In December 2022, I visited Paris, right around the time painting had started to take over my life.
I had this whole movie scene planned out in my head: me wandering through the Louvre with a sketchbook and a set of pencils, soaking up inspiration from the greatest artists who ever lived.
In reality, the Louvre has far fewer cozy spots to sit and sketch than you'd think, and way more enormous tour groups decked out in matching shirts like some kind of adult field trip.
Still, when I walked into the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition hall, my brain basically short-circuited.
Not because of his oil painting technique, necessarily. I promise you, aside from the Mona Lisa, if I put two Renaissance paintings in front of you, you wouldn't be able to pick out which one was his (They all feature the same chubby naked cherubs and over-the-top religious iconography).
What blew my mind was the sheer scale of the crowd.
This exhibition fills up with thousands of people every single day, and I still can't wrap my head around how a man who died over five hundred years ago is still pulling rockstar numbers.
Over the past couple of weeks, I went down the rabbit hole.
Turns out, the Italian maestro left behind journals filled with thousands of words, in which he essentially tried to teach us how he thought and the principles he lived by.
So you don't have to go digging through internet forums yourself, I pulled out the three that hit the hardest:
1. Curiosità, An Insatiable Curiosity About the World
Leonardo's entire life was devoted to understanding how things work.
He dissected cadavers to study anatomy. He spent long stretches walking through nature.
He dedicated years to studying science and engineering.
The big takeaway here: everything is connected to everything.
When I give talks on creative writing, I always say that writing is the output of every single source of inspiration you can tap into at any given moment.
And that's exactly why, even if your day job is hyper-specific, you should give yourself permission to read that random book or take that online course on a topic that just interests you.
Best-case scenario, you'll find a direct connection to the work you're already doing. Worst case, you'll end up writing a newsletter about it two years later. :)
2. Dimostrazione, Testing What You Learn in the Real World
Learning is what happens when knowledge meets experience meets reflection.
In plain English: if you picked up a new technique, it's not really yours until you've tried it in the field and drawn your own conclusions.
The difference between Leonardo's era and ours? All the knowledge in the world is already one ChatGPT question away from you.
From here, it's about how fast you can put it into practice, iterate on the fly, and make it serve your goals.
3. Sensazione, Sharpening Your Senses on a Daily Basis
Italians already know how to live, but Leonardo took it to a whole other level.
He'd spend days wandering through the countryside with his notebooks, savoring the scenery and the food at the estates of the patrons who hosted him.
This wasn't about indulgence. It was about absorbing everything the world has to offer.
If you want to put this into practice yourself, the best way to sharpen all your senses is to actually pay attention to the inputs they're sending you, instead of tuning them out.
Look, I'll be the first to admit that staying present is something I still struggle with to this day.
But here's the thing: your next great idea isn't going to come from doom-scrolling TikTok.
So let yourself actually enjoy the aroma of that bottle of wine you just uncorked. Step outside for a walk in the park in the middle of your workday. Take your AirPods out when you're walking down the street.
Your Challenge for This Week
To put Principle #2 into action and take everything you just read from theory to practice, here's a challenge I'm setting for you, and committing to myself this week:
Make a reservation at a nice restaurant, at the bar, specifically. (If they hand you an iPad instead of a menu, you have my permission to leave.) Bring nothing but a notebook, a pen, and your credit card.
Once you're seated, order a great glass of wine and a dish you've never tried before.
Strike up a conversation with the bartender. Listen to the music playing. Savor the bold, unfamiliar flavors. And let yourself be that mysterious, slightly aristocratic person at the bar scribbling thoughts onto paper.
Lean into it. Make it an experience, the kind that the great Italian masters of the 16th century would've been proud of :)