The 70 Billion Dollar a Year Industry that Needs Your Help Now with Tim Ballard

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned lifestyle and high performance coach. Welcome to Listen up the podcast. On this podcast, I do what I do best. Taking complicated information that is relevant to us now and breaking it down simply with actionable steps you can implement to level up your life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on the planet who at their worst learned how to achieve success greater than anything they ever dreamed possible. Creating everything from nothing. If you are new here, I encourage you to go back and listen from episode one, when this podcast was previously called Leveling up for the Full transformative Experience. Today, at the time of this recording in 2021, there are still 30 million people enslaved and shockingly, sex trafficking. It's $150 billion industry and the biggest client to this US men. And it's happening right under our watch and it's not being talked about nearly enough. One man, Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, has made it his life mission to rescue our children from this and bring awareness to this. Now, I'm going to encourage you not to turn away from this episode. I know, I know, it feels good to hear happy things and motivational. We don't want to always hear about dark things happening. But I want you to realize that it's being aware of the darkness, it's jumping into the darkness with an open mind is where we can actually bring light and shed solution on problems. So I'm going to encourage you. Don't turn away, jump in, listen with an open mind, learn and understand. Because we can make a difference, all of us. And if we can save one child because of this, isn't that worth it? Join in today on Listen up and meet Tim Ballard. I know you're going to love the episode today on Listen Up. I'm so excited to have a conversation with Tim Ballard. I've wanted to connect with him for months. He is the founder, the creator of Operation Underground Railroad, where they literally go in undercover and rescue these kids from sex trafficking. It's pretty epic what you do. Tim, I've been dying to talk to you. I have so many questions for you. How, how you got started in this, why this has become such a powerful cause in your life. So thank you so much for being here today.

Oh, thank you. It's such an honor to be here.

So take us back. I'm assuming as a child yourself, you didn't think you'd be doing this. I'm curious, how did this even get into your world? What were you doing before that this sparked an interest for you to help with this.

So I always wanted to work in law enforcement since I was just a small child. In fact, there was an attempted kidnapping on me when I was eight years old, me and my brother. And I think that kind of like just jarred me into thinking, like, what is if it could happen to me in this nice neighborhood, you know, in Los Angeles, it could happen to anyone. So I think that's where I got the first idea and I never let it go. So I went into the government and I spent 12 years as a special agent. Now what happened during those 12 years? This was between 2002 through 2013. And this was during a time when people as little as they're talking about human trafficking and child exploitation now, back then it was like nothing at all. And so we're kind of on the front lines trying to even figure out what this is. And they sent me to undercover school to figure it out and train me to be a pedophile or to act like a pedophile or to act like a human trafficker. And then in 2006, the laws changed in the US and that changed my whole perspective because for the first time, US agents could now go overseas and investigate and prosecute Americans who were engaged in illicit sexual activity with children overseas and hold them accountable as if they had committed that crime in the United States. So I was put on a team and I speak Spanish. So I was thrown into this scene where now we're outside of the United States. And not that it's not happening here, it is, it's more hidden here. But in these countries I was going into, it was so blatant, it was shocking, like it is even today. Go on the beach, this beach they're going to sell you a 12 year old girl, you know, or a 10 year old boy on this corner. So we'd go in with our team undercover, we'd find all these cases. But if we couldn't make the connection or the nexus back to the United States, then we had to come home and we couldn't stay there. And it was a jurisdictional limitation thing. We just didn't have the authority or the budget. And so there were two cases. After years of doing this and having to walk away so many times because it's a torment for me because I was the bait. So I was the one that had built the relationship of trust with the trafficker. And we're doing some kind of buy or sell situation to rescue these kids and then for me to just walk away Like, I had to. It would ruin the case over and over again. And so there's all these kids in my head are just killing me that we didn't get out because I couldn't find the correct nexus. And then the host government wouldn't continue the case if we pulled out. So there was two cases in particular that finally were the last straw for me. One was in Columbia. I was down there doing a training as an agent, training their federal police on how to do undercover investigations into child trafficking. And I had changed the entire PowerPoint. In fact, I didn't even open the PowerPoint up. I was so tired of doing this training that I just invited them to do a real case with me instead. So we set up for this big operation in Cartagena, and I promised them all these things, that I'd come back and I do the undercover work. So that was one. And then the other one, we got intel on an orphanage in Haiti that was a false orphanage that was selling children and for sex, for slave labor, or even for organ harvesting, which is something we really need to start talking about as people, because that's just growing as well. So those two cases killed me. And I met the father of one of the kids we thought was stuck in the orphanage, and just his pain. And so I promised him, just like I promised the Colombians, we'll do this. We'll make this happen. I'll get the US Government to support this. And nothing against US Government. They just. It was outside of their jurisdiction. So those two cases were the thing that brought me to my knees, really. I just. What do I. What do I do next?

And, yeah, so, yeah, really, I'm curious. And for listeners, too, because a lot of people aren't even aware of the problem of these things. I'm just. Can you talk to us about numbers? Like, how real is this? And how for frequently is this happening? And how many countries, like, is this worldwide? What's going on here? What are these numbers? We need to understand this.

Yes. So the numbers are shocking, really. There's more people enslaved today than ever before in the history of the world. There's close to most estimates. These are State Department, UN you can get these stats pretty quickly. It's about 30 million people who are enslaved.

Wow.

To give some context to that, because we read our history books and Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, we think that was the end of slavery, when, in fact, there are more people alive in slavery today than you can add up all the slaves. And not to take away at all from that horrific nothing Worse could ever happen as, or has ever happened then the transatlantic slave trade. But just in terms of numbers, you could add up all the people that were enslaved over a 300 year period of that transatlantic slave trade that Lincoln and the Civil War finally ended, you can add them all up and there's still more people enslaved alive today than all of those combined. And millions and millions of them are children. So that's. And it's also the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. It's now competing with the drug trade, which, you know, to put it in simple terms, you can, you can sell a bag of cocaine one time, you can sell a 12 year old kid 20 times in a day. And that's not an exaggeration of what's going on. So it's very lucrative. It's, it's fast growing. Human trafficking is $150 billion a year.

150 billion.

You just said $150 billion a year industry that that's what's being exchanged monetarily for the buying and selling of humans. Wow.

Okay. Gosh, so many more questions here. How many of these are based on kidnappings versus parents being involved? I'm curious about that too.

So we generally don't see a lot of like the cold kidnapping cases like you see in Taken. These are business people, right? So they're trying to make money and the last thing they want is to kidnap some western girl in the middle of Paris, right. And then someone like Liam Neeson comes in and busts. You know that's a bad business move.

Yes.

So what they do is they go to impoverished areas and first and foremost they try to lure so they'll go to very impoverished areas. Like for example, a real case I worked. In fact, I ended up quitting my job so that I could do those cases I just told you about in Columbia and Haiti. That was the birth of our. One of those cases, the trafficker was this woman named Kelly Suarez. You can Google her. And it was a successful operation. She was arrested, but she was Ms. Cartagena. Okay. She was this beautiful model, actress, Everybody knew her. And then on the side she had this modeling school that she would offer scholarships to impoverished children. They could come and she, in fact, she won Ms. Cartagena on the platform of helping the impoverished youth. And by all appearances she was. But in fact, she was selling these kids to American tourists. Americans, we're the number one demand, we're the number one consumers of child exploitation material or child rape videos. And so we are the clients that traffickers overseas are looking for. That's why. Oh, you are. Can play such an important role because we have undercover operators who look like this. This is the face of child sex. An American face.

So if they're luring and they're doing it sort of with all this money in front of it and being hiding it behind a modeling school where it ever is. So they're, they're, if I understand correctly, they have this professional front that looks like it's innocent, looks like it's helpful. They're luring these kids in, they're grooming them, and then they're, they're making this look like a benefit to them. Is that what's happening here? So versus it being kidnapping or against their will.

Exactly. So it looks. And this is the problem with movies like Taken where people think human trafficking has to be the white van that comes and grabs your kid at night. No. If that's what you're looking for, you're gonna maybe have your kid trafficked and not know it. Right. The lure is what they, is what they use. And so when you get up to the scene, these kids look like they want to be there.

Yes.

That's confusing to people. Like, wait a minute, this looks like consensual. Like, are you kidding me? First of all, 12 year old can't consent. And no, it's not. They have been groomed and they've been punished and they've been completely programmed and rewired to service these American people. So it's important that we understand what it is that it actually looks like. And yes, the fronts orphanage, Another front. Right. It's a false orphanage. That's a very popular way that traffickers use to distribute or to get kids into the black market.

So to the kid I'm going to. If I'm understanding correctly too, there's a psychological thing going on where maybe they think their capture is their friend, is their family, is this person that has their best interests and now they're feeling loyal to them. Is that okay?

Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought the family up. More often than you would want to even believe, the family's on the pay, getting paid as well. And they sometimes they don't know about it. Like they lure them out thinking that they're going to this modeling school and the kids are told, don't tell your parents that we just watched a bunch of porn. Or don't tell them that you just engaged sexually with someone or you'll be in trouble, you know, or we've seen cases where the family totally knew and they were getting a percentage of the.

Profit, which is even scarier on a whole nother level.

So scary because now the kids have no hope of rescue, hardly at all.

So if Americans are the main client of this and you see this happening in other countries, is this happening to American kids too? Or is this, is this a real problem here? And what does it look like here in the, in the United States?

Yes, it's such an important question. We just, I just executive produced a documentary that just came out. Literally it just released. Is hitting the festivals. We can maybe. I'd love to get you, you a link to it. It's called It's Happening right Here.

Okay.

Because that was our answer to the question. Because people keep thinking, oh, I don't have to worry, that's far, far away in developing countries. No, we know that the United States is the number one consumer almost every year after year of child rape videos, which means we have a high population of pedophiles here. Now the difference is you don't see it on the street corners or on our beaches. It's all, it's mostly all online. And they're using every possible social media platform you can imagine. I have bought and sold children in sting operations on almost every platform that you can think of because that's where they go. And they know what to look for. Like they can go to a child's Instagram page and they look for the child who looks lonely, who's showing a lot of skin for attention. And then if you look, you can even go follow it and see like in the comments like, hey, I'm a photographer. Why don't you come to my. Yes to my shoot? You're a beautiful model and it's all just a trafficking yes.

And this is my spidey sense of grab. I have a 14 year old girl who is an actress and a singer and I think about that all the time with like the people that would reach out to her. I can get you a deal. I can help you with this. Is that how it typically happens here?

Very much so. That's the main way that it happens. And too often the kids go for it. Or you know, these travelers will pretend to be some good looking 17 year old and they'll use that picture and they'll think, oh my gosh, this guy likes me. He wants to meet at the mall.

Wow.

And then they're gone, they disappear. We see this a lot with like underprivileged kids, like foster kids, where there's not a bond that keeps Them safe with some family and so they're easily targeted or you know, where there's not a father or a mother in the home, you know, kind of like the lack of stability in that the guardians of them are kind of not aware. They know to target that. But another, another thing is that's, that's I've, we've seen this in very fluent homes, great family structures where, you know, the girl gets involved with a kid in high school. Right. This is exploit, a different kind of, kind of exploitation and trafficking that we don't think about, but we see it a lot where the teenager ends up having sex with her boyfriend. He films it, she doesn't know he's filmed it. Then they break up and then he's like, hey, look what I got. If you don't service me or my friend or do X, Y and Z, I got the email list of your, of your family, of your church, of your grandparents and they're going to see this sex video and all of a sudden she lives in a gated community. She's going home, sleeping in her bed every night and out having to.

Got it. Wow.

Do this because she's scared to death of the consequences of not right. Of course. So that's something to be so aware of our parents, what's going on online and teach your kids about how dangerous it is to get involved in relationships and commit like that and not knowing what this guy could do to him.

So let's start with that part first right now because that's, I know that's relevant for so many listeners. Majority of my listeners are in the United States, majority of them are my age. So they have teenage kids. What are some things that parents need to be doing, looking out for. Like I have a strict rule about social media with my daughter. Like she's got accounts for her, her acting and stuff, but I manage it. I'm the one. She doesn't check the messages, the comments, the likes, nothing.

And that's how it should be. I tell parents and they're shocked all the time. I asked them, would you let your 14 year old daughter go clubbing on a Friday night? Just any club in LA or whatever? Absolutely not. Of course not. Well, would you let your daughter, your 14 year old daughter have unfettered access to social media? Close the door. She has, can do whatever she wants. Oh yeah, that happens every night. Okay. And I have to tell them that other. The social media option is scarier to me and I've been doing this for 20 years almost. That is scarier to me than clubbing. I think they're less safe there because I know how many predators are on this and watching it. So what you're doing is very smart. And like my wife and I, we are very careful when we decide a kid, one of our kids is ready for an iPhone. And even after that, they have to turn it into us. The only charging station is our room, so they have to turn it into us every night and we have full access to look at it. And they know that. And then of course, they don't get it at nighttime where they can get crazy and bad judgment and things like that. So the key is to understand everything on your kid's phone, what apps they have, even your little kids. There was a case not long ago where two 6 year old girls were gaming. Gaming's a scary thing because parents don't realize because when we were kids, right, the only games we had was like Nintendo and Mario Brothers and whatever. Nowadays you have these awesome games, but the parents generally don't realize that there's this message board where they're playing other people. They're not playing the computer like we used to do. They're playing other people who are pretending to be their age. And they're easily could be sec. We've seen it. They're old men, pedophiles, right? And they're talking to your kids and learning about them and your kids are naively giving them information. And then all of a sudden we have a scenario where we have an exploitation situation, right?

And so if I'm hearing you correctly too, this is going on in our backyard and most parents aren't aware of it because of this grooming behind the scenes where the kid is scared to tell their parents, they're hiding it, they're getting good and we're giving them this closed access behind doors to this whole world of gaming and social media that we think is safe and it's not exactly.

So I'd say human trafficking, child exploitation in America is hiding in plain sight. It's happening in your house and you don't even know it. I mean, I would ask any one of your listeners to say, do you know every app, every game that your kid has access to? And the answer 90% of time is no, I don't. I know they play games. I didn't know that there's a message board that they could be talking to anybody. You need to know that. And frankly, if you want your kid to play Halo, turn off the, you know, turn off the message function that allows anyone to talk to them. These are the kind of things that parents have to know to. And these are really the victims we've seen come a lot of times do come from really awesome families, very attentive parents. But they just. We're in this weird generational gap where if you're my age at least I'm 45.

Yeah, I'm 50.

So if you're my. If you're, if you're our age. We were never teenagers in the Internet age. So we have, we can help our kids with dating and bullies and all this because we dealt with that. But we didn't deal with being a teenager with raging hormones on the Internet and pornography and all these things we didn't have access to.

So we just heard don't take candy from strangers. That's what we knew.

That's all we knew. And it's a whole new game. And so if we're, if parents are ignorant to it, our kids are in trouble.

Why do you think, Tim? I have my guesses, but why do you think this is not talked about enough? Like I hear you shooting from the shouting, the rooftops. This. It's not on the news enough. It's not. Is it because of the financial tie to this? Is it because the money is just too big? Is it because people are corrupt? Like, I'm just curious, why is this not talked about so much more?

So great question. I have different theories. It's so hard for me, right? We, we do multiple operations and every time my whole career when I've come home and like earlier this year for example, we were working a case for months and months, a trafficking ring selling six year old kids right to American tourists in a very high tourist area that Americans visit. And I come home and I see the headlines on the mainstream media and I'm just like. Which is just all sensational. Anyway, like you read the headline, it's like it's just clickbait. It's just not even. And I'm thinking, guys, can we like, yeah, there's millions of kids being raped for money every day. That should be the headline.

Yes.

Until we end that. And then you can get into your clickbait and tribal wars and. But, but so it is so frustrating that it's not a big thing. And I think one of the main reasons is it just hurts. It hurts to talk about it. Like I've been turned down on shows because like we love what you're doing, but we don't want to make our audience sad by talking about children being raped so I'll lose followers, you know, and so we hear that from people. They're fearful.

And I see it on podcasts you've been on. I'll look. And I'm like, why does this have lower downloads? But you're right. It's the psychology. People don't want to face the darkness. They don't want to understand. And I hope people understand, like, what you do. Facing the darkness every day is what's needed to bring things to light. So it's just, it's important for us to dive in and understand this.

I believe, I believe so too. And then also look, I mean, look, look at Facebook, what's going on right now. The whistleblower now they're looking into, you know, Facebook looks like they knew a lot of things going on that they could have prevented and chose not to. Because the more big brotherish they get on their, on their platforms.

Yes.

The more, the less money they're going to make. Right. And so. Yes. Do I think money is driving this? Yes. Do I think there are people high up complicit in this? Yes, I do. I think it's the, it's the closet sin. Right. It's the people we are, we end up arresting are not. There's no, there's no profile here. I mean, it's anyone and everyone that gets sex. These sex addicts, which you said it.

Looks like, you said, they, you go.

They look like me. They look like any of us. And the mass increase of porn hasn't helped. Porn is what drives people to look into. They start with the legal stuff and the way the brain chemistry works. Eventually for a lot of these people who become addicts, they can't handle it. And their brain doesn't get the reaction on the adult legal stuff, so they end up looking at kids or animals or weird things. But that's a taboo thing to attack the porn industry. I mean, are you kidding? You're gonna get attacked right back, Right? Yeah, because there's, there's billions of dollars that go into that. So, you know, it's, it's a, it's a cultural war too, trying to educate people on the damage of all the things that lead to sex addiction.

Let me ask you about some of the other countries. Like, I know I've gone and done service work in, in other countries or building homes and stuff. And there's always talks of the orphanages there. And, and you mentioned that earlier that, that sometimes that's a front for things. How do we know when we're supporting things like that how does the average person know if something'. Or is there any way to not to know that when we're supporting and funding these things?

Yeah, so there's, so there's orphanages, there's. There's something called the Hague Convention. And if they sign on to that, there's. There's protocols and that ensure the safety of the kids. Like they can't, you know, like we adopted two children from Haiti who we rescued in an operation people can watch. There's a documentary on that called Operation 2 Saint. It's on Amazon. But I mean, ironically, we rescued them from trafficking and it took us three years to get them home because of all the protocols and regulations, with background checks and making sure that we're not using this legal stuff.

Yeah, because that makes sense too. You could be that corrupt person that's wanting to act like you're asking to do the same thing.

Correct.

So many layers.

Yeah, so I agree with that. But if they're not part of that, then do not support that. Okay, so that orphanage and what's it called?

Hague Convention.

The Hague Convention. Yeah. Like H A G E. H A G U E. Yeah. And. But what's frustrating is even these orphanages or countries who require the orphanages to participate in that, in the rules of the Hague Convention, we're finding that in some countries, like Haiti or other developing countries, the chances of an orphan being trafficked or sexually exploited is. This is just me, anecdotally speaking, but like probably 90%. So our actually a couple years ago created a new project called cnf. Children Need Families. And what we do is we target countries that have high trafficking areas and we just, we just try to adopt the kids out because like in our, in our estimation, that's the only way to protect them. It's this great preventative measure we've helped 100 families get, you know. Well, altogether we funded, I think around 4 to 4 to 500 or supported the funding children to get them out of those high trafficking areas and get them adopted. Because it's like the only way my kids came from a high trafficking area and they almost for sure would have been if we didn't get them out of there, they would have been trafficked. Right.

So it could be an area. You're saying that like they're not necessarily in it yet, but you know, that is their only way is to end up in that. So you're trying to get them out ahead of time.

Get them out ahead of time. That's the idea. Yep. We're working with some down syndrome foundations. So many countries try to abort the down syndrome baby. And even if in a lot of countries, if you. If you birth a Down syndrome baby like you're required, whether it's legal or kind of cultural requirement, you turn that baby over to the government. If the government can't find someone to adopt that baby in six years, they're automatically institutionalized, which means they're now subject to all kinds of abuse and treat as subhumans. So we recently identified 491 down syndrome children in these countries that are between the age of one and six. And we raised a million dollars just for those 491 to support grants. And then we now we're seeking families who will be willing to take them. So it's kind of a unique approach to preventative measures in fighting this.

Tim, it's interesting. I understand your story as to why you want to help them, but you've taken it to another level. Like, this is your life mission. Is it almost addictive? Like you got in there and you just cannot let sleep without rescuing the next one? Is that what drives you?

Yeah. When I. So I never intended to work child crimes. I. I wanted to fight terrorism and drug trafficking, and everything I did was. Was geared toward that. I kind of fell into it. I was scared to death of it. So I get why people don't want to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it, but once you see it and even participate in watching a child, any child, be liberated from it. Oh, yeah, it's. It's. There's nothing else you can do. I don't. You can talk about terrorism or whatever. There's nothing else you want to do once you've participated in it. And then also, what helps keep my drive is I have two children who are from Haiti who are happy as can be thriving in life. You know, they have. We have nine children total. So they came into a family of seven kids.

Wow.

And they're just loving life. And I get to see them every day and know the trajectory that they were on versus what they are. The reality is now that is so. That just. Just fills me with. With. It just makes me so passionate. Like, I don't care if it's just one more. You know, it's. Everything's worth it to get that one out and get them this opportunity.

So when a child is rescued from this. And I know you've seen some horrendous things, you've heard some of the worst stories. Can these children be healed? Can they get. And what does that process look like?

So the most important department at our is our aftercare department. We put so much effort into that. So what we do is if we're in or 26 plus countries, and we're also supporting almost every state in the United States. So before we will do one of these operations, especially in foreign countries, we sit down with the police and say, we are not going to lift a finger to help you unless you promise that any kid rescued will go to one of these two or three places that we vetted out and we'll take. Sometimes we've taken a year or more to vet out, and then if they don't have what is required, we will supplement. Until we know that any kid rescued, we can't expect they're going to have this happy reunion with a family member because they may not exist. So we have to be their family. So. So we find local partners who we trust and then we start funding as much as we can to support that. And then the rescue happens and we make sure. And then we follow up. In fact, just in 2014 was our very first rescue. One of our very first rescues in Columbia. In fact, there's a documentary about it coming out called Triple Take. And a feature film called the Sound of Freedom stars Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino, comes out in February that tells this very story. But this little boy that we rescued, we rescued over 100 kids and in one hour in Colombia. It was crazy. But this little kid, he started getting troubled at 12. I think he was 13 or 14 when we got him out. And now he was just with us at the office yesterday. He's now in his early 20s, married. Wow. He adopted a child from a trafficking victim that he met on an outreach mission.

Amazing.

She got pregnant through trafficking and was going to kill herself. He helped convince her not to. And then. And then him and his husband now adopt. They adopted this little baby.

Wow.

That's theirs. And it's so. It's just. Just a beautiful story, but it shows how we stay with these survivors forever.

Yeah.

Like we'll be friends with this kid till he's in. Is an old man. Right. Like we. We support them forever.

How? Because you're so vocal. And at least in the States, we all know. We know who you are. If we're paying attention to this. We've seen you. And I know part of what you do is you go in incognito and you act like you're this. Are you still in that role? Because people I would Assume people know who you are at this point. And.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm in. I'm in the. More of the training and guiding and coaching role for the most part there. Occasionally I'll go undercover if I feel like I need to, but if I do, I have a makeup artist that you would never know in a million years. It was me.

Okay.

Tony Robbins, for example, he's one of our big supporters. He wanted to see it, which we wanted him to see. I mean, imagine this. They put a costume, they put a disguise on him.

I mean, you wouldn't have known. Wow.

But it's rare that I would do that. We have. We've been able to recruit the best of the best to do this work. And so there's not such a need for me anymore because it is dangerous for me now.

How does one. If somebody. I know, there's a lot of different ways to support. But I'm going to start with that one. Let's say someone's like. Like my husband, every time he. When he hears I'm going to interview you or whatever. He's. My husband went through maybe SEAL training. He's like, he's always like, I feel called to do something like that. How does one get into doing something like that?

So two or three times a year, we have what we call the Sessame. We just did it in Salt Lake two weeks ago. And people send the resumes in, and then we. We have so many, and we limit it. I think we have 30 people in the class.

Okay.

Um, generally about half will make it or less than half will make it on operations. But we'd run them through like crazy. Just all these different scenarios. Classroom work and then scenarios like in a real environment, you know, meet this. We have role players out in the city, pretend to be traffickers. They have to engage. So it's, it's. It's a. It's a very intense kind of assessment. And then we select our teams from there. And we're just growing and growing. We now have regional directors in every. In every continent from Asia to Africa to the Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean, Mexico, every. I mean, everywhere. We're everywhere now. And so we're actually needing operators.

Where would somebody go to apply to even be in something like that?

So they would just go to our general info line. Okay, but if, but the truth is we get so many. We get bombarded. So, like, if you were to email me directly or one. That's. It's actually kind of word of mouth. That's easy. Who says hey, look at this. That's generally how people get in more.

General word of mouth.

Word of mouth where we have someone trusted saying, I know this person, they're not crazy, he's my husband. In fact, that kind of thing where we like, okay, there's already a level.

Of yes, and now. How does the now I'm so frustrated hearing so much and I know that the new, like the news spend so much time talking about things that don't matter. And there's such a real problem here that could, we could really make a difference. And I wish it was talked about more. How can we get the word out more? How, where can people donate specifically, what should they be doing? Because I'm a huge fan of your organization. I think that, I mean, this is obviously, if you put money there, it's going to go to the right places. What, what are the different ways people can get involved and is that the best way?

So the best way besides, you know. Yeah, don't donations always help? But, but even more is just if people were to like, for example, watch this podcast and then share it with a million people.

Yes.

And get more media involved. Again, the media doesn't want to talk about it. It hurts too much. People turn the TV off. Right. So brave people like you willing to engage in this. And I've heard people say, look, I can't take my audience of light into darkness. But then they have to switch the mindset. No, I'm taking the light of my community and bringing that light into the darkness so it doesn't exist anymore. But it is hard to get people passionate because it's easier to turn a blind eye. But it's the storytellers that are going to save this problem. You know, when slavery was legal in the United States, we ask ourselves how, for 300 plus years, how did we allow this? And during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had written the most viral book about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin, he said to her, so you're the lady that wrote the book that started this war. In other words, it was the storyteller, it was the abolitionists. Right. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, all these. And so we need to recreate that movement of like, even if it's grassroots, because we don't have the governments or the media and the mainstream media on board, it's just grassroots and people getting so loud. You know, I think the reason the news sucks for the most part is because it's just clickbait. They're just trying to Fill a demand. Their customers are the consumers who want to be outraged. So it's just, how can we outrage them on a political issue or cultural issue and on both sides and every side. Right. That's what they're trying to do. So if we could get this problem out there and show there's a solution to it, I would love for. There's so much grassroots around this, people want to get involved that even the mainstream media will then respond to that demand and say, okay, the people want this now, so let's start talking about it.

But it also sounds like we've got a bigger problem where maybe it's a top down problem, where if we've got people that are involved in this that are in, like you said, it's a real problem. Americans are the biggest customer. We don't know who up there in charge of things and platforms is involved.

That's right.

That's another thing.

That's why, that's why our focus is grassroots and getting our communities and podcasts and, you know, and social media and just get as loud as we can.

Got it. Wow. Do you. 30 million people enslaved. That's such a ginormous, enormous number to wrap my mind around and that it's $150 billion a year industry like these are just ginormous numbers. Do you see an end, do you see a solution if. Because grassroots just seems like, okay, got it, we'll make some headway. But what, how could there be a solution to all this?

Yeah, it's a tough question to grapple with. Right? Because our goal is to end it. But it is so, so enormous. But our method is to empower law enforcement because in so many countries, these traffickers and exploiters have been working with impunity for decades because there's never been a consequence. So if we can empower law enforcement to start doing operations and prosecuting people, at least there's this deterrent. That's the only way. Right. We can't, we're never us or any other organization or any government agency will not be able to pull out millions of kids. But if we lay a deterrent through a continuous pattern of prosecution in every country, in every region, then at least we have these guys looking over their shoulders and thinking, wait a minute, there's going to be, there's going to be a risk reward here. And the risk, they've made it too high. So that's kind of what we're hoping to do to kind of end it. But in the meantime, you know, it's the classic Starfish story, you know, where the little boys on the beach and there's been a storm and there's a million starfish on the sand, and he's throwing them back in to save their lives. And this old man comes up to him and says, what are you doing? There's millions of starfish. You're never going to make a difference. And the little boy looks up at the man, takes the starfish and throws one in. He says, it made a difference to that one.

Yeah.

So every time we do a rescue operation and if we just save one kid, I always ask my team to keep their. Kind of. Keep them straight. If all we ever did after all these years was just rescue that girl who we just rescued, would it have been worth it?

Yes.

And the answer is always yes. Right. So that's our motivation. Like, even though that statistically it's a drop in the bucket, it is so worth it still. Every single soul.

How do you master your fear around this? Because you're human, too. I mean, there's a. You know what your. Your purpose is and what you're doing, but I'm assuming that's pretty scary. There's some, probably some people that don't like you, that don't like what you're doing.

Yeah.

How do you navigate that?

So it's, it's very, it's, it's. It's a tough question. My family, my wife and I are both people of faith, and we feel like there's nothing that God would want us to do more than this.

Yes.

And we, and we had enough experiences leading up to it that we really felt strongly that this is what we're supposed to do. And then. So at that point, it's just like, look, we're putting this in your hands, God, and we're gonna go for it. And we have. We have to rely on you to.

I love that you just shared that, Tim, because I do feel, and I'm generalizing here, but I do feel I've interviewed enough people and have been around enough stories that people that have some connection to faith or feel they feel there's something bigger than them are much more likely to step into dark and bring light and to take on bigger purposes than just ourselves and our own fear. And I find when people don't have a connection greater to source, they think this is all that there is, they're going to live more in fear. That's what I. My experience.

If I didn't have faith, I never, ever would have even thought about doing this. No way.

Well, I guess what you're doing, I mean, I can't. I can't even do enough justice in words. I mean, it's just so admirable and incredible what you're doing and how many lives you've saved and the difference you're making. Like, I, I think, I think you know that. But just really grateful that there that you are somebody that's doing this and that you care so much. And while your, your wife, your kids are so lucky to have you and all these kids that you've helped, just so lucky and fortunate to have you come into their world and be this hero for them. It's just truly amazing what you're doing.

Oh, thank you so much. Well, it's really a group effort. I have an amazing team. And when I say team, I mean the hundreds of thousands, I think maybe even millions. Yeah, millions of people who now know what we're doing and are supporting us. And I just invite people to join the team and 1 ask if I could.

Yes, absolutely, is.

If everybody would just do this. Go to Amazon, watch Operation 2 Saints. T O U S S A I N T We have many documentaries coming out. Like I said, the storytellers are the real heroes because they're gonna move the needle.

You said to say like T o.

U T O U.

Okay.

T O U S S okay. I N T you could probably even put a link on it.

Got it. I'll put a link in the show.

Notes on Amazon prime, also on YouTube. It's had over a million streams so far. And I would ask people, watch this and at the end of it, just write down three things that you can do you want to do. Like, we don't know, like maybe they want to put on a fundraiser or support any organization. Doesn't have to be us, but do something and then also invite three people, send the link and have them do the same thing.

So good. And don't just write them down, do them, do them, do them.

And if you have a really good idea, if anyone has a really good idea, reach out to us and we have a whole outreach development team that will partner with you on your idea. Like, hey, I want to do this. Great. Well, we can send this person or that thing or so if they go on to infourrescue.org they can send in their ideas and what they want to do and then we can go from there.

Well, this was so eye opening. Tim, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I promise you it will have been worth your time. Because I know my listeners here want to support. They don't want to close their eyes on this and they want to share. So thank you so much for doing this today.

No, thank you, Natalie. It's been a totally honor and privilege and my people have been dying like, you got to get on her show. You got to get on show. So I'm so glad we finally got it worked out. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen in as my guest today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with friends and on social media. I don't advertise this show, so I rely on work of mouth and reviews to get it out in the world. The biggest thank you that you can give me is leaving me a review and a nice one. I hope. By the way, this is how others find these episodes. If you do leave me a review, be sure to message me@supportataliejill fitness.com with a screenshot of your review because I would love to send you a free digital download of my DSR journal as a thank you. And please don't forget to connect with me on social media at Natalie Jill Fit on Instagram and Facebook.