During 2017 I read many books, articles, listened to some podcasts and audiobooks. Each time I ran into some great quotes, ideas, concepts, I wrote them down in a Note folder on my iPhone. Now it's time for me to share them with the world as some of them might be useful for you.

1. Key Learnings 2017
Yoann Lopez

2. • These are quotes from book / articles / podcasts / etc. I
read or listened to in 2017.
• Sometimes I forgot the author unfortunately. :(
• My goal is to read them as often as possible in order to
absorb their wisdom.
• At one point or another I’ll take each of my key learnings
and reflect upon them by writings notes about them.

3. “Desire is a contract you make
with yourself to be unhappy
until you get what you want.”

4. “The purpose of life is to be loved by as
many people as possible among those you
want to have love you.“
Warren Buffet

5. “Imagine your life has a punch card with
only 20 slots. Be wise when you choose
your slots.”
Warren Buffet

6. "You can have anything you want
in life but not everything.”
Ray Dalio

7. “The best investment you can make is to
invest in yourself by taking high care of
yourself.”
Warren Buffet

8. “One doesn’t discover new lands without
consenting to losing, for a very long time,
of the shore.“
Andre Gide

9. "The practice of deep listening consists of keeping
compassion alive in your heart the whole time you
are listening. You do not listen in order to judge,
criticize, or evaluate. You listen for one reason
alone: to offer the other person a chance to
express himself."

10. “Passion is discovered
through the process of
trying out things.”

11. “A happy person is
someone who can enjoy
the scenery on the detour.”

12. “If you get tired, learn
to rest, not to quit.”

13. “The desire for a positive experience is in itself a
negative experience. Paradoxically, the acceptance
of one’s negative experience is in itself a positive
experience.”
Mark Manson

14. “Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel
harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor / Philosopher
King

15. “A candle loses nothing by
lighting another candle.”
Jayson Gaignard, Entrepreneur

16. “Before I met you, I already liked
myself.“
Approval

17. “External things can’t
fix internal issues.”

18. “If you’re lonely when you’re
alone, you’re in bad company.”
Jean-Paul-Sartre

19. "If you give a good idea to mediocre team they
will screw it up, if you give a mediocre idea to a
great team they will either fix it or throw it away.”
Ed Catmull

20. “Quality is the best business
plan.”
John Lasseter

21. “For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so
that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits
ought to be given little by little, so that the flavor of
them may last longer.”
Machiavelli

22. “Having a brain trust group checking on any creative
process is key to success. This group should provide
constructive feedback, people should not take these
feedbacks personally. Problems should be the focus,
not people. Fear should not impede anything.”
Ed Catmull

23. "The arms of others either fall from
your back, or they weigh you
down, or they bind you fast.”
Machiavelli

24. "A prince ought to have no other aim or
thought, nor select anything else for his study,
than war and it's rules and discipline; for this is
the sole art that belongs to him who rules…"
Machiavelli

25. "We are kept from our goal not by
obstacles but by a clear path to a
lesser goal.”
Robert Brault

26. Ocham razor
If they are competing explanation for
why something behaves the way it
is, you should pick the simplest one.

27. “Action may not always bring
happiness, but there is no
happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli

28. “If you have to ask the
price then you can't
afford it.”

29. “Art challenges technology,
technology inspires art.”
Ed Catmull

30. “When we talk a lot, we always
say something we shouldn’t say.”
Confucius

31. “Measure what you can, evaluate what you
measure, and appreciate that you cannot
measure the vast majority of what you do.”
Ed Catmull

32. “The future is not a
destination, it's a direction.”
Ed Catmull

33. “The cost of preventing
errors is almost all the time
far greater than the cost of
fixing them.”

34. Most Respectful Interpretation (MRI) be aware of your automatic mode
when you think about a situation. Use the MRI.
A big part of learning to think is recognizing our default reactions and
responses to situations — the so-called “System 1” thinking espoused
by Daniel Kahneman. Learning to be “good-tempered” and “well-
adjusted” requires us to try to be more self-aware, situationally aware,
and to acknowledge our self-centered nature; to put the brakes on and
use System 2 instead.
So the next time you find yourself annoyed with your colleagues, angry
at other drivers on the road, or judgmental about people standing in line
at the store, use it as an opportunity to challenge your negative
assumptions and try to interpret the situation in a more respectful and
generous way. You might eventually realize that the broccoli tastes
good.

35. “If you can’t afford to lose it,
you can’t afford to buy it yet
—otherwise the object owns
you rather than vice versa.”

36. “If you can’t afford to lose it, you can’t afford to buy it yet—otherwise
the object owns you rather than vice versa.”
“This was the first theft in many, many years of very carefree living. The
Craigslist replacement value of that bike was probably about $500.
What value do I place on a decade of the fearless freedom of leaving
shit happily unlocked and not worrying about it? How about the value
of my time saved in not spending my life fumbling with an enormous
keychain? 90 seconds a day for ten years is 91 hours, or at least $4500
of my time at $50 an hour. I was still coming out way ahead.”
Mustachian Frugal

37. "Out on the edge you see all kinds of things
you can't see from the center. Big,
undreamed-of-things-the people on the edge
see them first.”
Kurt Vonnegut

38. "Routine, in an intelligent
man, is a sign of ambition.”
W.H. Auden

39. "Judge a man by his questions
rather than his answers.”
Pierre-Marc Gaston

40. "You don't succeed because you have no
weaknesses; you succeed because you find
your unique strengths and focus on
developing habits around them.”
Tim Ferris

41. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes
a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Ben Franklyn

42. "It is no measure of health to be well
adjusted to a profoundly sick
society.”
J. Krishnamurti

43. "I'm not the strongest, I'm not the
fastest. But I'm really good at
suffering.”
Amelia Boone

44. “Let go of what's not working and really assess what
is working and what can I be excited about? It's not
that bad things don't happen to me. I don't label a lot
of things good/bad. Instead I ask can I evolve from
this? What do I want now? Where is my center now?”
Jason Nemer

45. "If you run into an asshole in the morning
you ran into an asshole. If you run into
assholes all day, you're the asshole.”
Raylan Givens

46. “Go first people are
nicer than you think.”

47. "If you are depressed, you are living in the
past. If you are anxious, you are living in the
future. If you are at peace, you are living in
the present.”
Lao Tzu

48. "A wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention.”
Herbert Simon

49. "We do not rise to the level of our
expectations. We fall to the level of our
training.”
Archilochus

50. "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you
didn't plan your mission properly.”
Colonel David Hackworth

51. "In negotiation, he who
cares the least wins.”

52. "If you let your learning lead to knowledge,
you become a fool. If you let your learning
lead to action, you become wealthy.”
Jim Rohn

53. "If you would not be forgotten as soon as
you are dead and rotten, either write things
worth reading, or do things worth writing.”
Ben Franklin

54. "Never go to sleep without a
question to your subconscious.”
Thomas Edison

55. “Seek a single reason for a potentially
expensive action, not a blended reason. There
need to be one decisive reason otherwise
you'll feel like it was a waste if d time.”
Reid Hoffman

56. "It’s not what happens to you, but
how you react to it that matters.”
Epictetus

57. "I don't create art to get high-dollar
projects, I do high-dollar projects so I
can create more art.”
Chase Jarvis

58. "What context and visibility do I have and
what do they have?am I basically being unfair
because I'm operating from a greater set of
information?”
Chris Young

59. "Money is a great
servant but a horrible
master.”

60. "Imagine you have a large jar. Next to it, you a few large
rocks, a small pile of marble-size pebbles, and a pile of
sand. If you put in the sand or pebbles first, what happens?
You can't fit the big rocks in. But if you add the rocks, then
the medium-sized pebbles, and only then the sand, it all
fits.”
Tim Ferris’ professor
Notes: In other words, the minutiae fit around the big
things, but the big things don't fit around the minutiae.

61. "Frustration is a matter
of expectation.”
Luis Von Ahn

62. "The person who clears the path
ultimately controls its direction,
just as the canvas shapes the
painting.”
Ryan Holiday

63. "Be the silence that
listens.”
Tara Brach

64. "Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn
so as to be sure you're still moving in the direction of
your dreams.”
“In this way quitting should never be seen as the end
of something grudging and unpleasant. Rather, it's a
vital step in beginning something new and wonderful.”
Rolf

65. "The wisdom of life
consists in the elimination
of non-essentials.”
Lin Yutang

66. "Discipline equals
freedom.”
Jocko Willink

67. "Better to have, and not
need, than to need and not
have.”
Kafka

68. "The calming effect of acting instead of
waiting.”
Sebastien Junger
Notes: business and acting gives you a
sense of mastery and control that actually
make you feel less anxious.

69. "The future is already here-
it's just unevenly
distributed.”
William Gibson

70. "What we fear most is
usually what we most
need to do.”

71. "Bad decisions make good
stories.”
Note: look for the silver
lining.

72. "Honor those who seek the
truth, beware of those
who've found it.”
Voltaire

73. "Whenever you find yourself
on the side of majority, it's
time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain

74. "If you want to improve, be
content to be thought
foolish and stupid.”
Epictetus

75. "Enough is as good as a
feast.”

76. "The hero and the coward both feels the
same thing but the hero used his gear,
projects it onto his opponent, while the
coward runs. It's the same thing. fear.
But it's what you do with it that matters.”
Cus d'Amato

77. "Being deeply loved by someone
gives you strength, while loving
someone deeply gives you
courage.”
Lao Tzu

78. ITINDY
Important things I'm not doing yet. Set key
milestones for doing things and put your
itindy things after these milestones in order
to prioritize.
J.A McCann

79. “Shi conveys the significance of
gaining influence through
nonintervention so that you can
secure an advantageous position
in battle. Shi is to the Sunzi what
wei wuwei is to Daoism.”

80. Stay out of a distorted market.
Before entering the market, consider if distortion is high.
Are central banks creating artificially high or low interest
rates? If so, keep waiting to invest. Don’t be too hasty;
distorted markets are prone to crashes, meaning investors
are likely to lose money. If you have the patience to wait out
the distortion, you’ll benefit a great deal later.
The Dao of Capital

81. “Nothing so conclusively proves a
mans hability to lead others as what
he does from day to day to lead
himself.”
Thomas j Watson

82. “‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And
that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common
one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going
to change in the next 10 years? And I submit to you
that that second question is actually the more
important of the two — because you can build a
business strategy around the things that are stable in
time.”
— Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

83. “You are a message. Everything you are, everything
you have, everything you do is a message. You
might not know it, but you’re constantly projecting
a message around you. What’s your message?
What are you saying to the world around you?
What are you saying to your market? What are you
saying to future generations?”
Guillaume Wolf

84. “Don’t push, pull. To be
interesting, be interested.”
Guillaume Wolf

85. “It’s always about the fundamentals. Ask
yourself these two questions: • Who am I
talking to? • How can I help them? This is
a great practice, like mental tai chi. This is
also the secret to creating a great brand.”
Guillaume Wolf

86. “There are no extraordinary brands
without extraordinary people. If you want
to build a great brand, challenge yourself
to be the best you can be in every area
of your life, not just business.”
Guillaume Wolf

87. “Do you matter? This is a hard question for a person
or a brand; yet, the answer is easy. First, do
something at your level that helps someone’s life.
Just one person. Next, do something that impacts
ten people. And keep going. Long term, true
influence is the by-product of caring for others. You’ll
matter the most once you start caring for the world.”
Guillaume Wolf

88. “There’s one force that you must combat every day. It’s
called the status quo: the willingness to keep things the
way they are. First, find it within yourself. Learn about it,
grab it, and destroy it (Ask: What doesn’t want to change
within me?). Next, be ruthless when you meet the status
quo in the real world. Every time you meet someone who
says, “It cannot be done,” start thinking about how you’re
going to make it happen. That is, without this person
around, of course.”
Guillaume Wolf

89. “As a consultant, the greatest gift you can give
to a client is to uncover something that could
destroy their business, and have the courage to
say so. Only the very few have the nerves to do
it. Make sure you surround yourself with people
who can give honest feedback, not yes-men.”
Guillaume Wolf

90. “To build your brand, you need three things
working simultaneously: 1. Perfect skills or
products. 2. Perfect understanding of the
culture you’re dealing with. 3. Perfect
storytelling. Neglect one of these, and it’s
over.”
Guillaume Wolf

91. “Talk to your audience as
you would talk to your best
friend.”
Guillaume Wolf

92. “Be candid, be cool, be
loving.”
Guillaume Wolf

93. “Brands desperately want to be “cool,” thinking it’s
about following fads. This is a big mistake. Only
the ones who are willing to honor their truth will
collect “in-depth cool currency.” The reason is
simple: Nothing is cooler than the truth. Ask
yourself: What’s my brand’s truth? Does my
audience understand and connect with this truth?”
Guillaume Wolf

94. “If you’re weird, that might be a problem. If
you’re weird and smart, that might be an
asset. If you’re weird, smart, and
understand culture, that’s great. What cool
weirdness could you bring into your
brand?”
Guillaume Wolf

95. “The person or company with a larger
wallet is not smarter than you, just
more comfortable. This is great news
for the little ones. Comfort is the
enemy of innovation.”
Guillaume Wolf

96. “Are you a computer, a Sim TM, or a robot? I hope not. We are taught since childhood to think in
binary mode: Yes/no, right/wrong, win/lose, etc. This view of the world is reinforced everywhere
as we grow up. From education to popular culture, we are being presented with a binary world:
“This is the right way, this is the wrong way.” In social interactions, we are also expected to act
in a binary mode (like a computer, a SimTM, or a robot). Unfortunately, this mental map of the
world is completely obsolete. It only works short term. In business, binary thinking blocks
innovation. In personal life, it’s a sure way to unhappiness. Instead, a new way to approach any
problem is to think trinary. How does it work? Simply start in binary mode: First, find the two
opposites. Next, create a strange hybrid of both. Next, imagine the opposite of that. Keep
pushing yourself; challenge yourself intellectually. Explore. Imagine something never seen
before, something that’s all inclusive. Imagine something outside of the mental map everyone
else is using. Consider the opposite of what the herd is doing. Try thinking like someone else
(see p. 28). It takes some time to learn operating in trinary mode, but that’s how you will come
up with disruptive ideas and innovate. At the core, all living systems are trinary, not binary.
Trinary thinking is a model that allows you to navigate living systems effectively. By using it, you
will come up with incredible ideas. Ask yourself: What’s the third perspective here?”
Guillaume Wolf

97. “Where can I grow? Where can I
improve? What should I try next?
These are amazing questions to ask
yourself daily, when you have the
willingness to act on them.”
Guillaume Wolf

98. “Great branding is almost identical to
dating. When it’s done right, it’s about
creating a meaningful connection. It’s
never about cheesy pickup lines.”
Guillaume Wolf

99. “Solve a tiny problem for me and I’ll give
you five dollars. Solve a bigger problem for
me and I’ll give you a hundred dollars. Make
me a grow as an individual while you help
me solve my problem, and I will be your
customer for life.”
Guillaume Wolf

100. “To disrupt a market, you have to
be a contrarian. To be a
contrarian, question everything
you see.”
Guillaume Wolf

101. “Each design project starts with
research to discover what's out there,
and to explore the possibilities of what
could be put there, but isn’t.”
Harmut Esslinger

102. Homer’s brain (as in Homer Simpson).
“That’s the primordial lizard brain running a mental
heuristic that’s absolutely incapable of understanding
anything new and novel. It’s only good at attack,
defense, finding food and shelter and avoiding
boredom. It’s a survival machine.”
Daniel Jeffries via hackernoon

103. The map is not the territory.
“When I was a teenager in the late 1960s, I studied with a man
named George Simon, who had built an experiential practice
based in part on Korzybski’s work. A deep understanding that the
language we use about the world shapes what we see, that it is a
kind of map, and that a bad map can lead us astray, has been
central to my ability to notice things about emerging technologies
and to reframe the story that we tell ourselves about what matters
and why. Recognizing when you’re stuck in the words, looking at
an out-of-date map rather than looking at the road, is something
that is surprisingly hard to learn.”
From "Science and Sanity", by Alfred Korzybski

104. “First will what is necessary. Then love what you will.”
“There's a profound insight there that I've tried to live by, long
before I read the quote. Life asks many things of us that we
don't want to do. Some of them are distractions, but some of
them are necessary. It’s so easy to be full of resentment
toward things that we feel are keeping us from our joy. Finding
joy in what needs doing is magical. Learning to love the things
that are necessary—like daily chores—is the secret of
happiness.”
From “When Nietzsche Wept”, by Irvin Yalom

105. “the real act of discovery
consists not in finding new lands,
but in seeing with new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

106. “Specialize most of the
time, but spend time
understanding the broader
ideas of the world.”

107. “Just as a well-filled day brings
blessed sleep, so a well-employed
life brings a blessed death.”
Leornado Da Vinci

108. “It isn’t events themselves that
disturb people, but only their
judgements about them.”
Epictetus