I tried to take down Donald Trump AND Hillary Clinton. I failed. Here’s what I learned.

In 2016 I helped Evan McMullin launch his presidential campaign 8 days after he decided to run. Two days before we launched, we put out the word that we were recruiting staff and would have an open call at the Washington, DC hotel where we had holed up. I had no idea if anyone would come. I was upstairs in my room and had left a few of our early staffers in the small conference room to welcome anyone that might actually show up.

I got off the elevator 15 minutes before we were to start and to my shock, people were already pouring out of the room and around the corner. There were over 60 people in a conference room that held about 25. They cheered when Evan entered the room. I knew then that we had tapped into something special. It felt like this was a more than a crazy idea. We were part of a movement.

True movements are marked by the lasting change they bring in the world. Movements elect presidents, free slaves, start wars, stop wars, and birth new industries. But can YOU really start a movement? Just one person? Aren’t they organic? Don’t they require tons of money and people? If you can start one, how would you do that?

If you’re someone with passion and a desire to improve your neighborhood or the lives of those around you, create new things and or even change the course of history, these are questions you have to wrestle with. I know. I have wrestled deeply with these questions.

My journey to understand movements came as a result of first hoping that one was emerging in here in America, then seeing that indeed there are a whole bunch of folks trying to chart a new path in our politics. Others had been seeing it emerge too, but no one had a framework, a vocabulary or a way of interacting that was truly constructive. We were just reacting to the reality on the ground, so to speak, in the form of the presidential race.

My role in helping chart this new way in American politics and the presidential race specifically brought me into relationship with all kinds of interesting and amazing people. I kept finding people who were feeling basically the same way about our country and wanting generally the same things, but coming at it from slightly different angles.

We wanted a return to virtue, thoughtful decision-making, inclusion, being able to disagree and work things out. We wanted leaders who inspired us instead of scared, angered or bored us. We wanted to be part of a group of people who cared deeply about others, about our nation and about building a future that was good for all Americans, not just our own tribe.

Post-election, I kept the work going. After working in Republican politics for one of the largest consulting firms in the nation, I left both the party and my firm to do this work. I started my own consulting firm and was determined to get clients that were interested in charting this new path. Providentially, I think, my first significant client was the Centrist Project, later renamed Unite America. They were an organization dedicated to helping recruit and elect independent candidates to create a “fulcrum” of independents in legislative bodies and force the radical partisans to the middle. Charlie Wheelan had elegantly laid this strategy out in his book, the Centrist Manifest (you should read it.) I was really intrigued with and supportive of their vision.

Their new executive director at the time, Nick Troiano, was building a team and asked if I’d consider serving as the Senior Strategist. Nick is young, but is one of the smartest organizational leaders I’ve ever worked with and a very experienced operative in this space of political reform. I was eager to help.

With my Unite America work and other connections and clients, I kept finding myself saying, “oh, you need to connect with Kyle, he’s working on a way to tackle that problem,” or “do you know Lisa? She could be really helpful on that.” I knew all these people but they didn’t know each other. And they needed to.

I was having conversations with all different kinds of people expressing similar frustrations and desires but nearly every conversation ended with one or both of these two conclusions:

1. I can’t do anything constructive about the problems I see because I lack resources, influence or connections.
2. I’m just going to do my thing in my space with my organization and if a good opportunity comes up to collaborate I might consider it.

But there was no real cohesion. Unite America was doing as much or more than anyone to try to make this happen but there were so many other groups and leaders with similar focus who weren’t playing along but running a parallel path instead.

I’ve learned as I have begun to study movements that this is a perennial problem in the space of budding movements that haven’t taken shape yet. There are some good people with good ideas but they’re not able to find ways to work together and build a critical mass for real change.

Many of us know how to create a moment but we find ourselves deeply disappointed when that moment fails to become a movement.

What this ultimately leads to is a lot of disparate, if well-intentioned efforts. Diffusion of resources. And worst of all, a lack of the truly creative and innovative collaboration for the good that is necessary to bring creative disruption and change where it’s needed. What we often see, borne out of frustration that reaches a tipping point, is destructive disruption. I put the entire Trump campaign and presidency in this category. It has certainly disrupted American politics. I just don’t believe it’s helpful. Steve Bannon even articulated this exact strategy — basically blow it all up and start over.

Instead, what a big problem really needs is creative disruption. This type of disruption creates new things to replace the broken things in constructive, hopeful, just and thoughtful ways. This type of disruption requires a movement, not just a few organizations or people working independently and hoping it helps nibble at the edges.

The lack of real critical mass and major change is because many of the leaders and groups are doing great things in their own space but lack the important diversity of thought and approach which is hampering each of them in some way. It is classic organizational or personal tunnel vision complete with all the requisite blind spots. Very seldom is it a problem of intent or desire. These leaders and groups are usually in it for the right reasons. I know because I’ve been one of them.

Instead, here’s what I think is the real problem: leaders lack a framework or language to think about real, constructive collaboration for the good. That’s what my upcoming book is all about — giving leaders of all types a framework for bringing lasting change to the world — or just their neighborhoods. I’m eager to share it with you soon.

What we often fail to realize — which leads to frustration — is that growing a movement is first and foremost about people. Specifically, I believe it’s about getting eight different types of leaders on board in an authentic, collaborative way. That’s what the book explores.

But before we get too much deeper into this, you should understand a little more about my journey. I come at this question from a background in both politics and religion, two of the areas that have seen the most “movements” throughout history and not always for the good.

My undergraduate degree is from Lincoln Christian University in Christian ministry. But before LCU I spent two years at Elmhurst College — studying theology and playing basketball. I majored in theology because I was a preacher’s kid and they had some un-used scholarship for preacher’s kids in the theology department and the basketball coach was looking for money to attract me there. Those two years were a crazy mix of partying, playing college basketball, studying world religions and reading theologians like the Neihbur brothers, Tillich, Calvin, Marty, Augustine, MLK and so many others.

After two years I transferred to LCU to, I suppose, get my life together and stop partying. I had to shake a pretty big chip on my shoulder about “judgmental, hypocritical Christians” but then found an amazing community of great people dedicated to really studying and living like Jesus. I studied the Bible. Greek. Hebrew. History. It was great.

I met the woman who is now my wife, fell in love in about three seconds and started thinking about marriage. I was involved in a ton of stuff. Looking back, even then I was hungry for a movement. A lot of college kids are, I know. I was one of them — I believed there was a better way — for a lot of things.

Then I had what was basically a nervous breakdown, left town with no warning for a while, came back, took some time off school, got married, and then decided, like any rational person trying to figure life out, to move to another country with my brand new partner in life. After spending six months in Santiago, Chile as missionaries and finishing my degree in there somewhere, my wife and I decided that wasn’t the right fit for us at that time in our lives.

I thought maybe I’d pursue my Ph.D. in religion and teach in a university. I could change the world that way. I was really interested in how religious movements formed and grew in Latin America and I wanted to study it, immerse myself in it and learn. I applied for a program at the University of Florida and we made plans to move to Gainesville. I found out two weeks before we were set to move that I didn’t get into the program. The director called me though and told me I was number three for two spots and had been beat out by a Harvard grad and a Yale grad and I should re-apply for next year. That made me feel pretty good and seemed to make sense, so off we went to Gainesville, Florida.

While waiting to get into the program I worked at a coffee shop and preached at a little church to make ends meet. During that time I met a man who was a political consultant (a job I had never heard of.) He asked me if I’d like to try working with him. I figured, “hey, politics and religion are the two things you can’t talk about at dinner — so, sure!”

Eight years later I had helped build that company into one of the largest Republican consulting firms in the nation and in 2014 became the CEO. But I had been quietly growing less and less comfortable with the direction of the Republican Party and our nation’s politics in general. Then 2016 rolled around. So back to that story, because it is integral to my understanding of movements.

I slept on the couch at my in-laws the night before I flew to Washington, DC to launch Evan’s presidential campaign. I could tell you it was because I had a super early flight and I didn’t want to disturb anyone when I got up. But the truth is, my wife was angry and hurt. When your wife is angry and hurt, you get the couch. My gracious brother-in-law, David, got up around 5 am on August 4th to take me to the tiny Champaign, Illinois airport where I’d fly out of one of its two gates. It was AUGUST FOURTH of an election year, just in case you missed that part. I flew through O’Hare and landed in DC later that morning. We had three days to launch a presidential campaign.

When I’d decided to go for it I began calling the trusted few who had been in the fight with us since the Spring and letting them know that we had a candidate. I knew I needed to build the very best team of leaders dedicated to the cause. I didn’t know a whole lot more about Evan than they did. I explained to these trusted folks that I believed he had a solid resume and that he was dead serious. I told them I was going to do it and asked them if they wanted to be a part of it. We needed a bunch of different types of leaders. This much I knew.

One of the first calls I made was to John Claybrook. John and I had worked together on Better for America — the Summer 2016 effort to recruit an independent candidate — and I had found him to be one of the hardest working, most reliable, most humble guys I’d ever been around. John is the former student body president at Texas A&M and wise beyond his years. He had just recently found out Better for America was winding down. Now I was asking him to come to DC, in two days, to help on a presidential campaign for a guy he’d never heard of. I wanted him by my side in the fight. He said yes and immediately booked a flight. John became one of my most trusted sounding boards and friends. He even sacrificed his body for the cause, sleeping on a pull-out couch at the Hilton Garden Inn for the first week. You’re a true patriot, John.

Also among the first calls was my friend Mohammad Jazil. Mo, as most call him, is an exceedingly talented lawyer who served as our lead counsel throughout. He took huge risks and big hits by joining us. I desperately needed his counsel on what it would take. We had, together, laid a lot of groundwork for it all in our work with Better for America. I had resigned from BFA as had all those wanting to work with Evan as is required by the law. I knew we could pull off getting it launched by the 8th but I needed Mo to actually make sure we were legal and we had all our paperwork in order. I knew if anyone could do it, Mo could. Mo had proven himself to be a faithful, wise and sacrificial fighter for the good in our country and I am deeply grateful for all he and his firm did.

I also called Ian Hines and Richie Alicea to ask if they wanted to help with the digital side of things and more importantly, if they could get a website up in three to five days, for a presidential campaign, and have it not suck. They said they could. In fact, they’d just done something very similar for Theresa May in the U.K. And now she was the Prime Minister. I liked my chances with them. They were scrappy and super-talented. Not only did they pull it off but they did it very well. Real movements need leaders like this.

I called Chris Riklin from Nationbuilder. I knew they were the only platform that could spool up that quickly and be ready to help us collect data and succeed. I’d been in talks with them since the days in the Spring when I unsuccessfully tried to recruit Condoleezza Rice and Chris knew my intentions. They were excited and he just happened to be visiting DC so we met and I let him know what was going on. I called him up to my hotel room where I introduced him to Evan and told him he was going to run for president. It was one of those surreal moments. After his initial shock subsided, Chris got to work immediately and really helped make things happen.

I wanted us to have quality design. So I called Tim Dalrymple with Polymath about doing the branding and design. They were in and got to work immediately on logos and branding that have become iconic in their own ways.

I knew we needed to capture and produce video content to make this work digitally. So I called David Nolte from Scratch Creative about doing the video. I knew him to be committed and excellent and he didn’t disappoint. He was in and booked a red-eye from L.A. for Sunday and ended up with us for the first month, capturing so many amazing moments.

I also reached out to Tyler Lattimore, a talented young guy just out of Emory University who I had met at church and I knew was considering a role with the RNC in African-American outreach. I wanted him on our team and he jumped on board immediately. He proved to be an invaluable asset and made a lot of things happen throughout the campaign.

The team was coming together. Leaders willing to make sacrifices, from all different walks of life. It felt like maybe, just maybe, this was a movement.

I of course called Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson, Bill Wichterman and Stuart Stevens, among others, who had been in the fight for a long time. I wanted to get their input and tell them about Evan. All were supportive but needed more info before going too far in. Except Rick. Rick was in the fight and he wanted to keep going. He was just the kind of fighter we needed. Rick had been at the vanguard of the “Never Trump” movement and was, and is, without question, the most creative with his (ahem) flowery language. He got on a plane and came to DC to serve as our senior communications advisor and political hitman. He never backed down for one second and helped us stay sharp every day all the way through the end.

I called others who I thought could be on the team — in communications, social media, finance, and other realms. A few said maybe. Some said no. They had their reasons. I didn’t try to convince anyone. We needed people who were in it all the way with no hesitation. By the time I got through the calls and got to DC, it was the afternoon of Friday, August 5th. We were planning to launch on Monday the 8th and we still needed more folks.

We convened at my favorite DC hotel — the humble Hilton Garden Inn in the NoMa district of DC. This is no five star hotel. It’s comfortable, the staff was kind and it was quiet. But no one really paid much attention to us. After all, we were only launching a presidential campaign with no money or staff, in three days. I secured our windowless conference room for a couple days, some fruit and pastries, and coffee. Lots of coffee. I didn’t know about anyone else but I knew I could survive on that alone. I hadn’t yet considered that our Mormon friends would need lots of diet Coke. We got that in due time.

Present and trickling in that Friday and Saturday were Chris and Roshelle Harmer, John Claybrook, Tyler Lattimore, Ian Hines and Richie Alicea, a few confidants of Evan’s, Evan and myself. That was it. Ten of us.

I asked if I could start our first meeting with prayer. Even though we had people of different faiths present it just seemed right. After a brief prayer and some introductions, we got right to work. Ballot access was set in motion immediately. We began making lists of possible staff and calling them. We combed through Evan’s contacts and compiled lists of possible donors and supporters. It was fast and furious and we worked all together in that room late into the night. It was truly inspiring to see everyone just set themselves to the task immediately.

Evan was fully engaged and working incredibly hard in his own right. This was no candidate with a full staff at his beckon-call. This was an everyday American about to quit his job and put his reputation and life out there for all to see. He risked losing everything. So what did he do? He dove in headfirst and started writing a platform, calling friends, tweaking a bio, working on a speech, and the many other things it takes to run for president, like getting a new suit.

After our inspiring call for talent mentioned above, we kept pressing in. By Sunday the 7th more people had arrived including Rick Wilson, Mo Jazil and his colleague Doug Roberts, David Nolte and Ryan Leuning, the cameraman who would follow us constantly for the first two weeks. By Sunday night, the core team was assembled and working furiously for a Monday launch.

We worked on a platform, built the website, set up social media accounts, got a bank account ready, signed legal documents, talked about messaging, reviewed resumes, set up secure communications and generally just did everything we could think of doing. It was intense, but there was peace. It was not frantic or hurried. There was a clear sense of purpose and we were on mission. Like a movement even.

We wrapped for the night sometime around 1am and had no idea what the response would be the next day, but we thought we were as ready as we could be. What happened in the first week was incredible and historic, no matter how you slice it. And it set the stage for the rest of the story.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I slept well that night, even if it was only a few hours. Somewhere in that craziness I came to a deep conviction that I then shared with the team the next day. It ended up being our informal slogan: it’s never too late to do the right thing.

To our shock, in the first week, riding a wave of disgust and frustration with the two major party options, we were on every major news station, in every major newspaper and had caught the attention of the political elite. We began to raise money. Volunteers were pouring in. We couldn’t keep up with them.

Our first major rally a few weeks later was in Provo Utah, Evan’s place of birth and ground zero for our movement. It was electric. The Fire Marshall was a nervous wreck at the historic Provo library as nearly a thousand people tried to get into a room that held about 700. We were on to something.

Evan McMullin’s first large rally in Provo, Utah in 2016

We kept filling venues. There were long lines for photos, every cable news station traveled with us at one point or another, plus news crews from at least 5 different countries. The Japanese were my favorite. What followed was a historic showing, garnering nearly a million votes nationwide and energizing an already born and growing movement.

Since then I’ve been working every day to serve people who want to see a new way in American politics. I had identified a movement. I was a part of it. But it needed more.

For months I had been thinking about what might be missing, even as I soldiered on trying to do whatever I could through Unite America and direct clients — amazing men like Neal Simon and Craig O’Dear who were running for US Senate as independents, and Governor Bill Walker of Alaska. In June of 2018 as I was sitting in the Hotel Noelle in downtown Nashville trying to make sense of all this it started to come together. I had been asked to talk about “the new political movement” out there in America to some key influencers in Nashville. As I struggled to summarize such a broad, big thing, I had three very distinct revelations and I thought I had better start writing.

These three truths came to serve as the foundation for my upcoming book:

1. You can’t create a movement, you can only feed and grow one that’s already been born.
2. The people are always the movement.
3. There are very specific kinds of leaders necessary to have a movement that brings lasting change and you need all of them.

The book will unpack these foundational truths. I will take each of the eight types of leaders individually and explain who they are and what they do. I’ll share some examples of each type of leader in a variety of different movements, large and small, including ones I’ve worked with these past few years. And I will help people like us learn how to identify which type of leader we are and how we can make the most impact as a movement leader.

I hope you’ll stay tuned as I continue to roll out stories and examples and soon, the book.

I can’t wait to hear the stories of how you find your place in the movement you care about and how you help make history. As I said, through all this I’ve learned that the people are always the movement. You are the movement. Let’s change the world.