#327 - Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (Part 5)

0:00Welcome to the final day of DaVinci Week on the Pod. Today we're telling the incredible story of one of Leonardo's biggest defeats. And the mindset that helped him keep going when the life he had built completely fell apart. Light is beautiful. Before we get into today's episode though, today we are bringing back. Bye, bye, bye, bye, star bright. You're going to pass out. Whoo. Yes, can breathe. All right. So what is five star Friday, Mike? Well, first quick trivia question for you. How many paintings by Leonardo DaVinci hang in the looves? Well, being that you already revealed that it's five star Friday, I'm going to assume the answer is Sinko. The answer is five. That is correct. That was pretty easy. Yeah, five star Friday is the one day week where we ask you to do us a huge favor to take just five seconds.

1:03If you haven't already to tap the five star rating wherever you podcast with that Spotify or Apple, because it really helps us get this show out to more people. It helps us grow. It helps the Algo get it out there. And yeah, it's just like a simple free way. You can really support what we're doing here. And we'd really, really appreciate it. And that's the end of our little spiel. Yeah, we appreciate it. Now Mike, tell us this insane story of how Leo's lights sell apart. So the duke that we talked about for Milan, yes, that he was so adamant about working for an episode three commissions him to create this massive bronze horse statue that is 24 feet tall. So basically two story buildings worth of a horse. And nothing like this has ever been done before. No, and he has no freaking idea how to do it. Let alone he still has to like get into the details of what is a horse actually look like. What are the muscles move like, you know, how alien art is he needs to get down and dirty is probably going to dissect 600 horses to figure out how the hell he's going

2:05to he's going to make this thing. So he studies horses for years. He fills his notebooks. And by 1493 years later, he finally makes this full size clay model that says 24 feet tall. Yeah. And now's the hard part. How the hell am I going to make this out of bronze? Yeah. And he's sitting with that challenge when a war breaks out in Milan against the French and the French end up taking over the entire city to the point where they start using his clay horse, not to well, I think you missed a part of the story here, which was they actually the king put bronze aside for his statue, but then the war to precedent over getting the bronze to him and the bronze was actually used to create cannons for the war. Oh, wow. Yeah. That makes it even more interesting. Yeah. But to make matters worse, the French soldiers come in and they start using his clay horse for fucking target practice. So to make a long story short, two decades of work at this point is now completely gone.

3:06And Leonardo does not know what to do with himself. Well, no, there's another part of the story, which you're leaving out, which is Milan gets defeated in the war. Patron, who's the king loses his power. And now basically he's out of work. He has nobody paying him to be commissioned to do artwork or anything. Yes, but he does not let that define him and that is leading up to the lesson that we are going to take away in day five. Instead, a few years later, Leonardo begins painting a portrait of a woman named Lisa get it our Dini, but you probably know her by a different name, the Mona Lisa. And obviously we are not saying that the horse crumbling and him losing his job is the reason why he ended up creating the Mona Lisa. It's not like a cause and effect relationship. But the real lesson here is that he did not let one bad chapter define his entire story. Instead, he closed that chapter and he opened the new one and he reinvented himself yet again. He didn't let the past bleed into the present.

4:08And I think that's a really powerful lesson that we can wrap this series up with. Yeah, I think it's so ironic though, because Leonardo probably thought like this horse, this, this massive 24 foot bronze horse was going to be this big legacy he left behind. Instead, it was this tiny little tiny painting. I've actually never seen it, but you told me you've seen it. It is wild. You think like, oh my God, the Mona Lisa, it's going to be this huge day. It's literally like, what's this? How big is it? Like eight inches. Like this, like, I don't know the size of like a piece of computer paper. I think a little bigger than that, but it's really not massive. Like what I thought it was. That's crazy. So why are we talking about this lesson today? I think because so often in life, we label things too early. So we don't get a job. We think we're a failure. We are business doesn't work out. We're a failure. The relationship ends where a failure. And I think what this story is trying to tell us is that the movie isn't over.

5:08There's still more script to be written here. Yeah. And that is the real reminder is that every L we take in life does not end the story. It's the middle of the movie. And we still need to watch the hero overcome the trials and tribulations. Yeah. I think the concept of like the actual analogy of closing the chapter on something and starting a new chapter and looking at life as a book is a really powerful one. Yes. And I think the problem is we think that it's not the end of a chapter, but the end of the book. Exactly. Our life is over. Yeah. But it's not. It's like you said, it's just this chapter is ended. Now you really want to tune into the next chapter. Psychologically, it allows you to let go of the past, which is now completely out of your control and get this feeling of a fresh start of a new chapter. And I think there's also something about, you know, the law of the conservation of energy, which is like, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed. And so for everything you're letting go of, you're also making space for something new.

6:11And if you keep holding on to the past, you're never going to be able to make space for that next chapter. I also think this reminds me of that quote that we talk about all time, which is like, you make plans and God laughs, right? Like he Leonardo had this plan. He was going to create this gigantic horse. It was going to be his legacy, right? But like God was like, nope, that's actually not the plan here. You know, and I feel like that is just so relevant. Brower life in general. And we've experienced it ourselves. We quit our jobs and we're like, we're going to start this big successful business. And then we ended up starting a nonprofit, right? Which was completely out like not in our thought process when we quit our jobs. But it was this beautiful, happy accident that just unfolded. And it was a chapter we could not have written unless we had failed along that journey. Yep. So Mike, how do we take action on this final lesson from Leonardo here, where we're not closing the book. We're just ending a chapter. How do we take? I mean, I think you just said it right now. I think if you're going through a difficult time, if it feels like life is just

7:15really challenging right now as you're listening to this, if it feels like you're in one of those shitty chapters of life, which inevitably are just going to come. Like there's no such thing as a book that only has good chapters. It's impossible because then life would be boring. If there, if that's your life, congratulations, like I'm jealous. But chances are you might be in a pretty shitty chapter right now. And if you are, I think the advice and the call to action is really to take this lesson and close that chapter and start fresh on a new one. And I think we tend to hold on to that shitty chapter because it makes us feel like, you know, it gives us something to blame. It gives us something to lean on for where we are in life. But you're never going to move forward until you close that chapter and start a new one. So it's like a meta lesson today, but that's what I got. I like it. I want to end DaVinci week with a quick recap. Mike, lesson one from DaVinci stay curious. Lesson two, think for yourself. Lesson three, you can always reinvent yourself.

8:19Lesson four, treat life like an experiment. And lesson five, when life doesn't go according to plan, be resilient enough to keep going because like our boy, Leonardo, your Mona Lisa might still be right ahead of you. Love it. All right. Thanks for hanging out with us. Have an amazing, amazing weekend. We love you. Peace, peace.