Someone from one of my groups pasted in our chat the post Do you want 500 SP Delegation? being run by @suesa that woke me up because I wanted it!

So this is my bid to win 500 SP delegation for 2 months.

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I joined Steemit about three months ago as I was looking to blog again as sort of a virtual diary to help me cope with the depression I was feeling. It was meant to be something temporary because I had other plans but things change and I am still here. I almost ended it but Steemit made a huge change. If ever you are interested in that story you can read it in this link

The terms Whales, Dolphins, Minnows and Planktons were still alien to me and to my unfortunate luck I joined a group that put vote begging to Whales as the way to succeed here. They would rattle off the names of different whales and how we need to gain their attention. They would brag about being backed by one and even if they have shitty posts it gets upvoted. I left in disgust,

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Like Dory I was lost floating in the big blue yonder called Steemit looking for a new team when I chanced upon a small group of minnows, swimming in their little portion of the net and tentatively reached out. This was @steemitfamilyph which is led by @jon24jon24

It was mostly compromised by family and friends who lived in Baguio city in the Philippines and a few places outside yet majority of them knew each other personally. Hence it was their family and yet I was a stranger from a different city and I didn't have anything to offer. My votes amounted to next to knowing, the things I wrote were deeply depressing and I was not the best version of me.

I never really knew why they accepted me but ever since that day I have been with them and hopefully continue to do so. To continue swimming with them in a bid to power up, increase our reputation points and continue to create good content.

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December was a good month for us and we were able to earn some to give ourselves a nice holiday gift. We were able to create posts in Facebook about our experience in Steemit and how we earned money on the merits of our minds and creativity. To people Steemit was no longer a scam, it was no longer a ponzi that it was going to be difficult to cash out. Here was undeniable proof that Steemit works.

So we had an influx of new people that joined and from a few minnows swimming along the currents we are now a shoal of minnows. Each one different in size (VP) and in nature (Writing, photography, art, singing) yet bound together socially. Helping one another and relaying information and best tips and techniques to create a good blog post.We will boost their dropping morale when things are tough and they want to quit. We will help them survive. Just like how a shoal of fishes behave in the wild.

In being together we made Steemit fun, informative and with a deep sense of belonging. A favorite word we use when we describe ourselves is Ohana

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We want everyone to feel loved and cared for. We want everyone to flourish and support them in the posts that that they create. We curate and give pointers on how they can make better blog posts and for those that made the effort we highlight those daily and give our full upvote. It is by rewarding good behavior that we make it a habit for them to strive to be their best version.

SO WHY DO I WANT THE 500 SP?

It is a very simple reason why and I will quote a post I did yesterday under my 1000 SP Goal! Steeming on!

So why a 1000 SP? Pretty simple I want to be able to do a $0.40 upvote when I am at my 100% voting power and weight. It feels good to see good content and reward it. I hardly have aspirations of becoming a whale but it wouldn't stop me from rewarding people with what I can.

January when I received the delegation from @blocktrades that really boosted the curation rewards I was getting from comments, posts and curating other people's post. It was almost multiplied by 8 or 10 times what it used to be and so I am very thankful of that borrowed power.

This is the main reason why by having a bigger SP would be beneficial to the people that I support and myself. That's the beauty of a gifteconomy. You increase the value of other people and reward their contribution to good content and you are rewarded as well.

I want that 500 SP to be able to recognize talent and give it a boost in terms of earning and their own self worth. Nothing destroys the confidence of a person faster than seeing day after day of generating good post to get no votes. I know I was one of them. I almost quit.

I've seen some of the people that entered and they have very lofty ideals and advocacy on certain topics. I look very generic that what all I want is to reward people when they write good content. Yet the impact to the community is huge. The more people are rewarded to create good content, the more it becomes a habit, when they earn and either power up or cash out it gives confirmation that Steemit is real. The tell their families and friends and they too join Steemit. Word of mouth is such a powerful advertisement.

SO WHAT HAVE I DONE SO FAR?

Steemit is not easy. It has taken us some time to teach people a good way of creating content and not rely on vote begging. More than that I want to give hope to people and know that someone will always have a kind word for them. I have to be honest I am drawn to people who are in pain, suffering from depression, the unloved, the unknown and have low self esteem. It is because I am all of these that I want to help people.

One way that I tried to help people was the creation of a contest that focused on making a Visionboard. My aim was to engage the community and get them focused on the year ahead. It was a way for me to give thanks to a community who helped me through my pain and depression. Something to share with them. I was surprised by the reaction to it as the post got curied and went massive!!!

To check the details you can go to the link below
My First Steemit Contest | A 2018 Vision Board | 8 SBD up for grabs

It garnered 700+ views and 166 votes and although it had 85 comments but half of it would be from me responding to the community. I was just overwhelmed and happy. Still I did not want to expect because creating a visionboard is hard. Yet I received 27 entries each one very precious and emotionally stirring.

It was difficult to choose who would win and I nearly wanted everyone to just share in the prizes but I set myself to decide and if you are interested to look at the winners click the link below.

Thank you for joining my Visionboard contest! | Announcement of Winners

MENTORING AND CURATION

A big chunk of my time lately has been spent on mentoring and curating new minnows. I created a newbie guide under the 90 days in Steemit and all the things that I learned | Part 1 which full of the things that I wish I knew when I started.

Coming from a Human Resources background makes me want to see people equipped with the right skills and set them to succeed. I really take the time to educate, answer questions, provide positive criticism and guidance to Steemians. I belong to another group #steemitachievers and although I am not it's founder but I do my best to help them out and treat them like family as well.

Most days I read and give comments to different posts regardless of who wrote it. I upvote whenever I can and since getting the 800 delegation from @blocktrades when I bought gives me more chances to read and give upvotes. One thing I am ashamed of because of the limit of upvotes I can do is I can't upvote very good comments that I see. I am no dolphin that has the ability to reward fruitful comments for now.

One of my goals is to get into one of the major curation guilds and so the practice I get doing it to the groups I belong to is helping me hone my patience, speed in reading and looking for hidden gems. In particular I started doing a introduce a new Steemian under the #ians hashtag. I got this from @gmuxx who has been doing a great job of motivating new people and giving them a bigger audience.

HOPE AND OPPORTUNITY

This has become my advocacy here in Steemit. I want to help people overcome the debilitating depression and despair many have when they join Steemit. I am a prime example of a person whose darkness became light. As lofty as it sounds I want to become a beacon of hope. I have started a series of collected stories and posts from Steemians so that they can feel that somebody cares.

If you are interested to look at link below.

Stories collected from Humans of Steemit | Hope and Acceptance

So I have tasked myself to be a champion to those who are are feeling down and defeated, weighted by the depression and hopelessness that they are feeling, to brush away the darkness and fear and once again give them hope through Steemit.

There you have it. Those are my reasons why I want the 500 SP delegation. The things I did in Steemit pales in comparison to most entry because I am just a simple minnow who wants to keep swimming and make a difference in another minnow. Who knows we may become dolphins after some time.

Incidentally I was reading a very interesting article What Steem Needs The Most: Something A Whale Like @fulltimegeek Understands: Dolphins! Dolphins! Dolphins! by @taskmaster4450 and this expounded on what you are trying to do.

This was a very enjoyable topic and made me realize what good I can with the right sources. All we need is a chance.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.