Quotes About Clarity

We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and less in need of a road map.

We discovered that the nature of the visualization is very important. If you visualize the wrong thing, you'll produce the wrong thing.

The wisdom and guidance that accompany principle-centered living come from correct maps, from the way things really are, have been, and will be. Correct maps enable us to clearly see where we want to go and how to get there. We can make our decisions using the correct data that will make their implementation possible and meaningful.

What matters most gets buried under layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors. I become reactive.

You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.

If you visualize the wrong thing, you'll produce the wrong thing.

By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

And leadership is even more lacking in our personal lives. We're into managing with efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values.

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind.

in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective.

statement—and then to bring that sense of mission, of purpose, to your

We're into managing with efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values.

Unclear expectations in the area of goals also undermine communication and trust.

We create many negative situations by simply assuming that our expectations are self-evident and that they are clearly understood and shared by other people.

When Gates first met Warren Buffett at a dinner, the host asked all those at the table what they saw as the single most important factor in their journey through life. As Alice Schroeder related in her book The Snowball, both Gates and Buffett gave the same one-word answer: "Focus" (Habit 3: Put First Things First

To begin with the end in mind means to approach my role as a parent, as well as my other roles in life, with my values and directions clear. It means to be responsible for my own first creation, to rescript myself so that the

we're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle.

The deposit is to make the expectations clear and explicit in the beginning.

More than doing things right, it's focused on doing the right things.

In the words of Madame de Staël, "The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it: but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It

That's why it's so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table. People will begin to judge each other through those expectations. And if they feel like their basic expectations have been violated, the reserve of trust is diminished. We create many negative situations by simply assuming that our expectations are self-evident and that they are clearly understood and shared by other people. The

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective. People