 Welcome to the Artichoke Podcast, a show where we bring you actionable tips and strategy on how to connect better socially, boost your emotional intelligence, and navigate social behavior. I'm Johnny. And I'm AJ. Welcome back to our month on mastering connection. This month we've packed it with science and techniques to foster stronger connections, set boundaries, and prevent misunderstandings. And last week we had Laura Heck of the Gottman Institute with us who talked about the four horsemen of terrible behavior in a relationship and also gave us the antidote to those behaviors. Today's episode is actually a bonus episode that it's been a while in the making. We've been very excited to finally get our guest on this show who has a hit show on Netflix, the kindness diaries, and as well as that, he has an amazing story to tell about his transformation personally. So we're going to dig into that to start things off. Hello and welcome, Leon, to the show. Hello. Thanks for having me. So before we get into the travels, the show, we'd love to hear a little bit about your personal journey and your discovery around generosity. Sure. So I used to be a broker in the city of London. And on the outside I had pretty much everything you would want. But on the inside I was profoundly broken. I was very depressed, very disconnected, very alone. And no one really knew because I was wearing a mask. And the mask told everyone that I was fine. But I was not fine. And I didn't know how to kind of get out of this depression, let's put it that way. Because on the outside I was living the dream. Many people would love to live that life. But it was really a nightmare. Well I would think that it would have an impact on your work. So how are you able to at least put up this facade for so long of maintaining good work after getting to work and making things happen in that world when inside you're certainly beat up, dragging, feeling, not wanting to go in and put yourself out there? That's a great question. No one's ever asked me that one. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. So you have to put on that face, you have to put on that mask, you have to keep going to work, you have to just keep going. And for me one of the worst days of the week was Sunday evening. And I'm sure many people can relate to that, right? Because Sunday evening I knew that Monday was coming and I'd have to spend five days faking it. And I became a professional faker in the sense that I knew how to make people believe things that weren't going on inside me. So I just kept on going because I had no choice. Did you ever feel that you were an imposter going there that way? 100%. I mean I remember walking to work every day and being like this is another nightmare day. On the outside it all looked beautiful and it was like the internal struggle that I was hiding from people. And with that career journey, when did you start to notice and feel yourself that hey, you know, I'm not on the right track here? Did you have these goals in mind and then once you reached those goals career-wise you sort of realized that you were empty on the inside or was it throughout that process? Before I started being a broker the last semester of college I started to realize what on earth am I about to do because it was a family-based business and I knew that I didn't want to do it. But I just felt that I had to do it. So I did and it lasted a few years and it wasn't pleasant. What I found interesting in your journey is rather than trying to fix yourself to be able to do that job you decided to opt out and I'm sure there's a lot of people who feel that they themselves are the square peg trying to be put into a round hole and trying to chip away to make that work when in actuality it's certainly not you had found it that it was not in your DNA it was not something that you wanted to pursue or figure out. Yeah and I think many people can relate to that and the thing that I had that really helped me in some like bizarre way was the pain became too much and I had to make a decision am I gonna live my life in this pain or am I gonna jump off the high dive board and see what happens and that's where it pushed me I was pushed off the high dive by the pain and if I didn't suffer and I wasn't in emotional pain I would still be there so sometimes pain is good because it inspires you to make some changes. Yeah and meaningful things in our life typically involve pain because there's change involved I want to know how you viewed kindness and generosity when you're in this part of your career because when you think of broker you think of London you think of very successful kindness generosity don't often come to mind. So I was in an environment as a broker in the city where as you just said kindness is not really you know currency that is used it's all about money it's all about how successful you can be and that's not how I wanted to live and was I kind then probably not I wasn't because that wasn't kind of like what we were taught to be when you make money it's not about kindness it's about how much money you can make who can you step on all this kind of stuff and that was slowly destroying me inside because I want to be able to like connect with people I want to like do something that you know enables me to go on an adventure but also enables me to help and as a broker my experience was that I couldn't do that so that was kind of just another like step on the road to changing my career it's not really my career it's changing my life right so what was that first step for you and in this life change so I saw the movie The Motorcycle Diaries we were gonna ask okay yeah so I saw the movie The Motorcycle Diaries which is a romanticized version of Che Guevara traveling around South America relying on kindness and I don't know if you've ever like watched a movie where you felt like the director has basically done this movie for you so I watched Transfixed for two hours feeling this magical adventure where again the romanticized version of Che tells his father I don't want to be a doctor I'm going to travel around South America on kindness and his father kind of is like what are you doing don't do that stay here and he's like no so he goes out into the world has an amazing adventure and touches people's lives in a beautiful way okay lovely there's another way to live I don't have to live behind this desk anymore not there's anyone would live behind a desk but it's just not for me and that was really the kind of the tipping point because I've been slowly getting to the point where I was like you know what am I doing I don't want to sit in this office anymore but that was the point where it's like it's done I find it a bit amusing that the piece to that is this romanticized story of Che Guevara because certainly when I think of Che Guevara I don't think about the kindness of and how he's interacted with people it's very true and some people they like do you know that Che Guevara was a butcher or whatever they say and I'm like yes I do but this was a movie that was romanticized in his early life before he went to the dark side right so now obviously to make a decision like this I'm assuming family friends are wondering what is going on with you right when externally everyone sees you as having the trappings of success and living the life that they could only dream of and then you decide to move away from all of that go in a totally different direction how did you handle that pushback and those thoughts well look they thought I was a nut job okay which I understand completely because I have everything on a plate and I decided to give it up and go out into the world and connect with people I get it but what they didn't know was what was going on inside me and when I give my speeches I tell people if you don't listen to anything I say listen to this and that is share your pain because when you share your pain your true self comes out and you don't hold it in you don't hide behind it which is what I was doing and many people do from for most of their lives to be honest with you so I think they thought I was a nut job but I knew that even though I may be a nut job I also needed to leave because I needed to connect with humanity if I didn't do that and I didn't share my pain I wouldn't make it it's literally that simple and what made you decide to go so far away from home to find humanity most of us spend our lives in our comfort zones yeah and sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone in order to truly grow so I knew that if I stayed at home I would stay in my comfort zone so I forced myself to leave my home so that I would leave my comfort zone and I would have no choice but to fix myself and with the decision like that I'm sure there's been moments of questioning did I make the right decision right we were gonna talk a little bit about dealing with rejection obviously relying on people's kindness and generosity let's be honest a lot of strangers even in the show look at you raised eyebrows what does this guy want so handling that regret in the decision-making process as things aren't going as early as planned you know how did you deal with that battle and struggle look I didn't just leave my job and all of a sudden have a Netflix show yeah it took like over a decade of of keeping on going of like never giving up of wanting to kind of find my passion and then it kind of when it when I found my passion it wasn't enough just to do it for myself I had to like do it for others as well like I used to travel alone I didn't have cameras with me and then one day I realized to myself I was like you need to share this with people you need to you know I've met many many wise souls I've met read many beautiful books that have helped me so I was like I want other people to get some benefit from what I'm doing and yeah but there were many moments I wanted to give up many like the famous English politician Winston Churchill he has a famous quote one of many and he says never never never give up and when I'm on the floor I remember that and I tell people because I get many many emails and many messages from people who are you know suffering and I tell them it's okay to be on the floor as long as you know that in a day in a three days in a week you're gonna get up stay on the floor for as long as you need but know that you're gonna get up now relying on other people's kindness and generosity absolute strangers with cultural differences locations you've never been language barriers one how did it feel the first time having completely given up all of this to deal with that putting yourself out there and then to following up with all the rejection that comes along the way and the show I think does a great job encapsulating those moments where you're like hell no okay get away from me I'm good yeah so when I first started people would say to me you can't do it it's impossible I actually hitchhiked from Times Square to the Hollywood sign one of the first things I did and people were like it's impossible and I was like in the back of my head I was like maybe they're right but I kept on going and what I realized is it's not impossible because the way you connect with another human being is you bypass your mind and you go to your heart and when you go through you come from your heart you connect with their heart and when two hearts connect not necessarily in a romantic setting but just generally magic happens so I knew that ultimately I would find as I kept on going I knew that I ultimately find people that came from their hearts I would come from my heart and magic would happen so at the beginning it was like oh my god this is impossible and now it's like I can do it you know the rejection piece is not easy it's it's not easy no one forced me to circumnavigate the world in the motorbike no one forced me to go around and rely on kindness but there are moments when people are rejecting me and I am assassinating myself and sometimes to others I'm like hell you know this is this is terrible I can't I don't want to do this anymore and they're like sometimes the crew will say to me Leon whose idea was this like mine they're like okay so I'm like aren't you right you know so again as a kid I used to like as many of us have this this issue I hated rejection even as an adult so again I put myself in a situation where I would have to be rejected day in day out so I became okay with rejection I don't like it but I became okay with it yeah I mean that's the thing you have your internal biology that's always gonna create these feelings and emotions fight or flight this is scary I shouldn't be doing this that doesn't go away but you understand the payoff on the other side obviously having a crew follow you around adds a layer of pressure but let's explore that a little bit in the beginning when it was just you there were no cameras and rejection truly meant like you're hopeless in that moment like in that evening where am I sleeping where am I getting a square meal so how did you deal with that internal battle when you didn't have the producer looking at you going hey this was your idea yeah I knew that there was gonna be a payoff as you just mentioned and the payoff was gonna be magnificent and that at the end of the day after putting myself through all these struggles I was gonna become better again Winston Churchill has a quote that says when you find yourself walking through hell keep walking and what he meant by that I think was that when you suffer when you in pain find your way through that pain and at the end of that tunnel something magnificent will happen so I kept on going and I knew that I didn't want to go back to my office job so if someone was gonna reject me I knew that if I gave up I'd have to go back so I wasn't gonna give up I was just gonna keep going and in your mind did you envision this turning into a show and a movement or was this more of a personal journey that it started off as a personal journey but I'd always been a little bit eccentric so you know if it became a show and something beautiful happened from it then then great and that's basically what happened so that's good yeah absolutely and we know that when it comes to pitching a show there's a lot of rejection involved as well with that idea so I'm assuming this journey for you strengthened your rejection muscles going into the pitch meetings now knowing hey they may think this is a crazy idea as well yeah and also in Hollywood if you don't have a name and you go into a pitch meeting there's a very good chance that even if it's a good idea someone's gonna you know be a little bit nefarious and give it to some celebrity or someone and that's just part of life in this and that happened and it doesn't just happen to me it happens to many people so that was that was difficult as well now the show is the kindness diaries for those in our audience who maybe haven't encountered it on Netflix yet can you give us your pitch to the audience of what the kindness diaries is to you you know I'm a really bad pitcher I'll try so basically there were two seasons one season is on Amazon Prime and the second season is on Netflix first season I took a vintage yellow motorbike with a sidecar called it kindness one and drove it from Los Angeles all the way around earth back to Los Angeles I had no money no food no gas no place to stay all I had was relying on people like you and people like your listeners and there was a little bit of a twist and the twist was the unsuspecting good Samaritans received a life-changing gift so if you were super duper loop of kind to me and we had a bond and a connection and there was something that I felt that maybe I could help I would and then the season two which is currently on Netflix and I drove a 50 year old VW beetle yellow convertible from Alaska in the middle of winter to the bottom of Argentina again same concept and there's no heating in the car and it's it's madness I remember arriving in Alaska and I was like you finally lost your mind this but there's no point there's no at that point you can't change your plans you know you can't be like oh sorry crew we're going home sorry Netflix we're not gonna do it you have to do it you have to get to Argentina and it's just it but it's such a beautiful experience it's very challenging but it's a very beautiful experience you get to truly connect with people and we live in a world where most people aren't connecting they think they are they're on Twitter they're on Instagram they're on Facebook but the truest form of connection is from one human being to another from one heart to another and then there's the connection with nature it's it changes everything for me personally it changed everything the whole that the whole kind of style is just shifted so much now the vehicle obviously motorcycle diaries understand that but the vehicle choice in both seasons being yellow is there a significance to the color yeah so as a kid I love I don't know if you've watched the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang maybe Johnny Johnny's name is okay so Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is an old movie about a car that flies yeah and I used to watch that as a kid so the car was a character and I wanted the bike to be a character like people will come up to me in the street and they will literally say aren't you the captain of kindness one yes I'm the captain of kindness one and now they will come up to me and say aren't you the captain of kindness too I'm like yes I'm the captain of kindness too so I wanted to make it a character and sometimes people say to me why didn't you just use a new bike why didn't you just use a new car why do you like torturing yourself and I said well if I use a new bike you guys wouldn't be that interested in watching it because the bike would never break if I used a new car the same thing so I wanted the viewer to get an experience of this crazy English man driving a 50 year old car that kept that keeps on breaking down because it's part of the show it's part of the charm of the show let's say and it makes it harder because like I said if I had a new car it would be easy well yeah I remember going through Alaska the windshield wipers had frozen onto the windshield you can barely see getting caught in snow of course if you have all-wheel drive a brand new car full heating people are like oh it's not that big of a deal but the journey is definitely a lot more difficult with the vehicles you chose yes something that stuck out one of your it was a talk that I had seen it where you mentioned the love-hate relationship that you had I do definitely have a love-hate relationship with them I don't know if you saw the episode when it was snowing in the car yes I'm like okay it's snowing in the car good I felt your sense of relief when I believe you arrived in Utah were able to finally like strip down and not have to rely on all the layers just to keep going absolutely something I wanted to go back to you mentioned this first trip from New York hitchhiking from New York to to the Hollywood sign and we were talking about the about the best way to connect with somebody is being there being there for them and we can't find those things online and I think it's the same with self-discovery how are you going to be able to find out who you really are and how you truly think and how you truly deal with things around you if if you don't take yourself out of all the influence in the comfort that we find ourselves in daily life and during that trip did you was this the first time that you had detached yourself from that influence and and from your comfort zone for the first time no I had actually done a little bit of traveling before by myself I was still working in the office but I had taken some time off and I'd went to Nepal by myself I'd went to Peru by myself and I'd had like experiences of living completely alone let's say but that was the first time that I truly had done it on kindness a hundred percent right I'd done backpacking so I had a little bit of money but this that journey across America is one of the first times I did it with no money so on those other trips did you did you have a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment to where you knew you needed to sort of get back to something to of that experience to 100% I would go on these journeys and I would come back and I would feel free but then I would fall apart again because you know it's like you leave you leave the matrix and then you come back to the matrix and the matrix just just you know gobbles you up now obviously approaching complete strangers with basic human needs I know a lot of us even here in LA we have a homeless problem we look at people who approach us on the street we avoid them what was it like that first time to approach someone in complete need having no money no means and has your approach changed over the years in the way that you approach people because I know on the show you started with do you want to hear a story and typically you know people will look at you a little funny like what do you mean do I want to hear a story I don't know you at all so how is that approach how did the approach start and how has it changed over time obviously you've been come more season now yeah so when the conquistadors arrived in the Americas many of them burnt their ships and they burned their ships so they had no choice but to keep moving yeah and sometimes in life you have to burn your ships and that's what I did when I left my career I burnt my ship so I had no choice but to keep on moving so when it came to like talking to people on the streets I had no choice if I didn't talk to them and get them to help me I was screwed so that's one that's how it first started I didn't have any like tricks up my sleeve I just burnt my ships and as time went on I started to you know learn some how we call them tricks but I had to learn some strategies one of the main strategies that I use is to connect with someone based on a mutual connection so if I come up to you for example and I say to you let's say at a party or wherever do you like soccer okay and you say yes it's done I love soccer so immediately I have a connection with you and we'll start talking about shock soccer and if you say to me no you don't like soccer I'll keep going until there's something that we can connect with and some people will say well you know I I don't have something I can connect with this chap but the truth is you always do so maybe you can say do you have a kid like yes I have a kid too do you love your kid yes I love my kid done and so that's one of the most important things another thing that I do is I mentioned this earlier as I come from the heart I try and bypass the mind and speak to people from my heart which is which is always a safe bet of how to connect another thing I do is my personal distance I will never come up to someone really close I will stay away I will stay further away than normal yeah to make them feel completely safe if they say no I will thank them profusely I say no worries don't worry thank you very much and I will move on so I think those are the main things that I do I noticed another approach that you had is sort of opening up your hands showing your palms and having very open body language and there's like a lack of tension in your body you're very relaxed as you approach people so they can see your hands you don't have anything in your pockets that could scare them obviously there's a threat that's posed by you coming up to a complete stranger and it seems like in your body language speaking from the heart you're also open and allowing the other person to see okay there's really no funny business going on here 100% I mean you have to understand that when you do go up to a stranger the immediate reaction I do the same thing there's like of course this guy what does this guy want or what does this woman want but if you can diffuse that fear then you can get to the heart another thing I like of how you propose the question do you like soccer or wherever this might be we certainly know with our classrooms and dealing with people on the street if you go up to them and go excuse me sir do you have a second they're always gonna tell you well no I don't have a second they're gonna keep walking however but if you said excuse me do you like soccer I excuse me what and then it's a captured audience exactly we just finished filming something about travel and I would go up to people and I would say do you like travel basically every single person said yes yeah and then you'd go in from there so another interesting thing now we're talking about how to connect the people a couple about last week I was doing this show and I was very tired so I sat down and I started asking people whether they liked travel no one would even talk to me because the energy I was giving off was of like you know who was this guy sitting down he doesn't really care he's clearly not present so I was like okay this is interesting so I stood up again and then everything worked now are there any signals that you pick up on in people that might be open to receive your heart message eye contact body language how are you picking the people you approach so I pick the people based on a feeling based on whether I feel they are connected to their hearts most of the time I'm correct sometimes I'm not if I'm walking down the street and I see someone who's angry I will leave them alone if I look see someone who's clearly in a rush I'll leave them alone if I'm like let's say on a you know on a road that doesn't have that many people and it's just a single woman I'll think twice about going up to them but those are those are the main ways that I do it really it's a feeling when I dip into my heart and the vibration that your heart gives off that's how I do it best when I'm in my mind I fail more often than not right when I'm in my heart I succeed pretty much 100% of the time now how has the camera changed the equation obviously and even it was will delve into season 2 having to get the crew down to Costa Rica you know you need Southwest to comp you and the crew I'm assuming you're not now traveling alone there's cameras there's audio has that changed the way people react to you and even coming from the heart and it hasn't changed the way that I come from my heart but it has in some way made it easier yeah I got to people without the cameras though so I'll go up to them I say hey you know I'm doing this blah blah here's my bike and this is the story and like okay that's interesting then I say would you be willing for us to film you and they say sure then I have to do it again for the cameras yeah and from the point when the moment of introduction has ended then it's it's all you know it's all genuine what's genuine anyway mm-hmm but I have to repeat it right because I can't just come up to you with a camera in your face you're gonna be like what are you doing who are you so I have to do it gently there are times when the camera helps and there are times when the camera is not a help there are there are places where cameras are looked at with a lot of skepticism skepticism and there are times when cameras put you in a lot of danger threatening yeah so you have to be careful you have to kind of like feel the situation when should the company is it safe to put the camera like for example I'm not sure if you saw the Colombian episode yeah episode 8 but of season 2 basically we we made a decision we had to drive about 400 miles through some pretty terrible territory where people had been executed people had been kidnapped and we made a decision not to leave the car so we didn't film we filmed in the car and from the chase vehicle but we never left it because that was a moment we're getting out and using the camera would have caused serious problems right so has there been times during the filming where perhaps the the crew is telling you hey I don't I don't think we should be doing this right now or where you were telling them to the crew like what there was a difference of opinion of safety or intuition right because you're obviously coming at it from your heart so you're you're looking at the the person and thinking about things far differently than the camera crew thinking about the shot and all that other stuff there specifically Columbia the crew the production manager was the man who was in charge of not filming he would say to me look this is really dangerous we can't do this and I'd be like I trusted him I was like okay no wise but every day on the on the shoot it's pretty much me and I I'm aware you see it's not just about coming from your heart it's about intuition maybe that's the same thing I don't know but you have to be intuitive is this this is we shouldn't do this or we should do this and your intuition tells you well I think you know part of that is strengthening that muscle for you right so I think if we were to look at your career as a broker you were battling your intuition and saying it's not right to keep on track to keep your family friends all and obviously the family business moving since then since leaving I think your intuition is strengthened obviously approaching all these people picking up on these subtle signals that arguably your intuition might even be stronger than the film crews intuition based on the reactions that you've seen time and time again from approaching people it is it is 100% stronger in the sense that I have experienced so much whilst travelling I know look sometimes I make mistakes and but sometimes you can't afford to make mistakes but I know I know okay this is the wrong road to walk down we're not going there this is the right one we're going there there was a story actually when I was in India in season one we filmed it but it didn't end up on the show I was in I was in India was in Delhi I was in one of the markets the power games market I started chatting with this guy who was a rickshaw driver I ended up going back to his house and I spent some time in some of the poorest parts of India we're playing cricket and actually I I said to myself I trusted this guy no I didn't know him I trusted him I don't know him for half an hour but I felt he would protect us and we ended up going to play cricket in the slums and I made a big mistake on camera in front of like 30 or 40 people I was playing cricket turned to the camera and I said playing cricket in an Indian slum priceless and some guy looked at me who had lived in the slum said how dare you call my home a slum and he was being belligerent and had the guy who I'd met in the market not been there it could have been a very serious problem but the guy from the market said to him look leave him alone he's with me so I made a mistake but I didn't make a mistake because I went with the guy who I felt would say would protect us right now obviously spanning the globe different cultures you know we live in the Western world obviously your career started in your life started in the Western world what have you noticed the difference and the way people respond to you your approach and is it as cultural as people think or as kindness generosity universal if you approach someone and connect with someone from your heart doesn't matter their color doesn't matter their religion doesn't matter how much money they have if there's a heart connection it doesn't matter where you live so it was definitely a very enlightening moment for me moments to know because sometimes we live in a world where you turn on the news and they say oh you know if you're from this part of the world you're bad and then you go to that part of the world you realize oh they're not bad at all they're actually exactly like me now the the payoff on the end right as we talked about earlier the show is unsuspecting kindness gets rewarded so you have a great connection with someone they help you give you food shelter and then the end of the show you give them something that's life changing what's been your favorite life changing moment during both seasons of really being able to give someone an amazing gift I know that the stories have varied from rent to travel to opportunities that these people never imagined was there one in your mind that really stands out yeah definitely I was in Pittsburgh and I was going up to people and asking if I could stay with them and they were saying no which is fine and then I saw I went up to this one chap and I said kind of send your house tonight after talking to him for a little bit and he goes look I'm really sorry but I'm homeless he didn't look homeless but he clearly was I was about to walk off I felt some shame you know I've just asked a homeless man to stay in his house and he turns around he says well you know what if you want you can stay with me tonight I'll feed you I'll protect you and I'll give you some clothes every part of my being was like Leon you're not sleeping on the streets of Pittsburgh but there was that one little counterintuitive voice that said Leon my good friend you are staying on the streets Pittsburgh tonight and that's exactly what happened and his name was Tony and he taught me a profound lesson he taught me that true wealth is not in our wallets but it's in our hearts and if a homeless man with nothing can be kind then why can't I if a homeless man with nothing can be kind then why can't you and he taught me another lesson that is that kindness is free doesn't matter how much money you have doesn't matter how little money you have kindness is free and sleeping on the streets of Pittsburgh for that one night changed everything for me because it made me realize that again like with the motorcycle diary says another way to live and if he can be kind then I have no excuses the next morning I took him on kindness one in the sidecar and I put him up in an apartment and I sent him back to school he always wanted to be a chef so and he always says to me you changed my life and I would say the same thing Tony you changed my life and that's the truth you know yeah I mean the lessons that come out of it I remember you in Tijuana and the family opening their home and the first thing the family says is they apologize to you you know we're so poor our houses in poor shape really sorry for you to have to experience is obviously the cameras are there and then the moment you're sitting on the couch thinking about if the roles were reversed someone was on your doorstep in London knocking on your door would you open your house to them and you know that moment for me sitting next to Amy watching the show just thinking like you know I don't know that we could do it either you know we often look at our own safety our own personal well-being and our homes is very sacred and here all these people who have you know less than you can imagine are willing to open their door give you a tamale give you a couch to sleep on I'm assuming the lessons along the way have changed you your view now and opening up your home and of kindness and generosity how has it shifted and what's been the biggest lesson there so I was in Santa Monica about a year ago and there was a guy that was this is the first time I've ever shared this publicly there was a guy that was walking the the trail I can't remember the name of it the Pacific Coast Trail and he was ending up in LA and he was about to sleep on the beach and I felt connected to him you know I was like okay and I said well look do you want to come and stay in my house he's like yeah sure so he ended up staying in my house now I locked my door my personal door but whatever you know I trusted him I felt they was I guess I didn't trust him enough to not lock my door but if you feel connected to someone it doesn't take long to to trust them but you can't connect from the mind you have to connect from somewhere somewhere else you have to connect from your heart so yeah that that happened and I would do it again but if I felt even the slightest bit unsafe I wouldn't do it so you have opened your door yes one of the things that we had talked about this week is is was boundary setting and in order to feel safe you you have to put some boundaries together that that will protect you and that at least well that you will feel will keep you out of harm's way now upon opening your door and having these events has your boundaries changed or is there certain things that you stick to in order to enable yourself to open your doors to other people my boundary simple if I don't feel safe you're not coming into my house if I don't feel safe you're you're not going to be part of my life so that's it that's my boundary and I am aware intuitively of the moment of safety and non-safety so that's that's really how I do it same with in the show I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put myself in a situation even with a camera crew where I'm not I'm not safe it's just not gonna happen in terms of even though in saying that I did drive 400 miles in a place where people were being executed so that's not really 100% true we saw you reroute your travels so you didn't have to go through essentially the southern part of Mexico with all those warnings travel advisories but you did put yourself in in harm's way yes you have tested that intuition you know the flip side of all this obviously is other people in their safety and feeling okay with letting you in to their life yes is there anything you do in your pitch to show them the boundaries that you have to allow them to feel comfortable I just I do my best to make them feel like a clearly it's your choice you know if you say no there's no problem whatsoever I will leave in the Jiffy and it's just like coming from a connecting to my humanity if I connect to my humanity you will connect to your humanity and then you will feel safe and again you know with the show it's a bit easier because there's a camera crew so they're in them in their minds are like okay this guy is not a nut job because he's got a camera crew he's not gonna do anything to me because then you know the camera crew will see or whatever so it becomes harder when you don't have a camera crew but it's not impossible I mean I've traveled the world and stayed in crazy places with no camera crew whatsoever I was in Uzbekistan ended up completely lost went to this little village started talking to this guy he was a melon seller and no cameras it was just me and a friend a little tiny little camera and he ended up letting us sleep in his barn and we ate dinner with him and his family there was nothing there was no film crew it was just me him and my friend and the village that was it I think what's remarkable about the show for me is we talk a lot about this on the show is we connect through stories and a big part of the show is being able to hear your host stories and understanding what they're struggling with and where they come from and what's always been remarkable to me is just how vulnerable these complete strangers will get with you and I think that has a lot to do with your ability to listen and really emote with them you know what have you learned over obviously both journeys now around being more present being there for someone else's story I feel like so many of us these days just want to blurt out our story and want everyone to know our story but big part of the show is just sitting back and listening to your host stories exactly so one of the people sometimes say to me what did you learn from your journeys what is the most important thing you learned and the most important thing I learned was that we all just want to be seen we want by that I mean want to be loved we want to be heard and that's what I do for them I just sit there and I see them and they open up and I listen and I empathize and I and as many of us have suffered a lot of emotional pain and I can empathize with you and when someone feels like you see them they will just come out of their shell and that's what we do that's what I do and then I share my pain too have you seen episode eight with the dog yeah okay so you know what I mean well clarify that for the audience okay that's an interesting one yeah yeah so I end up in Ecuador and I meet this unbelievable woman who like is saving dogs she has like 30 dogs in our house and she has such a beautiful heart and she tells me the story of why she's saving dogs because as a kid her parents abandoned her and she put all her love that she didn't get from her parents into dogs because she couldn't have kids and and I had a dog called Winston Winston Churchill who you know really meant a lot to me and we bonded over that and we were both crying and it was just it was a beautiful moment if you have a dog watch it because you may start crying but you'll feel grateful at the end so let's dig a little deeper into kindness itself right we've obviously we understand the momentum it's built for you on these journeys but what does kindness actually mean to you and for those of us who are struggling to be kind what advice do you have so kindness to me is very simple it's helping someone feel less alone that's it it's not rocket science every person on this planet has felt alone and I would hope that the vast majority of us have at least at one stage in our lives had someone whose kindness has helped us feel less alone so that's it all you have to do to be kind is to help another human being feel less alone going along those lines a lot of us feel that our kindness will be taken advantage of absolutely against us so for those in the audience who have struggled to feel kind because we've been taken advantage of by someone else and thought hey I'm just gonna get it thrown back at me how can we instill develop kindness for others so I understand that because when you're kind you're vulnerable when you are vulnerable you are open to be squashed sometimes I tell people about the great Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali was a man of faith a man of love a man of kindness a man of strength not perfect no one is how many of you wouldn't mess with Muhammad Ali and my point is you can be kind and you can be strong so you can you can be kind you can be vulnerable with the right people you don't have to like go out into the world and be vulnerable with your worst enemy they're gonna squash you go out and be kind to someone that you believe is going to not squash you and start with baby steps and I think that's that's the trick you have to be careful who you're vulnerable with because if you're vulnerable with the wrong person then they may take advantage of you but if you if you go out into the world and you're vulnerable but you have boundaries then kindness is the greatest strength so you go out into the world you're kind you're open-hearted but if someone comes into your space and someone does something that is clearly not acceptable you stand up like Muhammad Ali Winston Churchill has been a very controversial figure you quoted him twice you named your dog Winston do you see him in the same light as Muhammad Ali or was it something different you have to understand with Winston Churchill that I am English so Winston Churchill was lionized for the English and also yes he most probably wasn't one of the kindest people in the world but he was the one person that was needed at the time to save the world from Nazis certainly so his strength helped all of us really like there were some times in the world in moments in time where you need that one person so just like Nelson Mandela Mandela was the one person that could have helped and saved South Africa in that moment if he hadn't been Nelson Mandela then things would have turned out very very badly and that's in my opinion the same with Winston Churchill was he the kindest man no but he was the right man at the right time to help Europe defeat the Nazis that's my opinion now have you developed relationships with all of these hosts you mentioned the guy in Pittsburgh the gentleman that you've helped out obviously you've done a lot in your kindness for others what are the relationships that have come out of the show for you sure I mean look I don't stay in touch with all the people that I meet but I certainly stay in touch with some of them like for example Deeru the Indian rickshaw driver I'm actually going to India tomorrow and I'm going to stay with him so for a few nights and Tony the homeless guy Willie from episode one the Scottish guy that ended up going back to England for his son's wedding stay in touch with him so yeah some of the people I do stay in touch with some of them I don't and do you find that obviously their lives have been touched by you but what's been the payoff since the show because obviously we do we see glimpses of what's happened but yeah look basically what we offered them was an opportunity they get to choose whether they really want to take that opportunity and there's some people that did and there are some people that didn't and all the people that I mentioned did and some of the people that didn't they will remain anonymous right and having this journey documented obviously now friends family back home I'm sure are less worried about you understand how does that change happen from hey this guy's crazy to okay well look they still think I'm a nut job because I am a nut job and that's okay you know sometimes you've got to be a nut job to like make magic happen or whatever but they see that it affects people's lives and there are moments in the journeys where I want to give up and I think to myself I've pushed myself too far but I always have this voice in my head that says well you know keep going because they're going to be people that are going to watch your show they're going to be people they're going to listen to podcasts and hopefully be inspired to change their lives so I keep going and the book go be kind what is the goal with this book go be kind so people would come up to me and they'd say I can't quit my job and travel around the world and be kind like you I'm like okay maybe you can't but that's not the point of kindness the point of kindness is how you show up moment to moment you don't have to quit your job you don't have to get a yellow car you don't have to become a nut job but what you have to do is show up moment to moment so what I did was I created a book where you get to go on your own kindness Diaries adventure there's 28 and a half adventures guaranteed to make you happier okay get your money back if you don't become happy that's true and you get to go out into the world and have your own adventure you get to go out into the world and connect with people you get to go out into the world and do all the things that we've talked about in this podcast you get the chance to do them you get the chance to change someone's life you get the chance to make someone feel less alone you get the chance to go out and love people the same way you love your dog all the things that I did in the kindness Diaries you can now do so can you share one of those adventures with our audience we love to end every episode with the challenge sure so one of the adventures is called winnie love the winnie love challenge my dog Winston Churchill I realized that I was loving Winston in with so much patience and kindness and love that would happen if I went out into the world and did the same thing for you if I treated you with the same love that I treated Winston so I did the seven-day winnie love challenge and I did that I treated you with the same love and you guys get to go out you too actually in fact I'm challenging you to go out today and treat people with winnie love and also the people that are listening to the to the podcast to go out into the world and spend one day treating people with the same love that you treat your dog it will change everything I love that challenge and I think for us on the show here we've been talking about giving value being kind for over a decade now and a lot of people come to us and say well that's great you guys have the means to be kind and generous and our retort is always we could be kind with our thoughts we could be kind with our attention you could be generous with our patience there there are things that you could do to be kind that do not involve having means having money to be kind and I think that's really the greatest lesson from the show that I've taken away and I'm really excited to check out the book and and the thing that I've learned is that the people with the least are the kindest it's quite extraordinary so if there are people out there that say oh because I don't have the means or because I don't have a show or because I don't have a podcast remember that all you have to do to be kind is to help someone feel less alone whether they're working at Starbucks whether they're your train conductor whether they're the person who's just cut you off on the freeway all you have to do is make them feel less alone you don't need a single penny to do that thank you so much for being kind with your time excited to hear about your trip to India is there a cricket planned thank you for joining thank you thank you very much