13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most? It surprised me how Knight hit the floor running and started his business right after a phone call.
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? I admired how smart his actions were despite how reckless they might seem. He had an idea, and inspiration and just went for it because of his “what could I possibly lose” mentality.
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? There wasn’t anything that I didn’t admire. The story Knight had to share was so inspirational and a lot of the actions he took to start his business reminds me a lot of how I am acting to start the fashion brand of my dreams.
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it? Considering the fact that Knight was straight out of graduate school when he first started his company, he encountered setbacks and problems with his Japanese supplier and after they separated.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? Knight’s focus for the brand was so different than other people that started businesses. He didn’t start the business to make a lot of money or to become famous; he started it because he had an idea and wanted to see how it would play out.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. I didn’t find anything that was really confusing.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why? How did you keep motivating yourself to continue the business despite setbacks? And what would you think have happened if Nike didn’t grow to be what it is today? I would ask these questions because they are questions I got curious about while reading this book. Also, they’re also questions I can learn from as well.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? I think it did take a lot of hard work for the entrepreneur because it takes a lot to follow through when starting a company. Like Knight stated, “the cowards never started, the weak died along the way — that leaves us.”