I am addressing myself with this post.
Maybe it will resonate with you, too.

See, I've had weak moments where I almost asked some of the whales I know,

"Hey, can't you just give me an upvote? Come on, do me a favor, I'm new and I could use a little boost!"

But luckily I stopped myself in time, because I looked at things from their perspective...

You become a whale in one of two ways

1. You work your butt off on Steemit, by posting, commenting, upvoting, engaging and building relationships for months, until you have accumulated a "wealth" of Steem Power.

2. You buy a lot of Steem and turned it into Steem Power.

Either way demonstrates commitment and a big investment of either time and effort or money. However I'm assuming that most whales have reached their status through hard work.

Try and put yourself in the fins of a whale

Imagine you're one of those committed, invested, hard workers.

You've been here for a year and you've build a solid following and made a decent income and go, "Wow, amazing that all my hard work pays off so well."

And then a newbie comes along and says, "Hey can you upvote me? I'm new. I could use the boost."

Sure! You're happy to help someone out. It feels good to be generous. You remember what it was like for you in the beginning.

But then another one comes. And another one. More and more people seem to message you only for that.

How would that make you feel?

If it were me, I would probably begin to feel a little uncomfortable.

On one hand I'd be happy to help, but I would also think,

• Hm, I didn't have anyone upvoting me when I started... I earned all this Steem Power...
• So what you're new? Work for your upvotes just like I did!
• I'm happy to give your content an upvote and a resteem because you're my friend but only if I truly think it's good and if it's interesting for my followers
• Just because I have a lot of Steem Power doesn't mean I should randomly give it away
• I feel like a swarm of beggars is asking me for a dollar

Let's not forget that whales know a lot more than us newbies.

They may have a strategy.
They may manage their Steem Power in a way we don't understand yet.
Randomly upvoting someone as a favor might not fit that strategy.

So instead of "Can you upvote me?" Maybe ask, "Can you teach me?"

That makes a world of a difference because it shows you're willing to invest the time and effort and earn your way to whale-dom just like they did.

From what I've seen on this platform, most people are well-intentioned and want others to succeed.

• A number of whales are happy to mentor others, but of course not every whale has the time for that.
• Anyone will be able to provide you with a helpful link where you can learn more - if you ask a specific question.
• You can also learn a lot by reading posts with the #Steemit or #steemit-help tag.

And you can learn simply by asking questions in comments on people's articles. That's how I learned A LOT this week - e.g. why I shouldn't power up my posts 100% at the moment, even though I thought it would be a good idea..

"I am new and I need a boost" is not a good enough reason to ask people for upvote.

Become someone people love to follow, interact with and upvote!

That probably won't happen over night. It will take time and effort.

Nobody promised you free money on Steemit.
You have to earn it here as much as anywhere else.

It's called proof-of-work ;)