that anybody is better than you, quite frankly.

Let me tell you a story. My husband used to work for this company that was a multi, multi billion dollar company. And he would go in, he's an accountant, right? So he would go in and on the weekends when it was during year end, because he was pulling like 12 hour days. And the whole place is shut down. Most of the lights in the hallways are off. Also, this place was so like sterile. Like a room might have a painting or a plant, but that is.

pretty much it. It almost felt like a hospital, just like everything is white and gray and that's not the kind of world that I exist in most of the time. So anyway, him and his colleague were in there. They'd taken over a boardroom. Everybody's in sweatpants, just like burning the midnight oil sort of energy. So I came too, to just work alongside them. I bring the fun. I make things fun, okay? I'll make working on the weekends fun for you too.

So I went to the company kitchen to go grab ⁓ like a coffee. And on the way back, my husband jumped out at me and scared me. And I was scared and I was embarrassed. then it became a thing, right? later on I was like, ⁓ I'm going to get him back. I went to the kitchen for another coffee. It's probably like a couple hours later at this point. And I hear footsteps in the hallway behind me and everything's pretty dark.

Remember like we have some light coming in through the windows, but most of the lights are out. Most of the offices are dark. So I hear these steps behind me. I'm like, oh That's Jordan. He's sneaking up on me. So I tuck away into One of the offices just in the doorway and I'm really really quiet and when the footsteps approach I jumped out I jumped out and yelled boo and standing in front of me is the founder of this company an old man

worth billions. Who comes in on the weekends? Because it's peaceful and quiet and everybody leaves him alone. So I immediately knew what had happened. Actually, I don't even know why in my head I knew who this guy was. Maybe because he was so old and like no one who's gonna work there is gonna like be this old. So anyway, my next step.

if it could get worse.

I'll make it worse. So my next step after immediately realizing what I'd done was to grab him, put my hands literally all over him like, my god I'm so sorry, my god I'm so sorry, are you okay? Look I literally was worried that I would, I had just like, like given him you know, he could have had a heart attack. So he grabs me back and just starts laughing and now we're

coming down the hallway and also who am I? I'm like this random girl in this corporate environment where I don't belong in sweatpants, right? So we're laughing and we walked down the hall together just like howling and he told me that this company without giving away too many details, ⁓ it has to do with manufacturing. So throughout his career, people when head office guy like owner of company guy would go into the manufacturing factories,

people would try and scare him because it was like almost like a your white collar, you don't belong here thing. So guys would sneak up behind him and like drop a wrench on the ground. So it would echo everywhere and try and startle him. So he's actually so good at being startled. He's been startled his whole life. So we are laughing. We go up to the boardroom, like we're walking towards the boardroom and my husband, I will not forget the look on his face and his colleagues face. They looked...

so horrified like this was the end of their careers. They were so scared. And then me and this guy are just laughing.

And as it turns out, I think that was actually really refreshing for him because this is a guy who, you know, employs so many people and has ⁓ all of this, all of these accolades to his name and people don't treat him like a normal person.

I think it's also the same reason why I won my husband's grandmother over so quickly, because people treat her like she's old and I treat her like she's a friend and I'll just like swear and tell stories and speak quickly and like, you know, be a little bit dirty and she just loves it. Surely. ⁓ I love her so much. Anyway, just treat people like they're people, right? If you go into a room and you act like people are better than you, then you're gonna shrink.

and we don't want you to shrink. You can be modest, that's allowed. You can be humble, that's allowed.

But by virtue of being in that room, you are on the same playing field as these people you admire. You bring so much to the table. You have things other people want. They have things you want. That's part of being human.

I also really love that expression. What is it? Don't compare your day one to someone else's day 10, your day 10 to someone else's 10 years, et cetera.

All right, my dears, happy new year. Please let me know in the comments, if you feel so inspired, let me know your business goals or your business new year's resolutions in the comments on this episode. If you're listening on Spotify, that would be awesome. If you are listening on iTunes and you can drop me five stars, I would really appreciate it if you think this is a five star worthy show.

Happy New Year, I'll see you in 2026.