I Met a Billionaire

Usually, when you read stories about meeting billionaires, the setting is predictable. My experience was...let's say...different, I didn’t meet this billionaire while shaking hands over an organised mixer. I met him while wiping sweat off my forehead in a local soca-dancehall bar.

The bass was rattling and the air was thick with humidity. And right there, in the middle of a most unlikely bar as I was singing along to Machel Montano at the top of my lungs, was a man whose net worth is higher than the GDP of some small countries. Here is what I learned shouting over 160 beats per minute. 

Music is the great equalizer!

This billionaire was down in the crowd. He was holding a sweating bottle of beer, island shirt, shorts, flip-flops just like everyone else. The lesson? 

True confidence doesn't need a velvet rope. 

After almost 18 years the reclusive enigma that surrounds this particular billionaire in the Cayman Islands has been broken! Apparently, he wanted to meet my husband and I, so of course we leaned in and after we'd all introduced ourselves I had to ask him, what bought him to this particular bar…. 

As a billionaire there must be a lot of isolation, right. It often seems this is the cost of success, no? However, perhaps the smartest people know when to reject that isolation, sometimes you just need to be part of the tribe.

While others in the bar where oblivious of the billionaire in their local bar I watched him enter and move for a bit (before being introduced) and I noticed this, that he wasn’t checking emails, scrolling a phone or looking bored. He was fully present, fully immersed. I really have to say, that I like this attitude!

I mean he can buy the building, buy the DJ, buy out the bar even. But you cannot buy the vybz, you have to find them and no matter your bank account. Money can buy comfort and luxury, but it cannot manufacture joy. The raw, unfiltered happiness of a great crowd, a soca-dancehall party, the unity, the 'oneness' of the crowd is something that has to be experienced, not purchased.

The bottom line? We spend so much time chasing the idea of a "billionaire lifestyle"…the cars, the clothes, first class, the exclusivity. But when I finally met one, he was chasing the exact same thing I was, a good rhythm, a cold drink, and a place full of happy people.

I won’t name the billionaire but if you live in the Cayman Islands and you're reading this, you probably guessed who the billionaire and international man of mystery is!