Believe The Hope

James Lewis: 00:25

That's a great question too. I think there's a couple ways. 1, I would say, is identifying what your true essence is. So, like, Paul, you have your own unique essence of what makes Paul. Like, who makes Paul Paul.

James Lewis: 00:40

And if everybody does their job in doing that, then I think we all get a chance to be inspired and share the hope with each other. So I

James Lewis: 00:50

think that's kind of number 1 is just be true to yourself and just live more in that, become a more potent version of yourself even in knowing that that

James Lewis: 01:02

potent version of yourself isn't gonna necessarily

James Lewis: 01:06

be the person that everybody vibes with. The second part I would say is, but just looking to speak positively in general about people, for people, into their lives.

Paul Nottoli: 01:31

To the Believe the Hope podcast. I am your host, Paul Natoli, and I am here with mister James Lewis Is a creative for 15 years in the industry specializing in videography and content creation. He's producer of the None of Your Business podcast that hosted inside beautiful SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, or I guess Inglewood, wherever that's at, where the and the Rams play. He brings expertise to life both behind the camera and editing suite occasionally in front of and occasionally in front of the lens. With a voice that he sounds he can do a really awesome Barack Obama impression, so hopefully he will do that for us.

Paul Nottoli: 02:11

And kick start by, he's here to share his insights on what it takes to get started and ultimately succeed as a content creator. So thank you, James, for your time, and thank you for being here today.

James Lewis: 02:24

I'm super excited. Thanks so much, Paul, for having me.

Paul Nottoli: 02:27

If you've watched any of the interview I did with the None Your Business podcast, any of that footage and audio was or any of those clips were done by James, the man himself that's sitting sitting across the screen from me or on the the microphone. I also wanted James here to talk about the hope and just, that end because he sees a lot of he has a lot of conversations indirectly because you're the one filming the content. You're the one editing this stuff. So you've had discussions with celebrities, professional athletes, high successful entrepreneurs, and, a lot of times you don't get your perspective. Your your your creativity is showing the perspective of what you're seeing and what you wanna share, but rarely do you get your voice and your face out there.

Paul Nottoli: 03:15

So I'm glad to have James, consider him my friend. I hope we consider each other friends, and, yeah. And I wanna get his his open all kinds of other experiences in life. So thank you.

James Lewis: 03:31

Of course. If if I've danced to this is how we do it, then, of course, with with you, then, of course, we're friends. So

Paul Nottoli: 03:38

about that. We gotta go back to Mexico. Right?

James Lewis: 03:41

All the times that you've done the the karaoke to that song. So, yeah, of course.

Paul Nottoli: 03:47

I think it was a Yeah. It's been a while, maybe a couple years now, so we'll have to, yeah. I'll have to get out there, and we'll have to have a time to we do it along with, I'm not gonna do it on the podcast to save everybody. Actually, it usually has to involve a bar setting, and I'd like to have people be able to to listen to it, to get into it a little bit. So first question I ask every guest is, because everyone has different experiences and and thoughts on this is, what does hope mean to them personally?

James Lewis: 04:27

I like that question. Hope to me is, I think, having a sense of confidence of

James Lewis: 04:37

a certain outcome

James Lewis: 04:38

in the future. So I think with hope, it's understanding that where things are today, maybe in this current moment, maybe the way circumstances are, in the present day, may not be what one would hope them to be or would like them to be. But if you're able to have hope, that means there's a positive outlook on what could be at some point in the future. And having hope, I think, is a mindset that allows someone to endure whatever might be going on in their life today, or, like I mentioned, certain circumstances or situations, but to have a positive mindset to move forward in the future knowing that things will, in fact, get better or that ideal outcome will happen at some point. And without hope, I think it's easy to slip into feeling defeated, feeling unable to affect positive change.

James Lewis: 05:48

And unfortunately, I think a lot of people go without hope for certain things in their life. But all it takes is a little bit, and you can really start to change the way you think about things, and shortly thereafter, whatever situation you might be going through can really start to improve after doing that.

Paul Nottoli: 06:11

So, I mean, your sentiments on hope and, have been shared a version of it, so it's usually something in the future, having faith towards something, something better, something brighter, a little different perspective on how they say it because of their own experiences, but usually it involves, in the future. What I like to do is ask people, maybe they can share because I know everyone comes from different experiences, different backgrounds, different, traumas or whatever. Maybe they're lacking hope right now. People share a possible experience of where they maybe have been down on their luck and that have a lot of hope and then had used hope to to get themselves out of that situation.

James Lewis: 07:00

So you're gonna make me think on on that one. That's a really good question because I wanna I wanna provide a good answer, but then also be able to articulate it well. So this may be different than what other people have shared on your podcast. I would assume if people haven't already shared some really, you know, maybe things, maybe some heavy things. And while I probably could come up with an example of that, but what first comes to mind is actually maybe a little bit more lighthearted, but it's a story and a situation I talk about often and reflect on often.

James Lewis: 07:45

And it taught me more than just about hope, so hopefully this will this will answer the question and, provide some value. But this was back in when I was in 8th grade, actually middle school, 7th grade and 8th grade. So I played basketball growing up, and I was on the 7th grade basketball team, and our team was terrible. We were so bad. We played probably around 30 games and maybe only won, like, 4 or 5.

James Lewis: 08:16

You can count on one hand how many games we won that entire season. And so I know some people can probably relate to being on a team where, you know, just not that great. So that was our 7th grade year. And then at the end of the 7th grade season, there was this guy who came. He was a part of a church, and this was a Christian school, and so him and his family came to be, a part of the ministry for the church.

James Lewis: 08:42

But, coincidentally, he actually played in the NBA and was really passionate about kids sports and, obviously, coaching. And so he got involved with our basketball program. And through that end of that season, through the summer, we went through probably some of the most rigorous practices, trainings, drills. And he used to have these practices where the only thing we would do is just practice, say, dribbling or playing defense. And because he had played in the NBA and he was obviously retired, he was still good enough, to play against us all.

James Lewis: 09:28

And he was actually really hard to guard even as, like, a 8th grader, just because in order to play at the NBA level, you you have to be really good, and that skill doesn't necessarily just fade away the minute you're done playing. And what I didn't realize in the 1st few months of doing these daily practices even throughout the summer, but we were building a sense of hope within ourselves that hadn't quite been we we certainly hadn't experienced that yet, and we didn't really recognize that that's what it was. But getting into the next season, we we had be we had gotten so good. Like, we had each player and our team as a whole had totally transformed. And one of the words that the coach, his name is, Dave Jamerson.

James Lewis: 10:27

One of the words that he would always use is having an an identity as a basketball player, as a basketball team. And he would go into every single game regardless of who we were playing, even teams that, on paper, were way better than us. Taller than us, stronger, faster, all of that. And he would have that belief that we were going to win the game. We had practiced, we had done the drills, we had built an identity of who we are and how we played our game.

James Lewis: 11:00

And he believed that if we had done that, regardless of what who the opponent was, that we were going to win the game. And because we had experienced not winning very many games the previous year, it was this totally new mindset that was bestowed upon us by our coach, and that was the moment that hope started to, like, kinda be built in us. We hadn't experienced what it was like to win, but someone else came along and taught us the skills, the actual practical pragmatic skills, but then was also installing this new belief system in us that allowed us to have hope And long story short, we ended up going 29.1 the next season and basically winning every tournament we would win by 20, 30, 40 points. There was even one team we beat by 70 points, which was pretty crazy, but that was one of the highlights, of kind of my adolescence, not just winning at that level, but also going through that entire experience. And I I always talk about and, you know, give credit to coach Jamerson, who I'm still in contact with occasionally, and just realizing how much he taught us about how to win, the mindset required to win, and now realizing how he was instilling hope within us even as 7th 8th graders.

Paul Nottoli: 12:33

I think a lot of those, I mean, just in perspective, I played a lot of sports, and so even those things that you learned even at 7th or 8th grade, they carry over into, college even as an adult because, oh, it's a you got to have someone believe in you or a system of people that are believing you on a consistent basis to show that, yes, you are something. I can do something. That just that small confidence, and and before in some episodes where it's almost like a it's a naive confidence and not a naive confidence that you're delusional, but a naive confidence that, oh, yeah. Work, like this person believes in me, so why shouldn't I be able to do it? Because to have that unconsciously unconsciously competent level first before you become what they call consciously competent at something.

Paul Nottoli: 13:29

Our work, that growth of just, like, embrace the suck phase of everything. Or you have like you said, you have the most grueling practices, because there's growth and there's a growth in all of those. And, I think that's an incredible example because, yeah, I think there's a lot of good insights of community, belief, the right people around you, the right teammates around you that buy in, hard work, and you don't like, you even mentioned if you don't believe in yourself first, it's hard to really regardless if someone's telling you if you don't believe in yourself first. If that Yep. You're not that's kinda it it's more of that, oh, I hope I do better this year versus no.

Paul Nottoli: 14:17

I'm putting in the work, so that hope is there. Not only do I hope we do better, but also, like, we know we're gonna do better because there's some certainty based on on work that you're doing.

James Lewis: 14:28

Absolutely. That's great.

Paul Nottoli: 14:35

1 how does one maintain how would you say if someone maintains hope when time are tough?

James Lewis: 14:46

For me, it comes down to another word, which is faith. And I think faith plays such a big part in having hope in the things we deal with as human beings and in our society. So for me, as a bible believing Christian, like, that's that's what it is for me. I realize that not everybody has the same mindset or believes the same thing, and and that's totally, totally fine. But for me, I just realized how important it is that I have something outside of myself, larger than myself, to rely on in order to give me a level of peace when things are not going my way.

James Lewis: 15:31

Because it's gonna happen regardless as a human being. Like, there's obviously challenging times that happen to every single one of us. At the time of this recording in the past 2 weeks there's 2 hurricanes going through the southeast of the U. S. And it doesn't matter how prepared you might be for those storms, the storms can totally wreck all of your personal belongings and obviously emotionally and mentally do a lot of damage to families and it's really tough.

James Lewis: 16:06

And so how do you still remain hopeful in situations like that? To me, you have to be yielding to a higher power, in my in my opinion. And so for me, that's that's my Christian faith and so I rely on God a lot to help me see things that that I'm help me to spiritually see things that I can't see with my physical eyes and always just to speak to me in situations that I think are not going for me, that they're against me. 1 of the one of the online mentors that I have, Myron Golin, he's, you know, kind of a, he's a business, a business coach mentor, entrepreneur that teaches from biblical principles. And one of the things that he says often is if it's not working, what does he say?

James Lewis: 17:04

I don't wanna I don't know when I don't wanna miss say it. And other people have said something along the lines, but, basically, if something isn't working for you, it's working on you. So there's a process that you have to go through. If something's not working for you, meaning it's it's not going the way you anticipated, then it's working on you. There's there's something that's going to make you stronger, more resilient, more mature, more aware, more wise, and in that season, you have to be able to have hope in order to basically remain peace and remain sane, that it's okay, I'm gonna get through this, but on the other side, there's going to be a much, much better result that's gonna make all of this challenge worth it.

Paul Nottoli: 17:55

Love it. Yeah. Because Yeah. When it's not going your way, it does suck. You don't want it to be working on you.

Paul Nottoli: 18:03

You wanna work quick for you, but, that's a good reminder that that's, yeah, that you that you will be more resilient and tougher and, a stronger person to be able to handle the next level that you're trying to go to, which mostly often sometimes we don't get what we want because we're not prepared for that outcome yet. We're not the person we need to be to be into that.

James Lewis: 18:28

I like that

Paul Nottoli: 18:29

right there. Sometimes I have really, really well knowledge and wise wise words. It's kind of sectionalises, but today feeling the flow today.

James Lewis: 18:44

Say,

Paul Nottoli: 18:45

someone spreads more hope in their own communities and world world being local around the world?

James Lewis: 18:57

That's a great question too. I think there's a couple ways. One, I would say, is identifying what your true essence is. So like Paul, you have your own unique essence of what makes Paul. Like, who makes Paul Paul?

James Lewis: 19:18

And I've gotten to know that over the years, and it brings me a lot of joy seeing you do karaoke, dancing, you being you, being goofy at times, like, that's who you are. And so I think number 1 is just finding out what that essence is in yourself and just doing that, being that person. Coupled with that, that also means that, well, maybe, Paul, your personality in the way that you are doesn't speak to everybody. Maybe that's not their thing. And that's not to say there's anything wrong with you or anybody else.

James Lewis: 19:58

But if you remain who you are, true to yourself, then the people who are meant to be impacted by you, they will. They will resonate. They will be connected to you in, in the way that I've been able to. And if everybody does their job in doing that, then I think we all get a chance to be inspired and share the hope with each other. So I think that's kind of number 1, is just be true to yourself and just live more in that, become a more potent version of yourself, even And knowing that that potent version of yourself isn't gonna necessarily be the person that everybody vibes with.

James Lewis: 20:43

The second part I would say is and this applies to maybe more a broader stroke of people, but just looking to speak positively in general about people for people into their lives there's obviously a lot of negativity that we are Unconsciously consuming on any given basis We just turn on, say, the news and especially during this election year, there's just a lot of extra noise And not to say that that stuff isn't important, but it's really easy to go down the path of curing all of the negative talk and the energy, the complaining, the pointing of fingers. And so that, in my opinion, doesn't lead to more hope or more spreading of hope. And so there kinda has to be a counterbalance of speaking positive, making, making compliments or encouraging other people and it doesn't have to be anything big or at a national scale but just looking to find opportunities to lift other people up because I think sometimes just the smallest thing can make the biggest difference, and I know that's probably something cliche to say what you're doing.

Paul Nottoli: 22:08

That has said that over the over the last over the last 2 months, so it gets it gets brought up a lot that the questions. So, yeah, it's not cliche at all because you're not the only person that has talked about in some way, shape, or form.

James Lewis: 22:23

Yeah, man. It's true. I mean, there's times where people have, like, something so small, they've spoken to me or pointed out something like, hey, I like your shirt or, man, you have a nice smile, and it's like, I wasn't expecting that. And I might even say, well, you know, I don't necessarily need anybody to compliment me. Like, I'm fine in myself and my own skin.

James Lewis: 22:44

But after hearing somebody say that to me, it's like, oh, wow. That actually was nice of them to do that. Like, wow. They they went out of their own way to say something to me to, you know, make me feel feel better about about myself. So I would say those two things, being yourself, and then don't be afraid to uplift others even if it's even if it's small.

Paul Nottoli: 23:10

Because, well, like, our definitions of hope are better in the future, the thing improves in the future. How does obtain that hope for the future, but also are grounded in the reality of whatever the situation they're in, so they can take those actions to to move towards that better future.

James Lewis: 23:35

Yeah, I think that's really smart I've had to kind of figure that process out myself and I'm still in the process of doing so I'm a I'm a future thinker. I spend way more time thinking in the future than the present or the past. And because of that, I come up with what I think are good ideas and plans and things that I that can be done, how to execute, but sometimes that's at the expense of living in reality and understanding what's happening today. And one thing that's helped me is journaling. And I should do this way more often than I do, but journaling and affirmations.

James Lewis: 24:28

And it's interesting you asked that question because more recently, I've been spending more time in front of the camera. I've actually kind of challenged myself to spend more time in front of the camera, and I found that it was somewhat therapeutic for me maybe because I spend so much time in my head thinking about the future and I'm not able to be as present And so after doing this challenge that I had set out to do, I actually found myself just speaking, like, to the camera, like, really in just a kind of a way of if I was journaling, but instead of writing, which I do sometimes, but journaling in front of a camera with really no intention of ever posting or sharing it. But what it allows me to do is kind of remain present and speak kinda how I'm feeling, what my thoughts are But I think there's something significant that happens when I do that I can't really speak too much on it because I'm still in like the early stages of doing that But in the short period of time that I have I've noticed that some of the thinking that I do in my head about the future I speak it kind of in the present or I'm like able to articulate my thoughts in the present and it almost seems like I I move towards that direction faster I don't know if I'm explaining that the way I'm I hope I am, but it's like I move further along the journey of making whatever those plans are in my head happen by speaking in the present, if that makes sense.

James Lewis: 26:12

I'm not it may not make any sense at all.

Paul Nottoli: 26:14

I I think you are because even, we'll just we'll just use the bible as an example is there's plenty of verses that say, like, speak on into existence, ask God, you know, as if it's already happening to you. That's not only the Bible, there's other affirmations. There's people like Tony Robbins. There's all kinds of people that say, like, speak as if the occurring, regardless of if it's not. So if you're a millionaire, you speak as if you're a millionaire because if you don't, then it's harder to, whatever, do the all the action steps and put yourself in positions to to reach that goal or whatever it is.

Paul Nottoli: 26:51

So I yeah. I do think that makes sense because if you're taking those future thoughts and journaling them in the present, you're taking what you want in the future or the ideas you have in the future, and you're putting you're speaking that into, I guess, existence in the in the present. So the the I think the thoughts of thoughts of intentions where the where those are where those are at is tend to typically tend how we are goes or whatever you wanna call if you use a bone analogy. That's the way that's the way we drift to. So if it is negativity, if it is if it is a victim mentality, typically, you surround yourself or you hang out in an area where you're constantly listening to things that are in those areas.

Paul Nottoli: 27:38

If it's more positive, if it's more, surrounding trying to work towards the people that are trying to get you to a better outcome, a better goal, change your life, typically, so that's the you stop listening to certain things, you stop hanging around people as much, you do other things, I think that you on that direction. So, yeah, I've never thought about journaling with a mic like a camera on to just the present of what you want in the future, but, I like that idea. Very good. I should probably try to

Paul Nottoli: 28:11

do that myself.

James Lewis: 28:13

So I've I appreciate that. It's I wanna come back to something you said, but, I I'll just mention, even this morning, I was I had just, before I kinda got my day started, I just sat outside and where I normally would have brought the camera out to, like, record, I actually didn't even have the camera and I was literally just speaking. There's people walking by, and I'm just doing my thing, just speaking as if I was maybe they thought I was on the phone, but, I've I've really enjoyed that practice. So so yeah. And while you were talking, what I imagined was, have you ever seen where there's, like, a cup or glass and it's got really dirty water in it?

James Lewis: 29:00

It's, like, all muddy. You can't see through it. And then what they'll do is they'll take either another cup or like a stream. And just by pouring that in, it washes out all of the dirt. Just by pouring in, like, new clean water.

James Lewis: 29:15

And so when you were talking, like, that's the visual that I got. So I I just thought that that was really cool.

Paul Nottoli: 29:22

And that's yeah. I guess that's another way to look at what you were saying is that that you're pouring present posit present to wash out what you want or wash you to the what or moving towards the towards the future for sure. It's Cabernet bunnies and stealing Bill's biscuits. Anything else you have any other insight? Those are for those listening, that's so those are some inside jokes, I had to throw in there just because, at least I don't think they get old.

Paul Nottoli: 29:54

He might be sick of hearing the joke, but, they're they and they never get old. Is there any other insights, that you would like to to share?

James Lewis: 30:06

That's fun. For the people who know the inside jokes, I'm sure they're they're getting a kick out of it.

Paul Nottoli: 30:11

They'll get a kick out of it, but I think what is there, like, 10 people that actually know that know about that? Right.

James Lewis: 30:21

I would just say what comes to mind for me right now is is the importance of being around positive people. And like my basketball coach, coach Jamerson, I consider him to be a positive person influence on my life in that season. Obviously, still has a lasting impact on my life today. Obviously, Paul, I consider you someone who is a positive person who has this mission of sharing, the message of Believe the Hope. So I just see the importance of being around people like that because of some of the things that we talked about.

James Lewis: 31:00

We don't even have to try and our ears and our mind are filled with some of that dirt in our glass of water and the glass of water is our like it's our responsibility to take care of it It's ours, and we're the ones who have to live with whatever's inside of it. And so getting around other people, in my, in my opinion, is like pouring that, that clear water in. And your cup is gonna be filled with whatever contents are filled up with it. So if you make a conscious effort to be around positive people, then your your cup will be full of nice, clear water to which then you can start pouring in other people's lives.

Paul Nottoli: 31:43

Beautiful way to end it.

James Lewis: 31:45

I appreciate it.

Paul Nottoli: 31:46

People find out more about you and what you what you're what you're doing. Keep up with all their names, Lewis, and, you wanna tell us and ask Barack Obama to finish this off, that'd be that'd be really good because I love I love when you do this.

James Lewis: 32:03

Put me on the spot. Alright. Let's see what

Paul Nottoli: 32:05

I can do. It's okay.

Paul Nottoli: 32:06

It's if it's not the greatest, it's alright. But I

Paul Nottoli: 32:08

think if anybody got this far, they're probably, like, I don't know what cab and bunnies and Bill's biscuits are, but I know who Barack Obama is.

James Lewis: 32:16

Right. Right. Alright. Let's see what I can do. So if you enjoyed this podcast episode and you wanna find out more about me, my name is, James Lewis.

James Lewis: 32:31

I, I have a YouTube channel. It's called Crate Detail. But let me be clear, I will teach you to create content. And if I don't mind myself and, Michelle, she really thinks so too. But the content on this channel is pretty good.

James Lewis: 32:51

Matter of fact, it's fantastic. So follow me there on YouTube, and I'll teach you how to create content to the best of your ability.

Paul Nottoli: 33:03

That's all I got. Beautiful James, beautiful Barack. Maybe I'll put I'll put your Barack Obama's name so I get, so I get some

Paul Nottoli: 33:14

for the for the episode will be the most popular episode just because we

Paul Nottoli: 33:20

people into listening because Barack Obama made an appearance at the end.

James Lewis: 33:25

Hello SEO.

Paul Nottoli: 33:26

Oh, yep. Never heard anybody. Yeah. Thank you so much, James, for your insight. Like I said, you're usually behind the lens, and so but you have a lot of great experiences because of being in the position that you are, making content, meeting the people, editing the interviews, etcetera.

Paul Nottoli: 33:46

So, yeah. It's nice to get you in front of the camera. I'm glad that I could push you a little bit into something like that as well, help you work towards that and insights because, yeah, it's hard not to do what you and not have something positive come out of that or or have some experience that comes out of that. So it didn't inspire more hope.

James Lewis: 34:09

I appreciate that, man. You're the second person who's asked me to be on their podcast, and so you're you're my number 2, so I appreciate that. Thanks so much for having me. This was a great great conversation.

Paul Nottoli: 34:22

And until next time, we'll bring you another episode of the Believe the Hope podcast.