Because of you and the Steemit platform, I get to dream about something that I thought was never going to be possible after over two years of grinding away on YouTube - I can start thinking about moving out of my dad's house!
This is a big thank you and group hug to every one of my 500+ followers who are making the impossible dream now seem possible.
This time two years ago, I was selling Porsche's in the SF Bay Area at the end of a 12-year career selling exotic cars, including 10 years with Ferrari of Beverly Hills and Ferrari Silicon Valley. The money was pretty good, but after a dozen years and after having recently learned the truth behind 9/11 and many more massive deceptions pulled on us by the powers that be, I suddenly was dragging myself to work in the morning and spending more time editing the videos I was starting to make for YouTube than I was thinking about car deals.
And then the fateful day came. I was on my way to work and realized that I just couldn't take it another day. I turned around, went home and plopped my keys on the manager's desk the next morning. I was done. Never again did I want to be a part of the machine - paying taxes, spending all of my take-home pay on rent and my car payment, sitting in traffic, listening to a "boss". That part of my life was officially over. The lease on my $2400/month apartment was nearly up, so I called up my dad to see if he'd take me in while I tried to make it work on YouTube.
YouTube never wanted me on their platform and they let me know that very early on. 5 weeks into the life of my channel, Lift the Veil, and while one of my early videos was going viral, I decided to try out monetization to see if I could make money the way other YouTubers do every day. The very next day I found that my entire channel was disabled from monetization - permanently - and the traffic on my previously viral video dropped by 99%.
It was going to be an uphill climb.
I don't know what inspired me to stick with it, but for some reason I thought it was still going to be possible for me to realize my dream of telling the truth on YouTube and actually being able to support myself at the same time. For almost two years I kindly asked my listeners for donations to keep me going and was completely shocked that a few generous donors thought it was worth voluntarily parting with their money to support what I was doing.
Unfortunately, after two turbulent years on YouTube, it didn't look like my dream was ever going to become a reality.
Then, around December of last year, the value of Steem Dollars started to skyrocket. I had been posting on Steemit here and there since September, 2016, but I never put in the time and effort to really build up my following and make Steemit work for me the way it was already working for others, like my friend and fellow YouTuber 
Finally, around the end of last year, 
It was then that the lightbulb went off in my head and I realized there might be something to this Steemit thing afterall. Right away I dedicated myself to getting all of my content on Steemit and DTube and bringing my subscribers over from YouTube and into this brave new world built on cryptocurrency and the blockchain.
I haven't looked back. I realize investing myself in this platform as a means of support going forward is putting faith in the future of cryptocurrency and the blockchain, but faith is something I've had to live on ever since deciding to quit my "job" and break away from the machine.
This dream couldn't be possible without you and the support you have given me, so THANK YOU and I'm looking forward to meeting a lot more new followers in 2018!