Words and letters that changed my life path.
Instead of listing all the books I’ve read or listened to, here’s a few quotes from the ones that changed my life:
Success
“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” — N. Hill
Most products are built on this principle. Raycast helps you search your files faster, Cursor code faster, and Neap post faster.
Execution
“The best idea is worthless without execution.” — J. Clear
Some founders think their idea could be stolen, so they keep it secret and avoid talking about it.
As one who’s been on the other side of the conversation a thousand times: nobody cares about your idea. It’s hard to hear so I’ll say it again: nobody cares.
Great ideas are everywhere, everyone has a few, but they’re worthless as they’re just ideas.
Do yourself a favor and talk about your idea to anyone and everyone who’ll listen:
- Go to networking events and gab all night.
- Meet every potential customer you can and talk.
Don’t wait until you’ve built and invested so much time and money to find out how valuable feedback is.
Growth
“Improve by 1% a day, and in just 70 days, you’re twice as good.” — J. Kaufman
Don’t wait until 2026 ends to start something. Begin now and repeat it every day, even if it’s small. You’ll be surprised at how much you can improve.
This is compound interest. It works for everything: skills, habits, relashionships.
The maths are simple: . Seventy days of tiny improvements and you’ve doubled.
Relationships
“To be interesting, be interested.” — D. Carnegie
You can’t be interesting by trying to be interesting. People love to talk about themselves.
Practice sonder instead. Ask questions, listen to their answers, ask follow-up questions.
This is linked to humility. Don’t talk about yourself unless asked. It’ll come naturally as you became interesting to them simply by letting them talk about themselves.
Discipline
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” — T. Ferriss
J. Bezos once said that stress comes from things that you know that you should act on but you’re not acting on.
Action is the best antidote to anxiety, and discipline is the highest form of self-love.
Marketing
“The only way to be indispensable is to be different.” — S. Godin
What marketing is about in 10 words. In every red ocean, there’s a blue ocean waiting to be discovered.
Social media management tools are taking the same path: a post scheduler for all users, for all platforms, for all types of content.
To please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.
Design
“Question everything generally thought to be obvious.” — D. Rams
It needs change when we think it doesn’t. Apple proved this with the iOS and macOS 26 UI redesigns (liquid glass) that nobody asked for.
To this day, you still can’t group tab-select contacts in iMessage or close all apps at once. The first has been present since 14 years ago in Android 4, and the latter since 8 years ago in Android 9.
Strategy
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” — S. Tzu
When the market you’re in collapses, when a new competitor makes your product obsolete overnight, you’ll probably think it’s over, but it’s not.
Here’s your opportunity. Pivot and launch as many times as it takes to find your marketing mix: the right product, at the right price, in the right place, with the right promotion, for the right people.”
Entrepreneurship
“We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.” — E. Ries
People don’t know what they want. They’ll tell you one thing and do another, not because they’re lying, but because they don’t understand their own needs.
Pay attention to how they use your product, not just what they say. Track where they rage click, where heatmaps light up, and how they navigate through session replays.