Outstanding talent from Hillary Clinton to Mao Tse Tung to Robert Downey, Jr. has been humbled and managed a career rebound.
Here’s one more comeback-in-progress to add to the list: Jonah Lehrer.
Lehrer’s attempt has lessons for anyone who has stumbled, made stupid mistakes, or taken a fall for someone else.
Maybe you.
Lehrer has been publicly psychoanalyzed, editorially flogged, and digitally despised. For someone who didn’t cause any part of the Great Recession, didn’t embezzle orphans or widows or kill anyone, he has clearly earned a lot of enmity. He became become somebody some people like to kick around and pile on: who knows why?
20+ years of experience working with people who have fallen off the career “bike” and gotten back on has taught me that there are five things to remember for any comeback.
Lehrer took a bad first misstep but has now followed those five tips, most importantly one that serves him best.
Start humble.
My next piece of advice if Lehrer was a client?
Stay humble.
He’s a terrific writer, and here’s hoping to comeback that goes well.
Life Back West is an occasional set of writings focused on ways people, teams and organizations can be both more effective (doing the right thing) and more efficient (doing the right thing well). More about executive, career and team / leadership coaching services can be found at the “About J. Mike Smith and Back West, Inc.” sidebar or the “Hire Me” tab. You can also read an online interview with me at WhoHub.
Symptoms + Cures (Photo credit: Wikipedia)