Joshua Bell made $32 playing a $3.5 million violin in a subway station.

Three days before, he filled Boston's Symphony Hall. Seats went for over a hundred dollars. On a Friday morning in January 2007, he put on a baseball cap, walked into the L'Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington, and opened his violin case against a bare wall. He played Bach for 43 minutes. 1,097 people walked past. Seven stopped. Same man playing the same violin and the same music. The only thing that changed was whether the room knew he was worth listening to. I saw something similar play out over months at Merrill. My senior partner spent 20 years building a $50 million relationship. When it came time for the family's assets to move over, a team from a neighboring office had already been having a different conversation. We lost the account. When we got to see the other team's portfolios, they were worse – more generic, more plug-and-play. But they called themselves the Private Banking Entrepreneur team. And the family who'd just sold an empire felt understood. I wonder how many subway stations I've played in without realizing it.