045: The Jump from exploration mode to exploitation mode as a creative.
Heaven and Hell
âïž Todayâs newsletter is late because I took a long nap, thatâs one of my goals this year not to be late but to take more naps. Iâd love to hear about some of your goals, or even your big one this year, leave a comment or reply to this email :)
In issue 41 I mentioned this idea of Exploration vs Exploitation.
Today Iâm going to unpack those two creative modes, and for paid subscribers, Iâll talk about how to switch to exploitation mode if thatâs where you would rather be. The context is applying your creative energy to making things for the market.
Before we get into it, I want to say that I really love and appreciate art and business classes and see them as a vehicle to develop a career. On the flip side, they are just as fun, maybe even more fun as a hobby.
Exploration Mode
This is the default Creative mode. Kids have it and for many adult artist, this mode is exactly what they love about art. Maybe itâs the freedom and the feeling of newness that drives such pleasure.
The payoff of exploration is discovery.
We love the discovery of new materials and techniques, we watch video after video that makes us feel smarter and feels like weâre growing our art prowess. It feels like weâre working toward a goal.
But sometimes the truth is that exploring is the goal. That sense of discovery. And the joy of applying our consciousness to shape raw material into something only we could do is the reward.
If you do it often enough some well-meaning soul will come around and tell you,
âwow youâre amazing, you should put this up for sale somewhereâ
And you should tell them;
âshut up, this is my hobby and Iâm doing it purely for the pleasure it brings me and the people I give the art to and thatâs pricelessâ
If you do this you will go on to live a very pleasurable explorative art-filled life!
But thatâs not enough for you, is it? You follow so many people on Instagram who actually make things and put them out in the world and sell them!
Thatâs where you want to go with your art! And so you go deeper into exploration. You explore markets for your art.
Ooh I could make something and sell it at an art fair, or self-publish a comic zine and sell it at a comic convention, or Iâll open an online shop. So many possibilities. More classes and research. Iâm going to exploit my talent!
Nope youâre still exploring. Only now youâre exploring business models and markets.
It doesnât work and you try something else, the class doesnât work, the algorithm doesnât work for you. Ai is making it hard for you. âYou need to find your âSTYLEâ.â Maybe youâll go back to exploring different art classes.
Exploitation Mode
Now Youâre thinking wait a minute, someone else is making a living just doing this or that. I want to do that. Or something like it. I want to exploit my creative energy rather than use it as fuel for discovery. What does that look like?
You need to commit to things.
You need goals. And by goals I mean projects. Things you will complete in 2 weeks, 2 years, and 10 years. And you need to keep working towards all those time frames every single day, so those goals need to feed into each other.
for example, âIâll make a page of comics in 2 weeksâ, and in two years Iâll turn that into a book, and in 10 years Iâll have 5 of the thing.
Youâll need to decide on who you want to serve. Thatâs right youâre not doing it for you, youâre doing it for the customer. Youâre editing down the best of you to the 10 or 15% that the customer might be interested in. And youâre delivering greater and greater concentrations of that.
You are learning everything you can about the segment of the market youâre in until youâve mastered it. Youâre betting your limited life on the thing that makes the most sense to you. Choosing to go deep and not broad. Going narrower and narrower until you become a category of 1.
Commitment to customers, and getting better and better at serving them is the main goal. and Exploration becomes a side quest that works in service of the main quest.
There is a huge chasm between the two modes.
Some good news, a lengthy exploration mode is useful in informing the exploitation mode. The bad news is a clear decision and lifestyle change will need to be made, and you could fail as you try to cross that chasm. Which is why most people stay at the edge.
Now,
Iâm going to talk to paid subscribers. Iâm going to tell them the process that needs to happen in their heads to go from explorer to exploiter. And next week Iâll tell them about how to navigate toward their creative goals.
If you want to work it out for yourself consider the difference between the what the explorer and exploiter are thinking, and how you might want to tweak your own thinking.
And if you want to subscribe why not try it for a year? I write it for both Exploiters and Explorers.
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