Sneezing aggressively with your mouth open, and other confidence hacks

Stand tall. Speak clearly. Make eye contact. Uh yeah...maybe those were confidence hacks in dinosaur times. You can either evolve, or turn into fossil fuel. Want to turn your mediocre life around? Read on, you stegosaurus.

HACK: Sneeze aggressively with your mouth wide open, yelling gutturally and startling those around you

Every politely repressed sneeze is an affront to charismatic living. If people aren't noticing your sneezes, they aren't noticing you.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Instead of a demure little "achoo!" into the crook of your elbow, keep your mouth open wide as you bellow what can only be described as "ARRRRGGGHHHWAAAAAWHIPPPAAAAPPAA."

HACK: Maintain eye contact while making an unsolicited pun

A pun is the verbal equivalent of having nothing left to lose, its wielder a reckless force of social dismay. Confidence is about power, and one such power is the ability to irrevocably halt all further conversation.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: "Oh, you're leaving to go shopping? Buy...buy!" This is best spoken in a wheedling tone.

HACK: Post blurry photos of the symphony that you took with your iPad

This hack is threefold: 1) No one goes to the symphony who isn't supremely comfortable with their choices; 2) If your pictures are in focus, your life path is not; 3) A tablet is like a phone, but five times bigger. You have to be five times stronger and richer in order to handle it. Taking photos with a tablet is a total power move.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Always remember to use the biggest model and sit the closest you can to the boring music. True masters of charisma will remember to block the view of multiple audience members, as well as distract the instrumentalists.

HACK: Be over 15 and ride a skateboard in public

Skateboarding: it's the face tattoo of transport; its effect on your reputation is permanent.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The smaller the skateboard, the bigger the ego. The older the rider, the more guts it takes to pull off. Show the world your guts...and your sick ollie.

HACK: Refuse to call flip-flops anything but "thongs"

Betwixt your award-winning toes isn't some pedestrian rubber mechanism known by its plebeian name: the flip-flop. No. It's a thong. Say this loudly. Say this often. Never back down.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Pronounce it with a soft g, à la "thonge." If it's comfortable for you to say, it's uncomfortable for them to question.

HACK: Use the word "cryptocurrency" unironically and often

Your block will be off the chain if you can redirect every spoken interaction with a treatise on the benefits of digital assets. Assets sounds like "asshat", and have you ever met a timid asshat? I didn't think so.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: "Hello shopkeep. I'd like to exchange this medium sweater. Speaking of mediums of exchange..." This can be adjusted to work in literally any context, provided you're not a scared baby.

HACK: Print out this article and eat it

Insecurity can eat away at you. But it can't if your stomach is full of dauntless missives.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Use your thonged feet and iPad to take a blurry selfie of you stuffing this article in your mouth, while sitting on your skateboard front row at the symphony. While scream-sneezing, declare to everyone in earshot "You're all diseased, and only I've got the crypto-CURE-rency!!!"

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