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podcast with Joel Totoro and Wes Barnett. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show entrepreneur,
founder of Child Liberation Foundation, and the
author of Sound of Freedom, Paul Hutchinson.
Now, in this conversation, we discuss one of
the most important topics that I have on the
show, which is protecting our children, especially
in the world of human trafficking. Now, Paul
himself not only has a powerful mental health
story, but his business journey ultimately took
him into the anti -trafficking movement. So we
discuss a host of topics from his journey into
the world of finance, how material wealth still
didn't create happiness within himself. how he
became the bait for a human trafficking sting,
some powerful rescue stories, what you, the audience,
can do to protect your own children, his latest
book, and so much more. Now, before we get to
this incredible conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment. Go to whichever
app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of over 1 ,100 episodes
now. So all I ask in return is that you help
share these incredible men and women's stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet
Earth who needs to hear them. So that being said,
I introduce to you Paul Hutchinson. Enjoy. Well,
Paul, I want to start by saying two things. Firstly,
thank you to our mutual friend, Tom Datro, for
making the introduction. And secondly, welcome
to, oh my goodness, to welcome you onto the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Well, I'm incredibly
grateful, James. And, you know, people like you
are my biggest heroes. People are first responders,
people who put their life. on the line for our
freedoms. And some of the greatest men and women
I've ever worked with was the undercover work,
the former Green Berets, Navy SEALs who retired
now decide, you know what, I want to continue
to do good and help humanity. So thank you for
the service that you've given as well. Yeah,
well, just kind of pairing that slightly, these
are my favorite humans too, is the group that
already served in uniform and they transition
out and they continue to say, what else can I
do? Ryan Parrott's one of my friends who was
just calling me before we started talking. Navy
SEAL created a burn foundation. Now he's got
a mental health side to it as well and TBI. And
these are the best kind of humans because we
get paid to wear the uniform. But if you carry
on your service and your mission beyond that.
I think that's the kind of human that I like
to surround myself with. Exactly. All right.
Well, first question, where on planet Earth are
we finding you this afternoon? Right now, I'm
actually in South America, in Colombia. After
the global success of Sound of Freedom movie,
we've had opportunities in countries everywhere
to help. change laws and policies, work on healing
retreat certification programs. So we're spending
a lot of time here in Latin America. And I fly
back up to the US tomorrow, but today I'm here.
Brilliant. All right. Well, I would love to start
the very beginning of your journey. So tell me
where you were born and tell me a little bit
about your family dynamic, what your parents
did, how many siblings? I was born in Utah, in
Salt Lake City. I joke and say I has... skis
on my feet by the time i was four years old beautiful
mountains beautiful snow and had four younger
sisters uh and then through we had a foster boy
that lived with us for a while on an indian placement
program and then a navajo indian brother but
so i only had a brother for about two or three
years and then the rest of the time was all sisters
and um traveled a lot since then. I still have
a home in Utah. I literally have not stepped
one foot in my, I've got a beautiful ranch halfway
between Salt Lake and Denver. I haven't even
been there one day in the last year. So just
too much to do in the charity work in Latin America.
What did your parents do as far as profession?
My father was a gardener when he was younger
and then ended up in sales in a concrete company.
He ended up working his way up to the point where
he became an owner of Intermountain Concrete
Specialties and then retired. Golly, he retired
almost 15 years ago. And my mom was a homemaker.
She did Mary Kay and nails and everything else
to make money. We as little kids, we wanted to
go to... go to Disneyland, we were picking up
pop cans in the park. We were figuring out how
to save money in whatever way we could. We had
janitorial jobs growing up, literally. Talk about
child labor. I was eight years old, emptying
garbage cans in the bank. A workout that came
from when I was really young and contributing
to help pay the bills. You mentioned skiing.
What other sports were you doing when you were
through the school ages? Well, I played basketball,
wasn't any good at that. Played football for
a year, wasn't any good at that. I played rugby,
you know, and I guess rugby, you just kind of
have to be a little bit crazy. We averaged one
guy a game that ended up going to the hospital
or to a doctor for broken something or whatever.
And my mom wouldn't even come and watch me play
because she says it was... an organized brawl,
which it kind of was, but we had fun. We started
the rugby team at our high school and, um, I
got, uh, I wanted to get involved in politics
and in high school, junior high, I ran for office.
I was kind of like, like, uh, Abraham Lincoln.
I ran for everything and won nothing literally
over and over again. But, uh, I ran for student
potty vice president of our high school and lost
by four votes. And my, um, I got a call the next
day from the principal and the vice principal
called me into the office and said, hey, you
know, we love your leadership. Sad you didn't
win, but we want to bring you on to be the president
of something called the Peer Leadership Team,
which helps kids with drug and alcohol abuse
and teen suicide situations or home abuse or
whatnot. And I had the opportunity to go through
a bunch of training that summer. on being a peer
counselor and then put together a team and it
was in that space that i started to recognize
the the darkness in in even affluent nice decent
neighborhoods how many kids were dealing with
with abuse in the home um you know what what
happened is if a child came to a teacher and
said something to that teacher about hey uh you
know i my dad's been raping me or whatever, that
teacher legally has to go to an authority. A
peer counselor, some kids will open up a lot
better to us and then we can encourage them to
go to an authority. And so that was where I first
started recognizing the damaging effects of addiction,
of alcohol addiction and cocaine addiction and
pornography addiction and then the effects of
and how many children we're dealing with. significant
abuse in the home. Literally one in every four
women that you know today were a victim of sexual
abuse as a child. And very few people talk about
it. With men, it's a little bit less. It's one
in every five at some time in our life. But even
them, one in every... Four of them, it was under
the age of 10 years old in their own homes. And
it shows up in so many areas of our life and
anxiety and depression and PTSD and addictions
of all sorts and low self -esteem and anger issues.
And in some cases, passing on that trauma, you
know, and physical, verbal, in some cases, sexual
abuse. In fact, 70 % of incarcerated felons.
Admit that they were victims themselves as children
of abuse. And so recognizing that hurt people
hurt other people and recognizing how many of
us deal with things that are unresolved. And
God bless them. Most of my operators doing the
undercover work, most of them were abused as
children. And they grew up not to be abusers
themselves. Instead, they grew up to be protectors.
And God bless them. The majority of people that
go through that grow up to be protectors. But
all of us need to heal from it. And that's one
thing I learned in high school in a very profound
way. It's interesting you say that, especially
you had that lens so young, because as I started
progressing through this podcast, there's one
guy, Jake Clark, who will always attribute this,
that really educated me on the prevalence of
childhood trauma in uniform, military and first
responders. And then you just, you know, by no
means prying, but you kind of open the door for
someone to talk about that if they want to on
this interview. I've done 1100 interviews now
over and easily. I'm kind of like trying to do
the math in my head, but a quarter, maybe a third
of the male guests in uniform were actually sexually
abused when they were young. So what you see
one in five of the entire population, but then
you, as you, as you mentioned, you're going to
go one of two ways that the ACE score supposedly
on average incarcerated people have a six out
of 10. And so do we. military and first responders
so you've got that crossroads and did you meet
a positive mentor or a negative mentor that sent
you in that one direction but having this conversation
when it comes to first responder military mental
health is so important because if we're talking
oh well you were in fallujah or you were you
know hunting traffickers in columbia or you were
a firefighter and saw that horrendous you know
vehicle accident And you're not talking about,
well, what happened before you put the uniform
on? Whether it's a soldier, a firefighter, or
just a general member of public, we're missing
a massive piece of that pie chart when it comes
to the mental health conversation. So true. And
sadly, James, the average age of somebody even
talking about that abuse as a child, the average
age is 52 years old. That's my age. I've raised
my kids. I've got grandkids. I've built my career.
And if you're holding on to that so long and
not even talking about it, then it's coming out
in anger issues and addictions and other challenges.
So many men are like, oh, I don't want to talk
about that. That happened when I was eight, that
thing with my uncle. It'll make me less of a
man if I talk about that. No, it won't. You were
eight. This was a horrible thing that happened
with somebody carrying a lot of negativity and
a lot of pain himself that passed that on to
that innocent child. And it doesn't make you
less of anything. It's the simple. fact that
you release it. Here's what's super interesting
is that high percentage of people who have gone
into that service of helping others and first
responders who talk about that. It's because
they talked about it that turned them the direction
of being a protector, of being a healer, rather
than holding on to it and allow it to just fester
and come out in really unhealthy behaviors. And
so talking about it is not a negative. And, you
know, guys, if women, if your husband says, hey,
you know, this thing happened, don't think, oh,
he's going to be a predator now. No, the fact
that he spoke about it takes the chances of him
being a predator going from, you know, 20, 30
percent all the way down to like one in 100.
That talking about it is what releases it and
brings in that healing energy of saying, OK,
now I'm going to be a protector. You mentioned
the foster brother coming from the Navajo Nation.
One of the, I think, the most underrepresented
groups are our indigenous people. And you do
hear a lot of issues when it comes to some of
the reservations with alcoholism and addiction
and domestic violence and anything where identity
has been stripped away and poverty has been forced.
It doesn't matter the skin color or the ethnicity.
What was the background of that program? Was
it a similar kind of trauma background or was
it something completely different? I can't even
tell you how much trauma I saw on the reservation.
What was sad is that the reason why he came when
he was eight years old and just came up for the
summer and had an amazing education and a family
life, etc. His parents were alcoholics. creation
of welfare mentality. When you've got a free
check coming in all the time and it's enough
to just pay your basics and then you can just
drink alcohol your whole life. There's a lot
of challenges in that system that breeds the
addiction process. For him, he wasn't able to
come back at 12 years old because his parents
realized they got more money from the government
if they kept him home. rather than sending him
on the program, which was incredibly sad. He
ended up going the other direction. After he
was home, he was rebelling. He ended up lighting
a fire at the school, getting into juvenile detention,
and eventually going to prison because of mail
fraud, a bunch of horrible things that came from
the environment that he was in. And so you're
exactly right when you have a government or an
institution that strips away identity and creates
a welfare mentality, you create a lot more challenges
than you can imagine. Absolutely. Well, that
was a deep dive right on the offset, or the onset,
should I say. Going back to kind of your journey
through school, when you were in the high school
age, were you dreaming of the kind of business
world or was it something else initially? I wanted
to be a doctor. I remember when I was a little
kid, pretty young, I was like seven years old.
I came in, I said, Mom, I know what I want to
be when I grow up. And she's like, well, what
do you want to be, Paul? I said, well, I want
to be a brain surgeon. She's like, oh, you know,
she's all beaming with pride. Oh, why a brain
surgeon? I says, because I just got beat up and
I want to fix how people think. And then over
time, I was really serious. I actually did a
little report in school trying to figure it out.
I still have that little report. And then I changed
it to being a heart surgeon. I think intuitively,
I realized that if you're going to change how
people think, it doesn't start with their brain.
It starts with their heart. And so I was serious
about it. I had taken a bunch of pre -med classes.
in high school. My senior year, I excelled pretty
easily. And I was going to the college for half
of my day during my senior year to take some
additional pre -med classes and was going to
not only be a doctor, but a surgeon, not only
a surgeon, but a heart surgeon, not only a heart
surgeon, but one who operated on children. I
wanted to be a pediatric cardiologist. And two
months before taking the MCAT, I got in a major
car accident. And It was a serious one. I mean,
the engine was separated from the car. The back
door was smashed in two feet, like literally
six inches behind me. It was a million angels
stopping me from dying at that moment. But in
that, my hand flew out the window and I still
have I -80, Interstate 80 is still with me 30
years later. And severed all the tendons in my
hand. They didn't know if I'd have the dexterity
to be a surgeon. They said, Paul, you can be
a... You can be a regular doctor. I said, I don't
want to be regular anything. So I wanted to be
a specialized, specialized. And I said, I remember
saying, if my destiny is to be a garbage man,
I'm going to own the dump. That's just how I
think. I've got this life to... be the best I
can be and contribute the most value I can contribute.
And if I can't be a surgeon, I, I need to find
something that's can contribute. So I, I, it
was interesting. I had a, had a friend of the
family. He was, he was successful, really successful
in business. And I, I went to lunch with him
and he said, Paul, he said, why do you want to
be a surgeon? Anyway, I said, be honest with
you. I want the money, you know, I'll go to school
for 12 years. I can drive a Ferrari. He said,
he laughs. He says, Paul, he said, there's, He
said, you have a unique gift with people. He
said, I'm willing to be your mentor. And if you
do what I teach you to do, you'll be a millionaire
by the time you're 30 and you'll have the time
to enjoy it. And I said, what do you mean time
to enjoy it? He says, why don't you do this?
He said, go sit down with a surgeon who's where
you want to be financially and ask him about
his lifestyle. And I did. I actually went to
lunch with the surgeon who operated on my hand
because I was frustrated because I wanted to
be a surgeon. At lunch, I asked him, I says,
tell me about your lifestyle. And he said, well,
I've got a beautiful home. I got a motor home,
part ownership in a plane. I've got a boat, jet
skis. I've got two teenage kids and I don't even
know them. I work 100 hours a week to maintain
the lifestyle. And I thought, wow, you know,
I'm trading time for money. He says, you know,
I'm married to my beeper. Back then they had
a beeper, a pager, right? And so I went back
to that mentor and he said, Paul, he says, if
you build a business right, you'll have time
and money. Because money without time doesn't
matter. And you can have fulfillment if you focus
in areas that are creating value. So I listened
to him. He says, the first thing you got to do
is you got to learn how to sell. Every successful
business owner knows how to sell and knows how
to handle rejection. And so that's where I changed
focus at about 21 years old. So what was the
initial field you found yourself in? It was actually
sales. He told me, he said, Paul, he said, he
said, you should find a job that's the highest
rejection job you can find. You got to learn
how to, he says, because in any sales, any company,
he says, you're either selling your idea to your
investors, or you're selling your, your leadership
to your employees, or you're selling your project,
your product to your, your customers. He says,
either way, you've got to deal with rejection.
You've got to learn how to close. And so. I looked
around. I thought of going door to door selling
Cutco knives. That didn't really intrigue me.
I looked at some multi -level things. But I found
a job at a call center, 300 employees, cold calling,
selling videos programs that help parents learn
how to raise better kids, even little cartoon
things that help kids learn honesty and integrity.
And this was kind of in line with my philosophy
of If you're going to earn money, do it in a
way where you're contributing real value to the
world. I'm writing a book called, I don't know
the name of it yet. It'll either be like Conscious
Capitalism or something that teaches how... can
truly be a win -win -win you never have to have
a lose in the equation in anything that you're
doing and so so you know this was truly in line
and i i worked my way up and they brought on
a new account uh a lady by the name of lucinda
bassett who had the attacking anxiety and depression
program and i i that was so in line with with
my core beliefs especially with what had happened
in high school and realizing how many people
were dealing with all of this anxiety and depression
and ptsd and addictions and challenges and so
i started working with that company and i ended
up starting a company of my own midwest center
marketing that owned the worldwide marketing
for that company and they were when i met them
they were six million dollars a year in the in
the red By the time I sold my company, we were
$72 million a year and definitely in the black.
And we had over 50 ,000 people a month calling
in off of an infomercial to get a workbook, audio
program, videos to help them change the negative
habit patterns of thought and other habits that
were creating their anxiety and depression that
came from unhealed trauma, etc. It was a beautiful
exit. I sold my company for a lot of money at
29 years old, enough to retire for a while. And
I was truly blessed because it was something
that I felt good about. I felt good that it was
truly contributing to creating a better life
for everybody. So that's where I first started.
And then I started investing in real estate.
I realized if I didn't hire guys smarter than
me, I was going to lose all my money in real
estate. So I put together a team and ended up
building an incredible empire in the real estate
space. I've come across a few businesses that
have such a beautiful model, that kind of social
business model, like you said, conscious capitalism.
And I think that's exactly it. It's a win -win.
Of course, people need to make money. Some people
want to make a little bit more than others, but
I don't think it should be the detriment of the
nation's security, the nation's health, et cetera,
et cetera. How did we get to the point where
initially... America really was, you know, the
American dream and that real feeling that anybody
can kind of rise up if they want to what seems
to be a kind of worshipping of monopoly, where
you will have businesses set up right next to
each other with the sole focus to destroy one
of the businesses and put all their employees
out of work. So how do we get there? And if you
were king for a day, what would be the business
model of altruistic capitalism? I think it starts
with changing our understanding of money itself.
My first chapter in my next book, so I have the
Sound of Freedom book that's coming out just
in a few weeks in the bookstores, talking about
the rescue missions and the healing from trauma,
etc. But the next book, the one on capitalism,
my first chapter is called Scarceny and Abundance,
Your Economics Teacher Lied to You. And it talks
about how, you know, the very definition of economics
is the division of scarce resources, which is
a fallacy. We have enough resources where every
person on earth could have all the food they
could ever eat, all the clothes we could ever
wear. It's this understanding of scarcity that
makes us believe we live in a dog -eat -dog world
where the only way that you can get ahead is
by taking from somebody else, from having a business
that puts everybody else out. if we truly understand
the value of collaboration instead of that competition,
that the human mind literally allows us to create
infinite wealth. And I'll prove it with this.
I don't care if If one of our listeners is living
in a studio apartment and barely has enough to
pay their bills and whatnot, you're living like
a king of a few thousand years ago. If you've
got a refrigerator, if you've got air conditioning,
you've got carpet in your house, literally you
live like a king. Now, why? It's because of that
creativity of the human mind that is continually
expansion. I love in the English language, we
use the word to make money, to create money.
I write in the book, I quote a friend of mine,
Paul Piltzer. He has a book called Unlimited
Wealth. But in mine, I quote this story that
I learned from him that just changed everything
in my perception. He talks about how there's,
imagine there's 10 men on an island, 10 families
on an island. And every day, the 10 men go out
and they go fishing and they catch just enough
fish for the entire island. And then one day.
Two of the women, because they're usually more
creative than us men, they're like, you know,
these guys are out all day long fishing. There's
got to be a better way. And so two of the women
come up with this idea of a net. And they, you
know, they sew this net. And pretty soon now
their husbands are able to go out and catch enough
fish for the entire island. That's a technological
advancement. Now, the problem that we have is
at that point you've got 80 % unemployment because
eight of the ten guys are out of work. And if
you have a dysfunctional system. They would vote
in a government. They would tax those two men
80 % of their fish and everybody else would sit
around and create this welfare mentality. A well
-functioning system would encourage those other
eight. One would get better at building boats.
One would get better at building houses. One
would get better at educating the children and
lifestyle as a whole. for the entire island increases.
And literally, they made money. They created
wealth with that creativity. And now they live
in a better world. And that's really what we
need to do. We need to understand that we truly
live in a world of abundance. And in doing so,
changing the way that we work, even in understanding
that it can truly be a win -win -win. When I
was building Bridge Investment Group, We had
massive apartment complexes that we were buying
from failing banks during the 2008 crisis. And,
you know, at this point, the banks weren't very
good managers. There was four foot weeds in the
tennis courts. There was, you know, the pool
drains weren't working. There was a bad occupancy,
whatever. And we would buy it and realizing that
in the areas, some of those areas are primary.
tenants were Hispanic. So we would do things
like we brought in English as a second language
and the bookmobile and a tutoring program for
these families. Creating a win -win -win. We
came in. We provided liquidity for the banks
that were having a hard time with this asset.
We provided a job for thousands of employees.
We provided value for our investors and the tenants
themselves. We're not putting gold towel rods
in a B -class neighborhood. But we would go in
and these tennis courts that had four -foot weeds
were like, you know what? Hispanic people that
are here, they don't play tennis, they play soccer.
So we took down the nets and put little mini
soccer fields and created a true win for them.
It doesn't matter if you're living in a 14 ,000
square foot house or in a two bedroom apartment,
your priorities are the same in wanting to have
a healthy place to raise your kids. And so creating
a true win -win -win was the philosophy in all
of those companies that I truly believe added
to the massive success of them. I've made this
comment for probably almost 10 years now, and
it's actually happening in front of my eyes here
in the mall in Ocala. If you think about the
last, you know, from like probably late 80s until
somewhat recently, I guess around the crash,
you know, the American malls and, you know, the
giant supermarkets put all the local businesses
out of business. And then you have this consumerism
where if you think about it, there wasn't really
a lot of human interaction. You go to a department
store, you're not sitting around talking to people.
You're sifting through racks of clothes or whatever
it is, and you buy your stuff and you walk out
with handfuls of bags and then you leave. But
now you're seeing a shift again where these department
stores are going out of business. And here they've
actually turned one of them into... almost like
a bespoke store area now. And they have food
trucks and it's going to be within the mall.
And this is what I'm seeing is I think that there's
been this massive kind of circle where now people
are craving interaction again. So the barbers
and the butchers and the coffee shops and the
breweries and all these places where you can
go in and interact are having their day again
now. Whereas before everything was all about
these giant corporations. I see that everywhere.
And I'm excited about the fact that AI and the
age that we're in allows for people anywhere,
anywhere around the world to have a business
and contribute value to everyone else and use
correctly. I believe we can help humanity as
a whole pull out of... global hunger and poverty
anywhere. We can solve these problems. We can't
do it through just giving a fish. We have to
teach them how to fish, but we can give them
the tools to contribute on the worldwide stage
in creating value for others. And that's super
beautiful to see. I remember hearing an interview
on Tim Ferriss' show. And he was talking to someone
who worked with billionaires and over and over
again, I think several of his guests said the
same kind of thing, that they spent the first
half of their life making money and the second
half spending it trying to get their life back,
their health back, their mental health back.
And I look at my population, the fire service,
because as we mentioned at the beginning, they
are this beautiful kind of servant mentality
group of men and women. they don't question the
environment they work in and now you find yourself
in in the 2020s And you've got these men and
women working 56 hours a week, not sleeping every
third day. Then because of mismanagement, now
they're understaffed because the things that
are broken weren't fixed. So now the same people,
not the ones that made the problems, but the
people on the ground are now working extra shifts.
You're talking like an 80 hour work week, not
sleeping four days a week, not seeing their spouses,
not being at those, whether it's a graduation
ceremony or a ballet recital or whatever it is.
And this is one of the kind of fights that I'm
trying to bring is to go back to a work week
where our men and women, you know, mentally,
physically and relationship wise are forging
health again. But there's a disconnect because
the carrot on the stick has always been the 50
cent pay raise, the dollar pay raise, whatever.
So with the same lens that you have before we
progress on to, you know, what we're here to
talk about as far as the trafficking side, talk
to me about the currency of time. quality time
versus this holy dollar that we seem to have
chased for decades and decades? Well, sadly,
I believe that more of us are in slavery than
we know. And it's a slavery to a broken system,
wherein the majority of your work week is going
into paying for Whether it be, even if you're
in a low tax bracket, the price of your food
and everything that you're buying is what it
is because of a lot of wasteful spending. And
beyond that, there's significant evidence that
there are technologies that can provide free
power, free energy, that if you took those two
things out of the equation, the wasteful spending
and the energy thing out of the equation. Literally,
you could live your exact same lifestyle with
four to 10 hours a week instead of 40 to 100
hours a week, right? And so it's so important
to understand that the one thing that we can't
get back is our time. And so many times, especially
those who are in in the most important roles
are service roles whether it be teachers or first
responders etc they're they're sadly they're
trading time for money for things forever and
uh and they're they're stuck in a system that
that isn't putting the value on their incredible
contributions, the way that the value can be
placed in other industries. And that needs to
change for sure. But at the same time, you know,
very few people get to their 50s and 60s and
look back and say, well, you know, I wish I spent
less time with my kids. You know, that never
comes up. You know, they grow up quick and that's
your most valuable resource. I recognize that
myself. After I got really successful in business,
I recognized, wow, some of the most beautiful
moments were ones that I wasn't there for. Because
I was on the road, I was out building this or
that. You very seldom hear people that made it
financially that say, yeah, yeah, I should have
spent less time with my kids. That doesn't happen.
Absolutely. It's interesting, you know, you look
at the most progressive or some of the most progressive
business leaders, and you're seeing now that
work week shrinking, you know, Iceland and the
UK just did a big, big study and a load of businesses
went to a 32 hour work week for four day work
week, and saw the same if not more productivity,
innovation, efficiency, and obviously a much
healthier, happier workforce that was then using
less sick time and vacation as well. So what
I say to my profession, because they call themselves
a business sometimes, like, all right, well,
then why are you mimicking an Indonesian sweatshop
rather than a progressive business leader? So
if they're doing it and they're getting it, the
gap is even bigger now between a Google employee
and an American firefighter. We've got to start
pushing the other way and not just the people
in charge, all of us, the voices of the base
of the pyramid. Exactly. Exactly. And that's
something that I believe that just like the net
on the island was something that created more
opportunity. uh for everybody to advance in some
way that that literally everybody in the instead
of those 10 men fishing eight to ten hours a
day they could they could all take turns and
have the same lifestyle and everybody could just
fish an hour a day and get everything done as
well and so you know we can all decide do we
increase our lifestyle financially with more
stuff or do we do we work less hours but the
the truth is as As we have continued advancements
in technology, it's not that these technological
advancements are going to put us all out of business.
No, they're going to be replacing things that
are mundane. Hopefully, we'll have good systems
that can replace the majority of people working
in the legal profession. Let's get them in a
place where you don't have crooked attorneys
in there. You have a system that can really assess
all of the evidence. And create a legal framework
where we're not going to be taken advantage of
in any way. I can't tell you how many hundreds
of thousands, if not millions of dollars I've
spent on attorneys over the years. And thinking,
you know what? You can have systems that can
replace a lot of that. And that's beautiful.
That's good. Let's all find other more productive
things to do. And that's going to happen moving
forward. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you think about
the factory workers that have stood there for
decades. screwing on nuts or welding a piece
or whatever it is that's a beautiful thing about
innovation and the same with my profession you
know now you've got telehealth you know where
you can have a dispatcher connect someone who's
got a low acuity call with a nurse rather than
sending a fire engine and ambulance to a call
so this i mean it is there absolutely 100 you
may you made a comment a little bit earlier sounded
like when you were in the business space you
kind of were immersed in the money and the success.
Was there a disconnect? And did that send you
into that next chapter of your life as far as
altruism? Well, I have to tell you, you know,
I'll be full disclosure here. 12 years ago, I
wasn't Paul Hutchinson. I was Paul effing Hutchinson.
I had built a company that was phenomenal. um
with our team i i had uh i had i told you i started
in there in the real estate investment stuff
when i was 29 invested a lot of money there build
it build an amazing team um came together with
some other other teams and and i had billions
billions with the billions of dollars under management
that we were managing for some very wealthy families.
And I was living high on the hog. I mean, at
one point I had two helicopters with a plane.
I had 50 plus vehicles that I had to do registrations
for every year, including my motorcycles and
trailers and crap. And I'm thinking, how many
can I drive at one time? You know, I had a house
that had eight private suites, 10 bathrooms.
And the maximum people that lived at that house,
most of the time it was just me. And sometimes
it was maybe two people living there, right?
Ten bathrooms, three kitchens, seven fireplaces,
and a basketball court in my basement. And I
was having parties and I was living large. I
had some friends that cared enough about me.
These were, well, I'll just even back up a little
bit more. I was living this lifestyle when I
first got contacted by some operators, the attorney
general and some others that needed me to play
a role undercover to help rescue some trafficked
children. And the reality is the reason I needed
to play, I was the perfect one to play that role
wasn't the fact that I had had some significant
training. It was It was the fact that I was living
the lifestyle of what these traffickers were
looking for. Sadly, it was arrogance and greed
and lust that consumed my life. And it was arrogance
and greed and lust that was driving some of these
horrific things. Now, I wasn't doing anything
illegal. I was contributing a lot of money to
child -related charities. They needed to show
this profile to these traffickers. This trafficker
had a piece of property he wanted to develop
into a brothel resort type of a thing and needed
$8 million to do it. So the undercover operators
are like, well, I got the perfect guy that can
do it. Look at this guy. And boom, I've got pictures
with me with Ferraris and Lambos and hot girls
and jets and yachts and all this crap. And they're
like, oh, yeah, that's the perfect one. And so
that's what spurred these traffickers to call
the other ones and brought together. ended up
being the rescue of over 120 children it was
because i was i was that guy i was in this this
space of greed and lust and arrogance and and
that that resonated with him so when prior to
that phone call you have you know everything
you have the mtv cribs lifestyle were you happy
then um absolutely not i was i was i was on my
second marriage headed for a divorce Um, actually
at the time of that call, I was in my first marriage
headed for a divorce because I was, I was doing
things that I shouldn't have been doing in that
first marriage. And, um, um, I, I, I thought
that one more girl would make me happy. I thought
that one more car would make me happy. I thought
that, you know, one more party would make me
happy. And none of it, none of it was fulfilling.
So you get this phone call, you're told about
this undercover operation, kind of walk me through
how that unfolds. And then parallel to that,
was that the beginning of a healing journey for
you? It was the beginning, but the real healing
didn't happen for a couple years, maybe a year
and a half after. But that was absolutely the
beginning. I had been asked to help fund some
missions. I was on the Make -A -Wish board of
directors in our area. I was the incoming chairman
for Make -A -Wish in our region. And I had donated
a lot of money to child -related charities. I
will say this. From a trading time for money
standpoint, one of the things that a mentor told
me in my early 20s, he said, Paul, he said, if
you make the decision today to, he said, the
average person donates about 2 % of their annual
income to charity, to making a difference in
the lives of others. He said, I don't care if
you're... Christian or Muslim or Jewish or any
of those major religions believe in the Torah
or the Old Testament. In the book of Malachi,
it says, talks about donating not 2%, but 10
% or more. You know, it talks about the tithe.
And it says, prove me now herewith, if I will
not open you the windows of heaven, that there
will not be room enough to receive it. This is
a very specific law. With a very specific reward.
And so my mentor said, you can call it God. You
can call it karma. You can call it universal
law of exchange. Call it whatever you want to.
He said, it works. You decide today that it's
not going to be 2%. It'll be 10 % or more. And
building your companies and the success of them
will be so much easier. And I'm like, oh, that's
why I wanted to be successful. So I could be
charitable. I never thought that I should be
charitable so I could be successful. Now, I'm
not saying that you should do charity just so
you can get money. You know, that's the wrong
energy. But I promise you this, that if you decide
to contribute until it hurts, that the windows
of heaven will open. And there will be blessings
that there won't even be room enough to receive
it. And early on, I thought, okay, I'm going
to just give money away. And I'm earning two
grand a month. This was in my 20s, right? And
I'm donating like 10 % of that, even 20 % of
that. I'm giving it to some guy on the side of
the street that's asking me for drug money. And
my friends are like, are you sure you're making
a difference? So I decided to focus full -time
on. the truly innocent a child in a position
completely outside of any decisions that she
made to get her into that place that's why i
helped with make a wish and one life at a time
and the ronald mcdonald house a bunch of different
charities and so i had been i had helped with
this this anti -child trafficking um foundation
i'd helped to fund some things and then i got
a phone call from one of the operators i i was
at the time i was in in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm
at a conference with third -generation multi
-billionaire families at this conference. They're
raising money for my investment fund. I get this
phone call, and he says, hey, we're in Cartagena,
Colombia. We've identified over 100 children
that we can rescue. He said, it's going to be
one of the biggest child rescue missions in one
day in history, but I need your help. And I had
already donated some. And I said, well, how much
do you need? My ego self, right? He said, Paul,
I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days?
I'd never been to Columbia, right? I had heard
that in the Pablo Escobar days, it was super
dangerous. You could pay $200 to have somebody
take it out. And I'm like, me, why do you need
me there? He goes, well. The head traffickers
got this piece of property. He wants to develop.
He needs some money. He said, the story is this.
You come down. You meet with him. Tell him, listen,
I'll fund your project under one condition. We're
going to have a party and you need to bring all
your existing inventory. They needed to figure
out a way for this guy to call all the other
traffickers and bring all the children to the
same place because they realized there was a
bunch of traffickers that had kids in the area.
If they did one sting, then boom, all the others
go away. So somehow they needed to bring literally
all the traffickers, all the kids to one place.
How are they going to do that? They start with
the top dog, get him to say, hey, I'll bring
all of these guys together to prove to you that
I have the inventory to make this project work.
So that's what the story was. So I said, so what
should I wear? You know, I'm at this billionaire
real estate conference thing. And he said, come
as a wealthy playboy investor. And I looked down
and I've got. I've got $2 ,000 cufflinks on my
shirt. I have a monogram. My suit costs more
than my first car. In fact, my suit was conservative
light blue on the outside, but you open it up
and it was bright pink. I'm like, oh, that was
a Playboy. And I had a Breitling watch on. I'm
like, I think I got the outfit. So he says, come.
As if you're that investor, because we don't
know who he's got on planes or whatever. He's
just come as that. And so the next day I jump
on a plane, fly to Columbia for my first time
and had a layover in Bogota. Thought that I would,
thought that I would, I would be on the next
plane in and the Navy SEALs were picking me up
in this bulletproof car. Well. There was a layover
and it got delayed and they couldn't fly into
Cartagena at the right time. I ended up getting,
I said, well, okay, it's late at night. I'm just
going to go get a hotel. I go out in this taxi.
Rule number one, don't show up in a second, third
world country dressed like a target, right? I'm
definitely dressed like a target. Rule number
two, when you go out front, get a reputable taxi,
not some guy with a hand saying, hey, you need
a ride, right? That was stupid me, right? So
I get in this car. He says, where do you want
to go? I says, take me to the Marriott. So you
start driving. And I see the Marriott passes
like 10 minutes later. I'm like, a Marriott.
He goes, hotel, hotel. I'm like, okay, whatever.
I'm freaking tired. Just take me where. And then
two or three exits later, he takes this exit
and there's, goes in this dark area of town.
I mean, there's, there's drug dealers. There's
prostitutes. There's a bunch of thugs. He stops
in front of this hotel. It's like a rent by the
hour place. He goes, hotel. I'm like, no, Marriott.
He goes, no, hotel. I'm like, shit, you know,
if I get out right here dressed like I was with
my Breitling watch and my all this crap, I'm
done. That's not going to work at all. I said,
no hotel. And I had fortunately I had donated
a bunch of money to the Unified Police Department.
And as part of that, they had given me an honorary
colonel badge with that said honorary colonel.
But it looked like a real police badge on the
outside of them that said honorary colonel. And
so and I happen to have that in my. in my bag.
I don't know why I even brought it. So I grab
it. I pull it out. I go, Policia, Marriott, ahora.
Please, Marriott now. And he takes me there.
But I thought, wow, maybe I should have listened
to my business partner when he said, Paul, have
you thought through this? This is really dangerous.
You're going to Columbia dressed as a target
to convince these traffickers. But I remember
when he said that to me, I said, John, I said,
I said, I said, I said, when I'm 95 years old
and I look back on my life, and I say I built
this big company or I climbed this mountain or
I helped rescue this many children, which one
of them matters at all? And so, you know, that
was, and then the next day I flew into Cartagena
to meet with the traffickers for the very first
time. And that was the beginning of my healing.
So walk me through that then. Again, you have
no idea what you're doing. You're going on this
kind of fake pitch for this, you know, acre brothel.
You know, how did that unfold? And, you know,
what was the result of all that? Well, I get
picked up by the Navy SEALs, full bulletproof
car. I'm thinking, okay, this place is probably
more dangerous than I thought. Now, Colombia
has cleaned up a lot now. In Medellin, Colombia,
where I am right now, literally it's safer than
most cities in the U .S. It's beautiful. It's
like the city of eternal springtime. I didn't
know this back then. And plus, I was going into
Cartagena. That's not too safe. And they pick
me up, take me to this restaurant. And the former...
There was some former Homeland Security agent
there. There was a former CIA guy there that
were all undercover with the Colombian federal
agents there with a bunch of traffickers. And
I thought, okay, traffickers. They're going to
be earrings in their noses. They're going to
have tattoos down their neck. First trafficker
I met was a businessman. No tattoos at all. Clean
shaven. Polo shirt, well -spoken. I'm like, oh,
that's not a trafficker. And the next time I
met was a beautiful woman. She was working with
a modeling agency. And she ran for Miss Cartagena
at one time. And I'm like, these aren't someone
I thought was traffickers. But we sat down and
started talking. Oh, my word. It was dark conversation.
In fact, James, I realized over the next year,
in fact, over the next 10 years in leading over
70, undercover child rescue missions in 15 countries,
I realized that the common thread with traffickers
wasn't earrings in their noses and it wasn't
tattoos. The common thread was arrogance, greed,
and lust. It was the same stuff that I saw when
I was looking in the mirror. You know, I wasn't
doing anything illegal. I was helping kids. But
I had to recognize after a couple of years is
how is that contributing to the toxicity of the
world? You know, so this is what it was. It was
they were just filled with this lust. They were
filled with this greed and arrogance and, you
know, a disregard for what they do to other people
with their words and their actions. And so, you
know, we're halfway through this meeting and
one of the traffickers leans forward. He goes,
Pablo, he says, I have a gift for you. I said,
really, what's your gift? He hands me a phone.
There's a picture of an 11 -year -old girl on
his phone. This was transition number one. He
said, this is Princess. She's a zero -kilometer
-mile model. She's 11. She's my gift for you
for this party. you know, he starts talking.
Have you ever driven an 11 year old zero kilometer?
And I thought, oh my hell, this is real. Yeah.
That was the first time where I saw, I was being,
I saw what I knew was a traffic child. And I,
I, it was, and she was so innocent in this little
picture. I thought, this is horrific. And in
the movie, in the Sound of Freedom movie, you
know, my character is played by the producer,
Eduardo Verasti. And it's the billion -dollar
fund manager who quits his job to rescue kids.
And in the movie, when Jim Caviezel comes to
me and says, hey, you know, come undercover in
Columbia. And I turn him down in the movie. And
it's not until Jim Caviezel gives a picture of
this 11 -year -old girl to my driver. And then
I open up that envelope and I see this picture
of that little girl. And that changed my mind.
In real life, I was already there. I was face
-to -face with the most evil people on the planet
that were selling children. But it was that picture
of that child that galvanized my commitment to
help on that mission in whatever way they needed.
And so, you know, I exchanged contact information
with some of the traffickers. And one of them,
Edouard, he was the one who actually owned the
property. I remember I was... It was about a
week into it, and I was making sure he was bringing
all the inventory he had. And he sends me a picture
of him in his car, and he's got a three -year
-old in the back seat. He said, this is my daughter.
Now, he wasn't trafficking her. But he said in
the text, he said, this is why I'm doing this,
is I want to make sure she has all the cars,
Ferraris, nice boats and everything else. This
is why I'm building this retreat and this brothel
thing. And then he sends me and I think, I realized
over time, over the next 10 years in doing this
work, that many of the traffickers end up trafficking
their own kids. So that was the road she was
on over time. And he sent me a text and he said,
I believe that God sent you to me. And in my
mind, I thought, you're damn right. God did send
me to you so that I can make sure that that child
in your backseat never has to go through what
that 11 -year -old is proposing to go through.
that you showed me in that picture. So a week
later, our guys had met with the federal agents
in Colombia, the US offices down there, etc.
And the federal agents in Colombia provided 40
officers. All of them were flown in from Bogota
because they didn't trust any of the local cops
in the area. And of those 40, four of them were
our maids, four of them were our waiters, four
of them were our cooks. They're not very good
cooks, but there aren't. 25 were there to storm
the party at the right time. We ended up buying
a whole bunch of alcohol. You know, and we didn't
want to be drunk for it, but we were like literally
pouring out all these bottles all over. And two
of the CTI agents, the Colombian federal, they're
like, what are you guys doing? We're like, yeah,
we're disposing of all this to make it look like
we had a party. They're like, that's good. That's
good beer. We're like, can we dispose of it for
you? And so, you know, they did that in their
own way. Weren't very effective at the event.
But these guys ended up showing up with 54 children.
in Cartagena. There was three separate cities
at the same time, Cartagena, Medellin, and Armenia,
Colombia. Between all three of them, I believe
it was 124 children. So I'm there at the Cartagena
one. They bring these kids in on these boats.
And I talk about this in depth. In the Sound
of Freedom book, I give parents tools they can
use to keep their kids safe. I go through the
rescue missions and the emotional transformation
that I had in these missions. And I talk about
how on the boat out there, one of my operators,
Joseph, he said, I realized the magnitude of
this problem when our two boats, the size of
school buses, end up getting filled with these
children and the traffickers. He said, and halfway
out to the island, One of the older children
who had been trafficked for a while pulled the
younger ones together, including this little
11 -year -old who was scared to death because
she was a zero kilometer mile, as they referred
to her as. And she was so scared. And he pulls
her and some of the other kids together. And
Joseph said that. He doesn't know what they said,
but they all held hands, and the older one had
them bow their heads, and he offered up a prayer.
Now, the boat engine was too loud where Joseph
didn't hear what was in the prayer, but little
did they know that that prayer was already answered.
Waiting at the island where former first responders
were... Green Berets were people like me that
were already there posing as the guys for this
party. And that it was less than an hour away
before their liberation would be complete. And
so, you know, they come on the island. We put
them in this separate place in the, in the, it
was kind of a grass roof. building type thing.
And we're sitting outside with the traffickers,
undercover cameras, so we could capture everything
they were saying. So they couldn't say later,
oh, I thought they were coming to a pool party.
No, you said on camera, this is why they were
here. This is what they're doing. This is what
they cost, etc. And halfway through that meeting.
Well, actually, it was the end of it. We ordered
tequila. Tequila is the sign. This is the sign
to have the agents, you know, the cooks and the
waiters, radio, and then boom, we're supposed
to have this storming of the island by 25 Special
Forces guys or the Columbia Federal agents. Well,
we ordered the tequila, and they were supposed
to hit within two minutes. It was 5, 10, 15.
It was. 45 minutes later, there was a problem
with one of the heads of the... Big problem.
I go through the details in the book. But we
didn't know what the delay was. And the traffickers,
because we ordered tequila, say, okay, it's time
for the party to start. And one of them, Fuego,
takes out the cocaine. He puts it there. A couple
of the traffickers go in the house to bring out
our gifts. And they... I could hear some of the
kids crying and were like, where are the agents?
What's going on? And they come back out and they
have four virgins. Three little girls, one little
boy. This little boy was 11. I believe he was
brought in from Haiti. They gave him cocaine
because he was so scared. What kind of fucked
up monster thinks that that's attractive? You
know, everything in my body would just hug these
kids and say, you're going to be fine. You're
going to see your parents. I couldn't say that.
I'm sitting on a chair. This trafficker brings
out this little girl, the same one he showed
me in the picture. Same one we called Rocio in
the movie, that one they called Princess. This
little girl at 11 years old, standing up, was
no taller than I was sitting down. And so I literally
was eye level with this little girl. And I could
see her makeup had been smeared because she had
been crying. She had red braids. She had a little
kitty cat on her shirt. Looking into her eyes,
all I saw was fear. And it was at that moment
that I made a commitment. to myself, to God,
to that child, that I would dedicate my life
to eradicating that evil from the face of the
earth. Half an hour later, after the agents came,
the most beautiful moment of my life was the
child protective services people were in with
the kids. And they started laughing. They started
singing with the children. And that singing,
that... The sound of freedom was the most beautiful
sound that I ever heard. I started crying. Turned
to the officer that was with me. I said, bro,
I spent my whole life making money, making rich
people richer. I want to make a difference. What
can I do? He said, Paul, sadly, there's a lot
of demand for stuff like this that comes from
people like Jeffrey Epstein. He said there. He
said, don't get this wrong, but there are guys
that walk and talk and dress like you. What he
was talking about was my arrogance and my greed
and my lust, right? He said, if you're willing
to be the bait, I'll change your whole life.
So that was the beginning. I ended up retiring,
quitting my job, dedicating full time to... In
the beginning, liberating the children. And now,
after 10 years, helping to liberate humanity
because I believe that's really what has to happen.
It's not pulling the hell out of the kids. It's
pulling the hell out of, not pulling the kids
out of hell. It's pulling the hell out of the
adults. It's taking away the demand. It's fixing
what we need to in humanity so we don't have
to have these discussions. So we don't have people
who are going to Columbia to do something with
an 11 -year -old. Well, firstly, I mean, thank
you for sharing that. I mean, it's such an uncomfortable
conversation, but that's because it's so fucking
horrific, you know, and you can't turn your head
because you're uncomfortable listening. Otherwise,
you're complicit then. So it needs to be pulled
out into the spotlight. I want to kind of just
go in backstories of victim and predator. Let's
start with the predators first. As you start
going mission after mission after mission, and
you've highlighted, and I've had so many people
on the show already talking about human trafficking.
Everyone from Tamia now, she was trafficked from
Hungary into Canada to the guys from Deliver
Fund. There's a complete misnomer that, like
you said, it's some kind of disheveled creepy
dude with a white panel van that shows up and
puts a bag over someone's head. but you hear
more often than not it's a scout leader it's
a swimming coach it's the teacher it's the you
know the millionaire whatever it is so hurt people
hurt people what if any are the common denominators
between the backstory of these predators themselves
first of all um tools for parents to know. I'll
answer it with this. People will leave the Sound
of Freedom movie and they'll be, I want to go
do something. I want to go rescue kids. The worst
thing you can do is go undercover in Mexico.
You're going to get arrested. You're probably
going to get shot. The best thing you can do
is go home and hug your children. People are
like, well, how is that going to help? Holding
your family together is a Big, important thing.
In fact, the majority of children who are being
moved around to other countries, they're not
coming from a healthy family. They're coming
from broken homes, runaways, a broken foster
care program. That's a whole other subject. But
more important than that for most families that
are listening right now is that you need a relationship
with your kids where they can very comfortably
come to you and say, hey, mom, hey, dad, I don't
like it when you hire this babysitter because
she's shown us pornography and she says we should
trust her more than you. I don't like it when
you tell me to hug local Harry because he touches
us weird and says we should have secrets with
only him. Or I don't like this friend's house
because her brother is taking pictures of us
when we're changing. And now he says he's going
to send them around the school unless we do other
things with his friends. You know, the list goes
on. If you, in any neighborhood, I don't care
if you're an apartment complex or an affluent
neighborhood, you walk out your front door, you
look left, you look right, there's a very high
chance that one of those doors is a dangerous
place for children. The simple fact that one
of every four women that you know have been a
victim of sexual violence as a child, and so
many men as well. It's a generational trauma.
Somebody doesn't just grow up and go to Colombia
or go to Mexico or go to Thailand and go have
sex with a child. It's very likely that they
were already in that space in abusing their neighbors
or their own kids or their nephews or whatever
it was. And this happens all the time. And here's
the thing. I realized after 10 years of undercover,
70 missions, 15 countries, I recognized that
Every time we pulled these kids out of hell,
the thing that I wished is that I had a time
machine. I could go back and fix it before it
happened. How do we prevent this so we don't
have years of healing with these kids? And I
thought, okay, if I had a time machine, I went
back in time, what would I do? If I just pulled
the kids out of hell, if there was still a demand
there, more kids would be sucked back in to fulfill
that demand. So, what I would do if I had that
time machine, I would sit down with the perpetrator.
I would sit down with the trafficker and say,
what is going on in your life that makes you
think that in any way it's okay to go down that
road? And what I would find is that the majority
of the traffickers were trafficked themselves
as children. The majority of the perpetrators
were abused themselves. Now, again, like we talked
about earlier, God bless us, the majority of
people who go through that trauma end up being
protectors. However, it's incredibly important
that we recognize that hurt people hurt other
people and healed people. can heal the world.
And that's really what it's about, is that those
first responders were able to take that pain
and heal through it in the process of helping
others. That the operators I worked with who
were abused as children were healing through
their trauma by talking about it and saying,
not on my watch, that's not going to happen.
And so finding tools that can help people heal
from that trauma is the only way that we're going
to eradicate child trafficking. What about from
the victim side now? You touched on a couple
of areas, the broken homes. It's amazing. One
of my guests was pointing out, if you look at
homelessness, you don't normally see... young
girls, especially, you know, young boys, but
there's so many runaways. And she was saying
that a lot of times they get corralled into the
trafficking side very, very early. So you've
got the runaways, you've got the broken homes.
What are other areas? Because again, if we want
to change the world, we start at home. What are
other areas that are making our children vulnerable
to being victims of this horrific crime? Well,
more than ever right now is the internet. We
think that the most dangerous things for our
children is not lurking in some alleyway. The
most dangerous things for our children is sitting
in their backpack or in their back pocket. It's
their access to the world. It needs to be...
You need to have conversations with your kids
and help them recognize that, yes, this is the
way that you connect with the world, but do you
really need your social media to be open to everyone
or can it just be open to your... Your friends,
right? Is there a possibility that one of those
guys is a 45 -year -old dude that's doing some
horrific things on his end? There's a lot of
what they call sextortion going on where you're
– and this happens a lot. And the average age
is 12 to 14 -year -old boys where they are online.
They're on a gaming platform and they get contacted
by a 13 -year -old girl on there who sends them
some nudies and then encourages him to do the
same. him and he does nudies and videos and pretty
soon uh he's asked for more and more and videos
and pretty soon is being sent to him that that
they're going to send this around the school
if he doesn't do other things or pay money or
whatever else and that's not a 13 year old girl
on the other hand it's a 45 year old dude right
that's that's using the anonymity of the of the
uh of the internet to to perpetuate these crimes.
In fact, the reality is if your children's pictures
is just open out there on the internet, there
are programs, there are nudify programs that
these predators can use to take that picture
of your little girl, your 13 -year -old, and
create a nudified picture that looks very realistic
and send that to her and say, here's what we
have of you. Now we're going to do other things
if you don't do this and that. So it's a dangerous
world. with the quote anonymity of these predators.
Now, I will say this, you predators, if there's
anybody that's listening right now, you're not
as anonymous as you think. We've got guys on
our team who are super hackers. These guys are
part of the black hat organizations. Black hats,
those are the guys who do highly illegal things
for the right reasons, right? They're the ones
who took down the Ashley Madison site and shared
with the world everybody who was cheating on
their wives, right? These guys will go in. They
have software that goes into the deep, dark web.
These guys thinking that they're completely anonymous
on these torn networks and that are able to go
into these networks. And even if you have a VPN
and you think you're hidden, guess what? Your
computer has a global identifier number that's
unique to your. computer. And every time that
you're on there, we had just in one month, we
identified 800 ,000 unique individuals in the
United States alone who had downloaded a child
rape video. It's a horrific problem. And we know
who you are and your attorney generals know who
you are and we're coming. So you better chuck
that computer and be done with it, guys. Be done
with it. So. Anyway, yeah, I get passionate about
this stuff. Oh, of course. I mean, how can you
not? I was watching a documentary a few weeks
ago and it was on kind of a group of influencers.
I forget they were like called the Rat Pack or
something like that. I forget the term now. And
it was a group of like tweens turning teens.
And the kind of dark side was behind it was,
I think it was the mother and then her boyfriend.
I'm blanking exactly who, but a couple of adults.
And they were just basically forcing these kids
who originally did this for fun, you know, making
TikTok type stuff. But then after time, it became
almost like forced labor. And I think they were
talking about being able to track again through
the internet, you know, who was actually subscribing
to their channels. And it was something horrendous,
like 80 % of them were actually adults. And so
even, you know, you think your child is innocently
creating social media, you know, TikToks. You've
got to be really careful because, again, who
is watching that? You know, the handle, just
like you're talking about, you know, whatever,
7532. You have no idea if that's one of your
school friends or some 50 -year -old pedo that's
watching from Alaska. So, you know, being mindful
of that, too, it really kind of opened my eyes
as to just how vulnerable these young people
are when they put themselves out on the Internet
like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And have those
conversations with them. Say, hey, you know what?
You don't need to have your tag on there that's
tagging all your pictures of where you are. We
did an undercover work in Mexico where the traffickers
were bringing in victims that they were identifying
on the internet as ones that were traveling without
parents and whatnot and maybe with an older sister
or some friends. And then they would get them
drunk. They would take them on a free ride on
their boat as a guide. And then they would give
them drugs and they would take their passport
and they would – do horrific things so it happens
a lot a lot a lot a lot so it's and you don't
want you don't want the predators online to know
exactly what time every week you're at the the
ball game you're at the dance recital and whatnot
let's let's uh no reason to have the whole world
be prying in on your kids absolutely well let's
talk about the other side now this is the thing
that tamir was doing and people that had been
traffic trying to get them down their own healing
journey to process such a horrendous trauma and
then try and come out on the other side. So talk
to me about that part of what you do now. Okay.
So this is going to be new for some guys. But
I promise you this next 10 minutes is going to
be worth every second. So let me start with my
experience. I was a couple of years into the
undercover work. I was still Paul fucking Hutchinson.
I was still have this massive home and this massive
ego and arrogance, pride and greed was still
there. Yes, I was helping the children. We were
rescuing kids, but that was adding to my own
toxicity. Why? Because now I have that. best
panty dropper story on the planet, right? For
my parties. I was an undercover operator, right?
And two of my agents called me. Then they said,
Paul, they said, I know we've been finding ways
to try to help some of our operators deal with
their PTSD and the challenges of the darkness
of what we're doing in this work. They said,
do you trust us? And I said, yeah, I trust you
with my life. They said, you need to come to
this healing retreat. I was like, I don't need
to heal. I'm Paul F. Hutchinson. They said, yeah,
you need to heal. You're on your second marriage
headed for a divorce. Your kids don't talk to
you. You think that one more party and one more
girl is going to solve your problems and it's
not. And so they brought me into this retreat
that was the most transformational experience
of my life. Bar none, bar none, changed everything
at 10x on even seeing that first traffic child,
everything 10x. Now, what they were using, this
was a doctor that they were working with that
had a program with the proper, this is so important
guys, the proper use of psychedelics. when it
comes to trauma therapy, PTSD, addictions, childhood
trauma, all of these things, anxiety, depression.
And so let me explain it on a 30 ,000 foot view
because I'm now one of the most outspoken people
on. The legalization. In fact, I just got a text
yesterday from RFK inviting him to an event that
we're doing later. I've been friends with RFK
for about 10 years. He's agreed to he's one of
his commitments is to decriminalize the proper
use of psychedelics when it comes to trauma therapy.
And now I'm not a fan whatsoever of somebody
going to a rave party and getting high with their
friends because you do it in the wrong environment.
It can be incredibly damaging. However, here's
the science behind it. When we're children, we
go through this state of neuroplasticity. We're
very, very impressionable where we can learn
three or four languages at the same time that
we're learning how to walk and talk and eat and
all of these other things. in uh in that state
of neuroplasticity if something happens if we're
abused by our uncle or we're whatever it is and
we're we're in this state where it gets literally
implanted into our subconscious mind where where
and then it gets hardened when we're not in the
state of neuroplasticity anymore now the rest
of our life it's like You imagine a concrete
freeway where they pour the concrete. It's in
this flow state, but then it hardens and it's
all bumpy. They don't smooth it out. We go through
our life with all these bumps. And in order to
change something in our subconscious mind after
that, it takes about 21 days of consistent effort
to create a new habit in that subconscious. Well,
psilocybin in mushrooms. And I thought in the
beginning, well, that must be really dangerous.
It's a schedule one drug. It must be as dangerous
as cocaine. The truth is, and guys, do your own
research on this. The truth is psilocybin is
safer than table sugar. There's never been a
case of addiction. There's never been a case
of overdose, not one. And when used correctly,
what it does is it creates a temporary state
of neuroplasticity, just like when you were young,
very impressionable. Meaning if you have a trained...
facilitator who understands how to work with
childhood trauma and those underlying issues
that are creating your anxiety, depression, PTSD,
addictions, et cetera, they can create in a literally
a single session, four to six hours, not four
to six years, four to six hours, create as much
progress as 10 to 20 years worth of therapy.
I've seen it over and over again. In fact, it
was so profound for me, for me, my experience.
Because I was in this Paul F. Hutchinson state,
I talked with the facilitator. She says, let's
talk. Let's create an intention coming in. I
said, well, one of my intentions, I lost my relationship
with God many years ago when I left the church
of my youth. I'm in this state where… maybe some
of my words and actions are negatively affecting
others. And so this facilitator, boom, put, we're
not talking about microdosing. We're talking
about a macro dose in the right environment with
the right music, with the right facilitator,
et cetera. And it was the most beautiful, horrific
experience of my life. Horrific because I felt
that the music that she used and the type of
strain that she used of the psilocybin and the
talk beforehand intention, I felt in every cell
of my body the pain that my children felt when
I cheated on their mom. As if I was them. As
if I was them, the pure empathy, that energetic
connection that we have with everyone. And then
I felt the joy of the children that we helped
to rescue when they were returned with their
kids, as if they're with their parents, as if
I was them. And then the pain of the family that
broke apart because some guy was at my party
and slept with a cheerleader and his wife left
him. And then even the ripple effect of those
actions of that party that I put on, where now
in a fatherless home, his daughter, you know.
maybe in the future ends up getting abused or
raped or by the stepdad or the son ends up getting
addicted to drugs. And the ripple effect of my
actions, of every word, every party, every time
I show up, it was so profound as if I was those
people that felt like Satan himself had his foot
on my chest and pushing me down to hell. And
then the facilitator changed the music and it
was as if God was literally pulling me out of
the depths of hell and all this shit was coming
off of me. And I recognized that I wasn't defined
by the money I had and the parties and the sex
and anything else. That I could show up with
true authenticity. And then... I don't like to
get spiritual, but I will on this. After that
experience, I was sitting talking to the facilitator
about what happened. And there was these Greek
gods. I had Zeus and Poseidon. I had Atlas holding
the world on his shoulders. And I was still a
little bit in my ego space. And I said to the
facilitator, you know, I feel a lot like Atlas.
At the time, I had 4 ,000 employees, right? I
said, I feel like Atlas. I've got the world on
my shoulders. I've got billions under management.
I'm the one that's helping to hold the world
up type of energy. And she smiles. She laughs
at my ego space a little bit. And she said, she
said, Paul, she said, I, I, I honor that you're
kind of seeing some traits in those Greek gods
there, but you know, as well as I do, those were
mythological gods. She said, what about your
relationship with him? And she pointed at the
statue of, of, of Christ. And I said, in my,
I'm in a very open hearted, open. neuroplasticity
state. I said, well, I don't qualify for a relationship
with Jesus. She said, well, why not? I said,
well, you know, I left the church of my youth
many years ago, and my bishop told me until I
was rebaptized in that church, I wouldn't have
the Spirit of God with me. She said, do you really
think that that's true? I said, well, no, I try
to do good. I help in the charity work. And she
said, why don't you re... build that relationship.
So here I'm on mushrooms. I'm so high I can't
even walk. She helps me take this statue down.
I hold it on my beanbag and I held it for the
next two hours crying. Re -establishing a beautiful
relationship that had lost a long time ago. And,
you know, it's different for everybody. We started
using this with our undercover operators who
already had 300 missions in Afghanistan and Iraq,
who already had PTSD that, you know, one mission
with me seeing a menu with children's faces of
the things that they would do, sent them over
that at the end. And so using these tools and
helping them break free of their PTSD, their
addictions to. pornography, their addictions
to even things like Xanax and Prozac for all
their problems. And then we started using it
with adult women who had dealt with severe trauma
as children, and then adult men, and found that
it was so incredibly effective that almost 95
% of the people who, we now run retreats, you
can go to Liberating Humanity. You can not only
get information on the book, The Sound of Freedom
book, but you can get more information on the
proper use of these tools and the different retreats
we have. We have to run these retreats in Latin
America because, you know, it's not legal in
the U .S. yet. But 95 % of the people who come
through our retreats say it was the number one
most positively transformative. few days of their
entire life and so i'm incredibly grateful but
it's so important that people understand the
proper use so we don't end up having a bunch
of kids going to rave parties and going in that
neuroplasticity state when there's rave music
going on over here and an orgy going on over
here and somebody yelling at their wife it's
dangerous to be in that neuroplasticity state
in the wrong environment i've had so many conversations
with people that have found Incredible healing
with the gamut of psychedelics. So Ibogaine obviously
is a very popular one, especially in the SEAL
community. It seems to be incredible with addiction.
Ayahuasca, you've got MDMA. Obviously, if you
have to be the other side of the US law, then
you've got ketamine. But there seems to be one
absolute truth is to underline what you said.
Let's take ketamine because that's a good example
where you can do it the wrong way under a clinical
setting. I have people that say, oh, we tried
ketamine, didn't work. And I said, well, explain
to me what it looked like. So while I went in,
you know, they hooked me up with the IV and they
lowered the lights and then they went out. I
said, so you opened the door to the closet in
your mind, but no one was there to help you sort
through anything. So that seems to be the thing.
Obviously, having, you know, a culturally competent
licensed clinician that's, you know, or shaman
or whatever the trusted person is with this journey.
But if you've got no one with you helping you
to kind of unpack as you start seeing these things
and talking about these things and leading you
through, I think that really is the underlying
issue between these air quote bad experiences
and all these, I mean, just hundreds of great
experiences that you're hearing from people in
uniform and everyone else in the community as
well. You're so right. Literally 10 % of the
healing is the medicine. 90 % is your intention,
is the environment, is what I call the container,
which is including the facilitators, etc. And
we have a high ratio. We had 20 people at our
retreat two weeks ago, and we had eight facilitators
that were there. train facilitators, helping
people through and working through their issues
and whatnot. And it's a beautiful experience
when done correctly. We have a pre -curated playlist
that were put together by scientists at John
Hopkins University. And so, and you know, sadly
with ketamine, it's the only one that's legal
in the US, but sadly it's the only one that's
addicting. You know, there are people who get
addicted to ketamine and it's synthetically produced,
which is why the... Big Pharma and the drug companies
are allowing it to be legalized so they can control
it in that way. They don't want us to realize
that literally you can grow some mushrooms in
your backyard for free and with the right environment,
with the right coaching, with the right music,
with the right people that are there, you can
break through 10, 20 years worth of trauma in
a very short period of time. The irony of drug
prohibition has become so strong as I progress
through almost nine years now, these conversations.
I've said this many times, but my mom moved to
Portugal about 25 years ago. And in 2001, I think
it was, or 2000, they actually had such a horrendous
opioid crisis in Portugal. They tried the, you
know, war on drugs, shame method from the America.
Epic failure, just like we've seen here. And
so being this beautiful, truly democratic country,
they put it to the people. It's like we're thinking
about decriminalizing drugs. Here's what it will
look like. You know, we're going to take the
money we're pouring into fighting addicts specifically,
not smugglers, not dealers, but the addicts.
And we're going to start putting in mental health
counseling, addiction counseling, job creation,
housing. And it went to a vote. It initially
got the vote and they had opposition from their
kind of right wing. And then as they watched
it, its success, the opponents ended up being
huge supporters as well. And in less than 10
years, they had reversed to the lowest addiction
of anywhere. And so, you know, I'm hearing that
from my mom and speaking to João Goulart, who's
the guy who literally spearheaded that in Portugal.
And then I'm talking to all these special operators.
At first, you hear about the opium fields were
really what was funding terrorism and, you know,
killing our men and women in the first place.
But then you have these men and women in uniform
that fought for this country that came home and
then had to go overseas to get the treatment
for what they did for America. You start to just
see all these tears in this prohibition fabric.
And then you learn the origin story of prohibition,
which was based on racism and job justification.
an 80 -year longitudinal study, which is, we
know it's a failure because the first responders
listening, we all respond to those failures,
the homelessness and the addiction and the sex
work and the overdoses and et cetera, et cetera,
the gangs. So I think this is such an important
conversation. And as this gains momentum and
as especially these communities that are highly
respected start being vocal about this and honest
and vulnerable about it. I hope that we are going
to see a shift because, you know, trank and meth,
do they have a place? No. And we can leave those
in a prohibition state somewhat. But even then
the addicts, you still envelop and you take them
into the medical community, not the criminal
community. But when you see MDMA, when you see,
you know, psilocybin, you know, Iboga having
these amazing effects, CBD, THC, and there's
so much opposition and we all know now it's so
clear. I mean, the FDA approved OxyContin and.
refused to approve MDMA -led counseling, for
example. I mean, do we need any louder voice
than that? I think now it's beautiful seeing
it gain traction. Texas just had a big win. RFK
was supposed to come on the show, and then he
changed administrations, and I haven't heard
anything since. But I hope to get him on one
day to carry on what he was planning on doing.
But I think this is going to be a renaissance.
People have to understand the why and really
unlearn this. This is your brain on drugs bullshit
that a lot of people were raised on. Well, and
what's interesting is, you know, people will
classify it. It's so funny. I remember I told
my mom a couple of years after she was wondering
why my huge transformation. I had gone from this
ego self and I told her, well, let me tell you
why. Now realize I grew up in the Mormon church,
right? No alcohol, no tea. No tobacco. No, I
mean, it was anything mind altering. So for sure,
this would be really bad. And so when I told
her, I says, you know, I feel closer to God now
than I ever have. She goes, oh, you only feel
close to God when you're on drugs. You know,
it's kind of her. But a lot of people will classify
these in the same boat as all these drugs. And
in reality, it's exactly the opposite. We have
some doctors in Peru who have over an 85 % success
rate in helping cocaine and heroin addicts completely
break free from those addictions using ayahuasca
without any relapses at all, without any withdrawal
symptoms, which is phenomenal, phenomenal. And
so, again, it has to be the proper use. But it's
exciting to see the momentum, the changes. Sadly,
the late 60s, they were all thrown under the
bus, but you can look up. Type online right now.
Guys can type in, you know, dangers of... of
cocaine, alcohol, and psilocybin. And you'll
find a chart, this big chart, and the very, very
top, the most dangerous of all of them in terms
of harm to self and harm to others is alcohol
abuse and alcohol addictions. Next to that is
crack cocaine and then heroin and then regular
cocaine and then all the way down literally with
almost zero harm. to self or others almost zero
is things like like psilocybin now the only time
there's harmful you don't want to go drive in
your car when you're on mushrooms but in your
right environment with the right facilitators
uh with the right intentions coming into it with
clarity and and beyond that it's um you know
part of our retreats includes Teaching some breathwork
tools and meditation tools that you can go home
every day. We want to give people the tools where
they can get into that place of the heart and
release the toxicity that doesn't belong to them.
Everything of your past, everything that was
done to you, everything that you did, all of
it can be released if it's not in alignment.
And we teach some different meditation tools.
People think meditation, that's Eastern versus
Western. anti -christian no it's not you know
think think about how many people pray think
about this okay here's how we were taught to
praise very one -sided it's it's praise praise
praise uh sorry sorry sorry fix fix fix right
it really is it's okay praise god this and whatever
and and please forgive me this and and please
bless this etc can you imagine having a a relationship
with somebody let's say you call up a girl and
that you're you call up your wife you call up
your wife and say hey wow you're the most amazing
wife you're so sexy you're just amazing you're
so so it's amazing amazing and by the way i really
screwed up on this i really screwed up on this
i you know i crashed the car i left the dishes
out and and by the way when you come home can
you can you sweep up and everything fix fix fix
and then you hang up the phone and you don't
take any time to listen and that's how most of
us do it's a very one -sided conversation so
learning how to tune in to that, to that space
in the heart, learning how to receive that, that
guidance in the important areas of our life is
really important. So, you know, we teach that
as part of our retreat and teaching breath work,
teaching meditation, teaching active meditation
and quiet meditation, as well as helping them
really get clear on their intentions so that
in the experience they can boom, break free of
all of them. So there's no question in my mind
that whether it's Greek or Roman wisdom, whether
it's the Torah, the Bible, you choose your wisdom
from all these different corners of the planet,
that they were passed down for us to learn from
the things that were good and the things that
were bad. Try not to repeat these mistakes. And
here's some tenets for hopefully a healthy, happy
life for you and your family. But the problem
is those are passed on by people. And you talked
earlier about the tithe and the 10 % going to
charity. Now, a lot of times we see that go to
a church that may not be charitable. And then
you have guilt and shame. You're an addict. You're
this, you're that. You're homeless. You had sex
before marriage, whatever it is. I feel, this
is just my opinion, I grew up exposed to the
Church of England, didn't really dive in much,
didn't quite align with, again, the kind of common
denominator for me of just kindness, compassion,
gratitude, all the dismal hymns. You know, like
Eddie Izzard talks about. Life is amazing. Why
are we so depressed in church? I don't get it.
So talk to me about that. I'm going to use that.
Dismal hymns. Here's the problem, you know. The
reality is the reason why we're so stuck as humanity
is that we've been taught a fear -based theology,
a fear -based everything. And when I say fear
-based, I'm talking guilt and shame and remorse
are fear -based energies. They're in that frequency,
that low energy frequency. And if it's not tied
to love and forgiveness and removing judgment,
here's the thing. The very second that we're
in a place of judgment, and this is where a lot
of theology just pounds into us. We need to be
the judge of everything. Judge, judge, judge.
Well, I recognize, even after doing the undercover
work, that if I'm ever, ever judging another
human being, whether it's for cutting me off
on the freeway, whether it's for stealing from
me in business, whether it's for selling me a
child, if I'm ever judging another human being,
there's a 100 % chance, not a 70 -80, a 100 %
chance that I don't have all the facts. I don't
know. I don't know if that guy cutting me off
on the freeway. I don't know if his wife's in
the hospital. He might just be an asshole. But
even if he's an asshole, I don't know if he's
an asshole because of how he was raised as a
kid. I don't know. There's a million different
things that could cause that. Now, he still probably
needs to get pulled over so he doesn't put my
life in danger, right? That doesn't stop the
fact that he needs to get pulled over. That guy's
selling me a child. He was probably raped himself
when he was a child, right? Again, it doesn't
justify his behavior. He still needs to be in
a position where he can't hurt innocents again.
But I can do so from a place of compassion, not
from a place of hate, anger, and judgment. And
so if we're going to have a higher level of consciousness
of humanity, if we're going to help people heal
through this trauma and not hold on to it, we
can't hold on to that same low frequency of fear
and guilt and shame. energy and judgment energy
that's keeping so many of us stuck. So yeah,
I agree with you on that. Love is the answer.
And a lot of people who are stuck in that dogma
space are going to have a hard time with that.
Just recognize that the God of creation is a
God of expansion, a God of love, a God of stepping,
of releasing those things that don't serve us.
It's not one of division, of anger. So, I'll
just leave it at that. I was reflecting a couple
of weeks ago, and it was kind of, you know, this
is not meant to be, I'm not making fun of by
any means, but if you look even at the Bible,
which is the holy book I'm most familiar with.
Even God had post -traumatic growth because the
Old Testament is pretty freaking revenge based.
Let's be honest, an eye for an eye, a tooth for
a tooth. But then you get to the birth of Christ.
And, you know, like this, this is the disconnect.
If you if you literally read about what Jesus
was doing in his community, being with the people
that were struggling the most, lifting them up
when there was kind of worship, worshiping idols.
That's what pissed him off. I like that. He was
kind of a little angry as well. He could throw
a punch if he needed to. flip some tables. But
the whole point was it was kindness, compassion,
unity, you know, community versus, you know,
that revenge, that judgment, all that kind of
side. So even if you look at that particular
holy book, I would argue that there was a growth
even from, you know, God in that particular thing.
So, you know, I think when you look at... The
actions of some people, for example, they claim
they are whatever religion that they subscribe
to, but then they come out and they want the
homelessness moved out of their neighborhood.
And they think that Narcan is a waste on addicts.
There's a pretty giant disconnect between the
pious person that you perceive yourself to be
and the person that you actually are. taking
a look in the mirror, re -evaluating your interpretation
of whatever religion you subscribe to, and then
seeing if it aligns. I think if we all did that
as a planet, you would find some real realigning
elements that, you know, I would argue if you
truly could literally wave a magic wand, then
all of a sudden, you know, the Middle East and
the States and everywhere else where there's
conflict, you would see it go away because people
would realize that we are all sharing the same
human experience. So true. So true. I actually
joked with my wife the other day. I said, sweetie,
I was listening to a... one of the lost books
of the Old Testament was like the book of Enoch.
And I was comparing, I said, you know what, the
depiction of God in the Old Testament needs a
journey, right? So journey is another word that
we refer to some of the psilocybin, you know,
retreats that we do, you know, filled with a
lot of jealousy and anger, and I'm going to kill
the world because they, you know, they don't
look, there's a lot of that energy that was there
and a lot of teaching of division. you know we're
gonna we're gonna we're gonna kill all the canaanites
and you know we're gonna put a mark that says
that you're the first murderer and that makes
your skin and you know women have to go through
god to get man to get to god there's a lot of
you know division that was created there and
so yeah i do believe that The future will be
one where we recognize that we are all one, that
there's not this division, that we don't have
to be throwing missiles at each other because
we have different theologies or because our great
-great -grandfather... 20 generations back had
two kids and one of them got the birthright,
right? The blessings from God and the other one
didn't. I mean, there's so much there of division
that we see today in our world that is creating
a lot of the challenges that we have. And, you
know, on the note, you talked about the man in
the mirror. I love this story. You know, imagine
there's a man on a couch and he's sitting there
reading his newspaper. And his little boy comes
in and says, Daddy, Daddy, I want to play baseball.
You want to play baseball? No, no, I'm busy.
He's watching the newspaper, right? And pretty
soon the little boy, he says, Daddy, it's a really
pretty day outside. Can we play baseball? And
so the man turns the page of the newspaper and
he sees there's this map. There's this map of
the world. And he tears it out. And he tears
it up in little teeny pieces of paper. He throws
it on the floor and he says, you know what, son?
You need to learn your geography. Go get some
tape. Tape every single country exactly where
it needs to be. And when you do that, I'll go
play ball with you. He thinks it's going to take
a few hours. Like five minutes later, a little
boy comes back and it's taped together perfectly.
He's like, what, has your mom helped you? He
says, no, no. He says, I did it all by myself.
He says, how'd you do that? He said, well, he
turns it over. He says, well, there was a picture
of a man on the other side. I just put the man
together and the whole world came together. And
that's really the answer. You know, we can sit
here and point fingers everywhere, fix this,
fix this. But until we take a look in the mirror,
and that's what Paul F. Hutchinson had to do.
I had to take a solid look in the mirror and
say, okay, yeah, you're using your money for
a lot of stuff. And a lot of things that are
in alignment with the charity work and a lot
of things that are out of alignment. But what
if, what if you can repair that? What kind of
an impact could you have there? Could you, instead
of just rescuing more kids and getting an ego
boost and having a panty dropper story, what
if? What if you could create a movie? What if
you could create global awareness? What if you
could have, instead of 20 plus kids at a time
being rescued, what if you could have hundreds
of millions of children be safer because of how
you lived your life and where you put your money?
That's making an impact. And that would have
never happened in the space that I was. Beautiful.
Well, you mentioned the movie. You mentioned
you've got a book coming out. The movie is The
Sound of Freedom. The book is The Sound of Freedom.
So talk to me about the genesis of the film and
then what made you write the book that's about
to come out now. Well, the film itself, we realized
that back in the time of Abraham Lincoln, it
wasn't the guys rescuing the slaves that created
the biggest difference. It was people like you.
James, it was influencers. It was like Harriet
Beecher Stowe. She wrote a book called Uncle
Tom's Cabin, which was the media of the age,
created an awareness with good people of what
was going on in the South. In fact, years later,
when Abraham Lincoln met her, he says, so you're
the little lady that wrote the book that started
the big war, right? So today, it's awareness
that is really going to spur change. people like
you it comes with influencers and so we we we
did the movie sadly we got pushed back everywhere
i was a primary investor in santa freedom executive
producer we brought on some other investors and
other producers later etc but i um We had it
completely finished, got pushed back by Hollywood
and everyone else after it was finished. It took
five years before we were able to bring it to
the world. And finally, when it did, two years
ago this week or last week, two years ago last
week, became the number one independent film
in the world. And over 70 million people have
seen Sound of Freedom. Hundreds of millions of
children are safer because of that film. people
will leave sound of freedom like we talked about
earlier i want to do something you know traffic
is a thing but they don't have the tools and
so i wanted to make sure that families had the
tools they needed to keep their kids safe understanding
what situational awareness is and and and what
what skills you can teach your kids and what
to be aware of all of these undercover missions
i i I have a really good understanding of how
traffickers are getting their kids. I have a
really good understanding of how kids are being
abused in the home. And so giving parents the
tools they need. The first section of my book,
Sound of Freedom, is called The Making of an
Undercover Operator. The first five chapters
is all about that. But in the making of it, I
talk about learning situational awareness, learning
hand -to -hand combat, learning the charitable
side of things. creating money and being able
to then turn that around and do good with it.
Then I go through the rescue missions, some that
we depicted in the movie and then some others.
But the last part, the last five chapters of
the book are all about liberating humanity. What
do we need to do to heal from this? So we don't
have to have these conversations in 10 years.
We don't have to be worried about the fact that
trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise
in the world and the second most profitable.
All this crap that we're dealing with today,
how do we fix it? How do we heal humanity? And
so that book is coming out in Amazon on July
29th. And it's going to be just a beautiful opportunity
for families everywhere to get the tools they
need to keep their kids safe. And I'm going to
take you through the emotional. roller coaster
I went through. You'll hear a few of the same
stories we talked about here in even more detail.
I'm careful, just like we were in the Sound of
Freedom movie, I'm careful to not be too graphic
to the point where you shut the book because
I need you to go through that experience so that
you can come out the other side transformed like
I was and having the tools that you need to make
the world a better place. Beautiful. And what
about the Child Liberation Foundation? Talk to
me about that. Yeah, so through our foundation,
the Child Liberation Foundation and others, you
can go to Child Liberation .org. Through that
foundation and others that I have helped to fund
and start, over 7 ,000 victims are now back with
their families. And so you can go even on the
Liberating Humanity site or the Paul Hutchinson
official site. You can go into any one of those
and you got links into the Child Liberation Foundation.
For years, that foundation was helping pay for
all of the rescue missions that I was on and
others. We still have geyser out there on the
ground. But more importantly now. is the healing
of humanity. And so the foundation helps with
the safe houses, with programs, healing programs
for the children. It has certification programs.
We had people in not only law enforcement, but
in hospitality and in hotels and also in the
medical industry. It's important that they know
what to look for. Over 80, 85 % of children who
are being trafficked actually go to a doctor
while they're being trafficked. The traffickers
want to make sure their inventory is well taken
care of. And so the doctors need to know what
to look for, what the signs are, et cetera. And
so we took down a huge trafficking ring between
Peru and Ecuador because the doctors knew what
to look for and gave us the... gave us the tip.
My wife went in and talked with the girl and
then got additional information. We took down
this massive ring because of the fact that they
knew what to look for as well. So again, the
Child Liberation Foundation, you can go to Liberating
Humanity and it gets information on... keeping
your kids safe. It gets a link to the Child Liberation
Foundation. It gets a link to the book. If you
forget Liberating Humanity, you can just type
in SOF book, soundoffreedombook .com and it will
take you right into that landing page as well.
Or you just, you can go right onto Amazon today.
That's even better. Go to Amazon today. You can
pre -order Sound of Freedom book and get that
there in your home to give you the tools you
need. Brilliant. Well, I want to throw some closing
questions at you before I let you go. But just
before I do, I think one of the most important
things that people need to hear when it comes
to a mental health journey is the hope of post
-traumatic growth. Because you've got the people
that deny that mental health is even a thing.
But now you've got this kind of group that's
like, all right, I understand the stigma. I should
be able to talk. And there's almost like a...
It's kind of like the drug commercials. Well,
I'm living with my depression. I'm living with
my anxiety. And it's a very doom and gloom message.
But then you hear like just on this podcast alone,
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people
with this kind of metamorphosis of who they are.
And now on the back end of whatever healing journey
they found works for them, that unique toolbox.
is the person 2 .0, which is so inspiring for
other people that are struggling. So talk to
me about Paul today and which elements of growth
have you had as we sit here talking in 2025?
I will say that I have this little meme that
has a mama and a baby. They're both pieces of
coal and the dad's like a diamond. And mama's
like, yeah, your dad's going through a lot of
pressure right now, right? And so the truth is
that's how diamonds are made is through pressure.
And you don't make a diamond by just sitting
in a coal pile. And so some of the greatest.
Lessons of life come through our greatest adversities.
And changing your perspective of saying, what
if, what if, what if I chose my parents before
I came here? What if I chose this path? Why?
So that I could be a diamond, so that I could
go through that pressure, so I could go through
that pain, so that I could come out on the other
side being so much. better than I could have
if I was just sitting in a pile of coal. And
that's really how we need to look at everything
in life. Our adversities will make you stronger.
They will. If you choose to allow them to do
so, don't allow yourself to be defined by your
past. Sadly, I have family members who are still
super stuck. They're super stuck in holding on
to their past and you know whether it's abuse
or whether it's choices of their past or whatever
and they they just stay in that place i see so
many people that that are like oh no i'm not
gonna this is why this is why a lot of the guests
i bring on to even my podcast on liberating humanity
are people who went through shit they went through
horrible childhoods i won this coming out this
week with with uh with a guy by the name of fox
he he was in the foster program and horrific
horrific childhood i mean i can't even touch
the surface of how bad it was but then he had
a librarian that believed in him and says you
know what you can continue on this path let it
to let it define you and end up in prison or
you can allow it to make you stronger and he
ended up building his first drone company that
he sold for millions at 19 years old and then
continued and became incredibly successful and
philanthropic and everything that he did and
so again it's um it's those hardest times and
then that recognition um that that doesn't have
to define me that helps us become the superstars
that you can be in your 4 .0 and 6 .0 version
of you absolutely i'm so glad you said i think
this is it i mean you put that back the the you
empower the individual to look in the mirror
i think you know one of the phrases i love is
reasons not excuses so you identify the things
that have caused some of your behaviors from
what happened to you when you were younger you
see them you take the you know the energy away
from them but you don't cling on to them as an
excuse as an identity you now start working through
whatever it is And now forget the term, but,
you know, the Japanese pottery that's broken,
they use gold glue to repair it. Now you're this
beautiful version of yourself and you're proud
of your scars because that in my profession is
what makes a courageous, empathetic first responder
is someone who's been through struggles, found
their way through the other side. And now they
can really empathize with the people that are
struggling on the streets that we respond to.
So it's so great to hear and so important to
hear. The first of the closing questions I love
to ask, is there a book or are there books that
you love to recommend? It can be related to our
discussion today or completely unrelated. Marianne
Williamson, Return to Love. One of my favorites.
Four Agreements are a great one as well, but
a Return to Love kind of sums it all up. And
it touches on what we were talking about earlier
on that. that frequency of fear versus the frequency
of love and how that fear permeates so much of
people's lives and keeps them stuck. But that
frequency of love will heal all things. What
about films and documentaries? I think The Sound
of Freedom is a great one. Yeah, I do too. Yeah,
my favorite. I love I love the movie Braveheart
and I love the Matrix one, you know, Matrix and
Gladiator was a great one as well as phenomenal.
But, you know, the Matrix. I believe in a way
there's in a way it's a documentary, not a movie
to me. We we live in a space where our thoughts.
control way more than you can imagine. Your reality
in your life is controlled by your dominant thoughts.
And if you can step into that place of knowing
who you are and that incredible power that lies
within you, that all you have to do is recognize
that power and live in a place of pure, unwavering
faith in what you're creating in your life, that
you'll be able to transform your world. in a
really beautiful way. And so that's what I got
out of that. Whether that's what they meant to
teach me in that movie or not, I don't know.
But Braveheart and Gladiator were too beautiful.
Probably because I also, on my father's side,
through my grandmother, She was a steward, which
is the stewards of England were royalty years
ago. And so because of that, literally, I can
follow my family line all the way back to Marcus
Aurelius Augustus Caesar and all the way back
to William Wallace. Literally, I've got direct
connections with both of them. William Wallace
actually had a child with that princess in the
movie Braveheart and ended up coming down. And
I can trace it. Most of us can trace our lineage
back to axe murderers and royalty at the same
time back there somewhere. So it was kind of
fun. All right. Well, speaking of amazing people,
is there a person that you recommend to come
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first
responders, military and associated professions
of the world? There's a lot of them. A lot of
my operators are phenomenal. Jimmy Rex. It was
one of my undercover operators. Jimmy did 13
missions with me, but Jimmy is an amazing soul.
He started a foundation or a company called We
Are The They, which is super powerful. It's a
men's group. After one of our missions, Jimmy
was dating a girl, and she said, I don't want
you to go back again. That's really, really dangerous.
Can't they just do it? And Jimmy says, we are
they. We are the they. And he recognized that
so many people just kind of sit back and allow
other people to take the lead to make the world
a better place. But it's something that we all
can do in stepping forward. And he's got an incredible
story. And I have a few of my operators, a guy
by the name of Dave Lopez. He's a former Navy
SEAL, did a bunch of missions with us. A heart
of gold and a great order at the same time. Yeah,
he's great. And one last one is Glenn Devitt.
Glenn ran that group that I told you about that
has those deep. deep web hackers and stuff. And
he's seen the darkest part of humanity and now
is public in sharing that mission and the people
and the military guys that he works with as well.
So all just incredible, incredible humans. Beautiful.
Well, thank you for that. All right. Well, the
very last question before we make sure everyone
knows where to find you, the foundation, the
book, what do you do to decompress? I spend a
lot of time at one of our sanctuaries that we
use for the healing retreats. That's where I
am now. We've got 200 cacao trees. We have a
river coming through the middle. It's just springtime
every day. It's absolutely beautiful. And it's
my favorite thing. It's just unplugging, leaving
my phone here where there's internet and not
having anything, just going down by the river
and just... soaking in the nature. And I meditate
every day, every single day. I do a breath work.
I get into my heart space. I feel infinite love,
unconditional love of God flowing through my
heart, expanding out to all of humanity, releasing
in that meditation space. I do what I call a
onopono, which is a, I'm sorry, I forgive you.
I'm grateful. And I love you. And it's a whole
meditation thing that I use to release negative
energies with anybody or even ever previous version
of myself. So those meditations are super beautiful
in getting re -centered in where I need to be.
Fantastic. And getting in touch with me, yeah.
The Liberating Humanity. You can go on all social
media, liberating .humanity. I come up first
if you type in liberating. Or liberatinghumanity
.com is where you can get a lot of information
on keeping your kids safe, on the retreats, on
the book, etc. Anything Liberating Humanity or
childliberation .org to find more information
on the foundation itself. Fantastic. Well, Paul,
I want to thank you so much. It's been such an
amazing conversation. And not only from the obviously
the kind of informational and storytelling side,
but even your own vulnerability with your story.
I think there's just so much power to that. And
I know that so many people listening in to get
so much out of this conversation, including any
parent out there realizing the vulnerability
of our own children here in America, too. So
I want to thank you so, so much for being so
generous with your time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Thank you James. I'm
incredibly grateful for you trusting me with
your time and with your audience today.