Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's you project. Hope you're bloody terrific.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another installment. It's early in the am over
Speaker 1: here in the thriving metropolis of Melbourne, down the bottom
Speaker 1: of Australia. For those of you around the world, Hope
Speaker 1: you're terrific. So last night, so Melissa is very excited
Speaker 1: about today's guest, And yesterday I had a day of mayhem.
Speaker 1: My mum wasn't well, ended up in hospital. I had
Speaker 1: to drive four hours and do a whole lot of things.
Speaker 1: So all the prep that I was going to do
Speaker 1: flew out the window. All the meetings I had flew
Speaker 1: out the window. God bless Mary. She's okay. Thanks everybody
Speaker 1: for all the messages I get about my parents. Your ace. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so the normal time that I would invest into researching
Speaker 1: my guest kind of went out the window. And I
Speaker 1: thought when I got home last night, I thought to
Speaker 1: myself self, why don't you watch I watched all these
Speaker 1: videos Melissa sent me, which were very impressive, But then
Speaker 1: why don't you have a look at Leon's special? It's sure,
Speaker 1: what is it? It's a doco? I guess he'll tell
Speaker 1: me in a minute. On Netflix, and I thought, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm going to pretend I've watched it. They're
Speaker 1: going to watch five to ten minutes of it. And
Speaker 1: then and then I started watching it and I couldn't stop,
Speaker 1: complete with tears, complete with all the It was an
Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster. I was like a blubbering sixty year
Speaker 1: old male. It was pathetic and joyous all at the
Speaker 1: same time. So while I'm plugging that, that's called The
Speaker 1: Kindness Within on Netflix in Australia anyway, So have a
Speaker 1: look at that. That's really brilliant, Leon High. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me, Hey, thanks for having me. What are you
Speaker 1: up to today? Before we go back, like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing in twenty twenty six? Because I know what
Speaker 1: you were doing and what you've been doing. What are
Speaker 1: you doing now?
Speaker 2: That's going to be a bit of a boring answer
Speaker 2: on my fred I'm kind of just doing nothing in limbo.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't see limbo. I think it's a I created
Speaker 2: nothing for myself on purpose.
Speaker 1: H good, I think it. How do you sit with nothing?
Speaker 1: A lot of people are terrible in the middle of nothing.
Speaker 1: And it's a really brave answer because people tend to
Speaker 1: want to go, Yeah, I've got a lot of things
Speaker 1: in the pipeline. We're just working on this and we're
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, what are you doing? Fuck all?
Speaker 2: Great?
Speaker 1: How is it? What are you doing? I'm doing? Fuck all?
Speaker 1: How is it? It's really good? I tell I tell
Speaker 1: all of my peeps and some of my clients and audiences,
Speaker 1: and we talk about fuck all days, how amazing they are.
Speaker 1: And some people have fuck all months or even years,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, just to hit the pause button and try
Speaker 1: to figure out where they're at and what's what do
Speaker 1: you how do you use your fuck all time?
Speaker 2: Well? Look, I did a lot and I think I
Speaker 2: burned myself out and make I made a conscious decision
Speaker 2: that I was going to do nothing until I felt
Speaker 2: a true urge to do something beautiful. And I feel
Speaker 2: the urge coming back a little bit, but not enough
Speaker 2: to stop doing nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what do you think it is? The
Speaker 1: you know, it's we talk about I don't know in
Speaker 1: the States where you're at, in England, where you're from,
Speaker 1: the busy badge. It's like being busy is a badge
Speaker 1: of honor. It's like even when you say to people,
Speaker 1: how are you, they'll say busy, Like they don't even
Speaker 1: talk about how they are, they talk about what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's like this almost this social kind of tick. I'm busy, mate, busy,
Speaker 1: flat out. What is that about the pride that we
Speaker 1: take in being busy.
Speaker 2: I think maybe if you tell someone that you're busy,
Speaker 2: it means that you're important because you've got a lot
Speaker 2: going on. Tell someone that you're not busy, then you're
Speaker 2: not important and you haven't got a lot going on.
Speaker 2: I think maybe, yeah, maybe people always saying to me,
Speaker 2: They're always say to me, oh, you're so, and in
Speaker 2: the back of my head, I'm like, no, I'm not.
Speaker 2: You're probably actually the first person I've fully truly said
Speaker 2: I'm just not doing anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's amazing, I think, and especially if
Speaker 1: you can go I'm not doing anything and I'm really good.
Speaker 1: I'm happy, like and doing not much for me right
Speaker 1: now exactly what I need to be not doing, which
Speaker 1: is good. So as much or as little as you want.
Speaker 1: And I hate questions like this, but we can't really
Speaker 1: move forward without people having any context over who you
Speaker 1: are and what you do. And rather than me reading
Speaker 1: some bio that I found somewhere can you give people
Speaker 1: an insight into who you are and a little bit
Speaker 1: of your background and where you grew up in all
Speaker 1: of that, and kind of what inspires you, and then
Speaker 1: we'll unpack a few different bits, if you would sure.
Speaker 2: So, I grew up in London. I was a broker
Speaker 2: in the city of London, and I had everything you
Speaker 2: could have a want on the outside on the inside,
Speaker 2: and no one knew. I was totally broken, and I
Speaker 2: thought that was going to be my life. Fortunately, and luckily,
Speaker 2: I stumbled across the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, which is
Speaker 2: a romanticized version of Jacovara traveling around South America and
Speaker 2: relying on kindness. I watched that movie and it just
Speaker 2: lit up something in my soul. And to cut a
Speaker 2: long story short, I quit my job and I started
Speaker 2: to travel around the world lying on kindness. I hitchhiked
Speaker 2: from Times Square to the Hollywood Sign. I went from
Speaker 2: the Eiffel Tower to Red Square in Moscow. I purchased
Speaker 2: a vintage taxi and drove it across America, giving free
Speaker 2: camp rights to people. I started writing books, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and then I kind of fell back into
Speaker 2: the old patterns and was running a production company in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and I had another moment. I like having kind of breakdowns,
Speaker 2: it seems every few years. And I was walking on
Speaker 2: Hollywood Boulevard saw this chap homeless guy with a sign
Speaker 2: that said Kindness is the best Medicine. And I had
Speaker 2: another epiphany. And this time I decided to quit my job,
Speaker 2: stop running my production company, buy a vintage Jeller motorcycle,
Speaker 2: and drive it from Los Angeles all the way around
Speaker 2: the world back to Los Angeles with no money, no food,
Speaker 2: no gas, no place to stay. All I had was
Speaker 2: relying on your listeners, people like you kindness and that
Speaker 2: was a life changing experience. I came back after that.
Speaker 2: Then I did it again. I went from March, Alaska
Speaker 2: all the way down to Argentina in a fifty year
Speaker 2: old beetle And you know, I thought I'd reached a
Speaker 2: pinnacle of life. My life so on Netflix, speaking in stadiums,
Speaker 2: best selling books, busy, Busy, busy, busy, right, And I
Speaker 2: realized that I wasn't. I'm very proud of my success,
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of the lives we touched, I'm very
Speaker 2: proud of everything. But I had a very very dark
Speaker 2: night of the soul. I don't know a dark night
Speaker 2: of the soul. It can't say very very It was
Speaker 2: a dark night of the soul. And I found myself
Speaker 2: in my house up on a hill writing a suicide note,
Speaker 2: believe it or not. And I wrote it, and I
Speaker 2: don't think I was going to act on it, but
Speaker 2: I did write it, and I ended up I had
Speaker 2: the courage to call my therapist. I called him some
Speaker 2: random time and he happened to pick it up, which
Speaker 2: is quite amazing, and he took me down. And the
Speaker 2: next day I found myself walking in Venice Beach and
Speaker 2: I walked into a bookshop which I've been to I
Speaker 2: don't know fifty times, sixty times, and I saw this
Speaker 2: book on the shelf, The Autobiography of a Yogi. And
Speaker 2: I've seen that book many many times, but I'd never
Speaker 2: picked it up. This time I picked it up and
Speaker 2: I randomly opened it to a random page and a
Speaker 2: random paragraph, and I read that he was talking to
Speaker 2: his soon to be guru. He says, if you reveal
Speaker 2: God to me, I will follow you anywhere to me.
Speaker 2: The word God doesn't it doesn't mean the person living
Speaker 2: up in the sky with the beard. It was the
Speaker 2: universal energy of love. I read that one sentence and
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I'm going to go to India
Speaker 2: to find God and I'm not coming back until I do.
Speaker 2: Obviously I like doing dramatic things, right, So I did.
Speaker 2: I went to India, I brought along the film crew,
Speaker 2: and I mean I came back, so I gave away
Speaker 2: the whole movie. But that's that's really what happened. And
Speaker 2: and I kind of got connected to spirit and got
Speaker 2: connected to soul. Do I do it perfectly? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Do I still get depressed? Absolutely? Do I have bad days? I? Do?
Speaker 2: I have good days?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And after that film was when I decided Busy, Busy,
Speaker 2: Busy Leon was going to be replaced with do nothing
Speaker 2: Leon until you're ready to start the process again. That's
Speaker 2: the shortest version I can give you of the past
Speaker 2: twenty years.
Speaker 1: Man, it's amazing. It's amazing, and so I love the
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's impulsive. It's not impulsive, I
Speaker 1: guess because you've given a lot of thought. But incredibly
Speaker 1: brave and what do you think it is about humans? That?
Speaker 1: And again, this is just two blokes talking. Neither of
Speaker 1: us are guru's that's well, you might be.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: What do you think it is? You've got a fucking
Speaker 1: hint of guru about you? What do you think it
Speaker 1: is about the human condition that we struggle so much
Speaker 1: to be content or satisfied because it seems like no
Speaker 1: matter where we are or what we have, we're not
Speaker 1: content with lights. There's always got to be something next,
Speaker 1: something or something bigger, something better, something shiny. What do
Speaker 1: you think just your opinion? What is that about?
Speaker 2: I think that again, it's just my opinion. I could
Speaker 2: very well be wrong, but I think that it's biologically
Speaker 2: implanted into us. And you know, biologically we have been
Speaker 2: trained to always think something terrible is about to happen.
Speaker 2: If you're living in a cave, you go out, you
Speaker 2: have to be like, okay, am I going to get
Speaker 2: eaten by lion or not? And if you don't think
Speaker 2: that you are going to get eaten by lion? Right, So,
Speaker 2: our brains and the human condition always goes towards the negative,
Speaker 2: and it's about kind of making that pendulum swing more
Speaker 2: to the positive whilst not forgetting that there's negative. There's
Speaker 2: bad things that go on in the world, and for example,
Speaker 2: with The Kindness Diaries, the book and the show. I
Speaker 2: specifically put things in that book that would really bad things,
Speaker 2: things like the killing fields, slave dungeons. I did that
Speaker 2: on purpose, extermination camps, because I don't want to just
Speaker 2: show the light. That's that you can get blinded by
Speaker 2: the light. There is light and there is darkness. You
Speaker 2: have to be aware of both of them. So it's
Speaker 2: called the Kindness Diaries. But each episode of the of
Speaker 2: the show has some some some pretty dark things as
Speaker 2: well as in the Kindness within the film, it's I
Speaker 2: don't want to give this way, but it starts off
Speaker 2: in a way that's pretty dark, right, and then it
Speaker 2: becomes light.
Speaker 1: Yes, what is What is the relationship between kindness and happiness?
Speaker 1: Do you think or I don't know. Kindness isn't care
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think when we think about kindness the
Speaker 1: act of to me, it's like being somewhat selfless, where
Speaker 1: you're doing something for someone with no agenda. You're not
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a strategy, it's not a transaction.
Speaker 1: What's the relationship?
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I will disagree there and I
Speaker 2: will say that kindness is not selfless. What do I
Speaker 2: mean by that so someone can say, oh, mother to Raser,
Speaker 2: such a selfless person. Yeah right, the dell Alama, such
Speaker 2: a selfless person. But if I'm kind to you, I
Speaker 2: win as well because I get to feel that magic
Speaker 2: glow of of of of being kind of being loving.
Speaker 2: It is a win win. You win and I win.
Speaker 2: We both win. So it's not selfless. My kindness to
Speaker 2: you makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: I like at fifteen love you, You're up one good?
Speaker 1: What did you learn about? And I'm sure it's a
Speaker 1: million things, but does anything come in near the top
Speaker 1: of the list, Like and you've done a myriad of things,
Speaker 1: but what have you learned about you?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What when you're in that depressive state and when you
Speaker 1: went through.
Speaker 2: Was it?
Speaker 1: Did you say ten years of kind of blah?
Speaker 2: Was that was that you? Not not ten years?
Speaker 1: But you went through a period of whatever? Being company is? What?
Speaker 1: What does current you now know and understand that that
Speaker 1: version of you didn't.
Speaker 2: When it cut that version of me being the one.
Speaker 1: Who I'm not clear, sorry, the one who was like
Speaker 1: back when you were a trader, you were pumping and
Speaker 1: then you you know, it's like you had everything but nothing,
Speaker 1: And I feel like I talk about this a bit
Speaker 1: like from the outside looking in, you were successful, but
Speaker 1: maybe from the inside experience out, you were perhaps spiritually
Speaker 1: or emotionally or socially or whatever bankrupt.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was totally spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. And what
Speaker 2: happens from what I experience in the world is that
Speaker 2: there are people out there that concentrate entirely for good reasons,
Speaker 2: but they concentrate entirely on making money, on ego, on status, etc.
Speaker 2: Et cetera, et cetera. They have been told that if
Speaker 2: you do that, you will become successful and everything will
Speaker 2: work itself out. There's no doubt that if you work
Speaker 2: hard well, if you work hard, if you make money,
Speaker 2: if you do things like that, you will become successful
Speaker 2: to the way that the world sees success. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't guarantee by any stretch of imagination, and it may
Speaker 2: in fact take you further away from the true success,
Speaker 2: which is how you feel inside and how you show
Speaker 2: up in the world. And again I'm not espousing perfection.
Speaker 2: You know. It's so interesting because, as you know, I
Speaker 2: do speeches, and I got a question once from a
Speaker 2: kid because I do school speeches, and the kid puts
Speaker 2: his hand up his I don't know, maybe ten whatever,
Speaker 2: and he says, mister Leon, and mister Leon, have you
Speaker 2: ever been mean? And I immediately think to myself, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I'm going to lie to the child. I
Speaker 2: am going to lie to the child, right, And then
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, No, you're not going to lie
Speaker 2: to the child. You're going to tell the child the truth.
Speaker 2: And I said to him, of course I've been mean
Speaker 2: because I'm human just like you, and I have good
Speaker 2: days and I have bad days. Right, So it's no,
Speaker 2: it's never about perfection. And this is why sometimes when
Speaker 2: I hear the true gurus or people who are out
Speaker 2: in the world espousing goodness and spirituality, and I don't
Speaker 2: hear them talking about the negative side of things. I
Speaker 2: hear them just talking about their magnificence. That's not truth.
Speaker 2: It's just not There isn't a person out there that
Speaker 2: hasn't at some time in their life been an asshole,
Speaker 2: being unpleasant, done something they're not proud of. So, like
Speaker 2: I said, there's light and there's darkness. One has to
Speaker 2: feel and understand both of them. For ourselves as well
Speaker 2: as well as other people. There is no perfection none.
Speaker 1: So interesting. One of the things I'm terrible at many things,
Speaker 1: but one of them is asking for help. I was
Speaker 1: watching you last night. I'm like, well, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I couldn't do on this little, little,
Speaker 1: this little epic journey of yours. And I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, or maybe I guess I called it
Speaker 1: if I had to, But just the thought of asking
Speaker 1: ranges for help when you really didn't, like you didn't
Speaker 1: need you just put yourself in that situation to I
Speaker 1: guess have an experience and learn and grow and all
Speaker 1: of those things. But I'm thinking, how did you go
Speaker 1: with that? Like, you're a guy who financially and practically
Speaker 1: you don't need to go and ask people for things,
Speaker 1: but you put yourself in a situation were required to.
Speaker 1: How was that emotionally and mentally?
Speaker 2: So I'm an introvert. You may not, you may not
Speaker 2: feel that way when you watch the shows, you look
Speaker 2: at the books, et cetera. But I'm an introvert. And
Speaker 2: as a kid, I was very shy. I couldn't even
Speaker 2: walk down to the lunch hall at school because I
Speaker 2: was too shy. Right, So what I did, without realizing it,
Speaker 2: this was an unconscious thing. What I did was I
Speaker 2: always had. I grew up privileged, right in the sense
Speaker 2: of finance, the finances, but I didn't grow up privileged
Speaker 2: in the sense of emotions. So what I did was
Speaker 2: I flipped it. I forced myself to go out into
Speaker 2: the world with no money. Right, Okay, it's an experiment.
Speaker 2: It's a TV shows, but no money, So there goes
Speaker 2: the privilege in this experiment. Yet I had to force
Speaker 2: myself to connect with people emotionally. So it is I
Speaker 2: put myself into a box where I think I like
Speaker 2: going up to strangers. I don't do it in my
Speaker 2: daily life where I got up to strangers and I'm like, oh, hello,
Speaker 2: can you help me? I mean I couldn't. I could
Speaker 2: now because I've done it so many times. But I
Speaker 2: understand that it's not a simple thing, right Like, first
Speaker 2: of all, they could say no, and many people did.
Speaker 2: They said no, and that's not fun when someone says no.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to help you. So it's a
Speaker 2: self protection mechanism as well.
Speaker 1: I believe, of course, what did you learn? Okay to
Speaker 1: that then, so where that becomes there are certain dynamics
Speaker 1: involved in here's a stranger approaching someone and wanting something
Speaker 1: from the someone that they've never met. Yes, I'm sure
Speaker 1: the way that you went about that, like from attempt
Speaker 1: one to attempt five hundred, was quite different. What changed
Speaker 1: either with language or approach or I don't know, process,
Speaker 1: How did that evolve? So you got for one of
Speaker 1: a less dry term a better ROI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. Look, it was a TV show,
Speaker 2: which made it easier, meaning that I didn't go up
Speaker 2: to people immediately with a camera. But the moment they
Speaker 2: realized it was a show, right, they were like, I
Speaker 2: will not be murdered by this man. Okay. Yeah. The
Speaker 2: sense of safety, yeah, their sense of safety was was
Speaker 2: you know, they fell sick. Even though they felt safe,
Speaker 2: you still have to do it in a very specific way.
Speaker 2: I was very careful with my distance when I first
Speaker 2: spoke to people, right, and I would always I would
Speaker 2: always stand outside of their energy field so that they
Speaker 2: would feel safe. I would always come with a I
Speaker 2: would always come with a story depending on the situation.
Speaker 2: So for example, if I was talking to them with
Speaker 2: my yellow motorbike in view, I would say, look, I'm
Speaker 2: that's my yellow motorbike. I'm traveling around the world, relying
Speaker 2: entirely on the kindness of strangers, and you seem pretty
Speaker 2: kind and then laugh and then you know. So there
Speaker 2: were lots of different ways, depending on how the situation was,
Speaker 2: what they were like, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And did I always succeed now, of course not. I
Speaker 2: failed miserably most of the time. Yeah, but it made
Speaker 2: me understand the human condition. It made me understand how
Speaker 2: to communicate with people. You just you know, micro expressions,
Speaker 2: the energy. For example, if there's a woman with some kids,
Speaker 2: probably you know, I'm a guy, I'm probably not going
Speaker 2: to talk to them. You know, I may do, I
Speaker 2: may not. It depends on the situation. So it's it's
Speaker 2: it's a It was a It was really a social
Speaker 2: experiment in many ways as well, and I learned so much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was also an experiment in psychology, trying to understand,
Speaker 1: trying to understand. So there's a theory in psychology called
Speaker 1: theory of mind, which is understanding how other people think.
Speaker 1: And you would like this. My PhD is around a
Speaker 1: thing called metaperception, which is your ability to understand the
Speaker 1: leon experience for others.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: So the question at the core of this research is
Speaker 1: what is the what is the me experience like for
Speaker 1: this woman with two kids that I'm talking to, or
Speaker 1: for Craig on the other side of this chat, or
Speaker 1: my friends or family, so, you know, and having some
Speaker 1: level of insight into how other people think or perceive
Speaker 1: or process in real time, Like in this moment you
Speaker 1: and I are chatting. We're in the same chat, but
Speaker 1: we're not in the same experience because my brain's not
Speaker 1: yours and vice versa. Yeah, trying to have some insight
Speaker 1: into what is this like for them? And I would
Speaker 1: think you probably never heard of that term, but I
Speaker 1: would think you're probably quite good at both theory of
Speaker 1: mind and met a perception because of your real world experience.
Speaker 1: So whereas you are constantly making and adjusting to micro
Speaker 1: judgments in the moment to think how do I best
Speaker 1: navigate this interaction and create a good outcome, although you're
Speaker 1: not logically thinking of those questions, you're just doing it.
Speaker 2: Do you know what. I'm so glad you told me
Speaker 2: those two things because that's pretty much exactly what I do.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to research those two things. I've got
Speaker 2: to remember them, but I'm going.
Speaker 1: To we'll have when we finish, we'll have a chat
Speaker 1: for a few minutes and I'll give you those Okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, because it's it's a skill. It's a skill
Speaker 2: that I learned well. And I didn't realize what the
Speaker 2: skill was until you just told me.
Speaker 1: Well you, I would think you're and talking to you
Speaker 1: now like you are an introvert, but you don't come across,
Speaker 1: but you are. You're a good communicator. And what I
Speaker 1: like about talking to you, I'm not pissing in your pocket,
Speaker 1: as Australian say, but sometimes I get people on. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've done this thousands of times and it's very yes, no,
Speaker 1: it's very It's almost like their role playing. It's like
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a persona but that's not you, right,
Speaker 1: this is organic. It's a bit messy. Our listeners don't know.
Speaker 1: But a minute ago someone walked in, we had a
Speaker 1: brief break. It's all doesn't matter. And my constant feedback
Speaker 1: about this show is I like it because it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like an interview. It sounds like two people chatting
Speaker 1: about stuff and that, you know, being able to learn
Speaker 1: from each other. I'm going to learn more from you today.
Speaker 2: But you know.
Speaker 1: When you were grown up, said, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you had this, but I grew up in a very
Speaker 1: religious environment, so I always had which was good and bad,
Speaker 1: but I had always and I still have like what
Speaker 1: I would call a god curiosity. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that means, right, But you sound like the same.
Speaker 1: Have you arrived at any concrete conclusions or are you
Speaker 1: still on the journey?
Speaker 2: So I would say that I'm still on the journey,
Speaker 2: but I have also reached some concrete conclusions. So when
Speaker 2: I was in India for the film, I ended up
Speaker 2: going to the Golden Temple, which is the holiest site
Speaker 2: for the Sikh religion. And next to the Golden Temple
Speaker 2: there was a kitchen and they call it God's Kitchen, right,
Speaker 2: And I walked into God's Kitchen and I sat there
Speaker 2: from two three hours helping they feed one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people a day for free. And there was something about
Speaker 2: that place that I was truly extraordinary. And it was
Speaker 2: in that moment in God's Kitchen that I realized that
Speaker 2: if God is love, which ultimately it is the universal
Speaker 2: energy of everything that ever has been, everything that ever
Speaker 2: will be, and everything that is coming right. If that
Speaker 2: is what God is, then I have experienced God, and
Speaker 2: every single one of us has experienced God. If God
Speaker 2: is the man up in the clouds with the white beard,
Speaker 2: you know, if some people want to want to experience
Speaker 2: that as God, then God bless them. Right. For me,
Speaker 2: it was that experience of love that was universal in
Speaker 2: all of us, and in didn't have a face, It
Speaker 2: didn't have it didn't have anything. It was feeling. And
Speaker 2: I realized as well that you can't explain God it is.
Speaker 2: You have to feel it. And if you feel it,
Speaker 2: you know. And it was a truly it was a
Speaker 2: life changing moment. You know, when you have a moment,
Speaker 2: even if for me it kind of lasted, but even
Speaker 2: if you have a moment for two seconds, that felt
Speaker 2: experience never leaves you know. Let's say you're an alcoholic,
Speaker 2: right and you have this moment moment of clarity where
Speaker 2: you realize that it is killing you. You can go
Speaker 2: back to drinking, but you can never forget that moment.
Speaker 2: And that moment is the moment that I had in
Speaker 2: that kitchen at the Golden Temple. I can never forget it.
Speaker 2: I can be depressed, I can you know, not be present.
Speaker 2: I can be doing things that I'm not proud of,
Speaker 2: but that moment never goes away. It will always come back. Wow.
Speaker 1: I've had a few of those moments myself. I won't
Speaker 1: boy you, but I had one like revelation like that
Speaker 1: which blew my head off that I can't. I don't
Speaker 1: want to forget, but I can't either. And I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting because we're so or we think we are
Speaker 1: anyway humans. We're so rational, we're so logical, we need
Speaker 1: to understand everything, but so much about let's say God
Speaker 1: or that spiritual journey or whatever falls into the spiritual basket,
Speaker 1: like what's going on? It doesn't make sense in inverted
Speaker 1: commas through a logical lens. But it doesn't because when
Speaker 1: we say makes sense, that just means, oh, this doesn't
Speaker 1: fit in with my understanding of how things work. If
Speaker 1: I can't see it, touch it, feel it, measure it,
Speaker 1: look at it, it can't be real. But sometimes the
Speaker 1: most powerful things, or the most powerful moment or experiences
Speaker 1: we have are kind of illogical but incredibly overwhelmingly transformative.
Speaker 1: And I think this sounds weird, but especially as someone
Speaker 1: who studies the brain and the mind. Like, it's our
Speaker 1: need to try to understand everything, which I think sometimes
Speaker 1: gets in the way of connecting with everything.
Speaker 2: One everything is not everything in a spiritual sense, and
Speaker 2: understanding everything and feeling that moment of everything cannot be
Speaker 2: figured out through logic, cannot be figured out through the brain.
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you not to read, I'm not telling
Speaker 2: you not to watch documentaries, and I'm not telling you
Speaker 2: not to be clever. I'm just saying that the true
Speaker 2: everything happens beyond the brain, beyond the mind, and that
Speaker 2: moment you're like, oh my goodness, that's the reality and
Speaker 2: the mask falls.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The trick, which I have clearly not managed to do,
Speaker 2: is to have that mask fall always. Yeah, Like I
Speaker 2: try not to watch the news, and in the past
Speaker 2: four or five days, I've been watching the news, and
Speaker 2: this morning I decided I'm not going to watch the news,
Speaker 2: and lo and behold, I felt better just from one
Speaker 2: decision to not watch the news. So it's it's a somatic,
Speaker 2: felt experience. That's where the true magnificence happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're just these imperfect creatures trying to figure
Speaker 1: stuff out. Who have as you said to that young
Speaker 1: ten year old boy who asked a very smart question, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we do dumb shit, we do good shit.
Speaker 1: We have good and bad days. We react out of love,
Speaker 1: we react out of frustration, and this is the human experience.
Speaker 1: It's just trying to I do the same thing. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm quite logical and cerebral, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I intellectually understand that sometimes my mind is actually the problem,
Speaker 1: not the fucking solution. You know, my mind gets in
Speaker 1: the way of joy or bliss or calm or learning
Speaker 1: or understanding. We think it's this all amazing or knowing tool,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad my mind works and all of that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, my mind is
Speaker 1: a storyteller, and some of the stories I tell myself
Speaker 1: a complete bullshit and that. But when you don't realize
Speaker 1: that your story is actually a story, not truth, then
Speaker 1: your body believes that story is truth, and then that
Speaker 1: becomes your lived experience and it's all based on not
Speaker 1: much other than your own perception.
Speaker 2: Yes, Indeed, the moment when we realize our stories are
Speaker 2: actually the things that are causing us the most pain,
Speaker 2: that's an interesting moment, right, Like, Yeah, and sometimes often
Speaker 2: our stories are just lies to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Right, and we're always telling our sells stories to rationalize
Speaker 1: justify what we do or what we what we believe.
Speaker 1: And it's like I'm always talking to people about the
Speaker 1: idea around not needing to be right and not needing
Speaker 1: to win and not needing to be certain or not
Speaker 1: needing to be comfortable, like life is uncertain, uncomfortable, unpredicted, unpredictable, unknown,
Speaker 1: life doesn't give a shit about your feelings or emotions
Speaker 1: or your bank balance or like, this is just this
Speaker 1: is just where we are. And then in the middle
Speaker 1: of all of that stuff that we can't control, you know,
Speaker 1: and there will you know, this is the human existence.
Speaker 1: We hate uncertainty, but we live in uncertainty, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to navigate that the sense of calm and peace
Speaker 1: and purpose is it's like an ever present challenge, Like
Speaker 1: you and the news. You turn off the news, you
Speaker 1: have a better morning.
Speaker 2: M Yes, indeed, indeed, it's so true. It's a we've
Speaker 2: forgotten yeah, right, we've forgotten who we are. And that
Speaker 2: sounds sounds silly and like what was he talking about?
Speaker 2: But when you have a moment of clarity, when your
Speaker 2: body feels the truth in that moment, you remember who
Speaker 2: you are, M M. And a couple of days ago,
Speaker 2: I was having an argument, friendly argument with my friend
Speaker 2: about something and I was adamant. I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: right and you're wrong. I think they even said that
Speaker 2: right And now as we're as well as and maybe
Speaker 2: I was right, Actually I was no, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I was. Uh. And and now because we're having
Speaker 2: this conversation, because we're connecting, because we're in our hearts
Speaker 2: and it's a beautiful moment, I don't care whether I'm
Speaker 2: right wrong.
Speaker 1: Difference in me.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, in that situation of a conversation
Speaker 2: with your friend, it's completely and totally irrelevant. But I'm
Speaker 2: now in a different state, Like my mind is calmer
Speaker 2: and I'm in venice. It's sunny, that's a good energy,
Speaker 2: and it's all good. But we can flip in and out,
Speaker 2: and the trick is to flip in and out less,
Speaker 2: so to stay in the heart centeredness more, not lose
Speaker 2: the mind. Don't lose the mind. Don't don't lose it.
Speaker 2: Because there's some interesting people out there, interesting things are
Speaker 2: going on. You have to stay aware. Don't the light
Speaker 2: can blind you, don't let them find you.
Speaker 1: Like before when I said, you know, but coming from
Speaker 1: a place of kindness and selflessness, and you went, now
Speaker 1: I disagree, and then you kind of I went, that
Speaker 1: is so true, that is so true. It's like, oh, good,
Speaker 1: you just taught me something, or you opened a door
Speaker 1: in my brain where I'm going to look at that,
Speaker 1: you know differently, but I think you know to what
Speaker 1: we're talking about now, this you know, trying to find
Speaker 1: whatever contentment piece enlightenment or a version of that, or
Speaker 1: spiritual connection or you know, if we're talking about understanding
Speaker 1: through not necessarily through cognition or logic, but just building
Speaker 1: this new understanding or having this experience. The challenge is
Speaker 1: for us, one of the challenges is yeah, and then
Speaker 1: you've got to make a few bucks, and you've got
Speaker 1: to pack the lunches for the kids, and then you've
Speaker 1: got to put petrol in the current, you know. So
Speaker 1: we can't ever really escape this, not that we need to,
Speaker 1: but you know, we're always dealing with the minutia and
Speaker 1: the practicality of life beyond the spiritual. And then it's
Speaker 1: when you're in that life beyond the spiritual to try
Speaker 1: to maintain for me, anyway, the challenge is to not
Speaker 1: call the guy in the car next to me at
Speaker 1: the lights of because he cut me off. Right, It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm now I'm just I don't anymore. But
Speaker 1: I used to where I would you know, I would
Speaker 1: turn into fucking Jekyl and Hyde in four seconds because
Speaker 1: it wasn't It was something that I was in and
Speaker 1: out of, still in and out of. But yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to reconcile that that kind of I think it's almost
Speaker 1: like that equanimity concept, you know, being the calm in
Speaker 1: the chaos, you know, being able to be in the
Speaker 1: middle of something that's imperfect and messy and clunky, but
Speaker 1: not be determined by that in that moment.
Speaker 2: Yes, and look, it's it's not easy because most of
Speaker 2: us are in survival mode. Yes, And it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: if you decide to go and live in a cave
Speaker 2: in the Himalayas for thirty years, then okay, you're going
Speaker 2: to become like a guru, right, Okay, But you know
Speaker 2: we don't live in care We live where bonds are
Speaker 2: dropping every day, we're angry with our partner, our kid
Speaker 2: has gone, and like painted the house blue. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know all these kind of crazy things. It's not
Speaker 2: so simple. So you do it moment to moment, step
Speaker 2: by step, You start small, You make a commitment. Sometimes
Speaker 2: people say to me, Leon, how on earth did you
Speaker 2: manage to get from where you were to where you are?
Speaker 2: And in the answer is simple. I was committed to
Speaker 2: become free, and the only way to become free was
Speaker 2: to go down the spiritual route and face my pain
Speaker 2: and face my darkness. I was committed. If you are
Speaker 2: not committed to freeing yourself, you will never be free.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. Do you have like if if
Speaker 1: I asked you, do you have a spiritual practice or
Speaker 1: do you have any are there any kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know guiding principles that are yours?
Speaker 2: So you know, I would say guiding principle is I
Speaker 2: know what it feels like when someone treats me disrespectfully.
Speaker 2: I know what that feels like, and it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to do my best, without perfection, to
Speaker 2: treat you with dignity and respect. Do I fail? I
Speaker 2: absolutely do. But I made a commitment to go down
Speaker 2: the road of love, to go down the road of
Speaker 2: kindness as best as I can, And there are times
Speaker 2: like there's a time I gave a speech. It was
Speaker 2: a pretty large speech, and I was telling people to
Speaker 2: be kind, obviously, and then I got on the plane
Speaker 2: and the person on the plane, the student, is being
Speaker 2: really kind of rude to me. And my first reaction
Speaker 2: is to be routed back. And then I'm like, hold on,
Speaker 2: did you not just give a speech about being kind?
Speaker 2: Ye oh yeah, yeah I did. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: be kind. When the plane took off, I saw the
Speaker 2: stewart crying. Something was going on with her, right, So
Speaker 2: my decision to be kind helped as opposed to my
Speaker 2: decision to be mean, which would have made things worse. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: make a commitment to how you show up in the world.
Speaker 2: You know what it's like when people treat you disrespectfully.
Speaker 2: Don't do it back to the best of your ability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is maybe a weird question. I want you
Speaker 1: to talk just for a minute, on your thoughts about Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've spoken about God, how do you feel about religion?
Speaker 1: For those who can't see, he's smiling, He's like, where
Speaker 1: the fuck do I start, That's what he's thinking.
Speaker 2: I'm also thinking, how do I say this without having
Speaker 2: a fatwork put on my head.
Speaker 1: Well, can I just say one thing right before? When
Speaker 1: you said if God is love, and it's spoken about
Speaker 1: in lots of theological texts in the Bible, which I'm
Speaker 1: most familiar with, it definitely says God is love. And
Speaker 1: then I look around at religions and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: if God is love, then religion is not love because
Speaker 1: a lot of what we see through religion is hate.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it's almost the antithesis. It's almost like
Speaker 1: religion is the opposite of God. And I'm not naming
Speaker 1: any religion even when within Christianity, and I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in church after I grew up, I
Speaker 1: became a fundamental born again I did the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I preached on the altar, I was in boots and
Speaker 1: all right, and I am probably the least perfect person
Speaker 1: that was in that church. But I saw so much
Speaker 1: shit which was not godly. I'm like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: just Oh, we're just role playing this thing here, you know.
Speaker 1: So for me, that's why I asked that question, because
Speaker 1: it almost seems like a juxtaposition.
Speaker 2: So I would say that of all the religions that
Speaker 2: I'm aware of, there is absolutely love that flows through
Speaker 2: those religions. Absolutely. I would also say that the religions
Speaker 2: have been co opted by man, and man, if man
Speaker 2: is not careful, goes down the road of power. So
Speaker 2: they have co opted these religions in order to wield power.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that the ethos and the everyday
Speaker 2: person who is connected to that religion isn't connected to
Speaker 2: it because of the love. They may very well be,
Speaker 2: but they have been weaponized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting. I've spoken about this probably too
Speaker 1: much on this show, but you think about the fact
Speaker 1: that there's like twelve major religions and like four thousand
Speaker 1: minor religions, yet almost every religion goes where the one
Speaker 1: true religion. I mean, even if you just unpack that logically.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things I was thinking about
Speaker 1: when I was watching your show last night, the kindness
Speaker 1: within on Netflix everyone. I was thinking about, how do
Speaker 1: you be? This is not a loaded question. I was
Speaker 1: genuinely thinking about this because I think, when I'm talking
Speaker 1: to a thousand people on a stage, how do I
Speaker 1: not perform? Like? How do I be? I don't want
Speaker 1: to bring the PERSONA want to be the bloke. I
Speaker 1: want to be the person I want to be, Craig.
Speaker 1: I want to be authentic, real, imperfect. But because also
Speaker 1: I have these skills where I can talk and present
Speaker 1: and razzle, dazzle and be funny and tell stories. How
Speaker 1: do you be with a film crew all the while
Speaker 1: trying to find some sense of direction or spirituality or
Speaker 1: enlightenment while Brian's over there with a clipboard and Dave's
Speaker 1: got the camera and someone else is holding a fucking
Speaker 1: mike near you or whatever. How do you like? That
Speaker 1: must have been just, I don't know, at least interesting
Speaker 1: to navigate and try not to be a character on
Speaker 1: a show.
Speaker 2: So firstly, you very quickly forget there's a camera there,
Speaker 2: right right. You always know right in the back of
Speaker 2: your mind, because you're like, there's a camera. But I
Speaker 2: pretend the camera's just a character, it's just a friend,
Speaker 2: it's just someone there whatever, And I just go as
Speaker 2: open as and as genuine as I possibly can. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that there isn't some performance, right, of course,
Speaker 2: it's a television show. I'm introverted generally, I don't like
Speaker 2: speaking to people for five hours, right, But in the
Speaker 2: show I have to. Yeah, because it's a show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I'm still being genuine. It's like it's like a
Speaker 2: magnified version of that part of my personality, which is extroverted. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it is. It is on some level it has
Speaker 2: to be a performance because there are times when I
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning and I don't want to
Speaker 2: show up. I don't want to the work. I'm like,
Speaker 2: just just leave me alone. But I have to. I
Speaker 2: can't be like, well, sorry, guys, you know I'm not
Speaker 2: working today, Just you know, just leave me alone. I
Speaker 2: have to do what I have to do. So on
Speaker 2: some level it is a performance, but it's a performance
Speaker 2: based on who I truly am. You know, I can't
Speaker 2: create someone that I'm not. I'm not acting to create
Speaker 2: something I'm not, but I am. I am magnifying who
Speaker 2: I am, so that it's a the people who enjoy
Speaker 2: watching it, right, because if my short as my introverted self,
Speaker 2: people are going to be like, why am I watching
Speaker 2: this english Man just being introverted. It's like, so I've
Speaker 2: expanded and magnified my my, my, you know, extrovert itself.
Speaker 2: And also I get to have these cool conversations with people,
Speaker 2: and I get to ask these really cool questions and
Speaker 2: philosophies and learn about them.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, that's really valid because you need at
Speaker 1: the same time, you need to or you hope, to
Speaker 1: create something that people want to keep watching. You don't
Speaker 1: want people at the five minute mark going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: let's watch Tom Cruise or whatever it is. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like you want people plugged in. I,
Speaker 1: like I said, I intended to just kind of get
Speaker 1: a snapshot, and I kept watching and watching. So we've
Speaker 1: got a few minutes. I would like three hours, but
Speaker 1: we've got a few minutes. What about This is kind
Speaker 1: of a cheesy question, but I'm generally curious in that particular,
Speaker 1: specially anyway on Netflix the kindness within? Was there a
Speaker 1: single person that impacted you more than others, or that
Speaker 1: you were drawn to more than others, or left some
Speaker 1: kind of impact on you.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there was a homeless guy who I I would
Speaker 2: go up to people in the street and I would say,
Speaker 2: can I stand your house tonight? Obviously, wouldn't just be
Speaker 2: like that. I'd chat with them before and most of
Speaker 2: them would say no, obviously, and some of them will
Speaker 2: say yes. And this guy, I didn't realize it was homeless.
Speaker 2: I asked him, and he didn't look homeless, and he said, look,
Speaker 2: I'm really so I'm homeless. So, you know, felt a
Speaker 2: lot of shame about that. I was doing obviously a
Speaker 2: social experiment. I'm not homeless. And I was about to
Speaker 2: walk off. He turns around, well, you know what, if
Speaker 2: you want, you can stay with me tonight. I'll feed you,
Speaker 2: i'll protect you, and i'll give you some clothes. Wow.
Speaker 2: And I was like what I was like? All right?
Speaker 2: So I ended up doing just that, and he taught
Speaker 2: me two profound lessons. Less Number one, kindness is free.
Speaker 2: If a homeless man with nothing can be kind, then
Speaker 2: you have absolutely zero excuse. Second, true wealth is not
Speaker 2: in our wallets, It's in our hearts. Now. Am I
Speaker 2: saying here saying give away your money?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Not.
Speaker 2: Am I saying don't become successful?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Of course. Not am I saying don't love money? No
Speaker 2: money is important. But what I am saying is the
Speaker 2: truest of wealth is how you show up, how you
Speaker 2: true people, is how you inspire people. That's how you
Speaker 2: make people feel. And I learned those two lessons from
Speaker 2: a homeless man. And he would always say to me,
Speaker 2: he would say, Leon, you changed my life because we
Speaker 2: ended up putting him up in an apartment and sending
Speaker 2: him back to school. But the reality is I said
Speaker 2: to him, no, man, no, it is you who changed
Speaker 2: my life, and he did. He absolute feeling of that
Speaker 2: somatic feeling inside my soul, my heart, my body of
Speaker 2: what he did for me that day never leaves. It's
Speaker 2: always there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you met God, bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right. I absolutely did earlier than
Speaker 2: I thought because I wasn't aware of it at that time.
Speaker 2: But you know what, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you met God.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: I'm writing that down. I think that might be the title. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I love you. You're amazing. I'm so grateful for your time.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your stuff and continued continued growth. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to win. Wish you continued success, but continue growth
Speaker 1: and learning and connection with people. Yeah, it's been nice
Speaker 1: getting an insight into you and your life and your journey.
Speaker 1: And thanks so much for being on the You project. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no wise, thanks so much for having me. Thanks everyone,