The book Shoe dog is Phil Knight’s autobiography and the story of the creation of Nike. At the very start Phil Knight takes a backpack trip around the world. Phil finds himself in Japan where he meets his first Shoe supplier Onitsuka. His very first job was selling running shoes from a company named Tiger. Phil didn’t think of himself of a very good salesman, so he hired Johnson. Johnson was a passionate person who loved to run and loved shoes.

Phil and Blue ribbon had many issues to start out with one being the falling out with the company Tiger. Tiger breached their contract agreement and were starting to work with other competitors, thus not providing Blue ribbon to be their exclusive distributor in the U.S.

Phil and the rest of the people came up with the name Nike from a dream Johnson had once. Nike was exceeding all expectations in sales but did not have any cash on hand and were constantly going from bank to bank. Phil had many chances to just call it quits, but his persistence and vision kept him going. Eventually having to go public was the right call. Nike is now one of the biggest companies on the planet and was started with one man’s passion for running and shoe’s

The book had a lot of new information about the complications early on with starting a business. I think most of the people would have given up if they were in Phil’s position. Learn to trust those you work with. It’s the small thing you do right that makes a big difference. What motivates us? Work for what we love. Want to make a difference.

Phil had a burning passion to make Nike happen, it might have been because of his fathers doubt’s or he just wanted to prove to himself and to the world that he could make something magnificent happen. Thank god he did. I think everyone who reads this book got a new understanding of big companies and how their actually formed. That they are not made over night, that they require constant and seemingly endless hours of work. It is not a job that you could work from nine to five, no it is constant. If we really want to make something happen we will have to jump of the high dive. Delve deeper than we are comfortable with. I will say this it isn’t easy finding something you would be this passionate about, but we should all start looking now.