242: She Made Tens of Millions Buying the Neighborhoods Everyone Avoided with Britnie Turner

Britnie Turner built her real estate career by deliberately going where other investors wouldn’t—high-crime neighborhoods, overlooked properties, and land that banks didn’t even want to finance.

That approach eventually helped her make tens of millions of dollars. But what interested me was why she was willing to make bets that looked irrational to almost everyone around her.

Britnie went from waitressing, living in her car, and working for free to becoming one of Nashville’s biggest rehabbers, developing entire communities, and eventually owning a private island in the British Virgin Islands. Along the way, she built her businesses around a much bigger mission than simply making money.

We talk about what founders miss when they only pursue obvious opportunities, why conviction can matter more than having the perfect plan, and how building wealth gave Britnie the resources to take on problems far bigger than real estate, including disaster relief and human trafficking through Aerial Recovery.

Mic Drop Moments

• “If you have seen something that really moved you and you want to do something about it, be relentless in finding a way, not an excuse.” – Britnie Turner

• “Strategic real estate investing can create economic opportunity where there is none and can wipe out poverty that’s root.” – Britnie Turner

• “You will always be paid for the vision others don’t have.” – Britnie Turner

• Building Wealth Around a Bigger Mission
• Becoming Nashville’s Biggest Rehabber
• Following a Calling Others Don’t Understand
• Writing Your Own Eulogy
• Building a Real Estate Empire by 24
• How Environment Shapes What People Believe
• Real Estate That Wipes Out Poverty
• Buying The Neighborhoods Others Avoid
• Getting Paid for Vision Others Don’t Have
• Using an Island to Change the World
• From Suicidal to Sacing Kids from Sex Trafficking
• Healing Veterans To Rescue Others
• How Aerial Recovery Fights Human Trafficking

Brad Weimert: From homeless waitress to developing and owning an island of the BVI. You also operate Aerial Recovery, which has saved 9,000 lives across 20 countries. You started with Aerial Development Group, which was doing urban infill and donating a portion of that to orphans, Forbes number six fastest growing female business worldwide, Fortune number three fastest growing inner city company. Britnie Turner, welcome to Beyond a Million.

Britnie Turner: Thank you so much for having me, Brad. I’m happy to be here.

Brad Weimert: It’s great to see you. You have an origin story that is truly Netflix worthy, and I want to talk about that story because it’s just engaging and fun. But before we dig in, it seems like everything that you do has some deep-seated purpose behind it. How important do you think it is for new entrepreneurs to have purpose in their capitalistic ventures?

Britnie Turner: It’s been everything for me. I’m just wired to require the purpose. I didn’t set out just to be rich and I set out to solve problems on the planet, specifically human trafficking. I was woken up to this horrific issue at 12 years old, and that passion to do something about it versus just bury my head in the sand has been my ultimate driver and absolutely 100% of the reason I’ve been successful.

Brad Weimert: I think it’s rare to find people that find an inspiring purpose at all in life, much less that young in life. What was the catalyst for that and what keeps you connected to that throughout your journey?

Britnie Turner: My grandma actually came from Nebraska down to South Carolina. We were all homeschooled, raised on a farm, super sheltered, and she showed us a documentary, and the opening scene of this documentary is this little 8-year-old girl being sold at the creepiest motel in the world to some old guy and the terror in her eyes was something I’ll never forget. And the end of the movie is her in a container ship with 50 other little girls being shipped overseas to be put into these trafficking networks. And then, at the end of the movies, they all die. And I walked away from that movie realizing that even though that didn’t happen to me, it could have been me and the sheer blessing on my life that that was not my story. I need to do something about it.

But the biggest thing was I remember that that little girl in the movie actually looked like me when I was a kid. And if that was my story, I would pray every single day that somebody would get past their own little problems in their white picket fence and think about me and care about me enough to organize themselves to come rescue me. And I have made that my point in life to be the person that does that. But I realize how much bigger of an issue it is. It’s obviously way bigger than anything I could ever do. So, I have to build an army of good doers.

And so, what you see is a recurring theme in all of my businesses. Anything that I’ve been entrusted with and stewarding, I want it to be a force for good. Be it an asset, be it a house, be it a network, be it an island, I want to activate people to knowing that their life matters. That’s the biggest lie I’ve seen, Brad, is that all these amazing people that have access to resources beyond what so many other countries could ever dream of, they’re just TikToking or drinking their life away thinking that they don’t matter. And I just want to grab them and shake them and say, you have so much power to change the world.

And we start with changing ourselves, and we change our communities. We optimize everything we’ve been entrusted with, that if all you did was take secrets to clean water from our own backyard and take them overseas, you’re going to be saving lives. And so, it’s really easy to make a life-changing impact in some of the other places if you just try, but it starts with being able to walk in abundance so you can afford to think outside yourself and your own problems and you can have enough money to solve the problems on the planet. I used to think it was wholly to just have enough for myself and my family until I woke up and realized God always uses vessel and I need some freaking resources to actually help people beyond just praying for them.

Brad Weimert: I love that. Well, let’s dive into it. We will get to how you manifested an island and how you own an island now, but since we went deep immediately, why don’t we back out to how your experience with this purpose when you’re 12 translated to flipping your first house at 18 in probably the worst possible time in humanity to be flipping houses, which was amidst the 2007 crash. What mindset caused you to do that? Was it blind delusion? Did you have a master plan? What made you believe that you could do that at that point in time?

Britnie Turner: Well, I would encourage you listeners that you’re never going to have a perfect plan. Never, ever. But you will be able to pick your general direction. And a lot of people don’t do this. So, I ended up through a just crazy miraculous set of circumstances, I ended up going to this little school in Fort Mill, South Carolina that teaches you how to be like a badass missionary, just oh, really? And we had these Green Berets, army rangers, and Australian survivalists training this little group of people how to survive anything, because I thought after 12, my picture I had in my head would be like living in Africa, kicking in doors and rescuing these babies. And so, I wanted to know how to do that.

And so, we went through this really tough training for a whole year in our culmination exercise. At the end was they dropped us off in Costa Rica and said, find a way to create value for this community. And so, we did and we put on a women’s conference and at the very end, we had the opportunity to pray over every child there. And the very last little girl, I asked her her name and she didn’t answer. And so, that was really awkward for me. I asked the translator what’s going on? And I found out that this child actually could not speak because she was so horrifically sexually abused before she turned one that her vocal cords were destroyed. And I just will never forget the brokenness in her eyes. And I also will never forget what I found out next was that it was her father that did it, which is supposed to be her protector.

And then I found out that in this specific community, one out of every four children die before they turn one over the same issue. And so, I’m a go-to anger person pretty quick because I’m a fighter. I’ve got a really sweet, compassionate side, but I also have a cage fighter side. So, I went back to my tent, livid and brokenhearted, and I just got on my knees and I said, God, whatever it looks like, I want to be the person that comes back and does something about this. And that was the first time I’ve heard God loud in my life at all.

And I heard, I’m going to take you out of the mission field and put you in business. And I was like, what? What? What is that? And I just imagined this businesswoman with the shoulder pads and I had created a whole identity about being like freaking GI Jane. And I was like, business, ugh. And I just didn’t understand how those went together. And I want to encourage you guys listening that sometimes we’ll create an identity around what we think the path is going to look like. And when we get this really clear direction, you are going to get insecure because you already told everybody you’re going this way.

But that’s one of the meanings of aerial for me is that there’s this bigger perspective that understands how everything divinely connects and the world’s going to tell you to go left. You’re going to think you need to go left, but there’s a voice up there that’s guiding you saying go right. And it’s not going to make sense to anybody else, so you really have to know who you are, who’s you are, and who you’re listening to because in my experience, and I’m not here to preach at all, I’m just telling you my story, God’s the only thing I can see the future.

So, humans can only see the past and your limitations that if something’s guiding you to go this way, that’s really critical, especially if you’re going to do stuff that’s never been done before. And so, that was it. And I was just listening and I’m like, what in the world. I’m planning on moving to Africa next year. And so, I went back and there’s a guy that came and spoke to our class. He’s a multimillionaire. And I used to think rich people were all evil. And I think it’s like the church I grew up in and Disney where all the bad guys are, the rich people and just really was brainwashed that that was how it was.

And so, I really didn’t even show up to class when this guy was teaching, but he taught for three days. I ended up in his class and he talked about, he said a question I finally could participate in and he said, “Who’s been on a mission trip?” And I had been on all these mission trips, yeah, doing God’s work. And he said, “Who in here has had to raise money for those mission trips?” And I was like, “Me,” and asked him. And he said, “Did you know that you can buy a house? No money down.” This is 2007. “And if your mortgage payment’s $900 a month and you rent it out for $1,200 a month, that’s a thing called cash flow at $300 you get to keep.” And I’m like, “Go on.” He said, “Do that 10 times and you can live in Africa. You don’t have to ask anybody for money.” And I was like, “Brilliant. This must be what God meant about going into business.”

And so, I start getting these books and they’re like, you can be a millionaire in six months or less. And I was like, “Wow, this is it.” So, I Google what colleges teach you how to be a real estate investor. I’m sure you know the answer.

Brad Weimert: Pleasant surprise.

Britnie Turner: Yeah. I was homeschooled so much of my life that we always imagined that real school teaches you stuff that you’re supposed to know. And like, the only reason you don’t know something is because you didn’t go to, I don’t know. So, after two weeks of trying to find the right college to go to for this, I decide I’m going to have to learn another way. And so, a lot of my family actually disowned me at the time and I want to share that because when you finally get some guidance, you’re not going to have it all written out on a board. Especially ladies, we want it to be more secure. We want it to be clear. We like stability. You’re going to have to operate out of a place of faith. You got to be willing to look stupid as crap sometimes too. So, family’s saying, you’re an idiot, don’t do that. I’m like, I’m going all in on real estate investing. I don’t know if you remember what happened end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 in real estate.

Brad Weimert: Oh, I remember very vividly because I had bought a bunch of houses just leading up to that.

Britnie Turner: Well, I had bought my first house at 18 years old. As a waitress, it took me everything in my life to save up that $2,000 down payment. And as I was trying to close on the loan, something was going on. Lehman Brothers went down. I’m like, what is Lehman Brothers? So, yeah, I don’t watch TV and didn’t realize that as I was trying to become a real estate investor, house flipper, there’s a global economic meltdown going on. And so, I look like an idiot, feel like an idiot. Everything in my life’s going wrong, lost my scholarships. Now, I’m still trying to learn real estate investing and ended up as a waitress and $45,000 in debt, just trying so hard to make it month to month. But nothing was closing it. It was just a nightmare.

And I remember one day, I said, “God, I really just need $350 to make my mortgage payment tomorrow.” This is my chance. I’m working double as a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory and at the end of a nine-hour shift, I had made like $7 in change. And I was like, heck, what is going on? And I remember throwing my hands down at the last table that left me a nickel, and I was like, who even has a nickel? And I said, God, why am I here? I’m smarter than this.

And when I banged my hands down on my apron, it was full of these real estate investor books. And I’d like been reading in the back, like, I got to get out of here. And I heard loud and clear because I want to bless you. And I’m like, really? You want to bless me. And why would you not let people tip me more? I was just upset. I tell this level of detail in the story because so many times, my darkest hour, I’ll speak for myself. You guys can resonate if you do. I many times want to get lost in my own victimhood. But there was something in me that said, look up. I want to feel sorry for myself. I want to realize like, ooh.

But I looked up and there’s these two guys and a girl walking through those Cheesecake Factory doors and I said, “Can I have that table to the host?” And ends up that those people, real estate investors. And I said, “I’m going to be real estate investors someday.” And they’re like, “Okay sweetie.” So, even when the miracle walks through the door and they’re dismissive AF, okay, I want you guys to know you just keep pushing. I developed a very pushy personality and they said, “You want to be a real estate investor, sweetie?” And I was like, “Yeah, going to be a real estate investor.” But they said, “You probably read CosmoGirl Magazine.” I said, “Well, actually, I’m reading Success Magazine.” And they’re like, “Whoa, very well. You probably are listening to Hanson on CD in your car.” You guys know Hanson? Mmmbop. And I said, “Actually, I’m listening to Think and Grow Rich.”

And so, they continued to ask me what was I realize now, these like sexist, crazy questions, but they were so impressed with the work I was doing behind the scenes, the non-Instagramable moments that they said, “Well, we put on these conferences and we’d love to have you out and just be in the room to learn from other people that are in the business.” So, took everything in me to get to that conference and I ended up meeting, again, it’s such a crazy set of circumstances that led me to being able to be in the room and overhear a conversation where somebody’s trying to hire an assistant to run all their projects so they can be out selling all these real estate courses. You remember those, all $40,000 and crazy stuff.

And I said, “I will be your assistant.” And they said, “Well, you got to move to this place called Nashville in two weeks.” So, I thought this was my big break. I’m going to make it. It’s amazing. Economy tanks even worse. And after I put my house up for rent, these guys on Craigslist, it’s going to go well. I accept a job that’s $600 less than the minimums on my credit cards. I moved to a new city to work for somebody I don’t know. And my family’s like, you’re an idiot. And I’m like, no, this is God. The door is open. It’s going to happen.

And I get fired within 60 days because he’s like, nobody’s buying courses. I can’t even pay your $2,000 a month. And I had no idea what I was going to do. I can’t tell my family. I can’t move back into my house. And there happened to be these two guys on stage bragging about all these real estate flips that they’re doing. And I said, “Can I work for you for free?” And so, one of the biggest things that I think was a recipe for success in my life was finding a way to create value for people. I don’t believe anybody owes me anything. And I did offer to work for them for free, and they let me, for free, work for them for nine months.

I moved into my car. And I wasn’t in there that much because we worked 18 to 21 hours a day, seven days a week, and I made them several hundred thousand dollars over those nine months. And at the end, they said, “All right, you’re ready to do this on your own.” And so, did my first flip, everything went wrong. My gosh, it was so hard for contractors to take me seriously. I’m like a 21-year-old girl in Nashville, Tennessee. And everything was just hard for a long time. But if you are the first person that looks like you, or they’re not the right age or not the right gender, not the right whatever society says, just realize it’s going to be harder, but who cares? It’s going to be easier for the next person that looks like you. You don’t need to stand on some platform and preach that it’s wrong. Just be better. Be excellent and let your excellence open that door.

And that’s been what I’ve had to do. But ended up doing my first deal by myself and within a year and a half, became the biggest rehabber in Nashville. Had a house collapse on me. So, I got into new construction and oh, I like new construction.

Brad Weimert: Well, let me ask you about a couple of those, the transitional elements here. So, the first thing that I have to know is you clearly have a throughline of faith and a relationship with God. First off, what does it look like for you to have God speak to you? What does that mean to you? Is it a voice you hear in your head? Is it a feeling? Is it a thought? How does that show up for you?

Britnie Turner: For those who want to know how to do it too, if you have your wife call you from a different number, even if it’s a different number, and she answers the phone, you’re still going to know it’s her because you know that voice. You’ve spent time with it. You don’t have to have caller ID because it’s something you’re familiar with. So, the more time you spend with Source, with Divine, with God, whatever you are realizing is like the creator and life force of your very being, you’ll realize it’s always trying to guide you. It’s always trying to speak to you. It’s typically a still small voice that we drown out with, spending so much time on Instagram or having these outside things.

But if we can get quiet and we can listen, you’ll see it’s always trying to guide you. And so, for me, I have spent enough time to realize that’s not my voice. Like, it’s in your head, but it’s something you would’ve never thought of. And it’s like a knowing, a deep knowing. And I believe, we’re all making up. Nobody really knows what happens or how in the heck we got here, but my best guess is that we did come down here to expand love, and our soul has a mission and it knows what it wants to do, and it feels very depressed and upset when you’re not doing the mission that you’re called to do. And so, that’s one of my most important callings in my life, is to help people figure theirs out so that they can work in that piece in patience.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, so I love that idea, and I think that you’ve stated it a couple times to remain faithful, and you said it a number of different ways, but to have faith in yourself and that you are capable, even if you don’t have evidence in front of you. And the beginning of this journey of being interested in real estate, not doing well, being a waitress, getting shut down by people, getting yourself to an event, and then ultimately, finding new people and moving to Nashville in this pursuit. You had a lot of guidance otherwise that said don’t do this, namely your family and the people around you. Why did you trust your own faith and guidance as opposed to the people in your life that were there to protect you, like your family, in those moments?

Britnie Turner: They never met that little girl and they didn’t know what I’ve seen and what I felt. And when I’m trying to help people navigate finding their purpose, it’s usually something that’s taken you to heightened levels of anger or sadness. And that’s like, it can be a holy rage inside you. And I saw something I can’t unsee and I’ve chosen to do something about it, and my family doesn’t understand it. They haven’t been there or seen it, understood. And if it wasn’t real estate investing, I would find another way to help, but that was the vehicle in which I believe would be the right one.

And you’re not always right first step. You know, that first house I bought at 18, I held onto that thing for 10 years. It was on a flight path. I didn’t earn a dime of value on that thing over 10 years. The neighborhood went to hell in a hand basket in 2008, but it still got me in. So, you got to be willing to look stupid. You’ve got to be willing to, I call it Noah’s Ark, that -ish, which is you hear some orders, build a boat and save humanity. He built a giant boat for 120 years and it had never even rained. You think he wasn’t the crazy guy in town? And again, there’s people on here that aren’t Bible readers, which is fine. It doesn’t matter. The point is, are you willing to get a direction, an aerial perspective on your life and a download, and then willing to focus on that even when you look stupid?

And so many people really need the likes and the affirmation to keep going. And I know that society is so driven by community and culture, like moving forward things together. But sometimes, when you are a cage breaking waymaker or role model, you’re going to have to break the cage. And you have to have that confidence inside that says, I will figure this out. No matter what, I’m just not going to quit.

And so, again, being willing to look stupid, being willing to have people reject you doesn’t feel good. I’ve had diarrhea for years from the anxiety that, was that I might not be right. And I don’t always think I’m right. I’m just hoping that this path is the right one and I’m open to hearing recalculating. That path didn’t work. Let’s try another one. So, I hope I answered your question.

Brad Weimert: You did. Well, look, I think that the lessons from it are relevant whether you are Christian, believe in God, don’t believe in God, it doesn’t matter, right? When you’re convicted in the outcome that you’re after and you follow the pursuit through that conviction, there’s a parallel. And so, I want to take a moment to say that because specifically, when somebody is very convicted in God or in some indoctrinated beliefs, some religious belief, it turns off people that are atheist or agnostic. And I think that the important message to the throughline is that you got a message and you became convicted in it and you were relentless in your pursuit to figure it out.

And the steps along the way that help guide you towards it, I think are incredibly relevant. So, I don’t know if you’re open to sharing the people that you learned real estate from and I don’t know if you know this, but Easy Pay Direct, probably 20% of our portfolio are real estate. Not only real estate, but people that sell education, and a big chunk of those are real estate educators. So, I know tons of people that both sell those courses and also, that have built their entire life through learning real estate through that path. So, yeah, if you can tell me who you learn from, I’d love that. But also, I want to hear about the transition from flipping into a different asset class of real estate and why you leaned in a new direction after that. You said a house fell on you, so maybe that was it, but…

Britnie Turner: Yeah, I think to begin answering your question, you don’t have to have God talking to you. You just have something move you and God did not audibly tell me 98% of these steps. And I wish he would. I would feel here, but that would kind of defeat the faith part of it. And so, if you have seen something that really moved you and you want to do something about it, be relentless in finding a way, not an excuse. And that’s the most important part of what the throughline was. Yes, my faith is huge, but I was pissed off enough to take action. That’s really the bottom line. And get over myself, get over my fear, get over coming from a not wealthy family, and I’m pushing myself outside my comfort zone every day.

Today, I cried. I mean, there hasn’t been a day that I have not cried from like the– maybe there’s been one day that I haven’t cried, but most days I’ve cried or cried multiple times or like just felt crushing pressure and stress because of the decisions I’ve made to do big things. And that’s something I think a lot of people might not be doing. I might not be great doing it. I’ve done things imperfectly and messy and whatever, but by God, I’m proud of my life so far, my imperfect life.

And I want all of you to be proud of your life. I want you to know you could freaking die any day. And that was really my biggest wakeup moment, Brad, was at 17 at this little school, I showed up late and walked into class and they’re like, you’re going to write your eulogy today. And I was like, what the heck is a eulogy? That was really the day I woke up. I set out to do good things from 12 on, but I was really just a goofball prankster. I never told anybody how I felt. I wasn’t living an intentional life. I thought like, when I get there, then I’m doing a good thing.

But when you write the story of your life and as an end state, this is what I want my life to be about, then you know how to be as a human being, how to respond to obstacles, how to respond to haters, how to respond to people not believing you because you know where you’re going. You’re not going to know the direct path there, that you know where you want to end up. And at least, at some point, you’re going to be the general direction. People don’t even pick a general direction. They don’t ask themselves hard questions. And so, that’s the throughline. I can’t remember your other questions.

Brad Weimert: Well, it’s the architecture, right? So, you have a general direction that you know you want to go in. you have some powerful belief behind it and a reason which has connected your purpose to capitalism functionally. And you’re now seeing capitalism as a mechanism to accomplish your purpose. So, you tried flipping your first house. It was not good. At some point, if you fast forward to 2016, you got accolades from Forbes for your growth. What changed in that time from like beginning of, I’m figuring out real estate and how to flip and it’s terrible to, Forbes is recognizing you as one of the highest female performers for real estate?

Britnie Turner: Thank you. So, for those who want to know, it was the Forbes sixth fastest growing woman-owned or woman-led, because they had to expand it, company in the whole world. And I didn’t even go pick up the award. I made my mom go do it. And that’s not like, I’m too cool. It was a really amazing award, but I was so focused on that little girl. Literally, it was like a really good haunting. It’s had it in front of me and that’s something I’ve done well too is to keep that purpose in front of me, naming my company intentional.

I only wear clothes that like I make, if it’s got any words on it, having a vision board, intentional backgrounds, intentional images, because the world will do everything it can to distract you so you’re drifting. And the only way you’re going to be able to make decisions on knowing if something is for you or a distraction, is this opportunity or a distraction, is to have clarity to be able to say yes or no. And so, those are some things I’ve done really well.

Brad Weimert: I love that. I mean, I think that– I mean, I couldn’t agree with you more. Not only your surroundings and everything you just said, but your habits, your routines, the language you choose to use, all of those things, you hear. The people you’re around also all of their patterns impact you and imprint on you. Back to the mechanisms though, you somehow got from this belief system, having these foundations to being very good at the real estate game, what kind of real estate did you start doing into 2016? And what change that allow you to be good at it and actually be recognized for it?

Britnie Turner: So, I always heard like follow your passion and money will follow. And I always thought that was stupid because there’s probably lots of passionate people out there hacky sacking and not making any money, but if you really get deep on what moves you and what motivates you, it ends up being true. It’s not in the timing that I’ve wanted, ever, but it ends up really working out.

And so, I’m growing my business. I’m crushing it. I’m never sleeping. I did nothing but only listen to real estate stuff, only spend time with real estate people. And that immersive environment allowed me to move quickly and get 30 years of experience in four or five years, super intentional, and I could, I wasn’t married, didn’t have any kids. This is my life. Let me just go all in because my goal was to have enough cash to buy big assets to never have to work again by 26.

And I did become a decamultimillionaire in the greatest freaking real estate recession in history at 24 years old, which was cool. But I’m just trying to get to those assets so I can live in Africa. That was my plan. And so, my mentor at the time who was actually the guy that came into my class and said, “Did you know you could buy a house with no money down?” I felt like I should hire him and pay him to talk to me about how to even, like, I had no grid on how to have any wealth. Like I don’t know anybody wealthy. I just didn’t have the online resources that everybody has today as well and this amazing podcast that you put on. I’m so happy that you’re doing this. It’s going to be such a blessing for so many people.

So, I did a weekly call with this guy, mostly to just talk me off the ledge of self-sabotage because I still had a belief system that believed it was bad to be rich, which is interesting thing to dissect. Anyway, he invites me out to a mission in Africa and he says, no pastors involved. It’s just a bunch of business dudes that saw something they can’t unsee come out to our orphanage. And I was like beating myself up and mad that I didn’t have any medical skills. I’m like, I don’t even know how to do anything but flip a house because I’ve been secretly mad at God this whole time. Like, why did you make me get into real estate when I just want to rescue babies? The whole thing doesn’t make sense.

And so, I’m like, what am I going to do? Like flip a mud hut. I can’t change any eyeballs, pull any teeth, and just keep beating myself, disqualifying myself. Anyway, I end up going and I saw this orphanage that they built that was self-sustainable. And on our way in, we actually drove through these garbage heats where there’s hundreds of kids living in the garbage, barefoot, glue, all the things we pull in. And this orphanage was beautiful. And I judged it, I was like, it’s too nice. Like, why are you wasting money on all these bushes?

But I got to talk to this little girl, and I love crafts. I promise this story has to do with what you asked me to do because this was the exponentializer of like why I blew up. So, I asked this little girl, like, what did she want to be when she’s older? I had all the kids draw their future, and this one kid drew herself as the president of Kenya and she was holding the hand of a loving husband. She had her cute little mud house and an aggressive amount of sheep, which means that she was wealthy. And I asked the leadership, I said, “Is this like the little girl of one of the people who work here?” And they said, “No, we just got her out of the garbage heaps last year. She’s been raped by her uncle her whole life. And her and her brother’s parents both died of AIDS and she’s kind of new here.” And I was like, “Whoa. This child to believe she’s the first female president in a country, she has a loving husband and she’s wealthy, what was it that shifted her from being a garbage kid that no one loved or protected to being this kind of a winning mindset? My gosh.”

And it was that environment, the power of such a beautiful environment. So, it shifted in me, began shifting in me the power of a beautiful environment. So, up until then, I’d been flipping houses or building new construction, one here, one here, one here, one here, one here, one here. And then we went to the next orphanage site. And on our way there was an eight-hour road and there was a 2-million-person slum in Kenya that we drove by. And I was like, and at the end of the drive, I sat there and I was like, “God, oh my gosh, I could work my entire life and not even put a dent in this one road.” One road, like that’s the great temptation for those listening is the issue you want to do something about is so overwhelming that you think that you won’t make a difference so you just do nothing. I remember the story of the starfish. You know the story of the starfish, where…

Brad Weimert: Well, tell it.

Britnie Turner: Yeah, there’s– I’m going to mess up probably the details, but it’s a story of this little boy, and he’s– I think it’s in Maine, like twice a year, the moon does this weird pattern and like thousands of starfish roll up on the shore. And it’s before dawn and this old guy is walking towards him. He sees this little boy in the distance picking up these starfish and throwing them in the ocean. And he gets up to the little boy and he says, son, what are you doing? Like, you’re never going to make a difference. Like, go play with your friends, go get on your Nintendo or whatever, because what you’re doing doesn’t really matter. And so, the little boy thought about it, and he looks down, he picks up a starfish, and it’s alive. And he said it matters to this one.

And so, I settled it in my heart that if I worked my whole life and all I do is help rescue one kid or make a difference in one person’s life, that has to be and gets to be enough for me, and it would’ve been a worthy life. Anything over that is a bonus. And I just really want everybody knowing, like especially if you have your purpose, it’s like your foundation of why you were going to build a business. Just again, a superpower for me because it allows me to overcome the obstacles. Like, you could never believe it matters for the one.

And I was worthy when I came into this world, whether or not I rescued freaking anybody. I was worthy to be here to breathe this oxygen and have a beautiful life. If I choose to activate to help others, then I’m probably going to have a most fulfilling life, but I’m worthy if I do nothing; therefore, why not do everything? Your impact’s still not going to make you worth more. There truly is that settling in the foundation in order for you to grow.

And when we went to the next orphanage site, again, I’ve been discounting myself this whole time. I didn’t have any medical skills, but I get out there and I help them do the land deal. All right, bye. Okay, cool, I’ve got some skill. And then I helped them do the psych plan and lay it out to where there’s enough land for them to have a cow farm, chicken farm, vegetable garden. They can feed the kids healthy food and sell stuff in the marketplace to help cover the overhead, and then recreated the orphanage to not be like warehousing children. It’s more like a family model. And I didn’t realize how many skills I had through real estate development to actually change the course of an entire community. And we picked that one because moms were selling their kids for $25, like gone for– this mom just sold her 2-year-old for $25 to these traffickers that come to their area every three months.

I don’t even know how blessed we are just to have the ability to go into debt. I never even thought about how blessed you are that when you run out of money, you can go into debt. You don’t have to sell yourself or a family member to survive. So, even in the development of that orphanage, a year later, the whole community ended up economically thriving because all these businesses moved in around our lane. We hadn’t even broken ground yet. And I was like, “What is going on?” They said, “Well, the Americans are investing in that area,” kind of like there must be gold in them hills type thing.

And the lesson is that strategic real estate investing can create economic opportunity where there is none and can wipe out poverty that’s root. So, nobody was selling their kids. Everybody has jobs. And it was just like this booming little village. And that’s when I said, “Oh, my gosh, how do I go back and practice this in my own backyard so I can then go do it overseas?” And so, I came back and I said this, what made you go exponential? I picked the worst areas ever. Stabbed city, murder acre. I lost my whole leadership team because they’re like, “Britnie, this is not how you make money. This is super dangerous.” And I was like, “I’m not just trying to make money.” And it developed nations like, and they were not cool about it. So, I ended up buying over 50 acres of downtown area Nashville land. How stupid of me, right? Right. So dumb.

Brad Weimert: So, what was your real estate experience leading up to that trip? So, you mentioned you got to the orphanages and you realized that through development you had skills to help develop the real estate orphanage, the real estate area around the orphanage and the orphanage itself. What had you done in real estate before that? And then what was your model leaving that when you bought 50 acres Downtown Nashville area?

Britnie Turner: So, I’d been flipping houses and then I was just getting to new construction and some land deals. So, I just started learning how to do rezones and master planning and things like that. And everything I was doing when it came to new construction was urban. So, I bought areas that people didn’t want to beat. Now, at this time, people did not believe in urban Nashville at all. And I feel like as a millennial, we automatically believe in it. But for me, I wasn’t just believing in stuff at all. I was saying what are the common denominators of here and where I’m wanting to potentially go in Africa, which was high crime, low opportunity, drugs, dangerous, things like that, like areas people didn’t believe in.

And I said, what would it take to make this a beautiful, thriving community? Especially if you can keep people in it. So, there’s a difference between gentrification and mindful revitalization. We align there and I work very hard to do mindful revitalization to elevate the community, elevating people in places versus just kick everybody out. Now, I have no problem kicking crime out. Get out of here. You don’t have an area, doesn’t have a chance to change with crime in the neighborhood. So, I’d specifically go on crime maps and find the worst areas where people are completely gang run and shootings and beating dogs in the front yard and I would just buy those houses and tear them down if they needed to be teared down or renovate them. So, once you get the crime out, the area has a chance to change. And so, it was really fun. I’ve gotten multiple letters from police saying, you’ve done more for this area in two years and we’ve been able to do in 20 years. And letters from neighbors saying, I’ve never been able to walk in my neighborhood before.

So, again, I was just practicing so I could go overseas. And of course, I care about every community I was in, but I didn’t do it thinking this area’s going to appreciate and I’m going to make millions of dollars. I thought, if I can turn this around, then I have the skill set for transforming regions no one believes in. And so, that skill set allowed me to really start buying up all these neighborhoods. And I would buy, again, the worst of the worst of the worst.

But the one that really shifted it was I bought these little aerial development signs, aerial development group signs, and I put them in all my yards. And I bought 24 houses in this one neighborhood. And a journalist happened to be driving by and was like, “Whoa, this area’s the next big spot in Nashville.” And when press got involved, everybody else who are sheep, just reading headlines, I mean, again, never be a sheep, guys, but be the person creating the headlines. Everybody went over there in the area became really successful. And so, that’s one example. I did that many times, not just in Nashville, but I did it throughout the southeast and I practiced on harder and harder areas.

And again, that’s not a typical real estate investor journey, but I ended up making tens of millions of dollars on doing that. And then my real winner, my best ended up being moneymakers, I didn’t know, I didn’t know this would all work. I just always hoped, Brad.

Brad Weimert: Well, tell me about the economic model of that because I mean, it stands to reason that if you can buy, hold, and sit on an assembly of land, it’s going to change the area. And that is how gentrification works in lots of cities. But you also have to be able to buy, hold, and sit on the land. So, did you have money to do that at that point? How did you cash flow that property in the interim?

Britnie Turner: Never had free cash on my real estate journey. And that’s the journey of every real estate investor for the most part. You get something, you put it in something. You get something and put in something. The areas I was in were actually so bad that I got one 20-acre parcel for $550,000, which is wild. And I still, no bank would touch it. And so, I had to have them owner finance it.

Brad Weimert: Oh, okay.

Britnie Turner: Yeah. And so, if it’s that bad financing, you just get creative. But my real trick, and also, I was saying, not trick, but my best, most successful thing was I would go and I would sit on that land, because I believe people have purpose and places have purpose, believe it or not. I think every place has a purpose. And so, for those who, whatever, I don’t care, I’m not trying to fit in any box. I would go pray and ask God, “What’s the purpose of this property?” And I would just sit there and I would listen and I would write.

Then I would go create a beautiful presentation and visual about it. And then I would also look up what was, let’s say, Nashville’s top needs in the community. And their top needs were, we need more low-income housing, or we need more artist housing, or we need more bike paths. We need more greenways. We need, whatever their needs were, I would also pray through it and see how it would fit in.

So, if you’re solving problems for the city, if you’re taking somewhere that’s really rough and nobody believes in, and you’re asking God for the vision of its future, what’s it supposed to be, you create those amazing visuals, then you go rezone it accordingly. You’re going to do well. The city’s going to say yes if you’re solving their problems for them. Why would they say no? And you just work with the neighborhood and the city to just find something that as many people can like as humanly possible. There’s always going to be some Karens out there that don’t want anything to happen, but you’re just going to have to get tough and know your why.

And so, my best projects were actually revisioning places that nobody else believed in and calling the press and be like, “This is the next hot spot.” And I would. I would call the news, I’m like, I’m doing this big rezone and tell them. And of course, you’re going to get weird haters all the time if you’re public at all. But people used to stalk my entities that I would buy my properties in. I had 30 different entities and they’re all code name. People figured out which ones I owned, just to see which neighborhoods I was buying in to try to go buy up to because it seemed like I had the Midas touch to turn areas around.

And so, you can create a business around believing in places. And the best quote, I think, if you take one top thing away from this call is, I want you to write down that you will always be paid for the vision others don’t have. Most people don’t have vision. They walk in a burned-out house and they’re like, “Ew.” And I’m like, “It’s beautiful. Can’t you see it? It’s amazing.” And that’s not something I grew up with. I learned how to do that. But I kept practicing. I adapted. I gained the skills until I had the skills I needed to do what I was supposed to do.

Brad Weimert: How did you finance it? So, you bought houses and you were owner financing sometimes. Did you then rent the houses until you did the rezone and development?

Britnie Turner: I flipped them all. I sold them all. I probably had 15 single family homes in my life that I’ve rented at different times. But I did not want to have a bunch of one-offs. Didn’t make sense for me cash flow-wise. My rentals turned into apartment complexes, and then of course, a resort.

Brad Weimert: So, we can get to the resort or we can take an interlude with Aerial Recovery. What was the timeline on the difference of those two things? So, at some point, you bought an island that you now have, that you’re on right now, and at some point, you started Aerial Recovery, and those are completely separate, but they’re all part of your journey. So, through this process of real estate, at some point it led you, I think, to the island, and then Aerial Recovery came after. Is that right?

Britnie Turner: Yes. So, I got really good at turning these regions around and that was the one skill set that I thought I could use because everything in my life, what can I do to rescue kids? What can I do to prevent trafficking from happening? I’m like, I have to be in real estate. We’re going to do it this way. So, got really good at turning any area around. Got only two things I’m good at in my life, one karaoke song required if you live in Nashville and turning places around and now people, but I said, “God, how do I go from doing this in my own backyard of the United States to Africa?” And I heard loud and clear, start on islands, and I was like, what? What does an island have to do with anything?

And you got to come to the island to hear the whole island story. But the summary was, if you can create an immersive environment that wakes people up, just like everybody listening on this call that has ever believed the lie that their life doesn’t matter, them activating into their purpose doesn’t matter, they can’t change the world. Of course, you can. Think about just Steve Jobs or Elon, these people have changed the world as we know, and there’s people, one person. Of course you can, even if your goal is just to help one person.

So, the idea was to create a space that people could heal themselves from the inside out, start aligning their life, figure out what matters most, learn how to stay present, learn how to heal, learn how to eat so that they can get past themselves and their own problems, connect with each other, and go be a force for good in the world. I’m like, try mapping that business plan out. Nobody thought that was a good idea. They’re like, Britnie, “You know what people do on islands?” I’m like, “I don’t care what people have done on islands. This is my direction.”

So, again, very few times in my life have I heard that loud of a direction. So, I mapped out how you would use an island to change the world. I spent over a hundred hours in my fort at my office because every good office has a fort and nothing happened almost a whole year. So, I’m going to have to skip a lot of the island story. But I was looking at islands off of Haiti and it ended up with this one. And it takes a long time to buy an island. So, I got it under contract and I start renovating it. I put a couple million dollars in. And that was really to clean it up because it hadn’t been lived in, in like five years.

There was a building on here, freaking awesome castle. But I was trying to get investors at the time and I just recently married somebody that I didn’t realize had married me for money. And within a three-month period, he became abusive and tried to destroy everything in my life. When our marriage counselor said he had to actually pay for anything, he canceled the contract, canceled the insurance. And that was three weeks before the strongest hurricane in the history of the Atlantic annihilated the BVI. And then 10 days later, Hurricane Maria came through, another category 5 direct hit.

And I became extremely suicidal after listening to the things that he was telling me about myself. And he’s a very brilliant guy and super smart. He knew exactly how to get to my heart and rip it to shreds. And I’ll own that I let him speak into my identity. And I want to be this transparent on this call because there’s people that, again, believe what other humans say about them over who really should be speaking into your life, who really knows what you’re here for, who really understands what your future is like.

And so, he was working to destroy all my businesses. My relationships started multiple lawsuits, took my mentor, canceled the island. Island’s destroyed. This is like the vehicle in which I want to change the world with too. It was like so much planning went into it. And the person who I wanted to be with for the rest of my life was just, it was over. So, I really did believe that I would be doing the world a favor by jumping off my balcony of the 14th floor. And I wish I could tell you that I was only out there one time standing on that ledge, imagining it, hungering to jump, like believing I was doing a favor.

But it wasn’t once, it was many times. I thankfully had one woman I could call who literally screamed at me and said, “Britnie, what does it mean to gain your marriage and lose your soul?” And we all need that person who will yell at us back into remembering who we are and why we’re here. But I was a definition, at least at that moment of epic failure, I felt like I’d lost everything I ever worked for and sacrificed so hard for. And the thing that really saved my life, I think over time, because when you get that far along in your suicide plan, never goes away. You just get better tools at fighting it. But when you’ve gone that far, you really need some powerful new habits.

And I had actually come to BVI, I used my little survival skills that I had learned to serve and find my friend’s bodies. I had been here for almost a year, and I came down, it looked like everybody was dead. So, I was one of the first people in the country, and I brought my brother-in-law and my sister, and we came in. And I remember just wanting to quit on life. I was still thinking about how I was going to kill myself so much of the day. But I was like, I’m going to help some people first. I’m definitely not planning on rebuilding my business like this is not worth it.

And so, but I saw Richard Branson using his giant catamaran, the Necker Belle, as a rescue boat. And he owns an island here. And then I saw Larry Page, who also owns an island here using his helicopter to deliver aid to remote islands. And then the founder of OtterBox, Curt Richardson, spent $5 million to bring in convoy of hope and feed the whole little territory for 120 days or something.

And what I saw was people who may or may not have the same belief system or faith that I have, it doesn’t freaking matter, but those people were being God’s hands and feet because they walked in a level of abundance that it didn’t bankrupt their family or make them homeless in order to help people who desperately needed it. They had no food. They’re trapped on island. We’re stabbing each other in grocery store parking lot, saying nothing. What would you not do to feed your kids? Of course, I would. People become bad people, but they’re just trying to be the good people to provide for their families.

And so, I woke up that day and realized, Britnie, you may feel like you’ve lost everything, but it’s your responsibility because you have a capability to build it back and to be a force for good. And so, you always have something. I might not have had billions at that time, but I said, “What do I have?” I had a media production company I had started that was just getting off the ground. I said, well, the last thing the world had ever heard is that BVI’s destroyed. They’ll lose their economy. They’ll start selling their kids to have a roof over their head, and we can’t let that happen.

And so, I spent the next year telling the story to the world of how they can help get BVI back online. And the big awakening I had that first week was, I’m not judgy, whatever. I’m going to be honest with you. Everybody that was coming out to help freaking sucked. Like, all these nonprofits sucked. And that’s because I have a vision of a higher standard. No, they were terrible. They’re out of shape. They don’t have any skills. They took up the hotels. They ate all the food. They took pictures, raised money, and left.

And I was like, “Ugh, I don’t like nonprofits for the most part,” which is terrible to say that. And I said, you know what we need? We need like an army of the rednecks. We just turn this place around. That’s the South Carolina in me. And that was the first seed that really planted what we have now. And so, I created a nonprofit. It was called Aerial Global Community. I never thought of implementing military or anything like that. I just thought let’s bring entrepreneurs together and solve the problems economically because that’s the best I could dream of. And we rescued animals.

So, flash forwards to the next disaster, I had learned so much in helping this nation get back online and I ended up getting the island back almost a year later, which is its own amazing miracle story. But I wanted to use these skills to go help The Bahamas that just got annihilated by Hurricane Dorian. And so, I was dating this guy. Honestly, I’ve never done a rebound date in my life, but it was in my bucket list. And it was. I was like, you know what? This is divorce stuff you do. He’s just like, what’s in my bucket list?

So, I went on a rebound date with this guy. He’s in the army. He is a Green Beret. And I was like, he and I don’t have any potential because he’s like, he just drinks a lot and I don’t really have time for that. So, anyway, he ends up, keeps asking me on a date. I’m too busy, comes over, comes into my office, and he’s like, what are you doing? It looks like you’re mission planning. I was like, yeah, I’m going to go down to The Bahamas and help them after the hurricanes. You can do that? Yeah.

So, he came as my security. And what I saw was this goofball guy that drinks a lot and sings on Broadway for fun at the karaoke places in Nashville. Everybody we went with on the group sucked, like that group was not good at helping. They’re slow, they’re ineffective. They didn’t have a plan. And I appreciate what they’re doing. They’re just praying for people, which is super important, but they weren’t actually fixing the problem.

But then two days, this guy starts like he took over the whole mission. He created a grid, mapped it out, got the needs assessment, starts delivering aid, and then I was like, “Ooh, you are very attractive now.” I was like, “These are very helpful skills. Do you learn these things in the army?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, do you think you have any friends that would like doing this?” So, not only was he skilled and actually made a mission that was effective, I watched this guy wake up. I watched instead into his purpose and not want to drink and not want to be so silly and not want to do that, and like go deep. And like, he had a whole new look and smile on his face.

So, we came back from that mission, and that specific region lost 10,000 people in one area. And the country doesn’t even count it because it was like a Haitian immigrant community. But we met a mom who had five children wash out of her hands, all five of her children. Like, she didn’t have to lose those babies had they had better warning. And so, we came back and we start mapping out how to plug veterans and first responders into this space. And we’re like, wow, this could be really effective.

And so, we start– he’s still active duty, but we start just out of the goodness of our heart going to these different disasters and plugging him in. And I started seeing. His name’s Jeremy. Jeremy’s friends would get there and have to turn around. I was like, oh. Why? Because it looked so much like war that they would have these PTSD moments and they couldn’t actually be in it. And then when Jeremy got out of the military and retired, so we could do this full time and we could get married and all this stuff, he had so many identity issues. And there’s so much labeling on the way out of the military. They’re like, this is how broken you are. This is your disability rating. You have PTSD. You have TDI. Oh, here’s your pills.

And the pills that he was on made him like a dead– doesn’t even make sense, but I call him a dead robot. He couldn’t even function. They put him on so many pills. And again, he’s with a rehabber and I know his capability and I’m just going to tell you the way I want to say it. I said, freaking F that. You are not about to quit on yourself. We are not about to give up and like just be numb to the whole world. So, he really struggled. We’ve been through a lot, and I’ve never spent time with military before him. The one I had ever spent time with was the Green Beret that led my survival school that started this whole thing for me. And the summer after, we were at Costa Rica. He went in the woods and shot himself. And I remember thinking like, how could he not know how valuable he was to the world? He must be the only military guy that deals with that. That was my thought at 17 years old.

Flash forwards, my own person actually had a suicide attempt, and that was really the day he woke up and realized how much of a grip, his trauma had in his life, and that alcohol was sponsoring that level of pain and he had to make some changes. And so, we have been through, like I said, so many different things. And he’s very sweet and respectful and says like, I’m so grateful I have a wife that didn’t give up on me, but also is hard on me and pushes me into greatness and did the same thing I did with him as what I did with like being able to sell houses in 2008 and 2009, is like, what’s the template that works?

So, if this works for you, equine healing, being on an island, getting you to go on missions, using your skills for good, having a community to process around that understands you, that you feel safe enough to get this junk that you’ve been shoving down your whole life out, if this works for you, I promise it’ll probably work for someone else. And so, we created a program called Heal the Heroes that actually starts on island. They’ve got five days here, which is like where they connect, where they find meaning. And we mostly pick what we say struggling veterans, but a lot of them are suicidal. A lot. And they’re suicidal because they believe their mission is over.

And so, our healing isn’t like a kumbaya, cucumbers on your eye type healing. We’ve got a warrior’s approach to healing, which is mostly what that woman did for me, reminding me of how much more I have to do, how important I am, how skilled I am. And we show them, day one, a video of people that looks just like them out there rescuing kids from sex trafficking and rescuing people from disasters. And they’re really the only ones that have the skills, the will and the heart to do these really hardcore humanitarian rescue missions.

And so, we’ve had, at this moment, I think 232 veterans first responders go through the program. We have not lost one, thank God. And many of them, like I said, had suicide plans. They’re good at executing on and they’ve not done that. But not only have they not done that, it’s led to the rescue of over 9,000 people globally. And we got to live my dream of rescuing kids from sex trafficking. So, it’s a wild story that I would’ve never been able to imagine. But I was faithful to the steps and I did get to finally get to do the thing that I want to do. And it’s been a really hard road. It’s been a very imperfect road, but it did happen. And so, I want to just encourage our listeners that you’ve got to keep that mission forefront. You’ll eventually get to it. Just don’t forget that all the pieces are perfectly coming together for you.

Brad Weimert: So, that program was started to heal veterans, was started with your now husband where that sort of templated the process of how do I help veterans that are struggling and potentially suicidal and recondition them to connect with the purpose to then help areas that need rescuing. What are the mechanics of doing that? And how do you pick the areas that you go after? And that program is Aerial Recovery, right?

Britnie Turner: Yes. So, once my now husband retired and after the Ukraine mission, we decided to rebrand as Aerial Recovery and go all in on that mission because it’s a way cooler name. So, we start with, they start with the island five days, and then we’ve got 12 weeks of mentorship where they learn how to write their eulogy and long-term vision and turn it into today’s plan and how to actually live your life. Because for us, even missions can turn into another escape for these guys if they don’t really do the work. And so, we say you want to be a hero in your own home first. And who cares if you save this kid in Honduras, if you’re a dick at home? Like, let’s clean it up.

And so, it really helps them understand how to connect, how to get clear, how to build well, how to fix their relationships, all the most important pillars. And then they actually have nine months in. I have a community called G-FORCE, which is a force for good entrepreneurs that then pour into them and they learn how to actually make enough money to set them free so they can go on missions full time. Or flip houses, invest in stocks, again, heal their heart, fix their relationships, all that at the next level. So, the 12 weeks is them getting clear on their life. The nine months is them really integrating with other civilians as well, which is easier for them when they’re forced for good civilians. So, that’s our program.

But in there, we also have trainings. Why do I need more training? I’m so skilled, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, do you know how to sit with that mom that lost all five kids? Do you know what to say to her? Do you have empathy? And they’re like, no, I need the skills. I don’t have the skills. Nobody has those skills. So, it’s a special training to know how to be the light in someone’s darkest hour if you really want to be a hero. It’s not just kicking in the doors and moving the people. It’s being able to sit with someone that’s lost everything and doesn’t know why to keep going.

And so, we have trainings for them to do disaster relief if they’re interested in serving with us that way. And we also have anti-human trafficking training. So, mechanics of disasters are, when there’s a disaster, we go. And we focus primarily on search and rescue and even working with the government to help them know where to send resources. So, we do a lot of– we’re not aerial for helicopter reasons, but we do a lot of helicopter work and getting people to safety. A lot of our people are medically trained, and so it’s that first initial response.

And then if there’s enough donations, we could run the whole disaster if we had enough funds. But it goes from life saving to livelihood saving, which is like protecting your home with tarps and getting people back in their houses and clearing the roads and things like that to starting to get life back to normal. So, we typically are in this phase. And again, if there’s more money, we do those.

And then on the anti-human trafficking, we are not the judicial system. So, we have to have access. So, we thankfully have such an incredible team of members that used to work for HSI that have been in all these places for 20-something years, that we have been given memorandums of understanding in these different countries that say Aerial Recovery will be our right-hand partner for fighting human trafficking in our country. So, if you care, there’s three main ways that you can fight human trafficking. It’s prevention. Let’s stop it from ever happening in the first place. Train people on how to not get pulled in. There’s rescue and then there’s aftercare, what you do with people after you rescue them. This is probably the hardest, longest road. And this is also where 90-plus percent of all the orgs that you’ve heard of do anti-trafficking operate from. So, they’re trying to work with the people after they’re rescued.

But we happen to have an incredible funnel for operators that have these elite skill sets that nobody else has. And once they’re trained on how to do these types of missions, they go in as many times undercover operators. They work on cases that the government gives us and says, we need your American face to do this mission. And in the beginning, we were like, why do you need our American faces? And it’s because Americans are sex tourists in a lot of these areas. And so, it really matters that you have somebody who looks like the bad guy, get all the evidence needed in order to catch the people trafficking other people. And so, that’s our main thing.

But we also do training for a lot of the police forces and operators in country so that they can do their own missions. And we only come in for the ones that they need our specific faces for. And that way we can stretch the money. We buy them tools, resources, everything from drones to how to process cell phones and go through and find all the incriminating evidence to the child sexual abuse material, how to actually find those children, how to do online investigations, dark web investigations. So, it’s turned into such an amazing thing. And some of our heroes have been like shot up so many times they can’t travel so they can do online investigations. So, there’s always a place for us to be able to integrate these people into it.

And sadly, it’s gone from $150 billion a year industry to $230 billion in just the last two years. It’s the second fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world because it’s the drug you can keep reselling. So, we’ve found children as inexpensive as $7 for 24 hours. So, it’s not like it’s millions of dollars, like it’s happening that much. And that’s just trafficking, that’s not even sexual abuse within the home.

So, so much brokenness. There’s so much need, and we desperately need people to care, right? What I say all the time is that evil is very organized. They got their networks, they got their money, they got their contacts, they got everything together, and they won’t dog each other. They won’t tattle on each other. They want nothing. You can’t even get good people to have the conversation. And so, for those who are still listening right now, I really appreciate you not saying la, la, la, la, la. It’s too painful for me to hear it. You do that, we can’t get organized, we can’t gather our funds, we can’t train, we can’t anything enough to actually do anything about it.

Brad Weimert: Well, where can people find out more about the initiative and supporting you, if you have a place to point them?

Britnie Turner: Yeah. AerialRecovery.org is where you can learn more. You can nominate a veteran in need. You can sponsor someone. You can join in helping us fund missions or giving us the ability to respond to disasters quickly. It’s always life-saving work. That’s our main focus, is saving lives and stopping evil. And we need all the help we can get because this is a really, really big issue globally.

Brad Weimert: Well, wild story in general with you. I appreciate the work you’re doing. People want to find out more about you personally. where do they go?

Britnie Turner: BritnieTurner.com. You want to go there? You’ll learn about my podcast. You’ll learn about my events on island, and I’m probably going to point you in the direction of finding a way to do something amazing with your life because that’s my entire purpose.

Brad Weimert: I love it. Britnie, well, I appreciate you carving out time. It’s great to connect and hear your story. I appreciate everything that you’re doing.

Britnie Turner: Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

Brad Weimert: Awesome.