Imtiaz Sooliman – Episode 16 on Gift of The Givers & The Power of Humanity
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It's 1986
I still haven't seen Cape Town. When am I going to get to Turkey?
He said something very important, important to understand the power
of faith and the power of spirituality. So Miller says, what
God worlds happens? There's a time and a place, and five years later
it happened, my wife and I landed up in Turkey. It is a long story
why we got there and what we went for, but five years later, we got
into Turkey in August 91
I saw the spiritual teacher, not the one that Miller man, were you
going there to see the spiritual teacher? I was actually on my way
to Bangladesh to deliver aid to the cyclone victims, so you had
already started. Then that was pre gift of the givers. I was involved
in in social work. In pre gift of the givers. I was involved with
youth. I did a mission to Mozambique during the there was a
drought there when, when Salam invaded Kuwait, funding in
Mozambique collapsed, so the Mozambique and government and
people are still required assistance. And we went and we
drilled 30 boreholes. We put in malaria medication. We held the
hospital. In 91 I got involved in the Gulf War, and in 91 at some
point, we got involved in taking aid. And it is different. In
Bangladesh Relief Fund, Iraq really fund, Mozambique Relief
Fund, I was in an organization then, and in the process, I landed
up in Turkey because of that vision. And the teacher I met was
the new one. It was the one that Miller met had passed on in 1985
but as part of a succession in spiritual law, in Sufi law, the
next teacher takes on, and it carries on his own chain of now
we're on the 22nd teacher right now from these three so, so I went
there, what Miller saw in New York, I saw in Istanbul. You know,
people from all religion, all nationalities, all in Muslim holy
place. But what is amazing that this is post Gulf War. Gulf War
had polarized the world into different religions and different
civilizations, and we had conflict with each other. But here they
were, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, people who said they
don't believe. People said they're not from and they don't have
they're not certain. They don't have any faith. Americans,
Russians, people from Europe, you know, Australia, New Zealand,
South America, Africa, Asia. The amazing thing was, there was
absolute respect for each other, no conflict, no friction. And
that's the kind of thing you want to see happen in the whole world.
Yeah, the spiritual teacher sees me, sees that, you know, I'm
stunned watching all this that's going on. How's this possible? And
he tells me, my son, mankind is one single nation. The God of all
mankind is one. We just call him by different names, any Imam,
Priest, Sheik, Sufi, Pandi, to anyone else who promotes violence,
extremism, terrorism, Discord, conflict, confrontation and
disorder, is not a man of God. Don't follow him. The real person
of God is He who promotes love, kindness, compassion and mercy. I
fell in love with that concept, yeah,
again. Went back to my wife and I went back to South Africa. A year
later, my heart well in the year, my heart was waiting for that
place, because I felt a huge spiritual upliftment. That's 1992
92 I can't explain the spiritual upliftment. It's something you
gotta feel to understand it. Anyway, six, August, 1992
10:10pm, on a Thursday night, the spiritual teacher finishes a zikr.
He picks up his head, makes eye contact me. I'm on the other side
of the room, and he looks heavenward at the same time in
FLUENT Turkish, and I don't speak a word of Turkish, but that night,
I understood every single word that he said in Turkish. He said,
My son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to form an
organization. The name in Arabic will be wakul waqifin, translated
gift of the givers. You will serve all people of all races, all
religions, all colors, all classes, all cultures, of any
geographical location and of any political affiliation, but you
will serve them unconditionally. You will expect nothing in return,
not even a thank you. In fact, in what you're going to be doing for
the rest of your life, expect to get a kick up your back. If you
don't get a kick up your back, regard that as a bonus, serve
people with love, kindness, compassion and mercy, and remember
the dignity of men is foremost, clothe the naked, feed the hungry,
provide water to the thirsty, and in everything that you do, be the
best at what you do in those exact words, Yes, wow. It's amazing that
you can remember that not because of ego, because ego is
destructive,
be the best, because you're dealing with human life, human
emotion, human suffering and human dignity. He said, My son, remember
that whatever you do is.
Done through you, and not by you. 30 years I'm a living witness. All
the things people think I do is not humanly possible.
I asked him, How come when you speak Turkish, I understand and
other people speak Turkish, I don't understand
you, said, My son, when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the
words become understandable.
Asked him, What exactly am I supposed to do? And you're asking
in English, yeah, in English, what am I supposed to do?
And he said, My son, you will know for 30 years, I do know what to
do, what not to do, what to touch, what not to touch, how to do it,
how not to do it. That's amazing. The one thing I wanted to ask you,
based on the spirituality and the mentality of the Muslim community,
I've often seen, firstly, it's it is often said that the Muslim
people are the most successful globally. I've heard that quite a
number of times. I've often seen,
you know how Muslim people, Muslim communities, how they are so good
at building businesses and building things. So I wanted to to
ask of you what your
thoughts are on where that comes from, where that ability of the
Muslim community comes from to build things and to you know, it's
a combination of factors. One is, it's not a Muslim thing only. It's
a cultural thing or the background that you come from. Remember,
Muslims come from different nationalities, different cultures,
different race groups, and a lot of it is inborn culture that goes
from the parents and the grandparents dollars. They're good
in business in different categories of Muslims, in in
different from India, from the Arab world, from other parts of
the world. They just got it in their blood. Businesses in the
blood. But in addition to that, from a from a not a spiritual
point of view. Now, from a religious point of view, we are
told that when you give you always get back more than what you give
second. We are told that God is not in need of your prayer. If you
don't care, care for fellow being that of your prayer will be thrown
flat, thrown into your face. I'm not interested, because God will
say, I don't really need your prayer. The purpose of prayer is
to prepare the mind, the intellect, the soul, the spirit,
the body, for service, because it's a way of showing public
because God himself is not coming here.
When you respond to God's people, and I've seen it all over in the
Eastern Cape and all over, they pick up their hands. They said,
God, you don't let me down. You send somebody to bring the food
parcel, to help with the house, to help out the storm, to help with
the floods and the drought. You send somebody. It increases faith
of people in God when somebody responds to them. And that's why
it is so important that it's ingrained in you. In the Muslim
family from from a small our kids are taught from a small age, take
your pocket money and give it. Hm, charity is an essential aspect of
what we do. It's very critical. And you'll find that in the month
of Ramadan, when we fast, we emphasize that charity must
increase tenfold, and because when you're fasting, you understand the
hunger of people. When it's winter, you understand the cold of
people. So people will start doing blankets when there's a drought
and people have problem with water, they understand the
importance of water. So everything in life is a lesson, a real life
lesson, and that's why it is as a strict, obligatory duty on us to
take our charity. We have no choice about that, and we have to
give it, but it's say God says it's more important if you do it
with free will, not to support your gun to your head. I'm
assuming that, essentially, when you started that a lot of the
donations came in from the Muslim community. Yes, remember in South
Africa, pre 94 you know, again, being Indian and not being a white
and be a Muslim. There was always prejudice. Oh, you guys are
terrorists. You guys, even in South Africa, I thought that it
was driven a lot by the media and by the communities were not Muslim
and not Indian. It was mobile from the white communities. You know,
not everybody. I mean, everybody's not like that. There was there was
people. And it was driven in the media all the time, because they
were not attacking us, but they were talking about Muslims in
general over the world. You know, you guys are like this, and you
terrorists and fundamentalists and people couldn't understand that,
you know? And so we all put on the same brush. So the initial money
came from the Muslim community and from my own family, you know, we
put our own money, and I put my own money too. That you had made
from practice was still growing. It wasn't big that time. It was
still growing. Yeah, growing. So from the whatever I could put, I
put, and the family people put, and everybody put, and then Muslim
community started supporting it. At some point, the media that
started traveling with us, and they realized that this is not a
religious thing, it's a humanitarian thing. But.
Real turnaround came in 2017
many, many years later, that's quite decent, yeah, when we
responded to the fire in naisna, hm, and then they understood our
full capability, because people from the corporate world and
everybody, and the tourists and everybody come there, how we
rebuilt houses, how we send in medical teams, how we supported
the firefighters, how we rolled out food parcels, blankets,
hygiene packs supported the bees, the React. What did be the
rehabilitation for the bees? 22 million bees were destroyed in
that fire. We have the sheep, the cattle, the pigs, the horses, the
cow. We had the pets, the cat and the dog. And then we build
support, the firefighters, and roll out support, every type of
support. It was at that point that most of the population and
corporate South Africa understood that we were really an
organization based on serving fellow human being, race,
religion, color, class doesn't matter to us. A few months later,
we drilled boreholes in bofod West they were running dry. And at the
same point, we started supplying Sutherland. What fodder from in
the last six years. What fodder? What boreholes? What food parcels
for the farm workers and even for the farmers, and then now making
pallets, fortified nutritional pallets to feed the sheep. Wow,
we've spent close to 400 million in trying to save the farmers and
the laborers and agriculture and the economy. Wow. There's been a
major shift in thinking in the country, hm, corporate, South
Africa and all groups, white, black, Indian, religious, Hindu,
Muslim, everybody, have seen us as people that make a difference in
it. Are following the law exactly the instruction of a Sufi teacher,
unconditional love heart, without expecting anything in return.
Don't worry about race, color. Culture came 2018 we helped with
Day Zero in Cape Town. 2019
Makanda was in big trouble with the water. We got in there in 2019
and we still there four years later, hm, and then we expanded
into Eastern Cape. Then came covid. And in between all the
fires and the floods and the storms, 2000 and then of 2019 the
floods in 2020
covid We supported 210 hospitals nationwide, wow, but oxygen
machines, infrastructure, PPEs to covid testing teams, you know,
food parcels to the nation with lockdown, 1000s, hundreds of 1000s
of food parcels, supporting hundreds of soup kitchens, helping
people in every way. And then came 2021 and the civil unrest in
Durban, when in 48 hours, we were in the areas, helping people,
calming them down, providing food because everything was burnt,
there was a way to buy, yeah, stuff. And then 2022 came the big
floods. Again, we got involved in that. And what now, there were
challenges in the economy. We involved everywhere, storms,
floods, fire. We everywhere. How do you do it? Because, I mean, I
know you've been asked this question so many times you You
gift of the givers is always one of the first responders in all of
these
disastrous cases. So how? How? What is it about how you run the
organization that makes you guys so good at what you do, and how
can that be replicated by other organizations and non profits and
people out there, so that the good that you guys are doing is, you
know, multiplied. Remember, I told you the organization's got a very
strong spiritual basis. So it's spiritual, it's spiritual, it's
driven by a spiritual gift. You know that the teacher said, you
know, this is your job, your instruction to do that. He said,
People will look for you. You pay for your money, and people may be
invested in your company and the people that we serve both ways. So
we do a proper third job, but we can't do five half jobs. It's not
going to work because we're not involved in one thing at a time.
We get hit by a disaster in Turkey and Syria. Then we have floods in
Western Cape. We're not even finished with that. And there's
floods in Northern Cape, and then you got cholera outbreak in a
man's crowd. And then they tell us, in fear the fort. And then
there's equal like problems in Makanda, and all the things are
shut and the waters is a problem in Makana itself, and fought
Beaufort and Adelaide. And then you got water crisis in the
Northern Cape. And then the sheep are dying. It was no food. And
then there's a fire in bogoletto or somewhere in nyanga or
kailitha. And then you get a storm at tornado in Nanda in Dublin, all
at the same time. And then you did catch up surgery in the hospital,
and something needs help there, and the kids need station near the
school. And then it's winter, so they got no jersey and no jacket
and no blanket, you know, and somebody's thirsty somewhere else.
So we gotta do all these things, but we gotta do it properly.
There's no second chance. So our teams to ask you a question, it
didn't happen overnight. It's 30 years. Yeah, we've evolved. We got
a social media team, we've got a corporate team. We've got a
financial team, corporate team that deals with corporates. Okay
they deal with because they call them and then we advise them, your
project is not good. You're wasting your money and your time.
You shouldn't be doing this. And other advantage of that, 10 people
will say, where to put food parcels in? Kalisha, we said
another nine guys want to do it already. What's the point? Mm.
In Google, nyanga, you know, Sani, waiting at other parts of UK. PD,
all other areas are looking for stuff. Why don't you go there?
Mother, well, and do something else. They say, Okay, what do you
advise? And then the team will say, this is a chart. This one is
given for that one. You should give that one, that one's give
that one on the other side, so that way we don't duplicate, yeah,
more people benefit. They get the corporate maximum value for what
they're spending, and the people benefit in different areas. So
that's our advantage. That's why, when you have one team, that one
team knows exactly what everybody else said, spread it out to 10
different guys in organization, nobody's going to know what the
other guy knows. So we have organized teams everything to do
with donations comes to the corporate team. Okay? They need to
filter that out. We have what is called the Community Liaison
Officer, the Clos. They are the eyes and ears. They're on the
ground with the people. And they say in this area, this school
needs that. They need a garden, they need a toilet. They need
school needs infrastructure. Yeah, they need a general special
education needs there. They need water so they know what's on the
ground. So when the corporates come, it works both ways. They
want something, and we know what they need. So we felt upwards, and
the message comes down and said, This is what's required. What can
we do? So the teams and then we have regular meetings, virtual and
in person. How did you very often? You know, in the year, quite a few
times. No, no, no. We don't need to do it once a week, you know,
because it's four times a year or so, okay. And if necessary, we can
just slot in, because I'm the link. I go to all areas myself. So
whilst we have the Clos on the ground, and if the corporate team,
I'm the guy that's on site. I design projects, I implement them,
and the teams follow that. We got a medical team, a search and
rescue team, canine teams, the equipment team, the truck drivers,
the bucket drivers, the Packers. Everybody knows their own and we
bring everybody together. But those are not all full time. Full
Time. No volunteers. The only volunteers we have are the guys
that respond to disasters. I don't need them every day. So how big is
your team? 109 people locally. 109 local just in South Africa. Yes.
Okay. 500 overseas, okay, but, but that number is a bit less little
misleading, because of the 503 20 belong to a hospital that we build
in Syria. It's all our stuff. We've got stuff in Yemen, in
Malawi, in Zimbabwe, in Somalia, in Palestine, in Syria, and in
parts of Turkey. I was, you know, something you said that just got
me thinking about your style of leadership, because you said
you're on the ground and you're always visiting, and you're the
link between all of this. Number one, that must be very taxing,
that must be very tiring, but number two, just in terms of the
leadership style, the opposite of that would be someone leading from
an office and just looking at data and information. So I'm very
intrigued by that, and maybe Can you expand a bit on that and where
that comes from? You being on the ground, and you always,
I started on the ground. Gift of givers was me, one person, and my
wife, and then eventually one person came, one staff when we
opened an office. So I've always been on the ground. Nobody in my
organization can laugh me, because I've done everything from packing
a truck to carry a maze mill on my shoulder, from sending effects,
yeah, so you can't bluff me in any part of the organization. Your
things. You can tell me nonsense. I did a fly. I can do it without
you, because I've done it myself. I've been to every disaster
myself. I've been to every fireplace locally,
internationally, myself. I look at projects. I just look at the
ground. I design projects. You can't bluff me in any aspect.
Whether you bring a drilling team, where you bring a geologist, you
bring us. I learn all those things. I'm not practical. I learn
from them. I'm not a genius. I learn from other people. I'm very
willing to learn from everybody, whether it's an engineer, where
it's a builder, we got our own building teams. We got our own
drilling teams. When I say I want we contacted out, but it's so busy
with us, they're gonna time to work for anybody else. Yeah. So
it's about that, and to me, I always tell the government, you
guys are sitting in office. Do you know what that's going on on the
outside, you got all these advisors who tell you the things
you want to listen. But did you go check yourself? They'll tell you
all the right things. You tell everything's going well, the guys
are senior people. Yeah, they because they could protect their
so, no, everything's going well, don't worry about well, don't
worry. The meantime, it's a * mess, you know, and nobody knows
what's going on. I also, I like to go in the field, because besides
the experience, you get
the spiritual upliftment when you see the look in the lady's eyes,
or the child getting some kind of food parcel, that's priceless. You
can't get that in an office. Is that something that feeds you,
that feeds you all the time? No, and that's why I can't. I'm never
at home. I live in planes and on the road, and I don't my staff
don't even see me. I'm traveling. I did 173
engagements last year, rather to one, just to one person. Don't
write it to 100 and miss.
It up. Yeah, start off small. When we go to an earthquake, I tell my
teams from the beginning, we're not taking the entire city. We
already take one street. What happens on the left and the right
really is not my problem, because we can't save everybody. I'm a
very cold guy. My teams call me assassin. I go into a street and
they say, straight in the street. Watch a finish this job in the
street, then we have left and left as we helping nobody. That's an
important principle. Yeah, you have to be realistic, measured
outcomes, proper goals, but give your full attention, laugh a job,
and when you do it properly and consistent.
How have things changed for us? Black people from the Eastern Cape
are working in big corporate companies. And suddenly we got a
outbreak drop of calls from black people in Indian companies and
corporate companies. What happened? Did you help that you
went to, you went to petty, you know, my old migraine economy. You
gave a food pass. Oh, wow, yeah, you know, I saw the picture in the
social media. That's my auntie that you have. They're battling
there. Wow. Thank you very much. And suddenly everybody opens
towards, wow and, and it's a consistent thing that's happening
all the time. So two from 2017
it just been growing. Is that why you're so adamant on, you know,
posting stuff and using social media to yes message one is
transparency. If I don't put any pictures, I don't say anything to
don't say, like, what happened to my money? What do I tell the
company people? What do I tell other investors? What happened to
the money? We don't want you to ask. We send you the pictures so
you know what we did at the same time. It gives you a higher the
type of projects the country needs. It can direct government to
where they should be acting. It shows the difficulty of people. It
shows what * people need. There's a lot of messaging in
there.
Just a difficult question to ask, would be, you know, you said at
the beginning, this is hugely spiritual. So on, on that point
of, you know, publicizing all of these things. What about the the
spirituality of that? In terms of,
you know, someone would say, but you you're putting people's
poverty on display something like that.
Have you ever, we always ask the people first, okay, let's take a
very classical example,
Africana, farmers will never put their hand out for anything. Yeah.
And after a few years of difficulty, they came to us, and
they said, you know, when you bring the food parcel for the farm
worker, do you mind giving us a food parcel too?
So they said, Look, we are really in trouble. We are battling. We
can't feed our kids during covid, covid and trout in another game.
We can't feed our kids anymore. We've taken them out of private
school. We're doing homeschooling. We can't put fuel in the bucket to
go fetch the Father for the sheep. Also, we are down in our credit
card is mixed. The Co Op is mixed, the overdraft is mixed. We can't
do anything. We just can't we need help. And then they tell us, put
our picture on social media. We want people to understand it's not
a shame, it's not a problem to be in difficulty, but it's not
created by us, because other people may not ask, and some
people shot themselves. So we want to prevent that kind of crisis.
The people say, take the pictures. Please come we don't mind you. Put
the pictures, because this is reality of our situation. If
people don't know who's going to help us, yeah. So even when you go
to disasters, people say, please put the pictures. We want people
know what our status is. Otherwise nobody's going to come here to
help us. From a spiritual point of view, we have two teachings. Do
charity, publicly and privately. We think there's a contradiction
in terms. No, as a community, you do charity publicly, because in
that way, you say this community or this company or this
organization took stuff and gave it here, you're encouraging,
you're motivating, you're driving other people to do the same thing.
But me, as India tournament, the world doesn't have to know what I
did with my private charity, whose house I gave it to, where I went,
is nobody's business. That's my personal business. Is not to get
but as gift of the givers, yes, I'm the face of gift of the
givers, but as gift of the givers, we took your money and we put it
there.
Accountability, yes, fully transparency. Tomorrow. You can't
say the money disappeared.
And of course, remember, when you're serving people, you want
more support to help more people, because when you go there, you
can't help everybody. There's 50 people in wheelchairs. You can
only do five. So what happens to the other 45 but when they see the
five wheelchairs, you may get 10 the following week. You can use
other 10 people wheelchairs. So it's about
marketing, so you can help other people benefit themselves. They
become independent. They become in their minds. It causes mental
illness too. Oh, I'm troubling my mother, my sister, my brother
wanted to come take me off the bed. They must take me to the
table. They must take me to the toilet. They must take me to the
bath. I'm stuck the whole day. They stuck. They can't do
anything. What do you do?
Mm, and to because, because we don't have a wheelchair, four or
five family members get involved. It's heartbreaking, yet one
wheelchair, everything changes. And I'm telling you about
wheelchairs because tomorrow we're launching the wheelchair project
for the Eastern Cape. Yeah, not that we haven't done it before,
but a journalist wrote about, there's a shortage of 5000
wheelchairs in Eastern Cape, and we starting off. What 1000
tomorrow. Not that we're starting for the first time tomorrow.
We've, we've been giving out wheelchairs, but symbolically, one
Mandela day, we're running out 1000 wheelchairs, and we're doing
the first 50 tomorrow morning.
Let's, let's, let's look at, I think that's an amazing project. I
was actually talking to one of your colleagues who, who heads up
your team in the Eastern Cape about that, and the stories she
was telling me are just, you know, they are, they are heartbreaking,
of how people have to carry their children because they don't have
wheelchairs and all of that. Um, let's look at your your journey.
It's been 31 years or so of gift of the givers foundation. You've,
you've you and the team. We know it's not you, but through you, a
wonderful organization has been built. I'm sure that you've made
mistakes, you know, I I've listened to a couple of the
conversations you've had with other people, some podcasts.
Number one, let me say I was trying to look at the articles
that are written about gift of the givers, and it was difficult to to
find something negative, you know, because I was trying to see, you
know, what are people saying? And everything that was really is
positive. And I was thinking to myself, I don't know what to make
of that, because there must be some, there must be mistakes that
you, that you've made as an organization, that maybe other
people have discovered and written about. And then I came across an
article that was written about you and the foundation and IFP, and
some part, you know, part parcel given, and you know that story,
but I wanted to ask you in terms of mistakes, because for me,
authentic leadership is also about learning from mistakes, because
we're human. We make mistakes in our organizations and what we
build. Are there any mistakes that you can look back and say, maybe
that project, we shouldn't have handled it like that, or we
shouldn't have gone into that community. Is there anything like
that when you reflect back, because it's spiritual, I haven't
found any issues. I can say certain things. I'm OCD. I think I
let go too late. Okay, yeah, every time I want to do myself, because
that's the issue of trust now. So everything do little trust with
the team. What if people add new people to work for you? Right? Can
they do it be as good as you? You know that is one trend. The second
thing is, you never had that kind of money to keep paying salaries
because paying salaries, because I know volunteers, so in time, as it
grew up, we brought people in. But I should have, maybe have brought
them in a little earlier, but I learned very quickly, and I didn't
micromanage the people. I allowed people to develop their own
skills, and said, Do what you want. Come on a new, fresh idea.
Sure, that's the biggest mistake I made. They all come with 15
different ideas, and they all correct. And that's what
organization just went straight through the roof. And they feel
empowered, they feel honored, they feel respected, they feel they
value the great thing, and they do a great thing, you know? And then
if 15 guys say, you know, be in management and you delegate, it
doesn't help. The work increases, you know, and you're going to make
sure everything's going right. But I have no, no problem with that. I
should have probably done it a little earlier. The
IFP thing wasn't a mistake, it was mischief. Hm, IFP had paid for the
food passes themselves. What the ANC didn't realize then is the ANC
didn't if it didn't ask for the foot passes on the day of that
election that asked for it six months previously, but because of
the floods and so many different areas, that area was earmarked for
that date long before the election was set for that. Maybe to give
people some context, because maybe some people don't know, can you
give us a 32nd what happened? What was going on? No, the ANC said we
gave the IFP food parcels to give to the people to vote for them.
For the IFP, that wasn't true, and the IFP, the IFP, had actually
given 250,000
Rand, but not for that area, you know, to just help people
generally, and as we do for donors, if a political party gives
money. They most welcome to tell the people, this our money. We
want 100 food parcels. You can be to corporate companies. The
corporate company can come and say, we paid the money, and he has
a foot parcel. What stops a political party from doing that
right? But they can't take marriage or somebody else's money.
Lots of political parties want to do you? Want to come stand with
you and say, we help you. They haven't. And that was something
about Zuma. You know, when you went to Zuma somewhere, he would
tell the people, don't thank the president of the country. Don't
thank the president of the ANC, we didn't bring anything. It says you
want to thank Sammy. Thank them. They brought I don't bring
anything for you. It was always that.
Did you guys work together on many times I met Zuma many times. You
know, we do projects and as a guest, you know, as a president of
the head of state people, in fact, the head of state, you come to
events. They invite ministers to come. But he never took credit
once for something that was never used always, you know, said, Does
this help them? Thank them. Don't come to me. Come to him. Go, go
tell him we had a very good relationship. It's amazing, yeah,
so I've been to Tuli house. I've been to his house space, you know,
I've been to in Yeah, yes, invited me many times, and so we did those
kind of stuff. So it's always so they said, No, the food passes
were there to get the election. It was nothing to do with that. That
date was booked by us because we have a schedule. And it so
happened that a by election came and it coincided with the date,
you know, and only once in 30 years. Yeah, obviously something
is not making sense. If we do that consistently all the time, then
you can say that, yeah, but what about the how the benefited in so
many ideas that we've been to? They don't talk about that and but
people with the ANC, within the ANC, told us, we apologize. What
do you do? You have, I'm sure you've got your own political
views. I've never heard you speak publicly about, you know, whether
politically, you vote for any political party, anything like
that. I mean, we're going into 2024, now. I think part of how we
can fix the countries, to put the right people in power, so that
there's no other way manage. So what do you think? What do you
think, just in terms of where the country is going, the politics,
ANC, Eff, all of these parties, you know, there's good people in
every party. We need to understand that doesn't look people. Need to
understand, why are they coming to government? Why do you come to
government? You say you you know you serving the people. Now you
have to make up your mind. Are you serving the people? Are you
serving yourself? Mandela Sisulu, the others, serve the people. They
don't serve themselves. Are you going to follow the same example
you're serving the people? It's fine, but the people must make the
choice. Don't let the political party make the choice for you. I
tell people now, don't duck the next election vote, yeah, but you
will select your candidate. Who's your candidate? Your priest has
been a very good man for the last 15 years. You know the man. He
comes at nine. He comes in a day. He comes checks the house. Check
how you doing? He's a good man. Your CPF guy, community police
forum guy, your local some administrator, you know, somebody
always there for the people, not asking for anything in return,
consistent for the last 1520, years. Good character, good
person. Tell him, please stand you know what we want you, you will
serve the people. Government does not tell us what they want us to
do. We must tell them what we want. We as the people, we as the
people. Tell them, you don't tell us what do you want to implement?
We will tell you what we want. Yeah, that's how the country
should work. And if you don't do the job, we take you out, we give
you a good idea. We don't do the job properly. You know, that's
what we need to do and when. And then only people who really want
to serve or commented or dedicated will take that to a lousy job,
because it's a thankful job. I'm putting you on the spot here. But
should we be voting for the end? Should we be voting them out next
year? I look, I won't say that, because
there are a lot of good people in the ANC and I keep making this
point, don't say government is corrupt. Everybody in government
is not corrupt. There are people in government that's corrupt.
Government is not corrupt. And when you say government is
corrupt, then I'll tell you what our corporates that are corrupt.
Where did the corruption start?
Who inflated the prices, who backhanded people, who encouraged
them to inflate the invoices? Who did that came from corporate South
Africa. The problem is not the system. The problem is the
individual. You see, if you've got 1000 individuals, and they're all
rotten, they'll mess up the best system in the world, and you've
got 1000 good guys that care for the people, they'll fix up any
messed up system. It's all about spirituality. It's about the
individual you want to fix the country. Look in the mirror.
Look at yourself first. Are you ethical? Four important qualities?
Do you have? Spirituality, morality, values and ethics. And
to the young people, when you make progress, don't forget where you
came from. Don't forget your grandfather, your parents, who
stunned to put you where you are. Unfortunately, a lot of young
people have forgotten where they've come from and to sacrifice
what their parents have done to put them where they are today.
It's a glorious life, a materialistic life. Have the fun
you're forgetting the part and the pain you cause into people who
suffer for so many years. Please don't ever forget that I admire
the people who play the pay the black tax, or look after 20 or 30
family members who find it important to that, that from a
spiritual point of view, we call it a huge blessing to take care of
the elderly people, to take care of the mother, to take care of
children who are vulnerable. That's a huge blessing. It's what
it fills the soul. No one in the world can buy that, and we need to
understand that very, very clearly, that, yes, make money,
but do it the right way.
Hmm, don't trample somebody else. Don't be dishonored. Being
dishonest, two things the right way. Remember your family, you
will see it. You may not be a multi billionaire, but then again,
what's the point of being a multi billionaire? How much can you eat?
So we we have a teaching what you don't spend is not yours. Wow. So
I give every child, every you are to tell me, spend is not yours. Of
course, what you don't spend is not yours. If I give everybody 2
billion rand, please tell me how many lifetimes you going to need
to spend that money. You can buy 50 houses, but you can only stay
in one. You can have 20 bedrooms house. You can only sleep in one.
You can have seven cars. You can drive one the six batteries don't
like you. No, a lot of them have reflected a lot of top guys, CEOs,
MDS, auditors have come and said, what have we done with our lives?
It's pointless, useless life. We made money and made money and made
money and made money. Now what? There is no contentment. It's from
a spiritual point of view, the richest guy on Earth is the guy
that is most content, because then you don't need anything else. And
as you get older, if you eat more, you want to get sick, and all that
money will go to hospital. So it doesn't make any sense. So it when
you make the money. Nobody's stopping you from making the
money. Please make the money. Great jobs make people happy. You
know, there's a man in Durban
so some years wanted to buy his factory out and said, you don't
put machines here. You can make so much more money. What machines?
So the guy said, You're right. I can make much more money on
machines, no doubt. But he said, My father told me that every job I
create, every night, when that man goes home, that man, his wife and
his children pray for me because I gave them a blessing, a job the
moment machines want to pray for me. You know, that's why I it's
better to create jobs. And I said, Yes, I make less money, but I
still got a house. I still eat. I'm still surviving. What more do
I need? It's about satisfaction, contentment, being grateful. Last
couple of questions before we let you go, Doc, one is, I know you
don't want to go into politics. No, you've said that multiple
times on multiple platforms,
but let's assume not as a spiritual instruction. I was given
an instruction in 1995 the teacher saw way ahead, and he told me, you
will never enter politics. You will never work for government.
You will always work with the government. But for 30 years,
you've seen me work with the government. We fight in a day,
punch each other by the night. We're friends. Good government,
yes, oh, that's nice. Yeah, we have we because I'm outspoken,
but there are the good guys who understand the value of what
you're doing, and as a result, they want to do the right things,
too. The good people in government. I wanted to ask you,
based on that, I wanted to paint us. Now let's, let's assume that
for some reason the the spiritual instruction changes, and he comes
and says, South Africa are too good. They said, you're going to
write to the spiritual teacher. We're going to tell him to change
the instruction. Why not? But
let's assume, because I really, I was thinking about this and
reflecting on this today. Let's, let's, let's assume that the
spiritual instruction changes. And he says, Okay, now is the time,
maybe 100 days you must be president. Let's, let's examine
those 100 days with the 31 plus years you have of working with
people from all sorts of communities. What do you do? What
do you change? I change a lot of things. First of all, I change the
ethics of people. You know, people work in hospitals, they work in
schools, and they're several servants, but they think entitled.
Not everybody.
A doctor goes and walks in hospital, and then he's got
permission to do private practice.
He doesn't give his full time to the hospital. He gives more time
to the private practice. What happens? Health System is very bad
when they don't look after the people. So the health system is
unethical behavior of individuals that's not taking care they're
getting paid for something which they haven't done. But how do you
change that? You have strong management. Country needs strong
management. That's a big problem in this country. Leaders will say,
you don't do your job, you're out. Find the wrong people, get the
right people, get the right people in and no mercy. Sorry, as I deal
with compassion, but no mercy. Anybody that messes the system up
in Eskom, they asked me, they said, I see people breaking the
system, short on site, I'll have no mercy, because you're affecting
the lives of 65 million people. Children are suffering. People are
suffering. Jobs are being lost because of the greed of some
people. Sorry, you don't belong in our system, you know. And I would
be very, very hard to retrain the cops. And I tell the cops, if you
if you scared to die, go find another job.
Up to go to go into parks and recreation, go to something else.
It's not your job. Sellers told him, many times people laugh at
him, but he said, many times, don't die with your gun in your
Ulster. You enrolled. This is according people don't go to a
country because they've got a good health system, a good education.
They go to a country the security is good. No other reason. Yeah. So
if you do the security well for your own people, you'll have lots
of tourists that will bring a lot of income to your country. They'll
come and stay and you know, and be happy. They feel safe in that
country. So the same way a fixed health there's lots of things,
maintenance management, infrastructure, equipment, and
also more categories, staff, personnel, five crucial things to
fix in the health system. You can't cut registrar posts and say
there's no money. Registrars train doctors, junior doctors, they
become specialists. They bring dignity to the system. They
improve the quality of healthcare. You cut the registrar's to kill
the entire system. Schools tell teachers, please come back. But
you can't be taking your grandfather's time and being
relaxed and being easy about it. You want that could be your child.
Train the child. Bring small special education. Need teachers.
There's kids with learning disorders. Where's the future for
them? There's not enough trained people, psychologists. Our
countries missed absence, covid, mental health issues are a huge
issue in the country. Universities take seven clinical, seven
educational and seven counseling psychologists. We need 1000s of
them. You talk about job creation, Teddy, we need 1000s of nurses,
doctors, you know, psychologists. Where's the big deal? What's
What's the complication, finding the people you got too much of,
guys in the civil service, in the administration, a director, a
chief director, Guy below that. Director, 15 different people for
one job and not one. Job, and not one guy can sign the form, and the
country gets paralyzed. Remove all that. We are 109 people. We run
the entire projects in the whole country, and equals drivers,
staff, deceptionist, finance guys. We can read, why can't you lean?
Government, lean and mean and and 15 guys. There was a no, it's not
my fault. It's his fault. And that one says that one's fault, and
that one says general fault. When me two guys, you see the UAE,
nobody else who did it wrong.
You'll see the efficiency and my team's work, yeah, efficient
because a small in number, and they take responsibility. And
above all, you know you don't have to police anybody. You look in the
mirror, you have those four qualities I spoke about,
spirituality, morality, values and ethics, you will police yourself.
Nobody will need to police you. And when we reach that level, we
can fix anything. Don't need money. You don't need money
because you're accountable upstairs and to yourself. Doc,
thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sitting down with
us. Last couple of questions, just on your personal life. So what do
you do to relax? What do you do to unwind? Because you're always on
the road, you're always busy. I'm asking because I think looking
after your, your, your, your, your mindset is important. Looking
after your what's the right word now, well being, your well being,
your mental well being, is important. So what do you do to
you? Asked me earlier, Did I make any mistake? I made one very big
mistake, which is personal. It's not the business. The spiritual
teacher said, when you end in you by personality. He said, 1/3 for
yourself, 1/3 for the work and 1/3 for the family. Meaning, yes, I
divide your time personal growth, family time. And every time I went
back and I said, this formula doesn't work, four thirds I give
to the organization. That's it for myself. That's it to the family.
That's one thing I would have liked to reverse. It's too late
now, but if I had to start 30 years ago? Yeah, I would have done
differently, you know, not neglected them the way I did. So I
laughed. I said, Look, I got this problem. I don't create the
disasters I would respond to them.
And you know, it's very hard to tell a child or a parent, sorry, I
can't come to you when you know that you got the skill to respond
to multiple disasters at the same time. Can send other people? Yeah,
but everybody told you, management, they all start
increasing the capacity, and you gotta Yes, I said, I don't even
now to I already got a succession plan in place. I don't need the
teams anymore. They go, but I still got to take care of them to
make sure they're safe, they're okay. You know, my phone doesn't
switch off. You didn't understand. What does taking care of them
mean, checking in on what they're doing if they get stuck somewhere,
you know, because their lives on my head so like surround
evacuation. 10 days I didn't sleep, because the network only
works at certain time, and the guy sends a message at two o'clock in
the morning, and you're sleeping, the chance of getting the guy out
is almost zero. You can't miss the call. And because some South
Africans missed the court because the network failed. They got stuck
inside, and we had to do other things to get him out. And then
other countries nationals wanted out. Do? We don't look at
nationality. We look at as a human being, as a human being. I could
have been that human being. It could have been my child. What did
you do about that? So that's the mistake. So as in terms of
relaxation.
I need to watch heavy action movies. That's the thing that
relaxes.
Yeah, quickly. What movies do you like watching? Anything with
Steven Seagal, Mel Gibson, Sylvester, Stallone, Jason
Statham, the was the newer guys
all this wood.
Clint Eastwood
hung then books, books that you
read. Thank you so much.
Thank you for your time. Thank you for the great work that you do, a
pleasure. Thanks for.