Britt: I think my parents would laugh by saying them because ironically all four of their children I would say, are more politically involved, aware, enraged, than they were, so I don’t think that they would use that word but, it was very important for my parents to instill a love of community into her children. My mom did that through the Colorado Academy of Arts that she ran and that was really important to her. My dad has a very globalistic view of the world.  It’s really important to him that his children experienced lots of different viewpoints in living in different places.  My family lived in Europe, actually, before I was born, and it’s something I’m still bitter about. But that really influenced them. I mean my mom talks a lot about not having a child when they lived in England because socialized medicine made it really scary for her to think about having a child there.  In fact, the first week that they lived there she was asked to join the Relief Society to go clean up a hospital room before a woman had birth because you would walk in and she said I mean there was blood on the floor.  That was her personal exposure to socialized medicine and she decided, ‘I’m not having a kid while I’m here’ and that’s why they waited to have me.  So I heard stories like that growing up and then again, on the flip side of how you need to reach out to other people and think about different perspectives and be open to them.

But really it started in junior high.  I realized that I was good at debate and I think being the youngest of four very strong siblings (since you asked about that),  I love that you asked that because actually I do think that’s a huge part of my story. I have an older brother who is a political science major. All of my siblings in their own right are very interested in public affairs and current affairs, different aspects of it and I wanted to keep up, you know, I wanted to be able to spare with my big brothers and be able to hold my own.  And then in high school it turned a more practical approach. I knocked doors for Bush which is so funny to me that that was something that I was interested in doing, but I did it and I still don’t really know why. I was fifteen and would have my mom drop me off on a Saturday to knock doors in Fort Collins, for George W.  And I thought that was fascinating and what fifteen year old does?  I think I was born with this interest. And then student council, you know, started to look really interesting to me. I ran as a junior for a student body officer position and I lost terribly, and I actually think that loss was, well, it was very pivotal in helping me understand how it all works and how much of a popularity contest it is and then I basically ended up doing the kid’s job who got elected and I actually found that quite rewarding. I liked that he fell on his face and I got to make the dance really cool.  I made him look good. We supported each other actually really well and that was the beginning of understanding that you didn’t have to be, to your point, I have done about everything but run myself.  I have absolutely no interest in that because I just like to make it happen, you know?  And then I went to BYU and I was quite frustrated by the fact that there really isn’t a student body government there for good and bad.  And the party organizations, you know that national student party organizations are not very organized at BYU either. I heard about the Washington seminar program and I’m getting a little ahead of myself probably, but that was when it started to become more real, and I majored in political science and communications and I knew I wanted to do something with those two things, but I didn’t know what it looked like. I visited DC as part of an essay contest that I won when I was fifteen.  I don’t know if you remember when I knocked out the power to our whole town?

Meghan:  Oh, everybody remembers that story, Britt. There’s not a single kid…

Britt:  From Fort Collins, yeah.

Meghan:If they were in those four years of seminary, early morning, there’s not a single one that doesn’t remember when you knocked out the power of the entire city.

Britt:  Okay, I’ll tell the abbreviated version…long story short,  on the way to seminary I hit a guide wire to a light pole and knocked out the power to the entire, well, it was pretty much all of Fort Collins.  I think it was over 15,000 homes, a bunch of schools…

Meghan: We all showed up at 6 am seminary, all the girls had soaking wet hair.  Yeah, I vaguely remember it was like spring so it was still kind of chilly outside.

Britt: Yeah, it was March. Yeah.

Meghan: Yeah, good times. You made a name for yourself that time.

Britt:  My maiden name is Lessor, so I became “Lights out Lessor”, still am to some people and I leveraged that in true political fashion, that horrible thing that I did, by winning this video essay contest for the local power company. I bet you didn’t know this.

Meghan:  I didn’t.

Britt: From that, that was my first foray into PR and I spun it into ‘Look at how much I learned about power!’  And the local power co-op sent me to DC.  I’d always wanted to do something like that and couldn’t afford it,  it was something  my parents couldn’t afford, to send me to a camp or be a page or something like that.  And that really solidified it. I remember standing in the Jefferson Memorial, I’m fifteen and you know, this was after I had knocked doors for Bush and that was the pinnacle moment that I had to go back, I had to live there, I had to work there.  And that was really what really solidified it.

Meghan:  You know, it’s so interesting, talking to you because I feel like I could have very easily taken this exact same path, but I didn’t knock the power out that day.

But as we were talking, like I so resonate with your story.  I did debate and I remember taking a leadership class in junior high and my leadership teacher being like, you should run for student council and I never did that. I wasn’t motivated enough to do that I guess.  I think I knew that it was a popularity contest.

Britt:  Yeah, you were smart. I had to learn the hard way.

Meghan:  But I just love it and I love that you recognize your roots and how those all played a big role. I want to go back to something that you said that I think is so interesting. It’s that you said you think you came wired this way and I think you’re probably exactly right.  And this is something that we’ve explored on the podcast very briefly and in passing, but one of the things that I firmly believe is that as Christ’s disciples in the last days we had to come with a certain skill set.  We had to come with certain interests and those things should be what motivate us to become active on Christ’s behalf and in doing his work.  And I can certainly see how your experience has led you to do political work but to do it with an eye on the Savior and serving Him.

Britt: Whew!  No pressure!  But really, if I wasn’t wired this way, none of it would make sense.  Because it really doesn’t.  I mean, like I said, it’s not like my parents ran for office or talked around the dinner table about how important it is to be civically engaged.  I remember watching Fox and CNN with my dad but, you know, we’d talk about it just like you think you would, I think, in most families.

Meghan:  My dad only watched one of those.

Britt: (laughter)

Meghan: Your dad was trying to give you balance.

Britt:  Yeah, I think there was a lot more of Bill O’Reilly, let’s be honest.

Meghan:  My dad’s was Glenn Beck.

Britt: I do think we come with our unique skill sets. One of the main reasons I started Livelihood was because I wanted to help normalize women following those pathways, those dreams, whether it was volunteer work, whether it’s what they instill and teach in their children and teach in their homes.  We know President Nelson’s huge focus has been home-centered and I think that women are sent the children that we are for a reason.  And you know, Tate already knows that mom worked at the capitol and I’m sure that I can already picture him as a teenager, rolling his eyes and saying, “Yeah, mom, I know you worked in Congress.”  But I think that that’s an important piece of the kind of mother that I am, just like your unique interests and talents influence your children. So I think not fighting that and instead leaning into it, being okay with it, but also recognizing that that’s hard.  There wasn’t a degree in public affairs. I fought it at BYU, I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing.  When I interned at NBC in DC, I was really torn as to whether I wanted to go into journalism or work on the Hill and I really felt conflicted about that.  I still do! You know, I still wonder, ‘Did I do the right thing, did I follow the right path?’ But what I try to do the most of is just come back to those core issues that are really important to me. The life issue is really the number one. It’s so crazy to look back and see how that was instilled in me really young and I’ve had a lot of cool opportunities to be a mouthpiece to that issue that I think is a little bit more loving and not so divisive because it is such a divisive topic and yet,  I came this way and I don’t know why and I’ve tried to stop answering that question and instead just say,  “Okay, this is who I am.”

Meghan: Yeah, just go with it.  And recognize that as long as you are seeking the guidance of the Holy Ghost you will be taught how to use those predispositions in a positive way.

Britt: That’s hard! I mean I think that’s really, really hard because most people who go into this work are doing it for the right reasons. I don’t believe that most politicians are bad people, but the system is so corrupted that it’s so easy to get caught up in it and I have several examples of times where I had to check myself.

Meghan:  Let’s talk about that. So two part question.  Number one, talk to me about the system being corrupted, because I think we think that’s fairly obvious, but I think that depending on what and how people associate politically they might point to a different source of corruption. I would be interested to know your thoughts on that. And then share some of your experiences of how you had to check yourself and how to keep sight on what’s really important if you don’t mind being vulnerable in that way.

Britt:  Yeah. I might have to be somewhat vague because all of those examples are still somewhat confidential.  Not that anyone would really care, but that’s part of the problem with this world, it’s not as transparent as it should be.  So that’s the first answer I would give, is that the power that you so quickly feel is tangible and a lot of it is God-given.  You know I do think, because I believe in the Restoration of the Gospel that so much of it was inspired, I really believe in the power of the individual, and sometimes that can come at odds with the way that the Church views political issues.  And sometimes it’s really hard when someone has been in the belly of the beast and in those backroom meetings, to listen to people talk about it. You just don’t even understand, how stupid, honestly most of these people are. And what I mean by that is that they are just regular men and women.  If you think about every meeting you’ve been in, at church, at work, there’s always a variety of opinions, coming from all sides and stupid mistakes happen all of the time in every company.  Just imagine that happening with all eyes from the whole world on it and throw Twitter in the mix. So, I think we put our elected officials on a very unrealistic pedestal and they fail us all the time because they are human. And so that’s where I feel like it’s somewhat doomed from the start, right?   We know this is a man-made system trying to apply celestial principles of individuality and God-given rights and it’s not always going to succeed and it can’t. And that’s something that LDS people should just know, right?  But then we get frustrated when they make human mistakes. And so I actually think one of the bigger problems, and this is an unpopular opinion, I feel like, is that we as a society have elevated the politician but we have degraded the work that they do and so I don’t necessarily think we need to pay them more or anything like that but I think we expect so much more out of them and then we throw tomatoes at them.  So if we want better elected officials, we have to be more willing to listen to our neighbor, to not go on Facebook and rant and rave and then expect that these people we elected can somehow compromise with each other. Actually one of the saddest things and this will answer the second part, and this is that there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that’s really powerful and good.  The congressman, and I feel like I can share this because he’s not in office any more, was so divisive, I mean very very very conservative.  In fact, when I interviewed to work for him, he asked me how I affiliated, obviously, and I was registered Independent. And that’s still one of my favorite things because people are surprised by it but he said I care about one issue and one issue only, that we agree on and everything else we’ll figure out along the way. And I think that’s something people don’t understand. There is no way I could work for someone who I agree with one hundred percent, there’s no such person except for myself and we already talked about how I’m never running, so? 

I knew he cared a lot about the life issue and he asked me about that and I said absolutely we are totally in sync there.  He said, “Great,” and shook my hand and offered me the job. So, what’s sad to me about his persona is that. He didn’t always do himself favors with this, I’m not saying it’s the media or the public’s fault, but he worked a ton with people across the aisle, he was a lot more measured and moderate than he came across, but you just didn’t ever see that. And so a lot of where I would check myself was checking my ego at the door and making sure that I was doing what was right for the cause at large. One particular story, and I don’t know if this answers your question but it comes to mind. I was working on something related to the life issue and it would have been a really big heartbeat bill, basically encouraging states to create their own legislation, so focus on federalism and helping them empower women make more educated choices, that it wouldn’t necessarily be required, but that having an ultrasound before getting an elective abortion felt like something that I was passionate about and the bill just died.  I mean it went nowhere. And it felt like, I’ve been working on it for a year and I am so excited about it and it just wasn’t going to go anywhere so I went on a walk and I was so angry because I felt like I was in this position to really cause change. In fact, I won’t get into details, but my patriarchal blessing talks about this specific issue and uses phrases like ‘influencing the world’, which is very daunting and so I felt like ‘this was that, this is how I’m going to do that and I’m twenty one and I’m going to change the world’. And it all fell apart, and it wasn’t even me! You know, I was a very small part of it and that was something I had to learn too, I’m one little cog in a wheel that barely works.  I went on a walk, and it’s July in DC, and it’s so hot and miserable and I’m sitting on the fountain in front on the Capitol, and there’s all these families, and just tons and tons of tourists and I can still feel the tangible Spirit, ‘This is what matters. Look behind you, that bill doesn’t matter.’ And I still get emotional thinking about it, that bill, sure, it would have been really cool to say I helped saved these babies but when I really thought about it and felt very rebuked by the Spirit, that’s what matters is your family and your personal circle of influence is so much more important than the things that you do that make you feel grander.  And we all know the famous quote of ‘What happens in cradles and kitchens is so much more important than the halls of Congress’ and that was my personal experience with that. 

Meghan: Gosh, that’s so powerful.  I see a lot of just applicability in this experience for us on an individual level. I mean the vast majority of the people listening, I would venture to say, probably no one listening to this is in Congress or affiliated with Congress.

Britt: Of course not.  We wish that they were listening.

Meghan: Right? But I think that it’s fair to say that especially over the last couple of years there has been an increase in political interests and political activity and perhaps especially among members of the Church and I think that it is so easy to get caught up in the things that we feel passionate about, especially when they’re  righteous causes, and we see this is something that the Lord would give his stamp of approval to and that’s why I feel strongly about this or you know if it was something that had personal applicability the way that like you felt that you were fulfilling part of God’s plan for you, right, having that written in your patriarchal blessing.  And I feel the Spirit so strongly when you talk about this experience of saying, but what really matters is what’s in your grasp right now. And what you have the power to influence and I think that that may or may not include our social media feeds to a varying degree.  I think some people like to be social media heroes. And I think that it’s good to share your thoughts but at the same time I think that sometimes we get so invested in putting out our beliefs to as big an audience as possible that we fail to see how am I impacting the people that are my people.

Britt:  Right.  I feel so strongly about this, Meghan, because I feel like the biggest shift that I’ve seen, it’s been eight or nine years since I worked in DC and six years since I worked for an elected official and then, I mean I’m working on a campaign right now so it’s not like I don’t think these things are important and I want everyone to vote and I want people to get more involved. But I don’t know when it became more important to broadcast your personal causes than to live in a way that reflects how you actually feel about things.  And I get that some people may say that that’s privileged, right? That I have the ability to just live my life and people feel the need to use their social media platforms, for example, to advocate for whatever cause may be, but the same thing applies to Congress, if people would just sit down and talk and listen to each other with an open mind, so many problems would be solved.

Meghan: Totally.