Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 582 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: How to Overcome Your Fears. Edited and adapted from How to Lick Our Fears by David V. Bush.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast, as special thank you to our new monthly patrons, Judith Ogedegbe, Jeri Neathery, and Andy Graham. Learn how you can become a patron for as little as $3 a month, to receive ad-free podcasts, full transcripts, and more, by visiting LivingHour.org/patron. Thank you. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from How to Lick Fear by David V. Bush, published in 1924.

The common saying that you are making a mountain out of a molehill, contains more truth than poetry. When your imagination takes wings, and fancy runs wild, you can picture and anticipate more trouble in five minutes than you could actually bring upon yourself in a lifetime. Imagination can do almost anything: It can give us the right mental attitude for success, health, and happiness; but uncontrolled, it can build structures of doubt, sorrow, ill-health, and many a trouble.

Most of the troubles we have are imagined. Our worst troubles never come. Whether our troubles are real or imaginary, there is one way to meet them and rise superior to them — one easy, sure way to knock every fear in the head and throw it out of your mental picture gallery. It is so simple that you will wonder why the human family has not been taught it from infancy.

Listen to episode 581 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Key to Health, Happiness, and Prosperity. Edited and adapted from The Ideal Made Real by Christian D. Larson.

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Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Talk happiness. When things look dark, talk happiness. When things look bright, talk more happiness. When others are sad, insist on being glad. Talk happiness, and they will soon feel better.

Talk happiness. It pays in every shape and form and manner. Give sunshine to others, and others will be more than pleased to give sunshine to you. Talk happiness, and your health will be better, your mind will be brighter, and your personality far more attractive. But the qualities that happiness will give to you, will also be given to those who have the pleasure to listen to you when you talk happiness.

Listen to episode 580 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Inspirational Thoughts for Every-day Life. Edited and adapted from the work of Maltbie Davenport Babcock.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thank you to our newest patron Jackie Cochran. Jackie now has access to ad-free podcasts, full transcripts, and our entire archive of over 550 podcasts. You can too, by visiting LivingHour.org/patron.

Opportunities do not come with their value stamped upon them. Every one of them must be challenged. A day dawns, quite like other days. In it a single hour comes, quite like other hours. But in that day, and in that hour, the chance of a lifetime faces us. To face every opportunity of life thoughtfully and ask its meaning bravely and earnestly, is the only way to meet the supreme opportunities when they come, whether recognized or disguised.

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Many a good intention dies from inattention. If, through carelessness, indolence, or selfishness, a good intention is not put into effect, we have lost an opportunity, demoralized ourselves, and stolen from the pile of possible good. To be born and not fed, is to perish. To launch a ship and neglect it, is to lose it. To have a talent and bury it, is to live a wasted life. For in the end, we shall be judged not only by what we have done, but by what we could have done.

Listen to episode 579 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Living a Joyful & Productive Life. Edited and adapted from The Ideal Made Real by Christian D. Larson.

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Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Live in a cheerful world, even if you have to create such a world in your own imagination. Resolve to be happy regardless of what comes. You cannot afford to be otherwise. Count everything joy. Meet everything in a spirit of joy, and expect everything to give you joy. By creating a cheerful world in your own imagination, you develop the tendency to a sunny disposition, and by meeting everything in an attitude of joy, you will soon meet only those things that naturally produce joy. Like does attract like. Much sunshine will gather more sunshine, and the happiest mind meets the most delightful experiences.

When exceptions occur, pass them by as of no consequence, because they ARE of no consequence to you. You are interested only in happy events. Therefore, there is no reason whatever why you should pay any attention to the other kind. It is a fact that the less attention we pay to unpleasant conditions, the less unpleasantness we meet in life. That person who looks for the disagreeable everywhere, and expects to find it everywhere, will certainly find what they are looking for in most places, if not in all places. On the other hand, the person who expects only the pleasant will seldom find anything else. We attract what we think of the most.

Listen to episode 578 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Quality that Makes or Breaks You. Edited and adapted from The Making of the Man by Edward Ward Carmack.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The subject of my talk today isn’t the training of your intellectual faculties or the acquisition of knowledge. I would rather impress upon you that the strongest, most disciplined mind cannot of itself bring you honor or happiness, cannot make you a good and useful citizen, or entitle you to the respect of others. The great topic upon which I plan to speak is character — for the greatest women and men, whose names are honored and revered by all humankind, were not great because they were mighty in intellect, but because they were grand in soul.

Listen to episode 577 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Turning a Mediocre Present into a Greater Future. Edited and adapted from The Ideal Made Real by Christian D. Larson.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I special thanks to our newest monthly patron, Gary Smith. Become our patron for the cost of a cappuccino a month, and get access to ad free podcasts, full transcripts, and more. Go to livinghour.org/patron to check out the benefits.

WHEN things are not to your liking, like them as they are. In other words, while you are working for greater things, make friends with the lesser things, and they will help you to reach your goal. The person who is dissatisfied with things as they are, and discontented because things are not to their liking, is standing in their own way. We cannot get away from present conditions so long as we antagonize those conditions — because we are held in bondage to that which we resist.

Listen to episode 576 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: How to Get the Best from Your Life. Edited and adapted from The Ideal Made Real by Christian D. Larson.

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Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Give your best to the world, no matter how insignificant that best may be, and the world will invariably give its best to you. When we give our best, we not only receive the best in return from the outer world, but we also receive the best from the inner world. When you give your best, you bring forth your best, and it is the bringing forth of your best that causes you to become better and better. And when you become better, you will meet better people, and enter into better environments, and everything in your life will change for the better, because like does attract like.

Listen to episode 575 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Gift of Imagination | Living a Creative Life. Edited and adapted from Essays on Work and Culture by Hamilton Wright Mabie.

Visit today's sponsor Headspace, the easy-to-use meditation app whose benefits are backed by 25 published studies and over 600K five star reviews. Go to Headspace.com/happiness for a free 1 month trial.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The greatest gift given to human beings is that of the imagination. The scientist, the engineer, the constructive individual in every department of work, uses the imagination quite as much as the artist — for the imagination is not a decorator and embellisher. It is a creator and constructor.

Wherever work is done along great lines, or life is lived in fields of constant abundance, the imagination is always the central and shaping power. Winston Churchill lifted statesmanship to a lofty plane by the use of it. Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla showed the world its magical quality. And many a millionaire owes their success more to imagination than to practical sagacity and factual knowledge.

Listen to episode 574 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Become an Artist in Your Work & Life. Edited and adapted from Essays on Work and Culture by Hamilton Wright Mabie.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: The person whose life is intelligently ordered is always preparing themselves for the highest demands of their work. They are not only doing their work with adequate skill from day to day, but always fitting themselves in advance for more exacting and difficult tasks.

If you are to become an artist in your work, your specific preparation for particular occasions and tasks must be part of a general preparation for ALL possible occasions and tasks — because it is not only impossible to foresee opportunities, but often impossible to recognize their importance.

Listen to episode 573 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Climbing the Ladder of Purpose and Success. Edited and adapted from The Crown of Individuality by William George Jordan.

Success Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thank you to our newest monthly patron, Sandra Hopper. To learn how you can become our patron and get access to ad free episodes, full transcripts, and more, please visit LivingHour.org/patron. Thank you. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Crown of Individuality by William George Jordan, published in 1909.

Purpose gives a new impulse, a new impetus, a new interpretation to living. Purpose is the backbone of a life of courage. It shows that the highest justification for living is love, in some form. It may be for a cause, a country, an ideal, a family, or an individual. Purpose at its best means our mastery over conditions, our mastery over self, our dedication to something higher than self, fighting for the right and fighting it to the end. Were we able to follow a great purpose from its highest flights of effort, we might find its nest of inspiration in the heart of someone of whom the world knew nothing.