David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

experienced options trader when in fact
he was not. Most of us would have
foundered in that situation. We aren’t
used to playing someone other than
ourselves. But Cohn had been playing
someone other than himself since
elementary school. You know what it’s
like, you’re a six- or seven- or eight-
year-old kid, and you’re in a public
school setting, and everyone thinks
you’re an idiot, so you try to do funny
things to try to create some social
esteem. Better to play the clown than to
be thought of as an idiot. And if you’ve
been pretending to be someone else your
whole life, how hard is it to bluff your
way through a one-hour cab ride to