Where Are You Cooking From? (A Guide to the Inner Fountain)
Not what you do, not how you do it — but who you are when you do it.
Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’m getting a bit too complicated with the things I do. Always trying to find new ways to do something — or sometimes just to do it better. And maybe, in doing so, it doesn’t even look like I’m doing much at all.
Where you create from shapes what you create.
✨A Personal Note
Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Otto Scharmer, and in the first few pages, he talks about something that really stayed with me — maybe because it connects with this idea that I’ve been overcomplicating things.
He explains what he calls a “blind spot” in leadership, management, and social change — but it also applies beautifully to everyday life. This blind spot refers to the inner place — the fountain — from which we operate when we act, communicate, perceive, and think.
We can usually see what we do — the results.
We can often see how we do it — the process.
But we’re rarely conscious of the who — the internal place from which our actions arise.
To make it clearer (and I’ll add a little hand-drawn illustration for this!), Scharmer says that what really matters in leadership is not only what leaders do or how they do it, but also their inner condition — their internal fountain.
It’s that deeper dimension from which all our actions, words, and perceptions emerge — the space that allows us to sense and connect with new possibilities. In our daily activities, we’re usually very aware of what we do and how we do it — the process. But if we ask ourselves where our actions come from, most of us wouldn’t know how to answer.
Scharmer uses a metaphor that I love:
When we look at an artist’s work, we can observe it from three perspectives:
We can focus on the result — the finished painting.
We can focus on the process — how the artist paints.
Or we can observe the artist in that moment when they face a blank canvas.
In other words, we can see the work after creation, during creation, or before creation begins. He uses this metaphor to analyze leadership — but I think we can all benefit from this way of thinking.
If we analyze our own work, we can look at it from the same three angles:
What we’ve done
How we’ve done it
And where it came from — our inner fountain.
And maybe, as we approach the end of the year, this is a good question to ask ourselves:
⛲ From which fountain am I operating?
What Scharmer calls the Blind Spot is the lack of awareness — both collective and individual — of this inner source, the place from which we actually operate. Because when we don’t see this “fountain,” when we stay blind to it, we end up repeating the same patterns. We focus endlessly on the what and the how, yet still run into institutional, social, and personal failures.
The fountain represents that deep well of inner wisdom and possibility that lives beneath the surface of our usual thinking — the place where our authentic self, intuition, and new insights come from. But we often access it only after the blind spot has been illuminated and our habitual ways of operating have been disrupted or dissolved.
Scharmer shares a powerful example:
WHEN HIS FAMILY FARMHOUSE BURNED DOWN.
In that moment, everything he believed himself to be was suddenly gone — dissolved in smoke and fire. Everything?
Maybe not everything.
Because as he stood there watching the flames, he felt something small but unmistakably alive inside him.
A presence.
A thread.
An I that did not burn.
He discovered another dimension of himself — one that was not tied to material possessions, roles, or past identities. A dimension connected to his future possibilities.
His true self wasn’t the one attached to what was lost.
His true self was the one that remained — the visionary one.
More alive than the version of “I” he had lived with before.
🔥 This is an invitation to face your own fire.
Imagine that everything you have — even your online business, your tools, your projects — suddenly burns down.
Visualize the fire. Sometimes the image itself feels like a release.
Take a few minutes to notice what remains when everything else is stripped away. What part of you is still there? What survives the flames Because that’s where you gain access to your deeper source of perception, clarity, and creativity.
The goal is to move beyond the blind spot and reconnect with that inner fountain — the place where fresh ideas and new actions emerge. And when our inner place shifts, everything around us shifts with it.
🤔 And that made me wonder:
What is my fountain?
When I cook, when I teach, when I create a new tool… from which inner place am I really acting?
Fear?
Expectation?
Curiosity?
Love?
Exhaustion?
Or something deeper, quieter, more essential?
LISTENING — “I’m ready to hear before I speak.”
Signals I’m low: rehearsing replies, interrupting.
Do: Two breaths first. Then: “So you’re saying…”
This is where I want to place my attention now — on the fountain, not the noise. And I hope you will, too.
(P.S.: When we start learning from the emerging future instead of the past, we finally begin to do our best work.)
From wich “fountain” am I operating?
Where you create from shapes what you create.
Your source shapes your work.
Let’s Connect
I’ll be in Spain at least until mid-June (let’s see). If you want to connect — wherever you are — I’m here. DM me, reply here, or tag @aenichi — I’m always cheering for your next tiny move.
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A Note from Me
I Now that I’m facing the end of this year (or maybe the middle of my personal year, as I move toward my next sun round), and the next half looks a bit empty and undefined, I’ve decided to focus on my inner visionary. Instead of looking back at what I did, I’m choosing to look forward to what I can do.
What I can create in my own business.
What I can contribute to my sector.
What I can offer to the people I’ll collaborate with next.
What new possibilities I might carve out for myself.
If you’re in a similar place—a transition, a blank space, an unknown— I invite you to do the same.
And just one last thing: When I wrote the concept behind this newsletter, I thought I would be talking mainly about creativity, cooking, my tools, recipes… But it seems the newsletter is taking an unexpected direction. Maybe I needed it too.
To clarify (maybe mostly for myself): cooking is much more than ingredients, trends, or cuisines. It has a real connection with yourself and with others. And “the kitchen”—whether it’s the one in your home, in a restaurant, or in your mind—is always a space for dialogue. The more you think and talk, the better the decisions you make.
Lately I’ve been thinking that loving cooking as much as I do, and working in this kind of hybrid way—not rooted in a single restaurant or service—can be hard. Sometimes people don’t recognize your voice or your value. Being a woman, cooking only with plants, doing this hybrid work… it has made me realize that the options can feel limited.
(You know what I mean.)
Just planting the seed for a future newsletter here—and circling back to this one:
