We love stories about people who succeed by a young age. The Mark Zuckerbergs of the world become heroes while the rest of us feel like failures if we haven’t succeeded by 30. That mindset is completely backwards.
As the video above from Delve.tv shows, even the great artists and successful creatives we look up to didn’t start out that way. For example, Leonardo da Vinci, inarguably one of the greatest painters in history, was painting images of dead criminals for 40 florins by the age of 30. It was the 15th century equivalent of “Hey, you’re an artist! Can you make me a logo? I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
It wasn’t until da Vinci was 46 when he finished his famed Last Supper, which is renowned all over the world. A decade and a half after most of us would start panicking for being “lost”. This doesn’t just imply that da Vinci was a late bloomer. He started drawing at a very young age, so it’s not like his talent wasn’t apparent. Rather, it takes a lot longer to truly be a master of a creative field than we think it does. So, if you’re not a superstar by age 30, don’t panic. It usually doesn’t work out that way.
The Long Game Part 1: Why Leonardo DaVinci was once a loser [Vimeo]
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