Mmm. Can you smell that? Your heartwork is wafting through the air like a simmering sauce.
When was the last time you took a deep breath and enjoyed the aroma of your life taking shape? Or, are you, like me, so impatient to taste the fruits of your labor that you forget to pause and savor the slowly steeping aroma of awesomepreneurship as it fills the room?
I took my own advice today and finally checked the rain on a long overdue coffee date with my friend Steve: no networking, biz planning, or shop talk. Just. coffee.
Props to Steve for his patience as I awkwardly (and long-windedly) remember what it is to chill “off the clock.” Steve graciously abided my topic hopscotch as I jumped from this worry to that woe, listing off my stresses between sips. Then he stopped me.
Sorry if I’m not being a good listener,” he said gently, “but I don’t see the downside here. It seems like you are living your dream, Rachael. I mean, am I right?”
Yes, yes he was. Right as rain(checked coffee).
Traditional business culture exalts hard work at the expense of heartwork, teaching us that as long we’re suffering, we’re doing something right. We learn to stir and season ’til our forearms ache: there is no time to simply smell the sauce as it simmers.
Steve, being the awesomepreneur that he is, was telling me to take a whiff. So I put down the spoon and inhaled. Yum.
Science elaborates on my metaphor. In “The Smell Report,” The Social Issues Research Centre, explains how “our olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive part of the brain, which is thought to be the seat of emotion.” Scent is intertwined with mood and memory: our brains associate aromas with the positive or negative experiences linked to a fragrance. (This explains why food poisoning can ruin our relationship with a dish for years or one sniff of a lover’s cologne can make us go gooey.)
My point is, scent is powerful. And it plays a pretty big role in how we interact with the world–for better or for worse.
What are you waiting for? Take a whiff. Sit back, close your eyes, and inhale.
