The Path of Mastery by Judith Lowe

In the summer, at long last, I made it to Vinci. Yes, that Vinci where Leonardo grew up.

In the castle which looks out over gentle Tuscan hills, green with olive groves and vines, there’s a dedicated museum with some astonishing exhibits. There are flying machines, a ‘car’, clocks, and all kinds of contraptions which work by clever and innovative use of screws, levers, gears and pulleys. Shown alongside are Leonardo’s extraordinary, intricate technical drawings – multi-perspective, zoom-to-detail, his famous backward-slanting mirror-writing with his explanatory notes about design and dynamics. These are the machines, now built for real, he dreamed of five hundred years ago.

Leonardo the genius, the insatiably curious ‘renaissance’ person was a key figure in the history of science, technology and the arts. He didn’t just theorise, he observed nature, he painstakingly drew what he saw, he asked questions, he built futuristic solutions from experiential data. He never stopped learning, designing, perfecting, - an accomplished musician, a genius painter, a ‘fashionista’ with his clothes and appearance - he seems to have been intrigued by just about everything.

We look to people like Leonardo as outstanding examples of genius and achievement. They act as sources of inspiration and as models of human excellence. They remind us of the vast potential of our abilities – we too can fly.

NLP is a strange and marvellous field – and in my twenty years of study and practice - I would have to say full of strange and marvellous people too.  For a start, what did they think they were doing, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, all those years ago on a west coast campus? How outrageous of them not to theorise, not to rationalise and analyse but just jump in and do! How irresponsible and unregulated! ....more here...