How I found out about Steemit - By @offgridlife

It was back in 2016 and I was running several Offgrid Living Groups on Facebook. Some of the Groups have over 100,000 members and I am still getting thousands of New Member requests a day.... They were well moderated Groups. No Spam, no scams, no politics, no fighting ...only good helpful content about sustainable living, self sufficiency, homesteading, bushcraft, and living off the grid anywhere in the world.

One day, somebody, I cannot remember who, messaged me and told me that I should blog on Steemit, that my original articles and photography would do well over there. And, unlike Facebook or Instagram, people actually get paid for their posts. So being curious I went to check it out. I liked the blog posts and was very interested seeing the little dollar signs under each one, but I was very confused that I could not comment or immediately sign up. I went through the sign up process then waited,... and waited ... and waited.

Nothing....

I forgot about the whole thing. A few months later I received an email or found an email telling me I needed to click on something. I did that and it had expired. So I signed up again.... and waited. This time I got the email, verified my email and then waited .... I received an email with a long strange password. I entered that and logged in. Finally I was in. A few days later I went back to log in and start writing. But this time my password did not work ??? What ?

I tried several times, copying and pasting the password and even typing it out letter by letter... nothing. I tried to contact Steemit support. Could not find any way to do this .... I gave up.

Almost a year later I came across an article about how people were making a lot of money blogging on Steemit and was kind of annoyed that I could never get my password to work ... so I tried again. By this time it was the Middle of June 2017. I took my time, paid attention and wrote everything down. After going through the process again, waiting, clicking, entering passwords I finally got an account set up. My original names were gone but I went with Offgridlife since I was still very interested in designing and building my tiny offgrid cabin somewhere in Canada.

I tried a few different posts... my introduction post did well. Made a few dollars. After a few days my offgrid living posts were not getting any traction. I was kind of confused seeing I was getting lots of views. I had no idea how the voting or rewards worked. I started reading more posts about how Steemit worked and learning about Crypto. I had no clue on what any of it meant. Slowly I realized that my posts with rewards had votes from the same people. It was mostly @kaylinart

Who was @kaylinart and why was she giving me such generous rewards? She had also left a few comments so I went to check her Blog. She was an artist and had a lot of Steem Power. I thanked her for her many upvotes and tried to upvote her posts as well ... not really giving her any Steem since my Steem Power was so low.

I decided I would start to share more of my Artwork and Photography. That seemed to work. I was doing much better on my posts and slowly converting my Steem and SBD to Steem Power. One day I received a 50 $ Upvote from BlockTrades and a few other whales. Wow, it was a simple photograph for the Steemit Color Challenge. Sunday purple I think. I started doing more photography and the rewards were growing.

Soon I was at 500 Steem Power and my earnings were increasing. I was posting a few times a day now.... By December 2017 I had around 3,000 Steem and when Steem hit $8 my Account was worth $24,000 USD... which was like $40,000 Canadian. I could not believe it. I started telling everyone I knew about Steemit, even in the Facebook Groups. Unfortunately most people thought it was a scam. As soon as I mentioned Cryptocurrency or Bitcoin all the Offgriders turned hostile. It was a Ponzi Scheme, a pyramid scheme... it was a way for them to steal your personal information, (Like Facebook already does) nobody had a cell phone# and on and on.... ok.... I won’t bother with those people. Nobody believed that I was earning anything. I guess with so many internet scams out there everyone is suspicious and cynical and jaded.

Out of the almost 1 million people in my Facebook groups only 1 person joined. They blogged for a while and then gave up. I was able to get my wife and kids to join.... they tried it for a while. Earned around 100 Steem, then also gave up. I cannot convince them to continue blogging. They see that I never take much out so they think it’s not real money. I have taken some out, converted to cash to show them, but they are too busy posting elsewhere... mostly Instagram. It’s easier.

My Son did build a Steem Lambo for Xbox to help advertise on Xbox live.
He even made a few movies for Youtube and TikTok.

So I’m hoping Steemit can become a little easier for the average person to use. Maybe something like Appics will help. But the passwords and complicated nature of Powering Down, Sending Steem to an Exchange, then Coinbase, then PayPal, is a little too much for most people.

Here is some of my Artwork Timelapse Videos I have shared on Steemit...

Watercolour Painting:

Pencil Sketches:

Star Wars Fan Art:

Oil Paintings ...

So yes, Steemit was my Introduction to Crypto and Blockchain. I have converted some Steem to Bitcoin, Ethereum, several Alt coins on Binance and Bittrex that lost almost all their value. Slowly I moved everything to Bitcoin on the dips. But Steemit Curation and these Challenges seem the best way to earn Crypto.

I am hoping that Shopify can take Steem to the Moon.

I am also writing posts for the Steemit Diary Game Challenge.... ( 12 Days now)

Day 12: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-12-tuesday-june-02-2020

Day 11: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-11-monday-june-01-2020

Day 10: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-10-sunday-may-31-2020-arrival-at-the-international-space-station

Day 9: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-9-saturday-may-30-2020-space-x-launch-day

Day 8: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-8-friday-may-29-2020

Day 7: https://steemit.com/the100daysofsteem/@offgridlife/the-diary-game-day-7-thursday-may-28-2020

FIRST CHALLENGE - HOW I FOUND ABOUT STEEMIT: https://steemit.com/steemexclusive/@steemingcurators/how-i-found-out-about-steemit-first-challenge-usdusdusd

We would love to hear how you found out about Steemit. How your blockchain career began actually :D
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Did you invite friends? Is your family here? etc...

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