Transacting Value Podcast
Looking for ways to reinvigorate your self-worth or help instill it in others? You're in the right place. Transacting Value Podcast is a weekly, episodic, conversation-styled podcast that instigates self-worth through personal values. We talk about the impacts of personal values on themes like job satisfaction, mitigating burnout, establishing healthy boundaries, enhancing self-worth, and deepening interpersonal relationships.
This is a podcast about increasing satisfaction in life and your pursuit of happiness, increasing mental resilience, and how to actually build awareness around what your values can do for you as you grow through life.
As a divorced Marine with combat and humanitarian deployments, and a long-distanced parent, I've fought my own demons and talked through cultures around the world about their strategies for rebuilding self-worth or shaping perspective. As a 3d Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and a lifelong martial artist, I have studied philosophy, psychology, history, and humanities to find comprehensive insights to help all of our Ambassadors on the show add value for you, worthy of your time.
Ready to go from perceived victim to self-induced victor? New episodes drop every Monday 9 AM EST on our website https://www.TransactingValuePodcast.com, and everywhere your favorite podcasts are streamed. Check out Transacting Value by searching "Transacting Value Podcast", on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.
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Transacting Value Podcast
The Blueprint Trap with DeDee Cai
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What happens when you've dutifully followed everyone else's blueprint for success—only to discover it feels like a prison? Holistic wellness coach DeDee Cai takes us on her remarkable journey. After building what should have been the "American Dream"—complete with corporate career and self-built business—DeDee found herself questioning everything when tragedy struck. Her five success principles—responsibility, commitment, discipline, action, and service—offer a practical framework for anyone feeling stuck or uncertain about their path.
(13:08) https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/Newsroom/WreathsAcrossAmericaRadio
(23:11) https://cancer.va.gov/
(34:35) https://porthouse.kw.com/
Performance coaching for purpose driven entrepreneurs: https://fittoprofit.com/
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The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience. Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.
DeDee Cai:They are like what, how many now? Nine billion people on the planet Like we don't need another person, it's just going to be pushing papers or like living the typical lives. But we need people who are going to be teaching us to do things differently, and that was for me.
Josh Porthouse:Today on Transacting Value. What is it about? Being a millennial, and maybe even being a millennial in business, that oftentimes gets us to a position of I don't know if I'm right for this. I don't know if I'm the right person to be doing this. More importantly, who am I now that I've done this? Well, in today's conversation, we're talking with holistic wellness coach Didi Kai, all about her story and how it took her from the corporate world to restaurant touring to now as an entrepreneur in her own right. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and from SDYT Media. This is Transacting Value, didi. How are you doing?
DeDee Cai:Oh, my goodness, I am fantastic. How are you doing? Thank you so much for having me on today.
Josh Porthouse:Absolutely. I appreciate you making time and I know, given the holidays, as of now recording this, it's a little bit chaotic, so I appreciate you making space in your schedule as well. So thank you.
DeDee Cai:Yes, absolutely. You know I love this conversation so much and for the fact that you said yes, holidays can be chaotic, but if you are doing something meaningful right, it's really worthwhile. I mean, it's just only 45 minutes or an hour out of our day and if we get to influence right, like even our own selves or other people like, why not?
Josh Porthouse:I'm here, I'm game, I'm ready, I'm excited. Let's go Absolutely. And you know what, when you're talking about something meaningful and something worthwhile, I mean those are terms that I feel like are so underrated. You know, like they're just like these clouds floating in the sky with really no context, because they could be anything, and we're like, oh, this is a meaningful experience for my children's life, or this is a worthwhile thing for me to do as an adult. And then you turn the page. Five years, 10 years later, you look back and you're like I don't know what I was doing.
Josh Porthouse:I don't know what that did for me. You know I went to school for four years and I'm not sure what medical school contribute or whatever it is. You know my uncle graduated in music as a major and he's been an architect. The last 30 years never played an instrument, you know. So who knows? But I'd like to start there before we get rolling right, specifically in your case. So if we can just take the next couple minutes and establish a baseline, right? Who are you? Where are you from? But what sort of things are shaping your perspective on the world as it applies to these kinds of topics? What got you here?
DeDee Cai:Yes, absolutely Well. Thank you so much for giving me this space to share the story. But ultimately, how I got here, I would say has been a journey right, and it's also cliche to say journey, okay, yes, a journey right, and it's also cliche to say journey Okay, yes, but it is. It has been, um, because as a first generation immigrant, I have a playbook that I was supposed to follow and I did right, like I was supposed to do well in school and find my corporate job. And there I go, right Like stay in there for as long as I can and then retire, hopefully happy. I did that, I follow it to the T and got a great first corporate job and I realized quickly, within the first, I want to say, week, that it was more of a present and it was not for me, and I started really questioning wait a minute, what was I following? Which blueprint or playbook was I following? Who was I pursuing? Whose career was I pursuing? Because it was not even close to what I thought happiness or success should look like when I landed my first corporate job and then, right around the same time, fast forward to where I have an opportunity to start my own business and again building the American dream if it wasn't for being successful in corporate. Yes, it's going to be starting your own family business. So we put all of our life savings into it, thinking that this is the American dream, and, believe it or not, once again, two times in a row, after five years of running my own brick and mortar, building it from scratch, you name it I just basically took over a piece of land, built a restaurant, got all the permits, hire everybody, name it, every single piece of the business I did from scratch, to realize once again it was my definition of success.
DeDee Cai:And I say journey because, as you can see, supposedly, if you really look at it, and in retrospect I look back and I said, okay, wow, I failed twice in a row.
DeDee Cai:What am I going to do with my life? And I thought I knew, but I didn't know what it was supposed to be for me. But I think what really helps me, grounded in what I do, to continue on as you hear more about my story is all about being resilient and getting up after falling down is that I have this calling also to always make a difference. I didn't know what it was supposed to look like, but I just followed what I knew how and I trusted right my friends and definitely my family who had a big influence on me, of what I needed to do to fulfill, you know, my calling or or purpose. But no, those two opportunities was not a match for who I was and took a big revelation, honestly for losing, honestly, my best friend to suicide the week of my wedding to realize up to that point I was suffering in silence, just like her, because I was trying to fulfill someone else's expectation of me and how I should live my life and what I should do with it.
Josh Porthouse:What was that based on, though? Because it's not well. Like you said, it's not your baseline as a point of comparison. It wasn't your expectations, but you thought it was. At one point, you know, you thought it fit, and it was what you were supposed to do. So how does one equate to the other?
DeDee Cai:So when I did what I was supposed to do, right for the end result that I was presented when I got there, it wasn't exactly what I wanted.
DeDee Cai:So then that's how I made that. That's how I realized that it's not, for me, right. Oftentimes people have their own definition of success and their own definition of what, you know, fulfillment should look like in a very general way. But until we really get clear which is part of my story, why I experienced what I did helped me get clear on what it really means to be successful for me and not for anyone else. So, because of my experiences, that's why I was able to discern wait a minute, that is happiness and fulfillment and success for someone else. That is not my definition of what my life should look like. So that's why it's a journey right Like I had to do it all, wrong to realize wait, I'm going to have to do it my way, because if I want fulfillment and, you know, having a meaningful line of work, I have to dig deep and I have to get back into alignment with who I am.
Josh Porthouse:Wow. Well, I guess first off I'm sorry about your friend and I'm glad everything else went fairly smooth that week of your wedding, I hope. But looking back, does that make everything else, the five years in the restaurant business, or the handful of years in corporate, or even schooling for that matter, I mean, does that make it a waste?
DeDee Cai:Honestly, I wouldn't say that and that's why I call it a really a journey is because I wouldn't be who I am today without all of those experiences.
DeDee Cai:Right, I had to be in corporate to realize wait, no, this is not, this is not the lifestyle I want to live and be bound to a location. I had to build my American dream the way I knew how to realize no, that is still not what I want it to do. To be wise enough to, after two failures in a row starting business like really starting a career to realize what not to do, so I really vowed my whole success. Now to all the experiences that I've had and because of those experiences, I know what not to do and because of that, I now have built a very successful virtual online business, because I knew I didn't want to be bound to four walls. I know I didn't want to be bound to a location from the restaurant and I knew that the next business I was going to start, it was going to eradicate all the other things that the typical culture has it like. This is the career, this is how it's shipping, when it's not true.
Josh Porthouse:That's interesting too. Then I mean you mentioned American Dream a few times to this point and I think that's another one of those you know fulfilling meaningful type ethereal terms that just I don't know. It's a little played out over the last 250 years because everybody says over now you know hundreds of millions of people what it means to them, and it's always this almost sort of stereotypical immigrant story. Now you know what I mean. You come to a foreign country, you bootstrap some degree of success, pass it on generationally and it grows from there, and then you end up with a fence and two and a half kids in a two story home.
Josh Porthouse:You know, everybody does this. That's what everybody does. That's the American dream, and I can't help but think it's so far from the truth, because that's the overall, generalized version. So what has your dream become for you? What is your version of that?
DeDee Cai:So my, my version is totally working wherever I feel like working from. I only use a laptop. I feel like working from right On a laptop. We were able to move from the Northeast area after living there for 30 something years and be moved to Florida because I want to be by the beach within six months. I can literally work from anywhere. I mean, I can do this with you. This is exactly how I conduct all of my client sessions. I can work from anywhere.
DeDee Cai:Really, I don't even need a home right and everything is virtual right, like being able to optimize all the tech and resources that we have now. That's why the American dream is so different now than, like you said, 250 years ago. But because of our culture and our parents' generations and things like that is a very blue color and we have to work hard, hard, hard. No, it's truly. Maybe also is overplayed too, when you say people playing, working smart. It's really truly about working smart and to be successful.
DeDee Cai:For my own definition of success is really knowing what your strengths are and develop your weaknesses, and that's what I didn't really get to experience.
DeDee Cai:I was just told exactly to go to school and only follow this pattern of doing things and stay small as much as possible and just do the mediocre level of, you know, service or whatever that is just going to pay the bills. But paying the bills is not enough anymore, right, like if we are so talented and there are so many, they are like what, how many now? 9 billion people on the planet, like we don't need another person, it's just going to be pushing papers or like living the typical lives, but we need people who are going to be doing, teaching us to do things differently. And that was for me, like I just knew that that's not my life, like that is totally not my life. And as I look back, all of my relatives now are living their version of the American dream, which is not, which is not for me and, yeah, it is not for my children, absolutely, now that I have two kids.
Josh Porthouse:All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.
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DeDee Cai:All of my relatives now are living their version of the American dream, which is not, which is not for me and, yeah, it is not for my children Absolutely, now that I have two kids.
Josh Porthouse:Nice. Well, that's sort of the that's the nice point too right Of comparing the States, for example. You know whether it's democracy or capitalism or some degree of whatever I don't know politics, whatever you want to attribute to living here as being cool. But I think what is cool about it is you get the freedom to decide whatever that dream actuates as for you, if you want. And so developing that kind of critical thought, developing that kind of discernment, like you mentioned earlier, aside from just taking time, is it always in hindsight or do you think you can project a little bit and actually try to accomplish goals you set in advance?
DeDee Cai:I would say back before I started to be intentional and really focus on staying in alignment with what I'm about. Definitely it was more hindsight, right Like oh, I had to do that to like realize that. But when I started being really conscious with all of my decisions and really take full responsibility and ownership for my own success is when things started changing. You know, for me now everything I do is more of a choice versus back then. It was the supposed it like I was supposed to do that. Now it's like no, I get to do this because I choose it.
Josh Porthouse:Okay, well, I guess. Congratulations again, then, because it's a sought after outcome that I don't think a lot of people are able to achieve, compared to the billions that could. So let me back up. What's your actual career now? What have you worked your way into at this point?
DeDee Cai:I was completely honestly lost as to, okay, what am I supposed to do? And the blessing in disguise was discovering that I was suffering from depression and anxiety, just like my friend. That became the blessing where I realized that, oh, my goodness, everything is coming full circle Now. The reason why I was doing X Y Z before was trying to validate myself, so that way I can do what I want to do, and because I was trying to fulfill someone else's expectations of me. That's why the burnt out and depression and anxiety developed right Like it developed.
DeDee Cai:Because it's not one of those things that oftentimes, yes, it could be genetics and things like that, but stress, like high stress and also being misaligned, emotionally and mentally drained, that's what depression is. And because I was able to heal myself, that's when I realized this is what I need to do, this is what I'm meant to do, and so that's when I got on, one step at a time, right, curing myself holistically. Then I realized this is what I wanna teach people to do, and I realized that not my best friend and myself there were two people that were suffering from the same thing. There has to be other people who are going through the same thing, and absolutely now that you know, since the pandemic, the rates of all of the depression, anxiety has gone up through the roof. There have been so like higher rates of suicide, all of the things. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here, but the reality is a lot of people like us are suffering in silence. And that's how I started my business, fell into business development because of my experience having my own business, like my own restaurant and et cetera.
DeDee Cai:But what I realized quickly after working with so many entrepreneurs is that not about the strategy and the tactic, but it's all about the mindset. Like we need to be able to really shift, just like how I was seeing the world, like mediocre is perfect. No, that is not possible. Now is excellence, is a habit, right, and so I get to really teach myself in my own journey while lifting others to really get people to understand that all it takes is having the right mindset, and so what I do more now is performance coaching, but with Pithits of Profit. It's a holistic approach to things. We really look at really getting someone physically fit, mentally, emotionally and spiritually fit, and then, last but not least, financially fit. That's why, fit to Profit you have to be fit on all levels to be able to profit from everything that you are putting into your life and business.
Josh Porthouse:That's cool, and so you work with entrepreneurs in what a startup capacity or established small businesses, nonprofits.
DeDee Cai:So what I do more now is definitely around really building somebody's self-worth so that way they can feel like they're so grounded in who they are to go out there and do the things. That's going to really impact the world is. I work with two. There's two levels to the business. Definitely someone is starting out and then someone who's been in it for a couple of years but really looking to level up. So, as you can see already, as I've shared, it's all 80% of business and 80% of success is all mindset. I mean, yes, you can hear about it all day and you can reject it, but comes down to it, it is, if anything, more more than 90% mindset, because that's what's going to get you to get up and do the things that you don't want to do and continue to keep moving forward, no matter what.
Josh Porthouse:What was the? Uh? Ben Franklin, I think it was that. Uh, well, I do this all the time I people like I talked to you here on the show, and then I get this idea like oh, that's a great point. I have no idea who said this quote. I don't know where it came from, but it hits you, know you? Just you're inspiring, I guess. But there's a quote, I think it was Ben Franklin, and he said what was it? Success is some percentage inspiration, some percentage perspiration.
DeDee Cai:Does that ring a bell? I is it. Success is for not the chosen few, but it's for the few who choose it.
Josh Porthouse:Oh, I don't know, but I like that one too. That's a good one. I think when we're talking about mindset though there's so many cool things we're not reinventing the wheel to success, sort of like we talked about the American dream, right? There's no need to take a stereotyped idea and try to place people in these templates or these jigs or these cookie cutter cutouts or whatever, because it's different to everybody, or at least it could be, and for all the amount of perspective and inspiration and how we're interpreting all these inputs, it could be different for everybody to the degree of success. But you really, you really hit on something when you were talking about mentally, emotionally, physically and financially being fit to profit as an entrepreneur. So everything in business, as I understand it, involves cashflow and revenue, right? So if we parallel that for just a second, what is this inflow, outflow, mindset that you're focusing on? What do you recommend taking in? What do you recommend putting out to be able to make it some degree of successful?
DeDee Cai:Yeah. So I love that you're asking that question, because oftentimes people think that I'm going to reach out for another strategy, I'm going to pay for Facebook ads and things like that, but the work it's always going to be on you as the CEO, right like you are the CEO.
DeDee Cai:Right, like you are, your business right and, yes, you have to take care of yourself on all of those levels. Because here is a practical example If you are confident in who you are and the value that you create with your work, you are going to step into a conversation with a potential client in a very different manner. Right, then, if you're, oh, I think I can help, I think so. That gets to be a practice on a very daily routine, so we get to work on ourselves on a regular basis, basically as input, like we have to fulfill ourselves, the foundation of building self-worth and confidence and success. It's just really honestly, self-care.
DeDee Cai:And for some really think that, oh, it's overrated. I'm telling you right now it is not overrated, based on my story, until I really started taking care of myself on all levels, I was not performing. Maybe, perhaps, in retrospect looking, maybe that's why my restaurant wasn't as successful as it should be, or maybe I could be I don't know a VP of a fortune 500 company rather than but that's not, that just not happened to be my story. But I'm just using those as an example for you to understand that to profit from your work and to really increase your net worth is really investing in yourself first and foremost. That's the input. When you are filled up right, then you can go out there and put out what you need to put out in the world and serving the world and your business and your client at the highest level. So you have to care about your input first, before any output.
Josh Porthouse:All right, folks sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value
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Josh Porthouse:So you have to care about your input first, before any output oh, okay, okay, your experience sounds like it came from primarily entrepreneurial endeavors the restaurant. Obviously you know working through these things. What if it doesn't? Does the same formula apply Like, for example, most of my career has been in the military, usdod and, that being the case, eventually my career ended and I was left with well, who am I now? What do you mean? You're not going to tell me what to do or when to do it. I had to start thinking for myself and I didn't know who I was as a baseline.
DeDee Cai:Yes, so similarly, just like how I landed my first corporate job right, you're probably on the same crossroad as I was. Who am I? What am I doing right? So here's the thing. That's why sometimes you have to really take a step back and get yourself realigned to your current reality. And I'm not saying that you can't think about the future and plan and shoot for really high goals, but we have to be able to shift ourself as an individual to a new environment. You cannot operate the same way you did when you were in the military, when you had somebody to tell you what to do. Right now, you get to tell yourself what to do. That's the difference.
Josh Porthouse:Yes, and you get to shift.
DeDee Cai:Right, Like you get to shift. Wow, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not in the same environment. I'm in my new environment. So what do I need? Who do I need to be in my new environment? Do I need to take more ownership? Do I need more routines? Do I need more support? Do I need direction? Do I need clarity? Right, and that's why it comes down to always, no matter where you are, there, you are is being able to align yourself back to what is driving you. Right Before, when you were in military I'm just using it as an example, because that's what you shared your passion and purpose is just like going out there and just protect people and you do whatever it takes Right, so that was more of.
DeDee Cai:And then your input is training and all things. So it's very similar. But then the um I want to say is you're not fulfilling your vision of what it should look like, but now you get to fulfill your vision of what your life should look like. It probably could be similar, right, and actually your training in the military is actually going to give you great benefits, because what I train my entrepreneurs to do, and even myself every single day, is to have the discipline is to have the commitment. It's just, basically, it's all about serving people and then it's all always about taking action right. You're not gonna wait. Your teammates gonna get killed. You know you need to be doing something and so, but what you get to shift is where am I now, what do I get to do and do I get to listen to myself now? Or how do I get to set up what that looks like for me and how you're going to be supported in that?
Josh Porthouse:Well, yeah, and a lot of that, I think, comes down to confidence too, right, like there's some degree of maybe doubt that comes with building that degree of resilience and reliance, especially when it's internally driven. But I feel like the confidence only comes with experience and so you can only get it in hindsight, right, but how do you recommend identifying it or building that degree of awareness? Like, oh, I do have things I can stand on here.
DeDee Cai:How do you?
Josh Porthouse:do that.
DeDee Cai:I would say, as for my experience, right, like for anything that you have done in the past, you know that you can always do it again, and it's truly confidence is built with action. Right, a lot of people think that, oh, I need to be confident first and then I will take action. It's the reversed you have to take the action and do it. Wrong.
DeDee Cai:Especially in entrepreneurship, it's all failing and using the failure which I call feedback, failing and using the failure which I call feedback to do it differently, to do it differently, like there's no success without feedback, without iterating, without changing things, because you, when you first run out, just remember your military training. You just don't get it the first time when you're in the simulator, right, like, you have to keep coming back. You have to keep coming back. It's that's why it's training right. Same thing with even like with yourself too, is taking action, and how you can build that confidence is just take action and then learn from that action, and then that builds the confidence for the next round, and it's just staying in action and that's how you can build it, and it's definitely in hindsight where you can really reflect on how you need to change course or what you need to do to be more successful. The next round.
Josh Porthouse:Absolutely, and I think there's a constant through all of those experiences, or let's call them feedback sessions, as you go through your journey, where there's some degree of consistency, I think, some degree of control that each one of us has, because it's all really internally driven. From the sounds of it, what you're describing, you know the catalyst may be external, but the driver, the trigger, is internal, and so I think this is a good opportunity at this point in the conversation for a segment of the show called developing character. D D D, developing character. Now, it's two questions DD obviously for you or anybody who's new to the show. But my goal here is is, I hope, pretty simple that of all of these opportunities to develop our awareness, we are the common thread in all of our experiences, good, bad or indifferent, right, we are the only denominator that's there in all of them.
Josh Porthouse:And I think what comes out of those experiences may be our character or the strength of it, but what grounds those experiences is a value system, and so my questions. The two of them are essentially based on nature and nurture. So when you were growing up, what were some of the values that you were raised on, or that you remember being raised around?
DeDee Cai:And then now, after the last few decades of growth and feedback. What are some of the values you have now? It's interesting. You ask that question is definitely right nurture, I was not ever allowed to get a 99 on my test. I get punished. Oh, it's always have to be 100. There you go right, training to be the best right, and then when you're not, it okay why? And so that's one thing. So I definitely learned from a very young age to always give it my 100%, and now, as I've embarked on my career and being in business, excellence is a habit.
DeDee Cai:It's literally the littlest things. It could be literally my son taking off his shirt. It's inside out. Are you going to leave it inside out? Are you going to turn the right side out? So when you do laundry, the laundry will be complete when it's dry and you take it out of the dry. So that is what I mean, right? And then, of course, through my years of self-development, I'm still a working progress. Is you show up anyway? You show up because you are committed, right? You show up because someone else is depending on you, you know, and not because of obligation, because you hate it. No, it's because you choose to show up, because you choose every single decision that you make. So those are just a couple things that I was raised with um and it's really paid dividends, like in the way I run my life and, of course, now also my business yeah, good for you.
Josh Porthouse:so taking that degree of of ownership, not just in a professional arena but obviously personally, like you described, that takes some repetition, to figure out the boundaries and not bring work home with you and the conversations and the stress. You said you worked with your mom, right, yes, that was interesting. Yes, my mom was my business partner for five years.
DeDee Cai:Oh, she lives with us now in our house we moved here. We're the only ones here, my husband and I, I, two kids and my mom. That's five of us here in in florida. Everyone else is still in the washington dc, virginia area wow, yeah, wow.
Josh Porthouse:So then, enforcing or maybe just designing and developing those kinds of boundaries to process and segment and and still maintain I guess some sanity through this feedback loop. How do you do that? Because eventually it all starts to bleed together and you're like process and segment and and still maintain I guess some sanity through this feedback loop.
DeDee Cai:How do you do that? Because eventually it all starts to bleed together and you're like I just got to get away, I can't manage this, I couldn't really put my finger on it before, um, but, and for some reason I always uh, proud of myself and call myself to be a chameleon, and what I come to realize most recently is because I'm just so self-aware and I know where I need to be and how I need to be depends on my environment, right. When I'm working, I am the CEO, like. I have my hat on as a CEO, like, or as a manager, or as a business owner. When I'm home, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a daughter, right.
DeDee Cai:So we get to really be mindful with where we are and who we are and the roles that we play, right, and then just that's how it is, you know, in life. And I don't get to boss my husband around just because I do that all day, every day. No, he gets to make a decision too, of what I don't know where we go out or where we go on vacation, and things like that. That's how I want to say is to keep things healthy, right, and of course, it's through work honestly, like I I really honestly started working on myself at the age of 15 because of my trauma, things like that, but that's how it all started. It's been a few years now. I'm almost in my mid 40s and it's just really getting to understand where you are, who you are in that role, and it's all about being who you are in each role and being okay with that.
Josh Porthouse:Alrighty folks sit tight. We'll be right back on Transacting Value.
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DeDee Cai:Where values start in the home, it's just really getting to understand where you are, who you are in that role, and it's all about being who you are in each role and being okay with that and just being mindful and intentional, you know, with how you are being and how you're showing up.
Josh Porthouse:I can appreciate that a lot. Actually, I heard a comment the other day that I want to run by you here. That said essentially, I'm almost 40 years old and this isn't my comment. This was told to me right? I'm almost 40 years old, I don't own my own house, I still work with other people, I still have roommates, I'm still basically paycheck to paycheck, trying to find ways to pay my bills. What am I doing with my life? That phrase, all of that, that's two or three days old now, I think, and it got brought up to me. Is that still lacking in success? Is it still unsuccessful? Is it all a total failure, being that kind of a position, or how do we use that as a trigger to turn it around? Because I think that's pretty common.
DeDee Cai:Oh, absolutely Right, Just like what we talked about. Where is the responsibility in all of it? So we need to turn the question around Like who is responsible for that?
Josh Porthouse:Yeah, the ownership, especially.
DeDee Cai:Yep, and one of the biggest success principles we teach the foundational one before anything else is responsibility, and I need to. You need that person to be 100% on board that 100% of their success or unsuccess, however they want to define it, they're responsible for it. You're 40 and everything that has happened for you to get here, you're the one responsible for it. And guess what that means? You get to change it.
Josh Porthouse:Oh, I see, Okay. So it's not just highlighting the deficiency, but also the potential 100%.
DeDee Cai:When you're 100% responsible for everything that you have in your life right now and the things that you don't have yet, that's when things get interesting, right. Then you can take the feedback you can take the feedback up until this point and say, wow, how can I do things differently?
Josh Porthouse:okay, but your hands are tied. Let's say, your sole income source is on one job and you're a shift worker, you know law enforcement or whatever, and you paycheck to paycheck. You're a firefighter. You're like, hey, 25 years has come and I just got to deal with it. It's my third divorce, whatever. Everybody else is doing it now, like, is there a degree of acceptance that has to be there, or I guess what I asking is how do you balance out the futility that comes with that degree of acceptance so that you can shift it into proactivity?
DeDee Cai:So really taking true ownership for what you already have and what you can do, then you can start identifying the one next step, then the one next step. But if you're thinking that, oh, because you're 40 and you are still living at home or you live paycheck to paycheck, and it's the system, it's your parents, it's the divorce, it's the whatever it is, then you're into a shame of blame game and that's not going to go anywhere. You get to take a step back and say, wait, was I responsible in that divorce? Kind of right, like it's not only one person.
DeDee Cai:Something happened, right. Okay, I can take responsibility in that I'm working a shift work and I'm getting paid this much. Okay, got it. What can I shift in my priority so that maybe, maybe, I can learn a new skill to do something else? Right, who gets to be responsible? I do, right, trust me. I have worked 18 hour days, I have you name it. I've been through the worst, right. But it's like you get to be empowered to take responsibility and know that everything that you have gotten up into that point is this you're doing.
DeDee Cai:No one forced you, no one made you yeah I can sit here and say my parents made me go to school and then I end up in the you know the corporate job that I hated. No, that's blaming. I'm not going to shame myself either for making that mistake, because I didn't know what I didn't know, right, yeah, so there's no blame or shame, and specifically just responsibility in everything. That's when things really start opening up.
Josh Porthouse:But we still have to have some degree of boundaries in that process, right, some degree of I don't know line in the sand, the red line type analogy. You know like I'm going to do this and I'm going to take ownership in this decision because I'm in this corporate job, because I'm in the position, I'm in my role, my influence, my impact, right, but I'm not going to let it happen again. Maybe I recognize it's going to take 12 months, two years to get out of my situation, but after that jumping and doing it, whatever the change is Right. So how do you recommend identifying red lines? Or you know certain whatever non-negotiables that you could stand on and say I'm going to go to that point, but I'm never repeating the rest of this.
DeDee Cai:Yeah, I can share with you my non-negotiables. It's just the same every single day. It doesn't, and that helps you also get clear on your values. And what you care about Mine is faith. I do my devotionals first in the morning. It could be spiritual work, it doesn't have to be religious. It's faith fitness.
DeDee Cai:I work out every single day. If I don't, I still need to move my body somehow, whether it's just movement and whatnot. Family, your relationships. You have to be in your relationship, you have to work on your relationships and have to be a husband, partner or anything like that, like it could be with yourself, and then it's going to be fulfillment. Work comes and then, last but not least, which is what we call freedom. Freedom is really equals to wealth or equals to like finances, however you want to call it. For me, money brings freedom right. So those are my five f's. Feel free to take it, but that's what my life on a daily basis revolve around and that's what my life is about, and because of that, I'm able to do what I need to do and really get deep in. Wow, what do I get to be responsible for today? If I didn't get to work out, who is it to blame. No blame, no shame. Okay, got it Noted. Feedback Okay, tomorrow or today, I can still. If the day is still going, if I have time to make a change right now, you can do that. So it's never too late.
DeDee Cai:And the great thing is, when it comes to self-development and self-care, I have two things to say to everyone, and I hope this gives you a lot of hope is that you can't not get it wrong. When it comes to self-development and the effort that you put into building yourself, it compounds over time, just like interest. It's not like you gain the 30 pounds overnight, right, it's every extra cookie, every extra drink, every like workout missed. It's not overnight. So it's the same thing. You get to rewind it and do it the right way, one step at a time. You can't ever get it wrong because guess what? It's feedback. You get to take the feedback Like just because I run long distance does not mean it's for you.
DeDee Cai:Do anything. Do anything to move your body, like prioritize your physical exercise, move your body. We are a chemical system. We need to have everything regulated, otherwise we're not going to be happy, healthy and clear-minded to do what we need to do, you know, with ourselves. So that is what I have to say. When it comes to you have to be willing to invest in yourself. And guess what? Until you make that a commitment, that's when you can say I'm building myself, I'm building myself worth, I feel worthy. And the more remember, confident comes with action, and the often you do it, the more consistent you are, the more committed you are. You're going to feel that much more confident about yourself.
Josh Porthouse:Absolutely, and it's interesting you brought that up, because I think the only things that we're really given and maybe I'm a little biased, I don't know. I've been born and raised in the States my whole life, so anybody listening to this, this is really all I know we're only actually guaranteed let's call it an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But I think what comes with that that I don't know why it got left out, but it was the implied task there is ownership. Then the only way you you can have it, you can you have every right to it, but you got to go get it yourself. Nobody's getting it out of the fridge for you, you know, and I think that changes everything.
DeDee Cai:Changes everything in my life right.
Josh Porthouse:Yeah.
DeDee Cai:Yeah, and and it changes everyone in my client's life too Like it's almost like that is the core foundation to all of it. Like if there's no responsibility there, it's just like that's a foundation. If you don't have the foundations, like you're building a house on quicksand, right, like there's, there's nothing that's going to pull you back, right. And then, because you have the responsibility, the other four is going to come. Here they are first is the responsibility, next is the commitment you get to be responsible. Okay, now I'm going to commit because you are responsible. Commit, you're committed, responsible, committed, responsible. Guess what happened? Discipline happens. Think about your military training, right?
Josh Porthouse:right.
DeDee Cai:Yeah, you chose to be, you signed yourself up. Okay, I'm responsible. Now I'm in it. Commitment happens regardless. Right, you're going to have to get up at five o'clock and do your training and guess what you do a day in, day out. It becomes a discipline. Yeah, right, and you're going to keep taking action. Right, you're going to keep doing the things, which is the fourth element is taking action and, last but not least, service. That's then when you serve not only yourself, but the rest of the world at large.
Josh Porthouse:I think then you're able to. You really can't before then, because it's not sustainable. Exactly, dude, you just mind. Wow, absolutely.
DeDee Cai:That's how we operate, I mean at Fit to Profit. That's what my whole entire 30-something years came down to those five principles, five success principles. We never coach around it, we always coach through it. I'm like, okay, what are you responsible for? Were you committed? Were you disciplined at it? Like, were you taking action? And if any of them kind of tweak and falls and things like that, yeah, it always comes down to, okay, who's going to be responsible? How are things going to change? You know, it's a really easy conversation. I do that with my kids and it's amazing, Like when you start with the core foundation, it's just so, it's such an easy conversation, it's not. This not needs to be complicated. And success, yes, may look like it's windy and it's not linear. Yes, I agree 100%. But the foundation to all of it, whether you are working a career in corporate or especially entrepreneurship, you have to prioritize you as the CEO.
Josh Porthouse:Yeah, I like that a lot and I think it's easy to overlook, because you want to do well, you want to succeed, which means you need to give your attention and you need to sacrifice other things like yourself and not implement, enhance or design boundaries. I don't want to say no, because that's the last time I could spend all the I guess, irresponsible excuses that come with that process Solid. Okay. Well, so I really only have two other questions for you for the sake of time. One of them is after all of these things, now that you've been through and I think we've had a little bit more clarity as this conversation's developed but how has it actually instigated your own self-worth? I mean, what has it done for you? You stumbled on this process, you worked your way through it, but how do you feel about you now that you've been through it?
DeDee Cai:I love that you asked because, literally, I'm turning 44 in a couple of months and I literally wanted to do a share or post whatever you call it, on social. Compare when I was 24 to when I'm now turning 44. 24 was all about everyone else. 44 is all about who I am as a person. That is just what it gets to be, and unless I could do that remember responsibility I was putting the responsibility on someone else's hands, like I was following someone else's plan, thinking that's the plan, and I was definitely thinking that I don't have to do all of the work because this plan is supposed to work out, and so I realized it didn't to work out until I realized it didn't.
DeDee Cai:And so how? How it gets to be now is that I am responsible for my own success. We've been talking about that at 44, it's all about me, and then 2025 gets to be all about community. It gets to be now that I am grounded in who I am. Then how does that look for the rest of the world and what I need to do so that way I can keep working on myself to keep contributing to the impact that I get to create with my work.
DeDee Cai:I'm still again. I'm a working progress. Every year is a new goal, but I can tell you I don't think self-development there's ever an end to it. Like you would never arrive, which is the greatest news, but the worst news for some people. They're like, wait what? I would never be 100% enlightened. No, but there's always that next level right of success for you. And what does that look like in your life? And it gets to be you standing, grounded in yourself, being whole and complete, to serve from that place.
Josh Porthouse:More solid foundation, like you said. So for anybody listening to this who wants to follow up with you or maybe eventually become a client and work with you or find out any more information about this process, you have somewhere people can go or somewhere you'd recommend people look into. Where do you want them to go?
DeDee Cai:Yes, absolutely. I'm on social. I'm definitely on Facebook, instagram, also YouTube and LinkedIn. Our website is fittoprofitcom, all spelled out F-I-T-T-O-P-R-O-F-I-Tcom. Fill out a profit assessment. We can definitely talk and I love getting people to operate at their highest level and outperform themselves Like that's what I love love doing the most because we have so much potential. Honestly, by the time we're done, supposedly taking our last breath, I don't think we'll be scratching the surface of what we're capable of. That's my belief.
Josh Porthouse:Nice, yeah, that'll be sick. So for anybody who's new to the show, depending on the player you're streaming this conversation on click see more. Click show more. And in the drop down description you'll see links to get to DD, social and obviously fit2profitcom as well, so you can track her down there. I love what you're doing, I love your perspective and how you're putting it together and ultimately, your message obviously has aligned pretty well with what we're talking about here on the show as well. But I said in the beginning, I appreciate your time and I appreciate your insight, but I think I really also appreciate your interpretations of your feedback and your failures and your willingness to accept them and own them and do something with them and not let them keep you down. I think that's a powerful attribute. So I really appreciate your ability to do all of those things as well. But thanks for coming on the show too.
DeDee Cai:Absolutely, and to you too, Josh. I mean. It takes a lot of time and effort to put a show together, so you also have something in your heart that you're also fulfilling. So thank you for creating this space for us to have this kind of meaningful conversation and so that we collectively make a difference in the world. So thank you to you as well for having me.
Josh Porthouse:That's kind of you, but, yeah, absolutely Out of anybody else who's unfamiliar, or maybe you're also familiar with the show. You can go to our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom and you can listen to all of our other conversations there. But there's one thing specifically on the homepage I want to draw your attention to real quick. In the top right corner there's a button that says leave a voicemail, leave a message, click on it and when you do, you get two minutes of talk time all to yourself. Here's what I recommend you do with it. One of those opportunities let us know what you think of the show, give us some feedback, let us know where we're failing or succeeding or what you recommend we sustain, and tell me about it. What do you think about the hosting, the questions, the guests, the topics, the flow of the show, whatever you like tell me about it. Here's what else I recommend you do Leave the message and tell Didi what you think about the content. Let her know what you think about fit to profit or the lessons she's trying to help people with, or how she's perceiving all of these other opportunities or what you're going through, because it's very likely she's going to help you or also learn something from what you're going through and we can forward that audio file on to Didi as well. So super cool opportunity for everybody involved and we can build this out and broaden it out, because life is about the depth, not always the breadth. So, didi, again thank you for your time and to everybody else, thank you for yours, but until next time.
Josh Porthouse:That was Transacting Value. Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together. To check out our other conversations or even to contribute through feedback, follows, time, money or talent and to let us know what you think of the show, please leave a review on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom. We also stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms like Spotify, iheart and TuneIn. You can now hear Transacting Value on Reads Across America Radio. Head to readsacrossamericaorg. Slash transactingvalue to sponsor a wreath and remember, honor and teach the value of freedom for future generations. On behalf of our team and our global ambassadors, as you all strive to establish clarity and purpose, ensure social tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty or individual sovereignty of character for yourselves and your posterity, we will continue instigating self-worth and we'll meet you there Until next time. That was Transacting Value.
