Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success, Happiness, Motivation, Spiritual Growth, Self-Help & Positive Thinking

Listen to episode 16 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Timeless Thoughts About Life. Edited and Adapted from the book The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Podcast Excerpt: Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth. But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see, nor the song you would hear. But rather an image you see, though you close your eyes, and a song you hear, though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within a Maple tree, nor a wing attached to a claw. But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in flight.....

Listen to episode 15 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Christmas & The Secret of Happiness. Edited and Adapted from the book Friendship & Happiness (The Feast of St. Friend) by Arnold Bennett. Podcast Excerpt: Children divide their adult acquaintances into two categories—those who sympathize with them in this bizarre and trying adventure called life; and those who don't. The second category is the much larger of the two. Very many people belong to it who think that they belong to the first. They may deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive a child. They will add you up (they will add anybody up) and estimate your conduct upon principles of their own and in a manner terribly impartial. Parents have no sterner, nor more discerning, critics than their own children...

Listen to a special Christmas installment of the Inspirational Living podcast. Edited and adapted from the famous Christmas editorial written by Francis Pharcellus Church. Podcast Excerpt: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion, which, as you know, are the things that give life its highest beauty and joy. Oh, how dreary would the world be if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable our existence on Earth.....

Listen to episode 13 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Living Consciously: Mindfulness, Success & Personal Growth. Edited and adapted from the essay "Circles" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Podcast Transcript Excerpt: Beware when the universe lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no one knows where it is safe, or when it will end. There is not a piece of science that may not be proved untrue; there is not any reputation, history, or legend that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of humanity, the thoughts of our hearts, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of society, are all at the mercy of new beliefs and ideals.

Listen to episode 12 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Overcome a Fear of Death & Dying. Edited & adapted from the book The Conquest of Fear by Basil King. Podcast Excerpt: Fear of death is greatly diminished by recognizing the truth of everlasting growth. This truth is reflected in everything we know of life. Our observation of life is, of course, limited to this planet; but as far as it goes, it shows us a persistent and perpetual system of development. We have only to let our imaginations go back to the first stirrings of life in Earth’s primeval seas, and contrast that with what it became in Plato, Sophocles, Raphael, Shakespeare, and Einstein, to see how high the climb upward has been. Every individual is a growing entity. Each year, each day, expands you a little further, with increased fullness of character....

Listen to episode 11 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be Successful in Life. Edited & adapted from the motivational work of James Allen. Podcast Excerpt: To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve. Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. The greatest achievement was at first, and for a time, a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities. Your circumstances may be difficult, but they shall not long remain so, if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without.

Listen to episode 10 of the Inspirational Living podcast: What the World Needs From You. Adapted from the book The Art of Being Alive by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Podcast Excerpt: LIFE means action, from the cradle to the grave. There are limitless possibilities in this life to bring into realization whatever hopes or aspirations we desire. If we only but begin… There is no such thing as inaction during this life. We are continually going forward or backward. You are either stronger or weaker this year than you were last year. You are braver or more cowardly. You are more hopeful or more pessimistic. You are more capable mentally or less so. You have better or poorer command of your forces. You have more efficiency or not as much. You are nearer your goal or farther from it. You are a better human being or not as good.....

Listen to episode 9 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Letter to a Young Artist. Edited and adapted from an Oscar Wilde lecture to art students. Transcript Excerpt: Phrases like English art and American art are meaningless expressions. One might just as well talk of English or American mathematics. Art is the science of beauty, and Mathematics the science of truth: there is no national school of either. Nor is there any such thing as a school of art even. There are merely artists, that is all.

Listen to episode 8 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Stay Calm & Motivated. Adapted from The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan. Transcript Excerpt: Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the signpost of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of the life self-reliant and the self- controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power — ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.

Listen to episode 7 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: The Decline of the Art of Lying, edited & adapted from a satirical essay on lying by Mark Twain. Transcript Excerpt: Let me begin by clarifying that when I say the art of lying is in decline, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any interruption—no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, a Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while the human species remains.

Listen to episode 6 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How Thoughts Shape Your Destiny. Edited & adapted from the book As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. Transcript Excerpt: The world is your kaleidoscope. The varying color combinations are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts. You are literally what you think, your character being the complete sum of all your thoughts. As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every action springs from the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them.

Listen to episode 5 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Thinking Body. Edited & adapted from the book How to Get What You Want by Dr. Orison Marden. Transcript Excerpt: We are apt to think of the body as a collection of different organs and that these organs are in a way separate, of different material or construction. But we are simply one enormous mass of tiny cells closely related to one another. Because the bones, for example, are harder than the brain, we think there can be little affinity between them, but, as a matter of fact, what affects one cell anywhere in the body affects all. Each cell is an entity or little self, and we are made up of these billions of our little selves or cells.

Listen to episode 4 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Art of Being Alive. Edited & adapted from the book The Art of Being Alive by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Transcript Excerpt: Stop wondering why you were born into this world. Stop looking for faults and flaws. Rise up today with joy and say, “I am going to be alive!" In every thousand people who are living on this earth, not more than one is alive. To be really alive means more than to be a moving, breathing, eating, drinking, and talking human being. Those who are actually alive find the days too short to pursue all the wonderful explorations which life offers them. They find life itself a continual adventure, an unfolding panorama, with opportunities for pleasure and achievement at every turn....

Listen to episode 3 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Daring Greatly: Finding the Courage to Lead. Edited & adapted from the book The Power of Truth by William George Jordan. Transcript Excerpt: The reformers of the world are those men and women of mighty purpose. They are leaders with the courage of individual conviction who dare run counter to the criticism of the crowd. They are the souls who voluntarily bear crosses for what they accept as right, even without the guarantee of redemption. They are the heroes who gladly go down into the depths of silence, darkness and oblivion, only to emerge finally like divers, with pearls in their hands...

Listen to episode 2 of the Inspirational Living Podcast: Living the Immortal Life, edited & adapted from Theodore Parker's Unitarian sermon on immortality. Transcript Excerpt: It is the belief of many that we shall all live forever. This is not a doctrine of Christianity alone. It belongs to the human race. But how did we come by this belief? Our ancestors did not sit down and think it out; never waited till they could prove it by logic and metaphysics; did not delay their belief till a miraculous revelation came to confirm it. It came to them by intuition; by instinctive belief, the belief which comes unavoidably from our nature. In this same way came the belief in a higher power; the redeeming power of love; and the yearning for justice. Some faculties of the body act spontaneously at first---so others of the spirit. Immortality is a fact of human nature; it is thus a part of the universe, just as the sun is a fact in the heavens and a part of the universe....