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Everybody has influences.
Influences = inspirations.
And so long as you’re not outright stealing, so long as you’re putting your own spin on it, then you can rest, assuredly, in the comfort of knowing, “everybody’s doing it.”
I’ve got a list of names that sit under the monitor I’m typing these words into. They’re an influence reminder. Sometimes they’re there for me to ask, “What would _____ say,” and other times they’re there to push myself into the perspective of, “If you were sending this to _______, what would they think of it?”
For the most part, this is a private list. I don’t say it out loud. I don’t usually talk about it. They’re just for me. And, like all influences and inspirations, I don’t need them to inspire YOU—I’ve got work to do, you know?
Since I’ve started doing more YouTube/speaking stuff, I’ve only had my me-as-host personas in my head. But now I’ve been called out a few times. Not in a bad way, but in a, “When you do this it reminds me of that” way, and it made me realize something:
Write down influence + inspiration lists for every category you work in.
Why not? It’s as much a reminder to not be a biter, as it is a reminder that you are the combination of all the connections you choose, consciously or subconsciously, to make.
You are chaos until you organize the chaos into a snowflake pattern of your own design.
Influences and inspirations are organizing principles. The combos can’t be copied.
Get your Personal Archive together. Find those connections. Make it… snow? Apparently. Make it snow.
(sorry, I hope this helps get that song out of your head):
ps. shoutout Jason Buck and Dennis Moseley Williams who both played key parts in prompting this. Jason nailed me on the sports-talk commentator enthusiasm, along with some hip-hop radio references, and even my late night TV fandom. Dennis called out my YouTube music channel favorites, and why I do my intros the way I do. They guessed my Mt. Rushmore of influences and inspirations, can you? I’m curious, let me know.
pss. make sure you’re subscribed to Cultish Creative on YouTube, I’ve got stuff coming out with Jason and Dennis in the weeks ahead, you’ll get a hint at what they saw.