Gabriel Hummel

How Aimless Web Surfing Might Actually Help You Get Shit Done

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:48:50 +0000

So you get on the computer and like James Bond, you have a mission that needs to be accomplished.

You have to write a response email to one of your clients about a upcoming project, write an email to your wedding planner, and write a “I haven’t talked to you in forever but I hope this email will reconcile our friendship” to one of your distant friends in a far away land.

You open up your web browser and immediately get e-hard when you see YouTube (your homepage).

There is a new video of a kitten attacking an empty paper bag, I must watch it at least 3 times, subscribe to the user’s channel, and email it to my friends.

Oh crap your friends, time to get on Facebook.

Wow mike has clearly been hitting the gym, look at Rachelle, man she is becoming bigger than Rosie O’Donnell’s cankles. Sweet Jesus, are those the pictures from Saturday night?

Have you ever found yourself in this loop of never ending bullshit?

No one would like to admit it, but I know for a fact that way to many people waste enough time online to propel a nuclear bomb straight into the home of Al Gore for his invention.

The bottom line is that people inherently act like this all the time. Trying to become a creative and working powerhouse that shovels out 2 novels and 3 around the world trips in a month just isn’t practical for most people.

But at the same time, I would lose my fucking mind if all I did was productive things all day, I would feel like the energizer bunny on crack.

Before you commit Facebook hara-kiri, there is a solution.

The key is developing some middle ground and taking some much needed baby steps in order to divert your attention away from the new event that was just posted on Facebook and towards something that might actually hold some level of impact in your life.

But what if aimless wandering could have a purpose?

What if in some twisted universe your aimless web browsing remained somewhat ambiguous but had a much more defined purpose?

This is how I choose the aimlessly wander when I need time to unwind in front of the computer, and it can be quite magical for getting things done that you want to do.

I think we can all agree that spending anymore than 5 minutes on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, foursquare, or nearly any other social media platform is a complete waste of time unless you own a business or are trying to procure a career in social media marketing (what the hell is wrong with you? Go outside now)

That being said, there are more interesting ways to divert your “follow the shiny thing” syndrome my young web browser.

Start by thinking about some of the things you actually have any avid interest in your life

This could be anything and everything, from career orientation to personal. Go fucking nuts, from poodles to papier-mâché and everything in-between, just stay away from porn and those damned internet time sinks.

Got a few things? My hotspots are anything related to food and travel

Now if you really love these things that you picked, chances are that you know a websites, blogs, forums, and ever risqué photo galleries that are related to your areas of interest.

Find a few websites that you really enjoy, and bookmark them immediately

These sites will be your new and only fallback for when you need to write an email that you really don’t give two shits about writing, so now your shiny syndrome is at least pointing you in the direction that might help you get something accomplished.

Chances are your interests would serve as a career/business/hobby platform (if they don’t already). By frequenting these types of websites instead of aimless wandering the dark alleyways of social media, you could, and likely will, develop an idea, business, or at least some relief you’re your ADD.

Try it, I promise your Facebook friends will forgive you (but who really gives a damn).

Gabriel

How Your Fear of Cliff Diving Can Tell You More About Yourself Than You Wanted to Know

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:06:17 +0000

Have you ever found yourself looking at a person spending nearly every waking minute of their lives at a desk doing the same monotonous tasks and wonder how they haven’t committed hari kari yet?

Did you ever get a chance to look at a person who spends their whole life living on the road and wonder how this person hasn’t shacked up with a local hillbilly or start a business in order to make something of their lives?

Everyone has fleeting thoughts and passes judgment on others, its shitty, but its human nature for most people.

What is most interesting is finding out what dastardly group you belong to

Are you the type of person who loves to keep everything in place? Do you loose your fucking mind if your porcelain cats are shifted out of place on the mantle? Does the idea of knowing exactly what is going to happen for the next week give you shivers of pleasure down your spine?

Or are you of the other camp?

Do you fantasize about dropping everything that you are doing and moving to Southeast Asia in order to pursue your dream of being a male host? Do you get hot and bothered at the mere mention of living out of a backpack and jumping from one gringo location to the next? Do you day dream about cliff diving?

The two polar opposites in this comparison of personality types boil down to two simple terms

1) Certainty, routine, and pattern lifestyles

2) Uncertainty, unpredictable, pattern lacking lifestyles

Most people don’t play exclusively for one team, this isn’t a sports rivalry

The vast majority of people flirt with both ends of the spectrum, but everyone has one side that they prefer more than the other.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that my love of travel and the unknown makes me the poster child for the uncertain life.

The same blinding truth can be applied to people like my father, who thrive in having control of their surroundings and knowing exactly when they can perform their daily routines.

One side isn’t better than the other, they are just different

The key is understanding which team you would rather play for if lines were needed to be drawn in the sand.

If you know that you love packing up your life and jumping into the unknown, then you can understand that being put in those situations more often will server to benefit you. The same can be said for the other side of the coin.

So what is it mate?

Gabriel

What Top Chefs Can Teach You About Being A Better Professional

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:11:58 +0000

I had a strong revelation recently, it started when I was reading Kitchen Confidential and culminated during a conversation I had with a head chef at a notorious restaurant down here in big hair country.

It was mentioned that,

You can teach someone to do anything, but you can’t teach character.

My head practically splintered open when I read that comment, as it set off a chain reaction of mini epiphanies in my mind that helped me understand why certain situations in my life, and in others, worked out in the obscure way they did.

Just like how you feel about that guy in your office who bitches that he doesn’t make enough money,

Building one’s character is infinitely more important than learning new skills.

Everyone always tries to get on the forefront of the new technology that is in the market, from eight track players to social media, there is always something new and exciting to learn that ultimately becomes as important as table manners to a regular KFC patron.

But as I have seen time and time again, character is something that is not only more important than skills, it is something that cannot be learned

If you have a bartender who free pours for regular customers just so he can procure extra tips, you won’t be able to save him.

A graphic designer who panics during all pending deadlines and ultimately makes excuses for his lack of timeliness while touts his win percentage in Starcraft 2, he is screwed.

A Harvard graduate who has more extracurriculars than the valedictorian from every high school in America combined won’t be able to do jack shit for a company if he can’t even give a proper handshake.

Character is something that some people have, and others don’t

You develop it over time (or you don’t) and you can’t pick it up like a how to guide on making your own wine.

People who strive to build their character, who not only read books on that sales technique that all the cool kids are using, but more often than not, seek to help build up the lives of those around them and are not afraid to fail, those are the types of people who succeed in life.

Recognize the character of yourself and the people in your lives, are they the type of people who are ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum? Or are they the type who do the bare minimum to get by?

Bubble gum or mellow yellow?

Gabriel

How to Make Shit Happen

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:53:03 +0000

Step 1

Decide what you want in life

Step 2

Figure out what steps need to be taken to make your dream a reality

Step 3

Make a commitment to yourself and everyone within earshot that you are going to perform action X until you receive result Y.

Step 4

Further to strengthen your resolve by telling those closest the pending self imposed consequences for not performing action X

Step 5

Perform action X mercilessly

Step 6

Inevitably get your ass kicked by initial steps until you reach your breaking point

Step 7

Keep moving forward. Be a stubborn bastard about it.

Step 8

Achieve your result Y after a set period of time (sometimes many years)

Step 9

Celebrate and rinse and repeat for your next goal

This is what it takes to make an improvement in any aspect of your life.

From building relationships, to starting a company, and even learning how to play tennis, the process remains the same

Are you willing to fall in the dirt for what you want?

Gabriel

Emo(tional) Rooms

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:52:13 +0000

I love the title of this article, even if it has nothing to do with whiny preteens being upset that their life is so miserable with their 2009 Jeep Wrangler and complete lack of Abercrombie apparel.

So if I’m not talking about kids getting overly emotional and crying in a corner of their room, then what am I talking about?

I am talking about the abstract but applicable concept of viewing emotions like rooms in a house.

This isn’t some evolved game of hide and go seek where you undoubtedly find yourself hiding in the closet of your parent’s bedroom because, “no one will ever think to look there”.

What if I told you that everyone has a set group of emotional states that they enter and exit during any given day, like predesignated states that people enter when certain conditions are met.

For example, if I was to continue that game of hide and go seek and I see you go for the hiding spot under your Grandmother’s bed and tell the seeker that you are hiding there after I get caught; you would likely do the following:

A) Cry

B) Complain

C) Get Angry

D) Tattle Tale

E) All of the above

The key here is understanding that certain events caused you to trigger your desire to enter the “pissed off at the world” emotional state that many of us have.

The same situation could arise when you ask someone to do something, but they ignore you and blow off their responsibility to you, you are likely to enter the same emotional state.

This emotional state occurs and ends in the exact same way you enter a room in a house. You pick a room, you enter it for a set time, when you are ready you leave.

Everyone has a set number of emotional rooms in their house, and at any given moment you have the ability to not only determine what rooms you enter during a given situation, but what rooms even exist in your metaphysical house.

I know this is crazy abstract and a bit transient, but you and I both know that we all choose to feel happy, sad, pissed off, adventurous, etc

Think about the implications that are possible with this, you could literally lock yourself out of certain emotional states by simply refusing to enter those rooms during specific trigger mechanisms.

All you have to do is view emotional states like rooms in a house, you have just as strong of an option to enter your “I am take over the world because I am having such a kickass time” room when you are feeling depressed as you can enter your “life sucks and so does everyone else” room when you are feeling pretty damn good.

The key is understanding and knowing that you have a choice

Understand that this whole damn article is for shit if you view your emotions like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman. You can escape your glass case of emotion by deciding the what, when, and where of your emotional states. This will not only give you more control over your life, but it will empower you with the ability to be unwavering and relentless in the pursuit of all great things in life

So to wrap this whole hippie concept up, stop visiting the rooms that suck you emotionally and redirect some time to the rooms that will better serve to make your life more enjoyable. Because while you watch that meter maid write a ticket for your car, it’s probably not worth entering your bastard emotional room and bringing down the wrath of a thousand suns upon him.

Taking the sunny room

Gabriel

Growing Pains

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:34:14 +0000

Remember when you pondered how it would feel to grow to be as tall as your mom or dad?

You feared that one night, while you were sleeping, you would be attacked by some rabid growth monster and forced to dawn blue jeans and dress shirts and begin to complain how your coffee wasn’t damn near strong enough

Your fears never truly came to fruition, but somehow you still find yourself not only wearing blue jeans and button up shirts, but you still face the same monster that you only though came for you in your sleep

These are growing pains

As you make changes in your life, from something as small as turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth in hopes of passing some more H2O to your hommies in the ocean, to something as in depth as following a workout regimen that makes you want to kick Jillian Michaels square in the vagina, it is painfully awful to mix up your daily routines

These growing pains do come to an end however, when you are two feet under and bitching about how they served chicken fingers at your funeral. Only then will you be free from the growth as a human being

Satire and sarcasm aside, everyone is staring down the barrel on these pains at any given moment, including yours truly

Recently I have begun production on my second website. After acquiring the domain name and going through all the basic website prep work I was finally faced with my biggest fear

A blank website

For the last few days I have developing, redeveloping, and practically shifting the time space continuum in an effort to develop content and design the new website of my wet dreams

While my efforts have not been in vain, they certainly have made my interest in reading a travel blog written almost entirely in German skyrocket to no man’s land

But I continue to push forward and work on it every day for exurbanite amounts of time, because I damn well know that anything you want in life is worth fighting your ass off for, and maybe even losing your leg in the process

It’s important to realize that everyone goes through growing pains their whole life, and while many people might stick their tail between their legs with a faint resemblance to an erotic act, the true badasses of the world will keep moving forward

Push right through your pains in life, and I promise that you will either do something amazing or at least have a kickass story to write about on your blog

Keep on truckin’

Gabriel

Music Methodology

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:07:16 +0000

I am so glad to be finally writing this post, it has been on my bucket list of things to write about for a long time

I always got caught up in the heat of the moment with some new idea, and often found myself neglecting the powerful insight that I received when I first thought about the power music has over us

But before I get all hot on bothered, let’s get on with the damn content right?

Remember when you watched the movie fantasia?

If you are to young to remember this epic Disney adventure, allow me to paraphrase

The movie is essentially a visual and audio based thrill ride that covers all the peaks and valleys of a person’s ever shifting moods. While this may sound like the career of Mel Gibson, it is in fact a beautiful ensemble of music and characters coming to life in a seemingly drug induced endeavor

There is one aspect of the film however that shines above the rest

The music

The orchestral notes in this film will break down a badass hell’s angel into tears and cause the biggest hippie vegans ripe with anger

Don’t even bother watching the film on mute, or any film for that matter, as all the dramatics will have the effect of a neutering job on a cast member of the real world

Music is one of the oldest forms of art, from early cave men creating flutes out of hollowed out bones to Kanye West and his painfully overused Auto-Tune

Music has withstood the test of time for many reasons, but one anecdote shines above the rest

Music has the profound ability to affect our moods

Whether you are depressed and want to continue feeling that way or are looking to amplify your high at a club, music is like heroin straight into your veins

Why is it that rich parent rejecting Goth kids love to band their heads to death metal and European’s who have a vigor for drugs and alcohol love to trance out to DJ Tiesto?

It is because music has the most profound and penetrating effect on every human being on the planet

It’s ability to amplify our feelings, or even change them completely makes music one of the first true drugs of society, a drug that anyone and everyone should use to their benefit

The most amazing sidestep behind this notion is that you already know this to be true

Whether you wanted to feel sad and you watched a sad movie or listened to a cranberries album, you set out to amplify you state of sadness by further immersing yourself in misery

Likewise when you were getting ready to go out on the town with your friends you didn’t find yourself jamming out to Marilyn Manson typically, but rather bobbing your head to your favorite rapper or new top40 hit

The beauty of music lies in the ability to use it to your will, you can use it equally as much to feel melancholy as you can feel jubilee, it ultimately comes down to your choice on how to use it

Consider this, the next time you are stressed out and are two steps from taking an ambient to relax, crank up your classical tunes and mellow out to some Moonline sonata by Beethoven

Likewise, if you are having trouble pushing yourself at the gym, consider turning the volume down on your rap and blasting some techno or death metal instead

As the hippies often say, “music has the power the change the world”

Amazingly, they got something right

Rock on

Gabriel

Changing Perceptions

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:42:17 +0000

I recently met up with some old family friends who were in town and in between gorging out on delicious Italian fair, we had a few discussions about life, love, the pursuit of happiness, you know, the usual, “I haven’t seen you in too damn long so what the hell has been going on in your life” chat

At some point during our discussions it was pointed out that no one at the table, save the children, had to endure the sufferings of a public education system in the coming weeks when the world’s future heads back to school

I relished in the fact that I am likely done with school forever (in the traditional sense), and raised a glass with my drinking buddy to celebrate no more teachers, no more books, dirty looks!

It was at that moment that my jubilee was called into question, “What about a master’s degree? That could open a lot of opportunities for you, I know it did for X person”

I nodded my head and shifted the conversation to clubbing baby seals or something far more entertaining and less threatening

Now, if you keep up with my ramblings, you know where I stand when it comes to the general education system, but that’s not what this post is about

I became interested in the notion of how perceptions change over time, as there is a lot of truth to the idea that a master’s degree can do a lot for creating opportunities in one’s life. For most people though, in most walks of life, this held true over two decades ago and not today where it is often believed to be common knowledge that a master’s degree is nothing more than a more expensive piece of paper than the one you already hold in your possession

Maybe the MBA’s are printed on cocaine incrusted Woodrow Wilsons?

But I digress, the fact remains that things change over time, and perceptions are not immune to this all powerful force

With a personal preface, I have seen myself go through such polar changes as a computer geeky engineer wannabe to a seedy night club manager with dreams of Vegas club ownership. From a animal petting overzealous china study health Nazi to a ravenous zombie that craves meat flesh.

Everyone goes through this in some capacity in their life, it’s like the ying to the yang I talked about when I said some things never change

The key to this melodramatic concept is just the same; embrace that fact that how you feel about X thing now has a chance of being perceived as the bubonic plague in a few years or even months time

No need to fight it, this is the essence of learning and growing as a person

I mean, if we all wanted to hold onto our perceptions from childhood then we would likely still think that girls had cooties and were never to be allowed in the same fort and that mac & cheese and hot dogs were all that one needed to survive

Now we have grown up, gotten out ass kicked a few times, and learned that not only do girls not have cooties but if you don’t bring them back to your fort at the end of the night then you will likely suffer carpal tunnel. You also quickly learned that the zombie apocalypse was upon us and you were relinquished to mac & cheese and hot dogs without the hop of steak tartar or coffee flavored ice cream, you might just jump on the brain eating bandwagon

So don’t fight it, don’t fight with others about it, learn to love the fact that tomorrow you might develop a taste for sashimi and never want to touch a hamburger again, or maybe your pig headedness about proper child rearing or career opportunities might get thrown into a tornado of uncertainty.

Life will not only be so much less stressful, it will be a hell of a lot more fun

Prepping for the apocalypse

Gabriel

Some Things Never Change

Gabriel Hummel — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:24:42 +0000

So I recently had the pleasure of rereading The Catcher in the Rye and of course I will pass the same sediments along that most book critics will offer, this book Is a must read for anyone who loves a great fiction novel with strong messages that one may or may not interpret as a general increased in angst towards all human beings

But I digress, this book really does kick ass with its great insight into the human through process and had me laughing out loud at many appropriate and inappropriate moments

I mean seriously, what’s not to love about a book where the main character is constantly saying “goddamn” and “phonies” every other sentence?

One of the passages in the book had me so intrigued that I placed one of my hell bank notes bookmarks on the residing page so I could refer back to it and write a lewd and controversial blog post for all of you fine people to enjoy

Our boy Caufield is walking through central park making some new insightful comments about life when he says,

“I kept thinking about Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to. I thought how shed see the same stuff I used to see, and how she’d be different every time she saw it….Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

This statement really struck a chord in me and got me thinking,

Are some things best off staying the same?

To summarize my general thoughts on this, the answer is yes. If you don’t like that cliff notes of this post than I suggest you read on brave knight

Anyone who knows me, stalks me, reading my blog posts, or even has a passing conversation with me that is never to be continued again knows that I am a vessel for change

I enjoy changing nearly every aspect of my life, from where I live to what I do and all the fun little details that are sandwiched in between all that. Simply put, I am the type of person who thrives on constant change in their life

That being said, there are certain aspects to my life that should never constitute a change even if it meant getting more of the things I want in my life

Some of these things are: the love in my family, close friends, my passion for learning, my near sickening positivity about life. These things should go unscathed like old homes in a historic district of a city

How do I know these things should never change? I don’t. I do not have access to a changeoranger 2000 that measures effective levels of in ineptitude in one’s life and makes precise calculations about what aspects of my life should remain stagnant and what others should be pushed out of an airplane

As much as you might drone in front of your computer screen in a moment, I know in my heart that these are things that I never want to see changed in my lifetime

You and I both know that there are some things that you just instinctively know. Call it a gut reaction, call it faith, call it bullshit, but we all have experienced this feeling in our lives at some point

You may have not thought about it, but there are thoughts, feelings, and ideas in your life that shouldn’t shift when the wind blows, things that are more important than life itself

Its not going to be crucial for you to write this stuff down, nor Is it important to spend hours pondering this with a bunch of your friends while drinking mocha lattés at Starbucks, and you already damn well know where I stand on making some stupid self help exercise for you to do in order for this to, “permeate your soul and drastically impact the quality of your life”

All you have to know is that sometimes, on some things, things can be damn fine staying just the way they are

Feeling good doing the same

Gabriel

You are Worthy, My Son

Gabriel Hummel — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:34:40 +0000

Ever see those kunfu movies from the 70s and early 80s? You know, the ones where the lip synching makes the actors sound like they have a speech impediment akin to Slingblade?

Those movies were damn awful, except for the ones with Bruce Lee because he is quite awesome

There was one cool aspect to those movies though, there was always some older drunken master who would train the hero of the story and impart some radical life changing advice that would empower the protagonist to feel like that much less of a loser and that much more of a kickass ninja. This of course would lead to the inevitable defeat of his enemies and him scoring the potential hottie in distress

These masters of the kunfu arts, if you will, were always talking about having honor and being worthy of being called a hero. My recent closet thoughts of Green Hornet episodes and a completely un-shameful admittance to watching the Bruce Lee documentary spurred some serious interest for me into the world of worthiness

What does it mean to be worthy anyway?

Does being worthy imply that you too can master the art of tae Kwan do and head to your local YMCA and offer obligatory beat downs to your childhood bully?

Maybe

Does it mean you final have the validation necessary in order for you to move forward in your life?

Check please

More often than not, I find that many people in the world are fighting for their right to feel worthy. They want to feel just like their favorite superhero when they venture forth into the unknown and try to attempt new things in the personal, business, and Bruce Lee fanboy lifestyles

It is commonplace to witness a person come up with a great idea but never truly act on it because they don’t have the validation from the people close to them

Even worse than that is when people crave the validation and obligatory seal of approval from people they barely know, and even strangers

Taking a Zen moment and reflecting on this predicament might cause one to realize that they should call their mother and blame them for dropping them on their head as a child. The problem with this is that nearly all the mother’s in the world would take the lion’s share of the blame for a problem that is not theirs to bear to begin with

Before you send your mother into a guilt trip of epic proportions, think about the fact that most people require this type of reinforcement because they are hardwired to believe that they are not enough

Want to become the next Mr. Universe? Well you need to get your hand held in the manliest way possible by a personal trainer, nutritionist, and pose instructor. Also don’t forget that you will likely need to strike a conversation with your friendly neighborhood crack addict in order to procure some needles for your “natural” supplementation

Want to start a new business for ipad holders covered in Hello Kitty stickers? You need to get an office, hire a sales team, get engineers in order to properly adhere those stickers to the cases and even fly to Japan and meet the president of the Hello Kitty franchise and wipe their butt in hopes of gaining an international franchise license

It becomes painfully obvious that people think you need all of these steps because it relieves the pressure from them

If they need X to do Y and C is no where around to make sure X had proper protection, then you might as well say you can’t do it and call it a day

Not being responsible and feeling worthy to complete the goals you want to achieve not only leads to teen pregnancy, it also prevents you from trying out the next big thing

So what the hell can I do?

I could give you a cheerleader speech and just tell you how everyone should feel worthy because they are, but most people would read it, get on some personal development high for a minute, than do nothing

Instead what you should do if you do have trouble feeling worthy, is simply take some action

Got a big project or idea burning in the back of your brain with the force of a thousand suns?

Or maybe just something you saw on TV and thought it would be cool to give a whirl?

Take some small step towards it

If you want to be the next Mr. Universe, instead of jumping the local druggie for some supplements, go to the gym three times this week

Want to be the next foul mouthed British cooking champ? Instead of flying to Hollywood to try to recruit Gordon Ramsey as your personal trainer, head into the kitchen and try cooking something you have always wanted to make

These little steps, which will grow into bigger steps, will prove to you that you are indeed worthy of the next big thing, and send your presumptions about everything from your need to have your boss think your idea is the greatest idea ever, to your mother’s disapproving scowl (even though she dropped you on the head as a baby) running for cover as you plan for world domination

You are worthy my noble student

Gabriel