Quotes: Louise Desalvo

Failure
"Chip Heath and Dan Heath's Switch (2010) states that if we want to reach our full potential, we need to cultivate "a growth mind-set." According to Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "Everything can look like a failure in the middle. At the beginning of a project, we feel hope; at the end we might feel confident. But in between "there is a negative emotional valley labeled 'insight'," according to Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. During this phase, it's easy to become downhearted because it's immensely difficult to figure out what to do next.

"It's hard to take a mountain of manuscripts we've written –– starts, false starts, finished work, half-completed work, fine work –– and turn it into a book. Brown insists it'll be easier to weather that trough in the creative arc if we anticipate, even expect, failure in the middle of the process. Brown encourages people to "seek out failure" because it's the only way for genuine growth to occur. Without failure, our work stagnates. Without failure, we're not frustrated enough to seek new solutions to the challenges we're confronting." –– Louise Desalvo (b. 1942), American author

*source: Louise Desalvo. The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2014 (p.122)