When’s the last time you dared to dream? Last night, probably. But what about waking dreams—those personal ambitions each of us have (or used to have, at least, before life got in the way)? Those goals that speak to the very heart of who we are and who we want to become? The start of a new year—a new decade, even!—is the perfect time to pull our dreams off the back burner. Today, Mormon mother/mentor/maven Whitney L. Johnson joins us to talk about “Dare to Dream,” the forum she created to help women like you and me pursue our dreams.
Whitney, first tell us a little about your background. While it’s becoming less unusual for Mormon women to achieve professionally, there aren’t many among us who become Wall Street executives. What led you down this career path, and what has your experience been like?
Initially, I went down this path out of necessity. My husband was in a PhD program at Columbia which was expected to take 7+ years. That would be followed by 2-3 years of post-doctoral research. He’d then start teaching. Not in a position to take on debt with the promise of a high salary a few years out, I needed to work. This path has had its difficulties as does any path, but based on our inspiration, it was the right one for us.
What have been the challenges and rewards of leaving full-time employment to focus on family life?
I left Wall Street in 2005. My children were 8 and 4 years old at the time. Given that I am again working full-time, I ‘d probably call 2005-2007 a sabbatical. Just as the decision to work full-time was one based on inspiration, the sabbatical was too. During those two years I was able to re-calibrate professionally and personally, significantly strengthening the relationship with my children. Now that my professional life has gotten busy again, I am grateful for those few years.
What experiences motivated you to create the Dare to Dream forum?
Building a career was very difficult, but with this accomplishment my confidence surged. I wanted other women to have a similar experience. When I’d ask women about their dream, particularly those who were attending to family full-time, many didn’t have a dream; their confidence had flickered, if not faded. What was so sad is that these were women with two, four, maybe eight children, who were astonishingly capable and from whom I was learning, and yet they couldn’t see their own magnificence.
What do you consider to be the cause of this clouded perspective?
For women who marry and become professional mothers, we spend nearly 100% of our time attending to the needs of others. As we practice doing this, we get very good at it. We benefit as do our loved ones. The problem, however, is that much of what we do in attending to others is difficult to ‘name’ or ‘quantify’. Others begin to wonder what ‘do you do?’ And then we start to wonder. What DO I do? What VALUE do I add?
Michael Lewis wrote a terrific article about basketball player Shane Battier titled ‘The No-Stats All Star’ in which he writes, “Battier is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog, in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win…he seems to help the team in all sorts of subtle, hard-to-measure ways that appear to violate his own personal interests…His game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths… We call him Lego. When he’s on the court, all the pieces seem to fit together.”
Can you relate?
Yeah, that sounds familiar.
Husbands, children, co-workers wonder what it is exactly we do – considering us at best a replaceable cog in a machine made up of superstars. And yet, because of who we are and what we do, whether in our homes, communities, or workplace, things magically work.
Why do you consider dreaming essential for women’s happiness?
Because this is a forum for LDS women I’ll answer the question a bit differently than I typically do. As little girls, we believe we can, and that Heavenly Father wants us to, accomplish amazing things. As we grow up, and shift our focus to developing our innate capacity to nurture, we sometimes forget what we knew when we were young. Dare to dream is meant to to help us remember, to aspire and dream like we did as children.
I once sat through a Mother’s Day talk at church which featured this quote: A mother does not find happiness by pursuing her own dreams; she finds it by helping her children achieve theirs. What’s your response to that idea?
This quote supposes that we find happiness EITHER by helping our children find their happiness OR by pursuing our own dreams. Which simply isn’t true. They aren’t mutually exclusive. We find happiness by doing both. It is harder to do both. It requires us to strike a balance. Something that I think the Savior gives us permission to do via his interaction with Martha and Mary. Martha to my mind is symbolic of attending to others, Mary to ourselves — to learning, growing and developing. My understanding is that he wants us to learn to do both.
Some might say that an LDS women’s most important dream (perhaps her only dream) should be raising a family. Why do you feel it’s important for mothers to pursue other dreams as well? How can we find balance in these often competing pursuits?
Setting aside the mounting evidence that more and more women employable (66% of all women are now co-breadwinners in the U.S.) and thus fewer women have the luxury of attending to others full-time, we need to dream because when we dream, we we are hopeful — believing that what we think, and care about, and feel matters.
What positive results have you seen with Dare to Dream?
One early success story was working with Jane Clayson Johnson on her book I Am A Mother. We were working together in Public Affairs when she decided she would write a book. Having retired as a broadcast journalist, she was now now in the throes of mothering, which included difficult pregnancies and premature births. Making the time to get this book done was tremendously difficult, but it was important to her. I encouraged her, helped her structure the project, brainstormed ideas and edited. Seeing her finish this book was a thrill.
It’s wonderful how fulfilling this dream enabled her to encourage and inspire many women in their roles as mothers. Do you think it’s easier for LDS women to pursue dreams that tie back in to family life somehow?
Yes. Especially for women who have dreamed of being SAHM, and now are, if our self-expression reinforces our ‘mothering’ dream, there is not only synergy, it tends to be easier to give ourselves permission. For women whose dreams are not related to our home or children it is harder because guilt creeps in (we wish it didn’t, but it does). In either case, personal revelation and inspiration is critical.
How can women get involved in your forum?
The first and simplest way to get involved is to read the ‘dare to dream’ blog. If it resonates with you, begin commenting.
You can also guest blog. Guest blogs generally take two forms — women talk about a dream they are pursuing. Or write about a topic that is of especial interest to them. One of the reasons I started a blog was because I had something to say, but also because I wanted to find my voice.
In some instances, women become ‘dare to dreamgirls’. This involves setting a goal, one which really requires stretching, and involves my helping them achieve that goal. Given my current commitments, I can only consult with 2-3 women at a time, but I love to do it.
So you act as a mentor for women who have a dream but aren’t quite sure how to pursue it. How about women who have lost touch with their dreams altogether?
We all have the capacity to dream. When we dream, ‘hope shines brightly before us.’ We may be out-of-practice — or not yet learned how to dream. But those of us who are mothers didn’t know how to do that either at first. After we dared to dive in, we began to figure it out.
Thanks for sharing your insights, Whitney, and for engaging in this important work. 2010 is going to be a great year to make dreams come true!
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