Anchor: Get To | Season 2, Ep. 1

Dane 00:00
How often do people say, I have to, I have to, I have to, and they just don't.  

Dane 00:03
Experiment with this idea of reframing all of the chores in their life as an opportunity. All of them. This has huge implications and application in places like parenting, in places like our marriage, in places like our work, in places like domestic chores in our life.  

Dane 00:22
It's critical that we, on a daily basis, micro adjust our perspective on the thing, because that's all that's happened, pushing rocks up a hill to build a cathedral or pushing up rocks up a hill, still pushing rocks. And that present experience is just difficult.

Dane 00:38
And everybody has those things, but if we could just relate with the difficult thing, like it's actually the means to the thing that our future self will be glad we got to, it's magic.  

Dane 00:48
The pithiness of them can land almost trite until they're tested but when they're tested, they are real.  

Dane 00:56
As humans we prefer the path of least resistance. We crave convenience, the payoff without the price. But when our lives revolve around comfort, it doesn't deliver. Living in perpetual comfort leaves us weak and asleep. This podcast is an invitation to flip that script, to choose the unlikely path, to get the life you really want through voluntary discomfort.

Dane 01:20
This is Strong & Awake. I'm Dane Sanders.

[00:01:24]  

Dane 01:24
Mitch, I am so excited for this new season of Conversation, and it's coming out of my own personal lament, uh, like how, frustration, really, it's not really lament, it's just, uh, I've discovered a phenomenon in my world that what we're going to talk about all season long has radically changed my life, but I need to get into the, the, the problem first, because the problem I think will really, I think, set the table for what I think we need to talk about.

Dane 01:55
As a, as a community, um, for this whole season. And the other thing that's kind of fun is these episodes for the entire season will be a little bit more brief that I, in a, in a format that I think will be helpful for folks, for folks who are listening at home. And actually they could even think in advance, like maybe I could budget a little bit more energy and time to, to listen to the entire season, because I think it's really going to help folks if they can piece all the pieces together.

Dane 02:20
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Let me tell you. So here's my problem. I cannot tell you how many times I've had in my life where I have great intentions, where I'm looking down the pathway of a new day. It's the night before I'm planning my day. Maybe I'm time blocking or figuring stuff out. And it's in the middle of that, that everything looks so golden on paper of what my next day or week or season is going to look like.

Dane 02:47
And then I wake up the next day and. I have a bad attitude. I am edgy. I had a weird dream the night before I get an email or a call. I get disrupted. I just my mind wanders in new directions. And all of a sudden the plan still works on paper, but I'm relating with it like in the wrong way. Like all of a sudden it's become impossible to accomplish.

Dane 03:14
Or I just feel a victim to circumstance, or my life is just too busy, or how can we all fit it all together? Or why, why did I plan so much? Or what was I thinking last night? Um, and there's just something between my ears, my, in my mind, maybe it's not in my brain, maybe there's more than in our brain.

Dane 03:30
That's another conversation. But the question of how do I actually relate with these great plans, these great intentions. To become someone, to do something, to get something in my life. How do I very quickly and nimbly get to a place where I'm more grounded? And the answer to that question and my experience and our experience as a community at men and women of discomfort is this idea we call anchors.

Dane 03:59
And I think we should talk about anchors the whole season long, especially the anchors that we get to talk about within our community. Curious if you're up for that.  

Mitch 04:07
I would love that. And there's already so many things that you've said. That I can't wait to dig into just in that little intro. Um, so let's dig in.

Mitch 04:16
We got a whole season to do it.  

Dane 04:17
All right. Well, to get things started, what, what the heck is an anchor? Let's, let's start there. So let's do it. I want folks to imagine even the scenario I just described, picture the, the metaphor of like a, You're on a beautiful sailboat, and you're just, um, cruising along, and then it's getting late, and you decide to, you know, go into harbor, and drop anchor, right, and you let the thing down, but for some reason, something goes sideways, and you forget to drop anchor.

Dane 04:45
You're just kind of there, and these magical things start happening. Um, one, that we talk a lot about it, um, Uh, and this, uh, on this podcast, as well as in our community is this thing called the drift, meaning you didn't drop anchor. You're on a boat in water and guess what happens? The current, whatever's happening, things outside of your control takes you to places you don't necessarily want to go.

Dane 05:09
So you wake up in the morning, even though you had great intentions on being in one place when you woke up and you wake up and you're in a different place. And to make matters worse, not only were you drifting. But, um, there was a storm overnight, it was incredible, just this magnificent, like, uh, overwhelming, uh, storm that kind of not only had you drift, but, you know, brought water on to the, to the vessel.

Dane 05:37
And like, there's just, there's upset and problems and things you weren't anticipating. So there's the storm that's happened on top of the drift and you're kind of like over your plans that you had the night before. For like, what is the point? But imagine, imagine if instead you had either dropped anchor the night before actually, and stayed grounded in one spot, or even you wake up the next morning, you're like, at the very least, I want to figure out where I'm at.

Dane 06:07
I want to actually ground where I'm at in that spot. So I can plot a new path to go forward. And this is the metaphor we want to talk about anchors, little ideas that allow us to get our bearings. Hold off the current or the drift, even in the midst of a storm, especially in the midst of a storm, dropping anchor is super resourceful to ride the storm out if that's what you need to do.

Dane 06:31
But what you're not doing is you're not taking the easy path. You're not taking the comfortable path of just like saying, Oh, well. Throw your arms up in the air and just go wherever the boat takes you. Or really the current takes you or the storm takes you. And we have found just a few words, like little ideas, pithy even, can radically shift.

Dane 06:52
We're moving away from the metaphor now to our actual lives. Radically shift how we relate with the world. And, uh, the example I gave at the front end of the show, where we talked about Having great plans the night before and waking up and finding ourselves in a very different place than we were. Um, this is the dynamic of how do I ground myself into something that's more true, more real, tether myself that, that can help me gain the optimum perspective and get me off to a new start, a new day, uh, with the day I'm in right now.

Dane 07:29
Does that make sense?  

Mitch 07:31
Yes, it does. And I'm such a sucker for metaphors and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we started calling them anchors until two, three years ago, maybe like they were, you know, they are mindsets, but I love your descriptor because mindsets can be something that is disconnected.

Mitch 07:49
It doesn't really communicate That relating that you're talking about, or even the physical nature of it, right? Whereas anchor, it's like, you're tied to something. It's rooting you. The other thing that strikes me too, is that anchors, if you've ever like dropped anchor, I've been sailing, and I don't have a ton of experiences with this, but I grew up in Hawaii enough to know, Some of this, and, uh, you know, an anchor might be sitting on the, on the bottom, but it's not until it is tested.

Mitch 08:13
It's like the boat shifts and moves, uh, whether by the drift or a storm that it actually roots itself deeper. Um, so anchors have that opportunity when tested, when actually put to the test of the drift or the whirlwind or the storm that they actually, like, take. Take that much more root, um, and grounding.

Mitch 08:32
So for all those reasons,  

Dane 08:34
just a quick note on, we're going to press this metaphor. Let's keep pressing. I, I actually think there's utility in anchors, whether you're dragging the anchor or it grabs hold of something. And what I mean by that is sometimes. It's too much to stop the ship in the midst of the drift.

Dane 08:51
It's too much to, and, uh, you're just the best you can pull off sometimes is to slow the train down or the boat. And, uh, and I, I, I, the reason I bring this up is I know there are listeners at home who are like, some days I wake up and I'm just angry and I'm so angry, I know I don't want to be angry. But I am really angry and I don't know what to do about it.

Dane 09:17
And if you're in that position, leverage the anchors, we're going to talk about not to stop being angry, but did you just slow the anger down a little bit to tell the anger that is, is days that are numbers are numbered and that there's, um, we're, we're going to get to a better place in a minute, but these things aren't instant.

Dane 09:37
Uh, this is where I think, The pithiness of them can land almost trite until they're tested and, but when they're tested, they are real. They're as real as anything material we could imagine. And I, I know this experientially, we know this with, you know, hundreds of people who are part of our community, um, veterans, as well as current folks that they just saying over and over and over again, like.

Dane 10:05
When I first heard it, I thought it was silly and then I actually leveraged it in my life and it did slow things down or it did get me to pause in a real way so that I could now find a new path forward. So with that, well, first of all, does that resonate?  

Mitch 10:22
Yeah, of course. Of course it resonates. I mean, I've been able to kind of hear these and like you said, put these to the test over the course of the last two, three years.

Mitch 10:31
And that is usually the response, like either a knowing, like, I know this, I heard, I know this intellectually, like writing it off. Or, or a certain resistance to it. Like this is, this is silly. Not that I want to put ideas in our listeners ears, but, uh, or in our, in their heads. But I do think those are common responses until you actually kind of release a little bit.

Mitch 10:55
You, you put it to the test and that's kind of, I would just make that request of you who's listening. Try them on, just try it out. What's the worst that can happen?  

Dane 11:06
Yeah. They get to decide if there's utility in them. That's great. Okay. So, so we have a handful to get through and we, these are the anchors that we talk about over the course of our time.

Dane 11:17
Every single round, uh, it's the reason we don't mind sharing about it outside of our community is because. Number one, these ideas aren't all ours. Um, we have lifted them from others. We give credit whenever we can, uh, for these things. So you'll hear folks that we'll reference along the way where we've heard it.

Dane 11:35
We might even get credit to some people who they heard it from someone else. Uh, so the credit part is less important. Uh, even the stuff that we've made up, we care a little, not really very much whether you give us credit for things. What matters most is that you consider them in your real existential life, right now. Cause that's what it's meant to be applied existentially, like in your existence. It's not meant to be a cognitive ascent. It's really meant to be an embodied consideration. And we're going to start with, um, uh, this notion called get to. And the first time I heard get to was from a guy named Dan Dakini, a mentor of mine, uh, in transformational work.

Dane 12:18
And, but I've heard it, I've heard it everywhere. I think I thought I saw Reese Witherspoon, like two weeks ago, uh, on Instagram talking about get to, and it's, it's making its rounds, which I think is really resourceful. I've heard Seth Godin referenced it maybe a year ago. I've heard, um, like, you know, we all have our people that we tune into.

Dane 12:38
Apparently it's, For me, it's Seth and Reese, but whatever. Uh, the point is, get to is in contrast to another, uh, two word phrase, which is have to, which is actually in contrast to a third two word phrase, which is want to. So usually that's the progression. People want something, they want to blank, and they think that to get there, they have to do something.

Dane 13:09
And they stopped there. They actually use have to as a, almost like a, a whip. Like I'm going to beat myself into shape. I have to do this. If I just give myself to this thing, I, you know, I'm, they're really saying, I want this really, really, really bad. It's have to extended or sorry. It's want to extended to a place of, if I can just move it from, I want to, to I must then somehow I'll find the chutzpah inside of me to go get it. The problem though is when we use have to as a motivating phrase, it, it turns into a chore. It turns into a burden. Um, the proverb that we talk a lot about, uh, that is very short. You've heard it all. If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you've heard us say it, but it's, uh, two guys are pushing rocks up a hill.

Dane 13:59
One guy's pushing rocks. The other guy's building a cathedral. One person and the other person are doing the exact same thing for one person. It's a have to, they have to push rocks up a hill for the other person. It's a get to, it's an opportunity to build the cathedral. And what's fascinating to me is in this proverb, the pitch is the same.

Dane 14:19
The, the weight of the rocks is the same, yet the experience of the person. Pushing the rocks changes because of the purpose attached to their words when it's a have to the purpose is not really clear. It's this kind of whip, this kind of burden, this kind of, uh, it's a chore, but when it's a get to it's, it's actually the means by which you're going to get what you said you wanted initially, what you want to, and that this is magic.

Dane 14:51
Uh, it can change A bad attitude into a great attitude. It can slow an awful attitude, uh, down long enough for you to gain perspective and decide what you want to do with it. Just before the show, Mitch, you and I were talking, we're planning the show, having a chat and you're like, are you okay? And I was like, I'm a little edgy.

Dane 15:06
I don't know what that is. And it didn't instantly fix, but it, it slowed it. Your question was so helpful. It kind of slowed things down and got me to a better place. Um, so that we could get clear and keep going and get to record this episode. I, um, I'm so grateful for you in those moments and I'm grateful for our community that we remind each other all the time through these ideas.

Dane 15:31
But at the end of the day, the invitation for folks who are listening at home is to experiment with this idea of reframing all of the chores in their life as an opportunity. All of them. Now, I'll say more about this in a second. It's not just the chores in our life. We can even go much further, but this has huge implications and application in places like parenting, in places like our marriage, in places like our work, in places like domestic chores in our life, like taking out the trash, you know, cleaning out the gutters, um, having the conversation with your neighbor that's irritating that you're avoiding, uh, and we can go on and on, but.

Dane 16:12
You can imagine how quickly this transforms things. And I'm wondering for you, Mitch, as you're, you know, you've been in our community for years now and you've heard me talk about GetTo for a long time. Uh, talk a little bit about your experience with this transition of moving from HaveTo to GetTo or even WantTo to HaveTo to GetTo.

Mitch 16:33
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, thank you. And thank you for that unpacking, because I get to hear this every, every round, every quarter, this, this idea reintroduced, and there's always the kind of new depth, uh, new, new insights, uh, to be unlocked there. And um, Yeah, for me, I think one of the things that I kind of nodded to earlier is like, it's really easy for me as kind of a natural skeptic or cynic to, to dismiss these ideas because it seemed at first blush, like very, you know, just woo, woo.

Mitch 17:09
Cool. I'm it's just a mindset shift. It's just like a manifesting thing. Like, what is that going to do? And it wasn't until like just now when you shared the cathedral building, metaphor again, where it, it kind of clicked for me where there's something about like get to and manifesting and these like kind of woo ideas where it's like the end.

Mitch 17:31
is, is the only thing that's important. Like I'm going to manifest having a million dollars under 20 or whatever, you know, like all these things on ideas. And you know, that's fine, I guess, but it's like so focused on the end, the end, the end goal. It's like this consequentialist thinking, whereas like get to kind of roots you in the moment.

Mitch 17:50
And that's right. Like you said, the, the cathedral builder versus the man that's just pushing rocks. You said like they have a different experience of the thing. And while they, from the outside, it might look like the same experience as someone else. The experience is different that, that the, the rock pusher versus the, the cathedral builder.

Mitch 18:09
And the other thing that struck me, I know this is going a little bit more ethereal and heady than you had asked, but the other thing that struck me was that the cathedral builder, if you think about how long it takes to build a cathedral, you often don't even. That builder doesn't see the benefits of this grand finale in their lifetime.

Mitch 18:31
It takes generations to build a cathedral. So it's the fact that like they're rooted in the work itself. That is the, the character formation that is the building that is the, the perspective that is incredibly resourceful and it's an invitation, not an obligation, uh, which has been the biggest shift for me is actually putting, putting this, you know, into practice and realizing, wow, this does actually not just shift my view of reality into this other way of seeing things, but it actually opens myself up to the actual truth of reality.

Mitch 19:04
where it is a get to, to be able to sit with my kids, stay up with them when they wake up with from a bad dream. It's not a have to, it's a real get to, um, to, to be there for, you know, a sick relative or something. Um, They're all, they are really, truly get tos. And again, maybe this is not where you were thinking this would go, but it's had a profound impact on me.

Dane 19:31
It's exactly where it has to go. It's funny what you said about the kids. Like, last night, my, my daughter, she's, um, 21. She's an adult. And, uh, she's going to her senior year of college in a few weeks. And, uh, she and I and all of my kids, as they were growing up, we would have, little evening, I give them a blessing on the heels of a handshake.

Dane 19:52
So I have a custom handshake with each kid and it ends with a little blessing on their forehead. And we touch each other's head and say, Shalom, So we have to touch each other's head every single night, no matter what. And my daughter's 21. She, she keeps, It's threatening, like, we're going to stop this at some point.

Dane 20:09
And last night I was like, first of all, there's no chance this is ever not happening. I'm doing this on your wedding day. I'm doing, I'm doing this to your kids, your grandkids, like, it's going to be incredible. And, but then we, as we thought about it more, our little, after we do the handshake, we, we have this little saying. Originally, it was some kind of sweet, you know, blessing and it's turned into, "blah, blah, knockout."

Dane 20:34
Like that's what we actually say at the end, "blah, blah, knockout." And last night we were trying to figure out like, where, where in what world did we come up with the phrase, "blah, blah, knockout?" Like, why was that important to us? And I could be wrong, but I was saying to her, I think it was, cause it was late Night one night, you were an adolescent, you didn't want to do it anymore.

Dane 20:52
And you changed the words from something that was like sweet and dad, blessing daughter to "blah, blah, knockout." And we just went with it. And, and now it's like, Lord, now it's like, no one in the world does "blah, blah, knockout" before you go to bed. And, uh, it's our thing. And there's something that, that we've been persisting with and doing over and over again, this kind of daily connecting to the thing. And yes, in retrospect, we always see these moments as nostalgic and meaningful and powerful, and everybody wants to get in that moment in the future where we can look back with longevity and say, I stayed up late with my kid. I did the hard thing. I, you know, went the extra mile, but in the moment, it never feels like that.

Dane 21:37
I know if I go back in time to that moment where my daughter changed my really cool blessing into "blah, blah, knockout." I'm confident. I was bummed that day. I was throwing the towel. Why are we doing this? What's the point? Uh, how is this elevating me and my ego? Whatever it was and But now I look at it and I go, I persist, man, it doesn't matter.

Dane 21:57
It's in fact, it's better. Um, and, and I think to, to get to a place where you can get through these moments, whether it's with our kids or spouse or work so that we can look back with a great sense of satisfaction that we, we stuck with the thing when the rocks got really heavy, pushing them up a hill, when we locked into something that was more important that we knew our future self would be telling us they're grateful that we.

Dane 22:23
Hung in there with it. It's critical that we, on a daily basis, micro adjust our perspective on the thing, because that's all that's happened, pushing rocks up a hill to build a cathedral or pushing up rocks up a hill, still pushing rocks. And that present to your point, that present experience is just difficult.

Dane 22:42
And everybody has those things, but if we could just relate with the difficult thing, like it's actually the means to the thing that our future self will be glad we got to, it's magic. And, and, you know, we can talk about all the examples in the world, we could talk about, like, taking out the trash is a get to.

Dane 23:00
Well, what do we mean by that? Well, imagine a world where you don't take out the trash. What state does your world look like? Um, uh, what about, um, trying to think of other chores in my world these days? Um, Paying your taxes. Like if you're paying your taxes, you mean it means you made money. Like that's an interesting perspective of gratitude that you could have, or you could lament like, Oh, the government, you know, or whatever.

Dane 23:28
And then you could actually go on the road and say, well, I have a road to drive on that I didn't pay for directly. I paid for indirectly or you go to the hospital when you have need. Cause someone got built, you know, by somebody. Um, but the real kicker, and this is the last thing I'll say as an example for me, kicked in when I thought, Thought about my experience of the co founder of Men and Women of Discomfort, my buddy, Tim, who's no longer with us.

Dane 23:51
He died of stomach cancer, um, a couple of years back. And, uh, his last year of life when we were doing this thing together was profound how alive he was. And, and he'd have to go to chemo where he was drinking poison through his veins and he would feel awful. Every single time. And, and if he didn't do some mental gymnastics to get from a have to, to a get to, he wouldn't have had that last year of life.

Dane 24:21
He wouldn't have had the fight that he needed. He needed to relate with even the involuntary discomforts that come your way in a way that as best you can. And I'm very empathetic to people who, like, I'm not talking about, I'm not trying to prescribe something for others. It's just an invitation to consider, especially if you're under really significant duress.

Dane 24:47
Consider the possibility that what if there's something in this that could be a get to? Not just a have to, um, and it might be that you don't anchor right away and everything's fine. It might be that you're dragging the anchor along for a little bit, but you might slow the train down long enough to get enough perspective to get through that day and to get a little traction and a little bit closer to tether to something that's a little bit more grounded to who you are.

Dane 25:12
Your most true self is, and this is just the beginning. This is just get to, um, we have a lot more anchors to talk about, but I have found that get to alone is worth its weight in gold and a very, very practical means to change your attitude on any given day.  

Mitch 25:32
Yeah. And, and I love that it's the first anchor too, because It actually has the ability to modify all of the other anchors down the road.

Mitch 25:41
I get to, I don't want to spoil all the anchors, but hopefully they're binged. Hopefully the listener right here, you're binging this anyway, so you can just go to the next episode. Um, but is there anything else? Cause I mean, obviously. We're going to spend more time talking about get to you. We're going to all of these anchors kind of intermingle and relate.

Mitch 26:02
And, um, so we'll have time to unpack these things further, but can you spend just one more minute talking about one, This concept of there is no have to, because I've heard you bring this up before. I alluded to it a little bit earlier, but, but I think that that's something that we can dig into, uh, just at the end here.

Dane 26:22
Yeah. Again, at the beginning, we talked a little bit about how, when we say we have to, especially when we have a, like a really significant, like energy, intense fate, like look on her face. Like I just have to, um, This happens all the time in conversation casually and in more extreme situations, uh, when people are saying, I really want something different than what I have right now.

Dane 26:43
And they're trying to motivate themselves with the phrase have to. And, and the truth is it's just not accurate that they have to, because they, they think, or I think when I do it or you do, um, we think that have to, if you think of its literal definition, what we're, what we're saying is like, I must go do this.

Dane 27:04
But in truth, That's not true. If it had been true, you would have done it. Uh, it is not a have to, uh, it is at best a, uh, a lament or a regret that you haven't yet. And that I think that's probably more accurate. I haven't done it, but it's not that I have to, because if I have to, I would have. So how am I going to change my strategy in order to get to a place where it actually happens because that's the point.

Dane 27:31
The point is for it to be complete, not For us to be motivated for it to happen in the future exclusively. And that's, that's what we want. So in our experience, when we see it truly as an opportunity and not just this thing hanging over our head, it's very natural to just go do it, uh, to, to find ourselves having done it actually, and actually getting onto the more important things, the things that, that with, with that firm foundation that you're standing on, with the tether in place, you now can, Can stand up without concern of drifting off or a storm that's coming your way.

Dane 28:05
You're going to be fine and you can navigate whatever you're in the midst of without taking the easy way out of pulling the record saying, I have to, I have to, I have to. And, but we know this because how often do people say, I have to, I have to, I have to, and they just don't. Like, not only is it historically not true that they haven't, but even though they say they have to, they say the same thing, I have to, and I have to, and I have to over and over again, season in, season out, and nothing changes.

Dane 28:30
So if you're listening at home, and you, and all that you're noticing is, I want something different than I have right now, and I need to find a new path forward, try Get Too On for Size. Try get to with the very next thing. Work it into a conversation tonight at dinner with your partner or housemates.

Dane 28:47
Like, um, and, and, and don't just say it like, Oh, that's the right answer. Like embody, like feel your way into it. And I think you're going to find that exercise alone can be perspective shifting enough. To get a little traction and get to where you want to go.  

Mitch 29:09
Absolutely. Let's end it on that. We promised them a short, concise episode, so let's, uh, let's leave them hanging.

Mitch 29:15
And, uh, it's, it really is a get to, so you don't have to listen to the next episode and the rest of this season and series, and You get to, and, uh, I encourage you as kind of, usually we invite you to kind of explore and learn more about our community where we practice some of these, these anchors and a lot of other, uh, kind of habits and, and informing a practice.

Mitch 29:36
But I would say the first step right now is listen to this series, do the work and not just listen to it, try it on for size, actually put these things in a practice and see what is on the other end and what is, uh, what, what. What benefits are in the actual experience of it?  

Dane 29:54
Perfect. Can't wait for next time.

Mitch 29:56
All right. See you in the next one.  

Dane 29:58
Men & Women Of Discomfort is our membership community and we are open to everyone but keep in mind our tagline is it's probably not for you if we're wrong about that or if you want to find out for yourself you can find us at mwod.io. The information and material that we're sharing both of this podcast or anything connected to men or women of discomfort or flying s incorporated it's all for general information purposes only. You should not rely on this material or information on this podcast as a basis for making any kind of decision.

Dane 30:23
We do our best to keep everything up to date and correct, and we do a lot of due diligence, but the responsibility is on you to make sure that you're in sync with your own medical professionals that you wouldn't see what we're offering here as somehow a warranty or representation in any kind expressed or implied about this being complete, accurate, reliable, suitable, or comprehensive in any kind of way.

Dane 30:36
It's critical you own your agency, which is at the heart of everything we do at Men & Women Of Discomfort, we invite you to take the input that we're offering and consider it for yourself. And if it's helpful, please do take advantage of it. But if you do, it's you who is taking the opportunity and we're assuming that you've done your due diligence with it.

Dane 30:48
Thanks.

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