The Copycat Myth: How It Keeps You From Being Original
What if you could become original almost by accident?
What if you could become original almost by accident?
On the bark of a tree in Florida at night, some curious lights appear to be moving around.
Upon closer inspection, you can see that the lights are on the back of a long insect. This insect is called the railroad worm because its lights remind people of the windows of a train in the evening.
But why does this insect glow this way at night? Couldn’t it attract unwanted attention from predators? It turns out that when hungry animals of prey see these glowing lights they scurry the other way. Why?
The railroad worm is poisonous.
The glow delivers the message “Don’t eat me or you’ll die.” And when it comes to copying others, we are often warned away as well and told: “Be original or you’ll fail.” But is this good advice? Or is it a kind of poison that can interfere with our growth?
We’ll cover three ideas to answer these questions. First, we’ll discuss why people think copying is bad. Second, why copying can be the first step to success. And last, why the road to originality may actually start with being totally unoriginal.
1. Why we think copying is bad
When I took a test in Mrs. Turner’s 5th-grade literature class, I knew one thing — don’t look at another student’s paper. Everyone knew this. It was no different in any other teacher’s classroom. Looking at another student’s answer was cheating. It was wrong. Copying = bad.
When it came to dancing, I got a similar message.
When I was a kid, I would sometimes see someone whose moves looked cool and I would try to mimic their style. A well-meaning adult noticed this and said that I shouldn’t do what others were doing. Instead, I should just find my own way. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a way yet. But I was picking up something from what she said. Others thought I shouldn’t copy, even when it came to how to place my feet in time to a beat.
And speaking of music, I would hear the phrase “That group is derivative” which meant that a band’s music sounded like the work of other bands. It wasn’t original. In so many domains, we hear the same message “Be yourself. Be original. Don’t copy anyone else.” So no wonder we all believe it. But is it possible that copying others is essential for our learning and growth?
2. Why copying can be a first step to success
During the Italian Renaissance, many well-known artists started with a peculiar form of training. They didn’t start with live models or by studying perspective. Instead, they started by being given drawings from masters and then being asked to copy them. The goal was to duplicate them as closely as possible. Yes, it is likely that many well-known artists of the day such as Leonardo DaVinci or Michelangelo started out by copying the work of other artists.
By copying other artists they learned to pay attention to lines, their shape, their thickness. Once they had mastered copying, they would move on to drawing live models. Then more complex subjects. And if you think this practice stopped at the Renaissance you would be mistaken, some of today’s artists started by copying the drawings of others too.
This is all well and good for artists, but if you work in the world of business can you really become successful by copying others?
Some of my early training as a copywriter came from a marketer named Bob Serling. One thing he taught and taught very well was how to use repeatable structures and formulas to write emails and sales pages. I was a copywriter and I was using his formulas for some of my most successful work. I wrote dozens of emails for marketing campaigns, all for the one company and no one could tell that I was using the same formulas over and over.
Or if they could tell, they didn’t care because of the results. Later, I learned other formulas from other writers until I had quite a few in my tool belt. Eventually, I put together unusual combinations of ideas that worked. As a result, my approach to copywriting became something unique to me.
As we can see this works quite well for individuals but can it work on a larger scale?
Southwest Airlines is often heralded as the world’s most successful airline.
They remained profitable through the industry's lean years when every other airline was bleeding cash. Even after the events of September 11th, they still turned a profit. And not only is this airline profitable, but it is also different from every other US airline.
Southwest has a sense of humor. Stewards and stewardesses give the safety talk by making jokes. Some are so funny they’ve become viral YouTube hits. When the hum and spoke system was popular among airlines, they were running point to point flights. They dispensed with most of the luxuries of other airlines, not even serving food when nearly every other airline did so.
Southwest sure sounds like a case for an original business, doesn’t it?
Yet, much of what I described above was taken from the playbook of an airline that started earlier than Southwest. An airline called Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA). In fact, PSA actually taught the owners of Southwest how to be like them. When Southwest was a startup back in 1967, its founders paid PSA to show them how to run an airline.
Southwest has gone on to have massive success despite being a copycat airline. So it seems that copying successful strategies is certainly not an impediment to success. In fact, copying can be a first step to achieving your goals. But what if one of your goals is to be original? Could copying actually help you achieve it?
3. Does the road to originality start with being completely unoriginal?
Back in 2000, I started my training as a coach. I started by copying my mentor. My words were his words. My techniques were his techniques. When I worked with clients, I often felt that I was channeling him. I think I even asked the same questions with the same inflections of voice that he did and had similar mannerisms.
This year, as I trained a group of coaches who wanted to learn my mentor’s approach to coaching, I put together entirely new training materials and a new format for training. One thing that struck me was how much my approach had changed over the years. I was still using his basic method but I had created a style all my own.
And this didn’t happen because I was trying to be original. It happened over time as I learned from other coaches, and from my experience working with clients. I didn’t try to create something different. My unique style emerged as I learned and grew.
I’m not alone in having this experience.
In one study two business school professors, Alva Taylor (Dartmouth) and Heinrich Greve (Norwegian School of Management) tracked the commercial value of thousands of comic books from 234 publishers. They looked at the careers of the people who produced the most value. What they discovered was counter-intuitive. The people who produced the most valuable work didn’t have the most experience in the industry, they weren’t the most prolific, and they weren’t the ones whose publishers had the greatest resources.
Instead, they were the ones who worked in the most genres.
In fact, Stan Lee, the famed creator of many of Marvel’s most famous heroes such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four had worked in at least 7 genres before he wrote a single superhero comic.
Those who switch genres may have to copy the basics of that new genre at first before they can make it their own and do something different with it. The message here is not to force yourself into being original. Let your interests guide you. Copy the best. Learn from the best. Steal from the best.
You will end up with a tapestry of ideas, techniques, and processes that are all your own. This can’t be forced into existence just as you cannot force a seed to grow into a rose. All you can do is water it, provide heat and sun and then just wait for something beautiful to emerge from the dark soil.
Summary
We think copying is bad because we’ve received this message from school, the media and most art forms throughout our lives. Yet, we often forget that copying is often a first step on the road to success. In fact, many people who go on to create something original will start out copying the work of others.
Fortunately, so long as you copy others as a form of learning, you’ll continue to grow until you look back and realize you’ve become original, almost by accident.