KAIZEN FOR LIFE

I just finished the book ‘Shoe Dog’ last night by Phil Knight (the creator and founder of Nike). It was an amazing book and I highly recommend the read.

His journey and the journey of Nike and how it evolved is incredible. He went from selling 1000 shoes from Japan door to door to being worth over $170 million dollars. However, this did not happen overnight. It took him years of hard work, dedication, obsession, love, sleepless nights, travelling left right and centre, begging, standing his ground, fighting, haggling, negotiating, a team of amazing people and most importantly never quitting or backing down.

Hearing about the endless obstacles he faced – 1 of the most prominent ones being money and cash flow (it’s always money), I’m not sure I would have had the guts and the thought to carry on. But after hearing his story, it has given me motivation and a sense of knowing I can do whatever I put my mind to – it just may be a long road to get there.

So what does it take to win?

The first and single most important thing – the foundation – the thing that it is impossible to with out doing – is to NEVER back down. Never give up. Don’t quit. Persevere. Move forward. Just keep swimming as Dory from Nemo would say.

When I say never back down etc I don’t mean that you have to pick one thing and stick to it and never stray from it, especially if that thing brings you no joy or anything good to your life. I mean never back down and keep going in the sense of finding what you enjoy and love, what you are passionate about, what you truly want to do, what you believe your calling is – and chase it, go after it – make it yours and don’t stop until you have it – until you’ve won it. And it may be after that you go and win something else. Or it may be along the way of trying to win one thing – your path takes a turn down another path to winning you something else.

The most important thing is to never back down IN LIFE. Whatever you do, whatever it throws at you, no matter how terrible and exhausting it gets. You do not back down. You do not give in. Do not let your own life defeat YOU. It is is your life – you own it – so win in it too.