Fabulous! It's the best book I've read on how to design the life and career you want! It helps you to understand the importance macro and micro skills play in achieving your goals.
~ OP Editor, Franke James

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Product Description

Many people set out to achieve a big dream, such as starting a business or writing a book, but when they don’t succeed right away, the dream fades. Often, these people have plenty of talent and expertise related to their particular dream, but those skills, which authors Paul Levesque and Art McNeil call "microskills," are usually not enough. Dreamcrafting identifies and teaches the five "macroskills" — aspiration, motivation, projection, inclusion, and application — people need to make any dream a reality. The authors are launching a related national campaign called the "Dreamcrafting Community Project," honoring people who have made their dreams a reality. Dreamcrafting is a handbook that will help anyone go after and achieve their own big dreams.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #550689 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
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. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Paul Levesque was an executive consultant with the Achieve Group for more than ten years. As lead instructor at Achieve's Service Quality Academy, he helped guide more than 350 international corporate clients through the planning and implementation of their change and improvement efforts. Art McNeil is founder of the Achieve Group, one of the most successful training franchises in North America. Achieve's namesake, Achieve Global, has gone on to become one of the largest training companies in the world. He is the author of The "I" of the Hurricane (Stoddard, 1987), which was a #1 nonfiction bestseller in Canada.

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Customer Reviews

One of the best, if not THE best
I seldom write reviews, but in the case of 'Dreamcrafting' I'm compelled to make an exception. Over the past few years, I've read them all, the classics and the also rans. Without doubt this is a contender for first place in the success-self/help literature stakes. Why? Because the process is demystified, clarified and amplified with NO HYPE AND NO BULL!

At the heart of the book is an explanation of how attitudes towards making dreams come true are conditioned by a severely pessimistic society/culture - how expectations really do influence outcomes. There's also a discussion on how to maintain motivation over the long haul and gaining support from others.

If you're serious about living with passion, this book is not just a must read, it's an essential toolkit. It will show you that whatever your dream, the realisation of the dream is down to developing skillpower, not willpower. An intelligent and perceptive take on the subject and destined to become a classic.

Dream Crafting
Dream Crafting gave me EXACTLY what it said it would on the cover of the book! Not only does it help in defining a precise dream, but gives you the basic 5 skills to achieve it. Like most everyone else, I have read several books on dreams, goals, and how to achieve them, but I really ENJOYED this book. It was not a chore to "get through", nor does it confuse the issue either, making the reader struggle to get anything out of it. Dream Crafting not only covers all the basics, but goes SEVERAL important steps further! It imcompasses total issues that I didn't realize were missing until I read it! Has your life drastically changed since the last book you've read on dreaming big, the how, what and why?? Are you any closer to YOUR dream since reading it???? I sincerely urge you to read one more book on the subject! DREAM CRAFTING! It covers it all..and goes further than that by drawing YOU into the equation.

Practical Advice for Realizing Your Big Dream
Dreamcrafting is a book I can recommend without reservation to anyone who seeks guidance in aligning their behavior with their aspirations. The authors offer testimonials of their personal experiences and those of others who had the vision to define goals which expressed their personal values, the courage to pursue them, and the persistence to see them through to their realization.

The book begins with an analysis of the key reasons that people fall short of reaching their Big Dream. The authors then identify five macroskills which are crucial for overcoming the obstacles to success. The book goes on to explore these macroskills in depth, offering the reader practical suggestions for overcoming internal and external resistance, maintaining motivation, garnering support, and seeing a big project through to its successful completion.

I truly believe the breadth of perspective and inspirational advice offered in this book has the power to change lives for the better. My only regret after finishing the book is that I did not have the chance to do so twenty years sooner.