Shoe Dog

by Phil Knight

I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all . . . different.

Meaningful Ife

So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy . . . just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.

Do not stop

I was a linear thinker, and according to Zen linear thinking is nothing but a delusion, one of the many that keep us unhappy. Reality is nonlinear, Zen says. No future, no past. All is now.

You cannot travel the path until you have become the path yourself, said the Buddha,

Confucius—The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones—

“Boredom scares me,” I said.

Boredom scares me

“happiness is a how, not a what.”

The single easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.

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.

maybe we don’t have any right to win. But all I know is if I go out and bust my gut until I black out and somebody still beats me, and if I have made that guy reach down and use everything he has and then more, why then it just proves that on that day he’s a better man than

The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.

Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart.