Mark: Alright Michelle, quick thought experiment. You're a top recruiter at a major tech firm, and a resume lands on your desk. Under 'Skills,' it lists: designing flying machines, dissecting corpses, painting portraits, military engineering, and organizing court pageants. Do you hire this person? Michelle: Absolutely not. This person is a glorious, chaotic mess. They’re all over the place. I can’t put them in a single department. They’re a flight risk—probably literally, given the flying machine thing. Who is this unfocused disaster? Mark: That, my friend, is Leonardo da Vinci. And that "unfocused disaster" is precisely the genius we're exploring today through the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb. Michelle: Wow. Okay, that puts my recruiting skills in perspective. So Gelb is trying to teach us how to become that kind of beautiful, unemployable mess? Mark: Exactly! And what's fascinating is that Gelb isn't just some academic. The guy is a master teacher of the Alexander Technique, has a 5th-degree black belt in Aikido, and—get this—was a professional juggler who once opened for the Rolling Stones. Michelle: Wait, for real? The Rolling Stones? Okay, now I’m listening. This isn't your typical self-help author. He's lived the kind of multi-talented life he's preaching. Mark: He really has. And he argues that the foundation of Leonardo's genius, the very start of that wild resume, begins with one simple, almost childlike quality.

Michelle: I’m almost afraid to ask. Where do you even begin to unpack a mind like Leonardo's? It feels like trying to map the entire internet. Mark: You start with the first principle Gelb identifies: Curiosità. It’s an insatiably curious approach to life and a relentless quest for continuous learning. It’s not about having the answers; it’s about being obsessed with the questions. Michelle: That sounds nice, but what does it actually look like? We all think we're curious. Mark: Well, Leonardo took it to a whole different level. The book tells a story from his childhood. He was in a math class, and instead of just learning the formulas, he started asking so many fundamental, difficult questions that he completely stumped his teacher. He wasn't just trying to pass the test; he was trying to understand the 'why' behind everything. He wouldn't take 'because that's how it is' for an answer. Michelle: I can just picture that poor teacher. So he was basically the kid in class who never stopped raising his hand. That can be... annoying. Mark: Annoying to some, but the root of genius to Gelb. He argues we're all born with this, but our education system often trains it out of us by rewarding the right answers, not the right questions. Leonardo just never lost it. There's another beautiful story in the book about how he would walk through the markets in Florence, buy caged birds, and then just... set them free. Michelle: Oh, I love that. For the love of animals? Mark: Partly, but it was also for Curiosità. He would release them and then intensely study their wing movements, the patterns of their flight, trying to unlock the secrets of aviation. He filled notebooks with these observations. For him, curiosity wasn't a passive state of wonder; it was an active, relentless investigation. Michelle: Okay, but hold on. The bird story is lovely, but in the real world, isn't that just... wasting time and money? If my boss saw me buying birds to 'study their flight patterns' instead of finishing my report, I'd be in trouble. How does this relentless questioning not lead to total analysis paralysis? Mark: That’s the perfect question, because it highlights a misunderstanding of his process. For Leonardo, the questions were the work. He wasn't just randomly curious. His questions were a way of gathering data from everywhere. He believed that the more you understood about one thing, the more you could understand about everything else. The flight of a bird wasn't separate from his work; it was research for his flying machines. The flow of water was research for how blood flows in the heart. It was all connected. Michelle: So his curiosity wasn't scattered, it was... systemic. He was building a personal database of the universe, one weird question at a time. Mark: Precisely. And that leads directly to the next principle, which is all about how he processed that database. It’s where the art and the science truly collide.

Michelle: I can see how that would be the next step. It's one thing to be curious, but it's another to turn all those observations into something like the Mona Lisa or a design for a helicopter. Mark: Exactly. And this is where Gelb introduces the principle of Arte/Scienza—the balance between art and science, logic and imagination. We live in a world that loves to put people in boxes. You're a 'creative type' or you're an 'analytical type.' A 'right-brain' person or a 'left-brain' person. Michelle: Oh, I've been there. I remember being told in high school, "You're good at English, not math." It felt like I had to pick a team and stick with it for life. Mark: We all get that message! Gelb argues this is a huge, self-imposed limitation. Leonardo is the ultimate proof that this is a false dichotomy. He was the supreme 'whole-brain' thinker. For him, art and science weren't separate fields; they were two sides of the same coin, two languages for describing the same truth. Michelle: Can you give me a concrete example? How did his art make his science better, or vice-versa? Mark: Absolutely. His anatomical studies are the perfect case. He dissected over thirty human corpses, which was a dangerous and taboo practice at the time. He wasn't just doing it to be a better painter. He was driven by a scientific desire to understand the mechanics of the human body. But his skill as an artist allowed him to document what he saw with a precision no scientist of his day could match. His anatomical drawings are still considered masterpieces of both science and art. He used his artistic eye to see the science, and his scientific mind to inform the art. Michelle: Wow. So he was literally drawing to understand. The art was his scientific instrument. Mark: Yes! And Gelb offers a really practical tool for us to practice this kind of whole-brain thinking: Mind Mapping. It’s a technique originated by Tony Buzan, but it was directly inspired by the way Leonardo took notes. Michelle: I’ve heard of mind mapping, but it always seems a bit... messy. Like a spiderweb of ideas. Mark: That's the point! Traditional outlining is very left-brain. It's linear, logical, hierarchical. Roman numeral I, capital A, number 1. It forces you to organize an idea before you've even had it. It stifles creativity. Michelle: Honestly, that sounds like my Monday mornings. Staring at a blank document with 'Roman numeral I' and feeling my soul slowly leave my body. Mark: We've all been there! A mind map, on the other hand, starts with a central image or idea and radiates outwards with branches of associated thoughts, keywords, and doodles. It uses color, images, and non-linear connections. It engages your whole brain—the logical connections of the left hemisphere and the imaginative, spatial, colorful world of the right. It’s a way of thinking on paper that mirrors how our brains actually work. Michelle: That actually sounds way more fun and less intimidating. So if I wanted to start, what’s a simple way to try it without getting overwhelmed? Mark: Gelb suggests starting with something fun and personal. Don't try to solve world hunger on your first go. Mind map your ideal vacation, or plan the perfect dinner party for a friend. Start with a central image—a palm tree, a birthday cake—and just let the associations flow. You'll be amazed at the connections your brain makes when you give it permission to be both logical and creative at the same time.

Michelle: Okay, so we have Curiosità—being relentlessly curious—and Arte/Scienza—thinking with our whole brain. When you boil it all down, what's the one thing we're really learning from Leonardo today? Is it just about asking more questions and drawing more pictures? Mark: I think it goes one level deeper. It's not just about the individual habits, but about the worldview they create. The final principle Gelb talks about is Connessione—a recognition of the interconnectedness of all things. Leonardo didn't see a separation between art and science, or between work and play, because he saw the underlying patterns that connected everything. Michelle: Like the bird flight and the flying machines. Mark: Exactly. Or how he wrote that studying the patterns of water swirling in a river helped him understand how to draw the curls of human hair. For him, the universe was one giant, interconnected system. That's the ultimate lesson. Genius isn't about hyper-specialization in one tiny box. It's about integration. It's about seeing the whole system. Michelle: That’s a powerful idea, especially today when everything feels so fragmented and specialized. We're all in our little silos. Mark: Right. And Leonardo serves as this beacon of wholeness. He reminds us of our potential to see the bigger picture. There’s a beautiful quote from his notebooks that I think sums up his entire philosophy. He simply wrote, "The desire to know is natural to good men." Michelle: Wow. Not 'the need to have the right answer,' but 'the desire to know.' That’s a huge shift in perspective. It takes all the pressure off. Mark: It really does. So maybe a good question for everyone listening to reflect on is this: What's one question you've been afraid to ask this week—at work, at home, or just of yourself—because it seemed too simple, too off-topic, or too 'childish'? Michelle: I love that. And we'd love to hear your questions. Find us on our socials and share the one 'Da Vinci question' you're going to ask this week. Let's get curious together. It feels like the first step to building that incredible, chaotic, genius resume. Mark: A resume for a life well-lived. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.