Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Driving back to Portland I’d puzzle over my sudden success at selling. I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed that if people got out

Reality is nonlinear, Zen says. No future, no past. All is now.

One lesson I took from all my home-schooling about heroes was that they didn’t say much. None was a blabbermouth. None micromanaged. Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. So I didn’t answer Johnson, and I didn’t pester him. Having told him what to do, I hoped that he would surprise me

knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop.

Pre was most famous for saying, “Somebody may beat me—but they’re going to have to bleed to do it.” Watching him run that final weekend of May 1975, I’d never felt more admiration for him, or identified with him more closely. Somebody may beat me, I told myself, some banker or creditor or competitor may stop me, but by God they’re going to have to

Each of us found pleasure, whenever possible, in focusing on one small task. One task, we often said, clears the mind.

“No brilliant idea was ever born in a conference room,” he assured the Dane. “But a lot of silly ideas have died there,” said Stahr. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon

I marveled at the concept of kensho, or satori—enlightenment that comes in a flash, a blinding pop.

Leaning back in my recliner each night, staring at the ceiling, I tried to settle myself. I told myself: Life is growth. You grow or you die.