I’m a thief.
I steal constantly.
But I’m not a criminal.
I steal inspiration. I steal quotes from musicians I love, from authors I read, from art I consume, from random snippets of conversation, from gurus I listen to, from the rabbis I studied with when I was a child, from the monsters I train with at the gym.
Everywhere I go, I steal things that I think can get me closer to where I want to be. But for years, I felt SO guilty! I would lie in bed at night and tell myself I was nothing but a hack.
Then I took inventory of my life. Were any of my dreams really so original, dreams that someone else hadn’t dreamed of before?
All I was really trying to do was be a great product designer like Jonathan Ivey. I wanted to be a great marketer like Donny Deutsch. I wanted to be a visionary who dominated the fashion world just like Tom Ford. I wanted to create an impactful software company that helps people every single day like Jason Fried’s Basecamp. And who doesn’t want to be a savvy business mind like Gary Vaynerchuk or Tony Robbins?
It was when I gave myself permission to accept that it’s OK to steal, it’s OK to emulate, it’s OK to copy from the best, it’s only then that I got rid of all the anxiety and worry.
I can only be Moshe Modeira, but bits and pieces of the journeys of all the aforementioned heroes reside in me. Oh I almost forgot — I’m stealing right now! I stole the graphic that accompanies this piece from Austin Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist. Reading his book in 2016 was instrumental to the beginning of my metamorphoses, my personal development, to finally being able to give myself permission to write more, to publish, to share, to inspire and to elevate.
More than anything, it allowed me to get rid of the massive ego attached to thinking I needed to be an original. None of us are. We are all just remixing old ideas into unique and ingenious new forms, over and over again.
And that, I realize, is perfectly OK.
