Seth Godin, who describes himself pithily as a "writer, speaker, agent of change," invited 69 smart folks to contribute observations on What Matters Now and then made the e-book available for free.

As we close out this decade that Time Magazine called the Decade From Hell, it is refreshing to read so many optimistic entries of What Matters Now.  Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

• Mitch Joel on Compassion: Make compassion a core business value.
• Howard Mann on Connected: More megaphones don't equal a better dialogue.
• Michael Hyatt on Vision: When times are tough, vision is the first casualty.  Before conditions can iprove, it is the first thing we must recover.
• Tom Peters on Excellence: There are 19 Es of Excellence .... Enthusiasm, be an irresistible force of nature.
• William C. Taylor on Most: Are you the most of anything?
• Guy Kawaski on Evangelism: The future belongs to people who can spread ideas.
• Michael Sifry on Nobody: Nobody has the answers ... Nobody, but you, that is.
• And, of course, Seth on Generosity: If you make a difference, people will gravitate toward you.

Seth starts the e-book with a challenge -- what matters now to you? So, I thought I would the end this post with my own contribution:

Good: When I was growing up, no one wanted to be good.  It wasn't radical or rebellious.  It wasn't cool or fun.  It was boring and passé;  average and ordinary.  It was schoolmarmish.  But good is making a comeback -- helped perhaps by the endless scandals -- financial, political, marital -- that shook our institutions, our economy and our beliefs.  And, the Good that is re-surging is the good of being morally admirable: of people leaving Wall Street jobs and bonuses to build schools in Tanzania or businesses doing well by doing good or consumers buying products that do good.  It's good to be good.

And, you, what matters now?