Colonel Sanders, the man behind Kentucky Fried Chicken, was reputed to have been a pensioner on social security who was tired of living poorly when he decided to launch his chicken empire, in his middle 60s.

Ray Kroc, who transformed McDonalds from a small enterprise into a global behemoth, undertook that challenge in his middle 50s.

The list is long of those who ignored their ages, and the limiting attitudes of their peers, and set forth to produce monumental results.

One of my favorite stories is about a famous actor who is experiencing a renaissance, as I write these words. He was a child star, then a supporting actor in his twenties and thirties, and then he fell into obscurity in his forties and early fifties.

Dining at a trendy Beverly Hills restaurant with a fellow actor, he confided, Im probably the only person here who cant afford the price of this meal, and Im the most famous!

Comebacks are glorious, because by definition, you have to have been a washed-up, written-off, nearly forgotten has-been to even qualify as a comeback-kid.

If you rise to the top and stay there, having never encountered the kind of turbulence that makes you ditch your little craft in a swirling sea, well, youre just successful, thats all.

Its nice, and maybe hard to achieve and then sustain that success, but from an attitudinal standpoint, its a little more difficult to climb out of the dumpster and back into glory, at least from my vantage point.

But the beautiful thing about comebacks is theyre always on time. Its never too late to mount one. In fact, the longer you wait, the more heroic you seem, for having been able to pull it off.

So, if youve fallen from grace, or youve hit a speed bump, or sunk into a sinkhole, pull yourself together and plan your triumphant return to center stage.

Youll find that youre in the best company of all.