Warning: Do Not Replicate

The fastest way to irrelevancy is to try and copy other people’s ideas, processes or results. This is true in art, business and innovation.

Our brains are trained to ignore things that fit into a narrative we already understand. It’s one of the reasons trends in marketing don’t make a lot of sense. It’s why people don’t take risks on social media. It’s why people want me to post on Medium and be part of the crowd. People think you need to adopt the habits and technology of past successes.

Our great innovators built something new. Can you imagine if Charles Dickens just rewrote Shakespeare word for word? What about if Google just said, “We’re going to do what Microsoft did?” It wouldn’t work. It’s also a reason companies fall apart. Formerly great companies crumble because they have an inability to invent new things.

When this happens, things die. It’s what killed the American Western genre. It’s a reason the established television news and newspapers lost their footing. Stagnation doesn’t impress audiences. This becomes evident when artists put out the same record three times in a row.

I worry about this problem when I see all of these articles about following the habits of successful people. There’s a huge industry for this sort of thing, and for the most part, we should not concern ourselves with copying people. It’s about evolving past them.

I’m listening to Jim Collin’s Good to Great, a book about companies that outperformed their competitors. Based on the book’s research, there’s not a set formula that performance is tied to: motivation style, monetary incentives, lifestyle structure, personal publicity or technology. Great performers operate outside such frameworks, but so many people think that the key to success is hidden somewhere in articles and books on these processes.

The first step in the building process should be to explore things that work for you. Then for step two you should be consider creating something the world wants. Not for personal gain, but as a way of elevating whatever you’re working on. Create your own path. Take things from others that work for you, but then start creating. You’re wasting your time trying to replicate the success of others. We won’t notice.