All the great athletes showed us what man is capable of when he has clear goals in life. Proof of this is Michael Phelps, who won 5 gold medals in the last Olympic games in which he participated (for a total of 23).
Seeing him receive his medals, he kept thinking about Nike, the brand that sponsored him; because he knew that Nike started out selling running shoes and seeing that they had expanded beyond his original idea made me want to know more.
Phil Knight, its creator, launched a book entitled The Shoe Dog in which he recounts his journey from the moment he came up with an idea, until in 1980 Nike’s actions were made public. Currently, Phil occupies the #27 box of the richest men in the world with a fortune of 47 billion dollars according to Forbes (September 2022), he is 83 years old and is president emeritus of Nike. What can we learn from his story?
Lessons from Phil Knight, the creator of Nike.
1. It doesn’t matter how others see you.
At the age of 24, Phil loved to run, he was trained by Bill Bowerman (coach of Olympic medalists) but his level was not that high, so he decided to focus on his career. While doing his MBA, he wrote a business plan for an entrepreneurship class, which was based on importing running shoes from Japan; in order to compete with the brand that had the market at that time: Adidas.
Roughly speaking, a studied person would become a shoe salesman. How would others view this? Phil didn’t care! After traveling to Japan and making a deposit of $1,000, he received some samples that he started selling out of the trunk of his car. In turn, he sent a few pairs to his former trainer, Bill Bowerman, who offered to partner to invest and provide ideas for improving the product; thanks to this, in 1964 Blue Ribbon Sports was born.
2. The entrance to the hall of fame is through the alley of failures.
Not everything was rosy. Before going public, Blue Ribbon Sports (later Nike) was constantly in debt, and the fact that Phil’s classmates had great jobs and promising careers didn’t help morale. Phil knew that if he was going to fail he had to do it fast to learn from his mistakes and move on; that mindset allowed him to take action beyond his fears. He points out that there were many opportunities that he missed and bad decisions that he made, but that allowed him to achieve success.
3. His passion was not money.
Phil understood that money was necessary to sustain the business, but he also knew that chasing after money was not his goal. He and his work group were looking for something that would make history, to offer the public better and better products, to innovate, to offer quality.
At one point in the story, Phil recounts that a young entrepreneur approached him with a “crazy idea”: put airbags in shoes. Upon learning that no other competing brand agreed to change their models so drastically, he did not hesitate to incorporate the idea and that was the origin of the ‘Nike Air’ technology.
Nike is one of the most recognized brands by all, has more than 60,000 employees and has a market value of more than 100 billion dollars. Are you going to keep fighting for what you want? We hope these Phil Knight teachings motivate you 🙂
And remember that if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can purchase our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
