The Da Vinci Curse summary

A clear direction in life gives us a purpose. But Da Vinci people with their multiple talents lack this – they repeatedly change direction and switch jobs and hobbies.

Why?

So if you, like the author, consider yourself as part of the Da Vinci community, what can you do? How can you lift the Da Vinci curse?

In a nutshell, you need to find a single activity that is complex enough to integrate many of your talents.

Now that we know we need a calling to lift the Da Vinci curse, how exactly do we find it? The author proposes a three-step approach that starts with preselection.

In the preselection stage we write out a creative inventory of every activity we would like to do.

Imagine for a moment that you have infinite time and money. How would you decide to spend your life? Write down all the activities that come to mind, including jobs, hobbies and even one-time experiences – for example, getting a degree in psychology, scuba-diving in Thailand, learning the piano, etc. And make sure to include your wildest dreams, like becoming a pop star or walking on the moon.

Now that we have a basic assessment of our creative inventory, it’s time to move to the next step: a more pragmatic and systematic evaluation of our activities.

Our previous list pinpointed our intersection of talent, money and fun. We now need to refine our list by asking two crucial questions: First, how much income potential does each activity involve? Second, how fulfilling will each activity be?

The first two steps allowed us to determine and evaluate the activities we like. Now, step three ensures that our newly minted plan won’t fail. Let’s see what we need to know about the common traps and obstacles of following a new calling.

First of all, we need some fear – but not too much.