Olufemi

“Like it or not, life is a game. Whoever denies that truth, whoever simply refuses to play, gets gets left on the sidelines, and I didn't want that.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

“When from out of error’s darkness
With a word both sure and ardent
I had drawn the fallen soul,
And you, filled with deepest torment,
Cursed the vice that had ensnared you
And so doing wrung your hands;
When, punishing with recollection
Forgetful conscience, you then told
The tale of all that went before me,
And suddenly you hid your face
In trembling hands and, filled with horror,
Filled with shame, dissolved in tears,
Indignant as you were, and shaken…
Etc., etc., etc.”
― Nikolay A. Nekrasov

“It seems wrong to call it "business". It seems wrong to throw all those hectic days and sleepless nights, all those magnificent triumphs and desperate struggles, under that bland, generic banner: business. What we were doing felt like so much more. Each new day brought fifty new problems, fifty tough decisions that needed to be made, right now, and we were always acutely aware that one rash move, one wrong decision could be the end. The margin for error was forever getting narrower, while the stakes were forever creeping higher–and none of us wavered in the belief that "stakes" didn't mean "money". For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for use business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day of the human body isn't our mission as human beings. It's a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living–and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great business do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the life 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're participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you're helping other to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

“Thus Dantes, who but three months before had no desire but liberty, had now not liberty enough and panted for wealth. The cause was not in Dantes but in Providence who, whilst limiting the power of man, has filled him with boundless desires.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo