Yvon Chouinard Quotes & Sayings

Surfing and climbing are both useless sports. You get to be conquistadors of the useless. You climb to the summit and there is nothing there. And you could hike to the top from another direction. How you get there is the important part. It's the same with surfing. — Yvon Chouinard

Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it's none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business. — Yvon Chouinard

I think risk is important. I don't care if it's a great financial risk or a physical risk. You only get out of something what you put into it and the fact that you are willing to risk something means that you are going to get a lot more out of it. — Yvon Chouinard

A real capitalist knows that $10 given today does a lot more good than $100 given 10 years from now. — Yvon Chouinard

Once you educate yourself, you're left with choices. — Yvon Chouinard

The more you know, the less you need. — Yvon Chouinard

The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life; it's so easy to make it complex. — Yvon Chouinard

Mainly, my job is to be on the outside and bring ideas into the company and forge change. Most people hate change - it's threatening. I thrive on it. — Yvon Chouinard

I'm kind of like a samurai. They say if you want to be a samurai, you can't be afraid of dying, and as soon as you flinch, you get your head cut off. I'm not afraid of losing this business. — Yvon Chouinard

Evil doesn't have to be an overt act; it can be merely the absence of good. If you have the ability, the resources, and the opportunity to do good and you do nothing, that can be evil. — Yvon Chouinard

But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important. — Yvon Chouinard

Growth isn't central at all, because I'm trying to run this company as if it's going to be here a hundred years from now. And if you take where we are today and add 15% growth, like public companies need to have for their stock to stay up in value, I'd be a multi-trillion-dollar company in 40 years. Which is impossible, of course. — Yvon Chouinard

Climbing for speed records will probably become more popular, a mania which has just begun. Climbers climb not just to see how fast and efficiently they can do it, but far worse, to see how much faster and more efficiently they are than a party which did the same climb a few days before. The climb becomes secondary, no more important than a racetrack. Man is pitted against man. — Yvon Chouinard

The rules of the game must be constantly updated to keep up with the expanding technology. Otherwise we overkill the classic climbs and delude ourselves into thinking we are better climbers than the pioneers. — Yvon Chouinard

If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing. — Yvon Chouinard

Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person. — Yvon Chouinard

I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn't appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product like - and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful. — Yvon Chouinard

When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I'll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can't be sold on its merits. I'd be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. Remember, I'm the kid who couldn't play competitive games. I'd much rather design and sell products so good and unique that they have no competition. — Yvon Chouinard

... the worst thing said about him is that he was uncurious. — Yvon Chouinard

I took a dozen of our top managers to Argentina, to the windswept mountains of the real Patagonia, for a walkabout. In the course of roaming around those wild lands, we asked ourselves why we were in business and what kind of business we wanted Patagonia to be. A billion-dollar company? Okay, but not if it meant we had to make products we couldn't be proud of. And we discussed what we could do to help stem the environmental harm we caused as a company. We talked about the values we had in common, and the shared culture that had brought everyone to Patagonia, Inc., and not another company. — Yvon Chouinard

Everything we make pollutes. The most responsible thing we can do is to make each product as well as we know how so it lasts as long as possible. — Yvon Chouinard

Is climbing, as a passion and as a sport, better off now than it was in the past? We can do harder climbs now in faster times - techniques are more refined and equipement more sophisticated - but are we really any better off? — Yvon Chouinard

The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process. — Yvon Chouinard

One thing I did not want to change, even if we got serious, work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. We all had to come to work on the balls of our feet and go up the stairs two at a time. — Yvon Chouinard

I say the last 10 percent of the way to perfection takes so much of your life that it isn't worth the effort. This overzealous attitude is what creates religious fanatics, body Nazis, and athletes who are exceedingly dull to converse with. — Yvon Chouinard

Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac ... — Yvon Chouinard

Mastery ... is to work toward simplicity; replace complex technology with knowledge, hard work, and skill. — Yvon Chouinard

What they don't realize is that I'm not in the business to make clothes. I'm not in the business to make more money for myself, for Christ's sake. This is the reason Patagonia exists - to put into action the recommendations I read about in books to avoid environmental collapse. That's the reason I'm in business - to try to clean up our own act, and try to influence other companies to do the right thing, and try to influence our customers to do the right thing. So we're not going to change. — Yvon Chouinard

Going back to a simpler life is not a step backwards. — Yvon Chouinard

I never wanted to be a businessman; I was a craftsman and good at working with my hands. At some point, I decided that this company is my best resource. Patagonia now exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy. — Yvon Chouinard

We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. That's what we're called. It's just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you're an alcoholic. We're in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing's going to happen. — Yvon Chouinard

It's okay to be eccentric, as long as you are rich; otherwise you're just crazy. — Yvon Chouinard

Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet. — Yvon Chouinard

During the sixties, all the risk-type sports were very popular, because everybody was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the whole system. But those days are over. This is the day of conservatism. — Yvon Chouinard

You ask me about the past, you ask me about the future, the only way to be happy is to be living right now. — Yvon Chouinard

So all of these companies that are going for the big growth, if it continues for any length of time, will outlast their resources and outlast their customers and go belly-up. And that's why these huge companies have massive layoffs all the time. — Yvon Chouinard

Personally, I would rather climb in the high mountains. I have always abhorred the tremendous heat, the dirt-filled cracks, the ant-covered foul-smelling trees and bushes which cover the cliffs, the filth and noise of Camp 4 (the climbers' campground), and worst of all, the multitudes of tourists which abound during the weekends and summer months. — Yvon Chouinard

There is a beginning and end to all life - and to all human endeavors. Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I'm OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems. — Yvon Chouinard

Doing risk sport had taught me another important lesson: never exceed your limits. You push the envelope and you live for those moments when you're right on the edge, but you don't go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means. — Yvon Chouinard

We've teamed up with some Japanese companies to, basically by 2010, make all our clothing out of recycled and recyclable fibers. And we're going to accept ownership of our products from birth to birth. So if you buy a jacket from us, or a shirt ,or a pair of pants, when you're done with it, you can give it back to us and we'll make more shirts and pants out of it. — Yvon Chouinard

Nature doesn't like empires. It doesn't like accumulation in one place, it doesn't like monoculture. It's always trying to make diverse species. It wants to spread everything out. And we're constantly trying to hold everything in. — Yvon Chouinard

The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose. — Yvon Chouinard

The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you're an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back. — Yvon Chouinard

I drive old cars, all my Patagonia clothes are years and years old, I hardly have anything new. I try to lead a very simple life. I am not a consumer of anything. And I much prefer sleeping on somebody's floor than in a motel room. — Yvon Chouinard

The future of Yosemite climbing lies not in Yosemite, but in using the new techniques in the great granite ranges of the world. — Yvon Chouinard

True adventure begins when everything goes wrong. — Yvon Chouinard

At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'. — Yvon Chouinard

We're a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to want to protect nature. — Yvon Chouinard

You climb to the summit and there is nothing there ... — Yvon Chouinard

The more I make the more I can give away. — Yvon Chouinard

My favorite quote about entrepreneurship is that to understand an entrepreneur, you should study a juvenile delinquent. They're both saying: "This sucks and I'm going to do it another way." You have to want to break the rules and prove that your way works. — Yvon Chouinard

Profit is what happens when you do everything else right. — Yvon Chouinard

The solution may be for a lot of the world's problems is to turn around and take a forward step. You can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work. — Yvon Chouinard

We grow by letting the customer tell us. So when the customer tells us that they're frustrated, that they just got their catalogue and we're already out of a product they wanted, then it tells me that we're not making enough. We let the customer tell us instead of creating an artificial demand for our products. Any time you're making products that people don't need, you're at the mercy of the economy, you're at the mercy of whatever is going on. So we tried to avoid that situation. — Yvon Chouinard

The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when adventure starts — Yvon Chouinard

It's always been difficult for us to lead an examined life as a corporation. I've always felt like a company has the responsibility to not wait for the government to tell it what to do, or to wait for the consumer to tell it what to do, but as soon as it finds out it's doing something wrong, stop doing it. — Yvon Chouinard

The secret to happiness is to be working at your passion. If you want to be miserable, lead a desperate life like everybody else where they drag their asses to work everyday because they hate their job. — Yvon Chouinard

The reason it was so scary was that there was only one climber capable of rescuing us, and that was Layton Kor, and he was in Colorado. — Yvon Chouinard

Everything we personally own that's made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we're either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf. — Yvon Chouinard

There's a movement for simplifying your life: purchase less stuff, own a few things that are very high quality that last a long time, and that are multifunctional. — Yvon Chouinard

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both. — Yvon Chouinard

I'm the company philosopher and the burr in the saddle. I'm the one who says we need to try harder, improve the quality of our products, become a part of the political process, help elect people who are good for the environment. — Yvon Chouinard

Yeah, leading an examined life, I always say, is a pain in the ass. It adds an element of complexity to business that most businessmen don't want to hear about. They just want to call a fabric manufacturer, and say, "Hey, give us 10,000 yards of shirting." — Yvon Chouinard

We choose to believe that the granite is alive. If life is movement, then rock - with its atoms flying around like stars in cosmos - is alive. — Yvon Chouinard

I wanted to distance myself from those pasty faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I was going to become a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. — Yvon Chouinard

Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. — Yvon Chouinard

No young kid growing up dreams of someday becoming a businessman. He wants to be a fireman, a sponsored athlete or a forest ranger The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welchs of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values. — Yvon Chouinard

Going back to a simpler life based on living by sufficiency rather than excess is not a step backward. Rather, returning to a simpler way allows us to regain our dignity, puts us in touch with the land, and makes us value human contact again. — Yvon Chouinard

Just why is Yosemite climbing so different ? Why does it have techniques, ethics and equipment all of its own ? The basic reason lies in the rock itself. Nowhere else in the world is the rock so exfoliated, so glacier-polished and so devoid of handholds. All of the climbing lines follow vertical crack systems. Every piton crack, every handhold is a vertical one. Special techniques and equipment have evolved through absolute necessity. — Yvon Chouinard

I purposely try to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do, and then I just leave them alone. — Yvon Chouinard

How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top. — Yvon Chouinard

The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable; it is merely difficult. — Yvon Chouinard

We took special pride in the fact that climbing rocks and icefalls had no economic value in society ... We were like a wild species living in the edges of an ecosystem - adaptable, resilient and tough. — Yvon Chouinard

It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy. — Yvon Chouinard

You have to remember this was the '60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe. — Yvon Chouinard

You have a whole life in the outdoors, you realize you have a sense of responsibility to protect these wild places. — Yvon Chouinard

While our managers debated what steps to take to address the sales and cash-flow crisis, I began to lead week-long employee seminars in what we called Philosophies. We'd take a busload at a time to places like Yosemite or the Marin Headlands above San Francisco, camp out, and gather under the trees to talk. The goal was to teach every employee in the company our business and environmental ethics and values. — Yvon Chouinard

It's not an adventure until something goes wrong. — Yvon Chouinard

The whole purpose of an adventure is to gain some spiritual or emotional insight. When you compromise the process, you compromise the gain. — Yvon Chouinard

There's no such thing as sustainability. There are just levels of it. It's a process, not a real goal. All you can do is work toward it. There's no such thing as any sustainable economy. The only thing I know that's even close to sustainable economic activity would be organic farming on a very small scale or hunting and gathering on a very small scale. And manufacturing, you end up with way more waste than you end up with finished product. It's totally unsustainable. It's just the way it is. — Yvon Chouinard

Hire extremely independent, intelligent, and passionate people, not necessarily "experts." Maybe three or four of my employees have MBAs, and those guys aren't necessarily at the top of the food chain. — Yvon Chouinard

To do good, you actually have to do something. — Yvon Chouinard

I've accepted the fact that there's a beginning and end to everything. All species are born, evolve, and then die off. We're going through the 6th great extinction and the large mammals are going first and, you know what - we're large mammals! — Yvon Chouinard

... most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance. — Yvon Chouinard

The revolution starts at the bottom. — Yvon Chouinard

I believe the accepted model of capitalism that demands endless growth deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, and it should be displaced. Failing that, I try to work with those companies and help them change the way they think about our resources. — Yvon Chouinard

Hiring people with diverse backgrounds brings in a flexibility of thought and openness to new ways of doing things, as opposed to hiring clones from business schools who have been taught a codified way of doing business. — Yvon Chouinard