# Shoe Dog

**Published by:** [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/)
**Published on:** 2023-01-02
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/shoe-dog

## Content

I wouldn’t call it a great piece of American literature. However, I would call it a great piece of American entrepreneurial literature. Shoe Dog is the story of Nike founder, Phil Knight, and his road to success. It’s easy, at this stage of the game, when he is worth north of $10 billion dollars to think one thing about him. What’s not as easy to do is to recognize and appreciate all of the hardships, sacrifices, hustle, and tough decisions he made along the way. There were some grueling moments. But, in this respect, Shoe Dog is like so many other start-up success stories and, like each of them, they provide a humble reminder that in order to get to the mountaintop, there’s a lot of sweat, blood, and tears along the way. I also enjoyed hearing his thoughts about how he intentionally and unintentionally led Nike (which started as Blue Ribbon) from a shoe company into the proverbial lifestyle brand that it is today. I think it was in the recognition about what he was selling. For me, one of the most powerful paragraphs was this one:“This, I decided, this is what sports are, what they can do. Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.”He hit on the emotion that drives the athlete-his actual customer. I think that’s the epic challenge of marketing. You need a great product (or service) and Knight made sure of that. But that’s not enough. We know that the best technology and the best product don’t always win. Understanding what the emotion is that is really, genuinely motivating someone to make a purchase or an investment and then talking to it in an authentic way. That’s the goal. Easier said than done, of course.

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