Archetypes
Archetypes
Finding your natural archetype and using it to find the most efficient and seamless path for your life
Archetypes have always inspired me, even as a youth. And there is a ton of info out there on the subject. The problem is that despite having all that data you’re rarely given a stat sheet on who you might be or how it may benefit you. Well. Luckily for you, the Raw Manifesto provides. And today, I’m happy to introduce a very knowledgeable and inquisitive operator that some of you may already know. His twitter goes by @Thzer0r. I can go on for a while explaining who this man is and why you should listen up — namely being his depth of insight on archetypes and his experience in the field, but instead I’ll let the man speak and entice you with his knowledge and magical wisdom. Takes notes. And follow him on twitter for hidden gems, too.
Why does the study of archetypal personalities interest me?
Curiosity is my biggest single motivator. I have always been driven to find out the answers and how things fit together in the world. I’ve also been blessed with living a very varied and interesting life and consequently have observed extreme behaviour.
I have spent significant time with people you would cross the street to avoid, whose lives are defined by serious problems; drugs, homelessness, mental health problems, prison. I’ve also met British Royals, F500 CEOs, some of the UKs wealthiest hedge fund managers and others at the other extreme end of the spectrum of social and financial success. Of course, as you should be acutely aware already, the vast majority of people fall between these two extremes. The conclusion of all this time spent with these individuals and these observations of them driven by my innate curiosity, is that fundamentally there are only a finite number of archetypes. This is not a revolutionary thought. People far smarter than I have conceptualised this and developed this further than I ever will: Hippocrates, Jung, Myers-Briggs, Friedman & Rosenman to name a few.
There are two distinct reasons why establishing a taxonomy of archetypes is important.
Having a solid taxonomy of archetypal personalities allows you to quickly read and categorise people, predict their motives and the outcomes of their behavior, both intentional and unintentional.
Understanding your own archetype allows you to identify your own strengths, weaknesses, natural inclinations and proclivities. Your archetype essentially determines your source of motivation in the absence of external pressures.
This piece will primarily focus on the latter of the two reasons.
Why does this matter in the context of self actualization and achieving one's desired outcomes?
Most people who are ambitious will see other people doing things and go after them too because they understand that the status game is the most logical funnel for ambitious drive. They’ll fail to realise that by stepping into another mans marketing funnel or envisioning themselves as the next Jeff Bezos or Alex Hormozi, or doing anything else which is at odds with their natural archetypal personality they are essentially stealing their future and their own gifts from themselves.
The best analogy for trying to live in incongruence with your archetype is like bungee jumping. You may travel extremely quickly towards the goal but will reach a point where the force of gravity or in the case of archetypes, your ambition cannot move you any further. You are essentially tethered and at a standstill because you are working at such odds against your natural personality .
For example, I have met several startup founders who envisioned themselves as Steve Jobs-like and had you asked any of them to describe themselves, they would certainly use the term visionary. I watched them repeatedly fail to bring products to market that did not meet any of the criteria of a true visionary, products that were at best Silicon Valley-fied attempts at reinventing the wheel. Had they taken an approach more in line with their archetypes they would have had much more success.
What are the archetypal personalities according to Th0r?
One of my fundamental beliefs is that you should never wholly subscribe to another man’s philosophy and doing so is mental cuckoldry. Use others thoughts to influence your own thinking and I strongly encourage you to test these but to also build your own mental models of archetypes. In developing my own thoughts on this I primarily used the Jungian model as a base for this. My thinking of this has evolved significantly and in a year's time I will probably have some differing views to what I have documented today. As long as there is benefit to myself, this isn’t an issue.
It would be difficult to document every single archetype I’ve encountered. There are some types that I am only now fleshing out in my head after 15 years of ruminating on this. I think both Jung and Myers-Briggs are incomplete and attempt to compress the scope of archetypal personalities for ease of use.
I’ve included my thoughts below on the most common I’ve observed and some of the less common, yet more interesting ones I’ve observed.