A Bit of Optimism - Four Years in Solitary Confinement with political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

If great leaders are those willing to suffer for their beliefs, Leopoldo Lopez is certainly a great leader.After he led the massive 2014 Venezuelan protests that swept the nation, the regime of Nicol��s Maduro sentenced Leopoldo to over a decade of political imprisonment. He suffered four years of solitary confinement and psychological torture before he escaped. Leopoldo tells me about his time in prison and how he cultivated the mental strength to endure. The story of how he smuggled himself into exile is a truly remarkable one. Most of us will never experience military prison, but what Leopoldo discovered about surviving enormous stress is something each of us can learn from. This…is A Bit of Optimism. To find out more about Leopoldo and his work, check out:worldlibertycongress.org 

A strong argument could be made that the great leaders are the ones who are willing to suffer for what they believe in. And if that's true, Leopoldo Lopez is certainly a great leader. In 2014, he spearheaded one of the largest protest movements in Venezuelan history against the regime of Nicolas Maduro. After the government issued a warrant for his arrest, Leopoldo decided to turn himself in. He then spent more than four years as a political prisoner, enduring solitary confinement and other psychological tortures. His story and how he eventually escaped, well, it sounds like it comes out of a movie. But the lessons he learned about how to endure incredible stress are valuable to all of us. This is a bit of optimism.

Leopoldo Lopez, I don't even know how to describe you. You know, your experience, if we were told it was real, we wouldn't believe it. Let's catch people up. it was real, we wouldn't believe it. Let's catch people up. Let's do the brief history of how you found yourself in jail and solitary confinement for four years. You were the leader of the opposition party in Venezuela. There's a dictatorship there. You're the mayor of the largest city in the country. Why don't you pick it up from there? You're the mayor of the largest city in the country. Why don't you pick it up from there?

As you said, I was mayor of Caracas, of central Caracas. And in 2008, I was running for higher office and they took me out of the ballot box. They disqualified me for no reasons. They made up a case. So I had to reinvent myself again. I had done it before. So I decided to start a new movement. It was a grassroots, youth-oriented, social, active movement that had the thinking of nonviolent action. So in January of 2014, 10 years ago, we decided to call for protest for nonviolent action

to the streets in order to open opportunities for change towards democracy in Venezuela. And tens of thousands of people came out. We actually called Maduro for what he was, for a dictator being corrupt, repressive, and also with links to narcotics. And people came out on the thousands. to narcotics, and people came out on the thousands. And Maduro showed his ugly face by repressing and killing and detaining and torturing a lot of people. So there was a warrant for my arrest because I was leading this protest. I went into hiding, and then I decided among three options that I had, you know, turning myself in, going to exile, or staying in hiding, hidden.

I decided to turn myself in and I did it thinking on Martin Luther King and his way of expressing what nonviolent action is. He says nonviolent action is about showing the scars of the petrified system in order to get collective action and consciousness towards change. So thinking in that respect, I decided to turn myself in, knowing that it was an unjust justice. So I was detained after I turned myself in with a huge, huge crowd. Around half a million people came out, all dressed in white, all nonviolent. And the 18th of February, 10 years ago, a couple of days, I was sent to a military prison where I spent the next four years, most of the time in solitary confinement. I was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment. And the judge made that ruling, that decision,

because she accused me of the art of the speech. And she claimed that although I never called for violent action, I had the capacity to send subliminal messages to the Venezuelan people in order for them to be violent. So on that grounds, I was sentenced to 14 years. I want to go back to when you decided to turn yourself in. And you knew the charges were trumped up. You knew they would put you in jail. The thing that I find astonishing is how did you prepare for that? You were so inspired by Dr. King.

I know that in how you led your movement and in nonviolent action. How did you prepare to be put in jail for an extended period of time and left by yourself? Well, I was able to prepare because six months before I went to prison, there was a warrant for my arrest and they took it back. So that faced me with that real scenario. So I decided to learn more about what imprisonment meant. So I read different things. I read the experience of Mandela, the experience of Gandhi, the experience of many Venezuelan leaders, because the history of Venezuela over the past two centuries has been one of imprisonment, exile, and politics. So of all of that that I read, one thing was a constant that was having a routine in prison, having a routine. So I was very conscious of kind of that one thing that was present in all of the experiences I read about. So the night I was sent to the third floor of Annex B in the military prison of Ramo Verde, that is at the top of a hill with over 500 military prisoners, over 400 military guards around.

I was a civilian. So it was all very new to me, that reality of the military, of the dictatorship. And that night I remember it very well because that night I said, well, what's going to be my routine? And I came up with a very concrete routine that I was previously familiar to, but not in that way. I decided to do three things every day.

I decided that I was going to pray, that I was going to exercise my mind, either reading, writing, drawing, trying to play music that I was not good at, and exercising, doing physical exercise. So I did those three things, Simon, every day with Spartan discipline. And that was the way I was winning every day. So another advice I got from another political prisoner was be conscious of time. I didn't know what that really meant. But what it meant for me at the time was that I was

not going to become a prisoner of time and the expectations, because I saw how other prisoners always believed the idea that they were going to be freed in a week, in a month, in three months. And when that moment came and they were not relieved, they collapsed. So I decided that I was going to win every day. That was under my control. The only thing I could say is I would go to bed every day, go to sleep, knowing that I did the three things that make me win the day. And that's what I did. And of course, you know, four years is a long time, but that was the core of my every day to day. How do you define winning at the end of the day?

Doing these things that I was set out to do. So, you know, if I pray and I did, honestly, if I wrote, read, at moments I had books. So I was reading three books per week. Then they took the books away from me. So I'm nothing. So it was, you know, how to exercise the intellect, either, you know, counting different parts of the cell, doing some math, trying to play, you know, chess in my mind or with some marbles and then exercising. some marbles and then exercising. So I learned to exercise in confinement only with my body weight and I would do hours of exercise. So at the end of the day, if I did those three things, I said, I won the day. Yeah. Were you a disciplined person before you went in? Were you exercising on a regular basis? Did you pray on a regular basis? Are you a pretty

disciplined person before you went in? Or did you learn discipline as a coping mechanism? No, I can say I'm a disciplined person. Yes, I did pray. But I think for me, it was really about an introspection. So praying is really about an introspection. And I learned something very, very powerful that a priest once told me. He said, you know, people pray for three reasons. I told you this before. Yeah. I think I've repeated it many, many times.

People pray for need, people pray for fear, or people pray for gratitude. And he said the most effective one is gratitude. So I had kind of that idea. So I started practicing that, and it was magical. That's worth repeating. I want to say this again really slowly, which is the priest told you that people pray for three things. They pray for need. Please let me win the lottery. Please let me win the game.

Please let me get the job. They pray for fear. Please, I hope this doesn't happen. Make this pain end. Right? That kind of thing. Right? And then they pray for gratitude.

And what he told you was most people pray for need or fear, but it's gratitude that is the most valuable. Yeah. And you decided every day not to pray to get out of jail, not to pray to make the pain end, not to pray to see your family. You prayed for gratitude every day. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. That is profound because I think most people would pray for the thing they miss. And I want to know what value it had. Like how do you pray for gratitude when you're in a cell in solitary confinement?

What were you grateful for? So I have so many things to be grateful for, so many. You know, I decided that this is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to do it very honestly. I started doing kind of a map of my life since the beginning. I am a very lucky person because I met my four grandparents. My parents are incredible people. I have great siblings. I had my four grandparents. My parents are incredible people. I have great siblings.

I had a good upbringing. Food was never missing from my plate. I got a good education. I did all the sports that I wanted. I had a great time when I was a kid. And I had the opportunity to study abroad, the opportunity to come to the United States, study here, all the way through grad school.

I had the opportunity to live in Venezuela, to be mayor, and to build a movement. And then, you know, I started also being grateful for small things. So one day, you know, I had a crack in my cell. My cell was two by two meters, very tall ceilings. And the window was blocked, but there was a part of the window at the top, like maybe 30 centimeters that you could see the sky. So one day, you know, we'll see a full moon through that crack.

So I was like, oh man, this is, I need to be grateful for this as well. I started also to be grateful when I heard birds. So you start going to the simple things and you get really strong. And then you're also, you know, praying to be close to your family because you're being grateful that you recognize them. And also there was for me a very pragmatic thing that I wanted to be very careful of. thing that I wanted to be very careful of. If I prayed for my freedom every day,

I would go into the same trap that I told you before, that time can play you. So if you have expectations on things that you really don't control and you put your entire well-being into that that you cannot control, you are very vulnerable. And when you're in prison, the one thing that I was very clear since the beginning is that, you know, the battlefield was no longer the streets, the people. I loved what I was doing. I mean, I love politics in the good sense, building movements, being with people, organizing leaders, you know, getting people aligned with a common idea. I loved what I was doing, but I knew since the day I went to prison that the battlefield was my head. That was the one thing that I was in control of and the one thing I needed to take care of.

So you were in prison for four years and then they put you under house arrest. Why did they take you out of jail and put you in the house? Well, there were protests, very intense protests at the time in Caracas and in Venezuela. So the protests had been going for three months. My wife, Lillian, was one of the leaders of those protests in the streets. My movement, Voluntad Popular, was leading the protests nationally. So the ex-president of Spain, Rodríguez Zapatero, who was very close to Maduro, he showed up one night at midnight with the vice president of Venezuela and they said,

you know, we want to take you to house arrest. And I said, I don't want to go to house arrest unless you free the rest of the political prisoners. It was a tense discussion about what was happening in the streets. Of course, I expressed that they were the ones responsible for the violence, for the repression, for the torture, for the imprisonment. So they left, they came back. And when they came back, I had the opportunity of getting other prisoners to pass me a phone. So I recorded a message supporting the people to continue to protest. And it came out just when the vice president was sitting with me at the military prison. So they got furious and they sent me to confinement, 45 days, complete, complete, you know, in a smaller cell, no contact with anybody.

And afterwards they came and then they took me to house arrest as a way of diminishing the pressure of the protests that were taking place. So being at house arrest, I go for protests again and they sent me back to military prison. And that was a tough comeback to hell because, you know, in a way I had gone to purgatory. And I met my family. I experienced the warmth of my house with my kids. My kids were small. My kids were four years, my eldest, Manuela, and one year, Leo, my son, when I went in.

So when I went out, they were eight and five. Did it work the second time, the routine? You know, the second time, I had a shocking land to that new cell that I was thrown into. It was a completely white cell, very, very cold. The night they took me back. So when I was in house arrest, I had to take three pictures every day as if you are a hostage, you know, with a newspaper. Yeah, yeah.

And the guards taking a picture. So that happened three times a day, every day. So one day they came at midnight and they said, you need to take another picture. So I opened the door of my house and all of this is, is in video because I had a, there was a camera recording this and they were like eight people around the

door. They just pushed me into a car and sent me back to the military prison where I was. When I came in, the old guards that were there, that were only dedicated to be the guards in my cell, they said, welcome back, you know, welcome back. And now, you know, now you will see another dose of the acid. They were completely, you know, you, I don't think that everybody knows evil. You know, I really don't. I didn't. Before I went to prison, I didn't, I mean, I knew what bad behavior was.

I knew what bad people were. I knew, you know, what resentment was. But evil, evil, I mean, somebody that, I evil, somebody that feels good by inflicting despair and pain on somebody else. That's what I believe is evil. And I saw that in prison. And these people, you know, they were there kind of give me the welcome. So at the beginning, it was tough. So I spent the next day, you know, like three, four, five days really shocked. But then I took the routine. I could only walk. I could only exercise and pray. I had nothing. I had nothing. I mean, there was no mattress. There was nothing in the cell. Just a white, cold cell with no notion of time, no notion day of life. No notion day or night. That is torture.

I mean, to remove any sense of time or night and day, to remove all contact with human beings. I mean, solitary confinement is a form of torture. People go crazy in those conditions. Even outside of prison, when people are isolated, it wreaks havoc on the mind. How did you, I apologize if it's a silly question, but how did you come out of this healthy? Or maybe you didn't. Well, I mean, a couple of things. Primarily, you know, my family, really. My family, my wife, it's a wonderful woman. Not only my wife, but she became, you know, my voice and she was leading the protest. At the same time, she was taking care of the place. So she met with many, many presidents. She met with Trump. She met with Biden. She met with presidents from all over the region, from Europe, from members of

parliament. She met the Pope. And at the same time, she was taking care of the kids and being a good mother. How does that keep you sane when you're isolated and have no contact with them? It keeps you sane because you know that you have a lifeline, that you know there are people out there that love you. And that gives you kind of a reason to be sane. It's like, you know, I'm going to do this. You know what? I thought about this, of course, a lot,

but I always thought about it as I am going to take this challenge. I am the owner of my head. You know, for me, it was really not giving space to mental weakness. And I was always on guard, mentally speaking, always on guard and always, you know, for example, I was in a military prison and I am a civilian, but I knew I was in a military prison.

So every day at 6 a.m. they would come and see if I was there. So every day without a watch, just biologically, I would wake up around 5.30. I had a bucket of water because I didn't have running water. I had a bucket of water. I would wash my head. I would have the mattress I had on the floor perfectly with the sheets. And I was just there, you know, sitting. Never allowed them to see me in a position of weakness.

They never allowed me to see them in a position of not being in control. So, and that for me started in my mind. And it was intense, but it was kind of the challenge that I had with me. This question might be informed from seeing too many movies, but these are, as you said, these are sadists who at times enjoyed hurting you and seeing you suffer. And here you are defying that and not giving them the satisfaction and being ready at six o'clock in the morning,

your bed made, sitting there cheerful, did they hurt you? Did they beat you to try and one-up you? Well, my case was taken to the UN, to the Human Rights Commission. And the Human Rights Commission determined that I was a victim of torture. So I was a prisoner of conscience

for Amnesty International. That for political prisoners is kind of like the Oscar recognition because they do a thorough analysis of every person, really. I mean, it's a very low percentage of the political prisoners in the world that have this recognition. And I believe there are many, many more that deserve it, but it's just the way it is.

So, yes, I was a victim of torture. But to tell you the truth, I never assumed the i i was a victim of torture but to tell the truth i um never assumed the position of being a victim yeah because i think if you assume yourself as a victim and particularly in in an intense experience as prison with the people who are your guards are not just guards i mean these people were politically enemies. And imagine being in solitary confinement in a cell with a camera and your worst enemy is behind that camera and anything you do is going to go on live TV

in order to just destroy your reputation. Yeah, yeah. So it was being in solitary confinement, but at the same time knowing that there was a camera,, that there were microphones and that I was not alone. So that was that that made it that much harder. You were working for the movement every day by protecting your reputation because the minute your reputation faltered, it would it would hurt the movement. Yeah. And also just knowing that that that's exactly what they wanted, you know, that they wanted basically, yeah, to break you. We need to go back to your story and how you escaped.

Can you recount that insane story? Yeah, so I actually escaped twice. So I escaped from being in house arrest. This is April of 2019. The president of the National Assembly became the interim president. Another cycle of protests, peaceful protests, but massive, taking place in Venezuela and all over the world. There was a lot of pressure. And the interim president, he was from my political party.

So we were very aligned and working together. So I started to have contact with different people from the military and the police ranks of the dictatorship. At one time, I received a ciphered message, the self-destructive message by signal with the face of a general and a person there. A couple of days afterwards, this person shows up to my house. He says, we want to explore working with you. These are people from the military, high ranking. So I said, if you are who you say you are, allow me to have meetings here.

So I had different contacts with people from the military, from the police and other sectors. And I had throughout three weeks, meetings with the head of the political police, the military who were in charge of all of the administrative buildings in the capital of Caracas, one of the important squads of the police of Maduro. They all came at different moments. I asked all of them, why are you here sitting with me? And they said, we're sitting here because of sanctions, because we either have them and want them lifted or we are fearing them.

So I have a very personal take on those who say that sanctions don't work because I have seen them, you know, at first hand, how they can inflict behavior and they can be effective. So at the end of April of 2019, to make a long story short, I was released by my captors. So at 4.30 a.m., they came to my house, a convoy, military police, and I have all this on record. I opened the door of my house. I had two electronic ankle bracelets, went out of my house, kissed my wife, told Lillian, oh, this is a risk we're taking, and went with them to a place where we gathered the interim president. We called for protest and tens of thousands of people came out. Many more military came out. But we had planned that there was going to be a decision by the Supreme Court at the time

that they were going to disqualify Maduro and call for elections. So that was going to produce another cycle of people from the military to defect and to support the calling for elections. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. So we got a wave of repression. We started shooting. It was a lot of shots. It was very, very complicated. And we went to the place in Caracas where the embassies were. I first went to the Chilean embassy, then found refuge for many of the people that were with us that day. And then since the Chilean embassy, then found refuge for many of the people that were with us that day. And then since the Chilean embassy had many refugees there, I went to the Spanish embassy. And I stayed at the Spanish embassy for a year and a half.

My wife and my one-year-old, they were with me for the first month. So I first had to organize the escape of my wife. She escaped by the coast of Venezuela. And then after a year and a half at the end of 2020, I made the decision that it was time for me to leave. It was one of the toughest decisions for me to make because I never wanted to leave Venezuela. I even publicly said I will never leave my country.

And having to take by my own words and my own conviction was very tough. But my mother was very sick. She was going through dialysis. She needed a liver, kidney transplant. I had not seen my father for seven years, my parents. I had not seen my kids for two years. And the ambassador of Spain was changed. So all of that came together and I decided that was the moment to escape. So I decided to call

a friend that had always been with me. And we've done different extractions in Venezuela, different people, because I mean, we've been under heat for many, many years. So I called him. He knew that at some point I was going to call him and just said, hey man, you know, you know, all right. So I knew that he was going to put together a plan. So it was COVID at the time. And he analyzed four ways of leaving Venezuela through sea. It was impossible because the entire coast was closed because of COVID. The Western border to Colombia was impossible because it was taken by many, many different military police,

paramilitary groups. The west coast was complete jungle, so we decided to go complete south to the Orinoco River. So the day of the escape, I left the embassy with the help of somebody from the embassy. And I was changed to a car. Then we went to a basement and I met my friends. They were my friends, you know, people.

And I said, all right, man, this is a plan. All right. So what's the plan? So we have there was a car of the electricity company. Venezuela is Venezuela. It's a Latin American country. It's a Caribbean country. Even though there is a dictatorship, it's not North Korea.

It's not China. So my friend, you know, he's a mover and shaker. So he knows a friend that worked at the electricity company. The car needed to go to the shop and the company was not going to pay for it. And he said, hey, man, I'll take it to the shop. I'll fix it. I just need it for a couple of weeks. I need to use the truck for bringing things for my company. He said, OK. So he fixed the car and we had an official car with official license plates,

official everything. And then we had a second car and it was a car of the electricity company. So he handed us the hats, the T-shirts, and I had a credential. And so we trained for 45 minutes. So if you're in a disguise operation, there are two things. You know, this is spy craft 101. You need to do two things. You need to be very clear about two questions. Who are you and why are you here?

And the technical description of this is status of being and status of action. Who are you? And you can go down a rabbit hole in each of those two questions. Name, last name, name of your parents, place of birth, profession, date of birth, how many kids, siblings, wife, school, everything. You can go down a rabbit hole. And why are you here? You need to be very clear, you know, who was each one of us within the electricity commission.

So after 45 minutes of training, we decided to go. It was COVID. It was very, very low, low traffic. So we went through like 20 checkpoints with no problem because we had the, you know, we had the masks and we had all of the documentation. And at the end, in the border between Venezuela and Colombia, of the Meta River, there was the last, last checkpoint. There was nobody there. It was barbed wire. Nobody was there.

We went to the river, to the bank of the river. nobody was there. We went to the river, to the bank of the river. We were on the boat and all of us saw like eight military come with their AK-103 pointing at us. Hey, hey, hey, who are you? Need to come back. We go back and we were caught. And they started frisking us. So who are you? So say names. And one of them, one of my friends, and we had planned this, he was the leader. And at all times, he was going to take leadership of the communication and the interaction. So he gets taken to interrogation. They strip

Nate him. They see everything and they found some cash that we had precisely for that type of circumstance he says so who are you you know you're not from the electricity company you know you're why are you going to Colombia so he said you know what yeah you're right I am not uh from the electricity company uh and I have a case against me but it's political no no no no it's not political it's financial so he says I going to call the general. In the meantime, I was waiting and I was playing sick.

I was playing COVID. So that was my role. I was just coughing and coughing. I had a huge, huge mask and glasses and a hat and I was coughing. And they never actually asked me to take my mask out. Remember, end of 2020, vaccine was not around the corner, certainly not for Venezuela. You know, remember the psychosis that everybody had. So they decided never to ask me to take my mask down.

And, you know, I was just thinking, you know, this is, I'm not going to go back. I told my friend, we sat down in the sidewalk and I said, you know, we had the river like 30 meters away. And I said, I just want to let you know that if they come from us, I'm just going to jump in the river. Just so you know, man, I'm just going to, I'm not going to let them catch me without resistance. So my friend inside tells the lieutenant, he says, well,

you can call the general, but you know what's going to happen. He's going to stay with all of that cash and you're going to get none. So he thought about it for like 20 seconds, 30 seconds, said, all right, go. You know, my friend just came putting his pants on, his shirt, says, let's go, let's go, let's go. And we went to the river. We crossed. And on the other side, it was guerrilla-infected terrain because the FARC and the LN are in that part of Colombia. So we had contacted President Duque, and he sent a disguised military deployment to receive us

because I could have come from prison in Venezuela to being a hostage of the LN terrorist group. So we got there. Then I called my wife from there. So I called her. She was in Spain with my kids. And I basically told her, I'm out. Where are you? Where are you? No, no, I'm out. I'm in Colombia. I can't believe it. So, yeah, I landed a plane to Bogota. In Bogota, I met my friend, another friend who had organized a contact with the president of Colombia. And the members of the U.S. Embassy were there as well. So we had a conversation and that couple, an hour or so after, put in a plane to the U.S.

after putting in a plane to the US. And then the next day I flew to Madrid with a different ID and just landed in Madrid, COVID, completely deserted, completely deserted. And I just went to my house and saw my family and not seen my kids for many years and not seen my parents for seven years. And it was incredible, but it was tough as well because, you know, I never wanted to leave my country. And I was going from, you know,

imprisonment and all of that situation to confinement because of COVID. So it was a tough landing. And then I started thinking, well, what do I do now? This is my new reality. And that's what you need to do when you reinvent yourself. It happens to people all the time, right? But the most important thing is to recognize I need to reinvent myself. This is my circumstance. This is it. Now I'm in exile. I'm not in frontline in Venezuela. So what do I do? And that's why I started to meet other people who, like me, were in similar circumstances, and that's how we gathered the idea of putting together the Alliance of the World Liberty Congress. And you know what's been interesting for me is the work

I'm doing now, we're building an alliance of democracy defenders and freedom fighters at a global level. So this is a very unique group of people, a group of people from 56 autocratic regimes, more than 300. Over 50% of the people have had, at some point, they've been unlawfully detained. 30% of the people have had, at some point, an attempt on their life. 150% have been victims of smear campaigns.

So it's really interesting to talk to people who have also gone through this. And it's incredible, Simon, to talk to people from Africa, from Asia, from Eastern Europe, from the Middle East, that we are completely different. You know, skin color, religion, institutions, sports, you know, we couldn't be more different. But when we talk about this,

we're talking about the same thing. You know, how do you endure being a political prisoner? How do you keep the movement going? How do you keep faith? How do you fall and stand up again? Because it's all about standing up. Yeah. This is a fight that, I mean, as of now, if you see the statistics, it might be an impossible fight. Because there

has been no transitions to democracy in 24 years of the 24th century. But there are more people wanting to fight for freedom. And I think what's very powerful is to share these ideas, to share this commitment, and to know that, yes, it's idealistic, but idealism in the end is what changes the world. It doesn't even matter if it's successful or not, but something you've done in your life that you absolutely loved being a part of. And if everything that you do in your life from this point on was like that one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive. Well, you know, I love being mayor. I was mayor for eight years. I was elected mayor very young. I was 27 at the time.

And for me, it was just a dream job. Yeah, for many reasons. I was at the heart of Caracas. It was very political at the time. And for me, it was just a dream job. Yeah, for many reasons. I was at the heart of Caracas. It was very political at the time. But I had all of these ideas of how to change the city. And I brought, I put together an incredible team of people. Most of them very young, very committed, very well educated in their areas of expertise. And we completely changed the city. in their areas of expertise. And we completely changed the city. We made it the safest municipality in Venezuela when Venezuela and Caracas was the most dangerous city in the world.

We had an incredible police. I brought Bill Bratton from New York City. We put together the Comstat system that was developed in New York City. We brought crime rates completely to the floor. We changed the tax municipal laws. So we did less taxation with incentives for different industries. We made taxation very simple. And of course, we increased the resources. We became autonomous. What's one specific thing that you did while you were mayor that sort of sums up the magic of being the mayor?

You know, I think it really sums up the entire experience is that I would run every day around the municipality and I would just go into the different areas of the city with no invitation, not telling anybody I would go into a school and I would talk to the teachers and to the students, or I would talk to the police in the streets, or I would go to a healthcare system, or I would go and talk to the people that were sweeping the streets. So, I mean, it was just a way of being hands-on on what I was doing with the people that were doing it. And we had this great aura of we are doing an incredible service. We actually summarized what I told the people in the municipality. Our mission is to be the best ally of the citizen. And everybody in this municipality, every department, every institute has to complete that sentence. So for the police, it was be the

best ally of the citizen to safeguard the people and the property of the municipality. For the healthcare people, be the best ally of the citizen to provide public health and caretaking of the people. And you can go, you know, kind of completing that line to the people who are taking care of the offices. And you say, all of us are part of the same mission. And we had this kind of great commitment. And it was very intense because at the same time, the municipality where I was mayor was the heart of all of the protests. And I was always involved in the protests. So, you know, at times, millions of people come to protest. And some protests lasted for months.

So parts of the, you know, we had our own Maidan Square or our own Tahir Square. And it was all in my municipality. You know, I think that contact with the people summarizes. And I do try to take that. You know, my wife, of course, I'm in exile. And I remember my wife a couple of years ago, she said we were, I think it was in Norway for the Oslo Freedom Forum.

And she said, why are you, you know, why are you saying hello to everybody? And I said, you're not, you know, you're not going to be mayor of Oslo. And I said, this is what I do. You know, I just like to say hello to people. I just like to, you know, to learn from people. And I just, I mean, I just, people. That's what I really take away from my experience as mayor,

just being in the streets, talking to people, and motivating people as well, motivating people. Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something specific that I can relive with you, an early specific happy childhood memory. Well, I do a lot of horseback. The national sport in Venezuela is called Toros Collados. You basically go, it's an incredible sport.

It's an extreme sport. You have a line of like 150 meters. You have four riders with the horses, with helmets, four minutes, and one bull. And then the bull goes out, and you need to take the tail of the bull, and you let go of the reins, and you pull the bull and twist it. And then you get some points. So the first time I did that was a very happy moment. What the hell?

There's something about you. Those two stories I find really interesting, right? Because in both cases, it's about being hands-on. It's about getting dirty, being out there, taking the risk, putting yourself out there. You know, the proverbial grab the bull by the horns. In your case, it's grab the bull by the tail. But there's something to be said for not sitting at the desk, not playing jigsaw puzzles at home,

not playing video games, but to get out on the horse and ride out and take the risks to be out there because the thrill and the learning is more intense and more extreme and take the risks to be out there because the thrill and the learning is more intense and more extreme and more valuable than anything you can learn reading about it at home or being a spectator. You can't be a spectator mayor, and most mayors are spectators. To be truly a mayor, you have to be involved. And to be truly a player, you have to be involved. You have to grab the bull by the tail. And in your case, you not only live your life by being involved and putting yourself out there, but you're inspiration for others to get on the horse and grab a bull. And if you lived in a democracy, you would be the same human being. You would be out there doing the difficult things, meeting the people, and it's still inspiring us to gather and still inspiring us to be the greatest allies of the city.

It just so happens that skill set worked really well when we needed to fight against the dictatorship. that skill set worked really well when we needed to fight against the dictatorship. Yeah. I think that in a way you are- That's who you are. That's who you are. Yeah. No, and you- You show up on a fricking horse and grab a bull. I mean, that sums you up so fricking perfectly, it's unbelievable. I don't know why I thought of this. I mean, just came with a question, but that's the first thing. I mean, it sums you up perfectly. Everything we've been talking about today, the balls that you have, you know, to do the things that you do. And even your escape, I mean, your escape story is insane. You're sitting in the back of this car pretending you have COVID and coughing.

I mean, just like the whole thing is madness. But that's who you are. There's an insanity to you. But it's for good. Yeah, well, we always joke about it, you know, in our movements. You need to be a little bit crazy to fight for freedom. And I don't think it's crazy. I think idealism, you know, is that.

I mean, you cannot be a boring idealist, you know? I mean, if you take your idealism to the extreme, you have to act, right? I mean, you have to act because, I mean, idealism is about really, you know, putting your action where your heart, where your thoughts are. So you need to act. You need to do something about it. And I also think that you need to do it with the right attitude.

You know, I think it's very, very important always to be capable of putting a smile to adversity. Here we go again. You know, just really, really being capable of putting a smile to adversity. I think that that is important for teams to be cohesive, to be motivated in moments of great difficulty. Got to give it, you know, the good vibe to the fight. Leopoldo, I could talk to you forever. I will tell you one thing.

You inspire me and I will follow you anywhere. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you, Simon. You're awesome. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

See you soon, my friend. I'll see you soon. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenik.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudershan.