‘eBooks’ ‘Enlighten as they inspire’ The i-inspire.me Series Leonardo da Vinci TONY WILSON ‘The creator and founder of the Lifestyle Architecture™ concept’ First Published 2011 by i-inspire.me. 252 Park Road Hartlepool TS26 9NN Copyright © 2011 Tony Wilson All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, Stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Reactive Design T: 01429 874500 Edited by Sean Kelly T: 07977 000832, E: seankelly@lifestylearchitecture.com This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, by lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and in a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. For more information about i-inspire.me www.i-inspire.me or www.lifestylearchitecture.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE GILL AND OUR BOYS MARTIN, CONNOR, LEWIS AND JACK THE LAD, WITHOUT YOU THE ADVENTURE WOULD BE SIMPLY A JOURNEY. I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY THANK EVERYONE WHO HAS SUPPORTED ME OVER THE LAST 46 YEARS, OBVIOUSLY MY FAMILY MY MUM AND DAD MY SISTERS, AND TO ALL MY FAMILY YOU ARE A GREAT GANG. TO ALL MY FRIENDS, BIRDY, NICK FROM THE RUGBY YEARS, BIG JOHN AND KENNY WHO ARE BOTH HAVING A BALL IN THE MYSTERY. TO CONRAD, GORDON, IAN MACARTNEY, SEAN KELLY, DAVE RAFFERTY AND ALL MY OTHER MATES AROUND THE WORLD THANKS FOR KNOWING ME AND STILL GIVING ME THE GREATEST GIFT, YOUR FRIENDSHIP. TO ALL THE GANG AT LIFESTYLE ARCHITECTURE AND ALL OUR PARTNERS & INVESTORS AROUND THE WORLD. TO ALL OUR CLIENTS AROUND THE WORLD NEW AND OLD WITHOUT YOU THIS BOOK WOULD NOT BE HERE. TO SEAN KELLY MY EDITOR, SEAN YOU SPRINKLED YOUR MAGIC ON THESE BOOKS, AND WITH YOUR GENIUS YOU GAVE CLARITY SO THE READER COULD ENJOY THEIR ESSENCE AND ENERGY. I ACKNOWLEDGE EVERYONE WE HAVE AND WILL EVER ENGAGE WITH, TO YOU ALL, THANKS FOR MAKING OUR JOURNEY A REAL ADVENTURE. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 1 i-inspire.me is a life-long adventure, a journey of discovery, creativity and inspiration 2 / Leonardo da Vinci CONTENTS The essence of i-inspire.me Pebbles in your pond - How Leonardo da Vinci’s story can inspire You More pebbles Value, Impact and Application Conclusions Background - Your Assets - Material and Real Context - The Stages of Personal Development Introduction to Lifestyle Architecture The Opportunity A personal message... i-inspire.me Page 3 9 31 38 43 47 56 60 62 63 i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 3 1. The Essence of i-inspire.me Inspiration through stories has been the essence of human development since we shared tales of the hunt for food in prehistoric times. The success stories of inspirational and Practical Leaders from the world of business, art, science, sport and politics are fascinating, and well documented. But there is a fundamental gap in the stories of most inspirational leaders. Whilst their success, the pinnacle of their adventure, is invariably captured, stories of 4 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me adversity suffered by great people are rarely told. Their critical moments of decision: to give up, go on, or change direction, are in all cases driven by the need and desire to overcome adversity, but these links - from which we can learn great fundamental lessons - are almost always overlooked. Adversity is when, where and why your destiny unfolds, where you make the decisions and choices to grow and learn, to be more than the person you were before. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 5 i-inspire.me is the natural evolution of your journey through life, your adventure. It's an opportunity for you to connect with, communicate with and inspire yourself. In the Audio accompanying this eBook, you have heard about the adversities that faced Leonardo da Vinci, and learned WHY he worked so hard to overcome them, to position himself to achieve great success. Here, we move naturally and effortlessly to discuss the HOW. The core purpose of the i-inspire.me eBooks is to inspire you to discover 6 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me and create your HOWs – how you will overcome adversity and achieve your dreams. This is an Action Book - a place where you can consider and capture the actions you will take to attract and achieve what you deserve in life. After the action sections you’ll find background notes on the Lifestyle Architecture philosophy of people development. These notes will help you as you create and discover your journey. The keys to success in working through these exercises are careful consideration and regular review. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 7 Take your time, really think deeply about the questions we ask you, and the ones you ask yourself. Listen to the Audio as you would listen to a good song, remembering that each time you listen you have the opportunity to learn and grow, not because the story has changed, but because you have! 8 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough ; we must do. Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 9 2. Pebbles in your pond: HOW Leonardo da Vinci’s story can inspire YOU When the Why gets strong the How gets easy Jim Rohn The clarity and potential of this section lies in the concept of throwing pebbles in your pond, to create ripples that change your current way of thinking and feeling, and inspire positive change through your behaviour. 10 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me These pebbles can also resonate with your intuition and give insight beyond the perceptions of your physical world and open a door to infinite possibilities. Pebbles come in the form of Great Questions, that will make you think within a framework governed only by the limitations you set, and the experiences you engage in. These experiences have the potential to impact your perceptions and inspire a dialogue with your inner observer. It's important to understand the purpose of i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 11 preparing great questions in the context of the i-inspire.me concept. The primary purpose of this series of stories is to encourage and develop in you the habit of self inspiration, hence the name i-inspire.me. In asking yourself great questions, including those below and others of your own creation, you will come up with answers that inspire you and give you the HOWs. These HOWs will in turn get you on the road to action and application, and incisive questions will stir your creativity. 12 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me The i-inspire.me Audio story tells how Leonardo da Vinci was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of sexual perversion, and faced a possible death sentence. This massive adversity could have crushed him; he was, of course, innocent and the charges were eventually dropped. But whilst in this understandably extreme state of despair, Leonardo began to practice serious meditation*. Rather than fill his head with worry, he let his mind run free, and in doing so he developed awareness of the collective consciousness and tapped into this incredible state. * Footnote: Meditation is a state of prolonged silence where we have the wonderful opportunity to experience a stillness that opens the door to the collective consciousness. We recommend you explore this exciting and rewarding arena through one or more of the many available forms. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 13 He used notebooks to capture images he visualised during meditation, and these images included helicopters and parachutes, some 400 years before man could fly. A bridge da Vinci designed in 1502 was built in Turkey… in 2001. Leonardo’s work simply had to come from some universal reservoir. What other explanation could there be for the depth, breadth and productivity of his incredible imagination? This reservoir is known as the Collective Consciousness, an incredible arena that we all have the opportunity to tap into. We have all 14 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me experienced its power, even if we were not aware of it at the time. When Leonardo was coming up with amazing ideas across many disciplines, the idea of the collective consciousness was unheard of. Today we have access to a wonderful science quantum physics - that tells us so much about the arena. Quantum physics focuses on the smallest of dimensions inside the atoms that make up our universe. It is an incredible theory of an amazing i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 15 world full of infinite possibilities. We believe that acceptance of infinite possibilities is the difference between good and amazing. If you can open up to this world and the collective consciousness, you will begin to appreciate the potential of these possibilities. There is a school of thought within quantum physics that the collective consciousness is the universe’s ability to capture every experience that has ever occurred in the 13.5 billion years since the Big Bang, when science suggests the universe began with a huge explosion of energy which 16 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me began the evolution that we are all part of today. We can't go into the depth that this area deserves, but this bite size chunk is meant to intrigue you to begin your own quest to become a product of your own conclusions! We DO encourage you to explore this fascinating science, the science of infinite possibilities. We want you to consider the incredible opportunities you could spot, assuming you could open your mind to the possibility of the collective consciousness. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 17 Please remember, we don't want you to believe anything we say. We want you to experience this for yourself and become a product of your own conclusions. Just consider whether the achievements of Leonardo da Vinci may have been augmented by his acceptance of infinite possibility, and take that thinking with you as you go! Just as Leonardo opened himself up (without the advantage we have today, of the evidence and explanations given in various compelling works 18 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me in quantum physics), we urge you to begin your own personal quest into this arena. There are many great works that can help you in your journey into this science, and here are just three: 1. a movie, imaginatively entitled "What the Bleep do we Know?" 2. a great book by Brian Greene called "The Elegant Universe" 3. another wonderful book by Lynne McTaggart, called "The Field" i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 19 If you make the commitment, watch the movie and read the books, you will gain valuable insight into the world of infinite possibilities - a wonderful gift to yourself! Paradox We also urge you to recognise the power of paradox in da Vinci’s life. Look at some of his work, and recognise the paradox that was Leonardo Da Vinci :* Leonardo had an incredible mind and a 20 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me wonderful gift of observation. The paradox was he never published any of his ideas! * Leonardo was a gentle man who despised war and loved animals. The paradox: he worked as a military engineer, and created and discovered many deadly weapons! * Leonardo was without doubt one of the world’s greatest ever artists and painters. The paradox: he left only a handful of completed paintings! Take a close look at the areas of your life where you feel that there is adversity. Or an area where i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 21 you feel you may have been chasing wild geese or barking up the wrong tree. Is it possible that what you are experiencing there is a paradox? Can you see potential for good to come from the bad? Pebbles – acquisition and sharing of skills Careful consideration of Leonardo’s story, both in the i-inspire.me Audio and through your own personal research, will help you to provide your 22 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me answers to the following questions. And these answers, considered and regularly reviewed, will help you as you live your adventure and inspire yourself to become all you can become. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 23 What is your current awareness and understanding of the world of quantum physics and the collective consciousness? 24 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me What commitment will you make to watch the movie and read the books recommended? i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 25 What examples of the collective consciousness have you experienced on your journey? 26 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me What impact could the collective consciousness have on you, your journey and your adventure if you could open your mind to its possibilities? i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 27 What contribution could quantum physics and the collective consciousness potentially make to others you engage with and their world? 28 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me What adversities have you faced, and how could infinite possibilities help you to overcome them? (be creative!) i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 29 What inspiration have you gained from Leonardo’s story? 30 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience, it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason. Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 31 3. More Pebbles Beyond discussion of the collective consciousness, Leonardo’s story suggests some great questions in other areas: Leonardo’s ability to observe and imagine nature provided him with real inspiration, and is a lesson that we can all learn from in our journey to personal Practical Leadership. Nature helped Leonardo to become a Practical 32 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Leader, first through his ability to observe nature, which taught him the power of observation nature was the inspiration of much of his architecture and he shared this with his students later in life. This proved invaluable to him being an inspirational and Practical Leader. Examples of this are his design for the Self Propelling Cart, and his codex on flight. His design for an “Ideal City” was inspired by the flow of water from a river or ocean. The natural i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 33 flow would provide effortless cleaning, there were different building levels, with each elevated level having a specific purpose, one level for residential and other levels for commercial use eg transport of goods. This he used as a Practical Leader when getting the influencers to buy into his conceptual ideas and architecture. How and where can observation of, or interaction with, nature help you to become a practical leader? 34 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me You have heard in our Audio that Leonardo da Vinci – demonstrably the most prolific genius ever known - was wracked with self-doubt. Yet he must have overcome his inner voice, his ego, in order to be so prolific, and so consistently brilliant. How did you react to the news that da Vinci doubted himself and the value of his work? i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 35 What doubts does your ego create within you? In what ways can you use Leonardo’s example to inspire yourself to overcome self-doubt? It is fair to say that we can only scrape the surface of what Leonardo da Vinci’s story can teach us. We urge you to study his life and work. 36 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me What other areas in your life has Leonardo’s story inspired and sparked your imagination? What is your intuition and inner dialogue telling you about the potential lessons you could learn from Leonardo’s journey? Leonardo da Vinci turned adversity into opportunity. In which areas of your life might you be able to do the same? i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 37 A well-spent day brings happy sleep. So a life well spent brings happy death. Leonardo da Vinci 38 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me 4. Value, Impact and Application Let’s now identify the Value, Impact and Application of lessons evolving from the story, so that you can manifest these into reality through your actions. In the area of collective consciousness and anywhere else the Leonardo story has inspired you to consider, ask yourself: i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 39 What VALUE will you gain from your experiences now you have listened to Leonardo’s story? 40 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me What IMPACT will this knowledge have on your journey? i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 41 How will you APPLY what you have learned? What action will you take? 42 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 43 5. Conclusions You have the most important role to play in your life - to apply the greatest asset you have - your independent free will - to make choices. Real, authentic success only comes through trial, error and failure, and the lessons you learn on this amazing journey of adventure. i-inspire.me will help you to consider and learn from the key choices made by acknowledged leaders through history. But you must bear in 44 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me mind that success does not come easily, and cannot be handed to you on a plate. We suggest that you allow time to work through the exercises in this eBook, and accept that your answers to the questions, and what you take out of the process, is a product of how you think and feel now - at this stage of your journey. The key to success is to recognise that this is simply the kick start to action. You will need to continue to establish your own HOWs in order to get the most from each i-inspire.me story. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 45 We strongly recommend that you return to this action book and the Audio – and to others in the series - on a three-, six- or twelve-monthly cycle, and reconsider your responses. Remember that you have the ability to achieve everything you desire. So… Who will be inspired by YOUR story? 46 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 47 Background: Your Assets - Material and Real People development tends to focus on one of two distinct areas: i) the physical, your perceived world – motivation and goal setting, achievement, focus, attraction through the material world, and ii) the unconscious, sub-conscious, collective conscious-based “belief and knowledge” of quantum physics. 48 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me The two disciplines rarely, if ever, meet. But the Lifestyle Architecture – and i-inspire.me – philosophy brings the two together, so you can achieve and attract a greater balance and blend of multi-dimensional levels of success. Inspired from the inside out, and the outside in working essentially in your perceived world (what we call above the line) and also by connecting with an inner teacher, an observer - the real you - via an inner dialogue, which is below the line. The key is a blend of your traditional, material i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 49 assets, and what we call your real assets. Your material assets include skills, knowledge, experience, inspiration, self motivation, desire, passion and confidence. There is no doubt that focus on developing and utilising these assets can help you to great achievement. And beyond these traditional assets lies quantum physics, a world of real assets, where your infinite potential can be released. In this series, if you can open yourself to this incredible arena, you will learn – through direct personal experience – that by utilising your 50 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me material assets and through your ability to communicate internally and externally, you will consciously spot opportunities previously missed. This WILL happen - you will have a new understanding of the power that lies within the subconscious, the unconscious and the ultimate reservoir of unlimited potential known as the Collective Conscious. This is a lot to take in, and you will only believe it when you experience it. You have every right to be skeptical, but ask yourself the following questions: i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 51 Did I ever struggle to remember someone’s name, then it came to me – out of the blue – while I was thinking about something else? Did I ever meet someone and immediately feel a connection, personal or professional, and my intuition turned out to be absolutely right? Did Andrew’s inner dialogue overcome his inner doubt, and play a fundamental part in creating the legacy that lives on today? 52 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me This is the realm of coincidence, luck, the unexplained and unexplainable, The Mystery. You’ll do fine without it, but even better if you open your mind to it. A key purpose of i-inspire.me is to unlock your potential using a different type of communication - an inner dialogue with the real you - the observer, the inner teacher who will guide you via a universal language of intuition, coincidence, synchronicity, and serendipity and many other ingredients best described as simple yet elegant Mysteries. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 53 This inner detachment gives you the opportunity to attract and achieve your goals, dreams, objectives, and targets, and ultimately to experience real abundance, freedom and peace that we all yearn for. The derivation of the word inspire is in spirit. It’s important for you to be aware of our intention to inspire the inner energy you have. Our purpose is to inspire YOU to inspire YOU, the real you, the observer, making the best use of your inner energy. 54 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me We focus on the real you, in addition to the physical you that perceives and then creates your world through these perceptions. The awareness that the physical universe you experience is governed by your perception is quite a discovery, and may take some time to come to terms with. This is absolutely okay, and it's really worth the journey. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 55 Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do some more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else. Leonardo da Vinci 56 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Context: The Stages of People Development A core element of Lifestyle Architecture’s approach is to recognise the key stages of people development. In context of your interaction with the i-inspire.me stories, it will help if you can appreciate that your journey will take you through some or all of the following stages: We are in DESPAIR, in life or in relation to any i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 57 specific role in our life, when we lack identity, purpose or meaning. We enter HOPE when we begin to search for clarity of identity, purpose and meaning. As we develop our skills, knowledge and experience in pursuit of identity, purpose and meaning, we are in the state of BELIEVING. On achieving Belief, we turn our attention to how we can give, serve others, and love what we do. This is KNOWING. At all stages, even in Knowing, when we think 58 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me we have everything under control, there will always be MYSTERY. But in much the same way that Mystery can provide setbacks, as we progress on our journey it is Mystery that helps to provide us with freedom, abundance and peace. This core element of the i-inspire.me series recognises the importance of specific stages of development that each individual experiences on their unique adventure. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 59 All our Knowledge has its origins in our perceptions. Leonardo da Vinci 60 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Introduction to Lifestyle Architecture Lifestyle Architecture inspires Practical Leadership, with a clear focus on engagement, inspiring leaders to become a product of their own conclusions, not others’ confusions. Lifestyle Architecture adds value through engagement, creates impact through engagement, and inspires action and application through engagement. We have found consistently, in 20 years of i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 61 operation, that all leaders face challenges in enhancing performance in them selves and their people. And time bankruptcy is a universal issue. Practical Leadership evolves naturally and effortlessly, and promises to enhance future performance and create time. 62 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me The Opportunity If after experiencing this unique concept you are really inspired, you may decide to embrace the opportunity to inspire others. Simply contact the leader who shared i-inspire.me with you and ask if you can find out a little more about becoming a Leader in the i-inspire.me and Lifestyle Architecture family. i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 63 A personal message from Tony Wilson, CEO, Lifestyle Architecture One of the most mysterious opportunities I can share with you is the potential that lies within the infinite possibilities of the collective consciousness. When you open up to the incredible limitless abundance that is this collective consciousness, you will have the potential to orchestrate, attract and achieve all the goals, dreams, visions, 64 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me objectives and targets you could possibly set for yourself. Imagine an ‘abundant warehouse’, which contains every experience that has occurred in the 13.5 billion years since the Big Bang. Now, begin to consider the possibility that you can tap into that warehouse to support you on your adventure and journey. This is your destiny if you make the choice to explore that “ Rabbit Hole“. And this is what is at the core of all of our philosophies: the potential i-inspire.me Leonardo da Vinci / 65 that lies within the rabbit holes that you choose to explore, by yourself and with those you choose to have relationships with. I hope you enjoy the i-inspire.me series. My purpose is simple, effective and consistent: it’s to inspire you - to inspire yourself - to become all you can become. You deserve it! And you may even decide to inspire others – it’s a wonderful way to live your life! 66 / Leonardo da Vinci i-inspire.me Learning never exhausts the mind. Leonardo da Vinci MILLIONS OF COPIES WILL BE SOLD WORLDWIDE Written for everyone, this story takes less than one evening to read, but it’s unique lessons will last for a lifetime. The i-inspire.me series of eBooks are simple parables that reveals profound lessons, They are enlightening stories of inspirational and Practical Leaders whose life’s have engaged in an amazing way and produced phenomenal results. This prophetic ‘eBook’ from the founder and creator of the Lifestyle Architecture™ brand will show you WHY and more importantly HOW: • Giving attracts abundance. • Serving others brings freedom. • Loving what you do attracts a state of peace. • Change, growth and evolution are three of nature’s most powerful assets. Discover the secret for yourself and learn how and why your potential is truly amazing. i-inspire.me ‘eBooks to read in an evening’ www.i-inspire.me or www.lifestylearchitecture.com