Introducing myself. I'm a 300,000 Subscriber YouTuber
Hi everyone!
My name is Andrew Furmanczyk! Nice to meet you all. I'm new to Steemit, so here's my my story. š
Currently, Iām 30 years old with a Wife (@lgfurmanczyk) and a 4-month-old Son, living in British Columbia Canada.
My interests and skills are kinda all over the place, and Iāve gone through many phases of my lifeā¦so Iāll start at the beginning and work forward.
Piano
At 5 years old I began piano lessons. When I was 13 I decided I wanted to be a concert pianist, and increased my practice up to about 4-6 hours a day. A few years later I was being paid to perform around my city about 5 hours per week. Everything was going well, and I was preparing for university when suddenly one day everything changed and I got a bad viral heart condition that ended my piano performing career. I was very sick for a few years, almost died a couple times and lost everything that gave me my identity. I fell into depression, but then turned it around one night in 2006 when I realized I was lucky enough to have the experience and knowledge I had, and I could share it for free on YouTube to anyone who had a passion to learn piano even if they were poor or in a location without teachers.
My YouTube channel turned into a whole thing, that ended up with me teaching piano across the internet to millions of people.
My First video in the How to play piano series.
I've been ranked #1 on the search for how to play piano since around 2009.
I already have a longer bio written about the details that story on my website.
Like all of you steemians, Iāve got other interests, and my story isn't one dimensional:
Photography (I took about 150,000 photos over 3 years.)
In the middle of 2010, I began photography as a hobby, but then I got super interested in it, the challenge of capturing things on the camera just fascinated me. I dove in and learned everything I could from technical articles that described how the camera worked under the hood.
I went nuts for a few years and posted my photos on a facebook page. Over those years I ended up getting pretty serious, doing paid professional work, winning a few small awards, teaching a little, having my work sold on canvas, and on a billboard.
It was such a great time, I went out on a lot of adventures.
However, I ended up getting really drained and lost all my energy for photography, it started to become something that made me feel numb inside. I didnāt want photography to be that for me, so I decided to back off on professional work and do it as a fun hobby on the side so I could enjoy it.
Business
As a kid growing up I had gotten the impression that business people were these evil greedy assholes, and since I cared about adding positive things to society, I had kept myself far far away from anything in the world of business and money. However, while doing professional photography, I began reading how I could make money from my photos; (so I could buy more camera gear obviously!) this caused me to start learning about business.
As I started to learn a little about business, a lightbulb went off, and I realized business wasnāt so evil. I now saw business as a powerful tool for bringing people together to work on a common cause that could either impact the world in a negative, neutral, or positive way. This new vision of what I could use business for really excited me, and got me very interested in learning more about business. I had more ideas of how I could improve my YouTube channel to empower more people to follow their passion for music.
Business was such a huge topic to cover, I ended up reading tens of thousands of pages of business topics, biographies of famous people, watching hundreds of hours of videos on business, taking online courses and basically absorbing everything of value I could. But knowledge without action is useless, and the ultimate reason I even wanted to learn business, is to be able to apply the power of business to developing positive world changing outcomes.
A few years into my business dive, I learned about Elon Musk and thought, this guy is a great example of what I want to do in my own way one day. Obviously, I am NOT Elon Musk, and I canāt and shouldnāt be just like him, we all have our own paths, but I developed a huge bro crush on Elon because of HOW he was using business to bring about positive change.
So, what amazing things am I doing now? Honestly, thereās not much to show so far. Itās almost not worth mentioning but basically, Iāve launched a small ecommerce store, and Iām working with a developer on an app that hasnāt launched yet. The ecommerce store is for the dual purpose of gaining more business experience, and making some money on the side. The app is related to music education, and Iām excited about getting it out there to help people achieve their own dreams of playing music for themselves on day. There is no crazy success at this point. Sometimes I feel this intense pressure inside myself to go faster, to achieve more, and sometimes it even gets so bad that I canāt sleep. But I know success doesnāt happen overnight and if I stick to building things that will be of value to people, itās statistically, only a matter of time and effort before something I do has a significant impact.
This is a little off topic, but it took me until my mid-twenties to know exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to build businesses that have a positive impact on humanity. That first business working out, wonāt be the cushion I retire on and end my life with. One successful business, will mean Iāll start over again and make another business, and another, and another until I die. I think this life of building things is well suited for me since Iām the type of person who enjoys the process of overcoming a challenge, and become bored when the challenge is gone.
Like many people, I have a lot of ideas for businesses Iād like to create in the future, but ideas are nothing without execution, so I until I act on these ideas, theyāre not really worth talking about further.
Family
In 2016, after 4 years of being together, I got to marry the love of my life, Lovely (@lgfurmanczyk).
Yes, her real name is Lovely. (When I first met her, I didnāt believe her name was actually Lovely and asked for ID to prove she wasnāt playing a joke on me.) Then later this February we had a baby boy that we named Leon. š All these new responsibilities have been tough to adapt to, but being a dad is one of the greatest gifts in life I can imagine having. I remember when we brought him home from the hospital, I didnāt feel like this baby could actually be mine. Somehow it seemed like a dream.
Leonās only 4 months old now, but heās already growing so fast. When he laughs and looks me in the eye, it connects with me so deeply, it feels like he has a direct link into my heart. I find myself thinking of how heās doing whenever Iām not with him. One thing that really puts me at peace is knowing how caring Lovely is for Leon. I can trust that heāll be ok when sheās taking care of him. I couldnāt ask for a better mother for our little baby. I am thankful for having a family.
What brought me to Steemit
I first started learning about bitcoin in 2013, but I didnāt really āget itā until this past year when I was alerted by the huge spike in cryptos like a lot of other people. So this year I asked myself, why was the price taking off? And, I ended up doing YouTube research binges about bitcoin and the underlying technology of the blockchain. There was much more information today than I found a few years back and I now āI getā how big of a deal cryptocurrencies are. Really, the invention of blockchain was the invention of synthetic automated trust. Trust is a BIG deal. Block chain is a BIG deal.
While doing my research on cryptoās I was on a website that listed different crypto currencies and saw Steem listed as a crypto currency for a new social media platform. This was different than anything else Iād seen so I decided to take a look. Instantly I was blown away by how cool Steemitās idea was and what Steemit could mean. I applied for an account and about a week later my steemit account was approved on June 2nd 2017. Steemit feels a lot like early YouTube did, and I really miss the days before YouTube became highly commercialized. I joined YouTube 1 year after launch in 2006 and YouTube was a small tightly knit community who knew and talked with eachother. I see Steemit as a site that will grow as big as YouTube one day. However with that growth, Steemit will eventually also become commercialized; probably faster than YouTube did since businesses donāt need a complete mind shift on how important the internet is this time around. Iām looking forward to getting to know you guys now before the site gets mainstream.
So there you have it. I know, I couldāve done a shorter post, but I think by posting something this length, those of you who have actually read this far actually know me to some degree, and I think getting to know someone that is new to Steemit is what this type of post is all about. š
The End!
Thanks again for reading! Iām excited to become an active member of this community.
Much love ā¤
Andrew
Nice post ! Welcome its a pleasure! Continue doing good post.
I wish you the best! and hope to see you soon.
Welcome to steemit Andrew ,
I am @digital-gypsy - nice to meet you!
With 300k Youtuber in the back I guess you will have some fund here :)
Good Luck & Cheers
Thank you, nice to meet you to! ^_^
its music in the air...:)
Welcome @sevenstars ... A little movie about your Steemit adventures on your 300k YTchannel also sounds like music in the air... hint... :)
that was the idea of this song quote @verelst :)
Hello Andrew! Nice to have you on Steemit now, have fun playing around and post what you like the most. Greetings from Germany!
Thank you for the kind welcome! ^_^ That's great advice.
Great intro, welcome to steemit!
Thanks robi
Welcome to Steemit @sevenstars.
What a interesting read, and Thank you for sharing, now I don't have to search thru youtube to find someone teaching piano for the kids, as I gave up as a child, I only wanted to learn to play piano to play chop sticks.
:) thanks for the kind comment!
Your going to be a billionaire in about 5 years m8! haha
Why thank you sir! I'll be sure to remember you when I've got my billions.
Wow thats a great post @sevenstars !
Got some writing skillz
if you really want to crush it here. I have worked for this whole week on my Full Guide Post on Steem For New Steemians
It will help you a lot!
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://media0.giphy.com/media/ZjjGOSM0RRjJC/giphy.gif)
Thanks sir! I just checked out your page. I'm going to like and follow you, hope you'll do the same!
followed back :)
Thanks! I'm reading your guide right now. You're way better with markup than I am.
I show on the post just how I do that!
Awesome. I'll look for it.
Welcome to steemit ! This is a huge community and I'm sure you will like it. It's nice to see youtubers coming here :)
Thanks man! I'm excited to be part of the community here!
Welcome to Steem @sevenstars I have sent you a tip
Thanks botface!
Upvoted. You look like such a happy couple! As a newbie myself, I intend to post about my journey as I begin developing documentaries on the empowerment of women around the world with the belief that men and women can stand strong together, but I'll also be posting fiction and topics of personal interest, like my family's connection to an infamous serial killer and a royal family. Lots of love, @aescholer
Thanks!