Perception, especially self-perception, is a funny thing. How do we know if the objects and events we see are actually in focus or simply the blurred fantasies of our imagination? How do we know if our personal lens is calibrated to reality? Are our opinions about ourselves and our expectations for our lives based on our own wisdom or the expectations and opinions of others?

As Jane Lump recounts in this memory of her age eleven self:

[I was] sitting in the oversized chair in my optometrist’s office, surrounded by scary pivoting metal arms full of dials and gauges. As my optometrist gently slid the frames of my very first glasses onto my nose and hooked them carefully over my ears, I let my eyes adjust. I blinked a couple times, and stared at the objects nearby, a bit disappointed that not much had changed. But that perception was quickly altered as I turned my head and focused outside the exam room door and across the hall.

Whoa, I thought, as the unexpected sight of the chair and eye chart in that distant room came into crisp, clear, almost Technicolor, focus. I remember thinking, So, that’s how everyone else sees the world!

What I experienced in my first pair of eyeglasses is the perfect metaphor for what happens each time I experience a new idea, a perfectly written passage, or a novel idea that connects me to some larger truth.

Jane is a reader, journal writer, former professor of Rhetoric and Composition, and professional communicator with over 25 years of experience helping others communicate important issues to motivate action. In this book she explores how breaking a few rules can lead to new insights and wisdom to guide personal change. Part memoir and part how-to, the lessons she shares stem from her early daydream-inspired insights as a Catholic grade school student in a small Midwestern hometown, to some powerful ah-ha moments in the board rooms of her Fortune 50 communication and change management clients. She also shares case studies of her coaching clients that illustrate the important connection between risk and reward, the wisdom of failing early and failing often, and the importance of having a clear sense of where you are headed in both heart and head to achieve purposeful success. An avid reader of fiction and nonfiction, both great and ghastly, Jane peppers her stories with the insights and truths she found among those pages.

Today, Jane helps individuals explore their purpose and form step-by-step plans to make their dreams a reality. Prior to this, she spent ten years in academia, teaching at both Purdue and Valparaiso Universities and speaking and publishing in the areas of learning and creativity. Jane holds a B.S. in Education from Ball State University and an M.A. from Purdue University, where she completed all but her dissertation for a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition. She has advanced training in the Synectics® and Grove® methods of facilitation and creative problem solving and in the Michael Gelb method of Mindmapping as a way to generate, record and align group thinking by engaging both the right and left brain.

You can learn more about her consulting services at www.stratinnovation.com and her individual life-change work on her Facebook page, From Dreams to Reality. You can also email Jane with questions about or reactions to the book at [email protected].