Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 66 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Way of Wonder. Edited and adapted from a classic book of essays by Stephen Paget.

Educational Podcast Excerpt: This much I remember of Aristotle, that he calls Wonder the beginning of the love of Wisdom. To have a right judgment of our surroundings, we must wonder at them, and be surprised that they and we are met together. So long as we exercise this quickening sense of wonder, there is hope for us, and some justification of our presence here on earth---because we all are on the road that leads toward wisdom. And they alone are incorrigible fools to whom Nature comes natural.

Once we have fallen into the bad habit of taking for granted what Nature gives us, and have ceased to be amazed, it may be fairly said that in the midst of life we are in death. For one might as well be dead as alive, to look with dull eyes at the world, not finding it wonderful....

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Listen to episode 65 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Stop Worrying (Start Living Anxiety Free). Edited and adapted from: Your Right to Be Happy by Frank & Marion Van Eps.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: You might be ready to embark on a new enterprise, but your imagination conjures up all sorts of obstacles and difficulties, and you are afraid to begin, lest you fail. But this is, actually, just where the turn of success is made. Daniel Webster, when he first started in his career as a lawyer, felt as if he were utterly incompetent and could never succeed. But he persevered and did not run away or give up, and he eventually became one of the most famous American statesmen of the 19th century. Had he yielded to that feeling of fear, he would never have amounted to anything; but having overcome that, all things were set in his favor.

On the eve of any great achievement, it is not unusual to feel the most like a failure or that your goals are unreachable. It is this point of apparent collapse that is so important in everyone’s career. Just when failure and disaster seem unavoidable is the time to push right on through and disregard appearances. More will power and determination put forth at that time will turn the tide, and glorious results are certain.

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Listen to episode 64 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Persuasion, Influence & Reason (Science of the Mind). Adapted from a classic book by the same title by William Macpherson. Educational Podcast Excerpt: Humanity has been described as a reasoning animal; and everyone likes to think that the description applies to them. In reality, we do not, usually, act rationally in the sense that we first carefully calculate the means to realize our objectives, and only then act. Even when we do make such calculations, the fundamental source of our actions is always some instinct or emotion that they seek to satisfy. To say this is to say nothing derogatory about human nature. Indeed, as we all know, to act on impulse is often much more respectable than to act from reasoned calculation. If much of the wrong-doing of the world may be attributed to the uncontrolled working of selfish impulses, it should also be remembered that impulse is the source of art and science, and of many of the best things in life.

Listen to episode 63 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Living a Magical Life: Creative Motivation for Inspired People. Adapted from the book Concentration: The Key to Constructive Thought by C. W. Kyle. Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The supreme lesson of life is that of self-realization. You are living in a world of magic. You have more power within you than that of any wizard whom you have read or dreamed about. Wake up! Learn who you are before you condemn yourself to a further life of inaction and inefficiency. To come to recognize yourself is the best elixir of life you will ever know. It will take a psychological operation to rid you of your self-imposed limitations. Well, here it is. Words have a magic power. You have made yourself just what you are, and you have the power to change yourself into a being greater and more powerful than it is possible for you to conceive. You are possessed of unlimited powers. And if limited you now are, you, yourself, have raised the walls of limitation, and you have the power to remove them or let them stand.

Listen to episode 62 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to See, Hear, and Remember. Adapted from “Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It” by William Walker Atkinson.

Educational Podcast Excerpt: The trouble with most of us is that we have been looking without seeing— gazing but not observing. The objects around you have been out of your mental focus. If you will but change your mental focus, by means of will and attention, you will be able to cure yourself of the careless methods of seeing and observing that have been hindrances to your success.

We have been blaming forgetfulness on our memories, but the fault is with our perception. How can the memory remember, when it is not given anything in the way of clear impressions? We have been like young infants in this matter— now it is time for you to begin to “sit up and take notice” no matter how old you may be. The whole thing in a nut-shell is this: In order to remember the things that pass before your sight, you must begin to see with your mind, instead of with your retina. Let the impression get beyond your retina and into your mind. If you will do this, you will find that memory will "do the rest."

Listen to episode 61 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Law of Compensation & Karma. Adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Compensation".

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compendium of the world, and a correlative of every other. Each individual is an entire emblem of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course, and its end. And each one must somehow reside within the whole person, and deliver his or her destiny.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears completely in every blade of grass and every cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation.

Listen to episode 60 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Power of Spoken words. Adapted from Your Forces and How to Use Them by Christian D. Larson. Motivational Podcast Excerpt: In daily conversation, the law of constructive speech should be conscientiously applied. What we say to others will determine to a considerable degree what they are to think, and what tendencies their mental actions are to follow; and since we are the product of our thoughts, conversation becomes a most important factor in the development of ourselves and others. We steadily grow into the likeness of that which we think of the most, and what we are to think about depends largely upon the mode, the nature and the subject matter of our conversation. When conversation originates or intensifies the tendency to think about the wrong, the ordinary or the inferior, it becomes destructive, and likewise it tends to keep before mind the faults and defects that may exist in human nature. To be constructive, conversation should tend to turn attention upon the better side, the stronger side, the superior side of all things, and should give the ideal the most prominent place in thought, speech, or expression....

Listen to episode 59 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Overcoming Adversity with Optimism. Adapted from the essay Optimism by Helen Keller. Motivational Podcast Excerpt: A poet once said that I must be happy because I do not see the bare, cold present, but live in a beautiful dream. I do live in a beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present —not cold, but warm; not bare, but furnished with a thousand blessings. The very evil which the poet supposed would be a cruel disillusionment is necessary to the fullest knowledge of joy. Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness. It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. It is not enough to say that the twenty-first century is the best age in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from the evils of the world in ethereal dreams of good.

Listen to episode 58 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Joy of Selfless Love. Adapted from The Way of Peace by James Allen.

Spiritual Podcast Excerpt: Divine or selfless Love is not a mere sentiment or emotion; it is a state of knowledge which destroys the dominion of evil and the belief in evil, and lifts the soul into the joyful realization of the supreme Good. To the divinely wise, knowledge and Love are one and inseparable.

There is no arbitrary power in the universe, and the strongest chains of fate by which we are bound are self-forged. We are chained to that which causes suffering because we desire to be so, because we love our chains, because we think our little dark prison of self is sweet and beautiful, and are afraid that if we desert that prison we will lose all that is real and worth having.

Listen to episode 57 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Art of Happiness & Change (Getting Past Your Past). Adapted from The Wonders of Life by Ida Luella Rettinghouse Lyon. Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: "Deal gently with the old, for they have come a long way; and be kind to the young, for they have a long journey before them." I do not know to whom we owe this excellent advice, but it is a beautiful thought well expressed. There are delightful old people who have kept their hearts young and hopeful amidst the changes and disappointments which the passing years have brought; men and women who are charming companions for the young or old. It is not always those who have had the most trying experiences who have acquired a hard and bitter feeling, and have convinced themselves that they are ill-used and the victims of an unkind fate. It is, in most cases, those who have lived and who still live for themselves alone, and have thus missed half — indeed, more than half — of the joy of living.