Hello @mikelorrey! I would sugest that you don't take out your money from Steemit and keep it until you will have a more bigger reputation and of course more income. But in the end the choice is yours.
Until then Steemit has these 3 categories :
-Steem
-Steem power
-Steem dollars
Steem is the crypto coin that you can use and trade it at any time.
Steem power is a non-transferrable and will require 2 years and 104 payments to convert back to Steem.
Steem dollars is the item that you can use here for example:
You can promote your post with steem dollars
You can upgrade to steem or buy steem power.
Ok but you asked how?
I know that all this info can become confusing because of these 3 categories.
But..
steem dollar can:
buy or sell
transfer
convert to STEEM
Same categories (and more) apper to Steem. So my ideea is like this:
Open a window on internet browser and just type shapeshift
chose first crypto coin to be Steem (deposit) --second bitcoin (or other of yout liking) and you will receive a depositing adress
Open a window of your steemit account
-take Steem and press transfer the fill out the info -to...adress form shapeshift and put the amount and press ok !
It will last a few minutes and then the crypto coin will arrive changed in your wallet that can be : bitcoin, dash, litecoin, reddcoin or other crypto coins that are on shapeshift site.
Hope that my post can help you !