Yvon Chouinard Quotes

The more you know, the less you need.

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

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

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.

the worst thing said about him is that he was "uncurious.

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.

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

…most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance.

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

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.

I don't really believe that humans are evil; it is just that we are not very intelligent animals. No animal is so stupid as to foul its only nest, except humans.

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.

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.

There's no difference between a pessimist who says, 'It's all over, don't bother trying to do anything, forget about voting, it won't make a difference,' and an optimist who says, 'Relax, everything is going to turn out fine.' Either way the results are the same. Nothing gets done.

Good design is as little design as possible.

We want customers who need our clothing, not just desire it.

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.

Uncurious people do not lead examined lives; they cannot see causes that lie deeper than the surface.

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. —YVON CHOUINARD,7 founder of Patagonia

What we take, how and what we make, what we waste, is in fact a question of ethics.

Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity. —

The more you know, the less you need. —YVON CHOUINARD

I have a little different definition of evil than most people. When you have the opportunity and the ability to do good and you do nothing, that's evil. Evil doesn't always have to be an overt act, it can be merely the absence of good.

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness. Studying

Even if he or she isn’t aware of it, every individual spends an entire lifetime creating and evolving a personal image that others perceive.

If you focus on the process of climbing, you’ll end up on the summit.

use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Again, like the Zen approach to archery or anything else, you identify the goal and then forget about it and concentrate on the process. Measure

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. —L. P. Jacks Patagonia’s

Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis.

But you are what you do, not what you say you are.

We are the last generation that can experience true wilderness. Already the world has shrunk dramatically. To a Frenchman, the Pyrenees are “wild.” To a kid living in a New York City ghetto, Central Park is “wilderness,” the way Griffith Park in Burbank was to me when I was a kid. Even travelers in Patagonia forget that its giant, wild-looking estancias are really just overgrazed sheep farms. New Zealand and Scotland were once forested and populated with long-forgotten animals. The place in the lower forty-eight states that is farthest away from a road or habitation is at the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming, and it’s still only twenty-five miles. So if you define wilderness as a place that is more than a day’s walk from civilization, there is no true wilderness left in North America, except in parts of Alaska and Canada. In a true Earth-radical group, concern for wilderness preservation must be the keystone. The idea of wilderness, after all, is the most radical in human thought—more radical than Paine, than Marx, than Mao. Wilderness says: Human beings are not paramount, Earth is not for Homo sapiens alone, human life is but one life form on the planet and has no right to take exclusive possession. Yes, wilderness for its own sake, without any need to justify it for human benefit. Wilderness for wilderness. For bears and whales and titmice and rattlesnakes and stink bugs. And…wilderness for human beings…. Because it is home. —Dave Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior We need to protect these areas of unaltered wildness and diversity to have a baseline, so we never forget what the real world is like—in perfect balance, the way nature intended the earth to be. This is the model we need to keep in mind on our way toward sustainability.

An alpinist, I already know, is a climber of mountains by difficult routes, by technical routes: real climbing to summits like this one. The ice hammer itself is a key to the world of legends that I’ve dreamed of in my fading boyhood: the world of climbers like Reinhold Messner, Hermann Buhl, Riccardo Cassin, Walter Bonatti, and Yvon Chouinard.

It was also clear that in order to survive at this game, we had to get serious.

Function must dictate form.

It’s okay to be eccentric, as long as you are rich; otherwise you’re just crazy.

You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means.

Why is a worm so effective? Because it is always moving.

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Once you lose the discipline of functionality as a design guidepost, the imagination runs amok.

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.

its kinda like the quest for the Holy Grail. Who gives a shit what the Holy Grail is, the quest is what's important. The transformation is within yourself, that's what is important.

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

when we consider the purchase of anything, to ask ourselves, both as producers and consumers: Is this purchase necessary? Do I really need a new outfit to do yoga? Can I do well enough with something I already have? And will it do more than one thing?

After we had pondered our responsibilities and financial liabilities, one day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. It was also clear that in order to survive at this game, we had to get serious. I also knew that I would never be happy playing by the normal rules of business; I wanted to distance myself as far as possible from those pasty-faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I had to be a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. One

Patagonia’s image is a human voice. It expresses the joy of people who love the world, who are passionate about their beliefs, and who want to influence the future. It is not processed; it won’t compromise its humanity. This means that it will offend, and it will inspire.

To re-create the entrepreneurial atmosphere of the sort we’d had at Chouinard Equipment, we broke the line into eight categories and hired eight product czars to manage them. Each was responsible for his or her own product development, marketing, inventory, quality control, and coordination with the three sales channels—wholesale, mail order, and retail.

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. —L. P. Jacks

Technocrats tell us we can’t go backward, we can’t refuse technology, because then we won’t progress. We are told that life is increasingly complex, that’s the way it is […] If this is all true, then we are doomed. 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.

Sometimes good ideas spring from having a sense of where you want to go, of having a vision of the next level of products.

I found that the Russians had destroyed much of their country trying to keep up with the United States in their arms race.

Looking back now, I see that we made all the classic mistakes of a growing company.

We needed philosophical and inspirational guides to make sure we always asked the right questions and found the right answers.

The goal was to teach every employee in the company our business and environmental ethics and values.

The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to “have it all,” the sooner it will die.

There are some conservationists who are opposed to fishing and hunting, but I’m sorry, they are not thinking it through. In order to transpose mere interest into passionate love requires proactive behavior. The road is an uphill one because today’s youth of the digital world are raised with offers of passive, instant gratification. Can a person raised in that environment ever fish all day without a bite? Maybe it should be mandatory for schools to provide environmental study from grade one in which there is no computer involved, or any other electronic visual aide, only calm, analytical conversation mixed in with visits to if not wild places at least rural ones.

Rainbow trout live in the fastest currents, cutthroat trout in quiet eddies behind snags, brook trout in the pools at the inner bends of streams.

In high water, fish migrate to the banks to stay out of the fast currents and to take advantage of the worms, beetles, ants, and other terrestrials being swept into the river by the floodwaters. If the water is very dirty, they position themselves right next to the bank, a rock, or the bottom in order to keep their equilibrium. In warm water, they move to the deeper cooler waters or place themselves near a cool spring or tributary. Alternately, they could be under the fastest turbulent cascades where there is more dissolved oxygen.

Cutthroat trout display behavior more like brook trout than their rainbow trout cousins. They are most often found in quiet current tongues along undercut banks, under rock ledges and deadfalls, and in slow, deep pools. The cutthroat is often easily fooled, and its curiosity about big, bushy flies with bright colors and tinsel is legendary. They like to chase their prey and are suckers for large, rubber-legged dry flies slapped on the water and twitched.

Brook trout are easy to fool, and are found in places on most rivers and streams that are easily reached: big pools, soft riffles, along undercuts, and under overhanging trees. Mostly though, they are found in soft, deep water, tend to feed lower down on the water column, and are less likely to take surface flies.

For a dark stream bottom, use a dark fly; for a light stream bottom, use a light fly.

For faster or deeper water, use a big fly tied on a size 8 to 12 hook, and weight it heavily with tungsten bead heads and/ or nontoxic wire. For slower or shallower water, use a small fly tied on a size 12 to 16 hook and weighted only with a bead head or only with wire.

Patagonia’s authenticity lies in not being concerned about having an image in the first place.

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 and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I reach that 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product line—and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful.

You climb the mountains or visit the wilderness but leave no trace of having been there.

The best-performing firms make a narrow range of products very well. The best firms’ products also use up to 50 percent fewer parts than those made by their less successful rivals. Fewer parts means a faster, simpler (and usually cheaper) manufacturing process. Fewer parts means less to go wrong; quality comes built in. And although the best companies need fewer workers to look after quality control, they also have fewer defects and generate less waste.

«No hay diferencia entre un pesimista que dice: “Oh, es inútil, así que no te molestes en hacer nada” y un optimista que dice: “No te molestes en hacer nada, las cosas van a salir bien”. De cualquiera de las dos formas, no va a pasar nada.» YVON CHOUINARD,7 fundador de la Patagonia

So he gave me the companies, saying in effect, “Here’s Patagonia. Here’s Chouinard Equipment. Do with them what you will. I’m going climbing.” I had no business experience so I started asking people for free advice. I just called up presidents of banks and said, “I’ve been given these companies to run and I’ve no idea what I’m doing. I think someone should help me.” And they did. If you just ask people for help—if you just admit that you don’t know something—they will fall all over themselves trying to help. So, from there I began building the company. I was really the translator for Yvon’s vision and aims for the company.

If you read a newspaper on any given day, you will see that most of the gains we are making as a society are still being done by activist citizens’ organizations.

I took a dozen of my top managers to Argentina, to the windswept mountains of the real Patagonia, for a walkabout. In the course of roaming around those wildlands, 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. We also 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 to another company.

you are what you do, not what you say you are.

I buy a book, Yvon Chouinard’s Climbing Ice. The book is already dated but is the only guide to ice climbing techniques I can find. One thing Chouinard says resonates with me. Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.

Patagonia's image arises directly from the values, outdoor pursuits, and passions of its founders and employees. While it has practical and nameable aspects, it can't be made into a formula. In fact, because so much of the image relies on authenticity, a formula would destroy it. Ironically, part of Patagonia's authenticity lies in not being concerned about having an image in the first place. Without a formula, the only way to sustain an image is to live up to it. Our image is a direct reflection of of who we are and what we believe.

It is hard to find many better examples of values-first leadership than Ventura, California-based outdoor clothing company Patagonia. For more than 30 years, the company has defied conventional wisdom by building its brand as much around environmental responsibility as on quality products and service. How many businesses would run a marketing campaign encouraging customers to not buy new products but repair the old ones instead in order to reduce their environmental footprint? Only companies interested in creating a “lovability economy” would prioritize sustainable growth for themselves and the world and take a long-term perspective. They see themselves as stewards of meaningful relationships and understand that mutually positive interactions and exchanges of value are lasting. Patagonia has even made its supply chain public with an online map showing every farm, textile mill, and factory it uses in sourcing its materials and manufacturing its products. Anyone who wants to can see where their Patagonia products come from and verify that the company is walking the walk — using sustainable materials and producing apparel in facilities that are safe for workers. That is transparency that breeds trust. Founder Yvon Chouinard’s vision has also led to a culture that is not only employee-friendly (the company even encourages employees at its corporate headquarters to quit early when the surf is up) but attracts people whose values align with the company’s. This aggressively anti-profit, pro-values approach has yielded big dividends. The privately-held benefit corporation is tight-lipped about its revenues, but two years after it began its “cause marketing” campaign, sales increased 27 percent, to $575 million in 2013.7

When there is no crisis, the wise leader or CEO will invent one. Not by crying wolf but by challenging the employees with change.

Anyone who thinks you can have infinite growth on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist. —Kenneth Boulding

Buy less; buy better. Make fewer styles; design better.

So in 2013, Patagonia launched a venture capital fund to invest in environmentally and socially responsible for-profit start-ups. We wanted to apply the many lessons we have learned in trying to conduct our business more responsibly to applications beyond the outdoor apparel industry. We were willing to sacrifice short-term returns for long-term financial and environmental gains. Tin Shed Ventures serves as a vehicle for the third pillar of Patagonia’s mission statement: “ . . . use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” But it also serves to do good in the world: providing funding for people who have business ideas that could help solve the environmental crisis. It is really the small private businesses we hope to influence. It is the tens of thousands of young people who dream of owning their small farm someday. All of us working together can create the change that we need.

Or as Dieter Rams, head of design at Braun, maintains, “Good design is as little design as possible.

Confessions of an Eco-Warrior

rampant

Yes, wilderness for its own sake, without any need to justify it for human benefit.

viewer has to be hit on the head with the same ad seven or eight times before it begins to register.

The competition always stayed close on our heels, but we managed to keep innovating and improving our products.

Patagonia brings to mind, as we once wrote in a catalog introduction, “romantic visions of glaciers tumbling into fjords, jagged windswept peaks, gauchos and condors.” Our intent was to make clothing for those rugged southern Andes/Cape Horn conditions. It’s been a good name for us, and it can be pronounced in every language.

If we could all come to see our consumer products as tools that help us to live our real lives—rather than as substitutes and surrogates for that life—we would need many fewer products to be happy.

Yet despite the plethora of articles, books, films, and warning from scientists and even the military saying that global warming is the single biggest threat to the security of mankind—governments, businesses, and you and I continue to refuse to take meaningful steps to reverse the problem.

In a recession, when our wholesale sales are down, our direct sales channels do well because there is no lessened demand for our goods from our loyal customers. In the past, recessions have hurt our competitors and driven customers to us because people became less frivolous in their purchases. They didn’t mind paying more for goods that won’t go out of style and are of such quality that they will last a long time.

dyslexics often have a great sense of proportion. They make good sculptors.