Have you always dreamed of starting your own business and escaping your un-inspiring 9-5 job? Through their program, Ladies Who Launch, Victoria Colligan and Beth Schoenfeldt encourage would-be entrepreneurs to daydream as a way to define goals, whether it's a new business venture, changing course within a corporation or even a revitalized personal life.

In their new book,“Ladies Who Launch: Embracing Entrepreneurship & Creativity as a Lifestyle,” Colligan and Schoenfeldt offer tips and strategies on how to discover your passions, start a business and increase your self-esteem. Here's an excerpt:

Introduction

If you want to pop the lid off anything you ever thought you couldn’t do, shouldn’t have, or couldn’t achieve, you’ve bought the right book. All the tools you need to ignite a fire under a long-smoldering dream, or to catapult a lifestyle, relationship, or career to a higher level, are right here.

Women tend to think of dreams as bigger than themselves, pies in the sky, morsels of imagination saved for a rainy day—in other words, out of reach. Well, guess what? Ladies Who Launch will reprogram how you think about your dreams so that they are as real as the coffee you drink each morning. They’re real and they’re all yours! To be truly happy and inspired by the life you’re living, you can take steps to wake up and launch your dreams right now. It is time to start believing that you can have what you really want. With the help of Ladies Who Launch, you will.

Why Not You?

Were you ever told to stop dreaming that you could be the next Kate Spade, the next Nora Ephron, the next yoga master, the next Nicole Kidman, the next Fortune 500 CEO, the next Oprah, the next It girl, or the next business profiled on Daily Candy? Ladies Who Launch says, “Why not you?” Someone is going to break out and be recognized for achieving success and enjoying the fruits of her dreaming; it might as well be someone as fabulous and deserving as you. In fact, it couldn’t happen to a better person! If you have dreams (and we know you do), then there is an entrepreneurial spirit inside you waiting to break free. The entrepreneurial spirit can include the traditional definition of entrepreneurship and revolve around launching a business, or that spirit can encompass the enthusiasm and ambition all entrepreneurs possess and be channeled into any part of your life.

Our culture tends to discourage women from reaching for the stars and embracing our creativity. The messages we are more likely to receive are: “Work hard,” “Stay out of trouble,” “Get good grades,” “Play it safe,” and “Be responsible.” Because of these admonitions, it becomes easy to let years of precious life go by without writing that book, pitching that idea, creating that loving relationship, or simply decorating the house exactly the way you want it. Your “inner entrepreneur,” the creative engine that can transform your dreams into reality, is kept in check.

Ladies Who Launch is about unlocking your dreams and letting them out into the world, allowing them to be as big as they were meant to be. Rather than suppressing your desires because you don’t want to be too bold, too proud, too much, too greedy, we say let them loose and allow them to grow! If you have reached a level of success, we dare you to go to the next level; you never want to stop looking forward to the next interesting thing. While you should appreciate every delicious bit of what you have, it is absolutely necessary to keep striving for more. Without desires and dreams, the flame in your furnace dies out and life becomes mediocre, inspiration fades, depression sets in, and you stop creating and achieving. However, wanting more goes far beyond material possessions and brings you deep into the realm of well-being and happiness, a place where you can design your life exactly as you’d like it to be, and tap into your creative and entrepreneurial spirit. First, you have to realize that you can have a say in your life; you can escape the expectations that you learned from your school, work, family, and friends. You have to appreciate that you can custom-design your unique path and that no matter what you were told, you are a brilliant, innovative being.

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