Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 181 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Daily Success Habits: Be Proactive, Decisive & Tactful. Adapted from Beginning Right (How to Succeed) by Nathaniel C. Fowler.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: LIFE has three seasons: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What you did yesterday overlaps into today, and what you do today is carried over into tomorrow. Which is the most important of the three? No single one of them, because any one by itself is incomplete. If you did your duty yesterday, the work of today becomes easier to accomplish. If you attend to the work of today, tomorrow will be open to you and its duties will not be so difficult to perform.

While each day has its place — yesterday, today, and tomorrow — inattention to any one of those days will materially affect the life and action of the remaining two. You cannot recover yesterday. It has passed out of your life forever.

If it was a day of mistakes, they must be corrected today or tomorrow. The importance of today is not vested wholly in today. It is in tomorrow as well. Today is yours. Tomorrow may be. Unless you anticipate the morrow today, tomorrow you will not have tomorrow well in hand.

Individuals of great accomplishment do not consider any one day as all-important. They do today's work not wholly because it is of today, but because it will affect tomorrow. Regret yesterday if you will. Be sorry for your backsliding. You may have lost a day. If you have, you must make it up today and tomorrow.

Related Motivational Podcasts:

The Secret of Life & My Success

The Key to Success & Motivation

Listen to episode 172 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Emotional Intelligence & Interpretive Dance. Edited and adapted from How to Develop Your Personality by Clare Tree Major.

Self-Development Podcast Excerpt: HAVE we forgotten how to feel? Life today is so external that it almost seems as though we have. However, our personal ideal will not be realized unless every part of our nature is developed, the emotional as well as the physical and mental. We must know how to feel, to feel keenly, but also to control our feelings.

Are you looking at a beautiful painting? Don't merely catalogue it in your mind. Sit down before it and let it sink into your soul. See the sunset as a real thing, not as exquisite painted coloring. Go up on the hill-top with the artist. Sit with them there until the vision they saw of the opening of the heavens thrills your own feeling into responsiveness.

There are some feelings that we can neither put into word nor into action, and they are sometimes the very deepest, most sacred feelings of which the soul is capable. There are unconscious depths from which our more familiar and external characteristics spring.

Did you ever stand alone on the seashore and let the song of the mighty ocean fill your soul with its transcendent melody? You look out to the horizon across the roaring, foaming billows, and you know that far, far beyond your vision still rolls and tosses this great mass of living water. And your soul is thrilled with a sense of the insignificance of the trivialities of life, and some glimpse of the destiny of humanity comes to you, so that you go home conscious of a strange uplift that helps you to see above and beyond the petty annoyance of the daily grind, that helps to keep you in that perfect poise which is the essence of individuality.

It is in moments like these, when all that is external is forgotten, when the inner self is bathed in the glory of its natural life, that we gain the perspective that is needed if we are to make of ourselves all we are capable of becoming.

Related Self-Development Podcasts:

The Inward Life

How to Be Self-Confident

Listen to episode 171 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Soul Growth & Spiritual Evolution (Theosophy). Edited and adapted from Self-Development & The Way to Power by L.W. Rogers.

Spirituality Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I’d like to start today with some special news. Starting this Sunday, June 25th, we will be launching a new podcast exclusively for our patrons at Patreon.com. The show is called “Our Sunday Talks” and it will deal with topics related to spirituality from both Eastern and Western perspectives.

While we do touch occasionally on the spiritual on the Inspirational Living podcast, the Our Sunday Talks series will focus on this aspect of life, including discussions on the soul, mystical experiences, enlightenment, love, God, prayer, and much more.

This weekly podcast will be released every Sunday and be available exclusively to those listeners who are sponsoring the Inspirational Living podcast at the $3 a month level or higher. If you are currently sponsoring our podcast at the dollar a month level, you can gain access to the new series by upgrading your donation to the $3 a month level.

If you haven’t become a patron of our podcast yet, and would like to gain access to the upcoming Our Sunday Talks series, you can do so today by going to: LivingHour.org/patron. I look forward to seeing you among our Patreon community.

Now, on to today’s reading, which was edited and adapted from Self-Development and The Way to Power by L.W. Rogers, published in 1916.....

It is the natural right of every human being to be happy — to escape all the miseries of life. Happiness is the normal condition, as natural as the landscapes and the seasons. It is unnatural to suffer, and it is only because of our ignorance that we do suffer. Happiness is the product of wisdom. To attain perfect wisdom, to comprehend fully the purpose of life, to realize completely the relationship of human beings to each other, is to put an end to all suffering, to escape every ill and evil that afflicts us. Perfect wisdom is unshadowed joy.

Listen to episode 170 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Laugh and Live: Douglas Fairbanks' Healthy Lifestyle. Edited and adapted from the work of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: We must also remember that out of energy and enthusiasm comes something else that must not be neglected ... in fact it must be cultivated and guarded from the very beginning . . . laughter. The mere possession of energy and enthusiasm makes us feel like laughing. We want to leap and jump and dance and sing. If we feel like doing so, don't let us be afraid to do it.

Get out in the air and run like a child. Jump ditches, vault fences, swing the arms! Never fail to get next to nature when responsive to the call. Indeed, we may woo this call from within ourselves until it comes to be second nature.

When we rise in the morning, let us be determined that we will start the day with a hearty laugh. Laugh because you are alive, laugh with everything. Let yourself go. That is the secret — the ability to let one's self go! If you follow this religiously you will be surprised how successful the day will be. Everything gives way before it. There is one thing in this good old world that is positively sure — happiness is for all who strive to be happy — and those who laugh are happy.

Everybody is eligible — you — me— the other guys and gals. Happiness is fundamentally a state of mind — not a state of body. And mind controls. Indeed it is possible to stand with one foot on the inevitable "banana peel" of life with both eyes peering into the Great Beyond, and still be happy, comfortable, and serene — if we will but so much as smile.

It's all a state of mind, I tell you — and I'm sure of what I say. That's why I have taken up my proverbial fountain pen. Do you ever laugh? I mean do you ever laugh right out loud — spontaneously — joyfully. Well, if you don't, you should. Start off the morning with a laugh and you needn't worry about the rest of the day.

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Listen to episode 169 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Art of Self-Mastery (Success via Self-Discipline). Edited and adapted from The Kingship of Self-Control by William George Jordan.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Every person has two creators — their God and themselves. Our first creator furnishes us with the raw material of our lives and the laws in conformity with which we can make that life what we will.

The second creator — ourselves — has marvelous powers we rarely realize. It is what we make of ourselves that counts. When someone fails in life, they often will say, “I am as God made me.” But when they succeed, they proudly proclaim themselves “self-made”.

We are placed into this world not as a finality, but as a possibility. Our greatest enemy is: ourselves. In our weakness, we are a creature of circumstances; in our strength, we are the creator of circumstances. Whether you be victim or victor depends largely on you. No one is truly great merely for what they, but ever for what they may become. Until you are truly filled with the knowledge of the majesty of your own possibility, you are merely groping through the years.

To see our lives as we might make it, we must go up alone into the mountains of spiritual thought, as Jesus went alone into the Garden, leaving the world to get strength to live in the world. We must there breathe the fresh, pure air of recognition of our divine importance as an individual. And then with mind purified and tingling with new strength, we must approach the problems of our daily lives.

Related Motivational Podcasts:

The Art of Self-Control

How to Be Self-Confident

Listen to episode 168 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Ben Franklin’s Wisdom. Edited and adapted from Poor Richard’s Almanack, a yearly publication produced by Benjamin Franklin from 1732 to 1758.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: If you could have Half your Wishes, you would double your Troubles.

Anger is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One.

Tomorrow, every fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

A Fool is one who cannot conceal their Wisdom.

Think of three things: whence you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account.

Pride dines on Vanity, sips on Contempt. The Proud hate Pride – in others, that is.

Well done is better than well said.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

The Sun never repents of the good it does, nor does it ever demand compensation.

Fear to do ill, and you need fear nothing else.

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

Glass, China, and a Reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended.

Fish & House Guests stink in 3 days.

Wink at small faults; remember that you have great ones.

Do you love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

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Listen to episode 167 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Positive Success Principles: Integrity, Laughter & Love. Edited and adapted from How Success is Won by Bernarr Macfadden.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: My message today is sent forth with the hope that it will enthuse you who are struggling at the bottom of the ladder of life, and that it may help you to understand that the greatest rewards are easily within reach of those who are willing to struggle on persistently, with a definite and unswerving aim continuously in view.

In the strongest terms, I want to emphasize the importance of interest in your work. I maintain that without it success was never achieved by anyone. The one straight road to success is to learn to love your business. You can do best that which you love best. If you have started in a business which you cannot learn to love, then you should go into some other business. You will never succeed in our age of competition unless you can find real pleasure in your work.

The mere making of money is not a sufficient incentive. You must find your highest enjoyment in the task itself. No person who works along that line can fade. That is my judgment based on my own experience and observation. Determination, persistence, attention to detail, in fact nearly every necessary characteristic in accomplishing results in any sphere of life, depends upon love for your work.

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Listen to episode 162 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Confucius Wisdom (The Best Quotes & Sayings) Edited & adapted from The Analects of Confucius.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

A person who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

When anger rises, think of the consequences. It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.

The individual who conquers themselves is the mightiest warrior.

Silence is the true friend that never betrays.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and Third, by experience, which is the bitterest.

Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect their work must first sharpen their tools.

A person who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at their door.

To love a thing means wanting it to live.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

When things are investigated, then true knowledge is achieved; when true knowledge is achieved, then the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, then the heart is set right; when the heart is set right, then the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, then the family life is regulated; when the family life is regulated, then the national life is orderly; and when the national life is orderly, then there is peace in this world.

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Listen to episode 161 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Yoga & The Science of Breath (Pranayama Yogic Breathing). Edited & adapted from The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath by William Walker Atkinson.

Self-Development Podcast Excerpt: To breathe is to live, and without breath there is no life. Not only are we dependent upon breath for life and health, but all animal life must breathe to live, and plant life is likewise dependent upon the air for continued existence.

The new-born baby draws in a long, deep breath, retains it for a moment to extract from it its life-giving properties, and then exhales it in a long wail, and lo! its life upon earth has begun. The old senior gives a faint gasp, ceases to breathe, and life is over. From the first faint breath of the infant to the last gasp of the dying grandparent, it is one long story of continued breathing. Life is but a series of breaths.

Breathing may be considered the most important of all of the functions of the body, for, indeed, all the other functions depend upon it. A person may exist some time without eating; a shorter time without drinking; but without breathing their existence may be measured by a few minutes. And not only are we dependent upon Breath for life, but we are largely dependent upon correct habits of breathing for continued vitality and freedom from disease.

An intelligent control of our breathing power will lengthen our days upon earth by giving us increased vitality and powers of resistance. On the other hand, unintelligent and careless breathing will tend to shorten our days, by decreasing our vitality and laying us open to disease.

Humankind in its normal state had no need of instruction in breathing. Like the lower animals and the child, we breathed naturally and properly, as nature intended us to do, but civilization has changed us in this and other respects. We have contracted improper methods and attitudes of walking, standing, and sitting, which have robbed us of our birthright of natural and correct breathing. We have paid a high price for civilization.

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Listen to episode 159 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Self-Made Men & Women. Edited & adapted from a lecture by Frederick Douglass.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: Self-made men and women are those who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, or friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any favoring conditions by which other people usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

In fact, they are the men and women who are not brought up but who are obliged to come up, not only without the assistance or friendly co-operation of society, but often in open and derisive defiance of all the efforts of society, and the tendency of circumstances to repress, retard, and keep them down.

They are the individuals who (in a world of schools, academies, colleges, and other institutions of learning) are often compelled by unfriendly circumstances to acquire their education elsewhere and, amidst unfavorable conditions, to create for themselves a way to success, and thus become the architects of their own good fortunes.

They are, in a peculiar sense, indebted to themselves for themselves. If they have traveled far, they have made the road on which they have travelled. If they have ascended high, they have built their own ladder. From the depths of poverty, they often rise. Flung overboard in the midnight storm on the broad and tempest-tossed ocean of life (left without ropes, planks, oars, or life-preservers), they have bravely fought the waves and have risen in safety and life where others (supplied with the best appliances for safety and success), have fainted, despaired, and gone down forever.

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