Who do you look at and think: I want to be more like that — not in a surface way, but in the deep way, in the way that actually matters?
That person is your model. And the word for what you're doing — or should be doing — is emulate.
To emulate means to match or surpass a person or achievement, typically by imitation. The word comes from the Latin aemulari — to rival, to strive to equal — from aemulus, striving. And notice what's inside that definition: to match or surpass. Emulation isn't just copying. It's studying someone carefully enough that you can do what they do — and perhaps, eventually, do it further.
This is what separates emulation from imitation. Imitation is surface — the clothes, the manner, the vocabulary. Emulation is structural — the values, the approach, the discipline, the way of thinking. Imitation produces a copy. Emulation produces someone who has genuinely learned from a model and carried that learning forward into their own work.
Every master has emulated someone. Every great writer has read obsessively and internalized the writers they admired before they found their own voice. Every great athlete has studied and practiced the movements of those who came before. Every great thinker has stood on the shoulders of someone they were trying to be as good as. Emulation is how expertise actually transmits through generations.
The Roman writer Quintilian called emulation the best kind of competition — not competition against another person in the same race, but competition against a standard. You pick someone whose work represents something you want to achieve, and you hold yourself to that standard. It disciplines and elevates you in a way that competing against a peer doesn't.
And here's the thing about genuine emulation: it's generous. It begins with genuine admiration — the honest recognition that someone has achieved something worth aspiring to. That's not weakness. It's clear-eyed assessment of what excellence looks like, combined with the ambition to approach it.
Who you choose to emulate matters enormously. The qualities you're aspiring toward — the character traits, the practices, the ways of engaging with the world — become, gradually, the direction of your own growth.
Here's your question: Who are the people you genuinely emulate — and are you being specific enough about what qualities you're aspiring to? Is there something you admire in someone that you haven't yet named or deliberately worked toward?
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