Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  It remains the ancient life-giving, soul-stretching state that your body craves. The difference you get with an upgrade is whether you are awake to the thousands of opportunities that surround you for fulfilling this craving. When you awaken to this new understanding of your heart’s potential, a new and life-changing emotion is born within you. Do-It-Yourself Gene Expression? Also in the span of time that I’ve written this book, my research team and I have been making new discoveries about how your experiences of love may be either amplified or muffled by the expression of certain genes within your cells. As sketched back in chapter 3 , we’ve already discovered that people with higher cardiac vagal tone somehow extract a larger and more immediate positive jolt out of their efforts to practice the style of mediation, LKM, that I’ve featured prominently in part II. Even more inspiring, we found that practicing LKM actually raises people’s vagal tone such that positive feelings and higher vagal tone feed each other over time. In our most recent experiment, we obtained blood samples from study volunteers before they tried out meditation for the first time. By the flip of a coin, they tried either LKM or a different style of mediation, one that does not aim to cultivate loving feelings. Before and immediately after their assigned guided meditation, we asked them to rate the extent of their positive feelings. We then processed the blood samples in my collaborator Karen Grewen’s lab at Carolina, and later shipped them to my newest collaborator, Steve Cole, the director of UCLA’s Social Genomics Core Laboratory. Using sophisticated computational techniques, Cole analyzed each person’s RNA to determine whether any differences in gene expression uniquely predicted whether people had especially positive reactions to LKM. A compelling pattern of differences emerged. While it’s too soon to say exactly what this pattern of differences means, it is consistent with the more general hypothesis that my team has been testing: that certain biomarkers, like cardiac vagal tone, inflammation, gene expression patterns, and perhaps even body mass index, can either amplify or muffle the good feelings you get when you try to cultivate love. To the extent that love in turn reshapes these biomarkers—a prediction we’re poised to test in the coming year—upward spiral dynamics ensue, in which love and health dynamically cocreate each other. How, then, your DNA gets translated into your cells next season may to some degree be up to you. By practicing healthy patterns of emotional expression, you may be able to sculpt healthy patterns of gene expression. Countless times in this book I’ve suggested that your body was designed for love’s positivity resonance and indeed cries out for it. My team is currently homing in on ever more precise statements about which of your genes, differentially expressed in your cells, contribute to this cry the loudest. Pilot Yourself How can you tune in to your body’s cravings and hear its subtle cries for love?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The kingdom of Christ, in its principle and aim, is as comprehensive as humanity. It is truly catholic or universal, designed and adapted for all nations and ages, for all the powers of the soul, and all classes of society. It breathes into the mind, the heart, and the will a higher, supernatural life, and consecrates the family, the state, science, literature, art, and commerce to holy ends, till finally God becomes all in all. Even the body, and the whole visible creation, which groans for redemption from its bondage to vanity and for the glorious liberty of the children of God, shall share in this universal transformation; for we look for the resurrection of the body, and for the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. But we must not identify the kingdom of God with the visible church or churches, which are only its temporary organs and agencies, more or less inadequate, while the kingdom itself is more comprehensive, and will last for ever. Accordingly, church history has various departments, corresponding to the different branches of secular history and of natural life. The principal divisions are: I. The history of missions, or of the spread of Christianity among unconverted nations, whether barbarous or civilized. This work must continue, till "the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in," and "Israel shall be saved." The law of the missionary progress is expressed in the two parables of the grain of mustard-seed which grows into a tree, and of the leaven which gradually pervades the whole lump. The first parable illustrates the outward expansion, the second the all-penetrating and transforming power of Christianity. It is difficult to convert a nation; it is more difficult to train it to the high standard of the gospel; it is most difficult to revive and reform a dead or apostate church. The foreign mission work has achieved three great conquests: first, the conversion of the elect remnant of the Jews, and of civilized Greeks and Romans, in the first three centuries; then the conversion of the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe, in the middle ages; and last, the combined efforts of various churches and societies for the conversion of the savage races in America, Africa, and Australia, and the semi-civilized nations of Eastern Asia, in our own time. The whole non-Christian world is now open to missionary labor, except the Mohammedan, which will likewise become accessible at no distant day.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  UNTIL THE SHOES arrived, whether or not the shoes ever arrived, I’d need to find some way to earn cash money. Before my trip I’d had that interview with Dean Witter. Maybe I could go back there. I ran it by my father, in the TV nook. He stretched out in his vinyl recliner and suggested I first go have a chat with his old friend Don Frisbee, CEO of Pacific Power & Light. I knew Mr. Frisbee. In college I’d done a summer internship for him. I liked him, and I liked that he’d graduated from Harvard Business School. When it came to schools, I was a bit of a snob. Also, I marveled that he’d gone on, rather quickly, to become CEO of a New York Stock Exchange company. I recall that he welcomed me warmly that spring day in 1963, that he gave me one of those double-handed handshakes and led me into his office, into a chair across from his desk. He settled into his big high-backed leather throne and raised his eyebrows. “So… what’s on your mind?” “Honestly, Mr. Frisbee, I don’t know what to do… about… or with… a job… or career…” Weakly, I added: “My life.” I said I was thinking of going to Dean Witter. Or else maybe coming back to the electric company. Or else maybe working for some large corporation. The light from Mr. Frisbee’s office window glinted off his rimless glasses and into my eyes. Like the sun off the Ganges. “Phil,” he said, “those are all bad ideas.” “Sir?” “I don’t think you should do any of those things.” “Oh.” “Everyone, but everyone, changes jobs at least three times. So if you go to work for an investment firm now, you’ll eventually leave, and then at your next job you’ll have to start all over. If you go work for some big company, son, same deal. No, what you want to do, while you’re young, is get your CPA. That, along with your MBA, will put a solid floor under your earnings. Then, when you change jobs, which you will, trust me, at least you’ll maintain your salary level. You won’t go backward.” That sounded practical. I certainly didn’t want to go backward. I hadn’t majored in accounting, however. I needed nine more hours to even qualify to take the exam. So I quickly enrolled in three accounting classes at Portland State. “More school?” my father grumbled. Worse, the school in question wasn’t Stanford or Oregon. It was puny little Portland State. I wasn’t the only school snob in the family. AFTER GETTING MY nine hours I worked at an accounting firm, Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery. It was one of the Big Eight national firms, but its Portland branch office was small. One partner, three junior accountants. Suits me, I thought. Smallness meant the firm would be intimate, conducive to learning.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Fear of failure, I thought, will never be our downfall as a company. Not that any of us thought we wouldn’t fail; in fact we had every expectation that we would . But when we did fail, we had faith that we’d do it fast, learn from it, and be better for it. Johnson frowned, nodded. Okay, he said. Deal. And so, as we entered the final days of 1974, Johnson was firmly ensconced in Exeter, and often, late at night, thinking of him back there, I’d smile and say under my breath: Godspeed, old friend. You’re Giampietro’s problem now. OUR CONTACT AT the Bank of California, a man named Perry Holland, was very much like Harry White at First National. Agreeable, friendly, loyal, but absolutely feckless, because he had rigid loan limits that were always well below our requests. And his bosses, like White’s, were always pressing us to slow down. We responded in 1974 by mashing the accelerator. We were on pace for $8 million in sales, and nothing, but nothing, was going to stop us from hitting that number. In defiance of the bank, we made deals with more stores, and opened several stores of our own—and continued to sign celebrity athlete endorsers we couldn’t afford. At the same time Pre was smashing American records in Nikes, the best tennis player in the world was smashing rackets in them. His name was Jimmy Connors, and his biggest fan was Jeff Johnson. Connors, Johnson told me, was the tennis version of Pre. Rebellious. Iconoclastic. He urged me to reach out to Connors, sign him to an endorsement deal, fast. Thus, in the summer of 1974 I phoned Connors’s agent and made my pitch. We’d signed Nastase for ten thousand dollars, I said, and we were willing to offer his boy half that. The agent jumped at the deal. Before Connors could sign the papers, however, he left the country for Wimbledon. Then, against all odds, he won Wimbledon. In our shoes. Next, he came home and shocked the world by winning the U.S. Open. I was giddy. I phoned the agent and asked if Connors had signed those papers yet. We wanted to get started promoting him. “What papers?” the agent said. “Uh, the papers. We had a deal, remember?” “Yeah, I don’t remember any deal. We’ve already got a deal three times better than your deal, which I don’t remember.” Disappointing, we all agreed. But oh well. Besides, we all said, we’ve still got Pre. We’ll always have Pre.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  He wrote back right away. The distributor was telling the truth. Onitsuka was considering a clean break with Blue Ribbon, and Kitami was in touch with several distributors in the United States. There was no firm plan to break my contract, Fujimoto added, but candidates were being vetted and scouted. I tried to focus on the good. There was no firm plan. This meant there was still hope. I could still restore Onitsuka’s faith, change Kitami’s mind. I would just need to remind Kitami of what Blue Ribbon was, and who I was. Which would mean inviting him to the United States for a friendly visit.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  But it could not go on for ever. ‘They took us away from that life,’ he wrote, shortly, ‘and sent us to schools.’ The idyll was over, the child pitched back into a life of fear and violence. His Cheltenham housemaster was a sadistic middle-aged bachelor with a gloomy suffused face’ and the prefects were his acolytes. They used to beat the younger boys after evening prayers. Every day the boy prayed, ‘Please, God, don’t let me be beaten tonight.’ He usually was. ‘I knew in a dumb way it was a sexual outrage,’ he later mused, ‘though I could not have phrased that charge.’ No wonder he felt so deeply for the hawk. The boy had been torn from the only place he’d ever felt was home and sent away to be educated in a world of exacting bureaucratic cruelty. It was a betrayal that marked White for ever. And it would also mark his hawk. Ferox. Fairy. Free. Tim White sits at his kitchen table and fills his fountain pen from a bottle of green ink that stands on the oilskin tablecloth. The ink is a mischievous thing, a small, fierce thing. He is writing of his new life with a colour that is the ink of – what does Havelock Ellis call it? The favourite ink of inverts. The hawk arrives tomorrow. Soon there will be three souls in the house: himself, his dog, his hawk. The thought thrills him. He loves this house. He calls it his workman’s cottage, his badger’s sett, his refuge. Outside, light and leaf-shadows move on the high grey gables. It is not a grand house – the water comes from a well and there is an earth-closet in the garden – but he thinks it is a beautiful one. And yes, it is rented, costs him five shillings a week, but it is the first time he has ever lived in a place of his own. He is making it his. He’s varnished the ceilings, painted everything bright. Red glossy paint. Blue Robiallac. On the mantelpiece, birds’ wings. A spill-jar. Patterned wallpaper. A mirror. Books everywhere. He’s spent £66 on deep-pile carpets, bought a winged brocade armchair and laid in a stock of Madeira. Upstairs he’s transformed the guest bedroom into a fairy-tale room of secret, romantic exuberance: mirrors and gilt, blue bed-linen and a golden bedspread, surrounded by candles. Still, he can’t bring himself to sleep in it. The camp bed in the other room with the brown curtains will suffice. And the hawk will live in the barn outside, and they will both call this place home.

• From Educated (2018)

  A green glow lighted everything. “Imagine the bubble for a few hours every day,” she said, “and you will heal.” She patted my arm and I heard the door close behind her. I imagined the bubble every morning, afternoon and night, but my neck remained immobile. Slowly, over the course of a month, I got used to the headaches. I learned how to stand, then how to walk. I used my eyes to stay upright; if I closed them even for a moment, the world would shift and I would fall. I went back to work—to Randy’s and occasionally to the junkyard. And every night I fell asleep imagining that green bubble. —DURING THE MONTH I was in bed I heard another voice. I remembered it but it was no longer familiar to me. It had been six years since that impish laugh had echoed down the hall. It belonged to my brother Shawn, who’d quarreled with my father at seventeen and run off to work odd jobs, mostly trucking and welding. He’d come home because Dad had asked for his help. From my bed, I’d heard Shawn say that he would only stay until Dad could put together a real crew. This was just a favor, he said, until Dad could get back on his feet. It was odd finding him in the house, this brother who was nearly a stranger to me. People in town seemed to know him better than I did. I’d heard rumors about him at Worm Creek. People said he was trouble, a bully, a bad egg, that he was always hunting or being hunted by hooligans from Utah or even further afield. People said he carried a gun, either concealed on his body or strapped to his big black motorcycle. Once someone said that Shawn wasn’t really bad, that he only got into brawls because he had a reputation for being unbeatable—for knowing all there was to know about martial arts, for fighting like a man who feels no pain—so every strung-out wannabe in the valley thought he could make a name for himself by besting him. It wasn’t Shawn’s fault, really. As I listened to these rumors, he came alive in my mind as more legend than flesh. My own memory of Shawn begins in the kitchen, perhaps two months after the second accident. I am making corn chowder. The door squeaks and I twist at the waist to see who’s come in, then twist back to chop an onion. “You gonna be a walking Popsicle stick forever?” Shawn says. “Nope.” “You need a chiropractor,” he says. “Mom’ll fix it.” “You need a chiropractor,” he says again. The family eats, then disperses. I start the dishes. My hands are in the hot, soapy water when I hear a step behind me and feel thick, callused hands wrap around my skull. Before I can react, he jerks my head with a swift, savage motion. CRACK!

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  “No equity in my company. Ever.” He went away and consulted with a few people in his office. Upon returning he said, “No problem. But here’s our deal. We take four percent off the top, as a markup on product. And market interest rates on top of that.” I nodded. Days later Sumeragi sent Sole to meet me. Given the man’s reputation, I was expecting some kind of godlike figure with fifteen arms, each one waving a wand made out of shoe trees. But Sole was a plain, ordinary, middle-age businessman, with a New York accent and a sharkskin suit. Not my kind of guy, and I wasn’t his kind, either. And yet we had no trouble finding common ground. Shoes, sports—plus an abiding distaste for Kitami. When I mentioned Kitami’s name, Sole scoffed. “The man’s an ass.” We’re going to be fast friends, I thought. Sole promised to help me beat Kitami, get free of him. “I can solve all your problems,” he said. “I know factories.” “Factories that can make Nikes?” I asked, handing him my new football shoe. “I can think of five off the top of my head!” he said. He was adamant. He seemed to have two mental states—adamant and dismissive. I realized that he was selling me, that he wanted my business, but I was willing to be sold, and more than ready to be wanted. The five factories Sole mentioned were all in Japan. So Sumeragi and I decided to go there and look them over in September 1971. Sole agreed to be our guide. A WEEK BEFORE we were to leave, Sumeragi phoned. “Mr. Sole has suffered a heart attack,” he said. “Oh no,” I said. “He’s expected to recover,” Sumeragi said, “but traveling at this time is impossible. His son, who is very capable, will take his place.” Sumeragi sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, more than me. I flew alone to Japan, and met Sumeragi and Sole Jr. at Nissho’s office in Tokyo. I was taken aback when Sole Jr. stepped forward, hand outstretched. I assumed

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  MY BRAND-NEW relationship with Nissho was promising, but it was brand new, and who would dare predict how it might evolve? I’d once felt the relationship with Onitsuka was promising, and look where that stood. Nissho was infusing me with cash, but I couldn’t let that make me complacent. I needed to develop as many sources of cash as possible. Which brought me back to the idea of a public offering. I didn’t think I could withstand the disappointment of a second failed offering, so I plotted with Hayes to ensure that this one would work. We decided that the first offering hadn’t been aggressive enough. We hadn’t sold ourselves. This time we hired a hard-driving salesman. Also, this time we decided not to sell stocks, but convertible debentures. If business truly is war without bullets, then debentures are war bonds. The public loans you money, and in exchange you give them quasi-stock in your… cause. The stock is quasi because debenture holders are strongly encouraged, and incentivized, to hold their shares for five years. After that, they can convert the shares to common stock or get their money back with interest. With our new plan, and our gung-ho salesman, we announced in June 1971 that Blue Ribbon would be offering two hundred thousand shares of debentures, at one dollar per, and this time the shares sold fast. One of the first to buy was my friend Cale, who didn’t hesitate to cut a check for ten thousand dollars, a princely sum. “Buck,” he said, “I was there at the start, I’ll be there at the bitter end.” CANADA WAS A letdown. The factory’s leather football shoe was pretty, but in cold weather its sole split and cracked. Irony upon irony—a shoe made in a factory called Canada, which couldn’t take the cold. Then again, maybe it was our fault. Using a soccer shoe for football. Maybe we were asking for it. The quarterback for Notre Dame wore a pair that season, and it was a thrill to see him trot onto that hallowed gridiron at South Bend in a pair of Nikes. Until those Nikes disintegrated. (Just like the Irish did that year.) Job One, therefore, was finding a factory that could make sturdier, more weather-resistant shoes. Nissho said they could help. They were only too happy to help. They were beefing up their commodities department, so Sumeragi had a wealth of information about factories around the world. He’d also recently hired a consultant, a bona fide shoe wizard, who’d been a disciple of Jonas Senter. I’d never heard of Senter, but Sumeragi assured me the man was a genuine, head-to-toe shoe dog. I’d heard this phrase a few times. Shoe dogs were people who devoted themselves wholly to the making, selling, buying, or designing of shoes. Lifers used the phrase cheerfully to describe other lifers, men and women who had toiled so long and hard in the shoe trade, they thought and talked about nothing else.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  HIRING SALES REPS and graphic artists showed great optimism, and I didn’t consider myself an optimist by nature. Not that I was a pessimist. I generally tried to hover between the two, committing to neither. But as 1969 approached, I found myself staring into space and thinking the future might be bright. After a good night’s sleep, after a hearty breakfast, I could see plenty of reason for hope. Aside from our robust and rising sales numbers, Onitsuka would soon be bringing out several exciting new models, including the Obori, which featured a feather-light nylon upper. Also, the Marathon, another nylon, with lines sleek as a Karmann Ghia. These shoes will sell themselves, I told Woodell many times, hanging them on the corkboard. Also, Bowerman was back from Mexico City, where he’d been an assistant coach on the U.S. Olympic team, meaning he’d played a pivotal role in the U.S. winning more gold medals than any team, from any nation, ever. My partner was more than famous; he was legendary. I phoned Bowerman, eager to get his overall thoughts on the Games, and particularly on the moment for which they would forever be remembered, the protest of John Carlos and Tommie Smith. Standing on the podium during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” both men had bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists, a shocking gesture, meant to call attention to racism, poverty, human rights abuses. They were still being condemned for it. But Bowerman, as I fully expected, supported them. Bowerman supported all runners. Carlos and Smith were shoeless during the protest; they’d conspicuously removed their Pumas and left them on the stands. I told Bowerman I couldn’t decide if this had been a good thing or a bad thing for Puma. Was all publicity really good publicity? Was publicity like advertising? A chimera? Bowerman chuckled and said he wasn’t sure. He told me about the scandalous behavior of Puma and Adidas throughout the Games. The world’s two biggest athletic shoe companies—run by two German brothers who despised each other—had chased each other like Keystone Kops around the Olympic Village, jockeying for all the athletes. Huge sums of cash, often stuffed in running shoes or manila envelopes, were passed around. One of Puma’s sales reps even got thrown in jail. (There were rumors that Adidas had framed him.) He was married to a female sprinter, and Bowerman joked that he’d only married her to secure her endorsement. Worse, it didn’t stop at mere payouts. Puma had smuggled truckloads of shoes into Mexico City, while Adidas cleverly managed to evade Mexico’s stiff import tariffs. I heard through the grapevine they did it by making a nominal number of shoes at a factory in Guadalajara. Bowerman and I didn’t feel morally offended; we felt left out. Blue Ribbon had no money for payouts, and therefore no presence at the Games.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  He’d fallen asleep at the wheel, he wrote, and woke to find himself and his 1956 Volkswagen Bug upside down and airborne. He struck the divider, then rolled, then flew out of the car, just before it somersaulted down the embankment. When Johnson’s body finally stopped tumbling, he was on his back, looking at the sky, his collarbone, foot, and skull all shattered. The skull, he said, was actually leaking. Worse, being newly divorced, he had no one to care for him during his convalescence. The poor guy was one dead dog from becoming a country-western song. Despite all these recent calamities, Johnson was of good cheer. He assured me in a series of chirpy follow-up letters that he was managing to meet all his obligations. He was dragging himself around his new apartment, filling orders, shipping shoes, corresponding promptly with all customers. A friend was bringing him his mail, he said, so not to worry, P.O. Box 492 was still fully operational. In closing, he added that because he was now facing alimony, child support, and untold medical bills, he needed to inquire about the long-term prospects of Blue Ribbon. How did I see the future? I didn’t lie… exactly. Maybe out of pity, maybe haunted by the image of Johnson, single, lonely, his body wrapped in plaster of Paris, gamely trying to keep himself and my company alive, I sounded an upbeat tone. Blue Ribbon, I said, would probably morph over the years into a generalized sporting goods company. We’d probably have offices on the West Coast. And one day, maybe, in Japan. “Farfetched,” I wrote. “But it seems worth shooting for.” This last line was wholly truthful. It was worth shooting for. If Blue Ribbon went bust, I’d have no money, and I’d be crushed. But I’d also have some valuable wisdom, which I could apply to the next business. Wisdom seemed an intangible asset, but an asset all the same, one that justified the risk. Starting my own business was the only thing that made life’s other risks—marriage, Vegas, alligator wrestling—seem like sure things. But my hope was that when I failed, if I failed, I’d fail quickly, so I’d have enough time, enough years, to implement all the hard-won lessons. I wasn’t much for setting goals, but this goal kept flashing through my mind every day, until it became my internal chant: Fail fast. In closing I told Johnson that if he could sell 3,250 pairs of Tigers by the end of June 1966—completely impossible, by my calculations—I would authorize him to open that retail outlet he’d been harassing me about. I even put a PS at the bottom, which I knew he’d devour like a candy treat. I reminded him that he was selling so many shoes, so fast, he might want to speak to an accountant. There are income tax issues to consider, I said. He fired back a sarcastic thanks for the tax advice.

• From Educated (2018)

  He said I could live with him for a few months and work at the In-N-Out Burger across the street. I hung up and was walking down the hall, wishing I’d asked Tony if he could lend me the money to get to Vegas, when a gruff voice called to me. “Hey, Siddle Lister. Come here a minute.” Shawn’s bedroom was filthy. Dirty clothes littered the floor, and I could see the butt of a handgun poking out from under a pile of stained T-shirts. The bookshelves strained under boxes of ammo and stacks of Louis L’Amour paperbacks. Shawn was sitting on the bed, his shoulders hunched, his legs bowed outward. He looked as if he’d been holding that posture for some time, contemplating the squalor. He let out a sigh, then stood and walked toward me, lifting his right arm. I took an involuntary step back, but he had only reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet, opened it and extracted a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “You won’t waste this like I will.” —I BELIEVED THAT HUNDRED dollars was a sign from God. I was supposed to stay in school. I drove back to BYU and paid my rent. Then, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay it in February, I took a second job as a domestic cleaner, driving twenty minutes north three days a week to scrub expensive toilets in Draper. The bishop and I were still meeting every Sunday. Robin had told him that I hadn’t bought my textbooks for the semester. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Apply for the grant! You’re poor! That’s why these grants exist!” My opposition was beyond rational, it was visceral. “I make a lot of money,” the bishop said. “I pay a lot of taxes. Just think of it as my money.” He had printed out the application forms, which he gave to me. “Think about it. You need to learn to accept help, even from the Government.” I took the forms. Robin filled them out. I refused to send them. “Just get the paperwork together,” she said. “See how it feels.” I needed my parents’ tax returns. I wasn’t even sure my parents filed taxes, but if they did, I knew Dad wouldn’t give them to me if he knew why I wanted them. I thought up a dozen fake reasons for why I might need them, but none were believable. I pictured the returns sitting in the large gray filing cabinet in the kitchen. Then I decided to steal them. I left for Idaho just before midnight, hoping I would arrive at around three in the morning and the house would be quiet. When I reached the peak, I crept up the driveway, wincing each time a bit of gravel snapped beneath my tires.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  To play all the time, instead of working? Or else to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing. The world was so overrun with war and pain and misery, the daily grind was so exhausting and often unjust—maybe the only answer, I thought, was to find some prodigious, improbable dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed a good fit, and chase it with an athlete’s single-minded dedication and purpose. Like it or not, life is a game. Whoever denies that truth, whoever simply refuses to play, gets left on the sidelines, and I didn’t want that. More than anything, that was the thing I did not want. Which led, as always, to my Crazy Idea. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I need to take one more look at my Crazy Idea. Maybe my Crazy Idea just might... work? Maybe. No, no, I thought, running faster, faster, running as if I were chasing someone and being chased all at the same time. It will work. By God I’ll make it work. No maybes about it. I was suddenly smiling. Almost laughing. Drenched in sweat, moving as gracefully and effortlessly as I ever had, I saw my Crazy Idea shining up ahead, and it didn’t look all that crazy. It didn’t even look like an idea. It looked like a place. It looked like a person, or some life force that existed long before I did, separate from

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  The next thing I recall is Ito and Sumeragi taking Hayes and me into their conference room. They could sense that we were fragile. They led us to chairs, and they both looked at the floor as I spoke. Kei. Much kei. “Well,” I said, “I have some bad news. Our bank… has thrown us out.” Ito looked up. “Why?” he said. His eyes hardened. But his voice was surprisingly soft. I thought of the wind atop Mount Fuji. I thought of the gentle breeze stirring the ginkgo leaves in the Meiji gardens. I said, “Mr. Ito, do you know how the big trading companies and banks ‘live on the float’? Okay, we at Blue Ribbon tend to do that, too, from time to time, including last month. And the fact of the matter is, sir, well, we missed the float. And now the Bank of California has decided to kick us out.” Sumeragi lit a Lucky Strike. One puff. Two. Ito did the same. One puff. Two. But on the exhale, the smoke didn’t seem to come from his mouth. It seemed to emanate from deep down inside him, to curl from his cuffs and shirt collar. He looked into my eyes. He bored into me. “They should not have done that,” he said. My heart stopped midbeat. This was an almost sympathetic thing for Ito to say. I looked at Hayes. I looked back at Ito. I allowed myself to think: We might… just… get away with this. Then I realized that I hadn’t yet told him the bad part. “Be that as it may,” I said, “they did throw us out, Mr. Ito, they did, and the net-net is that I have no bank. And thus I have no money. And I need to make payroll. And I need to pay my other creditors. And if I can’t meet those obligations, I am out of business. Today. In which case, not only can I not pay you the million dollars I owe you, sir… but I need to ask to borrow another one million dollars.” Ito and Sumeragi slid their eyes toward each other for one half second, then slid them back to me. Everything in the room came to a stop. The dust motes, the molecules of air, paused midflight. “Mr. Knight,” Ito said, “before giving you another cent… I will need to look at your books.” WHEN I GOT home from Nissho it was about 9:00 p.m. Penny said Holland had phoned. “Holland?” I said. “Yes,” she said. “He left instructions that you should call whenever you got home. He left his home number.” He answered on the first ring. His voice was… off. He’d been stiff earlier in the day, while carrying out orders from his bosses, but now he sounded more like a human being. A sad, stressed human being. “Phil,” he said, “I feel I ought to tell you… we’ve had to notify the FBI.”

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  1962 W hen I broached the subject with my father, when I worked up the nerve to speak to him about my Crazy Idea, I made sure it was in the early evening. That was always the best time with Dad. He was relaxed then, well fed, stretched out in his vinyl recliner in the TV nook. I can still tilt back my head and close my eyes and hear the sound of the audience laughing, the tinny theme songs of his favorite shows, Wagon Train and Rawhide . His all-time favorite was Red Buttons. Every episode began with Red singing: Ho ho, hee hee… strange things are happening . I set a straight-backed chair beside him and gave a wan smile and waited for the next commercial. I’d rehearsed my spiel, in my head, over and over, especially the opening. Sooo, Dad, you remember that Crazy Idea I had at Stanford…? It was one of my final classes, a seminar on entrepreneurship. I’d written a research paper about shoes, and the paper had evolved from a run-of-the-mill assignment to an all-out obsession. Being a runner, I knew something about running shoes. Being a business buff, I knew that Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by Germans. Thus, I argued in my paper that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing. The idea interested me, then inspired me, then captivated me. It seemed so obvious, so simple, so potentially huge. I’d spent weeks and weeks on that paper. I’d moved into the library, devoured everything I could find about importing and exporting, about starting a company. Finally, as required, I’d given a formal presentation of the paper to my classmates, who reacted with formal boredom. Not one asked a single question. They greeted my passion and intensity with labored sighs and vacant stares. The professor thought my Crazy Idea had merit: He gave me an A. But that was that. At least, that was supposed to be that. I’d never really stopped thinking about that paper. Through the rest of my time at Stanford, through every morning run and right up to that moment in the TV nook, I’d pondered going to Japan, finding a shoe company, pitching them my Crazy Idea, in the hopes that they’d have a more enthusiastic reaction than my classmates, that they’d want to partner with a shy, pale, rail-thin kid from sleepy Oregon. I’d also toyed with the notion of making an exotic detour on my way to and from Japan. How can I leave my mark on the world, I thought, unless I get out there first and see it? Before running a big race, you always want to walk the track. A backpacking trip around the globe might be just the thing, I reasoned. No one talked about bucket lists in those days, but I suppose that’s close to what I had in mind.

• From Educated (2018)

  The day he left, he gave me a cellphone so he could reach me at all hours. Tyler called one night just as I was getting home from work. He asked if I was studying for the ACT. “I can’t take the test,” I said. “I don’t know any math.” “You’ve got money,” Tyler said. “Buy books and learn it.” I said nothing. College was irrelevant to me. I knew how my life would play out: when I was eighteen or nineteen, I would get married. Dad would give me a corner of the farm, and my husband would put a house on it. Mother would teach me about herbs, and also about midwifery, which she’d gone back to now the migraines were less frequent. When I had children, Mother would deliver them, and one day, I supposed, I would be the Midwife. I didn’t see where college fit in. Tyler seemed to read my thoughts. “You know Sister Sears?” he said. Sister Sears was the church choir director. “How do you think she knows how to lead a choir?” I’d always admired Sister Sears, and been jealous of her knowledge of music. I’d never thought about how she’d learned it. “She studied,” Tyler said. “Did you know you can get a degree in music? If you had one, you could give lessons, you could direct the church choir. Even Dad won’t argue with that, not much anyway.” Mother had recently purchased a trial version of AOL. I’d only ever used the Internet at Randy’s, for work, but after Tyler hung up I turned on our computer and waited for the modem to dial. Tyler had said something about BYU’s webpage. It only took a few minutes to find it. Then the screen was full of pictures—of neat brick buildings the color of sunstone surrounded by emerald trees, of beautiful people walking and laughing, with books tucked under their arms and backpacks slung over their shoulders. It looked like something from a movie. A happy movie. The next day, I drove forty miles to the nearest bookstore and bought a glossy ACT study guide. I sat on my bed and turned to the mathematics practice test. I scanned the first page. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to solve the equations; I didn’t recognize the symbols. It was the same on the second page, and the third. I took the test to Mother. “What’s this?” I asked. “Math,” she said. “Then where are the numbers?” “It’s algebra. The letters stand in for numbers.” “How do I do it?” Mother fiddled with a pen and paper for several minutes, but she wasn’t able to solve any of the first five equations. The next day I drove the same forty miles, eighty round-trip, and returned home with a large algebra textbook. —EVERY EVENING, AS THE CREW was leaving Malad, Dad would phone the house so Mother could have dinner waiting when the truck bumped up the hill.

• From City of Night (1963)

  And having said that much, impulsively, not caring to what extent I will reveal myself now, I went on: “I mean that to choose someone to be wanted by—loved by—may be one of the many, many shapes of... ‘love’—if it exists,” I added guardedly. He was looking at me very curiously as I spoke. “If each side could be measured in emotional degrees—the one loving and the other accepting that love,” I continued, feeling suddenly as if I had to speak rapidly in order to be able to finish, “each side might balance the other. If someone is able to take ‘love’—and take it with intensity—with the full intensity of his ability—and someone else who can give it gives it to the full intensity of his, then one is hardly different from the other. Maybe youll say Im just defending an inability to love back. But if there is such a thing as what you call ‘Love,’ its shape must be as unpredictable as the patterns—...” I stopped. And I remembered this: So long ago! Those few, rare, treasured days! The strange, unpredictable patterns I had watched in fascination as a child—patterns created by the water as it poured from the aluminum tub in which my mother washed our clothes: the grayish water spilling onto the dry dirt in directions impossible to determine.... And I watched those patterns, on those pure, pure afternoons; watching those odd, intriguing shapes.... And then suddenly I remembered: the white sheets which my mother would hang up to dry in the Texas sun. And, drying, they flapped cleanly in the wind under the vast miles of equally clean sky.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  I will comfort you as you wait. Isaiah 66:13 I will remind you this is all real. John 14:26 I am on my way. Revelation 3:11 My steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 138:8 In just a little while... I am coming and I will take you to the place where I am. Hebrews 10:37; John 14:3 You will inherit the earth. Psalm 25:13 You will be with Me. I will wipe every tear from your eyes, and death will be no more. Behold, I am making all things new. Revelation 21:3–5 My kingdom is coming. My will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10 God has declared these truths about Himself and about me. All these things are true for you and for anyone who loves and follows Jesus. This is who we are because of whose we are. We make our choices based on these truths. And our God doesn’t change and always delivers on His promises. T 16 Dangerous Thinking oday as I realized how close I was to finishing this book, I rallied a dozen people who love me to pray. I may never have met you, yet I care deeply about your freedom. I hope you can read that motivation in my words. I care deeply, yet I recognize that the freedom I’m referring to comes only by a work of God, by His Spirit, by His divine intervention in your life. Separate from that prayer rally, my friend Jess, who has no idea what I’m up to today, just sent me a text. She doesn’t know that I’m working on a chapter just now about how contagious our minds are and about how, when we’re conformed to the mind of Christ, we can influence everyone around us for powerful, almost indescribable good. She doesn’t know the prayers being prayed, that you’d be set totally free. Attached to her text is a picture of her dad. He is a godly man, a great dad, a faithful husband. He also is a man with a substance abuse problem. He finished a season in rehab a few months ago, and boy, did he return to his church and community on a mission. After his program finished, he went back and began leading Bible studies at the rehab facility he’d just left. The picture Jess texted me was of six men, all of different ages, ethnicities, and interests. They were all smiles, seated around a dinner table. Jess wrote, “My dad woke up Saturday morning with the idea to invite his rehab buddies over for dinner, so he and my mom made the invite, and a few hours later they all showed up. My family is still fragile, but these are the things that help me see that God really does bring beauty from ashes.” Only God can take our most broken parts and turn them into thumbs-up moments of hope around grilled hamburgers and potato salad. Only God can

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  But as difficult as the first two realities are, the most common trouble we face in this life takes the form of sin. Specifically our sin—as in the stuff that you and I do. Or don’t do, whichever the case may be. Most of the time, you and I won’t be taken down by a massive demonic attack. Our own small choices are accomplishing everything the devil intends—our passivity and destruction—with zero effort on his part. He is out “to steal and kill and destroy.”9 Honestly it’s often difficult to know which of the three is behind the attack, but bottom line: we are at war! Hence the need for a targeted strategy. The Mission To defend ourselves in the midst of battle, we will learn to name the specific enemies we each are facing. I have identified seven enemies I see rampant and warring against our minds. We will learn to employ the right weapons at the right time to overcome the enemy, enjoy renewed intimacy with Jesus, and walk in greater freedom than we have before. Whew. Big task. Thankfully for us: big God. We will name the lies that threaten us. We will learn to spot the signs that we’ve been sucked into the enemy’s trap. We will learn to fight the war against our minds. We will learn what happens when we choose to shift our thoughts to God, to the truth of who He is and the truth of who we are because of Him. We will learn to seize things like community and service and gratitude as we live out the truth. And we will stand victorious in the end. Which brings me to the secret weapon that ensures the outcome of our mission. The Victory That Is Ours In Deuteronomy 20, God reminds Israel that He is with them in their battles and that He is with us: Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.10 Ready for the good news? Through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, God has rendered the fights we face His fights too. Because of Jesus, every fight has been ultimately won. Victory? It’s already yours. It’s already mine. What’s left for us is to claim that victory. We are going to look at both the enemies of our minds and the truths that set us free. If God is in us and is for us, then you and I can choose to fight from a place of victory. We can stand confident that God will prevail. We have talked about what it means to take every thought captive, and we have talked about the one interrupting thought: I have a choice.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  And then. I’d instructed my friends to leave me alone. I’d filled the freezer with hawk food and unplugged the phone. Now I was a hermit with a hawk in a darkened room with books on three walls, a faded Afghan rug, and a sofa of stained yellow velvet. A mirror hung over the boarded-up fireplace, and a Shell poster from the 1930s on the wall above me was reflected backwards and watery in the old glass. YOU CAN BE SURE OF SHELL, it said, along with a scumble of stormclouds and a part of the Dorset coast. There was an old television, a mint-green vinyl cloth on the floor with the hawk’s perch on it, and a pair of deep green curtains printed with flowers that shut out the world. The goal was to be motionless, the mind empty, the heart full of hope. But as the minutes stretched I had to move, just slightly: angle my foot to stop it sleeping; wrinkle my nose if it itched, and each time I did so I felt the hawk flinch in fear. But I also saw from the corner of my eye that she was pulling herself up incrementally from that sprung-to-fly crouch. Her stance was more upright. There was a little less fear in the room.