Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. — Confucius

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.  — Michael Jordan

Comeback is a good word, man.  — Mickey Rourke

It is fascinating how the world inordinately loves winners more and hates losers in general, leading to such sayings such as “Victory has many parents but defeat is an orphan.”

Just look at how many people out there are incessantly claiming that they had helped make Noynoy C. Aquino the Philippine president in the last election and are now swarming around him.

This past week, three mega-newsmakers in Philippine society who have recently suffered headline-making setbacks in their professional and personal lives, are making comebacks that should inspire us to never ever give up and to keep on fighting.

After losing a marriage, which is ending in a messy legal dispute, and losing a noontime TV show, talented multi-media star Kris Aquino is now busy filming her 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival entry Dalaw.

On Oct. 20 she was signed up for the third time by the country’s top bakeshop chain Goldilocks as their celebrity endorser at Edsa Shangri-la Hotel. She is Goldilocks’ endorser with actor Dingdong Dantes, not anymore with ex-husband James Yap.

Perhaps having unburdened herself with a difficult marriage is good for her because Kris that afternoon looked very refreshed and beautiful. This writer asked her why she’s looking good, and Kris enumerated her discipline of doing the treadmill every other day, watching her diet, etc.

I believe Kris’s film Dalaw with co-stars Diether Ocampo and Karylle will be a box office hit, because her two previous horror flicks, Sukob and Feng Shui, were phenomenal successes.

What about her love life? My fearless forecast is that she will next year find a much better man in her life, someone with the wholesome image of a Dingdong Dantes!

After vigorously supporting losing presidential bet Senator Manny Villar and losing his phenomenal Wowowee TV show on ABS-CBN 2, Willie Revillame on Oct. 23 started hosting a new show called Willing Willie! on Manny Pangilinan’s TV5 despite his former home network ABS-CBN 2 having filed a P 426.92 million counterclaim case against him for his allegedly breach of contract with them. My sources told me that before signing up with TV5, Revillame reportedly also met with GMA 7 big boss Atty. Felipe “Henry” Gozon for talks. Despite his failings and past mistakes, Revillame is still wildly popular with the general public here and overseas, and I believe he can still succeed on TV.

And last, but definitely not the least, Dr. Hayden Kho of the sex video scandal    seems to have recovered and is now reinventing himself as an entrepreneur with his own Hayden line of French-inspired perfumes that he successfully launched on Oct. 21 in a glitzy affair at Nuvo in Greenbelt 2, Makati. Wearing an all-white suit and tie, Hayden made an almost teary speech saying that a few years ago he suffered “the darkest moments” of his life, but that crisis gave him “the gift of time” to reflect and to change. 

Months ago, during his worst crisis, I had a long chat with him at a Makati coffeeshop and I suggested that he could perhaps spend his time for further studies. Although he is a half-Chinese mestizo and couldn’t speak our Hokkien dialect, I urged him to study the international business language of the future, which is Mandarin Chinese, and he did.

Nowadays, whenever I’d bump into him, he’d excitedly greet me with a few lines of fluent Mandarin. I believe he has youth and determination on his side, that he can have an exciting future ahead of him if he continues to make the right decisions and hopefully goes with the right crowd (not the nihilistic party crowd).

Napoleon, King Goujian, Mao

Not all comeback attempts are successful, but I admire people who never give up and give their best in comeback efforts. The extraordinary, genius French leader Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by a coalition of European countries, was exiled to the island of Elba, but he attempted a comeback in less than a year and he lost in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.

Other great leaders with better comeback records included the persevering King Goujian of China’s spring and autumn period over 2,500 years ago as exemplified in the ancient idiom wo xin chang dan, because he slept every night on sticks and tasted bitter bile to remind himself of past humiliating defeat by his enemies, as he bid time for his comeback.

An amazing comeback kid was the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong who suffered a series of failed struggles from the 1920s up to October 1934 when government forces ominously encircled his rebel forces and planned to wipe them out, forcing him and his comrades to undertake the epic one-year “Long March” retreat of 9,600 kilometers in the hinterlands from Jiangxi province to Shaanxi province in northwest China. He rebuilt his forces in Yan’an and in 1949 went on to change China and world history. Mao’s comeback is a favorite tale recounted to me by self-made business leader Lucio C. Tan, who himself had made comebacks from failure in his first business venture and other past crises.

My other favorite comeback story was that of Li Houzu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang kingdom from 961 to 975 AD, when China was at that period of political tumult marking the demise of the dynasty and the rise of the new Song Dynasty. I first heard his name and his remarkable story from the late self-made business leader Tan Yu, who rivalled Lucio Tan in his mastery of Chinese history and literature, and who also overcame various crises.

Tan Yu said Li Houzu had failed as ruler and witnessed the destruction of what remained of the once glorious Tang empire, but he successfully made a comeback, reinvented himself by writing poetry and is fondly remembered in history as an outstanding poet. It’s as if the defeated Napoleon the Great had spent the last years of his life as exile by writing immortal poems.

How To Make A Comeback

Personally, I’ve had his share of three reversals of fortune in my young life — first when my dad died before my seventh birthday and our family lost a privileged life, the second time was when my late mom became critically ill for two and a half years leading to our spending two decades of her life savings on medical bills, then the third time a business setback eight years ago. Friedrich Nietzsche was right, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

Here are a few suggestions on how to make a comeback: Never lose faith, do not forget that crises are temporary, do not compromise your principles by turning your back on commitments or escaping obligations, be honest to yourself and others, communicate with people to thresh out problems even if some will not be understanding and do not escape problems, be brave enough to cut losses and cut cleanly whether financially or emotionally, resume normal activities and social life, talk to true friends and kin, be positive in outlook, take care of physical health even during your darkest moments of crisis with good diet, good rest and regular exercise like what Kris Aquino is doing (exercise also produces the feel-good chemicals “endorphins”), and pray.

I believe everybody can make his or her comeback, that no one on earth is hopeless. I believe the best revenge is confounding your critics and defying the odds, that in this life there are no permanent defeats, just permanent struggles and exciting battles to win!

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Thanks for your letters, all will be answered. E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or my fan page at Facebook or WilsonLeeFlores in Twitter.com