Have you ever known anybody to turn away from anything they found compulsively engaging? Individuals succeed not because they are master decision-makers but because of their capacity for zealous engagement. They followed their interests step by step. I have seen within a thirty- minute smelling session a person’s eyes click or facial expression change, and that person is ready to change their career. Because what they were doing in that thirty-minute span seemed interesting, beautiful, curious and addicting.

We don’t decide about life; we’re captured by life. Decision-making is downstream from curiosity and engagement. If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making; and more at curiosity. Why are some people zealously seized, manically attentive and compulsively engaged?

I have had the privilege of training over forty perfumers, over fifty evaluators and well over two thousand customers and have seen with ninety percent of them the aforementioned eyes and face. The compulsive engagement, my perspective; is because of realizing the connection of smell, vision and emotion. All of this takes place instantly in the limbic system, the reptilian part of the brain. Experiencing this and being aware of the instant connection, gives us the opportunity to be zealously seized, manically attentive and to be compulsively engaged. We are totally captured by this unique profession. It becomes a quest. HOW DO WE CHOOSE WHAT WE LIKE? We don’t; IT CAPTURES US AND CHOOSES US !!!

Categories: Article Summary Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.