Tons of Self-Improvement Materials

We all look for self-improvement information from time to time, and I ran across -- okay, was invited -- to this one, and also invited to submit my gifts.  I contributed a 5 day Positivity Boost... sample of vitamin K and a free 1200x800 pixel inspirational computer wallpaper. 

There's a plethora of free information here, so I encourage you to take a look and see if anything piques your interest.  There's over 600 free items during this one-month promotion including:


* Affirmations For A Wealthy Mindset Audio - Elaine Lockard
* The All-Natural, No-Fail Weight-Loss System - Willie Crawford
* 10 Free Personal Development Reports - Steven Aitchison
* Sound Transformation Starter Kit - Iain Legg
* A Beginners Guide To Running - Paul Klein
* 3 FREE Hypnosis MP3s - Dan Bainbridge
* How to Make Your Mind a Money Magnet! - Dr. Robert Anthony
* The Law of Attraction Key - Kristen Howe
* Create Your Own Self Improvements Products - Keith Purkiss
* Brain Maximization Package - Alvin Huang
* And Much Much More!

It all starts here, so give it a look:
http://selfimprovementgifts6.com/go/1221

Have an awesome day!
Kelvin P Ringold, Sr

P.S. Download all the gifts immediately and check
back often because more are being added all the
time:
http://selfimprovementgifts6.com/go/1221

End of Year... No Regrets

Happy New Year!!!  HERE we are at the final day -- the final 12 hours, at this point, of 2011. And many of us ask ourselves -- what have we done with the past year... what do I regret?

While I can't answer that question for you, I'd like to suggest a point of view, and that is... regret nothing. Chances are, you did the best you could with what you had; even if you KNEW something else was a better plan there was something deep inside you that caused you to do something else, and from that experience you likely learned something and that lesson -- those lessons -- will serve you well in the coming year.

Thank you for continuing to read and cherish my thoughts, and for sending your friends and other people you care about.  I'm looking forward to many successes and joys in 2012 and I hope you'll be a part of them in one way or another.  So before I sign off with my typical end of year poem, I'd like to suggest two things:

1.  Until midnight tonight, I'm offering my new "Intensely Positive" ball point pen for 30% off .  It's a beauty.  Check it out here: http://intenselypositive.com/intensely-positive-pen/

2.  My friend Nachhi Randhawa published a Top Ten Year End Review Questions post that I wish I'd written (no that's not a regret) and I recommend the read to help prepare for 2012.

Thanks again for staying with me! and please, have a wonderful, joyful, prosperous New Year and remember... when you master your mindset, you master your life.  Enjoy the poem.

No Regrets

We close this year with no regrets,
We say good bye to gripes and frets
We ran our race just like before
And now "next year" is at our door.

At first we feared, we're out of time
Then realized the paradigm
Just shifted in our favor now
Recharged our glass, renewed our vow

We learned from previous mistakes
We re-assessed the steps we'll make
Re-focussed on our journey's end
Re-plotted strategies to win

We know that there IS NO disgrace
BECAUSE we still are in this race
We haven't quit -- we'll see the end
We paused and got our second wind

And now refreshed, recharged and fine
We're full-speed to the finish line
Into our future we now delve
We're sure to win in twenty-twelve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friends.
Kelvin

Step by Step

In the "dreams come true" department -- or at least the goals set and accomplished -- we have the first anniversary (we're calling it birthday) of my daily dose of positive -- Vitamin K Daily! launched on October 18th, 2010 !

A couple of years ago one of my photographer friends made a comment about my positivity on Facebook and asked "what would you charge for a daily dose of positive?" I smiled (virtually) and told her I'd let her know, at that time not really "planning" to make that happen beyond the little positive updates I made on Twitter and Facebook but the idea kept gnawing at me -- it wasn't the first time I'd gotten the question.  I fought all kinds of self-doubt thoughts: "why would people care what I had to say?" "I can't charge, there's so much out here for free;" "Wow, I couldn't think of something to say every day and what if I missed a day?"  Just because we're positive, doesn't mean we escape the self-doubt self-talk. Positive people aren't immune to negative self-talk, we're just not immobilized by it.  We acknowledge it, put it into perspective and move on because negative self talk is the smoke and mirror game of fear.

In this case I already had a couple of hundred people subscribed to my other e-writings, so I knew that people liked what I had to say.  This was just a bigger test; bigger for me, really, moreso than my readers, because THIS choice would obligate me to producing a positive piece every single day (Monday through Friday; I gave myself Saturday and Sunday off), 52 weeks a year!  With my other writings, publication had been more a whim than a schedule.  Consistency had not been one of my writing/blogging strong suits and committing to that kind of consistency, quite frankly, frightened me.

There's much more to the story, and maybe I'll vignette some the other "obstacles" later, but I'm pleased to say that I *did* lauuch Daily Dose, it was subsequently dubbed "Vitamin K" by one of my readers and great friends, and I'm pleased to say that in the past year I have not missed a single day of publication.  The technology tried very hard a couple of times to give me a reason to fail, but I didn't take the out. Once, my computer crashed so I typed the daily message on my iPhone and uploaded it that way. so it would launch on time."

So step by step -- in this case, day by day -- goals get accomplished. Break it down into smaller pieces and handle them one at a time. Know what the big picture looks like, but concentrate on placing the puzzle pieces one at a time and the picture will gradually materialize.

Now for the next year!  Incidentally, Daily Dose is only $24.95 a year.  That's only 9.5 cents a day for a better attitude. The accolades I've been getting... daily... tell me it's worth it.  What is YOUR attitude worth?

Have a beautiful day!
Kelvin
http://www.vitaminkdaily.com

I Think the iPad is Changing My Life

iPAD

It's bizarre.  When the iPad first came out, I was one of THE most adamant "that's ridiculous" skeptics out there. That whole tablet thing just smacked of commercial b.s. for hard core gadgeteers... techno-freaks. And the money... for "that?"  Oh my gosh, how ridiculous !

That was then -- before so many of my photographer colleagues had them and told me the incredible things they were doing with them; the energy saving, productivity boosting things they were accomplishing. That was before I went to a two-day photo workshop by my friend Tasha Prescott and watched her run the whole thing from her iPad, interfacing with her mac and that big screen TV, running slide shows from the iPad wirelessly and seamlessly.  That was before I saw how perfect those apps were for niche tasks... and all the things the iPad could do with the apps -- thousands and thousands -- developed for it. THAT was before I held one in my hands... where upon I promptly lost the "that's ridiculous" battle and started drooling uncontrollably.  Luckily, another photographer friend told me about price reduced, refurbished units (generation 1) I could get from the Apple Store at the time (just after the iPad 2 came out).

No one has ever accused me of being an early adopter, but once I'm sold, I'm a heck of an evangelist, and I am absolutely sold on the iPad. Now wondering... how did I ever get along in life without it. I SHOULD have known, since the iPhone -- when I got my 3G just after the iPhone 4 came out -- was the first cell phone I'd owned in 10 years where I didn't want to take it back to the store (or throw it against a hard surface) within 24 hours of getting it fully charged.  The iPhone just worked "as advertised." At this point Apple could sell me just about anything because they make good on their promise. Period.

But enough hyperbole (that's for my friend Mitch).  The iPad for me is a great mix of technology, ingenuity and selective focus, not to mention it's just plain beautiful. It's about as comfortable to take around as a pad of paper.I'll sit up and browse the news sitting on my couch, watching tv and get informed.  That's big for me, since I don't watch the news. But I can pick a specific app that does exactly what I want it to do -- and that's all it does -- and it makes it easy. It makes so many things pleasant. And you might say, "but Kelvin, you could do that with a laptop..."  No you can't. Comparatively, the laptop is big and bulky, inconvenient and SLOW.  When I want news, "touch" and it's there --NOW.  A dedicated, specialized app for nearly any purpose. Browse the web, see something, print to my wireless printer from the iPad.  Snap!  Done. On the PC, it took 15 minutes to install that printer software, and program it, and set it up to wireless operation.  iPad app, downloaded in about 30 seconds for that manufacturer.  Tap the app, it FOUND the printer in about 10 seconds, and when I hit print, it printed. No muss; no fuss.

AND NOW... with the upcoming iOS 5, Apple is making the iPad completely self sufficient via the cloud and I won't even need to hook it up to iTunes to sync it? That's just too slick for words, and I don't even NEED the other 200+ enhancements.


So the iPad is changing my life. It's making cumbersome things easy, tedious things fun and it replaces my computer for about 80% of the things I use a computer for, and let's me do them with the ease and comfort of flipping through a magazine. And I'm reading this on the iPad that I said I'd never do -- like news (ugh) but only in small doses (see 6 Steps to Being Positive) It just makes it easy.

But that's me. Unless I need to do some heavy duty writing (like this blog post) when I want a full sized keyboard, or I'm editting images from a photo shoot and need the disk storage space for the images and the power to run a program suite like Photoshop and related programs, the iPad lets me do my other stuff -- quick stuff -- quickly, and simply, and conveniently.  And that's all I have to say about that (sorry, Forrest.)

Have an awesome day.

Kelvin