History loves winners.
You know, the stories of great achievements by brilliant people.
But almost all of these stories are missing their most important detail.
To see what that is we have to start by looking not at history's winners, but at its losers.
Their stories are all over the history books - if you know where to look.
For example, we take something like The Last Supper, and we say to ourselves "this is the
work of a genius".
But actually, the guy who painted it, Leonardo da Vinci was kind of a loser.
He was born in 1452 just outside of Florence and it didn't take long for people to realise
he could draw.
At the age of 14 he gets an apprenticeship with one of the great painters of the time.
So far, so good. But Leonardo has a problem.
He's got these big ideas for these epic masterpieces he wants to create but they're so ambitious
he can never get them finished.
For example, in 1481 he gets a gig to paint a fresco called the Adoration of the Magi.
This is a sketch he made for it, and you can count here 66 people, there's 11 animals including
some kind of horse battle going on over there.
And then there's all those stairs.
No surprise, he can't get the thing finished.
Now he's a freelance at this point, and if you're freelance you'll know that not delivering
to a client is bad for business.
Not only does he not get paid for his work, now no-one will hire him.
Which brings us to this unfortunate guy, another one of history's losers maybe.
It was grim work but if you could draw you could make
40 florins or so painting dead criminals.
And this is all the work that Leonardo da Vinci can get.
And to rub it in, all the other big painters in Florence have been invited to the biggest
gig of the time: to paint the Sistine Chapel.
Leonardo's invite never came.
Now here's what I think's really interesting about this.
At this low ebb in his life, Leonardo had just turned 30.
It's funny isn't it how when you're young you look at 30 like it's some kind of terrible
milestone, like if you're not on the right path by now you're in trouble - and that's
when we live twice as long!
Imagine how Leonardo felt, for him 30 was practically middle age.
Thing is, I could tell you loads of stories like this.
At 30 this guy was sweeping the floor of a laboratory for another scientist who today,
hardly anyone's heard of.
This guy was a mid rank soldier with a drinking problem.
At 30 he's living with his mum and dad, and this guy's bankrupt.
And as for him, well you know who he is,
but did you know that at 30 he'd been trying to make it as an actor for 10 years
but could still only get bit parts on TV and was working as a carpenter to pay the bills.
But look, this isn't just about late starters, I think these stories are trying to tell us
something about what it means to be creative and successful today.
To see what that is we need to go from one famous carpenter, back to the other one.
The Last Supper is a masterpiece, right:
Leonardo solved a perspective problem that had confused artists for years,
just by the way he places Jesus' hands.
We can tell who Judas is - not in some obvious way, but in the subtle way he's positioned
in the painting.
It was also the work that made Leonardo da Vinci, it was his first timeless piece.
But here's what's amazing about this:
it was finished -wait for it - in 1498.
Do you remember when we left Leonardo painting dead people when he was 30
that was in 1482, 16 years before the Last Supper was finished.
In other words, Leonardo da Vinci got his big break when he was 46.
That's how long it takes to get this good at doing something.
But it feels like we've forgotten this.
These days we're in such a hurry and I worry that we've created a dangerous blind spot
in our approach to creativity.
But how did that happen and can we do anything about it?
The answer lies with this American TV star and his talking skeleton.
And that's where we're heading in part 2.