if you're a banana, don't try to be an orange. You won't be a good orange. So people who like oranges won't like you and people who like bananas because you're trying to be an orange, aren't gonna like you be a banana. You're gonna attract people who love bananas, right? Until you define what is satisfaction, what will satisfy you, you will never be satisfied. The lesson out of that is, how do you wanna say it? Go where you're valued most. Right. to, go to environments, go to people where you're gonna be in, in, you're gonna be valued most,

Hello listeners and welcome back to The Science of Self, where you Improve your Life from the inside out. We have a guest with us today, Cary Prejean. I hope I said that correctly. I've practiced it several times just in the run up to the episode, uh, and is always the case. I'm not going to introduce our author other than, or our guest today who is also an author other than give a name and ask, uh, him to introduce himself and tell us what we should know about him.

Okay, that's, that'd be me. Um. Well, uh, I'm trying to keep it relatively short. Background is in accounting. CPA, uh, started consulting in 87 after working for several companies. And the big thing that got me going was I noticed that business owners did not know how to use their financial data. They did not how to read financial statements. Um, there were all very good at possibilities and turning into revenue. They were very bad at managing a business, scaling a business, building an organization, having processes to run the business. They all became, I guess they worked for the business. The business didn't work for them. They couldn't take time off, et cetera. So. Part of my, I guess, mission was to educate business owners on how to quote, manage by the numbers that they all talked about, but really didn't know how to do it. and, and the newer thing is they all, everybody wants to take their business to the next level. And again, it's like, so tell me what's the next level? And it's, well, more revenue. Well, okay. Um, but. So what I, the way I work with people where I work with business owners is, um, we start with by helping them, and I know this sounds like a bold claim, but we double net profits in a year. Secondly, we give you, we help you structure your business so that now the business works for you rather than you for it. The businesses run by processes. Um, we also get you actionable financial data on a weekly basis so that you can manage by the numbers and longer term, we help you design your business into the future. So that can be what's most beneficial for you rather than the forces of the market and government and competitors and everything else pushing your business somewhere you probably don't want it to be.

Alright, Cary so you're a business coach and you double profits. You deal with revenue and numbers and all those, uh, very invaluable things for a business owner. But this is not a business podcast, and our listeners are not looking for business advice. Of course, they're looking for, uh, personal growth advice. So when my listener says, before they tune out, what does this mean for me? What does this interview have for me? Can you draw some lines, draw some connections there for us?

Yeah, sure. Um, there's a discipline I use called the ontology of language, which probably doesn't mean anything to anybody. I am a certified ontological coach, but what that does is, well, let me back it up a little bit. of language has some claims, right? One of the claims is, is that what makes us human beings rather than just homo sapiens, is that we have language, not just have language. You can't escape language. There's always some perspective that is telling you what you're experiencing. Like it don't like it, good, bad, right, wrong. Makes sense. Don't make sense. Agree that, disagree with it. In fact, if you listen, you're now telling yourself right now is, is this guy making sense? What the hell is he talking about? Oh, oh, yeah, okay. I hadn't really noticed that before. Something the fallacy of most human beings is when we look out into the world or we experience input, You know, slight sound, taste, smell, touch. We don't, yes, technically we see with our eyes, yes, we hear with our ears. But I was talking with an audiologist yesterday and I asked a question, do you really hear with your ears? And she went to this technical thing like, yes, on waves and your nerves. And I said, okay, but what is it that you really experienced? Do you experience this sound waves with nothing? No. What happens is your N is telling you a story about what sounds came through, what that means to you. And it's filtered through your perspective of the way you see the world, So whatever your perspective is, it's gonna have, you see certain things, it's gonna be empowering in certain ways. It's also gonna have you not see some things. It's all going to be disempowering in a way. that make any kind of sense at all? So what I do with business owners are with people, and I've coached non-business people before. Is generally what, what they come to me for coaching on is, is they're suffering in some way. And I don't mean like suffering, like oh and pain and stuff, but there's some dysfunction going on, things not working well, things aren't going right. And it's generally because their perspective, their narrative, their language that they live by has them see the world in a certain way that it's disempowering. Right. And they can't produce results, they can't move forward, they're stuck. Um, they have, you know, they're, they're in bad moods about it. Um, and generally the bad moods, when I say bad moods, when I'm generally referring to is resentment and resignation. And both and moods have a language, they have a discourse. Right. And resentment resignation, both as a foundational part of their conversation is I assess that X is happening to me. I assess that is negative for me in my future. I assess as nothing I can do about it. And re, re resentment has the additional and I promise to get even. So if you're living in that kind of a narrative and there's nothing I can do about it, whatcha gonna do about it, what you can do is you build yourself a very good victim story about how so-and-so's doing it to you. And there's nothing you can do about it as opposed to different moods or generally opposite moods, what we call, um, accepting of certain things. When you can come to some acceptance of what's so about where you're at as well as what's possible. You live more in moods of ambition and, uh, well, several on the other side, joy, peace, gratitude, And in those moods, the range of what's possible as well as the range of possible actions expands enormously. When you can start thinking about what's, in other words, rather than living by the assessment, there's nothing I can do about it in different moods. Ambition and, and gratitude. There's all kinds of things that become available. There's certainly a lot you can do about it. Now, did the world change physically? No. But your perspective, your language did, and now you're telling yourself a very different story. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Okay. So how can people, I guess your listeners, will, they benefit by, I guess, me talking about that kind of stuff? Hopefully one of the, one of the things that I always work with people on is, well, let me back up a little bit. people walk through life kind of sleepwalking actually with this narrative of, you know, if only my life were more better or different, I'd be happy. But they never take the time to ref, define what is more, better or different. You know, it's like, oh, I wish I made more money. And, and also they kind of refer to happiness. Like it's this thing that's out there that hopefully will find them somewhat someday. Right? And happy is a very temporary emotion that's about, I'm happy because I assess this positive self is happening to me right now. Change the, what's happening right now and the happy goes away. And maybe you get mad, maybe you get sad, but I, I give examples. You know, you wake up, cough's already made, you're happy. Um, you're driving to work, you get a flat, you're unhappy, you get to work. Uh, this pile of stuff's, this big project. You're not gonna have news already been handled. Now you're happy. Um, one of your, one of your key people quits. some misunderstanding. Now you're unhappy. So happy and unhappy, come and go all day long. What's more, what I point to is something that's more lasting. My question is, what is going to satisfy you? by satisfy, I mean satisfaction. Lemme put this place. Satisfaction is defined by what is enough action. So if, if, if you're saying you want more, better, different, more, better, different what? You want more money, how much more? And if you just want more income, here's 10 bucks. You happy? You satisfied? No. Okay, so define the number and here's a, here's something I learned a long time ago from one of my mentors. Until you define what is satisfaction, what will satisfy you, you will never be satisfied. You'll always have that, you know, if following my life will be or different, and most people spend about maybe five minutes thinking about what do I want? You know, what do I want outta my life? I. Um, than just, I get a job, I go to work, I come home, drink a six pack, watch some tube, go to sleep and do it all over again, and, you know, pray for the weekends so I can do even less. Um, there's no, for me anyway, there's no satisfaction to that. I would be, I would be depressed. I would be resigned and resentful. And that's what most of these people are resign and resentful and they're just flow through the motions, just trying to get to the weekends because again, there's, there's that, and there's nothing I can do about it. That, that the cement of everything. So when you begin to live in different, different conversations, you get to live in different moods. the ambition, gratitude, joy, peace, and you have all these now, your, your world is wide open. a much, you're a much happier person. I mean, if you are living in gratitude, joy, and peace, you're going to be happy. of the time. And if you live in ambition where you, there's all these possibilities. You know, ambition is about what's possible and, oh, that's possible. That's possible, that's possible. Now you can begin to take action towards what, define what is your satisfaction first. Then you can begin, begin taking action to attain all that. The, is any of this making sense?

Absolutely. Yes. Uh, there's so much in here I want, I'm making notes to get back to. But yeah, the, um, it's making perfect sense.

So, so for your listeners, if you're feeling stuck, if you are unhappy with life, if you, if you're in a relationship that doesn't work, begin to define what actions. And again, in relationships you can't. One of your things of satisfaction is the other person can't make you happy. The other person can't make you sad. They can invite you to suffer. Right, but they can't. Happy and sadness and anger, that's all self-generated. And it's all because something gets triggered. And your discourse, your interpretations of the world, your perspective tells you, be happy, be mad, be sad, be something. Your narrative is dictating how you react. You can have the same event and have many different interpretations about it, which produce different emotions and moods, right? I mean, the most common is like put several people on a, on a, a roller coaster you're gonna get different reactions. Some people are gonna love it. Let me go again. Somebody will be like, it was okay once, but no thanks anymore. Other people will be terrified, right? I'm never doing anything that's stupid again in my life. Um, so people can share events, you can't have a shared experience. There's no such thing. Everybody's going to have a slightly different experience. Make sense?

That's great.

think about it this way, if you were born in a different time, and let's just go to extremes, a different sex. A different religion, socioeconomic background, let's say 15 hundreds. And your family is practicing Druids, right? And instead of being a male, you're female, even though the essence of you, let's say your spirit, and again, that's subject to interpretation, but your spirit, it's the same in that body and that circumstance and that everything, you would be a very different person because you would live out of a different narrative. You wouldn't have the distinction of some of our modern day stuff. You know, you'd be fairly superstitious of, know, whatever the woods, the sky, the everything, the moon, uh, all that would have different meanings for you. And you would live out of that rather than the language that you live out of now. So, yeah. So what there is to pay attention to is what is a narrative that's driving you, what is your narrative saying a lot of times, what drives you to suffer or your assessments about the world? Right, especially assessments about you and you get down to it. And a lot of times it's in childhood somewhere that we pick up different declarations about ourselves. I'm, I'm, uh, unlovable, or I'm stupid, I was told my whole life, just me personally, my whole life in the high school, my mother always told me, you were stu, you stupid and ugly. And I believed her, you know, until I got to college and found out I really wasn't stupid and I really wasn't ugly. that conditioning, that conditioning of my narrative, I held as the truth. there was some suffering that went along with that. Um, and again, this isn't, this isn't easy work. Right. And it's not something you can really do with yourself. You need a good coach to be able to help you examine your narrative and what's, what's, what you're suffering from. 'cause your narrative's gonna be right there. Your narrative has been gaining, gathering evidence all your life to prove that it's right. And when you go to interrupt that and change it, like no, no, no, no. What you just, you try something different and it doesn't work. See, I told you so. I told you it's gonna fail. You are unlovable, you are stupid, you are whatever, you know. so really, lemme, lemme put it this way, why do the world's best athletes have coaches? Because you can't see yourself in the performance of what you're doing. You can't, you can't see yourself. Michael Jordan, as great as he was, could not see himself on the court. Now you can see films after, it, it takes a coach that can tell you just little, little distinctions about, you know, make this distinction, try this, try that. And next thing you know, your, your game is up, is upped. just a little bit, but a lot. It's those, the fun of the distinction, generally, the more powerful they are. Also, the coach should have been around longer than you and knows different strategies and how to use them in playing the game. Now again, the coach doesn't play the game, right? The coach is there to help you up your game level and come together as a team. And again, like the of of reading something, it was yesterday and they're talking about these really championship sport teams, you can buy all the best talent around. It's still gonna take that team probably three to four years, five years maybe, to really gel together as a team. if you bring in a whole bunch of superstars. You got a whole bunch of egos that have to learn to work together. So again, this work is very rewarding. Um, but it takes time. It takes a coach and it takes, it takes really becoming a lot more self-aware about who you are and the narrative that you live by that drives you to experience life the way you do. Um, so if you want a much more rewarding, world, rewarding experience of life, it's available. You just have to live with that interpretation that yes, it's all these possibilities. Yes, I'm happy for, I'm grateful for everything I have. I'm at peace with, you know, okay, I'm 70 years old. I'm a male, I'm married, I'm a grandfather. You know, all the facts of my life. I accept all of that. That's who I am. There's some peace that comes with that. the joy of, yes, I'm here. I've been, in my life has got me to right here. This is still what's possible. And there's a lot of joy about that, right? So, I don't know, maybe I've gone on too long. I'll shut up now.

It's interesting, uh, timing wise to me because I was narrating a book this morning, uh, that had a, the section I did was on, uh, Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism, which is, uh,

great

right in line with what you are saying with whether you, uh, have studied or embraced the cons stoicism itself. Is it something, uh, it certainly in aligns as I see it with what you're saying. Is it something you've studied or, uh.

haven't, I haven't studied in great, great detail, but yes, I'm a big fan of Marcus Aurelius. Um, and the whole stoicism thing, um, and yes, it, it is in line. Again, none of that was part of my learning, the whole thing of the ontology of language. Uh, I've only discovered it probably in the last five years and just, uh, yeah, I love it, but I haven't studied in great detail.

one of the first concepts I wrote down the ontology of language. Did I get that correct?

Yes.

And, uh, you, you had a, you went into some detail on there, but ontology. Expand on that choice of that word.

Okay. It comes from two words, Antos, which is Greek for being and all you the study of, so it's a study of being in language, right? In other words, we're, we're not just biological beings, we're also linguistic beings, and your language actually lives in your body. How do we know that? Do you get flushed when you, when you're embarrassed, Do you, do you, have certain body experiences depending on the, the emotion of the mood that you're in. It shows up in your body and you can do exercises about like taking an event and then changing your narrative, about changing the story. Maybe it's a sad event. Okay, now tell a different story that comes out, like, happy. excited or a bit like, what'd you learn from that? And your body will actually, your, your brain doesn't know the difference. Your body doesn't know the difference. Telling a different story, you'll, you'll experience the positivity in your body. And I, and I've seen it over the last, whatever, three decades, three plus decades. So yeah, it's a study of being in language. And one of the other claims about it is that language is generative, right? And what do I mean by that? It generates your reality, number one. It, you're not just describing reality. Your narrative generates your reality. So that's why I always say be careful. Your perspective is reality. Be careful who you allow to program your perspective. So that's why people who watch, you know, sit there and watch mindless TV and cat videos on YouTube and, you know, cinema like that, you're, you're feeding your, you're feeding your perspective, you're feeding your ontology. Um, you know, be careful of that. Be careful what you watch. Be careful what you read. Um, be careful of who you listen to. Um, you wanna be about that. It's like feeding your body. I. You need a bunch of junk food, drink too much alcohol, all that kind of stuff, you're gonna, you put all that into your body, especially a lot of processed food that they're now coming out saying, you know, there's all these chemicals and poisons and everything else, and you're, you're not gonna be well long term. At some point it's going to show up negatively in your body. Same thing for your narrative. Be careful what you feed it. Be careful what you expose it to because it doesn't know the difference. Right. Um, it's also generative in that our future that you and I are experiencing right now was generated in the past in language. How, because your invitation to be on the show, I accept that there's a promise. A promise we both show at the same time. This today was generated in the past. So if you don't like the present that you're living in, have different conversations. Learn to make different offers, different requests, which will result in different promises, which will generate a different future. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's, it, it all happens in language. You know, if you're ha if you're, lemme see if I can think of an example. If you're having conversations with people about the value of your work, and let's say you're valuing your work at, uh, do some random numbers here, 10 bucks, you're going to be limited to that. Uh, let me say a different, lemme better one. Education people who become teachers. Knowing that choice, you're going, you have to be aware that that life is going to have some limiting factors to it. You're not gonna make that much money. And depending on the education system you wind up in, it may not be all that reward. You may be fighting the bureaucracy and students and, and parents and all that, that stuff. There's going to be some things with that instead of having different. Conversations about you educate people outside of the education system where you can make more money, have more willing students, not have bureaucracy to put up with. It's all the conversations that you have about what's possible are going to dictate your future life. So if you don't like what you're doing now, learn to have different conversations, acquire some skills maybe because you know the whole thing about people get all crazy about money. Um, and again, let me, let me just back up. There was a, there was a guy who, a man who gave his son a, an antique automobile when he turned 18. And he told the son, he said, look, take it different places around town. Find out what they'll give you for it. Don't sell it. Find out what they gave for you. So he goes to a, a new dealer, uh, a used car lot, and he, you know, they, they offered him 500. So he goes to a new dealership, new car dealership, and they offer him a thousand as a trade in. Right incentive to buy. He went to an antique car dealer and they offered him 5,000. He goes to a car club that specialized in that make model and car. Somebody offered him 30 grand. So the lesson out of that is, how do you wanna say it? Go where you're valued most. Right. to, go to environments, go to people where you're gonna be in, in, you're gonna be valued most, you know, nothing changed about the car, it's just the perceived value when those who saw it. So that was supposed to leave me somewhere about having different conversations. You're so what you need to, you have to be clear about money. Money was, yeah, that was the thing. So what is money? Most people think money is the green paper we find in our wallets, or the digital digits in our bank accounts. Right? Those are artifacts. Yeah, what is money for human beings money or is a promise? So people who acquire wealth acquire a whole bunch of promises that they can offer to buy what they want.

Okay.

So when you begin to think about money, it's, it's just a promise. And how do I accumulate promises? How do I make my promise more valuable? Or maybe I need to make my promise to people who value it more than the people I've been talking to. Does that make sense? And I will get more of those promises in return that I can accumulate, I can accumulate some wealth in terms of the promises, the power of all these potential promises you can make. Um, so the whole thing about income, I mean, the world is pretty abundant.

Right.

if, if you know how to tap into it, you know how to tap into the whole money conversation, um, and, and valuing what it is you do and fi and listen, just because you can do something. Uh, doesn't mean it's valuable. What can,

Absolutely.

what do you do that's different from everybody else that's doing the same thing? Right? What is so special about you? And in my business consulting, it's what is your market dominating position? can you tell the world about why you'd be foolish to do any this kind of business with anybody but us? If you don't know that, in other words, you don't really know what you're worth, you don't know the value of what you do, don't expect anybody else to know it. If you're not clear on it. Believe me, the public, the, the market you're trying to attract, the market you're trying to get in touch with, they won't know either. That's why take successful ones anyway. Take a fair amount of time, energy, money, whatever to differentiate themselves with. We're different. We're special. You need to come with us. And now again, some businesses differentiate themselves as we're the cheapest in town. We're not the best. We're the chief, if you want, just basic stuff. I mean, McDonald's on their board, their sign say billions and billions served. They're not saying they're the best burgers. They're saying we've been really consistent over the years serving these mediocre hamburgers. And if you want to ha if you want your, your, uh, not, they don't serve whoppers, your, uh, pounder pounder, in Houston, as it will in Maine, as it will in London, as it will in Singapore. Very consistent. So again, they're not trying to be the best. They don't advertise that. They're saying, we're very consistent. If you want cheap, fast food, this place to come get it. And that's what different differentiate, differentiate themselves about the market as opposed to like Burger Smith and some of the other more, uh, I guess upscale burger joints. they're saying, Hey, we're better, but if you want gourmet burgers and fries and you know, beer and whatever else they have, we're the place. So, again, that's getting clear on what your offer is. You have to be very clear about what is your offer, what's so valuable about it, and if it's not that valuable, what can you do to make it more valuable? What skills can you acquire? What can you add to it? all, again, all that happens in language. And you have to be able to not just tell people about it, but they have their, their perspective, their narrative has to see what you're offering. you present it in the wrong way, they're not gonna see it.

You said you should ask yourself or you, you ask businessmen, what is your, was it market domination?

Yeah. Market dominating position. A a lot of people also refer to as your, um Oh. It something, selling proposition. Isp. Is it ISP Oh, unique. Unique selling proposition. USP or your market do position. In other words, what is it that you offer that nobody else offers? Think of it this way. If you look at a tree line, you know, in the distance, what tree are you gonna notice? Pretty much to me, the tree that's calling and the rest

A different one? Yeah,

yeah, the different one,

I.

Um, everything else just looks the same. So you don't want to be in a marketplace where you look like everybody else. need to find out what is your special sauce as they say that people are gonna want to be a path to your door, you're not gonna figure it out in a weekend. Okay? So be patient. It may take a while of experimentation, some market research, asking potential customers what is it you're looking for? And again, in your life, it's like, I'll give you an example. Uh, again, it's all about the satisfaction thing. Um, I was married for about eight years, got divorced and I was kind of, you know, I was kind of like lost for about five. Not lost, but I was just kind of like, uh, I dunno if I'm never get married again, I don't, you know, I dunno what kind of relationship I'm looking for. And so I took about six months of writing. Like, what, what, what relationship look like, what would she look like? What would she be like, where would she be from? I even got down, I had this big thing in my younger days that I, I didn't want to date, um, bonds and I didn't want to date Yankees. from the south, well, on my list I put Yankees. Okay, blonde's. Okay. Guess all wound up marrying

Oh, uh, the obvious

a blonde Yankee from

of course

Been together 35 years. But again, she was in my list of satisfaction. If I had never taken the time to do that, you know, anybody would've done, and maybe it'll work, maybe it wouldn't have worked. But she fit much a hundred percent of the things I wrote down about what I'm look, and not that she's gonna make me happy, but just from the things we do together, some of the things she did, some of her interests, all that kind of stuff, she pretty much fit the bill. And we've been happily married for 35 years.

is this. Would you, uh, correlate the. The USP or the dominating position along with the, on the, on the business side of things, and we'll as, as you've done, and most of these, take it back to a personal level after that and into a mission statement. Is that the, is the mission statement, the,

Yes. Yeah. In other words, what is special about you as a human being? What is your offer to the world? And also be clear, you are not going to attract everybody. Uh uh. That's I, I've said in classes I've taught about using the ontology of languages, half the world thinks you're an asshole. I don't care who you are because of your age, 'cause of your sex, because the way you come from, because of the religion, you practice the way you look something, half the world's gonna think, ah, but the other half of the world, what is it about you? That is, if, if you can be your authentic self, right? And I know that that gets tossed around. And what is a authentic self? If you can be who you really are, you're going to attract certain people. They're gonna be attracted to who you are. They're gonna be attracted to your discourse, attracted to your conversation. They're gonna attracted, they're gonna be attracted to you being you. Um, now this goes back in the seventies, but I read a book by Leo Lus Scalia. I dunno if anybody knows him, thing was, if you're a banana, don't try to be an orange. You won't be a good orange. So people who like oranges won't like you and people who like bananas because you're trying to be an orange, aren't gonna like you be a banana. You're gonna attract people who love bananas, right? So, uh, again, in terms of your personal, your personal offer to the world is be your authentic self. But you need to, you need to be real clear. Who is that? You know, a a again, it comes down to who are you in the world? What is your offer? Not just what can you get from people, you're not trying to sell anybody anything, but what is your, I mean, know, what, what are your interests? What do you do? What, why would somebody wanna spend time with you and you're not, again, you're not gonna answer that in a weekend.

Exactly.

some time.

A person can't be themselves until they get rid of those false perceptions and the false lens that they put on the world, as you mentioned, that were presented to us in our early life as children, uh, that color everything that we do. But you made an interesting point that that narrative continues to change as I. Go through life. My personality, a person's personality, I believe is, is set for the most part early,

Your,

but there can be changes. I.

Yeah, I, I agree. General temperament is probably at birth, everything that happens to it afterwards, you know, comes from where you grew up, the people surrounding you, where you grew up, you know, your parents socioeconomic background, what you're exposed to, all that stuff. It all accumulates and you begin developing some. about the world early on, and then you spend the rest of your life gathering evidence that those assessments are correct. The problem is we forget, they're just assessments. It's just a story we told ourselves. We hold them like they're the truth. Not just the truth, but the truth in capital letters, you know? And that those are generally the places, especially the ones we hold very dear to our hearts. Those are the places where people usually suffer. Those are the ones that become dysfunctional or disempowering, for people. So it's a, it's being able, and the, the reason it's work is so hard sometimes is because it's because they're so sacrosanct, you know? Oh my God, no, I can't, I can't examine, I can't examine this one. This one's too precious. It's too much meat. They can all be, they can all be examined. Um, I took a class with a, a brilliant guy from Chile one time. He was a biologist, but his, his, comment, I mean, it got him into this whole thing of language, right? But his comment was, the original sin was probably reflection. Like, what if this is not some, you know, what if there is no God, and I believe in God, I prove that He's, he exists not in a, not in a third party objective way. No. But I, I sincerely believe he exists or she, or. Whatever it, God is a, as a supreme being creator of, of the universe. Yes. Um, but you have to be willing to let go of those things and like just examine them. Is it possible that this is wrong? You know, is this just a story? Is this just an assessment I told myself? Um, there are very few, put this way, there are very few quote facts in the world. And what I mean by that is a fact is something that generally has social agreement, right? I'm sitting in a chair I can point to some distinctions that make it true that this is a chair, it's got a seat, it's got arms, it's got a back. Um, it's used for the concern of sitting, go to some uncivilized, some undiscovered places in the world, the Amazon jungle, Africa, wherever, that they don't have chairs this, they wouldn't know what the hell to do with this, especially if it's wood. It'd probably be fuel for a fire. There is no truth. the truth, like all caps. This is a chair for our, for our agreement, for the concerns of sitting yes, is the chair. from those assertions, we start making declarations and declarations designed the future, like this country was declared into existence by the Declaration of Independence. Now we had to follow that up and use military power and some luck to establish yes, we're separate from United Kingdom or England at the time. you know, we had to make, we had to validate our, our declaration by using force. There's a special kind of declaration called assessments. And assessments is most of what we live in. The good, bad, right, wrong, like it don't, like it. Makes sense, don't make sense. Agree to disagree with that. So, assessments about this chair, it's a, a comfortable chair. Depends on your standards for comfort. It is a good looking chair. Depends on your standards for what's good looking, you know? Um, uh, he's old. Well, you know, if you're comparing to people, uh, a lifespan of say dogs, yes, I'm extraordinarily old. You compare to a lifestyle of, uh, what, what some of these sea turtles, they live into their hundreds. Now I'm about middle aged, you know, you know, am I tall? I'm six foot two compared to the standard of pygmies. No, I'm a fricking giant to the standard of the, the average NBA player. I'm too short for the game. again, whatever your assessment is, there always has to be some standards that you're comparing it to. And there has to be some, some actions. Like you couldn't say I was tall or not tall. If you had know I was six foot two and you, you didn't know what standards you're comparing it to. Does that make sense?

Yes.

So, and that, again, the whole thing of interacting with other people, you're trying to. We're not meant to be alone. I mean, there are some people who choose that, but we're not meant to be alone. We're meant to be very societal people. We're almost like herd animals in a way. We're have an limbic system, the herding impulse. That's why you see in financial markets, people tend to buy at the top and south bottom. And it's, it's all this greed rushing in, oh God know. Like they said, when the depression, when the shoe shine, boys were trading stocks, it was time to get out. And everybody that gets out at the bottom because of rampant fear, it's a societal thing. There's even a a, there's a, an analysis tool called Elliot Wave that can measure, know, where we're at in different cycles of the market. Um, Proctor, I think what he, he runs, uh, uh, Elliot Wave Principle. Um, uh, you can see it in fires. You know, most people who die in a fire, they die jammed up at the exit door. I. insulation. Same thing with financial markets. Everybody's trying to get at the same time, there's no buyers. They all die at the egg. We're, that's that hurting impulse. Um, so the whole thing about assessments is you need to, they, they're either grounded or ungrounded. You can only use assertions to ground an assessment. You can't use other assessments ground an assessment. In other words, See you girl. She's good looking. you know what, what makes you say that? Well, I mean, look at it. She's so pretty. That's not a, that's not an assertion. Well, she's five foot six. hair is blonde. It's at the shoulder length. I like, she's got blue eyes. Um, she's got a slender figure, you know, or figure she's, she weighs 125 pounds. She's good. She works out a lot. She's got a muscular build. Um, all, all those kinds of facts can be used to ground the assessment. She's good looking. She, and again, good looking to me, may not be good looking to you,

Right.

you know, but beauty's not eye beholder. So those are things that generally drive the way we see the world. Those, those three speech acts. And again, assessment are a special form of, uh, uh, declaration. Um, I. But the three speech acts that help us design the future are request offers and promises. The problem is most people make very, very sloppy requests and offers and don't really make good promises either. But to to, for that, for those to be effective, you need a committed speaker, a committed listener. You need conditions of satisfaction and a deadline. And generally what helps in terms of once you accept, there's a promise made. So to make, what really makes the promise easier to facilitate is when you're done, declare, I, I'm finished, I'm done. Right? And business, it drives me crazy. People say, okay, go do this. People go do it, and never. And then you gotta follow two days. You get, yeah, yeah. Finish it yesterday. me when you're done. I. I want the ability to make sure that what you did is what we asked, but that, that's how you design your future is request offers and promises. So again, you don't like the current, you don't like where you are currently. You wanna design a different future, learn to make different offers and promises. And if you want to, I guess, check the way you see the world, check the assessments primarily that you live by. Right? And declarations are the ones at the really, at the core. Like again, you're ugly, you're stupid, um, whatever. Here's what's interesting. And the work that I did, we, we had several professors come through and almost to a person, they all live with the base assessment. I'm stupid. That's why they got all the degrees to prove that they weren't.

Prove that wrong.

yeah, I'm really not. Or they're gaining, gathering evidence. Like, see, I'm not that stupid. I got this, I got my degree, I got my master's, I got my PhD, I got published. Uh, I got the grant for this research. Um, lawyers were hard to come by again, and this is my joke. Lawyers are trained in law school to be right and to argue about it. You know, they say he's making arguments that ain't taking cases. He's making arguments before court. lawyers are really a tough nut to crack because of that. They have a very hard time listening to the other side. 'cause they're always gaming. How can I respond, how can I, whatever. nothing against any lawyers out there. Um, anyway, I've, I've kind of rambled on here. Sorry about that.

Oh, no. Please don't apologize. It's, uh, here's what comes to my mind. You, you, you have a lot of information. I'm trying to get notes on it, but is this, uh, information also itemized in your book? Can we take a second to talk about that? I.

no, no. The,

Oh, this is different.

I've written three books and they're all written for business owners right

Okay.

I've pointed at some of this stuff, but there there are two, actually, there's three books, that I would recommend. Two Of'em are written by a good friend of mine, Chalmers Brothers. He's, he lives in Naples, Florida. Um, the first book he wrote was Language and The Pursuit of Happiness. You can find it on Amazon, you can find it on his website. He wrote a second book called, uh, language, language and the Happiness of Leadership Excellence. That's more for business owners. There's another book, and I forget the gentleman's name, Charles somebody. He wrote the Slim Book of Trust, and he talks about the phenomenon of trust and why trust is so essential to. Is that it's necessary for any kind of human interaction, right? I mean, if you thought of some psychotic ex murderer, you wouldn't want anything to do with me, right? That'd be zero Trust. You might kill me at any moment. I'm not playing that. again, there's some people you know that you would trust to meet you for a movie, meet you for dinner, come over for dinner, something like that. But you wouldn't trust them to loan 'em a thousand dollars. Why? cause the, the blindness that we as humans, dad, I either trust you for everything. I don't trust you at all. But the fact is we actually trust people in certain domains of action and not in others. trust is based on four things generally. First is caring. Do you care about me? You know, are you, do you care about my concerns? Like you care about your concerns? If you don't care about my concerns, I dunno if I should trust you. You know? 'cause you, if you're just in it for you, I don't wanna have to make some ironclad agreement that I have to follow up and inspect everything, right? To make sure that my concerns are being met. two would be sincerity. In other words, when I hear words coming outta your mouth and I observe you saying them, do I think it's matching what's going on in your brain? no way to, no way to guarantee or solidify either one of those assessments. Those assessments that you make. Now, again, the better you get at assessing people and listening to people, and listening to their listening, which you can do, then you can get to be pretty good about are, do you care about me? Are you sincere? Right? And that's the big thing I get when I, when I first start working with clients, is we kind of do an identity check of the owner. And one of the common things I get from employees, he doesn't care about me. what they're saying is he doesn't trust me and in revert, and at the same time, I don't trust him. If you don't care about me, just what I, I'm gonna show up, do what I gotta do to get paid, get my paycheck when I go home, this place is gone. The third thing is competence. Can you do what you say you're going to do? Again, that's why McDonald's says billions and billions serve. Say Yes, we're competent. And the fourth thing is reliability. Again, McDonald's, billions and billions serve. Yes, we have a history of keeping our promise, of serving mediocre hamburgers. So again, thin book of trust. It's, it's, I think it's less than a hundred pages. Really excellent book that talks about all four of those. Uh, you can find that on Amazon. Uh, but yeah, Chalmers brothers, uh, brilliant guy, good friend of mine,

Palmers was the first name.

Chalmers, C-H-A-L-M-E-R-S.

pointing out the fact that McDonald's doesn't wanna make the best hamburger, um, I've been,

claimed to.

no, no. And, and no one would think they do. Uh, but still they're, they sell a lot of them. I've been involved in some businesses. I, I taught school for a while, uh, taught high school and been involved in some that by practice, got their mission statement or whatever you wanna call it, their self definition incorrect. And once that was wrong, everything is downhill from there. It's a, there's an incongruity between what, uh, maybe what I'm saying and what I'm thinking, what I want to happen, what I'm making happen.

Yeah.

ties in so strongly to, to many of the points that you've just made.

That's the sincerity portion.

Right.

expression? Your action's so loud. I can't hear the words you're saying

Very good. Yeah. Yeah. I was also reminded at some point of, uh oh, now I've forgotten the book. Gimme a second. From the seventies. We'll date ourselves here. So we both know this book. Um, he was a, a plastic surgeon and he, he wrote a book about, one of the first ones to talk about visualizing is the same to your brain as actually doing Maxwell Maltz. Is that right?

that

Maxwell, uh, was it Maxwell Maltz?

uh, yeah, I'm not, I'm not familiar with that name. I'm not saying that's Right. visualization. Like I said, same before. Your brain doesn't know the difference, whether it's practice or it's real. Um, of the things we used to do in our training was to have this thing called an assessment circle, um, you're in a circle, it might be 10, 12 people and one at a time people go around and make an assessment about you. And generally you want it to be a negative one. what it does, it teaches the brain to, I guess, disconnect from the automatic reaction to where you asshole, you know, how'd you, how dare you say. And, uh, so what you want do is think of some things, not that you think are negative about the person, the things they think are negative about themselves. So the response that we would practice is, thank you for that assessment. give you the authority to make that assessment about me. Uh, and I open a future conversation with you to dis, you know, discuss it further. when people assess us, what they're really talking about is, I saw you do X amount of actions or these actions, and according to these standards, I assess you thusly. Right? And, and for me, negative assessments, especially a really a request for different action. 'cause we're not, if, if you're just standing there, and again, some people are gonna have all kinds of negative assessments just about who you are because of your sex, your height, your race, your everything else. But mostly what we get assessed by is our actions or lack of actions. So a negative assessment is generally request for different actions. Now, again, that doesn't mean they're right. if you, if you start to get like five, 10 people give the same negative assessment, that's probably something you wanna check out there, Um, but listen, the world is full. Like I said, half the world thinks you're an asshole. There are all kinds of random people that will, you know, I've been riding my bike. I, I I, and I don't ride near as much. They used to, but I used to ride probably 125 miles a week. And I had, I've had people throwing coke cans and beer cans and lit cigarettes and all kinds of, I had one guy, up beside me and he slowly got in front of me and stop to, I had to stop. And he rolls his way down and gives me the one finger salute and dries off. Like, what do you, I didn't do anything to the guy. I was riding my bike in the street, which is totally loud that there's even a bike lane. He would just, okay, bye at him. Um, so yeah, listen, there are, there are random people that will, that's you negatively and make sure you know it. You know, so a different way to look at it's, they're inviting you to suffer. You don't have to accept, right. Your choice, your choice of being mad or sad or feeling bad about yourself is up to you. It's just an invitation to suffer. I can decline.

Uh, that's great. Um, more stoicism there is that I don't, uh, there is no suffering except what I subject myself to. The things just are, and a suffering is a choice I make and how I react to it. It's very strong. I, I really like that negative assessments, uh, and invitation to suffer. I like that.

And,

Listening.

go ahead.

Yeah. Go ahead.

No, I was just saying as human beings we're, most people are particularly gifted at making some really mean and nasty characterization about other people, you know? and so there's a different way to, there's a different way to live with that kind of stuff instead of making negative, uh, lemme put it this way. of the things that I really learned from this whole on ontology of language and being able to coach people and deal with things is to learn to interact with the godliness in people rather than deal with their garbage. 'cause that's what most people do. They deal with their garbage. What's the negative, what's, what's the worst things I can, what, what's some of the negative things I can pick out about that person? I'm gonna deal with that. mess with that, but as opposed to where's the godliness in them? And, and, and that's summon everyone. I mean, that's probably some really totally evil people in the world. I don't know any, but, and I, listen, I've had some clients with sociopaths. There wasn't a whole lot of godliness there because there was so much garbage you had to get through to get to that person. But when you could get to them, at least for a little while, they were a different person. It was just so much work. Again, I, I keep his client very long, but it was so much work to get to that. Um, to where you could actually deal with them with their godliness. Um, it, the, the work, it is just too much work, much hassle, too much. It's, it's not only that, it's exhausting, right. But yeah, that's, that's something I try to focus on is what is, what is this person special offer? Maybe they don't even know what is their gift to the world, rather than, eh, I don't like to wear their hair. They, they look overweight. Uh, they're the wrong age, they're the wrong, they got a funny accent, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I know some people, they just revel in that stuff. They roll around in it.

That's great. What is this person's special offer? I was taught, uh, through, well, really through high school, every person knows something. I don't know. Therefore, every person, uh, can be my teacher and I need to seek out that thing within them that they know and, and learn something from them. Um, ties in what is this person's special offer? I like that the, the phrasing of that,

Yeah, no, absolutely. There's something to learn from everybody. Um, and we as Americans always want like the drive through answer. Just tell me the answer. I I don't have

Right.

do all this work and like study and actually learn it. Learn it, tell me the answer. And it's in that kind of a mood that's sort of an arrogant, already know everything, just gimme the answer. That we cheat ourselves out of all kinds of learning and life experiences and really discovering other people.

You mentioned the, the phrase a few times about an ontological coach that if I saw it correctly, that's a, um, is it a certification

yes,

through an organization? Is that, did I read it right?

mine was with Newfield Group back in 1992. Uh, again, the, the, the concept of the discipline of the ontology language was developed by a Chilean, uh, Fernando Flores, a brilliant, brilliant guy. I think he was reading like a book a day, just about. He was in the, I think, in Chile when the CIA threw it over, and he was in prison for like three years and he was tortured somewhat and stuff. He finally let go, but he was prison that he began the. about, you know, what is this, what is reality and the whole thing of language. And that's what makes us who we are. And, and he developed this thing, natology of language. A brilliant guy I was in. I was in, uh, he was one of the facilitators for one of the courses I was in. And, uh, I mean, he, he was amazing to watch. Now he was kind of brutal. He was kind of, he did not, he did not put up with a lot of bullshit. but these other people, Newfield group in particular were Julio Alah at Raphael et um, I don't know. I, I think the Raphael might have gone on and done some of the un Julio still it's new field, not the new field group anymore. It's new field resources. And his daughter is now, I think she's one of the people. In the higher ups in the company. but again, another brewing guy. Very compassionate, very caring. His coaching, unlike Fernando's, was always about what? Healing. Putting people back together, giving them a different interpretation that they could be empowered by rather than bad. 'cause Fernando was good at that. He would, he would slice you in the ice, you leaving a million pieces, and then he'd put you back together, which Julio doesn't do the, he doesn't do the disassembly first. brilliant guy. He, you know, he actually, I have a picture of him. He was, he's been to my house a few times. Actually. I have a picture of him holding now my 30, she'll be 34 next month as an infant. Um, wonderful coaches. Raphael's gift was more writing. Um, but again, Umberto, uh, MAANA, he was, uh, also chilan the biologist. Um, I mean these, these guys, these, I don't know how it got to be out outside of Flores was with other Chileans and they got into it, but it is, uh, Thomas brothers, he's ontological coach, right? He's the one who wrote the book about the five speech acts. Being an observer of the observer that you are, what it takes to really get ahold of your narrative. able to see you as other people see you. A different way to say it the way I've described, it's you have a, you have a narrative, you have a discourse, but it's back here. You can see my hands. I can't, I mean, I can see on the screen, but I can't. And so the narrative's always here. It's pretty easy for other people to see, but I can't. what the ontology of language does is kind of shows you Oh yeah. That that's what you look like to other people. Very humbling experience most of the time. I. Yeah, but it allows you to start, oh, okay. That I can see how that assessment, what I used to believe is the truth. Very disempowering for me. It's causing me a lot of suffering. I need to change it. But again, the narrative has been there a while. It's got a ton of evidence that it's right. It's not gonna go away. It's not gonna go away politely and quietly. In fact, it's always gonna kind of be there in the back a little bit. You can de, you can turn the volume way down. Um, fairly impossible to turn it all the way off forever.

It's interesting of the number of viewpoints that we have. Of course, every conversation has a different background. You know, we, we bring different expertise into conversations, but. As you boil these down and is done in, in a lot of the books that I've narrated, uh, for Peter Hollands and others, there's the core things that you might get down to them in different ways, but they're still there. A true understanding of what is not what you think it is or what your perception of it is, a true relationship with yourself. What are my values, uh, and how am I true to those? And when you're not, things start to go wrong.

Yeah.

the concept of not it, it's not an easy task. Getting in that comfort zone or getting out of your comfort zone to accomplish some of that change can be anywhere from mildly to extremely stressful and uncomfortable.

Yep.

so different approaches and different phrasings, uh, but similar principles. It always strikes me, uh, in, in talking with people, the different approaches, and as you said. Your per a person's per I'd say you in the general sense it, you're only gonna click with certain people. You and I are of an age, uh, and I could see a, a younger listener of twenties, somebody in their twenties seeing two retirement age, uh, people yapping on. It's like, uh, you know, Xers, yeah. Uh, sit down, boomer. We don't need any of that. But, uh, there is the, hopefully the, some knowledge and even beyond that, some wisdom that comes with, uh, seeing these things. We're closing in on our time. Uh, we're not right up on it, but I, I don't want to short the last few questions that I have. If you were going to list a couple of seven habits of what, of yourself or other highly successful people? What might those be that a younger individual should look to incorporate into their, into their lives on a daily, regular basis? And then what final piece of advice would you give to our listeners to, to maybe sum up or maybe expand the conversations that we've had?

Yeah. I don't know if I have seven. Um,

No, no, that's fine.

yeah.

Two or three, whatever you have.

yeah, one of the things I always, I really. How you get people focused on is what it's gonna to satisfy you. is the enough action? What domain of action? And you know, you know, 37 years ago, one of my ma, my major mentor outside of my father said, do you wanna things life? I said, yeah. He goes, being ultimately satisfied, getting exactly what you want. I said, man, that's great. He goes, you know how to get it. You ask what you want. yeah, but before that he says, know what you want. If you don't know what you want and anything will do, you'll probably never be satisfied. In fact, if you don't declare again, if you don't declare satisfaction, you will never be satisfied. So take some time. It's not gonna be easy. It's not gonna be quick. Always be asking yourself, what would satisfy me? What would be enough action here I would, you know, I would get it. Um, again, so every. Part of your life requires that kind of reflection, whether it's your hobbies, your body, your relationship, your money, your job, your career, all of that. Um, so that's one place. It's always focusing on satisfaction. It leads to a much more rewarding life. other thing would be to practice what I call acceptance. And I'm talking about acceptance of what's, so, like what are the facts of your life? I kind of went through a short list of mine. What are the facts of your life? You know, have you, whatever they are, especially the ones you're, you're not comfortable with. The ones you don't like, you know? Uh, I know one guy, he was like, I'm, I'm too short. Too short for what? Too short for life, you know? Well I want to want to, I wanna play basketball. It's always been too short, you know? And you part, there's this one pro guy named, what's it called? Spud. could actually

Web.

Yeah. I think the guy could actually dunk. I said, so,

Mm-hmm.

you know, maybe you let that limited conversation, I'm too short stop you from playing basketball more and actually learn some skills. They have people who are, you know, short for the NBA who've made it. So at the same time, don't beat yourself up that, oh, I live by now. Just be okay with I'm short, I am five five, or whatever it was. And I'm equipped for living. Right. practicing what's so about yourself as well as what's possible. practicing that acceptance and, and what's possible is what's gonna generate the ambition, the excitement, the wanting to get up in the morning, the wanting to take more action. I. But the, if you want the peace and the joy and the gratitude, practicing that, it's acceptance of what's so about you. Like what, how's that thing go? gratitude is not one of the things you have, it's having the, no, it's not wanting to have different things. I forget how it goes, but instead of just warning what you don't have, be grateful what you do have, basically, you know, 'cause it can all get taken away. All of it. Um, I mean, even things like, are you familiar with movie? Uh, any given Sunday, Al Pacino plays the head coach.

not seen it. No.

Okay. There's a halftime speech he gives and he's, it's like a championship game. again, I never would've envisioned Al Pacino as a head football coach.

Right.

he gives a fantastic speech and he starts it with, as you get older. Things get taken away from you. like, what the hell is he talking about? And as I got older, know, what the hell is he talking about? You start to lose friends, you start to lose family. You start to lose your hearing, start to lose your sight. You don't start using a, losing a youthful body. You start to lose your memory. All that just gets taken away from you. You don't have a choice. It just gets taken from, you do start things counteract, but aging is, sucks as the saying goes. being able to accept that, yeah, I'm 70 and my body doesn't do what it, what it used to be able to do. and it, you know, I can see this gradual degradation. It's just, and I'm okay with that. Um, so yeah, practicing acceptance, practicing that will allow you to practice gratitude, peace, joy, and ambition. The other thing is, um, and I, and I say this all the time, what we get paid for, what we get rewarded for in life is the results we produce. What most people live by is the reasons why not. So which one are you gonna, which one are you gonna work on? Producing results that you say you're gonna do? You're gonna have all the reasons why you couldn't do it. 'cause nobody wants to pay for reasons why not, or set a different way. Are you committed to your commitments? Are you committed to your reasons? And by that I mean when I say commitment, I, my definition of commitment is I accept no excuse that this does not happen. When, when you approach things with that intentionality, what's gonna get you away? You know nothing. So you want the result you say you wanted versus, ah, I had a story. The moon wasn't right. My canary had a hangnail. I wasn't feeling it. You know, I was born, I wasn't tall enough. Whatever. You have all these reasons why not? Nobody cared. Nobody give a shit. cares about your reasons. Why not? They're a diamond dozen. 'cause my mama locked me the up compartment when I was two years old. That's my reason. Makes about as much sense or has enough as about enough interest as everything else. Reasons why not. So if you really want to, what's the word I'm looking for here? If you really want to be a contribution, be committed to some results that serve other people, right? Be committed to be committed to the gift that you are, that everybody's a gift.

That's great. That's great. Thank you very much. Do you want to, uh, do you want to give a plug about your book before we go? Or your books I should say?

Um, I have two books in print. The third one is at the printer, one is called Optimize. Again, I wrote these for business owners. So if you're not a business owner, you have no intention of being a business owner. You are welcome to get that both at Amazon. Uh, this one Send Secrets every business owner should know. Um, but again, like I said, they're, they're gear towards business owners. If you, if you're okay with a PDF copy, you can go to my website, strategic Business Owners, uh, strategic business advisors.org. You can download pdf DF copies of both books absolutely free. Um, but like I say, the, this one especially talks more about what is it to be an entrepreneur. What I, what I was trying to do is give entrepreneurs a, a, a sort of a picture, a linguistic picture of how they, how they look in the world, how they come across, how parts of them very empower part of their perspective. It's very empowering. There's other parts that are very disempowering, So if you, I guess if you're not an entrepreneurial, if you're more of the 80%, they just wanna set a job in a paycheck. I mean, you maybe say, oh yeah, I had a boss just like that. Total asshole. And the other one really, this is more about practical. Practical, what can you do to make your business more profitable? Uh, but really, if you're looking for something in terms of the ontology of language, I highly recommend Chalmers, at least this first book, happiness, I mean, a language in the pursuit of happiness. It breaks it down, easy to read. The concept is easy to get. And again, I was amazed that when I got into this, this learning that no one had written a book and then he wrote it. I think the Forward is, the Forward for that book was actually written by Julio Alala, uh, probably one of the better coaches I've ever seen in my life. Um, it was, they, that guy was, he was amazing to watch. Um, so yeah, tho those are my, I have a third one coming out, and it's really based on the, the, uh, 12 strategies I use to help businesses double their profits in a year. again, if you're not a business owner, don't worry about it. Uh, you, you wouldn't get anything out of it. Probably wouldn't enjoy it.

Alright, great. Uh, alright listeners, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. Thanks to our guest, Cary Prejean. Did I still get it right after an hour and a half.

Close enough, close enough.

Close enough. Alright. Uh, thanks for being with us. Uh, listeners, be sure to check out those resources online and we'll see you next week.