The $150 Billion Crisis: Paul Hutchinson on Liberating Children & Healing Humanity

[00:00:00] Paul: We've got guys with guns on us. And he says to me, this guy's smart as hell. He said, "Tell me your phone number." If I didn't have that phone number memorized like that, boom, we would have been done. So I fortunately had it memorized. And then he said, "Take out your phone."

[00:00:15] Kate: Oh, wow.

[00:00:16] Paul: He said, "Show it to me." I show him the phone. He dials the number that's on my business card, watching to see if his number shows up on my phone. Fortunately, I had run it through a Google voice thing and made sure that there was no tracking, and boom, it rang on my phone. He smiles. He goes, "I like you. We're going to do business"

[00:00:36] Kate: Hey, there. Welcome back to Rawish with Kate Ekman. I'm really excited about today's interview because I watched the film Sound of Freedom last night, and it's been a long time since I was that riveted by a film from start to finish. And the subject matter is very upsetting and challenging but also hopeful, and what's being done about sex trafficking and human trafficking not just in the United States, but everywhere throughout the world.

[00:01:03] And it was just recently that I learned along the lines of last year when this film came out, that sex trafficking, human trafficking is 150-billion-dollar a year business. And the United States plays a big role in that. And it's so horrifying, but I say hopeful in that we are doing something about it.

[00:01:26] And one of the people who is leading the charge and doing something about this and helping to free so many children is Paul Hutchinson, who is here with us today. He's one of the executive producers of Sound of Freedom. He's also a primary investor. And I'm just so delighted that he's here today to talk to us. Paul, thank you so much for being here.

[00:01:49] Paul: Thank you, Kate. It's an honor, honor to be here with you and your audience.

[00:01:53] Kate: Yeah, thank you. How did all of this come about? And when you have the opportunity to invest in so many different projects or causes, you chose to invest in this mission. Why?

[00:02:08] Paul: Well, I was quite involved in philanthropy for many years. I believe that that's a key part of the success in my companies. And we can go into that deeper because there's an energetic connection with all things. And I had built a multibillion-dollar company, and I got a phone call a little over 10 years ago from our attorney general in Utah. And he said, "Paul, I know you've helped a lot of child-related charities." He said, "I need to talk to you about something that's pretty dark." He said, "It's the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, and good people don't even know that it's happening."

[00:02:45] And he's talking about human trafficking. He said, "There's more today than all 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade put together." And he said, "I need to talk to you specifically about child trafficking." And at the time I had never even heard of that. Sell a child for what?

[00:03:02] It didn't even make sense. And then he started talking about sex trafficking of children, saying that there was a Homeland Security agent who was in Cartagena, Colombia. He had found about 20 children, needed about $50,000 to rescue these kids.  I'd served on all kinds of board of directors of different charities.

[00:03:22] I was on the Make-A-Wish board of directors. And it was a beautiful organization that we help children with life threatening illnesses. And with Make-A-Wish, I could spend $10,000 to send a little girl to Disneyland for a week with her family, which is important. She's struggling with cancer. But 50,000 here, we could pull 20 children out of hell and get them back to their families.

[00:03:40] And so I helped to make that happen. And  two weeks later, the agent called me. And he said, "Paul, I'm in Cartagena. There's not just 20 children. There's more than 50. There's more than a hundred children in the surrounding cities tied to these different rings." He said, "We believe we could rescue all 100-plus children on the same day at the same time, but I need your help."

[00:04:03] And I said, "Well, how much do you need?" My ego self was there. I'll write you a check. And he said, "I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days?" He said the head trafficker has a piece of property he wants to develop into a child brothel sex resort. He needs a few million dollars to build it out. He believes he can make tens of millions of dollars a year selling children to wealthy Americans.

[00:04:27] And he said, "The plan is this: you come down.  I can't teach my Navy SEALs how to negotiate a multimillion-dollar real estate deal." He said, "You fly down. You tell him, listen, I'm willing to fund your project under one condition. We're going to have a party. You're going to call all of your existing connections all of the traffickers-- I don't call them traffickers to him-- all the people who have inventory that you'd be using at this resort. Bring them all together for a party. And if I'm impressed with what you have, then I'll fund your project." Our team already had identified over 50 children that were being controlled between him and the others. And that was the beginning of a total transformation in my life.

[00:05:15] Kate: I have the chills just talking about this because it's so unsettling, and it's so unbelievable that this is happening. And you think of all the things you can spend your money on this is such a worthy cause. You told me before we hit record that you yourself have led 70 undercover rescue missions in 10 or 15 countries.

[00:05:40] So even then, it's one thing to write a check and say, "Good luck on your mission, and thank you for doing this. This is horrific." And then go back to your money-making plans. But to put your own life on the line here for something, thank you for your courage and your bravery. I consider myself a courageous person, but I'm even having a hard time talking, and I'm freezing.

[00:06:05] I have the chills from head to toe just thinking about this. And of course, I just saw the film, so it's in my heart and mind. But how does one even go about leading 70 undercover rescue missions to help these children?

[00:06:17] Paul: Well, here's what happened. He said, "Can you be in Columbia in two days?" And so two days later, I'm literally face to face with the most horrific people you can imagine. Now, I have a certain set of skills from a previous life that makes me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. But the reason he needed me there is that he needed somebody who could wear a 50,000-dollar watch and a 4,000-dollar suit, negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal.

[00:06:41] And I'm sitting there with these traffickers, and Kate, I thought that I was going to see people with tattoos on their necks and earrings in their noses. And the first trafficker I met was a businessman in a polo shirt, clean shaven. The second one was a beautiful young woman. She ran a modeling agency.

[00:07:01] And at first I thought, this isn't the traffickers. And then we sat down and started talking about their plans with the sex hotel and what they were doing with the children already and how they were luring them in. It was horrific. And halfway through that meeting, one of the traffickers leans forward and he says, He said, "Pablo, I have a gift for you."

[00:07:18] I said, "Really, what's your gift?" He pulls out his phone, shows it to me. There's a picture of an 11-year-old girl on that phone. He said, "This is princess. She's still a virgin. We just took delivery of some. She's my gift for you for this party." Start talking to me horrific things that we could do to this child.

[00:07:36] And I thought, oh my God, if we could get these children out before they're ever abused the first time, that would be a miracle. And something he said made me realize he had more than her. I said, "Fuego, do you have more virgins?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, I got three or four more." I said, "You're going to bring those to my party too, right? I'm very interested in those."

[00:07:55] He goes, "Oh, no. They're too expensive." Too expensive? I'm already paying this guy $25,000 for this party. I'm paying him $500 per child for a minimum of 50 children just for two hours in the afternoon. So he says, "Jefe, you already paid 25,000. You want to F those other virgins, it's going to cost you maybe 2000, maybe 5,000 for that little one. It's going to cost you maybe 10,000 more."

[00:08:20] Now, at this point, ego Paul stepped in. This is no acting. I was pissed as hell. And he's like, "It was going to cost you an extra $10,000." Literally I put my hands on my chest. I'm like, "You don't think I can afford an extra $10,000? He's like, "Oh, no, Jefe. No." I said, "I want every one of those virgins at my party." I said, "They damn well better be virgins when they get there. They're not for you. They're for me. You understand?" He's like, "Oh, yeah, I understand." With stupid smile on his face.

[00:08:52] Now, in the movie, my character played by Eduardo Verastegui, who is the producer of Sound of Freedom. And in my movie, my character says, "No, I don't want to go," and whatnot. It wasn't until Jim Caviezel gave my driver a picture of this little girl, and I see that picture, and that changed my decision.

[00:09:13] In real life, I was already there. I was face to face with these guys. But showing me that picture on his phone galvanized my commitment. And then two weeks later, the thing that changed everything for me, we set up this sting. We have this island party, and these guys bring these children, and we have three separate cities at the same time.

[00:09:37] And I was in Cartagena, this island, and they brought 54 children. And almost every one of them were under the age of 16. More than half of them were kidnapped and taken from other places and lured in. And we put the children in this separate place in the house because they're already traumatized enough.

[00:09:56] And we're sitting at this table, and I'm negotiating and talking about this thing, and one of the traffickers gets up and says, "Pablo, I have to show you the gifts that I brought you." So he goes in the house where the children are, and immediately we could hear crying. We could hear two of the kids. They were so scared of meeting me. I was so glad it was us, not some monster.

[00:10:19] And pretty soon he came back out, and he had four virgins: three little girls, one little boy. This little boy was 11. They gave him cocaine that morning because he was so scared. What kind of fucked up monster thinks that that's attractive?

[00:10:38] Every cell in my body wants to just hug these kids and say, "You're going to be fine. You're going to see your parents again." And I couldn't say that. And they brought that little girl, the same one he showed me on the picture at the restaurant. They stood her in front of me. And I was sitting down, this height that I am now.

[00:10:55] She was standing up, and her eyes were loveful. And I could see into her soul. And all I could see was fear. And I made a commitment at that moment to myself, to God, to that child, that I would dedicate my life to eradicating that evil from the face of the earth.

[00:11:21] And then the most beautiful moment was after the agents came and stormed the party and arrested everybody, and 30 Child Protective Services people came in with the children. And they started laughing. They started singing with the children. And that sound of freedom, it was the most beautiful sound that I ever heard.

[00:11:40] I started crying, and I turned to the agent that was with me and said, "I've spent my whole life making money, making rich people richer. I want to make a difference. I want to write you a check. I actually had on my vision board Aventador Lamborghini, a white one with the doors that came up, convertible, 350,000-dollar car. I was going to buy it that spring.

[00:12:02] I said, "I'm not going to buy that car. I'm going to write you the check instead. What do you need? How much do you need? How can I help?" And he said, "Paul, I want to go--" This was the guy who Jim Caviezel plays. He goes, "I want to be public. I want to be on CNN, ABC. I need to be the face of this." He said, "I need somebody who can continue to lead these missions."

[00:12:21] And he said, "If you're willing to be the bait, this will change your whole life." And as we were walking off the island, they weren't supposed to tell the children that we were the good guys, but somebody must have said something because that little girl, the same one that was standing in front of me, the same one that was-- and in real life, she was there at the island.

[00:12:41] In the movie, we actually put a couple of different stories together. We can talk about that. But she was standing there by the door. Her hand was on the screen door. She was crying again. But she was smiling and waving, and she said in her broken English, "Thank you, Americans." And that was the moment that everything changed. And I knew that I could never go to sleep at night one more day without that commitment to fight that evil.

[00:13:08] Kate: Wow, that is so powerful. That real life little girl was actually in the Sound of Freedom movie?

[00:13:15] Paul: No, that an actress. But in the movie Sound of Freedom, we took about eight different rescue missions and put them all together into one storyline, and about 20 different operators and put them into just a handful of characters. It wasn't me that paid for all that by myself. But in the movie, it was him that did it. That little girl in the movie, she wasn't there, and they went to the jungle to find her. In real life, the jungle was an entirely different country.

[00:13:44] We were looking for a little boy. It was an entirely different team that was there dressed as doctors and going in. It was in Haiti. I went in with with a guy named Andy dressed as doctor. Anyway, there's just a lot of things, and there was doctor things that we had done with other operations even before that as well.

[00:14:02] We knew we couldn't take millions of people undercover to see what we were seeing, but we could help millions of people feel what we were feeling, and that would create a global impact. And so when we decided, "Hey, you know what? This has to go to the world." I decided I would be the first investor in the film. And the rest is history.

[00:14:30] Kate: Yeah. Thank you for that. I was going to say, because if it was that same little girl, I'm like, okay, you got to do another film, Where Are They Now, and How Are They Doing? And I can't imagine Jim Caviezel-- his name is always hard for me. Jim Caviezel, who of course played Jesus in Passion of the Christ, very gifted actor, I can't help but think you're on his level in terms of acting.

[00:14:50] I can't imagine having to play some rich pedophile and be eye to eye with that terrified, traumatized little girl, and especially in front of really scary men, have to pretend that you are that character and archetype when really you're there to help and save her. How did you not, I guess, break character? I would be crying. But you had all that emotion, and you're seeing into her soul and feeling and experiencing the fear and still not breaking character.

[00:15:26] Paul: On that very first day when the trafficker leaned forward and showed me the phone and showed me his picture of that little 11-year-old girl, I had a Navy SEAL standing behind me. His name was Dutch. Big guy. And he was my real bodyguard and my show bodyguard. It would make sense that a guy that could fund that would have bodyguards.

[00:15:43] So he was standing there right behind me and said, "I'm going to look around the restaurant and make sure everything is safe," when that picture came forward. Later in debriefing, he said, " Just looking at that little girl, she looked a lot like my own daughter at home."

[00:15:59] He said, "I almost unholstered my weapon and shot him right there." And if we did, we of course would blow the entire cover of the operation. And so those are difficult. The hardest part for me was sitting there and looking in that little girl's eyes. That was so difficult. And I told the traffickers, I said, "It's not time for the party to start. We need to send them back in. Let's negotiate this business plan. You guys have proven to me that you have the inventory. Let's go."

[00:16:29] And that was the darkest business plan you can possibly imagine going through, where they're getting the kids and where their customers are and everything else. And a lot of the information was used for later rescue missions. And what was used in the film was taken from those conversations and pretending like we were investing in a business plan with them. But yeah, that was super hard.

[00:16:52] Kate: Yeah. Just the essential award winning acting that you had to do under such pressure and stress and emotional duress heightened by seeing-- because you see the film. When I was younger, I used to see films like that, and I would have to consciously say to myself, it's just a movie. It's not real. It's just a movie. It's not real. And I couldn't do that when I watched this last night. And then you are literally a character in the film living it live.

[00:17:23] So for me, I'm just watching actors, but it seems so real to me. So then again, to have to do the acting, but then also how are you not just-- any moment, I feel like you could have been shot. I feel like you could have looked at someone the wrong way or they would have been tipped off, discovered who you really were. You could have been murdered so many times.

[00:17:45] Paul: So many times. The Cartagena Columbia mission, the first one that we roughly did the movie around, that one was one of the safer ones of any of the ones that I've done. As you said earlier, I've been a key part in over 70 undercover missions since that time. And it was just a year ago, right before the movie came out that I decided I needed to be done with that and needed to share from my heart.

[00:18:11] But there were countless situations that were extremely dangerous. And one of them in Mexico, people look up my name, they'll find all kinds of good stuff, and they'll find some crap articles by Vice, and I'll just go there. Vice did this thing, saying, executive producer of Sound of Freedom touched the breasts of a victim undercover.

[00:18:34] Okay, let me just tell you what was going on because your listeners want to hear this stuff. We were in Mexico-- very dangerous traffickers. We had worked our way up to what I call a level 3 and a level 4 traffickers. These are the ones that physically hold the kids.

[00:18:50] There was this one trafficker. He was 6 foot 3. Everybody was scared of him. Said that he killed people all the time. We knew he wasn't the king kingpin, but eventually he actually introduced us to the guy who ran the entire cartel for that entire region. That's how high level this one was, right?

[00:19:12] And he takes me to this club. He's like, "Hey, I'm going to go show you." Because I need to find out where they're keeping the kids. We need to get them to take us to where the kids are, whether they're held in cages wherever it is. We need to be taken there. And so I tell him, "Listen, my boss will kill me and my whole family if I taste the candy before the party, but I have to verify you have the candy? I'll pay you $100 for each one that you show us." And so he takes us to this Seedy strip club.

[00:19:41] Now, just so you guys know, you don't find trafficked children at the Ritz-Carlton. And your meetings with the traffickers are in some really dangerous places. And so he takes us to this club. This manager who was scared to death even seeing this guy come, brings these girls.

[00:19:56] Now, I'm married to a 47-year-old Colombian who looks like she's 25. These girls look like they were 25. There's no way in hell they were minors. And so I knew he was full of shit, but he brings these girls, and this manager was there, and he says, "You like?" I said, "Yeah, that's what my boss wants." And then the manager pulls up her freaking blouse, and the trafficker grabs my hand, you can see it on the undercover video, pushes my hand out forward.

[00:20:25] Now, if I had pulled back right there, me and every one of my men would have been dead. Period. Number one. Number two, I knew for a fact she wasn't a minor. In fact, it was verified by the federal police of Mexico later. Number three, even if she was, it wouldn't matter. There were 23 people victims that were recovered on that undercover rescue mission. And so I have nothing to hide. I'm not scared of being completely transparent on everything about my life.

[00:20:52] But then the next morning he called me, this trafficker, because he had verified. Now he felt comfortable. He goes, "Pablo, we have to meet. I said, "Great." We meet. He gets in the car. I said, "We're going to see where you're keeping the kids." He goes, "No, no." He says, "You know I'm the king, right?" I said, "What?" He said, "I'm the boss." I said "Oh, yeah. It's very obvious you're the boss of this whole city." Everybody coward to him.

[00:21:15] He said, "Every boss has a boss, and I'm going to take you to see my boss." He said, "He's in charge. He's in charge of everything from this city all the way down to that city." And he said, "His family's in charge of most of Mexico."

[00:21:33] I said, "Really? Who's his family?" He said his uncle is El Chapo. I'm like, "Oh shit." Now, we found out later he wasn't El Chapo's nephew, but he was using that to lead with fear. And he ran the entire cartel for a massive section of South America. So we end up going and meeting face to face with this guy.

[00:21:56] He's man in charge. He's got 2,000-dollar shoes on. He's got multiple bodyguards. We could see very clearly at least three or four people that were behind buildings that had guns on us, watching us. And he said, "Hey, I hear you want to have a party here." I said, "I hear you can provide what my boss is looking for."

[00:22:18] He goes, "How many do you want?" I say, "Oh, I don't know. I've been told that you have 20 to 30." I said, "I'll take all 30 of them if you can provide them." He goes, how much are you going to pay? And I said, "Well, we just did another party for my boss. We paid 500 a piece." He goes, "No, you can pay me 1,000 a piece."

[00:22:33] And it was just this energy back and forth with this guy. And I said, "Listen, I'll pay you money, but you've got to take me to where they are. I'll pay you 100 bucks for each one today that you take me and I can see that you have them." He goes, "Oh no." He said, "You're going to pay me $2,000 right now."

[00:22:50] I said, "Why would I pay you 2,000 right now? If you told me that you're going to show up at my party with cocaine, I'm not going to pay you right now and hope that you show-- how do I know that you can provide what you say you can provide?" And he gets in my face. Now, they've got guns on us.

[00:23:04] He gets in my face. He said, "You ask any mother ever in this city if I can provide what I say I can provide." He said, "You listen to me carefully. All those people on the streets that you talk to, they all work for me. The police, they all work for me. You want to have a party in my city, in my country, you're going to go through me. You're going to give me $2,000 right now."

[00:23:28] Now, this is dangerous. And I said, "Listen, I have the money. I don't have it here. I'll meet you back in two hours." Long story short, we make sure we're not being followed. Two hours later, we show back up. Now, we can see at least eight people with guns on us, at least eight.

[00:23:43] He said, "You have my money?" I said, "Of course, I got your money." Boom. Give him the $2,000. Then he says, this is super dangerous, "Give me your business card." So fortunately, I had created a fake profile. I wasn't Paul Hutchinson. I was Paul Black, Paul Stone, Paul Steel, whatever. At that point, I pulled out the Paul Steel business card. I had it. And he looks at it. Now, we've got guys with guns on us. And he says to me, this guy's smart as hell, "Tell me your phone number."

[00:24:14] Kate: Oh shit.

[00:24:16] Paul: If I didn't have that phone number memorized like that, boom, we would have been done. So I fortunately had it memorized. And then he said, "Take out your phone."

[00:24:28] Kate: Oh, wow.

[00:24:29] Paul: He said, "Show it to me." I show him the phone. He dials the number that's on my business card, watching to see if his number shows up on my phone. Fortunately, I had run it through a Google Voice thing and made sure that there was no tracking. And boom, it rang on my phone. He smiles. He goes, "I like you. We're going to do business." And then he says, "Come here," and he goes back to his beautiful truck. It's lowered with black with rim. It's gorgeous. Opens the back doors, and there's three children that are sitting right there. That ended up being one of the largest rescues. We later rescued 48 children. That one was the first big one with 23 kids in that country.

[00:25:14] Kate: I feel like I'm an actress right now. We're doing a movie. It's hard to believe this is real life, the steps that you took and what you went through. For people who maybe haven't read the show notes or aren't familiar, you aren't just Paul Hutchinson, a shrewd wealthy businessman, but you're also a Navy Seal. Can you talk just a little bit about-- you're not a Navy Seal.

[00:25:36] Paul: No, I'm not. Most of my operators were.

[00:25:40] Kate: In my mind, you just are a Navy-- wait. So you don't have any of that training or background?

[00:25:46] Paul: I don't. And I talk about this a lot in my book. Your listeners can go to soundoffreedombook.com and get the Sound of Freedom book. And it goes into the training of undercover operators and all of my background and training and a lot of things that people can do to keep their children safe.

[00:26:06] And one of those that I strongly suggest is hand to hand combat training and specifically Krav Maga. And if your listeners haven't heard of Krav, I say, there's a lot of different martial arts. Some of them are, bow to your sensei, three points when you kick him in the leg.

[00:26:23] Krav is brick to their head and go home to your family. It's Israeli special forces hand to hand combat training. It's the most lethal on earth. Every move, they don't talk. They don't walk. They're done. And me and my guys, we can take away a gun faster than they can pull the trigger every single time.

[00:26:39] Because when you're undercover, a lot of these special forces guys, they need night vision goggles and a sniper on the roof to feel comfortable. You're with the traffickers. You don't have any weapons. It would be dangerous to have weapons. You need to be able to deal with things with your mouth and with your hands in any dangerous situation.

[00:26:57] Kate: What was more challenging, being face to face with such evil and having to really be so precise like a ninja and how you handled even the business card and the phone for instance, or being face to face with the most beautiful, but also the most traumatized children whose literal souls were being stripped from their beings?

[00:27:23] Paul: The children was by far the hardest. And fortunately, there were only a few times where we had to be face to face there like I was with that little girl. They'll usually show us where the kids are, and then we'll Geotag the location.

[00:27:41] One story of this child that just changed everything, I was in Haiti. We had worked our way up to a level 3 trafficker. It was a female trafficker that was holding these kids, and we went to this dark, dangerous area part of town. It was this red door, about four feet wide, about seven-plus feet tall, steel, rusted. She sticks a key in this door, and it opens up, and I could see this dark, dirt hallway.

[00:28:12] And there was multiple cell doors down the left-hand side. She then sticks a key in one of these cell doors, and the first thing that I see is not even a bed. It's a steel plank that is held to the wall with a chain, with a dirty, dingy blanket. To the left of that was this little girl. She had just turned 14. She was taken when she was seven. Her parents were killed in the earthquake in Haiti. Nobody even knew she was alive. These traffickers sold her for sex 10-plus times a day for seven years.

[00:28:52] That little girl didn't speak one word for two weeks after we rescued her, and the very first words she said were, "I didn't think anybody would come." She'd given up hope seven years before. But seeing those kids that's by far the hardest. I could hang out in a club with the traffickers and shoot the shit and be just fine, but when they bring those kids, that's heart wrenching.

[00:29:22] Kate: How is this even able to go on anywhere, but to go on at the magnitude that it does, the human and sex trafficking? And I'd love for you to share that stat at the end of the film and the United States involvement in this. Go ahead.

[00:29:44] Paul: Here's the important stats. You watch the movie and you're like, "Okay, we're going to make sure that our kids don't go to a fake modeling thing and get taken in a container." Those kind of things are very seldom. The majority of trafficking doesn't happen like that. Parents will say, "Okay, I saw Sound of Freedom. What can I do? How can I help?"

[00:30:05] Well, the the worst thing you can do is go to Columbia and go try to rescue children. 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, how does that make a difference?

[00:30:19] Well, creating a nuclear family is everything. Why? Because the majority of children that get taken and moved around in sex trafficking, the majority of them come from broken homes, or runaways, or a broken foster care program. So having a healthy nuclear family-- now, I'm going to throw this out because it's super important.

[00:30:38] A lot of people don't know the statistic. When you're saying broken families, we're talking about more than 50% of American couples end up in divorce. And people are like, "What can I do to fix that?" Well, here's one little tidbit. This is not a religious thing whatsoever, but read up on this one thing.

[00:30:56] Families, couples that pray together, regardless of your religion, every single day, that number goes from 1 in 2, 50%, to 1 in 1,152. It's a massive difference. Why? Because you're turning your hearts to your creator. You're working on things together. And so whatever it is, you work on things together as a couple to maintain a healthy family. And that by itself will ensure against a lot of trafficking.

[00:31:28] In addition to that, you need to have a relationship with your children, where they can very comfortably come to you and say, "Hey, mom, dad, I don't like it when you tell me to hug uncle Harry, because he touches me weird and says we should have secrets outside of you." Or, "I don't like going to this friend's house because her brother takes pictures of us when we're changing and says he's going to use them against me."

[00:31:52] Or "I don't like this babysitter because she's shown us pornography and tells us that we should trust her more than you." These are grooming behaviors. And what parents don't understand is that the majority of children who are being sold for sex sleep in their own beds at night.

[00:32:11] Kate: I don't understand that.

[00:32:14] Paul: It's horrific. In fact, here's the statistics, Kate. One out of every four women listening to us today, one out of every four women that you know has been a victim of sexual abuse as a child-- as a child. It's about 40% or 50%, 40, 50 of all women at some time in their life. But a fourth of all women as a child. Now for men, it's a little bit less.

[00:32:38] It's one in every five at some time in our life. But even them, one fourth of them, it happened under the age of 10 years old, most of the time in their own homes. So here's what's happening. Yes, 10 million children being sold into trafficking is horrific. It's a horrible number. But statistically, there's more than 1 billion women who have experienced sexual abuse as a child.

[00:33:09] And close to one fourth of the entire population of the world at some time. It's a horrible, horrible number. And yes, some of us just abused by an uncle. "Just." Here's what's going on. After 10 years, I'm doing undercover work. I looked at the numbers, and I realized there's more children being sold today than there was 10 years ago.

[00:33:36] And I looked in the mirror and I said, "Okay, Paul, if your goal, if your commitment, when you sat in front of that child 10 years ago was to eradicate child trafficking, you're not doing a very good job." Because every time we went in and rescued those children, because not enough was being done to fix the demand, another 20 or 30 kids were being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell to fill that demand.

[00:34:04] So we, as humanity, need to take a step back and say, "Okay, instead of just fighting fire with fire--" That's what we were doing. You fight fire with fire, something already got burned. And in that case, it's the children. Instead of just fighting fire with fire, we need to say, "How do we prevent that fire before it ever happens?"

[00:34:24] I found myself, every single mission, I so badly wanted to rescue these kids before they're ever trafficked. If I had a time machine, went back 5 or 10 years and sat down with that trafficker and said, "Okay, what is going on in your life that makes you think that it's okay in any way to go down that path?"

[00:34:47] Now, don't get me wrong, listeners. I am not a pedophile sympathizer in any way. I put my life in danger hundreds of times to ensure that innocence is never harmed again by these predators. However, if we're going to fix this problem, we need to figure out what created that predator.

[00:35:06] Somebody doesn't just grow up at 42 years old and decide they're going to go to Columbia and go rape children. No, it doesn't happen that way. They were already abused as a child themselves. They already made a thousand bad decisions in their life, and they're already holding all this baggage. So somehow we need to create a system of healing those adolescents before they grow up and pass that trauma on.

[00:35:29] We already talked about one in every five men sometime in their life are abused. Statistically, those ones that were abused as children, two thirds of them grow up to be protectors. There's no way in hell that children are ever going to be hurt on their watch.

[00:35:43] However, one out of every three, if not given the love, the help, the healing that they need from being abused as a child, one out of every three will become a contact offender, physically, verbally, and even sexual abuse of a child. That's what we need to do, is we need to figure out how to heal humanity so that we don't have to figure out how to fight fire with fire in rescuing children.

[00:36:07] Kate: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I know you're not a psychologist, but you even spoke a little bit about the pathology behind it. And I think it's so hard for me to wrap my mind around it. And you're right. It is just spreading like a wildfire because it isn't being healed. It hasn't been stopped.

[00:36:22] It's like there's big fires in California. It's just like the 30-acre fire, you wake up, it's, 3,000 acres. It is spreading like that. And that's why it feels so overwhelming and you want to just throw your hands in the air and think, well, what can I do about this? And you actually went in and did something about it, but even this industry, $150 billion a year?

[00:36:47] I understand what you're saying about the people that are abused. Some of them go on to abuse. This is an even deeper level of abuse, the conditions that you show a little bit in the movie. And even there was someone who said something about like, "Oh, well, there's some sensationalism in this movie." And it's downplaying that trafficking is not a sensational issue in itself. Anyway, that's a whole other thing.

[00:37:14] But we don't have enough therapists to even heal, and then you have to be willing to go to therapy to heal them. It's deeper than just child abuse or something. It is pure evil. And so many people, you're right, maybe they're not these, again, a lot of rich Americans involved in this, whether it's paying for the women, funding these operations, maybe they're not the ones housing or handling the children, but they're funding it so they can buy another Ferrari or mansion or whatever they want to do. I'm not going to ask you how they even look at themselves in the mirror.

[00:37:47] But this is so evil. It's so prevalent, and yet I rarely hear anybody talking about this. I'll even bring up a huge character in our culture. The Cassie lawsuit came out, and it talked a lot about sex trafficking. And there's still people who are like, "Wait, what?" Or don't even know, and that's just one huge case in America. A lot of people don't even know this exists or don't want to hear about it. It's too atrocious for them.

[00:38:15] Paul: It is. And that's one of the reasons we knew we needed to make the movie. Three years ago, you couldn't have a dinner conversation and talk about child trafficking. It was just not a polite conversation at all. And now, we have opened up that dialogue so that parents can have those conversations with their children to keep them safe.

[00:38:35] They can have higher levels of situational awareness. You're not wanting to live in fear. Fear is absolutely not the space to live in, and you don't want to raise your kids in that space. But being aware and teaching them skills and giving them confidence. If you're not aware, if you've got your head in the sand like some ostrich, then you're going to get eaten, and it's going to roll right over us. And the only thing required for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. And part of that doing nothing is not having those conversations.

[00:39:07] Kate: Thank you for that. Even just when this was brought to my awareness a year ago, I remember being in Hawaii with my brother and his family and my niece and nephew who were 12 and 15 at the time, and they were going off on the beach. And again not to sound like the super hyper vigilant auntie, but I said to my brother like, "Don't let them go off alone." And he's like, "They're fine" And I said, "No."

[00:39:28] And I even brought up child trafficking. And again, I feel like I sound like a freak, and I'm scared because I have this knowledge. But even then, I took it upon myself to say to the kids-- it's much deeper than when we were kids-- like, "Say no to drugs. And if some stranger approaches you, don't talk to them."

[00:39:44] But I said, if anyone ever a super nice or pretty person ever says, hey, come see my sandcastler, I say, don't ever go with anybody, ever. And I think, to your point, just keep having these conversations, not just with children, but with adults. And to just be open about it. And even if you're the weirdo at the dinner party where it's like, "Can't you just have fun?" Or, "Why are you having to bring up this deep, dark conversation?" To say, "Because I'm passionate about it."

[00:40:10] I always say I'm a humanitarian. I care that this is going on. And for me, once you see it, you can't unsee it. You can't pretend it doesn't exist any longer. So for people who are hearing this, please go and see the film, it is so worth it. It's so well done.

[00:40:26] I do want to bring up Tim Ballard who was played by Jim. And it was brilliant. He, again, apparently or did, give up so much of his life to help fight for these kids and save and rescue them and go on these missions. But again, there's some controversy here. What I don't want people to do is then to dive in and do some research and say, "Oh, well, that guy turned out to be you know a jerk," or did this.

[00:40:50] Just to clear the air before we get into what we can all do about it besides talk our children, what do you want to say about that? Because I think that's what frustrates me, is it's this film with such a great mission, and there's always some journalist or person who wants to be, "Well, yeah, but that guy turned out to be a pedophilia," or "that guy."

[00:41:10] Paul: And I'll put this out there. I am super grateful for Tim and making that phone call a little over 10 years ago when he was in Cartagena saying, "Paul, I'm here in Cartagena, and I need your help type thing." And I helped to fund it and brought in some people to help do that as well.

[00:41:33] But I made a very hard decision about six years ago, a very clear separation from Tim, from OUR. I saw some of the things that are now being public, and there are some girls now that have come out with allegations and whatnot. Here's what I want to say. There isn't one person on earth today who's lived a perfect life.

[00:42:01] We've all messed up in a lot of different ways. And the truth is, 10 years ago, when I got recruited into this work, I wasn't Paul Hutchinson. I was Paul fucking Hutchinson. I had built a multibillion-dollar company. I had a basketball court in my basement. I had two helicopters. This was the life of luxury that I had created. I was doing a lot of good. I was donating a lot of money, probably justifying my own toxicity.

[00:42:31] Kate: So appreciate your self-awareness. You're amazing.

[00:42:36] Paul: But that's the energy that actually worked undercover. The traffickers were looking for Jeffrey Epstein's. They were looking for guys with big ass egos, big, arrogant. I can write checks for anything. Look at me. I'm f and f this, whatever. We weren't doing anything illegal. We weren't trafficking children. We weren't doing any of those things. We were, in that space, very moral. But the energy itself was what the traffickers were relating to. Frequency attracts frequency. And doing that work was actually adding to the problem that I already had.

[00:43:15] I'll tell you this story because I think this is super important. About eight years ago, two of my undercover operators called me. Now, we were rolling through operators. We had Navy SEALs and Green Berets. That one mission, they were done.

[00:43:29] They had seen the worst part of battle, but seeing a child being sold, they just couldn't handle negativity. And so I had Jimmy and Andy call me. Jimmy had done 14 missions, and Andy, I think, 22 with me undercover. On this conference call, they said, "Paul, do you trust us?" I said, "Yeah, I trust you with my life." And we go undercover. We go rescue the kids.

[00:43:51] And they said, "Well, you need to come to this transformational event. It's going to change your life. It'll be the most transformational thing you've ever done." Now, that's a bold statement. I know Tony Robbins. I've done walk the coals. I've done all of this stuff. Transformation, that's how I built my billion-dollar empire.

[00:44:08] They said, it's a healing retreat. I'm like, I don't need to heal anything. I'm Paul effing Hutchinson. I don't need to heal. Well, I was on my second marriage, headed for a divorce.

[00:44:16] My kids weren't talking to me. I had parties every other weekend with NBA players in my basketball court in my basement, all this bullshit. And they were like, "Yeah, you need to heal. You got to fix some shit." So I'm like, "Okay, yeah. Well, what's this all about?" And now some of your listeners and even yourself might be uncomfortable with this, but I'll just go there.

[00:44:43] They said there was a doctor who had studied all around the world and looked at different types of holistic therapy. Now, my first big success was a company that helped people overcome anxiety and depression. I had 50,000 people a month calling in off of my infomercial for a cognitive restructuring program to change how they thought so they could change how they felt.

[00:45:03] And so I knew all about this stuff. We help people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and whatnot. And this doctor was claiming that she could help people overcome anxiety and depression in three or four days, not two or three months. And permanent, without any drugs after that. And I'm like, "What the hell is going on here?"

[00:45:21] And I realized that what she was using was something that was demonized by the US government in the late '60s. President Nixon decided to classify a whole bunch of things as Schedule I drugs. What I'm talking about is sassafras, white lily, psilocybin, things like this. And so I've been taught my whole life that magic mushrooms are as dangerous as cocaine, because it's a Schedule I drug.

[00:45:46] Psilocybin is safer than table sugar. There's never been a case of addiction. There's never been a case of overdose. And so I'm like, "This is super interesting." And that ceremony, that event was the massive changing point for me. Why? Because it was the most horrific, beautiful experience of my life.

[00:46:07] And John Hopkins University did a study. 76% of people who go through a guided meditation, plant medicine healing experience-- I'm not talking about going to a rave party and getting high with a bunch of your friends. No, that's different. A facilitator who understands. 76% said it was the number one most transformational 24 hours of their life.

[00:46:28] And for me, I felt empathy in every cell of my body in the most horrific way. I could feel in my heart, in my soul, every bit of pain that my kids felt when I cheated on their mom. I could feel every bit of pain that every one of my employees felt when I acted out of integrity with them or treated them subhuman in some way.

[00:46:50] And it was so horrible that I couldn't even breathe. I was like, this is horrific. And I had to change the playlist from this journey music, boom, boom, boom, to what I call my redemption playlist. And I could feel this power of just releasing all of this shit from my life.

[00:47:11] So fast forward, I'm a facilitator. We facilitated 58 guided meditation, plant medicine, healing experiences in Latin America. That's why I'm down here, because we tried to change the laws in Utah and other states, and some states are decriminalizing, but the FDA is, "We need more time to study."

[00:47:31] So we work with them here, and we bring people into fully immersive transformational healing experiences. So I would encourage people to read the John Hopkins studies, read books like Change Your Mind or The Immortality Key, and get some more information on things that you can do to release your own childhood trauma, to get rid of anxiety, depression, everything else. I believe that if we can help people heal, then we'll save millions of children down the road.

[00:48:00] Kate: Thank you for bringing up this experience because you're really emphasizing the importance of doing your own research. And for me, we're told it's alcohol, cigarettes, and nicotine is legal, and there's warning labels that this will kill you. Whereas a plant medicine that's been around for 6,000 years that will not kill you but will heal you, that's illegal. But alcohol is-- again, I'm not here to tell anybody what to do except for invite you and encourage you to do your own research.

[00:48:37] And same with these kids and what's going on here. Because it's so easy to be like, "Well, that's not really happening." Or, "That's just a movie. Or, "It's sensationalized. The kids really aren't being treated that bad."

[00:48:45] I'm like, "They're kidnapped and literally like raped 10 times a day, but this is sensational. Or "We don't talk about those things. That's so unpleasant. Tell me some good news." And then same with the journeys that you're doing. So I'm happy to know that you're doing that because I feel like that was such an integral part of your journey going from-- and I say this with love-- but the toxic gazillionaire and being an ego to then moving from your head down into your heart space that then enabled you to play that role with the creeps at the strip club, the traffickers, but then have that empathy with the children. And you saved so many lives, but I feel like these children saved you too.

[00:49:30] Paul: Absolutely. In every way, this journey saved my life. I look back at where things were 5, 8, 9 years ago. I don't even relate at all to that guy. In fact, it became difficult to continue in the work of undercover. I realized, okay, yeah, this is-- the problem was, I was driving all these nice cars, had this nice house, all the everything else, and now I was rescuing kids.

[00:49:58] I had the best panty dropper story on the planet. It feeded that negativity of that arrogance and that ego that was toxic, that masculine-- it was toxic in every way. And I'm so grateful for the people who saw me, saw through all of that crap, and helped me shed that and not play in that energy anymore so that we could create real healing in humanity. That's what it's all about.

[00:50:36] Kate: Yeah. That's where the true fulfillment comes. Because you can have all that stuff, as you've experienced, but your relationships could be crumbling, whether it's spouse kids, with yourself especially, and really asking ourselves, who do I want to be? And the fact that you were able to go on that healing journey and then be a spokesperson for that-- I like that you didn't start out as mother Teresa. You're doing some other things. Because then you can show others how to do it and that you can change archetypes.

[00:51:06] And there is. The word narcissism, personality disorder, that gets thrown around so much. And people talk about the disease of alcoholism, but then there's just this pure evil. And it's because, yeah, people go through trauma, and they don't heal it. They projected onto others.

[00:51:22] You saw the most evil form of what's happening? And we did touch on Tim Ballard who, again, did a lot of great work, and he had some of his own demons that he was fighting. You broke off from him. But what can we do to heal and to embrace our humanity a bit more?

[00:51:41] Because taking on the trafficking horror, it can feel I think a little bit overwhelming for people where they don't know where to start. But you do start with first healing yourself. What insider advice would you give to us to really double down on our activism, starting with ourselves, certainly, and healing the trauma within us?

[00:52:03] Paul: That's the number one. I remember this old story. We've all heard it where a guy sitting on his lazy boy chair reading the newspaper, and his little boy comes and says, "I want to play. Can we play ball? Can we do something?" He's like, "Oh, no, I'm too busy. I'm just reading news." He doesn't want to play with him.

[00:52:17] So he took out this page of the newspaper that had a picture of the globe on it, and he tore it up in a bunch of little pieces, threw it on the floor, and he said, "Little boy, put together all of those countries. Put together the world, and then I'll come and play with you.

[00:52:31] Five minutes later, a little boy had come back and had taped it all together. And the like, "Oh, how did that happen?" And the little boy said, "Well, on the other side of the paper, there was a picture of a man, and I just put together the man, and the world came together." And that's really what it's about. We have to focus on the one in the mirror.

[00:52:52] We can go out there and try to fix everybody else, but if we're not fixing ourself and we say, "Okay. Well, I'm not contributing to trafficking," guess what, guys? You are. Let me tell you how. There's something called trauma transfer. An easy example, you're at work. You have a bad day. You treat one of your employees like crap, and he goes home, and he yells at his wife, and his wife then transfers that same energy to the son, and says, "Why didn't you get your homework done and whatever?" And that little boy now kicks the dog.

[00:53:19] That trauma transfer went from you, to the employee, to the wife, to the child, to the dog. Well, let's just say that that man at work maybe was abused as a child himself and has made a lot of really bad decisions in terms of drug abuse and alcohol and whatnot, and you're yelling at him. You're treating him subhuman in some way. Your arrogance is negatively affecting that person at your work.

[00:53:46] And what you don't know is that his wife had just left him because of his insatiable pornography addiction and alcoholism, whatever else, and this is the weekend where he gets his eight-year-old daughter and her cousin. And your toxicity, through trauma transfer, affect that child's entire life.

[00:54:08] So we all need to take responsibility. We all need to look in the mirror and say, what can I do to make this world a better place personally? And like I touched on earlier, the best thing we can do to keep our kids safe is to have those relationships where they can very comfortably come to you and tell you when something's not feeling right.

[00:54:26] Your kid's intuition is way stronger than ours because we have way too much crap going on in our mind. And so trust that still small voice of truth in their hearts. Trust when they're not feeling comfortable with something. And have those relationships with them where they can very comfortably come to you and say when something happened.

[00:54:43] Don't go kill the guy, but it make sure that he never has that opportunity to hurt innocents again, and make sure that that child then gets the help and the healing that they need. Because the average age of somebody talking about or even remembering abuse as a child is 52 years old.

[00:55:01] That's my age. I've raised my kids. I've built my career. And if you're holding onto that energy, it's coming out in low self esteem, anxiety, depression, anger issues, and in some cases, physical, verbal, and even the sexual abuse of other people. So heal yourself, and then we can help heal humanity.

[00:55:23] Kate: Do you recommend that victims and/or survivors of any of this-- I know a lot of them have-- it's a lot of big figures, the Jeffrey Epstein's and the allegedly P Diddy and some of these others. And people are scared to speak out because they will be killed. Or any other repercussions. Is that part of the healing too that we all speak up more, that we all demand law enforcement or the government to do more? Again, I know you're not law enforcement. I know you're not the president, but why is this able to just continue to go on and on when people in higher positions know about it and then just keep flourishing rather than being shut down?

[00:56:07] Paul: Well, the problem is that there are a lot of those guys who are involved. It's one of the reasons why I believe the movie had a hard time getting through traditional Hollywood routes. We got shut down. We got shut down on our distribution five-plus years ago. And if you think that the Jeffrey Epstein situation was just Jeffrey Epstein deciding that he was effed up, effed up, sadly-- let me just put it this way.

[00:56:37] You guys can take this wherever you want to. If you are an agency who wanted to control the votes of a senator, a congressman, a federal judge, if you wanted to control those votes forever, you need to get some degree of blackmail on them where you they will never cross you. And you get them on some drugs, get them drunk and whatnot, and get them on film with an 11 year old. You control that vote forever.

[00:57:11] And this has been in the CIA Book of Dirty Tricks for decades, is getting that level of blackmail on people. And unfortunately, children are being used as pawns in this game of controlling politics and controlling people. And then of course, there is truth to these organizations of people that have come together that are-- it's a mutual self-destruction type of community where they've got that degree on dirt on you, and then you've got dirt on them, and you know each other at these events.

[00:57:51] There's some really horrible things that are going on, and it goes right to the top, and this is not a right or left issue. There are people. I've traveled around with some that were even involved in the movie who truly believe that if you vote a Democrat, you're probably a pedophile.

[00:58:09] No. We arrested just as many Republicans as we did Democrats. There's people on both sides. And this is something we should all be able to come together on. But the issue should have never been a political issue. This is a human trafficking issue. I am all about healthy immigration, but do not use my tax dollars to fund the transport of children into the hands of predators. That's where they're crossing the line, and that's what we all need to come together on.

[00:58:38] Kate: Thank you. I wanted you to say that, not me, and you did it so eloquently. And I think that was upsetting to also read that Hollywood wasn't really supporting this. And of course, Hollywood is synonymous with child predators, and we've heard all the stories from child actors, and it goes beyond that.

[00:58:56] And I think the good news is that there are projects like this being done, and victims and survivors are speaking out regardless of what it'll cost them So we are talking about it now more than ever. I think we still have more work to do. And I just can't even imagine, so I'm excited to ask you this question. I can't even imagine, then, from your perspective, to really put your life on the line and give up so much and invest in so much financially and otherwise, and you got results.

[00:59:31] And thank you, and congratulations. And it's like you said, "Okay, we rescued 30 kids, but then they replaced them." Or we did this, but this is still going on. How does that land with you where you did so much, and you've done so much and yet this is still such an atrocity that keeps growing?

[00:59:51] Paul: Yeah, after 10 years and realizing the number is just growing. I still have the foundation. We have the Child Liberation Foundation. People can go to liberatechildren.org and get more information on the Child Liberation Foundation that's funding rescue missions. It's putting together programs for the kids. It's building safe houses, changing laws and policies to keep the children safe, etc.

[01:00:19] But then, in addition to the Child Liberation Foundation, I started liberating humanity, which is the bigger picture. This is helping adults heal, helping adults change. That transformation, that elevation of global consciousness that has to happen, that return to God, that divinity within each one of us that is required for us to heal.

[01:00:48] And the past, no matter whether they were things that happened to us or things that we did, all of it can heal-- all of it. It's all going to require the help of our creator to do so, but all of it can heal. And helping to change laws, not only to keep the kids safe, but change laws to allow things like these healing retreats in different countries where adults can come in.

[01:01:14] Even if they're not dealing with childhood trauma of their own, if they just want to break free of major ego issues or become that 4.0 version of themselves that's not dealing with anger and addictions and whatnot. So that's my vision of the future, is in providing tools so that humanity as a whole can shed the toxicity that we're in.

[01:01:45] And we could do an entire hour on this one little teeny thing, but I believe that the problem with the world today is the lack of respect for the divine feminine. For 10,000 years, women have been taken down. They have to go through men to get to God, this hierarchy within the papal authority, within churches, and whatnot, even back in the witch trials and whatnot. These women with these beautiful, powerful healing gifts were demonized, and I truly believe that we are on the cusp of global peace.

[01:02:31] I believe we're going to see that thousand years' worth of peace. We're going to go through some difficult times. But the only way that that happens is for us not to bring in the toxic feminine, neo nazi women. No, don't try to be a guy. Be the very best woman. And that's what this world needs, is that healing, that divine feminine. And so we have a lot of our retreats that focus on that as well. Because I think that's so important.

[01:02:59] Kate: Wow. I would love to have you back to talk about that. And I know you're busy, but just a few more quick things, but thank you so much. I just had my loved one-- coaches, and healers, people do this for me. I just had a major connection of the dots. Oprah would call it an aha moment.

[01:03:17] Because again, I'm human. I care. I care so much too much. It's a gift and curse, being so empathetic. Ooh, you just helped me so much in this moment because I've been on such a healing journey the last year or two in particular, and even took some downtime from working full time, and then there was some guilt and shame around that because our college is like work, work, work, money, money, money. You got this lifestyle to pay for, and la, la, la. And you things to prove and people to impress, and gotten rid of all of that.

[01:03:44] But I've done so much healing. I've hired and work with all the people and all the specialists and have done all the things. And there's a moment where I'm like, you're spending all this money, and you got to make more, and you're spending too much time healing. I'm fully embracing that now. Every dollar I spend on a coach, healer, therapist, the memberships to the meditation spot, the red light therapy, and the oxygen treatments, all of that to heal every cell in my body that's making me so much better.

[01:04:12] I can feel it. I'm a different person now because of it. Thank you, because now I'm like, I'm helping the trafficking issue. Maybe I'm not there rescuing the kids, but I'm spending literally all my time, energy, money on healing, and have even judged myself at times for it. So I'm like, you're spending more than you're making right now. You got to get it together This is it. And this is why I created this show while I was doing my healing and meditating, and now you're on here. And I'm just gushing because I'm having this full, full circle moment.

[01:04:43] Paul: And you need to realize, Kate, 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 and people like your listeners who will share this many times over. It was people like Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote a book called Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was the podcast of the age.

[01:05:05] And it created an awareness with good people of what was going on in the South. In fact, years later, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet, he shook her hand. He said, "So you're the little lady that wrote the book that started the big war." So if we're going to change the course of human history, if we're going to eradicate child trafficking, then we need to create global awareness.

[01:05:28] That's what we did with the movie. That was the first step, though. Now we need to take all of the stuff we were talking about today, and we need to spread that to so many people so that they could learn the things that they can do to change themselves, to change their trajectory, to heal, so that we don't have something like a demand for child trafficking in the future.

[01:05:51] Kate: Yeah. And even part of my healing journey came about where this person, who I thought was this incredible, shrewd businessman, he turns out to be this con man and allegedly is also involved in trafficking in some way. Don't have physical proof, but that's the word on the street. And so even learning about this atrocity.

[01:06:13] And again, it's like, oh my gosh, I even know people that are involved in this? You're in business in the world long enough. And so even that this is your project. So again, it's such a testament to trust in the power of your journey and your story, even to do this show, and then to have you on a guest, and even how I was introduced to you.

[01:06:36] Right now, it's just such a beautiful moment for me, despite that we're talking about some really upsetting things. But God's up there winking at me right now, and I'm like, "I see you, and I'm going to keep doing this and keep people like you. We found each other. I didn't have to try. Here we are. Happened quickly, and that we will partner and team up, and that is how we do this.

[01:06:58] Because, yes, there are people like yourself there actually rescuing the children, but we're rescuing the children by first rescuing the wounded and traumatized child within us. So I'm seeing it all. I'm like, "I get it now." I see such a sense of hope. So thank you so much. And I hope everyone listening right now is connecting the dots in their own way and doubling down on whatever your life assignment is. Everyone has their different thing.

[01:07:27] But everyone's life assignment, I hope, can be healing that inner child. Because we've all been traumatized in some way. And if you're living today, you're traumatized probably daily from what's going on in the world. I want to let you go soon, but I'm so curious and want to ask, you have done so much and have lived-- you're like a cat with nine lives, the alley cat, not like you've been the froo froo cat in the penthouse. But you've been the gritty alley cat too. When you look back on this just unbelievable journey, what are you most proud of?

[01:08:08] Paul: The thing I'm most proud of is, after 50 years-- I was actually 46 when I figured my shit out enough to attract a healthy relationship. I was in Haiti about six years ago. I was unfortunately at a funeral for one of my undercover operators. I had led about 12 different missions in Haiti up to that time.

[01:08:32] But while there, I met a woman who was donating her time at the orphanage. And I tell people meeting a beautiful Colombian actress is cool, but when she's donating her time at an orphanage in Haiti, that's amazing. And if I hadn't been doing the work on me, there's no way I would have qualified for a relationship with a woman like her.

[01:09:00] She's-- in fact a funny side note. In fact, here's my mic drop. Ready? This is the thing I'm most proud of. It's not building multibillion-dollar company. It's not rescuing all these kids. Here's my mic drop. So you know who Henry Cavill is? Look him up. He's the actor who plays Superman. My wife is named Hada Vanessa, H-A-D-A Vanessa-- is her last name.

[01:09:20] She goes by Vanessa. And Henry was at her work almost every day for about a month, month and a half. They started to date, nothing big in public. They went on a few dates, and then she met me. I stole Superman's girlfriend. That's what I'm most proud of. There's a healthy relationship after all of these years with the most amazing woman. She now runs the Child Liberation Foundation and is just amazing.

[01:09:54] Kate: Wow. Thank you. And you could have stolen Superman's girlfriend, but that would have and could have gone up in flames had you not done this healing work because it wouldn't have been about all those externals. It really was the internal calibration. So thank you for speaking to that because I try to say these things, and sometimes I think people understand intellectually.

[01:10:14] So I love when you give them a real-life example, and you just spoke that into my existence because I feel my version of Vanessa coming to me soon because I have done this work, and now I'm an energetic match and vibrational match for that kind of relationship. So thank you for speaking to that too.

[01:10:34] We are proud of us. We really ended on some hope here. It got a little depressing there, but we ended on hope, which, again, just speaks to the humanity within us and that you can change at any moment. And by putting in the work, sometimes it feels like we're going backwards, or regressing or this isn't working, or I'm not saving enough, or helping enough, or doing enough, and then when you share a moment like this and then the work that you're doing together, it's so special and so inspiring. Thank you so much.

[01:11:03] Paul: Thank you, Kate. So grateful. So grateful for you and trusting me and bringing me on with the audience and willing to be raw, allowing me to be raw. This was as raw as you can get. This is heavy stuff. But this is the conversations we need to have to help humanity heal.

[01:11:20] Kate: My favorite conversations. And when I meet someone like you, my fellow alien, that we can be this raw, especially going into a public forum here, it keeps me going. This is the stuff that, if I ever have a bad moment, I'm going to think of you, this conversation, and the work that you're doing. And I'd like to talk offline too about ways that I can help and how we can partner because I'm so inspired, and I hope you do more films.

[01:11:47] And again, we'll have to have you back because I do want to talk about the divine feminine, and even maybe Vanessa can shed some light there too, but thank you so much. I do want to leave you just any final thought that you feel called to share, or not, but I can't get enough. So I'm like, "One more thought, then I'll let go." Thank you.

[01:12:08] Paul: If anybody has connections with big influencers, if I believe that just sharing from my heart in a place of compassion and love is going to help heal the world, this isn't about me. For years, I didn't want to be the messenger. I just wanted to have the message out there.

[01:12:27] But the fact that I've been to the pit of hell, I think, helps in being authentic about where we need to go. People can follow me on Liberating Humanity-- and type in liberating, I-N-G-- on any of the social medias. And follow there. You can go to liberatinghumanity.com and get some information on tools you can use to keep your kids safe.

[01:12:50] You can go to soundoffreedombook.com. It'll actually link you right into Liberating Humanity in the section where you can pre sign up for the book that will be coming out in the next few weeks. Depending on when this is released, it might already have been out by then, which is super beautiful. And there's so many things there that parents can use to keep their kids safe, situational awareness, and really understanding what healing looks like.

[01:13:14] Kate: Yeah. Thank you so much. And we'll be sure to put all of your information in the show notes so people can get involved, educate themselves, learn more. And yeah, I'd like to keep this conversation going. Paul, thank you so much for being here today on Rawish, and you were extra rawish with me, which I appreciate.

[01:13:30] Paul: Thank you, Kate. So, so grateful.

[01:13:33] Kate: So grateful too, and thank you for watching. Especially if you're here till the end, I know you found so much value in it. And please, do check out the show notes to see how you can get involved and really do your part to heal yourself and heal humanity. We appreciate you. We'll see you right back here next time on Rawish. Have a great day, everyone. Bye-bye.