Why I Chose to Invest $100 in Steem - A Recap of My Second Week on Steemit

Life is all about taking risks to get to where we want to be. As of today, I have officially been active on Steemit for 14 days. Two weeks of my life I've spent on Steemit, putting in the hours to write quality posts and to curate the vast trove of Steemit posts being added every day. I've been networking like crazy and meeting so many cool new people who put out great content. In that time, I have managed to grow my following organically and I am just a few people shy of hitting my first 100 followers on here. In addition, my account is now valued at almost $230! Not too bad for having only been on here for two weeks.

As you can probaby imagine, due to my success in my first week, I've been spreading the word about Steemit as much as possible and trying to get as many of my creative friends on Facebook to come join Steemit. So far, a handful of people have signed up for accounts and are now waiting for approval. Four of them even got their accounts approved and have already created their profiles, but are still not too sure about what to do now.

In an effort to try to answer all of their questions, in the most efficient way possible, I created a group on Facebook specifically for my friends who are interested in Steemit, and those who I believe could truly benefit from sharing their art on this amazing platform. While my friends have seen the real passion behind all of the posts that I've been making on Facebook about my Steemit experiences, I felt like there was still something lacking. After searching for what it could possibly have been, I came to the conclusion that I talked a big game about Steemit, but still had yet to fully throw my full faith behind the platform. It didn't help, of course, that my motivation to post was kind of zapped this past week due to all the technical difficulties that we were all experiencing throughout the week.

I figured if I was going to talk to all my friends about Steemit and how amazing it is, I should put my money where my mouth is and start investing in Steem to power myself up. I wanted to do whatever it took to ensure that by the time more of my friends finally got approved, I could be in a place where I was more equipped to really help them out and help motivate them to succeed on here. So on Friday, the 20th, after much deliberation, I decided to go through and buy $100 worth of Steem. I powered myself up with all of it, and noticed that my upvote grew to become worth 1¢! I was ecstatic because of how empowering it felt to finally be seeing a number appear whenever I'd upvote something.

Then, on Saturday, when the payout came for my story that got upvoted by @blocktrades and generated over $100, I noticed that my upvote grew even further and was now worth 2¢! I was on cloud nine. In just two days, I had managed to grow my upvote worth by 2 cents. Some people might say, "yeah that's only 2¢," but two cents is still two cents, and I can guarantee you any of my friends that see 2¢ added to their post from just one upvote will be just as happy as I am whenever I see that my posts have managed to make a few cents. The gears began to turn in my head, and I decided to start seriously investing in Steem from that point on so that I could keep on powering myself up and keep on adding weight to my upvotes.

So I have decided that going foward, I will invest $100 from every paycheck into Steem. I truly and fully believe in this platform, and I want to grow on it so that someday I will be in a position where my upvote on people's posts, especially for quality posts from my friends, will be worth something real and tangible to them. I want them to know that when I upvote their things, there is real value to my vote and it is my way of really showing them that I truly support their art. I want them to get excited about sharing what they love with the world and making money with it. Perhaps if my friends could see how much I truly believe in Steemit, to the point that I am willing to invest my fiat currency into Steem, they will become completely convinced that: 1. I really do have full faith in Steemit and really do believe that it will blow up someday, and 2. I'm not trying to get them to join just so that I can make money off of them.

For whatever reason, a lot of people are hesitant to even hear me out about Steemit because they think that it's some MLM pyramid scheme and I get some sort of kickback for when they join up. Seasoned Steemians know that's certainly not the case, as we don't even have referral codes on here and there isn't really any way to know who invited who, etc. If they see that I am steadily investing my own personal money into the platform, maybe it will finally be clear to them that I'm not inviting them over to make money off of them, I'm inviting them over because I truly believe in it and I really feel like it could help them succeed as well.

Anyway, I promised more of a recap type of post with my title, so let me briefly recap my second week on Steemit for you. As I said above, this past week Steemit was riddled with connectivity issues, which frustrated many people, myself included. After such a successful first week on here, I guess the Universe decided to test my mettle and threw this little fork in my plans to continue building on my success from the previous week. Unfortunately, those issues really affected my drive to post content this past week, because posts and comments kept on getting lost in the ether of failed connection space.

I did, however, end up on @Ma1neEvent's radio show this week, which was exciting because I finally got to talk about my EDM blog that I wanted to establish on here, and I even gained a few new followers from it. Speaking of the EDM blog, it seems talking about it on the radio show was the final impetus I needed to actually get it started. The day after the radio show, I created The Dancing Dreamers, and I put in a lot of effort into creating a specific banner image to use for those posts. I even worked hard to create a new cover photo for my main profile. The day after The Dancing Dreamers was established, I discovered a contest on here and decided to try my hand at entering. I made a post and submitted my entry, so I hope to hear back soon about who won.

So what did I end up doing while all the technical issues were going on? I went on a curation spree that lasted basically all week, and almost the whole day today. Through that, I was able to grow my following to 94 people as of this writing. Just six people shy of hitting my first 100 followers! I worked hard to gain those followers, leaving well thought-out comments on posts that caught my attention, and I was really aiming to hit 100 by the end of the day, but it looks like I'll have to close out my second week on Steemit with just under 100 followers. A bit disappointing that I ended up not reaching the goal that I set for myself when I woke up this morning, but it happens sometimes. I just have to move on and keep on steemin' on anyway!

I got excited about possibly hitting 100 people today because I wanted to host a contest to celebrate that milestone in my Steemit life. I guess I'll post more about that in a [[future post*](https://steemit.com/contest/@rodeo670/celebrating-100-followers-with-a-contest-tell-your-steemit-story-and-win-sbd), once I actually do hit 100. I saw it as my way of giving back to the community that has already given me so much in just two weeks of being here. Anyway, at the end of my second week here, I have gained even stronger resolve to stay on course and continue to post quality content every day. It's still not about the money for me, it's about making real connections with people who truly appreciate my art, and whose art I can genuinely appreciate. As I enter into my third week on Steemit, this will be a vital mindset to hold on to. At the end of my second week on Steemit, my account has grown and is now worth almost $230, and my upvotes are now worth $0.02. That's progress if I've ever seen it! Here's to an even more exciting and eventful Week Three!

Also, if everyone could please welcome the following friends of mine to Steemit, check out their profiles, etc. I would really appreciate it! This is their first week on the site and I want them to feel at home here just like you guys all made me feel so at home here.

@cynicaloptimist
@aedia
@heydarthy
@erronious1
@meeoowwzzzaa
@bsteelemyart
@rickster03