Never just adopt anybody’s idea. (Do something better instead!)

One of the greatest pieces of advice I got several years ago was to never try to blindly adopt any one idea, philosophy, or system, but to instead look warily at EVERY idea, philosophy and system with the goal of finding at least one thing that could be taken and adapted to my own situation. It gives you a wealth of ideas to pull from and avoids the pressure of trying to find a single solution from a single source.

This also turns the world around you into a remarkable learning laboratory! You’ll find ideas and inspiration exist all around you when you make a point of trying to take it all in. A good idea, too, is to keep some kind of “idea journal” in which to capture the ideas you discover here and there. That way, you’ve got a treasure chest of ideas you can choose from.

So don’t adopt, ADAPT!

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”— Jonathan Swift: English author