if you're a banana, don't try to be an orange.

You won't be a good orange.

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, go where you're valued most.

Go to environments, go to people where you're gonna be 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'm not going to introduce our guest today 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.

I'm trying to keep it relatively short.

Background is in accounting.

CPA 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.

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.

Part of my, 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 the newer thing is they all, everybody wants to take their business to the next level.

And again, it's so tell me what's the next level?

And it's more revenue.

Okay.

But.

So what I, the way I work with people where I work with business owners is 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.

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 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?

People walk through life sleepwalking actually with this narrative of, 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.

It's oh, I wish I made more money.

And also they refer to happiness.

Like it's this thing that's out there that hopefully will find them somewhat someday.

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.

what I point to is something that's more lasting.

My question is, what is going to satisfy you?

by satisfy, satisfaction.

Lemme put this place.

Satisfaction is defined by what is enough action.

So 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, if following my life will be or different, and most people spend about maybe five minutes thinking about what do I want?

What do I want outta my life?

I.

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, pray for the weekends so I can do even less.

There's no, for me anyway, there's no satisfaction to that.

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 that, and there's nothing I can do about it.

That the cement of everything.

So when you begin to live in different conversations, you get to live in different moods.

the ambition, gratitude, joy, peace, and you have all these now your world is wide open.

a much, you're a much happier person.

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.

Ambition is about what's possible and, oh, 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 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 it's making perfect sense.

So for your listeners, if you're feeling stuck, if you are unhappy with life, 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.

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.

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.

What you just, you try something different and it doesn't work.

See, I told you I told you it's gonna fail.

You are unlovable, you are stupid, you are whatever, so really 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 see yourself.

Michael Jordan, as great as he was, could not see himself on the court.

Now you can see films after it takes a coach that can tell you just little distinctions about, make this distinction, try this, try that.

And next thing you know 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 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.

But it takes time.

It takes a coach and 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.

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, okay, I'm 70 years old.

I'm a male, I'm married, I'm a grandfather.

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?

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 new dealer a used car lot, and he, 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.

Go to environments, go to people where you're gonna be in, in, you're gonna be valued most, 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.

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.

If you look at a tree line, 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.

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..

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.

That's 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 you can be your authentic self, right?

And I know 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.

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?

Again, in terms of your personal offer to the world is be your authentic self.

But you need to be real clear.

Who is that?

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, 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, But there can be changes.

I.

Yeah I agree.

General temperament is probably at birth, everything that happens to it afterwards, comes from where you grew up, the people surrounding you, where you grew up, 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, 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 reason it's work is so hard sometimes is because it's because they're so sacrosanct, oh my God, no, 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.

that's great.

What is this person's special offer?

I was taught 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.

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.

And we as Americans always want like the drive through answer.

Just tell me the answer.

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 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.

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.

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 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, I would get it.

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.

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 like what are the facts of your life?

I went through a short list of mine.

What are the facts of your life?

Have you, whatever they are, especially the ones you're not comfortable with.

The ones you don't like, I know one guy, he was like I'm too short.

Too short for what?

Too short for life, I want to, I wanna play basketball.

It's always been too short, 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,

Mm-hmm.

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, 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.

Practicing what's so about yourself as well as what's possible.

practicing that acceptance 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, 'cause it can all get taken away.

All of it.

So yeah, practicing acceptance, practicing that will allow you to practice gratitude, peace, joy, and ambition.

The other thing is 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?

Alright, great.

Alright listeners, thanks for joining us today.

We appreciate it.

Thanks to our guest, Cary Prejean.

Thanks for being with us.

Listeners, be sure to check out those resources online and we'll see you next week.