Earlier this week, I wrote about making something your own, whatever that something may be. A song, an article, marketing copy, a product… it doesn’t matter. Making something your own gives it an edge and makes it stand out from everything that is similar to it.

Learning how to make something your own is a process.

For some lucky people, the learning curve is so short that it can appear almost non-existent. They seem to have been born with an innate knowledge of and confidence in who they are and a talent for effortlessly demonstrating this to the world.

For the rest of us, though, it can take time to get to this place. And to help us along the way we often look to role models – people who have walked this path before us.

Role models are great. Imitating them is a necessary and important part of growth. But, imitation can go too far: learning from someone else’s experience and applying their advice in your own way to your unique situation is helpful; copying someone else’s personality and morphing into them in an effort to become as successful as they are is not. In fact, it’s downright harmful to you and your success.

The scary thing is that this latter form of imitation is not necessarily intentional. And it often happens so subtly and insidiously that the person involved doesn’t realise that they’ve got themselves stuck in the imitation phase and not actually moved on to making the advice their own.

Case study: Big Name Blogger and her fangirls

A certain current Big Name Blogger (who shall remain nameless as this is not about her) has a very large following. And rightly so. She is fantastic and excellent at what she does. She’s successful and she’s quirky and cool. In fact, she’s successful because she’s quirky and cool. And she teaches other people how to be successful by being their own quirky and cool selves.

Oh the irony.

Let me ‘splain. What’s happened over the past year has been painful to see. So many wonderful vibrant women flocked to Big Name Blogger, all eager to learn from her. But, instead of becoming more of their own quirky and cool selves as both they and Big Name Blogger intended, they instead slowly but surely morphed into clones of Big Name Blogger’s quirky and cool self.

I used to read some of these women’s blogs, and watched as their writing style changed. Now, all groups have a certain vocabulary in common, and this one is no different, but the types of changes I’m referring to went way beyond simple group jargon creeping in. I’m talking about the rhythm and tone of the writing changing to match that of Big Name Blogger. I’m talking about such similar ways of expressing things that in some cases sentences will match word for word – not plagiarism, just an exceptionally ingrained way of thinking. There’s more, but I can’t figure out a way of explaining it without giving away who I’m talking about. All I can say is that it totally freaks me out.

You’ll notice that I said I used to read these women’s blogs. Yup, I ended up unsubscribing from them. What attracted me to these women as writers and business owners in the first place was gone. They were no longer vibrant and interesting. Instead, they became boring repetitions of what I’d read over at Big Name Blogger’s blog. They were no longer unique. Instead, they became pale imitations of Big Name Blogger. Like Coke, they changed the recipe, leaving out that secret ingredient in their awesomesauce that made them so fabulous in the first place.

The world already contains Big Name Blogger. She’s an essential and brilliant part of the world. But, the world doesn’t need more clones of her. What the world needs are more people allowing their own special brilliance to shine forth.

I hope these women remember just how amazing they are, and start to let the rest of the world see it. I hope it’s not too late.