
C.S. Lewis observed that experience is a brutal teacher but we learn, god, how we learn.
With the current volatility in the economy and how the media can upend careers, comebacks are more common. Or at least the attempt at them. Also, another force driving comebacks is simple aging and there is a lot of that these days.
So, many of us are watching Madonna, now over-50. Can she pull off a comeback? She performed at halftime during the SuperBowl. She did a film on the Duchess of Windsor. She produced a new album MDNA.
It is frequently with some glee that both the official media and twitters opine critically about this comeback. In FORBES, for example, Roger Friedman reports that album MDNA had the second week biggest drop in sales history. It went from 359,000 the first week to 46,000 the second. The first week's numbers were partly due to the CDs included with the sale of concert tickets.
Is Madonna, who always had more than the average share of highly vocal critics, under the microscrope because what she has recently been turning out is not exciting? Or is it because her aging makes her a target in the entertainment world which can be brutal on those over even 40?
The interesting thing to watch here is what Madonna does, both in the art and science (proven promotional formulas), to remain relevant. We have noticed how former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has yet to catch on again. He has tried being a columnist and a talker on TV. Former politico Al Gore has never really made it back after his splash in positioning global warming as the cause. His Current TV isn't doing so hot. Oprah Winfrey is starting out yet again to make OWN a go.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton roared back as Secretary of State after her defeat in campaigning for the White House. Me? To my surprise I have been able to come back yet again. Most recently it was from the error of trying to have a young - read that "snarky" - voice on the web. Among others, Gawker panned me. But here I am back. My list of clients from the establishment and startups is growing. If there is a secret to the comeback it is to become hopeless or bottom out. Henry Cloud has lots of wisdom on that in his book "Necessary Endings." That dynamic also underlines 12-step programs: Surrender to win. Before this, my last comeback was around 2004 (Download Geezerguts).