Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream [Hardcover]

Whitney L. Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2012

Whitney Johnson, popular Harvard Business Review blogger, has a goal: to help us identify and achieve our dreams. Her belief is that we can each achieve greater happiness when focusing both on our dreams and on other people in our lives. In this inspiring book, Johnson directs her attention to teaching women, in particular, a three-step model for personal advancement and happiness. She first encourages us to DARE to boldly step out, to consider disrupting life as we know it. Then she teaches us how to DREAM, to give life to the many possibilities available, whether to start a business, run a marathon, or travel the world. She shows us how to "date" our dreams (no need to commit!) and how to make space for dreams. Finally, Whitney's model brings out the businesswoman in her; she teaches us to DO, to execute our dreams. She showcases the importance of sharing dreams with others to give them life, creating your own "dream team." Rich with real stories of women who have dared to dream, DARE, DREAM, DO offers a practical framework to realize one's true potential.

In her mid-twenties, Whitney found herself in New York, where she landed a secretarial job on Wall Street. With no relevant experience, and a bit shy on confidence, she contemplated her future and her dreams. Through determination and hard work, Whitney became an investment banker, moving to the analyst side of the business, executing the plans she'd laid out for herself. Naively, she thought most women were following similar paths until she started talking and found that many women were not daring to dream at all. It was because of these conversations that she started a blog in 2006, which became the inspiration for this book. DARE, DREAM, DO is full of remarkable stories of women, which will no doubt inspire others to follow suit. Although Whitney focuses on the stories of women, her blog is popular with men as well, and her advice speaks to either gender.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In Dare, Dream, Do, Whitney Johnson explains, in manageable, concrete terms, how to identify and pursue the possibilities to build a happier life....Johnson’s book explains not only why, but how to take those steps—with full confidence and success.”
  Gretchen Rubin | New York Times best- selling author of The Happiness Project

“I read Dare, Dream, Do with a highlighter clenched between my teeth and a pad of sticky notes in my hand. Whitney Johnson has written a book that is hopeful, honest, and beautifully written....the amazing stories make dreaming accessible without diminishing its power or magic.”
  Brené Brown | Ph.D., LMSW, author of The Gifts of Imperfection

“As an accomplished business leader, Whitney Johnson acutely understands how to translate ambitions into action. Dare, Dream, Do not only ignites the courage to pursue your aspirations, but also serves as a powerful guide to achieve what once may have seemed out of reach.”
  Moira Forbes | publisher ForbesWoman

“Dare, Dream, Do belongs in every success toolkit. Business leader and master storyteller, Whitney Johnson shows how remarkable things happen when we dare to claim our strengths, own our dreams, and do what we’re meant to do. A fabulous guide for business and for life.”
  Liz Strauss | business strategist and author of Successful-Blog.com

"Whitney Johnson maps out a masterpiece for women that is filled with wisdom, strategies, fascinating stories, and all that matters most in life. Dare, Dream, Do is an incredible book. I want to give this book to every woman I know."
  Lolly Daskal | President and Founder of Lead From Within: Heart based Leadership for Work and Life

"Rethink the fundamentals of your life. Disrupt your status quo. That’s Whitney Johnson’s invitation (and challenge) to each of us in Dare, Dream, Do. I urge you to accept her invitation."
  Clayton M. Christensen | professor, Harvard Business School and best-selling author

"Dare, Dream, Do is hopeful, honest, and beautifully written, making dreaming accessible without diminishing its power or magic.”
  Brené Brown | Ph.D., LMSW and author of The Gifts of Imperfection

"Every night before I fell asleep my mom would say to me, ‘you can do anything you want to as long as you put your mind to it.' Dare, Dream, Do is inspiring and eye-opening. Whitney is reminding us how important it is to dream at any age."
  Summer Sanders | Olympic gold medalist swimmer, sports commentator and reporter

"Read this book for your soul and read it for your future! Join Whitney on an inspired journey toward realizing the power and potential in yourself...Learn how to catalog your talents and channel them toward a thrilling future. Then start dreaming BIG."
  Betsy Morgan | former CEO The Huffington Post, and president of The Blaze

"There are just a few books where you want to read every single word. Dare, Dream, Do by Whitney Johnson is one of those rare books. Every page is filled with stories, with wisdom, and with unusual insights that inspire and guide us in how to dream..."
  Ellen Galinsky | President, Families and Work Institute, Author, Mind in the Making

Review

Clayton Christensen is the world’s leading thinker on innovation and the New York Times bestselling author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, the only business book that Apple’s Steve Jobs said “deeply influenced” him. Most recently, he is the author of How Will You Measure Your Life?, an unconventional book of inspiration and wisdom for achieving a fulfilling life. Read his exclusive guest review of Dare, Dream, Do:

Every semester at Harvard Business School, on the last day of class I deliver a lecture, not on building and sustaining a successful enterprise, but rather on building and sustaining a happy life.

I often start with something like, “In just a few months you’ll graduate and embark on what to many, including your selves, will be prestigious, lucrative, high-profile careers. But if you want to also have happy lives, you need to know the purpose of your life. Take the time, even if it’s at midnight each night, to figure out what you are meant to do. Or in the words of my colleague Howard Gardner, learn to cultivate existential intelligence, or the ability to make meaning of life.”

One of my personal missions is to inspire others to discover their purpose in life. As such, what started as a lecture has now become a book I co-authored with James Allworth and Karen Dillon. While our book focuses on individuals across the board, Whitney Johnson’s book Dare, Dream, Do further drills down on the topic by thinking through the question of how do women build a happy life. Through powerful storytelling, she dares women to rethink their current fundamentals, to measure their life by the only yardstick that matters – what she specifically is meant to do, including the importance of teaching her children to dream. The book then moves to provide women with specific tools for identifying what it is they were meant to do, recognizing that creating a meaningful life emerges from answering the deepest questions about our life’s purpose.

It concludes with the injunction to simply begin. It may be frightening at first. There will be much that you can’t predict. But it is only in the doing, that you can ultimately build and sustain a happy life. For anyone who has pondered the question, “what should I do with my life,” for anyone who is seeking fresh inspiration, advice and tactics, I recommend Dare, Dream, Do. Whether your purpose is to circle the globe or draw your family circle, Dare, Dream, Do helps make that discovery possible.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bibliomotion (May 8, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1937134121
• ISBN-13: 978-1937134129
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Whitney Johnson is the co-founder of Clayton M. Christensen's investment firm Rose Park Advisors, a former Institutional Investor-ranked sell-side analyst on Wall Street, a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and a TEDx speaker. You can follow her on twitter at @johnsonwhitney. She and her husband have two children and reside near Boston, MA.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable indeed May 11, 2012

By mollypg

Format:Hardcover

A few weeks ago when my friend suggested that I read Whitney Johnson's new book Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When you Dare to Dream I had no idea what I was signing up for. I thought reading this book was little more than a simple favor for a friend. I assumed that it would be an easy, quick read. I assumed that I could write a nice, safe, blog review and then move forward with my life. I was wrong. Dare, Dream, Do has proven to be anything but a quick, easy favor for a friend.

Dare, Dream, Do has invaded my life and messed with my head.

Instead of just inspiring a nice, safe blog review, this book and its ideas have engaged my mind and my heart. Suddenly I'm dreaming about my future. I'm dreaming about a career and not just a job. But what's more terrifying is that I'm sharing those dreams with other people. I'm talking about them. Out loud. And just like Whitney promised, remarkable things are happening.

This book and I met at just the right time in my life and I couldn't be happier about it.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Messages with Little Substance August 18, 2012

By Cali Morgan

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book with the hope that it would help me better balance family and home life while pursuing my academic and career goals. But the book is a vague treatise on the importance of finding fulfillment, being happy, etc without any concrete how-to guidance.

Granted, the posts (as this was a blog printed into a book) are endearing and sweet, but lacking in any concrete advice for women seeking to better care for home and family while pursuing career goals. In fact, the author admits that her rise to Wall Street prominence occurred while she was working to support a husband who was working on his doctorate--she had been working as a secretary while he was in school, and she wanted to earn more than secretary wages, so she attended night school in order to learn more about business and pursue her career dreams. My question: Why did she have to work all day AND study all night, while her husband was free to pursue HIS dream of a doctorate? The book didn't resonate with me because the author's own path to success was all designed to support a man in his work, rather than fulfill her own dreams, and because she doesn't walk us through how she managed her time and fit it all in--she just sort of brushes past that part, moving on to the "Dream, Do, Dare" themes that are pretty like those "Live, Laugh, Love" banners you see on all the cute blogs, but not substantive enough for me to want to pay to read them.

Still, I think the author *does* have a lot to teach us; she just doesn't offer it in the book. For example, how did she organize her day, structure her career plans, and work them into later family life when the kids came along? I would have loved to know: did she also make dinner every night, or did the student husband ever help out? How did she keep her house clean, or did she have help? A walk through the days and to-do lists of a busy woman would have been more helpful here, but the book only delivers generic insights and metaphors, designed to help readers "sift through the seeds of their life" (an actual metaphor in this book) and find themselves. It just wasn't the concrete instruction needed to help me navigate my own hectic spheres of work and family, so I don't recommend the book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Woman's Guide to Dreaming and Doing to Change Self, Family, and the World May 8, 2012

By Thomas M. Loarie TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In "Dare, Dream, Do," newly minted author Whitney Johnson dares women to dream and to do. .. it is extremely important to self, family, and the world.

Johnson's own "dream" story began with her gate-keeper parents telling her what she could and could not do; who she should and should not marry. While independence was gained by her mid-20s, she still lacked confidence and dismissed law school as a pipe dream, one for which she felt she was not qualified, not smart enough, nor even had a right to consider. The desire to do something challenging and lucrative, the need to earn an income, and chance converged to help her reach the possibilities she saw for herself on Wall Street - becoming a top ranked sell-side security analyst earning Institutional Investor's annual kudos as the #1 Latin America Media analyst, and the #2 Latin America Telecom analyst. (As a member of an investment bank, a sell-side analyst provides deep research to support a "buy, hold, or sell" call on a stock or group of stocks. Millions can be made or lost on these calls.) Heady stuff for someone who graduated with a BA in music!

Johnson's experience and a subsequent exit from Wall Street to raise a family piqued her interest in the dreams of women. When asking other women about their dreams, she heard a common refrain, "I don't have dreams," but was puzzled...as she saw unlimited possibilities in each. This inquiry inspired her to create a safe place (Whitney Johnson's "Dare to Dream Blog") where women could connect and discuss their dreams. These dreams and challenges to live one's dream as a woman became the foundation for this book.

"Dare, Dream, Do" is a book in three parts - 1) why dreaming is essential to finding meaning in life (Dare), 2) how to boldly find your dream (Dream), and 3) how to make your dreams happen (Do). The reader will learn from Johnson and the women featured that achieving possibilities is less about having credentials and training. It is more about believing in one's possibilities... and putting oneself where they can be explored. Women must be present to themselves and others to dream well. Isolation shuts out the oxygen required to breathe possibility.

The stories of 49 women and their dreams, in addition to Johnson's, ages 20 to 70 are used to provide a voice and inspiration to the why, what, and how of "Dare, Dream, Do." Questions polish off each chapter to prompt reflection and introspection.

"Dare, Dream, Do" is a book many women have been waiting for and Johnson's blog provides a great subsequent destination for discovery, introspection, and discussion. Men can also learn much from Johnson's work. They, as I did, will better understand a women's need for fulfillment through possibilities, and the struggles they grapple with in achieving meaning.

Women who are post-modern feminists may find this book too much for them as much centers on family and fulfillment gained from being family-centric and raising children. Johnson points out that one of the biggest dares for a woman is to become a stay-at-home mom. "It's a dare that takes a thousand nos to naysayers in order to say yes to this dream."

Regardless of the dream, when a woman makes the decision to dream, she is taking her life on fully...the critical decision to becoming whole and happy which is essential to having the story of possibilities and achievement continue for generations. Dreaming does matter - to self, family, and the world.