Killing Sacred Cows Blog

"Always make your contribution bigger than your reward." -Dan Sullivan

When it comes to your personal prosperity, one of the most important things you can learn and internalize is the critical difference between Consumers and Producers. The decision to become a Producer, no matter what life throws at you, will determine your prosperity more than any other factor.

Read the definitions below and identify areas in your life where you may be consuming more than you produce, and strive to reverse that. Furthermore, think of how your current Consumer mindset in those areas may be influenced by scarcity thinking, and strive to cultivate the abundance mindset instead.

Consumer: One who consumes more value than he or she produces. Because consumers focus on what they get instead of what they can give, they avoid responsibility, they depend on others for their happiness, and they rarely create real value.

Consumers operate in scarcity, so they view the world through eyes that see poverty and limitations. They think there isn’t enough to go around, so they should get what they can before it all runs out. They take and leave nothing in place of what they take.

They often feel victimized by other people and external circumstances when they don’t get what they think they should. They believe that material things, not people, have intrinsic value.

Because they feel entitled to everything that is given to them, they are poor stewards and allow their human life value to degenerate.

Security to consumers is based on things outside of themselves and their choices. It is anything and everything they can think of: the government, their bosses, their company, their parents or grandparents, their 401(k), etc.

When things go wrong, nothing is ever their fault—they place blame and avoid responsibility. Security to them is the expectation that someone somewhere will always take care of them and make things right somehow. They believe in luck and misfortune, not choice and accountability.

Consumer Condition: A worldview that emphasizes scarcity, win-lose transactions, fear, selfishness, dependence, ownership, accumulation, destruction, luck, and entitlement.

Producer: One who produces more value than he or she consumes. Producers are the responsible, innovative, and creative people who create all of the products and services that we buy and use.

They are more concerned with giving than with receiving. They practice enlightened self-interest, the belief that the way to bring ourselves the most happiness is to serve others.

They are happy, wealthy, and successful, or they are on their way to becoming so. Producers lift, bless, serve, and contribute to everything good in the world. Producers always leave things better than they found them, even if they weren’t responsible for the destruction that they fix.

Producers know that people, not material things, have intrinsic value. They love people and use material things to serve others. They operate in abundance, and they view the world through eyes that see limitless possibilities for value creation.

They are wise stewards over everything that they have been blessed with.

Producer Paradigm: A worldview that emphasizes abundance, win-win interactions, faith, service, interdependence, stewardship, utilization, creation, accountability, and value creation. 

“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”    -George Bernard Shaw

Scarcity Mindset: The belief that resources are limited, and the world is a stage for a zero-sum game of accumulation. In a zero-sum game, anything that another wins is no longer available to all others playing the game. Further, these winnings are not replaced or transformed into anything of equivalent or greater value that remains in the game, available to other players. In scarcity, ownership by another means the loss of opportunity for oneself.

When our actions are based on a scarcity mindset, we are acting on fear: fear that we won’t get our fair share, that somebody else will reap rewards that we won’t, or that we’ll have to fight tooth and nail against others to achieve the level of success or prosperity we desire. And this fear causes us to make irrational decisions (especially when it comes to our finances) that limit our potential rather than enhance it.

In a world of possible freedom, joy, abundance, and service, a scarcity mindset cripples us and aids us in seeing not much more than limitations, suffering, poverty, and selfishness.

Abundance Mindset: The belief that there are more than enough resources to fulfill the desires of all the people within a society. At the heart of abundance is a belief in human ingenuity and human value, and a dedication to applying as much of your own value and ingenuity as you can to improve your society and reap the rewards.

The abundance paradigm helps you see the possibility of and the value in win-win exchanges and transactions. People who are operating in abundance know that by serving the wants and needs of others, and thus creating happiness in the lives of others, they actually bring more happiness to themselves. The goal is to serve others, not to exploit or dominate them. They are able to serve wholeheartedly and completely because they know that by so doing, they aren’t in any way diminishing their own happiness; in fact, they are generating more happiness and success in their own lives.

In an abundance paradigm, we fulfill our needs and wants by helping others fulfill their own; transactions are always win-win. In abundance, all of our thoughts, words, emotions, and actions are motivated by contributing to our personal success and the success of others. In abundance, no one is jealous or envious of another’s money; there is infinite wealth to be created and put to use.

 

“Riches secured on the competitive plane are never satisfactory and permanent; they are yours today, and another’s tomorrow. Remember, if you are to become rich in a scientific and certain way, you must rise entirely out of the competitive thought. You must never think for a moment that the supply is limited. Just as soon as you begin to think that all the money is being “cornered” and controlled by bankers and others, and that you must exert yourself to get laws passed to stop this process, and so on; in that moment you drop into the competitive mind, and your power to cause creation is gone for the time being; and what is worse, you will probably arrest the creative movements you have already instituted.” - Wallace D. Wattles

How does your paradigm affect how you treat yoursef and others?

Scarcity is characterized by adversarial, win-lose relationships. When people compete in scarcity they try to do so at the expense of others. Those in scarcity say or believe things like, "It's a dog-eat-dog world," or, "If you want a piece of the pie, you have to take it from other people." They feel they have to take from others to get what they want. They believe that there are never enough resources to serve all human desires.

In abundance, however, you fulfill your needs and wants by helping others to fulfill theirs; it’s always win-win. In abundance all your thoughts, speech, emotions, and actions are motivated out of love and faith. You look for opportunities to serve and give, rather than to take. You know that helping others to get what they want is the best way to get what you want. You know that there are always enough resources to fulfill all human desires.

Scarcity leads to pride, jealousy, envy, selfishness and covetousness. Abundance, on the other hand, leads to humility, confidence, and service. You cannot be jealous or envious of someone’s looks or money in abundance because you know that there are infinite forms and expressions of beauty, and infinite wealth to be accessed and utilized.

Those in scarcity often feel threatened or insecure when people disagree with them. Those who are the most secure are enjoying a high degree of the abundance paradigm. When you are in abundance, you don’t feel insecure about anyone disagreeing with your views, even if they are wrong and are at direct odds with principle.

The more abundant you are the more secure you are, and when you feel secure you are more able to get outside of yourself and listen to and deeply understand others. This in turn dramatically increases your ability to get others to listen to you. As James Allen said, “The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater his success, his influence, his power for good…The strong, calm man is always loved and revered.”

Become a "strong, calm" man or woman by ridding yourself of scarcity thinking and embracing the abundance paradigm.

Questions: (Score 1 - 10) (Watch the video as I walk you through the exercise)

1. How often do you worry about money?
2. Do you feel like your finances are perfectly organized?
3. Are you being paid for living your soul purpose?
4. Do you have enough money coming in from your portfolio income to cover your expenses?
5. What percentage of your income comes from you working in your Soul Purpose?
6. If you were to lose the ability to generate income today, would you have enough funds available to keep your same lifestyle?
7. What percentage of your income is supporting or investing in your Soul Purpose?

How are you limited by fear? Is it keeping you from living your ideal life?

Paul Slovic , a psychologist at the University of Oregon, has spent decades studying how we decide what’s risky and what isn’t. His studies have shown that how risky something actually is has almost nothing to do with how risky we think it is.

Slovic has demonstrated that people think skiing is safer than flying on a commercial aircraft, that smoking is less dangerous than being around handguns, that nuclear power plants are riskier than cars.

Think about these questions: Do more Americans die of suicide or homicide? Which is more lethal, kidney disease or AIDS?

According to the U.S. Government, in the year 2000 nearly twice as many people killed themselves as were murdered, and kidney diseases caused nearly three times as many deaths as AIDS. Although Americans consistently rate nuclear power as one of the most dangerous of all technologies, it’s actually safer by any objective measure than most other forms of power. And two of the deadliest things in America are cigarettes and cars; auto accidents alone kill an average of 115 Americans every day.

So, what do you fear? Public speaking? Failure? Selling? Think of something that you fear, a fear that is limiting your production, then ask yourself the following questions:

1. What's the worst possible thing that could happen if my fear occurs?

2. What's the worst possible thing that could happen if I never overcome or eliminate this fear?

3. What's the best possible outcome I can expect if I don't overcome or eliminate my fear?

4. What's the best possible outcome I can expect if I do overcome or eliminate my fear? 

What possibilities would unfold in your life if you were to face and overcome your fears?

“Over the years, an investor’s financial objectives and tolerance for risk may change. An investor with a longer time horizon may be willing to take more risk for potentially greater reward than one with a shorter time horizon…Generally, the riskier the investment, the greater its possible reward.”

-Taken from a marketing piece of a leading financial institution

How can you increase your investment returns? Is it by increasing your risk, as so many financial professionals and institutions teach?

To say that to increase your returns you must increase your risk is like saying that if you want to increase your chance of winning you must increase your chance of losing. It makes no logical sense.

Peter Drucker, widely known as the "father of modern management," shares a story in his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship that drives the point home. He writes:

"A year or two ago I attended a university symposium on entrepreneurship at which a number of psychologists spoke. Although their papers disagreed on everything else, they all talked of an 'entrepreneurial personality,' which was characterized by a 'propensity for risk-taking.'

"A well-known and successful innovator and entrepreneur...was then asked to comment. He said: 'I find myself baffled by your papers. I think I know as many successful innovators and entrepreneurs as anyone, beginning with myself. I have never come across an ‘entrepreneurial personality.’ The successful ones I know all have, however, one thing—and only one thing—in common: they are not ‘risk-takers.’ They try to define the risks they have to take and to minimize them as much as possible. Otherwise none of us could have succeeded.'"

Drucker continues, "This jibes with my own experience. I, too, know a good many successful innovators and entrepreneurs. Not one of them has a 'propensity for risk-taking.'

"Of course innovation is risky. But so is stepping into the car to drive to the supermarket for a loaf of bread. All economic activity is by definition 'high-risk.' And defending yesterday—that is, not innovating—is far more risky than making tomorrow. The innovators I know are successful to the extent to which they define risks and confine them…Successful innovators are conservative. They have to be. They are not 'risk-focused'; they are 'opportunity-focused.'” [emphases added]

Never accept the propaganda that you must be willing to stomach high risks in order to achieve high returns. The truth is exactly opposite—the better you can mitigate your risks, the higher will be your investment returns. There is, in fact, a direct relationship between risk and reward, but that relationship is what financial institutions practice themselves, not what they want the public to believe.

In the past few years, hundreds of people have invested home equity, only to lose it all and get into serious financial trouble. With this in mind, here are five reasons why you should not invest your home equity. Avoiding these five pitfalls will prepare you to safely maximize the productivity of all your financial resources, including home equity.

Reason #1: Personal Consumption

If you’re going to use any of your home equity to purchase items of personal consumption, do not touch it. This is the single most prevalent and damaging pitfall with this strategy. Consumption is anything you spend money on that does not directly return money to you, such as clothes, food, vacations, jewelry, cars, boats, etc.

Consumption must be sustained by production, which means creating value for others in such a way that value is returned to you. When your consumption exceeds your production, the only logical outcome is insolvency and eventual bankruptcy.

The Solution: The wealthy never use their assets to consume—they only consume the profits generated by their assets. Only access home equity to produce and invest in things that will generate returns. Your home equity is your golden goose. Don’t kill it by consuming it—use it wisely to enjoy the golden eggs it can produce.

Reason #2: Lack of Knowledge & Chasing High Returns

With home appreciation rising in double-digits, banks giving loans liberally, and people having access to investments promising high returns, the exuberance of many so-called investors in the past few years has only been exceeded by their lack of knowledge.

People were putting money into investments that they knew very little about, they had no idea where the money went, they had no idea how to control the investment, and were doing so simply because they were receiving high returns. That is until it all came crashing down.

The Solution: If you don’t know where your money is going, what it’s doing, how it’s creating value, what your exit strategy will be, what the tax consequences are, and how you can recover if it’s lost, don’t do it. Also, if your primary reason for wanting to invest in something is to make money, don’t do it. Only invest in things that reflect your knowledge, abilities, expertise, and passions.

Reason #3: Unsafe Investments

Not only have many people been ignorant about the investments in which they have invested their home equity, but also many of the investments themselves have made very little economic sense. The investments didn’t have clear value propositions (they weren’t creating real value in the marketplace), they weren’t collateralized (or backed by hard assets such as real estate), they were speculative, they were based on artificial demand, and they had poor or no exit strategies.

The Solution: Here are just a few things to consider with any investment: Is there a real demand for this investment? Is there a clear value proposition? Is it legal? Is it ethical and moral? Is it collateralized? How well can you control the terms? Do you have the opportunity to contribute to its success in meaningful ways, or are you contributing money alone? What are the tax consequences? Can you create a foolproof exit strategy? Is the investment self-sustaining, or does it require ongoing capital contributions from outside sources? How soon will it create cash flow? Do you know the people involved? Do they have an established track record of trustworthiness and success?

If you can’t answer any of these questions satisfactorily, then either stay away from the investment or provide viable solutions for any troublesome aspects.

Reason #4: Investments Removed From Soul Purpose

Soul Purpose, as taught by Steve D'Annunzio, is the combination of your inborn abilities, talents, and passions and that provide a natural direction for your most fulfilling life. It is your greatest purpose for being on the Earth—the mission you were born for.

Every thought and action leads you either closer to living your Soul Purpose, or further away from it. Few people invest in things that align with their Soul Purpose because they get sidetracked chasing high returns. Investing out of alignment with Soul Purpose inevitably leads to mediocrity at best, and failure at worst.

The Solution: What are you great at doing ? What things are you naturally drawn to? What are your dreams? What is your vision of your best self? What things increase your energy ? These are the only things you should be investing money into. For example, if you have a passion for real estate, invest in real estate. If your passion is philanthropy, start a non-profit or contribute to an existing one. If you love cooking and entrepreneurship, maybe starting a restaurant makes sense.

Creating portfolio income is hard work, and the only way you’ll endure challenges is if what you’re doing is an expression of your Soul Purpose. The best investment is an investment in yourself and your Soul Purpose through education. Education will help you develop your Soul Purpose and bring it to the marketplace practically and meaningfully.

Reason #5: Learning the Wrong Lessons

If your investment fails, what’s the lesson you’re going to learn? For most, the answer doesn’t go further than, “I knew I shouldn’t have done that!” This type of thinking is disempowering and leads people to avoid future action. They learn to stay away from investing, rather than learning how to manage it better.

The Solution: No matter how well you mitigate risk, in a dynamic world things will inevitably go differently than you anticipate. Commit now to learning the right lessons when things go wrong. Learn what things you can change about yourself and your approach to increase your safety, returns, and success. Unfortunate events present amazing opportunities to become more confident with your investments, rather than cynical and distrustful.

Conclusion

Investing your home equity can be one of the riskiest strategies if you do so for personal consumption, to put money into things you know little about in order to chase high returns, to invest in inherently risky investments, to invest in anything removed from your Soul Purpose, or if you will learn the wrong lessons when unexpected events occur.

However, it can also be a powerful strategy that will help you unlock your financial potential. To do so requires that you never borrow money to consume, you always have a good understanding of your investments and never invest to make money primarily, your investments make good economic sense and your risk is mitigated well, you only invest in things that align with your Soul Purpose, and you commit to learning the right lessons when you encounter setbacks and difficulties.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was once talking to a group of college students and told them, “I am really no different than you. I may have more money than you do, but money doesn’t make the difference…

"If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.”

If you’re unhappy with your life, the chances are that you are not providing a fraction of the value that you’re capable of. Happy people who focus on developing their unique gifts always produce more value for others and alleviate more suffering in the world than those who are routinely unhappy.

What will it take for you to live the life you love? What will be the effect in your personal life? What will be the effect on the world at large? How many more people can you impact by living your ideal life and doing what you were born to do? How many problems exist and how many people are suffering if you're not?

Getting Rich Your Own Way, written by Srully Blotnick, details a study that began in 1960 of 1,500 people representing a cross-section of middle-class America.

Throughout the twenty-year study, they lost almost a third of participants due to deaths, moves, or other factors. Of the 1,057 that remained, 83 had become millionaires.

When Mr. Blotnick’s team interviewed participants at the beginning of the study, the most widely shared impression they found was that “great wealth can come to you only as a result of doing things you don’t want to do.” They also noted that from the start, most participants assumed that chance would play a decisive role in determining who became wealthy.

They found that the 83 successful people shared five characteristics: They were persistent, they were patient, they were willing to handle both the “nobler and the pettier” aspects of their job, they had an increasingly noncompetitive attitude towards the people with whom they worked, and their investment activities—aside from their main career—consumed a minimum of their time and attention.

Writes Blotnick, “We originally expected the people in our sample to become wealthy by taking the money they earned at work and investing it wisely, in such things as stocks, bonds, and real estate…we thought there’d be no way for [them] to become rich unless they used their surplus income to generate more income…It didn’t work out that way…More often than not they made little or no money investing.”

In short, what the study unveiled was that the main source of wealth for the successful participants was that they found something they loved to do and they did it well. “In case after case,” says Blotnick, “they did increasingly well occupationally, while their pursuit of investment profits proved to be largely a waste of time. in the long run, it was their work which made them rich.” Blotnick concludes that investing in yourself, what you do, and with whom you do it are the most important determining factors of wealth.

Are you living your Soul Purpose ? If not, it's highly unlikely that you will achieve financial freedom.

“A person can have many talents and gifts and do many things exceptionally well, but your vein of gold, ah...That is the thing you do superbly.”     -Julia Cameron  

America's earliest citizens believed in an ideal that they called Providence, which is something that has been largely forgotten today. To believe in Providence means two things: 1) You believe in a Creator that governs, and 2) You believe that you were born with a unique mission that you alone can perform, and that the world suffers if you don’t fulfill your mission.

Providence is having a relationship with your God that gives you the faith and motivation to fulfill your unique mission regardless of the consequences.
Another way to say Providence is “Soul Purpose.” Soul Purpose is your unique set of talents, abilities, and passions applied productively and effectively, making tremendous impact upon the world and bringing the highest levels of joy and fulfillment for you and everyone you touch. It’s the mission that you were born for; it’s what you would do every day even if you didn’t get paid for it. When you’ve truly found your Soul Purpose, you create so much value for others that you’re almost inevitably paid very well indeed.

How do you know if you are living Providence and Soul Pupose? A good indication of that is if you can't wait to jump out of bed and begin every day with excitement and purpose. If you find yourself dreading going to work you know that something must change.

The best thing you can do for yourself and for society is to find and develop your passion--to revive the spirit of Providence in your own life and live your Soul Purpose.

Recommended Resources to Help You Find Your Soul Purpose:

Kolbe A Index

Strengthsfinder

Enneagram Institute

 

Do you serve people as they want to be served, or as you would like to be served?

A young boy and his father were once shopping for a Mother's Day gift. The boy eagerly found toys and asked his father if they could buy them. "No," came the reply, "We're shopping for a gift for Mommy today." The boy quickly answered, "I think Mommy wants an action figure!"

Too often we project what we would like onto others. The Golden Rule says to treat others as you would like to be treated. But the Platinum Rule says to treat others as they would like to be treated. To live this higher law we must get outside of ourselves to ascertain the needs and desires of others.

Value follows value, but if we want this principle to apply in our lives we must give to others the value that they want to receive, not the value that we want.

 

 

 

The mind is incredibly powerful, yet it must be consistently trained and guided if you want to truly tap its limitless capacity. An excellent way to facilitate this mental discipline is to consistently ask yourself the right questions. 

 Your brain is designed to answer every question you give it. The types of questions you ask determine the answers you receive. For example, in Rich Dad, Poor Dad Robert Kiyosaki teaches that the poor say things like, "I can't afford it" while the rich ask, "How can I afford it?"

When things go differently than you expected, questions like, “Why did this have to happen to me?” give you answers that feed a sense of victimhood and justify a lack of responsibility. On the other hand, questions like, “What can I learn from this?” or, “What would it take to make this situation better?” result in answers that empower, motivate, and inspire you. 

Learn to consistently ask yourself the right questions and you will access power you never knew you had.

Would you rather have Tiger Woods’ golf clubs, or his swing? Do you rely upon principles, or strategies?

A golf club, however expensive and perfectly crafted, is worthless in the hands of a person who doesn't know how to use it. Likewise, those who rely upon strategy alone—without a basis in principle—will eventually fail when the conditions upon which the strategy is based change.

For example, investing in real estate is a strategy. A principle that governs real estate investing is that people have intrinsic value, while material things have none. So many real estate "investors" think that their houses are the assets, and that their tenants are liabilities. An understanding of that basic principle can help them to realign how they approach their real estate investing--they will seek to improve properties to create value for people, not because they value the properties over people. And by doing so, their cash flow will likely increase. (After all, people write checks--not properties.)

Consumers only look for tools and strategies in their search for financial freedom, without understanding or caring about underlying principles. Producers find and understand principles and align their thoughts, speech, and actions with them, and all else flows naturally.

If you want to become a better golfer, good clubs may play a part in your improvement, but improving your own skills through consistent practice should be your initial focus. Strategies follow principles in the same manner. Focus on learning and living the principles of prosperity before being overly-concerned with financial strategies.

In your journey to financial freedom, do you identify wealthy people and try to do what they did, or do you try to think like they thought?

The actions of people are value neutral; what gives all actions value are the thoughts and intents behind them. Two people could perform the exact same action but have different reasons for doing so, and the results would also be completely different.

Financial freedom isn't about doing; it's about thinking. Spending your time doing without understanding how to think is like a rat running on a wheel in a cage. Don't look for the right things to do, identify the right way to think .

Do you know what to invest in, or do you often ask successful people or consult financial publications to find what the best investments are?

Every time you wonder what you should invest in, the answer is always--without exception--to invest in yourself, or your human life value.

Your human life value is your own particular combination of knowledge, skills, and abilities—everything that you are when you take away all of your material resources. It is your character and integrity, your ability to think creatively and uniquely, your relationships, your faith—or the lack of each of these things. It is your knowledge and ability to shape materials and information in new ways that are valued and utilized by others and yourself.

The fact that you are asking what you should invest in tells you that your human life value is not sufficient to invest in anything without risk and with a basis in principle. If your human life value is developed enough, you would never have a need to ask the question.

The best investment you can ever make is to increase your human life value. Turn inward for personal improvement and your value will flow outward to those around you.

Would you still be doing what you're doing today, or would it be different? What would it be? Why? What's preventing you from doing it today, right now?

Now is your time to be your ideal self and live your ideal life . If money is the main thing keeping you from being who you dream of being, then now is the time to break through that tyranny of the mind.

There are problems waiting to be solved that only you can solve. There is value to be created that can only materialize in your unique way. As Gandhi said, "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

What would it take to get you to do what you would do if money were no concern today?

Have you ever thought something like, "If only this would change, then I would be happy?"

Our happiness and success in life have nothing to do with our external circumstances and everything to do with our internal thoughts and choices. Happiness and success are not if/then conditional events; they are internal decisions that we have control over at any given moment, regardless of circumstance.

One of the most destructive lies is that we are a product of our circumstances. This belief is an easy way out of taking responsibility for our thoughts and actions. It's a good way to live a miserable and expectant life, always waiting for that elusive "ship"ми?? to come in that will save us from all our troubles.

You are a product of your thoughts and your choices. You have the power to make your life miserable, or to make it happy and fulfilling. What do you choose to be: a victim, or a hero?

Recommended Reading:

Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Does the science of economics have real application in your life, or does it seem like a topic reserved for college professors and "experts?"

The word economics comes from the Greek words oikos (pronounced ee kos) meaning home or house, and nomos, meaning name, organization, or management. To the Greeks, an "oikonomos" is a manager of a home. Economics isn't about charts, graphs, interest rates, and index funds. It's about what you do on a daily basis to create a profitable, thriving, and sustainable home life. It's about learning to create value for your family. An oikonomos is a producer in his or her own home before and above all else.

The science of economics, then, is much closer to home that you may have thought. Be a wise and productive steward of your home and that will be reflected in society. Be the economist in your life.

Do you ever find yourself wanting something different than you're getting out of life?

The only way to change what you get out of life is to change what you put into life. The Law of the Harvest is that we reap what we sow, or we harvest what we plant. We get out of anything exactly what we put into it.

Most people want to change their life's "harvest" without changing what they "plant." But the place to begin any change is with our thoughts, for that is the garden from which all results flow. A poet once said, "Sow a thought and you reap an act, sow an act and you reap a habit, sow a habit and you reap a character, sow a character and you reap a destiny."

What will be your destiny? You can know it with certainty by looking at which thoughts you give you energy to. What you put your energy into now will manifest later as your results.

Recommended Reading:

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen