Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Listen to episode 541 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Dare to Think Big | Planning for Greater Things. Edited and adapted from Three lectures on "The Laws of Financial Success" by B.F. Austin.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Financial success is won by those who dare to think big. Little thoughts, plans, and ideals beget little interest, little effort, little enthusiasm in the individual, and awaken little or no interest in the minds of others. The radical difference between the pop-corn vendor at the fair and the next Steve Jobs is in the size of their ideas and concepts. Popcorn ideas beget a popcorn life. Great ideas, projects, and enterprises rouse the soul of the individual to the effort, courage, and daring that is commensurate with grand ideas.

Great individuals cannot be approached with any project of a trifling character; time and mental force are too valuable to waste on things not "worthwhile." An entrepreneur should continually plan greater and still greater projects for themselves and have the courage and daring to embark upon these new enterprises, trusting in the unfolding powers of their own soul, in the great law of evolution, and in the "Star of Destiny" to crown their efforts with success.

Listen to episode 540 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Motivation for Conquering Defeat to Win Success. Edited and adapted from Spunk: How to Lick Fear by David V. Bush.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: There is nothing but eternal victory for the person who can take defeat with smiling grace and a poised confidence in their ultimate triumph. Defeat is only another way of reaching one’s goal, and as a rule, the more defeats you have the greater will be your power in the end.

‘‘All the world’s a stage” and we are merely players. All life is a schoolroom where we learn our daily lessons, and the more obstacles we face in life’s lessons the more strength we shall have for accomplishing ultimate success.

Listen to episode 539 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Building a Character to Win Life’s Battles. Edited and adapted from Young People’s Problems by J.R. Miller.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. Don’t forget that you can help inspire others by sharing your favorite episodes on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Thank you. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from Young People’s Problems by J.R. Miller, published in 1898.

This world is not a place merely to live in, nor a place only to do certain kinds of business. It is a great workshop in which to make women and men of character.

It is not easy for us to grow into a beautiful life and noble character. Sure, it’s not hard to take a lump of clay, and shape it into any form we desire. It’s fairly easy to take a piece of soft wood, and carve it into a figure of beauty. But it is harder to cut a block of marble into a form of loveliness, for the stone is hard. And it is harder still to take a block of flawed humanity, and make it into a great and noble being. Yet that is what life calls on us to do.

Listen to episode 538 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Optimistic Mind | Positive Thinking Podcasts. Edited and adapted from the The Joy of Living by Orison Swett Marden.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. If you or someone you know is looking to stop smoking or drinking this year, my break free meditations can help them quit for good. Learn more by visiting https://livinghour.org/breakfree. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Joy of Living by Orison Swett Marden, published in 1913.

An optimistic mind is a prism that brings the rainbow colors out of things which are invisible to the pessimist. This prism does not make the colors in the spectrum. They are everywhere in the light before our eyes. The light is made up of all the different colors of the rainbow. The prism merely separates them and makes them visible to the eye.

Every person should have an optimistic lens which can distinguish the uncommon in the common, which can detect all the beauties there are in their environment. It is wicked to go about among your fellow citizens with a face which indicates that life has been a disappointment to you instead of a glorious joy. What a pitiable thing to see people go through life peddling vinegar, radiating bitterness, finding fault, and seeing only the ugly; the worrying; the fretting, cynical, and pessimistic!

Listen to episode 537 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Counting Our Blessings | Happy New Year. Edited and adapted from The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thanks to Aleyda, our newest monthly patron. A very much appreciate your financial support, which helps allow me to continue to spend the 50 hours a month or so that I do researching, editing, and producing this podcast. You can become a monthly patron for as little as a $1 a month by visiting LivingHour.org/patron.

Life must be measured by thought and action, not by time. It ought to be, bright, interesting, and happy. If we do our best; if we do not magnify trifling troubles; if we look resolutely at things as they really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which surround us; we cannot but feel that life is indeed a glorious inheritance.

Few of us, however, realize the wonderful privilege of living, or the blessings we inherit; the glories and beauties of the Universe; the extent to which we can make ourselves what we wish to be; or the power we possess of securing peace, of triumphing over pain and sorrow.

Listen to episode 536 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Mastering the Art of Life | Motivational Podcasts. Edited and adapted from The Joy of Living by Orison Swett Marden.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Joy of Living by Orison Swett Marden, published in 1913.

Is it not strange that while we ought to make a profession of living, most of us are not even amateurs in this art of arts? We never learn the business of real living. We become specialists in our profession or our business, but in right living (which makes or mars the happiness of life), we never become experts.

We know next to nothing about the human machine, which holds the secret of all our success and happiness. We pay much less attention to it than we do to our business mechanisms. The human machine is the only medium by which the soul and the mind connect with the material world, and this marvelous mechanism, this temple Beautiful, should be kept in the superbest condition — for whatever mars it, mars the soul's expression.

Listen to episode 535 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. Edited and adapted from the book by the same name.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. As this is Christmas week, I thought today might be a good time to share with you a reading from one of the chapters of my own book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life, which explores the meaning of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. I’ll be reading from Chapter 7 of the book, where I discuss the meaning of Our Daily Bread. You can read the entire book online for free by visiting LivingHour.org/prayer.

Listen to episode 534 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Rising to the Summit of Life | Motivation Podcasts. Edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. A special thanks to Mr. Hamilton, our newest patron. You too can become our monthly patron for as little as 3$ a month to gain access to full transcripts, our entire archive of over 500 podcasts, and more. Go to livinghour.org/patron. Thank you.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas, published in 1917.

In work well done, there is a satisfaction which is the greatest reward of labor. The sense of achievement is at once a payment and a promise. It compensates you for the toil and drudgery. And it stimulates you with such a sense of power that your ambition seems nearer to realization. Those who plod on day by day, following well-defined roads and making no excursions away from the herded crowds into the byways of life where perils and adventures await, never know the joys of triumph that come to the person who has been battered and wounded in fierce fights, who has been hurled down into the depths of despair, and yet from those depths has started to climb again with undiminished cheerfulness and courage until they have painfully gained the heights.

Only the person who has been down, who, in the words of the world, “has failed," can know the exquisite pleasure of rising to the summits of life. They know that they are more than equal to whatever troubles may await them. They know that in the hour of danger their mental powers will take unto themselves such an access of strength that the perils will be overcome, that the struggle will be joyous, and that the triumph will be sweet.

Listen to episode 533 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: How to Be Continually Successful in Life. Edited and adapted from Personal Power by Keith J. Thomas.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Only the work that calls for original, creative thought brings you into the limelight, and endows you with the responsibilities that lead you to the heights of your profession. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself the method of life and work which will best accord with your own tastes, temperament, and abilities.

All the great women and men of the world have been mentally free. They were not bound by standards. They made standards by which other people judge themselves. If Columbus or Isaac Newton had bound themselves by the standards of their contemporaries, would the world have been the better for their having lived? No. Because they were mentally free, and because they acted and spoke and worked according to their own thoughts, they succeeded in their missions, and we feel their influence today.

Listen to episode 532 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How Mistakes Lead to Greater Wisdom & Living. Adapted from The Power of Purpose by William George Jordan.

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Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes, glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us to turn their light as a glowing illumination along the pathway of our future. Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom, the assessments we pay on our stock of experience, the raw material of error to be transformed into higher living.