Success Quote by Barbara Sher

Dreams, in Barbara Sher's world, are not decorative fantasies; they are diagnostic data. "And our dreams are who we are" compresses an entire self-help philosophy into seven words, insisting that identity isn't best located in your resume or your reputation but in the private, stubborn pull of what you want when nobody's grading you. It works because it flips the usual hierarchy: instead of treating dreams as optional add-ons after "real life", Sher makes them the core file and everything else the cluttered desktop.

The intent is motivational, but not in the vague, poster-on-a-wall way. Sher built a career arguing that people abandon their ambitions less from laziness than from isolation, bad planning, and the quiet shame of wanting something "impractical". The line offers moral permission: if your dreams are you, then ignoring them isn't just a missed opportunity; it's a kind of self-erasure.

The subtext is also a rebuke to the culture of performance. In a market-driven society, it's easy to confuse what you're good at (or paid for) with who you are. Sher nudges the reader to treat longing as evidence, not indulgence. That framing is strategic: it turns desire into identity, and identity into a reason to act.

Context matters. Sher was a business writer and career coach who spoke to people stuck between competence and fulfillment, especially those who felt "too late" or "too scattered". This sentence is her thesis for that audience: your most revealing truth isn't your track record, it's the future you keep returning to.