As the daughter of the queen of self help books, I am, then, the princess of pop psychology.  I have read as many if not more self help books as my mom.  Back in the day, we had therapy but we either didn’t have money for it or we didn’t want to deal with the stigma that small town mentalities would inevitably put on one who had to visit the “nuthouse” or get their head “shrunk”.  The next best thing, for first my mom and then, by proxy, for me, was to read the latest self help books.

The first one I recall in relation to my brilliant and avid reader mother was Gail Sheehy’s PASSAGES, a brilliant survey of all of the stages of life and the instrumental changes each person at each stage undergoes.  The last one I remember my mother sharing with me was one of the many self help books I needed, unfortunately, despite my weekly therapy sessions was THE COURAGE TO HEAL.  A fat ass book of a size sufficient to using it as a doorstop and it’s accompanying workbook.

In between the self help books Mom would pass on to me or I would snatch up as soon as she finished reading them, were at least 1,500 of books on love, sexuality, spirituality, religion and the paranormal.  There was the life saving book by Melody Beatty called CODEPENDENT NO MORE; the brilliant compilations by Thomas Moore, such as SOUL MATES and CARE of the SOUL: A GUIDE to CULTIVATING DEPTH and SACREDNESS in EVERYDAY LIFE and Diane Ackerman, with her books A NATURAL HISTORY of the SENSES and A NATURAL HISTORY of LOVE; Shakti Gawain’s LIVING IN THE LIGHT: A GUIDE to PERSONAL and PLANETARY TRANSFORMATION; James Redfield’s THE CELESTINE PROPHECY and THE TENTH INSIGHT; David Viscott’s HOW to LIVE with ANOTHER PERSON; and the stunning imperative read, NECESSARY LOSSES, by Judith Viorst.

There are hundreds more self help books I could list here, but you will have to find for yourself the ones that appeal to and work best for you and your situation.  According to one psychologist, it is better to use self help books in moderation and to do so in conjunction with therapeutic treatment.  And since today we can thank the self help master above for head shrinkers and guardians of nutbags, that we can do.

The time is always drawing near. It’s that day for sweethearts and romance. If you have a special someone in your life, then you’d better not forget. Valentine’s Day is that special time for you to express how much you truly care. Now comes the hard part. What do you choose when weeding through the many gifts for Valentine’s? If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s that all of the restaurants will be packed and you’d better have something else to offer. Luckily, gifts for Valentine’s can be found practically anywhere.

When in search of that perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, you will probably journey out to the local mall for a fun day of browsing through the numerous crowded stores for the ideal gift. Well, we all know that’s not exactly true. In reality, if you’re male, you will wait until the last minute and hit a few shops that haven’t closed yet, in a desperate search of gifts for Valentine’s. If you want to avoid this embarrassing feat that only leads to a mediocre gift at best, you can try the Internet. Cyberspace will provide you with infinite gifts for Valentine’s. Don’t break your back at the last minute. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be fun, not stressful.

Back in the day, like a few years ago, I would always hit up the mall jewelry stores for Valentine’s Day. Like most other men, I was in search of that sweet little something that wouldn’t break the bank. I mean come on, it was just Christmas. After sorting through hundreds of ear rings and bracelets, I usually settled for what was reasonably priced, yet somewhat nice. Later I began surfing the Internet for gifts. The first time I found that perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, I was dumbfounded. What had I been doing the past few years? The Internet became my closest friend.

When in search of gifts for Valentine’s, don’t head out to the local Jeweler, hop online. The selection is incomparable. You will be amazed at the cut in prices. A perfect example is a watch I recently purchased online for Valentine’s Day. My wife spotted it in a retail store at the mall. It was expensive, but I thought to myself, I will check online. Fortunately I found the same watch online for about 45 percent less. This is ridiculous, but true.  When in search of gifts for Valentine’s or any other occasion, check online for the greatest deals. If you’re not sure what to get her, jewelry is likely a sure win.

I like to think of us Americans as the junk food superpower. When it comes to desserts and sweets galore, we take the cake. No pun intended. You may not realize this until you venture off to other countries. But, let me reassure you, no foreign land can touch our vast array of goodies. You name it - from cakes, to pies, to cookies, to chocolate bars, to candy toys, to ice cream, to shakes, to smoothies, to custards, to dessert beverages, to chocolate covered potato chips, we virtually have it all. You probably can’t imagine a funky or bizarre treat we don’t have. There are even chocolate covered popcorn and gummy bears in this great nation. So if you’re looking for sweets, we’ve got you covered here in the states.

One random summer day back in 1999, I was strolling through a local shopping center with my family. We spotted a candy stand called Gypsy’s Candy. Naturally we had to gaze in awe upon the sweet treats. Most of the selection was standard variety stuff. You had your gummy worms, popcorn, turtles, chocolate peanuts and raisins, etc. Then I saw them, chocolate covered potato chips. What in the world was this? I had never heard of such a concoction, and furthermore, would they be any good? Hmm, stupid question. Like every other browsing family, we had to purchase a pound of them for testing. Of course, chocolate covered potato chips were awesome.

Here’s the deal. You can actually make your own chocolate covered potato chips at home.  Not really, since they can be purchased all over the place these days, including on the web.  I will say that chocolate covered potato chips, along with many other sweets are much cheaper to make on your own. Once you have the equipment, you can whip up as many delectables as you please.

For chocolate potato chips, this is how I do it. You first slice potatoes into chip sized pieces. You can do this with a simple tool found in a kitchen store or a knife if you prefer. Then comes the Fry-Daddy. Deep-fry the potato slices and let them cool on a paper towel. The towel will soak up excess grease. Finally comes the fondue kit. Melt your choice of chocolate in the fondue pan, dip the chips and lastly let them cool on wax paper. Try one of these homemade chocolate covered potato chips and you’ll be in heaven.

It can be so hard to figure out what to get your girlfriend on Valentines Day. Even though I had been dating mine for almost 12 years, it was still hard to shop for her. I felt like I hardly know her at all. All I knew was that she did not want to spend Valentines Day watching football and that she expected me to get her something. It didn’t help that last Valentines Day, I was across the country. She was in Washington D.C. And I was in California. I had forgotten to pick something out for her and it was getting down to the line as they say in football. I decided to order from 1-800-Flowers. Every girl loves flowers, even a special girl like mine.

It is important to call ahead of time. Whether or not your ordering her 1-800-Flowers, the company needs time to ship them out to their destination. Anyway, if you are like me, you do not know much about flowers. They are not exactly the most exciting topic, especially if you would rather watch sports. So I was naturally worried and like a big dope, I waited until almost the last minute to call 1-800-Flowers. The ordering company was swamped with business, and I had to wait on hold for almost an hour before they picked up and took my order. Fortunately, they were playing some of my favorite music. I got to hear both Phil Collins and Enya, and the soft lulling tones reminded me of how much I loved my girl, my very own sweetest.

I ordered her a bouquet of roses. Some guys would try to get something creative. Pansies or tulips of something, but I knew roses were the best. I contemplated just getting her a single rose, surrounded by babies breath, but I didn’t want her to think I was proposing to her or something. And anyway, nothing that looked too serious or too cheesy. A bouquet of roses – dark red one – is always the perfect gift.

When she got the 1-800-Flowers order, she immediately called me. She was practically overjoyed, she couldn’t believe her good luck. It even came with a little card she described for me in detail. It had a shiny heart wrapped in lace and pine boughs and said “To Shelly, from Stan”, exactly the one I would have picked out. I guess I was not thinking of marriage at the time, but when I saw how happy my flowers from 1-800-Flowers had made her, I broke down and surprised both of us and proposed. Well, that made things awkward for a while, but we are still dating, and she loved the flowers. Anyway, we both had a good laugh over it later that week.

Munching on this chocolate seashell, I can’t help but think of last summer. It was the summer when I discovered two things -  my love of the sea and my love of chocolate. I was just 15 then, and somewhat naive. I had never had a gourmet chocolate seashell before. I had never been kissed. I was a mid-western boy who had never seen the ocean.

But that summer, my parents took the whole family to Maine for a summer vacation to die for. Can you imagine, growing up in Wisconsin, what it is like to see the sea for the first time? That endless stretch of water with its lovely salty spray blowing on your face. It was as sweet as a chocolate seashell, which incidentally, I got to try the first day I went to the sea.

It was this little confectioner in the tourist town of Bar Harbor. The woman behind the register was just the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I could tell by her name tag her name was Sara, and I could tell by looking at her that she was about my age. When she handed me the chocolate seashell, I started a conversation with her. It turns out that she was 17. Just two years difference between us, and yet somehow, it meant that she was almost a woman while I was still a boy.

Nonetheless, she said she’d show me around that evening and gave me the most promising, adult smile I’d ever received from a woman until that day. My parents had waited outside the shop – they weren’t the type of parents who delight in humiliating their kids, which is all too rare in my opinion. She met me that evening after I had had dinner, down by the harbor and we walked around and looked at the boats.

It turns out that she was just beginning her senior year in high school, but already filled with dreams of the future. She wanted to be a marine biologist when she grew up. Her dad had been a fisherman before the fishing trade dried up and the family started the confection business. She loved the sea and wanted to do all she could to protect it. I felt naive. I was only a sophomore and had no idea what I was going to do with my life. But when she kissed me under the moon that night, it filled me with the feeling of the future and the taste of a chocolate seashell.

You can learn every trick in the book, but personal selling power always comes down to charisma. No matter what strategies you have, no matter how many ways you know how to close a deal, no matter how much experience and knowledge you have of the product, it is worth nothing if you haven’t mastered strategic selling techniques. Personal selling is about selling yourself. Personal sellers don’t try to make a good impression about the product so much as they make a good impression about the person who their client is dealing with – themselves.   Whether you are working as a real estate agent selling homes, or putting up a personals ad trying to find a date, charisma is the end-all and be-all of one-on-one interactions.

I had my first taste of the true importance of personal selling not during my salesman job, but when trying to meet people online. There was an incredible gulf between the people who understood personal selling and the people who did not and it was not just about self-confidence. It was about understanding your potential audience – the women  and what their needs were. Personal selling meant representing yourself as the ideal solution to those needs. Closing the deal was not the most important factor. In online personals dating, the point wasn’t to get a date. If you could make a good impression, they would ask for a date themselves.

It may sound shocking to some but personal salesmanship follows the same principles. In personal selling, closing the deal should be the icing on the cake. By the time you get to the end of your pitch, the customer should be with you. A good salesman will have the customer so enthralled that, even if he does not make his closing sales pitch, they will inquire about whether or not they can get the product.

This is not because the product will look so good but because the salesman looks so good. If the salesman seems like the kind of person who will listen to their problems, then by extension the product is the kind of product that will solve them. Personal selling is about creating an impression of yourself which mirrors how you wish for the product to be perceived. I have taught personal selling seminars for years and I have never once met someone who could sell themselves, but could not sell a product that they were pitching.