Are you really sure you want me to explain? Well, OK...

1) You say you have been doing a law degree for 3 years. I know how much work is required by a fulltime law degree.

2) At the same time you say you have gained huge expertise with giant customers, so busy with technology that you are competent to lecture at will about Oracle, dotNET, SQL Server. This, apparently, was happening at the same time as 1).

3) You also claim sufficient experience about business decisions to lecture others about selling big ticket items as well as mom-amd-pop items. Presumably you have been running businesses that tried all these things, apparently at the same time as 1) and 2) above.

4) So .... I put all these things together, and something doesn't gel. As the philosopher said, "how can you be in two places at once unless you are a bird?" I've tried to explain it for myself; could it be that there are 2 JVPs, one at law school while the other works 12-hour days at all these commercial IT endeavours to accumulate all this impressive experience? Ah... no.

So now I need reassurance. You see, John, when you ask (or insist) that people listen to your advice, you need to expect that your credentials become a legitimate object for review. Same as if a surgeon is offering to remove my leg; this is serious stuff and I want to satisfy myself that the advice comes not just from books and a confident demeanour, but also from experience, expertise and a track record that gives me confidence.

Remember that most people here have to earn a living from this stuff; with your advice so pervasive in this forum, we really do need to understand the source of your authority a little better. You've been commendably modest on this point... but now I'm asking and giving you the chance to strengthen your arm immeasurably by revealing all.

On the other hand, if it turns out that we all need to mentally prefix your statements with "I heard that..." or "I read that..." or "I wrote an article that said that..." then you'll understand that we need to assess your posts slightly differently. It doesn't mean that we automatically disagree with you or that you must be wrong; it just means that your statements are based on anecdote rather than special experience or expertise.

So, we need to know. Impress us. Share with us the foundations of your certainty!