Author's Journey Around The World Spreads Message Of Kindness
CHICAGO (CBS) -- He left everything he knew behind, with one goal in mind: to carry out tremendous acts of kindness around the world.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot sat down with Leon Logothetis, the best-selling author of "The Kindness Diaries."
"It was difficult, you know? And I remember, when I first started, I was like, 'What am I doing?'" he said.
Logothetis had an idea. He would travel through 20 nations in five months on his yellow vintage motorcycle, but there was a catch.
"I had no money, no gas, no food, no place to stay. It was all relying on kindness," he said.
Logothetis chronicled his travels in "The Kindness Diaries." Among the people he met was a homeless man in Pittsburgh, named Tony.
"This chap said to me, 'Look, you can come and stay with me. I'll protect you. I'll feed you,'" Logothetis said. "He taught me one of the most important lessons I've ever learned to this day, and that is true wealth is in our hearts, not in our wallets."
What these strangers didn't know was Logothetis, a retired stockbroker, was going to open his heart and wallet for them.
He put Tony up in an apartment and sent him back to school.
"He wanted to become a chef," Logothetis said.
Inspired by the kindness of a local eye doctor in Vietnam, Logothetis paid for 100 farmers to have eyesight-saving cataracts surgery. In Cambodia, he built home for a widow with AIDS, after her shack was destroyed by a flood.
"She was now living in a concrete house with her son, and I remember very clearly the tears that were rolling down her eyes and my eyes," Logothetis said.
He said his mission to create happiness for others stemmed from his own deep sadness.
"Sometimes pain is a great motivator. On the outside, I had everything that you could want. On the inside, I had nothing that you could want," he said. "I gave something, but I received a tremendous amount back."
He also learned.
"The real beauty, in life, is inside us," he said.
Logothetis said, when people would offer him money, he wouldn't accept it. He would always say he would only accept an act of generosity, because he wanted an exchange of kindness.
