Welcome to our Sunday Talks, an exclusive series for the patrons of the inspirational living podcast.

Today's reading was edited and adapted from

The Magic Word by Robert Collier, published in 1940.

In an old pamphlet written by Don Blending, he tells of a time during the trying years of the Great Depression, when he found himself financially, mentally and physically broke.

He was suffering from insomnia and from a physical lethargy amounting almost to paralysis.

Worst of all, he had a bad case of self-pity, and he felt that the self-pity was fully justified.

He was staying at a small Ark colony, trying to rebuild his wrecked life and wretched body.

Among those at the colony was Mike, a Hawaiian boy.

Mike seemed to be always cheerful, always prosperous.

And naturally, Blending wondered why.

So one day he asked Mike what good fairy had waved her wand over him,

and turned all that now he touched into gold.

For an answer, Mike pointed to a string of letters he had pasted over his bed.

L-I-D-G-T-T-T-F-T-A-T-I-M.

Blanding read them, but could make no sense out of it.

What are they, he asked?

The open sesame to the treasure cave?

They have been the open sesame for me, Mike told him,

and went on to explain how they had helped him.

It seems that Mike, too, had experienced his ups and downs, but in the course of one of his down periods,

he had happened upon a teacher who showed him the power of praise and thankfulness.

Mike discovered the law of the mind that says,

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