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1. Leaders driven by purpose have a hunger to make a lasting impact with their lives, they want to make their life count. They are the type of people who care more about what is said at their eulogy than what is listed on their resume. They are the type of people who want to look back from their deathbed with no regrets. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

2. WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don’t mean to make money—that’s a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care? (Start with WHY – Simon Sinek)

3. Purpose driven leaders drive long-term results by creating a culture of excellence, intentionality, and discipline. They set their teams and organizations on a trajectory that delivers real results time after time.

4. Don’t pursue passion in life, become passionate about pursuing your purpose. (Unknown)

5. Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. (John C. Maxwell)

6. Purpose driven leaders are driven by a passion to change the world. But purpose driven leaders understand that in order to change others they must first lead themselves. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

7. A leader knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.  (Tony Evans)

8. Your core purpose is the WHY behind your WHAT and your HOW. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

9.  But the examined life is straightforward. Not easy, but straightforward. You reflect on your purpose. You reflect on what you’ve done and you think about what you might do next. When you do this often enough, reflection becomes a part of who you are. That’s it. That’s the examined life. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

10. In reality, leadership describes what leaders symbolize more than what they achieve. Productive leadership requires a sense of purpose and meaning in what their leaders represent, such as a social identity or some future opportunity. (Stan McChrystal – 5 Star General)

11. Purpose is the story you tell yourself over and over and over again. It is a story that is written down in your thoughts, but is confirmed through your daily habits and decisions.

12. How do you create your purpose? You take action. You try things. You fail. You pursue excellence in your endeavors and you endure pain. The pursuit of excellence forces you beyond what you already know, and in this way you come to better understand the world. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

13. All great leaders have charisma because all great leaders have clarity of WHY; an undying belief in a purpose or cause bigger than themselves. (Start with WHY – Simon Sinek)

14. Purpose driven leadership happens when a leader’s philosophy flows from their convictions—not their feelings, emotions, or subjectivity.

15. What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, ‘but what is woven into the lives of others.’ Your legacy is that which you teach. (Pericles)

16. It’s important to remember that a purposeful life is not a passive life. Purpose driven leaders are active in their pursuit of what is most important. They understand the importance of life’s story expressed through meaningful habits.

17. “The wealth of options we face today has extended personal freedom to an extent that would have been inconceivable even a hundred years ago. But the inevitable consequence of equally attractive choices is uncertainty of purpose; uncertainty, in turn, saps resolution, and lack of resolve ends up devaluing choice. (FLOW – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

18. To reiterate, the Habits of Purpose are the HOW flowing from your WHY and your WHAT.

19. There is nothing quite as potent as a focused life, one lived on purpose. (The Purpose Driven Life – Rick Warren) 

20. Passion is about. (I am passionate about ____________ ). Purpose is about to and for. (I must do ____________. I was put here to accomplish ____________. I am willing to endure ____________ for the sake of this). Actually, purpose deemphasizes the I. Purpose is about pursuing something outside of yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself. (Ego is the Enemy – Ryan Holiday)

21. Your commitment to your identity is strongest when your WHY your WHAT and your HOW are aligned. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

22. You will never find your purpose. You will never find your purpose for the simple reason that your purpose is not lost. If you want to live a purposeful life, you will have to create your purpose. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

23. Motivation comes from mastery, autonomy, and purpose. (Daniel Pink)

24. A system of values helps us to progress towards meaningful goals by clarifying and focusing our behaviors along the way.

25. Success is an inside job. Put yourself together, and your world falls into place. When you bring purpose to your life, know your priorities, and achieve high productivity on the priority that matters most every day, your life makes sense and the extraordinary becomes possible. All success in life starts within you. You know what to do. You know how to do it. Your next step is simple. You are the first domino. (The One Thing – Gary Keller)

26. The essential drama of life is the drama to construct character, which is an engraved set of disciplined habits, a settled disposition to do good. (The Road to Character – David Brooks)

27. The purpose-driven leader keeps their eyes on the prize as they move daily in the direction of their purpose. They remind themselves of what hangs in the balance in their decisions to choose a life of purpose over a life of convenience.

28. Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which whose followers believe the leader will own it.  (Axiom – Bill Hybels)

29. Purpose will ask us difficult questions that passion cannot. Purpose will ask us such things as: What is life asking of me? What is required to live a life of purpose? What is the responsibility that only I can bear? What is the work that only I can do? (The Purpose Driven Leader)

30. The role of the leader is to create a space where people can become more than they have ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being. (Robert Altman)

31. “What is my purpose”, is often the wrong question since it takes the focus off the “who” and puts the focus on me.

32. Our words shape our story and our story becomes the framework for our behaviors. (Legacy – James Kerr)

33. There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose. (Henry Ford)

34. Great leadership is not about flexing and intimidation; great leaders, as General Robinson proves, lead with WHY. They embody a sense of purpose that inspires those around them. (Start with WHY – Simon Sinek)

35. There are people whose attention is consistently drawn away from their purpose and toward their pain, like a moth to a light. Such people, who pay attention to every annoyance and obstacle in their way, are usually unsuccessful in their endeavors. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

36. “Building purpose is not as simple as carving a mission statement in granite. It’s a never-ending process of trying, reflecting, failing, and above all, learning. High-purpose environments don’t descend from on high; they are dug out of the ground, over and over.” (The Culture Code – Dan Coyle)

37. Your certainty of purpose is confirmed through a firm foundation of core principles that are your guiding light during life’s darkest times.

38. Purpose is always found just across the border from “what’s in it for me?” Purpose is often found at the intersection between a stirred heart, opportunity, and skill. (Andy Stanley)

39. But people on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs? (David Brooks)

40. The story of purpose is constructed by three fundamental questions: What am I good at? Who am I serving? What does the world need from me?

41. Meaning is something that comes upon you, of its own accord. You can set up the preconditions, you can follow meaning, when it manifests itself, but you cannot simply produce it, as an act of will. Meaning signifies that you are in the right place, at the right time, properly balanced between order and chaos, where everything lines up as best it can at that moment. (12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson)

42. To truly appreciate something, you must confine yourself to it. There’s a certain level of joy and meaning that you reach in life only when you’ve spent decades investing in a single relationship, a single craft, a single career. And you cannot achieve those decades of investment without rejecting the alternatives. The act of choosing a value for yourself requires rejecting alternative values. (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Manson)

43. The purposeful leader understands the important role their story contributes to the clarity and direction of their leadership. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

44. Meaning emerges from the interplay between the possibilities of the world and the value structure operating within that world. (12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson)

45. Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience. More precisely, your habits are how you embody your identity. When you make your bed each day, you embody the identity of an organized person. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person. (Atomic Habits – James Clear)

46. Purpose driven leaders are able to stay the course when others fall away. They create loyal team members and strong organizations. They have the ability to adapt to any environment while sustaining a high level of excellence.

47. The most important thing I learned is an approach to life based on principles that helps me find out what’s true and what to do about it. (Principles – Ray Dalio)

48. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

49. The good habits come from thinking repeatedly in a principled way, like learning to speak a language. The good thinking comes from exploring the reasoning behind the principles. Using principles is a way of both simplifying and improving your decision making. (Principles – Ray Dalio)

50. When you know your why, you’re what becomes more impactful because you’re walking towards or in your purpose. (Michael Jr. – Comedian)

51. Leadership gives purpose to people. A sense of belonging. (Horst Schultz – Marriott CEO)

52. The pursuit of excellence always starts with saying “yes” to the right things (the things that align with your purpose) and “no” to the things that distract you from what you were created to do.

53. Clarity of purpose creates perspective. When people have a shared commitment, differences and disagreements don’t disappear, but they can be seen in a new light. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

54. What we say as leaders becomes insignificant without the natural transition of our beliefs into behaviors.

55. The time to prepare was yesterday. During the transition to the target, the things I needed most were stillness and peace, with a few subtle cues to remind me of my larger purpose. (Ben Ives)

56. First set your sights properly, love the Lord your God, focus on what is divine. Second, worry about the day.  Every day when you keep your purpose present when you need to recharge your batteries. (Unknown)

57. A sense of purpose sparks above and beyond behaviors. (The Power of Moments – Chip Heath)

58. In the process of purposeful growth, we must start with reflection and understanding, but we must finish with habits and behaviors. This constant, self-reinforcing loop of affirmation is critical to becoming a purpose driven leader.

59. The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder – a waif, a nothing, a no man. (Thomas Carlyle)

60. In every dream journey there comes a moment when you have to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. You have to go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. (Chase the Lion – Mark Batterson) 

61.  A strong personal commitment to a personal code of ethics is narrow and limiting in the sense that it limits our behaviors; it realigns our perspective towards a set of core activities that produce a life of purpose.

62. Character rises out of our values, our purpose, the standards we set ourselves, our sacrifice and commitment, and the decisions we make under pressure, but it is primarily defined by the contribution we make, the responsibility we take, and the leadership we show. (Legacy – James Kerr)

63. I believe that you can’t live a flourishing life without attachments to people and purposeful work. But there is wisdom in recognizing that certain attachments can be unhealthy and cause us pain. And part of the art of living is knowing the who, what, when, where, how, and why of being attached. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

64. A life of purpose requires constant reminders of who you are, what you stand for, and why you exist.

65. Our job as marketers, teachers, and leaders is to build better bridges to enable the right change to happen. We can choose to do it on purpose. (Bernadette Jiwa)

66. The purpose driven leader never stops in their pursuit of excellence. The purpose driven leader keeps building and pushing to be better than before. The purpose driven leader never stops climbing.

67. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. These are the building blocks of an entirely new operating system for our businesses. (Daniel Pink)

68. Where do you look for life, for satisfaction and contentment, for identity and belonging, for meaning and purpose, for inner peace and security? What gets you out of bed each morning? Be honest with yourself! What rules your heart? (Unknown)

69. The point behind purpose is to become the means to an end for someone else.  Said another way, help someone get what they need at the expense of what is convenient to you. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

70. If we are only interested in results we defeat the purpose. The process is the purpose. (Unknown)

71. Put another way, the path to meaning (i.e. purpose) is found in the sacrifices you are willing to make and the responsibility you are willing to take. The path to meaning is found in the people you are willing to serve.

72. Don’t focus on the outcome. Focus on your people, purpose and process that create the outcome. (Jon Gordon)

73. The point of purpose is to determine how you will serve others. If you don’t have a plan to serve, you don’t need purpose. (Cheryl bachelder – CEO Popeyes)

74. The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

75. If you try to use your work to serve yourself, you’ll find your ambitions and expectations will forever run ahead and you’ll never be satisfied. If you try to serve the community, you’ll always wonder if people appreciate you enough. But if you serve work that is intrinsically compelling and focus just on being excellent at that, you will wind up serving yourself and the community obliquely. A vocation is not found by looking within and finding your passion. It is found by looking without and asking what life is asking of us. What problem is addressed by an activity you intrinsically enjoy? (The Road to Character – David Brooks)

76. Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won his heart he will follow you anywhere. (Vince Lombardi)

77. Finding our purpose in life will have less to do with discovering your purpose and more to do with serving a purpose.

78. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. (John Quincy Adams)

79. God made you a leader to move people from here to there; to make people discontent with the way things are. (Unknown)

80. One of the core characteristics of a purpose driven leader is the ability to build a life that is meaningful. Meaning is the result of being confident in your pursuit of the right ends by the right means. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

81. I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers. (Ralph Nader)

82. We can develop leaders only when we structure things in a way that requires others to lead. (Francis Chan)

83. Our lives and leadership all tell a story about who we are, what we believe, and what we are on earth to do. You get to choose the type of story you want to tell with your life. This choice is the single greatest consideration you have as a leader.

84. Language becomes the oxygen that sustains belief. In this way, leaders rewrite the future. (Legacy – James Kerr)

85. Just as all good movies and books have a narrative structure that draws you in, captivates you, and brings you to a final resolution, all good leaders have a system of belief that allows them to communicate and live a compelling story. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

86. Storytelling helps leaders connect their people’s personal meaning to their vision of the future. (Legacy – James Kerr)

87. Virtues that are not practiced die. Resilience that is not practiced weakens. The only way to keep resilience alive-through success, through temporary comfort, and through the challenge of the age-is to engage ourselves in purposeful learning at every step of life. Every master must have a master. Every good teacher must still be a student. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

88. Principled thinking is the first step to cultivating the habits of a purposeful life.

89. The happiness of pleasure can’t provide purpose; it can’t substitute for the happiness of excellence. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

90. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals. (Thinking in Systems – Donna Meadows)

91. To live a life of meaning is to have an interpretive framework for explaining how our significance relates to the rest of existence. (Disruptive Witness – Alan Noble)

92. It is by continually striving together for the highest levels of truth and excellence that we create meaningful work and meaningful relationships. (Principles – Ray Dalio)

93. Long-term goals, dreams and intentions are worthy, but they only eventuate because of our short-term actions. (Bernadette Jiwa)

94. We can pursue pleasures all we like. But having a lot of the wrong thing doesn’t make it the right thing. Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

95. The structure of living a purposeful life is found by identifying the values and principles that you can believe in whatever the circumstance.

96. We don’t give things to veterans to ease their pain; we put a challenge in front of them to rebuild their purpose. (Resilience – Eric Greitans)

97. Simply put, you are most free when you exist in the environment you were created for. Living a purposeful life in service of others sets the groundwork for a life of fulfillment, joy, and true contentment

98. Without action thought can never ripen into truth. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

99. The purpose driven leader lives a compelling and clear story with their life. Your purpose helps you determine the type of story you want to tell, how you want to tell it, and who you want to tell it to. (The Purpose Driven Leader)

100. WHAT these two stonemasons are doing is exactly the same; the difference is, one has a sense of purpose. He feels like he belongs. He comes to work to be a part of something bigger than the job he’s doing. Simply having a sense of WHY changes his entire view of his job. It makes him more productive and certainly more loyal. (Start with WHY – Simon Sinek)

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100 Top Quotes on Leadership and Purpose

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