The School of Greatness - 986 Fighting Child Sex Slavery w/Tim Ballard

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

“If everybody would focus focus focus on child crimes, we could end it. It’s not going to be governments alone. It’s going to be people getting loud.”With July 30 being the UN's World Day Against Human Trafficking, Lewis sits down with Tim Ballard, the CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, to discuss his efforts to fight child sex slavery and rescue kids around the world.Although this was not an easy conversation, and some of you might find this interview disturbing, the subject is so important. It also touches closer to home than you may realize.For more: lewishowes.com/986

This is episode number 986 with Tim Ballard. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Nelson Mandela once said, There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

And author Albert Hubbard wrote, Initiative is doing the right thing without being told. This will be a very powerful episode for so many people that are listening right now. July 30th is UN's World Day Against Human Trafficking, an issue that is far more widespread than you may realize. My guest today has made it his mission to end child sex slavery. Tim Ballard is a former undercover operative with the CIA and Department of Homeland Security, who's currently the CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, an organization that fights to dismantle child trafficking rings and rescue kids all over the world. Tim's efforts are now being depicted

in a feature film called Sound of Freedom. This was not an easy conversation. And some of you might find this information disturbing, but it's so important. And to those of you who think this issue may not hit close to home, it does in more ways than you know. And in this episode, we discuss the shocking statistics

around human trafficking, even in our own country, how parents can protect their kids from predators. This is huge because most parents have no clue what their kids are doing on their phones all day long and predators on every social media networking platform. We're going to talk about this and so much more. Share this because we all need to hear it. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, please subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts right now and give us a rating and review so we can spread this message to more people on the platform. In just a minute, stay tuned for Tim Ballard. Welcome back, everyone

at the School of Greatness. Super pumped today for my guest, Tim Ballard in the house. My man, good to see you, brother. Thanks for having me, man. So grateful you're here. I first learned about you, I think, about a year ago. Someone was telling me about you, but then I really learned about you when Tony Robbins' 60th birthday party, where I watched the videos, got to hear you speak, and got to see the work you do with Operation Underground Railroad.

And it's amazing what you have done. It's amazing what your organization have done in really helping end childhood sex trafficking. And I'm curious if you can help educate my audience who maybe has no clue about this. Like, I didn't have a clue about this. Yeah. What is sex trafficking in terms of U.S.? Is it actually happening? And what is it in terms of international?

What is the problem at hand right now? Yeah, so this is not a peripheral issue. Most people want to believe it is. This is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Really? More than drugs? More than? It's the fastest growing, really.

It's rivaling drugs right now. Because you can sell it. It's the fastest growing. Fastest growing. But in terms of numbers, it's actually getting up to drug trafficking and the reason is you can sell a bag of cocaine one time but you can sell a child oh my gosh you know 10 20 times in its way for our period so it's a very lucrative and it's it's enormous it's a huge business now there's so it's a renewable product exactly recycle the product right I

don't want to say it like that term. But that's how they see it. So yeah. Wow. So you really start with the bigger issue is modern day slavery. That's what this is. People not controlling their persons, right?

Their own body, their own lives. And there's about 30 million estimated slaves in the world today and about 10 million of those are children. And then they're sold for different things. About 2 million children are forced into commercial sex trade the rest are slave labor or even organ harvesting really and so we work that's and so so how many in the category of sex slavery they estimate there's that there's two million this is state department un

two million children but my experience tells me, because we're in 26 countries, we're undercover, we've been everywhere, and if you're in slave labor, it's just a matter of time before they use you for sex as well, it's interchangeable, I mean, slavery. It's how can we make money from a person. Right, yeah, once you own someone, you think you own them like a product, object, you'll do whatever you want with them, right, so.

How is this even, I mean, are people, are there slaves in the US rightS. right now or is it mostly international? So it's a great question. So when people ask me about the U.S., because most people in the U.S. would rather just say, it's happening far, far away and I'm going to just go like, you know, I'm not going to listen to this. And the truth is we are the number one demand.

I'll start with that. In terms of we buy the products the most. Yes. We are the number one consumers of child exploitation material. We're just not doing it in the U the most. Yes, we are the number one consumers of child exploitation material. We're just not doing it in the U.S. Well, we are. We are. So I'll get there.

Yeah, so we are the number one consumer, which means we are the market. So, yeah, we are the sex tourists that my group and law enforcement are targeting and catching overseas hurting kids. But recently— What would you say, 80% is U.S. consumption? Like, it depends. Like consumption or like it depends like in the markets like south of the border in latin america yeah yeah but you get asia it's good in asia it's maybe it was like half and half us and then like locals and a lot of locals they generally make up the most they generally make up the most of the market of the consuming side

um but we just the united states just last year, ranked in the top three for destination countries for trafficking, which means- Other people to come here. Right, the traffickers say, look, that's the market I want in. If I can get into the country, then we're really gonna make a lot of money. And so they're trying to get their slaves into our country.

Because, so then we won't, so then US people won't have to travel. Right. This is crazy. It is crazy. So they'll just import people here. Yes. Kids. Yes. Teenagers.

And then they're slaves to whatever they want. Either labor or sex. And it's not as- Where is this, is this in LA? Is this in- So yeah, that's a good question. Cause I can go to like a developing country where the infrastructure isn't as great and law enforcement struggles.

And you can see children being sold on the street corners of this beach. You just got to know where to go. You're not going to see that here. Here, it's mostly online. It's in the dark net. So our warriors out there fighting it and finding the kids are like the Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, local law enforcement, these guys who have the tools to go in and basically infiltrate criminal organizations that are using those platforms to find kids.

But for 17 years, I've worked as an undercover operator in some capacity, and I have bought and sold a child on every single social media platform that's out there. On social media? Oh, yeah. It starts there often. It will start there and then leads to private phone calls

Then all of a sudden you're negotiating the deal for in person. Yeah, no way How many you've been doing this for 17 years now? How did you originally get into this? I've heard this story, but I want my audience to hear how you Even knew this was a thing and decided to go all in on this So I started in the CIA and I had prepared my entire life to fight terrorism, even before 9-11. I was, that's what I was studying. In fact, I graduated from grad school with a degree,

a very unique degree in terrorism. Really? In 2001. Wow. So the floodgates opened for us to go work wherever we want. I chose the CIA and I was working at the terrorism desk there. And you were going into terrorism before 9-11. Yes, already.

You didn't know it was gonna be such a big scene. It was like, oh my gosh, here we go. And then one of the terrorists, people will remember this name, Mohammed Alta, who came across the border. He was staging in Mexico and he crossed the border and went up and launched those attacks on the Twin Towers. And that just, I was at CIA during 9-11.

And I was like, I want to be on that border. I speak Spanish, I want to be on that border to fight terrorism and protect the country from there, from that position. So in the wake of 9-11, the creation of Homeland Security. So I was one of the first to jump ship and I jumped over into Homeland Security. I became a special agent, undercover operator,

thinking I was gonna be doing terrorism. Where were you stationed then? I was at the Clexico, California, port of entry. So near Tijuana or near? It's near, it's about 100 miles east of Tijuana. Yeah, yeah, got you. From San Diego, right on that border. A lot of people come in

because it's probably less of a big city. Yes, exactly. There's three ports of entries there. It's very busy. Wow. And lots of criminal activity crossing that border. Drugs, people, yeah. Yeah, so we were finding tunnels and it was,

I mean, my office was right on the border at the port of entry. I was loving life, but for six months I'm doing this, then they call me in and they said, hey, we feel it's time to start a child trafficking unit. Child, I said, what is that? I mean, like the rest of the to start a child trafficking unit child i said what is that i mean like the rest of the world like you know child trafficking you could google trafficking child trafficking in 2001 and nothing would come up like no one was talking about it so even i was like i don't even

know what that is i don't think i want to do that yeah like that is i went home and told my wife she's like no way we had we were just starting a family had a couple of kids she's like you can't bring that darkness into her i don't want to know what people are doing to kids, you know? Yeah. How old are you at this time? I was probably like 25, 26. Yeah. And so I had to go tell my boss, no, I'm not going to do it.

And I was really scared to do it because this guy was intimidating to me. Big, he was six foot four big white hook mustache wore boots to work you know one of those guys his whole life on the border and i was not i just i didn't want to tell him no and but i'm practicing my speech literally in the mirror right like okay how am i going to say this and my wife walks in to the bathroom and she's crying and she does not get very emotional usually i said what's wrong she's like i didn't sleep at all last night. She said, for the same reason I thought we had to say no to this because we have children, that is the reason we need to say yes.

Because we understand what a childhood is supposed to be. And if it's true, and we weren't even convinced yet, but if it's true that millions are being trafficked this way how can we- Allow it to happen. And do nothing, right? So then I said yes, and I entered it, and it was about- So you're already practicing your speech.

Yeah. And then you decided, okay, I'm going to commit to this. And the speech became one word. Yes. Yes. I'm in. I'll do it. He put me to work right away, and it was like a thousand times worse than I could have imagined.

Like right away, it was just like boom. thousand times worse than I could have imagined. Like right away, it was just like boom. When was the moment where you saw something that just said, I'm taking this on as a life mission, not just as a part of my job, but. It was the first time I saw a child that was from the videos when I was like, this is it. I had to make a decision at that point.

So what had happened was we got intel uh an american man had kit was kidnapping children in mexico smuggling them into the united states and in san bernardino you can look this this case up his name's earl buchanan you can look it up you can google learn all about the case he had a compound up in san bernardino where he was taking the kids and he was filming his sex acts with these kids he was having sex with them yes filming and filming it and then what selling it online or keeping it for himself sharing with people and so this guy's coming across the border and and um we're on the scene and we get the kid out this five-year-old boy and i it was the moment that he ran a boy five year old boy and i recognized him from the video no way and

i was like oh my gosh i've never seen one of the kids from the video and i'm like i didn't know it's my i had a physiological reaction like i didn't know if i could handle this and then the kid kind of inherently knew we were the good guys right so he runs to us and jumps in our in my arms and he's like hold it he's holding me and he's shaking and i'm just like oh my gosh does he speak english he speaks spanish maybe bull i don't know and he spoke perfect english which was haunting to me because the only reason he did was because he had been with this guy as it turned out since he was he was taken as an infant oh my gosh and he said to me like no five-year-old should ever have to say to anybody anyone he said i don't belong here and the pain was so severe for me because i could immediately

multiply that statement by millions of kids and that was it and then that that led to raiding the the compound and we found 11 other kids no yeah how old range about from 6 to 12 wow so that was my point of like I had to make a decision I went home after that operation so the first operation there's the first time I did a lot of cases where we did we did the receiving and so we did like the search warrants and arrests of pedophiles who were receiving child rape videos but they didn't have kids there right this was the first time I saw one of the kids from the video.

And it, like, changed my life. But the change was either going to be I'm quitting forever or I'm all in. Because you can't. It's too much to go one or the other. You can't go middle ground on this, right? Right, right. And I went home that night. After two or three days, actually, I went home to my wife. She didn't really know what was going on.

I walked in the house. And then I see my kids, right? And they're playing and having fun. And this kid was literally 12 miles away. I lived 12 miles from the border. This kid, this was happening to this child and the whole dichotomy of the whole, how can we be in the same community and hell here

and almost paradise here for these children who have every, and I just, I lost my mind. Like I just, I couldn't handle it. I saw my children being hurt. I went to like a mental, and I literally fell down. Like my knees collapsed, I fell down, and my wife thought I was having a heart attack or something. She runs over to me, she's like, what's wrong, what's wrong?

I'm like, I'm out. I'm out or I'm in. Like I can't, this is so bad. And it was my wife again who said, you know, she got me calm and and she said look it's hard i know the pain you're clearly suffering something but how does that compare to what that child's suffering gosh and i was like no you're right that's it you're not experiencing yeah i'm like how i felt guilty like how stupid i'm up on my knee i jumped up and i'm like i'm in i'm in a

hundred percent but the thing that happened and called this luck providence whatever to me was special is the little boy had a necklace that little boy the five-year-old and he his sister had given him the necklace when they were separated by buchanan okay and it was a little dog tag and and he gave it to me you know he knew i i had to go find his sister now oh no yeah and we did we got her we got her out oh my god but he gave it to me. You know, he knew I had to go find his sister now. Oh, no. Yeah, and we did. We got her. We got her out. Oh, my gosh.

But he gave me the necklace. And I tried to give it back. He's like, no, it's yours. It's yours. This is when he was hugging me. And I'm like, okay. I put it in my pocket. Didn't think much of it.

But later, one of my children found it and said, would you get this? I'm like, how do I tell this story to my kid? And I tell my kid what I can. And he says, isn't it cool that little kid put your name in the necklace, Dad? I said, what are you talking about? My name's not in the necklace. Like, yeah, yeah, your name's right here. And sure enough, I flip it around.

And that little necklace had a scripture from the Bible on it from the book of 1 Timothy. Oh, my goodness. So that was like, to me, I was already feeling like, what am I going to do? Am I going to quit? Am I going to go full in? That necklace, it was like that little boy, I was already feeling like, what am I going to do? Am I going to quit? Am I going to go full in? That necklace, it was like that little boy, whether he knew it or not, just gave me a commission. And that necklace, I wore that for every operation I did from that point on. And it was kind of like my symbol, like I'm in now.

Wow. And so you started here locally in the U.S.? Yes. And then you started going to different countries. Right. And you started going locally in the US. Yes. And then you started going to different countries. Right. And you started going to South America originally, right? Right. Because what happened in 2006, the US passed a law called the Adam Walsh Child Protect Act.

And what it did was it changed my life. People didn't realize, for us agents, how it did that. But it changed the statutory requirements. We had these sex traveler statutes that said you can't travel to have sex with a child but you had to prove that the perpetrator had the intent in his heart and in his mind while standing on u.s soil before he left which meant before 2006 we had zero prosecutions so the adam walsh protect act said no more you don't have to prove he was thinking about it on u.s soil all you have to prove now is that he left and he committed the act and now we will hold him accountable as if he committed it on our soil really there's a revolutionary

law so now if you go to another country and have and pay to have sex with a child or don't pay and you have sex with a child you can still go to jail here and there's no double jeopardy by the way you can serve 10 years in mexico and then 20 more years in the u.s wow yeah what is the law i guess around sex having sex with a minor or or paying for sex are they are they different laws or how does that work every state there's like there's different state laws and then there's a federal there's federal law so it depends what jurisdiction and sure it's it's all over the board, really. And then internationally, same thing. It's kind of all over, which is great to have the safety net

in case the guy only gets two years in some foreign country. We're like, well, we got you when you get back. Right. And we'll treat you differently. So how much is this happening now in the U.S.? Oh, it's constant. Really? It's constant, yeah.

We can't keep up with the demand. Half our operations are domestically. People don't realize that. They think we're only foreign, but we support operations here. We provide canine units that sniff out digital media. You saw some of that at Tony's party, maybe the video. How do they sniff out digital media?

They're trained just like a drug dog, but they're trained to sniff out little thumb drives because what happens is perpetrators, pedophiles, they hide it. And this is the evidence, I mean we'll find a child in here that can lead us to where that child actually is. But these guys are hiding it

because they know the cops could come any day. So they hide it in the carpets, they hide it in the floorboards or whatever. And the human being will never find it. Well we have dogs that run to it because they're just trained to sniff out the metallic, whatever it is. Yeah, and we nailed these guys.

So we've deployed a couple dozen of these dogs, right? And I love it, because there's these beautiful animals, and we chart their rescues. Like, Cinnamon Bark is one of our dogs. And he, doTERRA is a essential oil company, actually paid for it. And they say, you can name it, they're gonna name it Cinnamon Bark,

that's one of their products, you know? So, Cinnamontera is a essential oil company, actually paid for it. And they say, you can name it. They're gonna name it Cinnamon Bark, that's one of their products, you know? So, Cinnamon Bark's one. We have Spike, and they literally have like, Spike says has saved 10 kids. Cinnamon Bark has saved, it's a cool, and you look at these dogs, you're like, I just love you, it's just amazing, you know? Wow, so when did you, how much longer were you with

as a special agent before you left to go start your own foundation? So, what happened was after that law passed they put together a group and they basically said okay guys and let's enforce this go out and find Americans who are doing this yeah and they put me on the team and put me sent me to undercover school and said now go pretend to be a pedophile or traffic let's cover school undercover school what is Dude, it was insane because they send me to a cover school

to teach me how to be a pedophile. No way. How to think like one, how to, you know, that's what I... How to talk like a... Right, how to get in.

And I get there and they bring me into a room. It's like a studio, kind of like this, right? There's a two-way mirror and they're going to assess me. Because in the end,

it's interesting, they said to us, we can't train any of you guys to be undercover operators. You're just here so we can determine if you are one it's because it's very unique it's like an acting and you got to be able to you know it's it's tough you know so it's an assessment right and they have this undercover operator who's like the instructor but he's like one of the top guys in the u.s government he's a general he's playing the role of a general smuggler and And so people are coming in,

candidates like me are coming in one by one to be tested. And they give everybody a different legend. Like, okay, you're a drug smuggler. You're a terrorist. And you've got to get this guy to commit. To believe in you. Yeah. And so I get my turn.

He doesn't know what's coming, right? And I sit down with him like this and I start, I mean, I'm just tripping all over myself there's cameras everywhere like I suck at this like it's horrible and I've got to bring up kids now like so I eventually bring it up and the guy's just like hey he says the words out of roll which means it cut and he looks at the guys in the two-way and he said what are you doing you punking me like I've got a I have a daughter who's a year old I'm not gonna play

and he left i'm like what's going on so the inspector comes in he's like tim bottom line like look we're we're new we're in new waters right now man like we're we're gonna we gotta chart this course so i felt very much alone so actually what i did was because there was no real hit there was no curriculum yet you were creating it we were creating it and i actually started reading every book on the last time that i could read we knew that slavery existed so i'm reading about that that's how Harriet Tubman became my hero i mean i'm reading her book uh her story Frederick Douglass Harry Beatrice all the abolitionists really and that it wasn't a casual decision to call our foundation eventually when i got there operation underground railroad because we used the tactics that they used they were undercover It wasn't a casual decision to call our foundation eventually when I got there, Operation Underground Railroad,

because we used the tactics that they used. They were undercover operators. They were how they used the media, how they used politicians. It was like these were masterminds. They figured it out, and it's like, they're now our inspiration. So that's, you know, we built the curriculum

off of, largely off of that, off those stories. So at first they were like, no, you're really bad. But then they're like, okay, you gotta figure it out because we don't have a curriculum. Yeah, eventually figured it out. And then they sent me overseas. Where did you go? I was mostly, I speak Spanish,

so they sent me mostly into Latin America. I worked in Guatemala and Mexico and Costa Rica and the Caribbean, Colombia. And the problem, there was an unintended consequence to all this, because if I couldn't find the American in the time allowed by the budget that was given, like I had to come home. Like you got-

So there would be intel, they would say, we need you to go to Costa Rica. We've got intel that there's these three guys that live there or that are coming there right now. They're selling with girls, boys, they're buying them, whatever it may be. So you had the Intel, you had to go there, find them, figure out where they lived. Exactly.

What city they're in. Exactly. And then build rapport with them. That's right. So it wasn't like we're going to go break down the house and come in. We want to show them, become friends with them. Oh, yeah. No way.

It's stomach churning, man. Oh, stomach churning. come in we want you to become friends with them oh yeah no it's it's it's it's what was it like your first time man oh like stomach churning meeting this this i'm sitting toe-to-toe with these guys right and they'll pull out a cell phone and they'll be like here's who we got now we got kids we got 10 year olds we got and i'm looking at the pictures i'm like and i've got to pretend to act like you want like dude she is it's horrible like i the whole i'm doing it like up here i'm smiling and my stomach is just like churning i want to reach across the desk and just destroy this guy but if i do that we'll never find the kids so it's a mental game that like will crush you if you're not like like constantly preparing and constantly how do you how do you manage

energy and body language when you know that in your gut you're against this but you have to in your mind like trick this person how do they not get fooled how do you master persuading them when you're against it's just it's just practice and practice first they send you as a secondary operators you kind of watch and you're kind of just playing the role of someone who's kind of watching and then eventually you get to primary which i got to eventually and then it's you know so it's just practice and like it's interesting i can't really answer that because even the instructors like i said they would say we can't teach you how to do this either you got us here to tell you if you have it or not wow and and and so that's that's what happened do you ever feel like because you have to get in that

mindset of a pedophile and of you of someone who's selling or buying kids that it might ever trick your mind into actually becoming that. Has that ever crossed your mind where like, how do you keep your mind powerful and strong against those thoughts? Yeah, the answer, no, because once you see it, a decent mind, I couldn't even,

I wouldn't even burden you with what it is. Because you see it, a decent, I couldn't even, I wouldn't even burden you with what it is. Yeah. Because you see what this is, the kind of exploitation and the videos that are made of children.

It's so horrible. You would never be able in your mind, and so it's a punch to your stomach and it gets worse every time. No way. It gets worse every time.

If anything, it makes you less interested in any kind of sex. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, I'm kind of opening up here, but like, in the middle of a case, like, I come home, I'm like, I... You need to be alone for... Yeah, I can't even, like, my poor wife, you know, it's like, don't you not love me? I'm like, no, hon, I'm just, I can't even, you know...

You're emotionally, like, broken. Yes, you're just broken. I mean, it breaks you. You have to, like, detox. I mean, it's horrifying, you know? So what was this like in Costa Rica withica with this first time then for you i think you said it was costa rica or maybe i was making that up but what was that first time for you yeah so so one of one of the probably the most interesting case that i worked were it kind of this was the unintended

consequence the u.s government didn't expect or i didn't expect is, so I make myself the bait, right? And I'm in deep with these guys. I'm their friend. They trust me. We could be weeks or maybe a month or so away from getting the kids and getting to that point.

But if I don't find the nexus, the legal nexus, the connection back to the US government, it's come home. But it's like, but if I come home, this whole thing goes belly up. And so that was the thing I would fight until it pushed me too far to the point I was like but if I come home this whole thing goes belly up and so that

was the thing I would fight until it pushed me too far to the point I was like then I quit and it was it was it was a case in Colombia and a case in Haiti both I was doing it at the same time and I went too far I went further than I was supposed to go anyway but I got really deep and they said we're the Americans Tim like we can't sustain this Washington's gonna shut this down anyway like we it was no one's fault. It's just there's no jurisdiction. Unless there's Americans doing it.

Right. You can't go to someone in Columbia if they're doing it, you can't do anything. Right, right. Because it's only US. The only jurisdiction I have is a US court. So I've gotta find a US person. Who's buying kids.

A child or a perpetrator. Either one. Who's United States. Got it. And so on that Columbia case, we had hit like a goldmine of, like I can't call that but it's we hit like the mother load okay of bad guys and how many kids they have it was over a hundred kids Wow it was gonna be over a hundred kids and and I don't blame my boss at all he did

what he had to do he's like you gotta come home because we're no Americans involved you can't do there's nothing I can do for you He did everything he could to keep it and push it make it happen But there came a point where you just couldn't you couldn't do it and and that's when I had to make a decision and I called my wife and I said, what do I do and She's like my wife. She's like just very stable and very like Very inspired I'll say and she just said well,'s obvious what you do do you think you can save kids i said i i'm very confident we'll save over 100 kids she's like then you quit your job that's

it we'll worry about you do the right thing first and you wait you know always do the right how can how can you live with yourself and then she said how can i live with myself i mean there came a point my wife where where i was like struggling to stay and do this job. And she said, she ended the debate with these words. And these are verbatim because I'll never forget it because it penetrated my soul. Pierced you. Pierced me. She said, I will not let you jeopardize my salvation by not doing this. Wow.

I said, okay. And so if anyone needs to end a debate with your loved one that that line works it's it's it's a powerful line wow so you know so that was it and I was like okay that's how you feel then I'm in and we quit and started you're not making millions of dollars you're making a government salary job you're I have no savings yeah I have six kids at the time okay how old are you I'm probably now late 30s yeah and i have no savings yeah you're spending thousands of dollars like food for kids i'm like i'm like catherine i'm just going to tell you like this was like uh fall like june i said by or december i said by june we're out of food

like i don't know how we're going to feed the kids she's like that doesn't matter it's like how can you live with yourself i said okay no you're No, you're right. You're right. You're just way braver than me. Okay? You're like, I got to protect you. I got to protect the family. I got to be safe. Oh, it was a tough.

It was a hard several. It was a hard month. It was December of 2013. Oh, man. And I was just a mess. I was a mess. This was seven years ago. Yes.

So what happens next? Do you go? Was that the first thing? You quit the job and then you go back years ago. Yes. So what happens next? Do you go, was that the first thing? You quit the job and then you go back to Columbia? Yes. And you assemble like the Marvel cast of Crusaders to come with you? Yeah. And like. I have just enough money to do those two up. So you're funding it yourself.

Yes. Yeah. So I'm like calling a lawyer. You got to buy guns. You got to buy whatever materials. You got to. We got to buy everything we need to get. Yeah. And I'm calling a lawyer. I'm like, a lawyer like buy guns you got to buy whatever materials you gotta we gotta buy everything we need to get yeah and i'm calling a lawyer i'm like how do i make a non-profit like i guess that's the best way to do this i had no idea what i was doing right like

well we'll set you up and i got some people to donate and we we just went in we had the two cases the one in haiti which is the other powerful story and colombia they're both kind of the reasons I left. And so I didn't have enough money to go home. So I would just jump, I would bounce back between Haiti and Colombia until we had success. And we did in both.

It was, both of them were crazy cases. And we ended up wrestling over 120. No way. Yeah. So what happens after you guys go in, you get the bad guys, you know, you break up the operation, and then there's 100 kids. What happens to those 100 kids next for the next 10 years?

Right. So that's the most important part. That's the most important question. And then that's the question we've asked first. Before we'll engage with law enforcement partners. First of all, we always work with law enforcement. We're not real. Local government. The local government law enforcement.

We say, here's our services. In this case, it was easy because as an agent, I was already working with them. I had to leave. And then I said, I'm back. I lost my badge and my life maybe, but I'm back. But I brought the resources and a coalition of the willing, you know, former law enforcement folks who were willing to just jump on in this operation. And then we, but we said, we can't do anything until we know what happens to the kids.

And so what we do is we have an aftercare department, which is our most important department, which partners with the local non-government organizations that are aftercare centers, and they exist in every country. And so we partner with them and we say, look, we could rescue up to this many kids, how many could you take? And take means raise, because you don't know. partner with them and we say look we could rescue up to this many kids how many could you take and

and take means raise yeah because you don't know fund house for until they until they go to university you know because it's so many times more than half the time i'd say there's not a family waiting for them with open arms they there is no family which is how they got taken in the first place or the family's part of the problem because they're they're selling paid they're getting the money. Yeah. And so we set up with those partnerships so that when the kids are rescued, we know exactly,

in fact, the aftercare partners are with us when the raid happens and they write to the kids, you're safe, you're not bad guys. Because the kids think, am I getting arrested or what's going on? So we set it up to where the aftercare team is immediately on the ground and the healing process begins.

And they'll either get potentially adopted by another family or they'll be in a facility, a home or some type of facility. Yes, exactly right. Now, what about, you mentioned that it sounds like half the time the parents are involved in selling their kids, especially I've heard about this in Asia. Like a lot of their, it's like a form of love to like say how much money can you bring back to me type of thing. I don't know if I'm off there, but how do parents,

what's the psychology behind that for parents where they feel like it's not a bad thing? I've heard of this sometimes, some cases. It's like part of the culture, I guess. Now, how do you, as a parent, how could you do that? How do you get to that point? So you're exactly right, how you're describing it, that is how it is. And it's something I cannot comprehend. It's,

it's almost like they're so desperate for, for me, for money. They're so poor and they're just like, well, I think they just have to compartmentalize and just kind of normalize sexual activity. Even if it was your 12 year old daughter, like you just got to, this is what we, this is what we have to do. You know, oftentimes it's cyclical generational. So it's your 12 year old daughter you just gotta this is what we have to do you know often times it's cyclical it's generational

so it's like that's what I had to do so that's what you have to do and we've got to break it and that's been part of the problem because when it's culturally accepted sometimes the laws reflect that as well

and so there's a lot of countries we've gone in and helped them establish their laws where they didn't exist before and often times I'd say the majority of the first cases we do, the first investigations we do in a given country, is their first investigation into this as well. So we provide the tools. We build digital forensic laboratories, for example.

We built one in Southeast Asia that services four or five countries there and give them the tools they've never had before to go into the dark net, to go and find where track IPs, where child pornography is being distributed. Yeah, it's a nutty thing. So is U.S. the biggest consumers of sex trafficking then? We're the biggest consumers of child exploitation material. So pornography. Yeah, child pornography. Child sex pornography.

Yeah, we're the biggest consumers. We're the biggest consumers in the world. And one of the biggest producers as well of it. Really? Yeah. So we are the demand. Oh my gosh. This is why we have success overseas. Why are we so messed up? I think it has to do with, first of all, it's the internet. It's access to the internet. It's the technology that's readily accessible here that we can use, peer-to-peer networks, darknet kind of stuff where we can learn how to use that quick, it's software you, and then all of a sudden you're in. And so it takes a degree of technology, and then we have a large population

with lots of technology. I don't think per capita it's a whole lot worse here. It's just that we have the numbers and the technology, and that together creates. It's easier access. It's easier access, yeah. So people become sex addicts easier in this country in mass than in other countries. There's sex addicts all over the world.

We just have easier access to exploiting that thing. And we have 300 million people that all have that access. So that creates a lot of demand in this country. How easy is it to watch... I've never seen child pornography. I don't even know how easy that would be. How easy... If I wanted to go on the internet right now.

Way too easy. How long would it take for me? Is it 30 minutes? Is it five minutes? If you have some skill, like it's not. Can you just type in child pornography? No, you're not gonna Google it, no. And no one tried that by the way.

I guess the cops will track you. No, it's not that easy. Like it's just like a Google search, but there's ways if you understand the dark net and how different networks work. I don't even know what the dark net is yeah that's crazy so if you can get into that then you could find it quick oh it's it's all right if you have it's like updating new stuff all the time oh yeah they're in the last three or four years there's been a five thousand percent increase in new child content content it's growing like mad mean, are they doing it because they're making money?

Are people having to pay for it? Is it free? Like how do they? Oh, they make money. By selling it. They sell it, yeah. You purchase access to certain places. Like a membership.

Yeah, and then you end up traveling. Then you get into that world, you get into the networks, and now you're traveling to engage and become a contact offender, as call a contact offender where you're now having sex having sex yeah a contact offender contact offender contact offender yeah so man this is a whole nother world i'm sorry i know i'm bringing darkness to this beautiful show no i think it's important to educate people on how to live a better life and how to constantly be educating ourselves on all these different challenges.

We have to because the problem is, considering the fact that we are the number one demand and we are number three for destination countries, that means that the pedophiles are here. And our kids are here. They're mixed and mingled amongst this group. So parents need to wake up and understand the apps that their kids are using. We had a guy just 30 minutes from my home, just a few weeks ago, who was gaming with two six-year-old girls from Indiana.

Six years old, this guy's 42 years old. Like on Twitch or something, or like on some platform? Well, it started on Facebook, these kids were on Facebook, and then it went, most games today have the ability to, you know, you can play with other people. On other social media platforms. From across the earth. And it's fun. It's cool.

But parents who didn't grow up with this mentality and this technology, they think their kids are playing the computer. Because when I was a kid, it was Atari. Yeah. And you're playing the computer. Yeah, you're not playing other people. Right. So parents don't even think, like, oh, she's playing that cute little game. She's fine.

She's been playing for six months with a pedophile no way salt lake city and the guy got the kids the six-year-old girls two of them to undress and take no naked picture i'm not kidding he just said just desensitize them they can read or he can talk to them and you know and just like take your clothes off put the camera down no way yes and the ag's office picked the guy up and arrested him this is happening in mass especially right now we've never seen it like we have right now because the kids are out of school because our school and people are in their homes all day and a father out of work and and we can chart we can track their chatter on the darknet and the communicating and they keep saying it's harvest time these kids are sitting done

no they're not yeah nothing they are how many six million up up to six million additional reports from the national center admission from mission exploited children than the same time last year and we won't even know the ramifications it'll take years before these some of these victims come up because these guys are the lines are out in the water right now oh my god we take for granted the infrastructure of schools and after-school programs and sports programs. We take for granted how safe that makes our kids from these online predators because that's where they are. They're online. So it's easier to fish now. Oh yeah, because the mom and dad are worried about their jobs. They're scavenging for food. The kids, hey, they're told,

take the smartphone, take the laptop, stay here, play games, do your schoolwork. We got to go figure out. It's almost less safe to be on a tablet than it is to be at an after-school program 100 less safe to be i mean you know you hear you hear stories about uh is it larry nassar i think the uh yeah the gymnastics doctor yeah it's like okay you felt like your kids were safe at a yeah a u.s sanctioned training program but this happened to hundreds of girls but it's less safe online. It's a great point. Some people will say, well, I get worried about after school programs.

And this is a credible doctor who's like cutting education from videos. And that happens as well. But this, in terms of the sheer numbers, is way more threatening. Because there's millions of pedophiles. It's easier to do it. There's millions of kids.

They know the parents aren't paying attention because they're worried about their livelihood. And they just access the kids and they start gaming with them. They friend them on Facebook or whatever. And all of a sudden it's on and it's horrible. What are two or three things that parents can do now that they have this information to protect their kids against any type of sex offenders? So the most important thing is understand the apps your kids are on. Understand the social media platforms your kids are on. Know if people can access them pretty readily, pretty quickly. And that's the problem is parents just,

if you're my age or older, we missed it. We missed the internet. So we didn't grow up understanding with raging hormones and undeveloped brains. We didn't have to deal with internet too. Our kids do. And so parents just don't know there's education. What are the most challenging apps that should be aware of? Or is it all social media? It's all social media. Anyone where you can connect with bad guys. Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram. It doesn't matter. The parents of those six-year-old girls I told you about, they said, we had no idea. We thought

the kids were just playing the computer. No, no, they were playing a pedophile and the little kid game, whatever it was. And so parents, that's the number one thing. Know what your kids are doing. Understand the applications. If you need help, you can go to your internet service provider and say, hey, can you send me a record

of every, you own that phone that you give your kid, right? They can give you a record of every site that's hit, every game that's played. Conversations, yeah, yeah. Right, every conversation. What's the conversation that a parent should have with their kids, whether they're 5 or 15, to at least educate them a little bit without scaring them? You know, but what can a parent say, whether they know something's happening or not, to prepare them for this?

So it's a great question. And for me, having nine kids, you have to really meditate and pray and focus on each individual kid and customize that answer. Because if you come in too early, you could hurt them. It's a tough subject. But if you miss, if you come in too late, you could also hurt them. So when they start asking questions, when you kind of feel your intuition, luckily, I have my wife who I can say, when is it time for this one? It's now, okay, let's have the talk. And then what you say also is customized you know, to what you think they're ready for.

But you have to be in front of it. Whatever that answer is, that's the key is being, have a close relationship with your kid, be their friend and their parent and connect with their soul so that you can get that inspiration. Okay, now's the time and here's what I'm gonna tell you. Too often we say nothing

because we don't wanna talk about sex and it opens that whole door, birds and the bees, and parents just ignore it. That's the worst thing you can do. Because then someone else is gonna teach them and they're gonna get hurt. So it's just tuning into that kid. Wow, that's the responsibility you have as a parent,

to be a leader and to have hard conversations. I'm not a parent yet, so I don't look forward to it, but I also know that I'm gonna rise to the occasion and be able to have the courage to be able to have those hard conversations. How do you categorize a pedophile and how many of them are there in the USA? Like what's the definition?

Someone who actively seeks sexual interaction with a child. In-person contact. No, there's still a pedophile. You could not become a contact offender quite yet. But they all want to become. It's like someone who looks at porn, right? An adult who's looking at porn. I don't think anyone looks at porn with that being the end.

They want to take action eventually. And that's how child pornographers are as well. They're eventually to take action and take become a contact offender that's crazy yeah so how many are there so there's we know i couldn't give you the exact number but we do know this there's the fact that there's two million children in sex slavery consider what kind of number justifies that demand it's by 50x right exactly if it's like any other market like percentage is going to take action two million kids that means you're going to have a market of two million u.s or two million that's worldwide global yeah yeah but the u.s number keeps rising there's a couple hundred thousand we estimate children wow but that number there's about there's about 18 000 women and

children a year who are smuggled in to the united states for the purposes of being exploited as slaves. And is this a financial transaction, 300,000 kids, or is this sexual abuse? Again, it's like from adults to a kid. Yeah, there's a mix. There's a mix of both of those. I mean, for me, I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know.

You're kidding me, I didn't know this. No, I'm not, yeah, and the babysitter's son, he was probably 16 or 17 when I was five. It's one of my probably first three or four memories I've ever had. Oh, my gosh. For 25 years, I didn't tell anyone, and it deeply shaped my life. It only happened once. I can't even imagine something happening over and over again and not feeling comfortable

or safe, and it deeply impacted the way I think, the way I took action, how I was defensive. And I felt like everyone was out to get me. It was like, everyone's trying to abuse me. Everyone's trying to take advantage of me. And it showed up in every area of my life, from sports to teachers, to relationships, to business partners, until six and a half, seven years ago,

I finally opened up and started to heal and started talking about it for the first time. 25 years, no one knew about this. Wow. And it was one of the hardest things I ever did was talking about it. And then I knew that this had power over me because I was so afraid of what would happen

if people knew this about me. The more I talked about it with family, then friends, then I finally opened up publicly about it on my show. And the moment when it was no longer scary to talk about it was when I realized, okay, now my healing is starting. And it's been an amazing six and a half year journey of healing the past, go forgiving obviously not forgetting it's always going to be with me the memory but the ability to have peace of my heart and move on and see what can i do moving forward to make sure that other people aren't sexually abused no yeah what you're doing is so important because this is the the problem is people to heal they've got to

come they've got to start talking you have to talk about it yeah it's the only way you can really heal is to start sharing with someone whether it's a spiritual pastor a therapist parent that you trust a friend you trust but when you hold on to this secret and you don't tell anyone you're gonna suffer right now imagine this that's happened once right now one time so I'm having every day every week yeah imagine so I was with a neurologist once because I I had to understand what's going on with these kids. And he says, Tim, let me show you something.

He showed me two brains, scans of brains, two children's brains. And he says, do you see the scarring? Yeah, what's going on? He said, one of these brains was a traumatic car accident. This other one was a child

who for five years was sexually abused. And I was like, wait, what? Very similar. So that's what, I mean, it creates extra physiological scarring in your brain. Absolutely. And this is the problem. So the rehab part.

The chronic stress, the chronic fear, all these different things. Yes, it actually creates physical brain damage that requires physical healing of that brain. Emotional healing, physical, spiritual healing. It is. And when I saw that, I can't tell you how motivated I was to get back out and just start nailing these guys.

Because this is, I mean, there's nothing worse in my mind and earth or hell than this. Most of these kids would rather that they were killed than go through this. You know, our sentencing so far, I don't think really reflects the real damage that's being done. And it's because people don't want to talk about it. The more we talk about it, the better our justice system will be, the better our aftercare services will be. But this is a very real, very, very real threat to all our kids. And how's the process work for you, if you can break it down for me? How do you decide who you're going to go after?

Is it, okay, we're assessing the dark web information first. We have researchers on your team that are finding this person's got 50 kids. This has got 20. You know, how do you guys assess like where you're going to make the hit? So when I first left the government, I had basically pending cases, right? That I couldn't work because they were outside my jurisdiction. So those first ones, like the one in Columbia and Haiti, those were easy. But then after that. It was like, now where do we find the next one? So it's funny. It's funny.

Great question. Because I start, I'm like knocking on doors like, can I work? Can I help you guys? Because those two hits were successful. So we got more donation dollars. And I had to actually convince people like, you have a problem. We can help. We were turned down.

Seven years later. Turned down by what? Governments, countries? By governments, by law enforcement. Like, we don't need your help your help we're fine here we don't think there's a problem you know today seven years later we are saying no we can't keep we can't keep up everybody's asking us hey so-and-so told us you did x y and z in their country can you help us with this piece can you help us with that and so now what we have to do is is we have to find the law enforcement units around the world we're in 26 countries the ones that are that can sustain our tools so if we give them something

and give them training that it's a scalable solution they have you know so it's not just us doing the work and then leaving so that's how we kind of judge it right now we wish we could be everywhere but we have to go to where they're most prepared to make the biggest difference the biggest impact of course so and what are the what are the top three countries right now. We wish we could be everywhere, but we have to go to where they're most prepared to make the biggest difference, the biggest impact. Of course. And what are the top three countries right now that have the most cases and the biggest problem? I think Southeast Asia. Really? Is that whole region is just so sad and so terrible. But the law enforcement is doing amazing work and we're working really closely with them. That's where we put our first digital forensic lab. And so now they're going in and routing out the bad guys in there.

And it's 50% locals and it's 50% kind of U.S. based who's coming in and committing the crimes. Yeah, lots of sex tourists. The locals are our own. How big of an industry is the sex tourist industry? How much money? Okay, well, human trafficking altogether is $150 billion a year. No way. $150 billion. And so to put that into perspective- And how much is the sex tourism in human trafficking?

That's about $35 billion, I believe. Wow. Yeah. Just the sex alone is $35 billion. The contact, the physical sex, not the digital consumption of media, right? Yeah, $35 billion in the selling of people for sex. Contact for fish. Gosh. 35 billion. If you can imagine that number.

I mean, and then you bring in the slave labor and that's what gets it up to 150 billion. Human trafficking in general, yes. Human trafficking in general. And to give some perspective, because that number is so big, with the amount of money made buying and selling people every year, you could buy every Starbucks franchise in the world, you could buy every NBA team, and still have enough money left over to send every U.S. child to college for four years.

That's how much money is spent in modern-day slavery every year. That's why I say this isn't a peripheral thing, even though we act like it is because we don't want to address it. We don't want to engage it. It hurts. Why do we not want to address it? It hurts. You know, it's just, it's, I know why because I didn't want to address it.

I ran, I tried to quit many times. Really? And my wife always turned me around and said, you can't, sweetie. Oh my gosh. You know, because here's what happens. And this is what happened to me. Is you see children being hurt and you can't help it you superimpose your own children's faces on those children and then you

just can't bear it right you just can't handle it i mean i had to go to psychotherapy to not do that mandatory they sent us every year to get checked out and you know i kept i'd go every year and think okay this is my year that i'm gonna get out they're going to boot me out because I know I'm crazy. And like, oh, you passed Mr. Ballard. What? Save me. Because I thought I was crazy. No, you're fine.

Okay. Wow. But one of the things, that was the hardest thing for me to kick is learn how to not see my own child's face so I could deal with it. Later on, about 10, about 15 years later into this, I changed my tune and I allowed myself to see my kids' faces. And that made all the difference because all of a sudden now I'm pushing the envelope. You're more connected to it. What happened was I came across a situation a few years back where we were going into a child trafficking center and there was 28 little children that were being sold. Little meaning under 12? Oh, from 1 to 12.

Gosh. For sex? For sex. And so I'm walking in and they think I'm a customer and I'm walking in and I see all these kids. Like a storefront?

It was an orphanage front. They were claiming to be an orphanage. No way. Yeah, this was in Haiti. They were claiming to be an orphanage but all the kids

were mostly kids they collected after the hurricanes or earthquakes. The parents die and they say, oh, come to our orphanage. Well, it's not an orphanage. all the kids were mostly kids they collected after the hurricanes or earthquakes the parents die and they say oh come to our orphanage well it's not an orphanage so we were actually tracking a missing child that we knew had been there and so that's what got us in there and when i saw the kids outside the gate i was about to go in the same it was almost like a ptsd

reaction where i'm like oh i see i'm seeing my kids okay do the training they taught you but instead i said you know what what if I don't do that this time? What if I let it happen? What if I just allow these kids to be my kids? So I went in there and I was like, oh my gosh, I never should have done that technique. I should have always done this. And this is what I encouraged everyone to do.

Because before you were wearing like a mask. Right. So you wouldn't feel it as deeply, but now you're feeling it so deeply. So deeply. And what wouldn't you do for your own child? Oh, wow. So now I'm willing to go the distance, right?

And that case got nuts. And it's funny. I know this experiment led to this. After we rescued, we rescued 28 kids. We did the whole sting by. And I ended up adopting two of the kids that we rescued, who are now my kids. In Haiti. Yeah.

It was a preventative strike. Turns out none of them have actually been been sold yet they're all being sold and so yeah so two of my kids now they came from that operation wow so they literally like literally made it your kids my kids yeah wow how many kids do you have now i have nine now wow seven from birth of your seven seven yeah biological yeah and then uh two and then two adopted. And then two adopted, yep. How many more,

I mean, how many do you want to have? Oh man, we were, the prenup said six, okay, when we got married. Really?

Yeah, we were done at six and we were both done. We're like, we can't, we got to six. I came from six, my wife came from six

and then this case happened after that and we saw these kids and it was just like, here's my wife again. I called her and said, you won't believe this. What I just saw, these two little kids, it was the two kids i actually bought in the sting operation

i mean i just like grew attached to them and it was my wife who just had this experience and she just said i want to be their mom wow i said no you don't you can't do this like we can't do this you know i want to be their mom so that's how that's how it started and we ended up bringing them home and then the seventh one came the defying all science somehow so how how much does it cost to buy a kit i mean to buy a kid is it to buy them to own them to buy them to have sex what's the difference between you they do both okay so generally if you're going to take a kid if you're going to if you're going to use a kid for for the weekend or something, you can probably double or triple the price of what the adult sex market would be.

So if you, whatever a prostitute, you know, sex worker, whatever you wanna call it. You can double or triple it for a kid. Double or triple for a child. For a night or for a weekend or whatever. For purchasing, it depends what the country, but those kids they sold me that became mine. Yeah, we're 15,000 each But the work between thousand for a person's life. Yeah, unbelievable. Just say here

it's yours in the Middle East where we were dealing with Isis and we're working in this is working organ harvesting and A pediatric heart is up to a quarter million dollars. So that's a kid's heart a kid's heart So much that's how much it sells in the black market. How often is this happening with organ harvesting? In the Middle East, quite a bit. So ISIS rolls in in 2015 and they make sex slaves out of the Yazidi people. These beautiful people that are just peaceful, they're living in Northern Iraq and a little bit in Syria as well. And ISIS came in and just said, you are less than human. And they just took him and made sex slave markets out of them. Also a lot of the Christian communities were devastated in a similar way.

Eventually ISIS gets pushed off its sovereign territory and was making its money by taking over cities and like taxing people. So they lost their oil revenues when they got pushed off the land but they kept the kids. And so like we got to make money So they start selling these kids to sex slavery or to organ harvesting. Oh my gosh. We've taken down two organ harvesting rings and already so far. So we, this is-

Do they keep the kids alive after they take out some of their organs or is it you're dead? Obviously with the heart. Obviously it depends, yeah. And not if it's a kidney or something. They just take it out and then, okay, see you later? Yeah.

People are finally reporting on it. I think CBS or ABC News recently did a story on it. But we're in the middle of it. This is the Nazarene Fund. I'm the CEO of also the Nazarene Fund, which is a sister organization with OUR. Mercury One, Glenn Beck started that. Oh, wow. And then I took it over three years ago. Glenn Beck's still the founder.

Yeah, no, he was the godfather of OUR as well. He gave us all our first money but did the money I needed to rescue those kids in Colombia and Haiti that was a Glenn really he was the only one he was the only one that took the chance he's like oh go for it I'm like are you serious he's like yeah he got he got me the money was pretty intense oh that's nice yeah risked his home and his whole media company Wow really yeah his lawyer said don't do it. If they fail or somebody gets hurt, you're screwed. He's like, I don't care.

He's like, I'm not going to go to my maker and tell them. I said, no. It was an amazing story. So yeah, so he asked me to run the Nazarene Fund three years ago. So that's our work in the Middle East, which is just the stuff with. And we're extracting these kids. I mean, we're going in and taking the kids out. So have you found kids who've had, I guess, organs organs taken out or oh yeah no there's and they're the

ones that are surviving stuff really yeah so you find them and they got they're sewn up or whatever yeah and there's that's there's there's been like i said there's some mainstream media have gotten into it thank goodness and in the last several months and you can see that people can go on google and you can see it they're stitched up there and you can see it. They're stitched up. But if you're a small child, they're going to make their most money off a pediatric heart. Quarter million dollars off a heart. They're very high in demand, yeah.

Man, this is crazy, man. Servicing markets generally outside the United States, right? Like these are markets in countries that there's no regulations and it's just black market stuff. The work you're doing is really amazing. You've got a movie coming out, which I got to see a trailer of it a couple months ago. When's the date it's coming out? Do we know?

We don't know. COVID shifted everything, so we don't really know. But the film is locked. It's done. It stars Jim Caviezel, Mary Servino, Bill Camp. It's going to be amazing. These guys are artists. They're geniuses. They did a very good job. And what's the movie called? What's it's these guys were these guys are artists they're geniuses it's

they did a very good job and what's the movie called what's it what's it telling the story of it's called the sound of freedom and it basically tells the story i just a lot of that i just told you yeah um like for example with the little boy in the van they actually filmed that scene exactly where it happened with the necklace and all that goodness and it gets into columbia the the columbia raid where we rescued the 120 our first big operation that rescued 121, yeah. What's your mission moving forward with the movie, with just everything you're up to? Is it to end sex slavery? Is it to rescue a certain amount of kids a year?

It is to end it. Yeah. So we did an experiment, and it was very telling. In 2014, we put almost all of our resources into the northern northern region of columbia and one region one region and we just said just pound pounded like every month two or three operations and empowered law enforcement and then to the point where they stopped and the would-be traffickers said yeah i had to give it up i'm into drugs i'm doing something. This is crazy.

And so we did it. We knew what would happen. It's logical. Now there's a consequence. There wasn't before. But we did it to show if everybody would focus, focus, focus on child crimes, if we all did it together, we could end it. But it's not going to be governments alone.

It's going to be people getting loud, which is we have an opportunity right now because people are getting loud about it the first time in a long time or maybe ever on July 30th which is yeah there's anti-human trafficking you know world anti awareness yeah yeah so how can how can my listeners get involved with a small where they want to get involved in a bigger way, what can they do? Can they go to your website? Can they email you? Can they spread the message? People can go to our website, ourrescue.org. Ourrescue.org is the website. Look at our videos. There's something on there that says join the fight. We have all sorts of ideas people can do to get involved. I told you about that dog tag, right? The dog tag that

becomes my commission, right? It's with my name on it. It changed my life. And a lot of people have said, I want one of those. I want my commission. So Love Grenade is a company that has made replicas of that very necklace.

And people can get it and that can become their commission and they can wear it and remember the kids. And so there's a link here, I believe, on your show notes. Yeah, for sure. And the money goes towards rescuing kids. And so there's a link here, I believe, on your show. And the money goes towards rescuing kids. People can also text HELP THEM to 51555. And we're giving specific instructions on

how you can get involved in your city on July 30th. 60 cities have already committed to get loud in some way. They'll go to a park, you know, obey the laws and the social distancing. But that's a generally go to a park and local leaders will show up and commit that we're going to do more for kids and make sure the kids in your community are protected wow yeah it's exciting and if you want to be a part of helping spread the message make sure to share this video out or share this audio out and uh make sure to follow tim what are you on social media tim ballard 89 tim ballard 89 make sure to follow tim make sure to tag him when you are you on social media? Tim Ballard 89. Make sure to follow Tim. Make sure to tag him when you're sharing this out so he can follow up

with you as well and stay connected. I know you do a lot of other stuff behind the scenes that I want to get into hopefully soon in Utah and be a part of learning about how you guys actually do this. We're bringing you up, man. We're going to put you into one of our training programs. Lock me in. So the movie, be aware. So if you go to the website,

if you sign up, you follow you, you'll be able to watch the movie when it comes out. Absolutely.. So if you go to the website, if you sign up, you follow you, you'll be able to watch the movie when it comes out. You'll be notified. Absolutely, we'll keep you up to date on everything. You've got a bunch of books to talk about this as well. If you want to dive in down the rabbit hole, you can read the books.

Yeah, I got lots of content for you if you want to learn more. Exactly, exactly. But this is an amazing mission that you're on. For me, who's been, you know, I wasn't sold, but I dealt with sexual abuse, and I know the trauma that it has in the years of unwiring that it takes to feel normal,

to feel like the world isn't out to get you, to feel like your stress levels go down, to feel like I couldn't go to sleep at night. It'd take me hours to go to sleep every night until I was about 30. And then when I started to heal, I could finally sleep. So I know what it does to the wiring of a human being with sexual abuse.

I can't even imagine what it would do to someone who's being sold by their parent, not by their parent, over and over and over again for years. I couldn't even imagine how you would start to heal. So what you're doing is an amazing gift and a service to humanity. And I really acknowledge you for that, Tim, for being an incredible leader in this space being a hero in this space and using your wisdom your skills your tools your resources your relationships to make the biggest impact in this space and I want to be a support for as long as I can on this is the big part of me that I want to help out as well I want to ask you a final few questions.

This is called the three truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth. Okay. And you go somewhere else after your body dies, right? Okay, yeah. But you've accomplished every dream you could think of in your whole life, for your personal life, for your family, your kids, for your businesses, for your foundation. Anything you can imagine, it's come true. But for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you. Your videos, movies, content, it's got to go with you

to the next place. But you get to leave behind three lessons you know to be true. You get to write it down on a piece of paper, and this is all we would have to remember you by, are these three lessons, or what I like to call three truths. What would you share with the world that are your three truths? I think the first truth, the most important truth, and this comes from years of trying to find light in my darkness. Because to work in this world is so dark, and it will destroy you. It will destroy you.

I needed to find light. is so dark and it will destroy you it'll destroy you i need to find light and so my my advice to people would be or you know what i would share is because we all have darkness i don't care who you are you don't need to be fighting trafficking right darkness is everywhere yeah so i would my mind would be based on how to get light in your darkness and the number one thing is serving other people. Service turns to light, and Tony Robbins taught me this. I mean, I knew it just functionally, but until he put words to it in the research.

When you serve people, something happens to your brain. There's a physiological, in my mind it's God, I'm a faith guy, and when you serve people, And when you serve people, your brain literally releases serotonin and endorphins and oxytocin. And what it does is people that have in excess of those beautiful... You feel better. You feel better. You're healthier. You're happier.

You have more courage. You have more optimism. This is science, right? Now, in my mind, what that is, is it's also, I believe it's God preparing your body to commune. And with the God, your creator, whatever it is, I don't care. But a higher source that will then give you, that you need to be a better version of yourself.

And so service has all these benefits, apart from just doing the good of helping somebody. It's this amazing thing that turns the lights on in so many ways. So service, number one, to other people. Number two is kind of related to it, but it's that communion part. It's prayer, meditation, whatever you want to call it. But connecting to that greater being, whatever that is, and getting that positive energy. Because if you're a better version of yourself you are a blessing to other

people right so it's not a selfish thing it's it's actually a selfless thing get yourself good because then you're good for others you know and so number two I'd say that is that that meditation that communion mm-hmm and then the number three is find at least one person that you really love and that really loves you back. There's a lot of relationships where you don't have time or the ability to connect that way. But for me, it's my wife. But find that person. Because I've told you many stories.

The coolest story I told you was actually me running away and my wife turning me back around. Thank goodness. None of this would happen. I wouldn't be sitting here with you if she hadn't turned me around when I ran for cover throughout my life throughout my career and and I credit that relationship wow with what's the thing you love about Catherine the most your wife she does the right thing no matter what and and and it doesn't matter the consequences I mean she literally said to me if we end up on a beach in a tent and that's where we're living because we did this I don't care we have to do the right thing by these

children and by God and the right thing is to quit and leave everything I mean I calculated it was millions of dollars in pension and I had a whole I had a whole charted out my life was charted out write right i'm like captain we're watching it doesn't matter these are real children and there's and there's consequences for yeah and if you say one it's worth it in her mind how is it not worth it and just how quick she gets to that like this is wrong this is right we're gonna do the right thing okay like that she just she has that kind of it's it's a it's intuition it's inspiration a conscience i don't know what you call it but she she has it and and i know i can go to her and say i don't know what to do what do i do and she's gonna be right you know and if she doesn't know she'll

tell me i don't i don't know let's figure this out yeah so i think that's that's the thing i i love most about her that's beautiful yeah okay um we can find you online, TimBauer89. We'll connect and link up everything in the show notes. I've got, is there anything that you want to share that you haven't shared before my final question? Anything you wish people asked you about this or you feel like people need to know about? You know, one thing I'll say is I'm worried about the world right now. I'm worried about kids world right now. I'm worried about kids right now. A lot. Because I feel like we pursue good things

and they make sense, but too often we don't consider the children who are being hurt. And it's unintended. No one's intent to do this. But we talked about, for example, we're in the middle of a debate right now. And this is not partisan for me. It's not political,

even though everything seems to go that way these days, right? But the idea of opening schools and what that does, all I'm saying, I'm not going to give the answer to the question. I'm not smart enough to give an answer to that question. But I will say this, that we're not even, I don't see the kids as part of the debate. For example, the spike, six million additional reports of children being abused originating online. This is from the National Center for Missing and Disabled Children. And that's a lot of pain.

And it happened because we, as a society, we decided to shut everything down because of COVID. Okay, do we know the trade-offs? That's all I'm asking. Are we considering the trade-offs? And the concern I have is, you know, the CDC and others have come out. I'm not a scientist, but I can read data.

And if you're 60 years or younger, you have a 99.9% chance of surviving. If you're older, it's very, very, very dangerous. And you should definitely take mass precautions. And we should do everything we can to support that. But teachers who create the infrastructure that keep kids from being sexually assaulted, they, like, 89% are under 60 years old. And so the real question that we should be asking is what's scarier to you?

A virus, once we've taken care of the most vulnerable, what's scarier, a virus with a 99.9% survivability or the trade-off, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of children being sexually assaulted We're not even having the discussion. That's my concern. I'm not smart enough to come up with the actual solution Yeah, but at least have the And it boils down to this kids can't get loud. They can't organize they can't protest They can't march and so we don't hear from them It's on us adults to stand up and be their voices. And say, we will sit at the table for you.

We will make sure you are represented. So that's my... Something to think about, for sure. Something to think about. We need to figure out a solution. Right. It's hard. These are complex things.

I don't have the answers. But I know kids are being hurt. And I know more can be done to make sure they're not. For sure. Absolutely. Well, there's always more we can do. That's for sure. You're doing amazing things, man.

I appreciate you. I got one final question. That's what's always more we can do, that's for sure. You're doing amazing things, man. I appreciate you. I've got one final question. What's your definition of greatness? I think, for me, greatness is how much positive impact you can be on others. In fact, I try to make this a rule. I'm not great at this. I'm a believer in it, okay? I'm not a master of it. But when given a fork in the road, right, a crossroads, you've got to make a decision. And we do it every day.

Do I do this or do that? I don't know what to do. Which one will help more people? And if you always take that road, I think that's the definition of greatness. Yeah. That's the thought of my man. Thanks, bro.

Thanks, bro. Appreciate you, man. Thank you, man. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. For me, this hits close to home. As someone who dealt with being sexually abused as a kid, I just know the psychological challenges that come with any type of sexual abuse, emotional abuse. And it's very hard to undo that wiring.

And it takes years of healing. But for those who are dealing with this right now, these kids all around the world, it's a horrible thing and it can truly impact people's lives by spreading this message to let people know and be more aware of how they can be a part of the solution as opposed to a part of the problem. So please share this with one, two or three friends, just text them the link lewishouse.com slash 986. Or you can go right to the link on Apple podcast on Spotify or anywhere that you're listening to this on any platform right now, just copy and paste that link and share this with a few friends posted on your social media channels. And make sure to tag me Lewis house and Tim

Ballard as well over on social media so he can stay in touch with you and see who is listening and sharing this also. And if this is your first time here or you listen regularly, but you haven't yet subscribed on Apple Podcasts, please click the subscribe button on your phone right now. It will really help us improve reaching more people and spreading the message of greatness.

You have the power to change people's lives by sharing this message, by subscribing. And please leave us a five-star review and rating over on Apple Podcasts because the more people that subscribe and review, the more people get to see this and it shares it out on that platform. And if you want inspirational messages from me every single week to keep you updated, inspired, motivated, and on track to your purpose in life, then text me right now, the word podcast to 614-350-3960. Again, text the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960. And I want to end with a quote from sociologist Deshaun Stokes,

who said, if your actions don't live up to your words, you have nothing to say. If you haven't been reminded today you matter you are loved and you are worth it so grateful for you and you know what time it is it's time to go out there

and do something great