I was speaking with Martin Cockx, our partner at Life After Law, who we featured in last month’s Wealth Management Update.
We were talking about what makes you actually take action in life. Martin’s journey included a great improvement in his fitness, so we got talking about what is most evocative. Which is where the subject of liniment came up.
In fact, as you read this and if you are of a certain age, then you are possibly re-imagining the smell of liniment, and this will then take you back to the point when it was last being used. For me that would be back to the changing rooms at school, in preparation for rugby matches.
While other senses like sight, sound, and touch can also be highly evocative, smell’s unique connection to the limbic system (the brain’s emotional centre) and olfactory bulb allows it to trigger vivid, long-forgotten memories more powerfully and spontaneously than the other senses. This direct connection means smells can act as powerful “triggers” for specific memories and feelings.
Smell is the most primal and unconscious sense.
It can trigger instantaneous responses and is fundamental to our survival and our experience of the world, from identifying food to avoiding danger. In fact, every person’s life is “time-stamped” with different fragrances, making smells highly personal and capable of transporting individuals to a specific time and place.
The phenomenon where a sensory experience triggers a flood of memories is famously known as a “Proustian moment,” named after the author Marcel Proust who described this experience with a madeleine cake.
So, what does this have to do with financial planning, I hear you ask?
Well, if you just think about an amount of money, then this is not necessarily going to give you the right amount of impetus to take action.
However, if I get you to think about the smell of the leather in that E-Type Jag you have always been promising yourself, the whiff of oil from the engine, the rush of the wind through your hair, and the sound of the straight 6 or V12 engine, then this suddenly awakens emotions that are much more likely to be incentives for you to take action.
Our job as Wealth Strategists is not just to tell you about all the ins and outs of your pensions and investments, it is about generating the emotions that will determine whether you have a dream which will never come to fruition, or a financial goal that we can help you work to over a period of time.
So, what is your equivalent of the liniment – and what will it make you want to do?
