Life can be unpredictable. Often, the best course of action is to have a plan, but we must be flexible enough to pivot and open for that plan to change. In this episode, our host, Stephen Jaye, talks with Alyse Opatowski, the founder and CEO of We Talk Real Talk. The company has taken on several different forms while maintaining its core mission: to bring people together through deeper and more authentic conversation. Alyse shares insights on her journey with us while also discussing how she pivoted on her other businesses and why being flexible is a key attribute. Going deeper, she then shares why it is important to allow ourselves to change; only then can we find a better understanding of ourselves and even of others.
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The Story Of We Talk Real Talk: Changing Course And The Need For Flexible Plans With Alyse Opatowski
We all have different pursuits in life and sometimes we need to be a little bit flexible. One of the things I realized a while back is that one of the best ways to go about things is to have a plan, but also be prepared to have that plan change or have a need to change course from time to time. With that being said, I want to bring on my guest, Alyse Opatowski who has a business called We Talk Real Talk that had started out with one mission and the mission was changed in a way. Without further ado, here is Alyse. Thank you very much.
“If we aren’t distracting ourselves and we just allow silence and time with ourselves, that’s a really great way to start to explore things deeper and start to understand what is a combination of things that excite you and your gifts because everybody definitely has them.”
I’m happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Can you start from the beginning with We Talk Real Talk? How did the concept begin from the start?
I am from Denver and have left for about ten years. When I came back, I found that it was challenging to find a community to meet people. I had lived in major cities, which I understood why there was a challenge here. I found it odd coming back to my hometown and seeing how it was challenging first, meeting people, then second of all, a lot of the people that I was meeting only had a few friends or didn’t know a ton of people here. I first wanted to figure out ways to bring people together. The community has always been important for me. I was also hearing from people that a lot of their friendships or interactions were pretty surface level. I love asking deep questions. I would get good feedback on that but I was wondering how I could create more opportunities at dinner parties, bring people together or how there could be deeper conversations there.
Things don’t always turn out how you expected them to be. They can change.
I started with some friends, hosting some dinners and having questions on the table where people can go deeper. That was successful and people enjoyed it. I decided to start a business, We Talk Real Talk, where we would bring people together in a more facilitated way to be able to have these deeper questions. A lot of what came out of it was friendships, business partners and some dating involved. It also allowed people to talk about the things that they’re not always able to talk about and see that a lot of times, we all have this shared humanity and experiences. Another thing that is important to me and was important for them too was this feeling of getting rid of shame. Not having shame around topics when they would talk about something and other people would have similar experiences or be there to support them and listen to what they were sharing.
First of all, where did you move to? You said you’re from Denver and you moved back here. Where did you live between?
I went to school in Michigan and then I did an interesting year-long program where they moved you across the country every four months. I lived in lots of fun cities, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, St. Louis, and King Harbor. After that, I loved San Francisco so I was there for about five years and then came back to Denver.
You went to San Francisco and you liked it there. I assume you made a good social circle there. When you came back to Denver, was there some unique challenge you experienced and was it related to the specifics of Denver or the phase of life? How would you describe the challenge you experienced both in finding a social circle here as well as making more deep and meaningful connections?
I don’t know why I’ve had this expectation. An important thing that I’ve learned a lot through this journey is setting certain expectations. They don’t always turn out how you think and that can change things. I have this assumption that I knew a good amount of people. It was going to be easy. It was going to be fine and awesome. I did have a close friend from high school and a good friend that I grew up with that lived here. I did have people here and there that did make it a much easier transition than most people had. I figured a different networking social events. I go to a lot of different things that the community was going to grow quickly.
One piece is the actual quantity of people that I expected to meet and bond with. The second piece of it was the quality piece. I met some awesome people and I realized through some of the friendships that I had. What was important was finding people that also could go deep and can talk about real things going on. I love when we’re able to have fun, go out and have a good time. At the same time, I wanted people around me that were also able to go deeper and have conversations about what was going on with them and what mattered to them in life.
Did you find that some of these connections that you were making were not going deep at the time? If so, is there any particular reason you can outline?
There are people in the world who are willing to accept us for all of the things that we’ve done.
A piece of it was feeling confident enough to ask some of the deeper questions. I used to start in my early twenties with like, “What is your story?” I got a lot of feedback. That was an intense first question. It was a lot of feeling comfortable asking some of these things. It’s an opportunity for growth that I’ve had over this journey. I don’t ask, “how are you doing?” I don’t love that question the first time you meet somebody. That’s okay if they’re starting to feel comfortable with that. A lot of times, it’s people feeling comfortable and in the right space to feel safe to talk about things. A lot of these people that I was meeting at the beginning may have gone deeper in certain contexts. Based on the interaction, it didn’t go that way. At the same time, I did start to meet people that wanted to go there. Those are the people that I started testing and doing these parties with.
At these parties, you talked about this feeling of shame. What I’m guessing you’re referring to is the feeling of being ashamed to either admit something about yourself or to describe something about how you feel. How did you overcome the tendency for people to feel shameful, hide things, not reveal themselves and oftentimes, does keep things very surface level?
I realized that a lot of it comes from the tone that’s being set. When I would open up, share my personal story, my journey and things that have been shameful in the past that I feel comfortable talking about now, that was always a good place to set the stage. I would notice that depending on the first question. At first, I would let participants answer then I learned that if I answered first, I was willing to go deeper and be more vulnerable with people, that there was more willingness to open up and not feel shame about things, especially when I shared my story. They could look around the room and see that people were supportive of that situation. No one was laughing. There were not any problems with that. Another thing is setting ground rules. Having specific ways to create a space that people feel comfortable sharing, saying things like confidentiality and things like that that makes people feel a little bit more at ease.
If anyone reading this has something they’re feeling shameful about they want to open up to people about, and they’re feeling some form of weird about it, what piece of advice would you give these particular people?
For a lot of situations in my life that have felt shameful, I’m sitting with it. If you have any practices in your body and you’re doing that, that’s a good thing to sit with and release. If it’s something in the mind, I found journaling or writing. It’s hard to share openly and vulnerably if you aren’t feeling 100%. Also, if you’re not feeling 100%, that’s okay. If that’s where you’re at, finding conscious communities or spaces that might feel comfortable to open up, and/or with people that you know in the past that when you’ve shared things, they’ve been supportive of it is important. I’ve noticed if you do have shameful experiences and it’s a parent or someone that’s not always supportive or there to listen in certain situations, that makes it harder to continue to want to share that and feel less shame around it the next time. It’s a combination of you as well as the people that you’re sharing with and having that be intentional.
Would you say that self-acceptance is a part of that journey, regardless of the reason why you’re feeling shameful about a certain thing? I wouldn’t necessarily say, “This behavior of mine is good or it’s fine.” One of the things I’ve been telling a lot of people is what we need as a society are these two concepts that seem contradictory to one another. Radical admittance to whatever flaws we have, but also radical self-acceptance at the same time. Would you say that self-acceptance is part of that journey toward how we can open up on whatever we’re feeling shameful about?
I can’t think of any reason why you can’t or shouldn’t be able to love yourself and why there are not other people around to love you. I’m not promoting hurting, harming or killing someone. There are a lot of people that are in prison that may have done this. There is redemption and other things to that. There are a lot of people in prison that have wives, partners or other people that have accepted them. On an extreme level, there are a lot of things that we do, knowing that we’re human and that things can change. There are people in the world that are willing to accept us for all of those things. You’re right, it comes and starts with loving and accepting yourself first.
This is an interesting topic because another component of what you’re describing in this process is also finding the right people. Sometimes, it’s getting over some of the experiences that a lot of us have in the past. Shame often comes from some past experience with someone, whether it be a good friend, a partner or a parent who didn’t accept you for one reason or another. Part of it is finding those right people that are going to accept you. Are there times when you need to let go of people?
That’s an important process. It was put very well to me, which is sometimes you need to let go of certain things to bring energy or types of people in your life. If someone is holding you back, it could mean a lot of things. If they’re not supportive, fueling you, negative or whatever those cases may be, as the saying goes, “You are the sum of the five closest people to you.” If you’re thinking about that, how are you surrounding yourself with those people that are supportive where you can open up and be this way. Wherever you want to be, seeing if you can have those people along with you. I’ve learned over time that people are scared of doing these things but first of all, it can help you a lot. Second of all, everything doesn’t have to be a dramatic breakup or ending in terms of friendships, dating or anything. There’s a way to come about these things to shift some of those relationships and what they look like.
That’s a good point because when people talk about the idea of cutting someone out of your life, it sounds dramatic. Whereas it might be possible to say, “These people are fine people but I need to go and do something else for a while.” It’s an interesting topic. For most people, there is this component of like, “What are you feeling?” I have a friend that calls it, “What do you fill your bowl with? What are you filling your mind with?” A couple of years ago, I decided to take a month off of the news. No news for the entire month of February 2017. One thing I learned is we’ll go through a lot of exercises when we think about what we’re putting into our body like dieting. How often do we think, what are we putting into our minds? What is our brain consuming? What content are we consuming on a regular basis? Who’s deciding it? Are your friends deciding it? Is Netflix deciding it based on their algorithm, YouTube, Spotify and all that other stuff?
That’s an interesting point. The one other thing I wanted to touch on about this component of the experience about what you said originally is the tone of voice. I’m wondering if there’s a little guidance you can provide based on your experience about the tone of voice that people can foster to encourage this acceptance. It’s very open where there’s a certain tone of voice that makes people feel like, “I can open up to you. I can talk to you about things that are real.”
Everything comes and starts with loving and accepting yourself first.
It’s the space that you’re looking in. People’s tones will look a little bit different. What I found more so is being real and honest with what you’re saying. Your tone might inflate in different ways and you can tell when someone is excited or when they’ve rehearsed the speech over and over, especially going to a lot of community events. It’s what they said, but you hear that energy and how people feel about that situation. It’s pretty obvious if this is a rehearsed speech that you’ve done a million times. Even if you do that, how can you make it personal and be honest with what you’re saying? That’s been a lot of spaces to allow people to open up or share in certain ways.
It is an important point because when we’ve heard that things get heated, our events were more about yourself and your experience. I find that fewer people can get charged with whatever is being said. In other events where people might be debating a topic, sharing an opinion or having the tone that sounds angry, raised and seeing how that can bother people. It’s also checking in and being like, “This is maybe how this person speaks.” Maybe they are upset and how do we unpack that situation. It’s paying attention when other people in the room are saying or doing things, seeing how that’s being interpreted and what that might look like.
One of the big problems we have is how divisive our political culture is and some of our conversations are on a lot of grounds. This is not a political show. The purpose of this show is never to get someone to adopt certain political points of view or support certain political ideas, but what can someone do if people do want to? For a while, we’ve had this answer to it all of not talking about things. That seems like not working. If people want to have an open and honest conversation knowing that there are a lot of people out there ready to get offended by things, what can you do in your own way through your own conversations with your neighbors, friends and family to calm things down, and make a more productive conversation around a lot of topics?
It’s something that I think about a lot. The biggest thing that’s helped me is coming to something to listen to and not to win. If I’m coming in to win an argument, then it looks a lot different by genuinely being interested in that person’s point of view. This is good practice if you’re talking to people on divisive topics but also practicing it in everyday conversations and starting there. The second piece of this is knowing that a conversation or a dialogue, even if there are opposite sides, doesn’t necessarily mean bad or conflict. It’s been powerful to see a friend’s family have these conversations, and their tone does come up a little. It sounds like they’re arguing but they’ve talked about it as a family. These conversations are a place for learning and a place to understand. They’re laughing ten minutes later. That wasn’t necessarily society or how I was raised in lots of ways but coming from it to be like, “I’m coming to learn, with curiosity and interest. We’re going to have a discussion of whatever the person says, I’m open to hearing. That doesn’t mean you’re bad, wrong or I dislike you. This is an exciting opportunity here to understand other points of view.”
I hope a lot more people in the near future can adopt that mindset in coming into conversations, especially because the mindset of curiosity seems to have utility in a lot of areas of life. Not just diffusing some of these divisive topics we have, but also in creating a better business. Anyone that runs a business needs to be curious about their clients, the customers, the market they’re in and what the mission is. Let’s go on to the next part of your journey. You started We Talk Real Talk. You were running events and these events were pretty successful in getting people together. At some point, you decided you needed to pivot a little. Can you describe that moment?
I was starting to feel it a few months pre-COVID hitting and realizing that I love the community building piece. I love these conversations. I enjoyed the facilitation of what was coming out of people realizing things in the conversation. I realized that I am not an event planner. I have a big place in my heart for event planners and people that do that, but so much time was spent on the logistics instead of working on what the flow looked like and the conversations. That’s where I wanted to be spending all my time. We partnered with another group. We’re supposed to have an event at the beginning of March 2020 which was pushed back and went online, which was one of our most successful events. It was a wonderful event and showed me that we can do things on Zoom. We can do things online and did a few other events.
It wasn’t necessarily because COVID happened and events weren’t happening. I saw there is still a platform to make that happen. It gave me an opportunity to take a step back a little bit and re-assess the parts that were exciting to me and the parts that I wasn’t necessarily as into. From there, I was thinking about what was enjoyable? What my vision of change? What was I looking back at the mission? What the outcome was? What we were looking to get and help and support people with? It goes back to me asking those questions, having deep conversations and had done a lot of personal work, as well as training and workshops. Otherwise, I’m more in the life coach realm.
From this, three of my own businesses having those own personal experiences with business coaching pivoted into business and life coaching. It was a seamless transition and realizing that I love these one-off events. What fills me up is helping people one-on-one figuring out what they’re excited about, what they’re committed to, and how to go after that. That’s something that’s always been fun and that I enjoyed throughout my life and been able to do myself. That’s where it’s transitioned to. In addition to that, with that community piece, figuring out how can we still form groups and communities of people that can support each other and me personally, enjoying doing those things more regularly. You can practice opening up more and more every time with a group of people. Practice communication skills, which is at the heart of all these things. It’s effective and honest communication.
Staying friends or connected with people is great, but it’s fine to practice it for 1 or 3 months and then be able to go off in your own life and find friends in your community that way. What that’s looked like is I also got some other jobs during COVID at this time. I was doing college counseling at a school where I was able to pitch them in electives class. I now teach a class called Who Am I? It’s a Jewish school so we look at the psychological and sociological Jewish values around who highschoolers are. We’re figuring out academically and non-academically how to continue to build these types of groups.
It seems like you’re helping people figure out who they are both in this high school setting as well as in this life coaching setting. Is it the services that people tend to think of life coaching with one-on-one or is there a community aspect to it? How do these two things intersect together?
Right now, it is one-on-one work. I’m looking for the future of how to also do more group work as well as connect the individual participants to each other. I feel grateful and love connecting and networking with each client a lot of times, depending on what the work is. I have been able to connect them with people in my wider community. That’s always something fun to allow them to have the sense and support from other individuals.
It sounds like the transition you made was based on some realization about who you are as a person and what lights you up. I think you’ve encountered business coaching and the idea of when you first start a business, you’re wearing all the different hats, and then you decide which hats you’re the best at and form out the work with the other hat. There was some element of that process in there that you decided, “I’m not into planning the logistics of an event or people who worked full-time as an event planner or event coordinator.” Would you say that you’re still serving the same basic general overall mission that you’d originally come to with We Talk Real Talk?
Yes, definitely. It’s still about supporting others and allowing them to be open and honest. It might be in a one-on-one setting, in a class setting or in a group setting but still, the ability for them to open up and be honest in that way. What’s nice about this is whether it’s connecting them to other people where we’re doing one-on-one coaching or it’s the group together, it’s allowing them to practice these forms of communication and connection that’s exciting. They think it’s still with that same mission. On that, I also want to say that it’s not easy to do these transitions or pivots. There was a lot mentally to go through and think about for myself what that looked like or how that appeared to other people and realizing that it is important to figure out what lights you up and what you’re passionate about. When you’re a small business owner, these are the things that you have to do and commit to every single day and be excited if you want to keep going. It’s been an awesome process. I’m glad that I was able to make that shift.
With your more one-on-one coaching service, what type of people do you usually end up working with?
It is individuals that usually come because they need support in one specific area. If it’s business coaching, it’s their business but there’s something else that’s big in their life. I tell them that what we’re going to be working on is figuring out, deepening into that and seeing, is that true? Is that really what they’re looking for? Is there something else? It’s breaking down what those commitments are and what they’re looking to do. Some have had previous experience with either life coaches, therapists or other types of people that do some of that work, but a lot of people that can have some degree of self-knowledge, knowing who they are able to have some of these conversations and being willing to dig deeper into what’s happening with them. It’s primarily people in their early 30s-ish and it happened that way. I’m happy to expand and look at other groups but that’s been what’s coming up primarily. With the work with highschoolers, I’m looking at how to expand to other high school students as well.
It’s hard to share openly and vulnerably if you aren’t feeling 100%.
One of the things I wonder is as you’re looking at the early 30s, you’re looking at the core of Millennials and then you’re looking at highschoolers, which most people describe as Gen Z. Are you seeing any difference in communication skills, communication methods or any of the other mindset stuff that you are working with people on?
I don’t think this isn’t necessarily a Gen Z thing. This is all highschoolers. How much before you’re impacted by a lot of the societal impacts or norms. You have so much innocence and wisdom. All ages have a lot of that wisdom but it’s been powerful to see fewer situations impacting your thoughts on the world. It’s amazing to hear what some of these highschoolers have to say, think about the world and how profound some of those things are. I have the same thing with my clients too, but it’s always an interesting reminder at that young age how introspective a lot of these students are. I do find that with Millennial clients, this is an age thing and not Millennials versus Gen Z, but they do have more of a sense of self in who they are.
They’re standing in that, which in lots of ways is awesome and makes the work easier. In lots of ways, it can make it harder because it’s breaking that down and understanding is that really you? Is that someone else or parents doing that? Whereas the highschoolers are a little bit more at the beginning of their journey. I have biases and thoughts on technology. I can see how it affects a lot of learning differences, ADD, ADHD, things like that, on their phones all the time. Communication is a lot easier over text or email, but I also realize that I do that too. I see myself walk into school on my phone or that’s somewhat preferred to communicate. I do love talking on the phone. I’ll call the kids up too and they will be shocked, then we can have a conversation. There is a small gap with some of the communication, especially with their peers and people that age because it’s primarily done in a different way. There’s something to be taught there. I also see that there are a lot of similar things of communication over email or texts with friends that we’ve all adapted to that type of stuff.
Sometimes, our generation can be the worst because all these new communication methods were pretty new when they were coming up. You probably had the experience where all of a sudden, you get a text message and it’s pretty much a blog post typed into a text. It’s like, “There’s got to be another way or this is all scattered.” We haven’t societally got to the point where we’re all have agreed generally upon what form of communication is for what purposes. Some people with email, now with Slack. It gets a little bit challenging. One of the things I’m glad you pointed out is that a lot of people will tribute a lot of differences to generational differences when sometimes they’re just a phase of life.
I think we’d had a better understanding among the different generations if we all stopped and remember that we were all in high school once. The vast majority of us were teenagers in high school once too. We had a time when having a pimple on the wrong day of the week felt like the end of the world or whatever it is that we accused the highschoolers of. It’s great to have that understanding and it’s also great to have that connection to that childlike or youthful innocence that you experienced with these highschoolers. How has that impacted your own outlook on how you’re going about everything?
That’s a challenge and opportunity most of my life. That’s been coming up in the past few years. It’s that intense black and white thinking that I’ve always been raised with or a combination of nature and nurture, but thinking of things as one way or the opposite and trying to work to understand that everything is gray. There isn’t anything that’s 100% one way or 100% another way. Figuring out how to live more in that middle area. They’re a wonderful reminder of not categorizing people, situations or things in one way, but being more flexible in thinking and the way that we see people, and the way that we interact with others, which has been helpful.
On my previous note, one thing that is important and worth mentioning is we met a couple of years ago at an event briefly. We’re emailing and you followed up with me. I remember we had a few calls since. With anyone interested in We Talk Real Talk or any parts of my life, or someone I might meet on a walk or something like that, I’m always trying to do calls and Zooms. If it feels safe and you’re able, and there are outside walks or opportunities to do that, it’s great ways to connect with people in that way and how the relationship looks different. Now I get to be on your show and we get to continue to have these enriching conversations, and how relationships can look different still for phone or Zoom than it might be over a text.
One of the things that you’ve experienced is my own evolution in my manner of networking. When I first started networking, I fell into the trap of going to one of those events where you come home with 25 business cards. You set up for coffee meetups, and then don’t foster those relationships. At the time in 2018, 2019, the thing I was realizing about networking is sometimes you need to be a little bit more purposeful. It’s not about grabbing as many business cards as you possibly can and putting yourself. I was in between jobs and I still managed to put myself in what people often referred to as email jail from networking events and came to the realization, “This might not be the best strategy. I might need to figure out who are the people that I’m interested in forming a more meaningful connection with and how to be a little bit more purposeful with that.” I was also wondering, a lot of your clients seem like they are going through a fairly similar story to what you went through where you think you’re one thing, then you’ve got to pivot a little bit or you realize something about yourself. What would you say is the greatest challenge you encounter when you’re working with your people?
I’m glad you brought that point out. Some of these individuals are very different from me. Realizing the things that are hardest to have honest conversations about or to dig deeper into are things that are parallel experiences that I’ve had that has not been 100% resolved. It’s an interesting opportunity to watch how these things affect me as I’m coaching them and realize that what is the most challenging for me is personal and working through that myself in addition to holding space for the client.
When you see your clients have breakthroughs, what is the most satisfying component of what We Talk Real Talk has evolved into?
Even before We Talk Real Talk existed, my personal mission has always been how to support myself and others. Following, pursuing or believing in that deep thing and their core. There are different words, whether it’s purpose, commitment or passion. Having people have these goals, watch them happen and evolve like the big goals that are accomplished that you can see on paper when these things are happening is so exciting. It’s understanding of themselves. Figuring out what those things are and running with is great. There are so many little things in each session about people having a deeper understanding of who they are or what excites them. It is empowering. With the group setting, the kids that I have in my class is 9th through 12th graders. That’s a big range of 14 to 18. Four years might not seem big anymore but at that time, that’s a lot. Having them start to have connections or opening up to each other in classes where the high school can be such a vulnerable and scary time. Those have been so powerful to watch and witness.
I’m sure there are some people reading this that are completely lost. I’m thinking about the situation that I’ve found myself in the past where you don’t understand. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? These are a group of people that need to figure out some things about themselves so they can figure out how to move. What do you think is the number one thing that someone can do tomorrow when they wake up to improve their understanding of themselves?
Giving silence and pause or space is the most important thing. That can take a lot of different forms. You might be someone that feels comfortable with meditation. Meditation literally might be spending 5 or 10 minutes with your eyes closed, breathing or seeing if you can focus on your breath. It might be something that you wake up every morning, you journal and write all these things. The artist’s way is a good way to start looking at that but you’re just writing out everything in your head, taking a walk, but noticing all the things around you, noticing your feet, the trees and everything else happening. There are a lot of ways that if we aren’t distracting ourselves with noise and all the things that you were mentioning, and we allow silence and time with ourselves, that’s a great way to start to explore these things deeper and understand what is a combination of things that excites you and your gifts because everyone has them.
Before we wrap up, I want to give my readers a chance to connect with you if they so desire. How would someone best go inquiring more about We Talk Real Talk and your services?
The website is WeTalkRealTalk.com. I can also be reached via email at Alyse@WeTalkRealTalk.com. You can type that into Google. You can find me on Instagram or anything else. You should be able to connect with me pretty easily.
I love the component where in the first iteration of We Talk Real Talk, you saw a need based on your own experience, took action based on it, then pivoted based on a better understanding of yourself. Also, what the understanding is. What I hope my readers get out of this is that sometimes, you start something and you realize that’s not the direction it’s going to go, but that was a great use of time. I love that story. I wish you the best going forward, as well as for your clients, because it sounds like they are coming to some great realizations about who they are, what they want to do and hopefully, get inspired in a similar way that I’m hoping to inspire people through this show by hearing stories and saying, “I should go out and start doing things. I should pursue what I want to and be true to who I am.” Once again, thank you very much. Stay tuned to Action’s Antidotes. I will be having more guests with similar experiences and different experiences. I’m trying to cover the entire realm of possibilities for our true selves.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- We Talk Real Talk
- Alyse@WeTalkRealTalk.com
- Instagram – We Talk Real Talk
About Alyse Opatowski
After living in many other places Alyse returned to Denver and noticed a lot of people struggling to make meaningful connections with each other. With the desire to help connect people, she established We Talk Real Talk. We Talk Real Talk has shifted forms from an organization that puts on events to one that focuses on life coaching while maintaining the same underlying purpose, to help bring people together.