the inflow matrix: the relationship status map

Module 2

The Relationship Status Map

Elijah Ignatieff

Module 2: The Relationship Status Map

091120 1621 ©© Elijah Ignatieff

www.theschoolofconsciouscommunication.com

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The Relationship Status Map

Transition Zones

To go from one state to another or a stage to another is not an immediate thing, - though it can appear to be that way. Some processes seem immediate but there were all the actions before that led up to it. Transitions are the zone in between where there is a movement from one clearly defined stage to another. They are the murky in between zone where chaos flourishes.

In basketball there are 2 transitions, from offence to defense and from defense to offence. You have to move from one end of the court to another in order to switch. The signifier that lets everyone know a transition has occurred is the basketball. The signal that lets you know when the transition occurs is when the basketball switches teams. This is a very obvious movement in the game. Everyone in the gym knows each times this occurs. You can’t hide it. You can’t say you didn’t know. You can’t say you couldn’t see it coming. And it’s quick. It’s immediate. Sometimes you can’t tell until the last moment who will get the ball. There is a moment the ball comes off the rim and everyone jumps for the ball. It tips off people’s hands, it bounces and bumps and until out of the confusion… the ball is ‘possessed’ by one of the teams. This signals everyone to move. The offense has now become defense and the defense has become offense. There is a rush as the offense tries to get to the other end of the court before the defense can get back into position. This is obvious. Everyone sees the signal. Yet when we go into life outside the structure of a basketball game, transition zones and the signals that tell us a switch has occurred are not so easy to spot. And what actually constitutes a transition? What are the important transitions in our lives?




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Before answering that I would like to talk about a book called the The Knee of Listening by avatar Adi Da. He is a spiritual master that wrote about all his amazing experiences on his quest for truth. I highly recommend the book. His path is incredible and he writes about all of the different levels of consciousness he reached, the spiritual masters he met, and a sequence of phenomenal events that are mind blowing. And yet at the end of the book he came to one conclusion, that all of it was just another way to avoid relationships. After everything he had gone through, experiences far exceeding anything I had personally experienced in regards to spiritual growth, his primary conclusion was that he and everyone were just avoiding relationships. This had a profound effect on me and I started looking at all my relationships and there was a great truth in what he was saying. Have you ever lost a close relationship? Have you ever stopped talking to a good friend because of some fight? Some boundary is crossed and suddenly, boom, the relationship that once brought so much love is over. A transition has occurred. A relationship that was ACTIVE became DEAD. Have you ever seen someone you thought looked amazing. You see them from afar and you dream of being with them. You can’t wait to meet them. They cross the room, your eyes meet and you fall in love. A transition has occurred. A relationship went from POTENTIAL to ACTIVE. So we go back to the question of what are the most important transitions for human beings: in my opinion they are the transitions that occur in the relationships of our lives. But unlike basketball we are not always aware that transitions are occurring in our relationships because there are transitions within transitions. Relationships don’t always go from ACTIVE to DEAD. There is a DYING process, sometimes lengthy and sometimes short. And there are mini transitions to go from ACTIVE to DYING and DYING to DEAD.




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And we don’t always go from POTENTIAL to ACTIVE. There is a PROBATIONARY phase. And there is a transition from POTENTIAL to PROBATIONARY and from PROBATIONARY to ACTIVE. And when a relationship is ACTIVE it may not die but nothing is happening – in has become INACTIVE. And there is a transition from ACTIVE to INACTIVE and INACTIVE to ACTIVE. So to review the two main assumptions that have been explained so far: 1. In basketball transitions are obvious, in life they are not. 2. One of the main limitations as a human being is that we fundamentally avoid relationships. Could there be a connection between the level of awareness we have concerning being able to identify all the transitions that occur in relationships and the reasons we avoid them? The purpose of this paper is to bring to our awareness to all the transitions that can occur between all the possible states of relationships, in order to:

1. Identify the unconscious patterns that sabotage & kill relationships.

2. Strengthen the current successful patterns that enrich them. 3. To build new processes to create the relationships we really

want in all areas of your life. THE 8 SPECTRUMS OF TRUST MAP

The first map published in the Agora’s first edition was the 8 Spectrums of Trust Map. Within the Inflow Matrix Communication system (The macro context of all of the maps) there are hundreds of maps. When you build a holistic system it means “whole”. You cannot digest or understand any ‘whole’ system. It’s too much information. So you have to start somewhere and there are any

possible number of entry points. It seemed logical to start with ‘Trust’.




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All human relationships, at least the good ones, are based upon trust. I trust you are not going to rip up this document as soon as you see it, so I write. You trust there may be something useful here for you to read, so you read. Even here in this faint relationship between an unknown writer and reader we have some trust bridging the relationship. So it is true of all relationships. So we start with the value and evaluation of trust. This was outlined in the 8 Spectrums of Trust map and will not be further explained here. THE REALTIONSHIP STATUS MAP

The next step is to have a process to see who we are willing to trust to be in relationship with and what are the processes and transition zones to build that relationship. To do so the concept of ‘status’ is very important. Not the status assigned to social hierarchy but the status assigned to different states a relationship could be in.

In the Relationship Status Map there are 6 different states that are identified to exist for any relationship. They have already been identified. They are:

1. POTENTIAL 2. PROBATIONARY 3. ACTIVE 4. INACTIVE 5. DYING 6. DEAD

Knowing for yourself a conscious process to identify what state you are in regarding one or all of your relationships is an exceedingly important thing. Because most of us can be very unconscious regarding the state of our relationships, our relationships suffer.

Whether it is in our business, social, volunteer, friendship, family,or intimate relationships (the next map) the more conscious we are of what state we are in, will really help to determine what




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our trust level is and what the appropriate next step is. You see the mind can be very confused regarding our relationships. We meet someone and we may think it could be a good relationship so we pursue something that if we really had a proper qualifying process, and testing process, we wouldn’t run into the problems that can be created without them. The normal corporate business world knows this. The most successful businesses have a very clear process for identifying potential clients, a process to bring them through a buying process and then a process to continually interact with them. That is the essence of good business.

Now many NGO’s, sustainable businesses, and other such sustainable thinking people and orgs may have the attitude that they don’t want to be capitalistic in a any manner. This is a bit of throwing the baby out with the fluoride water. There are many processes in the current capitalistic model that are extremely effective and if brought into a more sustainable model, would greatly benefit the shift into a simpler

sustainable world. Corporations can build great relationships with the main motive being the profit shared between them. What happens to the rest of the world is another story. There are though corporations with a strong code of ethics that take into account the needs of the community it is in, the employees and all the stakeholders.

If we want to build a world where we value sustainability over profit, we still have to build strong relationships, whether in business, volunteer, social or friendship fields. And when money is not involved as in the case with barter, or alternative currencies, the knowledge economy, or just plain alliances and coalitions where




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you are mutually helping one another, it is even more important to have very clear processes of moving relationships from POTENTIAL to PROBATIONARY to ACTIVE states. Or from ACTIVE to INACTIVE and INACTIVE to ACTIVE. Or from DYING to PROBATIONARY or DYING to DEAD. We will leave turning DEAD to ACTIVE for the zombie movies and other such dead in the water NGO’s revitalization schemes. The Relationship Status Map is about creating a real reference point for organizational communication that involves the movement between these states and the transitions between them. In the New Paradigm Toolkit there exists many tools and processes to help individuals, groups, organizations and communities to learn, create, communicate and heal together. The starting point for this is to establish a reference point to establish where you are at with someone in your relationship building process and to proceed from there.

So the key to do this, to establish a reference point is to have a map. A map gives you a visual reminder that can be used throughout the conversation to see where you and the other is at. Without a conceptual map we can get lost in abstraction. Imagine talking about the table of elements without the table of elements in front of you. You could add to the confusion by having a different table of elements in your mind and then trying to discuss something on them. It would lead to great confusion and even conflict very quickly.

The same is true or even more applicable when speaking about how to build a relationship building process. Everyone has their own way to do it and most have not mapped it out. What we have done with the maps of the New Paradigm Toolkit is to identify that which is universal to us all. And then we use that structure to discuss how our context and content differ so we can learn from one another.




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So let’s look at each state and see what they are and more importantly what distinguishes them from the other states and the transition zones in between them. POTENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS

The potential zone in this map is the largest area of this map and there are a number of other maps (the .38 special target market map, the conscious communication map, the business relationship map and the 7 customer paths map) that further and further refine how to clarify who you want to be in relationship with and how to approach and communicate with them.

What is important here is just to know what any good capitalistic business thinker knows – know your customer. This means that the better you have refined who you are going to serve greatly increases the odds of you actually finding them. This may seem obvious and it is. But we human beings seem to have a hard time with the obvious. If we naturally did what was obviously good for us we wouldn’t be in the planetary mess we are in. We seem to have some natural disposition to do what isn’t good for us and that includes going after people that obviously have no interest in what we are putting out there. I have continually targeted spiritual visionaries as potential clients. This is because I find them interesting and we share many beliefs (Shared Worldview on the trust map). Yet they are generally broke, emotionally disturbed (at times), very intense and have a hard time getting practical with their visions. They are the idea people. That’s their job. (If that description sounds like me projecting my image into the world…there is another map to explain that phenomena). When I identified the three target industries of personal growth, org learning and community economic development my whole approach changed. It took the help of the Dhanji brothers to do this. It sometimes can be difficult to really be clear about who are the best potential segments. This is where the marketer (@ 3.8 Marketing) comes in. The Creator (@ 3.5 Creativity) rarely has a good idea of who can best use their products and the reason they often fail with brilliant products is that they targeted the wrong segment at the beginning of the endeavour. The .38 Special




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mapping process really helps to identify what are all the groups to go for and the appropriate strategy to start with. Some key rules to help you when you are identifying your potential relationships:

1. Define what you want to give to the world (purpose, gifts and talents for the individual knowledge worker and mission, products, & services for the organization).

2. Identify who you want to serve. 3. Make sure that # 1 and # 2 are aligned. 4. Identify where # 2 is. 5. Identify the best approach to connect #1 and #2. 6. Continually refine #5 until you have a 2 foot jump shot (in

basketball terms, so easy that you can do it in your sleep) TRANSITION FROM POTENTIAL to PROBATIONARY

There are many ways to activate a relationship from POTENTIAL to PROBATIONARY. A good idea is to look at all your lessons from the past and the errors you have made and to be clear about your boundaries and what you expect and don’t want in the relationship. Let them know they are now moving from POTENTIALl to PROBATIONARY and what that means.

Take them through a process where both sides know exactly what is occurring and don’t be afraid to state the obvious and make sure you are totally on the same page. I have found that the identification of these transitions and states have come through my making the same errors over and over again in my communications. I have many patterns of jumping into something too quickly and expecting certain things to happen when I have not been clear about what it is we are jumping into. At some point you have to document exactly what it is.

PROBATIONARY

RELATIONSHIPS PROBATIONARY status is essentially a transition from




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POTENTIAL to ACTIVE. If you have a retail food store the PROBATIONARY period is more from the customers perspective than from the owners. They buy, they try, and if it meets their location, cost, value, and service standards at some point they may turn into an ACTIVE regular customer. If you are a fitness training coach with a waiting list of 2 years because you get results no one does because you are so good….you may have a PROBATIONARY period where if your client doesn’t do the in between session activities you may drop them & start with someone on your waiting list who will. Because your standards are high and your expectations clear – you get great results so your waiting list is long. Contrast that with another coach who allows their clients to do what they want. They accept anyone, have no probationary period and their clients end up dropping out. Big difference in the two ways of doing business. Human beings can reach high performance states when they know that if they don’t reach certain standards they can no longer participate. You can never know their abilities without testing them. People who speak a good game can end up not doing that well. And others who we may not expect to produce can do remarkably well. We tend to pick up our game when we know we are being watched, and evaluated. How many times have you gone from POTENTIAL to ACTIVE and it ended up being too much too quick. At some point wise people and organizations put processes in place to determine who is best to let into our lives. Whether it is sleeping with someone without determining our real compatibility or allowing someone to move into a shared house without knowing how clean they are, or hiring someone without assessing their computer abilities, the largest problems in our life are generally created by not having a longer period to assess how a person really is and compare it with values and the associated standards you have identified of how you want to interact with them. How many NGO’s will accept any volunteers because they just feel it is so hard to get good people to work for free. What they don’t realize is that good people will work for free for causes they believe




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in but one of the main reasons they leave is because of the chaos that comes from the incompetence of the other volunteers that have no business being there. It is much better to have a few people that work well together than a large group that get nothing done. Probationary periods allow all people to see how someone is. People seem to act differently when a probationary period is being implemented. They may be on best behaviour during that time but if you are clear enough about the expectations, then you set a tone of how they will enter your system, whether as a business, volunteer, friendship or intimate relationship. Rules for Creating a Good Probationary Process

1. Identify the values of your system. (eg. Integrity @ Agreements)

2. Identify the standards and quantifiable criteria for each value. (eg. 1. Members will write down all agreements made with members and customers and do their best to honour the agreement. If they can’t they will communicate when it is identified that circumstances or a lack of ability makes honouring the agreement impossible. 2. If the integrity of the organization has been compromised and identified by a member, then 3 members will create a team to remedy the situation with 7 days).

3. Clearly state the probationary period and the expectation of what is needed to go to ACTIVE (eg. The probationary period is 3 months. If the applicant does not honour all their agreements or communicate when they can’t, they will not be able to become an ACTIVE member.)

TRANSITION FROM PROBATION TO ACTIVE In an intimate relationship the transition from PROBATIONARY to ACTIVE may be when you sleep together and begin making love. For some people the probationary period that happened before this was a period of months and a series of elaborate tests dictated by some dating book and the standards may be the financial assets, the length of hair, and how deep their voice is. For others it may be 5 hours and the criteria is the shape of the person’s bum. In a business relationship, with the transition from PROBATION to ACTIVE you most likely will either have or need some sort of signifier that you have moved into an ACTIVE state. It may be that you become formally hired and you get the keys to the office.




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In most cultures these initiations are accompanied by a ritual or a ceremony. If we are marrying someone we pass from a courtship (POTENTIAL) to an engagement (PROBATION) to a marriage (ACTIVE). If the marriage is in rough shape (DYING) we have a separation until we get a divorce (DEAD). One of the partners may move away for a year to do some sort of training upgrade (INACTIVE) and the marriage is put on hold as each pursues a different path but both don’t want to end the relationship. This way we or everyone else knows when we have moved from a PROBATIONARY to an ACTIVE state. Like in basketball, things change when the transition occurs and it can be a good idea to tell people. So if you do not have some sort of ritual and ceremony in your organization, it can be a great help to bringing a higher degree of commitment to the organization and its members. ACTIVE RELATIONSHIP

This is the state that we are aiming for. Whether it is a girlfriend, a business partner, a volunteer, or a new friend, we are looking for full participation in a way that meets the original intention of getting together. We have identified the right segment, they have gone through the testing period and now there is full participation. If we have done the first

2 states correctly we should reap the benefits of the relationship. Yet, this is not always the case. To stay ACTIVE the participants of the relationship still have to maintain what was tested in the PROBATIONARY phase or else we can move quickly into DYING or INACTIVE. How many marriages go stale once the romantic stage is over? How many employees stop doing their best? How many friends disappear? One of the keys to identify is what is your capacity regarding the # of relationships you can maintain as ACTIVE. Some people think that if they are happy with 1 girlfriend, 2 or 3 of them would be even better. They did not know until the actual




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threshold is breached and then they find out they have lost all 3 of them. A painting business that works best with 1 owner and 1 apprentice loses all profit and enjoyment when you expand to 20 people. The original owner is a great technician but a horrible manager. This phenomenon is addressed beautifully by Michael Gerber in his best selling book the E-Myth (recommended reading if you are a small business owner.) That is why it is so important to systematize your processes and to take the information and knowledge in your heads and get it onto paper. If you correctly take care of your processes to IDENTIFY your POTENTIAL relationships and to MONITOR your PROBATIONARY relationships…you will have an influx of new relationships into the ACTIVE state. For most people that is their dream but it can become a nightmare if you don’t have the processes in place to handle them. In the old paradigm you would have a job infrastructure chart showing the hierarchical relationships. Another key is to have a map of information flow. Getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Not too much, not too little, just the right amount. Goldilocks and the 3 bears did not come out of nowhere. Our fables teach us universal principles. The idea of the Inflow Matrix Operating System is to do this through a series of maps that help you to organize that which is in your head, and in your drawers, and on those napkins and to give you a ready made structure to fit your content into. The 3 main maps to do this are the FLOW Wheel Map (for every individual job) and the SYNERGY Wheel Map (for the whole organization) and the HARMONY Wheel map (For the whole community). These are other maps and not explained here.

Again the concept of reference point is pivotal. If you are running or involved in any business or organization it is huge if everyone can fully understand their particular Job (Flow map) and Roles in relationship to the whole system (Synergy Map). If you can further understand how the system you are part of fits into the larger




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environmental context (Harmony Map) you are existing within - even better. So in order to maintain your relationships in a healthy ACTIVE state, it is important to map out your processes and have ways to monitor the important data that tells you that you are on course. This goes back to your values and standards and how these are implemented in your organizational functional processes. By having the right data to collect you can then notice far quicker what the danger signals are and when relationships move from ACTIVE to INACTIVE or ACTIVE to DYING. TRANSITION FROM ACTIVE TO DYING These days we have to change metaphors from being part of a car to being a member on the Star Trek Enterprise. Each member of the crew was an essential part of the crew. There were many different sensor devices to give information to the right parts of the spaceship. People monitor the data input to ascertain if it is within the right limits and they have to know where the data has to go. Granted much of this would be automated but the main function of the people is to ascertain the anomalies. The weak signal that tells you danger is approaching. When venturing into the unknown it’s important to be aware of little things that are signals to something bigger approaching. You don’t want to be aware of the ion storm as it descends upon you, you want to get the first indication 10 light years away by the changes in the magnetic fields you are going through. In the starship you want processes in place to identify these weak signals. In terms of intimate relationships, the weak signals may be the lack of affection. Or the times you missed an important event. Or looks in your girlfriend’s eye that showed you she was losing interest every time you burped in front of her parents and thought it was funny. In friendships it might be the amount of times you said you’d meet them and you didn’t. Or the amount of times you criticized their projects or musical ambitions. Humans are incredible at hiding their true thoughts and feelings and if we are not aware of the subtle or not so subtle signals that tell us we have moved from an ACTIVE good healthy relationship to one that is DYING. DYING RELATIONSHIPS




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When relationships are in a negative spiral, things can quickly go from bad to very bad. All the things we put up with when we were in good rapport come to the surface. All the good things in the relationship become secondary because now we are interpreting all or most behaviour as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. It takes a very enlightened being to keep a neutral perspective once we have had a breach of trust or

dealbreaker happen. Relationships can be the most precious things we have in this human experience. As they say it may last a moment, a season, or a lifetime. But most or all of our relationships die. Some before they have fulfilled their destiny. How we deal with dying relationships may be one of the greatest indicators of our character. Do we deal with it wisely or ignorantly? Are we the cause and we don’t know it, or did it just happen because it was meant to happen. If we communicated appropriately we may save the relationship. A lot of the time the relationship may be dying because we want it to though. Either way…how we deal with it and how we communicate says a lot about who we are. Again this topic could be a 4 volume set. What we can do is scratch the surface to look at the transitions from ACTIVE to DYING, or INACTIVE to DYING or DYING to DEAD. For a stitch in time saves 9 and many relationships die because of something that happened we are not aware of that was meaningless and insignificant to us but very important to the person who chooses to end the relationship because of it. Knowing or feeling when a relationship is dying is a first step. Was it the first fight that never got resolved? Was it an agreement broken that wasn’t resolved? Was it the wrong message that was sent? Or was it the build up of disappointments? A lot of these beginnings of the negative spiral could be stopped with the proper communication. In the Conscious Communication




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Card Sets the 6 conversation types that are part of the Synergy function are:

Appreciation Conversation Healing Conversation Connection Conversation Clearing Conversation Grieving Conversation Conflict Conversation

Each of these conversation types needs a depth of explanation that can’t happen here. These are brought in here to show there are tools and ways of communicating that can help people to communicate differently during this state and the other states. The people who are masters of relationships are masters of these conversation types whether they are aware of them or not. If you do not know about one of the conversation types, the Clearing Conversation, then you probably have a lot of relationships that die. If you don’t have a way of clearing the inevitable problems that occur, the resentments will build where at some point you no longer want to participate together. Most of my earlier life I had no idea about this conversation type. In my family growing up we did not ‘clear’. We kept pain & resentments inside and waited for it to go away (suppression) and it would come out in the next fight. I think most families are like this. A clearing conversation has both sides speak until both ‘feel’ that the field is ‘cleared.’ Both need to feel heard and the problem that needs to be cleared needs to get in the open. If you don’t there is always a tension that if it happens enough can become unbearable. Most Old Paradigms institutions have no idea of this conversation type. Grin and bear it is their motto. TRANSITION FROM INACTIVE TO ACTIVE Most of the time we don’t know when this is occurring. It just happens and we notice when we haven’t got a phone call for 3 months. Or we get a post card from Tibet. Or a leaflet flies through the window. Sometimes it doesn’t affect us at all. Sometimes it can almost kill a project. Most of the time people don’t communicate when they are going to go INACTIVE. They may be a bit miffed off and they may send a




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warning message across the bow. They may be overwhelmed and beyond capacity. They may have to focus on other things. A good agreement to make with people is if anyone on the team is going to go INACTIVE, they communicate with the rest of the team they are doing so. Many times people don’t want to because they no longer want to or can’t participate anymore for one of many reasons. They might have lost motivation. They may have suffered a great defeat. They may need something they are not getting. Knowing when people have switched to INACTIVE is very important of you are a project leader. Having processes in place to bring people back on board is also crucial. TRANSITION FROM INACTIVE TO ACTIVE The great leaders know how to motivate people. They know what to say to get people back involved with whatever it is. It may be an appreciation of what was accomplished. It may be going back to the original reasons everyone became involved. It may be listening to the hardships that someone has gone through and acknowledging them. It may be finding a needed resource or rewarding a completed objective. Whatever the case there is usually a reason why someone becomes INACTIVE. The customer may have run out of money, or the girlfriend is starting to get interested in an old boyfriend or the friend has moved away. It doesn’t mean the relationship is DYING, it just means there is something happening that is stopping it from being ACTIVE. To make it become ACTIVE you either have to communicate to find out why and where the person is at, or through wisdom and insight you identify the cause and use the appropriate remedy. INACTIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Many businesses spend huge amounts of money and time to reach new customers. They may not be fully relating to those they already know that have stopped using their services. Not because they don’t like them, but because of one of the hundreds of other reasons why someone may stop




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doing something. Some people just need a nudge or reminder. An NGO organization may have thousands of INACTIVE members and if they hired a volunteer coordinator fundraiser they might bring in enough revenue to pay for the position and a full upgrade to the IT systems so that they could then utilize those thousands of people into a strong workforce. INACTIVE relationships are huge goldmines for those that learn to tap into them correctly. Being able to communicate with them in a way that gets the right answers that lead to activation is crucial. THE TRANSITION FROM INACTIVE TO DYING If you don’t deal well with an INACTIVE relationship, or use a wrong remedy, then a relationship can move from INACTIVE to DYING quite quickly. You may never notice the movement because you didn’t notice their signals to you and the person decides never to participate with you again. Not for any great reason but a slow erosion of the desire to participate. TRANSITION FROM DYING TO DEAD

How do we let go of things when we know they are about to die? It might be someone is actually dying. Or maybe it is an old boyfriend that you finally cut all ties with you and never want to see them again. Somewhere within us we have to accept the inevitable and get on with our own lives. It may occur after the person or relationship dies or during the process of

watching it go from DYING to DEAD. Most of the time we deal with it after the fact. This process is generally known as grieving. TRANSITION FROM DYING TO PROBATIONARY Certain relationships can be saved if they are not moved from DYING to ACTIVE or INACTIVE or from DYING to DEAD. They can move from DYING to PROBATIONARY. You have a formal process to do so to see if the person can do whatever is necessary to make the relationship ACTIVE again. In business it might be certain goals to reach to see if their performance can reach the necessary requirements.




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DEAD RELATIONSHIPS A relationship might be dead because of a physical death or because we killed the relationship or someone else killed it. Whatever the case it is over. Some relationships can come back from a death. Sometimes people can hold an intention and keep the relationship in mind as an INACTIVE relationship while the other thinks it is DEAD. Or some people can think a relationship is ACTIVE while the other thinks it is DEAD. One of the people usually turns out to be a stalker. CONCLUSION What looks like a simple map can contain a lot of information about the human experience. Each one of these transitions and states has a huge amount of experience connected to it in your own life and the lives of those you connect with. By using the map to make clear the distinctions how you move from one relationship state to another it is hoped that we can all improve our relationships and make this world and our lives that much more fulfilling.