Who Is the Greatest Thinker of All Time?

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

- Leonardo Da Vinci

No doubt. I am a big fan of the great thinkers. My top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask?

For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative and learner. Always learning and creating.

Leonardo da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man: an accomplished scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer.

If you want to learn like da Vinci, you should appreciate how Leonardo da Vinci learned.

One of many of da Vinci’s great skills was an unbounded curious approach to life and unrelenting quest for continuous learning.

Great minds have one characteristic in common: they continuously ask questions throughout their lives. Leonardo’s endless quest for truth and beauty clearly demonstrates this.

What makes great minds different is the quality of their questions. You can increase your ability to solve problems by increasing your ability to ask good questions.

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci?

Here are the ones Icontinually come back to.

Sketching and note taking

Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. A sketch in the center, simple and done quickly, the label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a summary on the bottom.

Divergent thinking first

Alone for the first few iterations divergent thinking. Time to generate lots of ideas, and to reflect. Incubate ideas. Ask himself lots of questions. Always observing and studying. Think about the age of Da Vinci … no computers, few books, and few experts in fields of his interests. Just his ability to see and observe using notes to record for further study.

Convergent thinking later

Da Vinci often reviewed his work with respected peers after he had finished incubating his ideas. It was an opportunity to refine his ideas. Time to collaborate. He was way ahead of his time on most topics, so many of his good ideas were rejected. He didn’t lose his desire or his persistence by the rejections. But remember … 13,000 sketches led to at least three masterpieces. Persistence is a key, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the most important reason we have less creative people.

Save and revisit later

Most of Da Vinci’s sketches were done on individual sheets of paper. Not in a constrained notebook. He understood the value of multiple revisits and connecting, reconnecting, and grouping related facts and observations. An analogy expert. And an uncanny ability to connect several different observations and ideas to create new ideas.

Defer judgment

His basis of study was simple observation and notes/questions on his observations. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their opinions.”

Curiosity and questions

Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connection of ideas, the more questions and curiosity. And creative ideas.

Stimulate imagination

Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn