The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery

Dr. Sarah Lewis is one of the most brilliant and articulate woman that I have ever heard speak. She has written a book titled The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. Her expertise and field of study is not the educational world of pedagogy.

Brief bio from her website:

Sarah Lewis is an art historian and a Du Bois Fellow at Harvard University. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, an M. Phil from Oxford University, and her Ph.D. from Yale University.

Her second book, focused on the role of photography in the exposing the fiction of racial categories, is under contract with Harvard University Press. Her essays on race, contemporary art and culture have been published in many journals as well as The New Yorker, Artforum, Art in America and in publications for the Smithsonian, The Museum of Modern Art, and Rizzoli.

She has served on President Obama’s Arts Policy Committee and as a Trustee of Creative Time, The CUNY Graduate Center, the Brearley School, and the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts. She has also held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Modern, London.

She is also the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery (Simon & Schuster), a layered, story-driven investigation of how innovation, discovery, and the creative progress are all spurred on by advantages gleaned from the improbable foundations.

She lives in New York and Cambridge, MA.

About her book:

“It is one of the enduring enigmas of the human experience: many of our most iconic, creative endeavors—from Nobel Prize-winning discoveries to entrepreneurial inventions and works in the arts—are not achievements, but conversions, corrections after failed attempts.

The gift of failure is a riddle. Like the number zero, it will always be both the void and the start of infinite possibility. The Rise—part investigation into a psychological mystery, part an argument about creativity and art, and part a soulful celebration of the determination and courage of the human spirit—makes the case that many of our greatest achievements come from understanding the importance of this mystery.

This exquisite biography of an idea is about the improbable foundations of creative human endeavor. The Rise begins with narratives about figures past and present who range from writers to entrepreneurs; Frederick Douglass, Samuel F. B. Morse, and J.K. Rowling, for example, feature alongside choreographer Paul Taylor, Nobel Prize-winning physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, Arctic explorer Ben Saunders, and psychology professor Angela Duckworth.

The Rise explores the inestimable value of often ignored ideas—the power of surrender for fortitude, the criticality of play for innovation, and the propulsion of the near win on the road to mastery, the importance of grit and creative practice. From one of the most insightful writers of her time, The Rise is true masterwork.” --http://sarahelizabethlewis.com/writing/

Did I mention she is drop-dead gorgeous and probably in her early thirties? With eloquence and measured cadence, she shared the story behind her book. I found myself wanting to know about her childhood, her parents, where she was raised, etc. There was no hint in her accent, which was HIGHLY polished with perfect elocution. My guess is if she was from anywhere with an accent, she has worked to remove all traces. What she has done is to curate the stories of people who have done amazing things and accomplished world renown BECAUSE of failure, mistakes and the unrelenting search for MASTERY. 

She had me mesmerized from her first word. Success is reaching a point. Mastery is an ongoing process of refining and continually improving. The stories and applications for use in school made me cease listening at points because I got so into my own head connecting and applying. Of course, the book is ordered from Amazon and will be awaiting me when I arrive home. What an impact these stories can have on students and colleagues! If I taught, I'd read one every few days. Students learn grit, perseverance and resilience by hearing about people who have these qualities. Let's make their heroes be true heroes like these in the book! I'll have it read by Friday, probably. Who wants to borrow it next?