Two recommended ebooks, both free, released this week

1. Seth Godin's Domino Project has just released a free ebook called
The Flinch, by Julien Smith. The short book, really a longish essay,
is a close cousin to Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. (Steven
Pressfield's "Resistance," which Seth Godin refers to as the "lizard
brain," is here known as "the flinch.")

The book includes a set of exercises designed to train you to get over
"the flinch," that fight or flight instinct that was useful in helping
us escape from bears, but not so helpful in the modern world where it
keeps us from accomplishing our dreams. The first exercise, for
example, has you take a cold shower. As you stick your hand in and
feel the cold water running, experience that instinct in your chest
telling you to skip this stupid exercise. Really savor that feeling.
Then step in. Do this seven days in a row. The goal is to learn that
you won't die from pain, and to train yourself to face the
uncomfortable. After day one of trying this experiment, I will attest
that I felt the "flinch" while still in bed, dreading that cold
shower, and that the cold water in December in New York City is not
making me look forward to day two of the exercise. The next exercise
is to take a mug (empty / not your favorite one), hold it out at arm's
length, and drop it on the floor. That one should be a little easier
than the cold showers. Here is a link to the book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flinch-ebook/dp/B0062Q7S3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323358211&sr=8-1


2. Chris Guillebeau, the writer and travel hacker who is on a
five-year mission to travel to every country in the world (19 left),
has released a new manifesto about leaving a legacy. It is free and
available for download at:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/files/2011/12/thetower.pdf