The Power of Giving and the Fight Against Exploitation with Paul Hutchinson

Summary

Episode Summary: "The Power of Giving and the Fight Against Exploitation" with Paul Hutchinson

Podcast Title: Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Host: John Gafford
Guest: Paul Hutchinson
Release Date: July 22, 2025

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1. Introduction and Guest Background (00:00 - 04:19)

John Gafford introduces Paul Hutchinson, highlighting his remarkable journey from a successful entrepreneur to a passionate advocate against child trafficking. Paul shares his early business achievements, including selling his company, Midwest Center Marketing, at the age of 29 for millions, and co-founding Bridge Loan Capital, which evolved into Bridge Investment Group with nearly $20 billion in assets under management.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (04:19): "Bridge Loan Capital morphed into what is now known as Bridge Investment Group. I retired with just under $20 billion in assets under management."

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2. Transition from Wealth to Philanthropy (04:19 - 09:10)

Paul discusses his shift from accumulating wealth to focusing on philanthropy. Influenced by a mentor's advice to donate a significant portion of his income, Paul committed to giving upwards of 20%, believing that generosity would multiply his ability to create value. This pivotal decision laid the foundation for his later endeavors in combating human trafficking.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (05:21): "I had to live on $1,600 a month instead. But I truly believe that that decision made all the difference."

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3. Awakening to the Reality of Human Trafficking (09:10 - 21:12)

Paul recounts a turning point when the Attorney General informed him about the alarming scale of human trafficking, surpassing historical slavery in numbers. This revelation led him to collaborate with operators dedicated to rescuing children from sex slavery in South America, marking the beginning of his deep commitment to the cause.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (05:21): "There's literally more today than all 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade put together."

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4. The Making of "Sound of Freedom" and Overcoming Industry Obstacles (21:12 - 30:12)

Paul shares the challenges faced in producing and distributing the film "Sound of Freedom." Despite initial support from Fox International, corporate changes and industry resistance led to significant delays and blacklisting. Ultimately, grassroots support through platforms like Angel Studios enabled the film's successful release, highlighting the power of community-driven movements.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (28:37): "The only way that you knew it existed was millions of good people on their social media pushing that narrative."

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5. Upcoming Book and Expanding the Mission (30:12 - 43:51)

Discussing his forthcoming book, Paul emphasizes its focus on providing actionable tools for parents to protect their children. The book delves into personal transformation, situational awareness, and the broader societal changes needed to eradicate child trafficking. Paul outlines how personal healing and addressing one's own toxicity are crucial in combating systemic issues.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (39:58): "The majority of the Sound of Freedom book is filled with tools that parents can use."

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6. Personal Transformation and Healing (43:51 - 54:11)

Paul narrates his personal journey of healing through guided retreats involving psychedelics, meditation, and breathwork. These experiences helped him confront and overcome his own arrogance, greed, and lust, leading to profound empathy and a renewed commitment to his mission. This transformation underscores the importance of inner work in effecting external change.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (45:05): "I felt in every cell of my body, I felt the pain that my children felt when I cheated on their mom, as if I was them."

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7. Societal Reflections on Child Safety (54:11 - 60:38)

The conversation shifts to the pervasive dangers children face beyond obvious threats, including online sextortion and manipulative relationships. Paul stresses the necessity of strong parent-child relationships and societal awareness to safeguard children from hidden dangers. He highlights statistics revealing the widespread nature of abuse, emphasizing that threats are ubiquitous across all communities.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (33:11): "One in every four women that you know was a victim of this kind of abuse as a child."

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8. Critique of Religious and Social Structures (60:38 - 59:52)

Paul offers a critical perspective on how certain religious and social structures in Utah perpetuate a culture of worthiness and materialism, contributing to moral corruption and enabling exploitation. He warns against associating trust solely based on religious affiliations, advocating for transparency and integrity instead.

Notable Quote:

Paul Hutchinson (55:18): "When you wear your religion on your sleeve and use it as a blank check on your morality, this is the key saying, okay, I've got a picture of God behind me... you should trust me there."

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9. Call to Action and Final Thoughts (59:47 - End)

John and Paul conclude by reinforcing the podcast's core message: true happiness stems from contributing to others' well-being. Paul encourages listeners to engage in personal transformation to prevent the ripple effects of trauma and toxicity in society. He promotes his book and the "Liberating Humanity" initiative as resources for those committed to making a meaningful impact.

Notable Quote:

John Gafford (60:10): "If you want to find true happiness, right? It's not always about the stuff. It's about the stuff that you can do for others."

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Key Takeaways

• Personal Transformation: Combating systemic issues like human trafficking begins with individual healing and addressing personal toxic behaviors.
• Generosity Multiplies Impact: Committing to significant charitable giving can amplify one's ability to create positive change.
• Awareness and Education: Equipping parents with tools and knowledge is crucial in protecting children from hidden dangers.
• Community Over Corporations: Grassroots movements can overcome industry resistance and effect meaningful change.
• Integrity Over Affiliation: Trust should be based on actions and transparency, not solely on religious or social affiliations.

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For more insights and to support the mission against child trafficking, visit Liberating Humanity and consider pre-ordering Paul Hutchinson's upcoming book, Sound of Freedom.

Transcript

[John Gafford]

You know, how are we not solving this more aggressively? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, and here's the sad thing, too. It's not just people in power that are involved. You, you, you walk out on your front porch. I don't care if you're in an apartment complex or a super affluent neighborhood, you walk out in your front porch anywhere in the US and you look left and you look right. There's a very high chance that one of those doors is a dangerous place for children.

[John Gafford]

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of. Like it says in the opening, man, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today in the studio, I got somebody that's really interesting, man. He uses the same PR firm I do for my upcoming book, Escaping the Drift. So we're helping the fam out. And sometimes it's easy to help the fam out because you get some really high profile folks come to the studio. This is a guy who has had immense success in business. I mean, immense success. Huge, huge exits at the age of 29, and has just continued to build those things, but made it his life's passion to rescue children that were abducted, taken into trafficking. He is the independent producer of the largest independent film ever put out, the Sound of Freedom. He is the author of the upcoming book by the same name, the Sound of Freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Paul Hutchinson. Paul.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Thank you, John.

[John Gafford]

How are you, man?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Super excited to spend time with you today.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, dude, it's going to be good. It's going to be so interesting and there's so much to unpack with you.

[Paul Hutchinson]

And.

[John Gafford]

And it's interesting that it seems like the universe provides me with the right guest for the right time. And, you know, the Netflix, you know, always tends to be in vogue and send into the universe. What is everyone talking about at the moment in pop culture? And last night, me and my wife watched a movie about what happened to Amy, I don't know her name, who got abducted off of a cruise ship on Carnival. And I thought to myself, man, if this, if you watch it, it's like. And I know you haven't seen it because I just Asked you about it. But if you watch this thing, it's like one person after the next. Like why are you even on this documentary? Because it's like I ran into this girl in a, you know, a bathroom in Barbados and she told me my name is Amy, so. And so and I need help. And then I didn't do. I went back to the cruise ship and we had dinner. What? Why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you tell anybody? Why didn't you say anything? And it just seemed to be this never ending row of people that sat there and said, oh, I saw this person, but I didn't do anything. I knew there was a problem, but I didn't do anything. And you're the dude that does something right many times. Many times. So before we get to what changed that life, let's give some some color to that early 29 year old exit. What you did and how your life was then, how you got there. Right.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, I, well, thank you. I've been super, I'm going to say blessed in my business world. I had a very successful company in my 20s. We help people overcome anxiety, depression, PTSD, addictions, childhood trauma. I owned a company called Midwest Center Marketing. One of our clients was the Midwest center for Stress and Anxiety. But we had 50,000 people a month calling in off of an infomercial for them to get help with this program. Help, help dealing with anxiety, depression, et cetera. And so that was my passion for a long, long time. And sold that at 29 years old for a lot and many, many, many millions and, and a lot of it was restricted stock. But I was rich on paper. So it made me feel good about myself and start investing in real estate. Realized if I didn't hire guys smarter than me, I was gonna lose all my money in real estate and put together a power team. John Pennington and I are the co founders of a company called Bridge Loan Capital.

[John Gafford]

Bridger's father.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Bridger's father. Yep. Bridger's father and I are the co founders. And Bridge Loan Capital morphed into what is now known as Bridge Investment Group. I retired just under 20 billion in assets under management. Now I still retained ownerships and interest GP interest in the funds, still get checks even. But there was 4,000 people who were smarter than me that were running it just fine. And I can focus full time on philanthropy. Company is now well over 50 billion in assets under management. So I retired almost 10 years ago.

[John Gafford]

So at what point did you, I mean obviously you're running this Huge company that's doing extremely well. And at some point, something happened. Philanthropy. To say I can focus on philanthropy is one thing. You know, philanthropy to me is a rich lady giving money to the opera house in New York. Work so they can get good seats. Right? That's full. That's philanthropy. What you do is a whole nother level of that. So did that find you? Is that something you sought out? How did that become your life's call?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Oh, yeah, I had, I had no idea it even existed. I, I will say this. I, I, I had a mentor in my early 20s who said, Paul, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go into business, he said, here's a handful of things that I think are going to make a big difference. And one of the things that he told me, he said, the average person donates about 2% of their annual income to charity. He said, sadly, millionaires donate less than 2% of their income. He said, if you make a decision today that that number isn't 2%, it's upwards of 5, 10, 15, even 20%. He said, you can call it karma, you can call it the universal law of exchange, you can call it God, you call it whatever you want to. There's a higher power very interested in us. Good. He says, I promise you, your ability to create will be multiplied. And I said, well, you know, that's why I want to get rich. I want to get rich so I can be charitable. He said, no, you should be charitable so that you can get rich. I'm like, what? He says, I'm telling you, it's a principle that works. And so here I was in my early 20s, earning $2,000 a month, thinking, okay, I'll donate 20% of that now. I have to live on 1600amonth instead. But I truly believe that that decision, that decision made all the difference. How? How does somebody become a partner, let alone a founder, of a $50 billion investment firm? You're not a University of Utah dropout, right? That's what I am. That the statistical probability of me being where I am is zero. The only way I can understand it is that there were certain things that I did early on, including that decision to be charitable, to give until it hurt, made a huge difference. So fast forward. I mean, I'm donating money to some, you know, guys on the side of the street asking me for drug money. I'm thinking, okay, am I making a difference? I don't know. I can't judge. Maybe I could be them if I hadn't Had a healthy home growing up. Right. But over time I recognized that my passion was, was helping those who were what I'm going to call truly innocent. You know, a nine year old child in a position completely outside of any decisions. She didn't make bad decisions. That made her on the side of the street asking me for drug money. Right. She's a nine year old child in a hospital with cancer, whatever. So I served on multiple child related charities. I was on the Make A Wish board of directors for seven years. I was the incoming chairman in our region for Make a Wish when I received a phone call from our Attorney General. And he said, Paul, he said, I know you've been very involved with child related charities. He said, I need to talk to you about something that's pretty dark. It's the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world and good people don't even know that it's happening. And he started talking about human trafficking. How there's literally more today than all 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade put together. And then he starts talking about some operators that he wanted to introduce me to who were helping to rescue children who were in slavery, being sold in sex slavery in South America. So that's, that's the, that that phone call was the beginning of my transformation.

[John Gafford]

Now you mentioned something before and I want to go back to something you said because I think it's interesting when you said that the majority of millionaires give less than 2% of their income. When you look back at the tight, the first titans of American industry, the Carnegie's, the Rockefellers, towards the ends of, end of their life they tried to, to outgive each other is what it was. When do you think that shifted from people of wealth being incredible charitable and having a responsibility to just being the me culture. Do you think it was the great of the 80? I mean what do you think? When do you, when was the hinge point that changed that thing?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, here's the extra little piece that I forgot to mention. Millionaires donate less than 2% deca. Millionaires, centimillionaires and billionaires donate more. Okay, okay. So that, that's the key. He said, Paul, he says if you want to be a millionaire, that's fine. You know, you can, you know, have a, you know, millionaire in our, our world. Really, you're not living the life 140 right now. Exactly.

[John Gafford]

140 in America.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah, there's, there's, there's so many people in that space. However, however, if you really want to make an impact for multiple generations. Be a deca millionaire, be a sentimillion, be a. Create massive wealth. And so for me, he knew. He knew that I wasn't going to play small. He knew that I being. Being worth a million dollars was not something that was going to get me out of bed in the morning. And so he gave me all of these tools. And so. So yes, I do think that. That the key to really becoming successful is. Is by using some of those multipliers. But you're right, there's. There's. Sadly, there's. There's a lot of. A lot of people who are millionaires that are. That are still in that state of greed and ego and. And all about me type of an energy.

[John Gafford]

I don't know if it's greed or ego. It might just be fail or fear of loss is what it might be.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Exactly. Because a million dollars isn't going to get you very far.

[John Gafford]

You know, it's funny. I told this story to my wife. One of my good friends is coming into town on Thursday and called like they always do, invite us to dinner. We're going. And last time we went to dinner, they came to town and we went to Delilah. And I got us a table, short notice, which is very hard to do if you know anything about Vegas. Got us a table right in front the stage for six in front of Delilah. And it came around. He's like, let's play cardigan roulette for the bill, right? Of course, me that's, you know, schedules the whole thing. Puts it all together, dude, I get the bill and it was a chunk. And so we're going to dinner. And my wife's like, you know, are we. We're not doing that stupid credit card thing. Good. I was like, favorite does it, you know, whatever. And she's like, you know, I love them, and that's great. You know, they came to town and they didn't spend anything, and we set everything up and we ended up having to pay for it. And I go, but, babe, there's a malice to it. Like, the guy just sold his business for $128 million. He's not even thinking about a check at a dinner. He's nothing. Right? You get to a point where you cross a line of just money never being a thought again. And I think that's when. For me, I think, anyway, looking at it, I think it's probably more fear of loss. When you get to a point, you're like, okay, there's nothing I could really do to screw this amount of wealth up. I'm just gonna ride this out and I'm fine. Right. And when you get that level of wealth, whatever that is, there's no number. Everything is different. Everybody. I got a friend of mine that retired in Florida being a traffic controller that just invested in stocks, owns his house outright and just doesn't care, like he'll never work again. And he's fine. He's not. I wouldn't consider him incredibly wealthy, but he's totally happy. He doesn't care. So I think for me anyway, looking at it, it's about hitting that point. Understanding where people's point of enough is enough is. And some people, like you said, come from that ego spot where there's never enough. It's just more. It's always just more.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, and I'm, I'm, you know, I have a book coming out in a few weeks we'll talk about, but I have one in a few months that's on. I don't know what I'm going to call it. It's basically, it's on compassionate capitalism and, and it talks about how our perception of money is what keeps a lot of people broke. We think we live in a world of scarcity, where in reality we live in a world of infinite abundance and we can create a true win, win, win, win. If, if people think that the only way that you can million dollars is if $100 million has to come out of the pockets of other people, then subconsciously you're going to sabotage your success. If you have any goodness in you at all. However, if you realize that you can create $100 million in your bank account for your family, for your future, while creating two or three hundred million dollars worth of value in the world, then you understand that we live in a space where literally we are making money. We are creating money with our ideas, with our projects, with what we' to the world around us.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. I think one of the problems with like the crypto markets is that is the zero sum game.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Exactly.

[John Gafford]

You have to, somebody has to lose for you to win.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

And especially in those meme coin markets and all that crazy stuff, it just people ask me, oh, you invest in crypto? I'm like, no, because I don't like a business where in order for me to win, you have to lose. I don't like those businesses. Right. For me it's always been about growing others wealth. To see them do well helps me do well, which is wonderful. And I think it's one of the unique things about being in the real estate space is you can change people's lives through either investing or teaching them how to work in this industry and make money, which is great. One of the things you talked about with your book coming up, the Compassionate Capitalism and I just. This totally off script, I just want to know, because I had Perry Belcher in here last week. Is podcast goes up. Actually it's running right now. By the time you hear this, it'll be a couple of weeks back. But Perry, who's very involved with AI we were talking about, you know, he said the stats that are coming out of some of the, some of the reports are 40% of the American public will be completely unemployable in the next five years. And that's like scary, dystopian stuff to think about. But he said, you know, I'm like, well, what's the solution for that? And he goes, well, it's, you know, it's going to be some sort of living wage that the government has to give these people to survive. And I'm like, well, isn't that just not American? Like, is capitalism going to die here? Is that what we're looking at? What says you, Mr. Compassionate Capitalism?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Here's a story that will answer that. I got this from a good friend of mine, Paul Pilser, but imagine there's 10 men on an island, 10 families on an island, and every day those 10 men go out and they go fishing and they got their spears, they got their fishing poles, and it takes them all day to catch enough fish to feed their families. They come back every day after years of this happening. Two of the women, because they're all more creative than us guys, right? Two of the wives, they get together and they're like, you know what? There's got to be a better way. So they come up with this idea, this, this advancement in technology. They come up with the idea of a net, right? So they sew it with all the reeds and stuff, and pretty soon their husbands go out and they're able to catch enough fish to feed the entire island. Now the immediate problem that occurs on this island is 80% unemployment, right? Because you got eight guys that no longer have to fish in there. Now, a dysfunctional system would vote in a government that would tax those two men 80% of their fish. And their other guys would sit around, these guys would have, you know, an income that would be consistent, but they wouldn't be doing anything, right? A well functioning society. One of those men would get better at building huts, one would get better at building boats, one would get better. At learning about herbs and gardening, one would get better educating the children. Lifestyle as a whole for the entire island will increase because of the creativity of those women with the net. Right? So today, today we live in a world where literally all of us, I don't care if somebody lives in a one bedroom apartment, they live better than kings did thousands of years ago. Sure, right.

[John Gafford]

Hot showers did exist 80 years ago.

[Paul Hutchinson]

So because of that, realize that because of the creativity of the women with the net and everything else in our world, all of us are living like kings did thousands of years ago. Meaning as technology continues to display, place those guys fishing every day and allows them to use their creativity into more productive things, then literally, globally. Globally, everybody can live as good as you and I do today in 10, 15, 20 years.

[John Gafford]

I think, I think you're too aspirational about the ingenuity of most of the people in this country.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, if they choose to be lazy, that's fine too. They sit on their asses and not work. But they could be creative.

[John Gafford]

I agree.

[Paul Hutchinson]

And use their time and say, oh, I have an extra 40 hours a week. What do I want, want to do with it? Do I want to sit around? You're welcome to sit around and be lazy to do nothing. You can sit and meditate, whatever it is. But if we, if we were productive with our time, we could create an increased lifestyle for everyone.

[John Gafford]

But the problem with that is, as much as I love the utopian view on everything, is if you look at, like, look at Covid, right? How many people sat around, took their checks, did nothing, went and bought Gucci purses, did, you know, just did whatever they want to do and got real used to not having to do anything. And I would say that the level of apathy that runs through every business, every industry, every interaction you have with people started at Covid and is still not recovered four or five years later. So going out and telling all of the people that, hey, you can't fish anymore now, so you're going to have to learn how to build huts. That to me is the equivalent of when I don't know what, what presidential nominee was like, oh, tell the coal miners and the truck drivers to learn to code.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Just depends on if we have a dysfunctional government or not. If we have a, if we have a dysfunctional government with the tax, those two guys 80% of their fists, then yes, the new advancements are going to keep the entire island as it is. Nothing will progress and everybody will get lazy.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, well, My. My thing was, was, you know, if you give everybody 10 coconuts on the island, are the coconuts worth less? If they don't work for the coconuts, there's no value to the coconuts. So I don't see how that works. And I said to him, I said, wouldn't it be easier to go to the corporations that are. That are automating and doing these things and say, like, for every human being that you outsource or get rid of through technology, you have to pay a little bit higher tax. That was my thought. And you know that you're keeping people employed by incentivizing through tax rebates. Right. Through companies. And he said, we can't do that because China's not going to do that. He goes, in China, I'll just eat us for lunch. And it was like, oh, man, this is a dystopian. I mean, I'm gonna stop watching Black Mirror now because this is gonna be terrible. And get real. It's gonna be awful. But okay, that's just. Yeah, that was.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Sorry.

[John Gafford]

That was a side note.

[Paul Hutchinson]

It's good news about. Come back on when that book's out.

[John Gafford]

And we'll go, yeah, no, dude, I.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Love that conversation, all those things.

[John Gafford]

I'd love that. But let's get back to the matter at hand, which is the movie that we're talk. You got exposed to this from the attorney general, the problem with human traffic around the world, and he introduced you to some operators. And I don't know, you know, again, if you've told these stories a hundred times on podcasts, let's talk about something different. But, you know, I'm more curious in. I don't. The actual stuff. I don't. I know it's terrible. I know it's horrible. I can go watch the movie if I want to see it portrayed on the screen. I can read the book if I want to see it in detail. I'm more. I'm more concerned or more interested in the thought process in you that you could literally want a place financially, that you could have done anything in the world, and this is what you chose. Right. I'm more interested in that thought. So here you are. You hear that this is happening. And, like, walk me through the process of talking to your family about what you want to do, telling your friends what. You want to walk me through that.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, you know, at the time, I. I was in what I'm going to call a dysfunctional marriage. We didn't have a healthy relationship. I was working 14, 16 hours a day, and thought that happiness was going to come from one more car, one more helicopter, one more party, and felt some emptiness because of that. And I was still in my big ego space, you know, 12 years ago, I wasn't Paul Hutchinson. It was Paul fucking Hutchinson flat out. I had a house. My house had 10 bathrooms, eight private suites, seven fireplaces, three kitchens, and a basketball court in my basement, right? And my basketball court, my basement wasn't enough. I needed to build a DJ booth in the, in the corner of it. This DJ booth had massive screens, a stage, and stripper pulls on my stage. Yeah, I was, I was, I was out of alignment.

[John Gafford]

Utah. Love this, folks.

[Paul Hutchinson]

And I was in Utah, of all places, in Utah. So, so, you know, I, I, I get this. I, I help to fund some of these missions, and then I get a call from one of the operators saying, hey, there's a, a whole bunch of kids. I'm gonna go through all the story here, but just on the high level. Over a hundred kids in Cartagena, Colombia. Between Cartagena, some of the other cities, we can rescue them all. We have this plan, but I need your help. And I'm like, well, how much do you need? He's like, I need you. Can you be in Colombia in two days? He said. I said, why me? I'm no Navy seal. I'm no Green Beret. He goes, yeah, you're a rich playboy. You need a rich playboy.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, but they can Google, and you look fit the part.

[Paul Hutchinson]

I fit the part. I got pictures of me, of the hot girls and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and jets and yachts and all this shit, right? And he said, I had some training that made me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. But the head trafficker had this plan that he wanted to develop this project. He needed some millions of dollars to do it. We needed to con him into thinking that I was willing to fund it under one condition. If he called all the traffickers and brought the kids together. So that was kind of the plan there. And I'm like, well, yeah, I'll come down. I'll play the part of a rich playboy. That sounds fun, you know. And an hour later, John Pennington called me, is my co, founder of Bridge at the time, right? John calls me, he's like, paul, I heard about what you're thinking of. He said, have you thought this through? He said, this is dangerous. He says, you're set. You can sell out today, buy an island, be happy the rest of your life. I said, john, would I really be happy if I bought an island, if I bought another car, if I bought another plane. I said, tell me this, if I was doing something else dangerous, if I was climbing Everest tomorrow, you and I would have the same conversation. He goes, yeah, we probably would. I said, and, and when I'm 95 years old, I look back at my life and I'm like, I've climbed this mountain. I, I, I, I built this multi billion dollar company. I helped on a rescue mission, rescue this many kids. Which one of them matters? He said, yeah, Paul, I, I understand. He said, if, you know, if, if they need you, if you can even help one, then you should go. But that mission changed everything for me. And I won't go into the details, but this one, two things changed everything. Number one was the first time one of the traffickers were sitting there with him and he shows me a picture on his phone of this 11 year old. I'm like, what the hell? It was the first time where I knew that I was being shown a child that was being abused and he called her a zero kilometer mile. And I'm like, what the, I mean it was just so dark. And in the movie, in the Sound of Freedom movie, you know, my character is, the producer of Sound of Freedom is Eduardo Verostege. And he plays the part of the multi billion dollar fund manager who quits his job to help fund the mission and rescue kids. And my character in the movie was like said to Jim Caviezel, I don't want to go, I don't want to be a part of it. And it wasn't until he gave a picture of a little girl to my driver that I look at that picture and I, it changed my, my mind. I decided to go in real life. I was already there. I was with the traffickers. But him showing me that picture, I'm like, oh, game on. You know what that you tell me what I told the operators later, what do I need to do to make sure that little child is never ever goes had go down the road that they have planned for. And so, but then the other thing that changed everything was sitting on a chair at the rescue mission itself and they had all these kids there and they brought that same little girl out in front of me. She had braids, long red hair, braids, her makeup was all smeared and she had a kitty cat that was on her shirt. She was a child, she was 11. And standing in front of me scared to death. I'm like, how is this okay anywhere? And at that moment I made A promise to myself, to my creator, God, to that child, that I would dedicate my life to eradicating that evil from the face of the earth. So that's really what transformed me. I literally, at that time, I had on my vision board one of the things that I had had for a long time. I wanted a Lambo and I had a white Aventadora convertible with the doors up. I had the one picked out. I was going to buy it that spring. I'd hit a couple goals and boom. I always set those things. It was a $350,000 car. I told the operator with me, I says, bro, I says, I'm not going to buy that. I want to write you the check. I said, I spent my whole life making money making rich people richer. I want to make a difference. You tell me what I need to do to help with this mission. And that's when he very first told me about Jeffrey Epstein. This was 10 plus years ago. He says, sadly, there's a lot of guys who have big egos, arrogance, greed and lust that are, that are driving a lot of this industry. He said, he said, I know you're not doing anything illegal, Paul. He says, but I'm sorry to tell you, but you have the look and feel that these traffickers are looking for. If you're willing to be the bait, I'll change your.

[John Gafford]

It's believable for a reason.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[John Gafford]

In previous experience is probably the reason.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Jesus. Oh, man. So when you, When I hear that story, and even though you haven't seen the documentary I was talking about about those. A girl that got abducted off the cruise ship, you know, does it even, like, how can you hear like, those people that I was telling you about, like, oh, you know, what am I gonna do? Like, how can that even, does that even resonate with you as, like they're the same species as you? Like, how, like I just.

[Paul Hutchinson]

How can you be so apathetic when, when somebody says they need help and, and not. And not do something, say something. This is why a lot of the campaigns, you know, even you, you go through the Atlanta airport every, every few minutes, you hear the, you know, prevent human trafficking. If you see something, say something. That's the key is super simple, guys. Just say something. Even if you're not gonna, you know, take out a blade and take out all the bad guys, say, hey, what can I do to help?

[John Gafford]

Yeah, you don't have to be John Wick here. Yeah, you just gotta, you just gotta tap on somebody's shoulder. It Looks like they are. They might be. Man, when this movie came out, it was like two years ago. I remember there was this lot of this really weird aggression against the movie. A lot of people saying, oh, this is nonsense. This is, you know, this is sensationalized. This is just fiction. Like, why? Why?

[Paul Hutchinson]

It's because it doesn't fit with the narrative that big media and Hollywood want to feed us. And it's because so many of them are involved, we're starting to see just the tip of the iceberg with, with the, The Diddy scandal. Right. And. And there are so many people that were involved there. And that. That's a whole other subject that just pisses me off that, that, that, that he's, you know, he didn't be. They didn't prosecute the way that they should. There were so many people involved there that there is significant, significant evidence that Hollywood. A lot of Hollywood elites, a lot of political leaders, a lot of those people in, in. In power positions in the media are involved in this stuff. And so, you know, we had finished Sound of Freedom. It was completed five years before it actually was distributed.

[John Gafford]

Oh, wow.

[Paul Hutchinson]

We got cut off everywhere. Everywhere we had. So Fox International had the contract because they had helped us with some of the filming in Columbia, and Disney bought them out and locked it. We could not have any distribution. So then we had to raise some more money and be able to buy them out and battling back and forth, a bunch of stuff. Then another former Disney exec ends up tying it up for another six months. It was crazy. And then after that, then we had gotten blacklisted. We went into places like Amazon turned us down, Netflix turned us down. All of these guys, we're like, listen, we just spent like 14 million on this. All we want. Just make us even. Obviously we did a shitty job. Nobody likes this movie other than us. Just make the investors whole. And we couldn't even get that. And then finally when we decided, you know what, we're going to take this to the people, by the people, a grassroots movement with a group like Angel Studios who had millions of people who were already supporters of Jim Cavie. So they did that because he did Jesus Passion of the Christ. And they were the ones that put out the chosen. And so we knew that we had a solid audience there. And sure enough, the only people, I mean, literally, we beat out Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones out of the gate. Yet the Main street media, you couldn't hear anything about it if you were just listening to the news, you wouldn't have known that the movie even existed. The only way that you knew it existed was millions of good people on their social media pushing that narrative.

[John Gafford]

You know, again, I just. You look at it from a government standpoint, like, why is, you know, when I was watching that thing again, the Netflix special we saw, there was a lot of, well, it's foreign country. There's not a lot we can do. They have sovereign citizens. We can't just show up as the FBI and start questioning their citizens. I mean, it seems to me the United States can pretty much do what the United States wants to do, regardless of where it is, if it really wants to do it. I mean, we did kind of send a SEAL team into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden in his house. You tell me you can't go grab this dude that was a bass player on a cruise ship and ask him questions because he's in Trinidad and Tobago. I mean, what are they going to do? Are they going to cut us off from the trade war? It's like, it just seems a little far fetched that this stuff gets stopped in like, crazy. Is there. What could be the turning point that, that the government says enough, like what? What do you think needs to happen for that to happen?

[Paul Hutchinson]

There's. There's way too many people in power who have secrets to hide. What needs to happen is for good people everywhere to rise up and say, no. The Epstein situation is a perfect example. We. I'm not going to go into all of my theories on that on the show, but. But good people everywhere need to demand transparency, period. That's all that it is, just transparency. There's, of course, there's no official list, but who was on the planes? Who was there? What's on the 14 terabytes of information on all of the videos? Why did we have a redacted version of the video outside of his cell? There's so many questions that the American people simply needs to demand transparency. Once they do, then they will understand why there is so much apathy in fighting this at home or abroad.

[John Gafford]

Well, I will say it seems very strange that one of the things that Trump really ran on was releasing this stuff. And now he's sitting in a room going, you're still talking about this? Yesterday's news. What are you talking about? It's like, whoa, wait a second, man. That's. You were all about releasing this. Why the about face?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah, we're not buying it. The American people is not buying it. And I think that we're at that turning point now where good people everywhere are Saying, listen, you know what, I can understand you've got the politics about save the trees versus save the wells versus whatever else, but when it comes to save the children, yeah, this is something we can all get behind, right? Left, black, white, rich, poor, doesn't matter. This is something we can all get behind. Children are not for sale and should not be used for blackmail situations ever. Ever.

[John Gafford]

Well, you know, you look at it, there was another Netflix show a couple years ago. I don't know if you saw this one. It's called like, don't Fuck with Cats or something, where some guy put out a video on the Internet of him killing a cat and like, the Internet rose up and found this dude and like, basically ruined him over it. Right? And I'm thinking to myself, that's cat. That's a cat. These are kids, you know, how are we not solving this more aggressively? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, and here's the sad thing, too. It's not just people in power that are involved. You walk out on your front porch, I don't care if you're in an apartment complex or a super affluent neighborhood, you walk out in your front porch anywhere in the US and you look left and you look right, there's a very high chance that one of those doors is a dangerous place for children. Here's the statistics. One in every four women that you know was a victim of this kind of abuse as a child, many of them in their own homes. With men, it's a little bit less. It's one in every five at some time in our lives. Even them, one in every four of them, it was under the age of 10 years old in their own homes. So. So if there are that many people who have gone through that kind of abuse, the number of abusers is astronomical. And so, so here, here's the thing. People will leave sound of freedom and they'll be like, okay, I want to do something. I want to go help, you know, I want to be like Paul and Jimmy Rex. I want to go undercover, rescue kids. The worst thing you can do is go to Mexico and try to go undercover. 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 kids. People are like, well, how does that fix it? Well, the majority of children who are being taken and sold into these things, they come from broken homes or runaways or broken foster care program. They're at risk children. And what's super scary is there's a Huge percentage of kids in these situations that are even being sold for these things that sleep in their own beds at night, night and their parents don't even know. So parents need a relationship with their children where they can very comfortably come to you and say, hey Dad, I, I don't, I don't like it when we, we go to this, this cousin's house because you know, her, her, her dad is, you know, her stepdad is doing these things, you know, or, or you know, this babysitter is, is telling us we should trust her more than you. And she's now showing us pornography and now says that we need to when you're gone, that she's going to invite her boyfriend over without telling you. I mean, this is, these things happen all the time. And what's really scary and even bigger than that is what they call sextortion online. You need a relationship with your 12 year old where he can very comfortably come to you and say, hey Dad, I kind of screwed up. I was chatting online with this girl, she sent me some pictures and I sent her some, and she sent me more and I sent her some videos and now I'm not even sure it is a girl. I think it might be some 45 year old girl, dude. Which it probably is, right? Because now he's telling me that I have to send him money unless he's going to send these all over the school or I have to meet at a certain place and there's kids committing suicide over this stuff. So it's so important that we recognize that the dangers for our children are not lurking in some black alley. The dangers for our children is in their backpacks, in their back pocket, in their phones, on their digital connections and helping them know how to navigate that in a way that's healthy and safe. So these are all, well, the bigger picture stuff. But the reason I got into this is recognizing that all of us, all of us need to look in the mirror and say, how am I adding to this toxicity? What do I need to do to change it? And who do I need to be careful around? That may be a harm for my children.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, you look at it and dangers are everywhere. It's so funny. We just got back from a cruise, right? All the teenagers on this boat. Now, luckily my daughter has my son who's kind of, you know, running with her a little bit, but all the teenagers kind of run and do their own thing. You're like, oh, it's a controlled environment. We're on a cruise ship. Not really. It's a, you know, they're like, this is a floating city in the middle of the ocean where the only law is the captain. Yeah, right. And me and my wife were like instantly like, dude, should we been letting them run around like that? Maybe, maybe we shouldn't have. You know, thank God nothing happened and that's fine. But I think, I think it, I think you just are so unaware of what's around you. And I think anytime, you know, one of the funny things about being in real estate is you will occasionally have a client ask when they're looking in a neighborhood about sexual predators. And if you don't believe what we're saying, dude, just go on right now and look at the registered sex offender. A list around you.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Exactly.

[John Gafford]

There's a lot of, there's a lot of red dots on the map no matter where you look.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

There's no place that is, that is uniquely safe from those red dots, which is crazy. Do you think when it comes to the government this is, you know, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking this is my philosophy. Right. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that every single person that's blocking this in our government has somehow done something wrong to a kid. But I think there's varying, there's various degrees of wrong. And potentially the same person that is the bad guy that would do something to a kid also maybe has 25 year old women that look like they're party girls. And so all of a sudden you're hanging out with a 25 year old and now you're linked to this person who's like, okay, cool, but if you screw this up, I'm gonna rat you out about this. Do you think that's absolutely, yeah, that's the problem.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of that blackmail and extortion and etc, it's going on everywhere. And, and you're exactly right. I mean, I, I, I, I truly don't think that a lot of the people who are making decisions on the list today, I don't, I don't think any of them are involved like we would think involved. You know, you were there at the island doing things with the 12 year old. No, but is there, is there powerful people that they know that are, is there other dirt on them that could come out? I mean there's, it's all over the place. The CIA's Book of Dirty tricks is full of, how do you blackmail people into a position where you can control their votes? You you want, you want to control the votes of a senator, of a congressman, of a, of a, of a federal judge. You want to control their votes forever. You get that kind of blackmail on them and they're your puppet forever.

[John Gafford]

I gotta tell you, it's this. When he was sitting in that room saying, stop talking about this is ridiculous, blah, blah. It's the first time I thought, holy, it got him.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Somebody's got him in a way that he really thinks you got me. He's been Teflon until that moment. Because I just don't see any reason for that. Hard of an about face. Now, of course it's, well, we're going to go out and do this, but are we really going to do it?

[Paul Hutchinson]

It's.

[John Gafford]

Dude, it's, it's scary stuff to think about that, you know, I want to ask you something. So next question is, the book is coming out, obviously, the movie came out two years ago. Normally that happens in reverse. The book comes out. Somebody licensed the book and makes a, makes a movie. So for people that have seen the movie that might think, I saw the movie, I don't need the book. What is different about the book or what's in the book that you didn't get from them?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Everything. So, you know, again, the movie, the movie created global awareness. 70 million people have seen Sound of Freedom, and hundreds of millions of children are safer simply because of the awareness. However, there's very little there that's going to teach parents what they can do to keep their kids safe.

[John Gafford]

I'm so glad this is where you're going.

[Paul Hutchinson]

The majority of the Sound of Freedom book is filled with tools that parents can use. The whole first section of it, what we call the Making of an Undercover Operator, talks about the training that me and the other guys went through, including situational awareness and how to read a room, how to identify. There's foundations that we have, the Child Liberation foundation. There's other foundations that we help to fund that have teams in different places around the world, at the borders, et cetera, that are looking for kids, people that could be at risk. They have over one of these foundations, over 2700, I mean, 27,000 victims, potential victims have been rescued before they were ever victims because they knew what to look for. Right. So we have a bunch of certification programs to teach doctors what to look for and medical personnel and even people in hospitality what to look for, et cetera. And so those are all things that we cover here. In addition to that, of course, we go through the emotional transformation that I went through. I go through the details on the Columbia rescue mission and some of the others and taking the reader through it so they can start to identify. Okay, this is, this is. These are the, these are the things to identify potential abuser. These are the things to identify kids that could be in danger, etc. But the last section, I think, is the most important. The last five chapters of the book is all about liberating humanity. You can, you can spend. We spent 10 years pulling children out of hell. The only way to fix this is to pull the hell out of humanity. We. We have to take away the demand. Jimmy and I realized that, that every time we went in and pulled 20 kids out of this, this horrific situation, if not enough was being done to fix the demand side, then it would leave a vacuum.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Paul Hutchinson]

And 20 or 30 more kids were being sucked back into the deepest recesses of hell to fill that demand. And so I, I found myself looking and there, there was two major things that changed for me. Okay. Like I talked about earlier, in the beginning, I was Paul effing Hutchinson. You know, this, this is why it worked. When I was in that space, I was filled with, with all of this arrogance, greed, and lust. And then I recognized that the, that the common thread in the traffickers wasn't earrings in their noses and tattoos on their necks. The common thread with the traffickers and the perpetrators was that same arrogance and greed and lust. And I looked in the mirror. I'm like, okay, I'm doing great things. I'm helping these kids. But how have those things showed up in my life? And that transformation actually happened. It was about two and a half, three years into the rescue missions, and I got a phone call from two of our operators, Jimmy and Andy. Jimmy had done 13 missions. Andy had done 22 with me. And they said, paul, do you trust us? And I said, yeah, trust you with my life. Literally, when we do these missions, I'm in charge of talking there. They're in charge of making sure I don't die. Right. They said, you need to come to this transform retreat. I'm like, I don't need it. What do you mean? They says, it's a healing retreat. I don't need to heal. Everybody wants to be me. They're like, no, you're on your second marriage, headed for a divorce. Your kids don't talk to you. You think that your happiness is going to come from one more girl, one more party, one more, whatever.

[John Gafford]

More. One more, one more, one more more.

[Paul Hutchinson]

And so, so I, I went to this Retreat with them. And it changed everything for me. Everything in every way. How we approach the missions, how we approach everything. And especially my personal life, my happiness, everything changed. Recognizing that same toxicity in myself that I was fighting in the world of trafficking.

[John Gafford]

So obviously I know what you're talking about. I do. For those of you listening at home, like, what kind of retreat is this? If anybody has watched, was it not Brett? Not Brett Favre, what's his name? The quarterback just went to the jets miserable year. Aaron Rodgers.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Aaron Rodgers, yeah.

[John Gafford]

He didn't see his special. We're talking about the Aaron Rodgers retreat is what we're talking about. So when you went on your first. And obviously there's a lot of backyard shamans out there, so tread lightly with this.

[Paul Hutchinson]

I will say, well, and I have a real big problem with the backyard sh. We've become master facilitators and have now hosted and facilitated over 80 guided meditation, plant medicine, healing retreats. Using it in the right way. I am not a fan whatsoever of recreational use because it can be dangerous. And I can explain why.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, going to four Grateful Dead shows in three Widespread Panic shows does not make you a shaman. It does not. And there's a lot of people that think that. So, yeah, let's talk more about this, obviously. So what have you seen, like, in your own self when you went through. This is ayahuasca ceremony you went through, when you went through that, that what was the immediate. What was the mid and what was the long term effect on you?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Immediate was. And it was a combination of psilocybin and samaya, but it was used with breath work, meditation, trained facilitator, coming in with intentions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So. So for me, it was the most beautiful, horrific experience of my life. Horrific because the. The medicine showed me pure empathy, John. I felt in every cell of my body, I felt the pain that my children felt when I cheated on their mom, as if I was them, right? And it felt like the devil himself had his foot on my chest and I was 600 miles in the earth and I couldn't breathe. It was so hard feeling as if I was them. And then I could feel the. The pain of the family that, you know, broke up because some guy was at my party and slept with a cheerleader and his wife left him. And then I felt the ripple effect of those actions where, you know, years down the road, maybe his daughter gets knocked up or his son gets addicted to drugs because he's in a fatherless home and the Ripple effect of every word and every action. Everything became so real in my personal life, as if I was them. And then I. Then, you know, the facilitator helped me. I changed the music to. To this. This beautiful. I call it my Jesus list, right? But there's different songs. And I can feel this redeeming grace of God just pulling me out of this hell. And I can feel all this dirt coming off of me. And I. I recognized that everything, every dollar that I spent, every word that I said, every party that I threw, everything, every. Every action had a very real effect on the world around me. And so that was the beginning. And then the second thing that happened. This was pretty powerful. I walk out, and I'm sitting there with a facilitator and just kind of reeling from this. I'm still in my ego space. And I had these. There was these statues of these Greek gods. There was Poseidon and Zeus, and there was Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. And I said to the. I'm on mushrooms, right? I can barely walk. And I said to the facilitator, I feel a lot like Atlas. You know, I got the whole world. And at the time, I had 4,000 employees in my company, right? I said, I have the.

[John Gafford]

That is the whole world.

[Paul Hutchinson]

The world on my shoulders. And I feel like if I. If I don't continue to bring in the investment, I. I says, you know, but look how God has made me so strong. I pointed at the stomach of this. This Atlas Stat statue. And the facilitator smiles. And she said, you know, Paul, I. I honor that you're seeing some, you know, positive traits in those Greek gods, But you know as well as I do that those are. Are mythological gods. She said, what about your relationship with him? And she points to the statue of Jesus. And I had left the church of my youth. You guys can guess what that is. I grew up in Utah, right? I left the church of my youth about 10 years before. And she says, how about your relationship with him? And I said, oh, I don't qualify for a relationship with him. And she said, well, why not? I said, well, I don't. I don't keep all the commandments. I said, and when I. When I left the church, my youth years ago, my bishop told me until I was re baptized in that church, I wouldn't have the spirit of God with me. And she said, do you really think that that's true? I said, well, no, I feel, you know, that inspiration even when we're doing the undercover work and helping the kids, she said, why don't you work on that relationship? So here I'm high as fuck, I can barely walk, right? I try to grab this statue and she helps me bring it down. I sit on the beanbag and for the next two hours just cried and reestablished a relationship that I had lost a long time ago. And so here's the 30 seconds high level, just so people understand. So when we're children, 0 to 9 years old, our brains are in a state of hyper neuroplasticity. Very, very impressive. We can learn three or four languages at the same time that we're learning to ride our bikes and all these other things. Well, if something happens during that stage where we're touched by our uncle, or even something simple where our dad just tells us we look fat in that outfit, those things get imprinted in our subconscious mind. 95% of our life is run by that subconscious mind. And it comes out, it comes out in anger issues, low self esteem, anxiety, depression, ptsd, addictions. All of these behaviors are coming from things that are deep in our subconscious. And to change things later in our subconscious mind. It takes 21 days to create a new habit. It's very difficult, especially if they're super embedded. It takes longer than that. Well, the proper use of psychedelics, whether it's ayahuasca, whether it's psilocybin, the proper use of them creates a temporary state of neuroplasticity. Like when you were a child, child, very impressionable and a trained facilitator. Using breath work, meditation, coming in with the right intentions can, can create emotional surgery and pull things out. That would take 10 and 20 years worth of therapy. Now, the same thing if you, you go to a, you know, a rock concert, you go to a, you know, rave party and you get high on mushrooms there, that's dangerous. Why? Because you create this neuroplasticity state while somebody's, you know, Evan yelling at his wife over here, rap music going on over here. And it literally can create a negative impression in your subconscious in that neuroplasticity.

[John Gafford]

So, so be careful with who you open the door for.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Really careful, you know, so, so finding the right. So we realized that this was incredibly powerful in helping our, our undercover operators work through their ptsd because a lot of these guys were Green Berets, Navy seals, already had PTSD from being in the service. Then we started working with women who had been abused as children. 10 and 20 years worth of therapy weren't helping them. And then we continued. Now we Work exclusively on the Liberating Humanity website. We give parents the tools they need to keep their kids safe. You get a link to the book Sound of Freedom and you can get lots of information on what liberating Humanity is about. Starting with the man in the mirror. What do you need to do to release those things that no longer serve us so that we can step into being the highest and best version? We do that, we save millions of children in the future because we help people work through their shit. Even if you and I would never ever hurt a child, how is our toxicity in how we show up with our employees and our family, etc. How is that contributing in a way where maybe somebody does go over the line because they already have an addiction, they have some other issues they're dealing with and we push them over that line because we hadn't fixed our shit yet. I could walk there and I walked through that.

[John Gafford]

It's like that image of the one match sets the next one on fire. Sets the next one exactly. Sets the next one on fire.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Exactly. I call it trauma transfer or even tension. As simple as tension transfer. Tension transfers. You go to work, you yell at the guy at work. He goes home, yells at his wife, she yells at the kid, the kid kicks the dog. Literally. That kick of that dog came from us, right? Because we yelled at the guy at work, right? But now let's just say that that guy we yelled at. What we didn't realize is he was abused as a child. He's been dealing with major addictions to pornography and alcohol. Let's say his pornography addictions have progressed to the point where now he's looking at some illegal things online with his pornography, let's say. And it happens. I'm telling you, those progressions happen a lot. There's millions of people addicted to that shit. And let's say his wife just left him because of his alcohol addiction. She doesn't know about the hardcore pornography stuff and the illegal stuff. And let's say that this is the weekend that he gets his 12 year old daughter. And now you and I acting out of integrity and yelling at him at work instead of ending up kicking a dog. In reality, we're hurting a child. So all of us, all of us. I love the story. I love the story of the guy sitting on a couch just like this. And he's reading his newspaper and his little boy walks in. Daddy, daddy, let's play baseball. Oh, I'm busy. He's reading news, he's not busy. Pretty soon the boy comes In. Hey, Daddy, it's beautiful outside. Can we play ball? So he turns the page and there's a map of the world. There's a there on one of the average. He tears it out, tears it up, a little piece of paper, throws it on the floor. He goes, son, you need to learn. You learn your geography. You go get some tape. You. You tape together every country where it's supposed to be, and I'll go play ball. He's thinking, it's going to take a few hours. Like five minutes later, the little boy comes back and it's taped together perfectly. And the dad's like, how would your mom help you? Little boy said, no, there. He turns it over. He says, there was a picture of a man on the other side. I just put the man together and the whole world came together. That's really the answer to the riddle right there. As soon as each one of us look in the mirror. And that's what the last part of liberating humanity of the. The Child Liberation Foundation. I mean, sorry, of the Sound of Freedom book. I don't know what I'm talking about. But that's what the last part of the book is all about is what does liberating humanity look like? It starts with the man in the mirror. And what do we need to do to fix that?

[John Gafford]

Well, I want to go back to something you said. You said that, you know, you didn't have a relationship with God because it was taken away from you when you left the church. And I saw something the other day that I thought was really the. I'd never thought of it this way, but they were talking about what makes something occult. And this is not about the church bashing, but they just were talking about what makes something a cult. And the answer this person gave was anything, anything you cannot leave with grace is cold. If people are not going to talk to you because you're no longer part of this, that's cold. And I don't care if it's a motorcycle club or a church or whatever it is, if you leave and they will no longer speak with you, that is not okay. And you know, I look at the power that it has, and this is going to be again, because I'm bringing this back around because obviously you and John Pennington did some amazing things for a lot of people and continue to. As far as the financial investment world. But it has become very apparent over the last five or six years that Utah is the Ponzi scheme. It's the Ponzi scheme. Capital of the Universe. Yeah, it's insane. I'm dying to hear. As somebody that's done so well for. Financially, for others in that state.

[Paul Hutchinson]

State, why John and I almost started things out of the state because of that very thing. I was friends with our former attorney general and he pointed out that we were the affinity fraud capital of the country, if not the world now. And here's why. When you wear your religion on your sleeve and use it as a blank check on your morality, this is the key saying, okay, I've got. Got a picture of God behind me, got a picture of the temple behind me, whatever else, you should trust me there. We have a problem. So the second that somebody says, okay, you know, you know, let me tell you, you know, I'm this position in my church and this whatever else, and then they start talking about money, that's the first red flag right there. The second that they try to use any kind of religious affiliation for you to give them a blank check on their morality, run away.

[John Gafford]

Well, it's, it's almost like you, you talk about this person's guilty by association, they're trustworthy by association. Yeah. And that's where there's a problem if you're giving somebody a blanket pass because you got a certain picture on the wall.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Exactly.

[John Gafford]

Probably an issue because, dude, it just seems like every time you turn around another. And some of these guys are guys that we have known that kind of came out of nowhere and did very well and, you know, all of a sudden they've got a fund and all sudden they're in.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[John Gafford]

And so I guess I understand the morality clause of that, of why people get wrapped up in this, but what makes it. Is it just straight greed that makes people. Because it seems like there's a large percentage of people from that part of the world.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Well, sadly, there's, there's a, there's a you got to be better than the Joneses attitude. There, there, there's there's so many people that are trying to keep up with others. And, and, and sadly, sadly, in, in some, especially in a, in, in Utah, to be in a place where you get called to be the leader of your congregation or you get called to be the leader of multiple congregations, etc. You have to be in a financial position, and most of those guys are well off financially. You have to be in a financial position where you can start donating 40 plus hours a week of your time to your church. And so a lot of people see that as, okay, this is part of my, my spiritual Salvation is I need to get rich. I literally had to go. When I was in my 20s, I had a goal. I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30. I'm going to be a billionaire by the time I'm 40. I'm going to be the President of the United States by the time I'm 50. I'm going to be the prophet of the church by the time I'm 60. Right. I threw that out. As you know, there's my high level goals because you kind of need to have one before the other was. Before you get there.

[John Gafford]

Did you? So that's like. So to keep it in religious terms. That's coveting. Were you coveting? I mean, is that what you saw?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Absolutely.

[John Gafford]

Is that the mentality of.

[Paul Hutchinson]

The problem is I'm just going to throw it out there. All my Mormon friends are going to hate me for this. But the big problem is the whole word of.

[John Gafford]

They're not listening. They're not listening.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Worthiness. Okay? I have to be worthy of God's love. I have to be worthy of your respect. I have be worthy. What is worthy is all about, okay? I have to, I have to perform in these certain ways to your status standard. Yeah, to your standard in order to be accepted. Because I'm trained from the time I'm a little kid that I have to, I have to. I can't drink coffee, I can't drink tea. I can't say these bad words. I have to do these certain things. I have to follow this thing. I have to be in church this many. But I do all of these things, then I can get worthy of being in this place where God can accept me into his kingdom. Right? It's this mentality of. And it's okay, it's okay to pursue a valuable, productive life, right? There's nothing wrong with that. I tell people there's nothing wrong with having two helicopters which I had at one time. What a retard, right? There's nothing wrong with having a house with 10 bathrooms. There's nothing wrong with those things. But if you do it so that you could have massive parties with 150 half dressed girls and put, put stripper poles in your basement and lose your connection, your true connection with people and your family. Now, now, now you're going down a wrong road, right? So it's okay, it's okay to create value. But, but if you're doing it in a way that is for. So people can look at you and you can be worthy to be in those rooms and you can be worthy of their praise and worthy of anybody's love and worthy of God's love. Now you have a problem. So I just threw the worthy thing under the bus.

[John Gafford]

Well, there you go. Well, the book comes out. I mean you can pre order it obviously now everywhere books are sold.

[Paul Hutchinson]

You can go on Amazon. Boom, all over. Sound of Freedom. I promise this is going to be. This is. I believe this has the keys to eradicating child trafficking. Not just creating awareness, but what do we need to do as humanity to fix this problem.

[John Gafford]

It's not a call. It's a calling.

[Paul Hutchinson]

It's a calling.

[John Gafford]

Perfect. If they want to find you, how do they find more about you?

[Paul Hutchinson]

Any liberating humanity. I didn't want it to be about Paul Hutchinson. So everything is all what I believe the mission is, which is liberating humanity. You can go on any social media. Liberatinghumanity. Liberatinghumanity.com is, is gets links to all of the shows. It'll have a link to your show and everybody else so that you can see that stuff there and get information on how to keep your kids safe and about the retreats as well.

[John Gafford]

Love it. Love it. Well, Paul, thanks for coming, buddy. Hopefully you'll come back in three months when the new book comes out. The next. Dude, you're. It took me like three years to get my first book done and you're whipping out two and like.

[Paul Hutchinson]

No, I've been working on stuff for a long time.

[John Gafford]

Well, if you listen to this. Look man, I think think this is the number one thing I would take away from today's conversation is if you want to find true happiness, right? It's not always about the stuff. It's about the stuff that you can do for others. So find something that is a calling in you that you just cannot say no to and chase it with everything. We'll see you next week. What's up everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com. you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.