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MY STEEM STORY

A Power House Creatives Initiative

Everyone has a story – and all our stories have something in common… we all started from nothing and knew nothing. People want to hear stories. They want to hear OUR stories — they want to know who we are, where we are from, what we are doing, who and what we love, what we have learnt and where we are going. People also want us to hear their story! Being a part of the Steem network is an individual journey for every single one of us and through this initiative we will share our stories not only with all who are already here – hopefully inspiring, guiding and informing them… but doing the same for everyone else in the world too. Through our stories we will prick the curiosity of those who have not yet arrived and illuminate and widen the already open doors to our one in a million blockchain.

We invite and encourage each and every one of you to participate and share your stories too! You can find the "how to" details at the end of this post.

MY STEEM STORY - BY @DerekRichardson

Where my Steem Journey began

Ahhhh, man. It feels like forever now! I first heard about Steem when I saw a video from the

Hive account@dollarvigilante. I immediately tried to sign up... but then I found out that it took like a week to get an account. So I just moved on, I figured it wasn't worth all that effort. I was already into crypto, but had only invested in Bitcoin at that point. But I was intrigued by Steem... I already enjoyed blogging about my adventures on traditional social media sites like Youtube and Facebook. And I was already a crypto enthusiast, so the idea of earning Steem for my blogs made perfect sense for me!! So eventually a month or so later I saw another video about Steem from the

Hive account@dollarvigilante and I was thinking "ya, I really wanted to get into that... it can't be THAT hard to get an account!". So I finally made the move, and on June 20th 2017 I made my introduction post on Steem!

My initial challenges & how I overcame them

My initial challenges were probably the same as most people. Writing long posts just for a handful of people to see it and only making a few cents... often zero. But I just kept writing, because hey... I was still posting on Facebook and Youtube and I made zero money there every single time! So I just kept posting and reading other posts, and I started making friends!! Then through these friendships I found out that many Steemians were creating communities on a website called Discordapp.com. The first community I found was the Hive account@steemitbloggers (now #powerhousecreatives). Hive account@jaynie and the other members that were there at the time welcomed me with open arms. I had found my Steem family!! With the support of such an awesome community any challenges that I had were now easily overcame. Now even the dreaded downvote was no longer depressing, but just something to go back to Discord and chat about with my friends!! All the amazing communities kept me, still keep me, and will continue to inspire me to continue blogging on this amazing platform we call Steem!

My Steem blockchain knowledge

I've been into crypto since before my Steem career, but I've never been to deep into the weeds about all the tech behind it. I wish I was because I'd love to understand it more, but to me a computer is kinda like a car. I'm great at driving, but I can't tell you the details about how my transmission/hard drive works. I'm into crypto because the libertarian in me sees it as better money than government imposed fiat currencies. So I'm a fan of anything that fulfills that purpose, like I'm a fan of having a car. Some cars/cryptos are better than others and I try to do my research with both, but I don't feel like I need to fully understand combustion engines or crypto mining rigs to utilize the tools for the desired purposes. I want to stack crypto, blog about my adventures, and make friends with other amazing bloggers... thus I LOVE Steem!

My Steem favourites

I don't do favourites here, I love everything Steem. Haha! Besides posting about my wilderness adventures I've also enjoyed playing for and listening to other musicians in the Steemit #openmic contest. Unfortunately that contest is no longer running, but I heard there is a new similar music contest called #sonicgroove and I'm gonna try to start practicing some songs for it!! And while all that stuff is lots of fun, my biggest project here has been building and supporting the Steem community here in Southern California... @SoCalSteemit! On boarding new Southern Californians, curating our members posts, running California related contests, hosting a Discord channel for the community, and organizing in person meetups all over SoCal!! @SoCalSteemit is over 2 years old now and still running strong! Although it's been tough for me to do everything I'd like to do, I am persistent and will continue to work towards my goals for the community, and will of course I will inevitably have lots of fun and make lots of friends along the way! Which is SO COOL!

My golden nugget advice

Gold Nuggets!!?? ...ohhhh nuggets of advice. Got it! My gold fever was kicking in there for a second. Haha!

My advice to new Steemians is to find your community. Find the people who both enjoy your content and create content that you enjoy! If your not sure where to start I'd recommend the Steem Terminal. A community specifically for helping new Steemians. In the Steem Terminal you can get all the info and make all the connections you need to find all the different Steem communities that are right for you!

My Steem hood & its peeps

Well as you have probably gathered from this post I am all about Steem communities. So my "Steem hood" is pretty vast. But the main communities that I'm active with are, of course my own Hive account@socalsteemit community, my OG Hive account@steemitbloggers family, the helping hands at the Hive account@steemterminal, and my traveling peeps at the Hive account@steemitworldmap. I'm sure I'll leave someone out if I try to do a shoutout to all my Steem "peeps" so I won't try to make a list of names, but if you have been a friend of mine here on this blockchain I truly thank you. It's an honor to get to know so many amazing people!!

I'm tagging Hive account@csusbgeochem1, Hive account@stever82, Hive account@ackza, Hive account@lidiasteem, and Hive account@davedickeyyall to join in and tell their Steem stories!!

GENERAL INSTRUCTION:

Create a post titled: “My Steem Story – By Hive account@your.user.name”
The first three tags in order are to be as follows:
#hive-114105
#powerhousecreatives
#mysteemstory
ONLY make use of the cover image provided in this post.
Keep the same formatting and placement (intro, footer
instructions etc.)
Replace the personal photo with one of your own.
Tag 5 people to join in on the initiative.
Share your post to twitter.
Share your twitter link and Steem post link in the comments of Hive account@jaynie’s “Steem Story” post.

POST INSTRUCTION:

Write a post which shares and gives adequate response to the following headings:

• Where my Steem Journey began
_{(How you first discovered Steem and your very first thoughts and impressions “as you landed”.)}

• My initial challenges & how I overcame them
_{(Share a bit about the difficulties you faced at the beginning, whether it was navigation, post creation, engagement – whatever – how you resolved them and how differently you feel about it now)}

• My Steem blockchain knowledge
_{(Give a little bit of background on your blockchain knowledge when you began your Steem journey versus now.)}

• My Steem favourites
_{(What are the things you do mostly on the blockchain – is it blogging, vlogging? What front ends do you like to make use of and what content genre’s do you generally focus on?)}

• My golden nugget advice
_{(What advice would you offer to those that are unfamiliar or new to this space)}

• My Steem hood & its peeps
_{(Share a little about the communities you belong to, discord servers you frequent and perhaps a handful of the awesome people you follow)}