CREATIVITY

book summary

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

Michael J Gelb Delcorte Press UCI BF 408 G34 1998

Almost everything we know about the brain we’ve learned in the last 20 yrs, and it contradicts many myth, including that intelligence is fixed at birth. Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind states that there are at least 7 kinds of intelligence (4). # of thought patterns the avg brain can make is 1 followed by 10.5 million kilometers of typewritten zeroes.

7 Da Vincian Principles:

1 Curiosita is the desire for continuous learning “The desire to know is natural to good men” LDV. Great ideas come from great questions. LDV carried a notebook w/ him at all times (7k pages survived, but probably only half) filled with notes and drawing, often on different subjects all lumped together, and often same idea will pop up repeatedly. “Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds, toward heaven; that is by letters written with their quills” Schooling rewards right answer; Leslie Hart at a top university gave the final exam to summa cum laud graduates one month after gradation; all failed (65). Studying physical objects can give ideas (burrs --> velcro), and asking 5W questions, esp What if...

2 Dimonstazione, testing knowledge through experience, and willingness to learn from mistakes. LDV rambled around, did dissections and experiments and made mistakes (pick three anti-role models).

3. Sensazione, the refinement of senses, especially sight. (extensive exercises 99-

4. Sfumato, (literally the going up in smoke) a willingness to embrace ambiguity and paradox LVD learned about beauty by inviting grotesque people to dinner, making them laugh, then sketching them. The Mona Lisa is the ultimate expression of paradox (may be a self-portrait?).

5. Arte/Scienza , balance between intuition and logic. Schooling rewards left-brained, but deprives them of developing creativity, and rt-brained feel inadequate for not getting the “right answer (165). LDV was an artist who used science (eg anatomy) and a scientist who used art (urged his students to look at physical objects to imagine infinity of things). When he reached the end of something he could investigate empirically, he picked up a brush to continue artistically.

Mindmapping, cf Tony Buzan, is a way to use the whole brain. How much time have you wasted staring a Roman numeral I? Do paragraphs and formal outlines pop up in your mind’s eye? No, because the brain works with impressions, images and key words (171).Formal outlining is really only useful after the hard thinking has been done (cf Gelb; often numbers are applied after to support a decision that has been made intuitively in the business world). Start a mindmap w/ image in the center.

6. Corporalita: cultivation of physical grace and ambidexterity (breathing, diet and exercise).

7. Connessione: recognition of interconnectedness of things/systems thinking. New ideas are often synthetic: as a boy, LDV was commissioned by a peasant to make a shield image that would frighten; he collected toads, lizards and bats; it turned out so well that the Duke of Milan bought it. LDV: "Everything comes from everything, and everything is made out of everything, and everything returns to everything...” 226.

Investigate: make a timeline of your life; then consider that life as a river, with rapids, confluences, dry spells and fish? Think about your goals w/ SMART: specifically define, make measurable, be accountable, be realistic and create a time line (243). Use a mindmap.