Latest / A Lifetime to Learn / Worthy of Trademark Protection: Why Women Undervalue Their Brands (and How to Fix It) with Whitney Bower

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Worthy of Trademark Protection: Why Women Undervalue Their Brands (and How to Fix It) with Whitney Bower · A Lifetime to Learn

• Whitney Bower The biggest problem that I see in my practice is they didn't read the agreement. Or even bigger and more often, there wasn't an agreement. And so I know that seems like, you know, 101, but it there's a lot of times, and this goes back to our programming, sometimes we are afraid to ask someone to sign an agreement because we don't want to be a bother. And I that sounds so silly. It's going to sound silly. If you're twenty-five and listening to this podcast, you do not get that because you didn't have that programming. But there are people in an era that and I see those people are my become my clients that they didn't want to be a bother and they didn't want to be seen as difficult. So they didn't want to either redline the contract or they didn't want to ask that there be a contract in place. And I'm like, this is for the protection of everyone. Everyone. Leslie Zanoff This is a space where presence meets purpose, where we explore the moments that shape us. From entrepreneurs and change makers to women in leadership. It's about learning out loud. Together with honesty and humor. We're luminaries with real stories remind us how to live by our own rules. Because progress doesn't come from having all the answers, it comes from staying open. And we've got a lifetime to learn. I'm your host, Leslie Zanoff. Let's get started. Whitney Bower is a trademark attorney who has been licensed to practice law since 2003. She runs a boutique law practice, Bower Legal, focused exclusively on brand protection, helping everyone from online entrepreneurs and content creators to established brick and mortar businesses secure federal trademark registration for their names, logos, and slogans. Whitney spent a decade running her own creative business before shifting her focus to helping others protect their business. Which this gives her a first-hand understanding of what founders and creators are building and what's at stake if it's not legally protected. Whitney is especially passionate about serving social media-based entrepreneurs, a group she believes the traditional legal world has been slow to understand and serve. Whitney, welcome to A Lifetime to Learn. Whitney Bower Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's so good to see you and good to be a part of this. Leslie Zanoff Yes, I I'm so excited. I have really been looking forward to this conversation because first of all, I love following you on social media and it's been a year or two I guess since I started following you. But you're insightful, you're a great storyteller. You give a lot of advice and tips. And for me personally, after owning a magazine and then starting a meditation business and mindfulness speaking, it's really somewhat of an online business and it can feel like the wild west, but I know that laws still apply. So Whitney Bower What's fun about this conjunction and this connection is that meditation is really I credit meditation and mindset and that work that I've done for a very long time now with why I'm right here, right now. Meditation is what led me to my niche in trademark. And it really started, I would say it started my spiritual awakening for sure, because I was raised a little Baptist girl and we weren't allowed to breathe to ourselves, you know. That was sinful. Which is so silly when I think about it now. But that that for me started in about 2018 and it's been such a fun journey because it's also been the journey that I've taken to specialize in what I'm doing career wise now. So it's fun to follow you and hear your insights about meditation and I know that that's your specialty and that's really what kind of started really the trajectory of where I am right now, kinda knee deep in the middle of it, but but that started for me in about 2018. So it's cool connection there. Leslie Zanoff I didn't realize that. I did see on your website that you love meditating. I like, this is so great. I didn't realize that. And also, yes, I do tell everyone that meditation is not a religion. So Whitney Bower It's not it's actually not not contrary to what we were told in Sunday school. It's not it's not that. So Leslie Zanoff That's right. Okay, well I wanna talk about the biggest mistakes or concerns. We'll just jump into it that you see content creators making with online businesses. Whitney Bower I am a woman so I tend to work with a lot of women. I do have some male clients, but comparing the two, I have primarily women and I think because in this space I'm always talking about how much we value ourselves and I think that that's the first problem. That's what's happening. That's every time someone comes to me and they're in a big legal pickle, they have not valued themselves from the beginning. That the beginning was where they were like, mm and usually it starts with for for creatives and entrepreneurs and founders, it starts with them saying, Am I enough to to be worthy of protecting? And a lot of times, especially with women, they'll have a killer bang up business or product or thing that they're launching and they don't value their creation enough from the beginning because there's some programming and some self-worth in there. Some issues that make them say, I don't know if this is going to do anything and then they build this entire business without the legal protections that they needed. And then when they do eventually not I mean sometimes it's within the first year, they'll blow up and they'll go viral for something or their business will go crazy and they'll end up having a legal issue because from the beginning they didn't have faith in what they were putting out there. Enough faith to protect it. And so I think that's probably the biggest issue is that we have a lot of prepackaged programming that says, Are you going to be able to do that, sweetie? And the answer is always yes, because you wouldn't start it unless you could do it. Whatever the it is. But that's the biggest thing I see with women is that they're second guessing themselves and they're doubting themselves and they don't know if what they're doing is going to be big enough to be worthy of protection. And that's just not true. If it's if it's worthy of trying and putting into the world, then you need to start on the right legal foot and protect it. So Leslie Zanoff Oh my gosh, Whitney, that's huge. I mean that insight and you're absolutely right. I think so many times it's like, Well, that's a fun little side hustle. That's a that's cute. Go try the, you know, try the online thing or questioning, are you really an influencer? What are you trying to do or be or you know, so I can absolutely see that and man that starts that's a deep seated, you know, feeling and thought that for sure. I I didn't even think about that. So yeah. Yeah, we're starting there of like believing in what you're doing and get going. And protect yourself from the beginning. Whitney Bower Yes. Well, I call it the farmers market mentality. There's so many of us, I'm included, I've been guilty of this too, that have a farmers market mentality that like, I'm just gonna sell my little jams and jellies at the farmers market when in reality you're creating something that has the potential. I I always say I want you to shift your mindset from a farmers market to Neiman Marcus. Like I want you to start your business or your product or your service or your podcast or any of that thinking. That this could be on the shelves at Neiman Marcus. And so I need to treat it like that, whether it's a product or a service, even if it's a service, I need to treat it like it has potential so that it can grow into what it can be instead of treating it like it's like we have to minimize it and downplay it. And I think that comes from our programming for sure, but it's time to work through it. It's time to push through it and work through it. Because I have that same programming. I grew up in that generation where you know, I mean, a lot of young entrepreneurs fascinate me and I love watching their rise if they haven't grown up in that environment like I have. I you know, I'm Gen X, telling my age over here, but I'm Gen X or maybe I'm on the cusp, like maybe I'm in the middle. Anyway, our programming was different. And and so for me when I have clients in their early, you know, twenties and thirties, I'm like, wait a minute, what's that like? You were raised with a little bit different programming, so you don't tend to minimize yourselves. And especially with these girls in their, you know, mid-twenties, I'm like I am amazed and in awe and just it could because I have loved watching the absence of what I think is that programming that we had when we were younger that's Just stay small and don't make noise and don't be seen. And and you know, we had to really remain small. The girl women today that that don't have that, crazy. Like the businesses that I'm seeing come out from these young girls. When I say young girls, twenty-five, thirty, I'm like what? And they're killing it and it's awesome. So we all need to have that kind of energy going into our projects. Leslie Zanoff Well, and I've heard you talk about just what you're saying that sometimes women or anybody on the online business side, the content creators, will say, Well, I'll just wait until my business grows to worry about trademarking or maybe even establishing a business from the beginning. But talk about that. Just because you own the URL, you may not doesn't mean you own the business necessarily. Whitney Bower I think I just think there's so many misconceptions about the protection aspect of what you're bringing to light. There's and there haven't been a lot of conversations about it and there aren't a lot of people that talk about it, number one, because especially on socials, it's not that much fun to talk about people are like, why you know, why do we have to talk about the legal part and the and here's the deal. I I really my goal every time I talk about it is always to shift the framework. Because I want to shift to where legal becomes empowering, to where I and I'm trying to think of an example that I can give without talking about an actual client. But I have a client out in out west, out in California, and she started a pod in an in an online education course and we we got her trademark, we had this big battle and it it watching the process of her go going from not knowing if this thing was gonna work And then really getting a hold of all the protections in place around it. We're now protected. And now it's blown up. And her community she's not necessarily having to please the community, but the community, there are some imitators. And so she it's so fun to watch because she's empowered and she's like, Well, I know that they can't do that because I have this. And then she has stuff. I mean, it's it's been fun to watch the process of her going from like I don't know if this is gonna work to being fully protected, fully empowered to do run other lines of revenue through her trademark, do licensing deals. I've been I'm like, this is exactly what I want for all of the people that I work with to increase their revenue through licensing deals. I mean, just to take these and these things that we're doing and use them as tools to empower them to from what they're doing. That's the goal anyway. But Leslie Zanoff It's funny. Well yeah, and then you can kind of relax a little bit too, knowing that I'm able to grow my business, I'm able to scale, I'm able to do my best work because I am protected. And I think you're the perfect person to to help people and educate, not only of course because you're a lawyer, but you had your own creative business for a decade, right? Whitney Bower So while I was raising my son, I have a son that's almost twenty-four, but when while I was raising him years back when he was in elementary and on into high school, I was in the wedding industry and I was a wedding photographer. I was fully licensed as a lawyer and actually while I was practicing law I was not doing this kind of law. I was doing commercial civil defense for a big building law firm and still a great group of people and I loved them but I was miserable in the actual type of practice that I was doing. So got into photography and then got into the wedding industry and my kid was little and so I ran a creative wedding photography business and shot high end weddings for about ten years. And it's actually crazy that I did that. It's like a whole other world ago because it was over ten years ago that that happened that I've been out of that. But But it did teach me a lot about contracts and relationships with vendors and it was it was a a fun and interesting time in life, a totally different time. And then a little over ten years ago, I was like, Okay, it's it's kinda it's time to go back to my roots and get back to the law 'cause I've always loved the law and I love love exploring different parts of that. But when I came back into practicing, I was like, I'm gonna do something that's fun. I don't wanna deal with you know, people that have accidents and are hurt and that kinda no. I wanna do something fun. And so now I work with founders and there's nothing more fun than working with founders because they're doing a thing and it's exciting and we get to do it together. And I get to be a small part of my favorite favorite thing is is going through the naming process with someone because it's like being invited to help someone name their baby, you know, but this is a a business a business baby, you know, and I get to help people name their business babies and as much as they probably get frustrated that the naming process because we have to clear it and it needs to be legally sound, meaning there needs to be no one else in the market, in their same market using that name, all that stuff. We have to clear it. But I think it's fun. And I whenever it's it's especially fun when I get to see it in play. I get to see those trademarks in the wild and them using them and them growing their brands. I have a a company right now out of also out of California, a different company that I went through that naming we about three years ago went the naming process and it's now I mean, she's fully international. She's in I think seven or eight countries now. And it's been so fun to watch her little logo and her name that we really worked on protecting together plastered all over these huge event venues. I'm like, that is crazy and awesome. And that's why I do whatever I love it. Yeah. Leslie Zanoff I love it. And yes, like you're in from the beginning on the naming. And right, and you know, starting or filing for a trademark can take a year. I've heard you say that, right? I mean or it's a longer process than somebody might think. Whitney Bower It's a process because what people don't realize is that it's not you're not it's not like a rubber stamp situation. The the concept of really developing your brand and starting a brand and all of that stuff. The people think about the actual branding like you know your graphic designer and your web and then all that's so important. It really sets the tone for the essence of your entire brand. But the step before that is so important making sure what you're You're naming the baby, the business baby is usable. It it has longevity. And by longevity I mean you're not gonna get sued in five years. 'Cause have I seen that? Yes. I've seen people that have come to me after, you know, that maybe had a business that ran for ten years or so that have gotten, you know, a large company will come and threaten to sue over their name because they were operating off of someone else's trademark and That's the kind of stuff that's not fun, but that's my hope in being more vocal about these legal things that people don't like to talk about is that people at least know about them and can can do it from the beginning so they don't aren't ten years in having to rebrand, you know. Leslie Zanoff Oh my gosh. Well yeah, and that's I mean that's expensive for starters, but tell me also, well I know it's a great idea to get this going in the first place, but what are some reasons or why somebody might be refused a trademark? I know you've talked about that some I've heard you on on Instagram. Why Whitney Bower I think there's there's a lot of reasons that it can be refused. And I think people don't know about the fact that when you file for registration of your trademark, you are actually filing and your application is assigned to another lawyer at the USPTO. So there's another lawyer that is essentially you're looking at the application and But that lawyer represents the USPTO. They don't represent you. And so they can't give you any legal advice and they can't tell you what to do or what not to do. They actually prefer for you to be working with a lawyer because they don't they want to have an opposing counsel that is qualified. They don't really want you when I say that's necessary, it there's several reasons that an application can be denied. And the the hardest ones for people that are doing it themselves are For a likelihood of confusion. That refusal is is fairly common if you don't properly clear your name. I wonder I'd love to see some statistics on how that's happening in the pod space because I think people are it's such a new genre that people are diving into. I say new within the last, you know, ten years. And I I think there's there's a lot of conflict in the pod space. And that's been so interesting for me to see. I've seen, you know, big, huge creators and educators that will launch a pod as a marketing, you know, wing of their brand, but they don't clear it. And that that is so interesting for me to watch because you know these people have a legal team. But anyway, so I'm rambling now, but but that's been pretty interesting. The clearance process is so important. But refusal usually is based on likelihood of confusion. There's other reasons, there's a litany of other reasons. But But the main thing is if you have adequate counsel, then they should be able to handle it for you. And if you have adequate counsel, your counsel's gonna keep you from filing something that's gonna get you in trouble. And when I say get you in trouble, meaning it's it sometimes it could it could flag another company that says, I see they filed this. That's actually our name. Wait, have they been using that for five years? Now we don't only want you to withdraw your trademark, we want you to give us the profits because you're infringing on our name. Things like that happen. It's not you know, but you're but if you have adequate counsel you can you you can avoid that because your counsel's gonna be like, Wait a minute, it's not the time to file this. This is in place, we need to think about moving and shifting out of this name and shifting into this. So Leslie Zanoff Right. So important to check. And it's confusing. I mean, you can search for the names that are available through, you know, the trademarked names, but also there are different categories. To me, I'm like, my gosh, well is it in a merchandise? Is it media and podcasting? So I think yeah, just talking to someone who knows and is handling that. Whitney Bower It is so confusing and it's sometimes I'm like, this is so nuanced that I wonder if they like made it confusing on purpose so people can it wasn't just but you have to understand too, something that I think is so interesting is that all of this the importance of this trademark registration really didn't happen as much. We didn't see it as much until social media came about. Because until social media came about, you didn't have a national platform that everyone was commonly using to market the same types of services and goods. Like when I say same, I mean podcasts or online courses or even, you know, even if it's a tennis shoe business, you're marketing that all through socials. And so everyone is a lot more present. Some companies might not just be using socials to market, but it's primary, that's a primary means. And so we're all using these similar marketing channels. Any of us could go global via at any time. You never know. And that has really changed the need. It has really made people more visible. And we wanna be visible visible. We wanna be visible because we want people to know what we're offering the world, right? And so coupled with that visibility is also exposure, right? So and that is legal exposure too, right? It's not just people coming to you to buy your products. It's also people going, wait a minute That's mine. So that has has led to some development in in that area. Leslie Zanoff Will you talk about and just maybe explain the difference between trademark and copyright? To me, I mean Whitney Bower Yeah. So copyright is a protection for anything that you create, meaning your own writing, photos, art, design, things that you create. This is I'm simplifying these definitions, but anything that you create that is your own creative work. And a trademark is based on the source, the identity of the source of your goods or services. So is a source identifier. So your copyright is like, I wrote this song, so I'm going to protect it with a copyright registration. The reason that you would register that that registration is so much easier. It's a Library of Congress. I always picture it some little ladies at the Library of Congress putting rubber stamps on things, you know, because it really is. That's actually what it is. It is not as much of a process as trademark, but they're both They serve different things, they protect different things. Just think of a copyright as if you if you make a movie or if you make a song or if you write a book, you need a copyright for that. And then a trademark is showing something, a product or service that you're putting into the marketplace. It's the source identifier of that. So that sounds like mumbo jumbo, but that's truly the two different things. The source identifier is something for hard for people to understand. That's there's been a lot of trademark battles lately in the zeitgeist. The you know, pop culture has been there's been a couple of things come up. I've been doing some commentary on that because it's so interesting how much the general public gets that area of the law wrong, right? Leslie Zanoff Okay, yeah, talk about that. I know I've seen you mention some of that on social media, but yeah, talk about that for a minute. Whitney Bower There's a mistaken belief that okay, if someone owns a trademark on a specific thing, we'll use the example we'll talk about Get Your Pink Back. That was a big little trademark scuffle that came up a month ago or so. Get Your Pink Back. That was a phrase that was trademarked, coined and trademarked by a social media influencer named Lindsay Girk. She's precious and she trademarked it for her merch and then she has another trademark that is almost complete for the influencer category and an entertainment category. And there was someone else, another influencer, that was trying to co-opt it for her hair hairline, her hair products, dry shampoo or something like that. And it was so interesting to me because the commentary around it, I did a reel commenting on it and it got a lot of interaction because the commentary around it was like, This is Get Your Pink Back. So you're saying we can't say that anymore. And I'm like, That's actually not true. You can say it all you want. Everybody can say it. You can make your own T-shirt. The difference is that you can't start you can't use it in commerce as a source identifier, which sounds like legal mumbo jumbo, but you can't use Get Your Pink Back for your T-shirts to sell your T-shirts. You can't use Get Your Pink Back to even sell your shampoos. Why? Because there it would create confusion in the marketplace for customers and that's the that's what the USPTO analyzes and that's what we analyze. And that is for the sake of the general population. So that people know I see a swoosh on that shoe. That's a Nike shoe. That's what we're doing. Get Your Pink Back. I see a T-shirt that says Get Your Pink Back for sale, then I know Lindsay Girk's company is the one that made it. So she was trying to use it to sell shampoo, but she's also an influencer and she's also in the influencing space. Leslie Zanoff Mm-hmm. Whitney Bower So she can't do that. Even though Lindsay's not selling shampoo, there's confusion in the marketplace. And so people think, I can't I can no longer there was one about hot girl walks too, about somebody had trademarked that. And it's like, you can still do that. You can still use that. You just can't create community walks around it and charge for them. You can create free ones. You can't So that that discourse has been so interesting because people kind of get it wrong on the analysis, but I think it's it's fun to analyze those cases because hopefully talking about it people will know. Because if we don't talk about it as entrepreneurs, if we don't talk about these things as people doing real projects and founding real movements and putting new things into the world, then the only people that are going to have it right and figured out are these large corporations. And we have just as much of a right to protect our things as Nike or Apple or Mac or you know, any of these companies. We have the right to protect it. Leslie Zanoff Well let's talk about that too, like shifting into you know, you've mentioned I've seen on your website content creators and work or influencers working and partnering with brands. I feel like I've you know, I have been asked to, okay, can you create an affiliate link, Leslie, and link back? And these are products and businesses that I love and would definitely work with. But I think I've been a little bit hesitant because I'm like, gosh, what are the rules? What are the laws around around that? And you kind of mentioned on your on your website I saw like, okay, you can still protect yourself. Here are some things that you should look out for and in contracts or when companies are asking you to partner for affiliate links or brand partnerships. Whitney Bower I really think no well the biggest thing that I can say about all of that is to read your contract with that person. And if there's not a contract, put one in place. And if they're if they have come to you with a contract, read your contract and don't be afraid to redline it. They it's fine. It's simply a contract is an agreement that can be redlined and and changed with anything that you're not comfortable with. But the biggest problem that I see in my practice is they didn't read the agreement. Or even bigger and more often, there wasn't an agreement. And so I know that seems like, you know, 101, but it there's a lot of times and this goes back to our programming. Sometimes we are afraid to ask someone to sign an agreement because we don't want to be a bother. And I I know that sounds so silly. It's going to sound silly. If you're twenty-five and listening to this podcast, you do not get that because you didn't have that programming. But there are people in an era that and I see those people are my become my clients that they didn't want to be a bother and they didn't want to be seen as difficult. So they didn't want to either redline the contract or they didn't wanna ask that there be a contract in place. And I'm like, this is for the protection of everyone. I think something that's interesting is just I just think because I work with a lot of women, it's it's been so refreshing to be able to like I don't know if I'm empowering them, but I think them just having a conversation and feeling represented, they feel empowered to be able to be like, No, those terms don't work with me. I'm not, you know, having this term I just recently had to do that. I had a someone ask me to speak at an event, then I got the contract for the event, and I was thinking, that's out that's out of alignment for me, what I'm being asked to do. And so I was very honest about that. Like but you know why I knew what she expected? Because there was a contract in place, you know, and I wasn't I do not agree to contracts that I I know I can't fully honor, right? And so that The old mentality, I think our old programming would say, we're gonna aim to please. We don't want to be looked at as being difficult. We want to, you know, and and what happens is we do that for years and then at a certain point we fall apart because we have set ourselves aside so for so long that we don't even remember what we want anymore because we haven't even considered it. And I see that I see that a lot and I it depends on what stage you're at in entrepreneurship. But just for me, that button of the yes button, constant yes button, was until about 2018 where I was like, I actually don't want to do these things anymore. And what do I want to do? And that's how meditation started is I was like, what do I want to do? And that was the that was the real go point for me. Leslie Zanoff It is important. Yes, I think just having those conversations and discussions with other women, especially from a legal standpoint and saying, Yeah, this is what you should be doing, this is what you can be doing, when that that's a whole other conversation. When for myself thinking about charging and the fees that you're asking for goes back to what you said in the beginning about your your worth and the value. So contracts, what you charge, what you're willing to do or not do, it's all so important. And I think It it starts with having conversations with other women that have been there and are doing it and saying, No, you can ask questions, you can ask for more and you can change the contract. Whitney Bower Yeah, and I all I think one of the other things that I've really loved watching because I'm a I'm an observer, so like when I work with someone, I like to watch their process and and look like how because number one, I'm I'm usually really fascinated by it. I have a client that's that has launched a really amazing tennis shoe line. And I think she's so fascinating to me because I'm like, if I wanted to launch a tennis shoe line, I wouldn't know where to start. Like I'm fascinated by the fact that she has figured out every step of this, like down to the little minute details on the sole And the she, you know, forget all the manufacturing craziness, right? But she has figured out every little thing. And it's just I'm just so fascinated by her figuring out that process. But that process had to come from the the process that she got to. She came to me later in the process. But I'm just I'm amazed by what we are actually capable of. But her process came with a lot of no's to people, right? Like No, that sole won't work. That inner tag is not what I wanted. That logo and being obviously being tactful in the way that you deliver it, but but it's been so awesome and beautiful to see her growing this company and really being okay with saying no. And I think that To me, that is what makes a business owner a good business owner and makes an entrepreneur successful is being able to be like, No, I don't like that and and not being scared to say no. Leslie Zanoff Well right. And that is talk about knowing what you want. That is goes back to knowing what you want. Whitney Bower Knowing what you want and being completely comfortable in what you're bringing to the marketplace, right? Like knowing that I this is what I'm doing and I'm doing it different. And there's a million tennis shoes out there, but these are the ones that I'm making and that this is why I'm making them. Pretty cool. It's fun. I get to do fun stuff. I love it. Leslie Zanoff Oh, I know. Well, do you on that note too, do you have any goals, dreams, hopes for yourself now in this? Whitney Bower I have a ton of goals and dreams and I it's funny because I've always been an entrepreneur. Even when I was in law school, I was like I had this I was I was I had a little surprise pregnancy during my second year of law school. And so I was kind of kid and baby oriented at that time. It was a long time ago, twenty something years ago. But I have always had that entrepreneur energy and so I'm sure that I'll be bringing things to market. I have a a consumer based company that kind of does similar things to what I do now that I will be bringing to life and has been in the process for about a year, but my private my my practice has ended up getting a little crazy this year in a good way. So I haven't been able to devote as much time to to bring other things to market. But yeah, I mean I I think that we are always creating, right? And if you have that in you, there's no way you're not gonna be creating something, right? And and I think that that's the like we're here to create. And that's why that's why this that's why this like part of the law is so fun to me because I'm working with other people who are creating. And there's nothing cooler. Right. There's nothing cooler than being at the beginning of someone's creation and getting to to watch it and look at it years later and just admire it. So who knows what's next? I don't know. I tend to I tend to always have an iron in the fire. Right now I'm in the middle of a remodel of my home and I don't I I said to my husband this morning, I was like, has anybody ever died from remodeling their house? Because this may be the death of me. Leslie Zanoff Oh my gosh. Whitney Bower Because it is very stressful. So hopefully we'll get through this process by the fall and I don't advise it. I don't advise a remodel for anybody. But yeah, we're always creating. Leslie Zanoff Okay, tell me, do you have any you know favorite quotes, prayer, mantra, anything like that? Whitney Bower I mean, I I don't have a mantra. I I always always I think our our biggest thing is it and there's not even a quote associated with it, but I think the thing that I had the hardest time coming to grips with was being able to rely on my own intuition. We were taught very young to to suppress it and to to not really tune in and listen to it. And I think there I think all a lot of women, especially ones that I work with, are are trying to reprogram the same things. And so I guess if there was a mantra, it would be yes you can. It would be yes you can. Because there there's a lot of times where I'm I've got I'm fighting against that thing that's like, well what if what if I host this and no one shows up? What if, you know, it's that that childhood fear of having the birthday party that nobody nobody comes to. But I I'm always having to remind myself, yes you can. Because what I'm doing now and the area that I'm practicing and the way that my firm is set up, all of these things were a product of me being the only one to say yes you can because I didn't I didn't have like partners at a firm, you know, that were like, sure, go into that and figure that out and do that. So it's it's always been yes you can and it it ends up being yes you can with my clients. I'm like, Why can't you just change the SKU and go with a different SKU? If you hate that SKU, do a different one. Yes, you can. You can actually flip the script at any moment. And I think that's what's so cool is that we we definitely have I was talking to someone about this this weekend, we definitely have a generation of young women that don't have that programming that it's been beautiful to watch because they are the yes you can girls. And I freaking love them. Because those of us that are a little older than our twenties and thirties, we're having to teach ourselves that. And it's almost like we're reparenting ourselves, which is so interesting. Because we're having to change to the yes you can instead of looking at all the ways that it won't work, right? Tradition Leslie Zanoff Yeah. Whitney Bower Tradition should have told me that when I wasn't a lawyer for a little bit and and was doing my creative business and then I wanted to go back to law when my son was ready to go to college, I tradition would say, there's no way you could ever do that. Nobody's gonna want you, no firm is gonna want you. Well, they're actually pretty accurate. No firm does want you when you've been out of the game for a second. But I wanted to do it. I wanted to create my niche. I wanted to do that. And so I had to turn into my own yes you can girl. And I think that's so simple and silly, but it's it's what I I do it when I meet with clients, I do it during every meeting there's a yes you can moment. Because what they want is they want someone to say, Okay, this is this is going on and this I'm looking at this then Obviously I have to take the legal part of it into consideration, but I'm a yes you can girl, you know. We figure it out. We figure out how they can. So Leslie Zanoff I love that. Yes, thank you for saying that. I love that. That this just says to me, right, this is giving me permission when I have thought about doing a solo episode on intuition in women that we know what we want. Sometimes we just don't want to do it or listen to ourselves. So great. Check the box, Whitney says, Yes you can. Whitney Bower We have an inner knowing and I I laugh because I love my husband very much, but they do not have the same kind of little thing. They may, I mean, maybe there's an intuition. I don't know. I'm not I'm not a man right now and so I don't know. But I know that women have it because I'm a woman and and I have it and I watch my fr I mean we are if you are tapped in And if you are really in tune with that inner knowing, like your own inner knowing, you it's actually it's actually magic. I mean that's where the magic happens. I don't know if I don't know if men have that. I mean I think they have what do they I think men have instinct, right? They say men have like instinct and women have intuition. And I'm a I I see that in play. And it's it's actually it's our It's our super hidden secret magic power that everyone has, but we don't know how to tap into it. And it's it's pretty cool. I work with women that I'm watching them tap into theirs and I'm like, Holy crap, how'd you just do that? You know? And it's because they have an inner knowing and they rely on it. Leslie Zanoff You're watching it from the ground up. Pretty quick. Do you have I don't know if there's maybe three tips, thoughts for founders, online creators that you would maybe as we wrap things up kind of leave with people? Whitney Bower I do have. I don't know. Let me try to narrow it to three. But the the first thing is is there a contract? And if there's not, get one, make one, create one. And if there was a contract that was presented to you before any deal, mm read it and redline it. Or if you don't have anything to redline, that's okay. I would also recommend having your trusted counsel like in on the deal if it's a big deal. Like today we have an agreement, we have a podcast agreement. I wouldn't need my lawyer to look at that. I I can decipher those terms. But if you have a big deal that you're inking, then have someone look at it because if especially if it's a company or a corporation that's coming to you, their lawyers have written that contract in the most favor to the to the corporation. So always be okay with redlining and reviewing, but mostly making sure there's a contract in place. And then the second thing, hold on, I'm trying to think, I had it. Right there. The second thing is if you're bringing something, a service or product to market, I want you to clear it. I want you to clear what you're calling it. Just clear it. And when I say clear it, don't just check socials. I want you to do run a nice hearty clearance search on it. Because I see the ugly part behind the scenes that's happening where, you know, my clients are getting sometimes it'll be a client that gets a a nasty letter for something they launched that they didn't clear or sometimes I'm having to send them for my client that they are fully protected and someone else launched something. So have a good contract and always clear what what you're launching. That's and then the third thing is yes you can. Yes. Leslie Zanoff Absolutely. I love it. Whitney Bower There there is a way. And I have I have someone right now, we've we've gone through the clearance process on her product forever. I say forever. She's clear doing several things. And so I think she's on her eighth option and she's so frustrated right now. And so I'm having to go into the yes you can. It's in there. The name of this baby, this business baby is in there. We're going to get to it and it's going to be clear. So that that's the third thing is is yes you can. It's in there. You're going to work through it. Leslie Zanoff Okay. I love that. Whitney, is there anything that maybe I haven't asked you that you think we should talk about for today's but you want to make sure Whitney Bower You have so many great questions that I could ask you. Because you're what you do is my jam. You know, what you do is is so fun. For me it's interesting because I, you know, I do something that on the outside looks relatively boring. But I love the the intersection of just watching people launch things and do things and just kind of being in and I always I know about the secret projects before the secret project gets launched. And to me that's so fun. And so that For that from that respect I get to see all these different varieties of people doing all these amazing things. And I guess the the takeaway that I would give to everyone is what you're bringing to the world has value. You don't have to earn your seat at the table. You already are making a seat for yourself at whatever table you want and it has value and it's worthy of protection. The worthiness component I think is so important that that A lot of times I have to get people to a worthiness component, you know, when they're when they're launching because there is you know this, there is so much doubt when we launch something. Do you not have you not experienced it's like it you know, and that that's what I'm going just with even with this house remodel, I'm like everything I'm doing, which I thought was so solid and seamless, you know, like I knew exactly what we were doing for each thing. And there's I'm just riddled with doubt and It's it's getting through that. But worthiness. Leslie Zanoff Especially I think for myself it's come from okay, I had a business that I was running with a business partner successfully for sixteen years and then starting over. And so yeah, reminding yourself that okay Whitney Bower A magazine Leslie Zanoff A magazine. I had a local magazine about charitable events. Yeah. So this is a complete career shift for me, but it's been so great and I love it. Whitney Bower Don't you think that we're all shifting though right now? Like, don't you think there's this air of like a shift, you know? I mean, if you've done a thing for a while and that's no longer serving you, I'm the queen. If it's no longer serving me, I'm like, what's next? Leslie Zanoff Yes, know when to say when. Whitney Bower Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that's so fun. That's why we are here. We're here to shift, you know? Leslie Zanoff Yes. Okay, so one last question for you that I always ask everyone since the show is called A Lifetime to Learn, is there a lesson that you're still learning or one that's taken you a while? We kind of talked about that today, but Whitney Bower Trust. Not with anyone else, with myself, is trust. That is the lesson that I honestly don't I forty-eight years in, I don't know it because it is going to be something that I developed my entire life. And I think everybody does. But trusting myself, trusting my intuition, trusting my skill set. I've done such killer things this year that I'm really proud of in the trademark world that things that I five years ago me would have never imagined that I could be doing right now. And that comes from me getting better at trusting myself. Whether it's my intuition or what I'm doing that day or a proceeding that I was, you know, scared that is this what the route we should go? You know, trust. And I think for everyone, especially women, if we got a a better handle on trusting ourselves and trusting our gut, you hear that. It's so trite, you trust your gut. You know. But it is fundamental. It's fundamental. And so that's that's my biggest lesson that I'm learning and and I will always I if I live to be ninety-seven, I'll always be learning to trust myself because it's a constant practice. So Leslie Zanoff Okay, well tell people where they can find you. Where's the best place to find you if they want to get in touch? Whitney Bower Yeah, I would love to. I would love to visit with folks that that are in need of my services. I'm at The Whitney Bower on Instagram and they can also go to my website, WhitneyBower.com and Bower is B-O-W-E-R. There's ways to sign up to do a trademark consult or you might have a project coming up and we might need to clear a name for you or whatnot. But I love hearing about your projects and learning about what's coming next and kind of help bring shape to those projects. So that's where you can find me. I'm very accessible on socials and through my website. Leslie Zanoff I love it. Well you've been so fun to follow and engaging and I appreciate you always sharing your wisdom. So thanks so much, Whitney, for being here today. Thanks for being here on A Lifetime to Learn. If today's episode inspired you or sparked a new thought, please share it with someone who might need it too. And if you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to get notifications when we launch new episodes. I've got conversations with extraordinary people lined up. And I can't wait for you to listen. For more information on how to work with me, visit LeslieZanoff.com. It's where I share resources to help you lead with presence and live with intention. Because remember, we're not here to have it all figured out. We're here to keep showing up with open hearts and open minds because we've got a lifetime to learn. Until next time, friends, be well.