by Ellen Goodman

About the author: Ellen Goodman is the associate editor of the Boston Globe and a nationally syndicated columnist.

It’s not that I envy the corporate titans. It’s just that I have a small failure of imagination.

Every time I try to envision myself as Disney CEO Michael Eisner, I get stuck at the same place. There I am in front of the mirror saying to myself, “Let’s see, I earned $575 million last year. Yeah, that seems about right. I’m worth that.”

I’m pleased that he doesn’t suffer from low self-esteem, but how does he get his mind around those numbers? For that matter, go figure the worth of Sanford

I. Weill, the head of Citigroup that runs those nifty ads on the Golf...