How to Deal With Copycats
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Did someone steal your idea?
Some people have a hard time getting over the idea of someone copying them or stealing their ideas, but not you because you follow me - your go to creative consultant that teaches you how to grow your creative mindset while developing an intuitive and product brand strategy.
This week we are discussing copy cats, how to deal with them and how to move past them.
How to Deal With Copycats
The other day a client asked me how I can be ok with someone taking my talking points, my ideas, and my concepts and then using them to as their starting point to their business or social media presence.
I’m not going to lie, watching people use my ideas, specifically w/out credit or without working with me, has always been a sore spot for me. A weak point in my creative mindset if you will, but here’s the thing:
There comes a point in your journey where you start to pivot from sharing other peoples concepts, ideas and quotes - to creating and sharing your original concepts ideas and quotes.
So if I’m the reason, the inspiration or the genius behind what sparked someone else’s pivotal point in their career - I will always be proud to be that person and no one can take that away from me. No matter how much they would want to deny it, hide it or not give credit for it.
As long as a person reaches the point of making it their own, I truly don’t let it bother me. Instead I see their success as a win. A win for them for finding their style, and a win for me for helping them. Just like I would feel pride in helping anyone else, I choose to be proud of them, cheer them on and encourage them to continue to find their footing and voice.
Because as at the end of the day if you put yourself out there to inspire and teach - you can’t be mad at WHO you inspire and teach.
And if they never find that pivotal point where they begin to create something new from your idea and instead are copying you, I like to remind myself of two things:
They don’t know where to start and hopefully don’t realize what they’re doing is wrong because tiktoks and reels have rebranded copying into trends
Or if they do know what they are doing they will always be one step behind you, because they have to wait for you to post your content first. They can’t create something without you creating it first.
Remember you can always set your boundaries and reach out to the, but you should also protect your energy. I have reached out for credit and most of the time the creator will correct it and apologize, but there have been times where the person refuses to admit you inspired it, claimed they never say yours and it was just a coincidence or what ever it might be. And rather than allowing that negative energy to consume me, I protect my energy by changing my perspective.
Sometimes it’s easier to accept that there’s always going to be that one person who refuses to credit you and it’s ok to block them.
Don’t be fooled, if someone steals your intellectual or creative property and are reselling it as is - I definitely believe in taking legal actions for plagiarism. For those of you who don’t know, an easy way to determine if someone has plagiarized or not is if someone recreates something you’ve created and has 7 major differences it’s not plagiarism.
Hopefully today’s episode helps you get past when it feels like someone has or is copying you and I hope that your biggest take away here is to keep doing what you’re doing because clearly you’re doing something right if someone wants to or tries to copy you.
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Until next time!
xo Danielle
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