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Summary: Must read for anyone hoping to maximize life's opportunities
Review: "How many people could I realistically count on to help me if I called at 2:00 A.M.?" This is the question Harvey Mackay poses in his fourth book, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. In the 300 pages that follow, Harvey Mackay shares a lifetime of networking tips with his readers. Mackay writes from experience, having established a successful envelope business and from years as an active fundraiser in Minneapolis. Written with humor and wit, Mackay shares anecdotes from the likes of Muhammad Ali, Lou Holtz, Erma Bombeck and Larry King. This book is a must read for corporate CEOs, middle managers, entry level workers, college students and anyone else who hopes to maximize life's opportunities
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Summary: A nice book: interesting, fast and easy to read and fun too!
Review: A funny written and interesting book, which certainly helps people who never thought a lot about networking by giving them ideas and tools. The book will also provide the networking professional with some new hints and proposals. Since it is fast (you will be able to skip one page or another) and easy to read (read it wherever you want: in the traffic jam or in the airplane) I can recommend it to nearly everybody. Young readers: pay attention, some networking techniques won't work like they have been working in the days when Mr. McKay was young. But the principles of networking are certainly still the same. Maybe a 200 pages version would be sufficient, but the 100 extra pages give an insight into the life of a very interesting person, which I would be proud to have in my network!
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Summary: This is a must-have networking gem!
Review: After the first few chapters, I invested in a new contact management system. Harvey offers scores of practical advice on how to improve the quality of your life, through your network. This book has already had a tremendous impact on my network! I intend to read it again as a refresher. Don't miss out
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Summary: Are you ready for crisis?
Review: Are you ready to lose your job? How long would it take for you to get a new job? If you had an emergency, how many people would loan you the cash, and how long would it take them to get it to you? How is your network? Mackay teaches you the importance of network and how to build your own network of people. Before reading this book I was of the opinion that if you work hard, people will notice and you will get places. Silly me. I had just started graduate school (Masters of Information Systems) when I read this book. What an eye opener. I was also just starting some work at a start-up dot-com company. I was doing software testing and at the bottom of the rung of a 15 person company. The founders of the company were big into computer games (one of my fortes). I took Mackay's advice and decided to form a friendship with the big-wigs of an up-and-coming company. I bought the game and formed a friendship with them. These bonds are still strong to this day and have helped me climb the ladder as the company has grown to over 200 employees. Don't think this is a cure-all. Many of the ideas presented in the book are common sense. He gives you the principles and some examples and then you must devise your own way to build your network. Mackay made me a believer in the "who you know" theory. There are a hundred other guys with my same qualifications, but people will turn first to the people they like or admire. Mackay teaches you to be first in line. My review makes the driving force behind this sound selfish. And, to an extent, networking is in part, selfish. Mackay teaches you how networks should be used to help others as well as yourself. If your heart is in the right place, the network will not crumble. People know your true intentions (if not now, they will know later).
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Summary: A HOLLYWOOD MUST!
Review: As a HOLLYWOOD screenwriter, my career lives or dies on networking. Harvey Mackay's book is the absolute Bible. If you live and work in Hollywood and don't have this book, don't let another thirty seconds go by before you hit the "Shopping Cart" button! I'd give anything to have Harvey Mackay mentor me personally. -Mark Morton (markrmorton@compuserve.com)
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Summary: Author's review of DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOUR'RE THIRSTY
Review: Before reading DIG YOUR WELL BEFORE YOUR'RE THIRSTY I first of all found the title catchy. It lets you know the book is basically geared toward career or business use of networking. It also places much emphasis on the planning aspects of networking. The author takes great pains in giving examples of testimonials to the power of networking. Lou Holtz's Networking Story is a good example of how networking paid off big time. He talks about the basics of what a network is and is not. He explains that networking is a two-way activity. Today you help someone who is networking and tomorrow that same person may help you or others to network for ideas. The author goes to great length to encourage those who might be a bit timmed about approaching another person in a networking situation to go for it. He uses humor to make his point by saying "Come on in, No shark sighting today." The only minor criticism I have of the work is that it is limited to focusing on networking only in the career transition and business area. There are many more areas that networking principles can be applied. Overall I would give it a four star rating. John C. Durkin
author of NETLIVING 101, Networking Life's Journey
Cleveland, Ohio
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Summary: A reflection of communication for our times
Review: Despite all the technologies facing us and plenty of opportunities to be impersonal, Macakay points out that personalised communication still rules the day. It reminds me of that adage `Don't burn your bridges...'
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Summary: Networking for success (The Mackay way)
Review: Diq your well before you're thirsty is the only networking book you'll ever need. In 83 chapters and 310 pages you'll learn everything you need to know to succeed. My first Mackay book was the famous "Swim with the Sharks without getting eaten alive." A book that helped millions of Americans. Now Mackay delves deep ino the art of which he's a master: networking. In todays shark-eat-shark economy, talent alone will not save you. Genuis will not. Experience will not. Guts and hard work will not. If you need a job money, advice, help, hope, or a means to make a sale, there's only one surefire, fail safe place to find them---in your network. But only if you have one. Dig your well before you're thirsty contains Harvey's gold-chip advice, accumulated over a lifetime of business success, on how to build and maintain the network you need. Harvey guarantees you'll never be more than a phone call away from a person in the position to help you get what you want---whether it's the job opportunity of a lifetime or a lifetime partner, the sales prospect of your dreams or the career advice you've only dreamed of. HArvey shows you how to create a network of trusted, valuable contacts that is worth it's weight in platinum. Harvey is uniquely qualified to write this book drawing on his own networking success. You will learn from Harvey's own energizing examples and those he gleaned from world-class networkers like Muhammed Ali, Lou Holtz, Erma Bombeck, Larry King, and Pat O'Brien. Harvey is at his practical, insightful, entertaining best and shows step by step: * how to get to know the people you need to know * how to ask for what you need when you need it * how to keep relationships up to date and alive * how to sparkle in the information age and on the internet * how to unlock any door...anywhere...at any time. Harvey Mackay is more than just a bestselling author and one of America's most sought after busineess speakers, but he is a man who has done it himself and is still an active CEO. Toastmasters International has called him one of the top five speakers in the world. Two of Harveys books made the top 15 inspiritual-self help book list by the New York Times. Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is replete with "Harvey-isms" like "Networking is not a numbers game. The idea is not to see how many people you can meet; the idea is to compile a list of people you can count on" and "Most people have never figured out that it is better to spend time with fewer people at a one-hour cocktail party amd have a meaningful dialogue than practice the andering-eye routine and lose the respect of most of the people they meet." In these shark-infested times, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is a must read, provides real stories and information from the real world with real solutions. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Networking secrets that enhance your happiness
Review: Excellent! I read every word of this book. Insights in this book on networking are helping me complete "LIVING, the motion picture" which I am currently directing. Networking has brought me numerous opportunities as I help people in my role as America's Communication Coach (speaker and author). Read this book, take action on Harvey Mackay's suggestions and lift yourself to your next level of personal fulfillment, success and happiness.
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Summary: This book is Chocolate-covered Spinach
Review: Harvey MacKay has really struck home with the great book about networking. After only a day of blazing through this book, I found about a dozen or more NECESSARY! tips to write down. And this book is a fast and delectable read! It's not fair. How can a book that reads so easily and so well be so packed with essentials for conducting yourself on a day-to-day basis? That's why I call this book Chocolate-covered Spinach. It's something indulgent wrapped around something necessary.
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