Gabriel Hummel » Action

You Don’t Need More Time, You Just Need to Decide.

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:51:54 +0000

It’s easy for you to sit it out, wait until someone tells you its okay to make a move.

Taking your time is just another way to delay the inevitable, a slow death by indecision.

Having indecision will seep into every aspect of your life; it will spread like a plague until you are immobilized by inaction.

But you can stop it, strike at the heart of the problem.

Leave time behind, and relish in the feeling of action

All you need to do is decide

Thanks Seth

Gabriel

Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:07:40 +0000

I love the little bald bastard that is Seth Godin, he always brings such ingennious and simple concepts to the table that help to increase the smart level of my days. Today I was fluttering through my smartphone, rolling my eyes at the numerous blogs that I read that have become monotonus and droll with their rehashed articles and sob stories about stupid bullshit that no one cares about when I came across Seth’s feed.

Seth’s feed always gets my full attention because more often than not, he writes at least 4-5 solid articles in a given week, with a couple a month being real show stoppers.

When I was reading through his blog, I came across this article that he called “Cashing the Check”. It really spoke to me as it talked about people who droll on about their limitations and spend no time taking action in their life, and we all know how much I hate people who complain, and especially how much I cant even fathom sympathizing with a person who doesn’t take action.

I was struggling for a topic to write about today, but this one seemed to literally take the words right out of my mouth so I decided to unleash it in all its glory on my very own site.

Plagerism? Laziness? Poor taste?

Like I give a damn, you need to read this.

Cashing the check

A check in your wallet does you very little good. It represents opportunity, sure, but not action.

Most of us are carrying around a check, an opportunity to make an impact, to do the work we’re capable of, to ship the art that would make a difference.

No, the world isn’t fair, and most people don’t get all the chances they deserve. There are barriers due to income, to race, to social standing and to education, and they are inexcusable and must fall. But the check remains, now more than ever. The opportunity to step up and to fail (and then to fail again, and to fail again) and to continue failing until we succeed is greater now than it has ever been.

As Martin Luther King Junior spoke about a half a lifetime ago,

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

Well said Seth

Gabriel

How to Be a Badass in Life

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:43:14 +0000

Pick a goal(s) that will be as easy to achieve as surviving cervical cancer
Work at the goal
Fail
Try ever harder
Fail
Stop bullshitting yourself and try harder than a virgin during his first time
Fail
Inevitably realize that you will continually have setbacks for the rest of your life
Decide to quit or continue
Don’t fucking quit

Congratulations, you have just become a certified badass at life by realizing that life will not always be in your favor, but by superseding the bullshit that comes with disappointment will make you that much better than the person next to you.

Get badass

Gabriel

Personal Decision 2010

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:08:11 +0000

In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
-Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
-Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
-William James

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion
-Chinese proverb

Getting Started vs. Having a Good Idea

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:07:26 +0000

A million ideas are thought up every conceivable second. From a new electric car to a new artist’s rendition of the statue of liberty, good and bad ideas come and go as frequently as a bullet train in Japan.

I am sure that you and your friends have often found yourself saying, “Wow that would be a great idea, I/we should totally get started on that”.

What’s the next thing that happens? Does the stars align and a once sad computer programmer leave his life of recluse in order to pursue his dream of being a top chef in a 3 Michelin star fine dining establishment? Not likely.

The opposite usually occurs; the idea comes and goes faster than fresh entrant into amateur pornography.

So the obvious conclusion is that ideas suck.

But even if they do or don’t, how do you turn an idea into something tangible?

Action

Getting started is the first bullet point towards a thesis on the next big thing. From the internet to IKEA, every major idea started from a place of action and not a place of idea farming.

Want to start a website? Go buy a domain name,

Looking to break into the hotel business? Start scouting property locations.

Want to invent interplant space travel? Better hit the physics books kid.

That’s the difference between getting started and having a great idea; the action will actually allow you the option of holding onto your dream instead of just fantasizing about how great it could have been.

Abandon all ideas and get started

Gabriel

Get Your Hands Dirty

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:02:16 +0000

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I was a night club manager of a prestigious nightclub.

During the course of that career pathway there were many moments when we would be down to the wire of hosting an event and trying to setup for the evening’s festivities when all that stood between us and success was grunt labor.

Tables needed to be taken down, posters hung, furniture moved, floor décor repositioned, basically a excruciating amount of moving and lifting that could only be summed up as a moving company on steroids.

The other managers on premise barked orders around to their perspective subordinates and watched as they scrambled and often failed to achieve simple acts of labor and time.

I took the less traveled road

I took off my suit jacket, tie, cufflinks, and all other unnecessary attire like a Persian warrior and told my team that we were going to attack these tasks like a wrecking ball.

Every time it came down to those final fleeting moments that would separate victory from defeat, I would step up to the plate with my team and make shit happen.

Many times we can find ourselves in situations in life where we might be forced to get our hands dirty.

It doesn’t matter if it’s “not your job” or if it would be easier to get the neighborhood kid to do it, part of owning yourself and being an adult is doing hard work that no one else wants to do.

From helping a friend move a massive piano into their studio apartment to moving a bunch of 70s era printers to your car for a donation to good will, these situations come up regularly in our lives, especially in regards to things of great importance to us.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, everyone should be willing to go the extra mile for something that matters.

The question is, do you balk and recite orders like the managers of yore? Or do you step up and make shit happen when everyone else is busy complaining about breaking their nails or some other bullshit excuse.

Complain to me about how you pulled your hamstring moving your friends couch and I might just then offer you an icepack, bitch to me about how you can’t get sweaty before you go out on a Friday night and I might just laugh in your face.

Get dirty

Gabriel

Think Outside Your Box

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:17:12 +0000

What does it really mean to think outside the box?

Why does everyone find it so important?

Does it mean trying something new and creative? Does it mean doing something that no one has ever done before? Do you have to feverishly beat your head against the wall until you come up with a great accessory option for an ipad that no one has thought of yet?

What if thinking outside of the box simply meant thinking outside of YOUR box

Imagine if you’re a painter, writer, or musician and your full time job is to be creative 24/7

Would you really want to think outside the box more and ponder some deep seeded lyrics or think of the best way to use a toothbrush as a painting instrument in order to stand out, or would it be a lot more fun to simply stay at home and do absolutely nothing creative at all for an entire day?

The key to thinking outside the box is to know what type of box you typically find yourself in

If you box is a cubicle that involves banging out TPS reports until you commit Seppuku then maybe thinking outside the box is taking your laptop to a library and doing some writing and research for that awesome article you have always thought about writing

If you are a fitness junkie akin to Arnold during his Mr. Universe phase and find yourself at the gym more than a post pregnancy American pop star, then maybe thinking outside the box would involve a nice day lounging at home with your new copy of Starcraft 2

The importance of thinking outside the box isn’t the concept of forcing yourself to do something that no one has done before, its forcing yourself to do something that YOU haven’t done before

Every time you step outside the box, even if just for a brief moment, you will not only learn something about yourself, but you just might get some insight to that next great idea that makes a big impact on your own life, and not something that has to fundamentally alter the space time continuum

Think outside your box

Gabriel

Lambo + No Fear = Awesomeness

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:57:36 +0000

I want to take a moment to talk about this recent story that everyone has been clamoring about

Full Article

The cliff notes of this article are this:

This guy is damn awesome and everyone should hope to have the same sediments about their own lives

Live Your Dreams

Onto the more thorough version

Richard Jordan had the American dream bottled up in the perfect little container with a bow on top

He had a good job, a new house, a fiancée, everything a men is expected to want in life

Then his fiancée left him and he was left with a collection of shattered hopes and dreams

After a swift kick in his own ass, he decided to sell all of his possessions and travel across the United States……in a Lamborghini

91,807 miles and 53 speeding tickets later he arrived back in Dallas a changed man, a man who followed his dream and lived more in a few years than most people do in a lifetime

The moral of the story isn’t that you should sell all your possessions and attempt to break every traffic violation known to man, its to chase the things that really matter to you in life

Richard had a deep seeded passion for automobiles, and he could think of nothing he would rather do then spend every penny he had on a car that he fantasized about driving, and take it across the US in an adventure of epic proportions

That is exactly what you should learn from this story

Don’t simply acknowledge the fact that its really cool what he did, think about what it is you really want in life, what is it that you would love to do more than anything in the world?

What the hell is really stopping you?

Money? Time? Yourself?

Find a way to make it work, take steps every day towards following your dreams in life because you never know when your current situation might shatter to pieces

When asked why he went on this trip, Richard simply said,

“You’re never going to live up to anyone’s expectations, so you might as well live up to your own and for me that’s to be as free as you can. And if money doesn’t buy you freedom then it’s useless.”

Rock on Richard

Gabriel

Window Shopping

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:35:59 +0000

Recently I was taking the elevator up in the complex that I work in and noticed a few extra details that I hadn’t seen before

The elevators themselves look as if they were hit with a hammer swung by the guys who do the Grey Poupon commercials. It has a television built into one of the panels that shows the daily news and even is encased in a gold trim from top to bottom

In the world of elevators it is definitely in my top 3

The one detail of these elevators that really separates them however is the complete glass wall that surrounds half of the elevator

This huge glass wall serves as a window into the massive hotel and courtyard area of the entire complex. Saying that the view is cool is an understatement. You can see the bar, all of the events occurring, two different restaurants, all of the other elevators in the complex, and you can even see out onto the skyline of the city as the whole building is enclosed in windows.

I saw of these details the first moment I stepped into this elevator, but today I noticed something different that had me in a daze

A group of people entered the elevator on a beautiful sunny day. Today you could look out the window as you traveled up the levels of the complex and see a million different things occurring, all within an eyes reach

Everyone’s attention was instantly diverted…..to the television news report about the weather for the day

I felt a unexplainable sense of irony creep over me, all of the eight people in the elevator had their attention solely focused on the news equivalent of the weather channel. They could be directly experiencing the weather in addition to a million other amazing happenings is they only had done a 180 in the elevator

This may seem like an oversight, but I think people who tend to think big, dream, and aspire about things on a regular basis in their life tend to be the kind of people who stare out the window. People who are more routine, system orientated, and carrot driven in life will always watch the television

The big question is then

Do you look out the window, or do you watch TV?

Keep dreaming

Gabriel

The Last Percent

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:25:39 +0000

Ever not given 100% when doing something?

Of course you have, we all have

Sometimes you put out a low amount of effort when you see your kitchen sink full of a small bacteria army, and other times you huff and puff as you drag yourself into the gym in the morning

Occasionally we find ourselves in a situation that is fairly routine, not ideal, and certainly would be avoided like the bubonic plague if possible

This is totally fine

I am not a huge purveyor of the idea, “give it 100% all the time 24/7 because you are doing yourself and society a disservice if you aren’t busting your ass all the time”

While it seems many self help people will say otherwise, I say don’t worry about putting worth your best effort on absolutely everything you do, as you will likely get drained very quickly

Don’t mistake my easy nature for a license to slack off though

There is some method to the madness of putting forth 100% of the effort the whole way through

Squeezing out those last percentage points on the things that truly matter in your life will make a drastic change in the quality of your life

Anyone who works out a lot will tell you the major difference between a 90% and 100% effort workout

All successful businessmen will tell you that it’s when a project got all of their focus and not just a portion of it that it truly succeeded

You need to take this “All or Nothing” philosophy to heart whenever you find yourself working on something that you know is important to who you are

Taking out the trash? Probably not

Writing in your journal? Probably yes

Make these distinctions, and don’t let your “half-ass” list get to long

Once you have a clear idea in your mind, it becomes painfully obvious that pushing out those last percentage points of effort will make all the difference in the world

It’s that final barrage of effort that turns an okay project into an awesome one

It’s the last push that makes your art a masterpiece

It’s one percentage point that wins the game instead of losing it

Fight for those last percentage points, and I swear you will notice a difference

100%

Gabriel