Building Wealth from the Inside Out
with DeDee Cai
Feeling overwhelmed by the balancing act of life and business? In this transformative episode, performance coach DeDee Cai shares her holistic approach to thriving in all areas of life—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Founder of Fit to Profit, DeDee equips women entrepreneurs with the tools to build self-worth and, in turn, grow their net worth. Whether you’re navigating burnout or seeking clarity in your personal and professional life, this episode will leave you feeling empowered and ready to take that first step.
Key Takeaways:
Start Small, Grow Big: Learn how baby steps, like drinking an extra glass of water or adding a moment of mindfulness, can create life-changing habits over time.
Self-Worth Drives Net Worth: Discover why loving yourself is the foundation for building wealth and living a thriving life.
Practical Frameworks for Change: Explore actionable strategies to overcome limiting beliefs and embrace responsibility for your growth.
Why Listen: If you're ready to align your inner well-being with outer success, this episode offers both inspiration and practical tools to start today. DeDee’s candid stories and transformative insights will motivate you to take control and create the thriving life you deserve.
About DeDee Cai
DeDee Cai is the founder and performance coach of FIT TO PROFIT, a company that utilizes psychology, cognitive science, holistic wellness and business to help entrepreneurs get mentally fit to obtain peak level of performance in their businesses. With over 15 years of experience in running her own businesses in the brick/mortar and health/ wellness industry, DeDee married her love for living an optimal lifestyle, and business to create FIT TO PROFIT. She believes that women deserve to have it ALL. And she’s on a mission to empower women entrepreneurs to create financial freedom and build wealth from the inside out.
Connect with DeDee Cai
Website: http://www.fittoprofit.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dedee.cai
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dedeecai/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dedeecai/
About Aleya Harris
Aleya Harris is the spark for your spark™. A trailblazer in purpose-driven story crafting, she is a marketing executive and ex-Google Vendor Partner who brings her dynamic experience to her role as the CEO of The Evolution Collective Inc. Aleya is an international award-winning speaker, the founder and lead trainer of Spark the Stage ™, and the host of the award-winning Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast. She is also the author of the bestselling book Spark the Stage: Master the Art of Professional Speaking and Authentic Storytelling to Captivate, Inspire, and Transform Your Audience. Her unique approach as a Strategic Storytelling Consultant has revolutionized the way businesses communicate, transforming workplace cultures and market positioning. With her dynamic energy and proven methodologies, Aleya guides clients to unlock their potential, articulate their radically authentic stories, and achieve unparalleled success.
Watch the Free Masterclass
Join Aleya's free masterclass "Build Unstoppable Confidence and Book Speaking Gigs Without Feeling Like an Impostor." Discover the proven framework to own your story, captivate audiences, and land speaking gigs—even if you’ve doubted your worth or have no experience on stage.
Register at https://www.aleyaharris.com/masterclass
Buy the Book
Aleya's bestselling book will help you become a more confident and authentic professional public speaker. Buy Spark the Stage: Master the Art of Professional Speaking and Authentic Storytelling to Captivate, Inspire & Transform Your Audience on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.
Buy the Book: https://a.co/d/1T4EoJ7
Sign Up for Spark the Stage™
Spark the Stage™ is an online course and 12-month group coaching program that helps entrepreneurs and executives become radically authentic professional public speakers who can confidently deliver a compelling Radical Spark Signature Talk™ from the stage.
Enroll at https://www.aleyaharris.com/spark
Work with Aleya to Craft a Better Story
An unclear strategy, confusing brand, or undefined workplace culture will repel ideal clients, visibility opportunities, and career-making connections. The Evolution Collective Inc. transforms disconnected teams and overwhelmed leaders into thriving, inclusive cultures through Radically Authentic Strategic Storytelling.
Schedule a call at https://www.evolutioncollective.com/
Book Aleya to Speak
To book Aleya to edutain your audience at your next event as a keynote speaker, please visit www.aleyaharris.com/speaking to check out her speaking topics, reels, and why. Click "Schedule a Call" to secure the speaker with "that something new" you've been looking for.
Connect with Aleya Harris
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleyaharris/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyaharris/
Links Mentioned on this Podcast
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[00:00] Aleya Harris: Okay, my friend, it's time for you to just get it together. All of it. All of your ****. It's time to get it in a group. We're talking physical, emotional, spiritual.
[00:13] And if this is starting to feel overwhelming for you, take a pause, take a breath. In, out, in, out. In, out. And I have someone that you need to talk to.
[00:23] Her name is Dee Dee Kai. She is a performance coach of Fit to Profit, a company that utilizes psychology, cognitive science, holistic wellness, and business to help entrepreneurs get mentally fit to obtain peak levels of performance in their businesses.
[00:41] And she is talking to us today about how to balance it all. How to take the baby steps into what we need and want in order to live our best lives.
[00:52] So if you've been trying to get it all together and it's just not getting together and you feel like getting yourself together is a little bit like herding cats, well, my friend, this episode is for you.
[01:04] All right, let's go.
[01:08] Yuliya Patsay: Welcome to the Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast with Alayah Harris.
[01:13] If you're looking for actionable ways to overcome communication and differentiation challenges by sharing radically authentic stories, you are in the right place. Listen in and learn how to stand in the power of your unique narrative to transform your personal life, business and workplace culture.
[01:34] And now, your host, award winning international speaker, strategic storytelling consultant, and Japanese whiskey lover, Ruby Coral's mom, Alaia Harris.
[01:57] Aleya Harris: Hi, Didi. Thank you so much for being here on the Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast. How are you doing today?
[02:02] DeDee Cai: Oh, my goodness. I am excited to be here. I am doing really well. Thank you so much for having me.
[02:08] Aleya Harris: You are very welcome. So before we get into the rest of our interview, why don't you take two to three sentences to tell the people who you are and what you do?
[02:18] DeDee Cai: Yes. So I am a proud mom of two and a performance coach for a company which I founded called Fit to Profit. And here we teach women how to build self worth so she can increase her net worth.
[02:36] And everything we do here is holistic Fit to profit. We take care of you physically, mentally, emotionally, and also spiritually. And we believe that wealth is built from the inside out.
[02:47] And I am the performance coach for our business here and our clients.
[02:52] Aleya Harris: I love it. I love it. So talk to me. Let's talk about the physical part because recently I used Ozempic, which for me is like a miracle, wonderful drug to lose 25 pounds.
[03:06] It was my most favorite thing in the whole wide world. I'm telling you because until my baby is two and before I had her, I could still wear clothes from high school.
[03:15] And even while I was pregnant, I only gained 16 pounds. Right. It was after like a year and a half or so after I had her that I like started gaining weight out of nowhere.
[03:25] There's a whole story behind it. And I was like, I had two options. I could either be like those beautiful people I see on Instagram that are like all shapes, all sizes, and they're like, I love myself.
[03:35] I tried that and that didn't work, or I could just lose the weight. And I decided on the second one because I was not able to just fully embrace the love myself.
[03:45] But talk to me then about how the physical aspect are related to the profit aspects and how you coach your clients through that experience.
[03:56] DeDee Cai: Oh my goodness. I literally just got off another podcast and this was one of the questions too. Like, what do you mean? Like, why does it really matter?
[04:05] And it is everything. Here's what I mean by that. I'm just going to use a really simple example of what happens when you wake up all refreshed because you had your eight hours of deep sleep versus a day where, let's say I have a four year old, you have a two year old that woke up three times that night.
[04:26] How do you think you would feel one day without that sleep that you needed and then in the day without, with a great sleep? Well, you already know that your performance or your focus or your patience is very different.
[04:39] Right. Therefore you can only do so much when you're tired or not.
[04:44] Aleya Harris: Or you can only do something at all even. Yeah, right.
[04:47] DeDee Cai: Or do nothing at all. And so that becomes a consequence of you not showing up for your work or your business or for your people. And then what? That trickles down and compounds over time.
[04:59] So it's a non negotiable. Like for you to be able to thrive, you know, on a personal level, to in turn perform on professional level, you have to take care of yourself physically, period.
[05:11] Can you imagine not eating? That's the same thing. It's physical health. Not drinking enough water. Right. Like it's a non negotiable. And everything that's a foundation. We're humans, we're not robots.
[05:23] So we need to be able to not only nourish ourselves with, you know, the nutrients and the foods that are healthy for us, we also need to move our bodies and it's everything.
[05:34] Health is wealthy.
[05:37] Aleya Harris: I'm not gonna lie. When I think about all of the things that you just said, the physical, the mental, the spiritual, then I hear all these commas and it feels overwhelming to Me to try to operate and have to get all of those things together to be at my top performance.
[05:56] That sounds daunting. How. How do you make it look?
[06:00] DeDee Cai: Yeah, where do you start? Right? So I just wanna make it clear for everyone. I am not an night like unicorn.
[06:11] I am a working progress and I learned it the hard way so you guys don't have to.
[06:16] I completely got burnt out from all areas based on physical, mental, emotional, and you name it, mental from running my brick and mortar businesses and learned it the hard way.
[06:28] And guess what? When I first started, I just did the one thing I knew how was honestly, I was chronically dehydrated and I meant it. Like, now this is my practice.
[06:39] I just start drinking just one more glass of water per day.
[06:44] Start with something that you know that is possible for you to do, that you can stick with and perhaps for. For someone else is. It's literally okay. I know there's so much information out there, right?
[06:56] Like take the first step that you can possibly do. Like for example, for your. For example for you. You can do all of the things and do it naturally or you can get support and lose the £25.
[07:08] So if that's what it is, then you do that, right? Just take the first step and then the rest is going to unfold and happen the way it's supposed to.
[07:18] Because it's a journey, it's a process to it. You cannot become healthy overnight because all the conditioning, all the things that we have done took years to happen. So it's not going to be overnight that I'm just going to be, you know, this healthy and I'm going to go out and run a marathon.
[07:35] So I'm saying all that to say that also to encourage you to do the first thing and anything that you think could help you because you know why everything is going to compound over time.
[07:47] So one, honestly, I have a coach. The best advice ever is just do 2%.
[07:53] Can you do just 2%?
[07:56] Right? That means a glass of water, right? That means can you just even set an intention to even think, okay, if I need more sleep, what does that mean? What time do I have to go to sleep by?
[08:08] Just start there, right? And then one piece next to another. It's like a puzzle. You just find one more piece and then the next piece. One step at a time.
[08:17] And to really be on, um, I want to say to really be on to yourself about that is to also be compassionate with yourself too. Um, and I say this with a lot of love.
[08:30] Trust me, I did it all wrong. So that way you guys don't have to. Is that. And there's good news for you is that you can't get it wrong any.
[08:39] Like if you set an intention to get healthier or if you want to do something to. To make your yourself feel better, that's a great start. You can't get it wrong.
[08:46] You'll figure it out. And in fact you have to get it wrong to get it right.
[08:50] Right. You just get there faster. You get. And so just really start something small that you can take on today. And the key to it is can you do it again tomorrow?
[09:01] What about the next day?
[09:03] Start with just committing to once a week and then twice a week and then three times a week. Baby steps. Right. How did we learn how to drive? Or how did we learn how to walk?
[09:14] Did we just get up one day and start running? No. Right. Like you remember, imagine everybody knows how to drive right now. But imagine when we first started learning how to drive.
[09:24] I thought I could never learn this thing, this skill. Right. And now we can do so many things because it takes practice.
[09:32] Aleya Harris: Absolutely. I mean it sounds like you've gained so much wisdom over your time doing this work and it's very empowering and inspirational the way you're talking about it. But talk to me about the pivotal moment in your life where you shifted, where you found that this was incredibly important, where you decided that you needed to do this work for yourself.
[09:56] DeDee Cai: Oh my goodness. So we have to really backtrack. But I definitely could recall as if it still happened. It only happened yesterday was when I had the got the dreaded phone call on my wedding week that my best friend took her own life.
[10:15] Aleya Harris: Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry.
[10:18] DeDee Cai: Yes. And they found her literally 10 days before a wedding day. And she was supposed to be a part of the wedding party.
[10:26] She was suffering from depression and anxiety.
[10:30] And here's the kicker.
[10:32] I was too. But in silence.
[10:36] I didn't know what I was feeling. Was. Was not.
[10:40] I. I didn't know what I was feeling. I thought I was just supposed to feel like that because I just basically of running brick and mortar businesses for years. I thought it was like the burnt out and the physical thing and the mental and emotional thing was.
[10:53] Was basically just the repercussion of just, I mean years of stress and overwhelm. But no, I was truly suffering from depression and anxiety that moment I promised myself and vowed to myself that no one should ever have to go through what I went through that week.
[11:11] And that was also the Moment where everything came full circle for me was when I went to school. I wanted to be a therapist.
[11:18] Life happened. It didn't happen for me to go, it didn't pan out for me to go to medical school. So. But that's how I knew first, if I want to help anyone, I have to help myself.
[11:30] So that's when the healing begins.
[11:33] Started what I knew how physical, okay. I knew that I always loved working out when I was a teenager. So I was like, what? What happened? So I just started walking, which led into running and then long distance running and then yoga, meditation, holistic health coaching, you know, just building, just healing myself and building myself back up.
[11:56] And honestly, all of those things I did, I was able to heal myself. Alternatively, there was no drug, no therapy. There's a place for therapy, don't get me wrong, and, and, and interventions.
[12:05] But I did all of that to heal myself and realized that I had to take care of myself physically, which how I started, and then emotionally and then mentally and then the spirituality was the last piece which I have really embarked on the past five years.
[12:20] Aleya Harris: And so what does that spiritual journey look like for you?
[12:24] DeDee Cai: So that, that also encompasses other tragedy, life, tragedies. Right. I truly believe that every obstacle is an opportunity.
[12:34] I had my first daughter and we were trying for a kid. I had two miscarriages.
[12:41] And I guess the Holy Spirit was working on me, sending someone who sent a message that if you need healing, I was desperate. And she just mentioned, maybe you should start reading the Bible.
[12:54] And I did.
[12:56] I started about like five years, more than five years now, and that's how it started. But ultimately I was spiritual before that. Right.
[13:05] When I lost my best friend was when I realized that perhaps this is my calling because I made that connection of I really am meant to help people.
[13:16] So maybe this is what I'm meant to do. And so everything comes together at that moment. And in retrospect, when I found the Bible, everything started connecting. Like, everything started connecting for me.
[13:30] Aleya Harris: And it sounds like you then you, you very intentionally rewrote your stories. There is an awareness that you had to know, oh, this is happening and I'm going to go then change and do something differently about it.
[13:45] What was the story that you were telling yourself before when you were still in, in some of these crises, and what is the story that you tell yourself now?
[13:57] DeDee Cai: So the one limiting belief or, or, or I want to say disbelief now was that I'm not lovable, that I'm.
[14:11] Aleya Harris: That is a very common one. Yes, absolutely.
[14:14] DeDee Cai: Yeah, I'm not lovable. And I. I'm right. And the, and the, the. The new, you know, thought or the new belief that I chose to. As the minute I start working on myself to adopt and live through now and live, live with now, is that I am enough.
[14:39] Literally, that's like my password every single day. I am enough. I am enough. Like, that's my password.
[14:44] Aleya Harris: I love that. I'm sure from you weirdos out there, there's some numbers and some symbols. Don't get excited. You didn't just get your full password.
[14:55] DeDee Cai: I know. And so, yeah, like, I am enough. You are enough.
[15:01] Right in that place. Then how you can really build yourself up, how you can really embrace what it really means to feel worthy.
[15:09] Aleya Harris: Mm. And how has embracing that changed the way that you go about living your life?
[15:17] DeDee Cai: Oh, my goodness. I'm so much more disciplined with my workout.
[15:21] There's like, there's definitely. I'm human. There are moments where I'm like, no, I don't feel like going out to do that that day. I'm like, it's okay. You don't have to love it.
[15:31] Do it because you are worthy.
[15:34] Aleya Harris: Talk to me. I don't quite understand the connection there between worth and discipline. Can you explore that a little bit more? Like, what does that mean to you?
[15:43] DeDee Cai: Yeah, I love it. So even if I am, here's what happened in the past. Every time when I self sabotage, I justify for why I'm not doing it and the reason why I wasn't doing it is because I didn't feel worthy enough.
[16:03] And now the discipline happens because I love myself that much to give myself the exercise it needs to thrive.
[16:12] Just like when I look at something that I want to ingest or like eat, I choose very mindfully because I know that's going to serve me and that's not going to serve me, right?
[16:22] Because I take care of myself so much better now. Because I know better now. So I'm going to choose because I love myself so much. It's like if you're a parent, think about it, right?
[16:33] If you know that something's bad for your kid, you're not going to give it to them, right? I hope. I hope not.
[16:39] You're going to give them something healthy and it's the same thing. If you love yourself enough, it's the same thing.
[16:45] You will give yourself whatever it takes to. To be healthy and happy and thriving. If you love yourself enough, you are not going to stay in that relationship. That's not serving you.
[16:56] If you love yourself enough you're not going to get into the comparison game to make you feel so terrible at the end of it. Right. Not going to, not going to even entertain that.
[17:06] Right. And same thing, if you love yourself enough where you have committed to, for example, the training plan or the exercise plan or whatever it is, you're not going to back out and lie to yourself and be okay with that because you're better than that.
[17:20] Right.
[17:21] And that's how. And because all of the things that was okay for me to do before is not okay now because I love myself that much more because I am worthy.
[17:31] Aleya Harris: I love that.
[17:32] DeDee Cai: Yeah. I am worthy to be successful.
[17:35] Aleya Harris: Yeah. I think that that's one of the things that keeps people in their own way as a. Not a belief that they are worth of being successful, even though they might not quite admit it.
[17:47] So when you're working with your clients, what are some of the things that you see are getting in their way from living this optimal lifestyle where they're thriving? And how are, what are some of the techniques you use to help them move forward?
[18:02] DeDee Cai: Yeah, I love the question. So we are all humans, right? We have all the same fears, the same, the same mental barriers. Most of us, right, because it's just unresolved issues that we have experienced in the past.
[18:17] Very common for us women is I'm not good enough.
[18:21] I'm not lovable. You know what I mean? I don't deserve it. All of the things. So we have barriers. And definitely my strategies, we have the mindset side of things, but very practical strategies as well.
[18:33] For example, we have three methods that we work through when it comes to limiting thoughts. For example, right? Like the first step is. Okay, what. Let's, let's think about that one thing that you always think about that, you know, sends you into a spiral.
[18:47] Okay, great. Now you got that.
[18:50] What is, is it. First of all, is it real? Is it true? Like, you know, usually we just keep thinking the thought and the things like that and, you know, and, and it goes on and becomes our belief system.
[19:00] And chances are, 90 of the time, it's not real, it's not true. Okay, great. Now what?
[19:07] Well, and a lot of times, like my mistake in the past was like, I'm gonna replace with a brand new thought like, you know, I'm a millionaire.
[19:15] You know, to go from I'm not good enough to a millionaire. That is a long stretch. There's.
[19:20] Aleya Harris: Yeah, there's, that's, there's. You're gonna fall right in that gap. You're not gonna, not Making it from one side to the other.
[19:27] DeDee Cai: Yeah, like there's a big gap. No, that's not real. Like, right. But you have to find something. Okay, so then what's the next step?
[19:34] Well, okay, I know, I don't. I feel bad when I think this thought and it's not true. So what's a thought that I can think about? Okay, can you, can you neutralize it?
[19:44] Can it be neutral?
[19:46] Like for example, I am so fat I can't fit in my skinny jeans. Whoa, that's terrible. Like, right, like imagine that already. And then I was like, oh, is it really true once.
[19:57] Were you ever fit before? Like, you know what I mean? Like, you of course have to ask yourself. I'm like, yeah, I could get fit. And okay, so what is a more neutral thought?
[20:05] Well, yeah, I may be a little bit overweight, but I'm healthy.
[20:12] That's believable. Yeah, right? Yeah, like that's believable. Okay, that's. Then get yourself the sand behind that. Then from that place you can say, okay, what's the next level to that?
[20:23] Do I want to change it or not? Right. And the piece that is the biggest thing that, to answer your question that we work with our clients on is responsibility.
[20:34] You are 100% responsible for what you have in your life right now and what you don't have yet, nobody else.
[20:43] You're the only variable. You are not your circumstances, you are exactly where you are because of what you have done. Cause, effect, action, consequence.
[20:54] Right. My four year old even knows that. Right.
[20:57] So we get to be responsible, you know, in that. And so of course you can see that's like the step that we take our clients through. Same with procrastination. Like what?
[21:06] Like there is like a framework for how do you work through procrastination. But ultimately, as you can hear already from our sentiment that you embrace it all, especially negative feelings, because it's just like waves, it's going to come and go.
[21:23] But the reason why it's unresolved is because you don't. You didn't get to feel it in the past, you just didn't get to feel in the past. So now it's a pent up energy, you know, in bot in your physical body.
[21:35] Here's the thing. Disease is dis ease, period.
[21:40] So, so you get to get through that and it's just really embracing all of it, you know, and if you, if you are from the mindset of you can't get it wrong, then do anything.
[21:51] Do anything. Do one thing.
[21:53] Aleya Harris: Yeah, that's very springing. Yeah. If you can't get it wrong, then just. Just go for it.
[21:59] DeDee Cai: Yeah. Because that is the truth. Right. You can get on board with me on that, right? Like, you can't get it wrong.
[22:06] Aleya Harris: Yeah.
[22:07] DeDee Cai: There's no getting it wrong when it comes to, like, I think I want to take care of myself now. Like, you can't get that wrong. I love that.
[22:15] Aleya Harris: That's very freeing and reassuring.
[22:18] And I do have one final question for you.
[22:23] If you could sit and ask God, the universe, spirit, for anything and be 100% sure that you would receive it right now, what would you ask for and why?
[22:38] DeDee Cai: Oh, you know what's really interesting?
[22:43] What, What. What I asked for is not just for myself, but it's more like collective. Right. And the thing is, like, we already all have it, and I have to, unfortunately, have to go through the work and things like that to feel it is unconditional love.
[23:01] Aleya Harris: Yeah. That's beautiful.
[23:02] DeDee Cai: We all have it, right? If we can come from, like, a realization, that's how we were created, Right. Like, we were created out of love. Like, our parents loved each other at one point, right?
[23:16] To, you know, to conceive us. So what we created out of love. So we are love. So we need to come back to that basic. Right. So that's, like, honestly, that's in my prayers every day and for myself and for everyone collectively, for the rest of the humankind, especially with whatever it's going on right now outside of you, you know, we just got through what we just got through, and there's a lot of thoughts and fear and doubts and something like feeling of separation right now.
[23:47] We cannot feel separated. Like, this is when we need to stick together even more. And love is the only answer.
[23:54] Aleya Harris: Yes, yes, I totally agree. I totally agree. Well, thank you so much. Please let the people know where they can find you.
[24:04] DeDee Cai: Yeah. So I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. And I trust that with today's technology, if you really want to find me, you will find me. You can just put my name in Google and you can find different ways of reaching me.
[24:20] But truly, I am just a message away. And I really, truly believe that each and every one of us was created for a reason, and nothing is an accident. So if you want to reach out because you're working on something, I am there.
[24:36] Aleya Harris: Wonderful. And we will put your links in the show notes as well. Well, I appreciate you taking the time, Deedee, to speak with us today. Thank you so much for being here on the flourishing entrepreneur podcast.
[24:47] DeDee Cai: Thank you. Thank you so much for having the platform. Thanks for having me. And this is how we can collectively make a difference in the world. So thank you.
[24:58] Aleya Harris: I don't know about you, but I know that I am planning to drink at least one other glass of water today. And then I'm also probably gonna, at least, I don't know, do some lunges in my living room.
[25:09] Take those baby steps that DeeDee recommended while reciting the mantra that I am worthy and valuable. I really love her holistic approach to living a more thriving, successful life. And it doesn't have to start just because you've gone through your next and latest and greatest crisis.
[25:31] The latest and greatest drama that your life is presenting to you. You can start now. You can start right now to live a life that just feels good.
[25:43] You can feel good. It is your right to feel good.
[25:48] And I am sending you all of the love, light and abundance to feel good. Until next time, my name is Alayah Harris and this is the Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast. Bye for now.
[26:03] Yuliya Patsay: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast with Aleya Harris. Vibing with what you hear. Leave a five star review to spread the love and be sure to click subscribe.
[26:16] We wish you love, light and abundance. See you next time.
