Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, is a book telling the early days of Nike retold by Mr. Knight. How he traveled the world, the challenges he faced in the beginning with Nike and even opening up about losing his son.

This is the first book I listened to on Audible this year. I wanted to meet my goal of reading 24 books and it was March when I realized I only had read 3. I have been wanting to read this book because of the huge cultural importance that Nike has had, at least in my world.

Shoe Dog is a very easy listen/read. He breaks it down his chapters by year and goes through highlighting the most important aspects of each year.

Listening to his struggles about finding at what to do after graduating resonated with me. I remember really struggling during that time of my life. What’s important is that he remained open to trying different things. What I really admired was that he took a long trip around the world. Being able to just go with little planning is something that has always been on my bucket list. He traveled and told stories of most of the places he visited and even throughout the book, he would tie things back to what he remembered on his trip.

What really hit home was when he talked about losing his son. The pain that he felt and how he recovered from that loss. What I really took away from him sharing was that, he relied on the people in his life to help lift him up. That the words and actions of those around him helped get him through this troubling time. He also chose to think of his son died without pain and that he was alright. It is a very tough decision to make, but something that I truly appreciated him sharing.

My biggest takeaway from Shoe Dog is, that you need to take risks. There were many parts of the book where he told stories about taking risk for his business. Showing up to Onitsuka Tiger to try to become a distributor. Running his business on razor thin cash reserves for years before opening it up to take on investors. Even to changing the name of Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike. He isn’t afraid to take risks, even if he has people telling him otherwise. Sometimes playing it safe is not the best option. You need to trust in your vision that it will succeed. There is no doubt that he knew for a fact that Nike would be a gigantic company.

I’d give Shoe Dog a Must Read rating and a 4.5/5.