Making your comeback in 2009

Wrote this for a friend's blog, and thought of posting here, too:

TOP 10 “To Do’s” for making your 2009 comeback

If you owned an asset in 2008, chances are it is worth less today.

You may have lost a job, or a home.

If you have a job, you may be thinking, “how secure?”

No one is immune. From Warren Buffett and his fellow billionaires, on down. Only the number of zeros and the degree of suffering varies from person to person.

We are all “one-down,” as the saying goes.

A few years ago I wrote a book: Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success. It was as much for me as for anyone else. I needed a lift, and visiting Border’s (their stock is less than $1, and they’re almost bankrupt now, too, that’s what I mean when I say we are all “one-down”) thought I’d have 20 such volumes to choose from. None (at that time) existed. So I took my tearsheets, and newspaper clippings gathered over the years, and created the manuscript and found a publisher. (I am now completing volume 2.)

500 comeback stories later, what did I learn? How does one “make a comeback?” Here is my summary and I hope it contains at least one idea that is a positive spark, a positive catalyst for you:


1. PERSIST. Don’t quit. “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” Sir Winston Churchill. As the Bible says, consider the ant.

2. MAKE THE EFFORT. Word hard. Great comebackers use all the hours in the day: chef Paula Deen barbequed all night when she was starting out with her sandwich business, mogul to-be Wayne Huizenga collected trash at night, sold new accounts in the day. Heavyweight George Foreman out-trained younger fighters to retake his crown. You can find your comeback right in the effort you make. The writer of Ecclesiastes said: “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”

3. UNDERSTAND TRANSIENCE. Don’t extrapolate temporary setbacks into permanent defeat. It’s not always going to be like this. “This, too, shall pass.” Lance Armstrong was given a 2% chance to survive cancer, he went on to win seven, consecutive Tour de Frances. Churchill again: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

4. CHANGE DIRECTION. Sylvester Stallone was stymied as an actor, so he wrote Rocky after seeing the Wepner-Ali fight. Billy Beane was a so-so baseball player, he quit and became a top GM for the Oakland A’s. Quincy Jones was a talented trumpeter, but after a stroke, he had to quit, and then became a legendary music producer. Someday we’ll all change direction: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” 1 Cor 15:19. There’s a big change coming….meanwhile:

5. EMPLOY SUPPORT. Stay away from the nay-sayers, even if they’re famous or going to be (Martin Scorsese told Billy Crystal he had “no talent.”) Pack your corner with friends who won’t let you quit. Ali did that: he wanted to quit during his first heavyweight championship, his manager wouldn’t let him. “Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them…” “Forsake not the assembling together of yourselves…”

6. REPEAT. It took Sir Edmund Hillary two attempts to climb Everest, Peary eight times to reach the North Pole, and various authors scores and sometimes hundreds of tries to get their works published. Go back again, and again, and ………Remember the woman who woke the judge at midnight, and was rewarded for her “importunity?” She was persistent, and in the end, got what she needed.

7. DREAM BIG. Your effort and ideas are worth many times what you may imagine. Fred Smith wrote a college paper that got a “C,” as the story goes, then turned it into $40 billion FedEx. Dean Karnazes ran a 226 mile ultramarathon and 350 mile run, plus 50 marathons in 50 days (2006). J.K. Rowling wrote her ideas about a fictional boy during a train ride. Harry Potter sold 100 million copies, and $4 billion movie box office, and counting. Pavarotti and his fellow two tenors got nothing for the first Three Tenors concert, it was for charity. They re-packaged it for pay the next time around, and a string of concerts and CDs followed. When he passed on, Pavarotti’s estate was valued at $475 million. You can do much more than you imagine. Dream big. The biggest dreams come from God himself: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jer. 29:11

8. STAY HUMBLE. Attitude -- is everything. When tennis legend Andre Agassi fell from No. 1 to No. 141 (1997), he started over, went back to the minor leagues, upped his training, including weightlifting. It set the stage for greater things than ever before. Attitude – not image – is everything. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.” Matt. 6:33

9. SELF-PROGRAM. Get a mantra. A psychiatrist-hypnotist provided Rachmaninoff the composer, who had a writing block, with a positive self-talk mantra: “You will begin your concerto. You will work with great facility. The concerto will be excellent.” It worked. He wrote his Piano Concerto No. 2. Many of us Christians employ a special verse that never fails to give a meaningful lift, or helps us refocus on what is truly important: “Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither. Ezek. 40:4” Speaking of which:

10. LOOK UP. Greatest comeback of all time, that of Jesus Christ to his kingdom on earth is still ahead, some say just ahead. That is the last comeback in Extraordinary Comebacks. “I will come again.” “In my house are many mansions.” Hey, Christian. Great news. No matter what the score at halftime, we win in the end. Never forget it, or your worth to God in that kingdom, even for a minute.


Learn more about Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success by John A. Sarkett at http://sarkett.com or Amazon. He has two blogs: http://thecomebackblog.blogspot.com/ and http://sarkett.blogspot.com.

Also the author of After Armageddon and A short BOOK OF BIBLE PROPHECY: 77 predictions on USA, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Europe, The Euro, Mideast War, Global Warming, and more, see http://sarkett.com/aa for more.

Gilbert Kaplan summits his Mahler experience

ONE April Saturday in 1965, an economist at the American Stock Exchange was taken by a friend to an orchestral rehearsal at Carnegie Hall. He watched impassively as Leopold Stokowski, the aged Hollywood maestro who conducted “Fantasia”, stop-started Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.2 in C minor all afternoon. The economist thought little of it until later that night, when, sleeplessly, he tossed and turned, haunted by the music he had heard. Next morning he bought a ticket and at the concert “just found myself sobbing, absolutely hysterical”.

Please read on

Here's an excerpt from "Extraordinary Comebacks 2" -- available January, 2009:

Montero, Gabriela

When it comes to the love of music, music teachers are often more effective at quenching it than stoking it. So it was with Gabriela Montero. The young Venezuelan debuted at five, and performed with the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra 'Simon Bolivar' conducted by Jose Antonio Abreu at eight.

By eleven, young Gabriela Montero was at a crossroads: already a big fish in a small musical pond. Her parents decided to bring her to the U.S. to study.

She said they thought it their responsibility to provide everything they could for her development.

The family found a home in Miami. Montero’s talent was profiled on local television. She was a star to the world, but inwardly she was doubting. Her teacher questioned her talent, and belittled her improvisation.

Improvisation has a long and fabled history within the greater story of music history. It was once considered de rigeur that an artist could and would improvise from a provided melody. Immortals like J.S. Bach were famous for their ability to improvise. So, too, Beethoven, Mozart, countless other masters.

But Montero’s teacher knew better. It was nothing special, certainly not worth cultivating, or so he said.

The teacher, however, was quenching the very gift for which she would become most famous. Not only that, it was the love of her life, expression through improvisation.

There is nothing like a music teacher to kill the love of music. No one does it better.

She kept playing, but the meaning and enthusiasm was ebbing away. Eventually, there was no impetus to play at all. As a twentysomething, she stayed away from the keyboard for two years.

She took some lessons, played some concerts, married (twice), had children (two). But piano? It wasn’t really going anywhere.

Then, at thirty-one (2001), she sought out a guru to help her sort her conflicting feelings, one who had been there herself: superstar pianist Martha Argerich. One night, after a few too many drinks, Montero played for the famed pianist, Beethoven, plus improvisations.

Argerich saw something of herself in the player and playing. Praising her, she provided Montero the validation she had sought her entire life.

Montero moved to the classical capital of the world, New York, and reinvigorated, went about renewing her career, this time for keeps.

Critics love the spontaneity she brings to her improv-tinged playing, and even better, her CDs sell. Gabriela Montero is now one of the most sought after names on both the classical, and jazz stages.

Making a glorious comeback to the keyboard she had left alone for two years a decade before, she said she had found her sense of purpose. What could be greater? Or a greater comeback?

They rebuild their spirits with classical music

What comes to mind when you mention Venezuela? Hugo Chavez probably, or oil, or baseball? What probably does not come to mind is classical music.

And yet, Venezuela is the home of a music program that’s so extraordinary it has been hailed as the future of classical music itself.

As correspondent Bob Simon first reported in April, it's called "el Sistema" - "the system" - and it’s all about children, about saving them - hundreds of thousands of children - through music.

CBS 60 Minutes tells the story.

Comeback for Nadal

In what's being called the "greatest tennis match ever," Wimbledon finals, today, Sunday, July 06, 2008, it was Roger Federer who thrilled viewers by coming back from two sets down to make the eventual champion Rafael Nadal perform at an unbelievable level for five sets to claim his victory.

The comeback?

Nadal had lost -- to Roger Federer -- in 2007, and 2006. But he kept his eye on his goal, and powered by a legendary work ethic, strong family support and a modest personal mien, he came back to Centre Court to claim his hard-won victory.

Forbes June 30, 2008 comeback stories: Simon Cowell, Mark Wahlberg

Must read: Wahlberg, Cowell

Rx: Gladiator

We avoided the 2000 Academy Award Best Picture "Gladiator" for a long time -- just didn't sound interesting.

Boy, were we wrong.

This is a comeback story writ epic large. Recommended.