194. James H. Belt | Hope Realized

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better.

In today's episode, we're talking about the most important thing you can do to become a better listener.

Today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview James Belt, author of Hope Realized. James is a second-generation owner and president of Belt Enterprises Inc., a church leader, a missionary, and a philanthropist involved in NikaWorks, an organization that creates community-led change to build a hopeful present and future for the vulnerable in Nicaragua. James was reluctant and didn't have the desire to go on a missions trip, but was convinced by his family and traveled to Nicaragua in 2007. where he witnessed the realities of poverty firsthand. During a hike there, he heard a voice asking, where are you going? This experience led him to explore the concept of hope and its importance in life. Now he is committed to helping others thrive, which inspires his hope-filled, world-changing approach to fighting poverty, one of the world's biggest problems. In this episode, you'll learn about the importance of travel and exposing yourself to different cultures, Why you need to question your beliefs and ask if they are true. Why hopelessness is actually a lie. How choosing hope can lead to incredible change in your life and others. And understanding that you were created for more. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with James Belt. James, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We are excited to learn more about you and your book, Hope Realized. I'd love to start with asking what inspired you to take your first life-changing mission trip to Nicaragua in 2009?

Yeah, thanks, Luke and Nick. Great to be with you guys, and that's a great question. So 2007, I actually wasn't necessarily desiring to go on my first life-changing mission trip. My family had traveled to Nicaragua the year before. Our church had started traveling down there with an organization called Orphan Network, and we were visiting an orphanage— or they were, I should say, visiting an orphanage— and they came back from a trip in, I think, July 2006 and said, James, you need to really go. And I was kind of like, I don't know, I'd rather be the guy that sends the check that helps people that want to go to Nicaragua than the guy that actually goes there. I was in finance at the time and kind of imagined myself in that realm. And so they bothered me and pestered me enough that I was like, okay, I'll go, fine. And so in 2007, that summer I went, but actually went 2 days later because I decided that a wedding of a friend was more important. than traveling to Nicaragua. So I ended up going down and meeting them there a couple days late, and it definitely was life-changing. That was the beginning of a life-changing part of my life, life-changing part of my life that really made a big difference. So yeah, good question.

Yeah, so I'm curious, you talk about you heard a voice that said, where are you going? Can you expound upon that and what that experience was like?

Yeah. So this was a few years later in 2011. So I'd been traveling down quite a bit to Nicaragua. Actually, my parents had adopted my now sister, Emmaline, at 15 from the very same orphanage we were visiting. And I started traveling down more following that time where my mom was actually living there for a little while. I started to learn a little bit more about Nicaragua, the economics, the poverty, and really started to become more interested. And so I would spend extra time at the orphanage, actually staying there in the orphanage for a few days after the team would leave. And so I'd gone on a hike with some boys up this hill they called the Montaña, which is like mountain in Spanish. And so we would hike up the hill and it had really an overview, a look of the canyon. The community there is called El Cañón, which is canyon in Spanish. It's a very impoverished community. You would have no idea it's really there if you were traveling up the road next to it, just kind of falls off a cliff in a sense. And you go down the hill and there's, you know, a whole community of maybe 1,000, 2,000 people living mostly in, you know, shacks, what we would call shacks, uh, things of that sort. And so I was on this hike up this mountain, up this hill overlooking the, the canyon, and I was standing there with some kids and the wind was blowing and you could see some palm trees in the distance. And I was just kind of standing there and, you know, these Okay, boys, maybe 8 to 15, let's say, running around me and looking around and just kind of heard an inaudible voice. The, you know, the closest thing maybe I've heard to the voice of God, you know, in a sense, that said, where are you going? And it took me by surprise because I wasn't thinking about that. My first thought hearing that was actually, I'm going to get on an airplane tomorrow and fly back to Baltimore where I'm from. And, uh, but I started to explore that. So I started to say, well, That was different. You know, that was a different experience. Maybe I should try to understand what that's all about. Really, I'd gone through a process over the past years prior to that of saying, hey, if God calls me to go somewhere or calls me to do something, I'm going to do it. I think life is really found there. And so I thought, well, I should probably pursue this. If I say that, I should probably pursue it, given that that's my view of life. And so, yeah, that was the experience, and it really took me by surprise, to be honest. I didn't expect it at all.

James, I know a lot of our audience, they're, they're young professionals based in the US. Maybe they haven't had an opportunity to travel the world very much. I love travel as a form of personal development because as I started to travel more in Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, you do see a different form of life, a different lifestyle. You realize that not everything is as it is in the US. And so for somebody that is listening today and they haven't traveled very much, like, what are some of the shocking things that the average person might not realize about Nicaragua and, and the life and the poverty that a lot of people experience?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I would say, well, certainly, as I'm sure you've experienced and articulated to some degree, it will really open your eyes up about life, the world, and yourself. It'll really change how you see things. And having traveled there initially in 2007, as you said, I kind of thought maybe I had an idea of what it was all about, what poverty was all about, what life would be like there. But as I spent more time there and started to develop relationships, I found that certainly the culture is different there, and there's a lot to learn from that. People aren't quite as worried about Getting things done at the exact moment they're supposed to be done, or a meeting starting at the exact moment a meeting is supposed to start. The term más o menos is very popular in Nicaragua, and I was frustrated by that because I'm from the East Coast of the United States, and I'm kind of used to, okay, meeting starts at 1, it starts at 1. But there, it's not so much that way, and I started to appreciate it at the same time. And so I started to understand, well, There's more to it. It's about relationships. It's about people. And so as I started to develop relationships there, I learned that people in Nicaragua really care about people. They really care about each other. They really care about their community. And there's that relational element is more important than getting something done by any particular time. And so that was really helpful to learn for me. Poverty. One thing I learned about that in particular is that Really, poverty is more about the environment, about what's happening. I talk about in my book a lack of hope, hopelessness, than it is about the person themselves. I found that people are full of potential. It's not that they don't have the ability to thrive. It's that maybe they haven't been provided the opportunity to do so. And so that is something I've learned that's been really critical to me. And that was a real eye-opener as I spent time Spend time there. But yeah, it's amazing. I think, as you said, personal development happens a lot in travel because you get exposed to much different ways of thinking about life, about the world, and even about yourself. You start to ask yourself questions. Well, why do I believe this? Why do I think about— why do I have to be everywhere at this exact time and meetings have to end at this exact time? And there's some good parts to that, of course, but there's some good things to learn too.

Más o menos, right? Yeah, and I think, I think the other thing that happened to me, you know, I grew up in a great middle-class, upper-middle-class family in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. And like, yeah, you hear about poverty maybe in some towns or cities around you, and you might drive through and experience it a little bit. But when you start to travel internationally, especially in Central and South America, when you go back home You view things through a new lens. You might be grateful for something that you had previously not even really considered or paid much attention to. And I think that my international travel has definitely amplified the gratitude that I experience in the present moment when I am here in the comforts of the United States. And I think a lot of us take that for granted. Do you agree?

Oh, completely. Yeah, that's, that's definitely true. Yeah, it'll change the way you see things that you, you have, the opportunities that you have, um, even the people that you're surrounded by, you know, you'll appreciate them more. And so I would completely agree with that perspective.

I'm curious about this term hope. You know, we, we all talk about hope and I hope this and I hope this happens and I hope that happens. And it seems kind of, for lack of a better way to say it, almost like a wishy-washy, you know, term. So yeah, maybe you can, I don't know, just, uh, tell us about what that word actually means to you and like what the difference between maybe this real hope that you talk about in your book versus the hope that the world talks about?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So I think of it as almost 2 completely different things. And so sometimes I'll talk about it like verb versus noun, but maybe an easier way to think about it is saying, hey, I hope this will happen. For me, I spent years saying, I hope the Orioles will win a game. Finally, that's become more, more common. But, you know, I hope I'll pass the test. I hope I will do this or that. And it is really a wishy-washy thing. It's something that I'm hoping will happen, but there's not really anything concrete connected to it. It's just kind of a thought. It's kind of a desire. Whereas when I talk about hope, I'm talking about something foundational, something that you can actually hold on to, something that defines— that you can define your life by. And so it's more of— I talk about my book about it's more about holding on to a particular view of yourself. And maybe as I describe it from my worldview, God's view of you. And so saying, okay, I see myself as full of potential because God sees me that way, because I believe I was created for something more. I talk about how we were created by a God who loves us for for purpose and on purpose. And when you start to see things that way, hope really changes. And I talk about both in spiritual— that's kind of the spiritual side of things— but also the practical side of hope is that I'm having a real opportunity to exercise that potential, right? To say, hey, I can use that God-given potential and live into it, and I have the opportunity to do that. And so that's what hope really looks like for me. It's this foundational Hope that says you are meant for something, uh, maybe meant for something more. And then you also have the opportunity to, to reach that.

For a person that feels maybe like they're in this place of hopelessness, do you have any advice to those people that they can maybe create and cultivate more of that hope in their lives so they can have almost take on that belief that you have? Because that's such a, that's such a beautiful way to look at life.

I'm sitting here today with Ken Rusk, who has done hundreds of millions of dollars in business. He's also sold tens of thousands of books and changed countless lives. We're sitting here today because he is sponsoring today's episode. So Ken, tell everybody about your course.

Well, thank you. I built a course called The Path to a Successful Life. It's designed around trying to get somebody unstuck. You know, sometimes you're feeling like you're kind of stuck in where you are and you're not really sure what you want your life to look like or how to go about getting it. Well, for the cost of about dinner and a movie, and maybe the time you spend on a weekend, you can exactly what you want your future to look like and how to go about getting it.

You know the power of vision. That's why you watch podcasts like this. So click the link below, get signed up, and let me know what your experience is like.

Yeah, I would say a few different things. One, start to look in your life for places where maybe you're believing lies about yourself. There might be things that you believe about yourself that someone's told you, that you've read, that just maybe even just came into your own mind that aren't even true about you, like things that you tell yourself, like, I am hopeless. I'm not full of potential. I talk about how in that community in particular, El Cañón, but it's applicable to anyone really, anywhere you are in the world, that many people there have just accepted that life can never change, that nothing can be different, that I was created for a life of less than. And when you start to see your world that way, It can really impact the way that you live, and you may not even realize it. So look for maybe some lies that you're believing, and then look for truths to replace those lies, to say, no, that's not, that's not the truest thing about me. I wasn't created for a life of less than. I am full of potential. Going through and examining that, looking for ways to replace the lies with truths that, that speak to that God-given potential, that speak to that hope That can be foundational will really make a huge difference to someone. And then I would also say, get out and maybe start to try to bring some hope to someone else. Oftentimes when we see people's lives changed, it can give us hope for ourselves because we think, well, if that can happen for, for him or her, that certainly is a possibility for me. And, and sometimes we get so stuck in our own mind that we can't move beyond it without getting, getting out and helping someone else. And so that's made a big difference for me. I think Part of the reason I continue to work in Nicaragua and, and, you know, try to create hope for others, try to make a difference in this world, is that it's a selfish thing in some ways. Not all of it, but some of it is, you know, hey, I know my life is better off because of it, and so why wouldn't I do that?

So what's an actual conversation look like when you go into a community, a poverty-stricken community in Nicaragua, and you start, you know, you want your community-led efforts to start happening and kind of build hope? Like, what How does that actually happen boots on the ground? Like, what does that look like when you start to have conversations with people and you try to install hope back into a community?

Yeah, that's a great question. So it starts by building relationships, really. So it starts by getting to know people, understanding them. You said community-led change, which is a great way of putting it. It's figuring out, okay, who are the people that are here? And then what assets already exist within the community? What do they already have? Because a lot of—

sorry, James, is this happening in Spanish while you're there?

So you speak sometimes? It is nowadays more so. When I first moved there, that's kind of a funny story. So when I first moved there, I thought I knew Spanish and then I realized, oh no, I don't. All those years of high school and college Spanish that I didn't use for 10 years have gone away. And so yes, many times. Now I'll tell you, we have, we have staff. Nika Works organization I work with has staff in Nicaragua now and they're doing— they're Nicaraguans and they are doing this all the time and much better than I would be. So because of that community connection, right, they already, they already know the culture. No matter how long I, I, uh, go there, even live there, you know, there's still a little bit of a barrier, uh, to some degree. And so having people that are, are local is super important. But yes, so we're going in in Spanish, um, sometimes, you know, in English with translators, but often in Spanish and saying, okay, let's build relationships with the people that are here so that we know them. And we know what already exists here, what assets exist. You know, is there land that maybe could be used to develop? Is there skills within this community that we could maximize? Is there people that already have a certain perspective of hope? Are there pastors that we could connect with? Are there community leaders that already have a vision for their community that desire change that maybe don't have the the resources to exercise that. And so we're developing relationships and trying to understand, okay, what is it that exists? And then by doing that, we're able to figure out and work with the community to understand, okay, so what pieces can we bring to the puzzle and/or partner with someone else to bring to the puzzle? So for example, it might be we created a sweet corn operation called Fruits d'Hiver, and it was Hey, there's this opportunity, this market that exists. Sweet corn's a niche crop in Nicaragua, which is funny coming from the United States where it's kind of grown all over the place to some level at least. And, hey, there's this opportunity to grow sweet corn, but they don't have— the people don't have the resources necessarily to do it. And so we were able to come alongside and partner in that way. And then also develop relationships with people that had a certain perspective. Hey, I believe in the people of Nicaragua. I believe in these these particular people in this particular community that they have God-given potential, and that's really— I tell you what, that's a long-term process. That's not like a, hey, I mean, if I were to say, hey, Nick and Luke, you have long-term God-given potential, you might say, you don't really know me, which would be wise, you know, but it's in developing relationships and reinforcing that over time, and, you know, honestly, by bringing the practical, what I call practical hope or the real opportunities, you're really you're really speaking to that. You're saying, I believe in you enough to invest. I believe in your God-given potential enough to invest in you, and so by developing those relationships over time, you create conversations, and like I said, sometimes it's developing relationships with pastors and/or other people in the community that already are invested there and reinforcing what they've already said to people, and so that one is The, the, the practical side is maybe more concrete, uh, tangible, you know, the, the other side is a little bit more subjective. It's a little, a little less concrete, but it, you know, it, it's real and it happens over time and it's again, um, a process. So that typically is how it works.

That's amazing. And like you said, it's all about relationships at the end of the day. And I think that's true here in the US as well.

Mm-hmm.

I'm interested to know maybe your, your opinion or perspective on the difference between this hope that you're giving these people in Nicaragua and maybe people here in the US, because, you know, there they're dealing with extreme poverty, right? And here we might be dealing with, oh, we don't get the latest iPhone. So what's your, what's your just perspective on here versus the, the here versus Nicaragua, the US versus Nicaragua, as far as like, giving people that hope? Do we need similar things? Is it different? Like, what's your perspective on that on the whole?

No, that's a great question. Yeah. So when we talk about poverty, whether it's poverty in the physical sense, what we often think of as poverty, lack of food, lack of education, lack of housing, the many ways, whether it's in Nicaragua or the United States, or it's poverty in the more, if we call it spiritual or Um, yeah, that's probably the best way I could say it, spiritual sense, in that, you know, hey, I don't, I don't think there's anything for me in this world. You know, I don't have any hope. Whether it's one or the other, the way I like to think about it is almost like an iceberg, uh, is the way I like to describe it. So we often think of addressing what we can see on the outside, and if you know anything about an iceberg, about 90% of what, what an iceberg is exists below the surface of the water, right? So we spend our time oftentimes addressing the 10% above. And that can be true whether it's poverty in Nicaragua or it's somebody, a kid or an adult that's like, hey, I'm just feeling hopeless right now. Either way, it can be that 10%, 90%. And what I encourage people to do is say, we need to address the 90% below the surface. And that's where I believe the hopelessness exists. And that's what I call it. And I actually refer to it as a lie of hopelessness, whether it's practical hopelessness or spiritual hopelessness. It's the belief that I was created for a life of less than and that there's no opportunity for me to move beyond that. And so it's addressing that underlying hopelessness and saying, okay, so what is it that's missing here? And maybe the person that's living in the United States, they might have everything they need practically. Right? But they just don't have what they need to believe in themselves, to believe that there is God-given potential, to believe that their life matters. And so it's saying, okay, what is missing? What is missing here? Is it that they need someone to come alongside them and say, um, look, you know, you're feeling hopeless, you believe you're hopeless, let's change that perspective. Let's, like I said, eliminate the, the lies in your life. Let's speak some truths into your lives. Let's Let's, you know, reinforce this God-given potential that you have, and in that way activating that hope, that spiritual hope, that belief that you were created on purpose and for a purpose. Or it might be practical even in the United States, right? So it might be, you know, hey, this person believes in themselves, right? I mean, there's poverty here just like there is in Nicaragua, but they need somebody to come along and give them a real opportunity. You know, there's a lot of communities that don't have the resources they need to necessarily do that. And so it's coming alongside and saying, well, maybe we can provide education where education is lacking. We can provide investment in business where, where that's lacking. We can provide training, vocational training in some form where that's lacking. I don't know what it is. It's really community specific, which makes this all very messy, right? But, but yeah, that's— it's coming alongside and saying, what is it missing? Maybe it's both in some cases. And, and addressing that. And when we address those 2 items and really activate that hope. I sometimes, again, kind of going to an analogy, for me it's almost like a volcano, which is why there's a volcano on the front of my book. It's that hope can make a huge difference in someone's life, and it can actually impact everyone around them. And so if you can really figure out, okay, what is it that's missing? Where is the hopelessness? Where does it exist? And then address it with either practical, spiritual hope, or both. through a real opportunity and a reframed identity, then, you know, it can really change things.

Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of times in sales books or business books, habit books, they talk about the difference between a lead indicator and a lag indicator, right? And so the lag indicator is what people try to address a lot of the time. I have this big goal. I want to make a bunch of sales. I want to eliminate poverty. But the lead indicator is what's creating the lag, right? It's the directly influenceable activity or mindset and the lack of hope. That's what you go and influence. The other things are symptoms, they're outcomes, they're the result of a lack of hope. So it's a, it's a really interesting take. Just kind of my own summary of it a little bit.

Absolutely.

And when did the book come into play? And tell us also about the 50% royalties piece.

Yeah, yeah.

For each copy.

So the book really, as I came home— so I lived in Nicaragua from 2012 until 2015 as a field director, kind of developing things there, building a team. And so as I started to return back to the US and really had learned a lot through my time there, a lot of this came from that. I just decided I should probably write this down, whether it's just for me or for my future kids. I now have 2 kids, but I didn't have kids at the time. gotten married about maybe, I don't know, 18 months before, but started to just decide this is a story I should share in some form or another. I wasn't sure if it would turn into a book, but as I started to write it down and just really think more about it, I decided it's a message that I believed other people needed to hear, that there really is hope. I mean, we live in a world, even since then, I think more so, that is lacking in this real concrete hope. And so being able to share that and The availability of it, that we don't have to believe that we have to be hopeless, was super important to me. And so being able to share that and then encourage others, not only that, but that they can be a part of bringing it. You know, so often we think, okay, well, James lived in Nicaragua, he was a missionary, how, you know, I can't do that. I don't, I don't have the opportunity to do that. Well, we each have the opportunity to bring hope no matter where we are. You know, there's, you can make a difference in your community or in the life of someone, maybe like Luke, you said maybe there's someone that you know that just is hopeless and that you could invest in their life. Doesn't have to be in Nicaragua. It could be that simple and that can make a huge difference. And so as I came back, I just decided that this is a message I needed to share. And eventually I felt like I needed to share it with the world. And so I started to write and eventually met with somebody that helped me turn what I was writing into an actual outline and book and wrote a book and eventually published it. And as I did that, I decided, well, hey, this is a great way to share this message, but it's also a great way to invest in NicaWorks, the organization that I work with. And so I decided that 50% of the royalties from the book would go to NicaWorks. So every book that's purchased, 50% of the proceeds of that go to make a difference for people in Nicaragua. And so it's a very practical way I could make a difference.

Now, I'm curious, have you brought— how old are your kids?

My kids are 5 and 7.

5 and 7. I have a 7 and 6 and 2-year-old, but awesome. It's a great age. Have you brought them to Nicaragua? Are you showing them and involving them in this whole process? Hello, Book Thinkers family. We are on a mission to change people's lives for the better, and we believe that the right book at the right time can change your life. And the only way we can impact more lives is with your help. If a book has changed your life for the better, I wanted to ask you a quick favor. Could you please take a few seconds and leave a review of our show? Because if you're like us, you want to change not only your life but others' lives as well. And by you leaving a review of our show, it spreads the word about all of these life-changing books and does just that. We greatly appreciate your help. By reaching more people, you help us change more lives. Thank you so much for your time. And now back to the show.

So I get to talk to them a lot. We haven't gone yet, you know, though, with the global pandemic and some other items, we just haven't made that, that choice yet. But I'm hoping within the next year or two that we'll take them down. That's kind of the plan. We were thinking about this summer, but it might be another year off for us. But yeah, we're hoping to bring them down. And it is neat to share, though. I can think of a couple of times where my daughter and my son really have done little things to be like, oh, this could help, you know, people in Nicaragua. And it's really neat to see that perspective already in them and to have them be a part of it now. I can't wait to actually share my friends and family really in Nicaragua with them in a real way. So good question.

Do you have any plans to open up corporate retreats or ways for other people to get involved? Because I'm sure there are a lot of people in the Brand Builders community, for example, that would love to go firsthand and experience what it's like, the work that you're doing and you know, maybe make a difference. Are there any opportunities like that for people?

Yeah, we do actually. We'll do trips down twice a year, so in July and then in January. We do go on trips down to Nicaragua, and if you go to anika.works, our website, and you reach out through the contact there, that's probably the easiest way. Or you can email me at james@jameshball.com. We can get you connected and tell you more about it. But certainly we're open to those opportunities, whether in that form or or another time of the year, because it can be really life-changing and make a big difference.

I'm just curious real quick, what does an experience like that do for somebody? Like, is it a week long? What are you doing while you're there? You know, rough costs? Maybe you don't want to get into the cost piece because I'm sure it'll change over time, but I'm just— I, I'm sure there are going to be people that are interested, like, hey, I want to go experience this.

Yeah, yeah. So typically what we do, our approach is we want to go And work alongside and partner with the work that's happening. So, you know, sometimes mission trips are more focused on, okay, this is— you're gonna go, and this is my first experience, you're gonna go to an orphanage, you're gonna hang out with the kids and all, which is great, but we've decided in our particular model that we want to go and work with the Nika Work staff. So we come in and say, okay, so what's going on right now? You know, hey, are we— we're growing corn, you know, we're helping to develop this corn operation. Let's take the team out there and they can work alongside people and they can meet the workers there. They can encourage them. We'll go to a community called Bluefields on the East Coast and there's some work happening there and we partner with a pastor over there and we'll go out and do a little bit of more relief work, if you were to call it that, maybe, you know, providing food for a community. But a lot of what we do is we come alongside the people that are working and encourage them and then learn about what's happening directly from them as opposed to doing a lot of you know, building a house or work ourselves. I mean, we will do work there, but it'll be work that, you know, our team in Nicaragua says, hey, this is what we need right now, and this is how you can partner. So a lot of it is learning and working alongside the people in Nicaragua. So that's typically our approach. And then, you know, getting the chance to talk about it. So.

Yeah, that's amazing. And is that typically like 1 week or something?

One week.

I'm sorry. Yeah. So it's one week and I would say, you know, it's typically between, I'll say, let's just say $1,200 and $1,700 depending on the trip, airfare, all of that. So yeah, I try to be a little vague on the cost, but that gives you a little bit of a handle on, on what we're doing when we're there.

So it's amazing. Yeah. I'm excited to follow up and learn more about that personally.

Yeah. Cool.

That'd be great.

I would love you— this is like way out of left field, but I think it's a really cool story that I heard, I believe on another podcast a little while ago.

Okay.

Um, experiencing Christmas with Nicaraguans. Can you tell me, just unpack that story? Because I think it's really like, it's just such a great, it's a great one.

Yeah. So, um, you mean Christmas in actual Christmas in Nicaragua?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I actually haven't, funny enough, I haven't actually spent Christmas there.

Oh, okay.

However, I did have a couple of experiences related to Christmas. Well, one I spent, which this is kind of interesting, I spent, I've spent Thanksgiving there and we've made Thanksgiving dinner in Nicaragua, which is kind of a neat, neat experience and different, which is kind of fun to share that, that tradition of just being thankful there. But one experience I did have when I was there was there's an organization called Operation Christmas Child.

Yeah.

And they deliver shoeboxes to Nicaragua. That might be what you're referencing. And so I was there one time, and I'll tell you, I've been a part of packing shoeboxes. I have a friend that's really into it, and he actually had a manufacturing company, and they would open their manufacturing lines to pack shoeboxes. So they'd do like 20,000 shoeboxes, and they'd send them down. And I had done that a few times just kind of as a volunteer supporting my friend, And just being a part of maybe making a difference in the lives of some kids. And so that was neat and always kind of a fun time, but I never connected the two. I wasn't like, okay, well, I'm going to go to Nicaragua, and I'm going to see the Operation Christmas Child. But I was just there at the orphanage one day hanging out with some kids, and this bus pulls in, and I'm like, what are these guys doing? And they're like, oh, they're the Operation Christmas Child people, and out pour the people and the shoeboxes. And I'm like, I've seen those shoeboxes before. Now, it wasn't I don't think it was my shoebox, but it was really wild to see that, to see kind of— I had been a part of packing them and now I'm seeing kids open them and just the joy that was on their face. So, yeah, it was neat to see like, hey, these kids get to experience kind of, you know, Christmas in some form as I experience and get something that really blessed them. And so that was neat to be a part of.

Yeah, I love that story because I think it— sometimes like we do these things. I've done that before, the Operation Christmas, and sometimes we just do these things and we're like, we don't really know if it's making a difference. Like we're hoping it's make— hoping, there's that word, hoping it's making a difference. But we've sent those things off, but it's so cool that you could, you could actually see that experience like come to fruition. It's like full circle. It's like, wow, these things actually do make a difference. And there's a lot of good in the world. And I just, I love that, that perspective. So just for people listening, if you're doing things like that, keep it up because it does make a difference. And I think that's like, for me, that was kind of the point of that story is that this thing opens— like, these things that you're doing over here can have an impact on lives, you know, hundreds, thousands of miles away, um, which is just so awesome. Nick, did you have any more questions that you want to ask? Because I can ask a couple more and then we can start wrapping things up. But—

I'll ask one final question, James. Uh, over the course of your own practical and spiritual development, are there any books that stand out as favorites for creating a lot of change in your own perspective on this world that we live in and your— and the impact that you can have on it?

Oh, that's a great question. There's a lot I would say, probably, but there's one in particular I read in the past year, um, called Man's Search for Meaning. And, um, yeah, it's an awesome book. And just, you know, it's written obviously, uh, in a concentration camp or from that perspective. And so it just really reinforced this idea of the, the role hope plays in in people's lives and how important it is. And so I, that was really life-changing for me, even as someone that already kind of, I think, agreed with what he was saying, you know, um, that, that you would have that perspective of, of someone that's in really about as hopeless of a situation as you could be in, right? That observed the difference hope would make in the midst of that. Um, I would say it's a book that anyone should read.

Yeah. My favorite lesson from that book is something along the lines of, When you have a strong enough why, you can bear almost any how or something like that.

That's great.

Yeah. So yeah, just it aligns with your message of reinstalling hope and then the lag, you know, that the result of that hope is a better life, a more fulfilling life potential.

Yeah.

And I think that's a beautiful message.

Great.

All right. So I'll ask 2 more questions. The first is, where can people go to get more involved in what you're doing and find out more about you?

Yeah, if you go to my website, jameshbelt.com, you can connect with me. I can get you connected to Nika Works. Nika Works website is nika.works. You can learn about my book, Hope Realized, on the website. It's available on Amazon, anywhere you can pick up books online, and love to connect with you. I have a— I actually have a resource on there called 5 Foundational Steps to Making a Real Difference in Someone's Life, and so that's another little resource you can use to get started.

Perfect. I'll make sure we link that all in the show notes. All right, this is the final question that I like to ask all of our guests. You pass away and you can leave the world everything that you've put out, the books, the courses, this 5 points for whatever it is, like it all disappears, but you can leave the world with a single piece of advice. What would it be?

Yeah, I would say that one, just the phrase hope wins the day comes to mind for me. And In that sense, it's, hey, you know, you're not hopeless. You know, oftentimes we can get stuck in that mindset that we're hopeless, the world's hopeless. You just look at the world around us right now and it can feel that way. But in the end, I believe hope wins the day if we choose hope and we choose to be a part of making a difference. If we take a step, I mean, that's for me, you know, it's just taking one step at a time. We don't have to figure out how to change the world. all at one time, right? Um, but if we take one step to make a difference in someone else's life, to make a difference in our own life, um, and we have hope for, for what's possible, I believe hope wins the day.

So beautifully said. There is hope. I love that. Well, James, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on our podcast. I can't wait to get this out to all of our audience and people. Um, there's a lot of hopelessness, or there feels like there's a lot of hopelessness in the world, so These kinds of messages are so important to get out there. Appreciate you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Luke and Nick. It's been great.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.