Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 122 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Autosuggestion & Self-Mastery. Adapted from the book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile Coué.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Suggestion, or rather Autosuggestion, is quite a new subject, and yet at the same time it is as old as the world. It is new in the sense that until now it has been wrongly studied and in consequence wrongly understood; it is old because it dates from the appearance of human beings on earth. In fact, autosuggestion is an instrument that we possess at birth, and in this instrument, or rather in this force, resides a marvelous and incalculable power, which according to circumstances produces the best or the worst results.

Knowledge of this force is useful to each one of us, but it is especially indispensable to doctors, judges, lawyers, and to those engaged in the work of education. By knowing how to practice autosuggestion consciously it is possible, in the first place, to avoid provoking in others bad autosuggestions which may have disastrous consequences, and secondly, consciously to provoke good ones instead, thus bringing physical health to the sick, and moral health to the neurotic and the erring, the unconscious victims of earlier autosuggestions, and to guide into the right path those who had a tendency to take the wrong one.

Related Motivational Podcasts:

Positive Affirmations

The Power of Spiritual Meditation

Listen to episode 113 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Majesty of Calmness. Adapted from a book of the same name by William George Jordan.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. Hurry means the breakdown of the nerves. It is the royal road to perpetual worry. Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success.

Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow growth if it must be slow, and know the results must come, as you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night — with absolute assurance that the heavy-leaded moments must bring the morning.

Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, poise, kindness — doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the dishonest or the malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under opposition....

Listen to episode 108 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Tao Te Ching. Edited and adapted from Dwight Goddard’s translation of the Lao Tzu’s classic book Tao Te Ching.

Spirituality Podcast Excerpt: The Tao has three treasures which it guards and cherishes. The first is called compassion; the second is called economy; the third is called humility. A person who is compassionate can 'be truly brave; a person who is economical can be truly generous; a person who is humble can become a useful servant.

If we discard compassion and are still brave, abandon economy and are still generous, forsake humility and still seek to be serviceable, our days are numbered. On the other hand, if we are truly compassionate, in battle we will be a conqueror and in defense we will be secure. When even Heaven helps people it is because of compassion that she does so.

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet in all the world no one appears to understand them or to practice them. Words have an ancestor (a preceding idea), deeds have a master (a preceding purpose), and just as these are often not understood, so I am not understood.

Listen to episode 106 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Is There Life After Death? Edited and adapted from “Does the Soul Exist After Death?” by Swami Abhedananda. Spiritual Podcast Excerpt: From ancient times there have been thinkers in India who denied the existence of the soul after the death of the body. They are known as Charvákas. They believe that the body is the soul, and that the soul does not exist outside of the body, and that when the body dies, the soul is also dead and gone. They believe in nothing that cannot be perceived by the senses. The followers of such thinkers are spreading very rapidly, and their number is increasing every day. They are now known as atheists, materialists, etc. According to this class of thinkers, those who believe in the existence of the soul as separate from the body, or in a life after death, are ignorant and superstitious fools, while those who follow their ideas are clever and intelligent beings. Most of them hold that there is no such thing as a soul. No argument can convince them or change their views, because they will not admit the existence of anything which lies beyond the reach of their senses, or which cannot be perceived by the limited powers of the senses. They have written volumes after volumes against the existence of the soul, and have tried to stop such useless questions of the mind; but in spite of their efforts, have they succeeded in stopping that innate question, "What remains after death?" — which rises spontaneously in almost every human heart? No...

Listen to episode 99 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Inspirational Quotes & Meditations On Life. Edited and adapted from The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: What can shake your belief in the goodness of humankind? The cruelty of others? Remember that we have come here for each other, and that people act out of ignorance. Have mercy on them. Have faith. Everything happens within a larger Order. You will find this to be true if you watch the world carefully. Don’t look at things the way wrong-doers do. Don’t look at things as wrong-doers want you too, either. Instead, strive to see things in truth, as they really are. Never value the things that will force you to lie, lose self-respect, hate, or deceive.

Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives. Oh, how peaceful it is to stop looking at what our neighbors say and do and think, and simply strive to bring our own lives into alignment with truth and kindness. Let us live simply and modestly – and if anyone says that we do not live a simple, modest life, let us not be angry with them, nor change our direction. If we hold to our ideals, we will move through life with purity and peace of mind.

Listen to episode 94 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be Self-Confident (Overcoming the Confidence Gap). Edited and adapted from Psychology & Higher Life by William McKeever, published in 1905.

Self-Development Podcast Excerpt: The self-confident person, of necessity, believes in other people. Old as I am, it stirs me up to put forth greater effort to have people believe in me. The ordinary little child will do their utmost to come up to the standard fixed for them by the expressed opinions of their elders. The self-reliant person, therefore, is a benefactor of his or her associates. It is such an easy matter to drift down to the level of a gossip, and later to that of a defamer of character, and finally to that of the chronic misanthrope.

If one goes about looking for the meanness in other people's character, you can surely find it. But so can you find the good — more of it than you can enumerate in a lifetime. Happy indeed is the individual who has formed the habit of looking for the good. And so in every clime, we find the stalwart, self-reliant character, who, in the language of the statesman might say: "Master of human destinies am I: Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait." Another of the great promoters of self-confidence, as well as of long life and happiness, is love. Everyone should by all means fall in love with something or somebody, or, better yet, with everybody...

Listen to episode 93 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be Successful & Influence Others to Succeed. Edited and adapted from The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: In every moment of life, we are changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every person has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously is this influence working, that we may forget that it exists. All the forces of Nature — heat, light, electricity, and gravitation — are silent and invisible. We never see them; we only know that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature, the wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance, when compared with the majesty and glory of the "unseen".

In a thousand ways, Nature constantly seeks to lead us to a keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the invisible. Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or for evil — the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of our lives. This is simply the constant radiation of what we really are, not what we pretend to be.

Every individual, by their mere living, is radiating sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations. There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer, and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored to a new and stronger faith in humanity.

Listen to episode 92 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Mental & Physical Fitness: Get Fit, Motivated & Inspired. Edited and adapted from Assuming Responsibilities by Douglas Fairbanks.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The person who rises in the morning from a healthy slumber and plunges into the bath after some vigorous exercise is prepared to undertake anything. Their world seems fair, and though the sun may not be shining literally, it is to all intents and purposes. Thus, they go swinging along with a cheery smile, carrying the message of hope and joy to all those with whom they come in contact.

Of course, mental fitness is equally important to physical fitness. And the character of a man and woman expresses itself by the books they read. Every well-informed person since the invention of the printing press has been a close reader of a few books that stand out from among the many. We read of Lincoln devouring the few books he had over and over again and studying from cover to cover and word for word the Webster's dictionary of his day.

As the poet Robert Heath once wrote, "A few good books, digested well, do feed the mind." Feed the mind! That's the idea — but how shall we feed it? The answer is easy — with something worthwhile — something that will inform and inspire. We can cram our minds to the point of indigestion with useless, frivolous information, just as easily as we may cram our stomachs with certain foods that tear down rather than build up.