Is Motivation Hiding in Plain Sight? Archetypes Help Uncover It
Perhaps the most fundamental skill uniting all creatives is our ability to identify patterns. Pattern recognition allows us to replicate an effect or intention without flat-out copying our inspiration.
Archetypes are possibly the most powerful patterns we get to work with. The term was coined by Carl Jung referring to universal patterns present in the collective unconscious of all human beings.
The word is Greek in origin; “arche” means “beginning, origin” and “type” means “form, image, model, norm.”
In his work, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung offers a poetic description of an archetype:
An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer the water flows in this channel, the more likely it is that sooner or later the channel will be able to conduct the water without the help of the banks
Archetypes and our deeper motivations
Jung and the collective unconscious
Jung’s major contribution to the field of psychology is the concept of a collective unconscious, which suggests that all human beings have shared ideas, patterns, thoughts, and images.
Archetypes are these universal symbols and motifs that he observed in his patients. He noticed similarities between the dreams and fantasies of his patients.
I first learned this in a high school psychology class and it sounded absurd. So absurd that I still remember it and I was asleep through most of high school.
How is it possible for all of humanity, across the globe, diverse as we are, to share common fundamental themes? It wasn’t until years later from reading works like The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and Trickster Makes the World by Lewis Hyde that I truly started to understand this phenomenon.
Let’s take the example of the trickster — every culture throughout history has had trickster mythological figures that are central to their culture. Whether it’s Prometheus and Hermes for the Greeks; the fox, raven, and coyote for Native American tribes; or Loki in Norse mythology. We find the trickster everywhere.
In Greek mythology Prometheus steals fire from the gods and presents it to humanity, Raven does the same in Native American folklore, as does Māui in Polynesian mythology.
The same archetypal figure across these unconnected traditions carries out the same heroic act. It’s hard to not believe Jung might be on to something here.
Jung’s archetypal characteristics
Jung identified 4 major archetypes that manifest in the human psyche and are critical for understanding our own psychological growth.
The Persona is our outward appearance, also our mask because it hides our true characteristics. It’s who we appear to be within the context of our societal roles and expectations. But it’s not who we are.
The Shadow is everything about us that we refuse to accept or acknowledge — sex, aggression, and other life instincts society deem unacceptable or we suppress due to our own personal morality. We often deny the shadow even exists within our own psyche and often project it on others.
The Anima is the feminine (emotional, spiritual) side of men and the Animus is the masculine (strong, romantic, spiritual) side of women according to Jung. Society discourages the exploration of anima/animus and thus we undermine our own psychological development.
The Self is the unification of our conscious and unconscious, an experience Jung calls individuation. It involves acknowledging and integrating our shadows and repressed anima/animus, but at the same time, not succumbing to them.
Jung’s 12 Archetypal Figures
Not only did Jung define those 4 archetypal characteristics, but also 12 archetypal figures that we commonly embody. These 12 figures are not the full array of archetypes, but the ones Jung found to be most essential. The archetypes all have tension within them. They have virtues as well as shadows.
The Ruler — A leader with big ambitions, exerts influence, understands power, and is prone to paranoia and suspicion
The Creator/Artist — Brings order to chaos through creative endeavors with a tendency of perfectionism and self-degradation
The Sage — A passionate learner aimed at self-improvement, but can lack trust for themselves and overthink things
The Innocent — Positive, sincere, and sees the best in others, but often naive about the world
The Explorer — Independent and non-traditional, longs to see more, but can be mistrusted and struggle to fit in with others
The Rebel — Revolutionary or outlaw, doesn’t like the world as it is, willing to fight injustice, but can be short-sighted and succumb to anger
The Hero — Out to change the world, a leader, but prone to taking on too much responsibility themselves
The Wizard/Magician — Possesses great power, is charismatic and well-liked, but can be arrogant
The Jester — Spreads joy and laughter, is outspoken and reveals unexpected truths, but rarely reveals their true self
The Everyman — Honest, down-to-earth, can be overlooked and has trouble seeing the world beyond their immediate community
The Lover — Craves connection above all else, give themselves fully, but can sacrifice too much in pursuit of love
The Caregiver — Loves to look after others, is selfless and well-loved, but can drain themselves taking care of others
While none of us is purely captured by one of these archetypes, they can help us identify our strengths and the shadows we must integrate. Going through the list, it’ll be hard-pressed to not resonate strongly with some of those archetypes, however, don’t pigeonhole your complete identity to an archetype.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
— Walt Whitman
In his book, When I Stop Talking You’ll Know I’m Dead (maybe the best book title ever), famed producer Jerry Weintraub shares a particular moment that perfectly captures how understanding archetypes can help us with some of life’s great challenges like choosing a career.
Early on, Weintraub was pursuing a career in acting and was taking a ballet class. There came a time when he had to buy a pair of tights. He couldn’t do it. He was too embarrassed to walk out of the store in New York City in these tights. His classmate James Caan, however, fully embraced it and shamelessly bought what he needed. And that’s why Caan went on to star in The Godfather and Weintraub went on to be a producer.
Archetypes help tell relatable stories
Storytelling is a fundamental human skill and a critical one for creative professionals. We tell stories about our work to get buy-in from clients and stakeholders. We tell stories about our work to our audience and customers.
Stories, of course, are integral to the work itself. Films, music, books, and illustrations tell stories with central characters. Archetypes help us create those characters and give them a depth that a wide audience can connect with.
In A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell reveals the archetypal pattern of the hero’s journey. From studying cultures and mythology all across the globe from ancient to modern societies, Campbell observes there’s an essential pattern that a hero always follows.
From a surface level, the idea made sense, of course, some patterns would emerge among different cultures, but Campbell goes into small isolated tribes in Polynesia and the depths of the Amazon and finds almost identical folklore to the civilizations on the other side of the world.
The hero’s journey is a story arc we’re all familiar with. Every movie you’ve ever seen has a central hero that follows this arc. When you strip down the bells and whistles of a Hollywood drama, the story easily maps onto our own lives many times over.
Because it’s so relatable, it makes for an effective storytelling template for our clients. The hero could be the customer, it could be your team, heck it could be your finalized project.
Archetypal stories also help to anticipate audience reactions.
When Prometheus steals fire for humanity, Zeus decides to punish not only Prometheus but humanity as well by setting the stage for Pandora’s box to open and introduce death and disease to the human race.
Icarus, the clever and brilliant craftsman constructed wings to escape imprisonment from King Minos. After escaping he was warned to not fly too low and get swallowed by the sea or too high and get torched by the sun. Ignoring the warning, He plummeted deep into the sea after his wings melted from flying too close to the sun.
Both of these stories correlate directly with our fears of technological breakthroughs and god-like power but also serve as cautionary tales for hubris.
Over the decades we’ve seen figures like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, amongst many others, depicted like Icarus.
Today, generative AI is at the center of the Promethean myth as we anticipate the atrocities that may follow with such powerful technologies. By anticipating these collective reactions, we can tell a more compelling story of possibilities while addressing these fears.
Identifying archetypes didn’t stop with Jung. The cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect can be viewed as an archetypal pattern.
The bias describes our predictable over-confidence at the start of a project that soon descends as we hit our first obstacles. That’s when our confidence aligns more closely with competence.
The bias shows up when teams take on new projects. It appears when pursuing a new career or new practice. Expecting the dip into the abyss can be an encouragement to keep going. Its predictability makes for great storytelling and allows us to anticipate the arc of new undertakings.
Archetypes reveal customer motivations and behavior
Archetypes serve a critical role in understanding our audience and business opportunities.
The Diffusion of Innovation Model illustrates the primary customer segments that adopt new innovations including products, services, media, and other forms of new ideas.
Innovators
New ideas mostly gain initial adoption from the innovators. People who are naturally motivated and excited about new things. They are tinkerers already spending their time and energy with new related technologies. One can be an innovator in a particular field and a complete laggard in another. In other words, the person that sees the next fashion trends years before they hit the scene is unlikely to have that same foresight on the next agrotech innovation that’s going to take the food production world by storm.
They are a very small segment of the population (roughly 2.5%), but also the most trustworthy sources to spread your ideas.
Early Adopters
The early adopter group is similar to innovators, but they don’t necessarily have the same level of expertise. They are enthusiastic about new innovations and are willing to spend time trying them out. They are also just as willing to look past the rough edges.
Early adopters are again a small segment consisting of 13.5% of the market. They’re willing to spend more money and time exploring new innovations and possibilities and like the innovators, they are trustworthy sources amongst their friends and colleagues to spread the adoption of your new innovations.
The Chasm
The heralded story consultant, Robert McKee discusses the story plots and genres when it comes to making a successful film in the book, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. You can make great films that don’t have a plot, but the audience for them is usually much smaller, and hence the budget as well.
Occasionally, a film will crossover from the independent artsy audience to mainstream success, but not often. This independent audience maps closely to the innovators and early adopters archetype which has many different expectations than larger audiences.
When it came to the world of tech start-ups, a pattern emerged where many companies experienced early success but were regularly failing to continue their growth rate over time. Geoffrey Moore labeled this pattern as the chasm between early customers and the larger mainstream audience. He wrote Crossing the Chasm to lay out a path for start-ups to crossover and acknowledge that there is a wide change in customer expectations that must be addressed.
Early Majority
The early majority is usually seen as 1/3 of the market population and is critical for most businesses to reach a sustainable level of success. This group doesn’t plunge into adoption and is often less knowledgeable about new technology and less affluent.
Your product must be more refined and easy to use for this group to have any success with it. This group is less enthusiastic and more casual, but once they take the plunge they are more likely to stay loyal and come back over time.
Late Majority
The late majority is apprehensive to change and will join because they feel they must join. They are also less educated, less affluent, and typically older than the groups that were mentioned earlier. They also consist of about 1/3 of the target population.
They want to know your innovation is in wide use before deciding to adopt and don’t want to bear any of the risks of getting in early. They are often incentivized through discounts and other enticing offers to join in.
Laggards
This is the last group and also the hardest group to convince is the laggards and they typically consist of 16% of the population. They may never be convinced or super engaged.
The laggards are not really a group that organizations target their innovations to, but are a big enough segment of the audience.
These are the people who were reluctantly forced to buy an iPhone by family and complain as soon as something doesn’t work the way they expect. It’s a small group that will never be satisfied with what you do.
This adoption curve is captured well by Dave Van Ronk’s description of Bob Dylan’s meteoric rise in his autobiography, The Mayer of McDougal Street.
Dylan did a great job of capturing the innovators early on as Van Ronk describes:
There was a freshness about him that was very exciting, very effective, and he acquired some very devoted fans among the other musicians before he had written his first song, or at least before we were aware that he was writing.
In those days, Van Ronk illustrates how exciting it was to watch Dylan perform and you can see hints of the great musician that emerges. He laments that by “1964 his shows were not even generically similar to what he had been doing at the beginning.”
But it’s hard to imagine crowds at large music festivals getting excited about the performance Van Ronk describes:
Back then, he always seemed to be winging it, free-associating, and he was one of the funniest people I have ever seen onstage — although offstage no one ever thought of him as a great wit.
He had a stage persona that I can only compare to Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Fellow.” He was a very kinetic performer, he never stood still, and he had all these nervous mannerisms and gestures. He was obviously quaking in his boots a lot of the time, but he made that part of the show. There would be a one-liner, a mutter, a mumble, another one-liner, a slam at the guitar. Above all, his sense of timing was uncanny: he would get all of these pseudoclumsy bits of business going, fiddling with his harmonica rack and things like that, and he could put an audience in stitches without saying a word.
I saw him one time onstage, with just his guitar and harmonica, and he was playing a harmonica chorus that consisted of one note. He kept strumming the guitar, and every now and again he would blow this one note, and after a few measures you were completely caught up in trying to figure out where the next note was coming. And you were always wrong. By the end of two choruses, he had all of us doubled over laughing, with one note on the harmonica.
Customer Archetypes
Customer archetypes are another powerful tool used to help understand a customer base or audience. This typically consists of a profile with your archetypal customers’ basic characteristics and traits.
Let’s say you’re offering a storytelling course for business leaders. Who’s your customer? Is it for consultants, leaders within large organizations, or aspiring leaders looking to grow their influence?
Each of these groups has different needs and levels of expertise. They would expect something different from your course.
The best way to understand your customer archetype is to get on the phone and talk with them. Understand their pain points and motivations. What are they trying to accomplish? Who are the most motivated people? What do they have in common?
If you don’t have anything, Jung’s archetypes can serve as a starting point.
Years ago I had an idea of a sketchbook that layered different paper types, something I thought would’ve been useful for architectural design work. At the time, I loved going to art supply stores and fiddling around with all the different sketchbooks, and I usually bought more than I needed. Many friends and colleagues had a similar quirky interest and I figured that was my customer base.
I tested early prototypes with this group of designers and artists and pursued building a business out of it.
Identifying the archetype factored into many decisions about branding, making initial sales, and getting things off the ground.
In this case, the idea was pursued to solve my own problem, a path most entrepreneurs follow. But the archetype helped to understand the larger audience.
Ultimately, the business was short-lived, but the importance of identifying an archetype stayed with me.
Originally published on Boundless Canvas on April 20, 2023.
