About.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
~ Rob Siltanen
~ The ~
Back story.
I Quit
It was time to make big changes…
It’s not that I absolutely hated my job…
I didn’t…
I only mostly hated it…
But if I didn’t make a change soon, I was going to drive myself INSANE dreaming about what my life could be…
Dreaming about what I was meant to do with my life.
Do you ever feel that way?
…Knowing there is a better life waiting for you if you just go out and make it happen?
It was time for me to stop dreaming about a better life…
It was time for me to start taking control of my reality…
…And building a life I could be proud of.
The Black Gold Black Hole
It’s true… I was a sellout.
First let me tell you how I ended up in a job I swore I would never have…
I grew up in an Oil Town…
…where the whole economy is built around oil.
Because the oil industry can ooze so much cash (in boom times), it has a way of sucking in a lot of the local talent.
Like a big black hole, from which very few escape the pull it’s black golden hand cuffs.
As a teenager, I told myself that that would never be me, and I set a goal to never work in the oil industry…
but, sometimes the universe laughs at our plans.
I FAILED that goal when my tech startup was haemorrhaging money, and we could no longer keep up the investment to gain market share…
It was a tough blow, and worse…
It was time for me to get a J-O-B.
I’m still very grateful that a CEO friend scooped me up, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
He put me to work growing the oil services companies he was running…
But there I was, in a well paying job I promised myself I would never have.
(Side Note: Want to know a way to increase your confidence and self worth? Keep the promises you make to yourself. Want to know a sure way to destroy your confidence and self worth over time? Break the promises you make to yourself)
I had never had a 9-5 job before…
…or a salary…
I had always lived and died on what I, or my teams could produce & sell. I had been in commission sales leadership for almost a decade before going into business for myself…
A set income was new territory for me.
But I was excited for the challenge of the corporate world…
…for about the first year.
I’m happy to say I learned a lot as an executive in that company…
but after that first year…
I was dying a little every day.
I HATED not being in control of my own income, my own time, and my own destiny.
I felt stifled and suffocated.
And let’s be honest, there is nothing really exciting or innovative going on in the oil industry.
It was eating me up…
I had to make a change…
My parents thought I was crazy…
My friends (and their parents) thought I was crazy…
Maybe even I thought I was crazy…
But my wife (bless her heart), she saw that I was like a caged animal, whose soul was dying…
My once fiery spirit was then diminished to just a glowing ember…
I needed a new goal. A new passion. A new challenge.
I wasn’t really helping anyone…
I wasn’t personally growing anymore either.
And to top things off, oil had crashed, so the future looked bleak…
…REALLY bleak.
So with some money in the bank, and some new skills in my pocket, I said “Adios” and set out one more time as an entrepreneur…
I was excited…
I was naively ambitious…
And I was cautiously terrified…
(I turned out to be correct on all counts.)
Subscribe.
Suck-Cess
Sometimes you’ve got to go through a lot of suck on your way to success… I was no exception.
I’d love to tell you that it was smooth sailing to bliss & unlimited fortune…
But to climb the peaks of Success, we’ve often got to descend through the rocky gulch of ‘Suck‘…
It’s a terrible place full of broken bank accounts and bruised egos.
…and I was no exception.
Although the plight of the entrepreneur is difficult…
it was still incredibly rewarding knowing I was forging my own path and in charge of my own fate…
…even when I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay the bills.
But the bills somehow always got paid. (That was probably thanks to blessings from heaven more so for my angel wife than for me.)
But everyday I got better & smarter.
Now I LOVE what I do…
And I’m not just saying that… I mean, I really really love it.
Every day I’m learning. Everyday I’m growing. Everyday, my clients are growing. And I am so excited about the future because of that growth.
So that’s what this site is really about…
Are You Growing?
Growth is like the Entrepreneur’s drug
There is a common trait amongst entrepreneurs that maybe resonates with you…
Entrepreneurs need to feel forward momentum.
It’s like our drug.
The first time I heard someone explain this in a room full of entrepreneurs…
I felt like this stranger understood me better than most of my family or closest friends.
When I feel forward momentum, I am on cloud nine…
When I feel stuck, or like I’m moving backwards…
…I am a hot miserable mess.
That’s just how it is for me.
…So that’s what gabekane.com is really about…
Forward Momentum.
Personal & Professional Growth…
Growth for me. Growth for you.
Sharing and helping you grow is how I’m going to continue to learn and grow myself.
And I pour my heart into it for you…
This is my labor of love.
Birth of A System
I had to learn this growth system the hard way…
Let me tell you one quick story that I hope will help…
A few years ago, I decided I had had enough of my “Dad Bod”…
(You know what I’m talking about)
This was one of those “enough is enough“ moments.
I didn’t know HOW, but somehow I was going to get in shape.
I had no idea where to begin…
…so I did what millions of others just like me did…
I ordered P90X from a late night infomercial.
I was excited!
In 90 days (or less!) I was going to be a shredded beast!
Did it work???
No… of course not.
But that’s because I didn’t work. I lasted all of 2 weeks on that program… (Sorry Tony).
(But I did get a sweet ‘Before” picture out of it. See below.)
The program was great…
but the program wasn’t the problem…
I was the problem.
I had YEARS of habits to break…
And some really difficult new habits to form…
A video program just wasn’t going to do that for me on it’s own.
I needed more than just a program to make real change.
So, as you can see, I eventually did make a change…
But I wish I could tell you that the transformation in the photo was the result of a 90 day program…
It wasn’t.
Just like anything, I had to suck at it for a while…
…an embarrassingly LONG while…
There are roughly 8 years between these photos.
I had to learn some really hard lessons about myself…
…and learning what I needed to grow.
…and I don’t mean just physically. There were probably as many or more mental and emotional demons to overcome on this journey.
It turned out, that the same things I needed to grow physically…
Were the same things i needed to grow in any area of my life.
And when they all came together, it essentially guaranteed growth in that particular are of my life.
The moment I put the right conditions together, things started to take off…
If I removed any one of those conditions, the progress stopped.
Put them back together again… things would start to take off again.
It was a formula.
It has been true for my physical goals, for my personal goals and my professional goals.
Here’s what they are:
The
Personal Growth Stack
The 5 Elements needed for continued personal growth...
I needed a proven system that I knew would work. No system is perfect, but concentrated effort with a method is WAY more powerful than undirected action.
This is what P90X was for me in the beginning, but on it's own, it wasn't enough. There were 4 other elements I need to make lasting change.
I needed a real coach. One who knew what they were doing, and could guide me through the process, and be responsive to my particular challenges. If ever I stopped using a coach, stagnation was sure to follow.
(Later on I found it incredibly rewarding to coach others.)
I needed to surround myself with peers who were on a similar path. It is invaluable to be able to bounce ideas off of peers going through the same challenges and get different perspectives. The community can also be massive for the emotional challenges that always accompany big change.
In order to make sure I was progressing, I needed to embrace accountability. Both to my coach, to my community & to myself. I needed them to get on my case when I wasn't keeping promises I made to myself. It's much easier to let yourself down then to let others down. Accountability helps you keep those promises and forge forward.
Will power & determination are important, but they fade quickly over time. The real task master is habit. It turned out I only needed enough will power to form a habit. Once habit takes over, the need for will power fades.
Habits are like a river. Eventually, even mountains yield to their will.
When those 5 things are in place…
Anyone can become virtually unstoppable.
But if any one of them are missing…
You might spend more time in the valley of suck then you might hope.
This site is dedicated to you – the self driven entrepreneur…
…and to the elements you need for your success.
Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already.
God Speed!
