#ThinkfullyHabit: Collide knowledge together
Do you ever collide together what you know from completely different areas of your life to see new connections, similarities and opportunities? It's sometimes called the 'polymath mindset'*, this is all about synthesising and combining apparently disparate ideas together in new ways to create novel solutions.
“Our age reveres the specialist but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things.”
WHY?
The great Leonardo da Vinci was described as a man of unquenchable curiosity. The archetype of the “Renaissance Man” or "polymath", he connected across multiple disciplines including architecture, mathematics, anatomy and astronomy to name just a few! He was said to always carry a notebook around with him, so he would write and draw things as and when he was inspired.
To-do lists from Da Vinci’s notebooks above reveal the extent of his far and wide-reaching curiosity including; calculate the measurement of Milan, observe the holes in the brain and describe the tongue of a woodpecker!
Even the world of education is recognising the benefits of a polymath mindset, seeing modern expertise as synthesising knowledge from different disciplines together;
“Just one moments reflection shows you that you can’t really begin to tackle complex real-world problems without interdisciplinarity.”
This isn’t about you being a genius in every subject! You don’t need to know everything, you just need to be inquisitive and interested in learning new things and seeing how they could work together. We live in a world where knowledge has grown exponentially, but so has our access to it. We can all follow in the footsteps of the great Da Vinci by immersing ourselves in different worlds in seek of new inspiration. And remember to keep a notepad with you to jot down inspiration as and when it happens!