Every decision you make compounds

Steem is a pretty cool in a way that it is like a microcosm of a real world with many types of people, yet it has to do with crypto, drawing in people who might not traditionally be interested in finances. I wasn't really, but Steem has thought one particular concept and that is no other than compound interest.

And the lesson regarding that on the video below, is that developing any type of skill compounds over time and those who are able to utilize this and accept that having observable results appear over time in a delayed manner, will end up much better than those chasing instant gratification.

Give the video a go.

Like I said, Steem is like a microcosm and one of the lessons is exactly like from the video: people quit, because they see no or little results when starting.

We all know it, we've all seen it: new users fail to stick up, because the time put in 'is not worth it' – for whatever reason that is (usually it has to do with little rewards).

Yet what they have missed is the fact that Steem can be an insane compounding machine: you can literally start without anything and end up with stake (Steem Power) that can be utilized for voting, which earns curation rewards, delegating to a project and receiving dividends and/or tokens. Oh did I forget to mention that even Steem Power itself compounds for 2% or so percent in a year? And for that to happen you can literally just sit on your ass and not do anything!

It just takes time.

Then why do people quit?

There are many reasons, like the not seeing immediate results part that also goes for everything else. Crypto is also rather unrefined and is still carrying loads of uncertainty. Failed expectations play a big part too, set up by Steemit and big earning authors who portray a story of earning loads of money immediately. But the core concept they're missing is that it takes time to compound those results. Those consistent high-earning users don't earn much because of the content they are putting up right now, but because what they have done in the past – content and relationship-wise – in their early days of Steem journey to build an audience and community around them.

Steemit might have their own cow in the ditch (I'm sorry, I'm thinking in Finnish idioms again) because they are marketing Steemit as way to get compensated for the valuable content you produce, but how Steem works is that in reality you are not automatically being rewarded for quality content (though it can happen by several curators and curation guilds who are doing the good work here), but rather for the connections and relationships being made on the platform. For that reason I would say that Steemit and other front-ends are some of the most social medias there is, because here engagement gets rewarded in a compounded matter. Some people like to even directly reward engagement by upvoting comments. I do this too especially for good comments.

But the core principle that people, especially new, miss about Steem is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th... etc. order consequences that engagement can bring (with delayed gratification): like ending up going to Steemfest and having a great time meeting awesome people and learning (at least trying) more about Steem itself which can potentially be leveraged in various ways in the future on the platform.

Maybe the reason people miss this, is because they've grown accustomed to the prevalent types of medias which are rather asocial when the usage of it can lead to a major depression, because the manipulated life portrayed by others creates too high expectations for the one of your own. Where angry people spill their guts and troll others – is it a wonder if we have learned not to engage in social media in an authentic way?