Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Fouts, handed the ball to Donny Reynolds, who made one cut on his Nike waffles and . . . took it to the house. Ducks 7, Nike 7, Beavers 0. Fouts, closing out a brilliant college career, was out of his mind that night. He passed for three hundred yards,

It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. 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. I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’

And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes

Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome. Some people might not call it luck. They might call it Tao, or Logos, or Jñāna, or Dharm

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

Tao. And since no one has ever adequately defined Tao, I now try to go regularly to mass. I would tell them: 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.

that, I’d like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so that some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete or painter or novelist, might press on. It’s all the same drive. The same dream.

I’d do anything to go back, to make so many different decisions, which might or might not have averted the sweatshop crisis. But I can’t deny that the crisis has led to miraculous change, inside and outside Nike. For that I must be grateful.

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