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This entry was posted in Books on January 31, 2016 by Blas.


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December 2017 + Yearly Overview

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December 2016 + Overview of 2016

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October 2016

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June 2016

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December 2015 + Overview of 2015


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This entry was posted in Newsletter Archive on December 12, 2016 by Blas.


BUILDING A STORYBRAND: CLARIFY YOUR MESSAGE SO CUSTOMERS WILL LISTEN BY DONALD
MILLER

Summary

 1. Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand. This is the
    secret every phenomenally successful business understands.

Key Takeaways

 1. The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the
    brain to digest. So what’s your message? Can you say it easily? Is it
    simple, relevant, and repeatable? Can your entire team repeat your company’s
    message in such a way that it is compelling? Have new hires been given
    talking points they can use to describe what the company offers and why
    every potential customer should buy it?
 2. Mistakes
    1. The first mistake brands make is they fail to focus on the aspects of
       their offer that will help people survive and thrive. All great stories
       are about survival—either physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual.
       A story about anything else won’t work to captivate an audience. Nobody’s
       interested.
    2. The second mistake brands make is they cause their customers to burn too
       many calories in an effort to understand their offer.
    3. The key is to make your company’s message about something that helps the
       customer survive and to do so in such a way that they can understand it
       without burning too many calories.
    4. People don’t buy the best products; they buy the products they can
       understand the fastest.
    5. A critical mistake many organizations make in defining something their
       customers want is they don’t pare down that desire to a single focus. At
       the highest level, the most important challenge for business leaders is
       to define something simple and relevant their customers want and to
       become known for delivering on that promise. – Conserving time, Building
       social networks, offering increased productivity, increased revenue, or
       decreased waste, the desire for meaning.
 3. The Story
    1. Here is nearly every story you see or hear in a nutshell: A CHARACTER who
       wants something encounters a PROBLEM before they can get it. At the peak
       of their despair, a GUIDE steps into their lives, gives them a PLAN, and
       CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action helps them avoid FAILURE and ends in a
       SUCCESS.
    2. A customer should be able to answer these questions within five seconds
       of looking at our website or marketing material: 
       1. What do you offer?
       2. How will it make my life better?
       3. What do I need to do to buy it?
 4. The 7 Principles
    1. The customer is the hero, not your brand
       1. Who does our customer want to become? What kind of person do they want
          to be? What is their aspirational identity?
       2. The best way to identify an aspirational identity that our customers
          may be attracted to is to consider how they want their friends to talk
          about them. Think about it. When others talk about you, what do you
          want them to say? How we answer that question reveals who it is we’d
          like to be.
    2. Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy
       solutions to internal problems (and philosophical ones)
       1. Human beings are looking for resolutions to their external, internal,
          and philosophical problems, and they can achieve this through, among
          other things, status, self-realization, self-acceptance, and
          transcendence. If our products can help people achieve these things,
          we should make this a core aspect of our brand promise.
    3. Customers aren’t looking for another hero, they’re looking for a guide
       1. The two things a brand must communicate to position themselves as the
          guide are Empathy and authority
          1. Testimonials, statistics, awards, logos
    4. Customers trust a guide who has a plan
       1. Plans can take many shapes and forms, but all effective plans do one
          of two things: they either clarify how somebody can do business with
          us, or they remove the sense of risk somebody might have if they’re
          considering investing in our products or services. Remember the mantra
          “If you confuse, you lose”? Not having a plan is a guaranteed way to
          confuse your customers.
       2. A process plan can describe the steps a customer needs to take to buy
          our product, or the steps the customer needs to take to use our
          product after they buy it, or a mixture of both.
    5. Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action
       1. What steps do they need to take to do business with you? Spell out
          those steps, and it’ll be as though you’ve paved a sidewalk through a
          field.
    6. Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending
       1. Stories live and die on a single question: What’s at stake? If nothing
          can be gained or lost, nobody cares.
       2. Brands that help customers avoid some kind of negativity in life (and
          let their customers know what that negativity is) engage customers for
          the same reason good stories captivate an audience: they define what’s
          at stake.
    7. Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives.
       Tell them!
 5. The 5 things your website should include
    1. An offer above the fold – we’ll make you a pro in the kitchen. Join now!
       1. The idea here is that customers need to know what’s in it for them
          right when they read the text. The text should be bold and the
          statement should be short. It should be easy to read and not buried
          under buttons and clutter. I recently went to the website for
          Squarespace and it simply said, “We Help You Make Beautiful Websites.”
          Perfect.
       2. Aspirational identiy, promise to solve a problem, state exactly what
          you do
    2. Obvious Calls to Action
       1. There are two main places we want to place a direct call to action.
          The first is at the top right of our website and the second is in the
          center of the screen, above the fold.
    3. Images of Success
       1. We believe images of smiling, happy people who have had a pleasurable
          experience (closed an open story loop) by engaging your brand should
          be featured on your website.
    4. A Bite-Sized Breakdown of Your Revenue Streams
    5. Very Few Words
 6. 5 (almost free) things you can do to grow your business
    1. Create a one-liner
       1. 1.  The Character        2.  The Problem        3.  The Plan       
          4.  The Success
       2. The Character: Moms         •  The Problem: Busy schedules         • 
          The Plan: Short, meaningful workouts         •  The Success: Health
          and renewed energy         •  “We provide busy moms with a short,
          meaningful workout they can use to stay healthy and have renewed
          energy.”
    2. Create a Lead Generator and Collect E-mail Addresses. You need a lead
       generator. You need a PDF, e-course, video series, webinar, live event,
       or just about anything else that will allow you to collect e-mail
       addresses.
       1. In order to combat noise in today’s marketplace, your lead generator
          must do two things:        1.  Provide enormous value for your
          customer        2.  Establish you as an authority in your field
       2. Downloadable Guide, Online Course or Webinar, Software Demos or a Free
          Trial, Free Samples, Live Events
       3. If you’re going to create a downloadable PDF, keep it to about three
          pages of content. Stuff as much value as you can into those three
          pages so your prospects will see you as the “go-to” guide.
       4. Make sure you feature your lead generator liberally on your website. I
          recommend creating a pop-up feature on your site that, after ten
          seconds or so of the browser arriving, offers your resource to the
          user. Though people complain about pop-ups, the stats are clear: they
          readily outperform nearly every other type of Internet advertising.
    3. Create an Automated E-Mail Drip Campaign.
       1. While there are many kinds of automated e-mail campaigns, the one we
          recommend starting with is the nurturing campaign. A nurturing
          campaign is a simple, regular e-mail that offers your subscribers
          valuable information as it relates to your products or services. Not
          unlike our lead generator, we want these e-mails to continue
          positioning us as the guide and to create a bond of trust and
          reciprocity with potential customers. There will come a time to ask
          for a sale, but this isn’t the primary goal of a nurturing campaign. A
          typical nurturing campaign may have an e-mail going out once each
          week, and the order might look like this: E-mail #1: Nurturing e-mail
          E-mail #2: Nurturing e-mail E-mail #3: Nurturing e-mail E-mail #4:
          Sales e-mail with a call to action
       2. The Nurturing E-mail A good way to craft each nurturing e-mail is to
          use an effective formula that offers simple, helpful advice to a
          customer. I’ve been using this formula for years and customers love
          it.        1.  Talk about a problem.        2.  Explain a plan to
          solve the problem.        3.  Describe how life can look for the
          reader once the problem is solved.
    4. Collect and Tell Stories of Transformation. Almost every story is about
       the transformation of the hero, and when we tell stories about how we’ve
       helped our customers transform, potential customers immediately
       understand what your brand can offer them.
       1. Here are five questions most likely to generate the best response for
          a customer testimonial:        1.  What was the problem you were
          having before you discovered our product?        2.  What did the
          frustration feel like as you tried to solve that problem?        3. 
          What was different about our product?        4.  Take us to the moment
          when you realized our product was actually working to solve your
          problem.        5.  Tell us what life looks like now that your problem
          is solved or being solved.
    5. Create a System That Generates Referrals. Once you create a system that
       funnels potential customers into becoming actual customers, your work is
       not quite done. The final step is to turn around and invite happy
       customers to become evangelists for your brand. This will only happen if
       we create a system that invites and incentivizes them to spread the word.
       1. Identify your existing, ideal customers and give them a reason to
          spread the word (offer a reward, 100% refund for 3 new referrals
          within a quarter, invite-a-friend coupons)


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Business, Donald Miller, Landing Page,
Marketing on June 30, 2022 by Blas.


THE MEMBERSHIP ECONOMY BY ROBBIE KELLMAN BAXTER

Summary

 1. This book describes the future, the changes that create a two way
    relationship between customers (members) and companies. The pendulum has
    slowly been swinging from ownership to membership as manufacturing has
    gotten digitized in many cases. The membership economy will have as large of
    an impact on society as the industrial revolution

Key Takeaways

 1.  Members are in a relationship with an organization in which they are
     engaged over a long period of time – forever transactions that tie customer
     to company and vice versa. Done properly, membership is a win/win. It
     provides predictable revenue, builds a direct relationship, provides an
     ongoing data stream for companies and allows members to get recognition and
     value but allows them to quit at anytime if they choose to
 2.  You must put the customer rather than the product or business at the
     center. Transaction —> Membership, Ownership —> Access
 3.  People are wired to want to be in a community they respect and have good
     standing in
 4.  Membership based companies don’t always have communities, but they often
     do. This facilitates loyalty, engagement, and referrals, not to mention can
     tap into network effects
 5.  Types of membership based companies – nonprofits, digital subscriptions,
     online communities, loyalty programs, traditional membership companies
     (AmEx), small business and consultancies
 6.  Strategies to successfully align with membership economies
     1. Build the right organization – culture and attitude are central to
        making the customer the core
     2. Build a bottoms up acquisition funnel – with a forever transaction,
        retention is far more important than acquisition. Start at the bottom
        (with the core value and the ideal members that this would resonate
        with), and then build up to the top of the funnel
     3. Onboard members for success and super users – first few days are key to
        the member experience and their long-term engagement. Think about first
        steps, roadmaps, how they should get started. There are 3 key steps –
        remove friction, add immediate value, reward behavior and actions you
        want to incentivize. In other words, make it easy, make it personal, get
        them involved
     4. Model pricing for simplicity and flexibility – risk is too much
        complexity too early in the relationship. Value needs to be clear,
        transparent, differentiated. Cadence needs to be tested as well and see
        if monthly, annual, consumption based, etc makes the most sense. Some
        pricing strategies: subscriptions (with or without tiers, typically 3
        tiers), ancillary products (swag, things that will make the membership
        more valuable), partnership streams, aggregated analytics, advertising,
        free products and service offerings. Beware discounts, pricing too low
        or too high at the beginning,
     5. Incorporate “free” as a tactic, not a strategy – free is powerful but
        only if it supports the overall business model. Use it to build
        awareness and increase size of funnel, build a large community that can
        aid paying members
     6. Use the right technology and track the right data – social / marketing
        automation, CRM, engagement, community, customer success, loyalty,
        billing.
     7. Retain members but know when to let them go – loyalty is vital but the
        wrong customer will be very expensive
 7.  In a membership economy, focus for the CEO shifts from product to
     relationships , marketing moves to two-way communication, sales are
     compensated through LTV rather than one off transactions. Every stakeholder
     is treated as a partner and coordinate to find ways to improve the
     experience of a member
 8.  Innovation is a verb, not a noun. A process,  not a point
 9.  Super users do the following:
     1. Check in regularly and often
     2. Create content that others can access and benefit from
     3. Police the community
     4. Have a two-way relationship and feel comfortable offering feedback
     5. Genuinely care and want to help other members
     6. Attract new members
     7. Aid in the onboarding of new members
 10. How to raise prices – grandfather current members, create a more expensive
     tier with more benefits. Always be transparent about reasons if you do have
     to raise on current members
 11. Move from free to paid through volume of usage, duration, features,
     additional services, removal of ads
 12. Some ways to increase loyalty among members
     1. Make it easy – keep pricing simple, give value immediately, make
        onboarding great, have a free option, build loyalty through the free
        trial, remind to cancel before paying if they’re not using
     2. Make it personal – periodically give something extra, allow members to
        connect with you personally, allow members to customize and personalize,
        experience adapts over time to create increasingly personalized
        experiences, help create status / milestones
     3. Get others involved – connect others, create stickiness by forming
        relationships between members, engage customers for inspiration on
        ideas, content, community,
     4. The forever transaction is the key to retention in the membership
        economy – favor relationships over transactions
 13. Loyalty programs are incredibly important and effective. Your most loyal
     customers drive disproportionate profits. Track demographics, preferences,
     and behaviors
     1. Keep it simple, remove friction, make the member feel special, add
        value, give recognition
 14. Some huge advantages that smaller companies have include: Focus,
     exclusivity, and recognition

What I got out of it

 1. I listened and immediately re-listened to this book. A ton of practical
    advice and thoughts on how to build a robust, loyal community


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Community, Loyalty, Membership on June
30, 2022 by Blas.


THE ART SPIRIT BY ROBERT HENRI

Summary

 1. ART when really understood is the province of every human being. It is
    simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside,
    extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of
    work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing
    creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets,
    enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding.

Key Takeaways

 1.  I have little interest in teaching you what I know. I wish to stimulate you
     to tell me what you know. In my office toward you I am simply trying to
     improve my own environment.
 2.  Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but
     do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were
     right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make
     yours. They can help you. All the past can help you.
 3.  He who has contemplated has met with himself, is in a state to see into the
     realities beyond the surfaces of his subject. Nature reveals to him, and,
     seeing and feeling intensely, he paints, and whether he wills it or not
     each brush stroke is an exact record of such as he was at the exact moment
     the stroke was made. 
 4.  The value of repeated studies of beginnings of a painting cannot be
     over-estimated. Those who cannot begin do not finish.
 5.  There is a time and place for all things, the difficulty is to use them
     only in their proper time and places.
 6.  The study of art is the study of the relative value of things. The factors
     of a work of art cannot be used constructively until their relative values
     are known. Unstable governments, like unstable works of art, are such as
     they are because values have not been appreciated.
 7.  A good painting is a remarkable feat of organization. Every part of it is
     wonderful in itself because it seems so alive in its share in the making of
     the unity of the whole, and the whole is so definitely one thing.
 8.  No vacillating or uncertain interest can produce a unity.
 9.  We are instinctively blind to what is not relative. We are not cameras. We
     select. We do this always when we are not painting.
 10. All things change according to the state we are in. Nothing is fixed.
 11. In drawing, Rembrandt with a cast shadow or just a line or two realized for
     us the most complete sense of space, that is, background, environment. He
     could do this because he saw and he had the genius of selection. Look at
     his simplest drawings and you will see that he was a supreme master in
     this.
 12. If you want to know how to do a thing you must first have a complete desire
     to do that thing. Then go to kindred spirits—others who have wanted to do
     that thing—and study their ways and means, learn from their successes and
     failures and add your quota. Thus you may acquire from the experience of
     the race. And with this technical knowledge you may go forward, expressing
     through the play of forms the music that is in you and which is very
     personal to you.
 13. I love the tools made for mechanics. I stop at the windows of hardware
     stores. If I could only find an excuse to buy many more of them than I have
     already bought on the mere pretense that I might have use for them! They
     are so beautiful, so simple and plain and straight to their meaning. There
     is no “Art” about them, they have not been made beautiful, they are
     beautiful.
 14. Someone has defined a work of art as a “thing beautifully done.” I like it
     better if we cut away the adverb and preserve the word “done,” and let it
     stand alone in its fullest meaning. Things are not done beautifully. The
     beauty is an integral part of their being done.
 15. All manifestations of art are but landmarks in the progress of the human
     spirit toward a thing but as yet sensed and far from being possessed.
 16. The picture that looks as if it were done without an effort may have been a
     perfect battlefield in its making.
 17. No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative
     mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is
     beauty.
 18. No knowledge is so easily found as when it is needed.
 19. It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in
     the artist’s ability to see well into what is before him.
 20. A genius is one who can see. The others can often “draw” remarkably well.
     Their kind of drawing, however, is not very difficult. They can change
     about. They can make their sight fit the easiest way for their drawing. As
     their seeing is not particular it does not matter. With the seer it is
     different. Nothing will do but the most precise statement. He must not only
     bend technique to his will, but he must invent technique that will
     especially fit his need. He is not one who floats affably in his culture.
     He is the blazer of the road for what he has to bring.
 21. Those who have the will to create do not care to use old phrases.
 22. A great artist is one who says as nearly what he means as his powers of
     invention allow. An ordinary artist often uses eloquent phrases, phrases of
     established authority, and if he is skillful it is surprising to see how he
     can nearly make them fit his ideas—or how he can make the ideas give way to
     the phrase.
 23. I have been trying to make this matter clear—this matter that the whole fun
     of the thing is in seeing and inventing, trying to refute a common idea
     that education is a case of collecting and storing, instead of making. It’s
     not easy. But the matter is mighty well worth considering.
 24. If you want to know about people watch their gestures. The tongue is a
     greater liar than the body.
 25. Don’t belong to any school. Don’t tie up to any technique.
 26. All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an
     inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one’s faculties.
 27. People say, “It is only a sketch.” It takes the genius of a real artist to
     make a good sketch—to express the most important things in life
 28. The value of a school should be in the meeting of students. The art school
     should be the life-centre of a city. Ideas should radiate from it.
 29. Join no creed, but respect all for the truth that is in them.
 30. I am sure there are many people—and there are artists—who have never seen a
     whole head. They look from feature to feature. You can’t draw a head until
     you see it whole. It’s not easy. Try it.
 31. No use trying to draw a thing until you have got all around it. It is only
     then that you comprehend a unity of which the parts can be treated as
     parts.
 32. Keep your old work. You did it. There are virtues and there are faults in
     it for you to study. You can learn more from yourself than you can from
     anyone else.
 33. No one can get anywhere without contemplation. Busy people who do not make
     contemplation part of their business do not do much for all their effort.
 34. There is the heart and the mind, the Puritan idea is that the mind must be
     master. I think the heart should be master and the mind should be the tool
     and servant of the heart. As it is, we give too much attention to laws and
     not enough to principles. The man who wants to produce art must have the
     emotional side first, and this must be reinforced by the practical.
 35. Some students possess the school they work in. Others are possessed by the
     school.
 36. Let a student enter the school with this advice: No matter how good the
     school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be
     self-education.
 37. The best art the world has ever had is but the impress left by men who have
     thought less of making great art than of living full and completely with
     all their faculties in the enjoyment of full play. From these the result is
     inevitable.
 38. The technique learned without a purpose is a formula which when used,
     knocks the life out of any ideas to which it is applied.
 39. Develop your visual memory. Draw everything you have drawn from the model
     from memory as well.
 40. There is no end to the study of technique. Yet more important than the
     lifelong study of technique is the lifelong self-education. In fact,
     technique can only be used properly by those who have definite purpose in
     what they do, and it is only they who invent technique. Otherwise it is the
     work of parrots.
 41. There is nothing more entertaining than to have a frank talk with yourself.
     Few do it—frankly. Educating yourself is getting acquainted with yourself.
 42. I believe in the study of technique. One should know as far as possible all
     the possibilities of a medium.
 43. Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however
     difficult it may actually have been.
 44. We must realize that artists are not in competition with each other.
 45. Always we would try to tie down the great to our little nationalism;
     whereas every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family,
     his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty,
     to true culture, has been a rebel, a “universal” without patriotism,
     without home, who has found his people everywhere, a man whom all the world
     recognizes, accepts, whether he speaks through music, painting, words or
     form.
 46. There is the new movement. There always has been the new movement and there
     always will be the new movement. It is strange that a thing which comes as
     regularly as clockwork should always be a surprise. In new movements the
     pendulum takes a great swing, charlatans crowd in, innocent apes follow,
     the masters make their successes and they make their mistakes as all
     pioneers must do. It is necessary to pierce to the core to get at the value
     of a movement and not be confused by its sensational exterior. 
 47. I am not interested in art as a means of making a living, but I am
     interested in art as a means of living a life.
 48. It is not easy to know what you like. Most people fool themselves their
     entire lives through about this.  Self-acquaintance is a rare condition.
 49. We are all different; we are to do different things and see different life.
     Education is a self-product, a matter of asking questions and getting the
     best answers we can get. We read a book, a novel, any book, we are
     interested in it to the degree we find in it answers to our questions.
 50. I can think of no greater happiness than to be clear-sighted and know the
     miracle when it happens.
 51. With a great will to say a thing comes clairvoyance. The more positively
     you have the need of a certain expression the more power you will have to
     select out of chaos the term of that expression.
 52. It is not desirable to devote all your time to an appreciation of art. Art
     should drive you forth. It should be an incentive to life. The greatest
     value of art to the appreciator is in that it stimulates to personal
     activity.
 53. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art. Art is
     a result. It is the trace of those who have led their lives.
 54. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be young, to continue
     growing—not to settle and accept. The most beautiful life possible, wherein
     there is no sordidness, is only attainable by effort. To be free, to be
     happy and fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common
     but overestimated things.
 55. Keep up the work. Try to reduce everything you see to the utmost
     simplicity. That is, let nothing but the things which are of the utmost
     importance to you have any place.
 56. The only education that counts is self-education.
 57. The pernicious influence of prize and medal giving in art is so great that
     it should be stopped. You can give prizes justly for long-distance jumps,
     because you can measure jumps with a foot-rule. No way has been devised for
     measuring the value of a work of art. History proves that juries in art
     have been generally wrong. With few exceptions the greatest artists have
     been repudiated by the art juries in all countries and at all times.
 58. To work, mind and body, and to be alone enough to concentrate is the thing.
 59. I have no sympathy with the belief that art is the restricted province of
     those who paint, sculpt, make music and verse. I hope we will come to an
     understanding that the material used is only incidental, that there is
     artist in every man; and that to him the possibility of development and of
     expression and the happiness of creation is as much a right and as much a
     duty to himself, as to any of those who work in the especially ticketed
     ways.
 60. I think the real artists are too busy with just being and growing and
     acting (on canvas or however) like themselves to worry about the end. The
     end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the
     great happiness in creation. People sometimes phrase about the joy of work.
     It is only in creative work that joy may be found.
 61. There is a joy in the pursuit of anything. Life is finding yourself. It is
     a spirit development.
 62. Your drawing should be an expression of your spiritual sight.
 63. Keep a bad drawing until by study you have found out why it is bad.
 64. When away from model draw from memory. Draw also opposite or very different
     views from what you had in the class.
 65. Look for the spirit line that runs through everything.
 66. Self-education, only, produces expression of self. Don’t ask for a
     criticism until you are sure you can’t give it yourself. Then you will be
     in a fine state to receive it. You cannot impose education on anyone.
 67. If you get stuck with your painting, make a sketch of the model in another
     medium. It will give you a fresh eye.
 68. In life we eradicate much to see beauty.
 69. Everybody who has any respect for painting feels scared when he starts a
     new canvas.
 70. All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.
 71. See things not as they are, but as you see them.

What I got out of it

 1. One of the more beautiful books I’ve read in sometime. Art is the study of
    the relative of things, art is drawing what you see and not drawing things
    as they are, it’s about making things and not the study of it, don’t limit
    yourself to any one school, all education is self-education. Worth
    re-reading!


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Art, Creativity, Robert Henri, Worth
Re-reading on June 29, 2022 by Blas.


THE WAY TO LOVE: MEDITATIONS FOR LIFE BY ANTHONY DE MELLO

Summary

 1. de Mello’s deep thoguhts on happiness, love, life

Key Takeaways

 1.  Yet another belief: Happiness will come if you manage to change the
     situation you are in and the people around you. Not true. You stupidly
     squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world. If changing the
     world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not
     harbor the illusion that this is going to make you happy. What makes you
     happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the
     thinking in your head.
 2.  If people want happiness so badly, why don’t they attempt to understand
     their false beliefs? First, because it never occurs to them to see them as
     false or even as beliefs. They see them as facts and reality, so deeply
     have they been programmed. Second, because they are scared to lose the only
     world they know: the world of desires, attachments, fears, social
     pressures, tensions, ambitions, worries, guilt, with flashes of the
     pleasure and relief and excitement which these things bring.
 3.  And when you are depressed and miserable, the cause is there for all to
     see: Life is not giving you what you have convinced yourself you cannot be
     happy without. Almost every negative emotion you experience is the direct
     outcome of an attachment.
 4.  In order to be genuinely happy there is one and only one thing you need to
     do: get deprogrammed, get rid of those attachments.
 5.  Now the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it
     causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness—it
     merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness; and it is always
     accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your
     attachment.
 6.  There is only one way to win the battle of attachments: Drop them. Contrary
     to popular belief, dropping attachments is easy. All you have to do is see,
     but really see, the following truths. First truth: You are holding on to a
     false belief, namely, the belief that without this particular person or
     thing you will not be happy. Take your attachments one at a time and see
     the falseness of this belief.
 7.  Second truth: If you just enjoy things, refusing to let yourself be
     attached to them, that is, refusing to hold the false belief that you will
     not be happy without them, you are spared all the struggle and emotional
     strain of protecting them and guarding them for yourself.
 8.  The third and final truth: If you learn to enjoy the scent of a thousand
     flowers you will not cling to one or suffer when you cannot get it. If you
     have a thousand favorite dishes, the loss of one will go unnoticed and
     leave your happiness unimpaired. But it is precisely your attachments that
     prevent you from developing a wider and more varied taste for things and
     people.
 9.  Who decides what will finally make its way to your conscious mind from all
     the material that is pouring in from the world? Three decisive filters:
     first your attachments, second your beliefs and third your fears.
 10. True happiness is uncaused. You are happy for no reason at all. And true
     happiness cannot be experienced. It is not within the realm of
     consciousness. It is unself-consciousness.
 11. Change is only brought about by awareness and understanding. Understand
     your unhappiness and it will disappear—what results is the state of
     happiness.
 12. How can you achieve this? Through an important realization, namely, that
     every time you strive to improve on Nature by going against it, you will
     damage yourself, for Nature is your very being.
 13. with a view to making it learn something. If what you attempt is not to
     change yourself but to observe yourself, to study every one of your
     reactions to people and things, without judgment or condemnation or desire
     to reform yourself, your observation will be nonselective, comprehensive,
     never fixed on rigid conclusions, always open and fresh from moment to
     moment. Then you will notice a marvelous thing happening within you: You
     will be flooded with the light of awareness, you will become transparent
     and transformed.
 14. The royal road to mysticism and to Reality does not pass through the world
     of people. It passes through the world of actions that are engaged in for
     themselves without an eye to success or to gain—or profit actions.
 15. How does one attain this quality of love? Anything you do will only make it
     forced, cultivated and therefore phony, for love cannot be forced. There is
     nothing you can do. But there is something you can drop. Observe the
     marvelous change that comes over you the moment you stop seeing people as
     good and bad, as saints and sinners and begin to see them as unaware and
     ignorant. You must drop your false belief that people can sin in awareness.
     No one can sin in the light of awareness. Sin occurs, not, as we mistakenly
     think, in malice, but in ignorance.
 16. The cause of my irritation is not in this person but in me.
 17. Apply this now to every image that people have of you and they tell you
     that you are a genius or wise or good or holy, and you enjoy that
     compliment and in that minute you lose your freedom; because now you will
     be constantly striving to retain that opinion.
 18. So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other. The second
     ingredient is equally important to see yourself, to ruthlessly flash the
     light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your
     dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate.
     This means calling things by their name, no matter how painful the
     discovery and the consequences. If you achieve this kind of awareness of
     the other and yourself, you will know what love is. For you will have
     attained a mind and a heart that is alert, vigilant, clear, sensitive, a
     clarity of perception, a sensitivity that will draw out of you an accurate,
     appropriate response to every situation at every moment.
 19. It is in that act of seeing that love is born, or rather more accurately,
     that act of seeing is Love.
 20. It is the desire for “the more” that prevents clear thinking, whereas if we
     are discontented, not because we want something, but without knowing what
     we want; if we are dissatisfied with our jobs, with making money, with
     seeking position and power, with tradition, with what we have and with what
     we might have; if we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but
     with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings
     clarity. When we don’t accept or follow, but question, investigate,
     penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy.
 21. The final disappearance of insecurity feelings will only come when you have
     attained that blessed ability of the birds of the air and the flowers of
     the field to live fully in the present, one moment at a time.
 22. Each time you attempt that task you will understand that what clear
     thinking calls for is not intelligence—that is easily come by—but the
     courage that has successfully coped with fear and with desire, for the
     moment you desire something or fear something, your heart will consciously
     or unconsciously get in the way of your thinking.
 23. Effort does not lead to growth; effort, whatever the form it may take,
     whether it be willpower or habit or a technique or a spiritual exercise,
     does not lead to change. At best it leads to repression and a covering over
     of the root disease. Effort may change the behavior but it does not change
     the person.

What I got out of it

 1. Surrender your attachment to desires, realize it’s your reaction to things
    that make you happy or not and you have control over that, be aware and
    truly see yourself and others (the act of seeing is Love)


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Anthony de Mello, Love, Philosophy,
Surrender on June 29, 2022 by Blas.


WHY GREATNESS CANNOT BE PLANNED BY KENNETH STANLEY, JOEL LEHMAN

Summary

 1. This book is about questioning the value of objectives, particularly when it
    is something audacious and innovative

Key Takeaways

 1.  Found that algorithms performed most interestingly without an explicit
     objective function and argues the same holds true for life
 2.  Many objectives are admirable, but we should question their dominance in
     our culture. Sometimes it may be better to surrender.
 3.  Interestingly, the most ambitious goals may be best reached without
     objectives. It’s useful to think of achievement as a process of discovery.
     Stepping stones are portals to the next level of possibility.
 4.  Ambitious goals are deceptive, so the next stepping stone to get to the
     final end state are unclear. The greatest achievements are less likely when
     they have objectives, so the optimal path for these great achievements is
     to have no objective at all as relevant stepping stones aren’t obvious and
     would be missed if too focused on the objective – the stepping stone
     doesn’t resemble the final product. In other words, no matter how tempting
     it is to believe in it, the distant objective cannot guide you to itself –
     it is the ultimate false compass
 5.  Sometimes the best way to achieve something great is to stop trying to
     achieve a particular great thing. In other words, greatness is possible if
     you are willing to stop demanding what greatness should be…We’re missing
     out on a lot by clinging to objectives
 6.  The genius of the Wright brothers wasn’t to invent every necessary
     component from flight from scratch, it was to recognize that we were only a
     stepping stone away from flight given past innovations. Great invention is
     defined by the realization that the prerequisites are in place, laid before
     us by predecessors with entirely unrelated ambitions, just waiting to be
     combined and enhanced. The flash of insight is seeing the bridge to the
     next stepping stone by building from the old ones. And the story of those
     stepping stones is not a story of intentional objective-driven building,
     one piece at at time towards some distant uber-invention as conceived by an
     overarching plan. On the contrary, just like in natural evolution and just
     like in Picbreeder, the stepping stones are laid in their own context for
     their own independent reasons, not because a visionary foresaw their role
     in future greatness
 7.  Unstructured play is vital for kids and adults – you have the right to
     pivot and follow your passions. The point is that novelty can often act as
     a stepping stone detector because anything novel is a potential stepping
     stone to something even more novel. In other words, novelty is a rough
     shortcut for identifying interestingness: interesting ideas are those that
     open up new possibilities. And while it might sound wishy-washy to go
     looking for “interesting” things, interestingness is a surprisingly deep
     and important concept
 8.  Novelty search accumulates information well, moves naturally from simple to
     complex
 9.  often possible to achieve more by not trying to achieve it
 10. Nothing can reliably reach target objectives. We can find something
     amazing, we just can’t say what those somethings are. Great discoveries are
     possible if they’re left undefined…The strange paradox, where trying is a
     curse and not a blessing, sets the stage for a more realistic understanding
     of what is achievable and how. It means that ambitious goals can’t be
     reliably achieved by trying – unless they are one stepping stone away,
     where they come within reach. Otherwise, the only choice that remains is
     not trying. And while this treasure-hunting approach will not ensure
     reaching any particular objective, what it will do is accumulate stepping
     stones that lead to unfamiliar places. The treasure hunter is an
     opportunistic explorer – searching for anything and everything of value,
     without a care for what might be found. To be a treasure hunter, you have
     to collect as many stepping stones as you can, because you never know which
     one might lead somewhere valuable
 11. The best way to harness the power of a group of people in the non-objective
     world isn’t through brainstorming sessions or meetings or big ambitious
     projects. It’s not about sitting down and coming to a consensus on what to
     do. That’s not the treasure hunter – consensus is exactly the cultural
     tendency that we need to scale. We don’t want “Top 40” lists where everyone
     tries to agree what the best songs are, nor “design by committee” where any
     interesting vision for a new product is watered  down by consensus. No, the
     way to unleash the treasure hunter is to actually through separating people
     from each other, like in Picbreeder, where people only interact by taking
     off from where someone else left off. While many participants in such a
     treasure-hunting system might arrive with their own personal objectives,
     the system as a whole ends up lacking a unified objective because people’s
     objectives differ…With instantaneous global communication, it becomes
     easier than ever to organize people all over the world to build off each
     other’s creations
 12. Having no plan might be the best plan – explore widely without objectives
 13. When there is no destination, there can’t be a right path. Instead of
     judging every activity for its potential to succeed, we should judge our
     projects for their potential to spawn more projects…So, if you’re wondering
     how to escape the myth of the objective, just do things because they’re
     interesting
 14. To achieve our highest goals, we must be willing to abandon them
 15. Search is at its most awesome when it has no unified objective
 16. Perhaps then it would make sense sometimes to reward maximal disagreement
     instead of agreement. It’s possible that anti-consensus may be more
     interesting than bland agreement. After all, attracting a unanimous vote in
     science could be a sign of nothing more than echoing the status quo. If
     you’re doing whatever is hot and parrot the right buzzwords, you might be
     able to attract wide support. On the other hand, an interesting idea is
     likely to split votes. At the border between our present knowledge and the
     unknown are questions whose answers remain uncertain. That’s why the
     opinions of experts should diverge in such uncharted territory. It’s in the
     wild borderland between the known and the unknown that we should want our
     greatest minds probing, rather than within the comfortable vacation-spot of
     maximal consensus. Just think, which project is likely more revolutionary,
     one that receives, excellent, excellent, poor, poor, or the one that
     receives excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent? Splitting experts may
     be more of an achievement than unifying them
 17. If you’re looking to invest in visionaries, find those who wander in nearby
     shadows
 18. The successful inventor asks where we can get from here rather than how ewe
     can get there
 19. Competition should play a secondary role to creativity
 20. Natural evolution can be seen as novelty-generating search with local
     competition…A key insight from thinking non-objectively in this chapter is
     that although evolution can be seen as a competition, out-competing other
     creatures on the “objective” of surviving and reproducing is less important
     than escaping from competition to form new niches.

What I got out of it

 1. The idea of being a curious explorer, following and optimizing for novelty
    and interestingness strikes me deeply. Importantly, this is for ambitious,
    audacious ideas and not for to-do lists or day to day life. You have to
    concede control of the final destination. There is risk in this, but the
    reward is worthwhile


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This entry was posted in Books, Worth Re-reading and tagged AI, Algorithms, Joel
Lehman, Ken Stanley, Philosophy, Worth Re-reading on June 29, 2022 by Blas.


THE PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY

I recently read Morgan Housel’s wonderful book, The Psychology of Money. It’s a
powerfully pragmatic, concise, and useful book in a sea of useless financial
resources.

While I enjoyed the actual content, one of the more valuable things it did was
to help me revisit the question behind the “why” of money and wealth. After
thinking through this again, it left me feeling like there is a gap that I’m
hoping this essay is useful in helping explore. If Morgan’s book focuses on the
“what” of money, I aim to focus here on the “why”.

The Philosophy of Money


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This entry was posted in Essays and tagged Essays, Money, Philosophy, Wealth on
June 27, 2022 by Blas.


THE UNTETHERED SOUL: THE JOURNEY BEYOND YOURSELF BY MICHAEL SINGER

Summary

 1. What would it be like to free yourself from limitations and soar beyond your
    boundaries? What can you do each day to discover inner peace and serenity?
    The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions.

Key Takeaways

 1.  The 3 big distractions from the seat of our soul – the outside world, our
     thoughts, our emotions.
 2.  All external movement is striving to make ourselves feel good inside. Aim
     to fix the internal rather than try to patch through the external
 3.  Come to understand that nothing that happens is personal. You are witness
     to a tiny fraction of all the things that are happening, yet you think the
     one thing you’re a part of is happening to you. It isn’t
 4.  Don’t surrender life, surrender resistance to life. Resistance or the
     clinging to positive things brings suffering
 5.  Personal preferences get in the way of your ability to objectively view
     reality. The highest plane is to be able to observe, learn, grow, and
     accept from all of life’s experiences. Accept whatever reality throws at
     you
 6.  Most people identify most closely with their thoughts, but realize these
     are padding as well. You can recognize them and then let them go. They need
     not rule your life
 7.  Letting go of yourself rather than serving yourself is the real paradigm
     shift
 8.  Every experience makes you a greater person if you don’t resist it
 9.  Accepting an emotion is the midway between suppressing and expressing
 10. If you are wise, you’ll change your reactions to reality rather than
     fighting reality

What I got out of it

 1. A beautiful book that left me feeling grounded. Nothing new, but many
    simple, powerful reminders


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Meditation, Michael Singer,
Philosophy, Surrender on June 2, 2022 by Blas.


THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS BY MIYAMOTO MUSASHI

Summary

 1. The Book of Five Rings is a text on kenjutsu and the martial arts in
    general, written by the Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi around 1645.

Key Takeaways

 1. The warrior must know literature, strategy, warfare, the way of death. This
    makes them strong and deadly
 2. The strategy of a general relies on applying on a large scale what they’ve
    studied on a small scale. The principle of strategy is knowing 10,000 things
    from a single thing. Knowing 1 thing deeply has compounding benefits
 3. If you master multiple weapons, you’ll know the right time for the right
    weapon. Each has its advantages and drawbacks. You should not become overly
    reliant on any one weapon and you should personalize each to your strengths
    and weaknesses. It is a negative to have marked preferences
 4. Learn to appreciate all things and to be able to judge the quality of it
 5. Do not perform useless acts
 6. Look powerfully. See gently

What I got out of it

 1. A beautiful and engaging book on military strategy that combines philosophy,
    zen buddhism, confucianism, taoism, and mastery


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Kenjutsu, Martial Arts, Mastery,
Miyamoto Musashi on June 2, 2022 by Blas.


THE JOYS OF COMPOUNDING: THE PASSIONATE PURSUIT OF LIFELONG LEARNING BY GAUTAM
BAID

Summary

 1. Value investing is not just a system for success in the market. It is also
    an intellectual toolkit for achieving a deeper understanding of the world.
    The author takes a holistic approach to value investing and philosophy from
    his wide-ranging reading, combining practical approaches, self-cultivation,
    and business wisdom.

Key Takeaways

 1.  The best investment of time is to invest in personal development.
 2.  The way to achieve success in life is to learn constantly. And the best way
     to learn is to read, and to do so effectively.
 3.  rich have money. The wealthy have control over their time.
 4.  Knowledge is overrated. Wisdom is underrated. Intellect is overrated.
     Temperament is underrated. Outcome is overrated. Process is underrated.
     Short-term outperformance is overrated. Long-term adherence to one’s
     investment philosophy is underrated. Gross return is overrated.
     Stress-adjusted return is underrated. Upside potential is overrated.
     Downside protection is underrated. Maximization of returns is overrated.
     Avoidance of ruin is underrated. Growth is overrated. Longevity is
     underrated. Entry multiple is overrated. Exit multiple is underrated.
     Price-to-earnings ratio is overrated. Duration of competitive advantage
     period is underrated. Categorization of stocks into large cap, mid cap, and
     small cap is overrated. Categorization of businesses into great, good, and
     gruesome is underrated. Being more frequently right than others is
     overrated. Being less wrong than others is underrated. Forecasting is
     overrated. Preparation is underrated. Confidence is overrated. Humility is
     underrated. Conviction is overrated. Pragmatism is underrated. Complexity
     is overrated. Simplicity is underrated. Analytical ability is overrated.
     Personal behavior is underrated. Having a high income level is overrated.
     Inculcating a disciplined saving habit is underrated. Competition with
     peers is overrated. Helping our peers is underrated. Large personal net
     worth is overrated. Good karma is underrated. Talent is overrated.
     Resilience is underrated. Being the best investor is overrated. Being the
     most authentic version of yourself is underrated.
 5.  Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your
     senses—especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to
     everything else. —Leonardo da Vinci
 6.  excellent resource to build up one’s latticework.1) As the Chinese proverb
     goes, “I forget what I hear; I remember what I see; I know what I do.”
     Because the best way to learn something is by practicing it, we must
     routinely apply the mental models to different situations in our daily
     lives.
 7.  deliberate practice, it helps us identify our leverage
 8.  Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. —Voltaire
 9.  Charles Collier writes, in his guidebook on philanthropy Wealth in
     Families, that “according to Aristotle and his latter-day student, Thomas
     Jefferson, the ‘pursuit of happiness’ has to do with an internal journey of
     learning to know ourselves and an external journey of service of others.”
 10. Buffett’s key takeaway from The Intelligent Investor was this: If you
     eliminate the downside, then all that remains is the upside. After that,
     the key is to keep emotions in check and be patient. It really is that
     simple.
 11. Investing is not about being original or creative; it is about looking for
     the greatest amount of value (for the price paid) with the least amount of
     risk. Putting in more time and effort does not guarantee better results in
     investing. Rather, it is more beneficial to do less and make fewer but
     better choices.
 12. As Charlie Munger says, “The goal of investment is to find situations where
     it is safe not to diversify.”
 13. One of the hardest things to do in life is to avoid good opportunities so
     that you have time to devote to great opportunities—and having the wisdom
     to know the difference.
 14. Instead, ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I can do today?
     What is the one thing that would make everything else in my life either
     easier or unnecessary?”
 15. There is no path to peace. Peace is the path. —Mahatma Gandhi
 16. The parable of the Mexican fisherman and the American banker is one of my
     favorite stories and contains an important life lesson. It is habitual for
     most of us to build incessantly and forget that the endgame should really
     be happiness and a fulfilling life. It is equally easy to overlook all the
     goodness we are surrounded by today. It doesn’t take a lot of money to have
     a truly wealthy life, but it does take financial independence, which gives
     us control over our time.
 17. The goal of financial independence is to stop depending on others (bosses,
     clients, a schedule, a paycheck). True wealth is measured in terms of
     personal liberty and freedom, not monetary currency. Money alone does not
     signify independence. Control over time does. The only definition of
     success is to be able to spend your life in your own way.
 18. Growth and contribution are the bedrocks of happiness. Not stuff.
 19. Personal freedom allows us sufficient time to think. Making good decisions
     requires quiet time alone in our heads to think through a problem from
     multiple points of view. Uninterrupted personal time is life’s most
     valuable limited resource. Several notable creators, including Bill Gates
     and Mark Zuckerberg, regularly take “think weeks” to invigorate their
     thinking and to allow their minds to wander.
 20. Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what
     is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.
 21. A contrarian isn’t one who always takes the opposite path just for the sake
     of it. That is simply a conformist of a different sort. A true contrarian
     is one who reasons independently, from the ground up, based on factual
     data, and resists pressure to conform.
 22. To invest in companies with “the capacity to suffer,” we must be willing to
     suffer along with them. In other words, we need a high tolerance for
     short-term pain.
 23. Embracing deferred gratification is what leads to the single biggest edge
     for an investor. Human nature makes it difficult to utilize this edge. This
     difficulty is the very reason the edge exists, and because human nature
     will never change, this edge is a durable one for those who possess the
     right temperament to capitalize on it. Bezos
 24. The path to lasting wealth is deferred gratification, savings, and compound
     interest. Develop the habit of saving in such a way that you enjoy your
     present reasonably well and also ensure a bright future tomorrow.
 25. Ask the right questions; you’ll get valuable answers.
 26. Markets systematically underprice quality over long time periods.
 27. High quality always beats a bargain over time. Although there are certainly
     exceptions, in the long run, bargains never outperform solid investments.
     This simple yet profound principle can be applied to virtually every area
     of life. Crash diets, predatory pricing, dishonesty, and shortcuts can work
     well for a while, but they are never sustainable.
 28. Techno-Fund investors tend to believe in two key principles, in addition to
     strong earnings growth and industry fundamentals, when analyzing potential
     buys: first, stocks that show relative strength, that is, that go sideways
     or consolidate during significant market pullbacks, tend to outperform
     significantly during the subsequent market recovery; and, second, the first
     stocks that break out to new fifty-two-week highs after, or during, a major
     correction tend to become the leaders of the next rally.
 29. When you truly embrace lifelong learning, Lady Luck and serendipity
     eventually reward you in a big way.
 30. The right book at the right time will speak to you in a way that the right
     book at the wrong time just won’t.
 31. Well-managed low-cost commodity producers usually do not generate higher
     returns. High-cost producers do, because they show a higher percentage gain
     in profitability. This is highly counterintuitive for most investors.
 32. Commodity stocks are not long-term investments. They generate alpha in
     portfolios in a short period of time, driven by a combination of financial
     and operating leverage, and you exit them not on peak reported earnings but
     when the expectations of margin improvement peak out. A good time to begin
     planning your exit from a commodity industry is when the government decides
     to curb its profitability.
 33. When only a single firm in the entire industry is profitable, then the
     commodity in question may be at or near the bottom of the cycle.

What I got out of it

 1. A comprehensive, fun read on the benefits of compounding in various life
    domains. Even if you don’t care about investing, the mindset and examples
    Gautam shares will be useful regardless of age, industry, or passions


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This entry was posted in Books and tagged Compounding, Gautam Baid, Investing on
June 2, 2022 by Blas.


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