Chief Change Officer
#343 Brian Sims: From State House to Soul Work—Driving Change With Smarter Tools — Part Two
Sun, 4 May 2025
Brian Sims, the CEO of Agenda PAC, walks us through what it was really like inside the halls of power—getting his mic cut on the House floor, confronting closeted anti-LGBTQ colleagues, and learning the limits of both strategy and ego. Now in the private sector, he’s using data to fight back—not with louder voices, but with smarter ones.Key Highlights of Our Interview:When the Mic Goes Dead“I got half a word out. Then it cut. They didn’t even pretend it was technical.”No Friends Across the Aisle“They all voted against us—100% of the time. Colleagues? Yes. Friends? Absolutely not.”Losing the Big Fights“I wrote the Equal Pay Act. I wrote the state’s Marriage Equality bill. Neither passed. And I had to learn: that’s not failure—it’s legacy work.”Arrogance vs. Strategy“I thought just being bold was the answer. It wasn’t.”A New Way to Win“Now I use data to expose the gap—between what voters want and how leaders behave.”Fighting Dirty ≠ Fighting Back“There’s a difference. And it matters. You can run into the fire without lighting yourself on fire.”Change the Decision Makers, Not Just Their Minds“Every single thing I’ve ever cared about gets better when more women, more people of color, and more LGBTQ people hold power.”_______________________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Brian Sims --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What was Brian Sims' experience as the only openly LGBTQ+ representative?
It felt like a big responsibility, no question. All of us have had big responsibilities in our lives, and some of them we recognized in the moment, some of them we recognized in hindsight. I was very aware from the moment I won my election until I took office eight months or so later that I was the out person there. Now, I served with over a dozen closeted elected officials.
Almost all of whom, 90%, 80%, were supportive of anti-LGBTQ bills. It wasn't just that they were not out. It's that they were actively hurting the community. And so I knew I needed to focus on them first, which I did do. But to answer your question...
What I remember thinking at the time was, I've learned to be the advocate I am that just got me elected because of my work with women's and reproductive rights and racial and ethnic justice. Two things that need lots of work still in our capital. And I look just like the people who attack women's rights and racial and ethnic justice.
And so I decided that my first term, especially my first year, everyone knew I was LGBTQ. Everyone knew I was an LGBTQ activist. There were a couple of really bad moments. I'd been shut down on the House floor from speaking because of it. I'd been discriminated against in front of my colleagues a few times. And...
Myself and my staff and my team, we decided to use that attention to show people what an ally looked like. I introduced a whole bunch of women's rights bills. I signed on to every women's rights bill. I introduced a bunch of ethnic intimidation act bills and a bunch of racial and ethnic justice bills to show people, yes, I am gay.
Yes, that's a part of the reason I was elected here and it informs the work I do. But I can introduce these bills and show you why that matters. And hopefully you will understand why the things that impact my life matter. And it did have that effect, which I was grateful for. I'll give you a really good example.
Very early on in my first term, before I had ever spoken on the House floor, there was a good ruling from the Supreme Court came down about marriage equality for LGBTQ people.
And at the end of session that day, at the end of our legislative session, a couple months into my first term, there's a moment where legislators get to stand up and talk about major events and how they will impact law and policy. And I rose to speak about that. And I got a half a word out and my microphone was cut. And I didn't know it at the time. I actually, I thought I like broke it.
But the person who controls the microphone is the speaker of the house. The person who had just given me the opportunity to speak, as soon as I did, he just pressed a button and cut my mic. And it was because someone in the audience had objected. Another one of my colleagues had objected to me speaking, but they wouldn't identify themselves. And all of this was new to me at the time.
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Chapter 2: How did Brian navigate discrimination in the political arena?
Now, it wasn't often nice to meet them. And I would learn as I served with all of them that 100% of them voted against LGBTQ equality every single time. It's a misnomer that there are some people who dislike us and some don't, but 100% of them voted against us. But at the time, I just wanted them to meet me.
And I wanted them to meet me in the context of, look, I'm being discriminated against by one of your own colleagues and one of mine, but we can still talk and meet each other.
Was there a moment where, despite political and personal differences, you were able to find common ground where someone who once voted against you actually ended up standing with you on an issue that mattered? I'd love to hear about one of those moments that really stayed with you.
There is not common ground existing right now in a lot of political environments, including the one that I was in. The background is that the state that I was in had a majority of Democrats, so a majority of people that had political views like mine.
But Republicans in control of the state's government 30 years ago had set up a system where they would stay in control even though they no longer had the majority. And one of the things that you do when you falsely are maintaining control of a democracy is you do not allow that democracy to flourish. And so in my case, I mentioned it earlier.
Yes, I have many Republican colleagues that I had dinner with, that I co-sponsored bills with, that I introduced ideas with. But when it came down to the moments where it mattered most, our actual votes to allow something to become law or not, 100% of them voted against every single LGBTQ equality bill that came up in 10 years. And so you decide, can I share a dinner table with this person?
I can under lots of circumstances. Can I share a cab with this person? Do I hold a door open for this person? Of course you do. Do I consider this person a friend despite these things? Absolutely not. My friends believe that women are equal. My friends don't believe that a haircut has a gender. My friends believe that I should be able to get married. Those are different.
And no, I'm disappointed to say that while there are a lot of my Republican colleagues that I would speak well of and can tell you good things about them, not a single one of them cared in even the basics about me enough to consider me a friend.
Could you share some of the toughest lessons you've learned about relationships in politics, especially around managing the fine line between professional collaboration and personal connection? Any experience that taught you how to stay focused on change while protecting yourself from misplaced trust or disappointment?
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Brian learn from failed legislative efforts?
Chapter 4: How can relationships in politics impact advocacy?
I'd like to think I do it. I think I'm trying to do it in two ways. The first is collaboratively. I do not think that anybody who behaves like an island lasts very long in this work or lots of complicated areas. Maybe there are other fields that I've never been in where being solitary and being solo is the path to success, but it is not where I come from. I believe in collaboration.
I believe in community. I believe in putting lots of people, smart, engaged people in a room together and presenting issues and concerns and problems and challenges to that group. And that's what I get to do right now. The sort of unique way that my organization is approaching LGBTQ equality is to try to eliminate the people who are attacking it the most.
Americans are not as anti-LGBTQ as our political leaders. And finding those political leaders that are behaving more anti-equality than their own voters is the sort of intersection that we look for at where I work at.
And we want to teach voters that their elected officials are hurting their families, that they're hurting their friends, they're hurting their communities, maybe more than they actually know about. And I can do that in a way that I feel very comfortable sleeping at night. One of the problems in American politics is misinformation and these attack ads.
But one of the problems I also think in American politics is that we don't substantively analyze our candidates as well as we should. It's left up to too much about emotion and the sort of the color of ads and not enough about the substance. And especially for incumbent elected officials, I know firsthand, I voted on almost a thousand bills a year.
There are a lot of opportunities to decide if our incumbent elected officials are serving us or if they're serving themselves. And I don't think that we often get that opportunity to see that. And I get to work with lots of people and say, how can we solve this problem? And I
I think being able to now be in politics at a very divisive time without absorbing that divisiveness, that's the biggest change I've seen in myself. It's the biggest change that I'm trying to create in others. We've confused fighting back with fighting dirty. And as a result, we've found ourselves in a time when the worst among us are proliferating.
In American politics right now, what is successful is being mean, being nasty, being divisive, and taking from others. And that is, for me, that is the opposite of everything I've ever seen and learned and experienced about how I want our government to behave. And so there's two things to do. You either run from a burning building or you run into it.
And in this case, I think the smartest thing that I can do is run into it with the knowledge that I don't have to light myself on fire while I'm there.
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Chapter 5: What strategies did Brian develop for effective change-making?
They will be longer lasting. They will be more considerate than the decisions that are being made right now by people who look just like me from across the room. I'm very proud of that.
Exactly. Real leadership isn't just about holding the microphone. It's about building the stage, amplifying the right voices, and shaping the systems so more people can step into power. Whether it's one vote, one voice, or one podcast, those early actions compound into waves of real change.
Brian, thank you so much for your generosity in opening up and sharing your honest reflections and real world actions with me today.
Vince, what a pleasure. And thank you. Thank you for doing this work. It matters now more than probably ever.
Chapter 6: Why is it important to understand the history of civil rights?
You are truly a chief change officer.
I'm very proud of that. Very deeply proud of that.
And that's where I'll leave you. Brian's story is a reminder that strategy beats outrage. Silence isn't the end. And data can change more than just polls. It can change power. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, Don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media.
I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.