Improve Your Focus With Mindfulness- And Science-Based Protocols

Improve Your Focus With Mindfulness- And Science-Based Protocols

I’ve said this before, but I feel it’s important to lead with it here: mindfulness is not a means to an end. Mindfulness is a means to a means—a way of waking up to life. Without mindfulness, so much of life escapes us. Without mindfulness, we’re governed by impulses and distractions. Mindfulness allows us to take the blinders off and start living with intention. When we practice mindfulness with this perspective, earnestly for the sake of life itself, certain benefits accrue. These benefits can be applied to everyday commitments like work, study, and relationships. These secondary benefits of mindfulness include reduced feelings of stress and anxiety, enhanced memory, and improved focus. Let’s remain on that last one—focus—as the topic of this article.

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I’ve been somewhat obsessed with focus in my own life ever since I read a book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (paid link). That book opened my eyes to the concept of ‘less is more’, but not in a superficial, catch-phrase-y way. The author presents compelling evidence that suggests knowing what is essential in your life, eliminating distractions, and having the courage to make difficult tradeoffs in the relentless pursuit of true focus on those one or two essential things is a huge part of the happiness formula everyone is searching for. This landed home for me because I have struggled with wanting to do it all, with thinking that I can take on the world through sheer willpower, thinking that I can fit it all in.

 

The concept seemed so powerful to me that it set me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I read Deep Work by Cal Newport (paid link), Indistractable by Nir Eyal (paid link), and Peak Mind by Amishi Jha (paid link). Mindfulness is an undercurrent running through all of these wonderful resources. It’s hard these days to find books on human performance that don’t mention mindfulness and meditation. The scientific literature in support of the fact that regular mindfulness practice can improve focus and memory is robust.

A close-up of a camera lens focused on a grey river and city scene to represent an article about mindfulness and focus

Enough about my personal stance on focus. Let’s dive into what I feel are some of the most salient and useful mindfulness- and science-based tools to help improve your focus. I’ll be leaning on the books I mentioned above, science podcasts such as the Huberman Lab podcast, but also mindfulness tradition works such as How To Focus by Thich Nhat Hanh (paid link) to share what I hope are tips that will help you improve your focus. 

 

Reducing distraction and noise 

 

Distraction is defined as ‘as something that prevents someone from concentrating on something else,’ so it is quite literally the antagonist of focus. There’s acute distraction in the form of someone interrupting your workflow with a question or a car door slamming outside your window as you’re settling into your meditation. Then, there’s chronic distraction, which I believe is one of humanity’s greatest challenges today.

 

Chronic distraction comes in the form of media—the endless stream of 60-second enticing clips that social media companies decide we should see, the sophisticated ads that number in the thousands that we’re exposed to each day, the wide range of projects and topics our employers believe falsely that we’re able to focus on, and the excess of choices that disguise themselves as convenience. 

Memento mori life tracker

Reduce the number of options, choices and opportunities

 

Technology has made it incredibly easy for us to access almost anything, any person, or any place in the world. But it takes time and effort to sift through a long list of options. Options come at a cost. Also, once we do make our choice, we’re left with some degree of uncertainty or dissatisfaction, knowing there were so many other options that may have been better. When faced with an opportunity, ask yourself ‘If this opportunity had not been presented to me, how hard would I be willing to work to obtain it?’ Simplify your life. Decide what works for you and stick to it. Consume less, and have the courage to remain steadfast in your commitments despite what everyone else is doing. When faced with multiple options, rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. If it’s not a 9, then it’s a zero. All of these practices can help you eliminate the distraction of dilemma associated with excess choice. 

 

Close the gates to distraction

 

In mindfulness traditions, it is said that the hindrances of mindful awareness and focused attention come from the outside, not from within. Specifically, distractions enter our conscious experience through the five bodily senses, known as the Five Gates: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Dedicate a 10- to 15-minute meditation session once per week during which you attempt to give your full attention and awareness to one of the five bodily senses. Developing the skill of getting in touch with your senses on a more intimate level builds the capacity to notice distractions as they arise because they often arise through the senses. This is important because we’re bombarded with so many distractions that they become background noise and go easily unnoticed. You can’t avoid what you don’t see. 

A woman holding a camera lens which shows a person up-side-down to represent an article about mindfulness and focus

Prevent distraction

 

The best way to reduce distractions in your life is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Turn off notifications on all your apps. Leave your phone in another room when you want to focus. Don’t check email until after 12PM. Send fewer emails. The more emails you send, the more replies you’ll have to eat away at your focus. Be mindful of transitions between tasks, as it’s often in these transitions that we find distractions. Inform others of the times you plan to focus and kindly ask them not to disturb you during these times. However, when you are interrupted by a loved one, respond with compassion. An interruption from a loved one is an ideal opportunity to show you care. 

 

Mindfulness to improve your focus

 

In Buddhism, it is said that mindfulness precedes concentration and concentration precedes insight. Personal and spiritual breakthroughs don’t happen without mindfulness. We must sustain concentration and intention to begin to see clearly. 

 

Many peer-reviewed studies have come to the same conclusion: regular bouts of mindfulness meditation lead to higher levels of focus. The protocols differ slightly between studies but most suggest that 10-15 minutes five times per week will have the desired effect, although longer durations work, too. It makes sense. Mindfulness meditation is the attempt to focus on something, typically the breath, and return focus to that thing once your own thoughts inevitably distract you. The restoring of focus is where the exercise really takes place. By gently returning focus after being distracted by thoughts, over and over, we’re building the ‘muscles’ of focus, and gradually we spend more time focused and less time distracted. 

 

Pure focus is single-pointed awareness. Mindfulness is the ability to remain focused on the here and now. There are many ways to put yourself into a state of mindful awareness. You can focus on the breath. You can concentrate on the sounds around you. But one of my favorite ways to drop into the present moment is to ask myself, ‘What am I thinking right now?’ This breaks the habitual cycle of default-mode thinking and quickly restores my present-moment awareness. 

The science of focus

 

Studies have shown that 90 minutes seems to be about as long as anyone can sustain deep focus. Structure your day and projects around several periods of 50 to 90 minutes during which you intend to focus deeply. Binaural beats of a frequency of 40Hz have been shown to promote states of focus, so it’s a good idea to listen to them for a few minutes before your focus period begins. You can find tracks of binaural beats at 40Hz on YouTube. Whether the binaural beats or some other practice, it’s important to ease into a session of intense focus. Much like an athlete warms up and stretches before competing, we can’t expect to drop into focus with the snap of a finger. 

 

During periods of focus, you can listen to white, pink, or brown noise, which have also been shown to promote states of focus. They’re great, too, for blocking out ambient conversations if you happen to work or study around other people. When you’re finding it difficult to focus, go for a walk. Fresh air and open spaces can re-energize you, and you may even find that disengaging from your work will allow you to return to it with a fresh perspective. 

 

Final thoughts

 

Although not explicitly, in this article I’ve touched on three different types of focus. I’ve shared tips on how to sit down and focus on a task optimally. I discussed how to take a structured approach to decisions, choices, commitments, and engagements—how to distill them down to only the essential few so that you can give them your full focus. But I’ve also touched on the type of focus that is mindfulness in general. This last one is the most important. The ability to cultivate mindful awareness more often than not is the ability to connect with life. If we’re not focused on life—on the mundane aspects of it like driving home from work or grocery shopping or picking up our kids from school—then what are we focused on? If we can’t see the beauty in these everyday moments, then what are we seeing? Is it social media? Television? Advertisements? Of course we don’t want to focus on those things. We want to focus on the people around us. We want to delight in their presence. We want to listen to our bodies and take restful moments sitting on the grass in the sun. Mindfulness helps build the capacity to focus on a task, sure, but it also helps us regain focus on life itself.

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How To Focus On The Process

How To Focus On The Process

The outcome is the obstacle. When fixation on the desired outcome obscures focus on the task at hand, errors occur. Conversely, if our actions are not clouded by oversight, but executed with care, lightheartedness, and undivided attention, then we travel a much clearer path toward the outcome. This article aims to provide answers to the question ‘How to focus on the process?’. I’ll share some personal observations, but also provide some practical focus tips to improve undivided attention. I’ve also collected several science-based tips shown to enhance focus. We’ll discuss how process focus affects performance and look at how to focus on the process and not the outcome. The true aim of this piece is not to help us achieve more, but to help us realize the innate beauty of a life unobstructed by harmful grasping onto desired outcomes.

A dictionary-style definition of the terms 'process focus' and 'outcome focus'

My job often demands flawless execution, but of course like everyone, I make mistakes. I recently took some time to analyze my mistakes, non-judgmentally, and I noticed a few common threads connecting the majority of my errors. Here are the three common undercurrents of my mistakes: 

 

  1. I rush
  2. I doubt myself 
  3. During the action, I say to myself ‘don’t make a mistake’ 

 

Process over results

 

When I analyzed these three circumstantial commonalities of error in my own work, I came to the conclusion that they all share one fundamental cause: lack of process focus. Let’s take rushing for example. If you think about it, rushing is the embodiment of outcome focus. Rushing is caused by a desire to be somewhere else or to be doing something else. Doubting oneself is a manifestation of fear—fear rooted in over-attachment to the outcome, or the fear of failing to get there. 

 

This is why delivering a presentation alone in your living room is far less of a burden than delivering the same presentation in front of colleagues. It’s the same action, but the latter lends itself to fear of the outcome. The last of my three signposts of error, saying to myself ‘don’t make a mistake’, is a distraction. These words entering my mind are brought there by looking ahead to the desired outcome and attaching to it a great importance, which detracts focus from what I’m actually doing. 

 

It’s clear that lack of process focus can cloud our attention and lead to mistakes. But what can we do about it? 

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How to focus on the process two personal observations

 

1. Don’t scan, savor – In this age of information, where our devices are flooded with new content daily, we’ve developed a tendency to scan for the bits that interest us most. Most websites and social platforms are designed to allow us to scan and still get what we want. This habit of scanning is fine on Instagram, but when it comes to true focus, whether it’s learning to play a musical instrument, writing a report, or even listening to a family member, it can expose us to error. 

 

I like to use an analogy to help combat scanning—that of reading your favorite novel. Imagine yourself settled into a cozy nook, hot cup of something at your side, immersed in your favorite book. Your reading will be slow and pleasurable. You will savor each word, from left to right, line by line. The book is so captivating that you wouldn’t dare skip a line, much less an entire paragraph. 

Read everything like a good book

 

Bring this slow and deliberate reading to your work. Much of the information we consume is software based, and practically designed for our eyes to skip around the page. Don’t skip or scan, but simply read all the information slowly and carefully, from left to right, line by line. It takes only a few seconds longer than scanning, but it provides full context, and ensures you won’t miss anything critical.

 

  1. Pointing and calling – I first read about the pointing and calling method in James Clear’s bestselling book Atomic Habits. The method, famously used in the ultra-efficient rail network in Japan, consists of a person literally pointing at what they are about to act upon, and then calling out the action aloud. 

 

I found this to be strikingly clever. I realized immediately how well this method could transfer to information-based work. The cursor on the computer is perfect for pointing. Calling can be done aloud or internally. I am copying x information and pasting it into y document. Perform. I am analyzing x column of data to isolate y variable. Perform. I am about to meet with x person to discuss y. Perform.

 

Another truism about process focus is that its advantages are evident in both success and failure. If we look back at major accomplishments, we realize that they are not a snapshot in time, but an accumulation of countless small actions performed well. Similarly, when we look back at our failures, we can often identify and isolate one or more actions that were flawed, thereby contributing to the negative outcome. 

Man jumping over barrels representing an article on how to focus on the process

How to focus on the process – Science-based focus tips 

 

The following focus tips come to us from Dr. Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University. More specifically, they come from his two-hour podcast episode Focus Toolkit: Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration, which I highly recommend watching in its entirety.

 

Here are a few bullet-style tips to help you improve your focus: 

 

  • Binaural beats, at a frequency of 40 Hz, have shown to enhance focus and decrease the amount of time it takes to get into a focused state. Avoid using binaural beats for your entire focus period. Try using them for five minutes before you begin to focus or to reduce distraction in noisy environments. There are many apps or you can find binaural beats on YouTube for free.
  • Leverage your body’s natural ultradian rhythms and block out periods of about 90 minutes for intensely focused sessions. Don’t expect to enter into deep focus right away. It takes five to ten minutes to settle in. Towards the end, spend 10-30 minutes to deliberately defocus.
  • Try a cold shower to increase epinephrine and dopamine in the brain and body. This will help the body get into a focused state. The positive effects of epinephrine last up to an hour or more.
  • Regular meditation practice has shown to have proven benefits for our ability to focus. Huberman cites a study in which participants meditated, using a form of meditation called concentration meditation, for 13 minutes per day. These participants had measurably higher levels of focus compared to the control group who did not meditate. 
  • Using our visual field can improve focus. Set a timer for 30 seconds and focus on one object during this time. This is a good way to begin your 90-minute focus sessions.

 

The true importance of process focus 

 

When we contemplate the finite nature of life, as the Stoics prescribed, then we realize that treating certain actions as mere stepping stones to something greater plays right into something we are all trying to avoid: life passing us by. 

 

It is true that by dedicating ourselves fully to each action we actually perform better, but this is not the chief argument for doing so. We should strive to wash our dishes and do our laundry with deliberate care because these actions are life itself

 

Most imagery in mindfulness teachings shows us the sunset or the quiet moment with a loved one. But it’s critical to note that driving to work or taking out the trash are no less precious than the majesty of the setting sun or the connection of a family dinner. In fact, I would argue that these mundane or even unpleasant actions are where our mindfulness practice is most required.

Outcomes are obvious

 

You may think that letting go of the outcome will weaken you. By not having clear and constant reminders of your goals, you will not achieve them. But the thing about most outcomes is that they’re pervasive. Our society is practically constructed to give us constant reminders of who we need to be and where we need to go. Your work has built-in measures of success and performance reviews. Yes, you need plans and goals, but allow yourself to elaborate these with care and lightheartedness. Once you have a plan, you need not obsess over the outcome because it is always there. Thinking about the desired outcome won’t get you any closer to it, only the plethora of minor and mundane actions leading to it will. Nurturing these small acts not only yields better performance, but it affords us the preciousness of the present moment. 

The present moment is an evergreen opportunity 

 

Focusing on process over results, especially with the smallest of tasks, can amount to greater outcomes when we are not misguided by obsession over those outcomes. Approaching each action with care is a noble pursuit of life itself. Finally, fixating on an outcome can make us miss opportunities because our perspective is so narrow and confined to one rigid outcome. This narrow perspective of focusing solely on the outcome also stifles creativity and greatly restricts the ability to realize new possibilities and recognize opportunities. 

 

But perhaps the most powerful aspect of a given moment is that it represents an opportunity to reset. I’d like to end on this note, because this noble pursuit of granting care and attention to the ‘minor’ details in life will come with its setbacks. You will lose focus at times and you will find yourself working on the outcome instead of the task. When this happens, do not become frustrated. Simply notice that you’ve strayed from the path, smile, and refocus. This is why mindfulness and meditation are the key, as they teach us not to strive for unfaltering focus, but to enjoy the pursuit of focus—to recognize when we have lost focus and regain it promptly and without angst. 

 

“Life happens when we are busy making plans” – Allen Saunders

 

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu

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How To Care Less About What Others Think Of You

How To Care Less About What Others Think Of You

There’s nothing quite like the flames of adversity for forging new realizations about oneself. I’m writing this shortly after emerging from one of my job’s peak periods. It wasn’t my first of these short bursts of high intensity and pressure. It was a period of about four weeks during which complexity is at its highest, mistakes are unthinkable, and your work is under the microscope of all the higher-ups. 

 

With this hard sprint in the rearview mirror, I wanted to reflect on my performance to see what I could learn. From a business perspective, the event was a success for the company and for me personally. But it certainly wasn’t painless. Sure, the exceptionally long hours were tough. Of course, under the hot spotlight, there were some tense exchanges. But what really got me—the times where I truly suffered—were the times I worried about what other people thought of me. 

 

“Bitter wisdom is better than sweet folly.”

Matshona Dhliwayo

 

How to care less about what others think

 

I’ve read probably a half dozen books covering the dangers of over attachment to the ego and how to care less about what others think. And as is hopefully evident from the fact that I’ve been writing this blog for almost three years, I take my practices of mindfulness and Stoicism seriously. Yet I could not help but slip into the pit of excessive concern for how I appeared in the eyes of others. Of course, like with any job, what others think of you matters. Worrying about it is not only natural but to a certain extent it is healthy. But the moment you lose sleep over it, as I did a few weeks ago, or the moment the worry distracts or subtracts from the work, then it’s time to inform and develop a healthier approach. 

 

The aim of this article is to spread some insight and practical methods on how to care less about what others think of you.

 

Lesson one: Don’t attach your sense of self-worth to your job 

 

With most occupations come reliable, regular assessments of our performance. We’re constantly assessed based on measurable results but also sometimes based on the subjective opinions of others (meaning performance evaluation is not 100% within our control). Assuming we’re paid a fair wage for our efforts, these assessments are worth a lot. They can mean the difference between having a steady income and not having it. But these are assessments of our performance, not assessments of our true nature. It’s easy to confuse the two. Without mindful effort, we can easily associate how well we’re doing with how well we’re being

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So how can we dissociate our sense of self from the work we do? To start, make sure your core values are top of mind and part of what you’re trying to accomplish each day. I recently wrote an article on how to define and develop core personal values, so I won’t go into it in depth here. You shouldn’t need too much extra impetus to get your work done each day. This is the positive side of the coin when it comes to performance assessments and the accountability your boss imposes on you: They push you to do your work. 

 

Evaluate yourself on what truly matters

 

Who’s telling you to be kind in 100% of your interpersonal interactions at work? Who’s reminding you to maintain your calm, mindful awareness throughout the day? Do the quality work that contributes to a favorable performance assessment, but it’s imperative to do it while developing and displaying your own personal values. At the end of the day, look back and reflect on how well you performed in harmony with your values. Leave your performance assessment to your boss. Assess yourself based on what truly matters to you—how well you treated others, how you took care of your health, how you challenged your comfort zone. 

 

When you examine your day through the lens of higher values, and especially if you can be proud of the actions you took to uphold those values, then two powerful benefits arise. First, reviewing the day along these lines allows you to process the day’s events in a healthy way, which reduces the likelihood of ruminating on them in the evening. Second, if you did your best work and you’re proud that you did it with calm and kindness, then you care less about what others think of you. 

 

Another helpful ego check that puts some distance between you and what others may or may not think about you is the realization that your work is not that special. People in the past have done what you’re doing. People in the future will come along and do it better than you. Your truly special contributions in life won’t come in exchange for a wage. They happen at home. They happen in your community and through relationships. 

 

Lesson two: Non-attachment to beliefs is the key to care less about what others think

 

It’s the perceived belief that someone thinks poorly of you (whether they actually do or not) that causes suffering. If someone actually verbalizes their dislike or displeasure for you, then again, this is their belief. Then, there is a certain belief you hold about yourself that becomes threatened by what others think. Perhaps you liken yourself to be a hardworking person, but you receive the impression that another person thinks you’re lazy. This disharmony between your belief about who you are and their belief about you provokes distress. 

Memento mori life tracker

Since we cannot control the other person’s belief, we need to recognize the fundamental truth about beliefs, especially the ones comprising our sense of self, which is that they are impermanent. We should view our beliefs about ourselves the same way we view the weather. We can prefer the sunshine, but we don’t fall apart when it’s rainy. Likewise, we will inevitably develop beliefs about ourselves and even have preferences for some of them, but we cannot grasp onto them. 

 

When we fail to realize that beliefs are essentially fluid and constantly changing, we tend to cling to them. You’re much more likely to be bothered by someone’s perception of your work ethic if you’re inflexibly clinging to that notion—demanding it to be true in all circumstances and in the eyes of all those around you. You can’t unhear or un-know what other people think of you after you’ve picked up on it. But by ceasing to grasp at your own belief about it, by playfully considering all possibilities, by allowing the clouds to temporarily hide the sun, you relieve yourself of the burden of trying to maintain an impossible consistency with something that is impermanent. This flexibility allows you to return your focus to what truly matters. 

 

Lesson three: Process focus 

 

Another way to care less about what others think of you is to focus on the process of what you’re doing. All great productions are an accumulation of countless minor acts done well. It’s easy to focus in the big moments—when the boss is watching, the night before a final exam—but consistently applying your best focus to the small things is what makes for greatness. This requires a certain level of discipline and mindfulness. It takes effort to care for the little things as much as the big things. We should all be more motivated to give our full attention and care to the small things because the majority of life consists of the small things. 

 

Bringing our full awareness to even seemingly mundane activities has a twofold benefit. First, it leads to better results. In turn, the more we’re focused on producing quality work the less we’re focused on what others think. Plus, as our results improve through consistent process focus, we gain confidence. We gain trust, too, and build a reputation of competency. When mistakes become the exception and not the norm, we’re much less attached to how others view us in light of those rare mistakes.

Liquid foundation and brush to represent an article on how to care less about what others think

Lesson four: People think less about you than you think, and you’re doing better than you think 

 

Researchers David Watson and Donald Friend would call fear of what others think ‘Fear of Negative Evaluation’. They developed an assessment to measure this specific type of fear called the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE). The FNE Scale consists of thirty statements to which respondents answer true or false. The final score indicates whether the person is mostly relaxed, has some fear of evaluative situations, or is generally fearful of what others think of them. 

 

One study using the FNE demonstrated that people who scored high on the test (generally fearful of what others think) also gave themselves the poorest self-assessments for public speaking performance. 

 

“Feeling fearful of negative evaluation by others causes a speaker to focus on their awkward appearance or the number of long gaps in their speech. Positive aspects of the performance, such as appearing confident or self-assured, were more commonly overlooked by this group. Understanding that a high FNE may cause internal negative bias can therefore be helpful in assuaging any doubts you might have about your ability.” 

— Dr. Hannah England, Fear of judgement: why we are afraid of being judged

 

This demonstrates that you’re likely performing better than you think, especially if you’re exceptionally worried about what others think. As Dr. England points out above, knowing your own internal negative bias helps you get past it. 

 

People are thinking of themselves, not you

 

In 1977, researchers Dunbar, Marriott, et al studied the topics of conversations and found that 78% of casual conversation content was about ourselves and our perceived beliefs. If we’re honest, we can see this to be true. When someone tells us about their recent trip to Thailand, we usually come back with the recount of the time we were there. We almost always connect what the other person is saying with our own related belief or memory. 

 

Then, in 2018, researchers Meyer and Lieberman demonstrated through brain imaging studies that the same area of the brain which is active when we’re disengaged from demands on external focus (aka the default network mode) is also active when we’re thinking about ourselves. Therefore, thinking about ourselves is the default, or at least the two states are closely interrelated. The takeaway is that perceived judgments from others are likely to be nothing more than constructs of our own mind. 

 

The goal is definitely not to rid yourself of any concern for what other people think of you. This would be to your detriment. The goal is to strike a healthy balance. Signs that you’re maintaining a healthy concern for what others think include engaging voluntarily in activities that make you nervous (the opposite of avoidance), when you receive criticism you’re able to parse out the helpful from the harmful and move on with your work, and your sleep quality is unaffected. 

 

Compassion is central to caring less about what others think

 

When you anchor yourself in your core values, you’re less susceptible to negative evaluation because you have more important things to focus on. And in the pursuit of those higher values, if you’re focused on the process, your attention bandwidth has less free space for perceived judgments. Finally, when we acknowledge that who we are is constantly changing, negative judgments are less able to stick to us. 

 

When reading through my notes on the book Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday, I found this striking passage and thought it would serve well as the parting advice for this article:

 

“Imagine if for every person you met, you thought of some way to help them, something you could do for them? And you looked at it in a way that entirely benefited them and not you. The cumulative effect this would have over time would be profound: You’d learn a great deal by solving diverse problems. You’d develop a reputation for being indispensable. You’d have countless new relationships.”

 

I would add that you’d also have less fear of negative evaluation and you’d generally care less about what others think of you. 

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