My introduction to steemit community

Hello steemians and Happy New Year to everyone!

It's time for me to introduce myself as It has been a bit more than a week since I registered on steemit.
During this period I've been looking around to help myself understand and get familiar with steemit as I knew nothing about it.

My name is Michael and I come from the small island of Cyprus located in the eastern Mediterranean sea. I was born in the city of Larnaca, a small beach city on the south part of the island. Below you can see the salt lake of my home town.

I first heard about steemit a couple of months ago from a friend while we were discussing about social media. She mentioned it as a social media that pays you for liking and commenting on the content of other people. She did not mention anything about the connection of steemit with the blockchain and cryptocurrencies. I didn't pay much attention at the time as it sounded a bit scammish to me.
It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I heard somewhere that steemit is related to the blockchain and crypto word and that it's because of this nature that it is able to offer rewards to the members of the community. This eliminated the scam idea I had when I firstly heard about steemit.

What fascinates me the most with steemit is the decentralized nature it has along with the fact that it has nothing in common with the popular social media.
I like the community that is getting built in here, within a variety of subjects, and the fact that trashy content and spam accounts are eventually getting kicked off by the nature of this community.
It's nice to be a part of a community that forces people to bring out the better side of themselves.

Now a bit more about me.
I grew up in an area that had plenty of fields to play around with other kids. As long as I remember myself I have been outside playing football all day long until the night comes.
This possibly explains the fact that I decided to start playing football and joining a club which eventually led me to become a professional football player - goalkeeper more specifically.
I was a goalkeeper for almost twenty years of my life and I will probably post more about this part of my life in one of my future posts.

In this photo you can see me catching the ball at a recent former-players charity event.

After the end of my career in football I decided not to stay in the football environment and ever since I have been involved in several fields such as real estate, sales, network marketing and lastly life coaching.

Personal development has always been a major part of my life. I have read hundreds of books and attended numerous seminars in Cyprus and around Europe on this subject.
I have a passion for travelling, sports, photography, personal development (as mentioned above), healthy living & eating and generally anything that has to do with the exploration of human nature and the abilities we have as beings (body, mind, emotions, energy).
The above are the subjects I will be mostly posting about on steemit. I want to share my point of view on them with the aim to give and also receive value to and from the community.

I hope my introduction was good enough to give you an idea about myself and I am looking forward to getting connected with interesting people.

Finishing out with my verification photo