Why you are looking at the completely WRONG numbers of your posts payout.

There's nothing like seeing your post reaching sparkling double-digit numbers that just like Christmas makes you begin to count down the 7 days you will have to wait for that hard-earned payout.

But what if I told you that even if you earn as little as 5 dollars on a well-made post, that ONE post will yield far more steem than a previous 50 dollar posts back in time?

I have always felt it's been the most deceptive part of the chosen layout, that surprisingly all platforms on the steem blockchain decided to use. To show what you will be receiving in $$$ and not in steem from your posts.

Chances are if you are indeed making some amazing posts they might just be double digits, you are just looking at the wrong numbers.

Hurray for my paint skills

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The $$$ tells you the present, but it does not tell you the past nor the future.

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Wow, we are almost getting a bit poetic here, who would have thought?
The problem with looking at the dollar sign is it does not show any perspective on steem whatsoever. All it tells us is that 1 steem = 14 cents. It does not tell you, for example, that this one steem once was 8 dollars, or it multiple times has reached over 3 dollars in value(yes, even down from the price levels we are at now).

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The only people who should be looking at the $$$ signs of a post are those, who don't intend on making an investment or do not think they will stay around for more than a few months. Those who are only looking at the short terms. For the rest of us, those who are not only invested in steem, but also those who believe steem will have a bright future; you should practically ignore these numbers completely.

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What exactly do you gain from looking at the dollar signs of your post if you don't intend to pull out right away? nothing.
Nothing but a bit of unnecessary feeling of despair.

$$$ VS STEEM

Looking at $$$	Looking at Steem
Low payout numbers	High payout numbers
Shallow perspective	Forces you to think of the future
Wrong impression of your success	A better cozy feeling inside
Despair	Realize investing is better in these times

Let us be real here, looking at the steem payout of a post, you will need to be willing to risk that all of those posts might yield 0 one day, just like they might end up yielding an actual substantial amount of money. It is kind of a "Pick a oar and join the crew but risk the boat might sink". mentality. (yes, I stole that metaphor from someone I read a post from the other day).

But is it that bad to take that chance? Is it really that far fetched a platform that YOU among thousands of others are using willingly should suddenly disappear? If you have hopes to stay on the steem blockchain, then you might as well do it right.

By looking at the numbers of steem you are earning, you can easily see why you might make yourself a really good investment. I would say in these times of steem being at its lows, then it is actually really well done if you manage to get your posts to even 5 dollars. For reference as you see picture above, one of my "6.50 dollar" posts yielded me 32 steem. (of course, that gets split into 3.25 dollars/16 steem.)

But you get my point, it feels way better seeing that you just earned 16 steem, than you just earned 3.25 dollars, am I right?
If steem were to reach 1 dollar again, or hell, even 3 which it has done multiple times. That 16 steem you just earned would be worth, well, quite a lot actually. (Do the maths yourself, you lazy bastard)

This is, of course, taking a post that probably did not get the attention of a bunch of big curators. If you get lucky on those, your post could yield hundreds of steem. (I, for instance, got a jackpot of 250 steem from a single post).

Source

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My mantra has always been: Build an investment, not a salary

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Have I ever sold steem? You bet I have! I sold 250 steem when we peaked 8 dollars/steem. That's almost 2000 dollars which was pretty much paying my entire investment home at that time.

I sold a bit at 3-4 dollars and even down at 1 dollar mark. Although that was more for the reason of losing faith in the direction in the product rather than wanting to gain profit. I gotta be honest, the bid bots was sucking my soul out and I could not see any bright future. But here I am re-invested because well, steem is super attractive once again.

Anyways, back to my point: If I want money, I would probably not do it through steem since the amount of money I would earn would not be enough to make a living. I did manage to live on it while living in Romania but that is another story.

Today, I have no need to pull the pocket money I am earning from steem. All I am doing is stacking the stacks.
So you might ask, why not just work a full-time job, earn a lot of money and invest them into steem instead of making these posts?

There are more types of investments than money, my good friends.

Investment in what you like to spend your time on, investment in things you could potentially build a future upon. For me, every post I make I do because I like it. Just like I love spending half a year biking god knows where in the world.

Every post is also a way to get recognized. Another steemian might follow me, or I might follow another steemian?
The time I consume here is only because I feel it is worth my time, nothing more, nothing less.

This also goes for my steem. Why on earth would I pull out steem that was once worth so much more? When I know anyways I am going to be on the platform for probably years? I might as well make steem work for me, make me more attractive as a curator and an author as well as make my investment grow itself even larger on its own.

So yeah, that is my argument for why I believe most of you, might be looking at the wrong numbers