Three Pillars to Lead By – Chris Eldridge (Director – 4Impact Group)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Chris Eldridge is a man with almost twenty years of experience in a wide range of industries. He is the kind of person who constantly does his best to go above and beyond. As he joins us on Paper Napkin Wisdom, Chris shares the personal mantra he uses to push himself forward and explains why these elements are important to him.
The pictures Chris has drawn on his Paper Napkin all represent a different aspect of his mantra, the three pillars of how he works: Lofty Goals, Positive Impact on Others, Fun Along the Way. Each pillar is an essential part of how and why Chris works the way he does.
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The first part of Chris’s napkin is represented by the snow-cap mountains he’s drawn. He says that by striving for the snow-cap mountains and looking over the horizons, you see what’s possible. Keep your eye on the snow cap mountains, he says, because that’s where the great view comes from. The idea behind this is that when you keep your eyes open and looking for opportunity, when you operate on a swivel perspective, you can see the possibilities around you.
The next aspect important to him is being a positive impact on others. Chris describes himself as a very people oriented person. He’s an extrovert, people feed into his creative process. Though he, of course, wants to be successful in business, he says that he also wants to be able to look back in future and see that his journey wasn’t just about him. He wants to “Do it with people, not just to people,” he says. If he makes sure that his journey is one that’s good for not just him, but the people around him, he feels he can be truly proud of how and what he did. It sounds like a simple idea, but it’s something you have to be deliberate about. Chris has regular reminders for himself to keep these things in mind and he says that you may find you have to reinforce and reinvent your business to keep it on track.
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The last element of Chris’s mantra may seem a bit ‘whoo whoo’ but it’s an important one. Fun Along the Way: having fun through the working journey. Chris believes that in the modern world, we can take things way too seriously. You need to enjoy yourself along the way, he says. He’s spent 15 years in the corporate world and he feels it’s a pretty sterile environment. As we’ve talked about before on Paper Napkin Wisdom, we spend a large portion of our life at work, so it’s important that we try our best to enjoy it as much as possible. Chris believes it’s important we have a bit of fun in the office, not just on weekends.
The images Chris has drawn around the different pillars of his mantra are important because they’re a visualization of the aspects they represent. Chris is a very visual person and for that reason, he’s chosen to represent the things that are important to him in a way he can understand and take meaning from. There’s such a value to that. In taking the time to find out what his core values are and synthesize them in a way that makes sense to him, Chris has made his values into a solid mantra to live by.
If we each took the time to do that- to sit down and really discover what our core values are and turn them into a way of living, what might that do for us? How would it change the things you do? If you were to create that mantra today, a compass directing you to your true destination, where on the map might you find yourself?
What would your three pillars be?
Listen to the conversation with Chris here: