A couple of shout-outs to people doing good work—and they are pretty much giving it away! First up, Leo Babauta, the founder of the fine blog, Zen Habits, has published a new book titled Focus. If you are familiar with his blog, you’ll know that Leo is a wise fellow who offers techniques and approaches to seeing things in a big-picture perspective, not sweating the small stuff, and learning to listen to your inner voice—and to consciously act on that listening. His new book is about finding simplicity in the age of distraction.

That’s a fine thing, but finer yet, is that the book is available as a free download. The for-sale version has a bunch of extras, but being able to get the full 120-page version of the book for free is a gift. Thanks Leo.

Magic Formula: Muse, Write, Change the World!
The other present-with-balloons is from the soulful gals (who are also my pals), Pace and Kyeli at Connection Revolution. A little while back, they offered a World-Changing Writing Workshop that was chockablock with info from the stellar minds (and keyboards) of folks like Chris Guillebeau, Danielle LaPort, Jennifer Louden, Jonathan Fields and Sonia Simone and lots more. The course material—audio recordings and transcripts—centers on understanding and learning how to craft writing that makes a difference; how to produce writing that’s real, and that spreads ripples. A pretty good deal at $297.

They’ve got a better deal, and a mighty generous one: in honor of NaNoWriMo, you can get the workshop in all its writerly wonder, for whatever you can pay. That pretty much means you could pay with a coconut, or a single buck, though considering what these guys put into it, two coconuts would be better. Really though, this is a deal, and a big deal. But it’s only good until this Saturday, the 23rd at midnight, when the workshop turns into a pumpkin.

Full disclosure: I get no coconuts or any other forms of wampum from mentioning these things. But these are good people doing good stuff, and I wanted to share.