Beg, Borrow or Steal It !!

All my life I have lived by an approach which is - if you are going to have to do something new or create something, then you should “beg, borrow or steal” it and only if you cannot do any of these then you should make it yourself from scratch.

On an initial read this will sound awful – teaching people to steal – what is this?

Well I had better explain then.

If you Google this term you will be amazed the number of return entries. It’s use is quite common.

So what does "beg, borrow, or steal" mean?

The definitions which I like are as follows:

- Obtain by any possible means, as in “You couldn't beg, borrow, or steal tickets to the Olympics”. This term is often used in the negative, to describe something that cannot be obtained; Chaucer used it in The Tale of the Man of Law. [Late 1300s]

- OR

- To do whatever is necessary to get something (before doing it yourself), as in “I'm going to get a dress for the ball, whether I have to beg, borrow or steal one”.

So why would we teach this to Newbies and what are we really saying?

In my life I am the sort of person who likes to see where I am going when I have a particular task ahead of me (a picture paints a thousand words). In other words I like to see examples.

• So if I have to prepare a report for my CEO and he expects a certain format I get that format from his Secretary and use it – why create a new one?
• If I have to prepare a project plan I use a template which I have used before, because I know it works.
• If I have to prepare an article for Street Articles then I use a tried and tested format which I can find in blogs on WA, why would I presume to do otherwise?
• So the other day I was wrestling with a problem of my web site design, (not that I am a designer, quite the opposite) and I had reached a mental blockage on this one. Then of course the light bulb went on – B, B or S it!
• So I looked up web sites in the niche I am working on and spent just 5 minutes looking through them – many from acknowledged experts in my niche to see how they had arranged their web site. I found that I liked a particular one which I knew my theme supported and I then spent just 5 minutes literally going through all aspects of it, checking the informational arrangement, how to move around it, how to do searches, the site map etc.

The point here is simple – my problem was solved by a few minutes of looking at what has been done already, instead of wrestling with trying to create from scratch.

With the web it is so easy to do this. Let’s say I am borrowing rather than begging or stealing but I hope that you get the picture.

Now fast forward to all Newbies starting their training and creating a web site – and needing to pick a theme, there are only many hundreds of them (!).

My approach says at that point go look at some live web sites and get a feel for what you like and are trying to create rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper. Saves time, effort and possible frustration, which we can all do without can’t we?

Wherever you can apply this “beg, borrow or steal” approach in your learning experience which is your on line business success journey please do so.

Have a look at how other people arrange, build, design:

• their sites,
• their blogs,
• their pages,
• their content,

Learn from others who have done it before, and save effort, time, and possible frustration.

In other words "beg, borrow or steal" it, until you get to the stage where you have enough expertise to be really creative and know you can do it yourself from scratch.

Enjoy!!