About the author:

Dream University’s CEO, Marcia Wieder is a long established thought leader on visionary thinking. As Founder of The Meaning Institute, she teaches people to create and live fulfilling lives. She’s been a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, writes for Huffington Post and is the author of 14 books. She appeared often on Oprah and was featured in her own PBS-TV show called Making Your Dreams Come True.

She has taught at Stanford’s Business School and as president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, she assisted 3 U.S. presidents. She is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council and on the advisory board for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

About the book:

Do you dare to dream? If so, you are a results-oriented person. Dream is designed to help you both transform your own life and contribute to making the world a better place. Dreaming is something you do—or should do.

You were created to create, and your ability to dream is paramount and fundamental when it comes to living a dream-come-true life. Dream will help you design a life that is the highest expression of your purpose by creating dreams in every area that matters to you, both personally and professionally.

This book will help you take real steps toward creating and achieving the dreams that matter to you most. It will help you to uncover, or recover, your purpose so that you can live with purpose—and there’s nothing that will bring you greater fulfillment.

Reading this book will help you to fully understand:

• Who you really are
• How you want your life to be
• How to develop dreams that inspire you
• How to look at your life with a fresh perspective
• How to remove fear, doubt, or other obstacles
• How to implement shortcuts and the techniques you will learn

​Dream will teach you exactly how to do these and so much more.

Book review:

Just like with most self-help books, Marcia Wieder’s Dream: Clarify and Create What You Want requires a dose of introspection as well as a dollop of detachment. I personally felt that a lot of the book read as a pep talk. It was very well written and engaging, and although it wasn’t why I picked up the book for, I have a feeling that many going through a tougher time than I am will make good use of it. After all, there is nothing that doesn’t make sense, and it can get very, very difficult to break through mental barriers that have kept us from pursuing our dreams.

Speaking of which, the use of the word “dream” should not be taken as an indication that the advice contained in this book is directed towards those whose goals are so ambitious and big as to be typically labelled as a dream. One of the most interesting things for me is how Wieder recasts the concept of dreams in the first place. A dream can be something very simple, humble, even. It is an aspiration for something different in whatever aspect of one’s life. Wieder also makes it quite clear from the beginning that to dream is quite different than to daydream. While daydreaming is a form of wishful thinking, dreaming, according to her, is action-oriented, based on tangible, day-to-day deeds strategically done on the path to achieving a dream.

The book alone would be a little overwhelming at times—some of the more action-oriented sections can be paralysing in their weight and meticulousness. But—and this might come as slightly ironic—readers who get discouraged can seek strength from the beginning of the book, the sections that sound more “pep talk” like than anything else.

A book can help us go a long way, but there is something to be said about the vital importance of mutual support and assistance. The way I see it, I feel that this book would be best used by a small group of individuals who come together weekly (or more often) to read from Dream and make their plans accordingly. They would have Wieder there as an off-site facilitator of sorts and would have each other as companions on the path to fulfilling their dreams one step at a time.