Block Chain, Crypto Currency, NFT, Real Estate - OH MY

"The future of real estate isn't just brick and mortar — it's bits, blocks, and digital deeds. Get ready to decode the buzzwords everyone in the industry is talking about but few truly understand."

The digital revolution has arrived at real estate's doorstep — and your host Jennifer Williams is bringing in the ultimate guide to navigate it. In this episode of LUXE Life, Jennifer sits down with Dave Rebro, #1 best-selling author and founder of DRCS Solutions, for a conversation that is equal parts practical and mind-expanding.

Before the buzzwords take over, Dave and Jennifer get grounded in the fundamentals of productivity — the kind of systems top-performing agents use every day. Dave walks through how he uses Evernote and Outlook to create seamless workflows that free up mental bandwidth for the deals that matter most.

Then the conversation takes a thrilling turn into the digital frontier. Dave breaks down blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and what NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) actually are — in plain English, no computer science degree required. More importantly, he connects it all back to real estate: how tokenized property ownership is emerging, what it means for transactions, and why today's discerning buyer and seller cannot afford to ignore it.

Whether you're a seasoned Chicago luxury agent or a curious investor wondering if the metaverse will be your next listing, this episode will leave you informed, inspired, and ahead of the curve.

LUXE Life — Rated #2 Best Real Estate Podcast in Chicago by Icons of Real Estate & #8 of the 10 Best Chicago Real Estate Podcasts by FeedSpot

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everybody. This is Jennifer Williams, and I am the post, the host of podcast Lux Life, as well as real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Gold Coast. On my podcast today, I have the pleasure of having number one best-selling author Dave Rebro as my special guest. And Dave, could you please introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on your uh podcast today. Well, for the folks who are just joining in or listening to us, we just had an awesome conversation off of off air before we started recording. So we're kind of jazzed up right now. But just to tell you who I am, my name is Dave Rebro, and the name of my company is DRCS Solutions. And basically, my company, I'm a solopreneur and I work with small business owners, transforming how they work in their businesses, going from frustration, unproductivity, confusion with how they work, frustration, overwhelm, and switching them into or transforming it into more of a kind of an efficient, systemized, productivity-based uh workflow. Now that's the biggest thing that I work with, but working with technology, technology can be confusing and it can be hard and it can be cold. And I like to take that and kind of soften that up and help people realize that technology is a tool for you. It's not a frustration. And it allows people to take that technology and put it to work for their benefit so they can work smarter, faster, be more organized, be in flow with work. And a lot of people don't understand the capabilities of the technology they have, even in the hands, in their hand with, say, a smartphone. There's so many cool built-in features that they're not aware of, and yet they are, they don't know how to use it smartly within their business. So I love to take technology and I love to take workflow and I love to take a more holistic approach and take that technology and help them transform the way they work.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Therefore, creating more productivity, which also helps them to do more time management. The better your manager time, the more enjoyable I have found that you have a lot. You actually have a life.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Enjoy you with technology can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. We were talking, yes, and we are. Oh my gosh. The conversation earlier, if everybody heard was we have had a great time, so we're we're ready to go here. We talked originally about Evernote Personal at the beginning. I just got an email about Evernote. You know, I I'm a huge fan of Outlook. I've touched with Evernote just a little bit, but I they just launched this, did they? Or what what's what's going on with Evernote Personal here?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, so Evernote Personal actually showed up about a year ago. And for you folks that know what Evernote is, Evernote is a note-taking app on steroids. I call it my Swiss Army knife of productivity tools. I mean, and the reason why I say that is Evernote is an app or a service that allows me to go ahead and capture anything I want to remember. It might be in my personal life or business life. And when I say capture anything, it's basically I can capture audio, text, web clippings, photos, videos, YouTube videos, emails, that you name it, you can collect it into one workspace, which is a little bit different to how we have kind of approached productivity in the past, meaning that we normally would have like what, five, six, seven, maybe eight tools to handle all these different features. Yeah. But Evernote consolidates all that. And I'm really big on that. I like to consolidate. I don't like to have a lot of tools and a lot of things going on. I want to simplify and consolidate. And Evernote allows you to do that. So it's a really robust, robust note-taking/slash productivity tool. All right. Now there's way more to Evernote than I'm just saying here, but I just want to kind of give a brief intro to what it is. But what you're saying is, you know, you use Outlook. Yeah. And you probably set up your folders in Outlook and you kind of have all that set up and just all over. Yes. Yeah, all over the place. Well, Outlix is not really designed to be that type of tool. Even though it does have the features, and you can do a real nice job with that. There are some limitations, and you'll have roadblocks. And once you start to get these limitation roadblocks, it becomes frustrating. And then you have to bring in another tool and add another tool to that. And maybe you have to integrate with Dropbox or Google Drive and all that, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, I've got all of it. Dropbox Drive. I it's everything. And it does. You do. I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. And Jennifer, there's really nothing wrong with having multiple tools. But for me, when I have multiple tools, you start to think about all right, I have content all over the place. And for me to be streamlined, efficient, and organized and in flow, it is a lot better to have all my content and data in one area that I can work with. So one workspace, then jumping around to different areas. Now, people can do that, and they're great multitaskers with their tools, but consolidating into warm work environments such as Evernote really simplifies that workflow process and that productivity really increases.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, because you're breaking that. Every time you break your flow, it's almost like breaking your train of thought. You know, you're you're you're in this path, and all of a sudden, oh, I gotta go over to here. Oh, but this can't do it. I gotta go over to here. You know, sometimes when I'm posting on my social media, I have to click, I have to open up four different programs in order to do what I want to do. Come on, I in order to find what I want to find. I don't know that that makes any sense. You know, it needs to be streamlined, whereas something, if it's all in Evernote, I can cut all that out and keep my original train of thought because you know, as soon as you open up another app, it alerts you to something else and it reminds you of this. And this comes over here, and you're constantly being distracted and pulled.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Absolutely. So that makes sense. You had mentioned professional, Evernote professional, right? Yes. And you mentioned some uh we were talking earlier about some new features. Uh Evernote has added a task manager into the Evernote environment now. So that workspace, that ecosystem. So not only are you able to capture all the content that you want, quickly find that content, you can also then begin to work in your task management into that, connect to your calendar and have it sync into Evernote and really start to have that full workspace in one area, which is really cool. I mean, this is starting to streamline and consolidate, right? That consolidate.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yes. I mean, I'm definitely as soon as we're as soon as we're done with the podcast, trust me, I'm making sure that my Evernote is up and going again. And because I was getting I would get a little frustrated with it. But honestly, I didn't give it the time. It's it was easier for me to go back to what I knew. You know what I mean? I've I've been running Outlook for probably since the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah, that's and I like what you said. You went back to what you knew or you were comfortable with. And that's one of the big things. When you're going to make a shift in your productivity, you have to kind of stretch your boundaries, right? You have to take a step out of what your comfort zone is to improve. Anytime we grow, we have to take a step out of our comfort zone. And sometimes taking a step out of your comfort zone to be more productive and to be more organized is kind of scary, right? And a lot of people just say, you know what? I I tried it, I dabbled with this tool, or in in the case of Evernote, I tried it, I didn't get it. So I just went back to what I was comfortable with, and now I'm back to being overwhelmed or I'm confused and disorganized and I'm pulling my hair out and all that. Sometimes you got to take that step and have that confidence to take that step. So, you know, when I work with a client, that's part of the that's part of the game, right? It's uh it's it's a head game. Productivity and organization and flow really starts up in the head, and uh that's all part of it. So when I work with my clients, that's probably 50% of being productive is getting that head space organized as well as the workspace, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, because you well, you have to have, you know, before you start any job, before you start any task, number one, you have to have the right tools. Number two, you have to have them laid out properly where they're easy for you to grab, to use, to do your job, and then complete your job, and it goes seamless. It goes, I mean, you know, you're gonna have your hiccups and you're gonna have your things, but properly prepared, you know, it'll go off as smoothly as possible. And you know, everybody will take note of that and see that you are you're uh you're in flow.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You're in flow.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

You're in flow. I love it. I love it. Now that's that's definitely that's gonna have to be another another further conversation as well. So let's then I know we were talking gonna first gonna talk about blockchain crypto, but now we're we're going on this thing where let's talk about how like it can help with you know the tech therapy can also help with your productivity. So we get we we download and we make sure we're starting to utilize Evernote, which uh and we're talking our flow and our productivity. How can that? I mean, not only just real estate agents, obviously, you know, me being a real estate agent, that's my primary focus, as well as my clients, but everybody else out there, you know, what else besides Evernote or or daily things can help to move us?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. Besides Evernote, I like to say, you know what? No matter if you have an iPhone or you have an Android, there's built-in features into these phones that people are aware of or maybe not aware of that can assist you on a daily basis in your daily workflow. Either it's your your personal life workflow or it's your business workflow. And personally, I have an iPhone and I love the reminders app on the iPhone. Yes, absolutely love it. And not only I love the reminders app, but I like to partner it with Siri, which is the built-in assistant on an iPhone. Yes, same thing. Or the iPad or Mac. Yep. There's equivalents over in Android, and basically what I like is when I am really intently into something or I'm really we'll call it busy. I don't like using the word busy, but we're in a complex situation and things are coming at me. I don't want to overload my mind because once I start to overload my mind, I I'm not as productive. I'm not in a productive space, right? Or I'm not focused, I lose focus. So when things pop up, maybe a message comes in, or maybe I think of something that doesn't pertain to what I'm working on. I want to get that out of my head as soon as I can, and I want to put it somewhere I can trust. Well, in the old days, what would we do? We'd grab what the posted notes or a piece of paper, we'd write things down.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yep, in the paper, you got it. We'd write it down and we'd make a list, or we'd have post-it notes all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Index cards. I would use index cards too, and I would write down things on the index card, and then I would scratch them off. And my poor little index card looked, it was it was a nightmare. It worked for the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So picture your office in the old day when you had well, maybe you do now, and maybe some of the people listening had that. You have post notes over, you have pieces of paper all over the place, and you walk into your office, you go to your desk, and you're like, you're just overwhelmed, right? With the clutter. And I like to use the tools that I have built into my devices to declutter not only my workspace, but my mind. So getting back to the reminders app in Siri, I will say to my phone, I would call Siri or activate some in Siri. And if I needed to call someone, let's say I got to call Jennifer tonight at 7 p.m. because we need to follow up on something. But there's no way if I write a note right now or I'm in the middle of something, it's just not going to be a productive way to do it. So I'll tell my phone, remind me at 7 p.m. tonight to call Jennifer to discuss blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And automatically, Siri will schedule that in the reminders app. And then at that time, I'm going to get a reminder sent back to me on any of my devices because they're synced together. That tells me, hey, Dave, you got to call Jennifer back tonight because we need to discuss this. If I am in, you know, something going on with life or going out with my business, I'm not trying, it's hard to remember all that stuff. So why not take advantage of the tools you have? Get that out of your head, declutter your mind, declutter your workspace, get it in there and have your tool become your assistant for you. So I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, it's because then that way it's really then you're using it more to its its potential.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

It's potential.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

You know, we we use it for social media, we use it for this and that, but it's also can streamline our life better and give us back our life used properly.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Absolutely. You know, I like to say to become a productive person, you have to develop productive habits, right? Because habits are repeated over and over and over again. We're talking about you're talking about how your habit brought you back to Outlook, right? We have to kind of break old habits. And what I like to do is the technology I have helps me break those old habits because it's working with me, right? It's assisting me and it's assisting me to develop those new habits. And in fact, I should point this out. I many, many times I've got a class that I work with real estate agents that I teach them how to use their personal devices as their personal assistant and become more efficient and more productive in daily and weekly and yearly workflows, but specifically the daily workflows. How can it help me? Yeah. How can it help me?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Let me know when that's when that is because we're gonna make sure to put that out there and I'm gonna make sure to attend.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Absolutely. It's it's really a fun class, too, because when you start working with them, you'll see their jaws just dropping, going, Oh my god, I knew I had this, but I had no idea I could do this. Or I had no idea I could schedule my calendar just by talking to my phone, or ask my phone, do I have any open availability next Saturday? You know what I mean? And have your phone respond back to you. It's it's really like your virtual assistant or personal assistant.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Which is what we need. A lot of times, you know, we get going, we're so busy. We were on a showing last yesterday, there were back-to-back showings, myself and another agent. And, you know, he had a lot of phone calls that were coming in, and he had a lot of text messages and things that were going on. And this might actually help him to streamline now, you know. Again, he's super busy, you know, was super busy, had so many other uh things, and he was mindful to the clients that were in front of us at the time, the other agents, so on and so forth. But it you could almost see how much was coming at, and he doesn't want to lose track of anything. And I get that, and we as agents do that. You know, we're gonna be on the phone and I have a you know, text message coming through, emails coming through. I want to service all my clients, I always want to be there for them, and I'm gonna forget, and that's the worst feeling is when you go back through your phone and you go, Oh my gosh. I mean, yes, I respond in in you know very quickly, regardless, but I it would be mortified if I missed someone's text message or call that I needed to tend to right away. Spam, it can go off to its side. I don't care about it, you know. But clients, family, friends, loved ones, I don't want to miss them.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm I'm glad you said that. You don't want to miss the opportunities given to you because especially in what you're doing, you're there to serve, you're there to create an experience for somebody, and you want to make sure it's the best experience because it reflects you. And of course, you want your customer or client to succeed. So you want to create that environment. And if you're starting to forget things, and believe me, I've worked with a lot of people where meetings were forgotten, right? Or I'd show up for a meeting and they didn't show up because they forgot all these things that kind of make you look bad and just kind of spoils that relationship. We want to look at an approach of how can we better the relationship. And to better relationship means you have to be there to serve the best you can for them. And using your tools like your smartphone, your tablets, your computers in a smart, productive way is going to assist you create that environment, that relationship. So uh, number one, there's a succeed or success on both ends, your clients and and your end as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, because I mean they're at the end of the day, they're they're trusting us as agents with likely depending on their portfolio, either it's their their primary investment or it's one of a multitude of investments that they have, again, depending on you know what their price point is and who they are. But that's a that's a home. If it's a home, it they're they live there, their family lives there, they eat there, they sleep there, they wake up there, it's a part, you know, that that estate or that home is a part of their family, essentially, you know, the brick and mortar. And for them to trust me with that is I take it very much to heart and and to trust with that process. So you're right. I mean, if if I forgot a meeting, if I forgot a showing, if I forgot a listing appointment, I don't, I don't know. It would be it would be far worse. I think it would affect me far worse than taking the few moments to tell Siri to set a reminder in my calendar.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

It's just that much easier than and then I then I avoid that feeling of of disappointment in myself and to my clients and my clients being let down, and then nine times out of ten I was referred. Then they're going to go back to the person that referred me and say, Well, why'd you refer us her? Because she didn't even show up. Well, that's not that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, to me, that's so annoying when those things happen because it's almost like a lack of respect for your time.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Yes, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Uh, and I love what you said before, trust. Trust is such an important uh factor when you're dealing with your client. If your client doesn't trust you, that relationship's done.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, it's a no-go. I mean, you have to perform. You everything is everything gonna be perfect all the time? It's not. Are there always gonna be hiccups? But I think it's sure it's how you're how you handle that and how you're prepared with that, and knowing that having my phone, having my iPad with me, because they're almost an extension. They are an extension of me, as if you know, I probably spend more time with my phone than I do my family because it's with me all the time. You know, it's it's there, and to know that it can help streamline my life by my changing my thought process, you know, tweaking it just a little, it'll make my life that much easier.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah. No, Jennifer, we could talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

I know, I know. I'm you know, again, we're we're setting up the next couple of podcasts, to be honest with you. I can I can tell by this podcast, which is is fabulous. You know, that as what we talked about in the beginning, you know, obviously you're passionate about it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a number one best-selling book. You wouldn't be who you are. If I rem if I understand correctly, you also do coaching as well. So, you know, you're passionate about what you're doing. I'm passionate about what I'm doing, and and it's it's a perfect fit. Yeah, let's we're gonna cover this topic on a different episode, yeah. Another on another episode, because I think we can get a whole lot farther into what you know, how to streamline our lives, how to how to stay in flow, if you will, because that that is actually one of my favorite terms. Let's get back to originally we talked about blockchain and cryptocurrency. And I had a client that had come to me earlier in the week and I was sharing with you prior that had said, NFTs, what do you know about them? And I said, you know, the only thing I really know about NFT is what I've read in the Wall Street Journal. You know, I have no idea. I'm hearing rumblings besides block, you know, we got blockchain. I have one client that's willing to accept cryptocurrency for their property, whether it's Ethereum or Ethos, one of the two, or Bitcoin. And now I hear NFTs are going to be coming to the real estate market near me. So I need to not only educate myself on all those different facets, let's educate the audience as well. Because every if if my clients have my client base have those questions, it's so so many other. People do as well. So educate us.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Absolutely. Well, that's I'm going to take a big step backwards.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Right ahead.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yeah. And I just want to point out I think we all know that this is so new to everybody, right? So blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, metaverse, all these terms and all these technologies, it's it's so new, it's so groundbreaking, but it's really a technology that's going to change a lot of the uh it's gonna change the ways we transact in society, is really what it's gonna do. But we'll get into that in a little bit. I just want to point out that blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies really in real estate, in my opinion, and I've seen this uh other people talk about this as well. Is it's gonna be one of the biggest game changers that the industry has seen going back to probably uh maybe when MLS went digital, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

That was come on, that it's gonna be that big. I mean, I remember the dot matrix printers, you had the printout, there was no picture, you drove around, it was the car, it was it was a nightmare. So, this is going to be that revolutionary for my real estate market. Do tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So, yes, so this technology is going to have that big of an impact on the industry, and it's going to be interesting how this plays out, but we're starting to see it happening now, okay? So, you had brought up NFTs, and it's kind of funny. People will bring up NFTs and they'll throw that term out, but do they really even understand what NFT is?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Probably not. Because I if I asked you Jennifer that knows if I asked you, Jennifer, tell me what an NFT is, or what it even stands for. I I couldn't, I couldn't explain it in enough of an educated format. The only thing that I've read about it is I can take a picture, one of my daughters, you know, she's an art student at UIC. I can take a photo of one of her pictures, I can create an NFT, I can sell it. Okay, I I kind of get the concept because somebody's buying your art, you're almost like creating your own money. It but it that's where everything stops. You know, I I stop it there. That's that's the end of my knowledge of it because I've heard that there are talks of and and we'll we can get into this at a different point. And that's where I stop with my education because primarily because I've heard that it's bad for the environment.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Okay, interesting. Well, let's we can talk about the environment at probably another time because that's a whole conversation. But let's get back to NFTs. NFTs, so let's break it down. What does it stand for? It stands for non-fungible token, right? NFT, non-fungible token. Well, there's two words in there, non-fungible and token. And you're probably like, what the heck is non-fungible?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

I I am going, what? That's a term I think. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

All right. So, well, let's do this. If I get too technical at any time, I want you to hit the what button. Because you'll be like, What?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

My wife doesn't wait a second. We're gonna say, yeah, all that now. I'm you know, I'm telling me more because I am that's engaged very engaging. That's very I never again ask me what an NFT is. I don't know. It's an NFT. I have no idea. I just know that I'm hearing it's coming to a real estate market near me, and I need to get educated on the ASAP.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, so if we if we start real simple and we figure out what an NFT actually is, then you can build on that and build your understanding and your knowledge base of how this technology can apply to the industry. So I want to when I work with people, I like to start very basic and work our way up, unless that knowledge is already there. But so we have non-fungible tokens. We have two words, non-fungible and token. Non-fungible basically means that it's a unique asset or it's unique information or data, right? It can't really be replaced by something else. In the physical world, we can think of what artwork.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

So let's say we have, I don't know, Monet. We have a painting from Monet, and it's an original. You can't really exchange with somebody equal value for that, right? So I can't give you an exact replica of that Monet to be equal counterpart with that. So non-fungible means it's it's unique, basically. If it's fungible, fungible would be like say if you have a $20 bill, so cash is fungible, and you come back and said, Hey Dave, can you break this $20 bill? I could give you two ten dollar bills right back to you, and that would be equal value, right? Even though it's it's not doesn't say a two zero on it, it's got a 10 on it, but it's equal value, so we can trade equal value there, right? It's it's not super unique. We're we're just guessing at what the value is, all right. So fungible is it's not unique and we can exchange back and forth. So you add token to the end of non-fungible. Well, what is a token? Okay, token tokens are a digital representation of something of value, an asset. It could be a digital asset, right? You talked about taking a picture of your daughter or taking a picture of something. You can tokenize that, and what a token does is it gathers information about that asset, right? And it'll put in there that the this was taken on this specific day, created by this specific person, and the ownership right now is Jennifer. All right, that token stores information about the asset that is owned, so it shows and proves ownership, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, so it's almost like having something copyrighted.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

It's almost like having a copyrighted use.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

It's almost like it's your own contract of ownership.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

All right. So we have non-fungible, so it's an asset or device that's unique. You may have heard the CEO or the owner of Twitter, who's no longer there, he had then take his first tweet and made it into an NFT. It's an original tweet, his very first, and he sold it. All right, and he was able to sell it because it was in a token format.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So I want to into currency, like current. It's like so the token is like a currency, so you're almost like minting that minting, if you will, your own currency.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yes, but what's back behind it is an asset, a unique asset, right? Yeah, kind of blows your head, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

So it is so it is almost like although your artwork is a tangible asset, yes. This is a digital digitalized, digitized tangible asset. So you have ownership.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

You have ownership, it's a proof of ownership that you have on there. It's unique. You could take uh a picture of your daughter or a picture of something on vacation and sell it. Someone could buy it and then make multiple copies, but there's only one proven owner, it's a proof of ownership in that token, right? There's one proven ownership. So if I go to sell this, it's not rare, like the actual copy, the not the copy, the actual the original, yes, yep. And the proof is in the token, right? And whoever owns that token is the owner of that true owner of that original. All right. So now, because it's in token format, think of a token. Remember when you would go to oh the arcade when you were a kid and you'd buy these tokens, you'd use a token like Chuck E. Cheese or something like that, and you put a token in that token represented a dollar value, like 25 cents or whatever it was at the time, right? Yes, and you would buy them and you go play all these games.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

I still have some, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Sometimes you would trade it, yeah. You would trade it with your friends or whatever. Well, think of a token, all right, on a more sophisticated level. Think of a token as something that you can trade, sell, or hang on to, and then therefore, you can transact with that. There is a value to that that's assigned by the buyer or the seller, right? An agreement. So, so a non-fungible token would then allow me to take or allow you. Let's say you took a picture on vacation. I really loved it, and I want the original, the one that you had, right? And I want ownership of that because it's so unique and rare. Maybe it was you got a picture of a bear in Yellowstone juggling beach balls. Maybe that before. Come on, out in the wild.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Not in the forest, no, definitely not in the forest. Of course, that that would, yeah, that would okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

But there's some rarity to it, and I perceive value to it, and I want to buy that from you. I can purchase that from you, and then I then would become the owner of that amazing bear juggling, you know, beach balls out in Yellowstone, right? And it has value to me, and I can hold on to that as well until someone else may come to me and say, you know what? Oh, I have a juggling bear collection. This has never happened before. I want to pay $1.1 million for that. All right. And I hesitate for a second and say, You got a deal. And then I'm able to go ahead and take this token, right? This non-pungible token, which is attached to that picture, and they become the sole sole original owner of that photo. Okay. So that rare photo, the original, they're the owners of that. So tokens allow you to go ahead and trade and sell and move both digital and physical assets around. And you can do it seamlessly, you can do it on a blockchain. And the blockchain, what's nice about that is once it's stamped into the blockchain, it can't be changed until another transaction can be made. So it's verifiable that I am or you are the owner of a specific asset. It could be a digital asset or it could be a physical asset. Well, all right, now that we got that out of the way, how would that work?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

So many more questions.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

How would that work with a house, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, or a condo or a piece of land, or I mean, I can see how it would if the if the two parties are in agreement. Yes, you know, everything starts with two parties being in an agreement. And if two parties are in agreement, they could trade this essentially.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

You could trade. Or think about this, Jennifer. What if you had a rental property? A big uh, let's say a big complex, we'll say 500 rooms, 500 condos in this complex. And normally, if you wanted to get some action or get a piece of this investment, you would have to come in and be accredited and probably have what minimum a hundred thousand dollars, probably a whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, whatever everybody decides.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Whatever the yes. Well, with tokenization, you can really fractionalize that asset, and then you can purchase a token that might be we'll say a thousand dollar token that gives you a thousand dollar piece of that property or that asset. And built into that token is you get a specific share of what that income is. Maybe it's an apartment and you're getting rental income, right? Sure. So you purchase a token and then built into the token, this is where we get into something called smart contracts, which adds a layer of sophistication to the tokens that allows conditions when conditions are met that things are triggered. And one thing would be you know, if uh there's profit on a monthly basis, you get one one thousandth of the profit. You get that on a monthly basis, whatever it is. So tokens and NFTs will now start to allow people to have the freedom and the opportunity to get involved with things they really couldn't do before. You can you think about that. I might have a piece of a vacation property in oh Tahiti. I might be part owner of an apartment complex in New York, I might be part owner of, and I'm adding this to my portfolio, and now I'm into real estate in a way that I never could before. So I now have the power to get involved and buy these tokens once they're tokenized, right, and invest in that, and then become owners of parts of real estate part of assets, not locally, but around the world.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

So that it's almost like you're you have you can create your own stock. Yes, you and then you can also buy into so it's on a similar scale is the stock market, only different because you can buy fract because fractional ownership, you know, we're we're finding it that you know, fractional ownership all over the world is really becoming a thing. You know, you have either you'll have a larger corporation that will purchase and then the make the original purchase, and then part of how they're getting their money back as well, they want to hold it or they don't, and you have fractional ownership. It's in private aviation, which is taking okay, that was not meant to be a plan words, it's taking off.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

I did not mean that, but that's it. That was a good one. But it is, it's taking off in ways that that we've not seen before. And so that so in a nutshell, everybody can create their own stock and create their own worth. Whatever the end, whatever the two parties agree upon as far as payment or what the cash value, if you what if you will, being in air quotes for those on the podcast, it that's amazing. Now we had talked earlier too, and I've heard that some people there are celebrities as well that have virtual houses, and they have an art collection in these virtual houses. So then that's of course the real estate agent in me says, Well, who are they gonna use to sell their virtual house? And how is that gonna play? I mean, there really are people building virtual houses.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Yes, absolutely. In fact, Jennifer, this is an amazing explosion of what we call the metaverse. All right, so basically, the metaverse is taking virtual reality, augmented reality, and physical reality and merging them together into a kind of like a world and existence, right? Unbelievable. Yeah, so there are platforms out there. You may have heard of maybe decentralized or a decentral land, sandbox. Gosh, there's a bunch of other yeah, these are metaverse-based platforms that create these worlds, and in these worlds, it's kind of like SimCity.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

If you I was gonna say it's almost like Sims, or there's another one too that is on uh the Nintendo DS. I can't remember. Well, I I've got now I'm really dating myself. The 3DS, and I cannot remember what the name of it is, but my kids probably would rattle it off right away.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

So in these worlds, there are land that's available, and on this land, there's plots of land. And as a member or a participant in this world, I can purchase a plot of land, and based on whatever the rules are of the land, I can build a the rules and the covenants. So they're mirror, they're they're mirroring essentially, they're mirroring the physical world in the digital world. Believe me, we can really get deep, and it gets really freaky how deep this gets. But people will exist in this virtual world where it's kind of connected to physical, but it exists on your computer, on your devices, or on a VR headset, and you exist in there and you socialize in there, you build things in there, you could build a house.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So it's like Minecraft, it's like Minecraft in the Mies from from Wii U. Yes, collided and you threw it, sprinkled in a little bit of Animal Crossing in there, and we sprinkled it. Like I said, I wish I could remember the name with the uh the name of it as well. So we're taking all these virtual realities, yes, and it's just another. I hate to word use the word extension, but it's another like likeness to what we've been walking around with in our DSs, and we're when we're playing, you know, what Pokemon Go.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

You're immersing yourself, you're immersing yourself into this virtual world. Really, it's a different reality. You're in a virtual world, which is so again, this really gets deep.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

This is like three episodes down the road here.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

But in these worlds, they function like the physical world where you'll have stores that you go to, and when you go to these stores, you can purchase, and those stores will connect to the physical store in the physical world and have it shipped to your house, all your groceries. Or if you want to purchase uh what wait a second, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

So we didn't even all right now. We just we just took a left hook here, so similar, which actually is a really good idea because very similar to I can get on my phone, my iPhone, my I love my iPhone, and I loved my Blackberry more. I'm still I'm still tearing over the Blackberry, but anyway. So now I can get on my phone, I can get on Amazon and I can order my food to be delivered to my home now as we stand from Whole Foods and have it shipped to my house. I never have to go to the store. So you're telling me that this is going to this is in is this in in this other virtual reality world?

SPEAKER_00 41:30

This is already happening. This is already happening.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

What?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yes, in fact, get this, Jennifer. They have where have I been in these in these virtual metaverse worlds, they actually have let's say art museums where there's like art in there, and you go in there and you view the art. Physical bands will then come into the metaverse and put on a concert, a virtual concert in that world that you can purchase you can get a ticket to go view it. For you know what it is, and what the bands are doing, get this. I know you want to ask me something. I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, but I'm not gonna forget this.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

The bands are going to add extras to your ticket, your virtual ticket, meaning that if you come and watch them in this virtual world, you're going to have access to maybe the next release. You're gonna be the first one to hear their next song. They give all these benefits to their NFT token, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

So the tickets like so it drives up the price of their NFT token token, and so it's again, it's all going like the wheels are turning like you would not believe right now.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah, so getting back to our original question, yes, you're building houses and and condos and apartments in this world, but you're spending physical money in that world, so you're converting it into virtual money, into tokens, and then you're purchasing these tokens to have the capabilities to go ahead and build and construct and and create in this virtual world. It's just it's very uh mind-blowing when you start to sit back and think about it. This is happening, it's happening right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

I'm uh I'm I definitely have a lot more swirling around and more ideas because this this is, I think we've got at least uh four more or five more podcasts, and we're not even through with this one yet. I I I don't even know what to say. I think that so how is that gonna how's it gonna affect the dollar? Do we uh we we probably I mean likely we don't even know because what I think I can see the benefits of this too being I can sit here, like now we're on we're on Zoom. So it's like this a similarity only It's this our zoom is not tokenized. Well, I think I'm gonna have to tokenize uh Lux Life because that's gonna be my next spot to do that now.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Now you're thinking.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Now you're thinking because you can get a ticket to uh because you get you're where you are, I'm where I am. We're still in the physical world connecting. Virtually, virtually wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

So this would take what we're doing right here and just build a whole world around it, a virtual world around it that you and I would exist in. And you and I could be sitting on a park bench somewhere having this conversation in the virtual world recording this.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

So do you have a me in the virtual world, or is it how how do you how are we in the in the virtual world? Like I said, I'm I'm yeah, I'm my I can't even talk, and that's not like me because I have so many things going on. So we're gonna have to look into it. So where can we go? Okay, I got where can we go to figure out how to tokenize? Because as soon as we're off, we're off of this, I'm going to to do this. Where do we go to figure out how to tokenize us?

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah, well, first of all, this is all the stuff we're talking about, is new technology and it exists and it's happening. All right, so it's very young in its existence. But anytime you're gonna get into something new, please, please, please educate yourself first. Know what you're doing before you jump into something like this. Even if it's just you're gonna start in cryptocurrencies and you're gonna make your first crypto Bitcoin purchase. Please understand what the technology is, why Bitcoin exists, how to go ahead and purchase it, how to store it, what the ramifications of it, of owning it, what taxes are now being applied to it. Please get educated before you get involved with these technologies. This is what I love to do. I love to take these complex things that are happening and simplify it and teach people about them before they get involved. So they, when they get involved, they start to make good decisions. They're not making reactive decisions, they're not following the crowd, they're not chasing down a hello kitty NFT and paying a hundred thousand dollars for it and not knowing why they're doing it just because everybody else is doing it and you want one.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, so you're right. I need to slow and come back and go, wait a second.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

So what you need to put on the brakes and you need to learn and have some knowledge before you get involved with this.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

That would make sense because who knows what's out there, who knows what's and I'm sure, like with everything else, there's a way to be taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Absolutely. There are a lot of even in the crypto blockchain environment, even though it's super safe, the technology itself, you can't hack it, and that's a whole different conversation. We can talk about the the safety and the the benefits of blockchain, but there's still a physical layer to that, and there's always scams in the physical layer, and people fall for those scams. I'll admit, and maybe this is a different conversation. When I first got involved five years ago in the crypto environment, I fell for a scam. A lot of people did. All right. And I can talk about that in another episode of what to look at, what to look for. And when I that happened to me, I believed in the technology, but I needed to understand the technology more, so I didn't fall for not knowing about something in a way that would have protect me. So knowledge is a protection once you get into this.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

So then goes back to our what our previous conversation before we started the podcast. Maybe that all happened for a reason. So then that way you can educate the rest of us absolutely what to look forward to.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Yeah, we were talking about the law of attraction and things happen for a reason. Yeah. I like to teach from the mistakes I made, so the people that get involved now don't go through that and don't get taken advantage of, and how they can start on the right foot and then continue on a progression through it in a manner that is productive, in a manner that's profitable, right? Yeah, a manner that's successful. So knowledge is so important, especially when something new like this comes out. But once you understand it, the light bulb goes off, and then you can start to do your research and you understand the terminology and you understand it, and you just kind of grow in this environment and you can succeed and find success in this. So you that's that's what I love to do. We had talked about uh me working with people and helping them simplify technology and then simplify how they use it and understand it. Well, this is a great example of it. To get involved with this, I coach people how to tip their toes into the blockchain crypto environment, right? And they start very basic with just buying their first cryptocurrency and understanding why they're buying it and what that cryptocurrency does, so they can say, you know what, this makes sense. This technology really makes sense, and I'm investing in not just I'm gonna be quick, rich, flip it, and go. Some people do that, but most people who try to do that get burned. But I'm investing in something I understand and know this is something that's gonna last for a long time, something that's gonna revolutionize the way we transact in finance and how we buy and sell products and in the real estate environment, how we're gonna transact and how all those transactions are gonna change and how that's going to be now tokenized, and how I'll be gonna be used, how I can use cryptocurrencies to go ahead and pay for things, and and maybe I'm trading properties and maybe I'm investing. Once you start to learn that, you I mean, this is still early on, Jennifer.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

In this, this is just like yeah, but it's like if I'm hearing about it in my you know, my real estate market, if I you know, because I I listen to so many different, whether it's luxury guru, I mean, I listen to so many different because knowledge is power, just as you said, and that then gives me the ability to serve my clients the best because the more knowledgeable I am on a broad scale, I can help my clients. So, because if I am coming up again, if there's another agent that comes in and they have better knowledge than me, which happens, but I need to know where I can go to gain the knowledge myself. Again, it all goes back to trust. You know, knowledge is power and trust. And my clients trust the fact that if there is something I don't know or don't understand, I will find the answer. Yeah, you know, it might take me a minute, but I will find the answer. Unbelievable. I can't, like I said, I think let's see, what are you doing next month? Because I think we're going to be doing a few more of these podcasts because I cannot, as this is evolving, you know, between the first part of the podcast and interview is about making our life, you know, streamlining my life. We also now complicated it all in the same content, but in a good way, in a good way, because it's growth, and that's what we want. Yeah, we want that growth.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

No, you hit it right on the head right there. It is all about growth.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Unbelievable, unbelievable. So we're gonna have though so the dollar, you know you hear about the dollars going away, cryptocurrency is going to replace the dollar. You know, to me, there's always barter and trade, and again, it goes back to two agreements. You know, you have this person agreeing to to accept this form of payment for this particular item or service, whatever it is. So I don't see the dollar going anywhere, to be honest with you. I think this is just an extension of it. This broadens it, it almost takes how all of our well, we have the US dollar, you have the euro, and those can all still stay, but it almost blends them together.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah, I mean, uh again, that's a whole different conversation, too, about the actual tech government and how that all plays out, especially.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Oh, yeah, of course. Why I don't know why I'm not even thinking that there's of course there's gonna be a governmental body overseeing all this. That is a whole again, you know. I think we'll have you on a monthly basis here because this is just to stay up to date, because this is evolving so fast, so quickly, and if we don't keep up, we're going to be left behind. And nobody really wants that, you know. Some people, it's not for them, and that's okay, that's their choice. You know, some people are gonna love it, some people are gonna go, what the hell are they both talking about? Unbelievable. So we really can sell a house with an NFT. I mean, of course, government regulations, rules, uh, lawyers are involved. So I'm I guarantee lawyers would be involved. But you we really could sell a piece of real estate with an NFT son of a gun.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Yeah, so the technology is there, you hit it on the nose, it's all about the regulatory bodies and how that all works, but it is happening right now. I know there's a website called MyBricks, which is an investment kind of like a crowdsourcing investment site, mybricks.com, that allows you to buy tokens. They go out and they rehab apartment complexes, and you buy ownership into this, and you get a certain percentage of the rent that exists right now. This is happening all over the world. So, with a little research, you'll find how this is starting to pop up. Now, once you start to see them start to pop up and that momentum grows, look out because it's gonna it's this environment, this whole crypto blockchain environment has exploded. I did a presentation four years ago, and I told that crowd within three to five years, you're gonna see an explosion of this technology. And a lot of the things we talked about right now are starting to become commonplace NFTs, Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, smart contracts, tokenization, all that's really starting to become mainstream. You're seeing articles in the Wall Street Journal all over the web. It's really starting to explode. And again, you guys, everybody who's listening, this is just the beginning of this. It's still a baby, it's an infant, and we're in at the ground level right now, which is so exciting. And it's exciting. You can see my passion, you can or hear my passion. You can if you get involved now and you get adapted now, the change that's coming is not going to be so as harsh as if you jump in later on.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Yeah, it won't be so scary, it won't be so scary because you're it's it's evolving, it's evolving.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Yeah, just the terminology, and you have a basic understanding, makes something a little bit more easy to take. You get that comfort level, right? And with technology, that's the big thing. Even when the smart devices, smartphones and iPads came out. When I worked with real estate agents, I worked with hundreds of them, they were afraid of it, they didn't want to deal with it. But it was those early adopters that grabbed it and ran with it and succeeded. And they had the edge up, right? They had the the leg up, and they it's amazing what some of those early adopters did in the real estate industry. It was fun to be with them and guide them through. Well, this is a whole new technology that I can see in amazing things that are going to happen with it. And I want to teach and help people like you, Jennifer, and your listeners, all about this so they can adapt to it and take advantage of it, right? Early adopters, you know, what's something that's successful and they get in early, you those are the ones that really succeed with it. It's the most profitable in it.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Yeah, you always have to be cutting edge, you always have to be a hot, I hate to say ahead of the game, or you know, the only competition we have is ourself, you know. So if you want to say you want to be ahead of the competition, well, then you need to grow, you know, because that's you have to continue to grow outside your comfort level and your comfort zone. Again, going back to what we said before when we were talking about Evernote. Un I, you know, again, I'm not speechless very often. I'm at a loss of words. I have because my I have so many ideas that are coming in and so many thoughts and so many questions, which I'm sure our listeners do as well. So, in the meantime, so when we end the podcast here, this is also going to be on YouTube as well. We're we're heard all over the place. Uh, we keep we keep gaining gaining ground, which is is what we want. Put it out into the universe and and let it go, and it's going. Where in the meantime, in between now and in our next podcast, and I'll like I said, I'll talk to you about that once we're we're we are done recording. How can somebody get a hold of you? Because I guarantee there's going to be either fellow agents in my audience, there's going to be people that are gonna say, you know, I liked what he had to say. I really I can connect with him. You have um a likable, I mean, that's true, but you have a likable, approachable personality. You you make tech sound exciting, you know. Tech a lot of times is not real exciting, let's be honest. You know, how did they get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Well, thank you, Jennifer, for the kind words right there. Yeah, you can reach me at my website, which is D as in Dave, R C as in Kat, S as in Sam, hypensolutions. That's plural solutions.com. So D R C S hypinsolutions.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. Go ahead and do a search, connect with me, please connect with me. Tell me that you you heard me on Jennifer's podcast and let's connect. You can also go to Amazon.com, put my name in the search, and you'll see the book that I co-authored. It's called Brilliant Breakthroughs for the small business owner and one of the authors in there. And Jennifer, you'll like this. I talk about how I use technology from a mindful standpoint to turn my business and my life around 11 years ago. So it was a great kind of a personal.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

I do love it.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Yeah, kind of a personal approach that I took and I share my frustrations and I share how I use technologies and strategies to help me get through some tough times in my business in my personal life. So it's very relatable, great things. I do talk about Evernote in there as well. So you'll see that. And I do interview some other people that uh I share some of their strategies and their thoughts. So it's called Brilliant Breakthroughs for the small business owner. I'm in the there's five volumes to this. I'm in volume one, which is the blue book, volume one. But you can just go to Amazon and go ahead and search my name, Dave Rebro, on there. If anybody out there likes what they heard, like our conversation, and are you like, you know what? I want to jump into this a little bit more deeper and start to grow my knowledge. I work with individuals, groups that come out and teach this stuff. Okay. So I have coaching platforms, I come out and speak, I run uh workshops. So if anybody out there is interested in possibly, you know, scheduling something, and I have various topics that we work off of. Feel free to go to my website. If you go to my website, if you add slash crypto at the end, that'll go right to my crypto page where I talk about blockchain, cryptocurrency, coaching, training, and as well as presenting. So uh I love you can tell my passion. I love to go ahead and present this stuff because it's just so fun and just such a dynamic topic. You make it fun. I'm available. It's not fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

You make it fun. I you make it where it's like I'm engaged. So I'm not, and we're gonna make sure we put your links on the um in as well, and with our podcast, so it's easy enough for everyone to find where they need to go to to connect with you. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

That was fun, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Unbelievable. Well, we're gonna sign out now, and you have every all of Dave's information, and we'll also make sure that's in the podcast description. Dave, stick around at the end of this and uh let's have a further conversation here. What what a what an educational episode, my goodness. So thank you everyone for tuning in. This is Jennifer Williams with Lux Life, and it has been my pleasure to have Dave Rebro as my special guest on this episode. Once again, Jennifer Williams, Cobalt Banker Gold Coast, Lux Life podcast. Until later. Thanks.