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7.15.2011

My Secret Shame: 250K Is The Most Gold I've Ever Owned


A few of you may have caught a recent twitter I posted celebrating the fact that I'd finally reached 250K gold. (I also talked about it a bit on Podcast Episode 015 (around 2:11).) Like many of you out there reaching certain milestones grants us to the opportunity to write about our experiences and have them posted on WarcraftEcon's Hall of Fame.

I took advantage of this chance myself yesterday and did my Hall of Fame interview and got it sent off to WarcraftEcon. Writing my 250K interview gave me a chance to reflect back on some of the things that helped me get to 250K but also on some of the feelings I've had inside as a gold-blogger and the stigma that I thought existed in the community for those who hadn't "made it" so to speak due to never having reached an "important" gold milestone.

After the jump I discuss what my thoughts and feelings are on the topic of the importance of milestones as well as  my advice for those who may be struggling with thoughts of inadequacy.

While I won't spoil my Warcraft Econ interview I did want to share one question that I feel really sums up what I considered to be the reason I was reluctant to discuss my gold totals with anyone.

Q: Do many people know you have this amount of gold?
A: Not on my server. I generally don't talk to anyone on my server about my gold. As far as outside the game I haven't made my gold totals public up until this point. I think part of it was feeling inadequate as I saw readers of my blog and other bloggers reaching much higher gold milestones than myself. As someone who blogs about making gold I guess I felt a bit of pressure to "prove myself" by having some huge amount of gold. I have since gotten over my initial trepidation about talking about my gold totals. While I don't think I'll worry bringing it up again (at least not until I feel I've reached another significant milestone) at least I don't feel ashamed or defensive anymore when someone asks me how much gold I have.

In this answer to the WarcraftEcon question I bring up that I've let certain people's opinions in the community of what a "gold blogger" should be affect me. In my life I've always been one who likes to think what other people say doesn't affect me and that I'm a happy person no matter what. As much as I like to tell myself this the truth is that we are all affected by what others say.

When someone we respect tells us that they value our opinion less because we haven't reached a certain gold value it hurts. As much as they try to play it off and say "it's not a big deal" it obviously is or they wouldn't be saying that they respect those who have made XX amount of gold over others who haven't. It's pretty clear they they believe gold totals are important.

But I don't want to get sidetracked. What I want to tell everyone here today is that it doesn't matter how much gold you have. Gold milestones are nice sign posts along our gold-making journeys. They are nice to use as bookmarks to say "I remember whey I hit XX gold." But they don't make you a better or worse gold-maker. They don't validate (or invalidate) your opinions or ideas about gold-making.

We celebrate gold-making milestones here at Power Word: Gold. (See Community Gold-Making Milestones.) We love sharing in the celebration and joy that reaching your own gold making milestones can bring. We will never however value anyone's opinion less if you've never reached some massive gold total. No one should ever feel bad about themselves because they feel that they are not "living up" to what they think others expect of them.

In the past I've been guilty of this. While I am a very private person (I don't generally give out my server or character names for example) I can see that looking back I let others (who did know my gold totals) make me feel ashamed of the fact I didn't have as much gold as they did. I regret that.

Gold making is a journey not a destination. As long as you're enjoying yourself making gold in World of Warcraft please don't be like me and let someone else's expectations of "success" make you feel inadequate or small. You are fantastic simply because you are you. Your opinions, ideas and experiences matter just as much as anyone else's. Don't ever let someone make you feel different.

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10 comments :

  1. I have listened to all your episodes from the beginning and recently i passed the 1 million gold mark, primarily through inscription but also enchanting and tailoring.

    I have to say, aside from enjoying all your podcasts i find them informative and value-added. Its not only the information that is useful but also the thinking behind the ideas that is important, perhaps more so.

    Indeed, once i got to 1 million gold i did not find your podcasts any less informative. In fact, i would venture further and suggest that by spreading yourself across the market perhaps you lessen your ability to make serious volumes of gold but you do come across many more ideas than someone like myself who put all their focus on one profession. I would be perhaps good for one podcast, you are good for many.

    1 million gold sort of requires an industry. As you say, it is enjoyment that counts.

    Keep up the good work!

    Croda of Nagrand-EU

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  2. Congratulations Flux - huge milestone and I love the post above on it and appreciate the last paragraph!
     
    As you know from google+, I just hit the same milestone last week as well and also filled out the interview for Warcraft Econ (Sunday night).
     
    Funny that similar to you I felt a little inadequate seeing all the people with huge amounts of gold, but then you realize that part of it may simply be that (a) they put in more time than you, (b) they started much earlier than you did, or (c) they're better than you (ouch).
     
    I used to read all the gold blogs and marvel that someone could have 10,000 gold per day coming into their mailbox and thought that was crazy! As I have been showing in my blog though, I now have for the past 4-5 weeks had ~ 150,000 gold in sales each week, which is ~ 20,000 gold per day and am now upset if I'm under 10,000 gold in a day (yes, I'm over for today already so feeling okay before I head home but want 20,000 by tonight).
     
    It's the journey that makes us gold bloggers, IMO, not the total gold that we have...when I started the blog a few weeks ago, my gold total was 1,096 I believe and it's going to be 330,000 tonight...Do I know more than I did then, nope.
     
    Later,
     
    Clint


     

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  3. It is never the gold total that tells anyone about what you know. The gold total in fact deal with how long you have been playing and how you save/spend. I do think that in some part....a gold total does reflect about what you practice. I think it is great that you hit 250k the issue in part is does it impact how you view the gold.

    I found that as you get higher...the gold just gets easier. I had thought of writing to warcraft econ but the truth is it would of only been to stroke my own ego. Lots know what I have and how I make it. It isnt that fancy but my focus is a bit different than what lots on blogs talk about. People talk about what to sell. My whole focus is on how to buy. Maybe some day I will do it....but for now.....I cant be bothered to get a guild to prove being over double gold cap.

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  4. Congratulations Flux!

    I understand your feelings about the milestones, but your content and participation in the gold making community speaks for itself.

    I personally promised myself that the lure of milestones wouldn't stop me from spending coin in game. I had a bumper patch 4.2, and it turned out to be a great time for my leatherworker to hit 75. I quickly hit 450k just as..

    1) My guild hit level 20 - hello BoA helms!
    2) My spriest just had to have the spire of scarlet pain.
    3) Epic flying for two of my toons and one for my wife.

    So 500k has taken a little bit of a back seat, but I'm having a great time in 4.2.

    Grats again Flux, and I'm off to chop wood and listen to episode 15.

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  5. Flux well done.

    Thank you for your confession, this may sound counter intuitive but I'm more inspired knowing that we are at about the same stage on our Gold making journey whilst delivering great content and having a generous spirit towards the rest of the community.

    Your blog & others have inspired me to get serious about making gold on a more serious level, which has kept me interested in wow since I don't have time in my week to get serious about raiding.

    There will always be people with whom we could be envious of, those who are better looking, have the car we want to be driving, living in a different neighbourhood, working at another company, studying another subject or at a different school. They could even have more gold or gear or be in a 'better' guild, riding that amazing mount that only drops at 0.01% from an inaccessible boss.

    I would suggest that you have something better than your WoW gold balance, a successful blog & an engagement in your community & I can't even imagine the amount of gold that you have inspired to be made. Think about that one.

    Enjoy the achievement & don't forget the journey is almost always more important than the destination.

    @mohler

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  6. If it makes you feel any better; I am a great spender. While I am comfortable in my gold making, I make gold enough to keep up with a spending habit, and then a little more.

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  7. Well done! Congratulations. :)
    I also commend you for your honesty. Nice read.

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  8. Flux, you were rich before you hit 250k.

    I was moved by your post to make a blog post in reply, thinking about what "Rich" really means.

    I loved Roly's comment "I can't even imagine the amount of gold that you have inspired to be made".

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  9. The number more important to me is "gold earned from auctions" on the statistics tab of your achievement screen.

    My main has earned over 265k from auctions. I'm currently sitting at just over 12k between all my alts. I only have 2 toons at 85 and maxed professions right now. Fast flying on both, ring of Kirin Tor on both, power leveled engineering (with expensive mistakes). It all adds up.

    Why should I level more alts slowly, with only quest reward gear, when I can twink them out, fly through the content for the third and fourth time.

    I think my next milestone will be 50k then see about buying the guild I'm in which has become inactive for the most part. Yeah, I could start my own. Yeah, I could buy one cheaper from someone leaving the game. I like the one I'm in and I want to buy it :)

    Don't sweat it. Your information and podcast are top notch (just starting episode 10 now). Some of the individuals giving you a hard time, have been stirring up a lot of crap across the gold blog and don't have a lot of my respect to begin with.

    Look at the numbers that are a true measure of your success, and I think you'll be surprised at just how qualified you really are to share and participate in this community.

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  10. First, grats on your 250k! I too hit that recently and am now beginning to fucus on the 500k mark albeit casually (still like to have fun raiding, family life, etc). Hmm...250k is a warcraft econ milestone? Didn't even realize that; always thought it had to be 1 mil or more (I went to the site finally and saw the various levels).

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