My Steem Story – By @belemo

Everyone has a story – and all our stories have something in common… we all started from nothing and knew nothing. People want to hear stories. They want to hear OUR stories — they want to know who we are, where we are from, what we are doing, who and what we love, what we have learnt and where we are going. People also want us to hear their story! Being a part of the Steem network is an individual journey for every single one of us and through this initiative we will share our stories not only with all who are already here – hopefully inspiring, guiding and informing them… but doing the same for everyone else in the world too. Through our stories we will prick the curiosity of those who have not yet arrived and illuminate and widen the already open doors to our one in a million blockchain. We invite and encourage each and every one of you to participate and share your stories too! You can find the "how to" details at the end of this post.

MY STEEM STORY - BY @belemo

Where my Steem Journey began

My journey began like a lot of other Steemians around; word of mouth. Late in December 2017, I got a call from my brother @skiwzz to join this platform. He said I should signup on Steemit and start posting the same things I'd usually post in my unsuccessful blogs and Facebook here.

My brother, who's hardly ever with us these days told me that with Steemit, I could earn real money from the content I create and that was all the motivation I needed. I created my introductory post that matured on the 24th of December and sold like 2SBD but back then, SBD and Steem prices were soaring and that was more than enough to save my Christmas.

It was very exciting I must say; the thought of actually finding value in my scribblings and opinions, those typical social media activities and whatnot. I felt like I had found a goldmine and my creativity was my tool for mining.

My initial challenges & how I overcame them

I had a couple of challenges at the time. Some of my challenges were understanding certain terminologies I regularly ran into; FOMO, FUD, hodl and other terms typically used in the crypto universe. I overcame this one with constant interaction and engagement, and Google also came in very handy.

The second bit was the culture shock if you may. I was used to interacting with a section of people I was familiar with but here's this platform where I have to interact with a cross section of people spread from across the world. People I would normally not have met. Again, through interaction and regular engagement in their posts, I found out that people are just people, and we all have our struggles and challenges irrespective of our location.

I initially struggled with how "techy" the platform was. I found it difficult to interact with people and didn't know what Discord or Steemchat was nor how they worked. I remember stumbling into a Steemchat room and got overwhelmed by the conversation, so I decided to keep my interaction on the platform exclusively on the blockchain. I overcame this challenge through a drive to succeed and improve my network, so I decided to get a hang of how discord worked.

Notifications or the absence of it was something that made the platform seem a bit, boring to me. That all changed when I got wind of Ginabot and she's the brain behind most of my progress here.

Something else I struggled with and still sort of do even today is the use of the text editor to make presentable blogs. I've made a lot of progress but I reckon there's still a long journey ahead.

My Steem blockchain knowledge

Okay, so how much knowledge do I have? Well I know witnesses run the show from the background and I guess they earn Steem because of the servers they run. I know those servers facilitate transactions and enable people to create accounts.

I know the blockchain has an economic model that manipulates demand and supply to create and reduce inflation. I don't know how it works but I'm fairly certain there's an elaborate mechanism that nerds can explain.

The point is, I have next to zero knowledge about things work around here and that's fine by me. It's good to know your strength and blockchain technology isn't one of them. I'm just happy the blockchain works how it works. Halleluyah.

My Steem favourites

Some of my Steem favourites are;

• @steempeak: Awesome text editor and schedules posts
• @esteem: Also has a good text editor and gives points that you can redeem for upvote
• @threespeak and @dtube: for the love of videos
• @appics: because pictures make the world go round
• @splinterlands: Recently joined and getting my ass kicked. Love it though.

My golden nugget advice

Be openminded, flexible and dampen your expectations. Just get in the scene, go with the flow and experience Steem from your own perspective. This platform literally has something for everyone, you just have to find where you fit in and always try to express yourself in the best version of yourself.

My Steem hood & its peeps

Well, I'm part of two cults; @comedyopenmic crew and "moon is where your heart is". Some of my favourite people on this platform are in these two cults. People like; @trumpman: he's my bitch and shitposts...alot. I love it @penderis: also my bitch and shitposts, I also love it. @lordbutterfly: ughh you won't believe me when I say this but he's also my bitch and makes. @idikuci: llama tactician @profanereviews: secretly in love with me and yes, I'm considering it @dandays: We're going to drink beer together someday @doomsdaychassis: I miss him sometimes

Outside the cults and still, my peeps are; @theycallmedan: Always spreading the love around the block.
@acidyo: He's an Arsenal fan, of course, I like him @mistakili: not my bitch...yet @josediccus: doesn't drink beer, I'm going to fix that. @chekholer: awesome guy, subtly brags about his big penis and also an Arsenal fan.

When it comes to communities, I enjoy interacting with a couple of them;
@ocd: Mostly awesome posts about various topics. Also, give me the best upvotes. I love em. @dcooperation: championed by the man @clixmoney and they rep Steem's cooperativeness. Love em. @steemleo: because @trumpman is my sugar daddy.

So my 5 nominations to try this out, Uhm, let's go with; @elsiekjay @mistakili @chekholer
@dandays @uyobong

HOW TO JOIN IN:

GENERAL INSTRUCTION:

Create a post titled: “My Steem Story – By @your.user.name”

The first three tags in order are to be as follows: #hive-114105 #powerhousecreatives #mysteemstory

ONLY make use of the cover image provided in this post.

Keep the same formatting and placement (intro, footer instructions etc.)

Replace the personal photo with one of your own.

Tag 5 people to join in on the initiative.

Share your post to twitter.

Share your twitter link and Steem post link in the comments of @jaynie’s “Steem Story” post.

POST INSTRUCTION: Write a post which shares and gives adequate response to the following headings:

• Where my Steem Journey began (How you first discovered Steem and your very first thoughts and impressions “as you landed”.)

• My initial challenges & how I overcame them (Share a bit about the difficulties you faced at the beginning, whether it was navigation, post creation, engagement – whatever – how you resolved them and how differently you feel about it now)

• My Steem blockchain knowledge (Give a little bit of background on your blockchain knowledge when you began your Steem journey versus now.)

• My Steem favourites (What are the things you do mostly on the blockchain – is it blogging, vlogging? What front ends do you like to make use of and what content genre’s do you generally focus on?)

• My golden nugget advice (What advice would you offer to those that are unfamiliar or new to this space)

• My Steem hood & its peeps (Share a little about the communities you belong to, discord servers you frequent and perhaps a handful of the awesome people you follow)