Quote

...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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Goal
Businessman
Process
Inevitably
Business
Hole
Else
Holes
Happens
Compromise
Everything
Profit
Right
Wind
Businessmen
Focus
Profits

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The revolution starts at the bottom.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
You have to remember this was the '60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Going back to a simpler life based on living by sufficiency rather than excess is not a step backward.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Once you educate yourself, you're left with choices.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich otherwise you're just crazy.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life it’s so easy to make it complex.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Mastery... is to work toward simplicity replace complex technology with knowledge, hard work, and skill.
Yvon Chouinard