Shoe Dog

Actionable Insights

• Just Do It!
• Seek a calling

Highlights

Reading this quote reminded me of how AlphaGo works.

"The cowards never started," he'd tell me, "and the weak died along the way - that leaves us."

Don't stop. Don't even think about stopping until you get there, and don't give much tought to where "there" is. Whatever comes, just don't stop.

I wanted to experience what the Chinese call Tao, the Greeks call Logos, the Hindus call Jnana, the Buddhists call Dharma. What the Christians call Spirit.

My mother told me he'd been in the habit of patting her stomach and asking, "How's little Buck today?"

He was easy to talk to, and easy not to talk to - equally important qualities in a friend.

I purchased an open plane ticket, good for one year on any airline going any-where. A sort of Eurail Pass in the sky.

Idea filled me with feeling of pleasure and excitement!

Japan was renowned for its impeccable order and extreame cleanliness. Japanese literature, philosophy, clothing, domestic life, all were marvelously pure and spare.

You are capable. You are confident. You can do this. You can DO this.

I explored the grassy ruins of Nero's bedroom, the gorgeous rubble of the Coliseum.

If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best thing God invents.

On my right was the Temple of Athena Nike, goddess Athena thought to be the bringer of "nike" , or victory.

"A tiger hunts best when he's hungry."

Letters,diaries, appointment books - they all definitively show it taking place much later. But I remember what I remember, and there must be a reason why I remember it the way I do.

I believed in running. I believed that if people got out and ran a few miles everyday, the world would be a better place.

Belief is irresistable.

"Boredom scares me," I said. "Ah, That's because you're a rebel." I stopped climbing, stabbed my walking stick into the ground. Me - a rebel? My face frew warm.

It's quite a feeling when I realize how much I resonate with this. Moment you realise something is different about you which you never cared to appreciate or acknowledge.

We made no plans to see each other again.

I knew she'd have to stop there, too, at some point, to get money from the Candy Bar People. I left her a note: "You've got to fly over Portland to get to the East Coast...why not stop for a visit?"

"happiness is a how, not a what."

I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered.

It was the blithe spirit in which she did it. She brought the color back to her cheeks. She had a healing effect on him, and seeing this had a bewitching effect on me.

I liked that they tried to add beauty to every part of life.

He'd started over, he said. As the Japanese do.

The next day I returned to the United States, and one of the first things I did after landing was put fifty dollars in an envelop and airmail it to Fujimoto. On the card I wrote: "For a new bicycle, my friend."

Matthew would always laugh, delighted to find himself caught up in this adventures. He'd sit up straighter in bed. He'd beg for more, more.

"There is one...more suggestion," Woodell said. "From who?" "Johnson phoned first thing this morning," he said. "Apparently a new name came to him in a dream last night." I rolled my eyes. "A dream?" "what is it?" I asked, bracing myself. "Nike"

This whole story about coming up with names and they end up with nike is just crazy.

But in the end I don't really know what led me to my decision. Luck? Instinct? Some inner spirit?

One of the first to buy was my friend Cale, who didn't hesitate to cut a check for ten thousand dollers, a princely sum.

I'd only gone with Nike because I was out of time, and because I'd trusted Johnson's savant-like nature.

I looked around the table and thought: my bride, my enemy, my spy. Some life.

The hell's a swoosh? The answer flew out of me: It's the sound of someone going past you.

A race is a work of art.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

That magical pronoun, "we" - he'd always use it.

Supply and demand is always the root problem in business.

But when we did fail, we had faith that we'd do it fast, learn from it, and be better for it.

Somebody may beat me - but they're going to have to bleed to do it.

Our demand is too high, our volume too low, for the biggest factories. And in smaller factories we'll have the dominant position. We'll be in charge.

Xinsheng means "New Life."

"Mr. Knight, we've come up with a way to inject...air...into a running shoe."

All innovation was hailed as progressive, forward-thinking.

Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.

Of all the negotiations in my life, those with my sons have been the most difficult.

We could've flown, but I insisted on the train. I wanted to see, to experience the countryside.

For us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else.

What's on your bucket lists?

Am I allowed to think that some coincidences are more than coincidental?

He hands me the watch. It's engraved: With thanks for taking a chance on me.

I was able to take my father on a long trip. We went around the world, saw Nikes in every country we visited, and with every appearance of a swoosh his eyes shone.

If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.

Change never comes as fast as we want it.

Tread is the path of coexistence, cooperation. Peace feeds on prosperity.

Untapped resources, natural and human, that the world has at its disposal.

From the profane to the sacred

I regret not spending more time with my sons.

I'd tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years.

Seek a calling, they will always have a bull's-eye on their backs.

Giving up doesn't mean stopping. Don't ever stop.

Luck plays a big role.