Wearing a mask = being more confident.
sahillavingia.com
sahillavingia.com
"It tends to be the main type of mask worn during the Carnival. It was used also on many other occasions as a device for hiding the wearer's identity and social status. It would permit the wearer to act more freely in cases where he or she wanted to interact with other members of the society outside the bounds of identity and everyday convention."
However, often the customer "forgets" that leading to mindless bashing, but I guess that's a compromise. :)
But, anytime he'd ask someone for a favor or give instructions in an email, he'd always sign with "Robert M. Lastname III, Vice President"
Tacky, but material for countless inter-office jokes.
It costs about $15 for less than a ream and is usually sold as something like "resume paper" (300 sheets -- a ream is 500, a carton is 10 reams, and a carton of generic office paper should cost around $30 ~ $40). One pack will last you about a decade. For those of us in the Internet generation, if you have a call to send someone paper, that probably means you are doing Serious Business. The ROI on influencing Serious Business is just astounding.
Cheap copier paper, on the other hand, looks and feels like crap. The only reason you print stuff on paper is to communicate with another human being, and the paper is part of the message.
I wouldn't quite go as far as the business cards scene in American Psycho (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y) though.
Mirroring & matching, imitating the body language, tone, speed, diction of those you interact with, is an important facet of NLP and subsequently the art of persuasion - and as an aside, having preset rules to follow makes one feel as though they are playing a 'role' and acting, thereby increasing confidence as well.
One thing I got out of it is this trick of overlaying my avatar in the virtual world with an image of somebody else, often a cartoon character.
It may sound crazy, but I gain the ability to do all kinds of things that I wouldn't do otherwise: for instance, my most powerful character greatly increases my animal charm and also my functional (physical) flexibility. (mostly because she can play through the pain) Unfortunately she's not a very nice person in she's got high blood pressure.