Gabriel Hummel » Challenge

Coming of Age

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:42:41 +0000

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to suck it up and fall down the rabbit hole

This can meaning anything from embarking on an unsettling adventure to pulling the trigger on your comfortable job for something completely outside your comfort zone.<

Since today we are nearly all blessed with out the constant threat of an animal ready to rip out our jugular or at risk from being killed by the tribe leader for giving the slip to the most attractive woman in the tribe, you can pretty much bet that you can do whatever the hell you want with little fear of consequences.

This isn’t a pledge to commit mass homicide against Justin Bieber’s, but rather an understanding that your new passage for becoming a true man might involve something as simple as telling your boss to, “fuck off”

Its like embarking on a gold digging crusade, except you might very well walk out without your whip and fedora with a beautiful blond under your arms.

It has to be done though, you have to grow the hell up and do things that no one else agrees with, that your parents hate, your girlfriend fumes about, and any other social pressure to prevent you from doing something you know you were born to do.

Being a man means doing the things that are important, and if you don’t you might as well stay home and read about playboy bunnies instead of being wit you.

Come of age, and grow the fuck up.

Gabriel

Be Limitless with Bruce Lee

Gabriel Hummel — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:57:50 +0000

Let get something straight, I love Bruce Lee.

If I could be resurrected and come back as anyone, I would likely give my left testicle to either

A) Be Bruce Lee

B) Be one of his apprentices

Any man who could father the principles of Jeet Kune Do has my eternal respect, admiration, and full blown man crush rights.

Not only did he offer up an amazing philiosphy for the world to digest, but he gets serious bonus points for actually living the example he was trying to set. He knew that anyone could achieve anything, and that limitations would be a fate worse than death by mediocrity.

Read this excerpt about him and start realizing how much better you could be living your life now.

It’s Called Mindset

Gabriel Hummel — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:45:33 +0000

Another brilliant gem while my brain and my liver recover from 10 days of debauchery in Texas.

This one is a keeper.

Limitless

Gabriel

Memoirs of Party Soul

Gabriel Hummel — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:22:51 +0000

Nearly everyone, at some point in their life, decides that it would be prudent to write their memoirs and get them published as a means of substantial passing before they are gone from this world.

Fame, power, nostalgia, lust, nearly any reason can be given for writing about one’s past, but the real question is, who really cares?

Sure, your friends, family, and your distant cousins might have some feign interest in reading about your life, but who knows if anyone outside your mother would ever even give it a glance over.

Sure, you could have some important life lesson(s) and write about how you gallivanted around the world trying to stop the spread of aids while wrestling alligators, but that doesn’t mean anyone will give a shit.

You life could have been the second coming of Christ himself, and no one would ever be the wiser.

In all likely hood, no one will read your story nor will they ever give a damn about anything you have ever done in your life, and even if you leave some powerful stamp on this fair planet, all will be forgotten in a short time.

That notion in itself is exactly why you should not only write about your life, but make it worth writing about.

It doesn’t matter if other people read your story and benefit from it, or if you get famous from your travel memoires or your attempts to cure indescribable diseases. It’s the mere act of not giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks of you and going for the things in your life that matter most.

From writing your memoires to traveling the world on a boat, it doesn’t matter if anyone else cares or even knows about your exploits, but you should care more than enough to follow through on them.

That’s why a life is worth writing about, because you wanted to live it just as powerfully as you wanted to write it.

Gabriel

How Not To Completely Loose Your Mind: Personal Standards

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:03:30 +0000

One of the biggest conflicts that one can struggle with is the notion of, “keeping up with the Joneses”

In case you have been living in an underground vault for the past century, it basically means that you are in a constant battle to have as much as the guy living next door to you. You are constantly in the zone of, “caring what other people think”.

This can be interpreted in a variety of ways. From making sure that you have the same new stuff that they are getting (cars, house renovations, lawn gnomes) and it can also mean being as successful as the guy living next door.

Success can be anything from a trophy wife to a high position within a company, and it can eat away at your soul if you don’t get it in check quickly.

This has been a constant area of struggle for me personally; as I have always not given a shit what others think about me and my actions or how much cooler stuff the guy/gal down the street has.

However, I have always had an innate desire to be as good if not better than anyone else in any area of particular interest to me. From women, money, and self reliance to minimalism, cooking, and passport stamps, there was always some bastard doing things bigger and better than I was.

What I realized is that while I could care less about how people perceive who and what I am, I really got self conscious about how I stacked up against the next guy. I quickly realized that this was a recipe for failure.

How in the hell would one man be a master chef, world traveler, master seducer, fitness athlete, enlightened human being? The only way I could see one man achieving all this is if he didn’t sleep, injected a combination of steroids and adrenaline into himself, and subsequently died of a heart attack at the age of 40.

Hilariously, I still struggle with this problem, when I set my mind to something (something’s x 1000) I will not settle for anything less than mastery, even if it means a lot of painful trip ups and emotional breakdowns as a result of trying to craft myself into the perfect being.

I now know that I have to, in laments terms, chill the fuck out, or I will end up in an early grave or in an insane asylum.

The new policy that I am adopting, and I hope you will too is the notion of personal standards.

A personal standard is akin to a code of conduct; except it has its roots in the future with a reach into the present as it guides your daily activities as you pursue your goals/dreams/world domination plans without falling off the deep end.

Everyone should set their own personal standards for their life, so that you can not only better achieve your goals, but also prevent yourself from careening down a cliff.

My standards, my life

Gabriel

Death by Complacency

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:00:27 +0000

One of the biggest struggles that I and many others go through is the notion of the never ending story. That is the feeling that your life is constantly being Tivo-ed and played over and over again with no lasting force pulling you in any different direction.

The most interesting notion of this dilemma lies in the fact that you know that something (or many things) in your life needs to change, but you are so un-blissfully content with your current circumstances that it becomes nearly impossible to motivate yourself to shake things up.

So what is one to do? Do you continue on your path to mediocrity and accept defeat from the jaws of life? Or do you develop a laundry list of life action items and proceed to disassemble nearly every aspect of your life in an effort to make changes for the better?

The answer is both.

You and I both know that changes need to be made in life in order to get more of the things you want out of it, even if that means picking up a few bad habits from the past. On the same token however, taking your life and sending it hurdling down a canyon with only a t-shirt left salvageable is likely not a keen course of action.

The beauty is that you can have your cake and eat it too in regards to this life dilemma.

I started out by figuring out the list of things going on in my life that should not change no matter what choices I make that will send my life into a tailspin. From daily exercising to eating right and spending time reading and writing, I know that if those things take a backseat, my life will likely go up in flames long before I send it off a gulch.

Convexly, the same exercise needs to be taken in regards to things in your life that you are doing that you know are not conducive to turning up the volume on your life to 11. Things like playing hours of video games, watching too much TV, aimlessly reading web articles about teenage celebrities that you know that no one should give a shit about.

After the usual suspects are lined up, begin to reinforce the good and strike down the bad.

This is a twofold exercise, by in which as each worthless activity is sent to the chopping block, a new activity that is conducive to your new aspirations must take its place, less you fill your precious time with more frivolous activities.

That’s is, it really is as simple as knowing the things that suck and rock in your life and making fine adjustments as needed. Before your know it, your life will be on full blown steroids and ready for world domination.

Now, how do you motivate yourself to get this shit done?

Drop laziness (part 2)

Gabriel

Attack Of The Robots From Outer Space

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:43:11 +0000

Do you ever fear a pending attack from giant robots in outer space?

Probably not

Do you ever fear that you might find yourself in in a coffee shop with no iphone, gps, laptop, or even a watch?

I may have just sent shivers up your spine

Recently I just got a brand new toy to play with, you know, the phone with the robots and the big red check-mark? Yeah, that one

I have been using a smartphone for over two years now, and as a whole it has really helped me out over the years

Aimless Internet browsing got me through the mind numbing, soul sucking, head banging college courses

Google maps helped me find that one apartment complex that otherwise would have remained buried behind a local burger joint

Jamming out to Armin Van Buuren has never been easier with my trusty phone in my pocket and two weights in both of my hands

My phone served as my lifeline for a lot of different things and played the role of my primary mp3 player, phone, calendar, note taker, gps, and even printer of hundred dollar bills

But in lust for technological superiority, did I become codependent?

Could I leave my phone at home and not frantically wonder when the next twitter update was going to come in?

What would happen if I didn’t hear about the next great deal on slickdeals before it became expired?

My life would be over as I knew it……or would it?

What if I always had my phone on silent

What if I only looked at my phone when I needed it, and not the other way around?

What if I viewed my phone as a tool and not my lifeline?

What if when I went on vacation to Japan I decide to leave my *311 at home?

Much like the pending attack of robots from outer space, you will likely have a much greater fear and discomfort in relation to leaving your phone at home in place of having to grab a ray gun and point it at the nearest giant mechanical beast

I propose a challenge to you

Leave your big screened, death gripped, and overall OCD device at home the next time you head out

You just might find that not getting the update about the pending robot invasion may be the best kind of news you don’t get all day

Unplug

Gabriel

Check Yo Self Before You Wreck Yo Self

Builders Are Better Than Quitters

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:13:54 +0000

If you build it, they will come

Do you want to know what is totally unacceptable?

No it’s not a reference to the only good movie Kevin Costner made

Its quitters

Of all of the problems that people are faced with, quitting seems to be the number one source of pain and frustration in our society

People love to quit things

“At least I tried”

“I gave it my best shot”

“I don’t care about that anymore”

We all know what these self assuring phrases sound like; we use them all the time

When you try something new, or fall into old habits, people around you will not only be sympathetic to your ordeal, but they will offer condolence in the most detrimental way possible

“Don’t worry about it”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway”

Are they trying to condemn you to a life of mediocrity? Of course not, they are trying to help you in your time of need, but executing it in all the wrong ways

Quitting happens when you try to lose weight, but give up because it’s too hard

Quitting happens when you hear about that shiny new position at work, but don’t even bother to apply

Quitting happens when you try thing after thing, but because none of it sticks you just move onto the next new thing

Quitting is damaging the lifestyle you currently have, and the one you want to have

How can one overcome being a quitter?

Be a builder

A builder is someone who is too busy trying to build up the things in their life that they have no time to put down any bricks and quit

Builders spend their time planning as architects, planning out and sculpting in their mind, and with their hands, the ideals for what they want out of their structures

Builders rarely spend time sitting down on the job, because there are personal deadlines to be met and if they quit, there will be personal consequences

Builders have the absolute skill necessary in order to lay bricks in such a way that a perfect foundation for new structures is created

Builders are blessed with ability to have an entire structure fall down in front of them, and pick up the pieces that are left over and make something new and even better

Builders understand that life is like Lego building blocks, anything is possible once they pick up the first brick

Builder or quitter? You decide

Build on

Gabriel

Risk Your Life

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:50:55 +0000

“To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk revealing your true self.
To place you ideas, your dreams, before a crowd
Is to risk rejection.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk disappointment.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard
In life is to risk nothing.
Those who risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing,
And become nothing.”

William Arthur Ward

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the saying,

“Risk your life for _______”

Every movie, TV show, random Joe, mother and girlfriend loves to use this proverb

It seems that everything we do these days puts us at serious risk for our lives

Whether we are smoking a cigar, eating fried foods, going on airplanes, anything and everything has been on the hot seat for being a potential detriment to our health

Eating right and not lighting up aside, is this the real source of risking your life?

Of course not

To risk one’s life is to put one’s self on the line, to try where everyone else has failed, to put an inordinate amount of effort behind something that you believe in, but has little chance of success

True risk of one’s life only happens for a select group of people

And while many people might pin these people as skydivers, cliff jumpers, or whalers, they are simply everyday people who put the passion behind trying for things they truly believe in

Whether you are starting your own business that you don’t think can compete with the big guys

Putting your true self out there when meeting some attractive person at the bar

Or even taking the time to tell your kid how much you are proud of their death metal band

To risk is to live

If you are not going out of your way to risk things, you are slowly dying as a person inside

I don’t want to scare you, but if you “play it safe” your whole life and don’t spin the wheel on a regular basis, I can absolutely guarantee you that your death bed will not only dimly surrounded, but you will look back on your life and realized that you truly never lived

Risk it all and play your life like a poker player staring at a pair of 2s

I promise you’ll thank me in the morning

Cheers

Gabriel

Wtf Does Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer Mean?

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:45:45 +0000

I was driving around today running a bunch of mindless errands and having a bit of a nostalgia trip before I permanently vacate the Midwest next week and I began to ponder the idea of having friends and enemies in life. Instantly I was transported into every Tom Clancy book ever created and quickly realized that the saying, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is not only one of the most used phrases in any form of media, but it holds a level of truth to it that many people don’t even realize. So clearly I have way too much free time in order to ponder the ramblings of some retired naval officer, but alas it makes for a great article.

Why is it so great? Because I damn well say it is. But seriously, what is the first thing you think of when you read that ubiquitous statement? Do you think about how you should always be breathing down the neck of the people you dislike in life? Does it remind you about how you should have a close relationship with everyone in your life? Does the statement itself anger you to no ends because you are tired as hell of hearing someone state it in every Steven Segal movie? All of them are excellent stances, but not exactly the kickass conclusion I came to.

So what is my eye opening insight? Keeping your friends close means to keep your strengths close to who you are, keep your enemies closer refers to keeping your downfalls or fears closer than your strengths, this means is that your fears should play a more active role in your life than your strengths.

Playing to your strengths is an important aspect to any life. You need to not only know what your strengths are, but use them in order to best amplify all aspects of your life. This means if you are an amazing public speaker that you should always volunteer to give the presentations to your clients for your new freelancing career. It also means that if you are a caring and loving person that you be sure to share those sediments with every person that you meet, you might even create a new relationship out of it. If you don’t know what your strengths are, then I recommend you figure it out and start using them in your daily life. A simple exercise of sitting down and thinking about the things you are good at is an easy way to figure out some of your strengths. Once you have a good grasp on your strengths, and you start using them on a daily basis, you will find that your life will become that much more awesome.

Keeping your enemies closer, or keeping your fears close to your heart sounds exactly like what it is. While it is very important to play to your strengths and focus on the things that you are good at in life, you are dying as a human being if you are not facing and dealing with your fears. People who only focus on the good in their life and ignore all the bad, are living the life to the equivalent of a blind man in a mine field. All it would take is one moment that rocks the boat a little bit more than you can handle and you whole life would be rattled to the core. Now it may sound like I am trying to scare you, and if that is how you feel then good. You need to feel scared every once in a while in life. If you aren’t scared and you aren’t pushing yourself in your life to the next level, you are not evolving and you are simply stagnating, or even regressing as a human being. Keeping your fears closer than your strengths allows you to focus on the areas of your life that aren’t so pleasant, and focus on making them less of a hindrance and more of strength. Think about it for a minute, if you never faced your fears in life, you would likely never have learned how to swim, how to ride a bike, how to talk to guys/girls, how to tie your shoes, the list goes on and on. The beauty of getting started on this is simple as hell; you don’t even to do some exercise because I am sure that you already know what your fears are in life. Take the time to chisel away at these fears like a sculptor with a piece of marble, and you will find that you will become that much more stronger and more at ease than that guy who blames his lack of dating life on his lack of a Mercedes in his drive way.

Cheers

Gabriel