Guest host Charles Robinson, Founder of Robinson Consulting Group, joins Rob and special guest Donna Harris, Founder of Builders and Backers, to discuss the importance of lament in problem-solving and how to build ecosystems that are truly just.
Episode Summary:
0:00 Episode begins
0:43 Personal check-ins start
1:20 Rob introduces Charles Robinson, filling in for Jes
2:13 Rob reads Charles’s bio as an entrepreneur, marketing guru, husband, and dad
2:48 Charles gives his personal check-in, sharing about his four kids
4:23 Rob talks about processing heavy things, but clinging to hope
5:14 Rob introduces Donna Harris, CEO of Builders and Backers
8:04 Rob asks Donna for one word to describe how she is doing
8:10 Donna talks about hanging in there, but holding out on hope
8:32 Donna uses the analogy of a snow-globe of injustice and economic crisis being shaken up, but not knowing how it will settle
9:56 Charles asks Donna about her story
10:12 Donna talks about wanting to work on Wall Street
11:56 Donna talks about quitting her job and launching in a threshold of entrepreneurship as a tool that can be used to solve big problems
14:31 Rob brings up a previous conversation he heard with Donna about the importance of lament in stepping into injustice
15:25 Donna acknowledges the tendency to jump to action, to solve and answer
15:56 When we race to the solution, we skip over the critical things that build community and relationships
16:29 Donna talks about problems being emotional for people and need to be reframed to understand that
16:54 Donna shares about going to Haiti and meeting a little boy there, being broken by serving him then having to leave him
17:47 Do we care enough to solve the problems that are deep?
18:42 We have to care, and in that depth of lament, comes an openness to solutions that we might not have entertained if we had not paused to feel the full weight
19:30 Charles talks about the need to balance between going fast and going deep and the importance of relationships
20:52 Charles asks about how we actually creating flourishing cities
21:30 Donna admits that our country optimizes for wealth and for fame and we are dealing with the consequences of that on the back-end
22:46 A thriving community sees serving and solving, philanthropy and investment as a whole, in which case we are all on the same team
25:37 Poverty is a lot of little problems
26:00 Interlude
27:17 Charles asks how to figure out ways for servers and solvers to take their moments to lament then come together to serve the whole person
28:51 We not have have to be right, we are committed to solving the problem
30:26 We all have different hypotheses and care about the problem, it’s ok if we have different solutions as long as we agree with common humanity
31:44 Rob talks about the important crossover of businesses, nonprofits, and faith communities
32:17 Rob asks about the day in the life of Builders and Backers, and living out these value systems in the communities they come alongside of
32:42 Rob asks Donna about what could be solved by a magic wand that would have a ripple effect in solving injustice
33:51 Donna talks about the ten spirals of stress that work together for a system of brokenness
35:41 One part mobilizing and equipping, and we are backing the things that could make a significant debt in the brokenness of systems
36:59 There is a whole lot that can be done in our community and it starts local
38:27 Charles asks Donna her why and what keeps her going
39:00 Donna talks about being a person of faith, seeing brokenness everywhere, but knowing that problems are solvable
39:56 Donna talks about a main problem being our selfishness, wanting to get ahead and achieve, and how that inhibits us from seeing one another
42:08 Rob talks about the importance of what we optimize and who it values
44:47 Rob asks about where listeners can get involved
44:50 Donna shares buildersandbackers.com to equip people to solve problems
45:53 Donna signs off of the conversation
46:08 Rob asks Charles as what stood out to him most
46:30 Charles shares about how he keeps coming back to how selfishness is a root of a lot of our community’s problems
48:00 Rob shares about how pausing and feeling the weight of the wounds so that we can develop a different set of answers
49:33 Rob talks about never moving past relationships
50:30 Outro
Thank you to DJ Pdogg and Producer Lo Key for our awesome music throughout the show!
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Our sponsors:
Our hosts:
Jes Averhart, cofounder of Black Wallstreet Homecoming
Rob Shields, executive director of the Recity Network.
Our Producer:
Ben Azevedo, owner of Bear Cave Audio