I had just started my business. I was making climbing gear. Blacksmithing. I was resentful of being drafted [into the military]. I tried everything to get out of the draft. I heard Japanese got out of their draft by drinking a whole lot of soy sauce. So I drank a whole bunch of soy sauce. I puked it all up. They sent me to Korea. [9:16]
How he started blacksmithing: I got myself a forge, an anvil, and a book on blacksmithing. I went down to the junkyard and got some steel. I made my first pitons. They worked great. [16:13]
I made them for myself. We were on the cutting edge of big wall climbing in those days. For the climbs we were doing you had to have these things. I could make two an hour and sell them for $3 a piece. [17:05]
I don’t like anybody telling me what to do, and I don’t like to tell anybody else what to do. [19:12]
I lead a very simple life. I don’t have a phone. [27:33]
My old man was a tradesman. He could build a whole house himself. [28:04]
I didn’t let school get in the way of my education. [58:00]
I’m not for this globalism business. I think we should hunker down and work locally. I have traveled all over the world and cultures are being lost everywhere. [58:40]
Nature loves diversity. Humans love control and centralization. [1:00:25]
Compromise never solves a problem. It leaves both sides feeling cheated. [1:01:13]
I learned early on to invent your own games. That way you can always be a winner. [Avoid games] that produce one winner and a bunch of losers. [1:25:37]
Life is a lot easier if you break the rules than if you try to conform to them. It is a lot more fun. That is the way I’ve always run my company. I never wanted to be a businessman. So I decided to do it on my own terms. I didn’t have to act like one of these greaseball businessmen that I did not respect. That led to a method of doing business that is different than anybody else. It works unbelievably well. [1:27:16]
One of my employees suggested that on Black Friday let’s give all of our revenue away. I said, “Ok, let’s do it.” The year before on Black Friday we did $2.5 million. We advertised it on social media. The word got out. We did over $10 million. 60% of the sales came from people who never bought from us before. In business, you can’t believe how difficult it is to get a new customer. You could spend $5 million for a Super Bowl ad and you wouldn’t get the new customers we got from this. We thought the sales would go down after Black Friday. The sales kept climbing and climbing and have been climbing ever since. [1:28:45]
The solution to depression is action. [1:41:10]
Full podcast here: The MeatEater Podcast Ep. 188: Yvon Chouinard on Belonging to Nature
Learn from founders who came before you. Every week I read a biography of a founder and tell you what I learned on Founders podcast.
