You're Not Behind, You're Loading

Note: This post is adapted from my LinkedIn article. I originally wrote it there, then realized it applies even more to VR creators and those still in school trying to figure out what to do with their lives.

When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then a singer. Then a graphic designer. Then a photographer - that one got squashed with "art doesn't pay bills". (I did always love computers though!)

By high school, you get these messages hammered into you: pick a major, pick a specialty, pick a direction and commit or become a forever failure. Because falling behind means never catching up.

If you're in school right now or just starting a creator channel, you've heard some version of this same pressure: pick your niche, commit to one platform, you're already behind if you don't have 100K followers by 20. None of that is true for most of us.

The Pressure to Specialize

Everywhere you look, someone's telling you to pick a lane and stay in it. Pick your creator niche and never deviate. Decide on a college major by your sophomore year of high school. Commit to one game, one platform, one content type, or you'll never make it.

The pressure feels urgent because having some sort of specialization looks clean on the surface. It's measurable, it's easy to explain, it's efficient. BUT it's optimized for a world that doesn't exist anymore.

Most of life isn't like chess or golf, where patterns repeat, start becoming predictable and feedback is immediate. Most of life, including content creation and figuring out your future, is unpredictable and complex. You can't see the right move until after you've already made it.

Your Sampling Period

I read Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein recently (affiliate link but I seriously do recommend the book), and it made me feel a lot better about my scattered, somewhat chaotic career path.

Epstein calls the early phase of trying different things a “sampling period”. This is the time you spend trying different things and accumulating broad experience, even if you don’t fully understand it yet.

It looks like distraction, it looks like a lack of commitment, but it's actually preparation!

My years working at animal shelters and doggy daycares were my sampling period. So was my modeling phase. So was streaming on Twitch. Every single environment taught me something about audiences, performance, community, business ownership and discipline that I couldn't have gotten from going straight into a business program at 18.

By the time I landed in VR content creation, I had reference points that people who specialized early simply don't have.

For creators specifically: your "random" YouTube upload about a game nobody asked you to cover, your weird short TikTok experiment, your attempt at streaming even though you thought it would fail, those are all sampling period. That's not wasted time. That's preparation disguised as chaos.

For those in school: you don't need to know your entire life path right now. Your job is to sample! Try different clubs, take classes in subjects that sound interesting even if they don't fit your "plan." Work random jobs, build a toolkit. You're not falling behind. You're loading.

Kind Environments vs Wicked Ones

Kind environments (chess, golf, professional sports) have repeating patterns and immediate feedback. If you mess up, you know instantly. The patterns are predictable. Early specialization wins in kind environments.

Wicked environments (content creation, starting a business, most careers) are unpredictable and complex. You don't see the right move until after you've already made it. The patterns don't repeat. Feedback is delayed or ambiguous.

Content creation is a wicked environment. You post a video and wait days to see if it lands. You try a new format and might not see results for weeks. You can't know if your niche choice was right until you've already committed months to it.

In wicked environments, breadth beats depth. Range beats specialization.

‍ ‍Image credit: Readingraphics

That scattered creator who tries tutorials, then funny clips, then community livestreams, then education content, they're not confused. They're sampling. They're building a toolkit for a future they can't predict yet.

The person who specialized in Fortnite content in 2018 and refused to pivot? They're stuck now.

The Outsider Advantage

Epstein also writes about something called the “outsider advantage”. Specialists within a field tend to only pull knowledge from inside that field. But the further someone's background is from a problem's area, the more likely they are to solve it creatively.

My edge in VR content isn't that I'm the most technical reviewer or the most experienced player. It's that I bring a marketer's instincts to a space full of people who've never had to think about why an explanation lands with one person and bounces off another. That's what years of random, seemingly unrelated experience produces when it finally has a context to live in!

Think about the best creators you follow. Most of them have weird backgrounds. They came from something totally different. That "random" experience is their edge. It's what makes them stand out.

If you're trying to figure out what to do, your "weird" interests aren't distractions. They're your edge! Your combination of experiences, hobbies, and random knowledge is what will make you unique at whatever it will be you end up doing.

Match Quality Over Optimization

The hardest concept to achieve in Range is also the most useful: match quality. The idea that finding work aligned with who you are matters more than anything else. Leaving a job, switching directions, abandoning a plan, none of that is failure, it's information.

Every time I switched directions, I wasn't wasting experience. I was learning what I actually wanted and what I was actually good at. I was learning match quality.

If a content type isn't working for you, switching isn't failure, it's information, you're refining match quality. You don't need to commit to your first choice forever, college isn't a binding contract, your first job doesn't define your entire future, every experience teaches you about match quality.

You're Not Behind, You're Loading

If your career path isn’t a straight line, your creator journey looks scattered, or you're in school and still have no idea what you want to do, you're probably not doing it wrong! You're loading.

‍ ‍ I even did cosplay for a while! Complete with stereotypical fiverr gamer logo.

Loading takes time. It looks like chaos from the outside. It feels inefficient because you're not sprinting toward a specific finish line. But you're building something real: a toolkit, a set of reference points, an understanding of what actually matters to you.

The advice parents and teachers give when you're young has good intentions. Specialization is efficient, measurable, easy to explain at a dinner party. But it's optimized for a predictable world, and the world you're actually living in is anything but.

The hardest part of creating a sustainable creator career isn't technical skill or viral luck. It's knowing who you actually are and what content genuinely matters to you. That's match quality. And that only comes from sampling.

If you're tired of being told to specialize faster, commit harder, pick your niche immediately and never look back, VR Content Lab teaches the opposite. We focus on strategic positioning based on who you actually are, not who you think you should be. Self-paced course, Discord community, other creators figuring out match quality instead of chasing trends.

Check it out at vrcontentlab.com.