In fourth grade, I remember having a conversation with one of my friends, Yonathan, about how he or one of his siblings or friends had a pair of Nike sneakers. Throughout the dialogue, I was pronouncing the word Nike as ‘naik,’ without the ‘-ee’ at the end. Yonathan corrected me and told me that the word is not pronounced as ‘naik’ but ‘naikee’.

The embarrassment I felt at that moment, and the associated affront to my childhood ego, kept Nike at the forefront of my mind for several years. Whenever I or someone else buys or wears Nike shoes, a mental hardwire is ignited in my head that traces its path to the memory of that football field. It takes me back to when Yonathan, some of our friends and I were having intense conversations about the things we have and do not have.

Whether you have a regretfully personal childhood memory related to Nike like me, or you came across bits and pieces of the company’s history in movies like Ben Affleck’s Air, or both, the biography of Nike’s founder, Phil Knight, and Shoe Dog, these experiences will certainly change how you understand not only the Nike brand but also the Warner Bros movie Space Jam. No, not Space Jam! … I meant life in general.

Jokes and personal memories aside, reading Shoe Dog last summer, I found the story to be not only rich with anecdotes that are full of wisdom, but also a very enjoyable read.It led me to imagine the story of Nike not as a mere record of a company’s history but as a deeply meaningful and human-centered story of people who approached life from a particularly unique perspective.

The book starts with a story of young Phil just out of grad school, contemplating what to do with his life. What stands out in his contemplation is his desire to ‘play all the time.’ He wanted to enjoy work as much as play. Many of us may have come across the saying “Work Hard Play Hard” (including in a Wiz Khalifa song) in one way or another, but what Phil urged for was for these two things to be one and the same. And not just that, but also the realization that life is a game and the refusal to play is similar to losing. He aspired for something more: to pursue some “improbable dream that seemed worthy … [and] fun.” That was when he came up with his Crazy Idea.

In a nutshell, his Crazy Idea was to travel to Japan looking for running shoes to be sold in the United States. Having been a runner ever since high school and throughout his undergraduate years, he was already familiar with the indispensability of high quality shoes on the track. Moreover, as part of his entrepreneurship class at Stanford, where he did his graduate studies, he had already written a research paper about shoes, highlighting that importing Japanese shoes might potentially become lucrative. But that was not all: Phil did not just want to go to Japan and import shoes; he also wanted to travel the world, visit some of the most sanctified places, and experience ‘connection with a capital C’ to find his place in the world.

This trip gave birth to Nike. Even the brand name ‘Nike’ originated from the Temple of Athena Nike, housing a sculpture that is believed to bring ‘Nike’ (literally, goddess of victory), that Phil visited when traveling to Athens as part of his world tour.

Beyond covering the various ups and downs of negotiating with Japanese manufacturers, starting Phil’s first company (Blue Ribbon Sports), and dealing with competitors, the biography also contains some fascinating and hilarious tales that the adventurous Phil and his friends were part of.

One such tale appears at a time when Blue Ribbon sales had dropped and their Japanese supplier, Onitsuka, was about to cut them out of the market. Kitami, the newly appointed boss from Onitsuka, plans a visit to the United States, where he intends to negotiate with other U.S. distributors without the knowledge of Blue Ribbon. As planned, he arrives in the U.S. After about an hour of unsuccessful negotiation with Phil and a representative of their bank, Kitami goes to the restroom while leaving behind a folder that he had repeatedly referred to during the discussion. Phil decides to steal the folder from the briefcase, despite (ironically and to his personal regret) having been part of the Boy Scouts! Unnoticed, he returns the folder after finding out that Kitami has scheduled appointments with several other athletic shoe distributors across the U.S. Kitami, in return, also does something similar later on when visiting a Blue Ribbon store where, after excusing to go to the bathroom somewhere in the back, he discovers a stockroom where Blue Ribbon was selling Nikes without the knowledge of Onitsuka.

Adventures aside, Shoe Dog also recounts the heartwarming relationships Phil Knight had with Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of Blue Ribbon and his former running coach at the University of Oregon; his wife, Penny, who had been his student when he taught an accounting class at Portland State University; and his first full-time employee, Jeff Johnson, known for his constant, detailed letters to Phil during Blue Ribbon’s early years — letters that Phil often struggled to keep up with.

Interspersed with Zen quotes that beautifully fit the narrative, Shoe Dog is more of a practical lesson on how to live one’s life than a guide on how to start a company. Traversing the globe and navigating the high and low moments of the life of an adventurer, the book is a must-read for anyone who thinks Wiz Khalifa’s Work Hard Play Hard is not that bad. No! … I meant for anyone who aspires to make the most out of their life. So if you have not yet read it, Just Do It!