BY JOSH CORMAN

AT LONG LAST , THE 2022 ISPA CONFERENCE IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER . With it come opportunities to reconnect and be re-energized among our industry peers , colleagues and friends live and in person . Attendees can expect to find new levels of inspiration while listening to the thoughtful , empowering , uplifting messages of our incredible Power Session speakers .

In this final pre-Conference issue of Pulse , we ’ re introducing you to our Day Three Power Session speaker , global adventurer , celebrated television host and author , Leon Logothetis . Leon , who will also receive the 2022 Alex Szekely Humanitarian Award at Conference , shared what led him from a job as a broker in London to more than 100 countries and some of the biggest stages around — all as part of a journey to bring more kindness , compassion and empathy into the world .

Pulse : You abruptly quit a job that wasn ’ t making you happy and embarked on a global adventure . Why did it feel necessary to take such a radical step ? LEON LOGOTHETIS : I used to be a broker . I pretty much had everything you could want on the outside , but nothing you would want on the inside , meaning I was very depressed and felt like I was in this box . I didn ’ t want to be in a box anymore , and the thing that pushed me to move out of that box was pain — not physical pain , but emotional pain . And it ’ s interesting — with this Great Resignation , I see that many people are beginning to realize that they ’ re also in a box , right ? Typically , if it ’ s a box that you don ’ t like , that ’ s not the way to be .

Sometimes , emotional pain guides us to make decisions that we never would have made , had we not been in that pain . What COVID did was give people time to think about their lives , and that time thinking about their lives often led people to say ,“ Is this where I want to live my life ? I don ’ t think so .” That enabled this Great Resignation to catch fire , let ’ s say .

P : Do you get the sense that , for some people facing big challenges in today ’ s world , there may be the feeling that kindness isn ’ t enough ? L : I never tell people that kindness is a panacea , or that one has to walk through life as the Dalai Lama . The Dalai Lama is the Dalai Lama because he ’ s spent decades meditating . Most of us don ’ t spend decades meditating , so we have to deal with life ; we have to deal with things that smack us in the face every day — hopefully not literally . My point is that kindness , empathy and compassion are part of the foundation everything else comes from . There ’ s no perfection — I ’ m not espousing perfection , but if you come from that foundational place of empathy , of moment-to-moment kindness , you can build off of that .

And people like Nelson Mandela , people like Gandhi , people like Martin Luther King — I would think they were kind people , but did they do things that needed strength beyond simple compassion ? Of course they did ! So kindness

18 PULSE • APRIL 2022