August 15, 2013
Noble Men: Yvon Chouinard
I’m a person who needs vision on a consistent basis. I need to know why I’m doing what I’m doing and what the purpose is behind it. I love to work hard but at the end of the day and especially at the end of my life I hope I can look back and feel that I have invested in the world and that the work I did had some meaningful impact.
What keeps me inspired and my vision going is not magazines, music or hikes in the woods. While I like all those things the thing that inspires me most are people who are living full, meaningful, risky lives. They don’t play it safe because they realize that safe mostly sucks.
One of the most inspiring figures to me is Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.
He is a guy who never set out to start a business so when he happened upon it wasn’t bound by the rules. He didn’t know the game to play so he did it in his own way. The rules won’t tell you to lessen your environmental footprint. They won’t tell you to offer childcare to your employees at work. And they sure as hell won’t tell you to try and get people to buy fewer things.
Yvon and Patagonia saw a different way to do things. They decided to follow their vision and find a way to make it work and they have. I’m thankful for frontrunners Like Yvon and aspire to follow in his footsteps.
Photo credit: http://www.thehybridconcept.com/
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