Many people, companies, publishers and creators of new works and products are afraid of sharing their ideas. Their creations. Afraid that what they have worked so passionately for, will be stolen and re-packaged for someone else to reap the benefits. I hear many of my colleagues, consultants and friends clenching to their printed work and ideas because that is the only way they know to protect their livelihood. This is the way they make money and if they don’t protect that livelihood then they will lose that very thing that sustains it!
The fear is justified. When I wrote more creatively in the form of poetry, etc, I had the same fears. That someone would take my ideas and misrepresent them as their own. That the time and effort I put in would be a waste.
I no longer have this fear. While you have to take steps to protect what is yours, you have to be careful that the steps you take and fear behind those steps don’t protect your ideas so much that no one even knows they exist.
The only way to spread ideas, is to let them be spread! You will gain more then you ever imagined by letting thing grow organically.
What are you hiding from the world? Who could benefit from what you create? And most importantly, in protecting what you feel is “yours” are you losing pieces of yourself?
