Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

By The Living HourHealth & FitnessMental HealthReligion & SpiritualityEducationSelf-ImprovementSpirituality
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Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness episodes

  • Am I a Genius? | How the Successful Succeed | Motivation
    Listen to episode 229 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Am I a Genius? | How the Successful Succeed. Edited and adapted from A Book of Cheerful Counsel by Nixon Waterman, published in 1909.
    Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I’d like to start today by thanking some of our new patrons, including Margo Blake, Anna Rido Suico, Otis Irvine, and Philip Dvil. When you become a patron of our podcast, you receive exclusive access to all of the transcripts in our podcast archive, as well as access to the patron series Our Sunday Talks — and it costs as little as 3$ month. Learn more at LivingHour.org/patron.
    Now, on to today’s reading, which was edited and adapted from A Book of Cheerful Counsel by Nixon Waterman, published in 1909.
    "AM I A GENIUS?" "You hope, and perchance believe, no doubt, that when you have a full opportunity to show the world what sort of timber you are made of that people will look upon you as being a (quote) "genius." Almost every person cherishes some such aspiration. And why not? Such a trend of thought is to be encouraged. It is proper and commendable. We would all be geniuses if we could. The world admires a genius. If you are the genuine article, it seeks your autograph, prints your picture in books and magazines, and when you pass away it is likely to build a monument over your remains.
    Can we all be geniuses? Some say we can and some say we cannot. Some say geniuses are born and some say they are self-made. When Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, was asked for his definition of genius he answered: "Two per cent is genius and ninety-eight per cent is hard work.”
    This definition of genius quite agrees with that given by the American statesman, Alexander Hamilton, who said: "All the genius I have lies in just this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings; my mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I eventually make, the people are pleased to call genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
    17 min
  • New Year's Resolutions | How to Keep Them | Motivation
    Listen to episode 227 of the Inspirational Living podcast: New Year’s Resolutions | How to Keep Them. Edited and Adapted from The Mind & Its Education by George Herbert Betts, published in 1906.
    Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I’m launching today’s podcast a day early to welcome in the New Year. I’m sure many of you have made set goals for 2018 and made New Year’s resolutions to live in ways that are healthier to the mind, body, and spirit. To do this successfully is all about changing our habits — getting rid of the bad ones and creating positive new ones.
    So, habit formation is the subject of today’s reading, which I’ve pulled from the archive. It is edited and adapted from The Mind & Its Education by George Herbert Betts, published in 1906.
    Habit is our "best friend or worst enemy." We are "walking bundles of habits." Habit is a "cable which we cannot break." Such are the popular expressions linked with habitual behavior. In other words, let me know your habits of life, and you have revealed your moral standards and conduct. Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I understand your type of mind and methods of thought.
    In short, our lives are largely a daily round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that. Most of our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have formed the habit of thinking; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we sleep, or eat, or speak as we have grown into the habit of doing these things. But while habit may be considered a tyrant, its potential benefits far exceed the bad.
    17 min
  • Pathways to a Beautiful Life | Our Sunday Talks
    Listen to episode 221 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Pathways to a Beautiful Life | Our Sunday Talks. Edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson, published in 1910.
    Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. If you have someone on your Christmas shopping list who is interested in spiritual growth and who might describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” I have a gift idea for you. Give them exclusive patron access to our series Our Sunday Talks, which features talks dedicated to spirituality and spiritual growth. To learn how you can give access as a special Christmas gift, please visit LivingHour.org/Christmas.
    To give you a better idea of the kind of talks that we deliver in Our Sunday Talks, I am going to play for you today a talk that we delivered this past Sunday (December 10th), which was edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson, published in 1910.
    We are searching for pathways to a beautiful life. But often we don’t know where to begin, and what guideposts we should use to navigate our journey. The first thing to do is to recognize the great truth that every individual can live their own life exactly as they wish to. You are the real master of your own existence, and it is you who may determine how perfect and how beautiful that existence is to be.
    Your life is in your own hands. You may live as you wish. You may secure from life whatever you desire, because there is no limit to life, and no limit to your capacity to live. The elements of life can be modified, changed, developed and perfected to comply with your own supreme demand.
    The increase of life can be realized in the exact measure of your largest need. You are in living touch with Infinite life, and there is neither limit nor end to the source of your supply. To live in the constant recognition of this great truth, is to rise continually into higher and higher degrees of that mastery of life that gives us the power to live our lives according to our most perfect ideals.
    18 min
  • Success & The Habit of Self-Improvement | Self-Help
    Listen to episode 220 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Success & The Self-Development Habit. Edited and adapted from the book Self-Investment by Orson Swett Marden, published in 1911.
    Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Education, as commonly understood, is the process of developing the mind by means of books and teachers. When education has been neglected, either by reason of lack of opportunity, or because advantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded, the one remaining hope is self-improvement.
    Opportunities for self-improvement surround us; the helps to self-improvement are abundant, and in this day of cheap books, free libraries, evening schools, and the internet, there can be no good excuse for neglecting to use these faculties for self-development which are so abundantly supplied.
    When we look at the difficulties which hindered the acquisition of knowledge long ago (the scarcity and the costliness of books, the long hours of work and toil which left so little time for study), we may well marvel at the giants of scholarship those days of hardship produced. And when we add to these limitations, the physical disabilities, blindness, deformity, and ill-health which many contended against, we may feel shame as we contemplate the fullness of our modern opportunities, and the helps and incentives to study and self-development which are so lavishly provided for our use and inspiration, and of which we avail ourselves so little.
    Today is the final day to get our hardcover books Everest (50 Motivational Life Lessons) & Evergreen (50 Inspirational Life Lessons) at a 30% discount. Order your copies by midnight tonight to get them on sale and in time for Christmas!
    18 min
  • Wake Up & Live | Mindfulness Exercises | Dorothea Brande

    Listen to episode 214 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Wake up & Live | Mindfulness Exercises. Edited and adapted from Wake Up & Live by Dorothea Brande.

    Motivational Podcast Excerpt: There are dozens of small ways by which we can make our minds both keener and more flexible – two qualities that are necessary for those who intend to live successfully. We all succumb too easily to the temptation to find a routine which allows us to get our day’s tasks done with a minimum of effort and conscious attention — a fact which might have no unfortunate effects at all if we used the time we save by our routines to a good purpose.

    But the cold truth is that we do nothing of the sort. We apply the habit of routines to our whole lives, growing mentally and spiritually more flaccid, more timorous, less experimental with every day we spend supported by the rigidity of habit. Habit takes care of most of our ordinary activities. We get through our work by using only that part of our intellect which has been trained to consider the work’s specific problems. When we meet a novel thought or situation, we fall back on an analogy and act according to the prejudice or emotion which it arouses in us.

    Even those who think of themselves as extraordinarily hard workers are not usually in that state of mental training which allows them to get the most from their lives.....

    For a limted time, get 30% off our new hardcover book Everest (50 Motivational Life Lessons), as well as last year's best-seller Evergreen (50 Inspirational Life Lessons). Use the coupon code: LIVINGHOUR30. Learn more at our book website: InspirationalLifeLessons.com.

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    18 min
  • Motivation for Exercise & a Healthy Lifestyle
    Listen to episode 212 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Motivation for Exercise & a Healthy Lifestyle. Edited and Adapted from Practical Ethics by William De Witt Hyde.
    Motivational Podcast Transcript: A healthy life requires a body that is well fed. And, after that, the next demand is for exercise. Our powers are given us to be used; and unless they are used they waste away. Nothing destroys power so surely and completely as disuse.
    The only way to keep our powers is to keep them in exercise. We acquire the power to lift by lifting; to run, by running; to write, by writing; to talk, by talking; to build houses, by building; to trade, by trading.
    In mature life our exercise comes to us chiefly along the lines of our business, domestic, and social relations. In childhood and youth (before the pressure of earning a living comes upon us), we must provide for needed exercise in artificial ways. The play-impulse is nature's provision for this need.
    It is by hearty, vigorous play that we first gain command of those powers on which our future ability to do good work depends. It is the duty of every grown person, as well as of every child, to take time for physical recreation.
    Exercise taken in a systematic way for its own sake is a great deal better than nothing; and in crowded schools (and in sedentary occupations) such fitness exercises are the best thing that can be had. The best exercise, however, is that of which we are the least conscious.
    For a limted time, get 30% off our new hardcover book Everest (50 Motivational Life Lessons), as well as last year's best-seller Evergreen (50 Inspirational Life Lessons). Use the coupon code: LIVINGHOUR30. Learn more at our book website: InspirationalLifeLessons.com.
    Use the coupon code also to get 30% off any book that YOU create with Blurb, our book manufacturer. Create superb quality photography books, trade paperpacks, and more. Visit them at Blurb.com.
    16 min
  • Finding the Strength to Love | Spiritual Growth
    Listen to episode 206 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Finding the Strength to Love | Spiritual Growth. Adapted Edited and adapted from The Pathway of Roses by Christian D. Larson.
    Spiritual Growth Podcast Excerpt: There is nothing to lose but failure, and everything to gain, when we learn to love in a strong, high, universal sense. To begin, love as much as you can; be directly interested in the highest welfare of everybody; feel in the depths of the soul that we are all working together for the greatest good to all humanity; and make this feeling so strong that it thrills every fibre in your being.
    But do not love for effect. Love because you feel love. And train yourself to feel love by loving with all the power of love, and in the highest, purest sense you know. Those who try to ascend will go up; those who try to become strong will enter power; and those who try to love everybody with the deepest, highest, strongest love of the soul will daily enter more and more deeply into the very spirit of that love that is love.
    And when you are awakened in the world of true spiritual love, real love takes possession of all your feelings and desires; and all your love will eternally love because it is love. From that moment you will constantly receive love from all the world and constantly give love to all the world.
    Become a patron of the Inspirational Living podcast to get access to the full transcript and access to the Our Sunday Talks series: http://livinghour.org/patron.
    Related Spiritual Podcasts:
    Spirituality & Soul Wisdom
    The Joy of Selfless Love
    18 min
  • Success & The True Test of Character | Wealth & Fame
    Listen to episode 203 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Success & The True Test of Character. Adapted from The Power of Purpose by William George Jordan.
    Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The great test of individual character is not struggle, but attainment; not failure, but success; not adversity, but prosperity. When Nature wants to put you through the third degree, she places near you the laurel wreaths of victory. She megaphones to you the world's plaudits of success. She parades stacks of newspaper clippings and magazine articles with your portrait. She clinks money-bags in your ears, and she tells you confidentially of the world-changing power of your influence. She smiles on you kindly, and then sends you for your test through “the dark valley of prosperity.”
    Few people pass through it immune; few acquire no perversion of mind; few escape fractures of ideals or new dents in character. But if through it all, you remain just as good and simple and lovable as when you began the trip (remain kind, strong, sympathetic, sincere, and unspoiled), Nature is glad indeed to admit she has found a real individual of character — a great man or woman.
    It is called “the dark valley of prosperity” because it, so often, dims the vision to the finer realities of life. In the early stages, in the dimness, you cannot see your old friends as they pass. You become afflicted with peculiar muscle spasm which prevents you from extending your hand to someone no longer necessary to you. You acquire a form of memory impairment which prevents you from remembering past favors, and debts of gratitude, due to those who stood by you in your hours of need. You do not notice your increasing chest expansion.
    Related Motivational Podcasts:
    The Road to Character Building
    Character & Friendships
    16 min
  • The Enemies of Success | Motivational Affirmations
    Listen to episode 202 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Enemies of Success | Motivational Affirmations. Adapted from Stepping-Stones to Success by Horace D. Hitchcock.
    Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The things that hold you down; the things that keep success from your grasp; the things that bring you poverty and "bad luck" instead of wealth; the things that turn happiness and health away from you — what are they? They are the enemies of success, for like everything else, success has its negative elements ever working their way to produce failure.
    If success were attained without effort, if it were a natural condition, there would be no failures and there would be nothing to strive for, nothing to gain. All would be inertia. Life is a fight, a worthwhile battle, but mainly with the elements in one's own self.
    An understanding of self (with all its moods, possibilities and powers), is the first step towards self-achievement. But more than this is the self-driving power which must be generated and put to use if maximum results are desired. Success comes first to those who believe; to those who believe in self and in pluck rather than luck.
    Thousands fail because they are afraid. They are afraid to grasp opportunity; they are afraid to take a higher step; they are afraid to believe and have faith in those who would help them to success or a greater success.
    Become a patron of the Inspirational Living podcast to get access to the full transcript and access to the Our Sunday Talks series: http://livinghour.org/patron.
    Related Motivational Podcasts:
    The Power of Positive Thinking
    Overcoming Fear & Worry
    19 min
  • Creative Originals | Success & Living Up to Your Potential
    Listen to episode 201 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Creative Originals | Success & Living Up to Your Potential. Adapted from Stepping-Stones to Success by Horace D. Hitchcock.
    Motivational Podcast Excerpt: You have the power within you to do something well and to do it like no other person — you have the power of original creation. You are in a world of your own. You can, to a certain degree, develop and enlarge that power so that it will bring you more happiness, money, prestige, or whatever it is you earnestly desire to possess.
    Countless thousands are plodding along day by day in the same manner in dead end jobs. Many cling on, trusting to good luck to carry them through. Every success to them is "pull" or just plain "luck." Thousands drift on as ships on the tide, in utter oblivion to the greater prosperity and happiness that would come to them through the proper development of their own talents.
    "What's the use?" they ask, and go on blindly in the same old way. "It is so very easy for you successful people to sit back and tell us poor devils how to succeed" is the wail of another person, implying again that luck is a synonym of success and lacking appreciation of the effort, the hard work, the years of concentration that brought the rewards of success.
    Related Inspirational Podcasts:
    The 8 Pillars of Prosperity
    Creativity & Mind Power
    20 min

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Need a free online life coach? Look no further than the most motivational self-help authors of the past. Inspiring readings from James Allen, Napoleon Hill, Hellen Keller, Booker T. Washington,…