Reading Reflection, No. 1

• What surprised you the most? The most surprising part to me was that such a household name like Nike was originally called Blue Ribbon. 

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? I most admired that Phil Knight never gave up. He had planned a trip with his best friend to Hawaii and then to Japan to launch and work through their new product. Even after losing his friend in Hawaii, as he got caught up in the lifestyle, Knight still had his goal in hindsight and left to Japan alone. 

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? The fact that he thought he was so above all his workers, that he eventually stopped reading his employees' ideas for improvement. 

• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it? Yes, Knight encountered a lot of financial issues on his way to becoming who he is now. He constantly found himself taking out loans and faced insane amounts of debt before becoming the entrepreneur he is today. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? Knight exhibited extreme passion and drive towards a goal. He showed that the path to reaching your dream can be extremely hard and although he is living lavishly now, his path was one of hardship and lack of financial means.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. Honestly his writing was extremely clear and thorough. I feel as if I gained a complete understanding of his work and all his successes and failures. 

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why? If you didn't have to go public would you have? I would ask this question because at the end of the book Knight had to go public with Nike in order to keep the company alive; however, I am curious as to if Knight would still go public if he had the means to fund his company otherwise. Do you think the company would have been more or less successful without Bowerman? I would ask this because I know he was his coach, so I would want to know how helpful or not helpful having a mentor truly is at such a large scale. 

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? I think Knight's opinion would have been extremely similar to mine. We both find a strong correlation between hard work and seeing results. I think Knight would definitely also agree that hard work is nothing without dedication.