Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 462 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Quiet Power of Nature Within You. Edited and adapted from The Power of Repose by Annie Payson Call.

Inspirational Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I’d like to start today by telling you about a teaching resource that I have available online. It’s a reading comprehension course that I created for elementary and middle school students, as well as students of English as a Second Language. This fun, quiz-based course not only helps improve reading comprehension. It also boosts knowledge in the humanities, arts, and sciences.

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Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Power of Repose by Annie Payson Call, published in 1891.

Within all of us there is an exquisite sense of growing power that comes from Nature. In studying Nature, we not only realize the strength that comes from following her lead, but we discover her within ourselves gently moving us onward.

We all believe that we look to Nature; but it is surprising how often we are mistaken. We all would profit much if we took but fifteen minutes every day simply to think of Nature and her methods of working, and to see at the same time how we constantly interfere with the best use of her powers. Try to realize the quiet power of all natural growth and movement: from a blade of grass, through a tree (a forest of trees), the entire vegetable growth on earth; the movement of the planets to the growth and involuntary vital operations of our own bodies.

Listen to episode 461 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Motivation for Mastering Your Circumstances. Edited and adapted from The Freedom of Life by Annie Payson Call.

Motivational Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I know that many of you are isolating at home now and wondering how to pass the time. Not surprisingly, my advice is to focus on self-growth. And if you need some tools, I’ve decided to offer all of our e-books and meditations for only $9. You’ll get all 3 of our life lesson books, plus our MAJESTY mediation, our Positive Affirmations Sleep Meditation, and our break-free from addiction meditations. Get this special package now by going to LivingHour.org/special. This $9 deal will only be available for a few days, so go now to LivingHour.org/special. Thank you.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Freedom of Life by Annie Payson Call, published in 1905.

IT is not the circumstances of life that trouble or weigh upon us. It is the way we take them. If a person is playing a difficult game of chess, the more intricate the moves, the more thoughtfully they look over their own and their opponent's pieces, and the more fully they are aroused to make the right move toward a checkmate. If, when the game became difficult, the player stopped to be depressed and disheartened, their opponent would probably always checkmate them. However, in most cases, the more difficult the game, the more thoroughly the players are aroused to do their best. And a difficult game is invariably a good one — the winner and the loser both feel it to be so, even though the loser may regret their loss.

“But,” you may say, “a game of chess is a game only — neither one's bread and butter nor one's life depend upon winning or losing it.” Well, yes, but if we need to be cool, quiet, and decisive for a game (which is merely an amusement), and if we play the game better for being cool, quiet, and decisive, why is not a quiet steadiness in wrestling with the circumstances of life just as necessary — not only that we may meet the particular problem of the moment truly, but that we may gain all the experience that may be helpful in meeting other difficult circumstances.

Listen to episode 460 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Life of Freedom | Overcoming Self-Consciousness. Edited and adapted from The Freedom of Life by Annie Payson Call.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Self-consciousness may be truly defined as a person's inability to get out of their own way. There are, however, some people who are so entirely self-conscious that don’t even realize it. They are so completely in bondage to themselves that they have no glimpse of the possibility of freedom, and therefore this bondage is pleasant to them.

With these people there is nothing to do. It is only those who have begun to realize their bondage that can take any steps toward freedom. The self-satisfied slaves must stay in prison until they see where they are. It is both curious and sad to see them rejoicing in their bondage and miscalling it freedom. Indeed, it makes one long to see them struck by an emergency, bringing a flash of that inner light which is often the beginning of a new state of being.

When such enlightenment occurs, it is usually followed by a time of groping in the dark, and always by more or less suffering. But one must continue on the path, assured of the good results to come. Self-development requires that we be steadily patient, content to aim in the true direction day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. If we fall, we must pick ourselves up and go right on. Whatever the stone may be that we have tripped over, we will have learned that it is there, and, while we may trip over the same stone many times, if we learn our lesson each time, it decreases the possible number of stumbles, and smooths our path more than we know.

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Listen to episode 459 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Inspiration for a Larger, Richer, More Beautiful Life. Edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The mind that lives in doubt can see limitations everywhere. The mind that lives in faith can see no limitations, and, in fact, knows that there are no limitations anywhere. The mind that lives in doubt is in bondage to these seeming limitations, and therefore realizes nothing more of life than what is confined within these seeming limitations. But the mind that lives in faith, lives in the freedom of the all of life, and is daily realizing more and more of everything that is contained in the all of life.

Faith can see that no matter how large or beautiful life may be now, there is always a larger and a more beautiful life to live for, to work for, and to realize in the days that are near at hand. In a life of faith, there is no end to anything; there is always something more, always something richer, always something greater, always something better.

Listen to episode 458 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Faith that Moves Mountains | Spiritual Power. Edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. If you find yourself stuck at home these days, now is a great time to work on building a lifelong positive mindset that will keep you joyful and usher you through any difficulty in life. Listening to our podcast is one good thing to do, but to revisit our podcasts and also read the inspirational essays is a powerful practice, too. Gain access to over 450 of our essay transcripts by simply becoming our monthly patron. You can do so for as little as $3 a month. Learn more by visiting LivingHour.org/patron. Thank you.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson, published in 1912.

To the person who has faith nothing is impossible. It matters not what you may wish to realize or what you may wish to do; if you have faith, it can be done.

But what do we mean by faith? Faith is not a passive belief; it is positive action. It is the power of the spirit within us, acting upon the life, mind, body, and the nature of our being; and by acting through us, it acts upon everything with which we may come in contact.

When we have faith, we do not simply believe in the form or that which may exist in the external. When we have faith, we enter into the spirit of that in which we express our faith. The secret of real faith, and the real power of such a faith, is therefore found in the spirit.

Listen to episode 457 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Developing Vision and Perspective. Edited and adapted from The Pursuit of Happiness by George Hodges.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. To get the best of our podcast in heirloom hardcover or digital e-book, please visit InspirationalLifeLessons.com. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Pursuit of Happiness by George Hodges, published in 1906.

Last time, I talked with you about determination and regulation as helps to happiness. The 3rd quality which will assist you to be happy is Proportion. By proportion I mean a true perspective. Proportion ministers to happiness because it restrains us from the exaggeration of excitement. They who lack it are like newspapers which have used up all their biggest type on screaming bulletins of petty fights and hysterical gossip, and have nothing larger for a battle which is determining the destiny of nations.

It is well to distinguish between a scratch and a surgical operation. It is well to save our supreme emotions for supreme events. I do not mean an unnatural repression of feeling or of speech. But the truth is that great joys and sorrows come but seldom. So, let us not get excited every common day. Let us reserve some stirrings of the heart for the occasions that truly call for them.

Listen to episode 456 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Secrets to the Pursuit of Happiness. Edited and adapted from The Pursuit of Happiness by George Hodges.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thanks to our newest monthly patron, Samuel Wallace. To learn how you can become our monthly patron and gain access to our entire archive of over 450 podcasts, plus transcripts, delivered right into your smart phone, please visit LivingHour.org/patron. Thank you.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Pursuit of Happiness by George Hodges, published in 1906.

Today I would like to talk with you about certain helps to happiness. The first is Determination. And by that I mean the will to be happy — for happiness is largely an interior matter. It is subjective; it does not depend on any particular environment, but depends solely upon our relation to the great currents of life. If we resist, there is friction and distress; if we fling ourselves boldly into the eternal tides, we are swept into every form of beauty and truth.

This does not mean that we should try to attain that sort of contentment which lets the world go by without an effort to change it for the better. When bad conditions may be changed, it is the imperative of all good people to be persistently discontented until they change them.

Listen to episode 455 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Power of Being Bold & Decisive. Edited and adapted from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The women and men who have left a mark upon their century have been the ones of great and prompt decision. An undecided person, a person who is ever balancing between two opinions, forever debating which of two courses they will pursue, proclaims by their indecision that they cannot control themselves, that they were meant to be possessed by others. They are not in the arena, but in the stands.

The individual of decision, of prompt action, does not wait for favorable circumstances. They do not submit to events; events must submit to them.

The vacillating woman and man is ever at the mercy of the opinion of the person who talked with them last. They may see the right, but they drift toward the wrong. If they decide upon a course, they only follow it until somebody opposes it.

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Listen to episode 454 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Art of Conversation | Inspirational Podcast Tips. Edited and adapted from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: To be a good conversationalist — to able to interest people, rivet their attention, draw them to you naturally by the very superiority of your conversational ability — is a great accomplishment, one that is superior to all others. It not only helps you to make a good impression upon strangers, it also helps you to make and keep friends. It opens doors and softens hearts. It makes you interesting in all sorts of company. It helps you to get on in the world. It sends you clients, patients, customers. It helps you into the best society of your peers.

A person who can talk well, who has the art of putting things in an attractive way, who can interest others immediately by their power of speech, has a great advantage over one who may know more than them, but who cannot express themselves with ease or eloquence.

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Listen to episode 453 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Success is Seldom Accidental | Your Opportunities. Edited and adapted from How to Get On in the World by Major A.R. Calhoun.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thanks to our newest patron Mike Duquette. By becoming our patron, Mike now has access to more than 150 podcasts from the archive no longer publically available, as well as full transcripts to every episode, and the exclusive weekly series Our Sunday Talks. You too can gain access to all these benefits for as little as $3 a month. Learn more by visiting LivingHour.org/patron.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from. How to Get On in the World by Major A.R. Calhoun, published in 1895.

A person may leap into sudden fortune at a bound, and without effort or foresight, but it is doubtful if any great permanent success ever was the outcome of blind chance.

The old adage, "Trust to luck," like many other adages that time has kept in unmerited circulation, is a bad one. The individual who trusts to luck for their clothing is apt to wear rags, and the one who depends on it for food is sure to go hungry.

We hear a great deal about the wonderful things that have been done by chance, but we seldom take the time to examine them. We read that sir Isaac Newton, sitting in his garden one day, "Chanced to see an apple fall to the ground," and this set him to thinking, and he discovered the laws of gravitation.

Now, ever since the first apple fell from the first tree in Eden, people have been watching that very commonplace occurrence. We might extend the field so as to embrace oranges, coconuts, and all the fruits and nuts which have been falling to the ground — yet they set no person to thinking, simply because not one of the millions of people who "chanced" to see the incident, "chanced" to have the reasoning powers of the great English scientist. The falling of the apple in Newton's garden thus was not a chance, but an ordinary incident, which was made much of in the mind of an extraordinary man.