13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

1)     What surprised you most?

            Knight was so unprepared to start a business. Let alone one that did business internationally. I remember reading the story and seeing him travel the world after university and then just make an appointment with Tiger to discuss selling shoes through his nonexistent stateside business. It was rash, impetuous, petulant, even. But he did it. 

What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? 

            Knight had a thing for not simply getting the right people onboard, but also, and perhaps more importantly, seeing where they belong in the business over time. This ties into how he treated his employees. Remember the endless letters from Johnson? Some leaders might have held his hand in response and walked him through every step of the business, as Johnson seemed to have wanted (or at least Johnson wanted someone to talk to about the business). But instead what he got was the spirit of Bowerman through Phil Knight. “ Something about his neediness made me not want to encourage him.”

            What I really admired about Phil was his ability to keep running in the midst of adversity. Remember the million dollar tax bill? Kept running. The death or Pre. Kept running. I’ve heard it said that runners are, in fact, running from things in their life. If that’s so I I would say that Knight spent his life running from losing. “I wanted to win. No, that’s not right. I simply didn’t want to lose.”

 It’s difficult for me to identify anything about the author that I didn’t admire. If anything, it was his keen ability to write. It made me a bit jealous! I kept wondering if he had had a ghost writer for the book.

2)     As state above, Knight’s ability to pick people who are winners is one of his greatest strengths in my opinion. Recall that if someone had enough sense to push through a specialized field like accounting or law, it didn’t matter that they didn’t have background in shoe sales. Knight new the type of person that he could rely on was someone who is not afraid of jumping in, learning on the go, and putting in the effort. 

3)     Knight’s insistence on running his business cash poor was sad and confusing to me. I can’t knock him since he took the business and made it into one of the world’s top brands. Being a student of Dave Ramsey’s principles I found it difficult to see someone operate in such a manner. 

4)     I’d want to know just how much importance Nike is and was to him. I would ask if he could go back in time and spend more time with his family, focused time, would he do it? Why? Because being in his shoes, you find yourself the leader of an industry which left lots of time where his family was without him. Compare his life to that of a blue-collar worker who gets to spend nights and weekends home. The family life is likely different.

Again, if he could go back, would he choose the life of a Hawaiian, selling mutual funds and living in paradise instead of scratching and fighting and clawing his way to the top of the shoe industry?

5)     I would say he was no stranger to putting in the effort and time. And he even saw hard work as he toured the dank and dingy warehouses in Asia. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Phil Knight was comfortable with hard work. Running is different than work, in my eyes. While never stated in the book, it seems like the closest he ever got to hard work was, in fact, running. I don’t share that same worldview, if it’s even accurate. My life experience has helped me to enjoy work.  In his own words: “What I wanted my life to be. Play.”

I read in a Studs Terkel interview someone saying that “Work is a form of worship.”

Knight would agree on page 34 when he quips, “[W]ork is the holiest part of us. 

Some of my favorite quotes:

A tiger hunts best when he’s hungry. P45

Happiness can be dangerous. It dulls the senses. P58

Something about his neediness made me not want to encourage him. P74 Talking about Johnson.

My psyche was in true harmony when I had a mix of alone time and team time. P132

No matter the sport—no matter the human endeavor, really—total effort will win people’s hearts. P210

You are remembered for the rules you break. P228

He had forgiven me my sins, including my secret factory. “There are worse things,” he said, “than ambition.” P271