👟 Run, run and keep running! (Book review: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight)

👟 What is Shoe Dog?

It's a business book. It's a biography. It's a memoir. Shoe Dog is all of the above, but none of them fully.

But you know what it is? To me, it felt like sitting down next to Uncle Phil near the fireplace and listen to his stories. And boy, he has many 🔥.

(disclaimer: I will call Knight, uncle Phil for the rest of the review 😇)

🏃 What did I read about?

I found the book to have two sides.

First, Uncle Phil tells us about his life. He tells, how he grew up, how running became important to him. He tells us about selling shoes, about his aspiration to make them better. Not just shoes, but a better running experience t more people. He tells us about his parents, his love, his family and his team.

Second, we follow the creation of Nike all the way from the beginning. It gave an insight into the various battles Nike had to fight to become what it is today. Legal battles with the competitors, manufacturers, or the parent company. Financial battles of achieving sales targets, requesting loans, or paying shareholders. Personal battles (my personal favourite), such as disagreements or even betrayals. It’s insane how tough the road was and how they won so many battles.

🏆 Verdict

Uncle Phil writes in an incredibly honest and authentic way. I genuinely felt like I’m sitting next to him and just listen to him telling stories about his past. He’s open about his failures. The mistakes and the sacrifices it took for Nike to survive. It closes with genuine advice and self-reflection.

I particularly found it fascinating how people-centric the stories were. While he follows a chronological timeline, it is quite clear how the focus of each chapter is usually on particularly people who shaped a part of his life.

Lastly, Uncle Phil is gifted with incredible storytelling abilities! Like a good uncle. The book is really entertaining, emotional and truly makes you think.

5/5

📖 If you read only one chapter...

If you read only one chapter, read the last one. He highlights key learnings and gives valuable advice, truly coming from the heart.

🧠 Some takeaways

Hustle overrides talent. Uncle Phil was not a particularly talented runner. He didn’t go the Harvard Business School and his family wasn’t particularly wealthy. But man, when it came to hustling. He flew to Japan and back, he sold shoes like a MF and pushed his ideas to the edge. It’s truly inspiring to know that one doesn’t have to be the best talent in a field to create something meaningful. It comes down to execution and hustle.

A great team is above all. Nike wouldn’t exist without the team Uncle Phil had. He had a wide spectrum of people: shoe-designers, poor salesmen, corporate lawyers.... so many different talents, so many different personalities. Yet, Uncle Phil set the vision and guided his team along the way. What was truly inspiring was how he was driven from an empowerment-based leadership: instead of telling them what to do, he just set the vision and let the others execute the way they liked. This freedom went to the extent that sometimes he didn't even respond to the reports. How inspiring?:-)

An honest vision to believe in. We are in the 60s-70s. If you would have told people that there would be a world where everyone was running, people would have laughed at you. For sure. Because that's what happened to Uncle Phil. Yet one key to the success of Nike was his belief in sports and in running. He knew the time would come when people would start jogging and he needed to deliver shoes to do that. Look at the world now. It’s 2020, and in the world of COVID-19 quarantinem there is literally nothing else to do but to run 😂 He trusted that vision and persisted to fight through. And that's what was needed for Nike.

In the end, relationships matter. A message from the heart. By the time he left, Uncle Phil made one point clear: it’s not about business. In the end, the revenues, the cash flow, the corporate footprint weren't the things that truly mattered. Looking back Knight cherishes the moments he spent with Tiger Woods. How they discovered LeBron when he was a rookie. Sitting on the front row of Michael Jordan's father's funeral. Spending time with his son, Matthew. For him and for every one of us: these are the real moments we have to cherish. Quality time with people we admire. Because in the end, that’s what truly matters.

Vietnam Wars. To close, I wanted to mention a story that particularly hit home for me. Uncle Phil Knight had always been vocal against the Vietnam War. Haunted by it, he made a vow: someday Nike would have a factory in or near Saigon. By 1997 (by the time I was born), they had four. Four! He was even invited by the Vietnamese government to meet General Vo Nguyen Giap, arguably the greatest military leader of the country, who defeated the Japanese, the French, the Americans, and the Chinese.

Sitting next to each other Uncle Phil opened with this question: "How did you do it?". The general thought. And thought. "I was," he said, "a professor of the jungle". With that, they understood each other. While fighting different wars, they both knew how to fight for survival, believe and lead.

And this is what he advises all of us to do: "to work and study, study and work, hard as we can. Put another way: We must all be professors of the jungle"