Last year on my birthday, I tweeted 40 thoughts on clarity. I thought it would be a good excuse to send more tweets than usual in a day. Since I never included them in a blog post, here they are, a year later. I highlighted three statements that guide my life today- personal calling, family mission and Auxano mission. I also added my favorite clarity quote of 2010 as #41. If you want to send me a b-day gift today, go ahead and tweet your favorite thought. 

1. Clarity isn’t everything, but it changes everything.

2. Jesus was totally clear about His origin, His mission, and His destiny.

3. In the first half of your life, the opportunity of every situation is found more in what you learn than in what you give.

4. The rest of your life will be in the future, so prepare for it now.

5. The most important question I have ever discovered is, “What is God up to?”

6. Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Einstein

7. My personal calling is to serve God and others by helping people “apply essence”.

8. The height of your clarity is related to the depth of your humility.

9. Because God’s creative genius is endless, our genius is the ability to scrutinize the obvious all around us.

10. Clarity brings fresh meaning to the familiar.

11. What you CAN do for God is a distraction to what you MUST do for God.

12. You can’t be anything you want to be, but you can be everything God wants you to be – Max Lucado.

13. If you are copying someone’s else’s vision, than who will accomplish yours?

14. “We were meant to live for so much more…maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open.” – Switchfoot

15. Three things bring clarity- 1) scarcity, 2) courage to think about it, and 3) willingness to ask

16. People are addicted to product, but process provides the meaning.

17. Most people don’t think, they just rearrange their prejudices.

18. I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side. – O.W. Holmes

19. The clearer I become, the more work, service and play become one.

20. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – DaVinci

21. My family mission is to build the central circle of love for guiding each generation to courageously follow Christ.

22. All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and nought. – Thomas Carlyle

23. What’s new is not always what’s best.

24. Our mission at Auxano is to navigate leaders through growth challenges with vision and clarity.

25. The safe assumption today is that no two congregations are alike. – Lyle Schaller

26. Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader; if you do nothing else, be clear. – Marcus Buckingham

27. State your vision framework before you frame your vision statement.

28. All vision is a solution to a prior problem. And if people don’t feel the problem they won’t catch the vision.

29. God wants to do something cosmically significant and locally specific in your church.

30. If you have formal plans but no vision, then unpredictable changes will make you feel like the sky is falling – H. Mintzberg

31. Focus expands.

32. Success assaults clarity.

33. New levels bring new devils.

34. Successful church leaders: You are only 100 people away from diluting & polluting the clarity that got you there.

35. It’s easier to say no with a deeper yes burning inside – S. Covey

36. In ministry today, less is more. Programs don’t attract people, people attract people.

37. The church of God does not have a mission, the mission of God has a church. – Reggie McNeal

38. If at first the idea is not absurd, there is probably no hope for it. – Einstein

39. The only way to change culture is to create more of it…creativity is the only viable source of change. – Andy Crouch

40. Profound knowledge comes from the outside.– Deming (Who's your strategic outsider?)

41. It's simple to make things complex, but it's complex to make things simple.
Topics: Date: Nov 5, 2010 Tags: life calling / life planning / personal mission / personal vision