Kary Oberbrunner: Protect Your Intellectual Property

Abracadabra means I create as I speak. So it's I create as I speak. It came to pass as it was spoken. So I believe that we should be able to have an idea and create it and not wait one to three years, which it takes a patent and wait and pay 20k. Well, I looked at blockchain and I'm like, oh my gosh. If we take an idea and put it on chain, it creates a timestamp and it creates a. It's immutable, which means nobody can ever change the smart contract, even the creator. And so I'm like, whoa, what if we took books, ideas, logos, and we literally turn them into smart contracts? Yeah.

I stamp it on the blockchain. It's my time. It's then marked and can never be taken off.

No.

And if anyone ever tries to do it again, I have the blockchain proof that says I did that book in 2023.

Yes. But here's the thing. I'll coach people to the level that they want. If there's hungry people, I'll tell you what you want to. You want extra coaching and mentoring? I'm going to lay into you on.

USA Today bestseller author. He's a CEO of multiple companies, one being Igniting Souls and the other Blockchain Life. And he specializes in helping entrepreneurs and leaders leverage their intellectual property using blockchain. Blockchain technology, which is something we're going to speak about today. He's a speaker and he teaches entrepreneurship and digital marketing at Cedarville University. Kerry is definitely a very close friend. We have a lot in common and our journeys actually have a very similar foundation in that we were both and built to lead.

Yes.

Which is an executive leadership program. And we shared a coach that kicked our butt and helped us kind of become who we became.

That's right. Truth teller.

A truth teller.

Yeah.

So I want to start there and so first, welcome. I'm excited to have you here today and I want you just to kind of start. Just give us a little highlight of the story your go backwards. Bring us up to like where you are today and kind of talk about how Built to Lead was sort of a catalyst for you to like launch.

Yeah.

Yourself as. As who you are today.

So I started out meeting Chet when I was his kids youth pastor and that was the year 2001. So I mean I was brand spanking new. I had just celebrated my one year anniversary and here I was in this church and I. You know how Chet kind of knows people. People like he can see through People, man, he. He's. He. I think he just said, hey, we should meet. And, you know, we started to meet, and he's like, look, man, you need a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, he just straight up, and he said, I'll coach you for free because you're a pastor. And this was just when he was starting to go and leave his job. So I think the pastors became one of his first, quote, clients. And, man, everything he was sharing, I was, like, writing it down. And I thought, man, this guy's totally different because, you know, in our.

In our world.

Well, Chet. Chet, you know, Chet cusses. And so in our world, that was what, you know, like. Here he was unafraid of anything. If he wanted to wear jeans and a T shirt, he'd do it. If he wanted to cuss, he'd cuss. Like there was no masks or pretense. And now look back, Chad. I remember a lot of times in the beginning with Chet, I'd say, now, just between us. And then I would go into something. And finally, I remember one of them. Early on, he's like. He's like, why are you saying that? And, you know, like, searing truth. But at that point, I kind of had, like, this life. And this life. Like, this life was the. The pastor, which. Which is awesome. But then I had this, like, entrepreneur thing in me that I didn't even know at the time. And. And so he got me interested in my first writing of my book because we both read this magazine called Relevant magazine, and I just remember him constantly just calling me out and being like, you're scared. You're scared. You know? And it all. It all culminated because I had some mild success where you wrote book 1, 2, 3 4. Did my doctorate. I had some mild success. And I'll never forget the day that it was in 20. It was 2011. No, it was 2012. 2012. It's in May. Everything's cool. I get a random call from Chet, and I'm at the church, and I'm like, oh, I better step outside for this one. So I pick up the phone, and he said, oh, I saw you online. You just got back from speaking, traveling. And I said, yep. He's like, is. Is the. Is. Is the church cool with that? I said, oh, yeah. Rick knows everything's cool. He's like, is your wife cool with it? Yep. He's like, is God cool with it? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, I think you're full of crap. Except you know, you know, he said other words. He said, I think you're living off the church's dimension because you're living your own life and you're scared to go pro. And he said, I think you're going and speaking at all these events and telling everyone to live a big game and you're spineless. And I mean, he just starts and I'm like, you know, and then he's. And then he says, you can't take the ring and stay in the Shire. And then he said, when you grow up here, call me back. Boom. And then he hung up the phone. Yes, yes. And so I literally, after that call, I felt like I had a vomit because I knew I would never like, he called me out and I knew I could never go back and like, play the game.

Right.

And so literally within 48 hours, I told my senior pastor. I was like, I'm out.

Wow.

Yeah, I needed that push because I had connected with John Maxwell in 2011 and kind of started to build like this side thing and it was getting to the point where you could tell like there was some tension going on between the church and. Nothing against the church. I loved it, but I hated the meeting part of it. I hated the slow speed.

Were you feeling the dissonance inside too?

I thought I had people fooled. Meaning, like, eh, I'll take this speaking gig, I'll write that book, I'll do that. But I mean, you gotta remember I had three kids, still do, but like six, four and two. And I remember, oh my gosh, like I gotta replace the church income and get my own health insurance and my own retirement and my kids go to the Christian school. Like you start adding it up and then there's. And you know, if you're never an entrepreneur, you're like, whoa, that's a big step to leave. But it's a mindset. And even my new, my newest book called the E Mind how to Think like an Entrepreneur and Gain an Exponential Advantage. Like you literally can think like an entrepreneur in, in my opinion, in any industry. But most people aren't willing to think that way.

Most people aren't thinking.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

So. So you, so you left the Shire?

I left. I told them I was out and they, they said, whoa, you know, we got to transition this well and slow. And I'd been there, I'd been there 12 years.

So you, you are a vision you have. We don't have enough time to go through all the things that you've done and the ideas and the companies and, you know, the mistakes, the learning.

Oh, yeah.

And then the. The hitting a plateau and then going. I mean, I've watched it, and it is truly inspiring. Every time I talk to you, I want to go do more.

Ah.

And I've met people that you've worked with. You brought them to my office, and you showed them my vision and my office and my dream. And I. And I still have people that connect with me.

That's crazy.

It's incredible. But just thinking about, like, your journey overall, right? What has been. Outside of having to, like, figure out your identity, what has been your biggest leadership challenge, personally, for yourself as a growing entrepreneur?

I had two years ago when I started to see this blockchain thing came about. You and I would. Would chat. We'd be like, oh, my gosh, look at NFTs and blockchain and the whole world's changing. And I had a integrator. So, you know, in the EOS world, you have a visionary and an integrator. So I had an integrator and a cfo. Nice people. Two ladies. Now, looking back, I'm like, oh, my gosh. I didn't see it. But at the time, I think they lost faith in my vision. And I think, honestly, the integrator also had too much vision. So, like, in other words. Yeah, yeah, she. What'd you call it?

Vision collision.

Oh, is that really a thing?

Oh, yeah.

I've never heard that. That's good. So I think what. What probably happened is she started to see this blockchain thing and be like, whoa, this is. Whoa, whoa. Crazy stuff. And her and the CFO started talking, and they. Now, looking back, I'm like, oh, my gosh. But they're like, hey, we don't need to do our weekly meetings anymore. That's, you know. And I'm like, you know, they said it as, we want to free you up. You. You keep. You know. But little did I know that they were conspiring to form a competitive company, and they left within a week of each other. Took. I mean, I won't go into the details, because it goes. It goes pretty. It was.

It was a challenge.

It honestly ripped my heart out because I'm a big, trusting guy. Like, if I meet people, I. I give them automatic belief, automatic trust, because I just have had people do that for me. I'm just not, like, I'm a great guy, but, like, I've had people who don't even know me be like, man, God's gonna use you. Like, I believe in you. And that. That was a story back when I struggled with depression and self injury again in Carl changed my life because this stranger believed in me. So like I. I give that gift of belief to everybody. But after that happened, man, I mean, I started to like, pull back. And I. I feel it now, like, looking back, I'm like, wow. I was pretty in a dark spot.

It's interesting though, because that characteristic. I have that too.

You. You believe in trust. Always.

I always try my employees. Everyone.

Yeah.

And it's always served me really well. And people used to come and employees would ask to borrow money.

Wow.

And I would give them, you know, loans. I'd help. I want to help them. You know, I would trust them.

Yeah.

Occasionally you get screwed over.

Yeah.

And people would get so mad at me, like, why do you do. Why do you let people take advantage of me? But I always thought, I'm not going to change who I am.

Interesting.

Because of you.

Interesting. Yeah.

I am who I am. I know who I am. I want to be this way. It has served me well. And occasionally, of course, you're going to get popped.

Yeah.

But who doesn't get popped?

Yeah. Yeah. And what's the alternative? You. You view everyone as a threat and you don't trust them. You're skeptical.

It always rooted in your belief system. Because people have been screwed over.

Yeah.

Now they'll say. And you'll hear them say things like, I don't trust until they prove themselves.

Yeah.

Or until they've earned it.

I know people like that.

And so it's, you know, look, they are. Everyone is rooted in their own.

Yeah.

Way of. We're all very complicated. We're in depths of like, complexity. But everyone has either a worldview that they have authored what they believe, and they know why they believe it. And they can change it.

Yeah.

Because they can be deliberate or they can just be stuck in the way I believe. And you have to earn your trust. And that's how they always are. But you know, the build to lead ways. Leaders trust first and they have to trust first.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I mean you. And I love quotes. I think it was Pascal who said, I give you the gift of these four words. I believe in you. You know, belief is huge. Leaders are believers. People buy belief before they buy you the Johnny Cash. Walk the line. I don't believe you. I mean, all that built to lead stuff. But, you know, I know this interview's. You're interviewing me, but I just got to tell you, I'm proud of you, man. Because I've seen your journey, and, I mean, you've made amazing leaps. And like you said, I brought people to you over 10 years ago when they came to town, and I brought them to, like, key people. Yeah. I brought, like, 30 people to you at one conference. And I. And I said, let's go visit Chad. And, like, they were blown away at your Opus wall because I had taught them this stuff, but now they saw it in real life.

That's funny. So I created a think tank in my conference room. That's right. Basically took everything I'm inside my head, and I put it up on the wall so people can see what I'm thinking.

That's right.

And I'll never forget when I went into our friend Brett Kaufman's.

Yeah.

Building. I walked into his Opus. Opus is the labor of love. It's the big dream in life. And I remember walking in and going, oh, my gosh. Like, I've talked to this guy, and now I see his world, and I'm, like, walking into it.

He, like, manifested the physical space.

Unbelievable. And now he's doing it in the city. And it just, like. It's the power of clarity. Clarity with a leader who's done the hard work and knows where they're going.

That's right.

You know, my way is the highway.

Right.

So, like, it's incredible when you have that. And I think about the ability to have what you have, which is. I've watched you do this, and I. And I. I thought you were going to say. And actually, you did quite. You know, you did kind of say it. I don't know if this is the same exact thing.

Sure.

The example you gave. But you jumped on this blockchain, which is this new technology that is so. It's crazy, the roller coaster. You think, like, the whole world's about to change, then you don't hear anything about it, and then all of a sudden, there's a spike. And then if you're in the world, it's great. But if you're not in the world, you never hear a word about it. Yeah. But it's going to change everything. It is changing.

It is.

And you shifted your entire business.

That's right.

You created another business. Yeah. Blockchain life. And you came over my house. You were so excited. You. And you got me all jacked up.

That's true.

But I remember saying, you.

Excuse me.

What happened to your business?

Yeah.

You're like, I'm changing gears.

Yeah.

And I was like, what did your team think? And you, like, it blew up my team. Is that the same example? Yes, that's the story.

Okay, man, I had a big team. I bet you I had. I want to say. And this could. This includes solid independent contractors. I Bet you had 12 people leave me in eight weeks.

I remember that.

And again, I'm a small company, so that's like probably two thirds of the team.

Right?

And it's not that I don't know, like, what it was. It was probably my vision outpaced them, you know, and maybe I didn't. I mean, I'll own it, you know, and you. You probably struggle with this too. But you see it, you latch on, you start reading and podcast, and then you're probably, like, five laps too far. So what I did, Chad, is I changed even books. So I looked at books. And, you know, you and I both hung out with strategic coach Dan Sullivan's very much into ip, so. Because that IP thing, he kept saying, saying, saying. I'm like, you know what books are ip, Explain.

IP for people.

Intellectual property. So intellectual property. This is some cool statistics. In 1975, which I was born in. 76.

75.

So the year you were born, the S&P 500, the most assets, only 17% were intangible, meaning that 83% of the assets of the S&P 500, all the companies were brick and mortar, land equipment. They were physical. Yeah, yeah, 2020. Okay, so now you go to 2020. Only 10%. So 90% of the S&P 500 is in IP. So that means, like my smartphone right here, my Apple. There's nothing wrong with the parts and pieces, but anyone can reproduce that. The 90% of the value. The phone is actually in all the ip.

But my design, my logo.

Yeah, the patents, all this stuff. And so then if that's true, which it is, then protecting the IP becomes one of the most important things that any company can do, because otherwise you have piracy, theft, counterfeit. Well, guess what? To. To protect your IP with patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Crazy money, right? So I just. I just literally got Easy IP patented because I'm not against pension. But you should only use it, like, for the big dog. $30,000 to patent easy IP4 rejections. Every time they reject it, another 4K, another 4K. Like, I'm telling you, it's. It's like. It's like a. Oh, my gosh. So. But I knew I needed to protect it, because otherwise anyone can just go out and be like, oh, we'll just copy, you know, Uber or Doordash or like you lose everything. So I thought there's got to be a way, because all IP is based on timing. So this is where you'll get. You'll geek out in a second about blockchain because you know, you know blockchain. So think about it. The way that you would protect IP would be like, we filed the patent before you did. You know what I'm saying? That that's how the game plays. Well, now, the. By the way, the word abracadabra. Abracadabra means I create as I speak. So it's I create as I speak. It came to pass as it was spoken. That's how we were that. I believe in a faith. I believe in God. God said, let there be light. And there was light. So I believe God has been. That's the way God. And we're created in God's image. So I believe that we should be able to have an idea and create it and not wait one to three years, which it takes. Takes a patent and wait and pay 20k. Well, I looked at blockchain and I'm like, oh my gosh. If we take an idea and put it on chain, it creates a timestamp and it creates a. It's immutable, which means nobody can ever change the smart contract, even the creator. And yet every device in the world can see it because it's a global distributed ledger. And so I'm like, whoa, what if we took books, ideas, logos, and we literally turn them into smart contracts and created them into a physical asset to a digital asset, which, you know, an NFT is a one of one and you can transfer the digital asset.

So I write a book, I stamp it on the blockchain. It's my time. It's then marked and can never be taken off. And if anyone ever tries to do it again, I have the blockchain proof that says I did that book in 2020.

Yes. And not even. Yeah, 2023, December 5, 5, 55pm and 27 seconds. Like, even patents don't go down to seconds, right? So it's not to replace patents, but it's, you know, anytime in the world, there's friction. Uber taxis. Like hail a taxi. That sounds so lame these days. All I did was combine QR codes with blockchain with, you know, smart contracts. And like, all I did was put technologies together and then put it into a simple process.

And so people can come to you now and they can say, hey, help me protect my ip.

Yeah.

So what's so interesting about this is, is that, you know, you talk about a visionary, you're outpacing, of course, as a visionary. That's the problem for visionaries is they're outpacing their teams, and you got to pull people in with you. But you had such clarity. You had consumed so much information, you had learned so much and then had to network the time, talk to people that you were putting pieces together. Your team can't even fathom. And meanwhile, your company is doing what at this point? Because they're not blockchain company.

You're doing marketing. You're doing so. So book publishing and book promotion. Okay.

So you see the connection because you could. You could publish these books now on blockchain. Yeah. You could be the first person in the world.

Yes. And so it's our differentiation.

And here's what's so incredible about it. I remember talking to you.

Yeah.

And you were going through the biggest struggle. Your career, meaning 12 people leave you in what time frame?

Like eight weeks.

And you were smiling and you said, I can't believe it. You go, I can't believe it. They all left me. But you were so clear on your vision.

Yeah.

That it didn't even phase you. Like, you were fa. You were phased. Cuz you got jolted. But you. You didn't take, like.

I didn't say, like, I'm. I'm full of crap.

You weren't feeling bad. You weren't. You were smiling. I remember the smile and I remember, like, you know, so I think that's the power of, like, someone who knows who they are and knows where they're going.

Yeah.

Everything else becomes noise.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's a boom. But, like, you were able to, like, that's cool. You were able to experience that. And it's so rare because most people will. Will crawl up in a ball and they're in the corner and.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I'm glad you caught that because that's the energy I wanted. And you know, entrepreneurs, in the quiet moments, you do. Like, there's these moments where you're like, am I crazy? Maybe they're, you know, like, oh, and you're definitely crazy. Yeah.

And I think that's what makes it so special and unique, is that you embrace that. What's even more incredible is every team, every leader gets the team that he or she deserves.

Yeah.

And then I remember talking to you.

When you found Sarah. Oh, yeah. Now I have, like, the best. But see, we got to talk about that clarity attract. I say clarity attracts confusion, repels so you're right. I was clear and repelled the wrong people, but I was clear and attracted the right people. And I did change my. Peter Diamandis calls it your mtp, your massive transformative purpose. I went from, we publish books and turn them into 18 streams of income. And notice a little tweak. We publish, protect and promote IP and turn it into 18 streams of income. So in other words, I took books and said, yeah, that's mainly what we do, but it's also all intellectual property. And then, yeah, we turned it into multiple streams of income.

It's incredible how far ahead of just mainstream, because most people don't even know what blockchain or NFTs are.

Yeah.

And.

Or IP, even your IE.

And it's been out. It's been out. But people are so numb.

Yeah.

And sleepwalking in a way. And it's not their fault as much as they are a victim of just the way our society just bombards us with so much distraction and keeps us so focused on things that are not important. Yeah.

Or they think like lazy thinking. They say blockchain is bitcoin. And you and I both know blockchain is like the railroad that bitcoin rides on, but also a lot of other things ride on. I'll give you some quick examples of blockchain. Just really quick. Chipotle had a contamination years ago, and it took him, I guess, eight months to find out that it was an Australian beef farm. But in between there, they had to lay off all kinds of people. They had a horrible marketing campaign where people are getting sick, like eight months of crud. When if they just put their vendors on blockchain, they could have found out that contamination in about eight minutes, if that. Yeah, maybe even eight seconds, I've heard. So you get the point. Like, that's an example. Another example, there's a certain neighborhood that said, you know what we're going to put. They've got potholes everywhere. So what we're going to do is we're going to put all the tax dollars into a dao, a decentralized, autonomous organization. Everyone's going to agree to it. And when you drive over a pothole, you're just going to open the app and press the button. And what that's going to do is it's going to release the tax dollars, send it to the asphalt company automatically. They're going to dispatch the asphalt people and repair the pothole, all with one press of your button. Is that crazy?

How about you buy a ticket to an event and someone shows up and says, that's my seat. And you pull out your phone and say, no, my take, it's an NFT and it's on Blockchain.

Yeah, yeah.

And I approve.

Yeah, you can't fake it anymore.

You know the scary part about what's happening is that people can say what they want. You know, the whole nft.

Oh yeah.

With art. And it became this thing. Well, that was, that was like the version 1.0.

Right.

But everything's becoming digitalized, including money and including, you know, your identity.

LinkedIn. You and I both know this. You connected me with her, Lee, what's her name. Where LinkedIn now is, is basically saying, did you get that degree? You can click it.

You'll be able to certify that you are all licenses, all certifications.

Maybe marriage license, maybe vehicle VIN numbers, for sure.

I mean, look, I could go on LinkedIn today. I can create a profile. I can say I graduated with this. I have this degree. I have this. You would have no clue. I could say I have a. I'm. I, I did Igniting souls. I wrote that book. And you wouldn't know that I did or didn't unless I'm able to verify that.

And here's, I think the new election coming certainly if it's not this series in four years, everything, in my opinion is going to be on Blockchain because it just came out yesterday. You can do all news with AI and can be all fake. So right now we need. There's a book called the Truth Machine and it's all about blockchain. That's what, that's what Blockchain does.

Let me see, like 90 of the Internet eventually is going to be all just AI generated content anyways.

Yeah.

Because why would anyone want to do anything when you could just generate all the content? But here's what's so funny. You know how like you ever meet, you ever think about how everything is the opposite of what it really is? Like people think this, but then like you have your mind just blown. It's opposite. So everyone who says, like I don't want to go near that. I'm not going to put my identity on there, but it's the opposite. You're going to beg to be on it because otherwise you're not going to prove you're you.

Wow.

So when you're going to want to be able to say, yeah, this is mine right on this.

If you're pass like you lose your passport, you just throw show your digital wallet and there it Is.

And imagine you don't have that.

Yeah.

What happens if you're traveling and you can't get out of the country? And, you know, it's a really scary thing because you can see how things can unfold there. And we don't know what it will look like. We don't know what kind of a version of it will be. But, like, it's already here, it's coming. It's already being used.

I feel like the world's going so fast. And you're right. Blockchain is a way to bring trust back. Right.

So how do leaders. I guess just to shift the conversation back real quick, how do leaders navigate through. Figure out, like, do I. Do I need to call this guy and, like, start protecting my. My stuff? Like, is it something where it's an urgent thing, or do you think there's just a lot of time and you don't want to get.

Yeah.

Caught behind the wall?

Or here's a great example. There's a guy named Chris Maxson who is. Does amazing fireplaces. Like, he's in Minnesota. He's got a great fireplace company. He was having a chat. Not with me, with our friend Lisa Cine. You know, Lisa. So there's Chris, Lisa, and. And me. And Chris is saying, you know, I don't think I need this IP stuff. And. Right. And I don't care. I mean, I'm not pushing anything. And Lisa says, do you have anything unique in your company? He's like, oh, yeah. We've developed this glass that you could actually lick. And we developed it because with fireplaces, kids do crazy stuff. They'll put their hands on it. They'll lick a glass fireplace. And imagine if. So he said, we developed this technology. And then she said, do you think other people are copying you? And he's like, probably. So then she says, this is like reverse ip. She says, okay, since it's not protected and you created and you have such a generous heart, you're letting other people use it all. What if they go and get the IP protected and shut you down? And then he said. She said, how soon would you be out of business? He's like, a month. So then he's like, I get it. So another. You see what I'm saying?

That's incredible.

Is that a good story?

That's incredible because you got to be first. You got to be first. The game.

Yeah. And you might have this. Oh, anybody can use my stuff. Okay. What if they take your stuff and block you out of your own Lane? Easy IP 97 bucks.

That's unbelievable. Why are you doing it so cheap?

Scale. We know that. Listen, our target isn't like one. One author who's gonna do one book. We have an enterprise level. The enterprise level. Most people are buying it. It's. It's $3,100. And what we do is we create their own token, their own. Their own IP portal and give them free 50 smart contracts. So that's kind of like.

And you do everything nuts for them.

They can literally take a photo of their idea. They could draw something out at. At a restaurant, take a photo, upload it to the portal. We take care of everything.

It's incredible.

Is that crazy? So, like, literally, you and I, we.

We.

We have ideas all the time, right? So you don't have to sit there and like, fill out all this stuff. We have a. We have literally take a picture.

When it comes to being in court. A patent versus. Yeah, what's the difference?

So if you go to EasyIP today, our website, click FAQs, we have documentation of how now smart contracts are being at the same level. Remember with. Remember, remember in the year 2000, prior to the year 2000, you had to literally sign everything, right? It was called a wet signature. Like, you want to do business with somebody, they have to FedEx you something overnight. You got to sign it. Now you're. So what do they do in the year 2000, they passed the Digital Signature act, which basically said as long as certain parameters are in place, DocuSign, sign now, all that stuff. So imagine what it did to business. It opened up a whole new world. That's how smart contracts are right now. Smart contracts are literally on this precipice where people. It's going to get so weird where. Where you want to. You want to go buy a property. You and I both know this. You'll put on the goggles, you'll take a tour in the metaverse of the property. You'll literally open up your MetaMask wallet. You'll literally press send and it'll.

So how are people doing it today if they don't have something like what you, what you created? Like, if I want to do a smart contract today, what do I go? I have to go get an attorney to. To make us. I'm going to pay. What?

I mean, you're going to pay a ton of money. And you know, the learning curve for right now, web three. It takes some time.

Yeah.

And that's time where. If it's not your unique ability, why are you doing it right? So could someone go, like, do Easy IP themselves? Sure, but it's the same thing. Like, could you go sell a house yourself? Sure. Like, but do you want to? I'd rather do my unique ability and then have.

And it's not so easy. You know, at the end of the day, you might be able to do it. Yeah, but it doesn't mean you can do it.

Right, Right? Or yeah, yeah. And you got to look at the learning curve. So what we did is we, we basically said, this is our one idea that we want to patent. And again, I have Keegan, Caldwell, Caldwell ip. They're the fastest growing law firm. I didn't think they'd take me as a client because I thought they do. They make their money on patents. Why would they patent something that actually says you don't need a patent, but they love it?

Do you not need a patent?

It's. So we say that. And I encourage people to watch the TEDx talk because the TEDx talk takes this concept and, like, I had to bring it, like, way down.

Okay.

But we say it's a first layer and a fast layer. Okay, let me give you a quick story. And I got a few more minutes, but let me give you a quick story about how this all makes sense. This is a true study that was done in 2006. The American Society of Landscape Architects, they took a preschool teacher and they said, look, they wanted to test fences. So they said, we're going to ask you to bring your class to two playgrounds in a busy city. One has no fence. One has a fence, and we want to observe the kids. So they had this great playground equipment. But at the first playground, preschoolers, no fence, all the kids huddled around their teacher. They were scared. They're like, you know, safety cars, strangers. They just huddled. Nobody played. Nobody was creative. Right. Second playground, it's got this nice fence around it. Not a wall where you can't even see, like a patent, but they have a nice fence, good height. The kids loved it. They played up and down the slide, swings, the whole thing. That's what Easy IP is. Easy IP is basically saying, look, I got an idea and I'm going to put a fence around it. Not a wall, like a pad. You can do that.

Right.

But I'm going to create a little fence. And what that little fence does is it tells people. You can't just come in here and take whatever you want.

Right.

So what it actually does is it increases the value. Get this cheddar. We have a slide. Now that we've given to people on their slide deck. And look at how fun this would be. Imagine you're at a conference, speaking, you're giving away your gold. And you know, everyone in the audience could be a competitor, a vendor recording you. And we've seen this where people literally are going, click, click every slide. So here's what we do. We say we have a slide that says something like, it's a pleasure to be speaking to you today. Feel free to take pictures of all my slides. I know you might anyway, just know that every single slide has been protected by blockchain technology and smart contracts. And then it has the QR code right there. And when they. When they click that QR code, it goes right to their IP portal. Is that crazy? Because what it does is it gives the speaker a ton of confidence and they say it in a fun way. They're not like, sure, you know, but. But they're like, you know. So everything is protected by blockchain and punishable by a court of law. Right, let's begin. And then. And then they just have a ton of fun. At every one of our books, you flip it over, of course, is the upc and it's got. It's got. Powered by Easy IP QR code.

Do you coach people when people come to, or you just basically process? Or it's like, we're going to put you through the process, give us all your stuff, we'll go do it. But are people, like, interested in learning from you? And do you have time to.

So we just kicked off. We literally created the product, but we call it Easy IP Enterprise Coaching Community. It's a Slack channel and it's a monthly zoom. And I literally go in there and teach them IP hygiene best practices, how to leverage it. Couple quick clients. Boomer. Do you know Gary Boomer? Remember that name? He was in coach, but he's got a CPA firm. They do CPA training. So he said, take all of our IP and put it on blockchain. So now he created the Boomer Knowledge Network.

That's great.

So before I tell people, there's really three phases. It's actually IPO identification, protection and optimization. You first have to identify your ip. Like, most people don't even know what it is. Like, oh, my gosh. The way you set up this podcast could technically be ip. Like, David's helping you, but you got like this camera. This the way you have lights, the way you might have, like an intro outro. Like, that's a unique process. So it's ip.

So for creators Creators, but creators who are creating outside of a book. But like, people, you know, like, if you look at what YouTube's doing and if you look at what speakers are doing.

Yeah.

Is that their. It's their ip because their content. But. But how do they. How do they protect that? Because if someone else is saying it, do I have a case against you?

It's got to be unique. So you and I know Gino Wickman, we know Eos. Eos is actually a very good IP protected company. They take it serious. Disney, Verizon, there's certain companies out there that you get a reputation where you're like, you don't want to mess with them. Right. And actually that's what you want. You want people to be like, wow, they give so much gold. But you don't want to mess with them. Otherwise you get people. The story is. This is kind of funny, but the story is that in the coaching world, nobody can protect IP because everyone's stolen from each other.

Is it stolen or. I'm learning and I don't know how. Like, my whole. My whole thing as a leadership coach built to lead strategic, coach us. I have.

Yeah.

That's all I know. And so I'm talking about things. And I always will say chat or Dan Sullivan or. Yeah. Or Gina Wickman. But, like, everyone does learn it from someone.

But listen, you were able to exit Restart and your. Your other company as well. Choice recovery. Why? Because you had unique processes within there. You might have learned something from someone else, but as a whole, you had a unique process.

But the coaching world who's like, I'm stealing his contents. Yeah. Is it stealing if I give credit to someone?

It's not stealing if you get credit. But here's where. If you charge, then that's where you, like, could other people create easy ip? Sure. But where they can't is then to take it and then go out as a seller.

Right.

You see what I'm talking about?

Coaches have a different problem. Right. Because they're not giving anything. They're talking about something.

Yeah.

Teaching something. So it's a little bit of a different.

It's fine. Quoting. But then you could say, like, how does any book ever get. Ever get a copyright?

So do people get around this by saying, like, in the EOS world, you have L10 meetings. You just don't call it an L10 meeting because they're protecting the L10.

They are protecting the L10 name. And when they use L10, they have a TM or an R if they technically filed.

So I know we're running out of time, so one more question here. So 1. I appreciate you sharing. That is really cool. I love, I love talking to you about that stuff. What is your advice? Guidance. You know, you have so many people today with self education now being such a big deal because there are so many creators creating so much free content.

Yeah.

You could literally go to college in a way, on university online for free versus going and spending 100.

Yeah.

So when it comes to how many entrepreneurs, how many people filed for, for, for businesses during COVID I mean, it's. The world is going towards. I don't want to be an entry level employee. And those jobs are slowly going away anyways. When it comes to leadership, when it comes to coaching, have you always been coached? Have you always had mentors? Have you always had.

I've always sought out people. I've. I've been teachable. And I'm not saying I'm humble or like, I always take it. Right. But I've always, I've always, especially males. I've always, like, wanted that father figure, mentor. I don't know, encouragement, belief, kick your ass. I mean, yes, I think I do respond well to those types of coaches. I like a coach who's tough. I know not everyone does. Some people are actually turned off by that.

You're. Because you've coached a lot of people. Yeah. Were you tough?

You know, I tend to be a belief coach. I probably need to get a little tougher. I'm way tougher on myself. Way tougher than, Than people.

Right.

You know, like even my students.

To the point where Chet will say hard on self, not down on self.

I need to probably step it up. But here's the thing. I'll coach people to the level that they want. If there's hungry people and they want it. I have those students now where, yeah, everybody gets a certain grade. I'm not the type of professor where it's like, I don't give any A's or B's, or you gotta like. But I'll tell you what, you wanna, you want extra coaching and mentoring, I'm gonna lay into you. So, you know, I'm a fan of Jesus. He had his 12 and then he had his 10. 3.

Do you ever wonder what would happen if you had not met Chat?

Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I mean, I'd be some complaining guy that would like, be a victim.

It's incredible how blessed we are when you have someone in your life that can be a true teller or. Oh, yeah, that's why I think the mentoring, coaching world, it'll just become it's something that's necessary because no one's doing it by themselves.

That's true. Oh, my gosh.

There's too much.

It's just.

You can't do it by yourself.

Yeah, I'm a different person.

It's incredible. Really cool. Listen, I appreciate you joining me. Hey, man, so much fun talking.

Can't wait to get you on my show, too.

Yeah, you got it. Best of luck. Nothing but health, success, love for you, your family, and for your businesses. And as you know, you can always count on me for anything. I will always be there for you if you need help with anything. And again, thank you so much for being here.

Awesome show. Thanks, Chad.

All right. Thank you.

So good.