Kathie's Coaching Podcast

246. The Day I Fired Corporate Wellness

Kathie Owen

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From Burnout to Breakthrough: Discovering the Role of a Chief Encouragement Officer

In today's episode of Kathie's Coaching Podcast, host Kathie Owen leads a live discussion inside her skool community, the Encouragement Collective.
She shares her journey to becoming the Chief Encouragement Officer, her struggles with burnout, and how sports psychology and a particular book, 'Inner Excellence,' transformed her coaching approach.
Kathie also speaks on the power of visualization, overcoming anxiety, and the importance of remaining open to new opportunities.
Joined by fellow community members, she highlights the significance of picturing people ideally to achieve positive transformations. The episode concludes with insights on forming a team of wellness professionals and the impactful changes they've achieved together.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Kathie's Coaching Podcast
00:33 Welcome to the Encouragement Collective
00:53 The Origin of Chief Encouragement Officer
01:53 Discovering Inner Excellence
05:54 Kathie's Burnout and Recovery Journey
09:07 Embracing Meditation and Intuition
11:09 The Power of Visualization and Synchronicity
19:00 Building a Team of Wellness Professionals
22:47 Conclusion and Community Invitation

Blog Post for today's episode: https://www.kathieowen.com/blog/from-burnout-to-chief-encouragement-officer
Join the skool community: https://www.skool.com/corporate-wellness-pros-3311

Welcome to today's episode of Kathie's Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Owen, and today we are having a live discussion inside my skool community, the Encouragement Collective community, and I invite you to listen to today's episode where we even come up with your chief encouragement officer. And more. So let's get into the episode.

Kathie:

All right. Welcome on into the Encouragement Collective. This is the first of our Wednesday meetings inside the Encouragement Collective. My name is Kathie Owen. I am your Chief Encouragement Officer. Yes. Your CEO. And today we're gonna talk about where that came from, how it came to be, and all that good stuff. And I just wanna welcome everybody who's here live. If you want to leave a question in the chat or if you want to have something in at the end, I'm gonna open the table for questions and answers, and I'm going to get into the meat and potatoes of everything today. So I wanna share how the encouragement. Collective came to be and how I became the Chief Encouragement Officer, how burnout, encouragement, and sports psychology all came together to shape the movement that we're building here today. So before we get started, just take a deep breath. And exhale into the present moment. I'm going to share something with you right here. This book, inner Excellence. This book is where? I found my coaching bible like, I am not kidding you. This, this, this is my actual coaching Bible. And how I found that was I was watching, um, a professional football game during the playoffs this past year. What happened was the announcers were making fun of AJ Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles. He is a phenomenal athlete. He's a receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles and, and because he's a top notch elite professional athlete, you don't even have to understand. Sports or anything for me to explain this to you? Because what happened was he's kind of a diva because he's, he's really, really good and he doesn't miss a lot of catches. And when he makes'em, they're like, what? That's phenomenal. So during this game, he was missing a lot of catches and the announcers showed him reading this book on the sidelines and. I was like, what is that book? I have to get it. And. So the next day I did some research on it and it said that he, he said he was reading it because it gave him peace. It gave him peace of mind. And I was like, wow, I gotta get that book. I've gotta check it out. Why was he reading that? And I can tell you, without a doubt, it's everything that I coach as a personal trainer, as a life coach, I have been. Totally inundated and, and, and. I've been so excited about sports psychology because that's how I coach everyone I work with, and when I got this book, I'm like, this is my bible for coaching. Everything he wrote in there, I can tell it was channeled. It's just, it's like got reality trans surfing. It's got self-mastery, it's got sports psychology, it's got all your favorite athletes and how they keep that mindset. Despite everything that's going on. So let's go back to AJ Brown. Why was he reading that on the sidelines? He actually had been reading that all the time, and I want to go forward. The Philadelphia Eagles were underdogs throughout the whole playoffs. They won the Super Bowl. A as an underdog. They won the Super Bowl and this book went viral. This book went to the number one New York Times bestseller and the author of that book is, is so cool. He's just like very down to earth. He has what's called Inner Excellence Workshops. I follow him on Instagram and it, I just really admire his coaching and his style because everything in that book. So relatable. So for example, every day when I wake up, I open that book to a random page and I'll read a couple of pages and I will apply it to my day, whether I'll take notes on it or I'll jot it down or I'll look it back up later. I have the book on Audible. I have the book on Kindle. I have the book on the hard back, and I carry that book with me wherever I go. And if I'm encountered with something, with someone that I'm coaching, sometimes I'll just open the book and I'll go, okay, let's read this and see what it is. I tell my sons to do this and it's just like become a phenomenal. Like I said, my coaching Bible, and I have really stuck by that. So how, what happened with me is I actually had burnout, so. If you don't know my story, o over a year ago, I got released from a corporate job, but I loved my job. I was the fitness and wellness director at this company, and this company turned toxic, I mean severely toxic. And what happened? It happened during the pandemic, so it happened like five, six years ago when the pandemic hit. They got freaky weird. Like, I am not kidding you. Freaky weird. They were like so scared you were gonna catch the virus, even like through your eyes, through your eye tissue that they made the employees wear these goggles. Yes, wear these goggles. They had to wear them because they were afraid you're gonna catch the virus. Now, I'm just telling you one example because it's so freaking extreme, but. Take it from a wellness person who's been in wellness for, at this point in time, I'd been in wellness for over 20 years. At this point, I'm their freaking wellness director, and they did not consult me about anything. Whenever it came to that. I'm like, why are y'all not under understanding? Your immune system can take care of this. They were caught up in the propaganda. So just remember that because what happened, I stayed with this company and HR started to stay stuck in that propaganda, and I was butting heads against them and they would gaslight the crap outta me. Like I'd be like, wait a second, this isn't good. Why are y'all doing this? And then they would turn it around on me. And so I got majorly burned out and I also had severe anxiety. The anxiety was so bad. It was like 24 7. My body was stuck in anxiety and burnout, and I just recently broke through that because this is what happened. I took a break from everything. If you're on my email list, you know, I did not email for about two months. I did not email my list. I went into meditation and just like stopped listening to everything outside. I didn't look at social media. I didn't, um, listen to any of these coaches that were like, you've gotta go live. You've gotta do live streams, you've gotta do this. And. Those things are great, don't get me wrong. It's not that they were wrong, but my body would go into severe anxiety that I couldn't even focus, and what I was being called to was a life of ease, so. I didn't know what that was because I'd been going, going, going, and I'd been, my body had become addicted to anxiety and I was just, seriously, I could feel my body so tense all the time. And so what I started doing was I'd go into meditation, i'd. Spend time in nature, I'd go to the gym and exercise. I just let my body tell me what we're gonna do today. Not only that, I let my intuition start telling me what we're gonna do today. If I felt an ounce of anxiety, I would close it. I, I wouldn't listen to any coaches. I wouldn't listen to anybody but my intuition. And I was hitting a very stressful situation and just 20 minutes before that situation, I went into meditation and just relaxed and go, okay, I'm just gonna let it be. And so I got the bird's eye view and meditation, and you may have heard of that, and that bird's eye view and that meditation showed me where I was in a maze and. There's infinite levels of reality. But I was way down here in this maze where I couldn't get to the other side, and then I'd see the next level where there was a little bit more room, and the next level where there's a little bit more room. But when you get the real bird's eye view and you're way up here and you're looking down, you can see all the solutions, all the possibilities. And I remember that day very distinctly because. I went into this what was going to be a high stakes, high stressful meeting, and I went into it by myself, and these people were so nice. They were like, what do you want, Kathie? We'll give it to you, dah, dah, dah, dah. They just like gave me everything I requested, whereas my mind was going, this is not gonna work. They're not gonna do this. I need somebody to help me. Um, they're gonna, I, I even had a, another consultant tell me they're gonna be asking for this and this and this, and I'm like, holy crap, I'm gonna be in litigation or whatever. You know, it just didn't even know that that was gonna happen. But what I did was I pictured, while I was in meditation, I pictured everybody, ideally everybody from the people that I was talking to, to the consultant, to everybody who was involved. And this is important, and this is a Neville Goddard technique. When you picture everybody ideal. They're gonna turn that way. And if they don't turn that way, that's your discernment to go, oh, this is not my place. For example, if I sat down on my computer and I started to feel anxiety, I'd be like, okay, this is discernment here. We're gonna step away. We're gonna go spend time in nature. We're gonna go look at something more positive. And I'm not kidding you, it totally changed everything and that. Also sitting in meditation is where Chief Encouragement Officer came from. Um, I also started seeing synchronicities everywhere. I went everywhere, and I didn't turn down any possibilities, any opportunities. I just took them. I went to my Toastmasters meeting. Many of you know I'm in Toastmasters. I highly recommend Toastmasters. It's so much fun. But I went to a meeting one day and one of the guys asked me, he goes, what's your schedule? Like? Can you come do a speech, just your core speech, if you wanna do that, we just need a guest speaker. And I'm like, absolutely. I just stayed open to the possibility and so I went to this meeting and I've met some really phenomenal people. I've since joined that Toastmasters group as well, which is giving me more exposure. In Toastmasters, they've even asked me, I'm the vice president of membership, but they've asked me to be an assistant to the director. I'm learning how these different sections work, and there's just so many possibilities that are opening up because I remained open to flow. I remained. Open to what could happen. I did not turn down, you know, I just stayed open. And not only that, it was ease. It's not like I was like stressed out. Oh my God, I gotta go live. Because I specifically remember one day I was trying to go live on LinkedIn because somebody had told me that this is something I needed to do. I could not. Freaking go live on LinkedIn. And I just said, screw it. And I started recording my Zoom conversation and I was actually gonna post it on my YouTube. And that whole conversation was not in flow. There was no energy. And that's when I shut everything down and I said, you know what? I'm not doing this anymore. This is not authentic to me. And if you're really watching this and you know me, you know that I'm in. Authenticity mode right now. This is me, whereas. I was trying to force myself into this box where I was gonna be a sleep coach. No, I'm not a sleep coach. I'm a chief encouragement officer. I, I've been a personal trainer for 25 years, and that's my foundation. But when I'm training somebody, it's usually somebody who's an elite. Executive who needs mindset work. That comes from my coaching manual, and that's what we do. And I just had one of those executives tell me yesterday, when I got done with my session with her, she's like, Kathie, thanks for being my biggest cheerleader. And so. That's really what I am. I'm just a cheerleader. I, I'm not gonna say just because there's so much more to it than that. Because what I will do is I'll help them go through the chaos. The chaos precedes the breakthrough. I don't know about you, but that's what's happened to me all the times. And I, that's what I was going through was that chaos, and then I had the breakthrough. I had that breakthrough that saw everything going on. But I'm there to hold your hand through the breakthrough. Maybe you don't need to hire me to do that. Go get this book and just open it up and go through the modules and go through the different exercises. All it is is training a professional athlete to perform at their top notch. Y'all know I love my sports, my psychology, and I'm gonna end with this story right here. About my favorite athlete, and you don't have to know who he is. I just want you to understand this story. So Jose Altuve is my all time favorite athlete because of this, what I'm about to tell you, he is very short. He's five foot six. He shouldn't even be playing professional baseball. He's been playing for the Astros for many, many years, and the Astros went to the World Series in 2017 and we beat the Dodgers in the World Series. There was a so-called cheating scandal that went on after that World Series and the Astros were accused of cheating during the scandal. They were cheating because they were caught. Supposedly, they were caught stealing signs from the other team, and so that means that they knew what pitch was coming. If you understand baseball, that has been going on. Since the game began. Nowadays you can't do it because now they have ear things and they don't do the finger signs and all that stuff like the old fashioned way. But okay, if you know the pitch is coming, you're still gonna have to hit a ball that's coming at you a hundred miles an hour and. Even the pitcher doesn't know if, okay, let's say he says he's gonna throw a curve ball. Well, that curve ball could go off and it could not come over the plate. Uh, there's so many different things that could go on that it's just almost impossible to just like go, oh, I'm cheating, okay? And all the teams do it. So the Astros were just a scapegoat. The reason I'm telling you that is because today. What is it? Eight years later? Jose Altuve gets booed intensely when he comes up to bat and just this past summer he, we were playing the Yankees. That's one of our big opponents. And the Yankee fans can be really, really ugly and hateful. I love all athletes, so don't get me wrong, it doesn't matter who they play for. I love them all. I don't like the way the fans are because it's there. There's so much that goes on. You do know it's a hard game to play. So Jose Altuve this summer, he'd come up to bat and he was booed so bad and he was actually cussed at, by the, the fans in New York that he, um, you would think they had to turn the TV volume down. They, because they were saying bad words and there's kids watching the game and they didn't want people to hear it. But I'm like, holy crap. So. What happened was Jose Altuve being booed, he'd still hit a home run. It would shush him down. So imagine being under that kind of pressure and still performing at your top notch. And that's what you can do with sports psychology, with having the right mindset. And this book provides those answers. It is so freaking phenomenal. And that's what I coach with. So. What has happened is now Synchronistically Bridge of Incidents, whatever you wanna call it. I have met with so many different wellness professionals that we are now building a team of consultants where we're doing this together and we're building this business together, and we're gonna be doing events nationwide, worldwide, and. If you want to be one of those professionals that's on this, I know Sophia is on the call with us today. She is also in here and she's providing her expertise with this phenomenal thing because I was just hired by a very high level executive in the Houston area. And they helped me come together with all the pieces of the puzzle that I needed to do. So it's not just me. And I want to go back to corporate wellness. I am not just a corporate wellness coach. I am not just a personal trainer. It's. Bigger than that because the gifts that I've been given, I'm using now, I'm using my expertise in sports psychology, my expertise in public speaking, my expertise across the board. Whereas when corporate wellness go back to the job I had, that really burned me out. I was a personal trainer. I ran a gym for their employees. They actually insulted my intelligence by saying I was just a fitness instructor and I'm sorry, but I did more than that. And the reason why is because if you are a free personal trainer, you're only gonna get two or three people that come in there. And my passion was like, I'm trying to get everybody,'cause not everybody wants to go to the gym. So I would go do wellness. Talks, I would do wellness events, I did all of these different things, but yet I was just a fitness instructor, which actually insulted my intelligence and actually hurt them because it means that they don't really care about their employees and I don't wanna work with somebody like that. And that is why I left corporate wellness in my rear view mirror, because I'd rather work with an elite top level executive of a multimillion. Billion dollar company who really wants to. Change the world or do something with their knowledge and expertise that's going to make a difference inside their company or their board of directors or whatever it may be. And now this is what's come to fruition and, and I love it because it's not just me, it's it. We've got Hannah who does boundaries. We've got Jacinta who does resilience. We've got Sophia who does sound healing and DNA. Healing. We've got Jenna who does Pilates. We've got Kate who does the Hero's journey, and also all of our gifts interact with each other. You know, there's just, so that's why I'm the CEO or Chief Encouragement Officer of my team, but I'm also that for these companies where they go, okay, guess what? We need something. More extensive. We want to do a wellness event for our leaders. Well, guess what? We have one planned and it's coming up in such and such, and you are invited to attend. And then we all get together and we have these awesome wellness events. So. I am going to open the floor for conversation, question and answer, and let's see what we got here. And if not, I'll what, what I'll end up doing if, if we just don't have a lot to talk about, I'll do like a Joseph Rodriguez style. I will open the book and show you how this book will like answer a question you may have at the time.

Sophia:

Well, I just wanna congratulate you. For, for all the things that you've done, for all of your accomplishments. I, I, I met you a year ago through the Mastermind and I, I. You know, I was there at all the meetings and I know, um, you know, as a group we all share our challenges and, um, it's so nice to see you have come so far with everything that you've done and everything that you've learned. And, um, I can see you using all the gifts that you've developed and, uh, you know, especially. Like with the mastermind group that we're in when we're, you know, speaking from the place of knowing that is a big key that's missing in a lot of, um, wellness coaches. In a lot of coaches, period. And, you know, um, I think the sector that we, you are entering, um, in that demographic, there are a lot of people out there who. Who are well accomplished, who have earned maximum amount of money and have, you know, gone places, and yet they're, there's still something they're, they feel they're missing. And I feel that, um, what you have learned and what we have learned as a group will be able to answer what's missing. Which is why this, the, the element is, is, is a game changer and it's different. And I know that, um, they will be able to see the value beyond what, um, beyond what they've experienced and what they, um, expect it is beyond what their expectations are. I'm sure I could feel it and I know it.

Kathie:

Oh yeah. Uh, and actually yesterday I had a, I had a call with a marketing company that I'm gonna start working with, and there's one reason why I even hired this marketing company, and it had to do with the way they messaged me. So they found me on LinkedIn and he talked about my business in a way that was like, how did he freaking know that? And he knew everything that I wanted. And you know how most of the times when somebody in LinkedIn reaches out to you, Hey, do you need a corporate wellness program? Or do you need this? Well, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. If. You're going to provide a service for me, please provide some value first. And that's the way I wanna market. Like I want to market like that. And I love that they understood my ideal client. So yesterday I had a meeting with them and it was a two hour meeting, and they work with, um. What did he call me? Uh, he called me like a transformational coach. Yes. That's exactly what I am. Mm-hmm. And I've been doing this so long, but he said that it's you, it's like a Tony Robbins. Mm-hmm. But you know, there's a point where Tony Robbins can take you to, but you gotta work a little bit further. And, and what I like about our mastermind that Sophia's talking about. Is with Joseph Rodriguez, and the thing is, is we, we go another level, we go to the next step. And so I have been inside Cintia's self-mastery program and I just ended it last week and this was huge transformation in my business and in my life because she's the one that coached me through. Through the fire. Mm-hmm.'cause um, you know, and not just her, it was everybody, of course. But the thing is, is I got to this point where I was talking about the meditations I would go into and I'd see from the bird's eye view and she was always telling me live from the end. Live from the end. And I couldn't get it. And then finally in the last month of her program, she like. I was, um, what do you call it? I was forced to just. Go all in on living from the end. Like with Neville Goddard, when he was working under Abdullah Abdu, he went to Abdullah and said, I'm not in Barba, Barbados. That's where I want to go. Mm-hmm. I'm in New York City and it's cold. And so Abdullah slammed the door on him and said, you are in Barbados and you are flying there first class. And he slammed the door on him, and then a few weeks later he went there. What Cintia did, she wouldn't slam the door on me, but she used that analogy several times. Like she said, this is your loving reminder to stop. You know, stop talking about what's in your 3D world and only live from the end. So whatever my vision was, I had to stay very, very focused on that. I had to feel it.'cause you, we all know the feeling is a secret. And when I started doing that, she also had a calendar where I tracked my wins and. The wins I had were like so phenomenal. Here's one win that was in my calendar, and this was like in the first week. I was sitting in a coffee shop and this lady behind me was talking about. Uh, this is so random. She goes, yeah, I started to picture him ideally, and I told God, I'm just picturing him ideally, and she said, and then all of a sudden he joined therapy. I don't know who she was talking about. I don't know if it was her son or her husband or whatever. And she started to say how he changed well. That's the truth. That's, that's it. Bottom line. If you start to picture people, ideally they heal, they find their way. And if they don't in the 3D world, there's a reason, but we can really, really picture it. And I started picturing even my partner, I started picturing him ideally, even though he's in, in my ear, going and complaining about all this. Stuff. And then in just 24 hours he totally transformed like to a different person and. I was sold. I was like, okay, God, I get it. I'm, I'm not ever gonna doubt this anymore, did I? Yeah, I did. But that was like in the first few weeks of the program, uh, of the going all in, uh, I'd been working with Cintia for seven months, maybe a little bit longer than that because I joined her before in an earlier program and. I'm going to also have a YouTube video about my success story with her because it was just so phenomenal and my point in telling you all of that is because I strive to coach like Cintia coached me because she was so kind and so loving, and she pictured me ideally, and she held that for me. When I hold that for my clients now, their successes are phenomenal. Because I'm coaching like Cintia, she's a great model and I think that, you know, it's just like Joseph too. If you have a question for Joseph, he pictures you ideally, and slowly but surely he guided me through the whole thing and he even, um, I would go into invisible counsel with him because I'm not inside the Mastermind anymore. But this book even talks about going into invisible council with Napoleon Hill talks about it and think and grow Rich. So it's not like some kind of farfetched thing. It really does work. He would talk to president presidents that were were gone. You know about his coaching from this book, and that's what I do. And. So I think that that's what Cintia does. I think that's what any excellent coach does, and I strive to be like that. Like that's why I get paid the big bucks to do what I do. And that's just the way it works. And that's what my team looks like too, because I'm very discerning about who I, they have to. Be like that. They can't just go, oh, I'm just gonna teach nutrition and fitness. And those were the kind of coaches I used to work with. But now it's another level and, and we all can get there. I'm happy to. Coach you to get there too, if that, you know, if that's what you strive to be. But it takes, it takes a certain level of discernment to really see that and understand. Just like that lady that I heard at the coffee shop, I'm picturing them ideally, and that was so synchronistic. It just, um, it really made it stick because I'm like, how random is that? I'm at a coffee shop and my friend got up to go get a cup of coffee and I hear this conversation back here. That had to be God. I'm just saying

Sophia:

Right, because every one of us is, everyone is you pushed out.

Kathie:

Yeah, and I, I'm totally convinced of that Now. I'm totally convinced of that because even people that I supposedly didn't like or rubbed me the wrong way, I would find things in them that was a gift or something nice, you know? And I'd be like, oh yeah. And then next thing I know, they're like transforming before my eyes and I'm hanging out with them by myself. You know, just having cocktails with them and. Before I supposedly didn't like them, and now all of a sudden we're hanging out together and having a good time. It just, it just didn't make sense. But it takes some, it takes some, uh, what do you call it? Uh, persistence. You have to stay persistent in that. You can't just go, oh my God, I pictured him ideal and they're still a jerk. No, you gotta stay persistent because it will change. Just try it,

Sophia:

right? Yeah. And, and, and that's when you know you've healed too, is when you could see the gift that somebody not ideal has given you then that, that's what helps the change and the shift happen, and all of a sudden you are thanking this person for giving you all that crap because they've empowered you in some way.

Kathie:

Right, right. It's just like my old job. I, I still grieve about it because I loved that job and I loved everybody I worked with, and I was not valued and appreciated. But I look back at that and if I was still there, I still see some of those same people and I see how they're still living. It's like they're living in this box with a glass ceiling. And when they let me go, I broke through that glass ceiling and I'm like. Oh, okay. This is where I'm meant to be. It's not there. That was just in a box that I needed to get outside of that box, and it was a gift, even though it hurt like all get out, but you know, it happened and it, it's like that's why we're coming up with the Phoenix, because it's like rising above through the Phoenix fire to. To rise above that, and that's what we all do. We help each other do that, and we help each other coach to do that. Because when you say that's how you know you healed, I know I'm healed from anxiety because my body does not feel that anymore. I don't feel that tightness at all. And if I get in. Ounce of it. That's just a sign to me that I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. Hold on. You're supposed to be either thinking something D different, feeling something different, or believing something different, and that's just a sign, just letting you know. And it feels so good to be healed because that anxiety was so bad. It was so bad that I even. Because I'm healed. I've even lost weight. And not even that I was trying, but I was like that cortisol was just, and adrenaline was releasing in my body 24 7. It was damaging my body. It was causing inflammation. And as we talked about in that Zeno call that my inflammation. Was a 49. Most people that I've been testing are like a 19, a 20, 26. You're supposed to be a four. Mine was a 49. I don't know what it is yet. I have it retested, but I'm sure, I'm sure that was part of it because my body was just, I, you couldn't obviously see that I had gained a lot of weight, but now people are noticing and I'm like, well, it's just because I'm not. In fight or flight 24 hours a day.

Sophia:

That's awesome.

Kathie:

Yeah, it feels good too. It's like, whoa, I finally feel like myself again. And it just took those two months to really just sit back and go, okay, I'm not gonna do anything. And it wasn't that I wasn't doing nothing. I was actually rising above to find what I was actually called to do. Mm-hmm. Which was more than just corporate wellness. It's bigger than that, and I feel so proud of. Of that and I can't wait to see what kind of transformations happen with others that, that I'm working with and on top of what my team and I are gonna do. It's just gonna be phenomenal, and it's such a blessing. It's like worth every ounce, every tear, every blood, sweat, and everything.

All right. That concludes today's episode. If you want to hear the full episode, be sure to join the skool community. The link to that will be in the show notes and description below, and there is always a blog post that goes with every episode that I do that includes bonus resources, including the book I mentioned today and more so be sure to check that out in the show notes and description below. That's our episode for today. I trust that you found it helpful, and if you know someone who could benefit from this, please share it with them. And until next time, I will see you next time. Peace out and Namste.