“Act as if”

Earlier this week I came home one night and opened a very nice letter from my friends at American Express. It thanked me for having been a credit card customer since I was in college, talked about the additional benefits of upgrading my membership to becoming a Rewards Plus Gold Card member, and offered to waive the $150 annual fee for the first year in the event I convert.

When I first read the letter, I chuckled at the logic of sending this offer to a card member who rarely ever charges over $100 a month onto his credit card. Then I looked at the picture of the Gold Card with the Roman centurion portrait and thought it would be nice to have the card just to decorate my wallet. But would it be worth the subsequent consequences to my credit score just to have a status symbol on my wallet?

One of my favorite scene from the movie Boiler Room shows Ben Affleck’s character motivating a sales team by telling the salesmen to use the “act as if” approach to closing a sale. His examples were to “act as if you are the CEO of this company” and to “act as if you have a ten inch …,” well you get the idea. It made me realize that just because I am an MBA grad without a job doesn’t mean that I cannot act as if I am the most successful member of the Class of 2007.

But instead of signing my name on the form and sending away for the card, I did something more clever. Attached to the letter was a cardboard replica of an actual Gold Card and I detached it and put it in my wallet. So the next time I pay for a drink at Lucy’s, I am going to open my wallet in such a way as to make sure all the cuties at the bar see the fake Gold Card and then proceed to talk to them as if I am the CEO of my own company. As for following Ben Affleck’s other suggestion, maybe the bartender will sell me a genie that can help me in that area. (If you don’t get the joke, click on the link.)