 So, do you feel like you need to protect your writings, you know, put copyrights on it, make sure that people don't spread it in places you don't want, making sure that you're being compensated by it, making sure people know it's you and all that stuff? Well, it's up to you, of course, and you might have your own priorities and stutter, but I want to share with you why I don't protect my writings. Now, it might sound like a bold move and let me just say what I mean, is my writings, all my blog posts, even my books are all put into the creative commons, meaning anybody can take my writing, any part of my writing, all of my writing, and use it on their own website, use it anywhere without even telling me. Now, there are multiple types of creative commons licenses, and I always use the most liberal type that I can in whatever setting it is, and I know I think a few of my books might have been published with a certain creative commons license going forward when I republished my books starting next year, they're all going to be as liberal as possible. But people can take my writing and even call it their own, and not even tell me. People can even take my writing, call it their own, make money on it, and never even tell me, and I'm okay with it. Now, let me tell you why. That sounds so stupid, George. You're a business coach. I'm just supposed to think about monetizing the opportunities of your content and all that stuff. I don't know why. I think it's actually a smarter move than being so afraid, being so fearful, always having to protect, protect, protect your ideas. Okay. Now, I'm not talking about product ideas and things like that, that may have a different priority and a different strategy, but I'm talking, let's talk specifically about writing on the internet, online writing. Okay, so here is why I allow anybody to take any of my writings, blog posts, articles, whatever, call it their own, monetize it, don't even have to tell me, borrow it, don't even have to tell me. Why is that better? A couple of reasons why. One is that it's less work for me, right? If you're going to take my things and spread it, you know, you don't have to ask me. I don't want to be keep on approving, oh yes, you can do that. Oh yes, you can't do that. So first of all, if someone's going to spread my content, almost always, they're going to be grateful enough, or they're going to have respect enough to credit me to say, oh yes, this was from George Cowell. So then I don't want to have to say yes, you can do that. No, you can't. No, just yes, don't ask me. Okay, just do it anywhere you want. Secondly, all right, what that does is actually, it's fueled my creativity over the years. I've been doing this un-copyright stuff, creative commons stuff since 2014 when I started doing content consistently. I first learned about this from Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, zenhabits.net or .com. Anyway, you could Google Zen Habits. He un-copyrights all his content and he has done that for years and he has a huge audience as a result of being so liberal about it. He has a, you know, not saying that's the only reason he also writes well, but he makes plenty of money from his programs and his services and his membership sites and all that stuff. So a couple of things I want to say, for those of you who are afraid of protecting your writing, you might be making a couple of assumptions that maybe I can bust those myths for you. Let's see, let's see if this helps. One is that you're making an assumption that you can make money from your writing. Okay, so let's get really clear about something here. Have you ever made money from your writing? I mean, I'm not talking about $50 here, $50 there. I'm talking about money that you could even call a part-time income. So let me, let me just, I have four self-published books. Each of those four was an Amazon bestseller during the first two, three weeks of publishing. Amazon bestseller status, in case you didn't know, is kind of a sham. A lot of people say, oh, I'm in Amazon bestseller. What they don't tell you is it was a bestseller for two or three weeks in the particular Amazon category that they chose. It is nowhere near, like you could sell 100 books in a day and be an Amazon bestseller. Did you know that? If it's in a particular category, 100 books, you can get, if you're friends to buy 100 books, kindle in a day. Okay, so it's really easy to become an Amazon bestseller, really easy compared to New York Times bestseller, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, other types of mainstream bestseller. That's really hard, and that's, you know, if someone says they're, you know, New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller, that's much more legit. Anyway, so each of my books has been an Amazon bestseller. Okay, so my books have sold more than most people's books. So many books are published basically every day and every year for sure. And my books have sold better than most people's books. Now, how much money do I make from my books? Average it out? Average it out. I still make some money. Average it out, I would say I make about from the four books, I would say between $50 to $80 a month. Let me say that again. $50 to $80 a month after having self-published for Amazon bestsellers. Okay, just so you know, nobody is making money anywhere close to a living from selling books. Now, when I say nobody, I mean practically nobody. Of course, there's always the few people and some of those few people try to sell you a program on how you can make money writing books and writing. Now, you might say, well, what about the medium.com partner program? You're right. Like George, aren't you in the medium.com partner program? Can't you make money from medium monetizing your medium articles? Okay, let me tell you, I've been in the medium partner program for two years, something like two years. And I earn about $30 a month, $30 a month from the medium partner program. Okay, one dinner for me and my wife. Okay, relatively cheap dinner here in San Francisco anyway. $30 a month. Now, let me get clear. One of my, the $30 a month mostly comes from one of my articles that went viral. And then all the other hundreds of articles make me a few cents per month. Put it all together. How much money do I make from my writing? Less than $100 a month and I have written over a thousand articles. Do you really have the fantasy that you can make money from writing? Do you understand the practicalities of all this? Do you know of anybody who is making money from their writing other than the person selling you a program on making money from writing? Anyway, the people who, the people who really make money from their writings are selling online courses about how to make money from writing. No, look at it. The person who sold you the program on how to make money writing, how are they making their money? Where's, maybe they're literally making a few dozen dollars a month from their writings, their Amazon books and their medium partner program. They work so damn hard and they make a few dozen dollars a month, maybe a few hundred dollars a month. Even people who are really, really good make a few hundred dollars a month from their writings. All that effort, all that effort. If they took 20% of that effort and put it towards creating online courses and learning how to sell online courses, they would be making thousands of dollars, not hundreds of dollars. So come on, can we just get realistic here and go, are you serious about making money from writing? Seriously? What's, what's, what got you into that mindset? I'm really, really curious. Who sold you on the idea? And let me see the case studies. Let me see the statistics and let me ask that person, if you took that same amount of effort and created online courses and just spend a little bit of effort on learning how to promote online courses through joint ventures, for example, and through Facebook ads, you'll probably be making 10 times the amount of money. Same effort. So what is writing really about, if not to make money? Writing is about growing an audience. It's not about making money. Let's get, I'm a business coach. I'm very pragmatic minded. I have 10 years of experience running a successful content based business. I've had 10 years of full time income selling ideas, selling writings or, in my case, online courses and coaching programs and membership sites and, you know, group programs, things like that, and selling writing, like I said, right. I had a podcast for a year back in 2014. I shut it down because it's also really hard to get traction with podcasting, but I actually might start it again because now that I have an audience. It makes more sense to have a podcast once you have an audience. Anyway, long story short, we'll talk about that at some other point. You can, of course, grow an audience with a podcast, but we'll talk about that some other point. But back to this, what is writing for in the business sense? How will it grow your income by growing your audience? When you do a good job with writing, you could do a good job with promoting your writing, you'll grow your audience, the people who actually read your writings on a regular basis. As your audience grows, then you have more monetization opportunities. Probably selling online courses is the easiest way to make money. Once you have an audience, you can also sell consulting, coaching, membership sites, I mean, group programs, that kind of thing, webinars, whatever, but not from selling writing. Okay, so therefore, why do I not protect my content? Because I want everyone to spread my content everywhere on their own website, on any other buddy's website. Now, like I said, 99.9% of those who spread my content are going to be respectful enough to say that was from George Cowell. Now the .01% who doesn't, who claims it as their own, here's what happens. Why are my people are so afraid? Oh, what do people call my content their own? You don't credit me. That's like such a tiny percentage. Are you going to live your life in fear of that tiny percentage who might call your content their own? I mean, there's much worse things in life than, ooh, someone called my content their own. Okay, so a couple things of why you're fearful. One is that you don't, you have forgotten that your potential for creativity is unlimited. That's why you're fearful. You're afraid because you're like, oh, someone called my content their own. That means I have a limited amount of ideas and someone took one of mine. Of course, if someone took, I had a limited number of air filters in my house. If you took one of mine and I would be, I would be sad or angry that you took my air filter without my permission. Right, but ideas are not air filters or, you know, anything else that's physical ideas are ethereal. They come from a place that nobody knows where it comes from. Is it the brain? Is it spirit? Right. I think it's a mixture of both. But you have an unlimited number of ideas within you. Do you realize that? If you remind yourself of that truth with a capital T that I have an unlimited number of ideas within me. And the more I practice creating content, the more I find that to be true, which is what I've experienced and which is what you'll experience. The more you create, the more you realize, oh, yeah, gosh, I have even more to create. Then you realize, well, who cares if someone takes something that I have an unlimited amount of? Do you see what I mean? Money is limited. I mean, of course, money is unlimited in the sense that we can make as much money. But if someone took some of my current money, right, and without my permission, you know, that's, well, I could still make more money. But it's a little different than when someone takes my idea. I can still make my, make some ideas right now. Making money is a little harder because it requires someone else to pay me to make money. But making ideas, I can do that all day long in my closet or anywhere. You see what I mean? So your ideas are unlimited. So why are you afraid of someone taking one of your ideas? Come on. You have unlimited ideas, right? Let's set it free. So when you stop protecting ideas, that energy of protection is the energy of fear. Protection makes sense in certain contexts of life, like physical objects, right? And other other things, your time is limited. So someone steals your time. You got to be angry about that or you got to be very protective of your time. That's limited. But ideas are unlimited. So don't protect your ideas. Just set it free. And then when you set it free, you realize, oh my God, this giant weight is lifted off your shoulders and you can, you have energy to create even more ideas. What's why I'm so prolific? I create ideas all the time. I have more ideas now. Once I set my ideas free, right? Once I stop protecting and just gave it away and go, anyone wants to take it? Go for it. No worries because I have more, okay? When I say anyone can take it, I am actually reinforcing my subconscious that I have unlimited amount of ideas. It's abundance thinking without really calling it that, but it's true, okay? So ever since I set it free in 2014, I have, every year I have accumulated even more ideas than I have time to flesh out. I now have my idea catalog, my idea sort of list is like thousands. It's like so many ideas that I can't even have time to flesh it out. All these ideas I have more ideas than I can do in a lifetime. So back to this idea. If someone takes your content and spreads it, you are growing your audience. Like I said, 99% of them will credit you. The 1% who doesn't? Okay, let me just talk about the 1% of bad actors who say it's their own. You know what happens? Their audience can tell that they stole someone's content. Why? How? Because it's not their own voice. Now, if they continually steal your content, someone's going to find out and someone's going to tell you, like, hey, did you know that so-and-so keeps publishing your content as their own? Trust me, someone will eventually tell you and then you can go to that person and say, hey, I'm really grateful that you are really into my content. But it would be, I'd be so grateful if you could mention that it's mine, right? Honestly, it's never going to happen. I mean, it's never happened to me in six years of sending my content free. Why would it happen to you? It's not going to happen. Why are you living your life based on the fear of something that will almost never happen? And even if it does happen, it's no big deal because you have unlimited ideas. Okay, so let your content be liberated so that your audience can grow. And so that you'll have more creativity to create more ideas and to grow your audience even further. And as your audience grows, you have unlimited monetization opportunities. You can sell courses on your ideas. You can sell, you know, coaching programs, group programs, consulting programs, whatever it is, events, you can sell all kinds of stuff. You can sell mugs, t-shirts, whatever you want. I mean, it's really, really, you can get sponsorships. You can, I mean, there's so many ideas once you, once you have an audience, set your content free, stop trying to protect, stop thinking in the way that's really limiting you. It's really limiting you, your audience growth and your business. So I hope this is helpful. I'm George Kao. I'm always open to your comments and your questions. And I'm just going to go ahead and see if anybody has commented on this Facebook live, which I'm making right now. And those of you watching this later, I always, always appreciate seeing your comments below. And let me check this out here if there's any comments. Thanks to those who are joining me, Shri, Stacey, Captain David, Alessia, Johannes, Alisa, I, Alisa, Caroline, May, Greit, Anna, Jill and Peter and Stacey, thanks for your comments here. Yeah, so appreciate it. I will see you in the next video. If you don't know me, I'm George Kao. I love talking about building a business from a place of real heart and spirit, where you feel like you're truly free. And you also bring the kind of real transformation to your audience. So I will see you some other time. See you in the next video.