Da Vinci’s 7 (Timeless) Principles To Think Like A Genius!
Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets. ~Leonardo Da Vinci
If you love to explore about ways to optimize and harness the minds’ power more fully, you definitely need to look at the theories of Leonardo Da Vinci.
A true genius and a Renaissance man of the fifteenth century (A Renaissance is a person whose expertise covers a significant number of subjects in variety of fields).
Da Vinci was a painter, architect, inventor and a student with curiosity and a goal of life-long learning.
It’s important to take a note of research conducted by Howard Gardner, a psychologist and professor at Harvard University, who concluded in his book that there are seven different types of intelligence, and Da Vinci developed all of these.
Let’s first understand what these 7 types of intelligence are, and then we will learn about the 7 principles that Da Vinci followed to become a thinking genius.
7 Types of Intelligence
1. Logical-mathematical
This kind of intelligence helps people do the things that require logic, abstraction, reasoning, numbers and more critical thinking.
A few examples of people enriched with this type of intelligence are Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie.
2. Verbal-linguistic
People with high verbal-linguistic intelligence show great expertise in the field of words and language. Think William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Jorge Luis Borges as perfect examples.
3. Spatial-mechanical
This intelligence makes people good at visualizing very vividly through their mind’s eye, providing them with the mental skill to solve spatial problems of navigation, better visualization of objects from different angles and positions in space, stronger facial or scene recognition, and an enhanced ability to notice fine details.
Examples of this intelligence are Michelangelo, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Buckminster Fuller.
4. Musical
This area has to do with sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. People with a high musical intelligence normally have good pitch and may even have absolute pitch. They are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music.
Mozart, George Gershwin, Ella Fitzgerald can be cited as good examples of this type of intelligence.
5. Bodily-kinesthetic
This type of intelligence allows the ability to control body movements and a capacity to handle the things very skillfully. It includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of physical action, along with the ability to train one’s responses.
One perfect example of this is Muhammad Ali.
6. Interpersonal-social
People possessing high interpersonal skills are characterized by a sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments, and motivations, and an ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group.
Good examples of this intelligence are Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.
7. Intrapersonal (self-knowledge)
People with this capacity can do much better at introspection and self-reflection. They have a deep understanding of themselves, their strengths and weaknesses. They know what makes them unique and are able to predict their own reactions and emotions. Viktor Frankl, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mother Teresa can be given as perfect examples for this category of intelligence.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s 7 Principles to Become A Genius
Leonardo Da Vinci was proficient in all the above seven types of Intelligence. Now let’s talk about the principles that Da Vinci followed to become a Genius Thinker.
Michael Gelb in his great book, Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, explains that Leonardo had seven principles that led him to become a genius thinker.
1. Curious Approach
He had an insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning. He continued to enliven his curiosity by asking “what if” and “how come” to any scenarios he could think of.
The question “what if” continues to provoke your imagination and “how come” makes you find the reasons behind everything. Gelb suggests that if you write down the ideas that come to you at four in the morning by recording them, you are inviting your intuitive mind to be more a part of your everyday thinking.
2. Commitment to Test Knowledge
He lived his life with a deep commitment to testing knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from his mistakes. This principle requires you not to take anything for granted. Rather, you should test every idea and experience life first hand.
You need to play “devil’s advocate” to counter your own beliefs about different aspects your life. He believed that you should declare anything as true or false based on personal experience.
3. Continuous Refinement
He believed in the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience. In his words, “The five senses are the ministers of the soul.” Da Vinci was a strong proponent of exposing all senses to different experience be it smelling, seeing, touching, listening, tasting, etc. He was incredibly inspired by the world around him, and the more he honed his senses, the more heightened his genius became. He believed that sharpening the senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are the keys to opening the doors of experience.
4. Embrace Ambiguity
A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty is the key life principle of Da Vinci. He had a very unique ability to understand the extreme opposites of opinions and phenomenon. He was also able to explore unknowns and revel in uncertainty. Most of us are uncomfortable with not knowing something or unanswerable questions, so we avoid anything out of our control.
5. Balance between Science and Art
He strongly advocated the principle of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination or “whole-brain thinking.” Most people don’t use both the left and right sides of the brain. Left-brain people think in words, use linear thinking, and are all about facts and logics etc. Other people who are right-brained are imaginative, think in imagery, and are more about what they feel. They are highly intuitive.
Da Vinci was a big believer in using both parts of the brain. He was a whole-brain thinker. He showed this in his notebooks by tying ideas with drawings. Specifically, he was the original mind-mapper.
6. Cultivation of Grace
He was of the view that the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise are important for the growth of mental faculties. Therefore, he was inclined towards athletics apart from his mental prowess.
He strongly believed that if he wanted his mind to perform at optimum levels, he needed to keep his body in perfect shape as well.
7. Systems Thinking
He had a strong recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all phenomena — a concept known as systems thinking. Systems thinking is when you are able to take vast amounts of information and create routines, lists and organization. It also has to do with pattern recognition.
Da Vinci believed that ‘‘Everything comes from everything, and everything is made out of everything, and everything returns into everything.’’
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