Community Reflections from the 11/1 & 11/29 Essential Conversations with Ed Dugger
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“What are the Metrics of Worthiness?”
Edward Dugger III, president of Reinventure Capital and an early pioneer in impact investing, explores the intersection between the venture capital community and racial equity.
Reflections from Ed that inspired the 12/6 Hearth Community Conversation
- Who is worthy?
- How do we define worthiness?
- How do we see it, once we define it?
Thinking of values, and how they relate to worthiness, and how we can begin to separate worthiness out from strictly economic success or ambition. When considering worthiness, maybe, our challenge is really that last question ‘how do we see it?’”
With the killing of George Floyd, there was a lot of conversation going around within corporate executive circles (I sit on the board of the Massachusetts business roundtable of top CEOs in the state).
There was a real sense of, you know, for once, addressing this issue of racial reckoning at the corporate level; when it first started coming out there was a rush to ‘let's focus more on diversity, equity, and inclusion.’ Which, you know, on the face of it sounded like a good thing but I thought it was absolutely wrong thing to do, and I told them, ‘Look, before you rush out and start giving money to focus more on diversity, equity inclusion—you need to pause and you need to take time to learn our history as a country.’
From the perspective of a broader perspective that recognizes, not just who we want to be but who we are, because until we understand our real history, work on it, we're not in a position to really change anything, or have the commitment to change anything. That was my suggestion on how they begin to see things differently.
See the biases inherent, the systemic kinds of issues and biases etc., to give them a new sense of vision and a new perspective that would allow them to really do something so to us and that's really includes all of us because we're normally not whether we're white folks or black folks are brown folks or whatever real really not taught our history.
Shared history: I think the common ground for us to be something different begins with a common understanding of that.”
Partial reflections from the 12/6 conversation:
Worthiness is a practice….reminding oneself that the inner critic always has an opinion and we can say to it”thanks for sharing!”….and love oneself!
Be willing to express difficult messages to those in power even in face of high risk
“Listen with ears of tolerance! See through the eyes of compassion! Speak with the language of love!” Rumi
I struggle with the concept of worthiness. Who gets to decide who is worthy? One of the things I celebrate about Essential Conversation is a process of worthiness. Every voice matters.
Remember we all can bring a smile to the world - do not forget the love of humor
Every one is worthiness, and the moment that I have the attitude of thanks giving is the worthiness！
Life is the best gift but we tend to forget it in this world of illusion and sometimes get confused and do not respect life as a Gift
Gratitude in difficult times causes positive shift.
Value who you are and where you are TODAY in moving forward as influencers of EVERY tomorrow.
What washes over me at this time is how i choose gratitude for who I am and what my life experiences are and will be… it is a practice.
Viewing worthiness through many lenses - family worthiness, self-worthiness, racial worthiness and worthiness as a part of the essential conversation the opportunity to respect each other's voices
If you do not think we are all worthy - just join an Essential Conversation group!
Our system is not based on collaboration, but on power and control and is hierarchal or "you are there-I am here, therefore I am better"
Seeing oneself as an integral part of a larger whole rather than an isolated individual is the remedy……..
We talked about extending worthiness by finding places where we are personally uncomfortable to share with them the gift of life by being the innate person I am without hiding behind my profession, education and the need to fix the other but to just share experiences of their existence be with them. The curse of wealth is Charity. Rather more important is seeking how to learn, listen and love to be with and grow with those that lead a life different from mine.
