M&R Episode 162: The Kindness Diaries season 2 update with Leon Logothetis.

In Episode 162 I spoke with expat Leon Logothetis from the Netflix series The Kindness Diaries. The first time Leon came on Misfits and Rejects was Episode 88 and he spoke about riding his motorcycle around the world relying only on the kindness of strangers. In Season 2 Leon drove a fifty-year-old VW Bug from Alaska to Ushuaia Argentina doing the same thing. Asking for gas, food, and shelter the whole way. To see what people will consistently do for another human being and Leon does a great job of showing all of us the world is made up of good people. Enjoy!

Show notes: The Kindness Diaries Season 2, Episode 88 with Leon, Go Be Kind, Support Misfits and Rejects on Patreon, Get a Misfits and Rejects T-shirt or Tank

What up all you beautiful misfits and rejects out there. Thank you for joining me for episode 162 of misfits and rejects today's episode

I spoke with Leon Logothetis

You might remember him from episode 88 the gentleman from the Netflix series the kindness diaries an episode one of the kindness diaries Leon drove a

Yellow motorcycle with the sidecar around the world relying solely on

Kindness from others to get him from point a to point B

So that meant getting gas from strangers that meant getting food from strangers that meant

Asking people to take him home and getting a place to sleep throughout his whole journey

Which he documented and you really got to see how genuinely kind

People are around the world how this world is full of kindness and the people who occupy it are

Genuinely kind good people so episode 2 Leon took a 50 year old yellow beetle and drove it from Alaska down to Ushuaia

Argentina and yet again

He proves just how kind this world is doing the same thing driving from point a to point B

Asking people to help him with gas help him with food help him with accommodation and every single step of the way

He does encounter somebody who will help him out, and it's not every single person

He asks is willing to help

But he always does find somebody who opens their doors opens their heart to him and gives him what he needs in that moment

And I can say from my own experiences traveling the world that every single step of the way every single country

I've ever been to I have met more

Kind people than I've ever met people who wanted to take advantage of me who wanted to do harm to me universally

I think that is true now. I haven't been everywhere, so I can't comment on those places

I haven't been but I intuitively think that even in places that the American media

Sensationalizes as being the most dangerous parts of the world you will still find

Open-hearted kind people wanting to help more than hurt

So that's why this episode and what Leon is doing is so important to me because I think he does do a good job of

showing you through his

Experiences on the road of what it's like just to stay open and just ask for help when you're in need

It's very uncomfortable for Americans probably very uncomfortable for other cultures as well

But he shows that when you show your vulnerability and your openness to others

They are willing to lend a hand and help you in your time of need

So please go to Netflix if you have Netflix go on YouTube try to find it check it out

Kindness Diaries one and two very worth watching. You'll definitely shed a tear in the Kindness Diaries, too

I know I did pretty much every single episode

I had tears running down my face just to see the people who go above and beyond for Leon and just really help them out

It's the most beautiful thing

I think you'll ever see so sit back relax and enjoy this episode with Leon Logo Thetis the Kindness Diaries on Netflix

And if you haven't yet subscribed to Misfits and Rejects

Please pull up that phone and hit the subscribe button

Enjoy welcome to Misfits and Rejects a podcast about the lifestyle design of expatriates travelers

entrepreneurs and adventurers

I'm your host Chapin Krueger. Enjoy. I didn't fit in America

With cocaine there's just always too many guns and too many bad attitudes

I quit the limiting stories

Really try to overcome that fear

And right there for any of your listeners a lot of what I was to do in the rest of my life was formulated by the fact

I just went and did it

Welcome to another episode of Misfits and Rejects today

I'm joined by Leon Logo Thetis you might remember from episode 88 when you join me and thank you for that

It was nice that you responded to my email and it got you on the show and we're here to plug season 2

The Kindness Diaries in the back. What episode is this if I was on 88?

You will be on prior like episode 160. Oh wow. Wow, you've been busy busy. Yes

Capturing a lot of cool interesting inspiring content like yours cool

season 2 you drove from Alaska down to Patagonia exactly Alaska to

Ushuaia in Argentina. Yeah, I watched it. It's incredible. I just cried every single episode. It's so

Like touches me because I've experienced what you experienced on the road and just bringing back those memories and I still experience them

But I'm not doing it as hardcore as that where I was like hitching around the world

But I mean you really have tapped into something that I think is remarkable

It's a little hard to watch sometimes because I can feel the insecurity I have with asking for help

I can see that you become more comfortable with it. I think in season 2 maybe then season 1

I mean, how's how's it going for you? I mean, can you talk the audience a little bit about that experience season 2?

I mean you've made big partnerships with Southwest Airlines. Like yes going pretty good. Yeah, this is paying off. Yeah

Yeah, to a certain extent. I mean look, you know season 1 was kind of you know on this yellow motorbike all the way around the world

I'd traveled around the world. I traveled before but

Never to this degree and the season 2 it was more I

Opened up more. I was willing to like show myself more

and

It was it was it was a tough tough journey. It was fun, but it was also sometimes not fun

I mean, you know this you travel look painfully hard sometimes

I mean just you in the in the Alaskan Tundra just like screwing into the side like I

Mean, I've felt it with my own VW van that we drove from LA to Costa Rica and just the breakdowns

But the help that was always there even if you did have to wait. Yeah, I mean, what was the most frustrating thing for you? I

Think one of the most frustrating things was I've done this quite a lot. You know, I've done a lot of shows

I've done a lot of travel

And specifically in Alaska and further down, but I remember in Alaska

I would be asking I was asking myself why on earth are you doing this yourself again?

Like as you know, I was in a car that was 50 years old had no heating outside

It was minus 30 and I was driving from Alaska to Argentina and I kept saying why are you doing this yourself?

Why are you doing this yourself? What the hell is wrong with you? Like what stop I've had enough

Just go home and stop but what would always come back is you're doing this because people are going to be inspired

You're doing this because people's lives will be touched you're doing this to

Get other people to go out and live their best lives and I'd be like, okay fine. I'll keep going so

It becomes and I'm sure this is you can relate to this with your podcast

It becomes more than just about you it becomes about the people that are going to listen

it becomes about the people that are going to be inspired and

That I would imagine is a part of what keeps you going which is what kept me going

100% I mean what kind of feedback are you getting in the personal like DMs from people who have said what it's just amazing

I mean, I got a message from a guy who told me that he was he's good

he was going to kill himself and

He happened upon the kindness diaries and he decided that he wasn't going to kill himself when he was going to make something of his

life

I mean, that's not me. That's not me

That's like just like putting a mirror to someone to say look there's hope and I'm just the vessel for that

But the mirror instead of being like negative is like this positive thing like oh my god

There's another way to be

And that was that's just one. I mean I get messages all the time

Yeah, but I mean you speak now in front like 20,000 people at a time

Yeah, and I'm just like serious is like growing to such a thing where it's like I get almost 20,000 a month

You're like captivating

Really quite extraordinary. It was it was always a dream of mine

To like I wanted to be a soccer player or a rock star and both of them failed

But then I get I'm getting the chance to like speak in front of thousands of people and I just spoke in front of

20,000 people and what a beautiful thing to be able to do that and people pay you to like

Talk about kindness and I would imagine that you love talking right because otherwise you wouldn't do a podcast and you get to do that

You get to like go out into the world and share your message of hope and share your message of travel

What a beautiful thing it is. It is beautiful

I mean the talking side is nice because I like to engage with people

I like to hear their stories more than anything just like yours a few of the

Episodes that caught my attention were the one where you were just gone to Tijuana and you went to the like the almost hostile

For immigrants who are either gonna jump across the border and make their break for it or it had to come back

And and that really touched me like this guy was getting ready to put his wetsuit back on

He had just gotten caught the night before and he's gonna make a play to go against try to get back to his family

And I just find it so interesting to watch the perseverance of these people which I see so many victims

Around me these days and people complaining especially I don't know

I don't want to say in just California but in America and to see somebody persevere that much who I mean

There's plenty of examples of people walking across the Sudan to get to someplace and then they start a life for themselves. It's like

Mind-blowing how are you feeling with the things that you've persevered with I persevered through

To get to where you are now like and the road to come

I mean how many more of these are you gonna do where you're like driving just like every second like dude this sucks

That's not access that even though, you know, it's gonna help people

I mean, I feel like is this how you're gonna challenge yourself for the rest of your life

Or is this gonna be something that you transition to something new with what's on the limit to what I can do

I mean doing these journeys, you you know, you see it and you because you've traveled so you watch it and you're like, okay

I know this is difficult. Yes

Looks smooth whatever blah blah blah, but you know how difficult it is. So there's a limit to what one can do

the next season is

Scotland to Singapore

But I don't know how many things I'll do after that

I mean, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, but maybe not push myself up a cliff

I think I've had enough of cliff pushing but I keep saying that and then I go and do something insane

It's like a sailor sailors would you know leave back every for every generation?

They leave port they hit the high seas. It sucks the whole time they get to put they're like

I'm never going back out to sea again

And then they do it again and again because there's something alluring about it

That is exactly what happens to me and I'm sure to you like you go out you have an adventure you like that's it

It's done. And then you're like, okay fine. I'll do it again because you get so much out of it

Because you become wiser you become kinder you become

It's like the school of life

you know when you go out and travel the world and

It's just a good feeling to be able to come back and see the world with a different perspective a different eye

The the Scotland is Singapore. That's already been done. You've done. No, no, no, I wish we have to do it

Okay, and you're gonna do it in your little kindness, too

We'll see maybe maybe it'll be a yellow submarine. Okay, nice would be easier just to go from the highlands

The I notice in season two I felt that

You seemed really grounded in a lot of the situations that I perceive maybe as uncomfortable. Yeah seem very present

How do you feel about that? Do you think that's what you've grown into and you can 100% like, you know, maybe season one

I wasn't so grounded because a lot of things have happened off-screen, you know, like

She you know dealing with pain reading books

Therapy all this kind of stuff and it grounds you but you become karma and then when you get on the road

You can deal with things that most people can't deal with like for example a couple of weeks ago

I was traveling with someone. I'm not going to mention their name, but I was traveling with someone and we were in the

TSA line. Yeah, and

The person behind us was being very unpleasant being very rude

And the person the person I was with was about to like have an argument with them and I just said just let it go

You talk to that person to my

Person I was with I just said just let it go and we let it go

But it would have been very easy for those two people to have an argument over nothing

And you know a couple of years ago, I made an argument

Yeah, yeah, so you go out into the world and

you become

Wiser and calmer and

Happier and kinder seems like though through subjecting yourself to these sort of uncomfortable situations

It's today out like you do start to acquire a certain calmness because yes, you've been through it before

You know, there usually is a solution to it whether someone's gonna stop pick you up

Pay for your stuff like the tools that like it just it does if you subject. That's what I'm noticing with a lot of these

Self-help gurus or whoever I'm kind of interested in right now

I'd say the Wim Hof guy who's got his breathing stuff subject himself to cold or

An MMA fighter who like is just renowned for his skill set on the mat the jiu-jitsu

They all seem to come to the same conclusion with just like stay calm

Stay present. There's a way out of this situation

But they've subjected they've subjected themselves so many times to it now. It's easy

It's easy to sit an ice bath

For an hour and a half

Breathe through it. It's easy to have some guy wrapped around your neck choking you out, but it's like I can't I recognize this

So the more you do this and it's Scotland to Singapore. How long is that gonna take you?

I don't know maybe four and a half five months four and a half five months

And I mean, I'm assuming you're not gonna do the yellow submarine. So it's like it's gonna be a motorcycle

Probably be the car. Look the car broke down quite a lot, but really nothing like the bike

And the first time it broke down was 3,000 miles after I started which is pretty epic because the bike broke down in Vegas

So, you know, it'll probably be the car and I did a lot of fixing it. I fixed it, you know

So I was 50 years old, but I put in a new engine

I did everything I could to make sure it made the journey and it still kept breaking down

But it'll it'll be the car no doubt

All right

the the other part I want to kind of talk more about and help the audience understand peeling back the layers of the

Danger aspect in which you decided to you know, take the team from

LA you courted Southwest Airlines

they agreed to fly you to Costa Rica just because

The US travel advisories all these things are saying like don't drive don't drive

Yeah

Don't drive and I was driving up here today to have this conversation with you

I was thinking like if you and I sat down and really peeled back the layers of the realistic dangers of doing that

What would you say in your opinion were the real is the biggest danger?

Mm-hmm was the camera crew. Okay. The biggest danger was I had a yellow

VW Beetle 50 years old with a camera crew following me. So that would have meant that we would have go go into some of these

Dangerous territories and they wouldn't have known who we are. Who are you? You know, why did you have a camera here?

You're a spy. I mean whatever it would have been had it just been me and one person who would have done it

but it was me and five or six people and it just

It just didn't it wasn't worth risking it right, you know

And it wasn't just like 300 miles like it was in Colombia when we went through Colombia

And we had to take precautions there as well

It was a thousand two thousand miles

We would have arrived in towns where we were just shot with a camera. We had no security

Wouldn't have ended well

Let's play it out. This is why this is kind of where I think a lot of people's imaginations automatically assume like no-go

way too dangerous, but in my mind because I have done that drive we did it in an old VW pop-top and

You're driving the day

Less crime happens in the daytime, right less people are willing to take that risk

So you have your camera crew behind you you're moseying through you come into a town say it's daytime and you have cameras

Okay, so maybe you perk the interest of some

Unfriendly people say but I would still say that the majority of people in town

Are good and would probably help in situations where you could have been threatened

So it's like I told you see and probably would have made the same call because you had other people's lives at stake were

There to support you on this series

But I think as I play through that scenario like I genuinely with wholeheartedly like the danger was so little

It would be like driving through South Central with a camera crew you do it in the daytime

People are curious some people might be like hey, maybe we could Jack those cameras

But ultimately it was interesting that when you did get to Costa Rica, and you had that couple talk about having the gun

You know pulled out on him. Yeah, like did that was that random like was that a random occurrence thing is random

Really we were walking in a market and they were clearly, you know, they clearly spoke English

So I started talking to them and I told them that I had decided not to do it and they told me they did do

It and then they told me the story about the guy pulling a gun on them

Yeah, but they were also camping on a beach. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but you never know

I think I think the thing was we decided that the risk wasn't worth it fair enough fair enough

I just want the audience to really like before they end all conversation about like trying to attempt certain things like play it out

You know, absolutely and had it just been me and a friend. We would have done it without a shadow of a doubt

Yeah, you know you stay on the main roads. You'll be fine. Totally. I totally agree

So Scotland is Singapore. Do you have a timeline when this might happen season three working on it next year next year?

Yeah, so you're gonna play out the rest this year and just what continue to give talks right now. And yeah

Yeah, and actually I wrote a new book. I'm not sure it's called go be kind

I said, I don't have a copy of it, but it's called go be kind and it's basically people come up to me

They say, you know, I can't quit my job

I can't go around the world in the yellow motorbike or a yellow car. What should I do?

And so I created a book where you could do your own kindness and ventures

28 and a half adventures in kindness

And at the end if you're not happier you get your money back 28 and a half. Yes, why the half?

You have to read the book. Okay, can you give us maybe two like yeah

So for example, one of the adventures is called Winnie love Winnie was my Boston Terrier who I loved with all my heart

And I went out into the world and gave you and other human beings the same love I gave Winnie

So the adventure is to go out into the world and find five people to give Winnie love to

That's one of the adventures

Another adventure is to find a stranger and to take them to coffee

And just connect with them because as you know when you connect to humanity and other human beings

You realize we're just the same

That's awesome dude, I think those are really good exercises that anybody could utilize. Yeah

Why did you take this interview with me in the first place when I reached out and you know a year and a half ago

I mean, I just reached out randomly you're a guy in Netflix whose series I saw and

I just reached out and you said yep

No worries like and I to be honest like not many people do that

I reach out to a lot of people that I think are interesting and very few ever get back to me then. Yeah

well

First of all, I want to share the message and secondly

You've taken the time

To reach out to me. So it would be rude of me not to respond

and

I just sensed that you're doing some good stuff. So why not reply and see what happens who knows?

I love it. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. It's great. Yeah, if you could talk to one audience member out there

Well first actually with the Southwest thing

I'm curious about that relationship because I know that you your series is on like all this TV screens on Southwest. Is that true?

Yeah, and that was just a random phone call that said here I'm stuck in Tijuana

Basically, wow, you know, it took a little bit of time to get them to to do what we needed but they did that's so cool

Did it's pretty epic just make the calls what?

We made it exactly I was about to say we called them. They said yes, you called you you messaged me. I said, yes

Yeah, you know, we messaged many others. They said no. Yeah one person said yes

That's so rad, dude

If you could talk to one audience member and just inspire them or help them understand what it takes to be kind and take that

first step out into the world as a kind human being I would say that

kindness is simply helping someone feel less alone and

Everyone knows what it's like to feel alone

So take that

Empathize with another human beings feelings and just help them feel less alone and you'll see that it's a win-win

You win I win everyone wins with kindness, why not why not do it? Yeah

Folks check it out season 2 the kindness diaries. Thank you

Awesome Leon, thank you so much for coming back on and sharing your season 2 with us the kindness diaries season 2

Alaska to Ushuaia Argentina in a 50 year old yellow VW bug super cool worth watching folks

Definitely go check it out on Netflix

and again what Leon's doing is so special to me because I can relate in so many ways throughout the years of traveling that

I've done every single country I've ever been to has just been full of people that are more willing to help than willing to

Hurt you or take advantage of you

The world is so full of kindness so full of beautiful people beautiful people like yourselves

even though sometimes again the American media makes everyone think that it's not safe out there that we shouldn't travel to certain places because

Every individual on the ground there is gonna try to harm you. It's just not the case folks

That's just not how it is

and I hope these episodes that I bring to you weekly uncover some of those truisms that

Travelers are finding out around the world and gives you some real news as they say from somebody who's actually there on the ground and

Shed some light on you know, what's really going on in these places that the American media dub as so dangerous

So thank you so much for listening. I think you all are so very very beautiful

Please hit that subscribe button if you haven't already and I look forward to see you next week's episode. Ciao

Thank you for listening to miss bits and rejects. I hope this inspire you to think about your life situation where you're at

and possibly make a big decision to

Choose something different for yourself if you're unhappy with where you're at in life. I

Hope these people that I interview inspire you to go out spread your wings and try something new

To live a different lifestyle that maybe your whole life people were telling me was the wrong one

But when in fact it it's the perfect one for you

And I'll see you next time