Creating a Better Life

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About three weeks ago, Alyssa from Sourcebooks, Inc. sent me a copy of John A. Sarkett’s new book Extraordinary Comebacks and asked me to post my thoughts on it.

In the interest of full disclosure:

1.) I am not being paid by Sourcebooks, Inc. to write this review.
2.) Links to the book are Amazon associate links.
3.) There was no obligation in her sending the book to me. I could read it and write about it, read it and not write about it, or not read it and toss it in the trash if I wanted to.

I’m glad I read it.

The book contains 201 stories of individuals from various fields: athletes, artists, musicians, politicians, business people, and more, and describes how they made their way to the top, coming back from often life threatening challenges. The book is divided first by sections that describe either the individual’s profession or personal struggle, then in alphabetical order by the subject’s name. It also has an extensive table of contents, index, and bibliography, which makes it ideal as reference material that one can use when wondering “Now, who was that Red Sox batter who took time off to fight in two separate wars?” (It was Ted Williams.)

Since I planned on writing this review, I read the book from cover to cover; it isn’t really necessary to do this. The stories are short - most are no more than a page. By reading it cover to cover, I did get stuck occasionally when I was working through the section on athletes… it’s not an area that interests me. I flew through the sections on business (did you know that Wally “Famous” Amos actually lost the rights to his own name at one point?), Literature (Dr. Seuss’ first book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry St.” was rejected by 43 publishers!), and Physical and Emotional Challenges (Norman Cousin’s story is nothing short of amazing.)

The author’s own story is one of comeback, as well. In the introduction, he describes it as a financial crash occurring in the dot com bust of 2001, coupled with medical issues. This is what motivated him to start searching for collections of stories of people who had made comebacks after strong setbacks. Since he couldn’t find one that satisfied him, he created his own… a man after my own heart.

In the introduction, the author talks about the two traits that came to the surface the most as he was reading his subject’s stories: persistence and hard work. Not one of these people sat on their butts and expected God, the Universe, or anyone to hand them anything. They may have been knocked down for a time, and most of the stories aren’t straight lines to success. But they ended up succeeding because they kept moving.

A third trait that stuck out for me was how so many of these people used anger as motivation. Many who make big comebacks seem to have learned to channel their anger into constructive action… they took what is perceived by many as a negative, unhelpful emotion and used it in a positive way. A great thing to learn, especially for someone (we won’t mention any names here) who is learning to accept and use his own anger in a positive way.

At the end of the book, the author has included a spot for Comeback #202 - your own! He encourages you to write your own story, and if you wish, to share it with him on his blog, located at thecomebackblog.blogspot.com, or email him at comebacks AT sarkett dot com. Even if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s a great exercise to imagine your own comeback - play with it in your mind and on paper. The practice of writing your own future can be a powerful one.

There is only one thing that bothered me about the book. In the story about the Dalai Lama, the author refers to him as “the spiritual leader of Buddhism.” I know that quite a few Buddhists wouldn’t appreciate that. It would be akin to telling a Congregationalist Christian that the Pope is the spiritual leader of Christianity. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Small errors of perception like this can cast doubt on other facts in the book.¹

Other than that, this is a fantastic collection, one that I know I’ll be referring to again and again for a long time.

Thank you, Mr. Sarkett, for putting this together. And thanks to Alyssa for sending it to me!

Extraordinary Comebacks retails for $14.95 in the US. As of this writing, Amazon.com has it in stock at $11.66, a 22% savings. It’s also available at local bookstores.

Footnotes

1. Update 6/13/07 - I’ve been informed by the author of Extraordinary Comebacks that this will be corrected by “inserting the word ‘Tibetan’ before Buddhism in the next printing.” Thanks for that, John! [↩]

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