For something to be great, it has to have a bit of you in it.

My son asked me “what does it take to make something great?” the other day while we were playing Uno. Kind of an out of the blue question while he was debating what card to play.

I love questions like this because it’s a chance to be a Dad. He’s thinking about something, he’s listening, engaged, and trying to figure something out, and here I am, ready to find a way to impart years of wisdom in a simple way that he can understand and act on. The day-to-day is filled with small questions and directions and distractions, and while this appears like everything else, it’s a special moment.

So I told him, “For something to be great, it has to have a bit of you in it.”

It’s easy to copy what someone else has done, but it won’t be as good as how they did it. You have to put some of your own vision, insight, perspective, and heart into it. If you don’t have any of those, you need to find them. It’s not easy to have a unique perspective, but don’t shy away from the effort, because inspiration doesn’t come without a lot of trial, effort, and mistakes along the way.