Shoe Dog - Phil Knight

Opening Quote:

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”

—Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

One of the best books I’ve read in recent years. Phil takes us on an autobiographical journey of personal and professional growth. The first chapter “Dawn” introduces Phil Knight’s Crazy Idea: to import high-quality, low cost shoes from Asia and sell them in the US—an idea he, an avid runner, presented to his business class at Stanford. The next 19 chapters are arranged annually—1962 through 1980—revealing a play-by-play on how his Crazy Idea grew into the world’s most successful athletic & lifestyle brand, Nike Inc. with a market cap of $98B and annual revenue of $34B as of May 2017.

All action items from this book:

  • People

  • Skills

    • Talk less. Heroes don’t need to say much. None are blabbermouths. None micromanaged.

    • Research: what is the best book on negotiation tactics?

    • Communication learning from Phil Knight: in business, when in doubt, SPEAK LESS

  • Books

    • Find and buy the top book on the warrior mentality. This could help build confidence and assertiveness.

    • Read a book about war

      • Buy book The Book of Five Rings

    • Buy Churchill’s book My Early Years

Chapter: 1962

Action items


Quotes

  • Phil pumping himself up before his first big meeting: “You are capable. You are confident. You can do this. You can DO this.”

  • “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”  - Confucius

  • “You are remembered by the rules you break.” - General MacArthur

  • “Don’t go to sleep one night. What you most want will come to you then.”  - Rumi

  • “Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”  - MacArthur

Notes

  • When Phil meets with the Importer in Tokyo he already knew what he liked and wanted: “I told them I liked Tiger, a nifty brand manufactured by Onitsuka Co., down in Kobe, the largest city in southern Japan.”—this is important because he had done the research ahead of time and knew what to ask, who to meet with.

  • The word “tycoon” comes from taikun, Japanese for warlord.

  • Phil makes up a company he doesn’t even have: “Gentlemen, I represent Blue Ribbon Sports of Portland, Oregon” and appeals to their self-interest: “it could be a hugely profitable venture.”

  • Visited Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok

  • After the shoe meeting, Phil travelled solo to Bangkok, Vietnam, Calcutta, Himalayas, Bombay, Kenya, Cairo, Jerusalem, Instanbul, Rome, Milan, Venice, Paris, Munich, Vienna, London, and—quite momentously—Greece.

  • There’s a crucial moment on the trip where Phil is visiting the Acropolis. He’s walking up the steps and sees the Parthenon to his left (which Plato had watched the teams of architects and workmen build) and the Temple of Athena Nike on his right. In this moment, you can sense destiny calling.

  • Phil returns from his worldly trip on his 25th birthday.

Chapter: 1963

Notes

  • Phil’s dad introduces him to Don Frisbee, CEO of Pacific Power & Electric, later the CEO of the NYSE. Don tells Phil to get his CPA to set a floor on his earnings, so Phil enrolls at Portland State. Later joins Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery accounting firm, buys a Plymouth Valiant.

  • All of the fantastic literary references throughout the book now all make sense: Phil was a journalism major at University of Oregon (‘59)

Chapter: 1964

Quotes

  • “Poverty was one of the few things they had in common.” - referring to Bill & Lota Knight.

Notes

  • Shoes arrive from Onitsuka; we get introduced to Bill Bowerman and his unique genius

  • “Lightness was the constant goal” - referring to their strategy for competitive advantage.

  • Phil Knight reveals how he craved the approval of 1) his father Bill, and 2) his coach Bill. Both were reticent and seldom gave praise, i.e. “both cryptic, both alpha, both inscrutable”.

  • Over hamburgers, Bowerman expresses interest in the deal: 50/50. Bowerman puts up ½ the first shoe payment for $500.

  • Really cool moment: Mom buys a pair of Limber Ups. “It never failed to move me, the sight of her standing at the stove or the kitchen sink, cooking dinner or washing dishes in a pair of Japanese running shoes, size 6.

  • First order: 300 shoes for $1,000—so his COGS is $3.33 per shoe.

  • That Spring, Phil quits his job and begins to sell shoes out of the trunk of his Valiant at track meets (he goes to his customers)

  • First bank loan which father guaranteed: First National Bank of Oregon.

  • First legal issue: a cease and desist from an east coast competitor who claims exclusivity

  • Phil flies to Japan, earns their trust and the right to have West Coast, and then celebrates by climbing Mount Fuji (at night to watch the sunrise)

Chapter: 1965

Quotes

  • “Life is growth. Business is growth. You grow or you die.” - Phil Knight

  • “Such loyalty, such unreasonable and unwarranted fealty—that might have been the moment I fell in love with Hayes.” 

Notes

  • First employee: Jeff Johnson. Sales. Commission of $1.75 per shoe he sells. Phil likes that he’d always seemed somewhat misanthropic

  • Phil meanwhile took a job at Price Waterhouse where he got a front row seat into what makes a business succeed: “I learned that lack of equity was a leading cause of failure.” aka cash. 

  • He meets Delbert Hayes, the best accountant who becomes his drinking buddy.

  • Meanwhile, Knight is still in the Army Reserves (7 year commitment)

  • Design inspiration had come to Mr. Onitsuka while eating sushi: the underside of an octopus’s leg gave him the idea for the Tiger soles. “Inspiration, Bowerman, learned, can come from quotidian things.”

  • Bowerman mentioned he’s writing a book about jogging.

Chapter: 1966

Action items:

  • Learn about Knight’s three heroes: Churchill, Kennedy, and Tolstoy

  • Find and buy the top book on the warrior mentality. This could help with your confidence and assertiveness.

  • Talk less. Heroes don’t need to say much. None are blabbermouths. None micromanaged.

Quotes

  • “Business is war without bullets.”

Notes

  • Hemingway’s cardinal virtue: pressurized grace. Hemingway actually wrote most of A Moveable Feast while gazing at a statue of Marshal Ney, Napoleon’s favorite commander.

  • Phil deeply embodies the FAIL FAST mentality. “I wasn’t much for setting goals, but this goal kept flashing through my mind every day until it became an internal chant: Fail fast.”

  • Johnson hits sales number (3,250 pairs of Tigers) so they open their first retail store in Santa Monica

  • Phil bullshits his way in Japan into a national distribution contract by saying he has offices on the East Coast and soon Midwest (which he absolutely does not). Amazing. Fake it ‘til you make it, I suppose.

Chapter: 1967

Action items:

  • Communication learning from Phil Knight: in business, when in doubt, SPEAK LESS

Quotes

  • “Men of Oregon take care of their own. Fortunately, loyalty aside, we hit it off.”

Notes

  • p. 105 - they decide to open their second retail location: Boston, MA. Johnson leads the charge.

  • New word, mollify, means to appease

  • Idiom, “brass tacks”, means to engage with the basic facts and realities. Comes from hardware or draper’s shops where they’d use brass tacks to measure out a yard of fabric with specificity

  • Employee #3: Geoff Hollister. Employee #4: Bob Woodell.

  • When Adidas threatened to sue them for infringement because of Onitsuka’s shoe name “Aztec” (Adidas had a shoe named “Azteca Gold”), Bowerman said, “Who was that guy who kicked the shit out of the Aztecs?” Phil responds “Cortez”. So they named the shoe Cortez.

  • What motivates Phil Knight most? Competition. Fear of losing. Not winning.

  • Bowerman publishes a book Jogging that’s 100 pages long

  • Sales revenue this year: $84,000

  • Office rent was $600/yr or ~0.71% of revenue; they’re keeping overhead LOW

Chapter: 1968

Quotes

  • “I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to Blue Ribbon. I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered.”

  • “If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play.”

  • “The single easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.”

  • “My psyche was in true harmony when I had a mix of alone time and team time. Exactly what I had now.”

  • [at his wedding] “Once again I’m telling a roomful of people that something is possible, that something can be successful, when in fact I don’t really know.” I’m speaking from theory, faith, and bluster, like every groom.”

Notes

  • Blue Ribbon, at this point, is one track to double sales for the fifth straight year.

  • Phil decides to teach at Portland State despite his father’s disapproval.

  • He meets Penelope Parks (like the faithful wife of world traveling Odysseus). Hire her. She’s really good at accounting with a “blithe spirit”

  • Phil Knight was also an Eagle Scout but doesn’t talk about it much

  • “Can you handle arranging a wedding by yourself while I’m gone?”

    • Wedding ring: $500, emerald

  • Phil gets invited to an Onitsuka company picnic on Awaji, a tiny island off Kobe.

  • When Phil returned to the US, one of the first things I did after landing was put $50 in an envelope and airmail it to Fujimoto. “For a new bicycle, my friend.” 

  • Revenue = $150k

Chapter: 1969

Quotes

  • “Right before my 31st birthday I made a bold move. I quit Portland State and went full-time at my company, paying myself a fairly generous $18k per year.”

Notes

  • On track to hit $300k in revenue in 1969

  • Sales commission was $2 a pair

  • Awesome: during his last week at Portland State, he sees a group of young women talking, one of whom said she couldn’t afford to take an oil painting class. “My company needs someone to do advertising.” Carolyn Davidson.

  • Black Panthers at 1969 Olympics

  • The world’s two biggest shoe companies at the time—Puma and Adidas—were run by two German brothers who despised each other.

  • Blue Ribbon is still cash poor and can’t afford endorsement deals

  • At this stage they are 40 employees

  • First home: 1600 sq-ft, $34k, $7k down

  • Penny is pregnant and still working full time

  • Knight would time Woodell on a stopwatch on how fast he could get out of the wheelchair and into the car (record: 44 seconds)

  • Routine: Penny and Phil would host Woodell at dinner. Phil’s biggest regret is he wished he’d have a tape recorder or kept a journal (as he did on his trip around the world)

  • 4 mile relay time (from keith Forman): 16:08:9

Chapter: 1970

Quotes

  • “Yes, I thought. Confidence. More than equity, more than liquidity, that’s what a man needs.”

Notes

  • By comparison, in 1970 Onitsuka’s revenue is $20M

  • Blue Ribbon revenue = $600k. Asks for $1.2M credit line

  • 70% of all American runners owned a pair of Tigers

  • Bowerman’s Cortez shoes are flying off the rack

  • IPO considerations:

    • Sell 30% of the company for $300k

    • Valuation: $1M @ 1.6 multiple @ $2/share

  • To attract “tech happy” VC investors, Phil created a holding company in 1970 called “Sports-Tek Inc”

  • The Woodells loan Blue Ribbon $8,000 (their savings). Amazing show of trust.

  • Phil puts on weight and doesn’t take care of his body. Disgust sets in “I didn’t want to be the fat, flabby, sedentary head of a running-shoe company.”

    • Habit: run 6 miles after work. Phil drops 30 lbs in a summer

  • Enter Steve Prefontaine.

    • He ran 3 miles in 13:12.8 which in 1970 was faster than anyone, anywhere, on Earth

  • One of Prefontaine’s special qualities was CONFIDENCE.

  • Phil needs capital to finance his company so he looks around

    • Notices a building in Portland, OR: Nissho Iwai. A $100B company.

    • Also: Bank of Tokyo

    • Does a deal with Nissho Iwai. These are effectively Japanese trading companies.

Chapter: 1971

Action items:

  • Buy book The Book of Five Rings

Quotes

  • [advice from Chuck Robinson, Jaqua’s brother-in-law] “If the Japanese trading company understands the rules from the first day they will be the best partners you’ll ever have.”

Notes

  • Onitsuka attempts a hostile takeover and asks Phil to sell a 51% stake of company

  • First National pulls credit, Bank of California helps

  • Blue Ribbon Revenue = $1.3M

  • Sets up meetings with backup manufacturers as a plan B in mexico

  • Carolyn Davidson designed the Swoosh logo. They pay here $35 and send her on her way.

  • Sumeragi at Nissho introduces them to a disciple of Jonas Senter, a real shoe dog

  • Sumeragi agrees to a deal, taking 4% off the top as a markup on product, and market interest rates on top of that.

  • Observation on Phil Knight: he gets notified that the shoes had arrived at Nissho on Sunday, but the office was closed. He is extremely action oriented, in this regard.

  • Reference: Coleridge writing Kubla Khan in an opium daze

  • Bowerman’s inspiration from the waffle sole shoe came during breakfast with his wife while looking at the waffle iron

    • Bowerman tinkers, fails, tinkers, fails, tinkers, kinda succeeds and they send a sample to Japan (NIppon Rubber)

Chapter: 1972

Quotes

  • “No matter the sport—no matter the human endeavor, really—total effort will win people’s hearts.”


Notes

  • To differentiate the Nike brand, Phil asked Nippon Rubber to make bright orange boxes for the shoes. (In those days shoe boxes were either white or blue)

  • Moment of truth: can they survive without Tiger? Kitami had forced his way into their stockroom to discover they were selling a competitive brand (Nike) thus violating non-compete and exclusivity. Bork is a traitor and decides to work for Kitami.

  • Nippon Rubber makes the soles/forms

  • Nissho is their bank and distribution partner

  • Revenue = $2M!

  • Phil is challenged, extreme difficulty, and Phil embodies the “wartime CEO” and motivates team

  • Pre takes on Young at Hayward Field, Olympic Trials

  • Israeli hostage crisis @ Olympics (hit Bowerman hard)

  • Nike pays $10k for first endorsement deal: Ilie Nastase

  • They sign the Oregon Ducks!

Chapter: 1973

Action items:

  • Read a book about war

Quotes

  • “Supply and demand is always the root problem in business.”


Notes

  • Nike culture: very little gratitude expressed. No effusiveness. Very little thanks, re: Johnson and Woodell trading locations

  • Revenue = $3.2M; profit = ($57,000)

  • Onitsuka sues Blue Ribbon in Japanese courts

  • On Rob Strasser: “He was one of the greatest thinkers I ever met. Debater, negotiator, talker, seeker—his mind was always whirring, trying to understand. And to conquer. He saw life as a battle and found confirmation for this views in books. Like me, he read compulsively about war. “We are going to win”

  • Revenue = $4.8M

  • Phil’s idea: “Why not go to all of our biggest retailers and tell them that if they’d sign ironclad commitments, if they’d give us large and nonrefundable orders, six months in advance, we’d give them hefty discount up to 7%.”

  • 1973: Phil is 35. CEO. Sales of $4.8M. Meanwhile, his 5-year wedding anniversary. Has his second son, Travis.

Chapter: 1974

Quotes

  • “Get comfortable being in over your head.”

Notes

  • Onitsuka settles for $400k. 50% goes to legal fees

  • Historical context: Nixon cuts the yen loose, let it float. 

    • The head of Sony famously complained, “It’s like playing golf and your handicap changes on every hole.”

  • Phil’s credit card gets declined at a rental car office with Cale. He was mortified. Low moment emotionally.

  • Intro to Bill Giampietro, affectionately called Geppetto

    • Why? Because people think Pinocchio’s father was a cobbler (when in reality, he was a carpenter)

  • Phil taps Jeff Johnson to run the Exeter factory with no experience whatsoever

  • Revenue = tracking to $8M

Chapter: 1975

Quotes

  • “Pay Nissho first.”

  • “You are remembered for the rules you break.”  - MacArthur

  • “Don’t go to sleep one night. What you most want will come to you then.”  - Rumi

  • “Hasn’t your life been a kind of search for connection?” [IPO internal debate]

  • “I remembered that the best was to reinforce your knowledge of a subject is to share it.”

Notes

  • The “futures” program that Phil envisioned has quickly became 80% of their orders (a runaway success)

  • Nike is in ~4 cities.

  • Cash flow issues: payroll checks BOUNCE. What?!! Johnson taps a box vendor to loan $5k so they can cover payroll. Crazy.

  • Nissho audits them prior to more financing: something looks like fraud so the FBI is now in the mix

    • Phil is up all night playing out a hundred scenarios. Obsession. Passion.

 ~ PART II ~

Chapter: 1976

Quotes

  • “No brilliant idea was ever born in a conference room, but a lot of silly ideas have died there.”  - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon

Notes

  • Sad moment: Prefontaine dies in a car accident. He was 24. He died holding every American distance record from 2,000 meters to 10,000 meters (2 to 6 miles). Captured the imaginations of the world.

  • Phil finds a way to curate Pre’s rock and donations.

  • Knight buys Bowerman out at low payments over 5 years. Phil convinces him to retain a percentage and stay on the board. Deal.

  • Idea: Athletic shoes for everyday use? Waffle trainer in blue.

  • The decide to incorporate as Nike, Inc. instead of Blue Ribbon

  • Exploring production in Taiwan: 24 factories toured in 7 days (3-4 per day)

    • Creates Taiwan-based subcompany, Athena Corp.

  • Phil goes back to Manila to stay in MacArthur’s suite. 

  • 1976 revenue = $14M

  • Introduces their annual retreat, Buttface. Informal mood. “No idea too sacred to be mocked, and no person was too important to be ridiculed.”

  • What did the people and culture have in common at Nike

    • 1) “. . . inborn need to prove ourselves.”

    • 2) merciless self-loathers (keeps ego in check)

    • 3) meetings defined by contempt, disdain and heaps of abuse

  • Band of misfits: “We’d each been forged by early failure.”

  • Decide to form a loyalty program, i.e. Pro Club to cement player loyalty

Chapter: 1977

Action items:

  • Research the Eighty-Second Airborne (reference on p. 307)

  • Research: what is the best book on negotiation tactics?

Quotes

  • “Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.” - Nike ad

  • “I still didn’t believe in the power of advertising. At all. A product speaks for itself, or it doesn’t. In the end, it’s only quality that counts.”

  • “Fortune favors the brave."

Notes

  • Enter: Nike Air. Revolution in shoemaking technology via Frank Rudy, aerospace engineer

    • Rudy was offered $0.15 for every Nike sold with his technology (Strasser brokered the deal)

  • Strasser continues to kill it at negotiating

    • Brutally honest

  • Paying off coaches: $2,500 to UofO coach to get them off Converse

  • Nike starts to CRUSH IT in signing college schools to Nike via Sonny Vaccaro

  • Nike loses Nastase to Adidas who paid him $100k

  • Trying to get a tennis athlete on the roster at Wimbledon. “Stay away from court 14. He’s a hothead.” - immediately attracts Phil. He falls “hopelessly” in love with John McEnroe from NYC.

  • Nike has its first recall of the LD 1000 which, due to the flared heel, caused knee problems.

  • Business risk: really good knockoffs emerge in Korea. Phil threatens the president of the factory with a cease & desist or jail time.

    • However, Phil also invited the president to work with him! In this unorthodox decision, Phil meets “misfortune” with creativity. They signed in 1977 which 1) ended the knockoff problem, and 2) provided extra production capacity.

  • Phil is staunchly opposed to advertising. This is one of his unorthodox views. Quality is all that matters.

  • Considering IPO decision

  • Hardship: US Customs Service hits them with a bill for $25M based on an American Selling Price duty, likely encouraged by competition.

  • 1977 revenue = $70M

Chapter: 1978

Quotes

  • “Obsessives were the only ones for the job”

Notes

  • A little background on Rob Strasser:

    • Died at 46 of a heart attack

    • Brokered the Air Jordan deal (credited with $2.6B in sales)

    • Phenomenal negotiator

    • His wife, Julie, wrote a tell-all book called Swoosh

  • Nike expands into apparel. Taps Ron Nelson to lead the charge with no experience whatsoever

  • Hired accountants due to a belief that they had demonstrated basic confidence. Didn’t like to gamble on people based on interview performance.

  • Phil tries to implement a dress code. Strasser is defiant.

  • 2nd recall: After launching withe the Honolulu marathon, the Tailwind shoe was found to have a fatal design flaw. Bits of metal in the silver paint were rubbing against the shoe’s upper and slicing and shredding the fabric. Quality is #1. Ownership. 

Chapter: 1979

Quotes

  • “No matter how it turned out, I didn’t want to let it pass without embracing it, acknowledging it.” - Phil on the steps of the US Senate Office reflecting

  • “Our competitors, and their accomplices in the government, realized they’d underestimated our will.”

  • “I don’t want to lose control. That’s my greatest fear.”  - Phil being a control freak thinking IPO

Notes

  • 1979 revenue = $140M

  • Nike turns its eyes to China: 2 billion feet.

  • China expert: Chuck.

    • Worked with Henry Kissinger.

    • Sat on the board of the Allen Group (auto-parts manufacturer)

    • CEO was Walter Kissinger, Henry’s brother.

    • Introduction to David Chang

      • Smart, but preppy, tone deaf

      • Raised in Shanghai, grandson of third-largest soy sauce manufacturer

      • Connections with Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs

      • Princeton, architecture, New York

      • Got into helping people with Visa and getting into China

Chapter: 1980

Quotes

  • “Life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living [. . .] I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, or merely staying alive. 

  • “The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.”

  • “Nothing had changed, least of all me. And yet I was worth $178 million. I showered ate breakfast, drove to work. I was at my desk before anyone else.”

Notes

  • How they handled the ASP debacle

    • 1) They ASP’d themselves by launching a shoe priced just above cost

    • 2) TV commercial revealing small shoe company fighting big bad government

    • 3) Filed a $25M antitrust suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (Feb 1980) alleging that our competitors, and assorted rubber companies, through underhanded business practices, had conspired to take us out.

  • Success: the government initiates settlement talks. They agreed to $9M in the spring.

    • In other words, their hard work saved the company (by averting $16M in penalties)

  • Time to visit China. How does Phil prepare?

    • Reads about history: Boxer Rebellion, The Great Wall, Opium Wars, Ming Dynasty, Confucius, Mao

    • Phil actually made a syllabus for all members of our traveling party

  • Phil reflecting on “business,” his sense of purpose, and transcendence within the human condition

    • Business done right = “you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call be a businessman.”

  • IPO structure + roadshow

    • 12 cities, 7 days

    • Raise: $40M

    • Total shares: 50 million

      • Reserve: 30 million shares

      • Sold to public: 2 million shares (class B)

      • Remaining: 17 million shares (class A)

        • Internal ownership: 56%

          • Phil Knight 46%, or 7.8M shares

        • “It needed to be that much, we all agreed, because the company needdd to be run by one person, to speak with on firm and steady voice—come what may. There could be no chance of alliances or breakaway factions, no existential struggles for control.”

  • Johnson was an avid reader. “All leaders are readers,” as Jim Rohn says.

  • Nike’s IPO date was the same week as Apple. Wow. Two amazing companies to buy.

  • Who made how much during the IPO

    • Bowerman: $9M (410,000 shares)

    • Cale: $6.6M (300,000 shares)

    • Woodell, Johnson, Hayers, Strasser: $6M  (273,000 shares)

    • Phil Knight: $178M

  • What biggest emotion was he feeling approaching the IPO?

    • Regret. “Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again.”

  • “Nothing had changed, least of all me. And yet I was worth $178 million. I showered ate breakfast, drove to work. I was at my desk before anyone else.”

Chapter: Night

Action items:

Quotes

  • “Lead me from the unreal to the real.”

  • “I think often of that momentous trip when I was twenty-four. I think of myself standing high above Athens, gazing at the Parthenon, and I never fail to experience the sensation of time folding in on itself.”

  • “In yet another sense [our campus] is a living, breathing expression of that vital human emotion, maybe the most vital of all, after love. Gratitude.”

  • “You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”

  • “To study the self is to forget the self.”

  • “Oneness—in some way, shape, or form, it's what every person I’ve ever met has been seeking.”

  • To Stanford grad students: “All we have to do is work and study, study and work, hard as we can. Put another way: we must all be professors of the jungle.”

  • “Money will try to define your days. Our task as human beings is not to let it.”

Notes

  • Phil runs into Bill Gates and Warren Buffett at the movie theatre.

    • At this point in life, Phil Knight is worth $10B.

    • Each of these men is worth 5 to 6 times more than me

  • 2016 Revenue = $16 billion (Adidas = $10B)

    • Footprint: 5,000 stores

    • Employees: 10,000

  • China is largest producer of shoes

  • Amazingly coincidental names:

    • Michael Jordan, river Jordan

    • Kobe Bryant, Kobe in Japan

    • Tiger Woods, meeting with Onitsuka to sell Tigers

  • Nike global phone # suffix = 6453 is also Pre’s best mile time in reverse, 3:54:6

  • Oldest shoes ever discovered are 9,000 years old and discovered in Oregon?

    • No less, shoes were discovered in 1938 when Phil was born

  • Discussion group on Nike’s campus: The Spirit of 1972 (innovation forum)

  • LeBron gives Phil a Rolex from 1972 as a gift. SO COOL.

    • Engraving: With thanks for taking a chance on me.

  • What’s it's all about: Taking a chance on people.

  • Talks about his son, Matthew, dying in a scuba accident. Horrific experience.

    • So this is the way it ends.

  • On the search for connection with other people, athletes

    • Story of inviting Michael Johnson to the Nissho banquet

  • Phil asks the Vietnamese to meet with General Vo Nguyen Giap

    • Vietnamese MacArthur who defeated the Japanese, the French, the Americans, and the Chinese

    • Dark business suit

    • “There was an intensity about him. I’d seen that kind of glittery confidence in great coaches, and great business leaders, the elite of the elite.”

  • Wisdom from Masuro Hayami that teaches Phil to be patient with talent development:

    • See those bamboo trees up there? Next year. . . when you come. . . they will be one foot higher.”

  • The $8k loan that Woodells parents gave him was now worth $1.6M

  • Johnson created a 5-story Fortress of Solitude out of an old barn with his Nike money in New Hampshire. Dozens of reading chairs. Massive library. Twice divorced.

  • Regrets:

    • Not calling Hiraku Iwano after he quite

    • Not getting Bo Jackson renewed in 1996

    • Joe Paterno.

    • Not being a good enough manager to avoid layoffs (3 times in 10 years). 1500 people.

  • “It’s all the same drive. The same dream.”

  • Goals now that he’s a billionaire

    • Find a cure for cancer

    • Help a couple of universities change the world

  • Don’t settle for a career. Seek a calling.

    • The fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, and the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.

  • Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop.

  • Phil gets back to work. Upon reflection, he decides to capture his life in his memoirs and dig up the past. “So much I don’t know about my own life.”

  • “The same moon that inspired the Zen masters to worry about nothing.” Immense peace.