Why Am I Here? - I Am Here For A Reason.

about 3 years ago

How Did You Get Here
And Why Are You Still Here?

I have always had reasons to stay here and I even stayed when all of the people I had invited through the years decided to leave. That's actually a pretty weird feeling to experience. I think I brought roughly 25 people here, where at least half of them were active at the same time, and none of them are here today.

A couple of days ago, @themarkymark wrote a post called:

How did you get here and why are you still here?

This post will be my answer for that question.

I was working as a full time freelancer running my own brand building business when I heard the word "Steemit" for the first time. It was in July 2016, so almost 5 years ago. One of my previous co-workers mentioned it and for someone who never cared about bitcoin, had zero interest in some imaginary "money" some crazy person had invented, I ignored everything he said about it.

You see, I had created my own little "empire". I went from making a couple of extra per month doing gigs on Fiverr to run a fully-blown brand building business. I had been a mentor to dozens of people, mainly people for Phillipines and Venezuela. I told them what to do and how to do it. Due to how I set up the deals with some of my customers, I could actually pay my workers directly, which obviously helped them a lot in real life. It was a lot of work, but it was fun and it felt rewarding at the same time.

However, as someone always interested and hungry for new ways of earning money, I eventually decided to join. It was in Mid July 2016. I quickly noticed people earning hundreds and even thousands of dollars for nothing more than half-decent posts and I instantly thought it was a scam.

My first question was:

Why are people paying this much money to read some posts when they can get that same information for free elsewhere?

I had been sharing content for free for several years. I continued to do that when I was on my "all time high" with my brand building business as well. I was extremely active in various internet marketing forums and on social media. Both as an individual but also as a businessman and as a business.

I could't believe my eyes and it took several days before I eventually made my first post. I was convinced by my former co-worker so I actually made a shitpost just so I could prove that the entire thing was a scam.

With time, I started to understand how things worked and I got more interested. It was a cool thing and I suddenly started to see some really nice potential of doing life-changing things. Especially as I was lucky in the beginning and scored upvotes from a handful of whales.

However, I cashed out everything I earned because I didn't believe that something like this could exist. Even though I had a bit more experience, I was not willing to miss out on free money, so I cashed out as much as possible, as soon as I could.

That's why I cashed out almost 6 Bitcoins in 2016.

Fast-forward a bit and I started to see the life-changing opporunity I had in front of me differently. I was eager to help others around me. I started to bring in more people, first friends and former co-workers, but I also started to do a lot of marketing. It's hard to know for sure, but I have probably put the name "Steemit" in front of thousands of people in total over the years, in one way or another.

I came up with the idea of helping others through various initiatives and projects. I was still eager to help others immediately. Through direct donations, upvotes and whatever. I did this because I wanted to help others in real life. I had a lot of experience working with Venezuelans for instance. I knew how much of a difference a few dollars here and there made for them.

Fast-forward even more and I had enough experience and knowledge to know- and fully understand that I would be able to help others around me more if I had more stake instead of cashing out everything I earned. With time, I would be able to help more people if I focused on growing my own account.

That was my mission and the biggest reason for doing the things I did.

For various reasons I have powered down and cashed out a couple of times, but I always had the same mindset. Help others. Many things changed over the years and I had my ups and downs. I stopped being active a few times and I stopped believing. I witnessed a lot of greed, selfishness and what I call idiocy. I saw flagwars and I saw the brutality that happened to people for not agreeing with wealthier accounts and the place was not fun anymore.. It felt like everything I had experienced when I first joined had vanished. Nothing where the same.

The core potential and opportunity was still there, but it felt impossible to ever experience something really fun, cool and life-changing again.

Fast-forward even more and we suddenly have Justin Sun.

I was sure it was the end of everything. I knew it was a terrible idea to bring him in and it quickly stood clear that he was the worst thing that could've happened for the platform..

Hive came out of that shitstorm though, but I was far from convinced that it would be as good as I had felt that Steemit where in the beginning of my "blockchain career". Somewhere in all of this I found LeoFinance. Well, I knew about it a long time ago, but it wasn't until Hive & LeoFinance.io I finally jumped off the fence and wanted to participate.

I dipped my toes and I was hooked immediately.

The communication was great. It finally felt like many of the most active users and the actual team behind LeoFinance and I had the same vision and mindset. We agreed on dozens of things and I felt home.

While LeoFinance was exactly what I needed to truly get back my passion and drive, I have also been able to realize that Hive actually seems like a very good thing. Hive is starting to become what I always wanted "Steem" to be. I see potential and I see good things.

So, even though I have experienced and witnessed literally everything that has happened, and even though everyone I have brought to this place has given up and left a long time ago, I am still here.

We are changing lives with Hive & LeoFinance, and that has always been my mission.

Why Am I Here? - I Am Here For A Reason.

How Did You Get Here And Why Are You Still Here?

How Did You Get Here
And Why Are You Still Here?