Foreword
A Comeback is often associated with Sportspeople, Actors - all usually famous “back in the day” and after a period away from the limelight through whatever reason they have another shot at the title!
This Comeback is not about a reversal of famous misfortune. This Comeback is about you. Now you maybe a Father, Son, Husband, Wife, Daughter, Friend that had joy once in those relationships, but it may have slipped away and you’re looking for another chance bigger and better than before. This Comeback is about overcoming health issues, relationships breakdowns, business failures. This Comeback is written to help you on your way to putting that Championship belt of “life” and “Love” back on.
Is The Comeback a training program, a self help book? It could be classed as that but what it is in reality is a series of Chats between me, Shane Hodge and You who’s reading it. How did I come up with that style?
The Comeback as you will read is a “Combination”. First it’s a result of my own experience that goes back over twenty-five years in the field of Motivation and Personal Development. Secondly it is a result of three wonderful months I spent with my Mother whilst she was coping with Cancer and the daily chats we had. Lastly it’s about the Comeback of ordinary people like you and me with ordinary problems, how we can change and how we can turn a disaster into a victory.
These Chats between my Mummy and me that were often held sitting in a park, around her bedside, on the back porch at the family home, are the format for my chats with you. The chats are designed to help you with answers and advice to questions you may raise during the stages of your own Comeback. I hope you enjoy the chats as much as I did with my Mum and that you’re Comeback in whatever area of life you choose is a great one.
My own Comeback would not have been successful without the help of many people, but in particular I want to say thank you to a few.
To My Brother Craig and Sister Karen, I love you both and I thank you for your support and for allowing and accepting my Comeback as your Brother.
Tracy Hodge the Champion of “Never give up” thank you my love and hugs babe for your constant encouragement, and never letting me forget “you got potential baby”.
To the Grammar Queens Auntie Helen and Auntie Judi, I made mistakes just to keep you busy ha-ha, but seriously my lifelong friend and her sister are two wonderful people and I give heaps of hugs to you.
To John Fifield, thank so much for the Skype chats during the creation of The Comeback. Your input and constant motivation made it such great fun mate.
To My “ex-wives” Dor and Chrissie, thank you for your support and being great mates always.
To Veronkini, wow so tough you are girl, but you made sense each time you made a complaint and I thank you for that, and yes you had the idea for the cover.
Kerryn Keane, thanks love for reading the early version over and over and offering advice and also for your Interior Design tips for the Videos!
Rachel Baby for her support and love throughout the writing.
Peter Charlesworth and Ian Aitken at Minelab for believing in me, Steve Owens in LA for awesome reminders of “back in the Day”, Brother Carlos, Michael Del Gardo in Corona for sending me love and hugs when I needed it and Comeback Bill in China for his love and sensational translation.
Adam Lee for the awesome photography we used for the cover.
Bronwyn Mawson of Foresight in Perth for the incredible cover design
Finally to my Children, Luke, Kyle, Mara and Miranda for never stopping in your love for me, and giving me the reason for a Comeback.
And to all those that helped but I didn’t give you applause, I now kow tow and say Love you.
God Bless You.
Lessons from Chats with Mummy
My name is Shane Hodge and in 2009 and after 12 years of living overseas I returned home to the Land of OZ. I returned not really knowing what or where I was going to live or what I was going to do. During the last 12 years I had built companies, been on TV watched by over 500 million people in China, heck I even sang the National Anthem for my Government in Kuala Lumpur. I had made and lost and made small fortunes, dined with the rich and famous and the poor and down and out, I had done and achieved so much, but at a cost. For twelve years I had not been a Father, a brother and last but not least I had not been a son. Little did I know that my time had arrived for my own personal….COMEBACK
What do I mean by Comeback? Well you read about it every day. The “Comebacks” by sporting teams that after suffering the potential of massive defeat, turn things around and become winners instead of losers. You hear about great business people who after losing it all, get it all together and are back in business bigger and better than what they were before. You hear about actors or singers falling from grace and then get a break and are back to where they were high flyers again.
I am not a sportsman, not a former multi millionaire and I have never starred in a major movie or had a hit record. I am just a Father, Son, Husband and Friend that totally lost his way, swallowed up by the lure of the high flying life overseas but I truly forgot about the responsibilities and precious nature of the real roles in my life.
I mentioned Comebacks such as sportsmen and business gurus that seem to get all the press and I would assume they have a driver or a moment that swings them into the Comeback mode it might be survival even embarrassment. Well, mine was driven by a moment that was personal and close to home. My Comeback was driven by my Mum.
Why Mum? A few weeks after arriving back in Australia, I was told my 76 year old mother had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia(AML),and after refusing the option of treatment, she had around a year to live. With my dad passing away the year before, a sister busy with her own family, a brother recovering from Colon Cancer, it was my role to take care of my Mum during her illness.
At the time I didn’t know that the time I would spend with Mum was going to be an incredible journey of emotion, love and most importantly, my first COMEBACK as a son. We were to spend many wonderful hours, seven days a week, laughing, talking, crying trying to make her as comfortable as possible, to enjoy the months she had been told would be left for her to spend her time on this wonderful earth.
The journey with my Mum would open so many doors to rooms of soul searching. It would open so many areas of my life, my emotions and feelings. The Journey had a theme, a theme that was set by a quote Mum made during her illness.
That quote was: The Things that Matter? Are the Things that Matter.
Mum was diagnosed with AML in October 2009. Her illness started to move forward at a pretty rapid pace and soon it became apparent we could no longer manage the illness at home. But the mere mention of elderly care or nursing home soon had mum flying off the handle with the Old, “You’re not putting me in with a bunch of old people” which coming from a 76 year old wheelchair bound just diagnosed with a terminal disease? Was in a way amusing! My Brother, Sister and I were trying to think of ways to convince her, but then abruptly she took a nasty
