You’re a Seed, Not a Tree Yet: Paul Hutchings on the Philosophy Behind the Results

You have probably already built something. A career, a credential, a track record you can point to. And you have probably also felt the specific frustration of watching that track record fail to translate into the kind of freedom you actually wanted. Paul Hutchings spent years in that exact spot, in a single-wide trailer on his grandfather’s land in Idaho, with a college degree, a stack of debt from earning it, and a job paying barely more than minimum wage. What changed was not the trailer. It was what he decided a business was actually for.

What actually made Paul Hutchings a leader worth listening to?

Paul had quit his job to chase freedom full time, and for a stretch afterward the money moved the wrong direction instead of the right one. Then his wife came home in tears from a doctor’s appointment: their newborn son had a condition that would require major surgery. He describes kneeling on the floor of that trailer, praying, admitting he had already been fighting for years without the breakthrough he wanted.

That is the moment worth sitting with, not because of what came after it financially, but because of the question he says he asked himself years later, holding his dying grandfather’s hand in a hospital room: what is actually going to have mattered? His answer had nothing to do with rank or recognition. It came down to two things: quality moments with the people who matter, and whether he had contributed something real to the people around him. He tells a small story about picking his son up from school that same day, turning an ordinary pickup into a moment that mattered just by choosing to be fully present in it. That is not a tactic. It is a decision about where attention goes.

Why does “you’re a seed, not a tree yet” change how you build a team?

The deeper piece of Paul’s talk is a metaphor he says his team leans on constantly, one he calls the Destiny Tree. The idea starts with an obvious fact most people never actually apply to themselves or to anyone they are trying to build with.

A tree never falls out of the sky, and is just this magnificent, beautiful structure of nature.

A tree starts as a seed. So does every person in a room like the one he was speaking to, including him, back when he had made nothing at all in his first year in the industry and would have been easy to write off. The practical use of that metaphor is that it kills judgment before it starts. Nobody in the room right now is the version of themselves they will be in five years, so treating anyone, a new recruit, a struggling teammate, yourself on a bad week, as a finished product is simply measuring the wrong thing.

A seed also needs something specific to grow: good soil. Paul is explicit that this is not just a metaphor about the company culture around him, it is about staying planted somewhere long enough for roots to actually take hold, instead of uprooting at the first sign that growth is slow. He draws the line between that and constantly chasing the next opportunity: a tree that keeps getting dug up and replanted never grows past a seedling.

What is the one thing wealthy mentors actually pass down?

Paul frames his whole philosophy around a story from Jim Rohn, who credited his own success not to the money he made working under his mentor, Earl Shoaff, and not to the businesses he built alongside him, but to something less tangible.

As Paul Hutchings puts it, quoting that lesson directly, “your philosophy is the major determining factor in how your life works out.” Not the tactic of the month. Not the platform you happen to be using. The actual set of beliefs steering the decisions underneath all of it, what Rohn called the set of the sail.

That is the real challenge buried in Paul’s talk, and it is an uncomfortable one: most people chase results and treat philosophy as an afterthought, something you develop once you have already made it. Paul argues it runs the other direction. The philosophy comes first, get that wrong and no tactic fixes it, get it right and the results follow because you finally stop treating yourself, and everyone around you, like a finished tree instead of a seed still figuring out what kind of soil it needs.

1. Ask what will have actually mattered, not what will have looked impressive.
2. Treat every person, including yourself, as a seed rather than a judgment already made.
3. Get the philosophy right before chasing the next tactic.

The full session goes further into how Paul built that philosophy over ten years, in his own words. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

I have the pleasure of introducing our prime time speaker for you tonight. And this is somebody that I see as somebody that exemplifies leadership. Somebody who has a heart of a servant and understands what their mission and purpose in life is and is always there to help assist in their team or somebody they've brought in in their growth and anybody in the company. It's called being a servant leader, guys.

And someone who has an amazing ability to light people up and be one of the most dynamic speakers I've ever met. I love this man to the deepest core of my soul. And he is one of the most beautiful souls I've ever met. Give it up for Paul Hutchings!

I love you, brother. Thank you. What's up? You guys excited to be here?

You guys excited to be here? Awesome. I am Paul Hutchings. And I see before me a whole army of my countrymen and women.

Here today in defiance of tyranny. You have come here today to fight as freedom crusaders. And freedom crusaders. And freedom crusaders.

And freedom crusaders. And freedom crusaders you are. What will you do without freedom? Will you fight?

Will you fight? Will you fight? Yes. Fight and you may face adversity.

Run and you may put it off. At least for a little while. And dying in your bed many years from now. I ask each one of you.

Would you be willing to trade all the days for freedom? From this day to that, for just one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom! Get up if you believe in freedom! Get up!

Shake the house if you believe in freedom! That's why we're here, isn't it? Freedom! That's why we're here.

And as I look into each one of your eyes, I see the hearts and the souls of the people of freedom crusaders. Freedom crusaders is who you are. We're fighting against the tyranny of the voices that come at us telling us we're less than. We're fighting against the tyranny of the system.

We're fighting against all kinds of tyranny stepping into freedom. And that's a beautiful thing, is it not? Is it not? If there's one thing that's worth fighting for, it's freedom.

It's freedom. You know, one of my… Thank you guys. You can sit down and relax a little bit.

There's a great man by the name of Jim Rohn who said, you want to gather up the past and invest it in the future. There's another quote from a book called Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant that says, The past is the present unrolled for understanding. And the present is the fact. And the present is the past rolled up for action.

And that's why we're here today. We're here to learn from people who have achieved significant results and freedom in their lives. We're here for those people to unroll their past and survey it and gather up the best of the golden nuggets to deliver to the people here today. That's why we're here.

And you guys made a great decision to be here. If there's one thing that I want to do in my time with you today, it's to share from my heart. You know, there's a great line in the Bible that says, out of an abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And I added my own little twist to that.

And it goes as, out of the abundance of the heart, the hearer receiveth. And so my intention today is to share my heart with you. And I hope that you'll receive it with your hearts. And what I really want to do is, as I looked over here, over my freedom journey over the last 10 years, there are two precious gifts that I'd like to give each one of you tonight.

If you can imagine two beautifully wrapped packages, shiny paper, beautiful ribbon on top. I want to grab each of these gifts and give them to you if you're willing to receive them. Are you willing to receive these gifts I want to share with you tonight? I better tell you the caveat to this, and that is, I can give you the gifts, but you're going to have to do the work of unwrapping the present to find the riches that are stored inside.

If I give you these gifts, are you willing to do the work of unwrapping the presents? You guys willing to do that? Okay, before I get to the gifts, first I've got to tell you a little bit about me and a little bit about my story. Can I have the slides up please?

I'm going to show you a picture of a bunch of freedom crusaders in Idaho. That's my family. I'm married. We've got four little boys.

And that's the the Hutchings family of freedom crusaders. And I started my journey in a 1984 single-wide trailer house in Idaho on my grandfather's land. He has a farm in Idaho, and he said, you know, you're getting married. You don't make a lot of money.

I was making like 11 bucks an hour. He says, you can park this trailer on our property to get your start in life. And I remember one night, I was sitting in the living room of this 1984 single-wide trailer house, and I was reading a book, and if you can imagine this, like I had followed the system. I had listened to the voices.

I had gone to college. I had gotten a degree. And I had gone in debt $40,000 to get a college degree. And I got out of college, and I got the best job I could find, which was making $11.09 an hour.

So here I am, newly married, living in a trailer house, making 11 bucks an hour, driving back and forth to work every day, leaving my wife, and I wasn't happy about my life. I was hoping that I would be able to live a better life, but I wasn't. I was hoping that I'd be able to live a better life. I was hoping that there was maybe more for me.

In fact, I remember sitting in this trailer house and I was reading this book and Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, anyone read that book? In that book, he says wealthy people get money in different ways than poor people. And I'd never heard these concepts before. He says wealthy people build systems, they build networks, and they invest their money.

And I remember sitting in that trailer, reading that book, and it was almost like a light just got flipped on in my mind, my heart, and my soul. And I wondered, I wondered, sitting in this trailer house, is there something better waiting for me in my future? Could it be possible that I could go forth and generate income in the way that these wealthy people did? And a seed was planted in my heart, a seed of possibility.

And so while I was living in this trailer house, I got married, as I mentioned. This is a picture of my beautiful wife, Corrine. And I love this picture because this picture was snapped right after we'd gotten finished with our wedding. It was like, I was like three minutes on the job.

And if you see this picture, my wife's got this like laugh on her face, and I'm pointing something at her. And what had happened was, I reached in my pocket, all our friends and family are standing around taking pictures, you know, like Jim Rohn says, click, click, got it, click, click, got it. Someone got this picture, and I said, honey, you need some breath spray. And I shot her in the face.

And someone captured this moment in time, and I always love this picture because it reminds me that you don't have to be good to be good. It's something when you get started because as long as you're willing to stay long enough, you can learn what you need to learn, right? So we've been married for 10 years, and I've learned a few more lessons. Same with this business.

You don't have to be good when you start as long as you're willing to stay committed and be here for the long haul and learn what you need to learn. So real quick, you know, we're living in this trailer house. I'm struggling financially, making a few hundred dollars a month. My wife comes home one day.

And she says, she's actually in tears. She'd just taken our son to his three-week checkup. And she said, she said, I said, honey, what's wrong? She said, well, our newborn baby son has a condition called craniosynostosis, which means the bones in his head are fused together, and it's going to require $50,000 surgery down at Primary Children's Hospital.

What do you do? Jobless. I'd quit my job at this point in time because I wanted to go for my dreams. I wanted freedom.

Freedom was so important to me that I quit my job and I said, I'm going to go with this thing full-time. And my income actually went down. I was in a network marketing company. I was making $1,000 a month when I quit my job.

Then over the next six months, my income went down to like $300,000, and then my wife comes home with this scenario. What do you do in a situation like that? Well, what I did in a point of desperation and frustration is I knelt down in the back room of this 1984 single-wide trailer house, and I prayed to God, kneeling down on my knees with tears streaming down my face. Looking at my two little boys sleeping in bed, and I said, here I've been fighting in this home business thing for five years.

Five years. You guys willing to stay for that long if it takes that long to win your freedom? Okay. We've got better systems.

We've got better leadership. We've got better compensation plans. So I don't think it'll take you anywhere near that. But what if it did?

Would five years be worth winning your freedom? Would 10 years be worth winning your freedom? So I've been fighting for five years. I prayed, and something came to me, one of these gifts that I want to give to you.

But before I give you this gift, I want to share with you a week that I had a couple of weeks ago. Fast forward in time. This is a snapshot of my Empower Back office. A few weeks ago, I sponsored my 500th personal enrollment into Empower Network.

That was a milestone. I was really excited about that. And then a couple days later, I crossed half a million dollars in earnings in the company. And I was like, yeah, that's awesome.

All in the same week, right? And then, that very Friday, I was at a parent-teacher conference with my son, Caden's teacher, seeing how he was doing, right? How's he doing in school? And she's like, you know, this kid is really doing well.

She said, I can tell that you and your wife work with him. She says, I can tell the parents that work with their kids. And I was just feeling so grateful that I'm in a business where I can be with my children and teach them the things that they need to learn. And then the teacher said, she says, you know, I should show you Caden's journal.

And I said, why? And she said, well, we asked these kids who their superheroes are. And she said, most kids will say things like Superman or Batman or, you know, Superwoman or Unstoppable Mama or something like that. And she said, what Caden wrote in his journal was he wrote, my superhero is my dad.

Because… Applause He works hard and provides for our family. And I brought Caden home and I took him in my office and I took this picture, but I sat him across from me and I had a talk with him and I was like, I'm so proud of you, son, for all the good things your teacher said about you. And I snapped this picture, right?

So this leads me into one of the first gifts that I want to give you. These are actually a couple pictures out behind my house. One of the things that we've been able to do with the half a million dollars is we bought our dream location in the, country in Idaho on seven acres, secluded. And this is our back deck.

We got a little fire and my kids, they love to go out on the back deck and they love to cuddle up with dad and hear scary stories. And so this very same week that I had, I crossed the 500 personals and I crossed half a million dollars and I had this experience with my son, Caden. I was standing out on this back deck and the kids, it was nighttime. The kids were running around playing and I'm standing there by the fire and I'm listening to some music.

Some of my favorite music and the stars are just glittering across the sky. And I look up at the sky standing on my deck on this property that I own, my family, free and clear, no mortgage. No one, you know, holding a note over our head saying, you must go to work today to pay this mortgage. And I stood there on that deck and I reached my hands up to the sky and I was just like filled from the tip of my head down to the bottom of my toes with this, this feeling of freedom as my kids ran and played on the yard.

And I just said, thank you God for putting me in this spot right now, allowing me to be in this spot. I felt freedom and freedom is important, isn't it? And I wanna share with you another story. This is my grandfather.

This picture was actually taken in 2003. So quite a long time ago. And this was before I was to leave on a two-year mission trip for my church to Taiwan. And so I wasn't gonna see my grandfather or any of my family for two years.

And you can see we're like, we're busted up. We're just, you know, in tears. Well, a week or so ago, I get a text message from my mom who says, your grandpa's in the hospital. He's got blood clots in his legs.

And it was like two o'clock in the afternoon. So I jumped in the car. I went to the hospital and my mom was like, wow, I can't believe how fast you got here. Well, I work from home.

I have no boss. I can show up, right? So I'm standing there next to my grandfather and I'm holding his hand. He's 95 years old.

And the situation doesn't look good. And I'm just telling him that I love him. And whenever you're in a situation like that, where you're with someone who's at the latter portion of their lives, you start to ask yourself some interesting questions. And as I held his hand in the hospital bed, I asked myself, when I get to this spot, what is really going to have mattered in my life?

What is really going to have mattered? And I came up with a couple of interesting answers that I wanna share with you guys in the form of the first question. The first thing that I came up with was quality time. Moments.

Moments that matter with the people that matter. I drove out of this hospital because it was three o'clock and it was time to pick my kids up and I was thinking about this, right? Moments that matter. What really matters in life?

And I drove over to my son's school, Camden. Here's a picture of Camden. He's my seven-year-old. He's a cute little guy.

But I get to the school and I was thinking, moments that matter, moments that matter. I said, I'm gonna make this happen. I'm gonna make this moment count. Even though it's just an ordinary, average moment of me picking my son up from school.

I opened the door. I jumped out of the car. Camden's over here. I said, Camden.

I said, I missed you so much. And I grabbed my arms out and I started running towards him and he runs toward me and I pick him up in my arms and I hug him and I kiss his neck and I say, I love you, son. And he says, I love you, dad. And we had a moment that mattered.

And I think these moments that matter, we're really gonna ask ourselves how many of them did we have when we get to the end? Did we have a lot? And that's one of the things that this business gives us. More of the moments that matter with the people that matter.

So that's number one. Did we have quality moments in life? Now the other thing that I think we're gonna ask ourselves is did we contribute in meaningful ways to the people around us? Did we make a difference in people's lives?

Did we, you know, there's this old line that says two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other the stars. And there's a lot of people out in the world that are looking at the mud right now. Were we that guy or that gal that came along and lifted up their chin and said, look, there's beautiful stars up that way. Just gaze off at them.

See how beautiful your future is. Did we make a difference? Did we contribute? And that's another thing that I absolutely love about this business is it gives us more quality, quality moments as we're contributing to the world around us.

You know, at the end of every day, I write in my journal and I ask myself, what quality moments did you have today? I wrote in my journal the other night, Mike Hobbs and I, we just laughed and laughed and laughed the other night. And that was one of the things that I wrote in my journal. I was grateful that I had an experience where I laughed with a good friend and business partner.

And then we say, what did we contribute? And you know, a lot of times what I write down, I made a video and posted it on Facebook. I made a video and posted it on Facebook today. I made a video and posted it on Facebook today.

I sent out a conference call. You know, I spoke a kind word to one of my team members and lifted them up and helped them see something better. So we get to contribute and we get to have more quality moments. And that's the first gift that I want to give to you is the understanding that life is about quality moments and contribution.

So now it's up to us and me, because I've got a lot of life left to live, to just remember that. And as we're unwrapping the gift of life, to remember contribution and quality time, I think are the two things that are really going to matter when we get to the end of our lives. The next gift that I want to share with you guys, you know, when I was living in a single-wide trailer house, I'd listen to audios, you know, like we teach everyone here to do. And one of the audios that I listened to is called The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn.

Anyone heard that audio? I recommend it to everybody. The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn. You know, Jim Rohn was a millionaire.

He made a lot of money. He made his first fortune in network marketing. And he tells a story of having this mentor named Earl Schoaf, where he calls him Mr. Schoaf.

He got to work with Mr. Schoaf. And he said, I went to work with Mr. Schoaf, and I made my fortune.

I worked in several of his businesses. But you know, the interesting thing is he said, the most valuable thing I got from Mr. Schoaf was not my first fortune, was not working in several of his businesses. It was the benefit of his philosophy.

He said that was the most valuable thing that Mr. Schoaf had. And Jim Rohn goes on to say, what is your philosophy? He says your philosophy is the major determining factor in how your life works out.

Your philosophy. The set of the sail, he called it. You know, what do you believe? What do you stand for?

What do you think is important in life? What are you willing to fight for? This is your philosophy. And so in this business, as we read and as we listen to audios, we have the opportunity to develop a strong philosophy.

A philosophy that guides us. That guides our families. That guides our teams to prosperity and fortune and honor and a life of abundance, right? It's the philosophy.

He says it's the set of the sail. So the second gift that I want to give everyone here, hopefully if you'll receive it, is the idea that it's the philosophy that we want to work at. We want to develop. So what I want to do is I want to share with you a little bit of my philosophy that I've developed over the last 10 years of being in this business.

And before I share this with you, I'll share with you a little bit of my philosophy. I'll share with you a really cool tip that I got from a guy named Tony Robbins. You guys all know who Tony Robbins is? He's like the master of change, right?

Transforming the world, right? And so I was listening to an audio by Tony Robbins the other day in the gym, and he says of all the tools of change that I've come across, he said there's one that's the most powerful, that has the biggest, most far-reaching effects in helping people to change. Would you guys like to know what he told me? I mean, I was like, what is it?

Like, how do we help myself and people change faster? He says it's global metaphors. You guys watch Top Producer Formula, Module 2? One of the belief change patterns is metaphors.

Well, a global metaphor is something that's like something in life, but it applies to like so many different things. It's global. And when we have a metaphor that we can overlay our life, our business, our family, that has powerful meaning behind it, it can really be a transformational thing. So we have a global metaphor, and our team, it's called the Destiny Tree.

And this global metaphor has a lot of meaning for me and the members of my team. And one of the most empowering beliefs that this metaphor gives me, and I think can give you, is the understanding that a tree never starts as a tree. Do you guys understand that? A tree never falls out of the sky, and is just this magnificent, beautiful structure of nature.

It's like, wow, where did that tree come from? Well, it just dropped out of the sky. No, that doesn't happen, right? What does a tree start as?

A seed, right? A seed. One of the most important lessons that I've learned in this business from Dave Wood, following his example, is the importance of believing in not just ourselves, but believing in the people around us. And we can get great results when we believe in ourselves.

I believe I hit my first six-figure income because I learned how to believe in myself. But then I went a while where, I didn't disbelieve in people, but I don't think I believed in them either. I believed in myself, and then I believed in what was possible for them, so I would sponsor them, and I would say, you know, there's a good chance you can make it. But I didn't really believe in them.

And that has such a massive impact on our ability to sponsor and recruit and lift people up. So what this metaphor reminds me is that all of us are seeds, every single one of us. And no one in this room, right now, is the tree that we're going to be five years from now, are we? Aren't we gonna be more powerful five years from now?

Aren't we gonna be more persuasive? Aren't we gonna be more influential? Aren't we gonna be more prosperous five years from now? And so when we understand that, we can look at every single person in this room and say, you're a seed just like me.

And that helps us not to judge, not to judge. I was having a conversation with one of my great teammates, team members, Rob Skinner, who had a $6,000 day yesterday. Give Rob a shout out, Rob and Kimberly Skinner for a $6,000 day, not a guaranteed income. See average earnings disclaimer at powernetwork.com forward slash income.php.

But we were talking about believing in people. And Rob was making some nice comments about me, which I appreciate, Rob. And anyone who says nice stuff about me, thank you. But I was like, you know, I said my first year in network marketing, I made zero dollars.

I was living in a single wide trailer house. I was driving around in a 2000 Honda Civic with paint peeling off the top of the car, going to meetings, trying to tell people how we're gonna make it in network marketing. And after 12 months, I had made zero dollars. It would have been really easy to look at Paul Hutchings back in 2005 and say, that guy, he's living in a trailer.

He thinks he's gonna make it in this business? A year? He didn't make any money? That guy, right?

What a mistake that would have been because I was a seed back then. And I've turned into something different now here on this stage. And we're all like that. We're all like that.

So what does a seed need? Couple other parts of my philosophy, our philosophy that I wanna share with you. A seed needs good soil. Okay, it needs good soil to grow.

And one of the things that I love down to the depths of my soul about this company, is that it is good soil. It is soil that's rich, that's vibrant, that's got good nutrients in it, that comes from David Wood's good heart, who loves people and is committed to the end, is never gonna quit on us. That's good soil, my friends. And if you wanna grow a freedom tree, you gotta plant your seed in good soil.

And our tree, this destiny tree means I'm here to stay. Anyone else here to stay for as long as it takes? You know, Jim Rohn says if you don't like where you're at, change it, you're not a tree. And I think that's cool in some ways.

But you know, in other ways, we need to be like trees. We need to stay planted in good soil. So that tree, that global metaphor, reminds me to stay planted for my team. And I hope that everyone here will make the decision to do the same.

So the other thing, then the last thing, and I gotta touch on this real quick, that this tree reminds me of is that the seed of our souls also needs to grow in good soil. Would you agree? Needs to grow in good soil. Benjamin Franklin said a virtuous, he said only a virtuous people is capable of freedom.

When people lose their virtue, when nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. So if we're gonna be free, and we're gonna empower people to be free, we've also gotta learn how to teach them what it means to be virtuous. Now a lot of people have different ideas on this, but here's what I will say, is that there are laws, there are principles. Stephen Covey says a principle is a principle because it'll work just as well for Kevin and Kim as it will for Paul Hutchings.

It'll work just as well for Paul Hutchings as it will for Lionel, right? It'll work for everyone. So in your studies, in your books, in your audios, I challenge you to look for these laws and principles and truths and plant your soul in them. And do not waver.

Do not waver. Find out what you stand for. Do you stand for having a purpose in life? Well, stand there and fight for as long as it takes.

Do you stand for believing in people? Well then, dang it, believe in people for as long as it takes, right? Find out what you stand for. Last thing I'll share with you guys, you know, Dave Woods got me listening to this epic music, you know, these film scores.

He said it in a video, so I've been listening to like, you know, Hans Zimmer and stuff. And Hans Zimmer's got this song called, What Shall We Die For? And I was listening to it in the gym, and I was like, are there things worth dying for? Are there principles, values, ideals that are worth dying for?

And then, it didn't take me very long, and I was like, of course there are. Men and women all throughout the history of the world have fought and bled and died for principles. They already answered the question. They died to give us freedom.

So the question is not, what shall we die for? No, that's not the question, my friends. The question is, what shall we live for? What shall we live for?

What shall we live for? Will you live for prosperity? Will you live for freedom? Will you live to love the people around you?

Will you live for the great moments in time? Will you live for contribution? Will you live to have a purpose? Will you live to follow the golden rule?

What will you live for? Will you live for your dreams? Great friend of mine, SuperDuperStan says, I would rather die with the integrity, I would rather die with the integrity, of having fought for my dreams, than live with the disgrace of looking in the mirror at a quitter. I'm looking at winners right now, and I believe in every single one of you, and I know you can do it.

Always go for your dreams, my friends. Thank you very much. I love you all.