“Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around”
– from the film, Vanilla Sky
Why Should I Give A Damn?
There are lots of books, audiotapes, blogs, cds, podcasts, twitter accounts, and generally other people who all believe to be all knowing and can teach you how to overcome everything in your life with simple and easy steps.
While I support anyone who is attempting to make a positive difference in people’s lives, the bottom line is that there is no magic pill for changing anything in your life.
Some things take a lot of time; other things can be dealt with at a much quicker pace.
But no single approach is better than the others, and when it comes to self help “gurus” and the like, the playing field is completely equal in my opinion.
So as anyone who buys something likes to hear reviews or know a bit more about the product they are purchasing I want to tell you guys why I think you should actually give two shits about my blog and listen to what I have to say.
1) Overcame suicide
At the age of 17 I tried to kill myself on multiple occasions, but the act of self destruction was never completely finalized. On my fourth attempt I had a revelation that there weer only two options available to myself 1) Die now and make sure no one can save me 2) grab myself by the balls and make a difference that I wanted to see. From that day I have drastically changed who I am as a person, and molded myself into the embodiment of everything that I thought to be great in this world. I am one of my own role models.
2) Quit Drinking
During my rising fame from nerd with no friends and a knife by my side, to a full blown popular kid with sex, drugs, and rock and roll I found myself at a new standstill in life. I had entered a bar in Windsor, ON and throughout the course of the evening proceeded to drink roughly 100$ in alcohol by myself. At the end of the last glass, and the emptying of the wallet, I realized that I wasn’t even buzzed. I then considered that going out and drinking 50-100$ worth of alcohol 5 nights a week for nearly 5 months was not the best course of action. I had become a full fledged alcoholic. I quit nearly cold turkey before I hit 21 (only had 1 drink on my 21st bday) and to this day alcohol VERY rarely, if ever, touches my lips (Note: I am drinking again, but about 750ml less than before, everything is far more under control)
3) Got In Shape
After my roller coaster career as a restaurant/nightclub manager for a hotspot in the Detroit, MI area, I realized that my late night binges of chicken quesadillas from taco bell and only eating once a day had finally taken a toll on my abdomen. I made a new years resolution at that point and pushed myself to get the body of Mark Wahlberg back when he did Calvin Klein ads (I even posted his photo up in my house, every girl that came over thought I was gay) 6 months after a strict workout regimen and diet plan achieved results that not only looked amazing, but I had the inner health to back it up. As my doctor says, “Gabriel, your easily one of the best in shape 20 something’s that come into this office”
4) Never Worked a Job I Didn’t Love
I quickly realized that working just for the sake of money did not sit with me right. After I worked as an assistant to lawyer in a major law firm and found myself hating the job more and more each day I realized that I could not stand to be involved in any type of work that I was not passionate about. After I was fired from that job for , “Talking the talk but not walking the walk” I obtained a job getting paid to talk to people on a regular basis, and loved every minute of it (and I still do). To this day I have worked in a wide variety of careers, all of which were entered under the premise of something that I would love to do, and never as something that has to be done to make ends meet. As a enterprise rent a car driver once said to me, “Life is to short to work a job you don’t like”
5) Wrote Two Novels
Where are these supposed novels? You might be wondering. The fact of the matter is that they are both sealed away in a super secret vault with enough security to make fort knox look like peewees playhouse. But seriously they are both done and both have original content that has not been covered on this website in any form. Once I decide whether I’m going to release them as ebooks or continue pursuing a publisher, you guys will be the first to know when they will be released. Please no autographs B-)
6) World Traveler
As many people who know me are familiar with, I love traveling. I cannot think of one thing on this planet that is more fulfilling than the art of getting on a plane and getting off in a completely new locale. I currently have traveled to every state in the US except for 4 and have traveled all over Canada and parts of Mexico. I have plans for a major 3-5 month tour of Europe in Spring 2010 and followed by a tour of Australia and Japan soon after in Winter 2010. I love the experiences of meeting new people, seeing exotic cultures, taking photos, getting perspective on my own life, the list goes on. If you know of any great countries I should visit, for any reason at all, please let me know and Ill add it to my list. I plan on visiting over 100 countries by the age of thirty and seeing as much as humanly possible after that.
7) I Donate My Time To Charity
Is it tacky to talk about this, but I am proud of it. In my constant strives to try and make the world a better place, I like to volunteer my time to help people in any means possible, from financial donations to more commonly, volunteer work. I have done everything from give money to homeless on the street (buying drugs or buying food, you can’t control what they do but only hope they do the best thing for themselves) to rebuilding computers for women who were abused by husbands (yes I am a computer nerd, deal with it) to driving into the underprivileged areas of metropolitan areas and handing out sandwiches so people can eat.
8) Minimalized My Life
In order to make my life more streamlined and less of a cluster (insert explicative) I decided to get rid of and cut down on a lot of things I had in my life. I am slowly working my way to having only 100 possessions to my name (currently sitting at 150ish as of May 2010). From schedules and electronics to clothes and goals, everything was made simpler. Doing this allowed me to focus more on what I want in life, and less on the crap that doesn’t matter.
9) Took Control Of My Wallet
For a long while I had a ludicrous spending habit of buying crap I didn’t need, just because I had the extra cash lying around. I decided to get my finances in order and in doing so, spent more money on the things I loved, less on the stuff that doesn’t matter, and still had a fat savings account as well. Over are the days of spending over a grand on clothes and other needless material possessions, now are the times of Roth IRAs and high yield online checking accounts.
10) I Have Been Single and in Relationships For Long Periods Of Time
This is important for offering any sort of advice on relationships. I feel that there are SO MANY people out there who claim to be relationships experts when in actuality, they A) have never had a girl/boyfriend in their life or B) they have been with the same person for what seems a century C) they have perfect or horrible relationships with no sense of balance of what the rest of us experience. I have had fights, I have moved in with my girlfriend, I have had one night stands, I have been around the block that is relationships. Despite my young age I have a lot of insight on how to date or be in a relationship like a champ, whether you are a guy or girl
11) I Am The Poster Child For “People Can Change”
Over the years I have seen and met a lot of people. I find that most of them remain pretty stagnant and don’t really push the envelope in their lives, everything remains fairly the same and predictable and they usually don’t change or evolve much over 5 years, 10 or even a lifetime. I am not that person. I went from a nerdy, self hating, suicidal, depressed, friendless, terrible looking person, to my true picture of a man. Not to be self absorbed, but I view any person who can go from not even being to look a girl in the eye, couldn’t lift 50 pounds, the confidence of the class loser to a semi womanizing, fitness obsessed, man’s man has got my respect in my book (even if I wrote the book 😉 )
12) Became A Nutritionist
In my endeavors to become as healthy and in shape as humanly possible without running the risk of becoming a food nazi, I decided to spent an ample amount of time researching what kind of foods were healthy, for what reasons, and why you should eat them. In addition to consuming these new delicious and healthy foods, I read up on the diets of people from all over the world and read a plethora of articles and books on nutrition and health/well being. I took these principles and found ways to make them fit into the real world and allow myself to assimilate into the shit that is the American typical diet, and come out on top. After all my readings and various cooking (yes ladies I can cook) projects I realized that I knew more than a lot of nutritionists I knew, I started consoling individuals on health and diet and was given this title after being referenced by enough people.
What is this website about?
This blog was established with a clear goal in mind, to make life grand for others
Who am I?
My name is Gabriel Hummel and I am 24 year old graduate from the University of Michigan
When I was 18 years old with no friends, no relationships, no money, and in poor physical shape. I was on the brink of committing suicide until one day I decided that something had to change. I realized that I had a choice to make, die, or live my life to the fullest. It was at that point that I searched “self improvement” and found a rising community board that a number of people, including various now prominent self help leaders.
It has been over five years since that day, and I am deeply proud and grateful to say that I have transformed my life. Since then I have had been on many dates and even had a serious girlfriend. I also obtained a level of financial security doing things that I loved, including getting paid to talk to new people on a daily basis. I even pushed myself physically and got myself to grow from a glimmer of a boy to an in shape and healthy man.
I have found so much value in helping myself in others that I continue to read up daily on the happenings in the self help community. I continue to improve my life on a constant basis and have become intertwined in the self help community.
I started this blog to give something back to the community that has given me so much over the last years, and will continue to for the rest of my life.