People who copy behavior are sometimes quite unique
Better to be a good copy than a poorly conceived idea.
Well, you're not actually that unique... When you realize that you have 70% of the same genes as ONE BANAN. And look like a potato. And differs very little from a chimpanzee. Then there is already very little uniqueness to be found. Then you can say, "Yes but Ed, I see the world in my own unique way. But there are also many people who see exactly the same as you. It seems that about 5% of people use the same filters as you, the same unique way. So that's already a lot of people.
Many people want to be unique, but actually we are not that unique at all. For example, it is difficult to walk or talk uniquely. The idea of being unique is that that is better, but you can also copy someone who is very good at something and then you become good too
For example, you might want to become an exceptionally good runner. So you join a running group and mimic the good runners (like your coach). And suddenly, you’re a good runner.
You’ve copied many things in your life, and that’s a good thing. At least, I wish there were more good copies. If you look at companies alone, you’ll see that out of the 1.9 million companies that exist, only 100 have annual revenue of one billion or more.
Imagine if those self-employed people who make 30,000 euros a year, which is almost a million, copied some of those 100. They would do a lot better.
You can go invent things yourself and see how other people do it and copy them, but that doesn't mean they all know best.
You can copy your parents in how they interact with people, handle relationships or handle money. You may wonder if those are the best examples. In my case, no. They are good examples, because I have very cool and super sweet parents, but not the very best in every area.
That's not at all possible, either. Neither am I. It would be pretty crazy if I could do everything very well.
First, think about what you want to be good at
For example, if you’re about to become a father and decide you want to be the best, it’s helpful to look to others for inspiration. Who in your circle is a good father? How does he do it?
Are there people who make a lot of money, and do you want that too—along with being very happy, having a good relationship, feeling grateful, and being happy for others’ success?
You may not find them in one person, but you may find them in certain areas.
When you copy the people who have that, you become a copy of those people. When you do that of all those people together, you suddenly become a unique copy.
Then you have a skillset that very few people have. That, then, is a unique thing.
I’d also think it’s really cool—and my ego absolutely loves it—when you say I’m unique or have a unique personality.
But if you look at it closely, it's all a thrown together mess, a thrown together success we call Edwin.
Some things I copied very well and made my own, making it seem like it's all mine.
But the only thing that’s truly mine is the combination of what I can do, my interests, and what I find important. That’s what makes me unique.
Then again, there may be people who have roughly the same combination.
Now is that a bad thing?
That's not too bad. Everyone who considers themselves super unique belongs to the group of people who consider themselves super unique.
For example, when you practice martial arts, you’ll start by imitating your instructor. You mimic the instructor for every belt you earn, and only after decades do you develop your own style and become a unique individual. This is often influenced by physical characteristics as well. You have to fight differently if you’re short than if you’re tall.
You don’t have your own style of karate, tai chi, or meditation.
It's fine if you copied something from others.
I wish people would become better at emulating others, with a sense of humility toward those who possess certain skills. To emulate them, make those skills their own, and use that as a foundation for further growth.
Hypnosis and your own style
When people sign up for training and then say they are going to create their own style entirely, I hold my heart. Very sometimes it goes well, what those people do well compared to the people who don't is that they first make everything they are told their own.
They pick up everything they learn during the training and then combine it. Then they can say it's their own style or method.
It is then mostly their own method because of the combination they have created.
You’ll see the same basic structure as with any other hypnotherapist, but by combining elements drawn from the training program, they’ve put their own spin on it.
It is interesting, though, that they then claim this as something of their own, when it is a very good copy that has been further developed.
Making a copy for a better world
For people, I wish that instead of looking for one's uniqueness, it is better to look at what works. That's where we create a better world than by looking for your own uniqueness. After all, there are many people already doing well and if we copy them, we will all do very well.
Instead of trying to approach things from our own selfish “I know it all better” mindset —and then meditating so I’ll know it even better—and living my life from that perspective—which is possible—sometimes it’s more practical to observe what someone else does in a super simple and super easy way.
Copy that then.
Sometimes I think the world gets lost in wanting to be unique or copying.
So did learning to sleep, walk and eat, and that's how it works with everything. Toddlers need a role model to help them learn new things[1]. Interaction with people from whom they learn how life works is super important for them.
In your later life, copying things can also serve you well in improving your life.
Also listen to this podcast.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1102367-zo-uniek-ben-je-helemaal-niet?play=true
Scientific copy
That making techniques your own is incredibly important because it makes you unique. Copying someone verbatim is not so wrong in itself, but in universities, for example, it is very important that you do not plagiarize. That you don't literally copy the text in your research from the text of another research.
It is important for the scientific community, and the rest of the world for that matter, that future scientists know how to master something. For example, students need to be able to read a study, understand it and then tell in their own words what the study was about. This is important in the literature section of a study. In it, scientists often first explain the prior history that their research builds on[2].
So, in a sense, science also involves copying and then working from that copy. This is how scientists try to make the world a better place.
So even in a world where every research is looking for unique results in some sense, the basics are a copy.
Copying people around you and your identity
We all mimic behavior, and it’s very important to be aware of this. That’s why it’s incredibly important to decide who you do and don’t spend time with. Research among students shows that the identity a person adopts depends largely on the people they spend time with.
You do what people around you do faster.
Therefore, for universities, it is even important to have motivated students, as they in turn motivate each other. On the contrary, if you have a university in which there is a lot of student dropout, then other students copy that in turn[3].
Dealing with people you want to be like also helps you adopt, make your own and develop these good behaviors faster.
Would you like to develop yourself further and help other people develop and deal with people they want to be like? Then it can be a lot of fun to do this with hypnosis. With us you can surround yourself with other people who want to become hypnotherapists.
As mentioned, you can take a hypnotherapy course at the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Would you like to see what you can achieve with it first? Then come to a hypnosis seminar.
Or take the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Also pin this handy infographic:
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/desc.12430
[2] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31835997/klitgard_Qualitative_Survey.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFrom_Copy-and-Paste_to_Trace-and-Learn_A.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIATUSBJ6BAKNEBZCWB%2F20200416%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200416T172629Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIAg3CpUYSSw5WwKAt0fBYQX6U7Z5s9XYCMBFxNFn6%2FcMAiEAoNKGQ8oDToHJMZLZM1KJbrtzJ2E89LqeP6zECKo6hUwqvQMIqf%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FARAAGgwyNTAzMTg4MTEyMDAiDPD50U8kIFQtz0bLzCqRA4EtzjPXrdNXccNMcFkLhHWNWuYGYupUV0e4IlGCYyYxabkOc8msrq17J8m3Ii2WxrXKZa1wC6xzQW4znQqy9bJKGeaP3MbFyg2ug%2FKoiU9wLUhImHrVY3GoxYsGySl150MWcmjnObfMy8eCDn%2BytC5Mm7RGqMmjxD42RXuTTIH%2FLSmtP2POVMtDiXt595hJ6Sx9T36XQbaksVVDjn%2BIBzl2L1eHg5vWwxvJOsDvkpCbb9M23px7Hv6B7y33qnAYaHIdT9kgyvgm6ULYjKRV%2FTlE466bY%2FrZ3IulbjoJNn8xIqX%2FWztSGKIBEPI6uke7jfueTJXf2PejiVeGDCs39dbbcM21cN59KI8yjjtlFD29CVINPWi38zjP%2FkUYjEEMZ7zv8b8OGPb0%2Bor8x8LzS2TjtdmLd8Y3xIr8kTTqqv1pNovXTRufGpq17nDpLf%2BsiQFMemU50QXZoRSKtlLxKS1VOgBDw6gX328VjaOi4WyUt2IlqVY8Hf2Ax%2B5Ehyxyk4f9K96K7FLglvlJ038VIWdBMNSK4vQFOusBOMslEOiTonim5DhdPaum6475IqchdVyc%2FM5kjqGfROcu3SSltiw%2BzLNQrxP%2FKAPmbkd5ZhwuoSYOc1Rmpuhy7RD0xL6gKcVN0ykxd3L6KzcsyVLy75COe6QlPHa9I2xji1N6XqcKCFcxQLPoukBtfC%2BZ45R4dsVkf5Wsb0Ds4aTxrBW4KYZ5QSOJKZvxrKGjmvMutF2ETeJVSwQqRXQxn63IQldHAWeyovNP8RtjVMu1Qu6LpDoGxV5Z%2Bp5RZupzt2YKWat4UV6QbF7iKxNpNSXsNhAh%2FGy1gdhil9HQTeXrjfa2YBee9PJH%2Fg%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=b274d66b67a8293911fd3a47de41e9193c1021c52e386cafde32a052f2956517
[3] https://muse.jhu.edu/article/720774