Yvon Chouinard: Falconry to Fishing – Joan Mead-Matsui

Patagonia Founder: Challenging People, Business, and the World

“Some Stories: Lessons From The Edge of Business And Sport”

Yvon Chouinard: Falconry to Fishing highlights a lifetime of stories and adventure.

Who is Yvon Chouinard?

He’s well known for challenging people, business, and the world to achieve sustainability on Earth.

Chouinard is the provocative and innovative Patagonia founder whose humor and storytelling skills will get your wheels turning. “Some Stories: YVON CHOUINARD: LESSONS FROM THE EDGE OF BUSINESS AND SPORT” motivates and inspires you to reconsider how you’re living your own life. He encourages you to step out of your world and look for ways you can do your part.

Through his stories, Chouinard demystifies the evolution of Patagonia, a company he founded in 1973 in Ventura, CA. Patagonia is known worldwide for its outdoor clothing and gear for “the silent sports,” climbing, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running. But his commitment to conservation and preservation is what stands out.

He utilizes each of the 452 pages to set the record straight about what motivated him to fastidiously craft his company based on an urgency to save our planet from further destruction. It’s not a coincidence that Chouinard chose to not only document his treks around the world but that he created gear that supports an adventurer’s lifestyle.

If you admire entrepreneurs who lead with cutting-edge ideas, it’s never too late to join forces with Chouinard and his Patagonia team. Consider the great strides we’ll make if we follow his lead and take time to appreciate nature and then find a way to do something positive for our environment and our world. From cover to cover, you’ll discover how we can all play an integral role in environmental activism while making a mark in business.

Yvon Chouinard: Some Stories
Photo courtesy of Yvon Chouinard: Patagonia

“The Golden Age of a sport is when the most innovation in technique and equipment occurs, and I’ve been fortunate to have lived and participated in the Golden Age of many an outdoor sport.”

Preface to Yvon Chouinard: “Some Stories”

If you share Chouinard’s appreciation for nature and zest for exploration, you’ll be captivated by his anecdotal descriptions of climbing some of the world’s most challenging mountains. They’re also symbolic of his thoughts and philosophies.

“I’ve found that I get a lot of creative satisfaction from breaking the rules in sport and business. Plus, it’s a lot easier than conforming and, in the end, leads to better stories.”

Yvon Chouinard

At the end of Some Stories, Chouinard reminds us of Patagonia’s Mission Statement.

“We begin with the premise that all life on Earth is facing a critical time, during which survivability will be the issue that increasingly dominates public concern.”Where survivability is not the issue, the quality of human experience of life may be, as well as the decline in health of the natural world as reflected in the loss of biodiversity, cultural diversity, and planet’s life support systems.”

Yvon Chouinard: “We’re in business to save our home planet. Our Values”

As a fly angler, every moment I spend in the water serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are to have abundant outdoor resources at our fingertips. Without a doubt, it’s our job to not only reap the benefits but do our part to protect and preserve.

You can purchase a copy of Some Stories: Yvon Chouinard LESSONS FROM THE EDGE OF BUSINESS AND SPORT directly from Patagonia.


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