2012 – A flashback

Many events have shaped the year gone by.  The world witnessed the London Olympics, Spain winning  the Euro Cup, Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic skyfall, the US Presidential election, catastrophes like floods in Manila and hurricane Sandy in the US.

The Arab Spring and the Israel-Gaza conflict continued to dominate the Middle-eastern news.  In Asia, the East and South China Sea dispute has drawn a lot of countries into the conflict and it triggered a spat between Japan and China which could hurt economic ties in future.

In entertainment, Gangnam style a video featuring Psy the K-pop star from Korea garnered more than a billion views on Youtube. The world lost people like Whitney Houston, Neil Armstrong, Ravi Shankar, Gore Vidal, Stephen Covey etc.  Indian celebrities like Rajesh Khanna, Yash Chopra, I.K. Gujral ex-PM, A.K. Hangal, Verghese Kurien, Thilakan , Bal Thackeray and Jaspal Bhatti also left us.

The year also witnessed the opening up of Myanmar after decades of isolation and the visit by US President Obama to the region.

In India, Pranab Mukherjee was elected 13th President of India,  Narendra Modi wins third consecutive assembly election in  Gujarat and Sachin Tendulkar quits ODI cricket.

You can witness some of these events in the video below:

(courtesy: Google)

Advertisement

How to think like Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a  scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer.  How could one man have such diverse talents?

Michael Gelb in this book analyses the mind of the genius Leonardo da Vinci.  He maps the key strengths of Leonardo and suggests how we can put these to practice in daily life to unlock our hidden potential and creativity.

The 7 strengths/principles are:

• Curiosità – An insatiable quest for knowledge and continuous improvement

Great minds ask great questions. You can increase your problem-solving skills by honing your question-asking ability. By cultivating a da Vinci-like open, questing frame of mind, we broaden our universe and improve our ability to travel through it.

• Dimostrazione – Learning from experience
Knowledge is really not true knowledge unless we can put it to practical use and understand its application

• Sensazione – Sharpening the senses

Michael Gelb reasons that we are not exercising our senses to their potential and thus we do not enjoy lifes experiences

• Sfumato – Managing ambiguity and change
This quality helps us to embrace change and face challenges in life with poise and equanimity

• Arte/Scienza – Whole-brain thinking
By developing exercises like mind mapping we can take a more balanced approach to life and make good decisions

• Corporalità – Body-mind fitness
This implies understanding our body and keeping ourselves fit and in good shape

• Connessione – Systems thinking
Connessione imples the interconnectedness of everything in nature.  It helps us have a holistic view of situations.

 

The book also gives us a lot of exercises and acitivities to help us to develop these qualities which we all have but do not use to the fullest potential.