Shoe Dog By Phil Knight Book Review — Ganiyat Ogundele
Phil Knight’s autobiography, Shoe Dog, is an insightful memoir of a journey of success that carefully and thoroughly described the emergence of the brand ‘Nike’, a Shoe company birthed in 1980 in Oregon United State of America. Phil Knight’s intelligence and assiduousness has impacted greatly, the world market today. The “crazy idea” Knight experimented has created one of the biggest shoe markets in the world from athletic sports wears to accessories and garments.
This young individual at the prime age of 24 was a certified accountant before veering into the shoe-making business. He traveled the length and breadth of the world on self-rediscovery in order to build a solid platform for his business in collaboration with his friend and high school coach Bill Bowerman, whose instincts and creative mind help nurture the dream.
Each chapter of the book impactfully described a young man’s quest and yearning to discover the real out of the unreal, damning all consequences to stand out of the ordinary world of entrepreneurship business. Phil’s zeal to be successful helps to reaffirm the need to be consistent, focused and passionate about one’s dream out of the many possibilities life throws at us.
The careful selection of words — metaphoric descriptions — helps one to understand his stand point in daring the unexpected. His love for family values and relationships are emphasized in this autobiography. The trials, betrayals and victories make us appreciate these affirmations.
‘Don’t tell people how to do it, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results,’ this posit helped Phil Knight achieve great success. We could understand that in achieving success a lot also suffers especially family: he felt he could have done better to bond well with his sons but the desire to be a success carried too much weight that had he shuddered, it could have been disastrous.
Today a dream born out of tough circumstances and great hardwork has become one of the biggest brands in the world with net worth of $34 billion (2019). Despite all that, Knight sees the world as “the same as it had always been.”
This book is a must read for would-be entrepreneurs hoping to build a platform of success. The many disadvantages and advantages of this success story could be traced to this memoir, well detailed and laced with words of endearment. Phil Knight’s business decisions and partnership structure helped build the company faster than he imagined it to be. Phil is an astute businessman and a great team player: we could see how his ‘congenitally devoted’ friends -Woodle, Johnson, Strasser and some others stood by and benefited greatly for their immense contribution to building this empire of success which we greatly admire today.
I would like to conclude with a quote from Phil in the book and it goes thus, “you are remembered for the rule you break” -page 300.
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