If someone else has already said it, say it in a completely different way. And so is a lot of popular fiction that does get published.
Words have power.
Your job as a writer is to energize people, not put them to sleep. Everyone had heard the messages before, over and over. No one felt any connection to the student. Everyone was bored, yet he had lived a fascinating life that his audience wanted to hear about. So I asked him to describe his life, starting at the beginning.