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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

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Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Come
Basis
Even
Bases
Thing
Balls
Work
Daily
Time
Serious
Feet
Two
Stairs
Change
Enjoyable

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

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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
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The whole purpose of an adventure is to gain some spiritual or emotional insight. When you compromise the process, you compromise the gain.
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Traveling is my form of self-education.
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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.
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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
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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
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...it's the same with business. If you focus on the goal and not the process, you inevitably compromise. Businessmen who focus on profits wind up in the hole. For me, profit is what happens when you do everything else right.
Yvon Chouinard
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The more I make the more I can give away.
Yvon Chouinard
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Going back to a simpler life based on living by sufficiency rather than excess is not a step backward.
Yvon Chouinard
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To do good, you actually have to do something.
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The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable it is merely difficult.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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You have to remember this was the '60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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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
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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
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Once you educate yourself, you're left with choices.
Yvon Chouinard
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Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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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