I know, we’re falling way behind on the Ask Havi posts.

Thanks for your patience, all you interesting people I don’t know who ask me questions, because I am thinking and percolating. And I will, eventually, get back to you.

Today’s Ask Havi is from Corey in Dallas, Texas and though it’s kind of a technical question, it does have some business implications.

Also, a great way to get someone to read your email is to say in the subject header: “I’d like to steal from you”.

Total attention-getter, that.

Anyway, here’s Corey:

I am recent discoverer of your blog and website. I love it and look forward to more. Anyway, down to business. I am a therapist by trade, branching into the writing world and then the marriage coaching world this fall.

I like your info pages on the coaching stuff and would like permission to build from it for my own stuff. I will alter the wording obviously as my target will be couples, but I want to keep everything above board on resource stealing. If you have any issue with this, please let me know and I will honor your wishes. Thanks Havi.

So I went and checked out Corey’s blog. It’s at www.SimpleMarriage.net and he writes about marriage and relationships. That means both the big themes (partnership and self-work) as well as the more day-to-day aspects of how-to of living intentionally with someone else.

Yeah, it’s not all stuff that speaks to me specifically but I totally got that he’s in integrity and a good guy. No sleaze, no weirdness. Just someone who cares about his theme and is trying to biggify. I got it.

So what’s the protocol?

We’ve all been there. It’s the most natural thing in the world. You really like the way someone sets up their business and you want to kind of use them as a model. Then you start to wonder, hmmm, what is the protocol for borrowing / adapting / stealing? And is that even a legitimate thing to do?

This is a question I’ve been asked before … and the truth is, I never really know how to answer it.

It’s hard for me to get clarity on this. Part of me is a big believer in the whole “well, there’s nothing new under the sun, so of course we all borrow stuff to some extent from people we admire, and it’s fine” thing.

And part of me really wants to (gently) challenge people to do some creative stretching and really find their own voice, as opposed to doing the easy thing — borrowing someone else’s.

Both of these are true. There is nothing really new. And at the same time, each of us has a unique voice that gives its own special spin to the thing we do. And cultivating that voice — learning to trust that voice — is important.

You can probably guess how much my butt hurts from all this fence-sitting. There was a point where I could clearly feel myself getting sucked into the Tevya thing of “on the one hand, but on the other hand, but oy, on the first hand”, which is no fun.

Plus, if I over-think this to death, that won’t exactly help poor Corey. Or this post.

When in doubt, ask the “other” experts.

So I asked a bunch of friends who have are marketing people and have cool businesses.

They tended to be even more cautious than I am. For example:

You get the weirdest emails!

I would be okay with someone building on my idea to have packages, but not okay with them using the same packages, pricing and wording. Okay with borrowing basic navigation but not with duplicating the same exact structure of pages, paragraphs.

Tell this person, it’s important to find lots of people to inspire you so you can get ideas from many places and use what works for you. Havi is but one of many awesome people!

Basically everyone said to be very firm about boundaries and what to let people use. Some also thought I should ask for attribution and links and stuff.

They could be right. I mean, they usually are. To me though it kind of seems like Corey is more looking for inspiration and ideas than anything else. And my sense was that he just wants to make sure it’s all on the up and up. Or some reassurance.

So even though my initial feeling was “mmm, I don’t know about this”, at this point I I’m leaning towards these three things:

1. Inspiration is awesome. Yay, inspiration. Absolutely go out and use any inspiration juice you can get to help write your own stuff.

2. Make sure though that you’re being inspired by more than one person.

3. Use your own voice. Trust your own voice. Dig into your own creative force to make not just the words but your offerings a true reflection of the cool stuff you do.

But yeah, other than that?

Ignore everything and trust your gut.

Okay, I came up with three pieces of advice, but what it really comes down to is this: everything else aside, I trust Corey.

Corey seems like a good guy. If Corey wants to take some of “my” ideas that I got from being inspired by other cool, interesting people than Corey should go for it. Of course, if Corey took my stuff and pretended it was his own without doing anything to make it really his, my duck would throw a fit.

But if Corey were that kind of person he wouldn’t be writing to me to begin with saying “Can I steal your stuff?”

So I’m going to let this question remain on a case to case basis. And I’m going to work on trusting myself to trust myself. And everyone else can work on trusting themselves to find the right balance between being inspired and being true to themselves. As well as trusting their own inner knowing of “yes, I’m in integrity here”.

Worst thing that happens is we all get to work on our trust issues a little. Which is actually one of Corey’s blog themes too.

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