# Treating VIPs as normal people and a chance meeting with King Hussein

- **Episode:** [133](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/133.md) (2024-10-03)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** vip-treatment, king-hussein, networking
- **Time:** 11:52–18:05 (start 712s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/133?t=712](https://truthliesandwork.com/133?t=712)

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[11:52] Jackie Stewart: We had a big shooting event up at Gleneagles for several years. Again, because it was a fundraiser, I did it with Sean Connery, and he brought Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg. But I had half of the royal family there shooting and a whole lot of some of the best names in the world as part of the event. And it was just a huge success. And they came because the people that they were meeting in that particular case was a good one. King Hussein of Jordan, sadly no longer with us
[12:29] Al Elliott: Yeah
[12:31] Jackie Stewart: became one of my best friends because he was very keen on motorsport. And I met him by chance in America, Daytona actually. And he said, oh, I'd love to have dinner with— can we have dinner together? Of course, I had dinner together with him and we created a fantastic relationship. I went to Jordan and drove with him in his car. He had a hill climb that he was very fast on. And we became really good friends. And now, of course, we're good friends with his son, who is now the king. King Hussein was one of the best, probably the best male Mayan that I've ever known. Fantastic man. So you meet people like him. But he came to my shoot up at Gleneagles. And Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and Sean Connery were there, but so were members of our royal family, and a whole lot of all the best sports people in the world came. And just when they arrived, I went to meet them properly, and about 5 minutes after our chatting, suddenly they're not paying attention to what I'm saying. And I said, excuse me, Is there something wrong? No, but there's a man over there that looks really like King Hussein of Jordan, and his wife was with him. And I said, well, what's the big deal there? He said, well, we're trying to get Sean to ride through the, um, in Jordan, the wonderful palace in Jordan that's many hundreds of years old. And it was part of Indiana Jones, the show, the film. And they couldn't get permission to go through this, this very tight place that Sean was supposed to ride through on a horse. And they said, we've been at it for weeks and nobody's listening to us and they won't have it. I said, well, hang on a second, I'll go and get— so I bring the king and the queen over
[14:39] Al Elliott: Wow
[14:40] Jackie Stewart: over to them, and they can't— they just don't know what to do with themselves. And she, on the other hand, was looking at Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and Sean Connery. You know, she was taken aback by them, and so was King Hussein. Bingo! They got what they needed, and they got it. Hanging with the right people at the right time can be very forthcoming. And I've hung out with some of the most successful people in the world, and my, my ears are wide open, and I learned so much about them. George Harrison— I love George Harrison, one of the best minds of anybody I've ever met. Unbelievable. And, and he was a great enthusiast of motorsports, so I took him to a lot of Grands Prix, and I learned so much from George Harrison. If you hang out with the right people, you're doing the right thing. If you'd go with the boss who thinks he's the best and he gets overconfident, that's the one that's going to trip you up because you're going to be judged by him or her who you're doing business with. Motor racing is dangerous and so is business. You need to remove as many of the downside risks as possible. Because you go into a board meeting with a whole lot of people, one or two of them will have it wrong. You've got to find the right way to get it right. So always drive to get over what people have asked you to do. Perform beyond their, their expectations of what you have to do. So That has driven me all the way through my motor racing career and into the business side, because I brought, for example, HSBC into Formula 1. Sir William Purvis was the, was the, the chairman, and I had to— and it was a large— it was, I think it was 42 people on the board of HSBC, and I had to speak To them in their own home ground. To be sure to do that, I then went to what I think is still the best public speaking course that you can get. And I wanted to be sure that I didn't mess after getting to the point where Sir William said, well, I like the idea, but I'll never get— I don't think the board will get it. They'll not get it for you. And I said, well, sir, can, can I approach the board? Can I explain to the board what we're doing? Because it's global and so are you, HSBC. And I won it. We won it for 5 years. HSBC, big deal. But I had already been with Ford Motor Company. So therefore, when you get together with 2 big companies in the same area, You've got to service both of them. So I got them serviced. Ford Motor Company, once I had HSBC, I got Ford Motor Company to invest some of their financial interests with HSBC. And they're still doing it