A purpose statement is, in essence, a written-down reason for being. Jesus' mission helped him decide how to act, what to do, and even what to say when challenging situations arose. Clarity is power: Once you are clear about what you were put here to do then 'jobs' become only a means toward accomplishing your mission, not an end in themselves.

Sometimes facing opportunity is like staring at the knees of a giraffe.

Perhaps the true mark of a leader is that she or he is willing to stand alone.

Inertia, when first encountered, appears to be an immovable force. We are creatures who like comfort, patterns, and repetition... Yet change is life's only constant.

Forgetting your mission leads, inevitably, to getting tangled up in details-details that can take you completely off your path.

To have no vision of your own means living the vision of someone else.

A good leader has a plan that consists of changing simple pictures. Just because a group of people has a bunch of boards, hammers, and nails does not mean that they are building a house or even anything recognizable. Sometimes leaders think they are doing their job just because there is a lot of hammering going on. As a society we like the sound of hammering, but we are uncomfortable with the sound of thinking, which is silence.