Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 554 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: How the Mind Works | Law of Attraction. Edited and adapted from How the Mind Works by Christian D. Larson.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Through the law of attraction, we naturally meet in the external world what corresponds to our own internal world, that is, to what we are in ourselves. The self constitutes the magnet, and like attracts like. This inner self that constitutes the magnet is composed of all the active forces, desires, tendencies, motives, states, and thoughts that are at work in your mind or personality.

When you look at everything that is alive throughout your whole being (and put all those things together) you have what may be termed your present active self. And this self invariably attracts in the external world such conditions as correspond to its own nature.

This self (and all its parts within you) correspond to the thoughts that you have been creating in your mind. In fact, the nature of the self is actually composed of your thoughts, mental states, and mental activities. Therefore, when you change your thoughts, the nature of your inner self will change, and this change will be good or otherwise depending upon your changes of thought.

Listen to episode 552 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Greatest Power Within You. Edited and adapted from How the Mind Works by Christian D. Larson.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I have some exciting news about a beautiful, new short film that is going to feature audio from this podcast. The film is an irreverent story about a homeless man who stumbles upon an eccentric self-help program that guides him on his odyssey to become a fisherman. In addition to providing inspirational audio to the filmmakers, I am also one of the film’s producers.

To learn more about this film project and our Kickstarter campaign, visit LivingHour.org/film. Thank you.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from How the Mind Works by Christian D. Larson, published in 1912.

The powers and possibilities that are inherent in the human mind are practically unbounded — for virtually no limit can be found to anything in human nature. The discovery that everything in human nature contains a latent capacity for perpetual development should give us a new conception of ourselves, a conception which when applied will revolutionize the entire sphere of our thought and action.

Listen to episode 551 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Training Your Mind for Complete Success. Edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: If you want to make yourself great, it is worth a little trouble, and the habit of doing things in the best possible manner will make you do everything you undertake in the same spirit of thorough perfection. The same divine, creative spirit dwells in you that dwelt in Michelangelo, in Catherine the Great, in Plato and St. Paul. The only power that differentiated them from others and made them heroic figures shining brightly in the firmament of life was the power of mind. That same power will raise you above others, above your competitors in business, above the disabilities of your environment — that power and no other.

If you are to raise yourself intellectually the stimulus must come from yourself. You must make a point of training your mental faculties all day and every day, till you know what a vast power you have within you and how to use it.

Listen to episode 549 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Making the World a Better & Brighter Place. Edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The nearer we get to the real source of the joy of life, the more real will become the beauties of the earth. The bright and beautiful things of the world shine in their sublimest splendor for those who see only the good in their fellow creatures. There are no dark or gloomy thoughts to dim the radiance of earth and heaven.

The first essential of that charm which attracts others is a belief in the innate goodness of humanity, and a strong desire to help it forward. Many a friendship has been broken by a loan of money, but friendships are never broken by understanding sympathy and practical help.

Out of a constant recognition of the good in others, and a persistent blindness to their faults and shortcomings, grows sympathy and tact. Many an action that seems harsh is seen to be necessary when all the circumstances of the case are known. Learn to make allowances and to judge others not from the standpoint of mental or moral superiority but of equal weakness. That is the way sympathetic natures are made.

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Listen to episode 548 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Overcoming Your Doubts & Fears | Motivational Podcasts. Edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: “For the timid and hesitating, everything is impossible, because it seems so," says Sir Walter Scott. The converse is expressed in the English proverb, "Nothing is impossible to a willing mind.”

The limit of our achievements is the power of our own thought. The mind grows on what it feeds upon. If you allow doubt to occupy any place at all in your mind, that doubt will grow there. A little hesitation will grow into a big doubt, and the habit of doubt will surely result in death to self-reliance, and good-bye to success.

Out with all your doubts and fears! They are unworthy of your mind, which should be in harmony with the Infinite. No task can ever come your way that you have not the power within you to fulfill....

Listen to episode 547 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Self-Improvement: Making the Most of Your Life. Edited and adapted from The Psychology of Success by Newton N. Riddle.

Inspirational Podcast Transcript: Energy combined with emotion produces enthusiasm. Cultivate it. You must have it. Nothing worthwhile was ever accomplished without it. The student that lacks enthusiasm seldom does well. The teacher without it is a failure. The salesperson without enthusiasm sells little.

It all begins by increasing your mind power; by changing every intellectual faculty from negative to positive, and training all to work together, thereby giving capacity to perceive, to remember, to think, to know, and to do.

The person who doesn't notice is always short on the required information. The one who doesn't remember is constantly forgetting what they learn and neglect what they should attend to. The one who has not learned to think is a slave to other people's opinions, lacks judgment, initiative, and fails to think of the thing that should be thought of to make a success. All of these adverse conditions can be overcome.

Listen to episode 545 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Living Up to Every Day’s Possibilities. Edited and adapted from The Power of Truth by William George Jordan.

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Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: If we would make our lives worthy of us, grand and noble, solid and impregnable, we must forsake air-castles of dreaming for strongholds of doing. Every person with an ideal has a right to live in the glow and inspiration of it, and to picture the joy of attainment, but the worker should never really worry about the future, think little of it except for inspiration. You should determine your course, as mariners study the stars; then make your plans wisely and prepare for that future by making each separate day the best and truest that you can.

Live up to the fullness of your possibilities each day. You have only one day of life — today. You did live yesterday, you may live tomorrow, but you have only today.

Listen to episode 544 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Nature & Power of the Mind. Edited and adapted from Out From the Heart by James Allen.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Your life proceeds from your heart and mind. You have compounded that mind by your own thoughts and deeds. It is within your power to refashion that mind by your choice of thought. And in this manner, you can transform your life.

To begin, remember that every established mental condition is an acquired habit, and it has become so by continuous repetition of thought. Despondency and cheerfulness, anger and calmness, covetousness and generosity — indeed, all states of mind — are habits built up by choice, until they have become automatic. A thought constantly repeated, at last becomes a fixed habit of mind, and from such habits proceeds one’s life.

Listen to episode 543 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Finding Wisdom & Joy in Meditation. Edited and adapted from The Mastery of Destiny by James Allen.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: By concentration we may acquire the wonderful comprehension and vast power of a Caesar; but by meditation we may reach the divine wisdom and perfect peace of a Buddha — for while the perfection of concentration is power, the perfection of meditation is wisdom.

By concentration, people acquire skill in the doing of the things of life (in science, art, trade, etc.), but by meditation, they acquire skill in life itself (in right living, enlightenment, wisdom, etc.) Saints, sages, saviors (wise women and men and divine teachers) are the finished products of spiritual meditation.

Listen to episode 542 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Personal Salesmanship for a Life More Abundant. Edited and adapted from Success Psychology by Coleman Hall Bush.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Let us enjoy life to the full, as we bring to ourselves the thrills, the pleasures, and the joys of “life more abundant” — which in turn will increase our personal power and success, for power is the energy that overcomes resistance and does constructive work. It is the ability which puts over business deals. It is impersonal, invisible, impartial, directive, receptive, neutral, and PRESENT always! It is up to us to sell it to ourselves and use it in selling to others.

Power is impersonal because it serves all who choose to use it. It is invisible, for while we can see the results of power, we never can see THE power — just as we may see the apple fall, but we cannot see the invisible power of gravitation that pulls it to earth. It is impartial, serving friend and foe, and is no respecter of persons. It is receptive to our intelligent control, as long as we work in accordance with the natural laws which are inherent in its being. It is neutral, being neither conscious nor unconscious of us or the purpose we seek to use it for.