Evan Mawarire | Speaking Truth to Power - How One Man’s Video Led to National Change in Zimbabwe
In this episode of 'The Last 10%', host Dallas Burnett welcomes Evan Mawarire, a Zimbabwean pastor known for his leadership in the 'This Flag' movement against the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. Evan shares his incredible journey from recording a viral rant in his church office to mobilizing a national uprising. He discusses the challenges of facing hyperinflation, the courage to lead non-violent resistance, and the trials of imprisonment. Despite facing immense danger, Evan's journey is a testament to the power of conviction, courage, and collective action. His story underscores the importance of showing up, leading by example, and empowering others to fight for justice and change. Evan continues to inspire as an author and motivational speaker.
Connect with Evan Mawarire - https://www.evanmawarire.org/
Transcript
Hey everybody.
Speaker:We're talking to Yvan Mare today.
Speaker:what an amazing guy He is a Zimbabwean pastor, a global speaker, and the
Speaker:courageous leader behind the this flag movement that challenged a
Speaker:dictator and inspired millions.
Speaker:He has some incredible stories of surviving prison, sparking
Speaker:national uprising with viral video and authoring crazy epic courage.
Speaker:He's a great new friend of mine.
Speaker:You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.
Speaker:Welcome to the last 10%.
Speaker:Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that will inspire
Speaker:you to finish well and finish strong.
Speaker:Listen as guests share their journeys in valuable advice on living in the last 10%.
Speaker:If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to
Speaker:level up, you are in the right place.
Speaker:Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding
Speaker:out how to unlock the last 10% that makes all the difference in your life.
Speaker:Your relationships and your work.
Speaker:Now here's Dallas.
Speaker:Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker:I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch brothers
Speaker:barber chair in Thrive Studios.
Speaker:But more and importantly, today we have a great guest.
Speaker:Yvonne.
Speaker:Is a pastor, a movement builder, a global advocate for human rights who
Speaker:ignited this flag movement in Zimbabwe, mobilizing millions against corruption
Speaker:and facing exile and treason charges.
Speaker:Oh man, this is gonna be an amazing story.
Speaker:He's a foreign policy top 100 global thinker, and the author of a new
Speaker:book called Crazy Epic Courage.
Speaker:He's a sought after speaker.
Speaker:He inspires leaders all over the world to lead with resilience and faith.
Speaker:Welcome to the show, Yvonne.
Speaker:Dallas, it is a pleasure to be with you, my friend.
Speaker:Thank you so much for asking me to be on the show.
Speaker:I love your energy, my friend.
Speaker:I totally, totally.
Speaker:It's so infectious.
Speaker:I'm sitting here and I'm like, I need to give myself a 19 whatever chair as well,
Speaker:so I can introduce myself like that.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Well, , your story is so inspiring.
Speaker:I've been so excited to have you on the show because you are such a good speaker
Speaker:and communicator A and b, just have such an amazing presence and humility to
Speaker:communicate your story and inspire just all kind of leaders all over the world.
Speaker:. Let's just jump in.
Speaker:You were in Zimbabwe, you were leading your church and.
Speaker:you're married with kids and just, and you're doing life, and then all of a
Speaker:sudden just some things start going on.
Speaker:That's just not every day.
Speaker:So tell us your story.
Speaker:I always start by saying that it's important for people to understand
Speaker:that we don't wake up every day planning on being a superhero,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:you wake up wanting to get through the day, wanting to get things
Speaker:done, wanting to make things happen.
Speaker:But somewhere along the way, we get these opportunities to make decisions
Speaker:to, to stand up for the things we care about the most or to defend
Speaker:the things we care about the most.
Speaker:And sometimes people don't even know that, these opportunities are coming their way.
Speaker:and it's in those moments that we make the decision to say, I'm gonna.
Speaker:Care so much about this issue that I'm gonna do something about it, that
Speaker:we spark off a journey that we could never have, never have imagined.
Speaker:And that's what happened with me in Zimbabwe 2016.
Speaker:I'm sitting in my small church office and it's been a frustrating day of
Speaker:trying to provide for my family.
Speaker:And we're at a point in Zimbabwe where the economy is beginning to
Speaker:bleed and literally crash again
Speaker:it had done eight years earlier, it had done eight years before that
Speaker:years before that.
Speaker:So this is like the third or fourth economic crash that's happening.
Speaker:And this time it's happening as an adult.
Speaker:and I'm upset Dallas because it's affecting my ability to provide
Speaker:for my children and for my family.
Speaker:But it's also affecting the members of our church, the people that we pass.
Speaker:And I can see them struggling.
Speaker:More importantly, it's affecting the orphanage that was in our
Speaker:city that our church looked after.
Speaker:if I'm failing to put food on the table because the economy has gone
Speaker:bad, what about the orphanage down the
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and maybe let me, I think it's important for me to give context of
Speaker:what I mean by the economy going bad
Speaker:crashing.
Speaker:In 2008, Zimbabwe experienced one of the worst economic crashes
Speaker:recorded in modern history.
Speaker:And to give you an understanding, inflation was so high that it was hyper.
Speaker:It was called hyperinflation,
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:like to call it super hyperinflation.
Speaker:It was so high, it was running at a recorded 286000000%.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:wild,
Speaker:That's wild.
Speaker:That's ridiculous.
Speaker:so maybe someone listening is trying to think, what does that even look like?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:even look like?
Speaker:It looks like this.
Speaker:This is the largest bank note we had at the height of inflation is this guy.
Speaker:This is a $100 trillion note.
Speaker:Oh my,
Speaker:$100 trillion.
Speaker:Dallas.
Speaker:oh, that's incredible.
Speaker:you see that?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:hold that closer to
Speaker:That is amazing.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:at the height of inflation in 2008, note was enough to buy two loaves of bread.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:again, I like to get this for people to wrap this around their heads.
Speaker:I remember in Zimbabwe when if you wanted to get someone to understand
Speaker:what, how much things were costing, you would give them the price of
Speaker:something that's relatable, like the price of a cup of coffee or something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you the price of bread.
Speaker:The price of bread during the a hundred trillion dollars days was you could get
Speaker:two loaves of bread on $100 trillion,
Speaker:Good gracious day.
Speaker:On a particular day, this happened to me, went to buy bread, and one of the
Speaker:things that happens is when you are in a hyperinflation environment, you cannot
Speaker:find food on the supermarket shelves,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Everything is gone if they're like empty.
Speaker:Every supermarket right across the country has nothing on the shelves
Speaker:because is buying whatever they can find.
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:to store the value of your money.
Speaker:You're trying to hold your money from
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:More inflation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If you walk into a store and they have 10 wheelbarrows,
Speaker:you're buying 10 wheelbarrows.
Speaker:because tomorrow they'll, they won't be what they are today.
Speaker:In turn, it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker:Anything.
Speaker:there you go.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:can sell wheelbarrows tomorrow at whatever the price is.
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:So I go to buy bread on this one particular day because
Speaker:I've been told there's bread available at a particular bakery.
Speaker:They're selling by the batch.
Speaker:Everyone is swarming to this place, and the line is going around the building
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:the, from where I was in the line to buy bread.
Speaker:By the time it was time for me to buy bread, my $100 trillion note, which
Speaker:could buy me two loaves of bread, could now buy me half a loaf of
Speaker:Oh, it had changed that much in the time you were in line.
Speaker:the time that we were, I could tell you
Speaker:Oh my
Speaker:after
Speaker:gosh.
Speaker:It's unbelievable.
Speaker:My parents went from having $80,000 in the bank as retirement,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:back in 2008.
Speaker:And they didn't even live in the, in, like in a busy city.
Speaker:They live in a smaller town.
Speaker:So 80,000 US to retire on in a small town in Zimbabwe is
Speaker:a lot of money to retire on.
Speaker:They went in seven days.
Speaker:In seven days, the government banned any withdrawals from the bank because they
Speaker:feared people would run on the bank.
Speaker:So nobody was allowed to get money from the banks and in seven
Speaker:days they went from having 80,000 US dollars to having 25 cents.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:my.
Speaker:And they couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker:No, you
Speaker:get their money out.
Speaker:You couldn't do, what are you gonna do?
Speaker:we, and so in 2016, this is eight years later now, where my story starts.
Speaker:I'm sitting in my church office, we're starting to go through the
Speaker:same thing again, because this money by 2010 had been scrapped.
Speaker:It was so useless.
Speaker:It was not worth the paper it was printed on.
Speaker:And so that currency was retired.
Speaker:We moved to using US dollars, and then here I am now without the US dollars.
Speaker:Now you can't find them.
Speaker:The government keeps taking everything.
Speaker:And now they're talking about, Hey folks, we're gonna print a new currency
Speaker:and introduce a new currency again.
Speaker:Oh no.
Speaker:no.
Speaker:We are not going through this again,
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:And so in that moment, once I'm sitting in my church office and I'm seeing
Speaker:this beginning to unfold, I take my phone and I prop it up against my
Speaker:Bible in my church office, and I record this four minute and 11 second video.
Speaker:And in that video.
Speaker:A, it's both a personal rant and a call to action to whoever will listen.
Speaker:I was sending this out to our small church,
Speaker:bear mentioning that our church was about 40 members,
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So I'm recording this video and I'm sending it out to our small
Speaker:church just to say I'm with you.
Speaker:Like, listen, I'm doing life with you.
Speaker:This is what's hitting me where I'm at.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:personal struggle, which is such an important aspect, by the way, of
Speaker:if you're trying to mobilize people around a problem that needs to be
Speaker:addressed, it's important for you as a leader to tell your own story of
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:this is how it's affecting me.
Speaker:This is where my passion is coming from as I attend to this problem.
Speaker:, I think that's a really great point because I think when you say
Speaker:that, when you say telling your own story, it automatically just
Speaker:triggers this like vulnerability aspect to what you're saying.
Speaker:Because essentially when you do that, you're saying, look, I'm not
Speaker:a pastor at this point in time.
Speaker:I may be your pastor, but what I am as a human being, and I
Speaker:relate to you on the same way.
Speaker:And I think sometimes leaders, they may not want to be seen as something,
Speaker:you know, in a hierarchical, like, I'm up at the top of this food chain.
Speaker:But there's some things that just naturally come with that.
Speaker:Just like being a pastor, you're just seen a natural, some
Speaker:people just put you in a box.
Speaker:However, it's real important if we can step into that story.
Speaker:And I, and it just, I think it just that vulnerability helps you relate to people
Speaker:and it, and I think it builds trust.
Speaker:So when you sent that video out, I'm sure you're.
Speaker:I'm sure your congregation was just really, moved by it.
Speaker:Dallas.
Speaker:it was bigger than that because in this video.
Speaker:I usually call it a rant that
Speaker:was ranting, and I just, I went in on about I can't, I'm
Speaker:failing to provide for my family.
Speaker:embarrassed as a Zimbabwean when I'm traveling.
Speaker:And people look at us and they say, are you from this, from Zimbabwe?
Speaker:as they mock us, because they know what we've been through.
Speaker:they saw the $100 trillion days,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:and and then at the end of, towards the end of this video, I begin to talk about,
Speaker:so what are we gonna do about this?
Speaker:gonna sit and complain?
Speaker:Because we have no right to complain about things that we are
Speaker:not willing to show up to fight
Speaker:Hmmhmm.
Speaker:It's okay to complain.
Speaker:It's a starting point, but
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:what's next after that?
Speaker:have to do something about it.
Speaker:and so that's how this video goes.
Speaker:And I'm talking in this four minute video about it is our duty.
Speaker:It is our call.
Speaker:it's our responsibility to return the pride of this nation
Speaker:to what it was supposed to be.
Speaker:And the reason the movement was called this flag eventually, which was completely
Speaker:by accident that we started a movement.
Speaker:By the way,
Speaker:was not the plan.
Speaker:it was a rant in your office is what it started.
Speaker:that's exactly what it was, And the reason it was called this flag movement
Speaker:was I had a Zimbabwean flag in my office, and I remember grabbing that flag and
Speaker:I remember saying, you see this flag?
Speaker:The meaning that it has.
Speaker:'cause every color on the Zimbabwean flag has a meaning.
Speaker:And I said the meaning is a promise that was made by those that,
Speaker:that founded Zimbabwe in 1980.
Speaker:That we would be prosperous, that we would be free.
Speaker:That we would, you and I would be proud.
Speaker:Right now, we are not.
Speaker:So this flag is a lie.
Speaker:And you and I need to return the truth, the pride that this flag represents.
Speaker:We have to restore that pride
Speaker:it's not gonna happen by someone else.
Speaker:We have to show up.
Speaker:We have got to be present.
Speaker:And so and this little video, I, once I posted it, which I didn't
Speaker:post immediately by the way,
Speaker:watched this thing over.
Speaker:And if you watch the video itself.
Speaker:You will see why, because, I knew, I had an idea in my mind that, Ooh, if
Speaker:I post this, oh my, what am I doing?
Speaker:What am I doing?
Speaker:But I also had that little sense in my mind that was yeah, maybe I'm
Speaker:just maybe I'm over overthinking
Speaker:Overthinking.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:Somebody might see it.
Speaker:This might, you were obviously very honest and, and brutally honest in the video,
Speaker:but you're thinking, well, but who am I?
Speaker:I'm just one dude.
Speaker:I'm gonna post a video and I don't wanna overthink this.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I could totally see that.
Speaker:I could totally see that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so I, it goes up.
Speaker:But I knew that, I knew if I showed my wife before I posted it, she'd be
Speaker:like, there is no way on God's green earth that you were posting that.
Speaker:She's the voice of reason in your life.
Speaker:she keeps you outta trouble.
Speaker:alive.
Speaker:She stops me from doing stupid things, So I just, I, so I didn't show her.
Speaker:I
Speaker:oh.
Speaker:went to bed
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:I posted if she was asleep with the kids.
Speaker:I posted it midnight
Speaker:So when you post it, do you post it in Zimbabwe?
Speaker:Do they use we, we use YouTube here.
Speaker:Do they have YouTube and Zimbabwe?
Speaker:Is there another file sharing?
Speaker:Kind of.
Speaker:we, we have all the platforms in
Speaker:All the platform.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:yeah, all of, but on this one, I posted it on Facebook.
Speaker:Oh, on Facebook.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:where it
Speaker:And so I went to bed and on my way to, on to do the school run the next morning,
Speaker:one of the church members calls me up.
Speaker:A young man calls me up and he says, pastor, I've just seen your video.
Speaker:Are you okay?
Speaker:And I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker:Am I okay?
Speaker:He goes, dude, have you seen your video?
Speaker:And I'm like, no.
Speaker:He goes, you need to go and check it out right now.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:So I dropped the kids off and then I punk by the side of the road, literally
Speaker:by the side of the road, open my phone, look at this thing, and it has blown up.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:And I've gone, it's gone up to, I think at the time I remember it
Speaker:was probably about 150,000 views between the time I'd posted it at
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:the in the morning.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:for me, dude.
Speaker:I know, some people are probably listening, they're
Speaker:like 150,000, that's nothing.
Speaker:But this is 2016 and it's for a guy that was posting videos
Speaker:that used to get 40 views.
Speaker:like I would notice, like
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:in a seven day period and it went up to 41 views, I'd be like,
Speaker:Oh, I got one.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:I got one extra this week.
Speaker:That's so funny.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:this was for me was like, oh my gosh, what's happening?
Speaker:And then it's the comments, what people were saying underneath that.
Speaker:that is where I began to realize, wait, something is happening here.
Speaker:were talking about this guy has liberated my mind concerning
Speaker:what I need to be doing.
Speaker:spoken truth to me concerning courage or, and then there was the many
Speaker:comments that we're talking about, this guy is starting a revolution.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:So they would, they actually started saying that in the comments,
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:And
Speaker:oh,
Speaker:looking at him.
Speaker:I'm like, no.
Speaker:This is not a revolution.
Speaker:Stop that.
Speaker:stop.
Speaker:you guys are gonna get me in trouble here.
Speaker:Slow it down.
Speaker:Slow it down.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:wow.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:and this is again, I, you know, the context of what Zimbabwe was like
Speaker:under the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe
Speaker:was that he had been a brutal leader for 40 years.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well actually it was 36 at the time in 2016.
Speaker:And to give you an idea, Robert Mugabe lost the election, in one of
Speaker:the years, and he just refused to go.
Speaker:He said, no, I'm not gonna leave.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:in power.
Speaker:And then he went into some of the areas that voted against him
Speaker:and he gave people a punishment.
Speaker:And the punishment was something that they called long sleeve, short sleeve.
Speaker:It is where you choose whether your arm, the limb of your arm is chopped
Speaker:off at the wrist or at the elbow.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:was punishment remind you in the next election to vote correctly,
Speaker:to remind you and those that see you with a missing limb that you
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:This is not a, a joking situation with this dictate.
Speaker:This was really serious.
Speaker:A year before I posted that video.
Speaker:In March of 2015, a journalist, a young, brilliant, independent
Speaker:journalist, had been doing a one man protest in the city square, and he
Speaker:would stand there with a sign, very brave, with a sign that said, failed.
Speaker:Robert Mugabe must go.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:on one of the days that he finished his protest, he was going home and he
Speaker:was stopped by the barbershop to get a haircut, and he was smashed from the
Speaker:barbershop by unknown men and disappeared.
Speaker:Up to today.
Speaker:Itza matter has never been seen or heard from.
Speaker:He left his wife and his two children.
Speaker:and those are just a few of the cases.
Speaker:Robert Mugabe's violence, his brutality has had spent 36 years and cost
Speaker:thousands upon thousands of lives
Speaker:in the early eighties where over 20,000 people were murdered
Speaker:just because he suspected that they would vote against him.
Speaker:Good gracious.
Speaker:So he was not only brutal, but he was a part of the trillion dollar money
Speaker:inflation hyperinflation in 2008 as well.
Speaker:So he was there in 2008 and he's still there in 2016.
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:So it's 36,
Speaker:man.
Speaker:36 years.
Speaker:that he's in power.
Speaker:this is not somebody that's just okay, I was elected and
Speaker:then we had another election.
Speaker:I don't wanna go anywhere, so I'm just gonna hang around.
Speaker:this was decades and decades.
Speaker:of both political brutality and just economic brutality and you, when you just
Speaker:mentioned now that he was there during the trillion dollar, it reminded me that the
Speaker:brutality is in many dimensions, right?
Speaker:when the economy crash and everyone lost everything.
Speaker:When I say everyone lost everything, Dallas, I mean, everybody lost
Speaker:everything just like that.
Speaker:All he said was, whoops, we're gonna start again.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He stayed in power.
Speaker:Whoops.
Speaker:No one was held accountable.
Speaker:People did not get their money back.
Speaker:Everyone's accounts were zeroed.
Speaker:Imagine people's bank accounts here in America
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:and starting again.
Speaker:I don't even think Americans have a context for what you just said.
Speaker:I don't even think Americans can wrap their head around that.
Speaker:Like the idea, I mean, it's so interesting because there's so many talking heads
Speaker:and people, and we don't talk a lot about politics and all on the show, but at the
Speaker:end of the day, whether you're left or you're right, it's just so much talking.
Speaker:It's just a lot of talking heads and this person gets in and they,
Speaker:they don't like this person.
Speaker:Then the next person gets in and likes this.
Speaker:But what you just said is, as it relates to this leader, everyone lost
Speaker:everything and there was no recourse.
Speaker:And I mean, I just don't think, I just don't think Americans have just,
Speaker:they don't have a place for that idea.
Speaker:They just, that's, that would be so hard for anyone to fathom here, which is also
Speaker:a little bit terrifying is because it, I mean, he was able to, As the dictator
Speaker:was able to successfully navigate that situation and through brutality and I
Speaker:guess fear, and through just the fact that he had power not go anywhere, he
Speaker:was able to, everybody lost everything and say, oops, and nothing changes,
Speaker:And
Speaker:that's
Speaker:changes.
Speaker:Oh, and the thing is, I think for me it's, I use it as a reminder to let
Speaker:people know that there are people in this world have far less and go through so
Speaker:much more when it comes to pain and loss.
Speaker:And yet those people still find a way.
Speaker:They still find a way to.
Speaker:Not only e out a living, but still find a way to focus on joy, on something
Speaker:that gives them purpose, something that
Speaker:their life meaning.
Speaker:Something that is much more than the money, something that is
Speaker:much more than the possessions.
Speaker:Because we tend to live in environments where feel better about our future.
Speaker:Whenever we look at our bank account,
Speaker:feel better about our future when the guarantees of financial freedom are there,
Speaker:when the right indicators are there.
Speaker:When we have the medical insurance and we have the, we have the investments
Speaker:and the, you know, markets are trending up and it's all looking good.
Speaker:And then people panic when things are trending down, when they've lost their job
Speaker:and when they're dwindling and it's fine.
Speaker:I understand it.
Speaker:The point I'm trying to make is.
Speaker:There is so much more else around our lives that makes it rich,
Speaker:makes us rich,
Speaker:that if we would focus upon that, I think that we would have far much
Speaker:less stress because a lot of the stress we have is built around this
Speaker:idea of how can I protect the money I have and how can I make more of
Speaker:it's all, it's just become about
Speaker:Money.
Speaker:Money.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:it.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:Life needs money.
Speaker:But my point here is there is so much more.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so much more.
Speaker:I think that's really what we want to hit at in this podcast of the last 10%.
Speaker:It's not just about who can make the most money and living in the last 10%, and we'd
Speaker:say finishing well and finishing strong.
Speaker:everybody finishes with the same balance in the bank account, which is zero.
Speaker:At the end of the day.
Speaker:At the end of the day, we all get reset.
Speaker:We do.
Speaker:so living in the last 10%, I think you've hit on it so well, is so much more than
Speaker:earning potential or earning money or how much you have in the bank account.
Speaker:, it does go back to true purpose.
Speaker:And it goes back to finding things and being able to elevate
Speaker:yourself to be able to meet that potential that you've been given.
Speaker:and I think you, you speak to that really well.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:so now back to your story.
Speaker:You have just sent out this viral post, everybody, I mean,
Speaker:hundreds of thousands of people are coming in, hitting on this thing.
Speaker:It's getting comments.
Speaker:I'm assuming that is going to draw if I, I mean, at what point
Speaker:in time did you realize like I.
Speaker:Oh man, this is bigger.
Speaker:This is now a little bigger than me.
Speaker:And did you ever get a little bit concerned, maybe your wife got concerned
Speaker:when you started seeing the comments?
Speaker:'cause obviously you know the brutality of this dictatorship.
Speaker:You've put this video out and now people are saying he's leading a revolution.
Speaker:Did you ever at any time go, this guy actually could go take a turn?
Speaker:That I wasn't expecting.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:it was almost immediately,
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:almost immediately.
Speaker:I'm reading through the comments and I'm both excited and terrified
Speaker:because I'm seeing how people are finding relief through the things
Speaker:I've said, but I'm also seeing people are imagining this is growing.
Speaker:I'm seeing how people are starting to see this as a part of their hope
Speaker:and a part of a solution for them, which I really wasn't seeing that way.
Speaker:right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, there, yes, there was a sense of, I am seeing this as
Speaker:a way to speak up eventually.
Speaker:one of the scriptures that became an anchor scripture for me during this
Speaker:was in Proverbs, 31 verse eight, and it says, speak up for those who cannot
Speaker:speak for themselves, defend the rights of the poor and so, I'm, I'm kind
Speaker:of there and I'm thinking, wait, I'm really, first of all, I'm in the same
Speaker:boat as everybody, and, but secondly, I'm just playing a part of saying I.
Speaker:When are we gonna say, enough is enough?
Speaker:And then this is what happens is as it goes viral.
Speaker:I said to one of my friends who is a communication specialist, I
Speaker:said to him, dude, I need help.
Speaker:I don't know what to do.
Speaker:This thing is just growing and growing.
Speaker:Just people keep watching it and keep sharing and keep commenting.
Speaker:And I'm not sure how to manage the perception of what I was trying to say
Speaker:of who I am because, you know who is
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:looking at this thing and I need to clean this up.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:to me, don't worry, it's not a problem.
Speaker:Let's record a video in which you say, what you were not trying to say.
Speaker:You clarify.
Speaker:You clean it up and it's cleaner and it's much more sober and so forth.
Speaker:So we go for it, we record this video and somewhere towards the end of that
Speaker:video, after I've explained that this is not a revolution, I'm not, challenging
Speaker:the president or you know, or anything.
Speaker:At the end of the video, I come back and I say, however.
Speaker:I'm not backing down from the fact that we've got problems in this
Speaker:country and we've had them for many years and many people have lost their
Speaker:lives and lost their livelihoods.
Speaker:And that needs to be addressed.
Speaker:We need to have accountability, we need to have assurances.
Speaker:and so I come back and I say that at the end of it, and we send
Speaker:this video out and that video goes more viral than the first one.
Speaker:Oh dude.
Speaker:oh my gosh.
Speaker:I was just like, oh man, you know what
Speaker:I dunno.
Speaker:And this friend of mine, he comes back, he says, no, don't worry.
Speaker:We can clean this up.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Let's record a third video right, in which we clean up what you were, what
Speaker:you said in the first video, and we clean up what you said in the second video.
Speaker:And so we do that, we send that video out.
Speaker:Do you wanna guess what happens to that third
Speaker:oh, man.
Speaker:it goes even more unbelievable.
Speaker:You're three for, you're three for three at this point, man.
Speaker:three at this point.
Speaker:That friend of mine comes back, he goes, Hey, don't worry we can.
Speaker:I'm like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker:I need to hire your friend for some marketing advice.
Speaker:He's good at going viral while not, while trying not to go viral.
Speaker:it's pretty good.
Speaker:But that, that triggers a, a kind of a realization in me, Dallas,
Speaker:where I'm like, okay, I think there's something happening here.
Speaker:moment here.
Speaker:there's a, I think I've stepped into something here that, first
Speaker:of all, it speaks to my heart.
Speaker:Speaking up and standing up for other people is something that I will do at the
Speaker:drop of a secondly, this nation that my grandfather, I. in the war in that my dad
Speaker:grew up in, that I grew up and now my kids are growing up and I love this country.
Speaker:And so I make the decision to not try and back out of it,
Speaker:but instead to lean into it.
Speaker:at that point I begin to speak more purposefully and more
Speaker:pointedly about the fact that we have not only a constitutional
Speaker:right, but a god-given mandate
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:to make sure the widows and the orphans around us, that our countrymen,
Speaker:that the state of our nation is, should be looked after, not by the
Speaker:government, but by the citizens, by
Speaker:that we should be present.
Speaker:we should also register our voice.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:it's a personal responsibility.
Speaker:You're calling it, you're saying it's up.
Speaker:it's on us.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:what we be, I begin to call on that.
Speaker:there is a re a personal responsibility on each of us
Speaker:play our part building our nation in whichever way that we can.
Speaker:As long as it is not violent, as long as it does not hurt other people, as long
Speaker:as it does not destroy property and to do it in a way leaves our country better.
Speaker:Every generation must hand it off better to the next generation.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:but just think about that even where we are politically right now
Speaker:in, in the us It's so fascinating.
Speaker:'cause I think that's a really inspiring message because you are saying we've got.
Speaker:A real problem with our government.
Speaker:We've got problems with the system.
Speaker:We've got problems with being oppressed and monetary problems, all this, and
Speaker:we need to do something about it.
Speaker:But you're specifically saying, not only do we have a personal responsibility
Speaker:to speak up and to stand up, but we're gonna do that nonviolently and without,
Speaker:without hurting anyone or destroying property or anything like that.
Speaker:And we're gonna make change that way.
Speaker:And I think that's a, I think that's really awesome because you're not saying
Speaker:there doesn't need to be change, but you are saying there's a way that we are going
Speaker:to go about seeing this change take place.
Speaker:I think that's really inspiring.
Speaker:That's a good message.
Speaker:what, Dallas, you know why that is important?
Speaker:Change should be beautiful.
Speaker:should inspire people, should bring people to the point of,
Speaker:wow, I'm glad we did that.
Speaker:Or, wow, I'm glad this is impacting not just me, but for everyone.
Speaker:it's violent and if it is brutal, and if it is, bloody few people want that.
Speaker:Few people wanna remember it.
Speaker:Few people wanna be part of it.
Speaker:Few people wanna carry it on because on the most part,
Speaker:ordinary people are not violent.
Speaker:Ordinary people are not vile.
Speaker:people are not into mud slinging and being nasty,
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:are just good people,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so for me, that was the idea I wanna start appealing to the goodness in our people,
Speaker:the good nature of our people.
Speaker:We faced much, we've been through much, but there's still a goodness within us.
Speaker:And we can, I know it's difficult to stand up to a system that has brutalized
Speaker:this so openly and so horribly,
Speaker:but there comes a point where we have to be willing to be a sacrifice for the
Speaker:kind of future that we want to have or that we wish for our children to have.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and so the, I start to post a video every day.
Speaker:Every day I would post a three minute video in which I would take an a, a
Speaker:simple issue going on in our country, break it down into very simple and
Speaker:understandable terms for anyone.
Speaker:And when I say anyone, I'm talking about the women who
Speaker:sold vegetables at the market.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:about the young street vendors who sold their wares on the streets.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:that person understand the moment we are in as a nation, the way it impacts
Speaker:me and the way it impacts the future?
Speaker:Wow, man.
Speaker:for me it was, I didn't realize what I was doing until much later that the
Speaker:concept there was, if we are gonna change a nation, if we're gonna impact
Speaker:people, we have to find a way to bring as many people along with us as we can.
Speaker:Agreed.
Speaker:of the ways to do that is if people do not, if the least amongst us,
Speaker:I'm gonna go back to my scriptures.
Speaker:If the least amongst us is not included by way of understanding and by way of
Speaker:grasping what we are going through, we are likely not going to have that much change.
Speaker:It's not gonna be that deep.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so for me, it's always been if we're, whether we're in a company or whether we
Speaker:are in a church, we have to be able to not only communicate to the least amongst us.
Speaker:and when I say the least amongst us, I'm talking about, people
Speaker:that may be at a different level,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:socioeconomically at
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:level, educationally, a different level, whatever the case may be.
Speaker:, we are as strong as the weakest
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:You're bringing everybody to the table.
Speaker:You're giving to everybody a seat at the table and saying,
Speaker:everybody's got a voice to this.
Speaker:, I think that's really inspiring.
Speaker:And I think, I love how you said change should be beautiful.
Speaker:, that is a great thought.
Speaker:And when you said that, it just, there's so much that comes to mind.
Speaker:'cause whether you're leading, a business, whether you're leading a
Speaker:nonprofit or any type of government agency or a church, there's, we're
Speaker:always going to be up against change.
Speaker:It's just inevitable.
Speaker:, we're gonna be moving through change.
Speaker:And I think that's, sometimes people fear change and sometimes people, it's painful.
Speaker:But at the end of the day, even if it's hard, the really, the
Speaker:reason we do it is at the end of the day, it should be beautiful.
Speaker:Like we're changing.
Speaker:In hopes for something better, no matter if it's, we're doing this new process or
Speaker:this new computer system at the business.
Speaker:the whole idea is this change is actually creating something
Speaker:better than what it is today.
Speaker:It's beautiful this, in this, so I just love that.
Speaker:I love how you talk about that.
Speaker:Now, I, when you go back in your, in, you've had these
Speaker:videos that you're putting out.
Speaker:So you've, did, you had your first original viral videos and you're
Speaker:putting out these messages to people.
Speaker:did you start because I just can't, and I'm waiting on the hammer to drop.
Speaker:I can't believe that there's no response from the other side or
Speaker:from the political party as this kind of takes root and is growing.
Speaker:any time, did you start getting like a, death threat or just a physical
Speaker:violence or did anybody say you need to take these things down?
Speaker:Or was it just quiet, and you just did your thing?
Speaker:This is a really good question because I was perplexed that nothing was happening.
Speaker:I had already feared the worst because within the comments of all
Speaker:the videos I was posting, inevitably there were people that would come in
Speaker:either to warn me or to threaten me
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:In the comments, they would warn, threaten.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:then, you're I don't know who that is.
Speaker:You
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:who's threatening.
Speaker:that's not an official anybody or anything.
Speaker:It's just some random name
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:saying, you better be careful what you're doing.
Speaker:but then you had other people who are well-meaning people I knew who
Speaker:just posted to me in my dms and said, Yvonne, I'm just concerned
Speaker:like I'm watching you do this stuff.
Speaker:I don't even know whether you understand
Speaker:could happen to you.
Speaker:I had people who had been in civic society and who had been in opposition
Speaker:politics write me in people that I knew
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:EI just want to let you know that this kid, this can get you hurt my
Speaker:is the journalist on the street corner with the sign?
Speaker:you just stepping into that
Speaker:by the way, these are people that loved me,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:that mostly the people that warned me in the beginning.
Speaker:And I've always said to people, sometimes when you are embarking on
Speaker:a journey of bringing change and of bringing impact, and you start to do
Speaker:things that people not familiar with you doing, even they will resist you.
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:from a bad place.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:No.
Speaker:good place.
Speaker:They love you.
Speaker:They're trying to protect
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:But even they will try to stomp you.
Speaker:And even they will be like, don't do it.
Speaker:do it, don't do
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And it comes back to this one thing, Dallas personal
Speaker:conviction.
Speaker:A hundred percent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:is it that you are truly sensing about what you're doing?
Speaker:and there's that tension between everyone is saying, this could get me hurt.
Speaker:I feel like this is bigger.
Speaker:this is going somewhere and this is the challenge that I'm going through.
Speaker:Should I stop it?
Speaker:Because everyone says it's gonna end badly or should I continue it?
Speaker:Because I feel something on the inside that says, says, this is
Speaker:a journey that you didn't pick, but a journey that has picked you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:this is a purpose that you did not plan on, but one that God planned on.
Speaker:And now the time has begun.
Speaker:Now the time has come for you to step up, right?
Speaker:Ah, that's very interesting.
Speaker:It is so true.
Speaker:When you talk about, that conviction, the personal conviction and those
Speaker:first few steps that you take, I think that's what makes a leader.
Speaker:One of the things that makes a leader, a visible, but b, a little bit lonely,
Speaker:because you have to take those first few steps and there's no one following you.
Speaker:You are the one.
Speaker:And so you're going on that journey and you're starting that journey.
Speaker:and before you can, pull people behind you, you've got to go and take the
Speaker:first few steps in that direction.
Speaker:And I think that, yeah.
Speaker:that's what's happening with me.
Speaker:And so to your question of, there's no response I've looked back on that period,
Speaker:because the response did come eventually,
Speaker:but there was a period where nothing really seemed to happen
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:for the first couple of months.
Speaker:I started this, the first video went up April 19th, 2016.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:One day after Zimbabwe's independence days, Zimbabwe's independence days.
Speaker:April 18,
Speaker:first video goes up on April 19 all the way until July,
Speaker:nothing is happening to me.
Speaker:And one of the reasons that nothing is happening to me as I look back now many
Speaker:years later and studied the moment and began to ask questions is the experts who
Speaker:have done this before or who have watched some of these kinds of things happen
Speaker:before are all trying to figure out, or at least first of all, they are in a place
Speaker:of just saying that's just a nobody that's
Speaker:Yeah, let him talk and yeah, pay no attention.
Speaker:He'll go away.
Speaker:It'll just go away.
Speaker:talk himself out.
Speaker:it's going nowhere, great.
Speaker:He is a nobody.
Speaker:and because of that.
Speaker:This movement just begins to grow.
Speaker:And by the way, we are only growing online, so there's no physical meetings
Speaker:because as I will tell you later on, it's illegal in Zimbabwe to gather and
Speaker:have a political discussion without permission from the government.
Speaker:In fact, it's illegal to protest the government without permission
Speaker:from the government in Zimbabwe.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:so at this point, we, I'm not trying to gather anyone anywhere.
Speaker:I'm just, we are just having a virtual gathering around these videos.
Speaker:And so we finally getting out, I'll tell you one, one of these days, I'll tell
Speaker:you this, a story of this debate that we had that happened out of nowhere with,
Speaker:the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor.
Speaker:basically the way it happened was government was.
Speaker:Talking about introducing a new currency, right?
Speaker:So remember in my church office, I'm like, things are going bad.
Speaker:Now the government is talking about introducing a new currency, but we
Speaker:remember the $100 trillion failure.
Speaker:So we don't want it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:one of the big things I'm talking about in my campaigns, I'm saying
Speaker:government, if you are listening to anything that citizens are saying,
Speaker:don't introduce this currency.
Speaker:We're afraid of it.
Speaker:We need to figure out another solution and another plan.
Speaker:There are no guarantees that we are gonna be safe.
Speaker:And so the Reserve Bank governor, comes out and he's talking about,
Speaker:we are introducing a new currency.
Speaker:It's gonna be safe, it's gonna be one-to-one with the US dollar.
Speaker:It's not gonna have any inflation.
Speaker:And they, but there's no legal frameworks for any of this.
Speaker:He's just saying
Speaker:He's just saying it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so then he says, I'll debate anybody
Speaker:Oh my.
Speaker:I'm sitting in my small church office, it's been a couple of
Speaker:months we've be doing these videos.
Speaker:One of my friends, his name is Henry, says to me, Hey man,
Speaker:what should we do about this?
Speaker:And I'm like, the guy says that he'll debate anyone.
Speaker:Why don't we challenge him to a debate?
Speaker:You're pok.
Speaker:You're poking the bear.
Speaker:You're poking the bear on.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:Here's the deal.
Speaker:Let me explain to you what's going on.
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:are not actually intending on debating him at this point.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:What we are hoping he's gonna say is he's gonna say no that he's gonna ignore
Speaker:so it looks like it makes him look bad, but you're not actually debating him.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:we were gonna go, we were gonna go back to, with our campaigns on
Speaker:social media and say to people, you see what we've told you.
Speaker:They don't listen to us.
Speaker:They don't care.
Speaker:They don't pay
Speaker:Ah, okay.
Speaker:guys are just doing their own thing and so forth.
Speaker:You set, you were setting a trap.
Speaker:You're setting a trap for him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so we were ready to go with this, out of nowhere we get a phone call from the
Speaker:Reserve Bank Governor's office after we delivered a letter to his office saying
Speaker:we would like to organize a public debate.
Speaker:And we get a letter from him saying, I like this idea.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:we're sitting there.
Speaker:We are like, oh no.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And here's the deal.
Speaker:We know nothing.
Speaker:nothing about monetary policy,
Speaker:oh,
Speaker:just know how to earn my money, earn money, put it in the bank, buy
Speaker:stuff for my children and my kids.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:any of this stuff I'm
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:whatcha talking about.
Speaker:Oh man,
Speaker:But dude, I wasn't even gonna tell you this whole story, but
Speaker:it's a good story.
Speaker:I'm loving it.
Speaker:This is great.
Speaker:a turning point because it suddenly thrusts us into a place that we
Speaker:had to figure out a capability.
Speaker:What do we do here?
Speaker:and so we say to him, listen, this is a debate, a people's debate.
Speaker:And we want you to come and debate people.
Speaker:Say, he goes, okay, great.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:he says, but I can't come to a public space.
Speaker:You guys have to come to the Reserve Bank building.
Speaker:We have an auditorium in the basement of the building.
Speaker:I'm like,
Speaker:What?
Speaker:a second dude in the basement of the building.
Speaker:You want me
Speaker:people to come?
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:So we can close all the doors.
Speaker:Nah, dude, I was
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:but not last night.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:But at the end of then he says, okay, if you guys don't want to
Speaker:come to the Reserve Bank building, then I don't want to do the debate.
Speaker:But now we are into it.
Speaker:At this point, we are like,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:wait.
Speaker:Because now we then figured out a plan and here's what we did when debate day came,
Speaker:because we then went back to social media and we said to people, guess what folks?
Speaker:We are gonna debate the governor of the Reserve Bank concerning his
Speaker:monetary policies, and we want as many people to come as possible.
Speaker:We can't go ourselves.
Speaker:You have to come with us.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And so people are writing back to us.
Speaker:They're like, Yvonne, we knew it.
Speaker:We knew you were gonna get us in trouble.
Speaker:We knew you would try to get people arrested.
Speaker:Are you absolutely outta your mind debating the Reserve Bank governor
Speaker:in the Reserve Bank building?
Speaker:I have to bring my ID and register 'cause it's a secure building.
Speaker:to register, I have to
Speaker:oh.
Speaker:them my address, my phone number, and then go down.
Speaker:And it's one of the chapters in my book, in the book, crazy epic Courage.
Speaker:One of the chapters that's entitled Will Never Come Out Alive.
Speaker:It's actually a comment that someone posted on the video,
Speaker:invitation to the debate and it says, we'll never come out alive.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:never come out alive.
Speaker:man,
Speaker:And
Speaker:they were serious.
Speaker:This is really big deal because it's against the law to speak out or have this
Speaker:political stuff, and now you're gonna have to give your ID to get in the door.
Speaker:, it's how much do you believe this?
Speaker:Are you willing to put your name on the paper?
Speaker:That's what that's saying.
Speaker:you talk like you were there because that was, that's what I said.
Speaker:I said, look how much you guys have been watching and listening to my
Speaker:videos for almost three months.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:how much do you believe this?
Speaker:How, when are we gonna go beyond a comment on
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:gonna take the step?
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:gonna show up?
Speaker:When are you gonna put your face to your belief?
Speaker:gonna, when are you gonna come?
Speaker:I said, this is it.
Speaker:This is it.
Speaker:I've been out there for three months.
Speaker:Everybody knows who I am.
Speaker:Everybody knows what I'm saying.
Speaker:But now it's time for you and I to show up together.
Speaker:And so what we did was we approached an economist and a constitutional lawyer,
Speaker:and we got them to come to the debate and we said, here's what we want you to do.
Speaker:We want you to help the citizens understand the legal framework
Speaker:and the economic framework behind introducing a new currency.
Speaker:What is it government is supposed to do before they introduce a new currency?
Speaker:And then economically, what are the downstream issues that will arise
Speaker:with a new currency that could lead to inflation that haven't been addressed?
Speaker:So you two guys give an address.
Speaker:First of all, and what you're doing is you are empowering the ordinary
Speaker:people that have come for the debate.
Speaker:You are breaking it down to
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:they understand.
Speaker:And then when you two are done, we will then debate the governor.
Speaker:After
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:governor has to debate a people who are now empowered, who now know, who now
Speaker:have the information, and they, and then we can have a conversation with him.
Speaker:we can either bring him to our level, or at least we can come up to his level
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:can have the conversation.
Speaker:Dallas, let me tell you, we had the most incredible debate.
Speaker:Over
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:showed up for this
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:out the auditorium, sat about 200 people.
Speaker:It jammed packed.
Speaker:People were sitting in the aisles, they were
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:came with Zimbabwe flags.
Speaker:It was amazing see this happen.
Speaker:And at the end of it, a little cheeky thing that I had planned.
Speaker:I was like, okay, if this thing goes south.
Speaker:We're gonna keep a little ace in our back pocket, right?
Speaker:And so what we'll do is this, at the end of it, we're gonna give them a
Speaker:little of our appreciation just to make sure that if they own us in this
Speaker:debate, we at least have a way to say we still spoke truth to power.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:so at the end of it, at the end of this debate, which we clearly won, and.
Speaker:it was wild.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:then happened was people then began to ask him hard questions
Speaker:or just tell him straight.
Speaker:They were like, dude, we don't believe that If the president told you to not
Speaker:print money, that you wouldn't print.
Speaker:And people were saying things like,
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:are part of the rotten system that has been robbing us.
Speaker:I'm sitting there and I'm freaking out.
Speaker:I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:have we done?
Speaker:But at this point, we are excited now 'cause we've won the debate, but here's
Speaker:the thing that we had in our back pocket, and I was like, let's still do it.
Speaker:And so we give him this thing.
Speaker:It's a wrapped up big frame, and we give him, at the end of it
Speaker:as a token of our appreciation.
Speaker:And I said to him, go ahead and open it.
Speaker:Open it.
Speaker:And we have journalists there.
Speaker:They're taking pictures.
Speaker:He unwraps this frame and inside is an enlarged $100 trillion note.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:Large fills the big frame.
Speaker:And at the bottom we wrote, lest we forget, this should never
Speaker:happen to the citizens again.
Speaker:It hit the front
Speaker:wow.
Speaker:of all the newspapers the next day,
Speaker:Man, you really are pretty, pretty good at getting some social
Speaker:media likes and some, PR free pr.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:but that is when our trouble begins.
Speaker:Ah, yes.
Speaker:Now you have come on to the scene
Speaker:Exactly
Speaker:you're not just a kind of a guy off somewhere putting
Speaker:something out on his post.
Speaker:You're in the spotlight now.
Speaker:now we start to but it was a cool moment that, for us, because I think what we
Speaker:did at the time, at that time, we started to really think more like a movement.
Speaker:We were now thinking more okay, we are building something here that is
Speaker:a collective of voices, a collective of people that have a cause.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:longer just me putting videos out.
Speaker:It was this group of people that was growing and that was, that, that
Speaker:was really making representation
Speaker:, I wanna go back to what you said earlier, because I love when you were
Speaker:going into that meeting, you told everybody it's time to put your face
Speaker:to what you believe, put your face to your belief, put a face to your belief.
Speaker:And essentially that's saying you're literally saying it's me.
Speaker:You're identifying with what you believe and you're saying,
Speaker:I'm willing to identify it.
Speaker:And I don't want leaders that are listening to the show to miss that.
Speaker:And the importance of that concept as it relates to leading your organization,
Speaker:your team, or even your family.
Speaker:I think there's such a, an important, there was one time I
Speaker:was working with an organization.
Speaker:I had made these calls to the, there, there needed to be this massive overhaul
Speaker:of, some of the systems and processes and they were all siloed, like very, you
Speaker:know, regimented in how they handled data.
Speaker:And it needed to, there, there needed to be this one big data system that
Speaker:could manage everything altogether.
Speaker:And I had been pushing for this for quite some time and then
Speaker:they were like, okay, so do it.
Speaker:And so at first you're excited and you want, you want, I'm leading this thing,
Speaker:it's gonna affect the entire organization.
Speaker:It's gonna be this great thing.
Speaker:And then you realize I'm the, if this thing goes south, if it doesn't
Speaker:work, and I haven't done this before.
Speaker:Everybody's looking at me and they're like, look at that idiot who brought
Speaker:us down this way and then got us.
Speaker:And I, but I think that's what leaders do.
Speaker:Like leaders are going to lead.
Speaker:And if you see something and you really believe it down to your toes,
Speaker:that it is actually what is the right.
Speaker:Thing to do, then you have to put your face on it.
Speaker:And there's so many times I've been in situations, I've worked with a
Speaker:lot of different organizations where there'll be people in positions of
Speaker:leadership or positions of power, but they navigate things so that nothing
Speaker:ever is really associated with them.
Speaker:So if there's a change where it's happens, but it's that person's over there idea.
Speaker:And it's almost a defense mechanism because I'm managing my position,
Speaker:but I don't want anything to stick to me in case this thing goes wrong.
Speaker:I have deniability, I can put it up, but you know what, I've never seen a
Speaker:person in those positions that does that.
Speaker:They're very political.
Speaker:They may get promoted, but they never get, they, they never get promoted
Speaker:with respect as much as they get promoted within the organization.
Speaker:So they may get the, they may get the promotion, but they never get
Speaker:that trust and that respect from the people that they serve because
Speaker:they've never really put themselves out there and been like, all right,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:is it.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:they've navigated no disasters, but they've also not, they
Speaker:also don't have the scars.
Speaker:I look at great leaders like gladiators or whatever.
Speaker:They're like, yeah, I'm leading this legion of soldiers and
Speaker:I got the scars to prove it.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:my God.
Speaker:that's, when you talk about that's when you say put your face to
Speaker:your belief, like when I think as leaders, that's what that is.
Speaker:That when you said that, that's what came to mind.
Speaker:oh, look, Dallas, it's, cannot lead people in any setting.
Speaker:You cannot lead people into a place that you have not been to
Speaker:yourself or that you are not willing
Speaker:first
Speaker:yes,
Speaker:that's for me, that's the concept.
Speaker:If you are leading something, whether it's a company, a movement, a church,
Speaker:you can't lead people in a place where you haven't already been or a place
Speaker:you are not willing to step into first
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:Agreed.
Speaker:the concept.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:a couple of days ago, I think it's probably about a week ago,
Speaker:I posted something on LinkedIn and did a bit of a writeup on it.
Speaker:And it was from a scripture in the Bible that says, he who puts his armor on
Speaker:should not boast as he who takes it off,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:In other words, there is something about somebody who is coming from
Speaker:a battle to tell you about it as opposed to someone who is going to
Speaker:a battle that they've never been to.
Speaker:that's exactly right.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:there's something about someone who has a beat up, scarfed, scratched
Speaker:someone with the shiny one that's just come off the production line.
Speaker:something about those two.
Speaker:I want to talk to the, who was wearing this armor that's beat up and bent.
Speaker:I wanna talk to that person.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:the person I wanna talk
Speaker:That's the one you wanna know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:they've seen some things,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:that, I'm so glad you picked up that as part of the, as part of
Speaker:the ethos of what we were building,
Speaker:that then became a very much a mantra, within the small leadership
Speaker:that began to gather around me
Speaker:we cannot call people to do things that we are not willing to do ourselves.
Speaker:people to face danger that I have not faced danger, that
Speaker:I'm not willing to face myself,
Speaker:Because courage is about modeling.
Speaker:It's difficult to teach people courage when they haven't seen courage,
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:so you've gotta model, you've gotta model what you want people.
Speaker:To do or to emulate or to grow in.
Speaker:Some of them may even do better than you or go further, but
Speaker:the modeling stands with you.
Speaker:And that's what we were doing.
Speaker:with that debate.
Speaker:A couple of, I'll move on real quickly
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:then walk you into the point at which the government then really started
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:to come for us.
Speaker:There was some moments in which a few government ministers
Speaker:began to make comments about us.
Speaker:debate, there was a sudden realization within government that,
Speaker:wait, something is happening here.
Speaker:Like we have a been paying attention to this thing because we all thought it was
Speaker:just something happening on social media,
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:at what these guys are doing.
Speaker:And so I start to get the threats and the comments from real people
Speaker:that are in government now.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:And, but then at that point, I've also walked a journey.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:From April 19th, 2016 to about July, I've walked a journey of being this
Speaker:scared person who didn't want to get in trouble, who didn't want to see
Speaker:this thing grow bigger than it already was to being a person who is seeing
Speaker:a thread of purpose, who're seeing a mission of purpose, who's beginning
Speaker:to lean more and more into no wait.
Speaker:I'm, I want to get, I wanna get closer to it.
Speaker:No, let's take one more step and see what happens.
Speaker:Okay, fine.
Speaker:the last step and then let's see what happens.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:and every time we did that, I was like, okay, hold on.
Speaker:I think there's another step beyond this.
Speaker:we, we can't leave it here, but let's take the one more step.
Speaker:every step we took not only grew the movement bigger in terms of more
Speaker:people, but grew our sense of courage and our sense of mission even more.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So by the time the threats are coming, they're not
Speaker:threatening the April 19th, 2016
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:the July guy.
Speaker:that's a version 3.0.
Speaker:you're already updated.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's my point is that we grow in courage.
Speaker:When we commit ourselves to missions of courage, we grow
Speaker:take more steps, we grow.
Speaker:there are challenges where if you are at the beginning of your journey
Speaker:and you are shown the size of the challenge in the middle of the journey,
Speaker:you're not gonna take that journey.
Speaker:You're gonna be like, I'm out.
Speaker:I am completely out.
Speaker:but as you accept it, the journey more you are also growing.
Speaker:You are also becoming,
Speaker:a bigger version, a better version, a more resilient version, a more curious version.
Speaker:A more excited version.
Speaker:A version that wants to be on the journey more than it wants to be out.
Speaker:Don't get me wrong, I was terrified much of the way.
Speaker:there was a part of me that was growing, that was, that kept saying,
Speaker:wow, dude, that debate was amazing.
Speaker:Okay, what can we, let's, why don't we try something else?
Speaker:let's move this to the next level through this vehicle.
Speaker:and we did this petitions where we were signing on the
Speaker:street and we were like, whoa.
Speaker:That was, but then came July.
Speaker:July, the government decided that they were not going to listen to anybody.
Speaker:We were still a small voice at the time.
Speaker:They were just gonna go ahead and introduce their currency.
Speaker:And so I said at this point, I had a ragtag team of people that had
Speaker:joined me that would take two hours in the day to come to the office and
Speaker:help us think about the movement, And
Speaker:off and so forth.
Speaker:And I said to my small team of about, maybe it was about five
Speaker:people at that time, I said, guys, these guys are gonna introduce
Speaker:this money and it's gonna wreck us.
Speaker:We know it is.
Speaker:what's our response?
Speaker:What are we gonna do before they make that move?
Speaker:What do we do?
Speaker:We have to, we can't wait until after.
Speaker:We've gotta do something now.
Speaker:so I say to them, this is gonna sound crazy, but I have this sense.
Speaker:How do we get everyone to tell them that we really don't want
Speaker:this money in one big voice.
Speaker:And I remember saying to them, don't we, why don't we shut the country down?
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Let's switch it off.
Speaker:let's just, let's switch the whole thing off.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:And even hearing myself say that felt like you need to stop
Speaker:smoking whatever you smoke.
Speaker:what are.
Speaker:It's a big idea.
Speaker:It's a big idea to turn off the country.
Speaker:here was the deal.
Speaker:said to my friends, if we can see people are, of all, it's
Speaker:illegal to protest on the street.
Speaker:So we can't do a street protest.
Speaker:I
Speaker:even if we could do a street protest, people are too afraid to do it.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:so here's what we're gonna do, is let's find something that people can do that
Speaker:is a low barrier to entry, but that has a big impact if we do it together.
Speaker:the deal.
Speaker:I'm gonna do a video where I'm going to ask people if they have been listening,
Speaker:if at all they've been listening to what we've been saying and doing.
Speaker:If at all they're genuinely interested or excited, I'm gonna ask them to
Speaker:take this one step one, this one step that we can all do together.
Speaker:I'm gonna ask this whole country to not go to work, to not take their kids to school,
Speaker:to not open their businesses, not go on the street, don't go to the supermarket.
Speaker:Don't go to the bank.
Speaker:Stay indoors.
Speaker:Stay at home for one day.
Speaker:Let's make this whole country come to a complete Still.
Speaker:For those of you who are Christian, I'm asking you to take that
Speaker:time to pray for our country.
Speaker:And it was wild because I remember I did this video.
Speaker:I was sitting in the back of my 1998 beat up Nissan Diesel
Speaker:truck that I had repaired myself.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:damaged pickup truck.
Speaker:And I built it myself.
Speaker:'cause I was that kind of guy.
Speaker:and I remember making this video.
Speaker:I'm in the parking lot of my apartment just before I go upstairs to my family.
Speaker:make this video where I say, Zimbabweans, I don't know what else to do, but
Speaker:I'm asking you to do this one thing.
Speaker:I don't know what will happen after that, but I feel like we have to do this.
Speaker:And if you really care, if you've really been listening, if you've really been
Speaker:following, then this is our chance.
Speaker:This is our one shot.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:On the 6th of July, I'm asking you to take this one day off to make this stand.
Speaker:Let's shut this country down.
Speaker:And I made that call on the 4th of July, 2016.
Speaker:Oh real.
Speaker:Just two days.
Speaker:it was just two days.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:of the reasons we couldn't make it longer is if you make it longer,
Speaker:they're gonna shut us down.
Speaker:after us, they're gonna, all sorts of things are gonna happen.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I was like, we only have two days to do it, to get
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:We send the video out.
Speaker:And that very night, my wife, she's like, you can't stay here.
Speaker:You need to leave
Speaker:because it's too dangerous for you and the family.
Speaker:and she blessed her heart.
Speaker:She was so concerned about me.
Speaker:She said, you need to be safe, so go.
Speaker:And so my friends and I move into a safe house and we're waiting
Speaker:there for the next two days.
Speaker:And I'll never forget that feeling.
Speaker:I couldn't sleep for those two days.
Speaker:'cause I was like, if it fails, not only is the movement done, I.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Finished.
Speaker:But then we are completely exposed.
Speaker:They
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and that's it.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And the day came July 6th, 2016 a day.
Speaker:I will genuinely never forget for the
Speaker:life.
Speaker:And the entire country came to a complete standstill.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow,
Speaker:whole thing came to a grinding halt
Speaker:man.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:I was like, what?
Speaker:What have we done?
Speaker:I always say to people, I almost went on doors.
Speaker:And if I could go on people's doors to knock on their doors
Speaker:and be like, what are you doing?
Speaker:Go to work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you listening to this
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:person?
Speaker:But that day was incredible because.
Speaker:What started off in my small church office is the rant of one person
Speaker:had become this national voice and this national action that had
Speaker:truth to power.
Speaker:And whilst that was ex that was exciting.
Speaker:We knew that the stakes had been jacked up even
Speaker:point.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:If you can shut the country down, that means your voice has a lot of power
Speaker:oh
Speaker:and and then there's gonna be a response.
Speaker:There's gonna be a lot of repercussions.
Speaker:And so within two days after that, actually a few more days
Speaker:after that, I stayed in hiding after the success of the shutdown.
Speaker:and, eventually the government issued a warrant for my arrest.
Speaker:they went to my home looking for me.
Speaker:I was being called a terrorist.
Speaker:and eventually I was arrested.
Speaker:In fact, I handed myself in when they had gone to my house and threatened,
Speaker:to beat up my wife and my kids.
Speaker:And by the way, I had a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old,
Speaker:and my wife was pregnant with our third one,
Speaker:which is a perfect time to start trouble with a dictator is when you
Speaker:have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and your wife is pregnant with a
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:one.
Speaker:man.
Speaker:doing What's wrong with you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But the reason I say that, and I know I say it as a joke, but the
Speaker:reason I say that Dallas, is there's never a perfect time to do the
Speaker:things that really matter to you.
Speaker:it's building a company or whether it is standing up to a dictator
Speaker:or whether it is writing a book.
Speaker:There's never a perfect time.
Speaker:perfect time is when it needs to be done.
Speaker:When
Speaker:That's.
Speaker:be done, that's the time to do it.
Speaker:Do I have enough money?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Do I have people support?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Are they guarantees it'll succeed?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Is this the right economic environment?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:None of it.
Speaker:when every answer is no, the time for you to say, yes.
Speaker:let's get going.
Speaker:is the time.
Speaker:Now's the time to go.
Speaker:And so eventually I'm arrested.
Speaker:I hand myself into the police after my wife is threatened.
Speaker:And, I'm imprisoned in, in prison and spent two of the hardest nights
Speaker:that I had ever spent in my life.
Speaker:two of the hardest nights that I yeah, that I'd ever spent.
Speaker:where I was beaten and tortured, in a prison and accused of all sorts of things.
Speaker:And eventually I was charged with treason, where they said I was
Speaker:attempting to overthrow the government
Speaker:Good gracious.
Speaker:far from what we were trying to do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:but I have to tell you that it was the morning of the second night
Speaker:when they were taking me to court for my trial to begin, that something
Speaker:happened that in a very real sense wiped away the pain of the last two nights.
Speaker:And it was this incident where we were getting ready to go to the court,
Speaker:one of the police officers came to me and said, pastor, there's about a
Speaker:hundred people gathered at the courts.
Speaker:They have flags.
Speaker:They're kneeling and praying.
Speaker:They're saying they're not leaving until you are released and they're
Speaker:saying they're your people.
Speaker:And I'm sitting there and I'm like, whoa, dude.
Speaker:I have a church of 40 people.
Speaker:If they're a hundred.
Speaker:Oh, that's pretty good.
Speaker:like most pastors I know wanna have a big church
Speaker:that day.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:never wanted to have a small church more.
Speaker:I was like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker:No, not mine.
Speaker:They're not me.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:not from my, in fact, our church is much smaller than 40 because five
Speaker:of those people are from my house.
Speaker:There's my wife, there's my two kids and the pregnant one, and then
Speaker:the one that's still in the tummy.
Speaker:So there's about four or five people from my house.
Speaker:They're not my people.
Speaker:There's
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:my church.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:He comes back an hour later again, he says, Hey man, we are delayed again.
Speaker:We're not about to leave just yet because there's about now 500 people
Speaker:that have gathered at the courts.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:he comes back again about an hour later.
Speaker:He says, Hey, we're still delayed.
Speaker:We are not gonna take off just yet.
Speaker:We're sending the riot police, the armed riot police to clear them out.
Speaker:'cause there's about a thousand people that have gathered at the courts.
Speaker:Now,
Speaker:good gracious.
Speaker:keeps happening Dallas for about seven hours until the courts have closed and
Speaker:it's dark and it's now six 7:00 PM and there is now 10,000 people gathered
Speaker:Good gracious day.
Speaker:you could not have prepared me for that.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Speaker:because, and here's why.
Speaker:All the work that we had done.
Speaker:Everything we had done mobilizing people with videos to debate the
Speaker:shutdown, the petitions we signed.
Speaker:of it led to this point where the people finally did not
Speaker:need anyone to say, let's go.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:was just a spontaneity.
Speaker:There
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:within them that rose up and that said, no, we've been doing this.
Speaker:We've been watching this guy for
Speaker:we've been participating.
Speaker:Now
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:we need to be there.
Speaker:And for me it was amazing.
Speaker:I remember sitting in the stairwell of the prison when we finally got to the
Speaker:courts and they have, the prison cells in the basement of the court where
Speaker:you wait before your trial begins.
Speaker:and I could hear thousands of people singing outside.
Speaker:It was one of the most amazing moments, and I'm sitting in
Speaker:the stairwell of this prison.
Speaker:Tears just flooding my face and I hear God say to me, see, it was never about you.
Speaker:It was about them.
Speaker:It was never about you.
Speaker:It was about them.
Speaker:a liberating moment.
Speaker:'cause I feel like whatever happens from here on, we've won.
Speaker:Whatever happens from here on
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:this is it.
Speaker:This is the mountaintop, this is the point we're trying to make,
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:there is a growing number of people that have enough courage within them to stand
Speaker:up and for themselves, say, I have had enough and I will not allow this to happen
Speaker:to my children and to happen to my family.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That crowd of people were so resolute.
Speaker:People were making sandwiches at home and bringing them to feed everyone to stay the
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:yeah, they had candles.
Speaker:They were praying, they were singing.
Speaker:Man, I will, when we are done at some, I'll send you pictures, maybe even some
Speaker:videos and video links to that night.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:this is happening whilst I'm inside, so I can't see this,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:this later on,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:but the courts eventually at about 7:30 PM maybe 8:00 PM which was unprecedented,
Speaker:that the courts would still be open, eventually have to make a decision.
Speaker:they fear a national situation is happening, a security
Speaker:situation is happening.
Speaker:And so they, they decide to let me go.
Speaker:You are kidding me.
Speaker:Oh my
Speaker:now,
Speaker:goodness.
Speaker:dude,
Speaker:is amazing.
Speaker:I was let go.
Speaker:And this, it's a whole Dr. I write about it in the book.
Speaker:It's a whole dramatic, event that happens.
Speaker:I walk into this crowd of thousands of people waiting outside.
Speaker:And I break.
Speaker:I just, I cry.
Speaker:I'm just like, oh my God.
Speaker:I just cannot, there's people everywhere they're singing there.
Speaker:It's just like the whole city was a block party.
Speaker:It was
Speaker:see.
Speaker:And again, I'm retracing my steps as I'm walking in the middle of this crowd,
Speaker:I'm retracing my steps back to my church office when I propped that phone against
Speaker:my Bible and began this, that video.
Speaker:And this is where we are now.
Speaker:and that night, we get, I get a message from a police chaplain who says,
Speaker:Hey, you're not going to be safe.
Speaker:you're being rearrested, tomorrow because
Speaker:What?
Speaker:a situation.
Speaker:So you're being rearrested.
Speaker:my wife, again, amazing woman, she packs a backpack for me,
Speaker:puts my passport in there.
Speaker:She says, you gotta get outta here.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:She's as pregnant as heaven itself.
Speaker:At
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:a minute, I'm not leaving you.
Speaker:She's, and she's that's what you, that's what you are gonna do.
Speaker:You
Speaker:leave us and you're getting out, we'll figure it out.
Speaker:And I'm driven six hours across the country in the middle of the
Speaker:night, and finally get to a border, dramatic pass through the border.
Speaker:again, don't have the time to go through it, but
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I'm able to escape.
Speaker:And, we rendezvous, we also are able to get my family out
Speaker:in the next couple of days.
Speaker:some of my friends help to get my family out we rendezvous in South Africa and,
Speaker:eventually we, we leave South Africa and we come to the United States.
Speaker:And, I wanna say this real quick.
Speaker:that we get here, my daughter is born.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:She's born two
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:This is how close we were cutting it, and it's a wonderful moment.
Speaker:I'm holding my daughter, my family safe, and three months after she's
Speaker:born, I'm going through horrible sense of having abandoned the mission and the
Speaker:purpose and the work that we had begun.
Speaker:I'm struggling with this internal incongruency of having taught
Speaker:people to be courageous, but acting differently in the moment.
Speaker:I ran away
Speaker:and our whole movement was based on not fearing being present.
Speaker:And I remember I said to my wife, I said.
Speaker:This is gonna sound crazy, but I need to go back.
Speaker:And one of the hardest decisions or conversations, first of
Speaker:all, that we had to make
Speaker:That's, aw, that's awful.
Speaker:that's, you've just had your daughter's, what, three months old you said?
Speaker:Three months old.
Speaker:three months old
Speaker:and
Speaker:I'm sitting there and I'm like, look, I know I've already put you through a lot.
Speaker:We shouldn't even be in this country where not for me.
Speaker:and my shenanigans.
Speaker:we wouldn't be here
Speaker:and, but I need to leave you guys here and I need to go back.
Speaker:what did you think at that moment that you were wanting to accomplish by going back?
Speaker:I mean, obviously I know you said we, we started with having courage
Speaker:and kind of truth to power, but it sounds like that at this point
Speaker:you've had time to think about it.
Speaker:You've, you've been in South Africa, now you're in the USA.
Speaker:You've had your daughters several months have passed.
Speaker:You kinda are feeling this nagging kind of thought.
Speaker:It feels like you've got something very , more specific.
Speaker:did you have a specific goal when you talked to your wife?
Speaker:It's I need to go back because of this, or was it like, I just need to go back?
Speaker:Or was it like, no, I need to go back and do this thing?
Speaker:There was definitely a specific set of things that I was sensing.
Speaker:of them is what I said earlier on, that the incongruency of
Speaker:having led people for months.
Speaker:With an idea of courage and finishing it off with fear
Speaker:wasn't just not adding up for me.
Speaker:I was like, internally, I was just failing to even sleep, to even eat,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:about this, that does not compute.
Speaker:Then there was the sense also that we originally, I said to people, the way
Speaker:we solve problems is by showing up.
Speaker:I'm not there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How do you show up?
Speaker:I've done the opposite of that, right?
Speaker:But thirdly was also this idea that dictators love to be feared.
Speaker:Dallas,
Speaker:they love to be feared, and the one thing they can't stand is
Speaker:people who do not fear them.
Speaker:And so I said to her, I am not happy that I have taught people
Speaker:by my actions by running away.
Speaker:I've taught people that fear is really what we should have, that
Speaker:you should be afraid of him.
Speaker:The whole part of the whole ethos of what we were doing was breaking past
Speaker:the wall of fear and getting people to a place of understanding that fear will
Speaker:stop us from being able to do or to see the kind of future that we want to see.
Speaker:I wanna go back.
Speaker:I want to go back and do, but a big part of it was, again, being
Speaker:a Christian and being somebody who has a relationship with God.
Speaker:A lot of that felt like God was saying to me, yes, this is a mission that I
Speaker:gave to you, and I'm looking after you.
Speaker:and I'm.
Speaker:When I say, I'll never leave you, no forsake you.
Speaker:It's not a concept, it's a reality.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So you had a piece about the return.
Speaker:You just knew that's what you supposed to be, okay?
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:I had a peace about it.
Speaker:but still, there was still, you still get that sense of fear, what
Speaker:if the whole thing goes wrong?
Speaker:that peace always comes back in as well and says, Hey, he's with you.
Speaker:And it's okay.
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:this is something that is coming from your heart.
Speaker:I eventually we come to an agreement and she allows me to do it, and I jump on a
Speaker:plane and head back to Zimbabwe and I cry all the way on that flight, man, I cried.
Speaker:I'll never forget that I, we landed in South Africa first.
Speaker:I went through Heathrow, then into Johannesburg, South Africa, and then
Speaker:caught the last leg into Harare.
Speaker:Probably just the, that flight was probably, it was just, don't
Speaker:even know how to explain it.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I felt
Speaker:throw up the whole flight, one and a half hours.
Speaker:my stomach just churned and churned.
Speaker:, did people know that you were coming back?
Speaker:Had you kind of connected with people?
Speaker:, People didn't know I was coming
Speaker:Good, good, gracious.
Speaker:knew and my lawyer knew I was coming back.
Speaker:'cause we thought, Hey, if something happens, at least a few people
Speaker:should know and just be ready.
Speaker:And so the plane touches down and I'm getting off the plane.
Speaker:And as I'm walking towards the immigration counter, that's when it happens.
Speaker:immediately arrested at the airport before my
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:You didn't even, they, you had not told anybody.
Speaker:You touched the ground and before you even make it to the gate, you were arrested.
Speaker:before
Speaker:So they were totally on the lookout, like your name was on a list.
Speaker:were
Speaker:saw it pop out and it was like, this guy's not going.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And this is six months later,
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:and so that's when the most difficult part of the journey happens.
Speaker:I'm taken go through a series of interrogation and, threats at the airport.
Speaker:And then eventually I'm sent off to Chiru maximum security prison.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:And so I'm held in a maximum security prison.
Speaker:and, but I haven't experience there.
Speaker:That blew me away.
Speaker:I get there.
Speaker:I am so afraid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:am.
Speaker:I am like everything I've ever heard about maximum security
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:everything I've ever watched in movies,
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:oh my, this is gonna happen, this then this, then they're
Speaker:gonna do this, and we get there.
Speaker:On day one as they walk me into my cell and there's a whole
Speaker:process to, getting into the cell.
Speaker:leg ions and handcuffs.
Speaker:'cause maximum security prison, they put leg ions and I'm walking
Speaker:into this place and it's not a cell, like two people in a cell?
Speaker:No, this is
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:with that's, it's designed for, I dunno, maybe about, 12 to 15
Speaker:people, but it has 48 people in it.
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:way we sleep, we're regimented.
Speaker:You sleep, know your head and legs are kind of
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Opposite.
Speaker:person sleeps with their head there and the other person with
Speaker:their head on the other side.
Speaker:And then, and just so that you maximize on the space
Speaker:gracious.
Speaker:and before I get into this cell, I'm standing in this courtyard where there's
Speaker:400 other men from the other cells and it's just about lockdown time.
Speaker:these four guys approach me.
Speaker:And I think this is the way it happens.
Speaker:These guys are gonna beat me.
Speaker:It's gonna get crazy.
Speaker:These four guys approached me and the guy leading them, pretty tall guy.
Speaker:stretches his hand out and he says, welcome pastor.
Speaker:we've been expecting you.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:And that, that could mean a bunch of
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker:That could mean a lot of things.
Speaker:If you have a, if you have an active imagination
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:at that point, you're like, oh my God.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:been expecting me.
Speaker:Okay, here we go.
Speaker:but then he goes into saying something that disarmed me completely.
Speaker:'cause I was ready for a
Speaker:listen, I'm not a, I don't know how to fight.
Speaker:I wasn't the biggest fighter as a kid or growing up.
Speaker:but I'm like, I'm not going down without a
Speaker:sure, sure.
Speaker:I'm gonna bite.
Speaker:I'm gonna scratch.
Speaker:I'll do whatever I'm gonna, I need to do because it's not happening
Speaker:Yes,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:right.
Speaker:and then he says to me.
Speaker:We heard about what happened six months ago at the courts.
Speaker:Some of our friends here in prison were at the courts waiting for their trials
Speaker:to begin, they saw the crowds, they saw everything that happened whilst
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And, we are just thankful for what you've been trying to do for our
Speaker:families because we are stuck in here.
Speaker:We can't serve them, we can't do anything.
Speaker:But you've been out there fighting for our families.
Speaker:And so, you know, we, when we heard you had come back, we hoped that
Speaker:you would be brought to the cell we want to pay you back for, we want
Speaker:to, we want to pay you back for what you've been doing for our families.
Speaker:and so for as long as you're gonna be in this cell.
Speaker:we will try our best to look after you, serve you, so that you are stronger
Speaker:when you leave than when you came in.
Speaker:because you will leave.
Speaker:dude, I was prepared for a fight.
Speaker:I was prepared for this, for us, prepared for this horrible moment, and suddenly
Speaker:it's the place I expected to encounter.
Speaker:The worst is a place where I'm starting to encounter the opposite of that.
Speaker:A sense of
Speaker:a sense of safety, a sense of safety in a maximum security prison, right?
Speaker:And these four guys, bless their hearts, they.
Speaker:, I mean these guys, they took me into the cell.
Speaker:, they brought me up to speed.
Speaker:Here's how we operate in the prison.
Speaker:Here's how you keep out of trouble with the guards.
Speaker:Here's how, and there's very little they could have done to protect me from
Speaker:the guards and they tried their best.
Speaker:But every time I came back, 'cause I would be picked up, maybe once, sometimes
Speaker:twice a week from the cell and taken to solitary confinement for a couple of days.
Speaker:where we would go through all sorts of treatments I would come back, these
Speaker:guys would faithfully look after me.
Speaker:guys would bandage my wounds, they would wash me.
Speaker:These guys would, they would've kept some food for me, even
Speaker:though it was horrible food.
Speaker:They would, they keeps a little bit for me to eat.
Speaker:These guys would, these guys would protect me in the courtyard and make sure I was
Speaker:able to get some sleep or get some rest.
Speaker:And as I got stronger, these four guys, one of them was serving
Speaker:a life sentence for murder.
Speaker:The other guy was serving for armed robbery and another one for armed robbery
Speaker:and another one for drug trafficking.
Speaker:these guys served me like, like no one ever did.
Speaker:These guys looked after me.
Speaker:They, the one time I was sitting and I was just crying 'cause
Speaker:I was upset, I was tired.
Speaker:I thought I'd made a mistake by coming back.
Speaker:And one of them came up to me and says to me, Hey man, I know this is difficult,
Speaker:but you don't have time for this.
Speaker:You are on a mission.
Speaker:All these men in this prison, they have stories to tell
Speaker:Their stories.
Speaker:Make appointments with them like you, you would normally do with your church
Speaker:members and hear their stories and,
Speaker:speak to them.
Speaker:And I did, and it strengthened me.
Speaker:Dallas.
Speaker:I
Speaker:stories, I heard hope from people that, that don't, from the outside
Speaker:have no reason to have hope.
Speaker:I heard faith, I heard excitement about when they would leave and
Speaker:what they wanted for the HI mean, it was just amazing the stuff I heard.
Speaker:And after about three months, I was finally released on bail
Speaker:and they took my passport away.
Speaker:They took the title deeds to my parents' house away.
Speaker:And I was kept under house arrest.
Speaker:And true to the words of these four friends of mine, I was stronger
Speaker:when I got out than when I came in.
Speaker:Good gracious day.
Speaker:how do I know that?
Speaker:I know that because I was arrested another six times after that.
Speaker:What.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:And I, I cried.
Speaker:Please understand me.
Speaker:I don't want your listeners to feel sadness.
Speaker:I cry, not because I'm sad.
Speaker:I cried because I saw incredible miracles of my journey.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I cried because I saw breakthroughs.
Speaker:I'd never thought possible, but that only became possible when I
Speaker:leaned into the conviction I had that what I was doing was right,
Speaker:doing was serving other people.
Speaker:My
Speaker:taught me this years ago.
Speaker:he said, my boy, you will never know what it means to change the world
Speaker:until you know how to serve people.
Speaker:And not only had I served people, but I saw four men serve me
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:to the point where I was ready again for the mission,
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I was committed again to the mission even beyond what I thought
Speaker:when I came into that prison.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:the end of that year, so many things happened, a moment came in which
Speaker:the political party of the dictators started to its own internal issues.
Speaker:And there was a moment there where we were able to mobilize people finally to
Speaker:the streets to demand his resignation.
Speaker:And even though the military was involved in their own operation,
Speaker:remember sending a message to them.
Speaker:It's such a, it's even crazy for me to say this, to say we want to march against
Speaker:this dictator who has destroyed our lives.
Speaker:in November of 2017, millions of people came to the streets.
Speaker:Eventually, it's a long story, but we were able to finally do
Speaker:it, and he resigned and left.
Speaker:Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker:years old,
Speaker:He was 93.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:old.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:it was the culmination of not only the work that we had
Speaker:done, but others before us.
Speaker:I never want to take credit for that because there was a
Speaker:lot happening in that moment.
Speaker:But we played our part.
Speaker:My whole thing was we played our part, up to that moment, Dallas.
Speaker:Man, you've pulled stuff out of me, dude.
Speaker:on.
Speaker:be honest with you, I, I just appreciate you sharing your
Speaker:story in just such a real way.
Speaker:And I think it's just so powerful, especially as you've just been really
Speaker:vulnerable about, the highs and the lows and what you're thinking.
Speaker:And I feel like that as people go through their life.
Speaker:You know, you talked about the armor and how you wanna listen to the people that's
Speaker:come back from the battle that's got the battle scars, that's got the dirty armor.
Speaker:And I think that's so important because I. I think that what
Speaker:you've shared is exactly that.
Speaker:you have gone to the other side and you've brought back this message from
Speaker:the front lines speaking truth to power of leading through change, of
Speaker:leaning into conviction and committing to something, greater than yourself.
Speaker:And I think that is an inspiration for everyone.
Speaker:I think that's an inspiration for leaders, all over the world.
Speaker:And I just appreciate you being open about it and just
Speaker:really just sharing your story.
Speaker:we had some ideas of the things that we want to get to and stuff, and we just
Speaker:kind of, hit everything as we've gone.
Speaker:This has been incredible.
Speaker:Your story is just incredible and I love your personality and just the
Speaker:energy that you have in telling it.
Speaker:And I'm so thankful that you captured it in a book and I would just.
Speaker:I would just encourage listeners today if you have enjoyed the show, which I know
Speaker:that you have, I would just encourage you to go by and find crazy, epic
Speaker:courage and read the rest of the story.
Speaker:'cause there's so much that I know that you got in that book that you
Speaker:weren't, we weren't even able to, we were just able to scratch the
Speaker:surface today, which is insane.
Speaker:That's amazing because today's been incredible and we are
Speaker:just tip of the iceberg.
Speaker:So I would just encourage everybody, to check out the book and we'll
Speaker:put a link to it in the show notes.
Speaker:If you're driving right now and you're like, I want to, I wanna get a copy
Speaker:of that book, we'll put a link to it.
Speaker:people can get it on Amazon.
Speaker:is that where people can buy it?
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:grab a copy on Amazon and I have an audiobook coming out soon,
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:which is probably easier for people to consume.
Speaker:So probably in about maybe the next two to three weeks, the
Speaker:audiobook will be out as well.
Speaker:as we close up here, I would love for you to just summarize if you're
Speaker:speaking to leaders of companies, of teams, organizations, of churches.
Speaker:If you were speaking to leaders and you were to summarize the message from
Speaker:your story and your book on how to lead well, what would be your message
Speaker:to be a, if you want to be a great leader that's living in the last 10%,
Speaker:what would you summarize your story and encourage leaders with today?
Speaker:I would say that courage is an incredibly important ingredient for
Speaker:not only the leader to have, but for the team is with the leader.
Speaker:Because the job that the leader has is not to do the job themselves, but
Speaker:to equip and empower everyone on their team the job just as well and better.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:So modeling courage about getting the people , on our teams to be
Speaker:able to move the mission of our company, of our organization, to move
Speaker:that mission with the same passion that those who founded it or have.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:to be the ones in the street when the one's inside.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:And so for me, that's such an important aspect of leadership.
Speaker:How can I get people on the peripheral of this company, of this organization
Speaker:to be as passionate as those of us that, began the movement or began the
Speaker:business, or those of us that own.
Speaker:The business.
Speaker:true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:how can that, because once we get that to happen, then this business,
Speaker:then this organization, then this vision we have will transcend us.
Speaker:it'll go beyond that, beyond us.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:finally, I'll say this, people always ask me and they say, I don't have
Speaker:as much courage as you have because what you face is just so dangerous.
Speaker:realization I've had is that we don't measure courage by
Speaker:the size of the danger we face.
Speaker:We measure it by the actions that we take for the things that we believe.
Speaker:are we willing to take?
Speaker:For what we believe.
Speaker:If it's a, if it's a mission statement, if it's a vision statement
Speaker:we have, it can be beautiful.
Speaker:It can be amazing.
Speaker:But until we are able to put together a set of actions for that vision and
Speaker:for that mission, we're not gonna see our courage, and we're not gonna
Speaker:see, we're not gonna see progress.
Speaker:I'll leave you with those two.
Speaker:With
Speaker:Ah, man.
Speaker:That's heavy.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Ah, that's so good.
Speaker:I have been so inspired today.
Speaker:I am, man.
Speaker:I just love this conversation.
Speaker:You're such a cool, you're so cool, man.
Speaker:I love this talk.
Speaker:This has just been so much fun.
Speaker:If other people I've been inspired, which I know they have, and they want to
Speaker:connect with you, maybe you're a speaker, you're a great motivational speaker, if
Speaker:they wanna connect with you to have them speak to their organization or at their
Speaker:event, how can they connect with you?
Speaker:So it's real easy.
Speaker:You can connect with me either via my website, yvonne mare.org or
Speaker:one of the best has been LinkedIn.
Speaker:If you go into LinkedIn, Yvonne Mare, you can find me there.
Speaker:I'm also on the other platforms, Instagram and Twitter, but LinkedIn and, my
Speaker:website will be the two best platforms for you to be able to send a direct
Speaker:message to me, and I will be extremely excited some of this journey with you.
Speaker:that's so awesome.
Speaker:We will also put those links in the show notes, so if you're
Speaker:driving, you can check them out when you get to where you're going.
Speaker:we always ask guests on the last 10%.
Speaker:The last question is always, who would you like to hear as a guest on the last 10%?
Speaker:That's a good question.
Speaker:have a friend of mine who is at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:is Dey,
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:he's a professor there and he heads up a very interesting,
Speaker:project on communication.
Speaker:and they're trying to create a different kind of social media that focuses
Speaker:more on richer conversations rather than just the glam aspect of it.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:so Deb Roy would be somebody I would absolutely love to hear, talk about
Speaker:the things they've been developing.
Speaker:I mean, when I went for a tour at MIT, they showed me some
Speaker:I'm like, I'm a regular guy.
Speaker:I walked in there, my eyes was like, oh, what?
Speaker:You
Speaker:building?
Speaker:This
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:All right, we'll reach out to Deb Roy and see if we can get him on the last 10%.
Speaker:That's a great recommendation.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:It would be awesome.
Speaker:Yvonne, thank you so much again for your time today.
Speaker:This has been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker:Thank you for sharing your story and just being on the last 10%.
Speaker:You are the best my friend.
Speaker:And the last 10% has been so energizing for me today.
Speaker:, I've just decided now.
Speaker:As soon as I get off here, I'm going for a run.
Speaker:'cause the energy, the buddy, my brother.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:you so much.
Speaker:Thank you for honoring me and honoring my story.
