INTERVIEW | Make Money Through Authentic Leadership and Local Impact, feat. Amanda Litman

Summary

Travis Makes Money – Episode Summary

Episode Title: INTERVIEW | Make Money Through Authentic Leadership and Local Impact, feat. Amanda Litman
Host: Travis Chappell
Guest: Amanda Litman (Co-founder & President, Run for Something)
Date: March 12, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Travis Chappell sits down with Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, an organization supporting young, diverse candidates running for local office. Their conversation dives into Amanda’s journey from national political campaigns to social entrepreneurship, the practical parallels between political campaigning and business, the power of community and authentic leadership, and how local impact can shape both personal fulfillment and broader change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Amanda’s Early Career and Political Roots [02:06–03:17]

• Politics as a Calling: Amanda shares that politics was always her ambition—“Politics is the only thing I've ever wanted to do” (Amanda, 02:15).
• Career Trajectory: Starting with the Obama 2012 campaign in digital fundraising; moved to the Florida governor’s race (2014); then spent two challenging years with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
• Campaign Life Lessons: Even after setbacks, Amanda saw each role as a growth opportunity—“Pros and cons, you know, whatever. No, I joke, because it was horrible.” (Amanda, 03:05)

Campaigning Lessons for Business Owners [03:17–04:50]

• “You don’t get what you don’t ask for:” Amanda emphasizes the necessity of making direct asks—"If you don't ask, you don’t get" (Amanda, 03:29).
• Framing Your Ask: The importance of streamlining processes and telling a compelling story so people can say yes easily.
• Platform Evolution: While email remains king for outreach (“What is dead may never die. Email is still one of the most valuable places…” Amanda, 04:11), channels like texts and social have become saturated and sometimes less personal.

Word of Mouth and Modern Political Marketing [04:50–07:09]

• Trust and Virality: Word of mouth remains powerful; a compelling story that others share for you is "what moves the needle." (Amanda, 04:50)
• Translating Presidential Campaign Trends: Travis observes that mechanisms that move presidential campaigns often foreshadow small business marketing trends.
  • “The Obama campaign was the first president who ever used Facebook…” (Travis, 05:13)
  • Amanda notes that there are now “exponential numbers of playbooks” for different candidate archetypes and business personas. (Amanda, 05:59)

The Impact of Local Government [08:00–08:55]

• Local is Critical: Amanda strongly advocates for investing in local offices as the “only place to focus your time and attention, especially right now.” (Amanda, 08:00)
  • Examples: Housing, schools, roads, and small business regulation are determined at local/state levels.

Founding Run for Something: From Idea to Viral Movement [09:08–12:29]

• The Spark: After Clinton’s loss, Amanda was inundated with questions from friends wanting to run for office but lacking guidance.
• No Entry Point: At the time, there was no accessible path for young, non-traditional candidates; this gap led to Run for Something.
• Rapid Early Growth: Expected 100 signups in a year; received 1,000 in the first week. Now, over 253,000 have raised their hands. (Amanda, 10:14)
• Media & Platform Strategy: Early traction came from Twitter and earned media, not paid or viral content. The core was “an idea whose time had come” and a frictionless onboarding experience. (Amanda, 10:52)

Democratizing Political Participation [12:50–14:14]

• Old Gatekeepers: Access to political candidacy was historically gatekept—“There was a really very clear process of gatekeeping” (Amanda, 13:13)
• Leveling the Playing Field: Run for Something aims to remove barriers by providing free resources, community, and support for all who want to run.
  • “Our goal is to lower the bar to entry to think about running for office because it’s a big career change.” (Amanda, 12:30)

Surprising Findings from the Field [14:31–16:03]

• Why Do People Run?: Only 3% cite national politics (like Trump) as a motivator; most want to solve specific, local problems.
  • “You do not change your life because someone else is president. You change your life because you want to solve a problem in your community.” (Amanda, 14:31)
• Value of Peer Support: 60% say relationships with fellow candidates were their strongest source of resiliency.

Power of Relationships & Community [16:04–19:26]

• Networking is Fundamental: Both host and guest agree—professional and political success is rooted in relationships.
  • “Your number one resource is not money, it’s not time, it’s your relationships with others.” (Amanda, 17:21)
• Personal & Scaled Connections: Success in business or politics involves authentic relationships both one-on-one and at scale (e.g., via content, speaking, etc.).

Authentic Leadership in the Digital Era [19:26–22:03]

• New Leadership Skills: Modern leaders must navigate porous digital boundaries, projecting authenticity across Zoom, social, email, etc.
  • “The platforms on which you need to show up to build those relationships are so porous, they’re so exponential…” (Amanda, 19:26)
• Building Digital Culture: Codifying communication norms in remote or hybrid teams, fostering clarity and inclusion.
• Community as Support: “You need to know that it’s hard, because it is hard. Not because you are failing…” (Amanda, 21:43)

Authenticity, AI, and Writing as a Thinking Tool [23:35–29:11]

• Authenticity Cuts Through Noise: “Authenticity is the building block of trust, and trust is the building block of community.” (Amanda, 23:35)
• Writing as Fulfillment and Clarity: Amanda finds writing to be both her most fulfilling and hardest-to-prioritize work—“It is my favorite thing to do...” (Amanda, 24:14)
• AI and Creative Fulfillment: Concerns about generative AI impeding creative process and personal growth—writing is how one learns to think and reach clarity.
  • “The act of writing is how you think. And if you miss that muscle... the brain rot will become quite literal.” (Amanda, 27:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Asks and Action:
  “You don’t get what you don’t ask for... the goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to say yes.” – Amanda Litman, [03:29]
• On Local Focus:
  “You want more housing. Think about city council...You want better schools, think about school board...You want it to be easier or harder to run a small business...It is a state and local problem.” – Amanda Litman, [08:00]
• On Viral Launches:
  “We thought we’d get a hundred people who sign up in the first year. We had a thousand people sign up in the first week.” – Amanda Litman, [10:14]
• On Motivation:
  “You do not change your life because someone else is president. You change your life because you want to solve a problem in your community.” – Amanda Litman, [14:31]
• On Relationships:
  “Your number one resource is not money, it’s not time, it’s your relationships with others.” – Amanda Litman, [17:21]
• On Authenticity:
  “Authenticity is the building block of trust and trust is the building block of community.” – Amanda Litman, [23:35]
• On Writing:
  “I write to figure out what I think. Often when I write the first draft, the final paragraph is the thing that becomes the introduction, because I’ve written my way into understanding my actual thesis.” – Amanda Litman, [27:22]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Amanda’s Background and Early Career: [02:06–03:17]
• Campaign Lessons for Business Owners: [03:17–04:50]
• Word of Mouth & Marketing Trends: [04:50–07:09]
• Importance of Local Government: [08:00–08:55]
• Founding and Scaling Run for Something: [09:08–12:29]
• Democratizing Political Participation: [12:50–14:14]
• Surprising Data and Stories: [14:31–16:03]
• Networking as the Real Asset: [16:04–19:26]
• Authenticity & Leadership in the New Era: [19:26–22:03]
• Authenticity, Community & AI’s Impact on Writing: [23:35–29:11]

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Resources & Follow Amanda Litman

• Website: amandalitman.com
• Substack: Weekly newsletter (search “Amanda Litman” on Substack)
• Run for Something: runforsomething.net
• Books:
  • We're In Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership
  • Run for Something: A Real Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself
• Social Media: @amandalitman

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Core Takeaway:
Real impact—and real money—comes from authentic leadership, active community building, and a willingness to ask, adapt, and forge connections. Whether running a business or running for office, success begins at the local and personal level, where trust and authenticity are the greatest assets.

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Transcript

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[Travis]

You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel. Com. For a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast, where it's our mission to help you make more money. Today on the show, I'm talking to my new friend, Amanda Littman. Amanda is the co founder and president of Run for Something, which recruits and supports young, diverse leaders running for local office. Since 2017, they've launched the careers of thousands of millennials and Gen Z candidates and in the process, change what leadership looks like in America. She's also the author of two books. One, we're in Charge, the Next Generation's Guide to Leadership and Run for Something, A Real Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself, A How to manual for People running for office. Before launching Run for Something, Amanda worked on multiple presidential and statewide political campaigns, graduated from Northwestern University, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two daughters. And there's sometimes rowdy dog, which at some point, there might be a appearance from my rowdy dog during this conversation. So, Amanda, what's up? Welcome to the show.

[Amanda Litman]

Thank you for having me. I hope your rowdy dog is having a nice afternoon.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah, she's. She's chilling. You know what I mean? She's out. She always just comes in. She. She tries to come into the office when I do these, and for the most part, she's fine. Every once in a while, she just, like, stands up and walks around and like, trips over all the cords that I have plugged in everywhere. You know what I mean? It's like, stop, Sadie, chill out.

[Amanda Litman]

Your dog is Sadie? Yeah, mine too. Yeah. Really? Yeah, she's hilarious. Senior dog now, but she's still very sweet.

[Travis]

I was gonna say, so is mine. Yeah, she's 12 now. She just turned 12.

[Amanda Litman]

Coming up on 14 for Sadie.

[Travis]

Dog over here. Crazy. All right, well, tell me, Amanda, I'm graduating from Northwestern. Was. Was politics always the thing that you were getting into? What would the beginning stages of career

[Amanda Litman]

look like politics is the only thing I've ever wanted to do, which is, like, not a compelling sob story for a lot of these spaces I'm in. But I always wanted to work on campaigns. I thought it was a good mix of art and science, a good way to make the world a better place. I wasn't sure exactly how in politics I wanted to be involved. I thought maybe political journalism for a while or maybe, like, government. I did a bunch of internships, but by my senior year of college, I was hired on the Obama campaign to do online fundraising.

[Travis]

Was this. Which campaign was this?

[Amanda Litman]

The reelect in 2012 in Chicago.

[Travis]

Okay, okay.

[Amanda Litman]

So I stayed with that campaign, which we won. That was great. Stay. Stayed working for the president for another year for his nonprofit in Chicago doing online fundraising. Moved to Florida, worked on the governor's race in 2014. We came within 1% of winning that election, which was terrible. But I got to go to Disney

[Travis]

World, so I. Pros and cons, you

[Amanda Litman]

know, pros and cons, you know, whatever. No, I joke, because it was horrible. And then I moved to New York to work for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2015. I did two years on that, which was a very long time.

[Travis]

Yeah, no kidding. Two years on a single campaign is wild. From a marketing perspective, what were some of the things that you picked up running political campaigns that you think directly translate to business owners?

[Amanda Litman]

A couple things. One, you don't get what you don't ask for. I feel like it's a really obvious thing to say, but, you know, I've learned this with fundraising. I've learned this now running run for something for the last decade, you don't ask, you don't get. And the goal is to make it as easy as possible to people, for people to say yes. So how can I create systems, processes, conversion flows, you know, paperwork, what. Whatever it might be, so that when I ask someone whether it's for money, for help, to buy something, to do something, and they say yes, because I can tell a compelling story, I can then action on that as quickly as humanly possible.

[Travis]

Have you seen. I guess what have you seen in terms of a shift in platform in order to be able to get those messages out over the years?

[Amanda Litman]

It's an interesting question. You know, email has always been king. We say, what is dead may never die. Email is still one of the most valuable places to get, whether it's fundraising or cancer recruitment or volunteers. You know, people invite you into their inbox in the same space. Where they're getting, you know, marketing messages and emails from their grandma and, you know, notes from their accountant. It's a very personal space. I think text messages similarly have been really important. However, it's also really saturated in a way that I don't think email feels as saturated. Even though it is.

[Travis]

Email feels like less spammy. I feel like, I feel like when I get text messages, like I'm, I'm hitting stop almost immediately on all texts, always. It feels more like, it feels more like you're invading my personal space when you text me, you know?

[Amanda Litman]

Yeah, like I'm expecting a text message from my husband, not from a marketer. I think that is like one of the big differentiators. Can I say the thing that you know is true in politics and it's true in marketing, I'm sure is true in basically any business is word of mouth, like being able to have a compelling story that someone is willing to sell for you, especially you don't have to pay for it. Like, that's the, that's what moves the needle.

[Travis]

I know, at least from my limited perspective, doing this for the length of time I've been doing it, I've seen that there's a direct correlation between what gets presidents elected versus what's the next decade of small business marketing. And I felt like it was 2008, Obama campaign was the first president who ever used Facebook to help get elected. And then it was like, then it was social media, social media, social media. And I feel like the last presidency was almost like the podcast presidency where everybody, like the, you know, the podcast circuit actually probably moved the needle in terms of the, the, the last election that we saw. Have you, have you found that to be true and does it translate to like local elections and some of the people that you're helping get, get elected on a local basis?

[Amanda Litman]

It absolutely does. You know, if you think about a presidential campaign in particular, is a billion dollar branding exercise with a hard expiration date where you can very clearly see if it worked or if it didn't. And there's a lot of externalities and a lot of other players, but ultimately you have one product that you can kind of control, but not really. And a lot of opportunities for testing and it's meant to explode. So you can run, you can spend down to zero. Like you don't have to have Runway at the end of it. That is a really powerful marketing opportunity. It's also proof point of how what your marketing really matters because in fact, a billion dollars of marketing can't sell a crappy product, we do see it translate on the local level. You know, in particular that idea of who the candidate is and what story they have to tell is what creates the opportunities for them. So like, you know, a mom running for school board has very different opportunities to campaign than say a small business owner veteran running for state legislature in which the spaces they can enter, the conversations they can have and the way that they are perceived really changes. And I think that wasn't true even 10 years ago where because it was all cookie cutter types of candidates like there was just there was one playbook. There are now exponential numbers of playbooks.

[Travis]

And on the from local government perspective, and this is more like a broad political question that I'm curious about in terms of affecting change for the data.

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[Travis]

Day lives of most people yeah. Do you feel that local government is a much better place to focus your time and attention?

[Amanda Litman]

I would say it's the only place to focus your time and attention, especially right now. You know, we are seeing in real time the things that directly affect people's quality of life and cost of living. You know, housing, that's a local issue. You want more housing. Think about city council, think about state legislature. You want better schools, think about school board. You want better roads to drive on. Think about state legislature or municipal office. You know, you want teachers that are better paid. You want your trash picked up better. You want it to be easier or harder to run a small business or to open some kind of company. It is a state and local problem. Especially over the next couple years when we are seeing a federal government that is basically ground to a halt, that is not doing really anything in any kind of coalition. It is so important who is running things on the state and local level. So whether you're running for office or volunteering or just a voter, the more you can focus on the hyper local level, you know, we like to say the further down the ballot, the closer to your door, closer to your land.

[Travis]

Well, I appreciate you answering that selfish question. Now shifting focus a little bit back into your career here you worked on these massive campaigns, but then you decided to just step out, do your own thing. What prompted that decision?

[Amanda Litman]

So I worked for Hillary for two years, and about a week after Election Day, I was unemployed. Sad. And I started hearing from people I'd gone to high school and college with. Hey, Amanda, I'm a public school teacher in Chicago. I'm thinking about running for office. What do I do? Who do I call? You're the only person I know that works in politics. Tell me where to go. And I didn't have an answer for them, because at the time, if you were young and you were newly excited about politics and you wanted to do more than vote and more than volunteer, there was no entry point for you. So I reached out to a whole bunch of people with an idea. What if we created an organization to solve this problem? One of those folks became my co founder, this guy named Ross Morales Richetto, who'd been working campaigns for about 15 years. We wrote a plan, we built a website, and then we launched around for something on Trump's first Inauguration day back in 2017, thinking this would be really small, this would be our hobby. I was interviewing for real jobs. Ross was managing a congressional race out in California. What a cool, like, Saturday project this would be. We thought we'd get a hundred people who sign up in the first year. We had a thousand people sign up in the first week. As of today, we're at a quarter million young people who've ever raised their hands to run for office.

[Travis]

I'm sorry, can you say those numbers one more time?

[Amanda Litman]

We had a thousand people sign up to run for office in the first seven days of run for something. As of today, we're at about 253,000, including more than 80,000 just in 2025.

[Travis]

That is wild. What was the traffic source like? How did, like, you launched. You know, most of the time, people launch. Like, we, we. We put so much. We put so much time and effort and energy and money into building this thing, and then we, like, hit the launch button to crickets, you know what I mean? So what. What was. Was there something that went viral? Was there a TikTok video that went crazy? Like, what. What do you, what do you attribute those thousand signups in one freaking week to?

[Amanda Litman]

So in 2017, there was no TikTok. Instagram was still, like, you figuring out a lot of it was Twitter, which at the time was a really valuable space for, you know, you could post links, they wouldn't be deranked. We got a lot of Earned media really early on it was I think the combination of a really effective digital platform where, you know, we had a conversion funnel that was really easy and an idea whose time had come. Like there was a moment where people were looking to do something and we gave them something concrete to do. So a little bit of luck and a little bit of skill and I think now like nine years later, you know, we. An average week for us is a thousand more usually.

[Travis]

And are these like. Sorry to. So just to clarify a clarifying point here, the thousand people came, came in week one or the 285,000. Is this like people who have like purchased a program or like is that what. Tell me exactly the structure of the business? If you can. Whatever you can, whatever you can.

[Amanda Litman]

So it's worth being really precise. We are a non profit so we make the way we make money is through donations, through me just begging people for money left and right. Our users are free. They everything they get is for free. So they sign up and they say I'm thinking about running for office. That we have a tool we have created that allows you to search what office you might be able to run for. I'm actually found the conversion rates on that were much, much higher. We've 40%. It's a service so you can look up where you might want to run for office. You then join the run for something pipeline, which is the quarter million people I mentioned earlier. You can join the run for something community which is an online space we've set up where you can enroll in a couple different training programs, all asynchronous, all free. Our goal is to lower the bar to entry to think about running for office because it's a big career change. It's, you know, putting yourself out there. It's running for office, it's maybe putting your family or your safety at risk.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Amanda Litman]

We then have support programs to help you get from like maybe I want to run to I'm on the ballot. And then we have a political PAC committee that does endorsements where we work deeply with you. We can raise money for you, we can get volunteers for you, we can help you with discounts for tech tools all the way through post election day where we can help you figure out if you're going to win, how do you govern and if you lose, what do you do next?

[Travis]

Yeah, because correct me if I'm wrong, but historically I would assume that the majority of people who even have access to that type of information are people who come from maybe political families or not even Necessarily political families, but families with money, people who are going to prestigious universities who have access to professors who know this person or that person where like there, there wasn't like democratized access to this type of information and

[Amanda Litman]

there was a really very clear process of gatekeeping in which you had political parties who would recruit candidates or incumbents who would recruit successors and they would specifically look for a non risky or a viable candidate. That was a different way of defining, had access to money, was rich, could, you know, afford to run for office in the first place. You know, didn't have any skeletons in their closet, had no, never taken a risk in their life. Like it was, it was very cookie cutter. The first space.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very. Yeah, like I said, just gate, gated, gate kept gated. And it's almost, it's one of those things where you like can't even get upset that much because it's like if I had a ton of money and I wanted to bet on somebody to win, then yeah, I'm picking the horse too. You know what I mean? Like you, it almost, the system almost, almost required that level of pickiness for

[Amanda Litman]

lack of the structure of our institutions, shapes who is able to engage with them. These institutions are not meant for working people. They're not meant for normal people. Like, especially if you're thinking about things like state legislature or even Congress, God forbid, Congress, you have to quit your job to run for office. Who can afford to do that?

[Travis]

Right, right. Not a lot of people, that's for sure. What, what have, what have you found to be maybe the most surprising things that you've run across? Whether it's like a data set or a particular story that, that you've come across any, anything that you've like were just shocked by.

[Amanda Litman]

You know, we did some research at various points throughout this. I'd say there's two data pieces that I come back to a lot. The first is why people are running. You know, over the last decade, it's been almost 10 years, people be like, well of course people want to run for office. Like Trump is president, they're mad or you know, whatever it is, 3% of the people who sign up with us and actually get on the ballot mention him as the reason why it's not about him. It is, you know, he's the water people are swimming in. He's the environment we're in. He is not the hook. You do not change your life because someone else is president. You change your life because you want to solve a problem in your community. You See an opportunity, you see a concrete thing you want to tackle. So I think about that a lot of, like, yes, the environment is different, but we have to actually give people the tools to understand there is really concrete things they can do, and this is a way to resolve them. The other piece of data that I think about constantly as we do these debrief surveys, to really understand how is our program helping candidates, what are they getting from it, how can we improve? You know, we're trying to run a very data driven program. I don't just want to create the resources I think people need. We want to create the resources people tell us they need or we're hearing, like, lifting up. And if we're wasting our time, I don't want to waste my time. 60% of the candidates we work with pretty consistently, cycle over cycle, will say the greatest source of resiliency was not a fundraising tool, was not technology. It was a relationship with someone else running for office. Because leadership in any space is so hard and is so lonely. It is so isolating. Being able to talk to someone else who is going through the same kind of bullshit as you and, like, really connect with them. It is more powerful than basically anything else.

[Travis]

You're speaking my language right now. Amanda, I don't know if you know this, but this show used to be called build your network. It used to be a show focused on networking and relationships for people who just didn't know how to do that, but realized the efficacy of it. Yesterday I talked to the founder of bni, which is Business networking International. It's like the. Started in 1985. They have like 12,000 chapters globally now of different people, and they've seen a bunch of different data, run their own, you know, studies and things. You saw me recently, they surveyed. They surveyed 12,000 people. And these are not just members of BNI. This is just a data. Like anybody could have signed up for the survey. 12,000 people. And they asked them what if they thought that networking had a direct effect on their success professionally. And he said 94% of 12,000 people said yes to that question. Yet I find. I don't know if you found this. And obviously we kind of operate in two different spaces. I'm more like in the business world and you're in the political world. But I'd be curious to hear what you found on this side of things. Even with that being true and even with what you just said being true, how many people are actually purposefully putting themselves in positions to continually meet new people, build new relationships, and connect better.

[Amanda Litman]

It's so hard. I think we sort of lost the muscle for it after Covid in particular. But we tell candidates constantly, your number one resource is not money, it's not time, it's your relationships with others. And like, time allows you to build that, money gives you the like, opportunity to build that. But you are trying to build relationships, whether it's with voters, with partners, with coalitions, with the media, with influence, whatever it might be, your relationship and the trust that people have with you that you will do what you say, how you build that, that is the point of the campaign. The campaign is to give people a chance to get to know you because you're going to be responsible for the most valuable things in their life. Their health, their safety, their security. They got to trust that you can do it and they don't have to worry about it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Amanda Litman]

So no, it is, is about how you can generate those relationships in such a way that people feel like they know you and hopefully you really do know them.

[Travis]

Yeah, because there's a couple different tiers of this, Right. It's like the relationships that you hold close where you have a great, like, you know them really well, they know you really well. But then there's also like the second tier of relationships where it's like maybe you know, or they, they know you really well, you don't know them very well. And then it's like, okay, well now I have people that I know that don't know me, like the authors that you consume, the content you consume. These are all people that you know. They don't know that you exist. But then there's also people who follow you or follow your campaign. And these people you don't really know, but they know you. It's like you have to build, you have to get great at building relationships on a, on a personal level for that and immediate tier. But then you also have to get really good at the relationships at scale piece, which I think is a piece that a lot of people miss. It's like they, they, they think that they're two different activities, you know what I mean? Like, like creating content and doing a campaign or doing a speech or something. They look at that as sort of this like performative platform opportunity rather than you're talking to a thousand people. How can you possibly build a one on one relationship with each of these people? And how do you connect with them on a personal level? It's the same principles, it's just applied at scale. And that's what's going to allow you to see success both personally from a personal fulfillment, happiness perspective, but also from the actual tangible results that you're looking for, especially with something that is where that's necessary, like a political campaign.

[Amanda Litman]

Well, you know, and I, I wrote when we're in Charge last year, which you mentioned up top, which talks a lot about millennial and Gen Z leadership, of how to show up in this moment in a way that is both authentic but boundaried. Because I think one of the challenges we are having as we enter sort of like the mid-2020s and beyond is that the platforms on which you need to show up to build those relationships are so porous, they're so exponential. Like, you have to present as yourself and over zoom, over group chat, over email, in a speech, on tv, in a room, in a meeting. Whether you're running for office or leading a company, your responsibility is to build that trust in a way that is, allows for you to have some vulnerability, but also keep some of you safe. I think that tension and the tactics that you use to do that are so different than the people who were running for office or leading companies had to do even five or ten years ago.

[Grainger Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Can you talk about a couple of those things? Like, what have you found to be most effective in that scenario?

[Amanda Litman]

I think a lot about how you run a remote workplace, which is actually a really good example here. What is a remote workplace but a really well processed group chat? Your slack, your team slack or your teams is a group chat in which you have clearly defined the norms of how you communicate, of who speaks when, of which sub chats you are engaging on, what the topics are that are appropriate and what aren't. You know, you think about your personal group chats, like, I'm sure you have these with your friends, your family. Like there are different chats for different topics and different sub chats and you know, the offshoots. And there's sort of maybe unspoken norms of like, how long after someone sends a message can you do the thumbs up reply or can you engage your job in a workplace or in a campaign is to codify that and to think about how do I put that in writing and make it process and make sure that it's equitable and inclusive, but also very clear so people know what the rules are so they know how to participate. Yeah. Similarly, when you're thinking about how do I have executive presence over zoom, that is not a thing that our like bosses 10 years ago had to think about. But it is really important whether you're a candidate or a business leader. Like, what does it mean to show up? What is my background? What are the visuals? Am I wearing makeup? Do I have like, is my hair all over the place? What am I dressed as? What sounds? Am I seeing? What is the full personal story? I am telling you through both the visual and the audio in a way that is consistent with how I'm showing up in every other space you're in. Yeah, it's so hard. It's so, so hard. And I think this is, you know, to our point about community. It's one of the reasons why community is so important whether you're running or leading. It's because you need to know that it's hard, because it is hard. Not because you are failing. Not because you are not up to the task. Because structurally this is so fucking difficult.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah, if it was easy, everybody would do it. But it also is probably the key for the at least the next decade of business leadership, political leadership is driving community on whatever local level that means for you, you know, whether this episode

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[Amanda Litman]

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[Travis]

That's whether that's community in, in the city or the county or the state or that's community globally. Because you're running a business that is, you know, crosses over, you know, country borders like you, your ability to, to develop that community is really what's going next, you know, decade of brand growth.

[Amanda Litman]

And the way that you do that is through authenticity. Authenticity is the building block of trust and trust is the building block of community. Especially In a moment, we are seeing sort of artificiality or slop all over the place. Authenticity is what breaks through.

[Travis]

Yeah. In a world of AI slop, the only thing that breaks through is authenticity and community.

[Amanda Litman]

Exactly.

[Travis]

Amanda, I'm curious about your book writing experience. I know you. You've done a bunch of stuff. Obviously prestigious university that you. That you came from, working on political campaigns. In terms of the things that you've done in your career, where would you place writing in terms of fulfillment and. Or difficulty?

[Amanda Litman]

It is my favorite thing to do. And it is also the thing that is, if not the hardest to make time for, like, the most satisfying. So I wrote. I've written two books. The first one I wrote back in 2017. It's a guide on running for office. And it was. I wrote it like in a fugue state. Like, I wrote it like four months and it came out that October and I barely remember doing it, but it was very fun because it was just like, here's all the things I know in my head, out on paper. My newer book, when we're in Charge, I wrote a very hard period of life. It came after the birth of my first daughter. I was sort of like trying to refind what I had to say in that sort of postpartum fog, trying to think, what is my voice? What is the new thing I have to talk about after. At that point, it was seven or eight years of run for something. And I realized over the. Over the course of really thinking through this fellowship I got, which gave me some accountability to understand, like, the things that I was seeing different leaders do in politics. I was also experiencing myself as an executive. My peers were experiencing it at their companies, and I was hearing it and seeing it in, like, online content all the time. Of what did it mean to be a millennial boss or a Gen Z boss? Very different than the boomers. So the process of writing that book, ultimately throughout 2024, I had a one year old. I was running a company, a political organization, at a very hard time to be a professional Democrat. I got pregnant, which really gives you a hard deadline for when you have to turn in a book. Book must come before baby. And my company was going through some hard times. So it's just. It was a rough year internally.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Amanda Litman]

I found that the writing process was so delightful and like, so in solitary. In many ways, it was just me and my thoughts. Like, it's hard, but it was so fulfilling that actually my 2026 resolution is I'm working on a novel just because it's fun to, like, have a creator good for you to, like, sink your teeth into.

[Travis]

Yeah. You know, that that's, like, probably the thing that I think will be most detrimental in terms of AI coming out. And, like, especially generative AI, because I've had that thought experiment before where, you know, immediately when AI came out, professors and teachers everywhere were like, great. How are we gonna. How are we gonna solve for this now? You know what I mean? Because before, it was like, okay, you copy and pasted the Wikipedia page for your biography that you wrote. Like, yeah, this is not. This is not gonna fly. This is called plagiarism. And then generative AI comes out. It's like, how do we even categorize this? It' technically it's not, but it kind of is, but it's not your work. And I was like. My initial thought was sort of like this, you know, but if that technology exists, is it necessary for everybody to learn this skill? Like, you know? You know what I'm saying? Like, writing became less valuable when typing became the thing to do. If that makes sense. Sorry, just let me finish the thought. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it. But then the biggest detriment that I've found is that writing, to me, is basically just a tool that allows me to think more clearly. And that skill, I don't think is ever worth getting rid of, if that makes sense. Like, it is a process through which you can develop your own thoughts more carefully and clearly so you can arrive at better conclusions, so you can ask better questions, so you can live a better life. And I think that is probably the thing that's most detrimental in terms of what it's going to mean for the next generation. But, yeah, go, go. Go ahead. Sorry to cut you off.

[Amanda Litman]

No, you nailed it exactly. I don't know about you, but when I write something, you know, I write a lot of op eds, I write a lot of pieces. I have a weekly substack. I do. I'm writing, like, thousands and thousands of words a week. I write to figure out what I think. Often when I write the first draft, the final paragraph is the thing that becomes the introduction, because I've written my way into understanding my actual thesis, and then I have to sort of reconfigure it, realizing that about my own process and also understanding that the act of writing is how I clarify the thinking. Yeah. So, like, why would I use AI to replace my brain? I like this muscle. I've spent a lot of time building this muscle. I don't want to weaken this. There's certainly many tools that can make like, you know, some research, interview, transcription, totally easier with AI, but the act of writing is how you think. And if you miss that muscle and you don't build that muscle, the brain route will become quite literal.

[Travis]

That's right. Yeah. It will literally atrophy. Yeah. Because you're not using the muscle anymore. The thing that I found it's useful for is that I'll write something and then I'll throw it into a. There's a ChatGPT extension, I think it's called Creative Writing Coach or something. And I'll throw that in there and then ask for feedback on the thing that I just wrote. And I found that to be like, fairly valuable because it's. It's like a thought partner in coming to the conclusion that I want to come to. But like, anytime I try to get something done quickly and I have AI do it, I just never feel good about the finished product. It doesn't feel like me. Doesn't feel like. It doesn't feel like I earned the final product. You know what I mean? Which I think was probably. Is probably something that people are going to come up against in terms of personal fulfillment, happiness and overall meaning and contribution to the world is if you don't feel like you're actually contributing, then I think that that's probably a bad thing for your mental health overall, anyway, so.

[Amanda Litman]

Well, when I get emails from folks that are so clearly written by AI, I'm like, why did you waste my time with this? It feels disrespectful.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah. Amanda, I appreciate so much for, for coming on the show. This is fascinating conversation. Where can people go to get more from you, what you're working on?

[Amanda Litman]

You can find [e-mail] I'm on all the different social media platforms, just my first and last name. I'm writing weekly on Substack and I run run for something. You can give money there or you can get my books wherever you get your books.

[Travis]

AmandaLitman.com that's L I T M A N AmandaLitman.com for everything. Amanda, go check out everything she's putting out over there. Follow her on social. Tell her you heard about her here on the show. Amanda, thank you so much for taking the time. I do not take it for granted. I know you're very busy person. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.