Shoe Dog

1) You'll be remembered by the rule you break, not the rule you follow.

2) Life is growth. You grow or you die.

3) I just want to be me. Be present all the time.

4) Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned and outnumbered. They always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrpreneurial, not more.

5)And thos who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else is genius. Giving up doesn't mean stopping. Don't ever stop.

6)Luck palys 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 make the outcome.

7) Have faith in the faith.

*Audiobook 听写摘录, 未必完全准确.

Sure there will be a lot of pressure, and a lot of us will be facing more experienced competitors, and 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, then it just proves on that on that day he's a better man than I.

心潮澎湃，这是我当时一边在跑步一边在听这一段的感受。从Phil Knight花了很多篇幅描写Pre不顾一切竭尽全力的奔跑就可以看出，Nike的精神和Pre在田径场上拼搏的体育精神是一致的。Nike一路成长遇到了太多困难。长期的资金短缺，持续的供应不足，以及其他竞争鞋业遥遥领先的市场份额，都没能让他们停下。他们向Pre一样放手一搏，坚定执着的奔跑着，终于跑向他们光辉的未来。Don't stop. Keep going.

For that matter, few ideas are as crazy as my favorite thing, running. It's hard. It's painful. It's risky. The rewards are few and far from guaranteed. When you run around an oval track, or down an empty road, you have no real destination. At least, none that can fully justify the effort. The act itself becomes the destination. It's not just that there's no finish line; it's that you define the finish line. Whatever pleasures or gains you derive from the act of running, you must find them within. It's all in how you frame it, how you sell it to yourself.

Every runner knows this. You run and run, mile after mile, and you never quite now why. You tell yourself that you are running toward some goal, chasing some rush, but really you run because the alternative, stopping, scares you to death.

跑步的人读来很有共鸣。跑步其实是没有终点的找寻自我之旅吧。

what it's all about? really? I appreciated money as much as the next guy. but I wanted m life to be about so much more.

so they'd launched an important magazine, when no one anywhere was interested in importing anything Japanese, and somehow they'd managed to keep it afloat for seventeen years.

I put on my green brooks brothers suit and gave myself a pep talk. "you are capable, you are confident. you can do this. you can DO this."

I was a castaway, a kind of modern Crusoe. I wanted to be home again. Now. And yet. I was still aflame with curiosity about the world. I still wanted to see, to explore.

Of course, he was deeply flawed. But he knew that. "You are remembered," he said, prophetically, "for the rules you break."

Michelangelo was miserable while painting his masterpiece. His back and neck ached. If even Michelangelo didn't like his work, I thought, what hope is there for the rest of us?

My father invited all the neighbors over for coffee and cake and a special viewing of "Buck's life".

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 and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place, and I believed these shoes were better to run in. People, sensing mu belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.

Emotion would be fatal. I need to remain cool.

I'd competed with, and against, men far better, faster, more physically gifted. Many were future Olympians. And yet I'd trained myself to forget this unhappy fact. The art of competing, I'd learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You much forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past.

He was about my age, but far more mature, more self-assured.

"Boredom scares me,"I said.

"Ah, That's because you're a rebel."

She had the kind of self-confidence you run across once or twice in a lifetime.

In his heart of hearts Johnson believed that runners are God’s chosen, that running, done right, in the correct spirit and with the proper form, is a mystical exercise, no less than meditation or prayer, and thus he felt called to help runners reach their nirvana.

In fact, in 1965, running wasn't even a sport. To go out for a three-smile run was something weirdos did, presumably to burn off manic energy. Running for pleasure, running for exercise, running for endorphins, running to live better and longer-these things were unheard of.

I looked up to the man when he saw something deeper in numbers, but I loved him when he saw something special in me.

He then set about turning the store into a mecca, a holy of holies for runners. In all the world there had never been such a sanctuary for runners, a place that didn't just sell them shoes but celebrated them and their shoes.

Maybe, like Johnson's customers, I needed a sense of community, even if it was a community of just two. The first thing we did was go for a long, punishing run on the beach.

No friends, no exercise, no social life-and wholly content. My life was out of balance, sure, but I didn't care. in fact, I wanted even more imbalance. I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to Blue Ribbon. I wanted to be present, always. I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered. If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play. I wanted to quit Price Waterhouse. Nor that I hated it; it just wasn't me. I wanted what everyone wants. To be me, full time.

We developed a rapport, a feel for each other, a knack for communicating nonverbally. As only two shy people can.

By nature I was a loner, but since childhood I'd thrived in team sports. My psyche was in true harmony when I had a mix of alone time and team time.

Maybe it was more than ironic, sending him out to high schools and colleges to sell Tigers out of his car. Maybe it was torture.

Yes, I thought, confidence. More than equity, more than liquidity, that's what a man needs. But confidence was cash. You had to have some to get some. And people were loath to give it to you.

It was dark as I walked out of the office building, into the crowded Tokyo street. I felt spent, but proud. I felt drained, but exhilarated. I felt everything I ever hoped to feel after a day's work, I felt like an artist, a creator.

They were salesmen. They talked like salesmen, walked like salesmen, and they dressed like salesmen. They were extroverts, we were introverts. I was on the verge of losing it, then I saw that Johnson and Woodell were already losing it, and I realized that I couldn't afford to.

Let's not look at this as a crisis. Let's look at this as our liberation. Our Independence Day.

Sometimes I thought the secret to Pre's appeal was his passion. I told myself there was much to be learned form such a display of passion, whether you were running a mile or a company.

No matter the sport-no matter the human endeavor, really-total effort will win people's hearts.

This,I decided, thisis what sports are, what they can do. Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people's victories. And defeats.

"A race is a work of art," Pre told a reporter, "that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they're capable of understanding."

We were trying to create a brand, I said, but also a culture. We were fighting against conformity, against boringness, against drudgery. More than a product, we were trying to sell an idea-a spirit.

In my lifetime, I had finished many races on sore legs, gimpy knees, zero energy, but that night I wasn't altogether sure I had the strength to drive home.

"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 bleed to do it.

Losing was death. Blue Ribbon was my third child my business child and I simply couldn't bear the idea of it dying. it has to live.

Forget design, forget color, forget all the other things that go into a shoe, it's all about factory.

The only person who didn't join us in these late-night revels was Johnson. He'd typically go for a head-clearing run, then retreat to his room and read in bed.

Each of us had been misunderstood, misjudged, dismissed. Shunned by bosses, spurned by luck, rejected by society, short-changed by fate when looks and other natural graces were handed out. We'd each been forged by early failure.

Strasser's secret, I think, was that he just didn't care what he said or how he said or how it went over. He was totally honest, a radical tactic in any negotiation.

No other shoe company was trying new things, so our efforts, successful or not , ere seen as noble.

"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.

I told myself your behavior probably needs modifying. I made promises to myself that day. I vowed that from then on I'd meditate, count backward, run twelve miles a day, whatever it took to hold it together.

We'd learned a valuable lesson. Don't put twelve innovations into one shoe. It asks too much of the shoe, to say nothing of the design team.

Werschkul and I had dinner and rehearsed. Like two actors running lines, we went through every possible argument Hatfield might throw at us.

When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is-you are participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you're helping others to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman.

"with thanks for taking a chance on me." it wasn't much of chance. He was pretty close to a sure thing. But taking a chance on people-he's right. You could argue that's what it's all about.

I think of his long, difficult search for meaning, for identity. For me. His search often looked so familiar, even though Matthew didn't have my luck, or my focus. Nor my insecurity.

Tiger's call came in at 7:30a.m. I will always love him for many things, but above all for that show of concern.

Seek a calling. Even if you don't know what that means, seek it. If you are following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you've ever felt.

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