I just finished reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, his autobiographical account of the birth and development of Nike up to their IPO in 1980. It is a very well written and engaging story and one of the only business books I’ve read that is a legit page turner.
Reading the book reminded me of the power of reading biographies (auto or not). They give you a quick glimpse into a life. You get to see the years go by as you read and it may only take you a week to absorb and learn from the most powerful moments of a two-decade career.
In Shoe Dog, Phil Knight takes you through almost twenty years of his life as you read through the book. You are able to see the experiences and ideas that inspired him early on to start importing Japanese shoes. You can see the resistance and challenges he faced right from the start. You learn how the birth of Nike was forced by the risk of losing their supplier. You see how the company he was building was able to develop new capabilities one by one and leverage them over time.
You gain a sense for what it is like to play the long game as an entrepreneur and the costs that come along with that, no matter how successful you are.
I’ve written before about how school screws up our sense of time. Being segregated by age disconnects us from the experience of aging and the wide range of life. You learn to live life with little contact with people outside of your immediate age range. Reading biographies is a great antidote to that.
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