How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

There is so much to learn from Da Vinci. I feel like I need to re-read this book multiple times to really grasp all the knowledge and wisdom it contains. There are exercises in here that will teach you to sharpen your senses, become a whole-brain thinker, how to draw and so much more. You will definitely feel more cultured after reading this book!

I've long admired and been inspired by Leonardo, so I'm attracted to any decent book on him. Gelb's book is more than decent, and is in fact quite good, which is an evident reflection of his own great appreciation for Leonardo.Gelb organizes his understanding of Leonardo according to seven key "principles" which he believes Leonardo exemplified and made him the polymath and virtuoso that he was. While one could debate Gelb's list, I think it's a reasonable list, and is certainly at least a helpful starting point. Let's look at the list specifically:1. Curiosita is the drive to understand, learn, and grow, and surely must be the foundation for everything else. In terms of humanistic/positive psychology, this is similar to the drive to actualize one's potential.2. Dimostrazione is about grounding oneself in empirical reality, including learning from experience. This reflects a scientific and pragmatic mindset.3. Sensazione is about being genuinely perceptive, including both noticing fine details (as taught in science and art) and being mindful in general (as taught in some Eastern philosophies).4. Sfumato is the necessity of becoming comfortable with the ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty we unavoidably encounter in our lives and the world. Without this flexibility and adaptiveness of mind, we are doomed to becoming confined within a very narrow domain of experience and our effectiveness in life is greatly diminished.5. Arte/Scienza is about balance between holistic/creative and reductionistic/analytical thinking. I think that Gelb's choice of terminology is a bit caricatured and misleading here, since both art and science require both kinds of thinking if they are to be done well, but we all get his point ...6. Corporalita is about maintaining your body's health and refining your body's abilities. While physical ability could be considered a bonus, health is clearly a necessary condition.7. Connessione is about understanding and appreciating how everything is connected. This relates to sfumato and the arte/scienza balance, and also the modern theories of systems, networks, complexity, etc.Building on this scheme of seven principles, Gelb provides a large number of exercises intended to aid our development in each of these areas. Hardly anyone will find time to do all of the exercises, but you could still try a targeted selection of them. However, I have to say that I wonder about the sense in doing such exercises. My understanding is that Leonardo was immersed in and engaged in life itself, rather than "preparing" for life by doing these sorts of somewhat contrived exercises. Can't the rest of us do the same? I personally remain busy with activities which cover all of Gelb's principles, and I wouldn't want to give up any of those activities for the sake of doing exercises. To me, it's like the difference between playing video games in your basement versus going out in the sun and participating in actual sports.My only other criticism of the book is that it seems to necessarily preach to the choir. People who are already fans of Leonardo and what he was trying to do will naturally be drawn to this book, but I wonder if this book could have any real impact for people who don't come to it with curiosita in the first place.That said, if you're already a member of the choir, I think you'll enjoy this book and might even be able to get something out of the exercises, so I can recommend the book to you.Note: I've gone through this book in both unabridged audiobook and print format. Given all the exercises in the book, the audiobook is an unsuitable format.

I read the book and then listened to the audio book. I learned a lot from both. They explain in an interesting way Leonardo da Vinci's life and the way he approached his many different kinds of activities from painting to various scientific research such as the human anatomy, the flight of birds and attempts to invent and design things such as a helicopter and various machines. Many books about Leonardo da Vinci focus on his paintings. By contrast this one explains many of his other talents and qualities. The author Michael J. Gelb has categorized da Vinci's thinking method into several principles and explains the lessons derived from these principles and how anyone who wants to be effective and successful in life can apply them.There are several types of thinking and sense development exercises. I found especially the stream of conciousness exercises useful in improving the effectiveness of my thinking in tackling daily problems. No doubt Leonardo da Vinci was a genius who was a great thinker with a lot of wisdom, had a multidimensional and creative thinking approach with diverse interests and activities. He is very interesting to analyze and to derive lessons from. However, it seems to me that the author has presented many of the usual advice given by life coaches as the Leonardo da Vinci method of thinking. For example he explains very clearly Tony Buzan's mind maps and how to apply them. He mentions Tony Buzan's name as he explains them. He talks about the importance of and how to set long term goals, to find a purpose in life and to become aware of our values ; all very important and useful information. There is no doubt that the author has studied Leonardo carefully and knows a lot about him.However, I doubt that Leonardo da Vinci used any thinking methods similar to Tony Buzan's mind maps or the Smart method of setting goals in life. He was a careful observer and a great thinker yes, but the thinking methods presented in this book can not be claimed to say that this is how Leonardo was thinking too. They are important thinking tools that we read in various books and listen to in seminars of life coaches and leading authorities on effective thinking such as Tony Buzan and Edward de Bono but they can not be attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. The various thinking methods explained in the book are very effective and useful but I wish they had not been marketed as : " Leonardo used to think like this too ". It is not very convincing.