Good advice, eh?

Today is Canada Day north of the border! so let's talk about a Canadian import to the U.S.A. (Two of them, actually.)

Before I spent a half-hour in the same room as the Property Brothers a few months back, I didn’t think I had much in common with them.

• For starters, I am the least handy person I know. It’s sort of a running joke in my family that I can barely change a light bulb.

• Possibly related: I don’t have a visually creative mindset. I am not the type of person who could look at a house in need of renovation and dream up how to do it.

• Finally, and this would have been obvious if we’d been on stage together, but they tower over me. Put them in boots and they’d likely be about a foot taller.

Plus, there is only one of me, but there are two of them: identical twin brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott, 47 (both, of course), best known for their myriad shows under the Property Brothers umbrella on HGTV.

Photo by Bill Murphy Jr. I was sitting way in the back, which I personally think makes this picture a bit funnier.

Still, I was in Palm Desert, California, for the Inc. 5000 Conference, and the Scott brothers were hanging out on stage with my colleague Tom Foster.

I left their talk with a notebook full of smart takeaways on how they built their business, starting with their massive cable TV success, expanding far beyond, and growing into their current aspirations.

But, I realized that there was a short quote with a long reach from Drew Scott early in the interview, explaining a fact without which most of their success wouldn’t have been possible.

Here’s the quote that really got my attention:

“We acquired the IP for Property Brothers early on from the original production company and we took it to where it is.”

It's one thing, I suppose to own a business. It's another entirely to OWN THE BUSINESS.

Maybe even better than that: They began building the Property Brothers brand and exploring their success on somebody else’s dollar.

(Perhaps we should say, someone else’s “loonie” or “toonie,” since this was a Canadian production to begin with.)

Then, they recognized its value, and negotiated to acquire it. It’s worth sharing the longer version of the story, as Drew and Jonathan told it together later in the interview.

They finish each other’s thoughts pretty often; it was entertaining:

Jonathan: “When you look at the amount of money being spent in the home space for people who are buying homes, renovating, decorating, all of these things, it’s such a massive market.

And, just past the second year of Property Brothers, we approached the original producer and said, hey, we want to do a product line. We think that there’s a real opportunity for us to use our brand to do products.

And the producer said, we’re not in the product business, we’re in the TV business, not interested.”

Drew: “So I brought a contract in and I was like, can I get that in writing please?”

Jonathan: “Thankfully, we started to lean into developing product and there was a synchronicity with the consumer and the audience and it took off.

And I remember when we hit our first a hundred million, the producer came back and said they wanted half of it.

And we were like, well, that’s not how it works. We’ve hired the whole team. We did all the investment. That’s when it got a little contentious.”

Quick background, in case your exposure to Property Brothers is limited to snippets of one of the three TV shows they host or the dozen others they produce while you’re waiting at your doctor’s office.

Starting with their eponymous show in 2011, Property Brothers productions now account for 17 percent of all programming on HGTV, and have added up to 9.5 billion hours of total viewer time in the U.S. alone.

They air in 160 countries, and the brothers attract massive crowds when they travel for appearances. They have their own real estate portfolios, and the products idea that eventually led to them acquiring the IP for Property Brothers now includes more than 12,500 products in 10,000 stores.

On top of that, they’re raising $85 million in investment for something they call the Healthy Home Innovation Fund.

That’s not just entertainment; it’s an empire.

Today is Canada Day, which is sort of but not really the Canadian equivalent of the Fourth of July.

Given the current state of everything between the U.S. and Canada on the trade front, I thought it was an appropriate day to share this story -- since the Scott brothers are in fact Canadian imports to the U.S.

Their shows (like most shows on HGTV) sometimes go to slightly awkward lengths to avoid mentioning where they take place; I assume that's to expand the viewership market.

Would the Scott brothers have had so much success if their first show was called something more like: "House-Hunting in Saskatoon?"

Although frankly, if anyone could have made it work on TV, it might have been these guys.

Anyway, bottom line?

Own your I.P. And then do things with it.

No handyman tendencies, visually creative mindset, or business partnership with your siblings required.

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7 other things worth mentioning

• Last week we had a lot of big Supreme Court decisions, so let's make sure we touch on a few of them. First, the court upheld a Texas law requiring pornographic websites verify users are at least 18, in a case that pitted concerns about protecting minors against worries about violating the First Amendment rights of adults. The court split 6-3 along ideological grounds with Justice Thomas writing the majority opinion and the three liberal justices dissenting. (USA Today)

• Parents with religious objections to storybooks with L.G.B.T.Q. themes may withdraw their children from public schools when the books are discussed, the Supreme Court ruled. The logic of Justice Alito’s majority opinion in the 6-to-3 decision seemed to sweep quite broadly, allowing parents with religious objections to demand that their children not be instructed about gay and transgender themes but also about many other topics. (The New York Times)

• This is pretty wild, and it shows how political opinions harden in real time. The Economist was running a poll on whether the U.S. should bomb Iran -- and during the poll itself, the U.S. actually did bomb Iran. You can see the exact moment that happened, and how Republicans instantly jumped from 40% in favor to 70%, while Democrats fell from 25% to 5%. (The Economist)

• The Grandfathers Fighting on Ukraine’s Front Lines: Kyiv has resisted drafting young men, anxious to protect the country’s long-term future. That means there is a lot of gray hair on the battlefield. (The Wall Street Journal)

• A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official's phone records and use Mexico City's surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency's informants in 2018 during the first Trump administration, the U.S. Justice Department said in a report. The report said the hacker identified an FBI assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and was able to use the attaché's phone number "to obtain calls made and received, as well as geolocation data." The report said the hacker also "used Mexico City's camera system to follow the (FBI official) through the city and identify people the (official) met with." (Reuters)

• With a do-or-die deadline to approve a massive 300% water rate hike or face going completely dry, the Central California community of Diablo Grande is at a crossroads. With its June 30 deadline just days away, Diablo Grande must choose: approve a jaw-dropping water rate increase from $145 to $569 monthly — nearly a 300% jump — or watch their taps run dry on June 30. (Yahoo News)

• An ancient city in Turkey was most likely ruled by females living in a "matriarchal society" more than 9,000 years ago, according to a study published in Science this week. Using genetic sequencing, researchers estimated that 70 to 100% of the time, female offspring remained connected to buildings, whereas adult male offspring may have moved away. There was also a clear pattern of preferential treatment toward females, with findings showing five times more grave goods offered to females than to males. (Associated Press)

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Thanks for reading. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.