Teaching Mastery Academy for Digital Course Creators

Teaching Mastery: What No One Tells You About Course Creation

• Francesca Hudson: Teaching Mastery Academy

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The part of course creation no one talks about might be the most important: the teaching itself. Behind every successful digital course lies countless hours of invisible work that few acknowledge or appreciate. This episode exposes the mental exhaustion of breaking down complex concepts, the frustration of watching students drop off, and the emotional weight of caring deeply about your students' success.

Francesca Hudson draws from her decade of classroom teaching experience to reveal why transitioning to digital education presents unique challenges. She explores the "curse of knowledge" – how experts forget what it's like to be beginners – and provides practical strategies for creating courses that truly help students learn and implement. Through compelling examples of course creators who struggled and ultimately triumphed, she demonstrates how anticipating student confusion, building in support systems, and testing content with real beginners leads to transformational learning experiences.

The episode takes an honest look at the emotional toll of teaching, addressing the difficult truth that not every student will succeed despite your best efforts. Francesca offers wisdom on setting healthy boundaries, celebrating the wins, and detaching your self-worth from student outcomes while still providing exceptional educational experiences.

For every course creator who's felt underappreciated or questioned whether their efforts matter, this episode provides both validation and practical guidance. Your teaching changes lives, even when that work remains largely invisible to those who benefit from it most.

To learn more about Teaching Mastery Academy and join the Waitlist, click here.

Think of your course (or your course idea,) like a luxury car. People won’t pay top dollar unless it’s high quality, delivers an incredible experience, and meets their needs perfectly. Teaching Mastery Academy teaches course creators like you how to ‘build’ that luxury-level course—one that students trust, complete, and rave about, justifying premium pricing every time. Ready to take your expertise and ensure your digital course stands out from the crowd? Premium courses (and premium returns) start with the core teaching fundamentals that all the best course creators instinctively do, but now I'm showing you how! Join the VIP waitlist for Teaching Mastery Academy now! Click here to learn more.

Speaker 1:

Hey there, hello, welcome. You are here at Teaching Mastery Academy podcast. I am your host, francesca Hudson, and today we're looking into the part of course creation that no one talks about, and this is a part of course creation that I struggle with sometimes too. In fact, I struggle with this regularly, and I'm talking about the teaching side. Let me preface this with a story, and it was back when I was teaching, and quite often when you're at parties or when you're at events and you're making small talk and people ask you, oh, what do you do for a living? And you say I'm a teacher, and the first thing that they say in reply is, oh, great holidays. And I would smile politely and maybe laugh at their joke and carry on talking. But it really used to get to me because people's perception of teaching is well, it must be great for the teachers because think of all the holidays they get lucky for some right? So that was back in the teaching days and obviously I left teaching after 10 years and became an entrepreneur and began teaching in the digital world and creating educational resources and products in the digital arena, but nothing really shifted. People still wondered. To a certain extent, people didn't seem to recognize that the teaching side of course creation is a real skill and it's a tricky skill to master to a certain extent. So today I really wanted to talk about the part of course creation that no one really talks about in the marketing world and in the course creation world, and it's about the teaching side of things, and what I mean by that is the hours that you spend trying to structure your course so it actually makes sense. I'm talking about the mental energy it takes to break things down in a way that your students will actually absorb, and I'm talking about the pain of watching students drop off and never finish your course that you've poured your heart into. And the worst part, most people don't even realize or appreciate how much work this takes, and I can't tell you how many times I've heard oh, you just recorded some videos, right, or it must be nice to make passive income, or wait, people need help actually learning this, can't? They just watch the lessons. But if you've built a digital course or if you're deep in the trenches of creating one, you already know Teaching isn't passive. It's one of the most mentally and emotionally demanding things that you can do in the online space.

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So in today's episode keeping it positive. We're going to talk about the work no one sees when you're designing a course. We're going to talk about why teaching in a digital format is so much harder than people think. We're going to talk about the emotional weight of making sure your students succeed. We're going to talk about why people don't appreciate great teaching until they experience bad teaching. And let me tell you, bad teaching is a complete death sentence for your course. And we can talk about how to stay motivated when it feels like no one actually acknowledges the effort that you are putting in to creating your course.

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So this episode is for every course creator who's ever felt underappreciated, exhausted from overteaching and frustrated that students aren't finishing their course. Because you are not alone, my friend. I have been there, I have been in your position and today we are peeling back the curtain on what it really takes to teach in a digital course. So let's get started, and I thought I'd start with a bit of a truth bomb. So most people think that course creation is just about delivering information. They have no idea how much mental effort goes into designing an effective learning experience.

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When I started creating digital courses and I was learning all the ways to transfer the way that I taught in the classroom to an online space, because there's so many different things that you have to tweak and adjust and to keep in consideration when you're teaching to an unknown audience as opposed to a known audience in words, the people that you can see in the classroom. It's really mentally tiring. I was exhausted by the end of each day. I would be sleeping. I'd be having little naps during the day because my brain I felt like my brain was getting fried. There is so much mental effort that goes in to creating and designing a really effective learning experience for a digital online course.

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Now, have you ever had someone casually say to you oh, you've just recorded a few videos, right? Or why is your course taking so long to create? Or it must be nice to make passive income from something you already know? Now, if you have ever had any comments like these, you know how frustrating it is when people don't understand the amount of work that goes into great teaching, because here's what they don't see Breaking down your expertise into a step-by-step process that actually makes sense. There's a lot of thought and careful time and planning that goes into that step-by-step process that's actually going to resonate with your audience. They don't see how you are working so hard to figure out how to explain something so clearly that even a beginner can get it. In other words, really refining down your knowledge and your expertise into bite-sized pieces of information and then spreading them out across the course so that even a beginner can understand.

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People don't see you re-recording lessons because your first take was too complicated and sometimes and this has happened to me I have had to re-record entire modules four times over until I have got it right and that's taken me weeks to do. It takes the first time you record a lesson is not the last cut. At least that's never the case for me. I am always recording and then re-recording and then re-editing. My husband laughs because I'm always either stuck on the couch with my laptop on my lap or at the dining table frantically editing, because I know that the next lesson is going to release tomorrow and I want to get it right. So people don't see that.

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People don't see the amount of editing and planning that goes into these lessons. All they see is the video at the end of it. But you also don't see how you are testing different ways to teach a concept, because not everyone learns the same way. They don't realize that there's actually very nuanced and very subtle ways that we all learn differently from each other. Some of us learn through listening to something best. Some of us learn through listening to something best. Some of us learn best through reading something written down, seeing it written down. Some of us learn best when we actually are practically putting it into practice, moving. So there are so many different ways that different people learn and we have to account for all of that when it comes to creating our digital courses.

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People don't see that. People don't see the hours that we spend working our courses outline because it didn't flow well the first time around and we saw the drop-off rates of students. They weren't completing a certain module or they weren't completing a certain lesson. There is so much testing and going back and forth, back and forth, weakening the course content. The course is never finished In my eyes. My courses are never done. They are always subject to improvement and refinement and seeing what's working and what's not and what more can I add and what more do I need to take out and what's clear and what's not not, and what more can I add and what more do I need to take out and what's clear and what's not. That goes on. That is an ongoing process and people don't see the amount of time it takes checking in on student progress and stressing over why people aren't finishing your course. The general public don't see that side, but when you add all that up together, it's mentally draining, it's emotionally exhausting and, worst of all, most of this effort goes unnoticed.

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Now a lot of people assume that if you know a topic well, teaching should be easy. Well, that's a myth, my friend, because teaching isn't just about knowing something. It's about translating that knowledge into a format someone else can absorb, retain and reply, and that is a skill. Think about this A surgeon can perform a perfect surgery, but can they teach a new student how to do it? Or an artist can paint a masterpiece. Or an artist can paint a masterpiece, but can they break down their process for beginners? Or a fitness coach can do a flawless deadlift, but can they help someone with no experience learn proper form? Just because you're an expert, it doesn't mean you automatically know how to teach. And this is where the real work, of course, creation, comes in. Let's talk about one of the hardest parts of teaching Taking something complex and making it digestible for a beginner. This is where so many course creators struggle, because what seems simple to you, it's not simple to your students.

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I used to have this conversation with my husband all the time. He's a builder and he would always be so focused on looking at the way the house was going to be built when he sat down with clients to go through the first concept or the second concept and my husband would go straight to talking about how to build the house, the feasibility of it and, and quite often clients would be asking my husband questions about really, really basic things, in other words, the garden out the front, and my husband would always say, well, we can do that at the end. That comes at the end. But what I was trying to remind him of is that every time a client comes into the office, we have to approach those meetings with a beginner's mindset. We have to approach those meetings through the eyes of our clients who have never built before. They don't know anything and we've got to start from scratch, teaching them the basics of what to expect when you're building. And because my husband he's 20 years, 25 years into building now, so he has built many, many houses.

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He forgets. And so the reason why I bring this up as an example is that you may be a really experienced professional in your industry. You may have many, many years under your belt, many awards, many credentials, many notches on your CV, but teaching is a totally different skill. The teaching side of things gets forgotten about. What seems simple to you in your profession, in your niche, is not simple to your students. It's not simple to the students that you want to put through your future course that you want to create.

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So let me give you another example. I worked with a client, mark, who was a brilliant web designer. He had years of experience building high converting websites. He knew every technical detail SEO, coding, ux, strategy, branding and he was getting DMs all the time asking him for help. So he decided to create a course. Why not? Dms all the time asking him for help? So he decided to create a course why not? And he called it the website design for beginners. Now he thought it would be simple just record his process and share it.

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But here's what happened. His students were struggling. They were confused by his explanations. They didn't understand the jargon he used. They couldn't keep up with his pace. So he came to me and said I don't get it. I know this stuff like the back of my hand. Why are my students so lost? So I told him you know this too well, you're too experienced, you are too good. But the downside with that is that you're skipping steps because they feel obvious to you, and I like to call it the curse of knowledge. So why do experts struggle to teach beginners? Well, there's a psychological concept called the curse of knowledge, and it means that when you become an expert at something, you forget what it's like to be a beginner. You assume that people already know certain things. You explain things at your level, not theirs. We forget that they're beginners and you move too fast. You're leaving your students feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, and this is one of the biggest challenges that course creators face, because if you don't structure your lessons in a way that meets students at their level, they won't learn anything.

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In order to fix this course, this is what Mark had to do. He had to slow down and explain things like his students had never seen a website before, like really go right back to basics. We broke his lessons down into smaller steps, so instead of covering too much at once, we looked at what was going into each lesson and how do we refine that down a little bit more. We used analogies to make complex ideas easier to grasp for the students. We used beginner-friendly resources like a glossary of terms for them so that they could actually start to learn the jargon or learn the language, and we got some feedback from real beginners to catch what was still unclear. So we were making sure that the people that were going through the course what was still confusing for them? What did we need to fix and refine Now? The result was that students started completing his courses. They understood the concepts instead of just consuming content, consuming videos, watching videos non-stop, and Mark's testimonials changed from I got lost halfway through to this course made web design finally click for me Now, the lesson in all this teaching isn't just about delivering information.

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It's about making it easy to learn step by step. And here's what most people don't see about course creation the countless hours spent restructuring lessons. But the mental exhaustion of getting it right is huge and we've talked about this briefly in the introduction. When in my intro is that the countless hours spent restructuring lessons and the stress of wondering is this the best way to explain it is really, really, really taxing mentally, and also the frustration when students still don't get it, even after you've simplified it or you thought that you've simplified it enough for your students to understand it, and the mental energy it takes to keep refining and improving this process. But that's not the worst part. And improving this process but that's not the worst part. The worst part is that people only notice when your teaching is bad. If your course is designed well, students don't think about how much work you've put in, they just flow through the lessons, learning with ease. But that ease didn't happen by accident. That ease took hours of trial and error to perfect, and that's the part no one appreciates until they've done it themselves.

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I worked with a client, emma, who had been teaching live workshops for years. She thought moving to digital courses would be easier because I already have the content. I'll just record it. But guess what? She quickly realized that teaching in a live setting is very different from teaching in a recorded format. And all my teachers out there that are listening to this podcast a shout out to you in the teaching world, because I have been in that boat. I have transitioned from live teaching in the classroom to digital teaching and it is so very different, and I'll tell you why.

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In her live workshops she could read the room. She could see the mood, what people were listening into, when people were looking bored, she could adjust her pacing based on student reactions and she could answer questions immediately. When something wasn't clear, people could put up their hands. She could gauge the understanding. She could see what people were picking up on and where people were getting confused. But in her recorded course, students got stuck and had no way to get instant help. Some lessons felt really confusing because she wasn't there to clarify and she didn't realize which lessons were confusing and which ones weren't, and people started dropping off before finishing her course. So this is what Emma had to do. This is how we helped her. So I helped her rethink how she structured her lessons and made sure that they all flowed in a really logical progression. We looked at anticipating where students would struggle, which parts were going to be more complicated, which parts of information were more complex. We looked at adding more checkpoints to help students self-correct themselves and we looked at testing her content with real students before launching. And once she did this real students before launching and once she did this, completion rates doubled.

Speaker 1:

So the lesson from all of this is that teaching online isn't just about content. It's about creating an experience where students can learn independently from you, but you have still set it up in a way. You've still set the course up in a way so that it is really easy to understand to action and it's almost like having you there in the room next to them. So the work of teaching is invisible, but it is essential. And if you're struggling with feeling like your course isn't clear enough, or worrying that students aren't finishing, or spending way longer than expected on content creation, it's not because you're doing it wrong, my friend, because you're not. It's because teaching is hard and most people won't understand how much work goes into making a course truly effective. And if you're deep in this process and wondering if all the effort is worth it, trust me, my friend, it is. It is so worth it. You're doing the work that changes lives. So keep going, because when you see your students succeed, there is no better feeling as a teacher.

Speaker 1:

But I will preface that with something that no one prepares you for as a course creator, and that is the emotional weight of caring about your students success, which is what we need to prepare you for, and most people think that digital courses are this magical, set it and forget it product. But here's the truth that no one will tell you. If you care about your students actually learning and all great teachers do it comes with the territory. It's why we are in teaching for the first place. But that means that teaching is emotionally exhausting. It's so much more than just uploading lessons and collecting payments, because when you're a great teacher, you feel really responsible for your students' success and that's a heavy burden to carry. Now I don't want to scare you off and I don't want to put you off, because, at the same time, there is no better feeling than seeing your students succeed. So it's a real catch-22, because you're on this amazing buzz, this massive high, when you are riding the wave of success with your students, but at the same time, unless you protect yourself and unless you put in place some really good strategies for emotional intelligence, it can be emotionally exhausting Because, as a course creator, you experience this constant internal dialogue Are my students actually learning?

Speaker 1:

Why aren't more people finishing the course? Am I over-complicating this? What if someone asks for a refund? What if people say my course didn't work? What if I get a bad review? And here's what makes it even harder Students will really tell you when they're struggling. They just quietly stop engaging. They don't reach out and say, hey, I'm feeling lost in module three, and they don't ask could you break this down differently? Or they don't message you to say I got overwhelmed and stopped. No, they just disappear. And as a course creator, that can feel really devastating, because when students don't finish, you just start blaming yourself. You can't help it. You put your heart and soul on the line.

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I worked with a client, rachel, who created a really well-structured, high-quality course on time management and she poured months into designing it. She was perfecting her lessons, creating worksheets and templates, she was making sure it was step-by-step and easy to follow, and she was so proud of her course and she launched it. She got her students enrolled and then Completion rates were low, heartbreaking. People weren't finishing, some students lost their refunds and she started getting messages like oh, I got busy and never got through it. Oh, and poor Rachel. Rachel was crushed. She called me and said I feel like I let my students down. Maybe I'm not meant to be a teacher, but here's what I told her Low engagement doesn't mean your course is bad.

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It just means students need more support. And the fix there's always a fix. So the fix this is what we did. We added accountability, check-ins, reminders for students to keep going. We added quick win milestones so that her students could see progress sooner. We introduced a private community so students could support each other. Now her next launch completion rates doubled. So the lesson in all of this is that students don't always struggle because your content is bad. They struggle because learning something new is hard and your job as a teacher isn't just to provide content, it's to create a learning experience that keeps them engaged.

Speaker 1:

And here's one of the most infuriating things about teaching. Not that I'm going off on a rant about teaching today. It's completely the opposite. I hope that I'm giving you some reassurance that we all have these feelings from time to time. We all go through these phases in our courses from time to time, and there are solutions. There are always fixes, and keep going, because you will push through it. But let me give you one of the most infuriating things about teaching, seeing as we are all in the same boat here today.

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You can give your students everything they need, but they won't always use it. You can give them the perfect roadmap, but some will still take detours. Some will still think they know better. Some will still decide to go completely the opposite way to the way that you've taught them to do it. You can tell your students exactly what to do, but some won't follow through. They still won't follow through. You can create the best course possible, but some people still won't succeed, and that's not on you. We've got to become more emotionally tough, resilient. It's one of the hardest lessons to learn as a course creator, but you have to remember that it's not on you. Let me give you an example.

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I worked with a business coach once who ran a signature program on how to launch an online business, and she was so deeply invested in her student success she was crossing the line. She was going above and beyond. Over and over again. She was in danger of burnout, to be honest, and she answered every question. In the group chat. She gave extra support to students who were struggling. She even hopped on free coaching calls with students who fell behind. But guess what? Some of her students still didn't take action. They bought the course but never logged in. They watched the videos but didn't do the exercises. They kept making excuses for why they weren't implementing, and she was heartbroken. She told me I feel like I care more about my students' success than they do. Have you felt that at home, listening to this podcast? I feel like I care more about my students' success than they do. And I said to her because you do, and that's true, as teachers, we do, we all do so.

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The lesson is, some students will never take action and that's not a reflection on your teaching, my friend. You can provide knowledge, but you can't force transformation. You can guide the process, but students still have to do the work. And you can support, but you can't carry your students, because if you don't accept this, teaching and course creation will drain you. So how do we manage the weight? How do we manage the emotional weight of teaching? Because if you're feeling frustrated or exhausted or questioning whether you're doing this right, here's how to manage the emotional side of things, the emotional side of teaching.

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Remember that learning is hard for students. Most people struggle with consistency. So we've got to keep telling ourselves as teachers it's not about you, it's human nature. Remember that this is human nature that your students will always find your niche hard, because that's why they've signed up to your course in the first place to learn something new. So you need to detach your worth from student outcomes. If a student doesn't get results, it doesn't mean your course isn't valuable. And, as entrepreneurs, this is such a classic feeling of not being good enough or nervous that what you're offering isn't going to cut it. But remember that you need to detach your worth. You are the expert, you are the person that your students have signed up to learn from, and at that point, the student outcomes become their responsibility. They have paid to take your course. They need to follow it through. So if a student doesn't get results, it doesn't mean your course isn't valuable. It just means it wasn't right for them.

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Now remember to celebrate the ones who do succeed. You always have students who thrive because of your course. You will always have students who thrive. Always Focus on them. It's human nature for us to always go to the negatives, but let's celebrate the students who do thrive, who do succeed, who followed your course and got amazing outcomes, got amazing results. Their life changed for the better. Focus on them, put them in the middle of your vision board and set clear boundaries. You can support students, but you can't be responsible for their progress. You can't force them to take your lessons. You can't force them to complete those modules. You have brought them to the start line of the race. You have said go. The rest of it is up to them. If they decide not to run, if they decide not to take those steps forward, then that is on them. Remember that. Have those boundaries in place.

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Your job isn't to guarantee results, it's to provide the best possible learning experience. Remember that you can't guarantee results for everybody. Not everybody who takes your course is going to get the results that you got when you learned this skill or for 90% of your other students. 100% of your students will not get the same results. But if you can provide the best possible learning experience for all of your students, then you are doing a great job and that's enough.

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Because the sad truth is that most people don't appreciate great teaching until they experience bad teaching. And when a course is badly designed, your students will feel overwhelmed, they will struggle to stay engaged and they will leave without learning anything. But when a course is designed really well, students will learn easily, they'll stay engaged without even realizing it, and they'll finish your course and get results the smoother you can make your course feel, the harder you worked to design it. And here's the frustrating part no one notices great teaching when it works, because when learning feels effortless, students will assume it's always easy. But we both know it wasn't, and the reason why your students learn so easily is because you worked your butt off to make it that way.

Speaker 1:

So if no one is telling you this today, let me be the one to say it. Your effort is seen, your work matters. Your teaching changes lives. You're listening to this podcast, so I know that you are on the right track. Keep going, my friend, because if you're feeling underappreciated, if you're frustrated that students aren't finishing and if you're emotionally exhausted from caring so much about student success, know this, my friend Teaching isn't just about delivering content, it's about guiding transformation. If your course takes months to build, that's normal, that's totally normal. And if no one understands how much effort you put in, you're not alone. Your course does matter, your teaching matters and your impact is bigger than you realize. I see you, I appreciate how much work you have put into your course. You are doing the work that changes lives.

Speaker 1:

All right, my friend, let's summarize, because we've been through. We've gone through quite an emotional roller coaster on this episode. We pulled back the curtain on the hidden work of teaching in digital courses and the emotional weight of student success. And let's not forget the truth no one talks about when it comes to creating. So if you've ever felt frustrated or exhausted or like no one really understands how much effort goes into great teaching, know that you are not alone. I have got you. Your work matters. Your students may never see the depth of effort you put in, but they feel it in the way that they learn and, at the end of the day, their success is built on the foundation you created. You should be so proud of that. That is amazing. So keep going, keep refining, keep showing up, because teaching is the work that truly changes lives. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today.

Speaker 1:

If this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Please take a screenshot or share it on Instagram and tag me at Teaching Mastery Academy so we can keep this conversation going, because it is so important. And hey, if you're ready to take your teaching to the next level, I'd love to support you inside Teaching Mastery Academy. Doors aren't open yet, but you can jump on the waitlist. I will link it in the show notes and be the first to know when we launch this year in 2025. I am so excited. It's going to be life changing. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss the next episode too, and if you've got value from today's conversation, I would be forever grateful, my friend, if you'd leave a review. It helps more course creators like you find the show and build courses that truly make an impact. Until next time, keep teaching, keep creating and keep making a difference. See you in the next episode. Bye for now.

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Francesca Hudson

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