Steal your way to success

I have noticed that some successful people, skillfully borrow ideas and stories from others and pass them off as their own.

For example, I have heard Tony Robbins promote the idea of saying "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better."  According to Wikipedia, that quote is originated by Émile Coué.  I don't every remember Tony giving credit to Émile.

This is not to say that I think Tony has done something wrong.  Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "Good artists copy.  Great artists steal."  In this video, Steve actually attributes that quote to Picasso.  He goes on to say "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

I accept the benefits and usefulness of selective stealing and lying.  Many years ago I read a book by Joe Girard which I thought was called "The World's Greatest Salesman", though I can't find that book.  Maybe that was just the marketing text on the cover.  I was really impacted by the book and distinctly remember in the book him saying that he lies.  Even recently, my mentor advised me to lie.  Now this is a little odd because on Joe's website he also specifically says here:

1. TELL THE TRUTH
   If you get caught in a lie even once, you will always be a liar.  Even if you tell the truth for the rest of your life, you won't be trusted or believed, consider yourself DEAD.
   

So which one is it?  Tell the truth or lie?  I think the key thing is being selective.  What I remember from his book was that he says he would never lie about his product.  He would lie about his personal tastes to make someone like him better.  For example, if the customer mentioned enjoying some restaurant, Joe would also express positive feedback about the restaurant, even if in reality he would never be caught dead in the establishment.  His justification is that his job wasn't to go to restaurants and his preference of restaurants wasn't really important so lying about that was OK in order to establish rapport.  BTW, my mentor also meant this when he advised me to lie.  He meant in order to establish rapport with clients instead of about our work.

The point of all this blather is that I found this quote on Steve Pavlina's home page and would love to pass it off as my own, or reword it slightly to make it my own.  Instead, I'll just admit I'm stealing this straight from his website.

"This site will help you make conscious decisions in your personal development journey and courageously follow through. This means having the maturity to take 100% responsibility for your health, your career, your finances, your relationships, your emotions, your habits, and your spiritual beliefs. It requires taking a deep look at yourself, consciously deciding what kind of person you truly are on the inside, and then getting your external reality to be congruent with your inner being. The goal is to help you achieve outstanding effectiveness while maintaining internal balance, where your thoughts, feelings, actions, and skills are all working together to create the life you truly desire. "

I especially like his statement of taking "100% responsibility".  That really hits home for me.  Any bad mood, attitude or actions are 100% my responsibility!