I am a big fan of autobiographies and find a lot of inspiration in the lives and experiences of others.

This one is by the founder of Nike, Phil Knight. As a 23-year old he started selling Japanese sneakers into the US. Later, after years of gathering sales skills and learning about shoes, his distribution company would become one of the most important and successful sports company in the world - Nike.

I find his story refreshing. It talks about what entrepreneurship is really about.

It is not about glamorous tech nor VC money, it is about hardship and persistence. Moreover, it makes me appreciate Nike much more as a vehicle to make people care more about their health and do sports.

If you are interested, I have uploaded the pdf version and epub version onto my drive and you are welcome to download it for free. To send the book to your kindle, use this link.

What was a book you recently read and liked?

Self-centeredness First and foremost, these people think of and for themselves: What is in it for them? What is it that THEY don’t want and need. There is little room for another person, and there is an unwillingness to adapt to be a team.

Even entrepreneurs that are “too busy” make a subconscious choice to prioritize their work (or the prestige that comes with it) over ie. a/the relationship.

Commitment-phobia Those are folks that were hurt by a last relationship and are still chewing through the emotions. They stonewall themselves because they are scared to get hurt and are therefore not making themsevles vulnerable for something new - at times over years.

Restlessness Restlessness stems from individual motivations (desire for freedom, self-fulfillment, job opportunity, curiosity, running away from something, etc.), but both mental as well as physical restlessness make it hard to consider someone seriously.

Since the older we get, the more likely we will have had failed relationships, everyone carries a combination of the three in them. It’s extremely helpful to keep those three elements in mind when meeting a new person and to figure out what that person is working through.

Even more important though is to figure out how you fair on those three dimensions and what you should be working on, in order to be in a relationship or maintain an existing one.