This blog was born out of that hitherto unnamed, yet powerful motivational state that comes about as a combination of inspiration and desperation.
OK, I know. That’s a rather awkward and ethereal way of putting it — even for a blog with “AN OFF-KILTER GUIDE TO PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, ESPRESSO, ECONOMICS AND OTHER SEEMINGLY UNRELATED SUBJECTS” as a tagline.
So let me try again with a straight answer to the question that every good netizen like you and I most ask ourselves when evaluating a recently discovered source of information:
“Why on earth should I spend my precious time reading this?”
Well, the “inspiration” side of the story behind the creation of this blog comes from the simple, yet quasi-epiphanic realization that hit me one beautiful afternoon of late 2008 while savoring an espresso and Argentine alfajor in Buenos Aires:
It is through sharing our life stories and idiosyncratic views with others that we learn the most useful lessons about how to change ourselves and the world for the better.
And due to my particular life story, I’ve developed an idiosyncratic approach to personal development that borrows from economics, espresso culture and a bunch of other seemingly disparate subjects which I didn’t include in the tagline — it is bizarrely long already!
So you will find this blog useful if you are passionate about personal development, and open-minded enough for a rather offbeat approach to it based on two founding principles:
- Most of the most inspiring ideas that make us grow in quantum leaps don’t offer clear-cut, general how-to’s and to-do’s. These vary wildly from person to person, but always come about through the works of a deeply inspired mindset.
- Everything is interconnected, even if the patterns of connection are complex, fuzzy and seemingly far-fetched at times. Incredibly useful insights for personal development can be derived by opening up to this paradigm.
About Alan
I don’t want to go all autobiographical-from-scratch on you now; the details of my rather unconventional lifestyle are a recurring theme of my blog posts, of which you hopefully will become a joyful reader and enlightening commentator.
But to allow you to preliminarily evaluate whether we will be able to strike a mutually enriching conversation, please allow me to give you an initial glimpse… or three:
- Besides one, mostly miserable year right after graduating from college back in 1998, I’ve never had a 9-5, cubicle-confined, or any other sort of job that fits the conventional description of what most of our fellow human beings understand — rather sadly in my humble opinion — as “real work.” All this despite having studied Economics, which usually is the kind of profession that almost inevitably leads to “real work.”
- Right after finishing that dreadful year of corporate life test-drive, I took off from my native Caracas, Venezuela, to Barcelona, Spain, which became my base for a freelance career as a communications consultant that allowed me to live and work in a dozen different countries since then until late 2008. In between travels, I partnered up with a friend from childhood to set up a cafe in Barcelona that eventually grew to become a little chain of three espresso and latin-american artisan sweets bars.
- Despite all the rewards and personal growth that the communications and coffee businesses blessed me with during those years, in late 2008 I decided to sell my interests in both to ratchet it all up to a whole new level of self-realization: pursuing a career in writing that delivers a truly meaningful impact to the lives of others. This is what I have always wanted to do ever since my 6th grade literature teacher in Venezuela said that “I had been carved out of writer-wood” (Spanish: “El Sr. Furth tiene madera de escritor”) after reading an essay I wrote for the school newspaper.
Alan-Furth-lifestyle-glimpse No. 3 above is what the “desperation” part of the story behind the creation of this blog is all about. Because at some point the need to dedicate all my energy to meaningfully connect with others through writing became so intense, that my seemingly dreamlike lifestyle of cafes in Barcelona and world travel all of a sudden became a desperately choking trap, comparable only to my corporate life test-drive days.
And just like I did back then, I understood it was time to urgently move on and go after what I truly wanted. That dear 6th grade lit teacher of mine… she better be right!
If you have read this far, you probably share with me this basic, stubborn drive to live life under your own terms, to never stop growing, and a terrible curiosity about a bunch of things and how they relate to each other in surprising, unexpected ways.
So welcome to my blog. I really hope you subscribe, come back regularly and enjoy so much reading it and commenting on it that you spread the word about its existence among everyone around you.
Cheers,
Alan