Shoe Dog – By Phil Knight

I love reading but it seems like the Pro’s read great books, and also do great at recapping them and summarizing them.

One idea I have always had floating around in my mind is could I review great art, books, movies, etc. but also do a 1 Sentence Review that would last over time.

So since Shoe Dog was in my top 3 for last year I figured I would give it a whirl:

1 Sentence Review:

“Hire great people, who will tell the truth, and keep going … no matter what business or life throws at you.”

Overall an amazing book. Even though it focused so much on the origin story and much less on the big Nike explosion and the Jordan years that I was looking forward to, it was still amazing.

I read during a time when I personally and financially was going though a rough time, so the idea that even the great Phil Knight made mistakes and almost went under over and over again … and dare I say made a lot of it up as he went along, was pretty amazing to hear.

The stories about his trips to Japan, his obsession over quality and honor and truth telling, and his reliance on some amazing people, all seemed to be timeless business lessons. Of course there is some confirmation bias, you don’t often hear stories about the companies that actually did go bankrupt after 3 or 4 tries, and like Apollo 13 you kind of know how the story ends … (hint: he wins) … but even so the writing style and story telling is top notch.

Keep going …