Conclusion

Phew! There is some definite homework involved in staging your comeback. As I write this conclusion, I realize I need this book as much as anyone. It isn’t easy. Now, I’m bombarded with a whole new world of editing, marketing, traveling, presenting, and I need now, more than ever, a system in place that I can transport with me from city to city.

The results are so worth making the effort!

I sincerely want to hear from you: What works and what doesn’t. What you’ve learned, and if I’ve helped. The reason for writing this book was to help you attain and maintain your ultimate image. While this goal is realistic, it doesn’t get easier. Just when we want to simplify, how we present ourselves becomes more challenging. I didn’t aspire to write a book called Reclaiming Your Looks Easily and Effortlessly. I figured if it were fast and effortless, we’d be doing it already. Certainly there are tips in this book that are fast and relatively effortless. But the process, the system, for truly staging your comeback takes some effort-effort in the beginning. It soon becomes a good habit that you will enjoy. The results! Ah, the results are so worth making the effort. Truly.

Writing this book has helped me solidify my own system. It has motivated me to continue to tweak and perfect my own method of image improvement and maintenance. It reminds me that if I need this system and this motivation, others must too.

Motivation always seems temporary. I wish it weren’t! I can forget after an hour that I’ve made a diet commitment. (Like when I suddenly crave those chocolate chip cookies-not just one-ALL of them.) If I can trip my trigger in anyway to get me past that moment, I thank myself tomorrow. (Personally I grab my back fat every time I’m standing in the bakery isle; it doesn’t always work, but it helps move me toward the produce section.)

Staging Your Comeback is what I hope to be a series of information and inspiration. With your help and insight I can hone in on what works best for you and how I can improve the process of every comeback. Please go to my website, www.themakeoverguy.com, and sign up for my mailing list. Download the worksheets and create that personal image binder. Check out the blogs and write to me with questions. Absolutely nothing would thrill me more than to see your own makeover with a before photo and then a photo of when you “made your entrance.” I get shivers just thinking about it!

ONE FINAL THOUGHT

Enjoy the process!

I hope you understand that Staging Your Comeback is not about going back. It’s not about anti-aging. I’m not against aging. Contrary to what people might think, I love aging. I wouldn’t want to be another age, and I look forward to many years ahead when I get to be older. I loved being young, I’m enjoying middle age, and I think being older will be just swell—that is, if I don’t age much. It will be just fine if I can feel strong, confident, competent, and attractive. If I can be robust and sexy, with a positive mindset, I think being older will be fantastic—if I can be young when I’m old.

No, I’m not anti-aging. I’m more pro-youth. I like youthfulness. I like looking, feeling, and being young. I’ve felt and looked older than I do now, and I didn’t like it. Yes, I think young is the way to go.

Today we have the tools to look, feel, act, and be several years younger than has ever been possible. Right now I look better and am stronger and a hell of a lot smarter than I was at age twenty-one. Aren’t we all? It has little to do with genetics and a lot to do with a consistent pro-vitality program. Does it cost money? Does it take time? Yes. But to feel you’re just beginning the climb instead of heading on your way down is priceless.

To me, that is what Staging Your Comeback is about: creating more time; more time to get it right, more time to do what we came to do, be who we came to be, and enjoy the process. I intend to be young, interested, and feeling good for as long as possible. So if it takes skin care, makeup, lasers, and surgery, I’ll do it. If it takes diet, supplements, weight training, and stretching, I’m on it. If it takes meditation, affirmation, confirmation, proclamation, or just plain burning desire, then that’s what it takes. No, I’m not anti-aging, I’m pro-youth. With a system in place to look good and feel vital, I intend to be young when I’m old. Just that thought makes the journey more exciting, doesn’t it?