The IF Factor

Adversity is inevitable. Challenges, setbacks, disappointment, criticism – you won’t be able to avoid these for long. The most important question is how will you respond to adversity? If there is anyone with reason enough to respond to his circumstances with a negative attitude, it’s Rob Mendez. Rob was born with what they call tetra-amelia…

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No matter how talented people are, there is no success without perseverance. Perseverance is not an issue of talent. It’s not an issue of time. It’s about finishing. Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it. Today, I want to give you four statements about perseverance that I’ve found to be true and ask…

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Some people fail forward. Others fail and quickly spiral downward. These two types of people are very different, but how? “The difference is on the inside. It’s the spirit of the individual. Those who profit from adversity possess a spirit of humility and are therefore inclined to make the necessary changes needed to learn from…

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Perseverance is not an issue of talent. It is not an issue of time. It is about finishing. Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it. Running Past Failure As a small child, Vonetta (Jeffrey) Flowers dreamed about being in the Olympics. She ran everywhere she went, and gained a reputation among her school…

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Disheartened after another day of failing to connect with his students, the young teacher trudged upstairs to his office and slumped down at his desk chair in defeat. He was angry, and he had every right to be mad. After all, his boss at the YMCA had assigned him a seemingly impossible task. He had…

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No one wants to feel invisible as they pass through life, yet we often get the impression that others see us as little more than a statistic. Our resume ends up in a pile, our performance reviews goes into a file, and like everyone else we get a raise every once in a while. We’re…

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Exactly 100 years before America put a man on the moon, the nation had accomplished another astonishing technological feat: the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The ambitious transportation route spanned the width of the United States, connecting residents of America’s Pacific Coast with those on the Atlantic Coast. The newly constructed railway cut travel time…

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In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s the Berlin Wall served as a tangible reminder of the Iron Curtain separating Western democracies from Europe’s Soviet-led Eastern bloc. The East German government had erected the wall in an attempt to halt the country’s “Brain Drain,” in which ever-increasing numbers of prominent citizens were fleeing westward. The barricade…

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With $50 in his pocket, Dustin Hoffman headed to New York, hoping to find work as an actor. Inexperienced and unknown, Hoffman struggled to find employment. Acting gigs were not paying his bills, so he worked an assortment of odd jobs to stay afloat, including typing for the Yellow Pages, stringing together Hawaiian leis, and…

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