Build Your Dreams: How To Make a Living Doing What You Love

Author: Chip HidenPublisher: Running PressPaperback:ISBN 10: 076245038XISBN 13: 978-0762450381 The Dream Share Project, a documentary and career workshop created by Chip Hiden and Alexis Irvin, has inspired thousands of college students across the U.S. In Build Your Dreams, Chip and Alexis transform their program into the ultimate career guide for a generation of “rebels” seeking passionate work. Through essays, anecdotes, exercises, tasks, and illustrations, Build Your Dreams offers a unique 5-stage framework (using the acronym DREAM) for 20-somethings to make a living doing what they love:Discovery: This stage helps the reader unearth their passions and explores eight ways to test-drive a dream.Research: Teaches how to break a big vision down into actionable and measurable mini-goals.Embark: Offers guidance on financing a dream by providing Millennial-friendly expense-slashing techniques, easy-to-use budgeting templates, and fund-raising strategies..Adapt: Utilizing anecdotes and exercises, this stage helps the reader surmount potential pitfalls on the path to their dream.Maintain: Focuses on teaching the reader how to make their dream profitable. Interactive, achievable, and enlightening, Build Your Dreams is the ultimate career guide for 80 million young people born between 1982 and 2001 who are poised to transform their passions into a fulfilling career and lifestyle. From Publishers Weekly Designed as a companion piece to Irvin and Hiden's inspirational documentary film, The Dream Share Project, this refreshingly brief, exercise-focused guide is geared toward helping dreamers turn their creative aptitudes and fantasies into meaningful, sustainable work. The book is divided into chapters outlining how to identify core values, how to pursue them, and financial and practical concerns along the way. The visualization strategies, idea maps, and meditation exercises will be familiar to frequent readers of creativity-focused self-help titles, and some of the case studies are merely shopworn business book retreads. However, the book's unflinching practicality is a rarity in the genre: the duo readily and duly acknowledges the necessity of powering through the less-exciting, early stages of achieving one's goals, and they provide quite a bit of advice on how to deal with poor employment prospects, seemingly endless internships, and repeat rejection. The book is decidedly millennial in its outlook on the working world—every moment of giddy optimism is matched by a reminder of the inevitability of stumbling blocks and failure. But for dreamers hoping to keep their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground, this is a great starting point. Agent: Steve Harris and Michele Martin, CSG Literary Partners. (July) Review "In their book Build Your Dreams, recent grad team Irvin and Hiden have provided a useful action plan for finding meaningful work. I loved all of the exercises designed to put structure around abstract concepts. I know my work - and my life - will be vastly improved by implementing some of these practical suggestions!" —Alexandra Levit, author of New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career. “Build Your Dreams is the essential guide to help you identify your passions and turn your dreams into a reality. This book is packed with practical techniques, engaging exercises and inspiring stories to help you overcome the mental, emotional, and financial roadblocks that stand in the way of your dreams. Alexis and Chip's book is a must for anyone who wants to turn their passion into their profession. —Christine Hassler, Author of 20 Something, 20 Everything and The 20 Something Manifesto, Life Coach, Speaker “The book's unflinching practicality is a rarity in the genre: the duo readily and duly acknowledges the necessity of powering through the less-exciting, early stages of achieving one's goals, and they provide quite a bit of advice on how to deal with poor employment prospects, seemingly endless internships, and repeat rejection. The book is decidedly millennial in its outlook on the working world—every moment of giddy optimism is matched by a reminder of the inevitability of stumbling blocks and failure. But for dreamers hoping to keep their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground, this is a great starting point.”—Publishers Weekly “If the pursuit of dreams interests your graduate, then mark your calendar and buy this book. It's an enlightening combination of encouragement and practical advice, with chapters on discovering dreams, setting goals, building budgets and handling failure. Not a bad selection for someone just setting out these days.”—St. Paul Pioneer Press See all Editorial Reviews