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The da Vinci CURSE: Life design for people with too many interests and talents
Do you keep jumping from hobby to hobby every few months? Are you still trapped in a bad job, one that has already run its course?
The da Vinci Curse's "symptoms" are not contradictory interests, bursts of enthusiasm that soon fade, and the feeling that we are not really doing anything—at least not seriously. This happens to very particular people with many interests, talents and passions, people who feel that they still looking for one thing they can enjoy and excel at.
There is hope, this book will help you find a specialized but heterogeneous profession—one that takes into account your best talents, your passions, and the need of monetization.
These are your dare to follow your own professional dream, or work hard for someone else who did precisely that. Your call!
The da Vinci Curse's "symptoms" are not contradictory interests, bursts of enthusiasm that soon fade, and the feeling that we are not really doing anything—at least not seriously. This happens to very particular people with many interests, talents and passions, people who feel that they still looking for one thing they can enjoy and excel at.
There is hope, this book will help you find a specialized but heterogeneous profession—one that takes into account your best talents, your passions, and the need of monetization.
These are your dare to follow your own professional dream, or work hard for someone else who did precisely that. Your call!
161 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2017
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168 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 30, 2023
My favorite cinephile decided to write a different sort of book this time, one full of advice I probably need to hear but almost certainly won’t heed.
Let’s start off with the criticisms. First off, English isn’t Leo’s first language, and I don’t hold any issues with word tenses to him. It’s never bad, and never makes it unclear what is trying to be said… with that being said, it’s all simple stuff that should have been caught in editing. The second, slightly larger issue I have is that I think I disagree with the premise of the entire book. I think while the term curse is probably accurate, the solution of picking a couple of things and making those your life’s mission would leave me.. unsatisfied. To be sure, Di Vinci left a lot unfinished. That’s because he did fecking everything. I want to be more like that, not less.
I agree that we live in a specialized world, and that the days of single handedly inventing crazy objects is mostly over. But I refuse to play the game the world wants for the sake of success. Does that make me a petulant narcissist doomed to never do anything of much merit? Probably. But I’m going to keep adding to my list of random skills, and bounce from one project to the next, finish some, know that many more will go unfinished, and be content in knowing that when the end comes, I got to try everything.
I did appreciate that this book helped me understand the psychology of how I think a little bit better, and so while I disagree with the conclusions, it gets 3 stars for making me think.
Let’s start off with the criticisms. First off, English isn’t Leo’s first language, and I don’t hold any issues with word tenses to him. It’s never bad, and never makes it unclear what is trying to be said… with that being said, it’s all simple stuff that should have been caught in editing. The second, slightly larger issue I have is that I think I disagree with the premise of the entire book. I think while the term curse is probably accurate, the solution of picking a couple of things and making those your life’s mission would leave me.. unsatisfied. To be sure, Di Vinci left a lot unfinished. That’s because he did fecking everything. I want to be more like that, not less.
I agree that we live in a specialized world, and that the days of single handedly inventing crazy objects is mostly over. But I refuse to play the game the world wants for the sake of success. Does that make me a petulant narcissist doomed to never do anything of much merit? Probably. But I’m going to keep adding to my list of random skills, and bounce from one project to the next, finish some, know that many more will go unfinished, and be content in knowing that when the end comes, I got to try everything.
I did appreciate that this book helped me understand the psychology of how I think a little bit better, and so while I disagree with the conclusions, it gets 3 stars for making me think.
April 17, 2019
To start with the positives of the book:
A very easy book to read, very “light” style of writing. I enjoyed his sense of humor too.
Negatives, oh boy:
Let me start with the overall design before I review the content. Terrible design. Just terrible. I’m sorry but this really impacts my reading experience as a whole. Different fonts and random font sizes, capitalization gone wrong in so many ways, terrible outline and spacing. You can even see that on the cover (Yes, I will judge a book by its cover). All of this really annoyed me and ruined the reading process for me.
As for content, very poorly written (you can see that clearly using the pronoun “She” all over the book. What made me laugh the most is “She’s good with his body”. Terrible grammar. Where are the editors? Reviewers? The first addition of the book was published in 2012, that’s plenty of time to review and edit! Some sentences are not even spaced.
For a book that wasn’t supposed to be a “self-help” book, it seemed pretty much like it for me! I disagree with many, many points mentioned in the book. But the thing I noticed is how often the author repeated that we need to be persistent, focussed .. etc. The idea of the book is people who find it hard to “specialize”. It seems like it’s pushing that agenda indirectly and perhaps unintentionally but it’s still there.
Also, the book seemed to me more of a general observation than a book about people with multiple interests. The author was generally writing about the human behavior rather than the Da Vinci Cursed as he called them. I was very disappointed.
A very easy book to read, very “light” style of writing. I enjoyed his sense of humor too.
Negatives, oh boy:
Let me start with the overall design before I review the content. Terrible design. Just terrible. I’m sorry but this really impacts my reading experience as a whole. Different fonts and random font sizes, capitalization gone wrong in so many ways, terrible outline and spacing. You can even see that on the cover (Yes, I will judge a book by its cover). All of this really annoyed me and ruined the reading process for me.
As for content, very poorly written (you can see that clearly using the pronoun “She” all over the book. What made me laugh the most is “She’s good with his body”. Terrible grammar. Where are the editors? Reviewers? The first addition of the book was published in 2012, that’s plenty of time to review and edit! Some sentences are not even spaced.
For a book that wasn’t supposed to be a “self-help” book, it seemed pretty much like it for me! I disagree with many, many points mentioned in the book. But the thing I noticed is how often the author repeated that we need to be persistent, focussed .. etc. The idea of the book is people who find it hard to “specialize”. It seems like it’s pushing that agenda indirectly and perhaps unintentionally but it’s still there.
Also, the book seemed to me more of a general observation than a book about people with multiple interests. The author was generally writing about the human behavior rather than the Da Vinci Cursed as he called them. I was very disappointed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2024
This review is of the Blinkist summary of the book so any comments apply to the summary and maybe the full book is more fulsome. Anyway, here are a few snippets that caught my attention:
Specialists have never been more important than today. This is because knowledge has been rapidly growing since Da Vinci’s era in the sixteenth century. And as knowledge accumulates, expertise becomes more and more important. This means that someone who is interested in spinal surgery, but also wants to be a maestro on the violin and become a top chef, will have to make a tough decision: if you want to master a highly complex skill, you can only dedicate yourself to one thing. Multi-talented people feel a strong drive to realize all their talents, but fear that they don’t have enough time. Furthermore, they are typically highly curious, but struggle to commit to the practice that mastery requires. Take the author as an example. He fell in love with classical music when he was 18 and began learning the violin. But only a few months later, his interest vanished, he stopped going to classes, and he moved on to something else. [Am I mistaken or does the author want us to note and admire that he is really a Leonardo da Vinci for modern times but just has not focused enough on one of his many skills. I might make the observation that taking up the violin at 18 is pretty late in the piece...he would be competing with others who started at age 5]
Da Vinci people with their multiple talents lack this–they repeatedly change direction and switch jobs and hobbies. Why? One main reason is that they fear competition. They will start learning a new skill,–and stop when they’ve learned enough to convince themselves that if they wanted to, they could master it. By leaving the field at that point, they can maintain their high self-esteem without having to confront other practitioners. [It may be worth making the point that Leonardo himself really did master a huge range of subjects from painting, to sculpture to engineering and map making but he notoriously failed to finish many or most of his projects.....in many ways he was a designer rather than a project manager].......This is linked to Da Vinci people’s fear of criticism. But this lack of direction makes Da Vinci people unhappy......they end up feeling like “Jacks of all trades, masters of none.”.........they get closer to middle age, their despair increases, because they know time is running out, and they still can’t see a way of bringing together all their talents. [ So, am I wrong in detecting a strong autobiographical tone to this book.......”I was going to write a best seller”....”Oh yeah! What stopped you”.....”Couldn’t find a pencil”].
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....Let’s take the author as an example. He is a typical Da Vinci person who tried out everything imaginable. He worked for IBM, learned how to code and engaged in a variety of hobbies–yet, he could never figure out his one particular thing....Building musical instruments was complex enough to involve his many talents and interests: it tapped into his knowledge of acoustics, physics, electrical engineering and design. And by doing his best to build great instruments, he also satisfied his passion for music and his need to help other people be creative.
The author proposes a three-step approach that starts with preselection.
1. In the preselection stage we write out a creative inventory of every activity we would like to do. Once you’ve got a list of all of your wishes and dreams, you can start the preselection. To pass through this stage, the dream has to fulfill three criteria: is it fun, do we have a talent for it, and can we earn money with it?.....The ones you can’t earn money with are only hobbies, while the ones that’ll make you rich, but aren’t fun, won’t make you happy. And if you don’t have a talent for it, why bother?
2. 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? To answer these questions systematically, we can use the BCG matrix.....Have you identified your Cows, Dogs and Stars?
3. 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.
If you feel too much fear, then you’ve gone too far the other way. You’ll need to revise the plan until you feel just the right amount: the sweet spot of fear between perceptible and intense. Second, we have to avoid procrastination. Third, we need to surmount creative blocks.....Finally, we need to carefully manage our narcissism. We do need a tiny amount of narcissism to maintain a healthy self-esteem, but if we allow it to get out of hand, we will cycle between states resembling mania and depression.
The main message in the book is: Da Vinci people suffer from being unable to focus on one activity. They simply have too many talents and keep jumping from one to the other, which makes them unhappy and frustrated. But by finding a path that is both complex and financially viable, they can find their true calling.
My take on the book. Fairly superficial. I can’t escape the feeling that the author wants us to admire him for his multiple talents. I did check him out and he seems to be fairly successful in his chosen field of guitar making. He certainly produces a number of models and has written a lot of books about them and I’ve no doubt that the various fields that he has dabbled in would al have contributed to success in guitar making. But it seems to me that the book is mainly about self-promotion and wonder why, if his love and passion is making guitars, then why is he writing this book? I don’t think I learned much. One star from me.
Specialists have never been more important than today. This is because knowledge has been rapidly growing since Da Vinci’s era in the sixteenth century. And as knowledge accumulates, expertise becomes more and more important. This means that someone who is interested in spinal surgery, but also wants to be a maestro on the violin and become a top chef, will have to make a tough decision: if you want to master a highly complex skill, you can only dedicate yourself to one thing. Multi-talented people feel a strong drive to realize all their talents, but fear that they don’t have enough time. Furthermore, they are typically highly curious, but struggle to commit to the practice that mastery requires. Take the author as an example. He fell in love with classical music when he was 18 and began learning the violin. But only a few months later, his interest vanished, he stopped going to classes, and he moved on to something else. [Am I mistaken or does the author want us to note and admire that he is really a Leonardo da Vinci for modern times but just has not focused enough on one of his many skills. I might make the observation that taking up the violin at 18 is pretty late in the piece...he would be competing with others who started at age 5]
Da Vinci people with their multiple talents lack this–they repeatedly change direction and switch jobs and hobbies. Why? One main reason is that they fear competition. They will start learning a new skill,–and stop when they’ve learned enough to convince themselves that if they wanted to, they could master it. By leaving the field at that point, they can maintain their high self-esteem without having to confront other practitioners. [It may be worth making the point that Leonardo himself really did master a huge range of subjects from painting, to sculpture to engineering and map making but he notoriously failed to finish many or most of his projects.....in many ways he was a designer rather than a project manager].......This is linked to Da Vinci people’s fear of criticism. But this lack of direction makes Da Vinci people unhappy......they end up feeling like “Jacks of all trades, masters of none.”.........they get closer to middle age, their despair increases, because they know time is running out, and they still can’t see a way of bringing together all their talents. [ So, am I wrong in detecting a strong autobiographical tone to this book.......”I was going to write a best seller”....”Oh yeah! What stopped you”.....”Couldn’t find a pencil”].
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....Let’s take the author as an example. He is a typical Da Vinci person who tried out everything imaginable. He worked for IBM, learned how to code and engaged in a variety of hobbies–yet, he could never figure out his one particular thing....Building musical instruments was complex enough to involve his many talents and interests: it tapped into his knowledge of acoustics, physics, electrical engineering and design. And by doing his best to build great instruments, he also satisfied his passion for music and his need to help other people be creative.
The author proposes a three-step approach that starts with preselection.
1. In the preselection stage we write out a creative inventory of every activity we would like to do. Once you’ve got a list of all of your wishes and dreams, you can start the preselection. To pass through this stage, the dream has to fulfill three criteria: is it fun, do we have a talent for it, and can we earn money with it?.....The ones you can’t earn money with are only hobbies, while the ones that’ll make you rich, but aren’t fun, won’t make you happy. And if you don’t have a talent for it, why bother?
2. 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? To answer these questions systematically, we can use the BCG matrix.....Have you identified your Cows, Dogs and Stars?
3. 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.
If you feel too much fear, then you’ve gone too far the other way. You’ll need to revise the plan until you feel just the right amount: the sweet spot of fear between perceptible and intense. Second, we have to avoid procrastination. Third, we need to surmount creative blocks.....Finally, we need to carefully manage our narcissism. We do need a tiny amount of narcissism to maintain a healthy self-esteem, but if we allow it to get out of hand, we will cycle between states resembling mania and depression.
The main message in the book is: Da Vinci people suffer from being unable to focus on one activity. They simply have too many talents and keep jumping from one to the other, which makes them unhappy and frustrated. But by finding a path that is both complex and financially viable, they can find their true calling.
My take on the book. Fairly superficial. I can’t escape the feeling that the author wants us to admire him for his multiple talents. I did check him out and he seems to be fairly successful in his chosen field of guitar making. He certainly produces a number of models and has written a lot of books about them and I’ve no doubt that the various fields that he has dabbled in would al have contributed to success in guitar making. But it seems to me that the book is mainly about self-promotion and wonder why, if his love and passion is making guitars, then why is he writing this book? I don’t think I learned much. One star from me.
November 16, 2025
Wanted me to make an Excel sheet (not happening), and referenced Ulysses instead of Odysseus, at least three times.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews