118 Harvey Mackay Quotes from the American Businessman

Harvey Mackay, renowned author of New York Times bestsellers “Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive” and “Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt”, has inspired millions with his business wisdom.

His books, hailed among the top 15 inspirational business reads of all time, have sold 10 million copies globally and been translated into 37 languages.

Harvey Mackay

At 26, Mackay turned a failing envelope company into a $100 million business, adhering to a philosophy reflected in its motto: “Do what you love, love what you do and deliver more than you promise.”

A University of Minnesota and Stanford University Graduate School of Business alumnus, Mackay often guest lectures at prestigious institutions.

His book, “The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World”, imparts decades of invaluable lessons.

Related: Art Modell Quotes from American Businessman and Club Owner

Beyond his business pursuits, Mackay is a devoted husband, grandfather and an avid runner and golfer.

I have handpicked some of the most motivational quotes by Harvey Mackay for you to read.


Best Harvey Mackay Quotes

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Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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There’s a place in the world for any business that takes care of its customers-after the sale. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Positive thinking is more than just a tagline. It changes the way we behave. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Knowledge is not power unless it is used. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Make your decisions with your heart, and you’ll end up with heart disease. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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You’ll never learn a thing from a competitor weaker than you. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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If you want to stay youthful, stay useful. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. ~ Harvey MacKay.

For the real winners, there are no finish lines. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Never buy anything in a room with a chandelier. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Look in the mirror every day and say, I am in charge. You might not have control over every phase of your life, but you have more control than you realize, and you are responsible for your own happiness and success. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You can win more friends with your ears than with your mouth. People who feel like they’re being listened to feel accepted and appreciated. They feel like they’re being taken seriously and what they say really matters. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t be at your best. ~ Harvey Mackay.

A smart manager will establish a culture of gratitude. Expand the appreciative attitude to suppliers, vendors, delivery people, and of course, customers. ~ Harvey Mackay.

When you have a dream that you can’t let go of, trust your instincts and pursue it. But remember: Real dreams take work, They take patience, and sometimes they require you to dig down very deep. Be sure you’re willing to do that. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual for success, so Darren Hardy has written one for you. The Compound Effect shows you how small, smart choices add up to transform your life. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you believe, as I do, that your employees truly are your most valuable asset, you will do whatever you can to help them do their jobs as well as possible. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Famous Harvey Mackay Quotes

The sooner you accept the fact that you will have both successes and failures, the easier it will be to get your business and personal life headed in the right direction. ~ Harvey Mackay.

A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves. ~ Harvey Mackay.

My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don’t keep score. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory. If it’s written down, you can look it up. Just be damn sure you write it down. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you will support them. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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The sale begins when the customer says yes. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Inspiring Harvey Mackay Quotes

It’s way easier to stay in the comfort zone, especially when things are going good than to go out on a limb and take some risks. My philosophy is exactly the opposite: Sometimes it’s risky not to take a risk. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and yours may be in the hands of the receptionist. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Staying in touch with contacts is as important as getting them in the first place. ~ Harvey Mackay.

All success is, really, is having a predetermined plan and carrying it out successfully over a long period of time. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Southwest Airlines is successful because the company understands it’s a customer service company. It also happens to be an airline. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Failure is not falling down but staying down. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities. ~ Harvey Mackay.

When a person with money meets a person with experience, the person with the experience winds up with the money and the person with the money winds up with the experience. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Many people may listen, but few people actually hear. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Motivational Harvey Mackay Quotes

You’ll always get the good news; it’s how fast you get the bad news that counts. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Ideas without action are worthless. ~ Harvey Mackay.

The ten most powerful two-letter words in the English language are: If it is to be, it is up to me. ~ Harvey Mackay.

A student of life considers the world a classroom. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Believe in yourself, even when no one else does. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Many successful people are no more talented than unsuccessful people. The difference between them lies in the old axiom that successful people do those things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do. ~ Harvey Mackay.

No one ever went broke by saying no too often. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Find something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Don’t confuse visibility with credibility. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Failure is no more fatal than success is permanent. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You’ll never please everyone, but you only have to please a few people to get an offer. ~ Harvey Mackay.

It isn’t the people you fire who make your life miserable, it’s the people you don’t. ~ Harvey Mackay.

It doesn’t matter if they say you can’t do it. It only matters if you say you can’t. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Inspirational Harvey Mackay Quotes

I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa. ~ Harvey Mackay.

There is a time to provide advice and offer an opinion, and there is a time not to. Don’t be too quick to offer unsolicited advice. It certainly will not endear you to people. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Anyone too busy to say thank you will get fewer and fewer chances to say it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on their opinions. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Delegating doesn’t mean passing off work you don’t enjoy, but letting your employees stretch their skills and judgment. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You’re as old as you behave. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Life isn’t fair. It’s true, and you still have to deal with it. Whining about it rarely levels the playing field, but learning to rise above it is the ultimate reward. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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I believe that visualization is one of the most powerful means of achieving personal goals. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Worrying about the past or the future isn’t productive. When you start chastising yourself for past mistakes, or seeing disaster around every corner, stop and take a breath and ask yourself what you can do right now to succeed. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Good intentions aren’t enough. People have good intentions when they set a goal to do something, but then they miss a deadline or other milestone. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Unless you work in demolition, don’t burn bridges. ~ Harvey Mackay.

One mistake will never kill you. The same mistake over and over again will. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Failure is an attitude, not an outcome. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Friends are made my many acts and lost by only one. ~ Harvey MacKay.

It’s only lonely at the top if you forget all the people you met along the way and fail to acknowledge their contributions to your success. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Top Harvey Mackay Quotes

When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It’s all a matter of perspective. ~ Harvey Mackay.

The life of a startup is full of ups and downs, an emotional roller coaster ride that you can’t quite imagine if you’ve spent your whole career in a corporation. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you want to double your success ratio, you have to double your failure ratio. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It’s up to you to choose which you will be. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you have no destination, you’ll never get there. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you find yourself plagued by a recurrent worry, train yourself to think of something else. Your conscious mind can concentrate on only one thought at a time, and driving the negativity away will free you up to move forward again. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You can’t hurry creativity, so take time to ponder your ideas. Sit back and take time to think things over. That’s usually how the best ideas bloom. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Decide what your priorities are and how much time you’ll spend on them. If you don’t, someone else will. ~ Harvey Mackay.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships. The quality of your business is no different. ~ Harvey Mackay.

A great accomplishment shouldn’t be the end of the road, just the starting point for the next leap forward. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Learn from the past, but don’t live there. Build on what you know so that you don’t repeat mistakes. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

No business can stay in business without customers. How you treat – or mistreat – them determines how long your doors stay open. ~ Harvey Mackay.

To be a champion, you have to learn to handle stress and pressure. But if you’ve prepared mentally and physically, you don’t have to worry. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work. ~ Harvey Mackay.

By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business. ~ Harvey Mackay.

In a litigation-happy society, clear agreements often prevent small disagreements from becoming big ones. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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When you’re thirsty, it’s too late to think about digging a well. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business – and you can leverage that knowledge. ~ Harvey Mackay.

It doesn’t matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: The bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Minds are like parachutes-not much good unless they are open. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Great Harvey Mackay Quotes

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding. ~ Harvey Mackay.

We all start out in life with one thing in common; We all have the same amount of time. It’s just a matter of what we do with it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you walk backwards, you will never stub your toe. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Pessimism doesn’t grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities. ~ Harvey Mackay.

If you are persistent you will get it. If you are consistent you will keep it. ~ Harvey MacKay.

If you don’t look ahead, you’ll always be behind. ~ Harvey Mackay.

To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Surrounding yourself with creative, imaginative people is a good strategy for success whether you’re an entrepreneur seeking innovation or an artist looking for inspiration. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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All the technology in the world will never replace a positive attitude. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Customers are the reason we open our doors every day, and keep the machines humming all night long. Customers determine what we eat, where we live, whether we stay in business. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Powerful Harvey Mackay Quotes

Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Leadership does not mean getting people to do their job. It means getting people to do their best. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You don’t have to know everything as long as you know people who know the things you don’t. ~ Harvey Mackay.

America is ripe for a service revolution. ~ Harvey Mackay.

You can’t buy a good reputation; you must earn it. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Positive thinking is more than just a tagline. It changes the way we behave. And I firmly believe that when I am positive, it not only makes me better, but it also makes those around me better. ~ Harvey Mackay.

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Your past is not your potential. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Don’t water your weeds. ~ Harvey Mackay.

Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That’s why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible. ~ Harvey Mackay.

It doesn’t matter how much milk you spill as long as you don’t lose the cow. ~ Harvey Mackay.


So these were the 118 top Harvey Mackay quotes and sayings.

If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Guy Finley quotes and Gordie Howe quotes.

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Chandan Negi
Chandan Negi

I’m the Founder of Internet Pillar - I love sharing quotes and motivational content to inspire and motivate people - #quotes #motivation #internetpillar