#876 - Michael Gelb - How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

32:41It's day and night. But it's understanding the harmony of those modes, just like so you inhale and you get the fullness of that in breath. And then there's that exquisite moment. It's the solstice of your breath. It just becomes the exhale. Just we're coming up to December 21st. That's and I love that. I just love that exquisite moment. It's like it's the greatest potentiality of the hottest day of summer. It's the top of the roller coaster. It's the top of the roller coaster. And then when you're at the bottom and that's called life. So recognizing that that's why in the Yin and Yang symbol there's that little bit of the light in the dark bit and a little bit of the dark in the light bit.

33:26I was reading Seven Eaves, this great book by Neil Stevenson, and in it they have to try and repurpose the International Space Station to become a colony for all of human civilization in like two years. And then they get up there, but you end up learning Neil Stevenson's a beast. You end up learning a ton about orbital dynamics when you're up there. Now, and it's really cool. And when you think just trying to intersect two things, flat like a car hitting another car, quite a lot of stuff has to happen in order for that collision to occur, but that's only on two dimensions. When you then not only put it into three dimensions, but put those three dimensions moving around a spherical object, it is so interesting.

34:08So they're talking about, again, the orbital dynamics, and they use the terms zenith and apogee. to some sort of... There you go. Right. And it makes me think about the exact same, but now in another dimension. I'm with you, man. That's cool. What would you say to the recovering cynics who want to kind of let go of some of their worldly scrutiny and sort of a dark day thinking. How do you want to feel? How do you want to feel? It's a really important question when people are in their heads and they have adopted positions and preset lenses through which how's it working for you? what's protecting you from?

35:05What's the benefit of it? If it's working for you, knock yourself out. But if it's leading you to feel less than boyant, less than joyous, less than grateful, and you might possibly even consider that it's, that's a way you could be, that life could be more boyant and graceful and joyous. then let's experiment with other ways of looking at things and just see, first of all, how they work in terms of practical, real problem solving, but also in terms of what they do to your sense of yourself and your basic feeling of what it is to be here. I love the idea of how is that working for you. It's such a ruthless question.

36:01Naval has one that's similar where he says, if you're so smart, why aren't you happy? And it's crazy when you think, you know, I have a bug bear with cynicism, not only because I find it in myself, but because it's everywhere on the internet, and a lot of all of my work goes out on the internet. And it makes me feel disheartened because I love what I do, and I think that most of the people that are sort of normal are into learning and developing and doing stuff. So then when I see the outliers, which tends to be a lot of sort of more shit -posting comment sections Thankfully not not usually on this channel, but it's still really it's just not cool and It's crazy how tightly People will cling to a life that they ardently don't like It's like I'm I'm the flag bearer For a life that I'm saying is shit But for some reason I'm also defending it.

36:56I'm defending it at the same time. It blows my mind. Well, just to I mean I really met it when I said they're often brokenhearted idealists is it's armoring it's armoring against Feeling your feeling feeling how utterly vulnerable we all are how This is a temporal deal so But as you said, the word disheartened. And one of the wonderful things about these kind of conversations, and I think why people tune in, why do people want this? Because it's reheartening. People want something that boys their heart and their hope. And that's most needed if you're in the darkest time in your life if you're actually struggling or suffering.

37:50It's easy to talk about how wonderful things are and how creative you can be when everything's going your way. But all of this counts, Lee and Ardo himself said, you can navigate, fix your course to a star and you can navigate through any store.

38:11What's that mean? It means that if you have a higher purpose, if you have a raison d 'etre, then those principles that love of truth, beauty, and goodness, that commitment will be your North Star will help you navigate in times of difficulty. This is the Victor Frankl thing. Well, I haven't driven if why I will bear anyhow. I haven't to have read him when I was 14 years ago, which is a really long time, and that's part of what set the stage for my whole life, and everything I've done since then. Yeah, super interesting. And it's like, you know, the time that I've spent with neuroscienty people like Cuban or whatever, Sam Harris talking about how almost everything is positive destination, move toward the destination, track the distance between you and the destination, get positive reinforcement, move the destination again, positive, you know, it's this sort of like how a cartoon snail moves where it goes like, yeah, it feels like this and then it goes flat.

39:14It feels like that. And I think we can get disheartened by the adaptation. Oh, how awful the thing that I previously only wished that I could have had the opportunity to say yes to is now something that I take for granted. And we sort of give ourselves, we're like with ourselves because we say, well, you should be more grateful. You wanted this and you got it. And now you've fucking forgotten that you've even had it. But this comes back to something you said before too about how everybody's work, work, work, and totally focused. And even when they go outside, they're doing something. And we feel we have to justify ourselves and the guilt and the shame, the Michelangelo flayed body that's pushing you forward to achieve so that, well, say your worthwhile.

39:58And you'll have some reason for being here. Versus part of what I love about Italian culture is La Dolce Vita. The intrinsic notion that life is beautiful, that life is sweet, that we're here to enjoy the beauty and the pleasure of just being. The French have something similar, which is why they just pass that law that your boss can't call you, because they have Shua Devibe, the joy of living. So the Italians have Dolce Vita, the French have Shua Devibe. Unfortunately in the US, all we have is happy hour. One lousy hour. We pound down some some drinks before you go back to your miserable life and try to achieve more.

40:49But this notion, which is also a d 'arras Buddha's notion about, and it's not just a notion, I think it's closer to real, to what I consider to be the source of truth beauty and goodness is being able to be fully present and savoring, savoring presence for its own sake. Savoring the joy, like what's the most exquisite pleasure? Could it be breathing? Like right now, like the apagee, the zenith, the solstices of the breath, the fact that we're connected to everything. We all breathe the same breath as all sentient beings. It's all being, we're made of the same cosmic dust. And what if we could just get out of our yak and a yak and a yak and be that even a little part of the time?

41:51And don't get me wrong. I am an achiever. I'm a maniac.

41:58I have, I just woken up to, okay, I don't have to worry. Like, that's my default setting is to work hard and achieve and be disciplined. I just grew up that way. So, it's hard wired into my system. So the edge for me has been to learn, oh, how about just being? How about just being present with myself and then try it in relationships? Just being present with the people that you're with. And let something creative emerge rather than you having to think of it through your own cleverness and effort. You know that idea of us all being connected and I guess if people are deep into meditation, They'll know about sort of permanent non -obiting, non -dual awareness, etc., etc.

42:52A more rational version of that, which I love, and I've just checked ChatGPT to make sure that it's still correct. So I asked the question, do we all breathe in particles of Julius Caesar's last breath? It's likely that we all breathe in particles from Julius Caesar's last breath because of molecular diffusion and the fact that every breath contains 10 to the 22 molecules. While the fraction of Caesar's breath and any given inhalation is minuscule, the sheer number of molecules in the passage of time make it statistically probable that every breath we take contains some of those ancient molecules.

43:30How fucking cool is that? But that's such a wonderful element of the amazing time we live in. Whereas we can take these concepts of ancient wisdom from the Vedas, from the invites of Adanta, non -dual truth and things that yogis went off for 40, 50 years to get Anaha. And we can actually back it up with physics. And that's, it's like when I tell my business clients that we now know we have the data that shows that if you treat all your stakeholders with care and respect and look after their welfare over time you'll make more money. We have the data. So why would you think of ripping people off or exploiting the worker or your client because you're going to suffer, you're not going to feel good, your conscious is going to hurt you And you won't, and you make less money.

44:39I mean, of all of those, of all of the things, for me, it's, I think, the little ticker in the back of your brain, that knows when you did the thing that you should have done, that gives you that sort of, as the kids would say, Ick or cringe, that sense of like, oh, fuck, like I shouldn't have done that. And I know I shouldn't have done that. And, you know, adaptively, evolutionarily, what is it? It's you thinking if somebody in the tribe saw what you just did or what you just thought, you would potentially lose status or you would maybe even be kicked out or killed in the worst situations. But like functionally what is that?

45:21It's you being pointed toward a direction that's probably good for you over the long term. It's the same reason that we have this tension between pleasure, enjoyment, and long -term contentment and meaning. Like, it's attention between the two. And a lot of the time stuff that we do in the moment, it gives us pleasure, can be negative for us over the long term, and stuff that's positive for us over the long term is negative to our pleasure in the current moment. And I really think that much of the balance with this, like the first step is just realizing this is a tension to be managed, not a problem to be solved.

46:00like there's no fucking equation that comes out the other end. It's, it's, you know, I'm passionate about wine. I do a wine tasting team building exercises for my clients over the years. I wrote a book called Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking. And I got to tell you, I've really mastered the art of pleasure every day without negative consequences. And one of the great philosophers of wine that I read said, the art of enjoying wine is to have the greatest possible present gladness without any future misery. So I'm enjoying a beautiful wine and it's so good. And I'd like to have another glass, but I just tune into my system.

46:53And I know I'll have a headache, I won't feel so good. but I won't be able to function at the level. Just say thanks. Breathe in and savor the aromas and the after glow of a fine wine and let that be just enough because then you get to have some more to the next, the next night, or whatever is dark chocolate.

47:17I really focused on all the best things in life and how to enjoy them sustainably.

47:26to make more dolce in my vita and the vita of my friends and clients, where you are in their viva. So that every hour will be happier. Yeah. Isn't it cool, you know, like so much of the, a couple of the things that you mentioned there, wine maybe you want a bit more, but there's also a bit of you that doesn't want a bit more. Like wine's more full, but not that much more more full. Dark chocolate's a better example of something where I don't have never, has anybody ever gouged themselves on dark chocolate? I don't think so. So after a while it's sort of so good too, that's your fulfill. Correct.

48:00So I think what you're, there's two ways to sort of look at this, at temperance maybe we'd say some sort of self -control. One is develop self -control, right, is to actually have the ability to do the willpower thing. So that would be you being able to press the accelerator harder, right, of willpower. But the other one is taking a foot off the break and that would be choosing environments, friends, routines, lifestyles, food choices. Like the reason that everybody loses weight most of the time when they switch to something like meat and fruit, right? Or carnival, is that there's only so much ground beef you can eat before you're like, I'm fucking sick of this.

48:41Whereas the taste design of going to McDonald's is significantly more palatable. So you're going to eat more. Anyway, okay, so yeah. But what you say, let's just tie that up too because what I find is many people have internalized the Puritan ethic. You got to remember the Puritans left England because they're having too much fun in England and they wanted to be more austere. So they came here and they dressed in those funky black and white costumes. It looked very tight and uncomfortable and pleasure and joy of living wasn't their thing. So a lot of people feel that they must deny themselves that they don't deserve goodness and the bounty of life.

49:32Other people overdo it and are get addicted. And so whichever If you're on this pole of overindulgence, you need to tighten up and get more discipline and learn the power of a positive note. And if you're one of these folks over here who never really thought that this was possible or didn't know all the wonderful things the world has to offer you and wants to learn about the art of enjoyment, well, there's a whole beautiful world awaiting you. I like to be the guide for those people to... But a lot of my clients, a lot of my clients over the years, okay, curiosity, critical thinking. Next. Sensatzion.

50:19Sensatzion. Sharp in your senses. Sharp in your senses. So, Leonardo wrote that five senses are the ministers of the soul. He disciplined his senses. He trained his senses like an Olympic athlete would train their body for competition. But you know what he wrote 500 years ago, 550 years ago in Tuscan, he lay an auto wrote, the average person looks without seeing, eats without tasting, reads in without awareness of a Roma or fragrance, talks without thinking, basically doesn't pay attention to the beauty that's all around them. So he advocates in the principle of Sansatzion, he advocates consciously sharpening your sensory awareness.

51:21And this becomes obviously more important as you get older. And what's the best, most beautiful way to do it is to appreciate nature, to appreciate beauty. Go for a walk and have a theme of, what do I see? What are the colors I see today? Let's look at the different shades of green and make that the theme of my walk today. Or my walk today, my theme will be perspective or light and shadow. Or what sounds do I hear? You're just listening to the sound of bird song in a 20 -minute walk significantly raises your immune system and your creative thinking. Taste the best the world has to have to offer and pay attention.

52:06And oh, here's a big secret, too. Instead of one dark chocolate, do a comparative tasting. Try a, you know, an 80 % cacao against 85%. or one from Madagascar against one from Venezuela, because your brain loves a theme. It loves to compare and contrast. And you'll notice sensory nuances in the chocolate that you might have escaped you had you not compare. Then you can do the same thing with manet and mone, or different pieces by Bach or early Mozart, later Mozart or Mozart 40th Symphony conducted by von Carillon versus Bernstein. It's amazing, same music. You can even be the same orchestra, different conductor.

52:58You hear stuff that you never would have heard otherwise. And it's fun. And then you do this with other people and you say, well, what did you hear? And here's the deal to make this most fun is no wrong answers. This is not music, criticism or food criticism. This is sense satziani enjoyment. What, because there's no wrong answer to the question, what do you experience? And what's so cool is people, well, I do this with my corporate people, they don't think they know about wine. They put their nose in the glass. People make jokes. Oh, no, it smells like grapes, aha, aha. But they get over their awkwardness and they get into it.

53:43And somebody says something like, I don't know, it kind of reminds me of biting into a really ripe plum while leaning back on a haystack on a really hot day. And somebody else goes, oh my god, that's just, let me taste that wine again, see if I can get that plum and that haystack and all of a sudden you're not just learning about the wine, you're learning about the person and you're connecting with the poetic soul and the poetic consciousness, the non -linear way of being in the world, which is art, joy, beauty. So if we want more of that in our lives, we sharpen our senses not to mention the fact that look, my patrons are businesses.

54:42So they need to be sharper than their competition. That means they're better at seeing what's going on. They're reading the body language of the person in the meeting. They are listening to the voice tone and noticing if there's a disconnect between the words the person saying the body language and the voice tonality and then they'll use their curiosity to ask some more challenging questions so that they can fire up their Demostraceone and get to the bottom of the situation. So the opposite of being sharp is being dull and it's a sensory term. Yeah, it's this, again, another one of those balances.

55:24I like the idea of the sharpness, but there's also this sort of element of savoring, which seems patience kind of, I mean, wait and see what's there. I'm going to take another sip, I'm going to take another moment before speaking or describing or whatever.

55:43Yeah, I've been, that's something I've been aiming to cultivate. As a wine drinker, I imagine that the savoring thing is particularly important. Okay, sharpen the senses, sharpen the senses, what's next? Okay, the next is sfumato. So, sfumato, so sfumato is a term coined by art critics to refer to the hazy, mysterious quality in Leonardo da Vinci's paintings. And what it refers to is maybe the most distinguishing characteristic of highly creative people, which is our ability to embrace the unknown. So one of Lea, everybody rushes to see them on Elisa and rightfully so, because she's the most renowned, famous work of art in human history, the most recognized symbol or icon or image on the planet.

56:40But on your way in to see her, a lot of people walk right by the St. John, and the St. John in the book is actually the symbol of Svomato, because he's got his hand on his heart, he's pointing up to heaven, he's got a funky head tilt and smile. as though he's saying, when things are really tricky and uncertain, use your emotional intelligence. Consider what your higher principles are and keep your sense of humor.

57:16So Leonardo pioneered this technique, which they call some of them, where why is the Mona Lisa considered to be so amazing? Well, one reason is she's so mysterious because he blurs the lines around her eyes, around her smock, the famous smile. He blurs from her figure to the atmosphere behind her. So things seem to kind of meld into other things And she seems to follow you around the room if you've ever had the opportunity to actually move around that room when it's not that crowded, which fortunately I have actually had. So what can we try this? We can have everybody can try this all together.

58:01We do this right now. So just imitate Mona's smile. Get in the position. Everybody knows it. And do your best Mona smile.

58:14invitation. And then notice how it makes you feel. That's good, man. I couldn't be nearly for one of them. So I was doing this with a group of gifted children ages 8 to 11 in Rapa Hanna County, Virginia. And kids are so great. You ask them to do something like this. They are so earnest. They go really into it and one of the kids says she's got a secret and the other kids says yeah she knows everything has an opposite and then the kids start saying opposites like day and night good and bad boys and girls life and death I asked my average corporate group when we do this I say well I read in the Wall Street Journal that the The famous smile was caused by a dental problem.

59:08They kind of missed the point. Mona Lisa is the Western equivalent of the ancient Eastern symbol of Yenanyan. She is the embodiment of the notion of the harmony of dark and light, of good and evil, of masculine and feminine, of you and in you. And that's just one of the reasons she's endlessly fascinating. So interesting. I was, I've watched a number of videos, YouTube videos explaining it. I think it's a YouTube channel called Great Art Explained. Yeah, I'm on that channel. Great books explain, great art explain. Unbelieveable. Awesome, yeah. Yeah, so good. Especially for me, right, total Philistine, no understanding of art or how it works, and then you have someone who has to be some sort of art scholar or whatever.

1:00:07Anyway, people should go and check out a great art explain. And they do, maybe an extended one, I think, perhaps on the Mona Lisa. And yeah, you was talking before about the particular style to bring light out, but wasn't that... That was because of the number of layers that he used, like this obscene number of like one layer, one layer, one layer. So, so, Gossamer Thin layers of paint, hundreds of them. So, what that does is create this effect where the light seems to suffuse from behind the canvas, creating this haunting, engaging, mysterious effect. And, you know, the lesson for all of us is when you're going through a period of big change, of grave uncertainty, which we will all go through, sometimes over and over again.

1:01:02Can you maintain your emotional intelligence? Can you maintain your connection to your star, to your higher purpose or principle? Can you maintain your sense of humor? Which I find to be perhaps... The ha ha and the a ha are first cousins. The same workings of the braid, it's shifting you out of, it's like improv. I mean, improv if we say, if we have you, you did that exercise where you name something and then name it the thing of the next thing and then name it something that it is. Love that idea. I love that. I was actually, I've been doing that. I saw that on your episode and I've been doing that on my, I was doing it today because my neighbor's house and I say, tree and I'm saying, mail talk.

1:01:56Come down. My neighbor's already think I'm nuts as it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I try to do this a little quietly, but. Yeah, very good. Okay, okay. So Spamato, embracing ambiguity in the unknown. Principal number five, Arte Shienza. Arte Sheyans, integrate art and science, logic and imagination, what people used to refer to as left and right hemisphere thinking. Now we know it's actually more complex and not so easily distributed, but the metaphor still is relevant. There's convergent thinking where we're focusing, analyzing, reducing, and there's divergent thinking where we're going off and coming up with random associations.

1:02:46Way back in the 1990s, I coined the term sin -vergent thinking, the synergetic integration of convergent and divergent thinking. That's Auditatienze, why are we here talking about him? Because he wasn't just an amazing genius scientist, so also an amazing genius artist and inventor. So he integrated these modalities that we usually tend to think of as opposites. All in service of his quest for truth, beauty and goodness. And my old buddy, English genius, guy named Tony Buzan, originated mind mapping, I don't know if it's come across mind mapping. It's Tony made it up, inspired by the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison.

1:03:43And he taught it to me when I was writing my master's thesis in London, and it transformed my experience of writing. My master's thesis became my first book, and that's how I became an author. So it's a methodology for integrating art and science, artesians. It's a really simple, elegant, practical way to think like Leonardo. But my guidance for everybody is learn it first the old -fashioned way with actual colored pens and big sheets of paper before you do it on your computer. It's great to do it on your computer. It's amazing the programs that have come out a lot of free, great ones. but learn it the artisanal old -fashioned way because when you draw it activates circuitry in your brain.

1:04:35You want some serious neuroplasticity? Get the colored pens, make some mind maps and you will be thinking like Leonardo da Vinci. There's a program for Mac which is free called Mind node. It's not quite, it's more like nested bullet points but presented visually. And super easy to use, which is the most important thing for me, and I love mine node. So I haven't used it that much recently, to be honest, but I used it in the past when I was planning up talks and other bits and pieces. I think one of the, certainly if I was to lay an issue or a pathology at the feet of modern society, would certainly not be that there's too much art or imagination.

1:05:23You know, it's very, it's very sort of left -brainy, it's very rational, it's tied him at the cynicism thing. How can somebody that thinks this sounds great? I'd love to inhabit my sort of creative, imaginative, artistic, divincy energy more. What are some of the things that can help to sort of pull people out in that way? Well, really learning and practicing mind mapping is the go -to's most practical way to really do it, because then you can learn to make mind maps of your plan for the day. You can plan a dinner party. You can make the last exercise in the book is a mind map of all your life goals, dreams, visions, values, your different areas of life, and then you get to look at them and see the gestalt of it all while you also get more detail because you put in keywords, you print those keywords so they're easy to read and you draw images or creative doodles that go with them so you're stimulating the imaginative part of your mind and the detailed, focused, analytical part of your mind simultaneously.

1:06:34So you get a huge amount of information in a very small space. And it's fun. It's fun. Yeah. Okay, next up. Next. Court Baralita. Court Baralita balanced the body and the mind. So we all know that Leonardo was an artistic genius. Many people know he was also a scientific genius, great, inventive genius, but he was also physically gifted. He was renowned as the strongest man in Florence. He was a master, a question, a fencer. History records that he also was a juggler, which I was thrilled to discover since I worked my way through graduate school as a professional juggler. He loved to walk. He walked through the countryside for miles and miles and miles with his notebooks.

1:07:32And he gives advice in his notebooks to his students. Remember, I told you he actually tells you what to do. I just figured out what he was saying, translated to contemporary terms. One of the things he says, learn to preserve your own health. Today, we might call that integrative medicine or functional medicine, learn to preserve your own health, take responsibility for your health and wellness. He says, avoid grievous moods and keep your mind cheerful. Well, today we call that psychonuro immunology, right? your attitude affects your immune system moment to moment. He says, eat a healthy wholesome diet of the freshest foods that you can find.

1:08:15He says, if possible, dine with friends. The Italians have a saying, atavala non -si -invechia. You dine with others, you don't grow old. He says, has a little red wine with dinner in moderation. He says, get moderate exercise every day, have plenty of fresh water, be in nature. What else do you need to know?

1:08:45So that fitness looking after the body, looking after the mind, but the elements of grace and poise, what are those specifically? because that, I think, to me is a very different sort of word. Yes. So, Leonardo was renowned for his grace and poise in his own movement. He was so that the chroniclers of the time recorded that people would turn out just to watch him walk down the street because he moved with so much poise and grace. And part of why, especially when you go see the drawings, I've seen them close up. at the Ambrosiana in Milan and in Windsor Castle and in a few other places with special exhibitions, the grace of the lions that he creates, the drapery that he infolds Saint Anne or the Madonna.

1:09:50the curls of the hair in the Genevieve de Benchie, which is in the National Gallery. You go see it for free in Washington, DC. So they're all indicative of this sense of just having the right amount of energy in the right place at the right time, which is one of the secrets of life. And it's an element that's often missed in a lot of physical training. You know, people go to the gym and they're trying to just push the most way they can. They want to achieve the goal. But you see these people, they're contorting themselves. They lose their form. I see runners, walkers everywhere doing more hard to themselves than good because they've lost poison grace in their movement.

1:10:39So I trained originally as an Alexander Technic teacher in London many years ago, which is a genius methodology for cultivating poison grace in your every day movement and Leonardo is one of the supreme examples of that quality. Okay, what's the final one?

1:11:04Konnetsiane, Konnetsiane, everything connects to everything else. Leonardo wrote that in his notebook. Everything connects to everything else. So today we would call that systems thinking. Looking at how things that you might not ordinarily think are related are actually related. Like how Julia Caesar is in your nose right now.

1:11:33So that ability to really see the big picture, to see how to think things through in how what are the potential unintended consequences, the negative on it. People call them side effects when it's a drug, but they're really effects, they're just effects. So what's the gestalt of this project we're doing? What's of this product that we're launching of this plan I am making? How do I see, he guides us, he asks us to do that. And what I guide people to try to do that with their own lives is just what's your purpose? What are your values? What are your goals? And how do they all fit together? And what are you actually doing every day?

1:12:26And is what you're doing every day? What's out of alignment with what you say your purpose, values, and goals are? And how can you make little shifts? I mean, I know you know this, little shifts every day lead to really big shifts in a surprisingly short amount of time, but it helps to not just, I'm going to get fit and you just focus. No, why are you getting fit? How are you doing it? When are you going to do it? Where are you going to do it? The fits in with the questions we laid out earlier. And asking those questions about every aspect of your life and then you can take these and put them in one mind map and make symbols for each one of some keywords.

1:13:11Put that on your desk. I have mine right over there. I Keep redoing it. I've been doing this for a really long time But it helps us Stay on track to that star that Leonardo talked about and believe me comes in handy when you have to navigate through storms Hmm. Yeah, intentionality I mean, a lot of my friends are pretty addicted to doing the thing that you mean to do. Right. Well, that's a positive addiction.

1:13:50Yeah, because the default setting is not. Is programming, is conditioning, is reactivity, is unconsciousness, is somebody else's intention that was set to manipulate you and control your life. So, set your intention. I'd set it in a systems way and make images that go with it so you're not just doing it linearly, but you're also doing it with your imagination. And plus it's more fun. Michael Gell, ladies and gentlemen, Michael Olson, There's this new Leonardo da Vinci documentary that's coming out. I think it'll be out actually once this episode is done. So I'm sure a lot of people will be wanting to learn more.

1:14:40So I really appreciate your work and the many trips and pages that you have to go through in order to be able to glean these insights. Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff you do? Thank you. MichaelGelb .com. That's G -E -L -B. MichaelGelb .com. And when they go to MichaelGelb .com and they sign up for our free news. newsletter, we send them a 14 page handout on how to do mind mapping for free. So Michaelgel .com is the place to go. Thank you. Appreciate you, Michael. Thank you.