Ryan Holiday remixed Robert Greene's format, David Senra built Founders Podcast from historical biographies, and Austin Kleon wrote Steal Like an Artist. The speaker turned Antonio Garcia Martinez's "Fuck You Money" into "Fuck You Time." Copy what works in your niche, add your spin, and you've got something new.
Ryan Holiday is a copycat, but there's nothing wrong with that. You probably know Ryan for his work about Stoicism, the ancient philosophy based on the works of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. He's become a New York Times bestseller and multi, multi-millionaire for his books, The Daily Stoic, The Obstacle Is the Way, and Ego Is the Enemy, where he takes lessons of the philosophy of Stoicism and applies them to the modern world. But what if I told you that Ryan copied his content strategy from someone else? Before Ryan Holiday became the famous writer you know today, he apprenticed for Robert Greene, the author of 48 Laws of Power. In his hit book, Robert takes stories from history about powerful people like Napoleon and Alexander the Great and turns them into lessons about power for the modern day. Now this is starting to sound a little bit familiar to what Ryan does, right? Ryan took Robert's content strategy and stole it and made millions. Is Robert mad? Nah, they're still friends. Robert knows what Picasso knows: good artists copy, great artists steal. Or in the words of author Steven Pressfield, "It ain't stealing if you put your spin on it." Like a DJ makes an EDM version of a rap song, Ryan took Robert's idea and put a Stoic remix on it. But wait, there's another remix out there too, by a creator named David Senra. He runs a podcast called Founders Podcast where he talks about famous dead founders every week and how to apply lessons from their lives to your life. Life. If Brian's remix is called the Stoic Remix, then David's is called the Founder Remix. On one of his podcasts, David says something I think about a lot: studying history is a form of leverage. He's right. When you study the history of creators and founders, you begin to understand that there is nothing wrong with being a copycat or a remixer. Every great artist is inspired and influenced by previous generations. We are all content kleptomaniacs taking ideas and strategies from the past and remixing them into our In fact, you better arrest me because I even stole the idea of talking about this concept from Austin Kleon's book "Steal Like an Artist." Austin's book changed my life. In high school, I stopped posting videos and blogs because I thought I didn't have any original ideas. I thought I needed something groundbreaking, something new that no one thought of. But I realized I could have just taken a previous idea and put my own spin on it. Here's how I did this recently. About a decade ago, founder Antonio Garcia Martinez wrote a blog called "Fuck You Money" about the idea of getting so much money that you could say fuck you to anyone. Just a couple years ago, I wrote a blog called "Fuck You Time," a remix of "Fuck You Money." Did I steal? No. I remixed the idea into my own and put my own spin on it. So next time you're feeling like you can't make content online because you don't have an original idea, just take someone else's idea and put your own spin on it. There's nothing illegal about it. Your spin is a competitive advantage that will set your work apart. So next time you're feeling stuck and unsure of what to make content about, go look at some popular content in your niche and see how you can put your own spin on it. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Start trying to remix it.
