> A pity that this interesting story does not have more context - whether that shortfall is in the blog or the book, I don't know. A little of both - the conte

> A pity that this interesting story does not have more context - whether that shortfall is in the blog or the book, I don't know. A little of both - the context within the book is the author is talking about his first three years in business, when he gets repeatedly screwed over. This talk with the condescending lender was one of the things that made him wise up to where he was going wrong - he was coming across as "just a broker" - after that he resolves to establish a better image and come across more powerful and be more valuable. The lender incident isn't really described so clearly - it was mainly to illustrate his point about how he was being perceived before toughening up. Also, I edited it down some, because the really fascinating part to me was the bolded quote. He mentions that deal fell through and the lender didn't buy, but just a year or two later he made more in one year that he had in the entire rest of his life, largely driven by the epiphanies of how he was being perceived beforehand.