Sunday, October 10, 2010

In Perfume and In Life: Hold Out for the Masterpiece


Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by the massive volume of perfume releases, sometimes from the same perfume house.  All are made common when clumped together with others undistinguished.

Should a masterpiece occur among them, it appears almost accidental, and its impact is greatly diminished through a thoughtless introduction.

Of course, perfume and life often mirror each other, so I've been pondering quality over quantity as it relates to other parts of life.

In my work, for example, I take great pains to hire the smartest, most passionate and driven people I can find.  Almost without exception, these personalities need coaching around creating a thoughtful pace, because they want to change the world overnight and truly believe this is possible.

Which is precisely why I hired them in the first place.

Nevertheless, I encourage them to take time - build time into their daily calendars - simply to think.  Just because they have the ability to multi-task and complete a number of projects quickly, is all that activity really making the impact they want? 

Rather than simply Doing A Lot, I ask them to pay close attention to their human surroundings, then fully assess their department, the organization, the national climate and their own world view.  Only then are they ready to thoughtfully accomplish something extraordinary. Something that has never been done before. 

Something that could change the world.

To all perfume houses, I offer the same advice.  
Instead of overwhelming your audience with release after release, simply because you can, take a deep breath.  Reign in the marketing impulse and focus on quality over quantity. 

Hold out for the masterpiece.

Picture from vangoghgallery.com

2 comments:

  1. Those are wise words and I do hope they are listening - I too feel overwhelmed by the volume of new releases.

    ReplyDelete

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