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ALAN ABRAMS

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

arvey Mackay is keeping some rari-
fied company these days.
When the New York Times com-
piled its list of the 15 best-selling mo-
tivational books of all time last August,
only four authors made the list with
two or more books: the Rev. Norman
Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Robert
J. Ringer, and Mr. Mackay, the Min-
neapolis envelope manufacturer
turned businessfuispirational/self-help
book writer.
After years of being asked for copies
of his speeches, Mr. Mackay compiled
his notes. His books contain definitive
tips on how to out-sell, out-manage,
out-motivate and out-negotiate the
competition.
You can't miss seeing Mr. Mackay's
books almost everywhere you go these
days to conduct business. Need to du-
plicate your resume? Kinko's has a
point-of-purchase shelf near the cash
registers prominently displaying Mr.
Mackay's two biggest hits: Swim With
the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive,
and Beware the Naked Man Who Of-
fers You His Shirt.
And that's just the American edi-
tions. Mr. Mackay's books, which also
include Sharkproof, have been trans-
lated into 35 different languages, in-
cluding Hebrew and Russian. They
are used in courses at more than 200
colleges and universities. His pub-
lishers report he has sold over 7 mil-
lion books, which have been
distributed in more than 80 countries
worldwide.

Tiff

Nu NfTWORKING BOOK YOU'LL EVER NILD

Mr. Mackay's latest, Dig Your
Well Before You're Thirsty, is al-
ready following the well-trodden path
of its predecessors to the New York
Times bestseller charts. It took an al-
most-unprecedented seven days for
the book to smash onto the U.S.A. To-
day and Publisher's Weekly nation-
al bestseller lists. Ten days after
publication, Doubleday printed an-
other 100,000 copies. And they went
back to press three more times that
week.
"If I wrote the reviews, they couldn't
have been any better," said Mr. Mack-
ay.
His syndicated business column for
United Features Syndicate appears
in 50 newspapers, including every
Monday in the Detroit Free Press.
A promotional tour for Dig Your
Well could best be described as gruel-
ing for most authors, but not for the
extremely fit Mr Mackay, who at 63
is in training for the Boston Marathon.
During a stop at the Ritz-Carlton Ho-
tel in Dearborn earlier this month, he
waited for a phone call from televi-
sion's "Regis and Kathy Lee" show.
Mr. Mackay is also scheduled to ap-
pear on CNN's "Larry King Live" on

Harvey Mackay: CEO and author.

May 29. While in Dearborn, Mr. Mack-
ay talked about his father, a pioneer
in Minnesota Jewish journalism.
For 35 years, Jack Mackay was the
head of the Associated Press bureau
in St. Paul (His brother, Ed Makiesky,
later Mackay, was AP bureau chief in
Omaha for 45 years.)
Jack Mackay's AP stint coincided
with the era when Minneapolis was
rated as the most anti-Semitic city in
America and headquarters of Amer-
ica's home-grown Nazi Party, William
Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts.
The senior Mr. Mackay was also
one of the founders of the Jewish
World in Minneapolis.
"He was on the masthead for
decades," recalled his son. "He spent
his whole life fighting anti-Semitism.
He won every award there was to win
from the ADL (Anti-Defamation
League). He passed away in 1969, and
never had the opportunity to see that
I had some journalism blood in me.
"He never made $10,000 in any one

year," said Mr. Mackay, "but he lived
like a billionaire. All he did was take
care of everybody. He always had his
antenna up, to see what he could do
for someone else. It doesn't have to be,
`What are you doing for me today?'
Networking is about what can you do
for someone else. And my dad never
had a worry. People took care of him.
"I can't go a day in my life without
talking about my dad," said Mr. Mack-
ay. "My mother passed away at an ear-
ly age, and my dad and I were
roommates for five years, from when
I was 21 until 26, and I was very im-
pressionable. He was my mentor and
my role model. I dedicated Swim With
The Sharks to him."
Jack Mackay was also a personal
adviser to Minnesota liberal Democ-
rats (and future U.S. vice presidents)
Hubert H. Humphrey and Walter
Mondale, his son said. Both men were
among Israel's best friends in Wash-
ington. Jack Mackay also founded the
Jewish Center in Minneapolis.
In Dig Your Well Before You're
Thirsty, Harvey Mackay not only cred-

PUSHING page 82

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