Author: Kevin Fine
The Comeback Kids and “Misery loves company” so the saying goes – and in the age of Covid that seems to be the gravitational force that currently drives social and media conversations. Our attention is being continuously siloed toward the latest business failure, business rescue and somebody we know being adversely affected by the pandemic. […]
The Comeback Kids and “Misery loves company” so the saying goes – and in the age of Covid that seems to be the gravitational force that currently drives social and media conversations. Our attention is being continuously siloed toward the latest business failure, business rescue and somebody we know being adversely affected by the pandemic.
It’s alarming yes, it’s frightening in some instances and very sobering especially if you’re personally affected. But it does concern me that we aren’t as individuals, a society and in the media spending enough time ALSO celebrating the successes, inspirational stories and turn arounds during this time.
There are some minor public efforts to give kudos to individuals who’ve thrived during this time, or come up with a “cool idea” on a segment at the end of the news hour. Also some global news networks have been grabbing sound bytes from CEO’s to “share” a smidgen of their experience.
If you take a close look through history though, many organisations, countries, individuals and companies have literally risen like a Phoenix out of the ashes of adversity as The Comeback Kids.
More recently there are great business examples such as Slack, Whatsapp and Airbnb – all born just post the credit crunch fuelled by the housing bubble in 2008.
Looking further back in time to the Great Depression between 1929 and 1932, both Disney and Revlon made names for themselves, rolling out Mickey Mouse in “Steamboat Willie” and the world’s first pigment-based red nail polish respectively. It’s very likely that out of Covid we will in the future be telling the story of the vaccine developers, the companies and individuals who became heroes in this time too.
The point I’m making is that resilience, grit, innovation and super-charged thinking are all required when facing adversity. If we constantly focus on the negative, we will float around in this swirl of disaster thinking – or as the quacks call it – catastrophizing.
If we want to shift the narrative (I know it’s overused, but you get it) we must start to draw attention to the successes, the sparks of innovation, from the past and the present and realise that business and humanity as a whole have faced greater adversity than a pandemic.
Who are the “The Comeback Kids” that have turned their businesses or themselves around and reinvented and reinvigorated their business giving purpose and inspiration to their staff, suppliers and customers? Not just in the past but in the present…
Let’s talk about The Comeback Kids. Let’s celebrate the human spirit more vividly by making that the “headline” of our conversation and not the current mortality rate. Take Lekua Sehoana for example – the founder of drip footwear – retailing kicks in 5 major malls and online.
His twitter profile reads “Our Sneakers are what Township Dreams and Stories look like… Let’s explore and adapt the tools of this individual and other titans for our benefit, in business and in our personal lives.
Let’s write the script of the movie we want to star in. It’s a celebration movie of the human spirit, of rising from the ashes, and putting one’s name on the plaque that reads – I’m The Comeback Kids.
Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Twitter
The articles, video and images embedded on these pages are from various speakers and talent.
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.
Killing Fish – A freedivers take on spearfishing from Hanli Prinsloo who is an inspirational and motivational sustainability keynote speaker in Cape Town. ‘STRAIGHT SHOOTER’ (First published in DIVESITE Issue 3, 2011 with photographs by Roger Horrocks, Jean Marie Ghislain and Jean Treason – please read updated thoughts at bottom of article.) It was a choppy […]
To succeed, you have to Training Others to establish boundaries. But boundaries are only as good as your ability to communicate them. If people don’t know your boundaries, they become ineffective and are more likely to be discarded. Training other people on your boundaries requires learning how to say no. That doesn’t […]
Now that we are in the midst of the world’s largest remote work does not work experiment, it’s worth asking: what does it take to run a good virtual meeting? It is all too easy to just focus on what can be controlled and configured: security, bandwidth, platforms or devices. However, when it comes to […]
August 19th, 1996 – A date that marked a new beginning for our family, The Value of Mail is no more! That was the day we landed for the first time in which would be our new home – Canada. I was 19 years old. In 1996, there was no social media. The Internet was […]
A former 9-figure corporate CEO gives you 10 powerful questions to help you seal the deal in your next interview. Just like dressing professionally, showing up on time, and wielding a firm handshake, asking the right questions can make or break the outcome of a long-awaited interview for a super-coveted position. Asking no questions at […]
Moderating a online panel discussion can be really fun, especially if you and the panelists are well prepared and you create a good atmosphere. Here are my top 10 tips for you who will be a part of a panel discussion as an MC or a panelist 10 tips for a great online panel discussion […]
“They say with trauma, the mind may forget but the body never forgets” and here this Candice Mama covers Releasing Trauma Through the Body with Chen Lizra This week on #CoffeeWithCandice I speak to Chen Lizra she is a phenomenal embodiment of empowered femininity, she is a Somatic intelligence coach, a Tedx speaker with nearly […]
The risks of Algorithmic Inequality Trap and discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens […]
Our Mission
© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME
