MAKE A GLOBAL IMPACT
AND CHANGE THE WORLD
A “citizen statesperson” is a superpowered individual committed to improving the community and the world through values and activism. Citizen statespersonship
isn’t a static achievement; it’s an ongoing effort to impact the world in varied, meaningful ways.
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
For a complete guide on how you can maximize your potential and find ways to serve your community and beyond, read
Impact the World: Live Your Values and Drive Changes as a Citizen Statesperson.
WHY DOES BEING A CITIZEN STATESPERSON MATTER RIGHT NOW?
Three dynamics drive the need and opportunity for citizen statespeople at this moment:
- People have lost confidence in traditional institutions of power and influence. This includes our law-making bodies, politicians, businesses, and news media.
- The Internet and increased connectivity is making it easier for a person not only to take action in their own community, but to scale their efforts quickly and effectively—allowing good ideas to find larger audiences and create broader global impact.
- A new generation of impact-minded individuals is coming of age, committed to driving change in meaningful and multifaceted ways.
HOW DO I BECOME A CITIZEN STATESPERSON?
Within Impact the World, Carrie Rich and Dean Fealk outline the steps of practicing citizen statespersonship and maximizing your impact.
- The first phase of becoming a citizen statesperson involves finding your cause, building your personal brand, developing your knowledge base, and cultivating your network.
- The second phase of becoming a citizen statesperson involves leveraging your expertise and network to step into your leadership and become a catalyst for change.
- The third phase of becoming a citizen statesperson involves mentoring and developing emerging leaders to support your cause, thereby increasing your bandwidth for strategic involvement.
You don’t need a particular degree or specific job in a particular field—each citizen statesperson’s journey is their own and they bring a unique perspective and skillset.
RESOURCES
For those embarking on their journey as citizen statespeople or looking to expand their awareness of fundraising outlets for social entrepreneurs, examine this list of resources.
7 FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS OF A CITIZEN STATESPERSON
What are the tools to hone, enhance, and revitalize? In our view, there are at least seven skills that every citizen statesperson must learn, practice, and sharpen over time.
Citizen statespersonship requires you to articulate a vision and connect with people both emotionally and analytically. You need to be able to explain why your vision has merit, why your proposals make sense, and why other people should invest in your work and your approach.
As a citizen statesperson, you are a representative of your cause. To be a successful representative, you must be able to connect with people from every part of society.
A citizen statesperson is more than just one individual; a citizen statesperson is a representative of a cause, an idea, and a movement.
To be effective as a citizen statesperson, approach your journey as an opportunity to grow your impact—that means understanding where you are, and where you want to go.
Identify one day per week when you will spend 30 minutes in active self-reflection. Use that time to consider how you are living up to your potential as a citizen statesperson, and what adjustments are needed to be more effective.
It’s useful to maintain positive relationships with people, whether you see them as competitors or close confidants. Put effort into the people who support you. Put effort into people who are your detractors.
Staying in touch with your core values and core goals will help you decide when to make adjustments, and when to part ways with a partner or approach.
You can always heighten your aptitude and fortify your skill set—and it’s up to you to do exactly that.
10 KEY TRAITS TO CITIZEN STATESPEOPLE
A citizen statesperson is committed to improving their community and the world. They are not content to sit idly on the sidelines as a mere critic of events, they are an active participant in the work of the moment.
These ten traits are qualities that help an individual become an effective citizen statesperson. These traits help guide a citizen statesperson through risks, challenges, and hard decisions. They empower a citizen statesperson to build a network, to broaden their views, and to drive impact at a global level.
In short, people who have these traits have the power to change the world.
Citizen statespeople are driven, both by philosophical integrity and by the desire for practical experience, to understand other perspectives firsthand. Citizen statespeople share a deep commitment to an internal moral compass; they are equally dedicated to truly understanding peoples’ perspectives and struggles in order to advocate on behalf of others. A citizen statesperson wants to change the status quo, and the inertia behind it. If you want to have a positive impact, you need to generate enough kinetic force to push against institutional forces. That requires relentless drive.
Citizen statespeople believe in progress, optimism, and catalyzing the change they seek. They are doers who want to effect real change in tangible ways that impact peoples’ everyday lives. That means being grounded in what is possible as well as understanding the levers required to make an impact. Citizen statespeople are not ivory tower philosophers cut off from the real world around them. Instead, they are connectors and achievers who view progress as the next logical stage of development—and are committed to take the actions necessary to achieve that progress.
Citizen statespeople possess a sense of scale, recognizing global contexts and local impact alike. They are capable of seeing the interconnectivity of the world around them; understanding that the universe is bigger than they are, while also recognizing that they possess the capacity to catalyze important change. A citizen statesperson understands that they cannot make change at scale all by themselves— and also recognizes their potential as a catalyst and an agent of progress.
Citizen statespeople are realistic about where power and influence reside, and clear-eyed about the difficulty of creating meaningful and enduring change. By homing in on critical details and recognizing the way people, communities, institutions, and power structures operate, citizen statespeople help identify tangible steps along the road to progress. Realism helps differentiate idealists from citizen statespeople; by closely observing the world around them, citizen statespeople weave components, ideas, and communities in new and impactful ways.
A citizen statesperson’s most valuable resources are their time and energy—both are limited. As a result, citizen statespeople focus on their objectives and commit wholeheartedly to their goals in order to “move the ball forward.” That doesn’t mean citizen statespeople are incapable of doing multiple things at once; it does mean that they are capable of persevering through distractions and disruptions.
Very few large-scale issues can be solved or addressed by one person working in isolation. Instead, a citizen statesperson builds a coalition of like-minded people to create change together. That process involves persuading, encouraging, and galvanizing others to comprise part of a larger solution. By exercising their own leadership, citizen statespeople advance and evolve society at large.
Making change in a person’s local neighborhood or community is a great way to learn the basics of citizen statespersonship. Beyond that local focus, a citizen statesperson is also committed to taking their individual or group message to a larger audience to find how they can positively impact a greater number of people across borders or across stakeholder groups. That effort requires not only an understanding of how to broaden messages and scale change, but also a desire to shift from intimate local impact to extensive, far-reaching transformations. It is not an easy journey and it is often uncomfortable—commitment to pursuing progress at scale is at the heart of citizen statespersonship.
Here’s a hard truth: you can’t do everything at once, and you can’t help everyone at all times. We’re all pulled and tugged in a variety of directions. Many causes and needs concurrently compete for our limited attention. A citizen statesperson recognizes that, if we are always chasing the squeakiest wheel, we’ll never be able to move in the most efficient or effective way. Instead, a citizen statesperson envisions a path towards progress, and then takes deliberate actions that are necessary to reach their goals. There may be times when priorities must be reassessed or reordered as a result of changing circumstances, and a citizen statesperson shouldn’t be so committed to an initial planned route as to be incapable of flexibility—even in the most challenging of times, citizen statespeople can course-correct to plot and navigate a clear path forward.
Citizen statespeople believe that by engaging with problems and collaborating with others, they can find or create constructive solutions. In order to do that, they need to be open to new opportunities, new relationships, new communities, and new ideas—capable of interacting with people, places, and stories outside of their own lived experiences. That’s why citizen statespeople are willing to leave their comfort zones, walk in multiple worlds and contexts, and parlay their understanding of real-life conditions to make a difference.
Values are at the core of everything a citizen statesperson does. They guide our behavior when no one is watching, and drive our commitment to progress. Values help determine how we want to achieve our goals, and help decide what kind of leader we want to be. Values create clarity of purpose, and keep us focused on the priorities that matter. Citizen statespeople position values at the center of the work that they do. Developing clear understanding of those values enables citizen statespeople to set a course that aligns with their views, ethics, and ideals.
