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Yvon Chouinard

Yvon Chouinard Quotes

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Famous Yvon Chouinard Quotes

“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.”

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Author:Yvon Chouinard
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“Doing risk sports 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. The same is true for a business. The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to ‘have it all,’ the sooner it will die.”

KnowsTryingMeanImportantMomentsDiesSportsCompanyRiskTaughtLessonsLimitsEdgesBeing TrueLimitationOver YouExceedBe True To YourselfTrue To YourselfEnvelopesImportant LessonsPatagonia
Book:Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual
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“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.”

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Author:Yvon Chouinard
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“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.”

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Book:Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual
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