Why I'm Not Unique (And Why That's Exactly Where I Need to Start)

I applied to over 100 strategy consulting jobs in the last few months. Got rejected from every single one.

I'm relieved.

Not because I didn't want those jobs - I did, at least I thought I did - but because the rejections forced me to confront something I'd been avoiding: I'm burned out.

Cambridge is fucking intense. Third year, a startup, 100+ job applications, trying to maintain some semblance of a social life - I've been running on fumes for months. The relentless drive I used to have? Gone. Replaced by this low-grade exhaustion where I'm still doing things, but nothing feels sharp anymore. I'm going through the motions.

The rejections were clarity. I can't keep trying to be everything to everyone. So I'm all in on Weavv now, career-wise at least. I'm still prioritising my degree, but I'm done pretending consulting was ever what I actually wanted.

I read Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist yesterday. Short book, big ideas, recommended by seemingly every productivity YouTuber on the planet. I picked it up looking for permission to copy my heroes: Kobe Bryant, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. If they could be great by stealing from the people before them, maybe I could shortcut my way to something resembling their success.

But Kleon's real lesson hit differently: It's your job to collect good ideas.

Not just consume them. Not just admire them. Collect them. Build a library of processes, frameworks, routines, steal ruthlessly from anyone doing interesting work. The more you collect, the more you have to choose from. The more you can remix into something that's yours.

Kleon quotes John Waters: "Nothing is more important than an unread library." I love that. My shelves are full of classic literature, philosophy, history - remnants of my first two years studying History at Cambridge. But now I'm expanding the collection. Business books. Startup memoirs. Frameworks on marketing, distribution, customer psychology. Whatever helps me build better.

I've spent years admiring people who've already made it. Watching Kobe highlight reels. Reading Jobs biographies. Consuming endless content about hustle and execution. But consumption isn't collection. Admiration isn't action.

Here's what I realized: I'm not unique yet because I haven't built anything that matters to anyone but me. I'm not unique because I work hard - everyone at Cambridge works hard. I'm not unique because I'm "starting something" - half my cohort is thinking of starting something.

But I don't need to invent uniqueness from scratch. Kleon gave me permission to steal it. Collect the best ideas, the best processes, the best mental models—and remix them into something new.

Choose your heroes carefully.

Kleon says we should pick people to learn from - thinkers, writers, role models - and try to internalize their way of looking at the world. For me, that's always been Kobe. Not just because of his work ethic, but because of his process. He studied game film obsessively. Every missed shot, every defensive breakdown, every opponent's tendency. He didn't just outwork people; he out-thought them.

That's what I'm stealing from him. Not the unrelenting self-confidence (I'm not there yet). Not the trash talk or the ruthlessness. The film study mindset. The obsession with feedback loops. For Kobe, that was watching tape. For me, that's talking to users, watching where they struggle, iterating ruthlessly.

But here's the thing about heroes: every great person has flaws that are easy to spot. Jobs' disregard for people. Kobe's arrogance. Bezos's ruthlessness. In a weird way, I hope I one day have flaws like that too, because it might mean I'm doing something worth criticizing.

But I'm not going to steal everything. I've had the same ride-or-die friends for almost 20 years. Loyalty is essential to who I am. Jobs burned bridges; I won't. Bezos optimizes for the business; I'm building something I'd actually want to use with my mates. The remix is: steal the relentlessness, skip the ruthlessness. Steal the obsession, keep the relationships.

Take time to be bored.

Kleon says this, and I'm terrible at it. I'm constantly listening to music, watching YouTube, consuming something that prevents actual thinking. He suggests doing boring tasks like ironing, because boredom is where ideas come from.

I used to meditate daily. I've started again, but inconsistently. What I really need is to stop filling every gap with input. To sit with my thoughts instead of drowning them out. To let the ideas surface instead of constantly consuming other people's.

That's the commitment I'm making: create space to be bored. No music during walks. No videos during meals. Just... nothing. Let the brain do its thing.

We'll see if I can actually stick to it.

So here's what I'm collecting.

This blog is my collection in action. Every couple months, I'm going to write about what I'm stealing and how I'm applying it. Maybe it's a framework from a book I just finished. Maybe it's a tactic from a founder who figured out distribution. Maybe it's a mental model from philosophy that helps me think through a product decision. I don't know yet - that's what I'm collecting for.

This isn't a victory lap. I haven't figured anything out. But Kleon says to "do the work you want to see done," and this is it: building in public, documenting the process, creating a forcing function for myself to actually think instead of just consuming content on autopilot.

This blog is what I'm collecting. Not just inspiration—processes, frameworks, the actual mechanics of how things work. Every post is me stealing something and testing whether it works. That's the game tape.