The Good and the Bad from Phil Knight

Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives Friday Edition where I share insights from the brightest minds in business and life and how I'm applying them to my life.

The Ironman 70.3 training is next level.

My workouts this week:

• Biking: 6 hours and ~85 miles

• Running: 3.5 hours and ~26 miles

• Swimming: 2.5 hours and ~4 miles

That’s a lot of time to think, jam to music, or learn from an audiobook.

I started listening Phil Knight’s memoir, Shoe Dog and flew through it.

Not only was this book a great example of storytelling, it provided many insightful lessons.

Building a $150B Company from Scratch

Nike is everywhere.

A global brand repped by the best athletes in the world. Chances are everyone reading this owns something from Nike. However, it wasn’t always like that. They weren’t even called Nike until 10 years into its existence.

Phil Knight is many things. Entrepreneur. Visionary leader. Innovator. Father and husband. Friend. Trailblazer. Adventurer. Philanthropist.

His unique skillset and goals led him to turning Nike into what it is today. But this book is not just about how an entrepreneur can build a successful business. There is more nuance than that.

My values, my goals, and my skills are different from Phil’s. With that in mind, I summarized my lessons learned into two categories:

The Good: what I want to incorporate into my life and business

The Bad: what worked for Phil, but I don’t think will work for me

The Good

1. Surround myself with good people

The leadership team at Nike had great comradery and a strong sense of purpose.

They called themselves ‘The Butt Faces’. Clearly, this was not a typical corporate executive team. They were a cohesive team that brought different skillsets and perspectives. And most importantly they had fun.

Every year, they would go on retreats in the woods to strategize and solve Nike’s pressing issues. They would scream and shout. No idea or suggestion was off limits. They never judged one another and they stayed for however long it took to identify the path forward.

Phil referring to the Butt Faces said “Everyone was the smartest guy in the room, but nobody acted like it or thought of themselves that way”.

That sense of togetherness and humility is what I want in my future business partners.

2. Maintain the underdog mentality 

Maybe it was great storytelling but throughout the entire book, Phil made me feel like Nike was always a day away from going bankrupt.

The odds seemed to always be stacked against them for 20 straight years, even when they were making millions of dollars and closing huge endorsement deals. Between competitors, law suits, manufacturing issues, or not being able to pay the bank on time, this multi-million dollar company was always struggling and nobody believed in them.

I loved the underdog mentality from my basketball career and continue to feel like I’ve always got something to prove.

The book ends in 1980, so I wonder if there was a turning point when Nike became so dominate that Phil no longer saw them as an underdog?

3. Be open to adventure and different cultures

In 1962, at 24 years old, Phil borrowed $1k dollars from his dad to explore the world.

He visited Hawaii, Japan, Philippines, Greece, Italy, Africa, and more. It was on that trip that he met Japanese shoe manufacturers for the first time and started his shoe company, Blue Ribbon.

Over the next several decades, Phil became a trailblazer conducting business overseas with Japan, Taiwan, and eventually China.

He learned how to work with people from different cultures. He found local experts to help navigate the complexities of international business. He found inspiration in Greece from the Greek Goddess Nike.

I resonate a lot with Phil’s sense of adventure and world travels. There is so much to learn from other cultures that I know travel will be incorporated into my future business ventures in some way.

The Bad

1. Prioritizing business over family

Phil admits to not being there for his family.

His love for sports made his kids hate sports. They saw sports take their father away and distract him. Phil regrets not spending more time with his sons, especially the one who unfortunately died in a scuba diving accident.

Family is important to me.

I want to play a significant role in raising my kids. This is where goals come into plan. For Nike to become the biggest sports apparel company, Phil had to devote his entire life to it.

I don’t want to become the biggest anything. I want to build a business that sustains my family’s lifestyle.

2. Gotta be the best

Phil had a large ego.

He got upset when people wore competitors shoes around him. He even ruined one of his closest relationships with a member of the Butt Faces. Strasser quit after a disagreement on the company dress code. He then went to work for Adidas and Phil never forgave him for it.

I’m all about being competitive and wanting to win. But I want to be realistic with expectations and have compassion for people’s circumstances.

3. Obsession

Nike became Phil’s life.

He wanted every person walking down the street to be wearing a pair of Nikes. To make that happen, he was thinking about Nike 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

How could they improve the sole of the shoe? How would they break into the Chinese market? Who was the next rising star they should sponsor?

I want more balance in my life.

I want to be passionate about my work, but I don't want to be obsessed with it. I think obsession is what it takes to create the world changing brands but I don't want that.

Final Thoughts

It’s important to know the game I’m playing.

Phil wanted to give everyone from Olympic Champions to average athletes the best shoes on earth. To change the way Americans did business abroad. To provide thousands of jobs. Phil wanted Nike to change the world.

That's not the game every entrepreneur is playing.

I want to build a business that makes a narrow, but significant impact.

Whether it’s my 20 ghostwriting clients, the several apartment buildings I own, the 30 employees of my various businesses. I want to make an impact on those people's lives and help them succeed.

That is what I'm after…not walking down the street hoping everyone I see lives in an apartment building I own or is a client of one of my companies.

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew