Good morning! I want to talk about equating Self Mastery to a muscle. Think about the muscles in your body and how you go about exercising them. Have you have ever gone to a gym and lifted weights on a bench press before? Suppose you’ve never done this and you decide you’re going to get in shape by lifting weights at the gym. You start your training by putting 300 pounds of weights on the barbell. When you go to lift the barbell with 300 pounds on it, guess what? You’re going to fail! There’s no doubt about it, you’re going to fail. It’s just too much weight for you to lift. You can’t start off lifting 300 pounds! You have to start off with any easy weight, a weight you can manage, something that you’re able and capable of lifting.

When you work on muscles, you have to start off with a weight you can lift and then gradually work your way up. So maybe you have to start off at 110 pounds. Let’s say you do the 110 pounds for a while and you do it long enough to where it now becomes easier. So the next thing you do is you add 10 pounds to that. Now you’re lifting 120 pounds. You work on that for a while until it becomes easier. When 120 pounds becomes easier then you add 10 more pounds. You continue on up like this, gradually adding more and more weight to strengthen the muscles in your arms. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you ever come to the end of the day only to find the number one item you wanted to accomplish is still left undone? Somehow, someway, you got sidetracked. I imagine many people have the same problem. I know I have. Let’s explore how this happens and what can be done to overcome it.

Think for a moment about the visual image of a train. You can visualize a train on a track moving forward at a fast pace to its destination and another train sitting on the side track, not making any progress. It’s sidetracked. Sidetracked is a term we use in life when we get diverted from the goal or the object of our intent. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the greatest tragedies in this world are those who fail to find and achieve their purpose or mission in life. This article will help you discover what your mission in life is.  

A number of years ago I took my family to ride an old-time train powered by a massive steam engine. Before that train could move, the water temperature in the boiler had to reach two hundred and twelve degrees. Water will not generate steam at two hundred degrees. Even two hundred and ten degrees will not create the steam to move a train. For water to boil and steam to be generated it must reach the temperature of two hundred and twelve degrees. Lukewarm water will not move anything.

I believe the vast majority of people in life are like the train trying to move with lukewarm water – almost boiling but never quite there. They wonder why their life is stalled, why they never seem to be able to move forward. They work hard but success seems to elude them.

The temperature difference between water that is boiling and water that is not is only a degree or two but the difference in results can be dramatic. In the same sense the difference between a person with an overpowering mission in life and someone who is merely living life can seem small but the results are without comparison. Read the rest of this entry »

Several weeks ago I made a commitment to myself that I would exercise every day with my primary exercise being hiking. My goal was to get out there and go hiking every morning. I’ve been doing it very faithfully.

My hiking morning goes something like this: I get on my hiking gear, jump in my car and drive up to the trailhead parking lot. This is about a mile from my home. The hike I usually take, especially in the winter, is up in the foothills of the mountain. It’s consists of a trail that goes in a loop where the trail runs along the lower portion of the foothills and then it heads up a very steep part of the mountain and loops back on another trail across a higher portion of the foothills and then back down to the trailhead parking lot. Got that?

I’ve been doing this every morning except Sundays and I have quite enjoyed it. I’ve hiked this trail quite a bit over the last three years but my consistency has been spotty at best. There would be months go by at a time that I wouldn’t do any hiking and then other months where I would be consistent. The goal is to do it every day. So I’ve been doing it very consistently for the last several weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was 11 years old I lived in paradise. Well, to me it was paradise. We really lived in an old farm house out in the country in Arizona. The nearest town was several miles away. There were farms surrounding our home. Cotton fields on one side, sugar beets on the other, and a cow pasture across the road. When I wasn’t playing in a barn or swimming in a ditch I was out shooting with my brother’s BB gun. He had a Daisy BB gun, the kind you cock once and shoot. I got to be a pretty good shot with that thing. Once in a while I would shoot a dove or a quail, and I would pluck ‘em and cook ‘em and eat ‘em. But after a while I began to shoot other birds, mostly sparrows – just for the fun of it. I don’t know how many birds I shot but it was a lot.

The Trap

One day I was exploring around and found an animal trap – the kind where you open the steel jaws when you set it. I had seen some squirrels from time to time playing out back behind the old barn. There was a big mesquite tree and the squirrels loved to eat the beans that grew on the tree. I thought to myself, “I’m going to catch me one of those squirrels.” So I took the trap and placed it under the tree. I gathered some of the mesquite beans and place them on the trap as bait. Then I carefully set the trap. I was so excited to catch a squirrel.

From time to time I went to check my trap and each time there was nothing in it. Pretty soon the sun went down and I had to go to bed. Gosh I sure wanted to catch a squirrel but no such luck.

The Horror

The next morning I jumped out of bed and ran out to check my trap. As I got closer to it I could see there was an animal in it. Something was wiggling. I was so excited I ran even faster. As I got close to the trap my heart sank. I couldn’t believe what I saw there in my trap. I was filled with horror. There were two little black eyes looking up at me – almost as if to say, “So you’re the one who did this to me!” There in my trap was a bird with both of its legs broken. I don’t know what kind of bird it was but it was bigger than a sparrow, and it was in pain.

I thought to myself, “What am I going to do? There’s no way I can fix this little bird’s legs. If I just let it go it will never survive. It won’t be able to get food. It won’t be able to sit on a branch. It won’t be able to walk. It will just suffer and die a horrible death. Oh what have I done?”

Do the Right Thing

I remembered that my father had taught me that you should never let an animal suffer – that the right thing to do was to put it out of its misery. Oh, how was I going to put this bird out of its misery? I saw that nearby was an irrigation canal, the one that I had swam in so many times. I then knew what I had to do. I carefully opened the trap and took the little bird up in my hands. The poor thing was in terrible pain – all because of me!

I carried the bird over to the canal, knelt down at the water’s edge, looked that bird in the eye and apologized for what I was about to do. I gathered up my courage and slowly placed the bird under the water. I could feel it struggle in my hands. Then it struggled less and less. Finally, after what seemed like and eternity, it quit struggling and its little heart quit beating. It’s one thing to kill a bird 30 yards away with a BB gun. It’s quite another to have it die right in your hands. I wept as I lifted the little bird out of the water and realized what I had just done.

I took the little body, dug a small grave and buried it there on the banks of the irrigation canal. I made a promise to myself right there that I would never needlessly kill anything again. And since that day I haven’t.

The Lesson Learned

I have tried to teach my sons the same lesson. Life is sacred and we should have respect and reverence for it. It wasn’t right to take your magnifying glass and burn up ants with it. You don’t squish bugs just for the fun of it. You don’t throw frogs against trees. You don’t tie firecrackers to cat’s tails. You don’t pull the wings off flies or treat any of God’s creations in a disrespectful or cruel way. And you don’t shoot little birds.

I fear that some day I will stand before God to be judged and there, standing beside him, will be 30 little birds all with their little wings pointed at me and saying, “Yes, that’s him, he’s the one who did it!” And what am I going to say?

You may wonder why I am sharing this with you. Is this really part of Personal Development? I think it is. I believe the world would be a better place if each of us had a respect and reverence for Nature. I feel those who respect God’s creations will also respect the grandest of all of God’s creations, Mankind. Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Before a person can truly make big changes in their life they need to take some time to explore themselves and discover who they really are deep down inside. They need to discover what their real life passions and desires are. This process can take a long time. It’s not easy. But with some guidance you can go through this in a day or so.

Time Alone

My suggestion is that you go off by yourself, take a day off work, go away from your normal surroundings, preferably up in the mountains or out in the country, somewhere where you are closer to nature, away from the things of the world, where you can almost commune with God, so to speak, with that infinite intelligence that’s out there, the creator; and sit down and think and ponder your life. Bring a note pad, bring a tape recorder, whatever is comfortable, but some way of recording your thoughts and feelings.

Begin asking yourself questions like, what is it your really enjoy doing, what are the things that you are good at? If you didn’t have to go to work today and you had all the money there was in the world or any of the pressures or demands to earn money, what would you be doing? Now don’t say, “I’d be traveling and visiting Europe.” I mean, okay, so you go on your vacation and you come back, then what would you do with your time? What would you spend your time doing? What do you enjoy so much that you would do for free and what do you do so well that people would pay you to do it? That’s what I think true success is, is to find out what that is. Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning! I’m standing in the foothills above my home. Just last night it was pouring rain. We had a big storm come through. This morning as I stand in the foothills it’s not raining on me, but as I look across the valley I see heavy rain and lightning flashes from one end of the valley to the other. What I’m witnessing is an amazing and wonderful light show. It makes me feel like God is putting a show on for me. It’s a delightful thing to watch. Wow, there went another one! It lights up the whole sky and valley. It’s a beautiful thing.

What does this have to do with self-mastery? Probably nothing except for the fact that if I wasn’t up here on my hike I wouldn’t get to see this. There are a lot of things I wouldn’t get to see if I didn’t get out every morning and go hiking. I get to see a number of amazing things that I think a lot of people don’t see. I feel blessed for it and I feel that’s one of the reasons that it makes it worth it for me to get up early and to get outside and exercise my mind and body. It allows me to be among nature and not miss the unexpected and wonderful things in life like this wonderful light show this morning.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

(This is an excerpt from the book THIS MYSTICAL LIFE OF OURS by Ralf Waldo Trine, first published in the 1907 and is now in the public domain.)

There is nothing more true in connection with human life than that we grow into the likeness of those things we contemplate. Literally and scientifically and necessarily true is it that, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The “is” part is his character. His character is the sum total of his habits. His habits have been formed by his conscious acts; but every conscious act is, as we have found, preceded by a thought. And so we have it — thought on the one hand, character, life, destiny on the other. And simple it becomes when we bear in mind that it is simply the thought of the present moment, and the next moment when it is upon us, and then the next, and so on through all time.

One can in this way attain to whatever ideals he would attain to. Two steps are necessary: first, as the days pass, to form one’s ideals; and second, to follow them continually whatever may arise, wherever they may lead him. Always remember that the great and strong character is the one who is ever ready to sacrifice the present pleasure for the future good. He who will thus follow his highest ideals as they present themselves to him day after day, year after year, will find that as Dante, following his beloved from world to world, finally found her at the gates of Paradise, so he will find himself eventually at the same gates. Life is not, we may say, for mere passing pleasure, but for the highest unfoldment that one can attain to, the noblest character that one can grow, and for the greatest service that one can render to all mankind. In this, however, we will find the highest pleasure, for in this the only real pleasure lies. Read the rest of this entry »

The myths of money and happiness are many. The general feeling in today’s society is that more money and things will make us happier. Because of this belief we tend to focus our time and efforts on acquiring more and more “stuff” to the point where we sometimes overextend our finances and resources and in the end achieve exactly the opposite result we intended.

Affluenza Epidemic

A recent book gave a name to this affliction and in fact is the name of the book. It is entitled Affluenza. In the book affluenza is defined as “a painful, contagious, socially-transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” The book reported that Americans each spend more than $21,000 per year on consumer goods. Our average rate of saving has fallen from about 10 percent of our income in 1980 to zero today. Our credit card indebtedness has tripled in the 1990s and currently equals $2,293 in credit card debt for every man, woman and child in the United States. More people are filing for bankruptcy each year than graduate from college.

Many of us do very well with our finances and manage to stay out of debt and live within our means. However, there are too many that have fallen victim to the affliction of affluenza.

What is the True Source of Happiness?

Let’s think for a moment about happiness and where it comes from. First I want to do a little test to see how well your happiness prediction abilities are working. I want to present two different futures for you to contemplate and think about and then decide which one you would prefer.

The first one is of you winning the lottery to the tune of $100 million.

The second one is of you becoming a paraplegic – of losing the use of your legs and being confined to a wheelchair.

So which future would you choose? You may think that is kind of a stupid question. Of course you would choose winning the lottery – who wouldn’t? A person who wins the lottery would be so much happier than someone becoming a paraplegic. Right?

Strange as it may seem they have actually done studies on these two groups of people. They studied how happy they were one year later after either winning the lottery or of becoming a paraplegic. The fact is that one year later lottery winners and paraplegics are equally as happy with their lives. There is absolutely no difference in their level of happiness.

When I asked a number of people I know where they felt true happiness came from they, mentioned their families, serving others, doing what’s right, being out among nature, and someone even said living within your means. So happiness isn’t found in more and better things. It’s mostly found in the things of life that are entirely free.

Jesus Christ made this statement:

Beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. (Luke 12:15)

Misery of Debt

When my wife and I were first married I tried to start my own business. After a year of trying to make a go of it we found ourselves deep in debt and behind on all of our bills. It was a horrible experience for us. Every time the phone rang we would hate to answer it for fear it would be a collection agency calling. We had had enough and finally decided we would do everything we could to pay everyone back and get completely out of debt.

We liquidated the business and I got a job making $4.25 an hour. For the next year all of my paychecks went to paying off debts. We lived like church mice. I drove a $250 car. We cancelled our phone. During the winter we heated only one room of our little rental house. There were times when it got so cold that the water in the toilet would literally freeze. It was a long and difficult year that we spent getting out of debt. But it was a glorious day when the last payment was made and we were completely free of financial bondage. It was a hard lesson to learn but we did learn! Today, my dear wife and I are completely debt free and love every minute of it!

Heber J. Grant said:

If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet.

Live Within Your Means

What I’m about to say is going to sound old fashioned and out of style. But I know the value of it because I have lived it and know it is true.

I urge each of you to honestly examine your own financial circumstances and determine now to live within your means. Prepare now for the future. Be modest in your expenditures. Save for those things you feel you need. Pay off debts as quickly as you can. Begin saving a little money on a regular basis. I promise you that if you will follow this counsel you will feel more secure and experience greater peace and happiness in your life.

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

You have with you at all times a tool that takes very little effort to use and yet has a magical effect on the people around you. It is your smile.

Think for a moment about the people you deal with on a daily basis such as your family, your co-workers or your friends. Which are the ones you enjoy being with the most? Isn’t it generally those people who approach you with a smile on their face, who are cheerful and seem to be in a good mood?

Now think for a moment about those people with whom you must deal with who rarely smile. I’m talking about those people who always seem to have a scowl on their face. It’s not a pleasant experience to be with them, is it? Their mood rubs off on you. By nature you tend to resist these kinds of people. We don’t want to be around them.

Now the big question: Which kind of person are you?

Read the rest of this entry »