How to Not let Others Steal Your Ideas
This is a real issue especially in the arts or creative sector where we feel threatened to share our ideas when they are in initial phases in fear of being stolen and ultimately owned by somebody else.
There are several opinion groups you can fall into, some that vow to protect your ideas from evil uninspired ones who are after you and others encouraging stealing as a prerequisite to be a good artist. From a legal perspective, ideas cannot be protected unless you have gone through the bureaucratic process of copyrighting them but before venturing into this long tale argument that’s been going on for decades I want to step back and ponder on the very fear that instigates such thoughts.
If you believe that there is no such thing as new ideas, you’re probably more inclined to fall under the latter camp pioneered first by Mark Twain and repackaged for the art world by Austin Kleon. Regardless of which camp you fall under when someone steals an idea you were excited about it sucks. I mean it’s downright shit, a moment where you just want to strangle that person. Before I proceed, if this keeps happening to you over and over again then you just need to evaluate the people you hang around with and with whom you share your ideas with.
Now that we’ve got that over with — in some ways, I concretised a project I had been working on for a long time earlier this year which you can find out more about here. A strange kind of fear set into me:
What am I going to do next?
Is this all I am ever going to make?
Is this good enough? Did I release it too soon before it’s finished?
These are the kind of thoughts that invariably follow once you have gone through the fear of someone stealing your ideas. If you’re concerned about someone stealing your ideas, ask yourself these questions:
What am I afraid of, really?
What will I do if someone ends up stealing this idea?
What can I do to make it steal-proof?
Honestly, I don’t have the answers to any of those — only you and you alone can respond to them. Whenever I am plagued by such thoughts I realise it’s often an underlying fear of this being the single greatest idea I will ever come up with so addressing that fear rather than worrying over one idea helps you recognise the bigger picture instead of getting bogged down by something that really shouldn’t get your attention as much as it does.
So what if somebody ends up stealing your idea? Being prepared with this almost ends up answering the final question for you in terms of how to make it ‘steal-proof’ in fact, do you need to make it steal-proof?
If somebody executes on your idea, can’t you just leverage their work to make it better? Of course, these are helpful provocations if you’re a writer like me but probably not so much if you’re a painter or a developer.
I’m going to suggest something that might be controversial and even counter intuitive to any advice on protecting your ideas that are out there but whenever I am paralysed by someone stealing something of mine I end up disclosing every single detail about it online.
How does revealing everything about your ideas help protect them?
Sharing ideas helps cultivate them because diverse insights always accelerate growth better than rummaging through your mind a thousand times looking for inspiration. Also, there’s this weird thing that happens when you start talking about your ideas openly online — people get the impression that you have ‘figured it all out’ and are more capable of executing it better than them alone so they’re more likely to join forces with you than become your competition. That’s been the case with me, at least.
Have you ever wondered when you’ll finally be seen as an ‘authority’ in your space? Then start acting like one by sharing your ideas generously. Authority figures do not live in fear, scared of the Internet.
Having said those things, I fully understand sharing of ideas needs to be done in a tactful manner so here are some of the things I have learnt about sharing my newborn ideas:
Trusted Group
A group of trusted individuals is pivotal for anyone to grow, every time I think of something new I throw it out either via text messages, online groups or suchlike who are vetted folk both from personal relationship building perspective as well as having the capacity to provide constructive feedback rather than share a random opinion (be prepared for the Internet to do so if you decide to be bold and share something on social media).
Steal Ideas
The truth is, everybody steals ideas including you so the sooner you accept it the quicker we can move onto doing it in a way that benefits both parties than get stuck in a rut of ‘either/or’.
How do you steal ideas? Find the inspiration for your work and chalk out the elements that you have stolen to make your own work and this is the golden part, reach out to those who inspired you to thank them. If you’re wondering how do I find a group of trusted people as described above, this is how you do it.
When you reach out before stealing ideas it helps build lasting partnerships. It also helps you learn how to best deal with those who steal your ideas, can you leverage their work to talk about your own work or is there a way both of you can work together optimising on each of your skills set?
Ideas Galore
This is probably the most important point of all; have more ideas than anyone can steal. What do I mean by that? Much of our fear of someone stealing our ideas comes from simply not having enough of it. Of course you are going to be heartbroken if someone stole the only idea you have but let’s say you have a 100 of them, who cares? Well, you care but it makes the process all the more easier to deal with.
Carol Dweck speaks a lot about Growth Mindset vs. Scarcity Mindset and this directly relates to which of these thought patterns resonate with you the most. If you’re constantly concerned of someone stealing your ideas, you’re paralysing yourself from ever letting them see the light of day because there’s always going to be a way to make it better, bigger and more awesome but that shouldn’t stop you from ever executing.
If you have a scarcity mindset you’re never going to have enough to make something of yourself but if you have a growth mindset or an abundance mindset call it what you will but you learn to see the possibilities rather than all the things that could potentially hurt you.
What Now?
It’s not going to be easy and it’s not a quick hack but the next time you find yourself closing up from revealing your ideas to the world, try to figure out which of those three phases you are most comfortable with and go ahead with it, tell a group of trusted friends, reach out to the one who inspired that idea in you or simply ignore it (for the time-being) and write down 10 other ideas that equally excite you which will certainly help calm your nerves.
Most importantly, don’t let your ideas die because you’re too afraid they’re going to grow bigger than you.
Bhavani Esapathi is a Huffington Post Blogger and Director of MOOC: Managing the Arts at The Goethe-Institut. She is also the Founder of The Invisible Labs; a social tech initiative making invisible diseases more visible and the recipient of the WIRED Creative Hack Award 2015.
