Our site is currently under construction. It's a personal development site and when fully developed it will be a resource for people who want to become Renaissance Men and Renaissance Women.

This site will give a slightly different slant to the typical "personal development" site. I'm calling it the Renaissance Project because it truly is a project. More on that in a minute.

What do we mean by "Renaissance Man" or "Renaissance Woman"?

What does it mean, "to become a Renaissance Man or a Renaissance Woman"? Basically, it means to live life to the fullest, to use every one of our talents the best we can, to drink in all that life has to offer and to do as many things as possible before we die.

At the Renaissance Project we believe that Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Jefferson are great examples of Renaissance Men and that it is possible for anyone with average or better intelligence to live the Renaissance Life - to live like these Renaissance geniuses (without necessarily being a genius).

And what was it that characterized Leonardo's and Jefferson's life? A deep curiosity about virtually everything and a willingness to learn and pursue competence in as many areas as they could. A continuous pursuit of creativity. A constant exploration of the unknown. Continual wonder at all that is. A lifelong pursuit of personal improvement.

Most of us do not have Leonardo's or Jefferson's raw talent and genius. But we can live their example to the fullness of our own talent and genius (and both are greater than we realize!)

And we believe there is a methodology, a set of guidelines, that can assist us on the journey if we would like to live that way.

If something inside of you makes you "want to do it all", this site might be for you. If that doesn't strike you as a pretty neat way to live, this site is probably not one you'll enjoy (but you'll definitely get some good ideas anyway if you stick around).

Personal Development and Renaissance Living; Growth by Doing

We also believe that the best personal development comes by doing, by jumping into life's smorgasbord of opportunities and seizing every opportunity that comes our way; by looking for opportunities that might not be obvious.

Personal development for the Renaissance Woman does not come simply by following the latest self-help guru, (though there are some good folks out there) or going to personal growth seminars, (as interesting as some of them might be) or reading a ton of personal development books (and there is a ton of them and we'll be providing links to the ones we think have the best insight).

Rather, the Renaissance Person believes that personal development means jumping into life and living it. Taking the risks! Going out on the limb. It means, "Doing the Improbable".

The Renaissance Man experiences personal development because he "does". He gets out there and tries. He fails - maybe more often than others, because he tries so many things - then he gets up and tries again.

He expands his curiosity. He opens himself to as many aspects of life as his time and energy will allow. And he finds ways to increase the time and energy he brings to his Renaissance projects.

The Renaissance Woman realizes that this is not a dress rehearsal for life; this is the real thing! This is it! And she lives accordingly.

She writes that novel that has been lurking in the back of her mind for years. She takes an art course to see just how far she can go with that habit of doodling and sketching that has marked all of her college notebooks.

She begins to paint and to show her stuff at a few local art shows. She doesn't know what will come of all of this, if her novel will be published, if her art will become renowned, but she's going to give it a shot. Because this is what living fully is all about!

This is a Project

I said earlier that the Renaissance Project is truly a project.That's because I will be taking the Renaissance Journey with you. I will be "doing the improbable" in each of the Renaissance Practices and will post a log of my progress so you can see how it goes for me.

You can take heart from my success and avoid my errors. And there will be resource links to help you on your path to being a Renaissance Woman or a Renaissance Man. Resources with real, usable tips and ideas for living the fullest life you can possibly live.

And, as the site develops, you will have the opportunity to share your own experiences on the renaissance path.

The Renaissance Practices

To get started, let's look at the nine Renaissance Practices, the foundation of the Renaissance Project.

• GET ORGANIZED Wasting time because your life is a mess (that is, your stuff is messy) is just that; a terrible waste of your precious time. We’ll provide tools for getting organized so you can easily keep track of all the things you will be doing in your Renaissance Life
• WORK SMART We'll look at skills that will help you get more done in less time. Remember; doing all the things you want to do requires dedicated time. So why waste time on the trivial. We’ll show you how to get more done than you ever thought possible.
• GET FIT Living the Renaissance life takes energy. We’ll explore diets and workout routines for increasing our fitness, extending our endurance, and developing our motor skills to help us be all we can be.
• WAKE UP (GET CENTERED) Reducing the distractions and the stress in our lives and finding our “true center’ opens opportunities for us to see possibilities. We’ll explore meditation techniques and other practices to help us get centered and in touch with what’s real.
• FIND MEANING We all need some sense of “why we’re here” if we want to become all that we can be. We’ll explore what the great spiritual movements have said about life’s purpose and we’ll present tools to help us realize the life for which we were intended.
• CULTIVATE COURAGE (PRACTICE DISCIPLINE) Lack of follow though may be the greatest hindrance to living the Renaissance Life. We’ll explore ways to increase our courage and self-discipline so we can actually “Do The Improbable”, not just dream about it.
• BE CURIOUS Intellectual curiosity is the hallmark of the Renaissance Woman and the Renaissance Man. What are the skills needed to keep our imaginations fresh, to keep our inquisitive spirits alive and energized?

  We’ll dive deep in this area and look for tools that will help us to maintain a child-like (not childish) sense of wonder throughout our lives and to adopt a lifestyle of continuous learning.

• BECOME AN ARTIST The heart of the Renaissance Life is creativity. We have to be creative to Do The Improbable. And it is when we are creative that we are at our best.

  We’ll explore tools and resources for increasing our creativity, learning how to be wide awake observers of what is and creators of what might be.

• LIVE LARGE We need to put it all together to live out the Renaissance Life. If we’re doing this for ourselves, we're on a fool’s errand. Key to a life lived in fullness is sharing our treasures with others.

  We’ll explore ways we can make a living by offering our Renaissance gifts to others, opportunities for volunteering, neat and interesting opportunities that lead to the life well lived.

Over the next months we'll be expanding on each of these practices and adding other content to the site; content that we are sure will be valuable to you in your quest for personal development. Bookmark this page and return every couple of weeks. You'll see where we're going and I'm hoping you'll join us on the journey.

Finally, you've noticed that our tag line is, "Coaching People To Do The Improbable". I chose that because I think many personal development people do us a great disservice when they suggest that "if you can dream it, you can do it.."

Let's be real. There are some things we cannot do. We cannot do "the impossible". We may be able to do what other people or even we thought was impossible, but I think we can set ourselves up for a fall if we bite too hard on the "all things are possible" mantra.

But the improbable? THAT WE CAN DO!

And, in the end, that is what personal development is really all about, isn't it; stretching ourselves to do the improbable? And it will make for a very rich life!

So... Carpe Diem! Do The Improbable!

All the best,

Bill Finlay