Read time: 3 min.

A friend texted me: "Just bought Mel Robbins' new book."

I pulled it up on Amazon. #1 bestseller. The Let Them Theory.

Curious, I skimmed the preview and felt that strange déjà vu, like hearing a song you can't quite place.

Then I remembered.

In 2019, a poet named Cassie Phillips wrote "Let Them." It went semi-viral. I saved it. It was the same idea, just different packaging.

Here's the part that should blow your mind:

In 2019, Mel wasn't teaching "Let Them." That was Cassie's moment.

Years later? Mel picks up the same concept. Shares it with her audience. It becomes a #1 global bestseller.

Same message. Different voice. And a much different result.

Did she steal from Cassie's poem? Maybe. Does it matter? No.

Because the idea was never the thing.

Nothing is 100% Original

Most creators torture themselves chasing originality.

They think: "If someone's already said this, my version doesn't count."

So they don't publish. They don't share. They wait for some lightning-strike insight that'll change everything.

But here's the truth no one tells you:

Almost nothing is original.

As André Gide once put it, "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again."

Trace any "new" idea back far enough and you'll find it in Stoic philosophy, old poetry, or 1960s psychology textbooks. Control. Surrender. Fear. Purpose. We've been circling the same human questions for centuries.

We just keep finding new ways to answer them.

And that's not cheating. It's the entire game.

How to Make Any Idea Unmistakably Yours

The value isn't in the idea itself.

It's in your transformation of it.

How you remix it with your other influences. The experiences that shaped you. The failures that taught you. Your specific way of seeing the problem that nobody else has.

You are, essentially, a mashup of everything you've chosen to let into your life. Every book you've read. Every conversation that stuck with you. Every moment that changed how you see things.

That's why Mel's version exploded while teaching the same concept Cassie wrote about. Same truth, different filter.

So ideas don't actually die. They hibernate. And sometimes all someone needs is to hear the right truth at the right moment from the right person.

That person could be you.

The 3-Step System for Endless Ideas

If originality isn't the goal, then what is? Transformation.

Here’s the process I use to do that consistently:

1. Study what makes you stop

Most people consume content on autopilot.

Scroll, scroll, scroll, move on.

Start paying attention to the moments you don't move on.

What made you pause? Was it the opening line? A specific analogy? The way they framed a familiar problem differently?

I started doing this two years ago. Every time something hit different, I'd ask one question: "Why did this work?"

This is how you train your eye to recognize quality.

2. Build your swipe file

The best creators are relentless collectors:

• Bookmarked posts I wish I'd written

• Patterns I notice in conversations

• Screenshots of quotes that I like

• Voice memos during nature walks

The more you collect, the more your brain starts connecting dots others miss. Inspiration stops being random luck and starts being inevitable.

I have over 2,000 saved items in my swipe file. Most I'll never use. But the ones that stick? They become the backbone of my best work.

3. Transform what you consume

Here's what happens naturally when you're honest:

You encounter an idea. You sit with it. Maybe for days. Maybe for months.

And when it comes back out of you, it's different.

It's sharper. Softer. It has new edges. It's bent through your experience, your failures, your 3am realizations, your specific circumstances.

That's not plagiarism. That's alchemy.

The transformation happens in the space between consumption and creation. You can't force it. You just have to be honest about what you see and how you see it.

Your Only Job

For years I was frozen up by this idea that I needed something new to say. That my version was irrelevant if someone else had already said it better.

Turns out that's bullshit.

People don't want perfectly packaged wisdom. They want to hear from someone still figuring it out. Someone living through the mess, not lecturing from the other side of it.

I'm still learning this. But every time I share something raw and half-figured-out, it lands harder than anything I've over-polished.

Your mess, filtered through your honest lens, becomes someone else's clarity.

I hope this was helpful.

Much love,

— Martijn