I’m not delusional. If you were in the market for a handgun for personal protection, I’d have dramatically less selling power than would James Debney, the president and chief executive officer of Smith & Wesson.

Similarly, if you were looking to buy a grand piano, my words would be much less impactful than those of Ron Losby, president of Steinway & Sons, the manufacturer of some of the finest handmade pianos on earth. Then there’s Karl Schulze, CEO of C. Bechstein, Steinway & Son’s aggressive German competitor and the famed maker of one-of-a-kind art case pianos for royal palaces since the nineteenth century.

Who the heck am I, by contrast to these men? Their ...

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