The true story of who we really are

This is our wrap of our Week of Citizening that I've been doing with Jon Alexander. We found 8 stories from across the U.S. — across sectors, communities, and divides — where people are coming together to make life better, together. See them all here.

See the visuals for this story and all our Week of Citizening stories here: https://linktr.ee/weekofcitizening 

Join our mailing list and share the stories you’re seeing. stories.howtocitizen.com 

The story is everywhere.

It’s happening in libraries, tech hubs, small towns, and fire-stricken neighborhoods.
It’s happening in real politics, real businesses, and real lives.
It’s what humans do — when given the chance.

🌎 We believe it’s time to tell a bigger, truer story about who we are.
💥 We’re just getting started — and we need you with us.

👉🏽 Sign up to get all 8 films + hear what’s next.

Let’s tell this story. Let’s be this story.

Video Produced by: Chilli.app and Summer Solstice

Week of Citizening Collaborators: Baratunde Thurston, Jon Alexander, Shira Abramowitz, Elizabeth Stewart

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good day, Good day.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm going to bring you with me on my morning
walk as I set up this additional mini episode of
our How to Citizens stories, you can consider what you're
about to hear to be the wrap up. John and I,
John Alexander and I kicked a sauce together, and we're
closing it out together with a joint video celebrating what

(00:24):
we've learned and inviting.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
You to be a part of war. In additional news,
I returned my Tesla yesterday and I decided to call
it my liberation Day. Now, I'm not a hero. It's
not like I just burned thousands of dollars or tens
of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
My lease was up.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
But I take it as a positive sign. That's the
world that the universe times my least to be free
of this while Elon Musk is throwing up Nazi salutes
and attacking the United States in America. And I did
go during a protest of Tesla, and so the protesters

(01:08):
got boosted by my return. I was boosted by their presence.
And I know not everybody has the money to stop
owning Elon Musk associated things or the freedom. Maybe you
absolutely depend on starlink. Maybe you absolutely depend on SpaceX

(01:31):
and maybe you just started carle saying you can't afford
to get out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
But whatever steps we can take do matter. It definitely
made me feel a bit lighter, and that's it for me,
So the personal update. Go ahead and check out this story.
Go to our site stories dot howdositizen dot com, and
in the show notes for this we have a link.

(01:57):
John set this up into a simple link tree to
all the stories. So if you missed any of these stories,
we got you. That is just length tree slash week
of Citizening. Okay, have a great week. Let's keep citizening
and build this new world. And I will be dropping
stuff in the feed from time to time that are

(02:19):
on message with the idea of citizen as a verb.
Maybe I will throw some of my talks and public appearances,
maybe throw some of John stuff in here, and stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
From other collaborative. All right, you're hearing yard work happen.
This is real life. This is I'm being silly, all right.
Check out the audio of the video. You can watch
the video via the link in the show notes. Thank
you again, Peace, You've been.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Told a story.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
We've all been told the same story that human nature
is selfish and individualistic, that the crises are piling up
and no one cares. That we're all just consumers looking
out for ourselves all while the wall burned and no
one really cares. That's the story we get from most
of our media most of the time.

Speaker 6 (03:05):
But what you see from the stories we shared last
week and from the hundreds that have been shared back
with us in return, is that story is a lie.
When you zoom out, apathy might be what you see,
but when you zoom in, you find that people everywhere
are finding each other, finding the ways they want to
get involved and make it happen everywhere. Citizen not just consumers.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
So we're asking you to citizen with us.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Join our mailing list at stories.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
That hoowtocitizen dot com.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
These stories are happening in communities like Memphis, Tennessee, and Lexington,
Kentucky at the Corset Library and step by Step Incorporated,
where people facing real challenges are really stepping up with
great responses, telling stories.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
From their point of view that mostly we don't hear.

Speaker 6 (03:43):
It's happening in the worlds of business and tech, where
pioneers like Ca Sassoon in San Francisco and the Chai
Hacknite crew in Chicago are showing that the best way
to face big challenges isn't to impose solutions on people,
is to get everyone involved in figuring them out together.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
It's happening in real local politics, school board wards, county courts, councilors, clubs.
It's happening from Pennsylvania to Appalachia, which aren't that far apart,
which you get my point. It's happening amongst the real
people crossing real divides, realizing that they can gain more
from working together than by staying apart.

Speaker 6 (04:14):
And it's happening when crisis hits, as we've seen an
Alta din or in Pasadena in the aftermath of those
horrific fires. The humans are really so selfish And how
do you explained something like Dina Heels, What actually happens
in the aftermath of crisis is that we find each other,
We help one another. This is who human beings are.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
My name is baratun Day Thirst and a few years ago,
my wife Elizabeth and I made a podcast called how
to Citizen where we see citizen as a firm.

Speaker 6 (04:38):
And my name is John Alexander. And at the same
time I was writing a book called Citizens, Why the
Key to Fixing Everything? As all of us, the two
of us, were basically coming to the same insight at
the same time, on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
Over the past week, we have lifted up a different
kind of story, a story of we, not just of me,
a story of real people practicing power, a story of citizening.
And we've seen a hunger for the story, not just
to consume, but to be that story.

Speaker 6 (05:03):
Now we've seen that hunger. We want to do more,
but we need you with us. If you believe in
this bigger story of us, sign up at stories dot
how toositizen dot com. We don't know exactly what's next,
but if you're on that main list, you'll know as
soon as.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
We do, or almost as soon as we do.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
I mean, technically we're gonna know first because we have
access to the inbox, and then we're going to tell you,
like as soon as possible. Listen, the story is the
thing that's what we actually live inside of, and this
moment right now is a battle of stories, one that
scapegoats and vilifies and separates us and turns allies into enemies.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
But there's a much bigger, more beautiful story waiting for us.
It's alive everywhere. We just have to look for it,
tell it, and become it. But let's tell that story
together