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If you're the winner, people are going to copy your stuff, rather than

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munching and moaning about it, get used to it and win. I talked to business owners

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obviously a lot now, and I see this recurring theme among losers, and the thing

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is that I used to think this way, and so I want to have talked to my older

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self, I'm half making this for our portfolio founder, you know who you are,

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and I think I might get a little spirited today. And so the idea is around thought ownership.

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And so it's this idea that you have when you're a kid that if you have an idea or you have a

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joke that it somehow belongs to you, it's like when you figure out that one plus one equals two

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and you tell somebody else, you believe that for the rest of their lives that one plus one

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equals two belongs to you. But the thing is is that no one owns truth, number one, period,

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no one owns truth, and the fundamental idea of how human beings learn in general is the

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replication and remixing, right? Everything that you have ever done has come from someone else

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that you have remixed in some way, and the degree to which it was remixed is the degree to which

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it was original. Now the reason that I think this is important to delineate is that this is how

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kids in kindergarten get into fights, this is how siblings in the backseat of the van get into

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fights, that's mine, that was my idea. But in the world of business, basically nothing is yours.

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And so I want to I want to really, really drive my thumb into this wound because there was a

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portfolio company who was like, Hey, you know, I was making content about this stuff and one of

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my competitors started making content about that stuff and they're stealing my ideas. They're stealing

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my ideas. First off, no one's first off, they weren't your ideas to begin with. Number one,

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number two, stealing implies that some damages have been caused as result of the other person

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making content. And if they're if you're ever going to somehow be made whole in the legal system

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that exists in the United States, you would have to sue them and show damages and somehow prove

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ownership over the idea, all of which would basically never happen. And so what you really need to do

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is put your big boy pants on and realize that this is fucking competition, this is fucking America,

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this is how capitalism works. And when I was a young lad, I remember I had obviously we had the

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gyms. And so I wrote ad copy. So I would write copy for my gym and lo and behold, I was a pretty

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good marketer back then too. And some of the other gyms in my area started saying, Hey, you know what

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even works better than our ads? Alex's ads. And we just we just get to steal his ads and just run

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him as our own. So they, I mean, some people literally just took my videos of me and ran them for

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their gym in addition to my words, but some of the slightly more tasteful ones didn't they just

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put their own video, but then use word for word my copy, right? And so I used to get so upset about

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this and I went to an IP lawyer. So in his electoral property attorney and I said, Hey, how do I,

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you know, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I copy write this stuff? And he just looked at me, he's like,

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it's an advertisement. No. He said, this is America. He said, it's based on competition. It,

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I was like, what about my offer? I was like, can I say that no one else can use, he's like, you

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want to say that no other gym is allowed to give away six weeks for free because you do. And he

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just looked at me and I was like, well, well, I mean, kind of. And he just was like, you start, he

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laughed me out of the room, laughed me out of the room. I was 26 years old. And I just like was like,

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shit, I was like, so that means that anyone can copy anything that you do. And unless it's unless

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it's a recipe, you know what I mean? Or you have a chemical formula that you have, you know,

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made uniquely yours. Like if someone tried to copy Coke's formula and the thing is is that even so,

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they still try to keep it secret, right? Like they both patented and try to keep it a secret. It's

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both elements, right? For those types of businesses. But anything that is public, if you advertise,

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if you make content, if you make free giveaways, PDFs, whatever the hell you want, that stuff is

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public. And so the thing is is that it's the losers who are like, that's mine. I'm a special

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snowflake. When bro, it's America, competition exists to make everybody better. That's how the

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marketplace works. Like if you figure out how to do dry cleaning in 24 hours, your competitor across

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the street can come up with dry cleaning 23 hours. That's how competition works. And so can you

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imagine if if if Snapchat had been like, oh, Instagram stole stories from us. That was our idea.

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We said Snapchat stories. That was our thing. And then Instagram just took it. That's not fair.

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Well, guess fucking what? That's how competition works. And that's at the highest levels. And so

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you think your dry cleaning store has an ad that somehow belongs to you or that you made content

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about whatever the hell and that you think you own that idea forever.

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Get grow up. And if you want to beat the competition by shrinking them into a relevance, it means

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that you need to 10x the size of who you are and what you represent. And if you need some help with

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that, I wrote a book called 100 Million Dollar Leads. I have the free audiobook on this podcast,

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which you can start listening to at 5.79. I think that's the offers one. But if you like hard copies,

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you can grab it on Amazon. Or if you like watching stuff, you can go on acquisition.com

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for such training and watch all the videos for free. Enjoy. So I remember when I

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I was so I was so but hurt about this whole ad stealing thing that I like I was like, how do I

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keep my ads a secret? But but still advertise them. And that ended up becoming this this really

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big lesson in futility. And when I had gym watch, I have issues writing a lot of ads for thousands

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of gyms at this point. And I remember I got a lawyer letter. So this is hilarious. I got a lawyer

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letter from a gym owner trying to sue me for using his copy. But here's the funny thing.

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The copy that he said that I was using, he had stolen from me. So many people had used my ad

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copy that he didn't even know that he was stealing my copy. And so when we had a gym in his market

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that was running my copy, he sent his lawyer over to say cease and desist. And I said, hey bro,

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why don't I just show you the first screenshot of the time that I use this ad to show you as like

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because I know I wrote it. And I said, if you can show me that you used this thing before me,

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I was like, I'll happily. And his own lawyer was like, I'm deeply apologize for how stupid my client was.

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The thing is though, even if he had, even if he had ridden the copy, I just find this hilarious.

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But even if he had ridden the copy, there's not shit he could do. He gets stopped me from running

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in advertisement. It's not it's not it's not owned, right? That's how it's work. Now the marketplace

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might be like, oh, that's weird. They kind of they copy it, you know, the copy and paste or whatever

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it is. But the thing is just that, especially when it comes to to content or things like that, like

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most people like my number one way of getting inspired to make content is is all look at what people

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are saying online and then be like, oh, let me say something that I district, like basically I

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wait until I see something that's stupid that I hate. And then I say, okay, I'm going to make a

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rent piece on this, right? And so most of the time it comes from my life, like I come hot and loaded

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like I am this morning. But if I don't have something that I'm pissed off about or I think that

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is absolutely ridiculous or stupid, then I will just look, I'll just look for something and believe

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me, it doesn't take long to find something stupid that someone else is going to say where they

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preach something that they've never done or give advice about a context that they've never walked

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through. Only small business owners complain about small business owners shit. So I was talking

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to a billionaire, buddy of mine, who's, he's probably worth two or three billion at this point.

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But he was like, dude, it's so ridiculous that these guys obsess about things like content

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being owned by someone. He's like, dude, I'm in the SEO game when literally people try and win on

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keywords with the same title for the same article. And like you just have to make your

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article better so that yours ranks higher. And like people look, okay, he is 11. In his listicle,

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I'm going to have 13 in my list to go and I'm going to use his 11 and add two more. And like,

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this game is competitive. And so it's the funny thing is it's like I only, and I see I see

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business owners getting bent out of shape. Like they're they're they're wasting their weekends,

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spending all their time scrolling, watching their competitors content, trying to find the one

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nugget or kernel or saying or ism that they said. And the thing is is one, they might not

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copy it from you. It just might be something that somebody in your industry says in general.

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And secondly, even if they did copy it, so what? Who cares? Just take all the time you are obsessing

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about them and obsess about your customer and obsess about your content so you can stay a step ahead.

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So I had this dude DM me and say, Hey man, I just really would appreciate if you gave me credit

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for the Closer Framework. And I was like, what the hell are you talking about? And he was like,

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well, I mean, like the Closer Framework's mine. And I was like, what? And this is like, I'm

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be real with you. This guy who was like 2000 followers on Instagram and says he does sales training

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or something. And he's like, I just he's like, Hey, you know, I appreciate it. He's like, but,

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you know, it's just it's mine. And you stole it. And you're bigger as everyone thinks it's yours now.

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And because I came up with it now, here's the thing is that an acronym for sales about closing,

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not that crazy original of an idea, like just to be, you know, just to call this out there and be like

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having an advertising framework called market, right, with six letters in it. Anyways. And so

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I go and I, and he said, and I was like, no, man, I'm pretty sure I was like, I'm pretty sure you

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just probably uniquely on your own came up with the same acronym for sales, which is fine, dude.

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And he said, no, well, anyways, here's, he's like, I've been teaching it since this date.

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And so me being the asshole that I am, I went and found the first video that I had in the

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Closer Framework, which guess what? I'm older than he is. And I had been teaching it to my sales,

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guys, three years prior to that. And I was like, huh? So I guess I didn't take it from you.

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Number one, actually, I guess you took it for me. Didn't you? But the thing is is that it doesn't

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matter because I don't care if he teaches it. And he probably didn't take it from me. I don't think

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he'd be that but hurt if he had taken it from me. I think on some level, you would have been like,

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oh, I took it from Alex, right? He probably just independently came up with an idea because guess

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what? Like different people, like the Wright brothers figured out how to fly here. And then like

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around the same time, there was some other dude in Germany who figured out how to do it too.

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It's just like humans, like there was Newton who came up with calculus. And there's another

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guy across the world like Russia who came up with calculus too. It's just like people innovate

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and we're not that original. And so that's the thing. Is it like this whole idea of thought

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ownership and concept ownership? No one owns truth. Period. Truth is, you can talk about truth,

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you can describe truth, you can apply truth to different scenarios, but you don't own it. So get

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over yourself. Anywho, all this to say, one, expect that everyone is going to copy you.

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Two, if someone copies you, it means that you're ahead, which is great. That's a W. That's an

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indication that you're succeeding. Number three, you will never, I'm just saying like you can waste

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the time if you want, but like the amount of time it takes away from you to get upset about stuff

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like this is taking away from your customers and from the amount of time you should be dedicating

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to making your product better, advertising harder, et cetera. And so if you want to quote,

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beat the copycat, market 10 times harder. That's it. Just advertise like you want you like you're

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not going to beat them by getting them to stop. You beat them by shrinking them into a relevance.

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And I'm going to keep saying this until people fucking get it. Like you don't beat people in

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business. Like it's very rare that you actually put someone out of business. What you do is you go

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scoreboard. Scoreboard. Cool. Dry cleaner across the street that went from 24 to 23 hours. Great.

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I'm going to open 20 more locations than you. Fight me because that's how you do it in capitalism.

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You win by just growing and being bitter bigger and beating them into submission, right? Beating them

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into a relevance by looking so big that they can't even be seen in your shadow.

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Like where do you think that gym owner is who tried to sue me for using my own copy that he didn't

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even know he was stealing from me. By the way, did I counter? Did I counter? She synthesis? I was like,

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good luck, kid. He was like a 48 year old man, but like,

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Oh, good luck, bro. I was like, because I'm going to just keep going. I was like, so the only way

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that you can win is that you got to match me. And I remember when I was doing like that, I was like

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every day that I see you on Instagram with your wife with your kids going out and enjoying life,

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I was like, I'm going to eat your lunch. Every day that you do that, you're not working, I will.

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And for some people, that's very dark. And guess what? Okay, fine. That's dark. Live your life

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the way you want to live your life. But I just, I just get so sick of this. And I think now that I'm

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saying it when it roots down to is this victim mentality. It's this like, oh, like, what is me?

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That was my it's like, bro, welcome to fucking like think about warfare. You know what I mean? Like

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they copied art. Well, that's literally what they try and do. They try and figure out what you're

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doing. And so in the context of business, unless you have a patent on some mechanism in a machine,

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right, or you have a recipe for a formula, basically nothing is IP now brand name image,

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image likeness, different, but like actual concepts. Like I started talking about LTV to cat

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ratio. And then Alex started talking about LTV to cat ratio. Oh, somebody talked about acquisition.

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It's like, could you imagine if I was like, no one else is allowed to talk about acquisition?

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How stupid would that be? They're concepts. No one owns them. And so every second that you spend

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thinking about your competitor is another second. And this is where they really beat you.

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Is that another second that you're not thinking about your customer, not thinking about business,

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not thinking about advertising more. And so I can truly tell you that like, it's been years since I've

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been concerned. Like you think I get concerned when people steal my content ideas?

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Like you guys see it all over the place. Like this is a leading indicator that you're doing a good

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job. You should only fear when they stop copying you. Like really let that sink in. Like if no one's

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copying you, you suck. Like really think about it. If no one copies you, you suck. And so you should

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want to have as many people as possible copying you because it means you're leading the way.

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And they're trying to be like you. And they're never going to beat you at being you.

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All right. So hopefully I convinced you to focus all of your time on your customers and not your

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competition and realize that that lawsuit and the cease and desist thing that you're going to send

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is not going to amount to anything because if Instagram can do it to Snapchat on a clear feature,

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the guy down the street can copy your ad or copy the hook or copy the topic of the content

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that you're choosing to make. And the real real is he probably isn't copying. He's just doing his job.