Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

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

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.

If I tended to dwell on all the things I wasn’t, the reason was simple. Those were the things I knew best.

Fail fast.

The copy read: “Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.” Everyone around me thought the ad was bold, fresh. It didn’t focus on the product, but on the spirit behind the product, which was something you never saw in the 1970s. People congratulated me on that ad as if we’d achieved something earth-sh

A soldier in shoes is only a soldier. But in boots he becomes a warrior.

I didn’t understand what was happening, in the moment, but now I do. The years of stress were taking their toll. When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly. At just the moment I needed to be my sharpest, I was approaching burnout.

Johnson was Four Factor, because he tended to exaggerate and therefore everything he said needed to be divided by four.

When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.