When Chip started lululemon, a list of cultural insights organically began to develop next to the cash register. Guests identified with this list and requested copies. Eventually, that list became the lululemon manifesto, an evolving collection of bold thoughts that allow for real conversations to take place. The manifesto adorned the iconic lululemon shopping bag and became an integral part of the company’s branding.
The following is not the lululemon manifesto, but rather the Hold It All code. Hold It All looks to these statements as a reflection of our culture and our way of living and seeing the world. There’s a lot of them, and we know that not all will resonate with everyone. But taken as a whole, they give a strong indication of what we’re all about.
- Blame and excuses are how weak people hide from responsibility
- When it comes to goals, people and priorities, spend time only on your top three
- Choose a life of your own design
- Live life on the courts, not in the stands
- Read, read, read
- If you make decisions based in past experiences, you will get what you have always gotten. Is that what you want?
- Mediocrity is chronic inconsistency – Jim Collins
- No performance without action
- Smartphones killed the balanced life. Now there is only a life of choice
- If it takes more than two emails, pick up the phone
- People sexually underperform because they are not actually present
- Alcohol and drugs are the sissy way of being in the moment
- Time is precious
- Don’t let 10% of the voices on social media sound like 90%
- If you are living in choice, there is no such thing as wasted time
- The false advertising of fast food companies should make you sick to your stomach
- Save 20 percent and risk the rest – you only have one life
- Your brain is a hard drive. Power down to power up and maximize your life
- A leader creates a future that would otherwise not have occurred
- Integrity is not morality. Integrity is doing what you say you will do, when you say you will do it
- Even a gangster can have integrity
- Find out if you are interesting without alcohol
- Coke, Pepsi and all other pops will be known as the cigarettes of the future (1998)
- Good conversation is currency
- Luxury = time + space
- Design your future life and goals as though you have amnesia
- Never make lunch plans you do not intend to keep
- Hydrate. Caffeinate. Meditate
- Do it right fucking now
- Trust your gut – your body is always honest
- Gender means nothing, love means everything
- Playing it safe leads to mediocrity, not greatness
- Your brain is designed for survival and reproduction not for living a phenomenal life
- People will always bring up the downtrodden and cut the legs off great thinkers to increase the number of people in the middle to reproduce with
- You can choose to override your basic instincts of survival
- Mediocre people have a low tolerance for other people's success
- If people compare you to Gandhi, you have not done your job. Our life is to see people go beyond what we hold as iconic
- Without Orville’s first plane, the jet would have never been built. We must start somewhere to develop greatness
- To create the next best thing, you may have to leave something you are fully invested in behind
- Sit alone for one hour a week with a pen and a piece of paper. Think big
- Eat more plant food; eat less food manufactured in plants
- Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a college kid with a maxed-out charge card
- For the most part, your present and future are determined by letting go of the past
- Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about
- Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special
- Make big decisions as though you are lying on your death bed. What is really important?
- An entrepreneur may be someone too incompetent to work for someone else
- What other people think of you is none of your business
- Time or choice heals everything
- However good or bad a situation is, it will change
- Forgive your mother and father
- Feeling uninspired? Surround yourself with children
- Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don’t want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it
- Time is a non-renewable resource – Kristen Lamb
- Coffee is the perfect chaser to water
- Juiced fresh local veggies are the next medicine
- Surf, ski, skate, smoke, smoked salmon, Greenpeace, Mayor Moonbeam, urban hippies, undercover athletes, lummy mummies, the Grouse Grind, the ‘Couve Cruise, Wreck Beach and the best damn tap water in the world – Vancouver
- If you are sweating, you are present and powerful
- Travel will show you there are many ways of being right
- The many religions tell us there is no single right way, only many right ways
- Being an informed cheerleader is different from complaining
- Come up with three solutions for every question or challenge
- When something goes wrong ask the Japanese 5 WHY’s to get the real answer
- Media will create sensation to create hits to sell advertising to feed their families. Find the truth
- Train yourself to meditate in one minute. Power down to power up
- Time is the most expensive commodity
- Don’t let anyone waste your time
- The more committed you are to something the more you experience success and happiness
- Believe you can, you will
- Fear and doubt is a choice just like faith and patience
- Give up “looking good”. Everyone subconsciously knows a fake
- Respect feels like love
- You are responsible for the energy you bring into a space – Jim Bolte
- This is not our practice life – Dr. T
- Our people don’t want a pat on the back, they want to contribute and be effective
- To be of any value as a human being you have to keep growing
- Morning burpees are better for you than morning coffee
- Salt + butter + high fructose corn syrup = death
- Read everything you can; knowledge is the competitive equalizer
- If I have over 15 “friends” I am overloading my capacity to be close
- My outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much I like myself
- Firing someone bad is easy, firing someone good is difficult
- Everything in moderation, including mediocrity
- I can only love someone else to the extent I love myself
- Stretching goals, failing and resetting our goals, prepares us for normal life
- Dog urine kills grass but the right amount of urine makes grass grow extraordinarily faster in the circle around the pee. We now know a little DDT may be good to kill cancer. German track athletes smoke after a race. Vaccines work. Perhaps a few cigarettes or a Coke is very good for you in small doses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for the poor or uneducated or those susceptible to addiction
- I will never stop working because all I can see is possibility
- On my tombstone, I want it to say “all used up” – Werner Erhard