Cultivating Intense Curiosity Like Leonardo da Vinci
The power of difficult questions
Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer, chef, writer, artist, inventor, humourist, musician, painter, architect, political advisor, designer, botanist and civil planner.
His most famous paintings include the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and Virgin of the Rocks.
His most famous sculptures include da Vinci’s Horse in Bronze, and his most famous inventions and drawings include the helicopter and the parachute.
This was a man who believed “learning never exhausts the mind.”
So how did da Vinci learn so many skills and achieve so much in 70 years?
The power of difficult questions
While he was a genius, da Vinci cultivated intense curiosity about everyone he met and everything he came across.
Da Vinci asked difficult questions and used the answers to inform his inventions, ideas and creations.
He kept dozens of notebooks and journals throughout his life, many of which still exist. In these, he recorded how he spent days roaming the countryside searching for answers to things he didn’t understand.
