You are a thief.
You don’t rob houses or banks. You steal ideas, concepts, and knowledge.
However, you’re not stealing from the person you got that idea or knowledge from.
You’re stealing from the people who would have first encountered this idea from you. From the people who needed a reminder of this specific concept today. From the thought leader who might have stumbled upon your publication and influenced the lives of hundreds or thousands of people by sharing it with them.
Sure, you might be reiterating an idea you got somewhere else a couple years ago. Combining ideas. Or even repeating a story you just heard today.
But most things in life have already been said by someone smart. There are no ideas in the world, where everyone who needed to hear them, has heard them.
That’s why you’re not stealing from the person you originally got the idea from. (Although you should still cite them/link to them if you know who it was.)
Take a look at the following list:
- Tony Robbins
- Paul Graham
- James Altucher
- Grant Cardone
- Gary Vaynerchuk
- Brendan Burchard
All of them are rock-stars within their niches, but you probably haven’t heard of ALL of them, and even if you have, you likely haven’t heard every single important message every single person on that list wants to convey.
If someone has an audience of 100,000,000, there’s still nearly 7,500,000,000 people on the planet who haven’t heard their message.
Is their message important to every single person on the planet?
Most likely not.
But could it be important to 1/10 of everyone on the planet?
If we assume their message is important enough, then they’ve only reached 15% of all people who could benefit from it, and for most people hearing it once isn’t enough. To truly understand the message, they need to hear it multiple times throughout their lives.
Maybe they’re more mature now. More understanding. More compassionate.
Maybe they’re willing to listen more. Accept other people’s advice. Be humble.
It doesn’t matter.
You are just like the celebrities who haven’t spread their message to everyone who needs to hear it.
There is knowledge inside of you, begging to be let out.
Maybe this is knowledge you obtained today. Maybe it’s knowledge you’ve had for a while. Or maybe, just maybe, it is knowledge that you and only you could’ve come up with. (An insight so rare that it only happens with 1/10000 or 1/100000 people.)
Don’t bottle up your knowledge even if you think it’s been said already.
You never know who might benefit from it.