Blog posts covering Knowledge, Motivation and Productivity | Get Lasting Results with Mike

FOCUS to Improve Productivity

Get Results: FOCUS follow one course until successful — Get Results: FOCUS

FOCUS has a couple of dimensions which should be considered, one is focusing on DOING what’s important, when there are a multitude of alternatives available, and doing it without distraction. You shouldn’t keep yourself busy doing unimportant tasks, that aren’t going to move you closer to your goal.

The second dimension relates to time. It’s important to be PRESENT, focused on DOING in the moment, rather than stuck mindfully in the future or past. Nothing gets done in the future, only by your interaction with the present moment are you able to shape what comes next.

Concentrating your focus will inevitably increase your productivity. Like a laser beam that packs incredible energy in a narrow field of light, or the sun being concentrated through a magnifying glass. Your focus is key to increasing your effectiveness in search of fulfilling your goal.

If you dilute your energy across many activities, your power is shared out and becomes less effective for each activity you’re involved with.

Below are a number of quotes that will help you focus on the one important thing you should be doing.

“What’s the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.” – The one thing.

Get Results: What's the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unneccessary — Get Results: What’s the one thing…

“What you do in this moment shapes all your tomorrows” – getresults.org.uk

“Focus on the one most effective thing in pursuit of your goal.”

Get Results: focus on the one most effective thing in pursuit of your goal — Get Results: Focus on the one most effective thing in pursuit of your goal

“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” -unknown

Get Results: Do something for your future self

“The decisions you make and the actions you take shape all your tomorrows.” -getresults.org.uk

Get Results:actions have consequences — Get Results:Actions have consequences

“Focus on one thing at a time – multi tasking is an illusion.”

Get Results: focus on one thing at a time - multi tasking is an illussion — Get Results: Focus on one thing at a time – multi tasking is an illussion

“FOCUS – Follow One Course Until Successful.”

Get Results: Focus on one thing at a time - multi tasking is an illussionfollow one course until successful — Get Results: Focus on one thing at a time – multi tasking is an illussionfollow one course until successful

“Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.”

Get Results: Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow

“Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live.” – Dalai Lama

Get Results: Nothing can be done at any time other than today

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.” – Eckhart Tolle

Get Results: Presence is the only time that really exists

“The future is a concept, it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That’s one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.”

“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”

“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle

More Quotes

“What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ― Eckhart Tolle

“When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressed.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“You are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say, what is or what happens.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“Awareness means Presence, and only Presence can dissolve the unconscious past in you.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“So when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation.” ― Eckhart Tolle

Find your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Get Results: unique selling proposition — Get Results: Unique Selling Propositio

A USP is what Stands you apart from your competitors’. It’s what makes you unique in the eyes of your prospects and customers, it’s what differentiates you from other suppliers.

If you don’t find and subsequently use a USP in your marketing, you become something of a commodity, and prospects will only choose to use you on a random basis, with no defined reason behind their purchase decision.

Your USP explains to the world why you’re different, and why they should use you.

Finding your USP

We will identify four options for finding your Unique Selling Proposition. To begin you might find it useful in answering the following questions:-

What services and/or products do you provide?
To whom do you provide these services/products; who are your customers?
What needs/wants do you fulfil for your customers?
How big a problem does your solution solve?
What benefits do customers appreciate most and which do they actively look for?
What makes you better than other suppliers?
Is it the value you provide, your experience, know how, customer service, delivery speed and so on?

The second way of finding your USP is to look at the gaps and opportunities within your niche / market that aren’t currently being catered for. Find a demand that isn’t being supplied.

Look for opportunities to provide genuine convenience such as instant availability, convenient location, large selection of stock, fast service, big discounts, professional advice, longer than usual opening hours, more convenient opening hours, privacy and security to name a few.

The third way to find your USP is to have a good answer to following potential customer question…

“Why should I do business with you, instead of any and every other option available to me, including the option of doing absolutely nothing at all.”

“What do I uniquely guarantee.”

A fourth method of finding your USP is to compare yourself to your competitors on a range of criteria and focus your USP on the areas where you score higher.

	self	Competitor 1	Competitor 2
Price
quality
range
Catalogue quality
website
Ease of ordering
Speed of delivery
reliability
Personal liking

Next steps

Once you have identified your USP, you need to think about the ways in which you can use it. These could include:

Sound-bites or elevator speeches
Marketing messages on-line and off-line
Brochures or flyers
Press Releases
Business Proposals

Keep your USP as the central theme throughout all your marketing, and through repetition you will become known as the business to use for that particular USP.

For more marketing related content check out our marketing guide.

Customer Lifetime Value

It is crucially important to know the lifetime value of your customers, so that you know what you can afford to spend on marketing to acquire each new customer.

Let me show you what I mean. Let’s assume for illustration purposes that you are a gym owner and you want know what the lifetime value of a gym member is. Let’s say your average spend is £20 every month and an member stays on average for 3 years. The value of that customer would be:

£20 x 12 months x 3 years = £720 in total revenue (or £240 per year).

Now work out what your Cost of Sales are in servicing that customer each year.

Let’s assume the Cost of Sales is £40 a year, then you have £200 left over for marketing and profit in year one. If you can acquire a new member for less than £200 you will be in profit within the first year. You won’t have the marketing cost in year two and three so you will make £200 profit in each of those years.

Now you can see even from this hypothetical example why many gyms offer a free starter membership to help drive traffic. Gym owners know that as long as they spend less than £200 to acquire a new member, the customer will prove profitable over a short period of time.

Pedometer Apps – Measuring Your Fitness Progress

Get Results: pedometer screen shot — Get Results: Pedometer screen shot

A great way to monitor your walking or running progress it to use a Pedometer. Even better, use a Pedometer App on your phone so you have it on you all the time. A great FREE solution is the Pedometer Android App by Tayutau which can be found on Google play here.

You can easily share screenshots like the one above on social media with a couple of clicks.

A useful added feature is the ability to look at daily, weekly and monthly charts.

Having the Pedometer App running in the background, will drain your battery quicker than normal, but is worth having an insight into how many steps you actually take in a day.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculations

The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculations above will give you the minimum number of calories you body needs during inactivity, just to keep your organs running. the equation takes into account weight, height and age and is different for men and women.

You should use your BMR figure to establish the minimum number of calories your body will use in any given day, even if you do no exercise. It will allow you to gauge your calorie intake accordingly. If your BMR comes out at say 2500, then you know that to lose weight you would need to keep your calorie intake under this figure. If you do exercise that burns an additional 300 calories than the number of calories burned would be 2500 + 300 = 2800 calories. If your intake through food was 2300, you would have a deficit between calories taken in, and burned of 500 calories. If you did this consistently for one week you would lose approx 1 pound in weight.

Get Results: weight and height converter

Get Results: 500 calories for web — Get Results: 500 calories per day equals 1LB of fat per week

What’s Stopping you Getting Results?

https://youtu.be/gccAWvCAtA0

Get Results: get results model — Get Results: Get Results model

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or get fit, or become a success in business, whatever you want, there must be a way you can get the results you crave. But let’s first go back to basics.

There are only 5 basic reasons you’re not getting those elusive results…
• You don’t know what is wanted – a lack of a defined goal
• You’re knowingly not doing something that needs to be done
• You don’t know something that needs to be done
• You’re doing something wrong – you don’t necessarily know it’s wrong
• You’re trying to do something that is impossible to achieve

At a very basic level, there are just 2 things you need to do to get the results you so desperately want…

Know what to do

and

Do what needs to be done

It’s important that we start from this basic understanding, so that you don’t miss any of the important possible variables that could be preventing you from getting results, although these appear simple to overcome the devil is in the detail, and this detail is specific to you and your situation.

Let’s have a look at each of the reasons why you might not be getting the results you want. Although these are a great starting point, remember that we are highlighting a framework here, to start your journey of discovery from. You will require further insight to make this framework more relevant to your particular situation. However this framework applies to such diverse goals as weight loss, improving fitness, wealth building, success in business, relationships and much more.

#1 – You don’t know what is wanted, you lack a defined goal.

Make your goals specific and measurable. Focus on outcomes and results rather than activities. It’s really not about working on the pursuit of your goal for 16 hours a day and seeing yourself as an hard working go-getter. A few hours are fine, if that’s sufficient time to do what needs to be done. As long as you’re laser focusing on achieving results, rather than clocking up your working time, it’s about working smarter rather than harder, being effective rather than efficient.

Clearly visualise the outcome, what does it feel like, look like, taste like when you reach your goal? Align your goal with your purpose (be true to yourself). Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, doing it for you, not others You don’t want to spend time striving to achieve a goal that once achieved makes you feel empty and dissatisfied because it wasn’t in keeping with “who you are”.

#2- Doing something wrong – you don’t know it’s wrong and don’t know something that needs to be done.

Both these points concern undertaking research and gathering accurate information that will allow you to achieve your goal. Without accurate knowledge, about how to do what needs doing, the results you crave are going to be hard to come by.

Layout the assumed essential elements of the process required to achieve your intended goal. Research each of the steps in the process using role models and study the models, systems, habits and relationships that they have adopted to achieve what you’re aiming to achieve (more about this here). This should be your starting point only and you should aim to work from this point, testing possible variations to see what works specifically for you. It’s a trial and error approach that often leads to the best results for many goals.

#3- Knowingly not doing something that needs to be done.

This is about failing to take appropriate action and involves both motivation and productivity components.

Motivation

It’s important to stay motivated, you’ve got to want to change and be inspired to take action. There are a number of motivation hacks to help in this process such as doing the hard things early in the day when your will-power is fully charged.

Being persistent and not allowing failure to diminish your drive is also important when you hit hurdles during your journey.

Productivity

Work with priority and focus, be effective not efficient, work smart not hard. Productivity is a whole book in itself, we have lots of productivity help for you if you decide to sign up with us.

#4- Trying to do something that is impossible.

It’s important not to put artificial limitations on yourself. You might not strictly be able to run a 100 miles per hour, but you can find ways to travel at that speed aided. It’s about looking for alternative ways of getting the job done, but also understand that there are some things that are currently impossible to achieve. However if someone else has already done what you’re aiming to do, then it can be done again for sure.

Challenges

Underestimating Goals

Sometimes pursuing your goal is not as easy as going from A to B to C. Be prepared to be flexible in your approach. Lookout for feedback and review progress as you go. Think outside the box if you need to and approach situations from a different angle. Look to how role models have succeeded in achieving what you’re aiming to do.

Look at trends to see where things are headed in the future. You need to be effective by doing the right thing. Don’t allow difficulties to diminish your motivation. Build on each successful day.

Test and practice, measure and monitor results. Tweak and begin the process again until you achieve your goal. Be adaptable, be prepared to be flexible in your approach. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of madness.

Avoid Fear

The fear of failure, rejection, change, embarrassment, being vulnerable are often manifested through things like procrastination, defending your position, staying within your comfort zone and remaining stuck in your ways, avoidance, over complicating situations, insisting on perfection and giving up too early.

These are all signs of underlying fear and this is holding you back from doing what’s necessary to push past this and do what’s required. Be prepared to take calculated risks, waiting for the perfect time to reveal itself is foolish, because it simply will never be the perfect time. Take action sooner rather than later. Get in the game! You’ve got to be in it to win it.

Create opportunities, “do”, focus, face challenges head on, learn from your failings, and be committed to your cause.

Acquire practiced expertise

There is no substitute for practice in developing certain skills. There is no short cut when developing a skill that can’t be taught or learned quickly. Some skills are only attained through deliberate practice and doing repetitively over a prolonged period of time. Things like motor skills, intuition, co ordination, muscle memory, seeing variables that less experienced people just can’t see, are improved and strengthened over time.

In many instances, if you haven’t got the time to invest in developing such skills you can allows look to hire people who already possess these skills to do it for you, if you have the necessary financial resources.

Conclusion

Stripping it back to basics helps clarify the underlying requirements for you to achieve your goal. The sheer number and variety of human goals requires a unique set of approaches for each goal you may have, but using each of the points highlighted above will provide a framework to start from.

Some health based goals may require more of a motivational focused approach than say, wealth accumulation goals, where knowledge or productivity may be the main focus. Most goals will require differing amounts of knowledge, motivation and productivity based skills developing as you progress towards the successful completion of those goals. Life is as much about the journey as the destination, so make that journey as enjoyable an experience as possible as you make progress towards goal achievement.

Plan Less Do More

Sometimes it pays to spend less time planning and more time doing.

Much of the popular advice about undertaking a new project advocates doing lots of planning. It’s important to ensure you align any new project with your life goal, so you know you’re undertaking it for the right reasons. You don’t want to get to the end and discover you feel empty and unfulfilled, having just successful completed your project.

Having said that, I have always found greater effectiveness comes from the actual “doing stage”, the experimenting bit, if you like. Getting your hands dirty, testing things out, failing and learning from that failure, tweaking and testing again. I find this way of working far more interesting and insightful.

Don’t get me wrong, having an outline plan is fine, a general direction to aim for, making sure you have an end goal that you truly want and believe in. The finishing line is important otherwise you’re like a rudderless boat floating around aimlessly and without any purpose and as a result little desire, or motivation to do anything constructively. Not having a sense of purpose takes the fun out of life. Human nature is inspired by ambition and striving, and as long as it’s done positively and without desiring power over others, or knocking others down, it’s a good thing. “A rising tide lifts all boats”.

Some years ago organisers did an interesting experiment where they pitched kindergarten children against MBA Harvard graduates and asked both groups to build the tallest structure they could within a time limit, using sticks, tape, and string, placing a marshmallow on top. The graduates took the task seriously, taking a highly analytical approach, debating how best to use the string, tape and sticks to achieve maximum altitude. For all the planning and construction, they ran out of time and were unsuccessful. The kindergarten children on the other hand, just got on with building, if it didn’t work they quickly tried something else, they got to give it a lot more tries than the graduates. They learned from their mistakes as they went along, instead of trying to figure out everything in advance. They won! They were more efficient in using the time they had available to them.

When it comes to making progress with a difficult task in uncertain conditions, there is no substitute for quickly trying things out to see what works. As soon as you think of a possible combination, try it to see how it will work.

In a rapidly changing world we must become better experimenters. Coming up with ideas, building and testing those ideas. With technological advancement it is often less expensive to try out your ideas than to figure out if you should try them out.

Acquiring Knowledge in pursuit of your Goal

Get Results: acquire knowledge — Get Results: Acquiring Knowledge

When it comes to pursuing your goal, knowledge is a vital component it that journey. Without knowledge about what to do, how to do it, and when to do it there is nothing but a vision of the end result and no way of getting from here to there. Knowledge is the ladder to success each rung takes you ever closer to the top.

Knowledge comes in two parts, finding…

reliable sources and
accurate information

Reliable sources

Reliable sources of knowledge include Role models, Mentors and Mastermind teams.

Role Models

A Role Model is define as:-

A person looked to by others as an example to be imitated.

We tend to study role models from afar. They are often people in the public eye or are widely publicised. In the world of business we might look to people like Richard Branson as a role model, because he is seen as successful in the world of business, having accumulated millions in personal wealth and build numerous successful businesses under the brand name Virgin, such as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Media, Virgin Money etc.

When selecting role models ensure you:-

Only take advice from someone who has provable experience achieving the same goal as you are aiming for. If it is a business goal, search for successful business leaders, if its health related look for individuals who have a great fitness background. If you’re looking to kick an habit look for those that have kicked the habit in the past and are helping others to do the same.

Understand the underlying principles behind the activities that resulted in their success and model these. Look to the Models, Relationships, Systems and Habits they have employed to achieve their success.

Be cautious of the passing of time and its effect on the methods being modelled – are they still relevant in today’s world – did they benefit from being in the right place at the right time.

Use their principles as a starting point, then test for yourself, look to improve upon it, and learn from your own experience moving forward.

Mentors

A Mentor is defined as:-

An experienced and trusted adviser

A mentor is someone we are lucky enough to personal contact with in a one to one situation, someone at work is probably the most common type of mentor, but increasingly we have access to virtual coaches that are able to communicate via video or email contact.

If you approach someone to be a Mentor to you, look to provide some value in exchange for their time and effort. For instance offer to work for them for free or use your existing skills or resources to do something they will value, in return for them mentoring you.

The above still applies, making sure they know what they are talking about, understanding the underlying principles etc. Usually Mentors will take a more guiding role and take you through the steps and feedback what you did right and wrong as you go. This is often more fruitful than just using role models, because of the instant feedback and corrections as you take your journey towards your goal.

Mastermind teams

A Mastermind team is defined as:-

The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony

Mastermind teams offer a combination of brainstorming, education, peer accountability and support in a group setting to sharpen your business and personal skills. A mastermind team helps you and your mastermind team members achieve success.

By its very nature it is closer to the Mentoring model than that of the role model situation. It is coaching as you go, but with a slightly different twist. The people in your mastermind team might not be experts in achieving your particular goal, but can offer a more general perspective, using their knowledge to bring fresh eyes to your pursuit and as a results can be a valuable addition to having a mentor.

Conclusion

When it comes to acquiring knowledge ensure you are getting accurate information. Remember the quote:-

“A journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step”

Taking one step at a time will only move you closer to your goal if you are heading in the correct direction to start off with, otherwise each step could be taking you in the opposite direction and ultimately further away from that goal. So make sure the information you are using is actually accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF0q4vu8rns

Force Yourself to Take Action

Check out the video above, delivered by Mel Robbins about forcing yourself to take action.

Video summary:

100 million people living in America say they are dissatisfied with their lives, that’s an awful lot of dissatisfaction. What do they and you want? It doesn’t have to sound good to other people, just be honest with yourself. If you want to lose man boobs to be able to attract a mate, then that’s fine, as long as it means something to you. Pick something.

How you get what you want? Well it’s really simple but not easy.

We live in unprecedented times, a world of information at our fingertips, we have it in the form of books (electronic and paper versions), or search engines like Google and Bing, which are easily accessible from our mobile phones and computers. There are literally thousands of blogs or websites giving you step by step instructions about how to do just about anything that’s ever been done before. So why aren’t you getting what you want? It comes down to one word. a small four latter word that is the route of your problems. The word is “Fine”. People ask you “How are you doing?” you reply, “I’m fine!”. Really, are you fine? Fine says you don’t have to do anything about it, you’re okay where you are. The result is you stay in your comfort zone. You don’t push yourself, you stay put.

Experts have calculated the odds of your very existence, taking into account all the wars and disasters that have ever happened, as being 1 in 400 trillion. Wow those odds are amazingly long, you are amazing just for being here. You are full of great ideas and impulses, but when you have one you do nothing about it. You press the snooze button, because your comfortable where you are. Let’s be real, any area of your life that you want to change, you will never feel like it when it comes to actually taking action, you’ll always prefer to procrastinate.

Activation energy as it’s been labelled by science, is required to get you to do anything new, anything outside your normal routine. Try this exercise tomorrow, set your alarm 30 minutes earlier and get up and start your day. You will come face to face with the physical force required to change behaviour. Getting out of a warm bed into a cold room requires much the same effort as taking exercise, dieting, or whatever else you want to do/achieve that’s new.

Your parents used to make you do the stuff you didn’t feel like doing, as adults it’s our own responsibility to make us do the things we don’t feel like doing, but you have to force yourself, it’s simple but not easy.

You brain is split into two halves, one side is autopilot and the other is the emergency brake. Everything outside our normal routine, anything new, usually results in the tendency to pull the emergency break and move back into autopilot (normal routine).

You’re bored because of routine and habit and doing the same things over and over again in autopilot. Your body is wired to send you signals, for instance if you need food, your brain tells you you’re hungry, if you need sex your brain tells you you’re horny. When you’re bored or dissatisfied, your brain is telling you one of your most basic needs isn’t being met, your need for exploration and growth.

Force yourself out of your head and into the world, out of your comfort zone. If you’re in your head you’re behind enemy lines. You will never feel like taking action. Those first 3 seconds you get out of bed, blow big time, but once you’re up it’s okay. Get outside, that’s where the magic is, where the 1 in 400 million exist. Act within 5 seconds to marry action with the idea/impulse, otherwise your emergency brake gets pulled and you do nothing. Practice the 5 second rule by acting within 5 seconds of the idea/impulse and see what changes happen.

Productivity: Getting things DONE

Are you feeling bogged down with an ever-growing list of things to do on your “to do list”?

“What should I start with?” you may ask. We can often feel overwhelmed to such a degree we do nothing. We procrastinate, bury our heads in the sand, we’re filled with indecision, even suffer anxiety.

We worry about, the doing, more than we, do the doing. What’s next on my list? Without a clear plan you’ll find you fill your time on non-important tasks, effectively paper shuffling your way to nowhere. The problem with “to do lists” are they are filled with activities and tasks that don’t really matter. How many of the tasks on your to-do list actually move you closer to your goal(s)? Ok some of the things we have to do day to day, like paying the bills, and buying groceries, have to be done, but where possible try to make these automated so you don’t have to waste time doing them yourself.

If you have goals you want to achieve you have to spend more time doing things that move you closer to those goals. We all have goals even if we don’t officially acknowledge them or write them down. In reality, the clearer your goals are in your conscious, and the more focused they are (not too many goals at once, diluting your time) the easier it will be to plot your route to achieving them.

It’s important to be knowledgeable about how to achieve your goals, what steps you need to take to get you from start to finish. It can often be easier to work backwards from goal completion to where you are now, asking yourself “what would I have to have done previously, to be at this point of my progress?. If you don’t know what needs doing in-between the start and finishing line, you have some research to do (that’s your next step). Once you have a clear picture of the steps/stages from start to finish, it will be much easier to know your next move as you progress towards your goal.

More Quotes

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Finding your USP

Next steps

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Know what to do

and

Do what needs to be done

#1 – You don’t know what is wanted, you lack a defined goal.

#2- Doing something wrong – you don’t know it’s wrong and don’t know something that needs to be done.

#3- Knowingly not doing something that needs to be done.

#4- Trying to do something that is impossible.

Challenges

Underestimating Goals

Avoid Fear

Acquire practiced expertise

Conclusion

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Reliable sources

Role Models

Mentors

Mastermind teams

Conclusion

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Video summary:

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