The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable; it is merely difficult. Yvon Chouinard More Quotes by Yvon Chouinard More Quotes From 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 hate jobs ideas Once you educate yourself, you're left with choices. Yvon Chouinard left educate choices 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 beginnings-and-ends facts firsts 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 self trying people 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 pain business giving 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 colorado climbing scary 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 patagonia masters goal 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 political trying people 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 rocks stars believe A real capitalist knows that $10 given today does a lot more good than $100 given 10 years from now. Yvon Chouinard real today years 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 climbing weekend summer 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 balls feet two The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose. Yvon Chouinard important hero water It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy. Yvon Chouinard eccentric rich crazy 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 growth believe thinking 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 smart practice hands 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 business running years 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 magazines saws distance 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 climbing parent sports 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 cash-flow business philosophy
