Speaker 1: Good Day, April seventeenth, twenty twenty five, And have we
Speaker 1: got a story of citizen ing for you today? Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Baritunde Thurston, host of the how to Citizen podcast
Speaker 1: which feed We are using to add a few stories
Speaker 1: into the mix. In this moment of attacks on democracy
Speaker 1: and undermining selfance, self governance, there is another story. There's
Speaker 1: a story of people practicing power, of committing to the collective,
Speaker 1: of showing up and participating, of investing in relationships. And
Speaker 1: so we are counterprogramming this sense of collapse with short
Speaker 1: but potent stories of people power. And today's story represents
Speaker 1: all that. You know, It's really common to lean into
Speaker 1: a hero story where a savior shows up, a great
Speaker 1: business leader, a great community leader, a great politician, somebody great,
Speaker 1: maybe Alexander or something like that. They show up and
Speaker 1: they got the answers, and they're like, I have come
Speaker 1: to save the people. You little people need saving. I'm
Speaker 1: a savior, so I'm gonna do my thing at you.
Speaker 1: And that's not what this moment needs. This moment does
Speaker 1: not need more centralized authority. It does not need paternalism
Speaker 1: and condescension and well intentioned but ultimately and inherently disrespectful
Speaker 1: way of treating people. And it turns out that the
Speaker 1: people who seem like they need the most, what they
Speaker 1: need the least is somebody telling them what they need.
Speaker 1: And you'll hear that in the setup to this story.
Speaker 1: John Alexander, my colleague in this mission right now, author
Speaker 1: of the book Citizens, is real big on this idea
Speaker 1: that people want to be involved. I sense it myself.
Speaker 1: There is what I call put me in coach energy.
Speaker 1: And John tells the story of QAnon, which essentially comes
Speaker 1: down to that was a recruitment to purpose, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, people who've fallen into that rabbit hole. Part
Speaker 1: of what drew them in was the since that they
Speaker 1: were part of a mission, that they were being asked
Speaker 1: to do something. And again I love doing this collaboration
Speaker 1: with John because he has his version of a story.
Speaker 1: I weave my version of the story. But we're both
Speaker 1: just happening into a story that already exists. We're not authors,
Speaker 1: we're amplifiers and co authors at a minimum, maybe editors,
Speaker 1: you know. But the material, the raw story, the threads
Speaker 1: of the plotlines, that's you. That's out there, it's already
Speaker 1: among the people, and part of what the people need
Speaker 1: is to be needed. That's really what this story is about.
Speaker 1: So enjoy this one. Think about organizations, operations, people you
Speaker 1: know who start with a question rather than a statement,
Speaker 1: who start with listening rather than speaking, uh, speaking of listening.
Speaker 1: Check out stories dot howdocitizen dot com. Fill out our form,
Speaker 1: share with us if you have more of these stories,
Speaker 1: and if you are down to hear more of them. Alright,
Speaker 1: I'm Beartunde signing off for the moment roll tape. It's
Speaker 1: it's not a tape and if you wanna see it
Speaker 1: visually check out the show notes on this one, or
Speaker 1: subscribe to the emails stories about howdo citizen dot com.
Speaker 1: We're dropping these every day and hosting them on Instagram,
Speaker 1: LinkedIn substack blue sky and you know your television, I
Speaker 1: have access to it. That's a different episode piece. You
Speaker 1: know what, people in need don't need other people telling
Speaker 1: them what they need. Assume that they can and want
Speaker 1: to contribute, and that the first step is to ask
Speaker 1: and to listen. This is that story.
Speaker 2: They all left with a sense of empowerment. We asked
Speaker 2: for this, it got done. But now we're also walking
Speaker 2: out of here with knowledge. I am the executive director
Speaker 2: of Step by Step, which is a nonprofit working to
Speaker 2: walk alongside young single mothers ages twelve to twenty four
Speaker 2: and their children. These moms are their incredibles. They're looking
Speaker 2: for resources, they're looking for community and connection. When I
Speaker 2: first came in, I knew what they needed. They needed
Speaker 2: to get high self esteem and they needed to rise
Speaker 2: above and work really hard. I started to get to
Speaker 2: know these young women. I realized there's so much more
Speaker 2: that we could do as an organization. We could actually
Speaker 2: have programming that really meets their needs and their desires,
Speaker 2: and we could grow leadership among them. People take their
Speaker 2: agency away from them and we get the opportunity to listen,
Speaker 2: be a listening ear. What does it look like to
Speaker 2: flip it upside down to say to the young women,
Speaker 2: what do you need? I got to just sit down
Speaker 2: with them and say, your voices have never been the focus.
Speaker 2: And it felt like a big collective sigh in the room, like, wait,
Speaker 2: someone's listening to me. Are you sure you really want
Speaker 2: to hear from me? When I say I want this,
Speaker 2: are you going to follow through? And it became this
Speaker 2: thing about trust moving at the speed of trust. It
Speaker 2: is a slow burn and so we have to show
Speaker 2: up consistently every single time in the same way. And
Speaker 2: they said, we need a NARCAN training. We want to
Speaker 2: know how to save lives in our community. We did
Speaker 2: in NARCAN training for our volunteers, so we didn't even
Speaker 2: consider that our moms would want to do that. And
Speaker 2: so our local health department has an incredible NARCAN program
Speaker 2: and the moms are asking questions, raising their hands saying
Speaker 2: can you tell me more about this? They're leading it right,
Speaker 2: how does this work for us? And what do we
Speaker 2: need to get out of this session? They're just going
Speaker 2: to ask and it was really empowering for my team
Speaker 2: to say, look, this is an example. If we listen
Speaker 2: and respond with what it is that they need, they
Speaker 2: can take the lead. And they all left with a
Speaker 2: sense of empowerment. We asked for this, it got done.
Speaker 2: But now we're also walking out of here with knowledge
Speaker 2: and an action plan. We can take action ourselves, and
Speaker 2: so that also builds more community and it builds more
Speaker 2: agency in themselves and each other. People know what they need,
Speaker 2: they know what they want, They need to be in
Speaker 2: a space where they have opportunity and support to do that.