Shoe seller. The story of Nike as told by its founder. Phil Knight

There are many possibilities in the beginner's mind, but only a few in the expert's mind.
Shunryu Suzuki, The Essence of Zen. Beginner's Mind"

Dawn
I woke up earlier than others, even before the birds and before sunrise. I drank a cup of coffee, gulped down a piece of toast greedily, pulled on my shorts and sweatshirt, and laced up my green sneakers, then quietly slipped out the back door.
Stretching my legs, stretching the muscles of my hamstrings and lower back, literally forcing myself to overcome the pain that arose from the very first steps, I ran with a groan along the cold road that went into the fog.
Why is it always so difficult to start?
There were no cars, no people, no signs of life around. I was completely alone, as if the whole world existed only for me, although the trees seemed to sense my presence in a strange way. But again, this was in Oregon. The trees here always seemed to know everything. Trees have always covered you, insuring you.

What a great place to be born here? I thought as I looked around. Calm, green, serene. I was proud to call Oregon my home, proud to call little Portland my birthplace. But I also felt the pain of regret. Although Oregon was beautiful, it gave the impression to some of a place where nothing significant had ever happened and where it was unlikely that anything significant would ever happen. If we Oregonians were famous for anything, it was because of that old, old path we paved to get here. Since then, everything else has become quite ordinary.
The best teacher I have ever had, one of the best people I have ever known, often spoke of this path. This is our right, given to us genetically, it used to be, with some kind of trumpet growl, he convinced. Our character, our destiny, our DNA. “Cowards never started anything,” he repeated. The weak died along the way. This means that we are the only ones left.

We! My teacher believed that some rarest strain of pioneer spirit had been discovered along the way, some extraordinary, out-of-the-ordinary sense of possibility that left no room for pessimism—and it was our job as Oregonians to keep that strain alive.
I nodded to him in complete respect. I loved this guy, but, leaving, sometimes thought: my God! It was just a country road.
On that foggy morning, on that momentous morning in 1962, I had just blazed my own mental path—back home after seven long years. It was strange to be home again, it was strange to be again in the rain pouring day after day. The stranger still lived as before, with my parents and twin sisters, and slept in my childhood bed. In the dead of night, I would lie on my back, staring at my college textbooks, trophies, and blue ribbons I had received in high school, and wonder: Is that me? Still?

I sped up my run. From my breath, spherical frosty clouds formed, which, twisting, flew off and were absorbed by the fog. I literally savored that first physical awakening, that marvelous moment before consciousness is completely clear, when the tension in your limbs and joints begins to ease for the first time, and the material body begins to melt, as it were. Flow from solid to liquid.

Hurry, I told myself. Faster.

On paper, I thought, I looked like an adult. He graduated from a good college - the University of Oregon. He received his master's degree from the best business school - Stanford. Survived after serving in the US Army for a year - in Fort Lewis and Fort Eustis. My resume stated that I was a well-trained, experienced soldier, a fully grown 24-year-old man... So why, I wondered, why do I still feel like a child?

Worse, not a child, but the same shy, pale, splinter-thin boy that I've always been. Maybe because I still haven't experienced anything in my life. And least of all, her many temptations and worries. I haven’t smoked cigarettes yet, and I haven’t tried dope. Didn't break a single rule, let alone break the law. The 1960s were already in full swing, the years of rebellion, and I remained the only person in all of America who had not yet rebelled. I could not imagine that I would break the chain, do something unexpected.

I've never even dated a girl.

If I had a tendency to think about all that I was not, the reason was simple - it was what I could best imagine. It turned out that it was more difficult for me to say who or what exactly I was or could become. Like all my friends, I wanted to be successful. Unlike my friends, I didn't know what that meant. Money? Maybe. wife? Children? House? Sure, but only if I'm lucky. These were the goals that I was taught to strive for, and some part of me as a person really aspired to them - instinctively. But deep down I was looking for something else, something more. Some nagging feeling told me that our time is short, it is shorter than we think, it is as short as a morning run, and I wanted my time to be filled with meaning. It was purposeful. Creative. important. And above all... different.

I wanted to leave my mark on the world.

Wanted to win.

No, not that. I just didn't want to lose.

And then it happened. When my young heart began to beat with force, when my pink lungs opened like the wings of a bird, when the trees were covered with a thick green haze, I saw all this clearly in front of me, I saw what I was striving for and what exactly my life should become. game.

Yes, I thought, this is it. It is this word. The secret of happiness, as I have always assumed, the essence of beauty, or truth, or whatever we should know about this or that, lies somewhere in the moment when the ball hangs in the air, when both boxers anticipate the imminent blow of the gong, when the runners approach the finish line, and the crowd of spectators rises in unison. There is a kind of overflowing, triumphant clarity in this pulsating half-second before the question of victory and loss is decided. I wanted this, whatever it was, to be my life, my daily life.

At various times I fantasized about how I would become a famous writer, a famous journalist, a great statesman. But my cherished dream has always been to become a great athlete. Unfortunately, fate was destined for me to be good, but not great. At twenty-four, I finally came to terms with this fact. I ran as a student at the University of Oregon, was able to achieve notable success, and for three of the four years spent within its walls, I had the right to wear the logo of the university on sports uniforms as a regular participant and winner of the competition. But that was all there was, the end. Now, cutting one mile after another every six minutes, when the rising sun had already scorched the needles with its rays on the lower branches of the pines, I asked myself: what if there was a way, without being an athlete, to feel the same way that athletes feel? Play all the time instead of working? Or to derive so much pleasure from work that it, in essence, would become a game.

The world was so full of wars, pain and suffering, and the daily routine of working life was so tiring and often unfair, that perhaps, I thought, the only answer would be to find some stunning, incredible dream that seemed worthwhile, capable of bringing joy and fit well into your life plans, and then pursue it like an athlete, without hesitation or doubt, straightforwardly, with determination and devotion. Like it or not, life is a game. Whoever refutes this truth, whoever simply refuses to play himself, is left on the sidelines, and I did not want that. I didn't want this more than anything.

Such reflections, as always, led me to my Crazy Idea. Maybe, I thought, maybe I should take another look at my Crazy Idea. Maybe my Crazy Idea would suddenly... work?

May be.

No, no, I thought, speeding up my run more and more, as if chasing someone and at the same time running away from the pursuers. It will work. I swear to God I'll make it work. And no "maybe".

Unexpectedly, I began to smile. Almost laugh. Covered in sweat, continuing to run habitually, liberated and deftly, without much effort, I saw my Crazy idea sparkling in the rays in front of me, and it did not seem crazy to me at all. It didn't even sound like an idea. She looked like a place. Like a person or some kind of life force that existed long before me, separate from me, but also as part of myself. Waiting for me and hiding from me at the same time. All of this may sound a bit grandiloquent, a bit insane. But that's exactly how I felt at the time.

Or maybe not experienced. Perhaps my memory is inflating this moment of sudden inspiration - "Eureka!" or combines into one set of such moments of insight. Or maybe, if such a moment really took place, it was nothing more than the euphoria of a runner. Don't know. Can not say. Enough memories of those days, months and years, in which they rest as if sorted in a filing