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Welcome to my legacy.
I'm Martin Luther King III, and together with my wife, Andrea Waters King, and our dear friends, Mark and Craig Kilberger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives.
Join us for heartfelt conversations with remarkable guests like David Oyelowo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen, Dr.
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This is My Legacy. Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s.
Today we're diving into a topic that I think resonates with about every single one of us and that is how to care less about what other people think about you.
Let us be completely real and transparent here.
this is a lot easier said than done we all know that worrying about the opinions of others will rob us of our authenticity it will make us less happy it will you know disturb our peace of mind and yet there is this little voice inside our heads whispering things like what will they think of me what if they
don't like me is the world going to end will this choice make me look good to others.
And it's not our inner critic.
It's something else.
It's our inner need for approval, our inner animal primal version of us who wants to belong and not upset others.
And the problem is that it can become a real mental barrier if we let it dominate the choices we make in our 20s, our behavior, our decisions, and ultimately our lives.
I think during this decade it's quite a fragile time where we really are just trying to figure out so many big questions and sometimes we rely too heavily on what other people think is best or what other people think we should be doing and when we are fixated on these possible or actual judgments it's like
we have to hold up every life decision to a different light under a different light and think how's this person going to see it?
How about this person?
Am I still going to have their approval?
And this often happens before we do anything, even without us knowing.
But deep down, oftentimes, we already know who we are.
We already know what we want.
We just have to fight against this weirdly misplaced instinct to be validated by others before we truly are able to trust ourselves.
And I really do think it comes down to a lack of self -trust.
We don't trust that we know what's right and we don't trust that we'll be able to survive the potential negative judgments of friends, of family members, of random strangers.
So in this episode, I want us to really dig deep into the psychology of why.
Why do we care so much in the first place?
Where does this instinct come from?
And how does it impact our search for self -esteem, for purpose, for authenticity, really, in our 20s?
And most importantly, most importantly of all, how can we start letting go of this need for approval so that we can live the lives that we truly want?
We're going to talk about evolutionary psychology, childhood experiences.
I also share of course some practical tips to help you shift your focus inward to trust your own judgment and to really strengthen your sense of self as well as my famous rule of fives that I swear by and hopefully by the end of this episode you feel inspired you feel equipped to prioritize your own
opinion and to truly honor who you are without being weighed down by the noise of others?
Really, this is the episode that I wish I had when I was younger.
All of this information is things that I've had to learn and that I wish I could tell a past version of myself.
But now I get to tell you guys, which is honestly just as good.
So without further ado, let's get into the psychology about why we care and how to care less about what other people think.
so this has been on my mind quite a lot recently and the reason being is because I launched my new podcast mantra a couple of weeks ago and for those of you who haven't listened to it yet it's basically a weekly show where I dive into some kind of inspiring affirmation or reminder for you to bring with you
throughout the week so the one we did last week was I cultivate peace within I embrace growth and change that kind of thing and it's just a place for me to kind of express wisdom and be a little bit more philosophical and a bit more grounding compared to the psychology of your 20s which is more science
-based and before I announced that show and launched that show I had this huge fear that so many people were going to look or turn around look at me doing this and say oh we hate it we hate that you're doing that that's not what we want boo like just stick to what you know stick to what you're good at and it
really got into my head I was like is this a good idea should I even be doing this and the thing was no one even knew that I was other than you know my team and like my wonderful support network no one who is a listener of the show who doesn't know me knew that I was putting this out and yet I was putting
words into their mouth and they were the words that I most feared that I would be judged that people wouldn't like it that I would be criticized and it got to the point where I was almost like oh this is just this is such a bad decision like they already hate it without ever actually even having shown
anyone and it really got me thinking around how many opportunities and how many things in your life have you not done or have you stopped yourself from doing because you're imagining what other people think before they even have the chance to think it or say it and that's really the conundrum that we
find ourselves in a lot and it holds us back just having that experience made me realize how many other areas of my life I have already been held back by others opinions real or imaginary and how I wish that that hadn't been the case before we get into how to stop that from happening I think we need
to just know the basics which is why that's the million dollar question right Why does this happen?
Why do we care? You could know what it's costing you and you still can't ignore it.
The reason this voice, the voice of others, the voice of some ambiguous hater or person feels so omnipresent has two really important explanations.
The first is a very evolutionary explanation.
We are tribal creatures who previously relied on the approval and acceptance of others to survive and so to make sure we aren't alienated from our social group which would in the past have ensured immediate certain death we've become very attuned to what other people think and this part of us it really
originated and developed way before civilization was as large and expansive as it is today it originated and evolved and developed when we did live in very small communities where the opinion of your neighbor, the opinion of the person in the hut next door, like was significant for your life.
So those parts of the brain that are responsible for triggering our fear of rejection or of abandonment, they are part of what we call the old brain or the reptilian brain, which is why they feel so almost instantaneous.
it's why they feel so out of our control because they are meant to function almost automatically the other part of our brain that really plays a role in this is the frontal lobe these two areas they have taken a long time to evolve and a long time to take place and they have also been around for many
many many generations and considering how rapidly society has grown and our networks have expanded from maybe 50 people to literally hundreds of thousands that we can access online.
And how, you know, that's only been in the last 20 years.
Basically, these old parts of our brain haven't caught up with the context and how easily it is to be judged at basically any given moment online and in a much, much larger society.
How I explain it is that the old part of your brain that is used to caring about the judgments of others and being very socially attuned that is like trying to run a complex computer game on the first ever MacBook.
You know the system is obviously going to get overwhelmed and that is your brain trying to manage this hyper social modern context of a thousand opinions on you know a system that developed when that wasn't the case.
So the second explanation for why we care which is very much a linked to what we just spoke about, it's to do with our self -esteem and how our identity in part really is reliant on the opinions and approval of others.
Even from a very young age, we sense and we know that if people like us, life will be easier and we will feel good about ourselves because people will be kind to us.
They'll want to help us.
They won't outright harm us.
So it's in that way that sometimes our acknowledgement and our fear of other people's opinions is sometimes a protective mechanism.
There have been studies showing that from as young as maybe two years old we are aware that we are being evaluated by others and by around five we actually begin to change our behavior in certain circumstances based on what we think others will like or will be favorable towards so this this interaction this is called
approval seeking behavior wanting to be liked wanting to be seen as good wanting to be validated and rewarded by another person in order for that process to kind of take place in order to seek approval you have to firstly acknowledge that other people have opinions and secondly you have to be able to
make a decision as to whether you want to let that opinion dictate your behavior based on what you think the outcome will be for you.
And when we become very obsessed with other people's opinions, implicitly, we believe that doing so is going to help us more than it will harm us.
I don't think that's the case.
I also don't think that it will come as a surprise that excessive approval seeking behavior in adulthood is linked to early childhood experiences, particularly what we call adverse childhood experiences.
So if you were highly criticized as a child, if you were neglected by those who were meant to love you most, you were ignored.
You were bullied. Approval is something you want more than anything else because you know what it feels like and how terrible it is to not have it you know how cold and solitary and lonely it feels to not be liked and to not be told that you're good a 2021 paper actually that i found when researching
this it looked at bullying in particular and it linked childhood bullying to greater approval seeking behavior as adults and specifically a lot more people -pleasing and self -sacrificing behavior as well.
Approval seeking as an adult I should probably tell you what that looks like.
It's basically what we would describe as caring too much about what other people think but it's not an inward process it becomes an outward process so you end up relying on others opinions to help you make life decisions so if you are left with a big decision about what you want to study where you want
to move what job you want to take what to do in your friendships and your relationships you may be unable to come to that decision yourself you have to check with as many people as possible about what they think is right your actions also change based on how you think someone will react you become your
emotions in particular about something become very much dictated by what someone else thinks first.
You may find yourself rejecting opportunities and experiences that you really want because you worry whether others will approve and you might even feel ashamed or like you need to excessively explain yourself if someone questions or dislikes your work, your actions, your decisions, any of those things.
All of this links back to letting the opinions of others dictate your life.
I would also like to point out and I've already mentioned this that sometimes this is also born from a lack of self -trust.
Basically, we are no longer able to provide ourselves with validation or approval.
We don't trust our opinion on ourselves.
So we require other people to be able to confirm or deny our worth.
And, you know, I really wonder why we get to the point where we are willing to trust a stranger and what they think more than ourselves, more than someone that we have known our whole life who knows everything about us more than anyone else.
At some point though you do have to make a choice.
Would you rather people like you or would you rather like yourself?
I think it gets to a point where this is really what it comes down to and actually it's bigger than that.
It's would you rather actually live the life you want?
Wouldn't you rather give yourself the space to figure out what's best for you without trying to fit into someone else's box.
There was a quote I read the other day that I think captures this perfectly.
It said by being concerned about what other people think we avoid the short -term pain of rejection or the possible loss of status in exchange for the long -term loss of missing out on a life truly worth living.
So let's talk about what happens when we invest too heavily in other people's opinions at the expense of our own the first thing we are likely to experience is a dependence on external validation which will make it hard to do things purely for the joy of doing them or because we want to in order to
keep up our supply of external validation as well we kind of become like addicts so we might develop people -pleasing tendencies and end up feeling very used resentful exhausted we may avoid conflict or suppress our needs in order to maintain others approval despite feeling worse about ourselves in other
areas of our life this also crucially makes our self -worth incredibly unstable because the opinions of others they aren't something that we can rely on they're fickle people change their minds all the time their approval of us is often based on what they want not what's best for us i think about this in the context
as well of celebrities who go from being darlings to being hated overnight when public opinion turns because it is incredibly fickle it is not something to be relied on but also on a more individual level if you're not a celebrity when people realize that you rely on their judgment and that you want
them to like you this can also be really in some ways used to manipulate you into saying yes into overdoing over giving just being and giving them too much of yourself at the expense of you we also end up over analyzing others perceptions of us and that can lead to really heightened anxiety particularly
in social settings i feel like caring about other people's opinions is a hallmark of social anxiety because we imagine there is this big spotlight on our every move and that you know one misstep will result in a disaster and when other people's opinions become a fixation and a main worry this also slowly erodes
our authenticity because we want to be liked more than we want to honor ourselves one of those things feels more important to us and that can lead to a disconnect between your values, your beliefs, your preferences, your likes and your behavior.
I don't think I need to tell you that what you're left with is really nothing.
You just end up being an amalgamation of what everyone else wants you to be.
So there is a distinct feeling of emptiness and a lack of fulfillment that comes along with this.
There was a 2017 paper written about this called Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health and it looked at 706 students and it found that those who practiced authentic living, who could name five of their personal values, they reported being not as easily swayed by external influence.
They were happier, they were more satisfied with their lives because they just had less noise around whether what they were doing was right.
Two more impacts of this, but I'll keep them short and sweet because I want to mainly focus on the solutions.
A fear of criticism or rejection specifically, it also might prevent us from taking risks, embracing opportunities, which I think is something that is essential during this decade.
And finally, there's been evidence to suggest that it may mean we actually make worse decisions so we either don't make a decision or when we do it's not the one we actually want because we're making decisions that don't align with previously expressed goals or desires and we second guess ourselves
and it kind of feels like we're being guided by two separate and competing forces what we want and what others think we want and I imagine it like a tug of war where both sides is equally strong so the thing in the middle which is you, remain stagnant.
There was a 2012 article, another one that I found published in the Journal of Human Behavior and Human Decision Making, and it also examined what happens when we let others not just dictate, but make decisions for us through their opinions.
And it turns out that when we follow what someone else thinks we can do, we often end up a lot less happy.
because often they don't choose with our interests in mind.
They choose what they think is best based on their philosophies, based on their expectations of us and our happiness and their appreciation of our values and what we want just doesn't matter to them as much.
We know ourselves. I want you to remember, you know who you are.
You have been with you since the beginning.
So we have to learn to trust that we will be okay if people don't like us and if we don't do things the way that they want us to do them and there is a real power in that but there is also real genuine peace you know I'm saying this as someone who used to be so worried about it especially when I was in uni
I just was changing myself constantly based on who I was around and I never knew who I was ever so how do we move past that instinct even when it feels impossible.
What does the psychology tell us about rewiring our opinions and our attitude towards ourselves?
Well, we are going to talk about all of that and so much more after this short break.
You know, I love having a cheeky drink with friends post work or a beer with dinner but this year i have committed to completing dry january to start the new year off fresh and to really kind of kickstart the lifestyle i want to have for the next 12 months heineken zero zero is the perfect companion for this journey
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Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
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On Tech Stuff, we travel all the way from the mines of Congo to the surface of Mars to the dark corners of TikTok to ask and attempt to answer burning questions about technology.
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Like data is a very rough proxy for a complex reality.
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Welcome to My Legacy.
I'm Martin Luther King III.
And together with my wife, Andrea Waters King, and our dear friends, Mark and Craig Kilberger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives.
Each week, we'll sit down with inspiring figures like David Oyelowo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen, Dr.
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Listen to My Legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is My Legacy. with all that we're discussing today i really don't want it to come off like i'm dismissing the sting of being disliked and that i'm saying that it's not painful because it is feeling rejected criticized even hated it's an incredibly painful experience specifically it elicits social
pain and i wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that if they could so if you are someone who is struggling with it I'm not sitting here being like be stronger you're just so weak -willed grow a spine absolutely not because I know how insidious that that feels like that urge to be validated by others
feels like it's just so innate in us and I really struggle with it at times especially when I get troll comments or negative comments they're not something that I easily forget, even if I try really hard.
So it would be facetious to suggest that it doesn't cross my mind or that I'm perfect or that there is any one person who doesn't care.
Actually, I think someone who doesn't care at all would probably have a slight problem because there are times when you should really consider what other people think and feel about a situation.
That's how we experience empathy.
So not caring at all, it's also not a great thing.
But what I would like to remind myself and you as well is that people who think truly negative things about others and who then go on to express them I wouldn't want to live even a day not alone you know not even in their mind in their shoes I wouldn't want their life so why in the world would I let
them dictate mine It would be a very dark place to live inside the mind of someone who brings that kind of negativity to the world.
Who says those things let alone thinks them.
It would be a very hard life to be someone who deliberately tries to tear others down.
And if they are thinking all of those things about others, what happens when they turn the spotlight back onto themselves?
You have probably heard of the saying, hurt people hurt people.
There is a lot more truth to that than you may know.
The studies support that people who criticize others are often more insecure than you or I.
So there was a really amazing paper in 2018 on ostracism and aggression.
So aggression, particularly online, and it found that people who have felt excluded or rejected in the past, they are more likely to express negativity and aggression, particularly verbal aggression towards others.
and the people they most turn this hatred towards is those they feel have a higher status than them.
It's why the age -old saying is often proven to be true.
People always hate those who they think are doing better than them.
And you wanna know why?
You wanna know why they do that?
It's because if they can't be where you are, the second best option for them is for you to join them where they are.
if they you know can pull you down to their level they can still feel like they've won because at least you're not ahead of them making them feel any more insecure than they already feel so these groups of people these ultimate haters they make up their own class I like to call them the insecure critics
but if we want to dive even further into the research you would also find that the majority of the time the average joe most people aren't really thinking about you at all so this was revealed in a study by three social psychologists their names were gus gooney erica boothy and mariana lee and they
did their research on what they call the thought gap and this explains how we tend to think that we take up more space in someone else's mind than we do and the reason we think that, the reason we have this thought gap, is because we only have direct access to our own thoughts.
And what are we thinking about more than anything else?
We're thinking about ourselves.
So we naturally, subconsciously, without knowing it, assume that other people must be thinking about us too.
And they must be thinking the same thoughts.
They're on the same page as us.
Therefore, we overestimate how much they truly notice.
It's a common cognitive and social bias that brings about a lot of implicit self -scrutiny and there's even more research on this as well and it shows that we actually tend to implant our own securities onto others thoughts and we assume that they can see all the things that only we can notice.
You may also know this as the spotlight effect and I had this experience with a friend recently where this was very clear to me.
We were looking through pictures from her birthday party and there was this truly beautiful photo of her like smiling with a bunch of our friends her hair was like impeccable she had a beautiful outfit on her makeup was like stunning everything I literally saw the photo and gasped because I was like
you just look so great and she immediately was like oh my god no can't you see my double chin and can't you see my arms like don't let anyone post that and of course I hadn't noticed a single one of these features because others don't search for our insecurities the way that we do.
And I want to just say that one more time, other people do not search for our insecurities the way that we do.
So these are just a few reminders if you're in a spiral or you feel bombarded by imaginary or real judgments from those around you.
Let's move on to some more practical tips though.
My first big tip if you struggle with caring too much about what other people think is I want you to make an opinion hierarchy or rank the kind of opinions that you are likely to encounter.
So at the bottom of your ladder, at the bottom of your scale, it should be complete strangers.
Complete strangers, their opinions do not matter.
They have no clue who you are.
They really aren't invested in you as a person.
They don't care about your growth.
Your existence means very little to them.
So their opinion ranks on the bottom.
They are more likely to care about what you can do for them and how making you feel bad can make them feel better than they are to actually want what's best for you.
The second tier is acquaintances, then it's colleagues, then it's friends, then we have the silver circle, close friends.
I'm talking friends that are honorary family members and then finally also in that silver circle it's family members who trust and also your partner might be included here as well that's the inner sanctum that's the silver circle though we also have the gold circle who is left to belong in the gold
circle it's you you and you only i want you to draw out this diagram or this image however you see it in your mind i want you to draw it out put it on your mirror, somewhere in your car, front page of your diary, whatever it is, as a reminder of how other people's judgments rank compared to your own.
I think the big problem with spending too much time thinking about the thoughts of others is that we end up becoming detached or disconnected from our own opinion about something, including ourself.
So our intuition becomes injured because we're letting too many voices interrupt so what I really want you to do is opposite to what your you know what your gut feeling is saying and I want you to actually let yourself acknowledge the opinions of others let yourself really lean in let yourself really absorb
it don't ignore it and then ask yourself okay but what do I think all of this aside I've listened I've given you your time, I've listened.
Now what is my opinion?
And which one is going to make me happier to listen to?
Think about it in the context of an outfit.
That's a very simple enough example.
You might ask all your friends, what do you think?
What do you think about this look?
50 % of them might say, I hate it.
25 % say, yeah, it's fine.
25 % say, it's really beautiful.
I like it. Let those perspectives sink in and then turn around and say, all right, time to ask myself, what's my opinion?
And based on that hierarchy, what do I choose to do here?
This also is important because it allows yourself to be exposed to judgment without letting it, you know, kind of penetrate the armor, knowing that you can listen and not be hurt by it.
These opinions through this process will start to feel less and less important to you as your opinion and intuition become louder and louder and louder until you don't need to ask for validation about not just outfit choices but everything else in your life.
That's really what the people who you see who are just crushing it are doing.
There's people you see who are so authentic and true to themselves and they have great style and they've always focused on something and they're deeply committed and they let mean things bounce off them.
They have in some ways done this exercise in the past even if they don't realize it.
Second if you want to start turning inwards for validation rather than outwards it's really important to strengthen your sense of self and your identity and make sure you remind yourself what is important to me.
I'm going to ask you right now what are three things that are really important to you right now.
I'll give you a few seconds.
The thing is, if you don't know, if you can't name them, I think your identity needs a few renovations.
It needs a few additions.
You want to have that strong personal internal home that you can come back to.
Also, I think focus on being a good, authentic person rather than just an agreeable person.
You can be someone who was kind, self -assured, who has amazing things going for them and also who can stick up for themselves.
You can be someone who still you know listens to their family, listens to their friends, does ask for advice and does seek counsel but also when they have a gut feeling, when they have an instinct, when they like something they know how to act on it.
Really what it comes down to is don't let yourself doubt yourself any further like don't do that to yourself don't you know second guess yourself don't feel like again the opinion of a stranger is more worthwhile than yours instead I want you to commit deeply and without compromise to what you want
and what you want to do and what you care about and make sure that if someone asked you what do you care about you would know how to answer you'd know how to respond make an investment in yourself by choosing one goal one hobby one passion you want to work at and make yourself a good life full of things
you care about way more than others and that you could continue to do even if the world hated it you know I just don't let your life just be you know work come home watch tv order takeaway wait maybe hang out with your friends on the weekend and let everyone else dictate what you do I just don't think
that's a strong foundation for a good life I don't think it's a strong foundation for a good sense of self and it will make you easily swayed it will make you feel like you don't know how to do things you don't know what you want you don't know what you like but are you giving yourself enough new experiences
and external stimulus and excitement to actually give yourself the chance to know what you want finally finally i want you to adopt the 555 rule basically the 555 rule looks at other people's opinions or thoughts of you i don't know i keep using the i don't like your outfit one a lot it just seems easy
you know you're not fit enough you don't look the way you're not attractive you don't look how i want you to look you're never going to be successful, I don't believe in you, whatever it is that someone has told you at some point in your life, it looks at the opinions of others and it says, will it
matter in five days?
Will it matter in five months?
Will it matter in five years?
And crucially, will it matter if I don't listen?
Obviously, if you take something deeply to heart, it will still matter in five years.
But if you just treat someone's opinion with complete neutrality, will it matter?
And And the rule of five says that the only things we should concern ourselves with are issues or problems that will still be impacting us in five years time.
So what I'm talking about there is genuine feedback that someone is giving you in good faith to help you improve your life.
That is what will matter in five years time.
A family member saying, you know, I don't think like this way of going about your life is harming you.
that's an opinion you should listen to.
Or a boss saying hey if you have so much potential but if you don't do this thing if you don't fix this thing if you don't expand this part of yourself more you won't get ahead.
That's an opinion you should listen to.
But you know mean snarky criticism from a co -worker, strange look from lady on train, someone on the internet trolling you, opinion of old friend from high school that's not five -year worthy.
So they can be acknowledged and swiftly dismissed.
My last tip and it does kind of link to that one as well is choose your people wisely.
Choose people to be around you who you aspire to be like who respect you who you respect who will help you course correct but also who encourage you rather than bring you down.
There is no backhanded compliments.
There is no worrying what they'll think.
We all know the experience of having a friend who you can never quite tell whether they want to see you fail or whether they want to build you up or whether they just want something from you like there is some people who are like that and again I want to remind you they deserve love they deserve respect
because they're probably going through it themselves like if your existence brings out that insecurity in them it's because they were already insecure so really choose people who you know are going to elevate you, who will never make you question what it is about you that is authentic and pure and true
to you and I think that that makes you more confident in your own decisions, more confident in who you are because you're not worried about the immediate threat or possibility of upsetting someone or disappointing someone.
So those are just some of the tips that I wanted to give you today honestly I could give you millions more everyone else everyone really has their own ways of thinking about it some people like to imagine a big giant orb that surrounds them that other people's opinions bounce off of some people quite
to get like to get quite existential with it they like to you know really focus on the fact that we get one life no one's going to remember you and that is actually a really helpful thought and it's quite nice to imagine the kind of liberty and peace and freedom that comes with no one really ever being
able to remember your actions so it is really about finding out what works for you but at the end of the day really building up the parts of you that are going to be strong and that are going to be foundations for you no matter what anyone else thinks feels says believes whatever it is so I hope you
enjoyed this episode please if you've made it this far leave a little cloud emoji in the comment section and leave your thoughts on what you learned from this episode whether you think you can apply it to your own life I love seeing how far people get and it's always really cute to be like oh hello
my finishers my people who are committed to the episode so again thank you for listening also if you haven't yet listened to Mantra if you liked this episode I really think you're gonna like Mantra it's basically pep talks for your week that can ground you so I'll leave a link in the description make
sure you are following along on Instagram at that psychology podcast we do episode summaries we do polls all the time I ask you for your opinions on episodes so it'd be great to see you over there and until next time stay safe be kind and above all else be gentle to yourself we will talk very very soon do
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