Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

17/∞

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way — that leaves us.”

The Shoe Dog is the story of Nike’s founder Phil Knight. By no surprise it is good, very good. I love to read books written by successful people, because they keep showing me that everything is possible. It is my source of inspiration. If you switch on the TV, you are going to see bad news. After a few moments, your mind starts to kick in and telling you that the world is going down. In order to keep your mind positive, you need to consume positive stuff and keep learning. The stories of successful CEOs will help you to do that.

It is interesting to see that Phil Knight (and Nike) started as distributor and retailer of Japanese shoe brand called Onitsuka Tiger. To be honest, I have never heard of Tigers until now, although their design is being imitated by countless companies.

My philosophy behind everything is to have 100% control of everything you own, sell and your business depends upon. It is no big surprise that when competition escalated, Onitsuka Tigers tried to put Phil Knight out of business by buying his company. They did not succeed, Phil Knight had already back then the distribution network in place. The last step he was missing was his own brand. He then created his own shoe brand called Nike. Nike was named after the greek goddess of victory - Athena Nike.

Sports have played an essential part in development of Nike. It was build around the community of athletes and runners. That is how Phil Knight sold his first pairs of shoes. What I see there was a relentless effort to innovate shoes. To provide better comfort for runners and athletes. This goes down to “air sole” developed by Nike and nowadays known as “Nike Air Max.” I was surprised to hear that they have been developed already in 1977 and they were a real game changer on the market.

As all amazing business stories, Nike struggled to get through. Nike had countless cashflow problems, legal battles and political battles. But they got through and made it. How they did it, might be of a great interest to you.

Humble beginnings of Phil Knight reminded me of how important is to be young, impudent and taking no for an answer. Because that is the only moment when you will believe that you can change things. Without sufficient expertise and a massive portion ov naivety.

But let’s get back to the other parts of Nike’s story I find interesting. In his 20’ Phil Knight started his business off by trading with Japanese. He had no idea about the language or culture, he even saw Japanese in relation to the second wold war. He though they will be evil men, pulling out the machine guns and what not, but they weren’t.

It reminds me of me, going to Germany. The cultural stereotype of Germany is as follows: harsh, evilly direct people. 😆 But to my surprise (alright I was not even surprised) they weren’t. They were more educated than British (spoke many more foreign languages, mainly English, French, Spanish, even fucking Chinese! etc.). Germany seemed to be working, the houses were all well kept, the streets were clean and in superb condition and all Germans were very open-minded, highly logical, hard working and fair. In Germany they even say: “Die Arbeit ist die Würze des Lebens” (the work is the spice of life). In the other words you cannot become rich without hard-work (adding that you have to work smart and won’t let others to push you around and steal from you). Sadly, I cannot say the same thing about the United Kingdom. Even though the UK won the second wold war, in my opinion they did not win in the long run.

The secret was that Germans weren’t blaming immigrants for their fucked up lives as British did. If British would have acknowledged that their country is not poor because of hard working immigrants (who appeared to be only people working in the UK, at least to me), but because of their own laziness, they would have been able to get over it. 🤷‍♂️ But I guess it is good for all of us they weren’t able to get over it, because it is our chance to become more innovative and take over them. 😁 (Wow, imagine Eastern-Europeans owning a businesses in the UK and employing white British people and blaming them for being lazy and inefficient! Imagine one such Eastern-European swearing: “Fuck! I should have built my factory in Germany, these white people are not working hard enough!!!”). 😃😃😃

In a certain way Phil Knight had similar encounter with Japanese as I had with Germans. He was scarred at first, but then he noticed it was alright. When he stared to business with Japanese, there were no thought on “war” and no hard feelings in general.

What I want to say is that you might be surprised when it comes cultures. Some will fit you better than the others (same as clothes). Some will award you for good intended hard-working behaviour and some will hate you for it (like British). British would like your money, but then they would prefer to keep your mouth shut and won’t bother them. Well, they do not exactly hate people, they tolerate them. I’m not sure, if I can even blame them for that as it is their inherent cultural nature. But my advice is that if you are a hardworking person, go to the US, Canada (Canadians love innovation and have nothing against immigrants) or Germany, you have far better chances of succeeding there than in the UK. Alright, enough of my cultural rant, I like to take a piss out of the British whenever I can so they can actually improve the state of their affairs. 🤨

I even honestly liked Phil Knight’s connection to Japan and Zen Buddhism. 🧘‍♂️🌱☸️ I also think that you cannot master the world until you are going to master yourself. This book was rich on quotes and I have fallen in love with many of them:

“A man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Confucius - in the other words, patience and persistence are really important factors on the way to success.

”You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.” Buddha - I see there the flow, the believing in yourself and the ultimate consonance with the path you have chosen. 

Another big surprise for me was that Phil Knight was accountant by trade who worked for PwC. As he mentioned, this experience taught him a lot about companies. What made them to fail and succeed. I think this experience might have prove to be invaluable while founding Nike. Although Nike was not “founded” as a one step intentional act, it ensued and slowly added up like a snowball. As the matter of fact, there is a moment when Nike was born. It all started with research paper at Stanford university about import of cheap Japanese shoes.

I’m sure many of you have seen The Pulp Fiction. There is a scene Butch (starring as Bruce Willis) says: “I'm an American, our names don't mean shit.” Phil Knight wend by the name Buck, even though he was called Phil. Going by my standards, Phil sounds way better than Buck, but whatever, 💁‍♂️ Americans. 😂😂😂

I also dare to say that Phil Knight was not as successful father as he was a successful businessman. Well, we cannot have it all.

Shoe Dog?

You are also going to wonder what or who a Shoe Dog is. Those are people who are in shoe business for a very long time and know it in and out.

Final note:

Also, I would like to complain to Nike! I wanted to buy a pair of Nike made out of recycled materials and those motherfuckers are charing 140 EUR for them! That is fucking day-light robbery! Since when are shoes makes out of recycled material costing more than those out of non-recycled materials? 😐😑😐😑 How is the world supposed to get better when recycled shoes cost more than those made out of brand new materials from China? 🤔

Favourite quotes and lessons they can teach us:

 

Do you want to change? You have to work for it:

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

The only mystery of a good salesman:

“Believe is irresistible. People buying from me wanting some of that believe for themselves.“

Forget the competition:

“The art of competing is the art of forgetting. You must forget your limits, doubts, pain and the past. Only then you can win.”

If you are about to lose, at least don’t give them the victory for free: 

“Pre was most famous for saying, “Somebody may beat me—but they’re going to have to bleed to do it.” ”

It is important to know when to give up, but it also means to never stop:

“Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop”

The reason why I started the kaisersbook.review/?

“The best way to reinforce your memories is to share them.”

“Fortune favours the brave.”

Conclusion:

Just read it…

My final words:

“Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

👉 Buy this book! 👈 through my link and help me build this website! 😊

Feel free to like, share and comment or recommend books you find inspirational yourself. I’m keen to hear about them.

Coming Up Next: 

Masterclass John Kabat-Zinn teaches mediation

Peace 🧘‍♂️✌️🌱