i often notice myself finding, many times in life, situations where i’m using other people’s leftovers or scraps for myself. i don’t see you using others’ leftovers as copying or plagiarism directly, but as a way of reusing something or a concept.
many times that thing was discarded or left over for 2 reasons: the owner executed poorly and failed, or executed well and failed. knowing how to tell those apart is the key to growing in a business world as corrupt as ours. i’ve reused many times things from other people that were discarded precisely because they were bad, wrong, terrible ideas. that cost me a lot of time and learning, but that’s part of it.
when i succeed at taking the leftovers of something or someone and extracting value from it, i don’t feel like a genius or like someone dumb — i feel like someone who took advantage of another’s mistake and turned it into something precious, something of value. i shouldn’t be proud of taking an idea from a small creator who failed and reusing it for my own benefit, taking advantage of the fact that they’re infinitely smaller than me and didn’t have the same opportunities i had to grow.
yes, many times reusing leftovers will be useful for many people, no matter how you executed it: if it worked, nobody wants to know what was behind it — and that’s what drives today’s society.
so try to tell apart whether you’re trying to reuse from someone who has nothing to offer, or from someone who never got the chance to implement their own idea effectively in today’s reality.
- focus