Dreamcrafting

February 10, 2003
Canadian business consultants Levesque (Breakaway Planning) and McNeil (The I of the Hurricane) offer a detailed how-to guide to realizing deeply desired personal dreams. According to the authors, many people are prevented from achieving their dreams because they do not have adequate motivation, time, or support from others, and have not understood that small improvements can lead to big successes. In order to surmount these road blocks, the authors suggest mastering five macroskills that will foster a precise sense of mission, sustain motivation, assist with achieving a balance between short and long-term goals, and sweep away the resistance of others by inspiring their help. The fifth macroskill is to practice the other skills on a regular basis. Within each chapter, the authors offer short bios of high-profile dreamcrafters--such as Dwight Eisenhower, Rudy Giuliani, Jane Goodall and Charles Lindbergh--who had to overcome obstacles before realizing their dreams. The instructions and exercises for mastering these macroskills, though, are somewhat confusing, because the authors often pad their advice with impassioned prose ("the skillful dreamcrafter...kick starts the motivational engine by planting the flag, burning the bridges, setting fire to the boats"). Were this volume a little less concerned with rhetoric and a little more concerned with clarity and brevity, more readers might find the advice herein valuable.

February 1, 2003
Canadian business consultants Levesque (Breakaway Planning) and McNeil (The I of the Hurricane) offer a detailed how-to guide to realizing deeply desired personal dreams. According to the authors, many people are prevented from achieving their dreams because they do not have adequate motivation, time, or support from others, and have not understood that small improvements can lead to big successes. In order to surmount these road blocks, the authors suggest mastering five macroskills that will foster a precise sense of mission, sustain motivation, assist with achieving a balance between short and long-term goals, and sweep away the resistance of others by inspiring their help. The fifth macroskill is to practice the other skills on a regular basis. Within each chapter, the authors offer short bios of high-profile dreamcrafters--such as Dwight Eisenhower, Rudy Giuliani, Jane Goodall and Charles Lindbergh--who had to overcome obstacles before realizing their dreams. The instructions and exercises for mastering these macroskills, though, are somewhat confusing, because the authors often pad their advice with impassioned prose ("the skillful dreamcrafter...kick starts the motivational engine by planting the flag, burning the bridges, setting fire to the boats"). Were this volume a little less concerned with rhetoric and a little more concerned with clarity and brevity, more readers might find the advice herein valuable.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2003
The authors head up the Achieve Group, a successful training franchise that helps guide international corporate clients through planning and implementing change and improvement. They use a nut-and-bolts approach to teach others to develop what they call the "macroskills" necessary to make dreams come true. They tell us that it's not always the most talented people who achieve their highest aspirations but the most driven, and most of us have resigned ourselves to never realizing our dreams because the necessities of life get in the way. The basic skills required can be learned, and the authors give many examples of those who realized their dreams despite great odds, such as Walt Disney, Jane Goodall, and Charles Lindbergh. Although the five dream-crafting disciplines that they outline, such as aspiration and motivation, are more inherent in some people than in others, this guide should be an asset for those who dare to dream big but haven't got a clue how to move from dream to reality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)