Jon Alexander is the co-founder of the New Citizens Project and author of Citizens: Why The Key To Fixing Everything Is All Of Us. A former award-winner in the advertising world, Jon advises companies and communities on the power of narrative, helping them reclaim and restructure the stories they tell to in order to empower the shift from consumer to citizen.

Jon joined me to discuss this very problem: How do we shift the paradigm from consumer to citizen? Building on his book, he explains how how human history has shifted from the subject paradigm, to consumer, and the necessary move to a collective and community-based citizen world. He gives riveting examples of this happening all around the world today, revealing the power of the stories we choose to tell—and which we choose to suppress.

We also discuss deliberative democracy, the theory of narrative, and the framework of systems. Jon’s powerful message is: If you want to build a new system, you must simply begin. We cannot know where we’re going exactly, but we’ll never get there if we don’t start.

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© Rachel Donald