Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’re going to have to ram them down people’s throats.
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’re going to have to ram them down people’s throats.
HOWARD AIKEN
How many times have you worried that someone is going to steal one of your ideas?
It is a normal concern in a world full of people who are all hoping to make their mark in life.
It is not only a concern, but a very valid one as well, for the prospect of an idea being unique to one person out of almost 8,000,000,000 is probably a statistical impossibility.
The best ideas are the ones that take considerably longer to get everyone to understand and appreciate, and whose influence and impact will last for decades, if not centuries. Those are the ones you have to stay focused and determined to get across the finish line.
When you have a truly brilliant idea, it is usually so advanced, that the majority of people will not even understand it as you explain, or demonstrate it. Instead you may discover yourself continually trying to get people to understand how and why you have seen the future and what it is going to take to create the direct embodiment of your idea. This is truly a thankless task.
Over the course of running The Illusion Factory for 45 years, I have seen continuous moments in which an idea of mine, that I thought was unique… produced by others, who had no contact with me whatsoever, and therefore really had no way of ever knowing that I had had such an idea.
Conversely, I have had other ideas that were outright blatantly stolen by third parties, who were unethical and more than willing to leverage my intellectual property as if it were their own.
We are so certain that we are all unique in our concepts, and as a direct result, we become incredibly protective and ultimately defensive, as we see ideas that we have conjured, come to fruition.
Given that in some circumstances, those ideas are highly lucrative, we must be of the mindset that in our choice to stay circumspect about our proprietary concepts, and only share them under specific circumstances, can we hope to potentially protect ourselves from them being exploited by a third-party.
At the end of the day, it is most wise to recognize that as vibrant, creative and original as we might credit ourselves as being, there is an even greater likelihood that others are thinking similarly, and that it needs to remain incumbent upon us to stay diligent in our generation and development of anything that we believe most strongly in.
And when you have that truly amazing idea, and you share it and get mostly blank stares, do not despair. Consider their confusion as your pathway to focus your idea so that others will eventually understand and see your vision.
Happy Sunday!
https://brianweiner.com
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