So… What Exactly Is The Leonardo Trait?

If you’ve ever had twenty browser tabs open in your brain, all leading to wildly different obsessions — congratulations, you may be one of my people. You probably collect hobbies like other people collect shoes. You get wildly excited about new ideas, sometimes abandon them halfway through, and occasionally stay awake at night thinking about a project from 2009 that you still swear you’ll finish “someday.”

Welcome home. You might just have The Leonardo Trait.

The Night It All Began

Back in 2006, I was sitting in my best friend Judy’s living room after watching her daughter, Carrie, perform in Our Town. (Yes, I know, I’ve been calling people “my people” since before it was cool.) We were talking about creativity, and I was grumbling — lovingly but loudly — about how the books I’d been reading on the subject didn’t get people like us.

Barbara Sher wanted me to use a file cabinet for every project. Another author suggested a spreadsheet. I was exasperated. “That’s not how my brain works,” I told Judy. “We’re not crazy — we’re just… Leonardos.”

And there it was. The name. Judy, in all her brilliant mischief, said, “You should write a book about that.” So I did.

What It Meant Then

The original Leonardo Trait was my love letter to people who couldn’t stop creating, learning, and reinventing themselves. It was a manifesto for the multi-passionate — those who felt broken because they didn’t have just one calling. It was for the artists who write code, the writers who paint, the painters who suddenly decide to learn falconry.

At the time, I thought of it as a personality type. A category. A way of saying, “You’re not flaky. You’re just wired differently.”

What It Means Now

Nineteen-ish years later, I’ve grown up a bit — and so has the idea.

Now, I see The Leonardo Trait less as a label and more as a lens.

I understand that many of us aren’t just “creative multipassionates.” We’re neurodivergent. We’re autistic or ADHD or AuDHD. We mask. We unmask. We burn bright and then need to lie down for a week. We’ve been told to “focus” or “finish something for once,” but our brains are built for constellations, not straight lines.

Disability reshaped this understanding, too. When I lost mobility and had to slow down, I thought I was losing my creativity. Turns out, it was waiting patiently for me to catch up. Creativity isn’t a race. It’s a rhythm — one that keeps playing, even when you have to hum along from bed.

What It Means Here

The Leonardo Trait is no longer just a book. It’s a space. A conversation. A permission slip.
Here at Profound Creativity, we’ll talk about what it really means to live a profoundly creative life — with humor, honesty, and the occasional caffeinated tangent.

You’ll find essays, experiments, musings, and maybe even a few unfinished projects (because let’s be real, that’s our brand).

So, if you’ve ever felt like you’re too much, too scattered, too passionate, too you — pull up a metaphorical chair. You’re not too much. You’re exactly enough.

Welcome home, Leonardo. Let’s make something extraordinary, and then maybe take a nap.