Zero To Travel Podcast

James C. Hopkins 0:00
I went off to India for three months, while still having the corner office on corner 15k Street. And at one point, my girlfriend who was also a kind of corporate person is here and I said, well, maybe there's something more and how much is enough? How much is enough? How much do you have to have to consider yourself happy? And maybe we should just call it enough and leave. As we were walking out, a guy caught up to me. And he was actually a Western guy who teaches at Boston College, who's also a Tibetan lama. And he, and he said to me, Hey, you know, with his finger pointing me, Hey, you don't get it. And I said, I don't know what. And he said, You don't understand what's happening. If you have some kind of skill, you're supposed to use that skill to help other people.

Jason Moore 0:55
That was my guest today, James C. Hopkins in 2004. He retired from his job as a stockbroker and checked into a Buddhist monastery, in Katmandu, and has been living in Nepal ever since. And I'm always fascinated by these total directional shifts that life can take, especially when they can be traced back to a single moment. And you just heard, there was a moment there when somebody was pointing in James chest saying, You need to use your skills to help other people where you're going to learn how that moment turned into a 10 year stint working in a monastery and traveling the world with monks how another small moment with another person pointing a finger into his chest. And calling him out, led to him creating a social enterprise to help fund education for kids. How James relationship with money and possessions has changed over time, the power of saying yes, to helping others advice for navigating New Beginnings, the difference between detachment and non attachment and how understanding that can help you how to make the most out of your money when traveling and loads more. Plus, I want to give a shout out to a listener who rose to a recent challenge I put out there and left a voicemail about it. You're hearing that story, and I'm really excited for her because I'm sure she's feeling very relaxed right now. You'll understand why all of that happening in this show. And plenty more. And it's happening right now. So buckle up strap in. Thanks for being here. And welcome to the zero travel podcast, my friend.

ad 2:28
You're listening to the zero to travel Podcast where we explore exciting travel based work, lifestyle and business opportunities, helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. Now your host World wonder and travel junkie, Jason Moore. Hey, what's

Jason Moore 2:46
up, it's Jason with zero travel.com Welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms to fill your life with as much travel as you desire, no matter what your situation or experience. So excited to bring you this interview. today. I'm always fascinated by serendipity, you know, is it serendipity? Or is it just these moments where we happen to be paying special attention to something or someone maybe it's something we recently read or saw or experience? It's really hard to say but there are some moments as you heard at the top that James shares as a part of his journey, where it was a small interaction with somebody, but it led to, you know, giant change or a whole new life path for him. And it always makes me reflect and think about what were those moments in my life wondering what some of yours were as well. And I'm going to share one on the back end of this interview where somebody told me to shut up and do something. And it worked. And it led to one of the best things I've ever done. So you'll hear that story on the back ends. Now before we dive into the interview. I do want to give a quick shout out to somebody in this community who is down in Peru and rose to a recent challenge I put out there here on the podcast. First quick question, don't you love a cozy, awesome blanket with a cool design? If you do, and you want one that you can use when you're camping, when you're traveling, or at home on the couch, you got to check out rumble ru mpl.com They make these incredible cozy blankets that are weatherproof, durable packable key for travelers and they use the same technical materials as premium outdoor gear and active wear and they are on a mission to introduce the world to better blankets and I believe they're succeeding in that mission. Each blanket is made from 60 recycled water bottles think oh well that's cool. That's doing the right thing. But you know, is it comfortable? Do they look cool? Yes. And yes. Check them out. Are you mpl.com You get 15% off as a listener of the show. With a simple discount code you have to enter zero the word 00. When you check out, we'll give you 15% off over at rumble are you mpl.com Do yourself a favor. If you'd like cozy blankets, just pop over to the website and check a few of them out. The designs are so cool. I don't know who designs these things, but I want to meet them and shake their hands. And from the standpoint of just trying to support companies that are doing the right thing, I mean, this is a B Corp. They recycle over 5 million plastic water bottles a year and offset their carbon footprint. It's a no brainer to support a company like this and get an awesome product. So go to rumble or you Emma PL a.com enter that discount code zero z era you get 15% Off with your order. They also have really cool travel towels, these cute little beer blankets and even ponchos. And if you want to see the one I have I have the original puffy blanket it was a Yellowstone parks project blanket they did in conjunction with Yellowstone National Parks 100 and 50th anniversary so you can search for that on the site. And check it out. It's got a bison and a cougar and the old faithful in I love it. So anyway, we got to rumble r u m p l.com. And so that discount code zeros er o to get 15% off thanks to rumble for supporting today's show. Now our next sponsor takes treat yourself very seriously. And that's why I'm excited to share the US Bank altitude go Visa Signature card with you today. Card holders get four times the points on restaurant deliveries, takeout orders and dine in meals. Yes, you can rack up points when you eat out or order in plus the card gets you two times points on groceries, even delivery streaming services, and gas or evey charging station pitstops. And if you apply today, at us bank.com/altitude Go, you'll earn 20,000 bonus points after spending $1,000. Within the first 90 days, you deserve a credit card that gives you more and more and more apply to become an altitude go card holder at us bank.com/altitude. Go. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association pursuant to a license from visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Now here's the message I got from fellow listener Jasmine down in South America.

Jasmine 7:20
Hey, Jason, my name is Jasmine. And I'm sending you this voice note from Cusco blue, where I currently am leading a program for recent high school graduates that are taking time between high school and college in order to explore what opportunities are out there for travel and for life in general. So we're here in Peru, we've been here about four weeks, and we were in Chile in Patagonia for five weeks prior to that. So we're coming to the close on a 10 week program. And as usual, I'm just feeling pretty grateful for the opportunity to travel and work at the same time. Your Podcast definitely inspires me to continue on this track. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful episodes you put out there. They're entertaining, inspirational, fun to listen to, and offer lots of good practical advice. While I'm out here on the road. I just wanted to also mention that I was totally inspired by your challenge that you put out there. During your episode on beauty with Yedikule you and I will be getting a massage this afternoon. The size of Adam is in Cusco, in order to treat myself and to kind of embrace the idea of backpacker beauty. So thanks again so much. And take care.

Jason Moore 8:31
Thanks, Jasmine. I really appreciate you reaching out. Hope you enjoyed your massage. That sounds good. Yes, that was a challenge I put on a recent podcast to go treat yourself a little bit. And Jasmine did just that. I love Cusco, a very romantic city, I feel. By the way, if you want to get in touch just a quick reminder before we slip and slide into the interview segments. You should Jason at zero to travel.com is my email. And of course if you want to leave a voicemail like Jasmine, did I leave a link for you to do that in all the show notes you can just click on that you don't need to enter an email or anything just hit record. Leave me a message let me know what's up. Let me know your story. Just say hi. It always makes my day to hear from listeners make this a two way conversation. So get in touch anytime. This is a community powered show. I love that you're here listening and I'm here to serve you my friend. Now let me tell you a little bit about James, our guest today. Incredible guy. He is many wonderful things including a poet. You'll hear some of his poetry today. He's also the founder of quilts for kids project.com a social enterprise which creates jobs for economically challenged women and sponsors the education of at risk kids, mostly girls in their community. He also runs a writing workshops which you can learn more about at Himalayan writers workshop.com I would love to go to one of these workshops and stick around on the back end. I am going to share that moment for me. That changed a big part of my Life where somebody said just shut up and do something. And I did. And it changed my life. So I'll share that story. Plus leave you with a quote. For now, enjoy my conversation with James here how he went from Wall Street to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. And the many twists and turns his life has taken a lot of lessons to pull out here and join the conversation. See you on the other side.

Yeah, I'm so excited to welcome James Hopkins to the zero to travel podcast. Welcome to the show, my friend.

James C. Hopkins 10:42
Thanks so much. Great to be here.

Jason Moore 10:44
I think the place to start for you is I wanted to hear about your father's book collection.

James C. Hopkins 10:49
Oh, okay. Well, that is not a question that I expected as an opener. But that's a great opening question. My Father's Book Collection. Well, my father was an English professor at an all male boarding school in Virginia, a kind of classic eccentric professor, you know, with the tweed jackets and leather patch elbows. And he had this study that he was often inside of, and on the door, it had a sign that said, bless this mess on it. And it was always close. And it was very intimidating. And as a kid, I would have to go or would be sent down to my dad's study and had to knock on the door. And then the door would open. And there was a room that was two walls of books, kind of floor to ceiling, as I recall, and a big desk that was covered with books. There were books everywhere. And it was a kind of, you know, Dead Poets Society kind of looking room. And there was a typewriter, my dad was always on the typewriter. And so the physical presence of books was something that really was strong in my mind as a kid, a room full of books, you know, and when he was there, or wasn't there, I was always kind of going through the titles and checking out, you know, especially the ones with the weird ones, like the naked ape and things like that. I thought what is you know, something's naked. It's gotta be interesting, you know, but it's been a lot of time, just in the physical presence of books. And I think that was instrumental in kind of, you know, launching me into a kind of amateur poets of the career as an amateur poet, at least.

Jason Moore 12:49
Yeah, well, I do want to talk about poetry today and a whole lot of other things. But there's something magical about a wall of books, isn't there? And what a nice thing to have. So So nearby, you know,

James C. Hopkins 13:00
there is something about that physical presence and wherever I've been, the bookcases almost always been the, you know, kind of a main feature of the house and I do have a Kindle. I think the battery's dead on it now because I never use it. I just love love to see those spines of all those books.

Jason Moore 13:20
Yeah. And I see some books in the background where you are in Are you in Katmandu? Right now? Is this your

James C. Hopkins 13:25
I am in Canada here right now? Okay. Yes, it is. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Jason Moore 13:29
We're going to talk about how you got there and everything like that. But I'm curious, you know, in the, in the books that you have around you now, what are some of the ones that you find yourself, gravitating towards and picking up time? And again,

James C. Hopkins 13:42
that's a great question, especially as the guy who just recently reorganized all of his books, you know, but the, the books that I go back to, and, and gravitate to, as you said, are usually books of poetry. I know it's easy to pick up a book of poetry and kind of go to your favorite poem or to a new poem. It doesn't take very long to do that. And so I'm always I enjoy getting new books of poetry and I enjoy going to them for inspiration. I've got a whole shelf full of books in the guestroom. That is a keep it in the guest room because it's a little bit embarrassing, but it's all kind of crime fiction, hardbacks that I've purchased in bookstores or in airports for travel. You know, it's a 26 hour flight, give or take three or four hours from America to Katmandu. And I always buy something in the bookstore before I take off. And it's usually some kind of really, I like to I like to think kind of highbrow crime fiction but it's always crime fiction. Okay, yeah,

Jason Moore 14:56
he go go with the dark stuff when you're traveling.

James C. Hopkins 15:00
All right. So so my bookshelf is full of that because that's, you know, the I land in Katmandu with a with a recently read book of crime fiction and it goes on the bookshelf, but it's it's not the only thing I read.

Jason Moore 15:14
Have you heard of UNESCO? He's a famous Norwegian.

James C. Hopkins 15:18
I just finished the red breast a couple of days ago, bought it in Bangkok and loved it couldn't put it down. 530 some pages of already reads just like a movie,

Jason Moore 15:33
usually popular author here. And I guess globally now, I should have it on my bucket list to read one of his books in Norwegian because you know, when you read the book in the original language, that's that's the real sort of representation of that, right, of course, the translations work. But there's something nice about being able to read it in the in the language that was written in, so I have to do that.

James C. Hopkins 15:57
So well, you know, please don't ask me for author's names. But I've been a huge fan of, you know, Scandinavian noir, Nordic Noir. You know, way before everybody else was into it, of course. But I really was a kid who loved detective stories and mystery books. And in the, in the, I guess, primary school that goes up to fifth grade, we had a library with a card catalog, you know, and I would go to the mystery section of the card catalog and I, I read every single mystery story in the card catalog in the library of that school. And I was infatuated with snow. And the idea of mergers occurring in snow and I would often go to bookstores in the small medium sized town where I was from and say, Do you have a book that is a murder mystery that takes place in snow? Automatically I ended up in your part of the world. Right? reading anything you know, anything that where there was snow and darkness and death so Norway

Jason Moore 17:12
there you go. We know a little bit about snow and darkness and death air. That's great.

James C. Hopkins 17:21
The pandemic of course was was a great time to catch up on all those TV shows, you know, that you guys have been putting out for so long from Norway and Sweden and you know, the the killing and the bridge and all that stuff that's become so popular.

Jason Moore 17:39
Well, listen, man, you gotta come. You gotta come over for visit. We'll tour some of the sites, you know,

James C. Hopkins 17:44
oh, it will be a a pilgrimage. Yes, absolute pilgrimage.

Jason Moore 17:48
Where did you grow up? You mentioned small, medium sized town what what town was that?

James C. Hopkins 17:54
I grew up in, in the United States in the state of Virginia. And if you put your finger right in the middle of the map of Virginia, you'll probably land on Lynchburg, Virginia. And it's, you know, it was a Tobacco Town. John Lynch, who was the founder of the town I think was a tobacco growing guy. My my mother's people all were kind of tobacco growers. And it's when I was growing up in Lynchburg. It was about 80,000 people and I think now it's probably you know, 85,000 Something like that. Maybe a little more than that. I'm joking, but it's not on any major interstate, but it is. It's kind of a medium sized town in rural Virginia. At the near the end of the Shenandoah Valley Blue Ridge Mountains that kind of place

Jason Moore 18:48
beautiful mountains. They're beautiful. I mean, you're you're a far away from Virginia, where you grew up. What? Alright, I want to get into this because you you've I don't know anything about how your journey to Katmandu and transpired. I know you spent 20 years working in I think stock investing and things like that. Are 20 plus years. Yeah. Can you talk about your career? And then I'm just curious, I'm curious about how you ended up doing what you were doing, and then how you ended up not doing it anymore?

James C. Hopkins 19:28
Well, absolutely, um, let's see. I kind of grew up in this in the 70s and went as I was heading to college in the 80s. So to give a little bit of a cultural timeframe. You know, and I grew up as a faculty child, a campus, a kid on a on a campus of A, as I said, an all boys boarding school in Virginia. I wasn't one of the boarding students. I was a faculty it, and I kind of also went to public school in town, but I wasn't really from town because I lived at that weird boarding school in the forest. So I always was a little bit of an outsider, I'm sort of just saying that as, as something that may be a kind of theme to, to the journey. But I was a good kid studied hard, went to a good college. And when you come out of, you know, Duke University in 1983, you want to work on Wall Street and make a lot of money, because that's what everyone was doing at that time. And, you know, it was Ronald Reagan, and greed is good, and all of that, that way of looking at the world. And that wasn't really who I was, I don't think I, I grew up with very, very wealthy amongst very, very wealthy kids at this boarding school. And I, you know, was a, you know, President of the investment club, and I take an economics classes and all that sort of thing. But I was actually a French language and literature major. I studied French. I went to school in Paris, I loved French literature, total humanities guy. And, but I had this kind of, you can say hobby or interest in investing. And, you know, I don't think you could ever do this now. But I kind of talked my way into a job on Wall Street. I had a friend who had a girlfriend who was receptionist at a at a big brokerage firm in New York City. And I literally bought it bought a suit, blue pinstripe striped suit, which I still have, you know, always a classic, never goes out of style. got on a bus and went to New York City and sat outside the manager's office with a little piece of paper that I put into my wallet, describing that of where I had written down the qualities that I felt might be important in in a Wall Street investment broker, assertive, confident and that kind of thing. And I was rehearsing and I went in, and I was assertive and confident and that's decision making that sort of thing and kind of literally talked my way into a desk with a phone and a phone book in Manhattan 1984 And did okay. And I and continue to work on. Worked for one company. It was Paine Webber, which was a well known independent brokerage firm at the time, later purchased by UBS in a Swiss bank, looking for an investment arm in America. So I technically worked for the same company for 23 years since getting off the bus in New York and 84 I guess, all the way to when I retired at the age of 45. I did I retired at a at a at an early age.

Jason Moore 23:19
Yeah, it was that always the plan? Or I'm curious how you were what these two worlds were like for you over the course of your career, because you kind of mentioned having this almost like moonlighting in the humanities in some ways, right? Like, you know, having this interest in poetry and all this stuff. But in your professional environment, your day to day environment, I mean, Wall Street and 80s and 90s That's, that's a pretty hectic environments, right? I mean, it could be I imagine high stress and there's a it's a totally different kind of vibe in some ways, not that there aren't people on Wall Street or interested in humanities and things like that, but you know what I'm saying it

James C. Hopkins 23:56
right, you know, I kind of put my head down and did what needs to be done and you know, pretended like I was all those things that I wanted to be confident assertive and decision maker and, and kind of money hungry young guy in Manhattan and I've cold called people and got clients and I was actually fairly successful at doing that. And I continued to work for that firm for a long time. But they're it's a very it's kind of a cookie cutter world, you can't step too far outside of what is expected, you know, nice shiny shoes and expensive suit and a fairly conservative outlook and, and that sort of thing. And so, I I was that for a long time. But then the more successful I became as an investment broker, the more the kind of real Jas started to show up and so somewhere in the in the late 90s, but by that time I had been, you know, working for for a while. I grew my hair long at a ponytail. If you if you walked into my office, I moved to Washington DC at some point, if you walked into my corner office on the on 15th and K streets in Washington DC, there would be a picture of the Dalai Lama, some Indian carpets, some Tibetan paintings of the various multi armed deities on my wall. And it was one of the one of the, one of the must, must stop in offices, on my managers never ending quest to recruit new brokers from other firms. And he would walk around the office and we always stop by and say, See, we hire all kinds of people

gradually, that that by kind of, let's say, real personality, emerged over over the course of many years. After about 1516 years, you know, the original Jas kind of emerged, the pinstripe suit disappeared a little bit. And one of my proudest moments in my 23 years, as an investment broker was, when I was able to con more than 40 investment brokers come to one of my poetry readings. It was, I offered free beer and wine, it was not far away to a little bookstore, almost across the street right next to a strip club. I said, Happy hour free beer, come to James's poetry reading. And it was filled with guys right out of work, as many several of whom the next day, sheepishly came into my office and said, Well, that's the first time I've ever been to a bookstore. Or that's the first time I've ever heard poetry. And so those two worlds did meet from time to time, and sometimes in in a really fun way.

Jason Moore 27:12
I mean, the way you were describing it, I don't know for some reason, the image of the the Michelangelo thing popped into my head, right, like he says, the you know, the David, he gets a block of marble, it's, he's just taking away what's already there, as opposed to making something. It that's what I'm hearing in a way, like, that's how you feel about it anyway, that you it wasn't like that you evolved into this person that's like, you were kind, you were this, this part of you was always there. And maybe there was a bit of just the environment, the times the societal expectations, all of that mix of things that is that? Yes. Right. I

James C. Hopkins 27:51
think it's exactly I think it's exactly like that, it's exactly like that, what what happened a little more specifically, in terms of making that transition is, although I had a very, very successful kind of outer world going, you know, I had a 59 foot yacht and a farm in Virginia, and a house out in Malibu, California, and in the canyons, all of that stuff that's supposed to make you happy, and I was very happy gone, you know, why not? Who wouldn't be happy with that? I always felt like a little bit of an imposter. You know, I wrote three books of poetry, after work in my office, you know, I would go out to dinner, and then I'd come back and, and, you know, go back to the office and, and, right, and I always felt with that. And that was my kind of real job. I was still in the big glass tower. But I was kind of doing what I was kind of meant to do, you know, secretly at nine. And so I was doing that. And it was somewhere along the way. I went traveling in India, and I went with a friend who had been there before, and she said, Well, let's go to let's go to the place where the Buddha got enlightened. And I said, Okay, sounds interesting. Let's go there. So we went there. And there was a, a flyer up on a tree announcing a five day teaching by a Tibetan lama. And she said, Oh, I know that Lama let's let's go listen to his teaching. And so I said, Well, sure. You know, you're cute, I'll do that. So we went and for five nights we listened to this llama teach and I was kind of blown away by not anything mystical, not some kind of incense filled room, although it was an incense filled room but by the kind of practical advice that I was hearing about how to how to be happier how to have a live a happy life, how to live a, a calm and and truthful and happy life. And not only that, this little guy who I later worked for, to give away the story was was one of the happiest people I've ever met. And I'm Yeah, I knew what happened to Tibet, I knew about, you know, the, you know, the Chinese kind of genocide and takeover, and everyone fleeing and all these llamas loot the Tibetans losing their country and, and I knew what had happened. And these people were still joyful, kind, calm. And I kind of wanted a little bit of that for myself. So I continued to go back to India, and Nepal and Tibet, almost every year for many years, started out as a two week trip, and became four weeks it became a month. And at one time, I went off to India for three months, while still having the corner office on corner 15k Street. And at one point, my, my girlfriend who was also a kind of corporate person, he and I said, well, maybe there's maybe there's something more and how much is enough? How much is enough? How much do you have to have to consider yourself happy. And maybe we should just call it enough and leave. And it was really a kind of a decision that what that came about, just came about one night. And suddenly, we got very excited about the idea of just checking out saying, that's it. Enough is enough, let's go somewhere else and do something else. And so it was, I think, several weeks later, we said, let's, let's make this thing happened. So we literally sat down

on the 59 foot yard with a with a bottle of wine and an A and a piece of yellow, legal pad paper. And we said okay, what are the names of all the cities in the world that we that might be interesting to live. And we saw down down the column you wrote, you know, San Francisco, Barcelona, Paris, Katmandu Charlottesville, Virginia, which is very close by and kind of interesting, all these places. And then across the top, we wrote the kind of qualities that we felt that might be interesting in a in a, in a good life. And, you know, access to friends, good food, ability just to study Eastern religions. That was a little bit of a thing. For her. She was an artist, you said a good light, you know, we said, okay, great. We've got, you know, 1010 or 12 cities and about 15 different qualities. Let's just do the math and then best, best light Well, clearly, Barcelona number two might be, you know, the city was where else two bottles of wine later. The thing was done and and we looked at it, and of course, the place that one was the place right down the road, Charlottesville, Virginia. No, no, no, we're not doing that. We just scratched it off the list. We're not doing that. But actually, the next two places were Barcelona and Katmandu. And so we said, yeah, that's it. We're going to leave and we're going to move to Barcelona or Katmandu. And we're going to we're just going to go, we had a little discussion, we said, well, we'll go to Katmandu first, then we'll go to Barcelona. So I literally walked into my boss's office and, and I've had, you know, as I mentioned, I was, you know, I loved my job and had a great relationship with the office and was was quite successful. And I was 43 years, 43 years old. And I said, I'm going to I'm going to retire I'm going to leave on a 45 because I had found something in the white on the website that said, if you had been working for the company for at least 20 years, which I had, and you're 45 years old, you can retire with full benefits. And I said in 18 months i i am going to retire and he could not believe it and nobody could believe it. But we did it anyway. We just pulled the plug now Um, I had seen a couple of people do that in the past and it didn't work out. Within six months, they were kind of freaking out, came back one guy that I knew contract, got his old job back, you know. So I, I had I prepared myself for a kind of began to phase out of the corporate world, and sort of phase into the next the next life and the way that we thought to do that was to go to school, to go from a corporate structure into another structure, which was the structure of a school and we and we found a school for for foreign kids for foreign people that was held inside of it Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Katmandu, called Rangoon Yasha. Institute, it had about 120 Students cut off from Norway, by the way. And it was mostly Europeans and some Americans. But it was a three year program where you sat on the floor, you were taught by Tibetan monks, in a traditional way, learning Sanskrit, Tibetan language, Buddhist philosophy, all of that, and we said, let's do that. So we read, when my 40/45 birthday came up, not not belonging after that, there was a retirement party. And I've walked out the door and never went back. Everyone back.

Jason Moore 36:43
That's amazing.

James C. Hopkins 36:46
Now, so that being said, I, one thing I should add is, I left on very good terms, and I do go back every summer to America. And I always go back to my old office to UBS and, and see people and go out to lunch and, you know, go out to dinner with with people who are still in that industry. And I have to say it is a at the Wall Street crowd is an absolutely lovely group of people, in many ways. And they have made what I do now, which is run a nonprofit for at risk kids and bring poetry, bring writers to Nepal to do workshops. And, and I have spent the last 15 years working in a Buddhist monastery, helping support the activities in monasteries, and that only could have happened and still does happen through the support of people from from Wall Street. So those worlds do do come together, in many different ways. Many surprising ways.

Jason Moore 37:43
Sure, yeah. And sometimes you don't know how that's going to be, of course, until much later, right? And you can connect the dots backwards or whatever. But what did the the experience on Wall Street in your career? What did you learn there? What are the things that you were able to take from there that have really benefited you in the work you do? Now,

James C. Hopkins 38:02
my main job, as you know, as a retail investment broker was to meet with people to listen carefully to, to them and, and to understand carefully, their, their say, their financial situation, their life situation, and hear what they were trying to accomplish with with in their own lives, whether that was to start and grow a business or provide education funding for their grandchildren, or leave it in state behind or, or grow their wealth, so that they could realize their own dreams, each person was different, and each person wanted something different out of their lives, and the ability to listen, listen carefully, and to understand what people are looking for. May makes it much easier to help them much easier to provide that help. And as I was to learn later, the more gentle side of helping others is the most important thing that one can devote one's life to and I had devoted my life to a little more, you know, hard edged side of helping others, you know, increasing people's wealth and accumulating and that sort of thing in a in a fairly competitive and Doggy Dog environment. But it's just another version of helping others and benefiting others and so that that aspect, the ability to listen and to really understand what people need in order to help them is is one thing, and the other thing is that I learned a lot about raising money and I when I came and checked into the monastery, I had this kind of fantasy that all that was over and now I was just going to, you know, meditate in a cave or something like that, you know, get some

Jason Moore 39:59
guys he'll have Yeah, what was gonna happen? Oh,

James C. Hopkins 40:02
totally, totally. And I kind of did that for, you know, for for a year and a half and, and then the abbot of the monastery, I think kind of heard there was this guy who use who knew something about money, you know, I'm sure he didn't really know what investment brokerage was, or Wall Street was, but he knew there was somebody who had some facility with money. And so a little group of people approached me about helping the monastery raise money. And I immediately said, No, I'm not going to do that, you know, I'm here, I'm here to get enlightened and, you know, and, and meditate. I

Jason Moore 40:41
don't want to be the money guy anymore.

James C. Hopkins 40:43
I don't do the money to hire more. And but nobody says no to the lamas. Right? You don't really do that. I said, No. And I had, I had a little bit of a little bit of an attitude when I relocate a lot of an attitude when it first came, so. And then six months later, they asked again, and I said, No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not working again, I'm not helping the lamas and not doing anything like that. About six months later, I was up in the lamas, quarters, you know, it's kind of incense filled room and it kind of enlightened guy at the front and all these people around him. And I was sort of asked again, could you please help and I, again, sort of politely declined. And as we were walking out, there was a guy caught up to me. And he was actually a Western, a guy who teaches at Boston College, he was also a Tibetan Lama, and he, and he said to me, Hey, you know, with his finger pointing me, Hey, you don't get it. And I said, I don't know what. And he said, You don't understand what's happening. If you have some kind of skill, you're supposed to use that skill to help other people. That's what you're supposed to do, and you're completely wasting your skill. Just like that, and I turned around and walked back in and I said, I'll do it. So for the next 10 years, I worked for the monastery as the director of development. And my job was to spend about eight years I think, traveling around the world with the Lama who's a well known teacher, as 10s, of 1000s of students all around the world, and meditation centers from Mexico to Russia, everywhere. And I, you know, was part of the entourage of translators and monks, and I would just travel with him. You know, for months and months and months of every year, I had the great benefit of being able to sit in, you know, Malaysia and receive kind of wonderful Buddhist teachings and be in Moscow and receive wonderful Buddhist teachings and being Mexican receive, I receive many, many days and months, and in fact, years of profound teachings on how to be a better person how to help well in the world, from this llama. And my job was to very gently be available. When donors, sponsors, wealthy people who around the world wanted to help support the activities of the monastery, help support the activities at the moment. So I was back to the money business. Back to

Jason Moore 43:31
it's, it's important, because people listening right now, or might be in a certain job that they, you know, maybe they want to leave because they're miserable, and they want to go travel or whatever the case is, or maybe they love it, but they're just done with it. I always feel like every, every experience has value, right? And you never know how that's going to play in to the things that you do in the future, right? Like, at the time when you were doing all this, you had no idea that you were going to put a lot of those skills to use to to be in service of this llama and disorganization and everything like that. So it's, it's just wild, how kind of how you can take things that you do in life and utilize them in other ways that you never would have could ever have imagined. Right?

James C. Hopkins 44:14
It's, that's absolutely right. And, and everyone has those skills, you know, everyone has some, something that they can do well, you know, whether it's facility with numbers or good with people or, you know, or just a desire to do something, everyone has that and if I have done anything, in my, you know, many incarnations in this lifetime that I've had, it is kind of knowing that I had certain skills, you know, inherent skills, and being willing to take risks and just make certain changes in order to let the let those skills you know, flourish again and You know, sometimes it looks like a piece of graph paper in the middle of the night. And sometimes it looks like turning around and walking back in to the room and saying, Yes, I will take this job. But you know, that there isn't, there hasn't been much any real magic Other than that, the ability to kind of little bit identify what I might have been good at. And also, just really, they're willing to take a risk and say, Yeah, I'm gonna try this now. And, you know, it, something always happens.

Jason Moore 45:34
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then when you when you mentioned, when you're sharing your story, and I mean, you mentioned, you know, the success you've had, I mean, this is pretty wildly successful. I mean, we can have a house in California, all these things, this is quite a high level of success in terms of money. And, and, you know, like you said, I mean, who would, who wouldn't love a house on the beach in Malibu, or whatever, you know, and all those things are great. So I'm just curious, when you when you moved overseas, and kind of started this sort of next chapter of your life? Did that, like change your relationship with sort of like possessions? And that sort of side of things? Yes, or? No? Wow,

James C. Hopkins 46:11
that's a really, that's a really great, great question. And I'm really very happy to ask that, because this story could just sound like a guy got rich, and then went and had fun, right? Like that's, that could sound like that. It's not really the story. Yes, I saved enough money to make some changes. My house was in the canyon in Malibu, not on the beach. No, I'm just saying you can subtract about $4 million, right. And also, also a to two things, two very significant things happen. One is that the real estate market in America completely collapsed. And that that lovely house that I had was worth significantly less than it was when I left. And all of my savings, which were in the stock market plummeted. And that would have in 2006 2008, and somewhere in that area, first, the market crashed, then then the housing crash, and I lost a significant portion of my assets. And when I say significant, you know, maybe more than half Sure, and that's a lot. And my girlfriend said, should we go back? Is it should be like this is I was building a house, you know, it was continued to finish the farm in Virginia, and it wasn't done and money was gone. And should we go back? And I I said I cannot go back. And the reason I said that was partly because I had retired and made a big deal out of it. Partly because, yes, as I think you hinted, I had come to a part of the world and I, I had already spent many, you can say years traveling here, but I moved to a part of the world where it's an extremely poor country, Nepal is an extremely poor country, usually in the top 10 poorest countries in the world. And I had also kind of serendipitously found my way to a relationship with an extremely impoverished community here and encampment of street beggars that I had started working with. And it came, the whole thing kind of came out of a a little bit cynical attitude that I brought from from my Wall Street days, which was we were studying in this monastery and always hearing about benefiting others doing everything for the benefit of all sentient beings, I would always raise my hand and say, Where I don't see it, I see a bunch of monks meditating where the soup kitchens where there are orphanages where the old folks home, I don't see any of it. And I would actually get a kind of what I thought was kind of the answer. Every time I did that. I would raise my hand and say you mentioned Mother Teresa, where there should be a million Mother Teresa's in Tibet. Where are they? I don't see them you're talking about a Catholic lady who you know created a the most beneficial a hospice work out of nothing except a bucket of water where is it? And finally I said something just about that rude to the Lama one morning and he and he also finger at the chest look

all I'm saying is go outside and the first person you see just help them that's all I'm saying is just go in the first person you see help them in whatever way you can. I said oh, okay, great. I'll try that sounds right. You know, in my in my like, Great opinion. It sounds right. So watch aside and one of these little street beggars came up to me and girl I'd seen him million times asked me for five rupees. Normally, I would have said no, you know, but today is the day I say yes. So I said, Yes, here's five rupees. She just started talking. She was very sweet. She said, Do you want to come to my house for tea? And of course, I would have said no. But today I've said, Sure, I'll come to your house. So this little kid led me down this through the village and down this path, in like through that suddenly, there was more and more garbage. And suddenly, I was in a place where I didn't never seen before. And we came around a corner and there was this encampment of about, I later learned about 500 people, Indian refugees, low caste, untouchable caste, who'd come up from India 30 years ago. And they were living in houses made of bamboo sticks and plastic, and cardboard. And everyone was drunk, fires burning everywhere, screaming, shouting, complete chaos. And she said, Oh, would you like some tea, and then somebody ran and got me a cup and cleaned it with their shirt, you know? And, like, made it a cup of tea. And I thought, what, you know, what am I doing here? I need to get out of here as quickly as possible, you know, and then then I remembered what the Lama said, you just go outside and whoever you see you help them in whatever way you can just do it. I thought, okay, deep breath, you know, and drank the tea. And, and I started going back to that village every day. And I didn't know what to do. I just, you know, I just showed up. And then as I started helping people with their houses, like, Oh, do you need some help, like, putting that plastic up? Or people then people started coming to me with medicine? Because it couldn't read, you know? And they say, is this the right medicine? And, you know, they would not have gone to a hospital for anything. So, and I was saying, No, Vitamin C is not really going to help, you know, your leg, you know. And so I, I brought down a big bottle of Advil. And I became like a doctor. Anyway, the point is, I started going to that camp every single day, for months at a time. And my girlfriend said, What are you doing? And I said, I don't know. But I'm doing something. And what happened was, I noticed a lady making bed covers and making a bed cover for her for somebody's wedding. And coming from Virginia, I thought, oh, that's that, that looks like a quilt, you know, one of the things my grandmother's friends used to make. And so I said to her, can I buy that quilt from you? And, of course, you know, bought it for a little bit of money, took it back to America, sold it to my mom. For 120 bucks. I said, you know, it's 120 bucks mom. And Mom has to buy everything. So mom bought the quill and came back with the money that went down to the camp. And I said to the lady, I bought that quote from you. I sold it in America. Here's the money. It's $120. What should we do with it? And if that's the kind of very confusing question in that community, you know, the first course she said, First, give it to my husband. And I said, No, no, no, we're going to do something with it. And no one could really figure it out. And, and so finally, that same girl who had tugged on my pant, you know, sure and took me take had taken me down to the camp, months before. She said, Well, my little sister wants to go to school. I said, Okay, great. So I took the little kid by the hand, we walked down to school, and I said to the principal,

how much does it cost to put this kid in school? And he said, $100. And I said, $100 a month? And he kind of looked at me like I was crazy. He said, No, there's $100 for the whole year. And what How's how's that even possible? So that's what we did. We took enroller for 100 bucks, the other 20 bucks. We bought some shoes, you know, books backpack and sent her to school. Then I thought, well, this. Let's do that again. So there were other women making these bed covers, and I took them back to America. So just some friends came back, put a few more kids in school, and that was about 16 years ago. And that little, very, very simple project has evolved into something that projects that I call it is called quilts for kids, Nepal, it's a registered charities nonprofit and we give jobs to about 25 women making bed covers which they have traditionally made forever. I market them around the world websites, pop up stores, house parties. grassroots stuff. And we've got 65 kids in school we've taken mostly girls, we've taken all the, all the begging kids off the street in that community. They just nobody. None of the kids who can go to school are begging. They're all in school. We have a girl in nursing college, here in Katmandu, we've got a kid in cooking school. An 18 year old, who is in teacher training school, and our biggest success is our oldest kid, we actually were able to send to college in the US. And she's now setting at a women's college in Virginia, near my hometown. So, so what evolved as kind of cynical, you know, what are you talking about helping people, which was the attitude that I brought from Wall Street, to, to just shut up and do it, which is the attitude that I learned here, I was able to combine a little bit of business skills into something that is helping a whole different set of people now, and through the great kindness of our many, many friends around the world who support this very grassroots little project, including a bunch of Wall Street, people who buy quilts from time to time, we have changed the nature of this little encampment. And from a, from a community where no one had ever put one toe inside of school. All the kids are in school now. Some of them are getting careers and, and the fabric of the community is changing.

Jason Moore 56:45
Wow. Wow. What a beautiful story. On so many levels. Yeah, well, we have to let we're going to include that link in the show notes. I should mention the link quilts for kids project.com some beautiful work there. They have the speech was not good for a podcaster to be speeches,

James C. Hopkins 57:07
I'm sorry, I talked so long. It was a long story. But I love that it's it's I hope there was something in there interesting about, you know, take again, taking that was also a chance, you know, Lama said, Go and do something, just shut up and do something. And so I shut up and did something. Yeah, you went and

Jason Moore 57:27
you know, like your girlfriend was asking you, you know, what are you doing? And you're like, I don't know. And that's kind of part of that process, too. It's like, you're just being present and trying to absolutely right, be there and see where it takes you. That's not it's not an easy thing to do. Especially I think, coming from the Western mindset of like, you know, I think our mindset is a little bit more maybe regimented or more methodical in terms of like, hey, you know, alright, well, we're gonna, we're gonna do this project, or we're going to do this, we got to do these 10 things, and like, that's just kind of how we get things done. Right. And that's

James C. Hopkins 58:00
absolutely right. I think that my experience has been, you know, like, like travel itself, when you journey into an unknown place. And you just say, I'm here now. And no, I haven't made all of my bookings on Agoda. And no, I haven't, like, gotten my day planned out. And you just walk out the door. It's, it's at those moments of wood that where you walk into the unknown, but with an open mind, and, and, and sort of heart this open sometimes, that's when the most rewarding and most rich travel experiences occur. And I think it's also when the most rich experiences in life occur. And most opportunities occur, I think there's a real parallel between the way that one travels and the way that one travels through this sort of journey of life.

Jason Moore 58:52
What is it that attracted you to Buddhism? Are you a monk, are you a Buddhist monk? Are you considered?

James C. Hopkins 58:59
No, no, not not at all, in any way. But, but, but I can just I can say that becoming a monk or becoming a nun is just one of many methods that are available within the Buddhist tradition, methods towards enlightenment or awakening or being a better person, whatever you want to say. One doesn't have to do that in order to attain some kind of liberation from the, you know, from the from the shifter all caught up in, in life. It's one method, what attracted me to Buddhism was actually something that was more of a kind of recognition of something that I had already felt growing up as a as a Christian. You know, I went to an Episcopal boys school where I were, you know, what did you do every day started with going to chapel. I was a good kid and went to church. Every Sunday I was, you know, came up in a very Christian household and I, even at one at one time, toyed with the idea of going to divinity school. So I had a kind of it was one of my last college years, you know, maybe I'll just go to Duke Divinity. But, so I had a little spiritual spiritual connection. But anyway, fast forward to, you know, being an adult, and, you know, had these sort of moments of sitting on the beach, in Malibu and kind of looking out at the ocean and thinking, wow, you know, everything is vast and open, and everything seems to be kind of connected. And wow, my mind is really calm here beside the ocean, you know, this kind of experiences. And it was on a trip to Japan once where I was trying to learn about the country of Japan Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. And so I thought, well, I'll check out this Buddhism thing, and I went to a Zen monastery and tried to do a little meditation, and I thought, oh, that's that thing, I felt sitting at the edge of the ocean, you know, that thing where, you know, you're calm, and everything's kind of connected. And, wow, you know, this is a thing. And so it was more of a kind of recognition of something that I had already felt and experienced. And I wanted to understand that more and more. And so I went back and joined a little meditation group, and you know, and kind of started exploring it that way. It wasn't until that trip to India that I mentioned, where I fully got trapped into thinking, I really want to learn this philosophy, as a way of life as a way of changing, getting rid of some of my hang ups, getting rid of some of my issues, and, and allowing a kind of better version of myself to emerge. That happened a little later, but sitting on the beach thing was pretty close to Buddhism.

Jason Moore 1:02:07
Yeah, well, what would you say, you know, at this moment in time, right now, what are what are maybe the biggest things that Buddhism has taught you, either about yourself or just about your, your place in the world? Or all of us, you know, what, what are some of the those kinds of things that continually pop up in terms of your sort of day to day life, and then things that you kind of lean on as maybe philosophies or that you really kind of embraced?

James C. Hopkins 1:02:37
I know what my answer is, I'm going to try to explain how I got to it, or how one might get to it. I just kind of came into a system with some vague idea that I wanted to change, create some interchange for the better, you know, and it that it might, what my day looks like is getting up early in the morning and sitting down and doing, you know, 20 minutes of meditation, doing some of yoga and studying and that kind of thing. But it was, you know, a few years ago, I was sitting during my 20 minutes in the morning, and I thought, wow, it's kind of a gap between my thoughts here. And I had been told there would be that that would happen someday. And between the time that I was told that would happen, and the time I actually experienced it here, living in Katmandu, having worked for the monastery for, you know, 15 years. It was 18 years later. It was 18 years later that I actually saw some results, right. So it takes it is a thing that takes a lot of work and takes a lot of daily work. But what what I to answer your question, compassion, the wish to benefit others that wish to be kind to others, that I kind of got intellectually and that I kind of had a lot of resistance to, I thought, yeah, me helping a bunch of poor people is compassion. No, that's not actually compassion. That's, that's you helping a bunch of poor people, which is a nice thing to do. But there's a big difference between that and recognizing the universality of the human condition, which is nothing ever really works out the way you want it to. You can call it suffering, you can call it like, you know, I my Martini wasn't made the way I really like, or you can call it I don't have 10 cents to buy dinner is all the same thing, right? It's all in that realm of everyone is in the same boat, and everyone but not everyone has the tools to to change that no one Not everyone has the tools to change that within themselves. And therefore the ability to, to help them to help other people to be a kind person to be a good person. Oh, that's tough and you read about that is, I would say, and I think my friends would say, is possibly what I've gotten the most out of this. And what I still try to cultivate on a daily basis, our mutual friend, Eric Weiner, who was on your show not long ago, had featured me in one of the chapters of one of his books, he come over here, and that's how we met. And as he would say, seems like you're a lot less of an asshole than you used to be. So you can call that learning to be a compassionate person. That's what I call it now. And that's that, cultivating that, that aspect of Buddhist philosophy as well, as course, calming the mind, which is available everywhere, on every street in every country, in mindfulness and the ability to calm the mind, but really working with the idea of trying to help other people really from because of the universality of suffering in the way that we're all kind of in the same, the same boat, and we really need to help each other. This is the great lesson that I've learned. And this is the one that I'm trying to sort of work on every day. Yeah.

Jason Moore 1:06:36
What kind of advice? Would you give somebody listening, who's maybe they feel like they are searching for something, or the next thing, kind of open to some new directions or possibilities in life, which I think, you know, is all of us, to some extent, in some way, shape or form? For better or worse, right? Like, should we be always looking for the next thing? That's a whole other question to unpack? Right? How do you navigate that in terms of your intuition, or openness, combined with the practicality of execution? I think your story, what you did for the community, there really exemplifies what I'm kind of imagining in my head, because it's like you, you kind of had this open intention of just helping people yet over sort of time and openness and intuitive kind of, I don't know, I'm just gonna keep going. It kind of morphed into this thing, although there, you also took the practical steps. So it's always like a tricky balance, you know?

James C. Hopkins 1:07:35
Yeah, you're asking a lot of questions there. And

Jason Moore 1:07:38
I know, I'm too bad. That's, that's the worst thing.

James C. Hopkins 1:07:43
Okay, it's okay. But I think one way of answering that is, it's something that we touched on a little bit earlier, which is, I think that, that most of the great changes that that people make in life, are usually the result of sort of stepping into the unknown. And I think travel is really, really one of the keys to doing that. I did not come from a traveling family, my parents did not go on, you know, big vacations, we never went on vacation as a family ever. I kind of, you know, I did school year abroad in France, and that was really the first time I ever was on my own. And, man, I never looked back, I became a avid traveler. And even here, you know, working in, you know, as a, you know, a nonprofit organization guy and a guy that tries to help monasteries, you know, 10 countries a year, pre COVID, I mean, I absolutely enjoy the act of stepping off of a plane into the unknown. So, to put that on, on a more practical level, for people who don't travel so much, put your phone down. Number one, get away from that thing that distracts your mind, and becomes the method by which you constantly reinforce what you know, my music, my friends, my website, all of that stuff. Is is a is a constant reinforcement of what is already the self and what is already known. Put down the phone just put it upside down, you know, and walk out the door. And if you want to walk really really far just keep walking really far. And one when one steps out of that thing that is constantly being reinforced, which is your you know, you should go to a good school and and get a good job on Wall Street because that's what people do. Or you should go to monastery and studying become a monk or you should run a nonprofit organization in this particular way. As soon as those Things start to keep being concretized. It's, it's time to step again, into the thing that you don't really know everything about. And through that possibilities arise, the new interests arise, and the sort of magic of being in the world arises from.

Jason Moore 1:10:24
Yeah, I mean, of course, Buddhism philosophy, a lot of stuff around detachment, I'd say, and what you're describing is the idea of detaching from everything you think you might know,

James C. Hopkins 1:10:37
in a way, I would use the word non attachment rather than detachment. And because the detachment kind of implies a stepping away from an actually, non attachment means being in the world experiencing all of that experiencing the suffering, the joy, the great concert, the terrible wine, or whatever you're experiencing, but just not getting too caught up in it. And, and so, I'm, I used to, I used to, you know, try to sort of stay away from all the bad things, you know, and I was obviously a little talk to some of my friends. I used to do I refuse to use email. In my office, I told my clients, I'm, you're on the phone, from, you know, seven in the morning till midnight, call me it's a me human. How stupid is that? You know? So, like, you can't not use email. But that went on for years. Right? I put my clients, former clients still give me a hard time about that. But, but no, it's not, that would be a kind of detachment. Right? The idea is, yeah, I've got a nice iPhone 12 Right here. And, you know, but I keep it off most of the time, I keep it in another room a lot of the time. You know, being in the world, but just being a little bit non attached to all of these things. What I have to do, what people expect me to do, you know, like all of those things that required attached to me finding my happiness, finding my bliss. Even that, right. It's a matter of experiencing it, but not grabbing on to a too tight and from that lack of grabbing, something always comes up unexpected.

Jason Moore 1:12:35
Are there any particular fears you have right now that you'd like to overcome?

James C. Hopkins 1:12:40
Fear? I've talked too much in your podcast.

Jason Moore 1:12:46
No such thing. No such thing?

James C. Hopkins 1:12:50
Well, here's how I like to overcome. That's, that's interesting question. I have spent a lot of a lot of time trying to overcome fears, whether it's fear of someone not liking me, fear of not doing what I'm supposed what I'm supposed to do. Those kind of fears. I've jumped out of airplanes, I've done all that kind of fear stuff. Not that anymore. Okay. It's a little bit of fear. And this is a real answer for myself personally, the fear of not doing what I now want to do, which is to kind of get get rid of, you know, some of my less desirable qualities, you know, I still on this kind of journey of wanting to become a better person, wanting to know how to help a little bit more. So it's a fear of kind of wasting my time watching too much Nordic noir on Netflix, you know, border land, man that shows X. Excellent. Wow. But no, which is just a fear, just kind of wasting, wasting time. And not, not addressing the things that need to be addressed in a life becoming wiser, even at an older age, becoming Kinder at any age. That's really it. Yeah,

Jason Moore 1:14:22
you think about self improvement, which I believe in and then I also think it's sometimes there's this line where you have to have this self acceptance, but then you also want to improve so

James C. Hopkins 1:14:37
that that constant struggle to improve is, is really one of those. It's a little bit of a trap, you know? Like the, the wanting to improve is kind of what took me out of my medium sized town in Virginia, to Wall Street and out of Wall Street to a monastery out of the monastery to kind of helping in the world. are old. So of course, this is the thing by which we are, we're successful humans, yes. And it's, it's a good thing. At the same time, it's a little easy to get, I find it easy to get caught up in like, Okay, now it's time to meditate and do yoga, you know, like, you're kind of scheduling it in to the rest of your day. And that sort of defeats the idea of just letting go. Letting Go and relaxing into the space of being in the world. And, you know, the secret message is, is by doing that, that you actually do improve. So at a certain at a certain point, self improvement is very helpful, at another point, to letting go of all the self improvement, to letting go of that becomes even more helpful.

Jason Moore 1:15:58
I want to talk about your writing workshops, so we can let people know and this is what I found out about these. And I really want to get to these one of these one day. But you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you for a little of advice around money. I mean, all travelers need money to travel, right? You have a wealth of experience, pun intended, managing money, investing, all that good stuff. So, you know, if you can lay out loud, some, you know, rules of thumb here for us, or just some, you know, drop some knowledge here. James,

James C. Hopkins 1:16:31
I love that question. A question here, I still travel quite a lot, I just got back from a month and a half in Thailand. Here's my advice for traveling, spend most of your time in as cheap, a place as possible, and spend as little as possible. But along the way, absolutely splurge on, on the experience of the place that you're in, for example, I spent about a month in a $12 night, one room for a bungalow that had a lot of geckos on the wall and that kind of thing. And, you know, I would go out and eat, I would eat street food, I never went into a restaurant, I would pay $2.80 You know, an evening for you know, some some street, what in Thailand is quite easy to get great street food, of course, right? The street food in Thailand as good as any restaurant. So, you know, super low end, where I lay my head at night, super low end eating, except, you know, I would during the day, I would hire a boat, just me. And you know, and maybe a guide, and I would and I would say let's, let's go to those islands out there. And I would spend the day going out and visiting these islands and that boat might be a little bit more expensive, you know, to especially to go by myself, but not very expensive. And then I would go then I'm going back to Bangkok. Found my favorite $10 Night place where I've been staying for 20 years where they know me when I come in great street food. And then you know, I would treat myself to I always like to go down for sunset cocktails at the Oriental Hotel, which is nicest hotel in Bangkok, right on the edge of the choppier river. I always make it a point to go there and make sure I have some nice shoes. Nice shoes, be in the city or the the place that you want it want to be in. Don't spend a lot of money on where you're staying or what you're eating. But when it comes time to seeing what that place is really offering like beautiful islands, or museums, or even a fancy hotel lunch at the George San Coachella in Paris, just do it. Let's do it. Don't spend your money on the wrong thing.

Jason Moore 1:19:07
Do you miss anything about living back in the States? Are you most of the year in Katmandu, and then traveling and then a little bit in the States? How does your typical year look like?

James C. Hopkins 1:19:18
That's exactly right. I used to spend two or three months of the year in America, visiting family and friends and raising money for the clothes for kids project. And I usually spend the winter in Thailand, USA just send a little shack on the beach somewhere doing doing some kind of meditation retreat, because it's very cold again during the winter. But the spring and the fall I use has been traveling. I love to go and go to new countries when there's not a pandemic happening. Also, as part of that traveling, I started this writing workshop project which he mentioned called Himalayan rock Writers Workshop. And what what I've found that I missed about America was the great literary community that you find in the big cities. And I lived in New York and in LA in DC and always amazing literature and as I'm living in Katmandu, which is a city of 3 million people. And there is a pretty vibrant Nepali literary community. But sadly, and I'm very embarrassed to even say this, but I don't speak Nepali well, and I don't appreciate Nepali, the plethora of Nepali literature the way that I should. So my solution to that was to bring a bunch of writers over here that speak English. So, so, so about six or seven years, six years, seven years ago, now I started something called Himalayan writers workshop, which is where I invite well known writers are well known teachers of writing, to come to Kathmandu valley and to bring people who might be interested in studying with him for 10 days, working one on one with him for 10 days to come along with them. So there's always a featured writer, kind of well known writer. And then there's always people who are interested in writing, who wants to study with that featured writer. Sometimes I'm also one of the featured writers, when we're talking about poetry, I use the am one of the featured writers. But what I've created is a kind of 10 day writing experience where people leave their home country come to a very exotic, very beautiful place called Katmandu, they switch off their phones, for the most part. And we start out kind of in a little bit of a comfortable place for a few days getting to know each other and, and getting to experience some of the, you know, temples and sites nearby. But then we kind of do a deep dive into the unknown, where you walk out into the streets of a city filled with cows and motorcycles and kids and holy men in the streets and, and you have the rug pulled out from under you. You aren't back at home, in your at your desk writing looking at your garden, you you are experiencing with all the senses. Then we do meditations that encourage, encourage that type of awareness as well. And then for the last few days, we go up into the mountains, where you can see the snow peaks and we sort of process everything. So I've created these little journeys. And on the last night we come back down to the Kennedy Valley, and we do a public reading. And I invite all my friends and all of us literature and performance hungry expats who live here are satisfied.

Jason Moore 1:23:07
Man, I can totally relate to this just this idea of you know, wanting to have a certain thing when you're living abroad just being like alright, well, it's not here, so I'm going to create it. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring them to me. Exactly right. That's awesome.

James C. Hopkins 1:23:21
Like, I can make like good like good chocolate or decent cheese. Sometimes you just have to import it.

Jason Moore 1:23:28
Oh, yeah. Or in my case Cheez Its and Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers, you know, absolutely. Trader Joe's chocolate area. Free clods for all those companies. Well, you mentioned poetry and well, by the way, we'll, we'll leave the links to the Himalayan writers workshop as well. You can check those out. I really appreciate your time. I know you you write poetry? You're into poetry. I was wondering if you could maybe maybe share a little bit or leave us with a little bit of poetry or wow, I don't know if you sure if some?

James C. Hopkins 1:24:02
Sure. Absolutely. That's um, that's not a question that I expected. But would you like me to read sort of one of one of my own poems?

Jason Moore 1:24:14
Oh, yeah. You have a you have four books on poetry, right?

James C. Hopkins 1:24:20
Yes, I have five five books my poetry and and a new one coming out soon. Called ex violinist in Katmandu. It's kind of collected. It's a book of 15 years of collected poetry in and about Katmandu. So that'll be coming out soon. But my, my favorite poem that I've written is a poem that actually has to do some some to do with travel. And it's about stepping into the unknown, and it's about I think, perhaps exactly what we've been talking about, you know, today, taking taking risks and kind of where that leads you in, in life and the poem has a kind of form. I'm showing it to you. Oh yeah, cool. To the readers is kind of a meandering path. And the title of the poem is Home is where where it could be home is where my first few footprints have now filled with rain, and flowers blown in from the garden next door. My guidebook recommended breakfast bars, locks, and tiny tablets. In the end, I brought only air, just space for vision. And my special reverse camera that only takes photos of my eyes. No Martini anecdotes of parallel and wonder. No answers to all the cocktail questions. Did you have a did you visit? Well, when I was? Well, there used to be no tinctures or ambulance for new breeds of bugs, no handmade journals in optimistic colors. I am carrying a peach and a transparent passport. And the woman in the photo is my twin. I have paced off the landscape, one bead at a time. I have determined the curve of the sky. I approached the house backwards. The door is an ocean. I reached for the handle and stepped into light. Beautiful,

Jason Moore 1:26:48
thank you so very much for sharing that. And thank you for asking today. Yeah, wonderful. And I really appreciate you just Yeah, spending the time to get on. And I'm excited to hear that this was your first podcasts you totally crushed. By the way.

James C. Hopkins 1:27:06
Thank you so much for having me on. It's been so fun. And again, I feel like I've talked way too much. But I appreciate the opportunity to share what I know. And thank you so much for having

Jason Moore 1:27:19
Thank you, man. Get a little namaste here. And I would love to do this in person again, at some point, maybe we can make that happen one day. So

James C. Hopkins 1:27:29
absolutely.

Jason Moore 1:27:30
Appreciate your time. All right, let's keep in touch.

James C. Hopkins 1:27:34
Let's keep in touch

Jason Moore 1:27:40
very habit. Thank you, James, for making zero to travel your very first podcast, I'm honored and it was such a gift to be able to hop on and have this conversation and also a gift to share it with you the listener here my friend, it's always a really as a gift week in and week out to be able to publish this episode and know that people out there listening to it. And as I mentioned at the top, get in touch anytime, so much to unpack from this interview. And I love that these these small moments, these serendipitous moments, if you want to call them that, or just these moments where James chose to heat somebody's advice, right? And where it led him in his life. So cool and a lot around non attachment attachment, that some of the stuff there, I find that non attachment in many ways is is built in to the travel lifestyle, right? You, you kind of go from place to place, you don't have a lot of possessions if you're on the road for extended periods of time. And some of that practice is is built in you almost it's almost forced, right. It's just one of the many aspects of travel that I think carries beyond just the trip itself. It's something that, at least for me, has carried with me throughout my life, even my settled life. So I'm wondering what you got from this interview what this interview made you think about get in touch Jason is here to travel.com or just drop me a voicemail. That's the easiest, and I get to hear your voice. Let me know what you thought. What stood out to you perhaps what takeaways you had perhaps one moment in your life that changed forever from a small interaction or something you read. I would love to hear that. So maybe that would be the challenge I'll throw out there. If you do want to get in touch this answer that question and share a moment in your life where everything changed for you. I'd love to hear that. Now, that moment for me. As I promised at the top I would share there was a time where somebody said shut up and do something and that's somebody is my friend Emily over at potty like.com. She runs a big website for multi potential lights over there. We've had her on the show. You've probably heard her her name before if you've been listening for a while and I remember at one point I was talking about this podcast endlessly wanting to start a podcast Has wanting to help people travel wanting to interview people and have conversations, on and on and on for months, I talked about it. And then she literally said, Jason Shut up, and do it either shut up, or do it, basically. And I was like, Okay, well, I mean, this is like, Emily's like a gentle soul. You know, she's not usually the tough love gal. But she's, you know what, shut up. And I'm like, All right, I took that to heart, I'm going to shut up. And I'm going to do it or No, I'm not going to shut up. I'm going to talk because it's a podcast, but I'm going to do it. And I did it. And it changed my life forever. So thanks, I want to shout out to Emily for telling me to shut up and do something. So, you know, sometimes it's hard as a friend, to be the friend that says, shut up to somebody else, and do something but that tough love can help at the right moment in time. Right. Lastly, I'm gonna leave you with a quote, before I let you go. Might as well be from the Dalai Lama. Why not? One other thing, you know, the the idea of just using your skills to help others from the top of the show, that that was something that really resonated with me and the fact that you could just do that in small ways, right? I think sometimes, it's easy to over dramatize the impact we want to have, but we can use our skills in small, simple ways to help others. And that that was a big takeaway for me. So again, feel free to share yours get in touch anytime. All right, this quote from the Dalai Lama, pretty famous one every day think as you wake up today, I am fortunate to be alive. Have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. Get out there. Enjoy the day. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. Cheers.

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