What Do You Want to be Known For?
ED Dudley
We Are Connect-ED
ED is a collaborative connector, servant leader, community builder, social entrepreneur and public speaker. With over 20 years in financial services arena in various positions such a Senior Vice President, he left the corporate world and founded We Are Connect-ED, a business consulting and professional networking firm with a mission to be a bridge to form strategic alliances, partnerships and collaboration for all humanity.
ED is very active in the community and serves on several nonprofit boards such as Board Vice President of SwingPals, Intermin Board Chair for United Against Slavery, Co-Founder/Steering Committee member of 100 Men Who Give A Damn, Director of Diversity & Inclusion for the Financial Planners Association of the Triangle and Co-founder of Shining Light In Darkness
www.weareconnect-ed.com
https://www.facebook.com/weareconnected1
https://www.instagram.com/weareconnect_ed/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/weareconnect-ed
DEI Done Differently
I spent so many years in financial services and I loved it…had a good career….but I was so busy chasing the dollar and chasing the title….but when I formed Connect-ED, I found my passion.
I live my life by a very simple phrase…Give and it shall be given unto you. So my part of giving is ‘let me know how I can serve you or your network.’
It’s all about uplifting people.
It’s not about the money for me. Money will eventually come. Money comes and money goes. But…getting a message that says ‘Ed, that was an amazing connection.’
I’m all about connecting people to other people, opportunities or resources. Or what I call PROs. And…if I can do that, I feel great.
I was part of a networking group…Nate Brown, Networking with Nate…I want to go somewhere and make it a little more diverse….I completely shifted from the way I was going to do it to the way you see it now.
My spark…was…David Baum….a light went off in me…I’ve been doing this all my life but I haven’t been intentional with it. Now I’m intentional when I connect someone together.
It’s always the fear of the unknown. We don’t know what’s around the corner.
That’s the problem. I got real comfortable.
We are all about helping people build strategic alliances. And I don’t care if that’s in your professional life or you personal life.
It started off as connecting business leaders and entrepreneurs together in a safe space. It was about bringing the quality people together…but slowly…there was a shift in my mindset…what I noticed was…people need to be connected to each other. So we opened it up…
We do it across several cities in several states….and I’m hoping we will be on another continent by the end of the year.
I was having one of those rough days…this entrepreneur called me…I just gotta thank you because you introduced me to this resource that I never knew about and this is going to change the way I do business…what I thought was something small, was huge to her. And that just gave me so much joy.
I get pure joy being able to serve someone else.
I believe the universe will give you what you need when you need it.
I know some people that are very strategic and everything has to be A,B,C & D. Me? I just jumped in and figured it out. And I’m still figuring it out.
If you have an idea or something that you want to do? Just jump in it.
There’s so many free resources for anything you want to do….you can go to YouTube, you can Google it, and you can create a business, a side hustle, a hobby, whatever you want to do it’s at your fingertips.
Don’t worry about trying to plan so much that you miss the boat. I know people that have been planning for years and never done anything.
FEAR: false evidence appearing real.
We’ve had some of the best meetings with only a handful of people because we were able to dive deep.
I don’t let fear stop me from doing anything anymore and I try and tell people, don’t let it stop you….fear will paralyze a lot of people and then you’ll look a year, three years, five years, ten years have passed and you’ve been stuck in the same place because you were scared.
I divide my network into 3 categories…my ABC’s
My A’s are my Advocates…
Next are my Builders…
My Consumers…
I’ve disconnected from a lot of people simply because they were what I consider ‘users’. You don’t have to do something for me? I’m ok with that….but if I see that you’re not trying to do something for someone else or all you’re trying to do is about self-gain…
People will actually put themselves in that group…so I in turn try to be advocates for certain people.
In financial services, it’s all about the numbers. The bottom line and the revenue. And I got tired..what about people? Not from a monetary standpoint, but in life as a whole?
I’m not a numbers guy any more. I wake up in the morning….who can I serve today?
I’m on a mission this year to serve 1,000 people…it might be just an introduction, it might be buying somebody a cup of coffee…
At the end of the day, we all have to put a roof over our head and food in our stomach. So a lot of times we do what we can get paid well for as opposed to what we’re passionate about. And that’s where the struggle happens.
I still struggle with the virtual…I’m looking forward to the day that we can actually sit…shake a hand.
We have Durham, Raleigh, Charlotte, New Orleans, Dallas, Bethesda, I’m working on Arizona, Africa and Pittsburg.
Mostly everyone that is hosting these cities are small business owners, but they have to lead with a servant side.
DEI Done Differently…I partnered with an organization called Love is a Parable…that focuses on love, random acts of kindness…let’s talk about it from a lens of where we are today. What can we do to more effectively bring people together…
Bringing people together. It’s as simple as that.
Our tag line is : building meaningful and lasting relationships one person at a time.
First, determine what that is. Determine what you want to do…figure out how to do it…start it.
Michael Jordan “Some people dream about it. Some people think about it. But some people just do it.” Sometimes ya just gotta do it.
I don’t want to be the biggest group. I want to be the most impactful group.
Stay true to yourself.
My wife and I want to build a house in Africa.
A shield and a sword. You can call me centurion Ed if you like.
Audio : Ariza Music Production