Each generation has interpreted Leonardo da Vinci, finding him remarkably modern.
We can consider Leonardo's meaning in our era. Leonardo's genius and symbol of the "universal man" stem from the breadth of his interests in the arts, science and technology. He discovered, among other things, acetone, the lumen cinereum of the moon, the centre of gravity of a pyramid, and working with plastics.

Leonardo da Vinci's meaning in our era

<ul>
<li>He was defensive about his lack of formal education. He called himself a man without letters.</li>
<li>He had trouble with basic arithmetic operations.</li>
<li>His Latin skills were weak.</li>
<li>He might not have performed well in a modern schooling system. He might have been diagnosed with conditions such as autism spectrum disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.</li>
</ul>

Da Vinci's limitations

Leonardo da Vinci’s science was grounded in the Aristotelian world. He developed a system of what he called the four powers of nature: movement, weight, force and percussion. While his ideas are archaic, he developed a coherent model for natural phenomena.
His ideas of the four powers informed his art and science, similar to today, where we seek to unify the laws of physics as we study natural phenomena from subatomic particles to the history of the universe.

A unified vision of nature's laws

Leonardo da Vinci's passion for the sense of vision was extreme. He writes in his Paragone, "The eye is the window of the human body through which the soul views and enjoys the beauties of the world. Because of it, the soul is content in its human prison, and without it this human prison is its torment".
Leonardo considered painting a science and the creative act of painting to visualise the world. He would strike a dusty table to describe the pattern by which the dust settled. He also performed dissections of the body.

Visalised knowledge

Leonardo da Vinci relied on his senses for a meaningful experience.
He wrote in his Treatise on Painting: “To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, firsthand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses. And if we doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to these senses such as the existence of god or of the soul or similar things over which there is always dispute and contention.

Faith in experience

Creativity is essential to art and science. We can appreciate the many facets of Leonardo's creativity, and it can inspire us today.
In Leonardo da Vinci's time, "scientia" referred to knowledge and "ars" to manual proficiency. The modern distinction between the sciences and humanities did not exist as it does today. Leonardo considered the purpose of art to understand and depict the natural world as scientists would.

Creativity in science and art

Stashed ideas

The Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci

If aliens were to visit the Earth and observe us living our lives, perhaps what would baffle them most about our species is not our struggle to co-operate with each other, but our struggle to co-operate with our own selves. You’d think a sentient organism should at a minimum be able to adhere to its own decisions — to leave in time to catch the early bus, to do the lunch dishes right after lunch, to refrain from eating the entire sleeve of Oreos, especially after making explicit vows to do precisely those things because they make perfect sense.

We Don't Keep Promises We Give To Ourselves

For whatever evolutionary reasons, part of the game of being human is to wrangle ourselves into acting out the choices we’ve already determined are the right ones, and the resolution is our first-order tool for doing that. You make a promise to yourself – whatever that means exactly — that you will indeed do the thing you worry you won’t do

No Self-Control

Resolutions are kind of pathetic if you think about how they’re supposed to work. We fear that we won’t act wisely when the time comes, often because we’ve just let ourselves down, so we simply assure ourselves that we will act wisely next time, and we mean it. This is more a gesture of hope than anything — that a moment of gathered resolve and earnest vows now will somehow cause us to possess the necessary wisdom and discipline later, in some future moment of truth when that promise is tested. The resolution is an attempt to control our future selves from the present, by simple decree.

Resolutions We Don't Follow

the Future Self has its own feelings and concerns, and it will conduct itself as it sees fit. If we have any direct control over whether we keep a given self-promise, it is only in that sole Moment of Truth, when the choice is finally made for real – the moment the crinkly blue Oreo package is being slid over to you, or the moment you begin to contemplate postponing today’s run. Resolve can only be exercised there, in the Moment of Truth itself. If it’s not present then, it doesn’t matter how much of it you had earlier.

The Future Self And The Moment Of Truth

Instead of harnessing your guilt and frustration to create a spontaneous personal transformation, you can play a different game, one which can actually be won: learning to recognize the approach of the Moment of Truth, and executing a simple plan to take Action B at that moment rather than the usual Action A.

A Different Game

Action A is the reflexive, habitual response – to grab the chips, to argue with the internet trolls – and it might always be the easiest thing in the world. But if you know you’re in the Moment of Truth, and you have an alternative move prepared, that alternative move can be pretty easy too – to say “No thanks” and go get a glass of water, or to click the browser tab closed and stand up.This simple strategy of replacing a reflexive action with a more conscious and empowering one, is the way human beings train for any skill or activity.

Action A And B

And it always feels funny at first. Action B – the new, more effective way of responding to a particular moment — always starts out feeling unintuitive, and Action A starts out feeling so compelling it’s hard not to do it. But each instance of doing B over A reverses this difference a bit. The game is in recognizing the signs that the Moment of Truth is approaching, and knowing the new move you’re going to make when it arrives.

Play The Game

We don't keep the promises we make to ourselves. Having a plan is a better option than a vow.

I sleep better when I don’t eat snacks after dinner, especially junky carbohydrates, so last week when I visited a friend’s house I made a specific resolution to decline all such snacks. Sure enough, as though the scene was a […]

You Don’t Need a Promise, You Need a Plan

The first few days of trying to create a minimum viable product, or cold-calling in search of an enabling customer, or training for a marathon, or embarking on any difficult long term journey towards a major goal are hard.<ul><li>Most of our limits are self-imposed.</li><li>You can always do more than you think.</li></ul>Navy SEALs call it the 40 percent rule. When you think you're done, you have 60 percent left in your tank.

The Problem With Planning For A Major Goal

<ul><li>The plan, process, or routine you create for yourself rarely works.</li><li>You start with an emotional safety net.</li><li>Within a few days, the resulting lack of progress forces you to confront the huge gulf between where you currently are and where you someday hope to be.</li><li>You usually quit because you started slow, soft, and safe.</li></ul>

When You Start Slow

<ul><li>You can do anything—you can make any change, or embrace any new routine—for two weeks.</li><li>If you can't stay the course for two weeks, then you've clearly chosen a goal that doesn't mean enough to you.</li><li>At the end of the two weeks you will have enjoyed some level of success or return on effort.</li><li>Knowing what we aren't willing to do, based on the tangible or emotional return on the investment of time and effort required, keeps us from dreaming about a destination we will never reach.</li></ul>

How to Use the Two-Week Rule to Become Remarkably Successful

<ul><li>Pick a goal.</li><li>Create a daily process or routine you will follow.</li><li>For each of the next 14 days, focus solely on what you need to do that day.</li><li>At the end of two weeks, you will know whether you want to keep going.</li><li>The tough two weeks you just put in will make it much more likely that you will stay the course over the long term.</li><li>Your emotions will start to work for you, not against you.</li></ul>

How To Commit For Two Weeks

Two weeks is all it takes to find out what a goal means to you. And what you're willing to do to achieve it.

How to Use the Two-Week Rule to Become Remarkably Successful (and Optimize Your Bucket List)

Present the company's key objectives for the next six months and ask your team members how their expertise and interests can help the company reach these goals. Without tying goals to the company's overall strategy, it can feel like employees are just doing something for the sake of doing something.
Managers should refrain from creating goals for employees. You can dictate the objective but not the goal. It's best if the employees come up with the goals themselves.

Show Employees How They Can Have An Impact

Encourage employees to talk about their personal goals, and help them see how working toward these goals can also support the company in achieving its objectives.During an end-of-year, one-on-one conversation, ask employees to consider how they can use a certain interest or a skill they're trying to develop to fill a gap on the team.Invite employees to talk about their unique skills, what they are good at and what is challenging to them, and then set goals that allow them to optimize the skills they have and develop new talents.

Find Common Ground Between Employee and Company Goals

Use experiences from 2021 to help employees consider what they could have done differently at work, and then develop goals to address those issues. Ask each employee, "If you were able to make changes, what would you have done differently?Helping employees set goals that will get them to collaborate with colleagues in other departments. This will give them the opportunity to learn something new, increase their visibility and help them form new relationships that have the potential to advance their careers.

Consider New Possibilities

The process of goal setting had gotten a negative slant because of the focus on documenting goals.Goal setting can also be termed as "expectation setting" to put more emphasis on the conversation and less focus on the process. Under this new concept, managers talk to employees about what is expected from them based on their role, job level and projects from three angles—what the firm expects, what the team expects and, finally, how the employee hopes to grow in the coming year.

Change The Name

Give employees time to reach their goals. Perhaps employees take a half-day every Thursday to work on their goals, whether that means taking online training, meeting with a mentor or thinking through a stretch project.
Work with employees to break their goals into bite-sized achievements that can be celebrated. Building in milestones is a win-win. If you don't achieve the entire goal, at least you hit a milestone and we're still miles ahead than we were before.

Help Employees Achieve Their Goals

Ask employees to think about how attaining that goal would improve their lives.For instance, perhaps they would become more confident, learn a new skill or earn a bonus. Help your employees to see the goal as not just an end, but as the beginning of something else that could be new and improved in their lives.

Show The Benefit Of Reaching The Goal

Too often, performance goals set at the start of the year become obsolete by midyear. Here are six ways managers can help employees set meaningful goals for 2022.

Here’s How Managers Can Help Employees Set Meaningful Goals

At the end of every year, we may look back on the past year and think about all the goals we had set but did not achieve. Then we may make inflexible goals and promises for the upcoming year. But this natural instinct may also carry some potential pitfalls. Before January is out, you may fail at all your resolutions. Then would start the feelings of disappointment and despair.

Desiring a clean slate in January

We should try not to see the previous year or the upcoming year as "bad" or "difficult". They're just numbers on a calendar. As you did the last year, try your best to achieve your goals in the coming year too.  Maybe we should stop being so hard on ourselves. The past year had many good and bad, and dull and ugly. But we don't have to focus on the bad. We can focus on the good because we know it is there. It always was.

Focus on the good

We choose to block our lives into chunks and ascribe meaning to January 1st. It's not bad to look forward to the next chunk and what you'd like to plan. But when you set hard expectations for things to happen in a particular way, you may get disappointed when they don't. The beauty of this life is in the varied shapes it can bring that are not in your control. That lack of control can feel liberating as it brings fresh opportunities. You just have to be open to it.

Get excited, not expectant

You don't have to assign the new year as the date with the pressure of being The Fresh Start. You can also set other points in the year, like your birthday or the first day of spring. The best is to wake up on any random day and decide to do it. Give up drinking, or eat healthily or write a great novel.

Lighten the pressure

You may attribute meaning to stages in your life - experiences you should have had at 16, 18, 20, 21, 25. Things happen when they are supposed to happen. If you put in a fair amount of effort, there's little that would really knock you off course. Trust yourself to do what needs to be done, and it will all work out.

Don't attach meaning to milestones

Go easier on yourself this year - RescueTime Blog

When you have a role of responsibility or authority, such as your business, a leading role at work, or your family, you may try to do everything yourself because you want it done right.
But this could lead to slower progress, inefficiencies and exhaustion.

Doing it all by yourself

When you delegate, you assign responsibilities and tasks to others on your team. Benefits include:<ul><li>More time to focus on important tasks only you can do.</li><li>The involvement of others creates cohesiveness and engagement within your team. It helps others to grow.</li><li>It increases the quality of life as it reduces fatigue from overwork.</li><li>It boosts the morale of your teammates as they feel more valued and motivated.</li></ul>

Benefits of delegation

The role of an effective manager is to move from doing your job to managing your job. <ul><li>An essential part of managing is to delegate. Delegating helps people grow, eventually increasing their value to your company.</li><li>Teach, don't tell. Teaching someone how to complete the delegated tasks increases productivity and ensures higher-level results.</li><li>Trust your team as you decide which tasks to delegate. Empowering others to do their best means reminding them how good they are and how much you believe in them.</li><li>Give future-focused feedback. When improvements are needed, give solution-based feedback.</li></ul>

How to delegate correctly

We can become better delegators by applying the tips in this video.

When you have a role of responsibility or authority at work or home, the temptation to do everything yourself can be overwhelming. This can lead to exhaustion and inefficiencies. Delegating is the better approach to take. Find out if you're a bad delegator and tips to improve. https://bit.ly/3rZlazp If you want to be a better delegator and learn how to think ahead and evaluate your goals effectively, click the link above to download my Personal Development Plan Template! Start planning months and years to come more efficiently than ever before. #delegator #baddelegator 0:00- Introduction 0:34- Benefits of delegation 0:36- More time for important tasks 0:41- Involvement from others 0:47- Increased quality of life 1:07- Productivity Tips 2:17- Trust your team 2:55- Provide future-focused feedback 4:03- Personal Development Plan Template Give me a follow on Clubhouse! @briantracy — see you there! ___________________ Learn more: Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips, and more! YouTube: http://ow.ly/ScHSb Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrianTracyPage Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrianTracy Google+: +BrianTracyOfficialPage Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/BrianTracy Instagram: @TheBrianTracy Blog: http://bit.ly/1rc4hlg delegation, teamwork, success tips

Are You A Bad Delegator?

According to the author and psychologist Robert Cialdini, people resort to ‘fixed-action patterns’ in this fast-paced world, and authority plays a huge factor in the science of influence and persuasion. People listen to and trust an authority figure, as they are too busy to study everything in detail.
Word of mouth also works in the same way, as if someone is trusted by the people in our circle, we also tend to trust that person.

The Principle Of Authority

Pick a field where you can easily leverage your strength. Ask yourself if you see yourself doing this particular work till you retire, picking an industry that you really love and enjoy, instead of trying to be an expert in multiple fields unrelated to one another.

How To Be An Authority: Pick Your Field

Creating something of value, like a painting, app, or book puts you in the category of an ‘author’ or a ‘creator’ automatically.
A book, even a self-published one, is an ideal stamp of authority and builds credibility to your other work like public speaking or blogging.

How To Be An Authority: Publish Your Important Ideas

Helping others and showcasing their success stories creates a synergy effect, and helps one succeed in the long run. Ask people to be featured on your blog/site/podcast and collect their testimonials. It creates a body of work that other people (like clients of book publishers) can check and determine if you are the best person for the task.
We need to build value by demonstrating the benefits of our product or service.

How To Be An Authority: Help Other People

Associate yourself with brands, trusted people, publications and online authority figures to build social proof. Focus on getting ‘logos’ to create instant persuasion or influence. Getting published in an authoritative source is not easy, but can build credibility that will last.
People hire credible, authoritative people, mostly deciding by checking the body of work, associations and testimonials. Make sure your profile is authoritative, and that you deserve it.

How To Be An Authority: Associate With Brands

Authority means that you're respected by other people. When you have authority, others will listen to what you have to say.

Career

How You Can Become An Authority In Your Field - Darius Foroux

The goal of listening is to make the other person feel heard. Listening is understanding where emotions come from, and it is not always rational. It is based on experiences and perspectives. We all have biases and blind spots. That makes it essential to have uncomfortable conversations with the different races in your company. Vulnerability is the best way to start these conversations to determine if you do things right or wrong. Ask them to help you get it right if you have made mistakes.&nbsp;

How to listen and learn from Black Lives Matter

Too many leaders are trying to lead by email. We need humanity more than well-articulated emails. Call your employees and ask them how they are doing. Take the time to listen to them. Treat them like friends. They should feel heard at the end of the call. If it is a larger company, check in on your leaders, and lean on them to check in on their teams.

Why you can't lead over email

Check out the highlights from Inc.'s Real Talk: Business Reboot streaming event, in which the best-selling author shares strategies to lead your team into the new normal.

Simon Sinek on How to Lead Through Crisis and Change

<ul><li>Develop relationships with your team members: that way both of you are more willing to listen. </li><li>Don’t put it off.</li><li>Choose a private and safe place.</li><li>Plan what you’re going to say, according to the person you are talking to.</li><li>Be factual and objective. </li><li>Wait for the other person to talk next. When you’ve said your piece, shut up. </li><li>Don’t end the session until you’ve agreed on 3 things:  what will change, when it will change and how both of you will know that it’s changed.</li></ul>

The Art of Confrontation

When you become a boss you become someone responsible for the performance of a group. In that instant, you become the designated confronter. Some people will behave poorly. Some will underperform. Someone needs to confront them about it and you're it. Others may choose to, but it's your job.

Three Star Leadership | Wally Bock | Leadership and the Art of Confrontation

Most managers do not make use of feedback as a way to be helpful to the employee or even the organization. According to a study, only a quarter of employees agree that the feedback helps them perform better.
The decentralized, remote and agile nature of modern organizations is changing how people work, and most prefer autonomy and creative solutions, rather than walking the path the manager tells them to.

When Feedback Is Not Helpful

Organizations require managers to get employees work on multiple projects, multiple deadlines, while removing the barriers and managing interpersonal and communication challenges. 
Even more than the bottom line, effective management is often how the customer, team, employee or vendor are feeling about their interactions and actions.

The Changing Nature Of Work

The traditional method of feedback, the one-way, isolated, episodic interaction in which the manager politely uses the sandwich approach to focus on past mistakes is not working any more.
An interactive two-way communication is key, in which genuine, sincere and meaningful conversation is evident and is heard both ways. If there is a script to be followed at all times, then there is a problem, but if difficult conversations start to look easy due to frequent, human conversations, then a two-way street has been established.

Feedback: The Old Way Is Not Working

When the employee experiences bitter feedback related to the past which is useless to the current scenario, it creates an atmosphere of distrust. Managers need to be adaptive and coach the employee in real-time, focusing on the future, and not on the past.
Great managers paint a vision of the upcoming goal, and how to succeed in achieving the same, while clearing the obstacles the employee will eventually face.

Turn Feedback Into Coaching

Leaders need to set up learning and development programs for managers to act in a way leaders do, making sure that they:
<ol>
<li>Learn more about employees and their issues.</li>
<li>Ask questions.</li>
<li>Listen actively.</li>
<li>Encourage ideas at all times.</li>
<li>Play to the employees strengths.</li>
</ol>

Managers Need To Become Leaders

Do you have to give tough feedback to an employee this week? Read this article first to get it right.

The Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci

You Don’t Need a Promise, You Need a Plan

How to Use the Two-Week Rule to Become Remarkably Successful (and Optimize Your Bucket List)

Here’s How Managers Can Help Employees Set Meaningful Goals

Go easier on yourself this year - RescueTime Blog

Paige