Customer Reviews

Dream Big: Finding the Courage to Follow Your Dreams and Laugh at Your Nightmares

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You know that moment when you are asleep and dreaming, and you realize that you ARE dreaming, and suddenly you know that you can change the dream any way you want? This is called lucid dreaming, and although it doesn't happen often to me, when it does, I usually decide to fly.

This is exactly my experience with Lisa Hammond's book. As I read the pages, I realized, this dream (my life) is truly mine to create in any way I want, and, if I want to, I can decide to fly right now! Bold words for a middle-aged woman in the process of divorce. Yet, Lisa's wisdom came just at the right time in my life, and I am choosing to draw on my courage because of it.

Lisa gives encouragement through her own story to people like me who are dreaming big, and needing to hear the voices of others who have walked (or flown) the road from 'fledgling business' to 'I can't believe we've outgrown ourselves again!'

Hammond is the voice that each of us has inside, and sometimes ours is so tiny and quiet that we have to strain to hear it. The gift of this book is connecting us with our inner strength and being a model of persistence and patience. Thank you Lisa for assisting so many of us on our dream journeys!
Marcia Breitenbach, founder of [...]

Lisa Hammond decided she wanted to do something to make a difference for women. She explains how she came to the decision to start a mail-order catalog. Her descriptions and stories tell the truth about starting a business. She also shares her techniques for getting in touch with ideas that are already within.

I was so inspired by this book. I kept a notebook nearby and jotted down all of the thoughts that resonated with me. Lisa Hammond is honest about her experiences. She doesn't sugar-coat financing or making money. At the same time, she gives hope to other women's dreams. Mostly, I appreciated that she wrote about the specific details of the steps she took to begin her business. Many writers just share general how-to thoughts for others, but won't divulge their own "trade secrets". Lisa Hammond lays it out. Great book!

This book is not a "how to" for starting a business, but it is an open and frank account of how the author came up with a unique business idea and established a successful business which does not only focused on making a profit, but also lending a hand to those who are less financially fortunate. Lisa Hammond did a great job at "telling it as it is" and giving a balanced view of being her own boss. As someone who is keen to escape the rat race and start my own business doing what I love rather than what I have been trained for, I found this book to be an inspirational and engrossing read.

Lisa's book is wonderful! It is not a how-to book; it's more a mix of her story of starting her catalog business and a you-can-do-too book. She talks about the realities of owning a business - being in debt, juggling the business & kids & life, eating off of paper plates because frankly spending the time to cook a 4-course dinner is just not a priority!
If you want to make a difference even though it will require a lot from you, then this book will inspire you and remind you that other women have done it too! I hope everyone will dream even bigger and find ways to make their dreams come true! :-)

This book is not very interesting. It is neither a how-to about starting a business, or a my-story type book. It's somewhere in-between, and we don't get enough of either. It's not about following your dreams, either. Sometimes, though, it is a book about how to get what you want even when it seems impossible. Still, it never turns out to be all that interesting. For example, she gets the school to change their chosen paint colors. (Who cares?) Most of the book is about her business, but if I had been thinking of starting a business, she just talked me out of it. I get the imprssion that she works too much- way more than she wants, and has debt up to her eyeballs. No thanks!

In a matter of just over one day I have started and finished reading Dream Big and I'm so glad I did. Reading Lisa's accounts along the journey of starting up her business, her many mistakes and triumphs, and her homespun wisdom was a remarkable experience that hasn't deterred me from wanting to start my business one iota! She regrets nothing and encourages us all to pursue our dreams while standing up for our convictions. Plus she is quite the lover of quotes and she had some great finds to add to my inspirational collection. Her personal journey enlightened me to the difficulties of starting your own business, but it also cemented in me how important it is to absolutely take that leap and go for what your heart is calling you to do in life.