HOW TO SELL YOURSELF

One would have thought he had exhausted the possibilities in a book entitled How to Sell Anything to Anybody (1978), but once the ""world's greatest salesman"" (Guinness Book of World Records), always the world's greatest salesman--so Girard keeps right on pitching. Trouble is, his dos and don'ts, while sound enough in a vague sort of way, are really rather mindless in their specifics: every day for a month you have to haul out a dollar bill and croon to George Washington ""that, like him, you cannot tell a lie."" Girard's selling-of-self maneuvers are primarily angled toward his fellow salespeople, though he contends that the people-skills involved have a wider application (to teachers, politicians, and the like). Among them: positive thinking … la Norman Vincent Peale and Emile Cou‚, listening and communicating well, smiling, persisting, etc. Success-story name dropping--from Joe Louis to Oral Roberts--only succeeds in making Girard look like the new kid on the block. And the adrenalin simply never stops pumping: ""Did you know it was really enthusiasm that discovered America?"" Draining.