What matters right now? What should you be thinking about as we head into 2010? You may be surprised to see that 70 of the smartest thinkers around didn’t answer this question by talking about health insurance, the recession or changes in taxes.

When marketing guru Seth Godin asked what they thought mattered, many of today’s top thinkers took a very different view, rising about the weeds to talk philosophy and long-term change.

“Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around,” says Godin.

The result is an ebook, What Matters Most, that’s free to download as a PDF and share. The book’s been busting records since it was released this week.

Here are 11 of the 70 things these thinkers say matter:

1. Generosity, says Godin. “The more you give them, the more you’ll get.”
2. Vision. Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, says vision is the “lifeblood of any organization” and it is often the first victim of a recession. It is what keeps it moving forward. It provides meaning to the day-to-day challenges and setbacks that
   make up the rumble and tumble of real life.
3. Ease, says Elisabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, who urges everyone to ease up and take a step back.  “Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell.”
4. Capitalism, says Chris Meyer, who warns it is better not to ignore “the competitor with the strange-looking beak.” What does he mean? Like finches, businesses will be forced to change their shapes and adapt in a Darwinian way to make a living in the future.
5. The 1%, say loyalty experts Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell. They say your job this year is to find the “the one percenters”  —  the people crazy about your products. Watch out: They often hide in the crevices of niches.
6. Most, says William Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company. It’s not good enough to be “pretty good,” you have to be the “most” these days, whether it is the most elegant, the most colorful or the most responsive.
7. Autonomy. If we want employees who are engaged, and the mediocrity busting results that engagement produces, we have to make sure people have engagement at work, says Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind. He says employees need autonomy over what they do, when they do it, how they do it and whom they do it with.
8. Power, says Jeffrey Pfeffer from Harvard Business School.
   “Stop waiting around for bosses and companies to get better and complaining about how you are treated.” His message: You have the power to change things.
9. Evangelism, says Guy Kawasaki. He says the future belongs to people who spread ideas by creating a cause and localizing the pain.
10. Compassion, says Mitch Joel.  ”We spend more than 50% of our lives at work,” he says, yet we often say it’s not personal, it’s business. “If we don’t make it personal, and if you don’t make it count, what’s the point. Business is missing one important core value: Compassion.”
11. Women, says Paco Underhill. “If you’re a man running a business, and if the power and influence females wield hasn’t completely registered on your radar, well, then, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

You can read more about Godin’s book or visit his blog.

Julie Power is editor in chief of The Internet Marketing Report. She twitters at JuliePower.