Recently, I had the pleasure and honor of meeting astronaut Michael Massimino. He completed four space walks and has worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. I must admit, the kid in me was starstruck — a real life astronaut!

Besides being one of the most humble people I’ve ever met, Michael also spoke extremely earnestly about his time in space. When asked what one thing he took from his experience in space, Michael said without hesitation, “I realized, I was a global citizen.”

Come on! Now that’s an answer!

Mike went on to explain how, in our lives, we go through a progression of being citizens of our town, our state, and — of course — our country. He mentioned the pride he felt as an astronaut, representing the United States. But once out in space, looking at Earth, a new perspective emerges that highlights how small the earth really is —  its fragility and shared collective place where we all live. It dawned on him that we are all just citizens of the world. Now that’s an epiphany I can get behind. It happened in space!

As I reflected on this (and told the story to anyone who would listen), it occurred to me that if we all took a little bit of that mentality – acted like citizens of the world – we would have the power to create the change needed in our world. We should take pride, not only in the colors of our individual flags, but in our world and fellow citizens.

Equality, democracy, and freedom are all global issues, and we need to address them as a united front. It is the only way we can make progress. At CoPeace, we believe impact is a global phenomenon, good ideas can come from every corner of the world, and democratizing the access to investments and capital for everyone is the only way to disrupt the inequality we currently face. To conclude this somewhat corny blog with a corny thought, let’s all take one small step together to truly make a giant leap for mankind, and start thinking and acting as citizens of the world.