1. Hope and belief: Phil researched the market in America and observed how Japanese products slowly took over the German products. On his travel to Japan, he partnered with a Japanese shoe maker to distribute and market it's shoes in the States. To hope and believe in this, even after America bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was a big thing!

2. Keep the interest of the company above your own!

He let his coach, his business partner, own more stake in their company than him for he could bring in the 'innovation' required for improving the quality of the shoes.

3. Take risk: He just didn't want to be a distributor of Japanese shoes, so he co-founded a company along with his coach and eventually set up a factory in USA for the manufacturing. Investing in Branding, Marketing, hiring Michael Jordan and other athletes to endorse the brand made it a covetous thing to wear Nike shoes.

4. Make others believe in your belief and you don't need to really 'sell'! : Quoting his own words to explain this point - '

"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… Belief is irresistible.”

5. It's not gonna be pretty- He navigated through many challenges - near bankruptcies, crushing debt, rejections, disputes, and one crisis after another. Lesson learnt: never 'overleverage' your business!

6. Obsession over passion makes you keep 'going': Phil was 'all in it'! His own words - Passion is too weak a word to describe what he felt about his chosen field - probably that's why he kept on going (without salary untill the age of 31!)

He was obsessed about selling good quality shoes and was totally captivated by it - that made him stand out ❤️