“If anyone can ‘write the book’ on sales success, it’s Harvey Mackay. He is a proven leader in sales. My advice: Follow the leader to a stellar sales career!”

—John C. Maxwell

“Harvey Mackay is a champ at sales—and he doesn’t pull any punches with his heavyweight advice.”

—Muhammad Ali

“In today’s world the only thing that you have going for you is YOU. But are you the best YOU you can be? Now a book that can guide you to be more and have more.

—Suze Orman

“Don’t share this book with your competition; share it with your people. I’m going to do just that. Will it make a difference? Your competitors won’t like the answer.”

—Ken Blanchard

“There are three kinds of business experts. There’s an expert, there’s a world-class expert, and there’s Harvey Mackay—THE world-class expert.”

—Jeffrey Gitomer

“A mother lode of timely, hard-earned, bite-size, street-smart golden nuggets . . . invaluable for job seekers, employed or unemployed.”

—Stephen Covey

“He is fast, smart, funny . . . and frighteningly right.”

—Gloria Steinem

“Harvey’s business acumen shows through on every page. . . .There’s so much warmth, wisdom, and wittiness in this book that it would be well for everyone to read every page.”

—Billy Graham

“Harvey Mackay is the only person I’ll listen to while standing in shark-infested waters . . . real stories from the real world with real solutions.”

—Larry King

“Harvey Mackay is one of the greatest writers of our time.”

—Norman Vincent Peale

“Enjoy Harvey’s cookbook for success. . . . It gives the reader the best of his wisdom . . . truly the best kind of chicken soup for anyone and everyone in business and in life.”

—Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield

Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive

Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt

Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty

Pushing the Envelope: All the Way to the Top

We Got Fired! . . . And It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us

Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door

The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World

At the top of the peak for helping with this book was Mary Anne Bailey, who has been part of my “kitchen cabinet” since the 1990s. Her help in researching, organizing, fact checking, and proofreading was insurmountable. She has a mastery in polishing prose and is a consummate professional with unlimited knowledge and patience.

The term “chief of staff” understates the pivotal contributions Greg Bailey has made to this book in every way. Greg continues to be my right hand—and so much more—in the entire spectrum of my professional life. He has an effortless ease in sourcing topics and keeping the book and me on schedule, all with a fanatical attention to detail.

My sister and editor Margie Resnick Blickman has an eagle’s eye for detail and remains as astute and valuable as ever. She has been a tremendous sounding board over my entire career.

No matter what I write, I run it by Neil Naftalin, a member of my “kitchen cabinet” and best man at my wedding. His meticulous eye is great for checking the elusive fact.

The Wiley team, starting with publisher Matt Holt, made me feel like a teammate, even though I was a rookie to their imprint. Senior Editor Zachary Schisgal was my key contact during this entire book and couldn’t have been more responsive. He was always there with an answer or an update. His judgment and advice are unparalleled. Kelly Talbot proved to be a terrific book editor whose stellar advice kept my lessons lively and timely.

My cover photographer, Stephanie Rau, brought the best out of me and managed to find my “good side.”

Valerie Boyd of Valerie Boyd Design has designed several of my book covers as well as other publications and lent her creativity to this project as well.

Christi Cardenas was the right hand of my very first agent, Jonathon Lazear, and continues to be a terrific sounding board.

My Mackay Roundtable members—all 35 of them—have had a tremendous impact on my life, as we continuously seek each other’s advice.

Our executive assistant, Karen Thompson, keeps the home/office fires burning and is always there with a witty and often humorous quip that has earned her a Nurse Nag tagline.

My business partner, Scott Mitchell, CEO of MackayMitchell Envelope Company, and all of our hard-working employees who practice the principles in this book, keep me on my toes in this always-changing business world.

And my family, my wife of nearly 60 years, Carol Ann, and our three wonderful kids: David, Mimi, and Jojo, and their families keep me forever grateful. They may be last here, but they are first in my heart always.

Adversity can be your best friend

Nearly three thousand years ago, the classical author Homer opined, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” Homer is something of an expert on adversity, having penned the great story of the Trojan War in The Iliad and The Odyssey.

On the other side of the world, the Chinese symbol for crisis has a dual meaning: danger and opportunity. That’s an intriguing thought, really. Life is fraught with both danger and opportunity, and when cool heads prevail, opportunity wins most of the time. An Asian adage says, “When fate throws a dagger at you, there are only two ways to catch it: either by the blade or by the handle.”

Remember Mother Teresa’s response to dealing with adversity? “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”

As you can see, coping with adversity is not unique to any particular culture or any specific era. Modern commentator Paul Harvey put it this way: “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.”

Adversity is a constant in this world, and none of us are immune to it. It can also be the precursor to wonderful change. A business associate told me he has just learned to “cooperate with the inevitable.” More often than not, he has conquered the inevitable with that attitude.

Retailing giant J.C. Penney was asked the secret of his success. He replied, “Adversity. I would never have amounted to anything had I not been forced to come up the hard way.” I’ve dealt with my own share of ups and downs. I’d have to agree with Mr. Penney: The tough times have not only made me smarter, they’ve made me stronger.

I’m not very adept in the kitchen, so I was curious when a friend sent me a cooking story. She heard it in a sermon at church and thought I’d get some inspiration from it. It inspired me, to be sure. But more than that, it reminded me that no matter what adversity comes my way, the way I respond will mean the difference between defeat and triumph.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as soon as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each one on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil. In the first she put some carrots, in the second she placed some eggs, and in the last she added ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about 20 minutes she turned off the burners. She took out the carrots and placed them in a bowl. She removed the eggs and put them in a bowl. Then she poured the coffee into a bowl.

She asked her daughter, “What do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she found the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, “So what does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same challenge: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

I’ll still let others take care of the cooking, but I will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.

Bouncing back from deflating times

Failure is all too common in business. Anyone who has ever run a business wakes up regularly with nightmares about the what-ifs.

Successful businesspeople, however, know that even if adversity strikes, they can work around it. They are resilient.

In the mid-1990s, Microsoft was dominating its market and Apple Computer’s sales were sagging. Steven Jobs, who had co-founded Apple in 1976, left in 1985 after a power struggle with the board of directors. Apple struggled too, until Jobs returned as CEO in 1997. He recognized the big problem and fixed it by establishing a spirit of innovation at the company. If brands like iMac, iPod, iTunes, and iPhone ring a bell, you’ll know what Jobs had been up to at Apple. And you will see one of the best examples of resiliency in an ever-changing industry.

Tylenol currently controls about 35 percent of the North American pain reliever market. But in 1982, you couldn’t give Tylenol away. A psychopath put cyanide into some Tylenol capsules, causing eight deaths. Although it was clear that Johnson & Johnson had done nothing wrong in the manufacturing of the pills, the company accepted responsibility and pulled more than 31 million bottles from the shelves at a cost of $100 million. The company also offered to exchange the capsules for tablets, taking another financial hit.

But their response, putting customer safety before corporate profit, helped restore confidence in both the company and the brand. Then-CEO Jim Burke said, “It will take time, it will take money, and it will be very difficult; but we consider it a moral imperative, as well as good business, to restore Tylenol to its pre-eminent position.” Sales recovered quickly. Resilient? You better believe it.

Sure, those are two extreme examples. But if those companies can bounce back on such a large scale, they should inspire others facing smaller challenges.

Sales slumps, production slowdowns, labor issues, and changing customer preferences affect many businesses. The strong survive not because they are determined to conduct business as usual, but because they find ways to rise above the issue at hand.

Remember, you can’t live life with an eraser. You can’t anticipate every possible problem, no matter how hard you try. But you can resolve to face challenges as they arise. Keep your mind wide open for solutions, listen to those around and under you, reprogram your brain for success, and dig in.

Many events and technologies could have spelled disaster for envelope companies like MackayMitchell Envelope Company. Fax machines, email, instant messaging, online catalogs, online bill paying, the 2001 anthrax scare, 9/11, recession—you name it. There was one threat after another. We could have been in the tank 20 times.

But we changed our business focus as necessary, cultivated new business, and managed to survive and thrive. Sometimes during great challenges, the same work hours did not always apply, vacations for our employees were put on hold, and wages held in check. It wasn’t forever, but it was survival. We would have had a hard time telling our employees that we weren’t resilient enough to provide them with jobs. It wasn’t just about us. We had a lot of families depending on our flexibility. And we still do. We are always looking for ways to protect our business against the next threat, even if we haven’t identified it yet.

When it comes to dealing with adversity, keep in mind this story of the oak tree:

A great oak grew on the bank of a stream. For 100 years it had withstood the winds, but one day a violent storm felled the oak with a mighty crash into the raging river and carried it out toward the sea.

The oak came to rest on a shore where some reeds were growing. The tree wondered how the reeds still stood after the strong winds.

“I have stood up against many storms, but this one was too strong for me,” the oak said.

“That’s your problem,” the reeds replied. “All these years you have stubbornly pitted your strength against the wind. You were too proud to yield a little. We, on the other hand, knowing our weakness, just bend and let the wind blow over us without trying to resist it. The harder the wind blows, the more we humble ourselves, and here we are!”

It is better to bend than to break. Companies and workers who can bend and not break have the gift of resiliency that lets them bounce back from adversity.

The worst failure is the failure to try

Failure can become a weight or it can give you wings.

That is the message I hear every spring when I attend the Horatio Alger Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C., where 10 new members are inducted annually. I was honored to be one of them in 2004. During the short speeches given by new members to the audience, which includes more than 100 scholarship students, the message I hear over and over again is: Don’t be afraid to fail.

The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, that was founded in 1947 to emphasize the importance of higher education and to honor the achievements of outstanding Americans who have succeeded in spite of adversity. The association is named for Horatio Alger Jr., a 19th-century author of hundreds of stories in the “rags-to-riches” genre, extolling the importance of perseverance and hard work.

The association gives the annual Horatio Alger Award to people who exemplify its ideals. It also grants scholarships and is one of the largest providers of need-based scholarships in the United States. All scholarships are funded by the generosity of Horatio Alger members and friends. Since the inception of its scholarship programs in 1984, the association has awarded more than $180 million in need-based college scholarships to 25,000 young people.

Perhaps the most important lesson these young scholars learn is that failure is not fatal. They hear about pathways to success that include episodes of difficult times, the temptation to give up, and the persistence to carry on. The members reinforce that failure is merely an opportunity to start over again, wiser than before. Inspired by these real-life success stories, combined with scholarship help and an amazing ready-made network of resources, these young people have opportunities to earn college degrees and jump-start their professional aspirations. And they have a clear understanding that failure is not the end of the road. It is potentially a new entrance ramp to the highway of life.

No one sets out to fail intentionally. Still, failure happens, sometimes because of bad luck or uncontrollable circumstances, but other times from entirely preventable causes. Whatever your career goals or personal objectives are, your chances of avoiding failure will improve if you address these all-too-common errors:

• Wasting time. Planning is essential, but too much planning can consume the energy you need in order to execute your plan effectively. Set clear deadlines. Be realistic, but ambitious. Don’t obsess over getting every last piece of data before taking action.
• Excluding people. You don’t have to like all your coworkers in order to work with them. Don’t limit your partnerships and alliances to people who agree with you 100 percent. Be willing to bring in experts with different points of view, and listen to their opinions. You need honest feedback, not blind encouragement.
• Fighting the wrong battles. You’ve got to know when sticking to your position is going to be worth the time and energy, and when to back down in order to conserve your resources for the next confrontation. You don’t have to succeed all the time to win in the end.
• Ignoring the short term. Yes, you have to think about an endpoint that’s far in the future, but don’t focus on it so intently that you forget to generate results in the meantime. You won’t have the chance to succeed in the long run if you fail in the short term, so look for some significant initial wins you can point to as evidence that you’re on the right track.
• Playing it too safe. In order to succeed, you’ve got to be willing to fail. The people around you will catch on to your dislike of risk if you never take on a difficult project or an ambitious challenge. Don’t be reckless, but don’t shy away from hard work if you want your boss, or your teammates, to believe in you. No risk, no reward.

The heroes in Horatio Alger’s stories demonstrate that you can’t avoid setbacks and disappointments. As Robert F. Kennedy said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”