Navigating Leaders

Episode 18: Allison Higgins on Faith, Purpose & the Fight Against Human Trafficking

• Gabriel Griess • Season 1 • Episode 18

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 33:37

What happens when a young woman takes her faith from the White House to a war zone and turns it into a lifelong mission to protect the most vulnerable?

In this episode of The Navigating Leaders Podcast, host Gabriel Griess sits down with Allison Higgins, J.D. - attorney, anti-human trafficking advocate, and co-founder of CoverGov.

Allison's story is anything but ordinary. From a church plant in a tent outside Georgetown to praying over a sick woman in Indonesia and not learning the outcome for four years, her life is a masterclass in walking by faith.

Gabriel and Allison explore what it looks like to pursue God wholeheartedly while building a meaningful career, how to stay centered when everything feels urgent, and what it truly costs to say yes to the hard assignments.

Allison shares her firsthand experience at the Ukraine-Poland border during the 2022 Russian invasion, where she witnessed trafficking in real time and helped launch a rapid response using facial recognition, law enforcement collaboration, and baby supplies as cover. Back in Texas, she unpacks the staggering reality of statewide trafficking - 79,000 youth and minor sex trafficking victims alone and how a DOJ-backed task force model is finally getting it right.

This conversation will stretch your faith, challenge your priorities, and remind you that a life of purpose is built one courageous yes at a time.

==================== 

RESOURCES

🌎 Website: navigatingleaders.com

📖 The Results Tree—A Proven Path to the Life You Really Want: TheResultsTree.com

🛡️ UnboundNow (Anti-Human Trafficking Organization): unboundnow.org

🏛️ CoverGov (Government Intelligence Platform): covergov.com

📚 Right Away and All at Once by Greg Brenneman: amazon.com/Right-Away-All-At-Once/dp/0795347480

CONNECT WITH GABRIEL

🎥 YouTube: @navigatingleaders
📸 Instagram: @navigatingleaders

👍 Facebook: @navigatingleaders

🎵 TikTok: @navigatingleaders

🗣️ LinkedIn: @navigatingleaders

====================

ABOUT GABRIEL

Gabriel Griess is a retired US Air Force officer, the CEO of Excel Medical Staffing and MedForceX, and the founder of Navigating Leaders. A graduate of the elite Air Force Weapons School, he has spent decades leading teams in high-pressure environments and equipping others to reach their full potential. As a combat veteran and an entrepreneur, Gabriel helps individuals cultivate self-awareness, resilience, and the ability to create lasting impact.

An internationally sought-after keynote speaker, he addresses audiences on personal transformation, strategic leadership, and veteran empowerment. The Results Tree is the framework he lives by, and when applied, it will unearth your destiny.

SPEAKER_01

Sometimes people just have got it. Today, we have a guest who's on vision, who's on purpose, and surprisingly young. My name is Gabriel Grease, host of the Navigating Leaders Podcast. Thank you for being here. Today we have Alison Higgins, recently married, attorney at law, and you have lived 10 lifetimes of experiences. Thank you for being here today, Allison.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Gabe. It's a delight to be here with you.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, I'm so honored to have you here. And so we've covered a lot of stuff. We've chatted. It's you know, we've known each other now for years and had some serendipitous, you know, run-ins over time, which has been really cool. Yes. Right. To bring us here to this moment. But uh, you know, in your in your you know, youthful adult life, right, and this is coming from a guy in his 50s, right? And so it's it's first off knowing you and knowing my kids and knowing so many powerful, amazing young people, I have infinite confidence in our future of our country, in our nation, and the world. So thank you for being so.

SPEAKER_00

Very kind, very kind.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you've done so much, you really have, you really have. And so we've got, you know, not only growing up, we've got time in the White House, time here running, leading a nonprofit, doing, you know, amazing, necessary work in some very dark corners of our county, which we can touch on. And now you're running a business with your with your new husband. So much to talk about. Would you just kind of walk us through maybe post-graduation out of college and how you stepped into this arena of adulthood and freedom and and how did you make some choices and where did you go and what did that teach you?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, Gabe. Well, really on some days, I feel like I'm still trying to find the arena, but um it's it's such a great adventure, right? Walking by faith. I went to college at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. I studied international relations, and while I was up there, I had some years and some friends that really changed my life. We were part of a small church plant that met in a tent outside. So in the winter, you had to really bundle up and we all became charismatics because you had to jump to stay warm. And in the summer, you could wear your t-shirt and um and just enjoy and worship God. Um, all of us worked professionally, whether it was, I was in the White House, we had friends on Capitol Hill or in the private sector, um, KPMG, a number of big firms who are in DC. And we really set out to say, okay, God, how do we pursue you and your purposes in the earth? And how do we address the question of the sacred secular divide, as some call it? Our faith is so serious to us, but we also want to have great careers and we've spent on these educations, and how can we put those to good use?

SPEAKER_01

Well, and we have to we have to make an impact here, right? Through our communities, through the governments, through the schools. Like that's that's where we live on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, and that's tough.

SPEAKER_00

And for so many people, it can feel so separate. Does my nine to five job really matter to God when I'm just doing spreadsheets and that sort of thing? And we set out to hopefully prove to ourselves and then help share with others that yes, it really does. It does matter in and of itself as just worship as doing your work is unto the Lord, but also the lives that can be reached because of that. Um, I remember one day I was working on Capitol Hill one day and our office printer had broken. So everybody's freaking out. We got to get this paper to the boss and all that. And um, somebody had said, Well, let me get my crystals and see if I can do kind of a charm and get it to work. And I said, No, no, no, no, no. And I put my hand on the printer. I said, In Jesus' name, start working. And I was so embarrassed I did it. I ran out of the office. So I come back from like a you know casual water fountain break, and the printer's working. And they said, Whatever you did, it fixed the printer. So little things like that, we can just be a witness to God's glory. Well, around that time, the COVID pandemic breaks out, so you know, we've got to adapt and overcome. Prior to the pandemic, my friends and I had been to 30 plus countries around the world. We knew a ton of people. And we said, okay, we're stuck at home now, we can't travel. But is there a way that when we're not doing our jobs on Zoom, we can reach some of these people on Zoom? So we invited these people from around the world to a little Zoom English club with us. And we thought, okay, these people are from Nepal, they're from Kazakhstan, they need to learn English, they can get these great jobs, we can help them, but we'll also see what God might do. So we have this conversation, and we said, okay, let's have our topic of our Zoom call of English Club be about dreams. What's a dream that you have? And we asked this question to the group, thinking they'll say, I want to be a doctor, I want to move here. And this girl gets on from Cossack Stan, 17-year-old girl, and she said, I had a dream of a man all in white clothing, and his face was shining, and he's waving to me, helping me out of a really terrible situation. What do you think my dream means? So somebody else on the call says, Well, I think I know who that is, and pulls up the transfiguration, Matthew, where it shows Jesus and all his shining white clothes. And this girl gives her life to Christ on the Zoom call. So from there we were just running and gunning, and we can get more into that later if we want. But that was my time in DC, and then um went to law school and pursued some other career things.

SPEAKER_01

Well, go back to the Zoom call. This is great. Like we spent we can spend 30 minutes just in in your in your wins and your stories from Zoom. We won't, but give us more. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00

You know, one of the lessons I learned during the Zoom time was sometimes we invest in things that we don't get to see the immediate fruit of, but God will sometimes let us see it later. So about four years. And God will give the growth. So four years prior, I was in Indonesia and I was in a very small island. I was there with some friends, and one of my Indonesian friends said, Hey, my other friend is really sick. Can you come to the hospital and pray that your God will heal her? And I'm going, Okay, I'm not really a healer. I don't have like a ton of experience with this, but like, sure, we can go and pray and just see what will happen. So we go, and it's really, you could hardly call it a hospital. There's bodies all over the floor. People are clearly sick and not getting the health care that they need. And her friend, a girl our age, is on this bed and unconscious and unresponsive. So we put our hands on her, we pray for her, like, God, please heal this friend. Nothing happens. And I'm just heartbroken, a little embarrassed too. You know, I've just, you know, promised this people that I would pray for them. And have I, you know, tarnished my witness for God to You didn't promise results, so exactly. You don't promise results. And um, and I never knew what happened until four years later. I'm living in DC, and we get on this Zoom call, and an Indonesian girl I don't know hops on the call. After a Kazakhstan girl came to Christ, this girl chimes up and she said, I can confirm this. She said, Four years ago, I was on a hospital bed really sick, and this American girl and her friend came to pray for me. And the next day, God completely healed me. And so just through those moments, you hear one person's life at a time getting touched, God allowing us to see his purposes unfold over time. That planted in all my friends and I a desire to say, no matter what we're doing in life, we want it to be about people coming to know the Lord, whether we're full-time missionaries or full-time business or law or whatever. This has got to be something we carry through.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I want to acknowledge your courage. Right. You know, we were um I I'm in a Christian CEO group and we were chatting yesterday and we were talking about faith, and you know, you can you can tell a mountain to move. Right. And and we and we went into that conversation like imagine the like the amount of faith or the um the amount of commitment to actually pray that a mountain would move and believe it would.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Right, and that's what you did. You stepped into that arena praying for a woman, you don't know, right? And just that courage to take the action, right? And again, not about the result.

SPEAKER_00

Right. It's a faith that Jesus would marvel at and says he marveled at their faith.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Wow. Anything else from that season you want to share?

SPEAKER_00

We worked really hard. We did not sleep very much, so all the people who are big on the rest and the rhythms, and we probably would have disappointed uh that theory at the time.

SPEAKER_01

Well, how did you handle care for your self-care? Now, now, young people, like, and you're a really young one, right? You know, we can run like Energizer Bunnies, right? I watched my kids do it. But did you did you have some moments of self-care, or was it your Sabbath and going to church? Like, how did you stay refreshed and full?

SPEAKER_00

We had so much fun doing what we were doing. I don't think we ever really stopped to think about it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, yeah. You know, and and you're young, exactly. Today I would take Sabbath much more seriously and almost by necessity. Um, but at the time, you're just seeing God move and you don't really want to stop, and you're with friends and people who become your friends.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and he can energize you too. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

There's a verse at the end of I believe it's Colossians 1, it says, I toil with all the energy that Christ has put in me. And I just love that. God's given us the energy.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and and you you you're on purpose. Right. And when I'm centered and doing what I'm here to do, then it then it is, you're tapping into an infinite stream of energy. Right. And and and and a youth creator. Like it's it's a healer, it's it's all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it's invigorating.

SPEAKER_01

So how have you stayed how have you stayed centered? Right? So for so many people, um well, my life, you know, when we when we look in the book, I in early in the chapters, I list five times I tried to blow up my professional life. Like literally, like arrested, alcohol, gambling, like you know, times I literally torched my career, right? Um and so and and I and I think that's actually more the norm than than you were able to stay very centered in your life, in your youthful life, when a lot of people wander, they turn away, they become prodigal, right? So how did you manage to stay so centered?

SPEAKER_00

You know, we all learn things from the people that were around, and I was really fortunate to just have great people, even if their values weren't exactly the same as mine. I could watch how they pursued them so faithfully. Um one of my mentors professionally at the time was Ivanka Trump. Never watched anybody work harder and care for the people in her life. And it's kind of surprising because you think, oh, she's a celebrity, she's probably getting everything handed to her on a silver platter. And then you go a layer deeper and you find out, you know, she's working really hard for the people she's called to care for. Talk about the Sabbath, they observed it extremely strictly, um, carving out Sabbath for their families. Um, so I got to watch some of that, and that inspired me to say, I want to continue to work with that level of excellence when I'm 40 and 50 and 60 years old. So, what needs to happen now to do that? Along the way, you know, as you've probably experienced running your own companies and being in the Air Force. Uh, trials are just part of it and disappointments and things that are unfair. And that's where I had to really seek the Lord when those moments came and say, okay, God, I need to learn how to forgive a little more deeply on this, or I need to learn how do I really find humility in a world where it seems that self-promotion is your way to make a living on LinkedIn or on Instagram. How do I deal with that kind of question? And so just bring those questions back to Him, um, making mistakes along the way, probably going too far one way or the other way, and finding your way back to center has been part of that process for me.

SPEAKER_01

Do you have daily practices you use to stay centered today?

SPEAKER_00

I do. Each morning I used to actually keep my coffee pot next to my bed so I could just push the button by the bed. Uh now it's in a kitchen. So I start with my cup of coffee and black, cream, sugar, straight black, okay. And uh seek the Lord and try to write down okay, what's on my mind that I need to get out of the way so I can focus on him, um, read something and chew on that a little bit. Um, and then now I'm married and my husband and I pray together over what's happening in the day. I've used some different apps through the years. You know, Lectio will give you midday reminders to pray or Bible apps, some of those things. Another one that uh we've started lately, I learned so much about strength training from my husband. And so we use that time, we go weightlift. I mean, he's doing 10 times what I am, but um it gives you.

SPEAKER_01

But you could take him if you needed to. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. That's what Pilates is for. And uh that's where we just kind of talk through some of those things and they'll say, I think you need to forgive that person a little bit more, or I'll say the same back to him. And that just helps us check each other too. Those are some of our practices right now.

SPEAKER_01

So in in one of our earlier podcasts, I talk about um prioritization in life, right? And so for me, it's God, self, spouse, kids, purpose, currency, or profession, right? In that order. And the first time I heard it, right? I learned it, I didn't make that up. I learned it from somebody. I was like, yeah, sure, right. You know, you're completely wealthy and independent, and you can, you know, manage all 24 hours of your day. So sure you can do that. But for those of us that have a real life or a real job or kids or responsibilities, you know, I I honestly, the first time I read it, I'm like, yeah, it's probably the other way, like job, purpose, kids, spouse, and then me and God get whatever's left, right? And so um getting that in alignment in my own life was a game changer. But one of the things that I looked at was time allocation, right? When some people hear a prioritization, they're like, oh, well, if it's God first, then I've got to give God eight hours a day, right? So I asked this in this frame to to hear from you because it's it's obviously meaningful and impactful, and it's been hugely beneficial to you. Like, what kind of time commitment is your morning routine? Like the reading, the journaling, the the getting grounded part, right? Aside from the working out, which is awesome. But like but like your your spiritual health, yeah, your relationship health with God. Like, what does that time frame look like for the listeners to understand?

SPEAKER_00

That's about an hour in the mornings. Um sometimes you gotta cut it short because you have early morning and you don't have to get too strict about it. But even to your point of sometimes those priorities can feel really aspirational in the heat of what's urgent. And there's a book I loved, he kind of outlined some similar priorities. I think he may have had an acronym, but um, it's called Right Away and All at Once by Greg Brenneman.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Turn around CEO of then Continental Airlines and then made a career turning around companies. And um he details how he did it as kind of a metaphor for his life and waking up one day and realizing he needed to turn around his life and getting those priorities in order.

SPEAKER_01

And he says, Was he already turning around companies when he realized he needed to turn around his life?

SPEAKER_00

I think he was in his mid 40s and said, Hold on, I think I live with the company, you know, what's happening?

SPEAKER_01

I'm really good at solving their problems, not so much my own. Okay, that's exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And I love the title of the book, and it's kind of what he's saying you can't leave any of the fives behind. You've got to do all of these pretty quick and all at once. So it can be a little messy. You gotta, you know, kind of fit things in when there might not be enough room to fit it in. Um, but it's really important that we do.

SPEAKER_01

There's one I I I share all the time, and it's it's a lie that people I think it's a lie that people hear or they talk about, and that's balance. And I'm like, um it's impossible, balance is impossible to achieve. And if achieved in a moment, it's still a dynamic event.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_01

If you're trying to balance all the you might reach a place of this almost like equilibrium, like, oh, I have a rot, and then tip, it's gone. Right, and you're on, you know, you're on to the other thing.

SPEAKER_00

Because what happens when something gets added, you know, there immediately you're you're out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, it's it's hard. Um, you know, so many folks, me being one of them, we want to do things right. Or there is an answer or a way, and in reality, um every day's a pickup game.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Right, you know, it's just like you try to grab the chips that are most valuable, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. So so DC was amazing. I too, I too, Christy and I, that's where we got married.

SPEAKER_00

No kidding.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we got married when we were living in DC and uh lived in Crystal City, uh-huh. Yeah, right across the 14th Street Bridge. And so that was it was amazing to have the metro and go see the sites and experience experience our capital. Um as you left, right, came back here to the Metroplex, and you stepped into an arena that is about as dark as it gets.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So, how that happened was I uh enrolled in Texas AM Law School, Gigamax, and was did my first semester, things were going great. I lined up an internship at a great law firm in Fort Worth, close to my house. Um, and in February of that year it became clear that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. Um, so I'm kind of following the news like everybody else. And I had volunteered at this fantastic anti-human trafficking organization called Unbound Now. Um, through the years, my family have been involved. And then on the 24th of February, Russia invades Ukraine. There's a huge refugee crisis. We all see it on the news. An unbound CEO starts getting calls from our friends all over Europe saying, Hey, there's reports of trafficking. Can you guys come and assess and see what you can do at help? So I was single, I was available, you know, and the CEO calls and says, Hey, can you go go assess? You know, go go to Poland.

SPEAKER_01

Head to a war zone.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. My parents are like, here she goes, you know. And so uh I took off a couple of days of law school, which I was pretty scared to do at the time. Your class rank really matters. You're just graded as you compare to everybody else, and that's it. Um, so I leave and I go to Poland. This is early March. And it's pretty dramatic what you see, right? I mean, a huge migration crisis. Um, normal people, these are doctors and teachers, and even politicians and pastors who have had to say goodbye to their spouses, and we have to stay behind and fight in the war. And all these women and children come and they're unaccompanied. And so we made our way down to the border, and sure enough, you see these guys in black leather jackets. And I mean, I've got my leather on today, but um, really, I mean, looking like you're stereotypical, is this even real mobster? Yeah, like this should be in a movie. We don't really see that in the States, and they're approaching young women and saying, hey, come with me, come with me, and putting them in cars, and they're never being seen again. Um, so we witness all this firsthand. And of course, at the time the European governments are reporting online, there had been a 600% increase in searches for Ukrainian women on Google and on search engines. So the demand is skyrocketing for essentially prostitution, forced prostitution with these women. So we brought some volunteer teams over, and I remember whenever I was first there, I was on the Ukraine side of the border, which is a little risky to do because you never know when they're gonna close it, right? Back into Poland. And there's a huge long line, I mean, football fields down of people who are just waiting to show their papers and get in. This woman comes up to me, she's got a baby in her arms, and through Google Translate, she says that she needs a diaper. Um, and I knew on the Polish side of the border there was everything you could want, every kind of aid supply, but on the Ukraine side there was nothing because no aid workers wanted to be there. So I called my CEO, I said, you need to get out here, you need a tailgating tent and some diapers and baby supplies. And this is gonna be our little anti-trafficking hub with diapers as our cover. So she was out there the next week and we set this up, and um, sure enough, we ran facial recognition technology and packaged intelligence and gave it to local law enforcement out there of traffickers and trafficking cases discreetly behind our wall of baby supplies we distributed. And that's kind of how everything got started.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. Wow, and what did you what did you learn about humanity?

SPEAKER_00

Well, there's two elements. I mean, you're in the crisis and you're seeing suffering and seeing people's great resilience. And then you also have the management side of okay, now we're managing staff and volunteers in an entity in a foreign country. So no shortage of things to learn. But I'll tell you who taught me the most about leadership in that season was a pastor I met out there. Very talented man, um, very famous pastor in Ukraine. He had over 400 churches that were part of his church movement, really big churches, um, built on drug rehab centers. And they would run these rehab centers, help people get their lives back, and then send them out to go plant churches. So he had ended up in Poland. There was a couple hundred folks from his congregations who were in Warsaw, and he invited me to a Friday night revival service, all in Ukrainian. I don't understand a word of what's being said, but I'm there singing along to the best of my ability. And he sits everybody down after the songs are over, and um he says, and I I have a translator, so this is now how I was able to tune in. Um, he says, I want to challenge everyone here. And these are people who've lost everything, their spouses, some have passed away. I mean, it's it's not looking good. He says, We are not refugees, we are missionaries to the rest of Europe. And as long as this war goes on, that is how we're going to live. And over the next couple months, I watched the people actually do what he challenged them to do. And they went and planted churches all over. Germany have seen tons of other Ukrainians and Slavic speaking peoples come to know the Lord, even as they minister to others out of their own great need. And that just helped me see, you know, we talk a lot about the tyranny of the urgent and that kind of thing. Okay, if we can just get our eyes up off of what feels really painful or really important and see what God might be doing in any given circumstance, whether it's a refugee crisis or just law school, um, then we can start really having fun. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I think most folks would understand or have seen or experienced through Hollywood or movies, you know, that stereotypical mobster, the war scene, the you know, smuggling, and I all the all those stories, right? But it's not just in the Ukraine.

SPEAKER_00

Right. In Texas, there's 79,000 youth and minor victims of sex trafficking. The number comes from a University of Texas study.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think we heard you.

SPEAKER_00

79,000 just youth and minors, just sex trafficking. With all kinds of adults and labor trafficking, just in our state. Shocking. I've been involved with um the Terrant.

SPEAKER_01

That's like enough people to fill the ATT Stadium.

SPEAKER_00

It sure is. Or the Aggie Stadium. And it's just an estimate, right? How do you estimate a hidden crime? It's very difficult. Um and when you think that this is happening to kids, I mean it just makes your blood boil thinking about what's happening in the world.

SPEAKER_01

How young are the kids?

SPEAKER_00

Like toddlers. This is some of what we're seeing. The average age of unbound that we serve was about 12 or 14 among our youth clients. Um what's really sad is and people who study sexual abuse and that kind of thing, maybe people have done a training for their church, so they've heard this. A lot of times abusers or traffickers they hide in plain sight. So we dealt a lot with familial trafficking. A family member is the one inflicting this crime. And it can make it really hard to get because no one wants to report oh, that's Uncle So-and-so, or we know that person. Um it's very insidious. Um there's a number of solutions that that do work and some that don't, and it's a complicated field.

SPEAKER_01

So what's happening here in Tarrant County?

SPEAKER_00

Tarrant County, one of the largest counties in Texas, um, we have a DOJ-backed task force, and the way it's structured is, I believe, what's led to its success. It's got a lead law enforcement agency and a cohort of agencies, and then a lead victim service provider and a cohort of service providers. Okay. These two arms work together on these cases, and I can tell you a story to demonstrate how.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, so there were two girls on the west side of Fort Worth who were teenagers, they were picked up by a trafficker. The first three days were the best days of their life, staying in a hotel, ordering room service, and on day four, the lights go out, and that's when really awful things started happening, and they're having to service these clients, and um they're being transported all over from hotel to motel, and they don't even know where they are all over the state of Texas. So we get a report, and the law enforcement agencies have this, they're trying to look for this trafficker, but these guys know how to stay underground and change their phone numbers, and it can be very difficult to track. So a couple years go by, and Arlington, PD, they have a fantastic human trafficking unit. They get a report that they know where he is at 10 p.m. on a Friday night. So 10 p.m. on a Friday night, they call Unbound, the lead victim service provider, and they call the DA's office because you don't want to go do a raid and not collect the right evidence, or it's inadmissible, and then you can't even get this guy. So everybody on a late Friday night is working together to build this case and then go get the guy and get the girls out, and they were successful. That trafficker is now serving a life sentence on continuous trafficking charges, amazing collaborative work. And what's really fortunate is that's happening at scale. It wasn't just one case. We now have a hundred cases that are waiting to be tried in the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office right now.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. Wow. And is this model being replicated?

SPEAKER_00

It is. Yeah, DOJ rolled out, I believe it was 18 task forces the first time in 2015. Um, and then every couple of years they add another 18 task forces. Some pop up more organically, those are awesome as well.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. Wow, that's I I kind of got nauseous as you were telling that story. You know. Were those same two girls still involved years later?

SPEAKER_00

They testified in court against the trafficker.

SPEAKER_01

How are they now?

SPEAKER_00

You know, some do better than others in the healing journey. Um if I even just try to imagine having your teenage years torn up like that, how do you come back from something like that? One of the greatest resilience factors for survivors is having a great adult who was in their life before the trafficking happened. So those survivors tend to do really well. They have a normal to go back to, uh psychologically grounding. Um, some were abused their whole life, and that's really hard to deal with the self-worth and purpose and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I'm not usually at a loss for words a little bit right now. I'm looking for a segue to where you are now. Yes. So let's just go with that. You just keep the conversation going and let me sit here for a second.

SPEAKER_00

You bet. We'll change just the name of the game in in 2025 for us. Um at the end of 2024, I took a cold call to go meet with a donor um to Unbound Now. And those donors I had known my whole life lived on the same street as them when I was growing up. And they left the meeting and they called their son and they said, Do you remember this girl? You need to call her. And so I get a call and we meet up, and this great guy named Connor Higgins.

SPEAKER_01

Um, I had a little bit your last name's Higgins, right?

SPEAKER_02

You see where this story is.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay, okay, got it. So I we went on a couple of dates, and it was like, oh my gosh, where have you been all this time? This is one amazing guy, just brilliant and risk taker and um incredible character as well. So we dated, we got uh engaged in July and married in October, um, about two months ago at the time of this recording. And um, during that time he was in the process of starting his company. And as he likes to joke, there's a fine line between being an entrepreneur and being unemployed. Um I know that line. Exactly. So we we flirted with it for a little bit and then got the company over the line. And now it's been really rewarding to begin to grow this business together.

SPEAKER_01

And and what does the business do?

SPEAKER_00

This company is called CoverGov. We listen to every government meeting happening across the United States, from your local zoning commission to the U.S. Congress. We index all those meetings and make them searchable. So if you've got a medical staffing company, which I think you do, you might want to know when certain insurance policies are changing or HR rules, um, whether in your state or at a federal level. So you can type in your keywords and you'll get pinged when those policies come up for discussion. Oh, there we go. Yeah. So we sell to all kinds of different groups who have interests in what's happening in the public meetings.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So we've we've covered a highly dense yet relatively short chronological period. What's next?

SPEAKER_00

Well, uh, our parents are already asking when the grandkids are coming, so we'll we'll have to see if that makes an appearance in the next couple of years. Um we are loving the season that we're in right now of getting Christmas trees set up and establishing our home. Um I'm getting to put my law degree to work, which has been really rewarding.

SPEAKER_01

Internal counsel? Internal council counsel, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, yep. I I keep a hand in the sales too. You know, I still have that edge from the fundraising. So um, but we're loving the season that we're in.

SPEAKER_01

So we we were talking about um vision and purpose and living, you know, we we can get through just about anything when we're when we're following God's plan for our life. So tell me about what it's like to live in that space, in that center of of being on on purpose and in your vision.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I always had a strong sense that I wanted my life to matter for the gospel, for anti-trafficking, um, and then some pursuits related to government. That DC time was really formative for me. Um, but the more life I've lived, and it's only been 26 years, so there's a lot left to live, but the more I do experience that's exactly half my life. Yes. So you know double or quadruple what I do. But I get this sense that what God is doing in us is just as important as what he's doing through us. And that place of refinement and sanctification matters a whole lot. One of my mentors growing up would challenge us to say, I know it feels like what's happening in your 20s is the most important thing, but if you'll just almost tithe your 20s to God and let him work on you for a little while, you'll have a really great foundation for the rest of your life. Yes. So talk about purpose, that's that's something we're leaning into right now.

SPEAKER_01

So, so for the listeners, right, a tithe is to give 10%, right? Or to to give your first fruits. And so what I'm hearing you say is to dive in in your early adulthood to your faith and to your service and in putting God and purpose first, and let those seeds then be nurtured and watered and cared for through the duration of your life.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. And I guess the tithe implies we might be living to a hundred. I don't know. But if that is our 10%, we'll take it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, there you go. Well, and and modern modern medicine would say you will, you will live to be a hundred, barring, you know, his will somewhere else or some other thing happening.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. That's the other principle of, and this is from the Bible as well, that narrow is the way that leads to life, and um, it's kind of an empty road sometimes. But the people you do find there can be your lifelong friends because they've got the same values. So then not only are you pursuing your purpose, but then you've got some other people to do it with.

SPEAKER_01

A merry band.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

So, Allison, this has been amazing. It's been it's been awesome. Are there places we could go look for Unbound now or look for your your current company or unboundnow.org.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and then covergov.com is where if your business needs um some business intelligence, we'd love to help you get that.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Awesome. Well, this has been an absolute joy and an honor. You continue to inspire me, and and getting to have this this conversation with you has been been fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Gabe. Likewise.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. So, well, to everybody listening, uh, what a gift, right? And what an inspiration, not only for what our future holds uh with the next generations coming up behind us, but also for a life of sacrifice and commitment and and offering a hand up to those who need it and some of the darkest, most terrifying uh situations a person can find themselves in. So to Allison and Unbound Now, thank you so much for being here. Uh to the audience, uh, if if I know it did, what resonated with you, share it, right? Uh share it with your friends, drop it in a text, drop it in a social media post, make sure you like and subscribe. And until next time, my name is Gabriel Grease, the host of Navigating Leaders. Thank you and God bless you.