I would...

• Recruit a school of minnows to actively follow, mentor and educate.

• Introduce minnows to other like-minded whales and dolphins to help them network.

• Give as many 100% upvotes as I could to talented minnows without blinking an eye.

• Forget that my upvote slider had any option under 10%.

• Focus the majority of my votes on new and deserving talent, letting legacy contacts swim on their own.

• Not delegate much, if any, to voting bots, since I'm supposed to be reading what I'm voting on.

• Actively comment on quality original posts with low response rates to kindly encourage and motivate.

• Respond to as many comments as possible so people don't feel that their effort is lost, or that they're not worth my time.

• Reach out to aspiring authors on Steemit Chat to learn about their goals, give tips, and answer questions.

• Remember what it was like to be at the beginning again to appreciate new members, help them, and share every day.

• Send STEEM or SBD to deserving Steemians simply to inspire and make their day.

• Take a vocal leadership role to advocate for positive change for and improvement to the platform and ecosystem.

• Not turn a blind eye to inappropriate conduct.

• Not judge anyone's talent or worth by their tenure or account value.

It's hard enough to develop a presence and following on this platform as a new user in this era, but if I can gut it out to reach an influential position one day, this is what I'd happily do.

Yes, I can purchase a lot of Steem to have more power, but I really want to build myself up organically. That's more rewarding to me personally, but a lot harder to do, as compared to when the community was smaller with more Steem to pass around than we can imagine. I want to earn it with my own hard work. I don't mind the long road.

Giving is more enjoyable than receiving and everything comes back around in the end.

I hope that this may inspire others to be reminded that this community can only thrive if everyone proactively strives to help in meaningful ways. Let's maximize the overall experience for everyone and do more than trickle down some Steem to those below who are just as deserving.

If this gets through to just one person who may have lost sight of the greater good, that'd be a victory for me.

Source

No strings attached!

Thanks for reading.

~steemmatt