Are you the 7th kind? 😉
How You Can Make A Million Dollars With Just One Talent
Beg, borrow or better yet poach, if your originality doesn’t make the cut
Every year 100 million animals are poached for their skin, fur, meat, bones- you name it they poach it.
Talking of poaching, I live in India, the land of song & dance Bollywood.
What’s the connection here that’s not obvious amigo? To the uninitiated, apart from the fact that a Bollywood actor was caught poaching a rare animal, the connection goes back 92 years. You see, Bollywood swears by poaching. Merrily oblivious to ethics & logic, it has flourished for a century on the convenience of poaching.
Of late I have been meditating on the effects of poaching.
So much so that it has become part of my DNA. Not to poach but to avoid poachers.
Jumping back in no particular sequence to Bollywood. Why does Bollywood poach? For the same reason that people poach tigers- there is a demand for the product & large amounts of money involved. Bollywood is conscious enough to call it inspiration- a box office-led inspiration I assume.
But poaching is rampant in other industries. It is a loaded term for example in recruitment. Here companies poach employees from competitors. It’s like a hunting game in another’s backyard. You get illegal access to the backyard as a bonus i.e. your competitor’s trade secrets.
The kind of poaching that troubles me the most is the one that makes a dent in my livelihood. I run a one-person content & coaching business.
I share on social media platforms including this one. You may not believe it, but my writing is quite popular on some of them. For some time now I’ve been getting a flood of connection requests from content writers. Their ego-massaging messages made me happy & I’ve been connecting with them all!
My happiness proved to be as flighty as Kanye West on dope. I woke up one day to see my content lifted (yeah they are lazy) & running on other creators’ social media platforms. Bloody inspirational!
I’ve started to stalk poachers the way they stalked me! Tit for tat! Since I study them, I classify them into different buckets.
I like to use analogies from the poaching industry to do so.
1. Subsistence Poachers
These small fry target small game & hunt for survival. Subsistence poachers on platforms try to poach clients from other content writers/ coaches.
2. Commercial Poachers
The Pangolin is the most poached animal in the world. Its meat is a delicacy in China. Commercial poachers form organized gangs to poach this animal. In the jungles of various ‘platforms’, commercial poachers operate in organized groups. They poach from those rare animals called ‘Influencers’. Commercial poachers don’t get their hands dirty themselves, they leave it to their teams.
3. Virtual Poachers
Poached animals are now being traded illegally online. On platforms, virtual poachers poach digital products. Those digital courses you might have seen originally worth $5000, actually priceless, sold at throwaway prices of $99? The ones that give you the edge so you can become the next Elon Musk? I am referring to those. Virtual poachers repackage their favorite ‘Influencers’ courses at less than half price. Easy enough!
4. Poaching interns
Some companies poach, then blame it on their interns.
5. Group poaching
These poachers form a network & poach together. They share territory & kills
6. Preaching poachers
The jungles of nature have no known school of poaching. But in the virtual world, we have preachers. They sell you 5-day webinars where they teach you how to poach.
7. The Biggie
I’ve been reading poaching rationales that are quite inspirational. They say copying others’ ideas is fair game, as long as you gain insights into how they work. I call this STRATEGIC POACHING.
Ways to Stop Poaching on Platforms.
- See something, say something that applies to poaching. Familiarize yourself with copyright & trademark laws.
- Do you feel like you are tempted to poach? The temptation can be really strong 😉. Familiarize yourself with Ethics & Integrity instead.
- Watch out during hunting seasons, like when step-brother Covid strikes. Poachers roam around at will.
- Report violations. You can post about poaching on social media if you dare.
- If you suspect poaching, do NOT directly confront the parties involved. They can be dangerous! Poachers often hunt in groups carrying weapons of attack like hacking & spamming.
- If you do poach, please share the game (credits) with the owner.
- Most importantly, DONT poach if possible.
For this article, I poached a bit over the Internet about traditional ‘poaching’ in the jungles, because I am not an experienced poacher myself.
