[Outliers] Phil Knight: The Obsession That Built Nike

Every runner knows this. You run and run, mile after mile, and you never quite know why. You tell yourself that you're running towards some goal, chasing some rush, but really you run because the alternative, stopping scares you to death. So that morning in 1962, I told myself, let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just keep going. Don't stop. Don't even think about stopping until you get there, and don't give much thought to where there is. Whatever comes, just don't stop. That's the precious, prescient, urgent advice I managed to give myself out of the blue and somehow managed to take. Half a century later, I believed it's the best advice and maybe the only advice any of us should ever give. That was an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. Today, Nike looks inevitable. But for nearly two decades, this company almost died daily. It was that close. Two banks dumped him. His only supplier tried to replace him. The FBI opened an investigation. The government hit him with a customs bill larger than their revenue, and that's not all. Phil's inner monologue during these years is extraordinary. He swings between extremes, beating himself up in one moment and then positive affirmations of things he doesn't quite believe to keep him going. He was also a misfit, and I mean that in the best way possible. He's an introvert who bombed at selling encyclopedias. He surrounded himself with oddballs, a guy in a wheelchair, an obsessive letter writer, people nobody else would have bet on. He never praised them and often ignored them, but he trusted them completely, and they rewarded that trust by giving everything they had. Shoe Dog is one of the best business books ever written because it tells the truth about what building something actually feels like. Let's start with some of the lessons. Lesson one, belief is irresistible. Phil Knight was a terrible salesman. He tried encyclopedias door to door and hated every moment. He was an introvert. He tried mutual funds next, and while he was slightly better, it was a job. And then he started selling Japanese running shoes out of the trunk of his car. And something strange happened. He couldn't stop selling them. Here's how he explained it. So why was selling shoes so different? Because I realized it wasn't selling. I believed in running. I believed that if people got out and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place. And I believe these shoes were better to run-in. People sensing my belief wanted some of that belief for themselves. And then he writes a line I keep turning over for the rest of the book. Belief, I decided, belief is irresistible. You can learn all the sales techniques in the world. You can study persuasion. You can read every negotiation book, listen to every podcast. But if …