Invisible Capital

I want to put a plug in for my colleague Chris Rabb's book, "Invisible Capital."  Chris' contention is that the typical American narrative about success being about hard work and doggedness is in fact incomplete, wrong, misleading, and harmful.  Nothing wrong with hard work and doggedness, but success is actually more a matter of other characteristics that not all of us have equal access to, like early exposure to entrepreneurship and access to social networks. 

I heard Chris speak about these concepts earlier this month at a Sustainable Business Network event and could not help but think about the themes I was mulling over in my "Race in America" post from a couple of weeks ago.  The conversation about race in this country is, of course, fraught with competing narratives, one about hard work trumping all and one about structural inequities trumping all.  This notion of "invisible capital" is all over that conversation.

I think that is the mark of a good book, is that its central premise is something intriguing that worms your way into your thinking and finds itself in multiple places throughout your travels.  I highly recommend you let this book worm its way onto your bookshelf.